Dollface: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties (10 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said to him on the telephone, keeping my voice low so the girls sitting in the parlor wouldn’t hear. “But I can’t see you anymore.”

“Are you kidding? Just like that, huh?”

“Just like that.” I hung up the phone, wiped a tear from my cheek, and whispered, “Good-bye.”

The following week, one night after my switchboard shift, I was coming up the sidewalk when a man stepped out from behind a tree. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach until I saw the smile.

“What are you doing here, Tony?” I clutched my chest, waiting for my pulse to stop racing.

He reached for my hand, kissing my fingertips. “I couldn’t stay away from you.” He ran his other hand across my cheek and it felt electric. “I dare you to tell me you don’t miss me.”

I was breathing hard, staring into his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t miss you.”

He stepped in closer and traced his fingers over my lips. “I don’t believe you.”

I couldn’t speak. He leaned in closer still, his eyes never leaving mine. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me you don’t miss me.”

“Tony,” I whispered, trying to turn away, but he cupped my face and made me look into his eyes.

“Tell me. Just tell me you’re not feeling it, too.”

I knew all the reasons I shouldn’t be with him, but just then none of them mattered. I grabbed him by the nape of his neck and pulled him into my kiss. It was all over after that. We were right back where we started.

A week or two later, when I realized that dark theater balconies and a lot of moaning and groaning in his automobile were all I could depend on Tony for, I cut it off again. That time it took him only two days before he came around with a bouquet in his hand and a promise to start taking me on proper dates. I knew he was just telling me what I wanted to hear but still, when he looked at me with those sexy dark eyes, I couldn’t resist him.

Meanwhile, Shep was doing his best to convince me that I was perfectly safe with him. The more time we spent together, the more inclined I was to believe him. Other than Hymie Weiss and sometimes Vincent Drucci, Shep’s friends didn’t trouble me. Dion O’Banion was as kind as could be, always smiling, laughing, offering me flowers.

When I went out with Shep, we went to the best places. One night he took me to see Fats Waller perform at Ebenezer’s, a popular downtown jazz club. The line outside the door stretched halfway around the block.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “We’ll see him play another time.”

“Come with me.” Shep slipped his arm around the small of my back and led me toward the front of the line. I felt people glaring as we walked by. Someone said, “Who do they think they are?” I turned around and there was a burly man with his hands on his hips, ready for a fight.

I held my breath, watching Shep walk over to the man who was a good three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. I couldn’t believe it. Shep hadn’t said a word, and I saw the man drop his hands to his sides, already backing down. He must have realized who he’d started up with. That was the thing about Shep: He never raised his voice, never acted hostile. He just had a way of letting people know they didn’t want to mess with him.

“I suppose you think this is very rude of me,” Shep said to the man as he reached into his pocket. I watched the color drain from the man’s face. He must have thought Shep was reaching for a gun, but instead Shep pulled out a roll of bills. Peeling a twenty off the top, he stuffed it into the man’s hand. “You’re right. It was rude of me. I apologize.”

Meanwhile, the doorman had approached us and now got Shep’s attention. “Good evening, Mr. Green.”

“How are you tonight, Ralphy?” He handed him a twenty.

“Good to see you tonight, sir,” he said, holding the door for us. “Have a wonderful evening.”

Part of me felt embarrassed but a bigger part of me felt wildly excited to be on the arm of such a powerful man. And okay, so Shep was a gangster, but he wasn’t hurting anyone, and the guy waiting in line was twenty dollars richer for it all. We waltzed right inside and were seated at a front table.

Another time I met Shep at a café in the Loop. When I got there, I couldn’t find him. Noticing me searching around the room, the maître d’ approached me.

“May I help you, miss?”

“I’m looking for Shep Green.”

He smiled. “Ah, yes. We’ve been expecting you. Mr. Green is running a few minutes late, but please follow me.” He helped me off with my coat and showed me to a corner table. I had just sat down and a waiter appeared with a glass of champagne. As soon as I took out a cigarette, a young waiter appeared with a match. Later, as I drew my last puff, he quickly whisked away the dirty ashtray, replacing it with a fresh one.

