“Two more weeks, apparently,” she said, looking drained. “Listen, Olive, I’ve come to apologize. I feel terrible, I haven’t been able to sleep since I heard the news. I gave you bad advice and I feel awful, just awful about it.” The tears welled up in her eyes.
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at me, distraught. “This is all my fault, I told you to tell him”—she cupped one hand around her mouth and whispered—“about the baby. And now you’re here,” she continued, “at a boardinghouse, alone. I’m so sorry, it’s the pregnancy, it’s making me not think straight.”
I waved my hands. “Oh, God, Ruthie, stop, stop, stop.” This wasall so exhausting—everything I did created problems I didn’t anticipate for people I loved. “None of this is your fault.”
“Of course it is.”
“I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him about the baby, and I didn’t tell him I can’t have any more children.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t do it,” I said. “I knew how his whole family back home was desperate for him to become a father, to carry on the family name. I knew that was what he wanted too, so there was no point. He might have asked me to stay, but he would have regretted it later. I would have ruined his life, crushed his hopes and dreams. If we’d married, I would have been a constant disappointment to him, a letdown, and I don’t want to be that to anyone. I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than know that I was one big disappointment. It’s bad enough being that to my family.”
Ruthie sat back and seemed to take it all in, to understand, but then she shook her head. “But he wouldn’t have to know, Olive. Some people can’t have children. And he could accept that if he had you. He wouldn’t need to know about the cause.”
“ButIwould!Iwould know. And our life together would rest on a lie. You’re right, he might feel sorry for me if he didn’t know the truth, even sad for me, but I wouldn’t deserve his sympathy. You said yourself I had to tell him! That’s the trap I’m in. Even if I did tell him, he mightthinkhe could accept that, but he’d regret it, and I can’t knowingly cause him anything but happiness.”
She knew me, and she was watching me, her eyes wide with regret, knowing I couldn’t live like that.
“I think about that poor baby now,” I went on. “All the time Ithink of her, where she is, who took her in, what she looks like. She’d be two. I just think, What was it all for? For me to end up sitting here, alone, back with the nuns?”
“Oh, Olive. What are you going to do now?”
“Ziegfeld doesn’t want me, so go back to that agent Moses Sherman, I suppose, see if he can find me some work. But nothing’s going to pay the way Ziegfeld did. I guess I should try to get used to living here because I don’t know how I’m ever going to afford anything else.”
Ruthie shook her head and sighed. “We were on top of the world, you and me, not too long ago.”
“You still are,” I said. “I’m the only one who’s made a mess of things. You never wanted to stay in the show, you always dreamed of this.”
She nodded and smiled. “We’re going to look at buying a house in Westport after the baby’s born—you know, have a little more space.”
“You’re going to make a real good mother, Ruthie,” I said, feeling a pang of loss at the thought of her moving away, even if it was just outside the city, with a husband and baby and a house. Everything I never thought I wanted suddenly looked quite beautiful.
“I’m sure Moses will find a new show for you,” she said. “Or you could talk to Texas.”
“The nightclub hostess?”
“Yes, Texas Guinan, have you heard about her new place? Eadie went on to make a heck of a lot of money with her at the El Fey before it shut down. Your father isn’t going to like it, so don’t goinviting him to a late night show.” She laughed halfheartedly. “But it’d get you back on your feet.”
I nodded. “It’s not a terrible idea, I suppose.”
“You’ll work it out somehow, Olive, you always do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The following evening, I forced myself to get out of bed, put on a face and pay a visit to Texas at her spot, the 300 Club. I’d squandered almost every penny I’d made in theFolliesand theFrolic,and I had only a handful of years left before I’d be too old for the show girl roles anyway. But while Ziegfeld’s girls were getting younger and younger, and prettier, too, the nightclubs were a different story—they generally loved to have formerFolliesgirls onstage. Texas welcomed me into the club as if I were a longtime friend.
“Come on in, my little,” she said. Her voice was gruff, and she was known for having the rudest mouth in town, but somehow she seemed maternal.
She walked me through the club, where long rose-colored chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The walls were draped with green-and-gold tapestries, and the floor was carpeted with plush red velvet. We passed through the crowded room and back to her office and dressing room, which was also decadently set up. In the lights, Icould see now that the years hadn’t been all that kind to Texas—her hair was a brittle blond, her makeup heavy and her skin seasoned, presumably from all the late nights—but she was still striking in her own way. I didn’t know if it was the way she spoke or the way she looked, but she commanded your attention, and it was no surprise she’d been so successful as the queen of the nightclubs.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” I said. “I don’t know if you recall, but I met you a few times with Archibald Carmichael, when your club was the El Fey.”
“Oh, I recall. I don’t forget a pretty face on the arm of a big butter-and-egg man.”
“A what?”