Although I loved the attention, at first I felt foolish about their making such a fuss over me, treating me like I was a motion picture star. But as the weeks passed, I became comfortable being waited on and fawned over and it didn’t take long for me to think I deserved this special treatment. I couldn’t help it: Being with Shep was intoxicating. He’d walk into a room and people would turn and stare. Women—beautiful, stunning women—would bat their lashes and push out their hips, doing their best to catch his eye. But he wasn’t looking at them; he was only there for me. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out what he saw in me. But when his eyes landed on me and he said, “Dollface, I couldn’t be more proud than to be with you,” my self-doubt vanished. It was there, in his reflection, that I found my worth.

Shep said I needed to be spoiled and he was just the man to do that. He loved to surprise me with flowers, a new hat, a pair of leather gloves. I’d never thought anyone could get such pleasure from making me happy. It made me feel lovable in spite of my past.

THREE-DIAMOND LEGS

T
hanks to Shep, by the end of February I was able to quit my night job. Amazing how much money a girl could save when she got taken out for dinner four or five nights a week. And it didn’t stop there. I never asked for money but whenever I was with Shep I’d find a ten-dollar bill in my coat pocket, or a twenty next to my pocketbook.

“What’s this for?” I asked the first time I pulled a five from my pocket.

“Go treat yourself to something nice.” He winked.

“Just like that, he gave me five dollars,” I said to Evelyn later that night when I got home. We were sitting cross-legged on her bed, looking through a fashion magazine. “If my mother knew about this, she’d call me a prostitute.”

“It’s okay to take the money,” Evelyn said, closing the magazine. “Lots of girls let their boyfriends buy them fancy dinners and clothes, even jewelry. They take money from them, too.”

I stretched out and yawned. “If only our mothers knew . . .”

She laughed. “And they thought suffrage was a big deal. Imagine if they knew what we consider freedom nowadays.”

“You mean it’s not just about getting rid of corsets?” I teased, placing a hand over my chest.

She laughed. “They thought girls drinking liquor and bobbing their hair was daring.”

“My God, a bare shoulder or kneecap is mild compared to what’s
really
going on.”

Night after night the girls in the rooming house stayed up late, swapping stories about boys and the things they did with them.

“So when he unbuttoned his trousers,” explained Betsy Freelain, demonstrating with a banana, “I grabbed it like this.” She had firm hold of the fruit, making the rest of us roll around on the parlor rug, giggling until our sides ached.

“So that’s all there is to it?” someone asked. “How long did you hold it like that?”

“No, silly. I didn’t just
hold
it. You have to go like this, see?” Betsy ran her hand up and down the banana, setting off another round of giggles.

Another night I was in Barbara’s room polishing her toenails when Evelyn and Helen burst through the doorway, howling. “We just heard that Ginny Sparkus put Aaron’s penis in her mouth and then she turned around and put it right here!” Helen bent over and pointed to her rear end.

“No!” Barbara gasped, clasping a hand over her mouth.

I almost dropped the bottle of nail polish. “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to,” said Evelyn.

We were laughing so hard that Barbara Lewis snorted, which only made us laugh harder.

I knew most of the girls were more conventional. Sheila Schwartz told me it hurt only the first time and that lots of girls hardly bled at all.

“Everybody’s doing it, Vera,” she said. “You ought to try it.”

•   •   •

O
ne night not long after that, Tony and I were parked along the lakefront in his car. It was the beginning of March, still wintertime in Chicago, and we should have been freezing, but we were generating enough body heat to steam up all the windows. The lighthouse was off in the distance, dancing its spotlight on us from time to time. Tony had a way of touching me in all the right places. In between my moaning I heard the waves breaking along the shoreline. His breath was hot on my neck when he put his hand under my dress.

He murmured, “God, you make me crazy. You gotta let me have you.”

I heard the passion in his voice, felt the urgency of his touch. It made me want him as badly as he wanted me. I couldn’t hold out anymore. I needed to feel him inside me. My mind went blank and my body took over. As he unbuttoned his trousers, I reached for him. With my back pressed against the door handle, my dress hiked up to my waist, and my stockings sliding down my calves, he entered me. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out and as he moved on top of me, a thick wetness oozed from between my legs. Once the initial pain subsided, my hips rose up to pull him in closer, and I no longer cared that my back was banging into the door or that his motorcar was rocking back and forth from the rhythm of our bodies.

After that night, we didn’t bother with movie houses or the backseat of his car anymore. Instead I’d go straight to the Hotel Twenty-nine, where he was living. I saw him fully naked for the first time in his room. His body was as perfect as his face, lean but solid, and his skin was smooth as marble. I never thought a man’s body could be beautiful, or could be something that I’d want to touch and kiss, but just the feel of his muscles gave me a thrill. And when I cried out his name, it was because I never knew a man could do that for you—give you such pleasure.

The next time I saw him, two nights later, he answered the door and pulled me inside. “Wait till you see what I’ve got in here for you.” He grabbed the bulge in his trousers with one hand and reached under my skirt with the other.

“Well, maybe I’ve got something for you, too,” I said, coaxing his fingers toward me. He closed his eyes and let his mouth drop open as he ran his fingers through the slick, wet parting between my legs.

Afterward, as I lay in his arms, Tony lit a cigarette and blew out the match, filling the air with the smell of sulfur. The bedsheets were damp with our sweat.

“I have to get going.” I sat up, but he pulled me back onto the bed.

“Oh, no, you don’t. Stay. It’s early.”

“It’s
late
, and I have a long day tomorrow.”

“Long day—you’re going out with
him
tomorrow,
aren’t you?”

Tony wouldn’t say Shep’s name. I wasn’t sure how he figured out that I was dating Shep again. But he’d asked about it once and I didn’t deny it.

“I don’t get why you’re still seeing him,” said Tony.

I twisted around and reached for the cigarette propped between his lips. “Because you disappear on me for days at a time.” And it was true. No telephone calls. No messages. When I left his hotel room I never knew when I’d see him next. For all I knew, Tony was dating other women, too. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know. I took a draw off his smoke.

“I don’t disappear. I’m working.”

I placed the cigarette back between his lips. Whenever Tony said he was working I knew that meant he was probably at the racetrack or else at the Four Deuces playing poker or craps. In his mind, gambling
was
working. It was easier for him to say that than admit he had a weakness. Especially to me.

Tony leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. With the cigarette still bobbing in his mouth, he said, “You think he has any idea you’re seeing me?”

“No.”

“You’re sure about that?” Tony sat up and rubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

I looked at him, at his beautiful body, his lips and eyes, and I knew I had it bad. “No one knows I’m seeing you.” I didn’t tell a soul, not even Evelyn. I was afraid she’d slip and say something to Izzy and that it would get back to Shep.

It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of losing Shep, but rather, I was just afraid, period. I had no idea what Shep would do if he found out I was seeing someone else. And I did understand Tony’s concern. Tony may have been a tough guy who could take care of himself but still, Shep was a gangster.

•   •   •

A
few nights later, Shep took me back to his apartment for the first time. Moonlight flooded in through the bay window, casting an ambient glow over the mahogany furniture, the Tiffany lamps, and the plush Persian carpets.

“This is some place you have here, Shep. It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

As if by magic, the Victrola cranked out a soft jazz number and the candles seemed to have lit themselves.

Slowly Shep came over to me. I was breathing hard and standing motionless while he unbuttoned my dress, slipping it off my shoulders and down my hips.

He reached for my hands, brought them to his lips. “You’re beautiful, Dollface.” Taking a step back, he studied my body, his eyes moving from my shoulders to my flat chest and down the length of my body. “You’ve got three-diamond legs.”

I glanced down. “I have what?”

“They’re rare.” He started at my ankles and slid his hand in the opening between my shins, making my insides tingle. “There’s one diamond.” His hand rose up to the opening above my knees. “There’s two.” And ever so slowly he inched his hand up higher, slipping his fingers through my thighs as I trembled. “And here’s diamond number three.”