Chapter 14
“What’ll I Do?”
M
arian woke up in Jimmy Blanchard’s four-poster bed, and she took a moment to luxuriate in the satin sheets before she began to wonder where Jimmy had gone off to.
The performance the previous night had been strange. Without Eddie there, Marian had had to do something completely different. She hadn’t had much time to prepare, and she resented Jimmy for pushing Eddie out so abruptly, but she’d been able to rally all of her theater training and put an act together on short notice. She’d improvised a little solo dance routine, she’d told a few of the jokes that worked without Eddie there to supply the punch line, and she’d sung a few of her comedic songs. She wrapped up the show with “My Heart Is Full,” and again, she brought the house down. Or so Jimmy had said. Marian hadn’t been able to hear anything over her own pounding heart.
Part of her knew the routine didn’t work without Eddie, and she’d protested loudly when Jimmy told her he was letting Eddie go. “You’re the star now,” he’d insisted. “Eddie Cotton’s time is over. He’s too old to be a star and not good enough to be your partner anymore.”
Marian didn’t really think this was true. Her Eddie was younger than Eddie Cantor, who was headlining the Ziegfeld Follies that season. And, while she thought she did a good job with her new routine, not having Eddie by her side during the show was nerve-wracking. She hadn’t truly appreciated how much he helped her calm down, nor how well their routine worked as a duo, until now. It wasn’t just that the act wasn’t as good;
she
wasn’t as good without a partner to play off of.
But after the show, Jimmy had lavished her with praise, and she took all of it and held it close to her heart. He took her to the Waldorf after and they had an elaborate and expensive dinner before going back to Jimmy’s apartment. And now she was in the marvelous bed and it was hard to remember what she’d been upset about.
Jimmy came into the room wearing a silk robe. There was a cigar dangling from his lips. He took a long drag from it before taking it away from his mouth. “Hello, dear,” he said. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she said, smiling. She wanted to ask Jimmy again about whether firing Eddie was really very smart, but she didn’t want to mar an otherwise lovely morning. She lifted the sheet so that Jimmy might be tempted to climb back into bed with her, because then, at least, she wouldn’t have to think about the show anymore.
She hadn’t even been able to say good-bye. That was what bothered her. She’d wanted to talk to Eddie, but Jimmy told her not to, and then he’d gone into Eddie’s dressing room, broken the news, and then gotten a few security guards to escort Eddie outside.
“I know you’re thinking about Eddie Cotton,” Jimmy said, sitting on the bed next to her. “This was the right move, though. Because you, Marian dear, are the star of
Le Tumulte
. Don’t let Cotton or anyone else tell you otherwise.”
Actually, Eddie would probably have agreed with Jimmy’s assessment. Marian was the one who wasn’t sure it was true.
“It was a business decision, dear,” Jimmy said, putting out his cigar in the ashtray on the bedside table. “This is good business.”
“Of course,” Marian said, though she felt sick to her stomach over it, now that she considered it.
“Look, Marian, there are things . . .” Then Jimmy shook his head. “Well, it’s not proper for ears such as yours to hear them.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not proper for my female ears to hear, you mean.” She poked at Jimmy’s side. “I’ve been working in theater for fifteen years, Jimmy. I’m not naïve. I’ve probably heard it all.”
Jimmy gave her a long look. “Look, I found out a few days ago that Cotton has been regularly going to a club called the Marigold. Have you heard of it?”
Oh, Eddie
, she thought. Her heart went out to him, wherever he was, but being seen there had been a stupid thing to do. “Yes, I’ve heard of it. On Forty-eighth Street, right?”
“Do you know the nature of the club? Have you ever been there?”
“No, I’ve never been there.”
“Good. Because that really is no place for a woman. Before you get mad at me, I’m not being unfair to women. It’s a club for fairies, Marian. Do you know what that means?”
She felt a little angry. “Yes, I know what that means. What’s your point?”
“Eddie Cotton is one. He goes to this club and he dances with other men there.”
Which Marian, of course, already knew, but she wasn’t sure if it was prudent to tell Jimmy that. “Is that why you fired him?”
“I fired him,” Jimmy said, sitting up regally, “because he’s not good enough to be your partner, because it’s good business to have Marian France as the headliner on my show instead of half of a duo, and because you, my dear, are the real star and Cotton’s a nothing, a has-been. He’s also a faggot, which, yes, contributed to my final decision, but honestly, I probably would have fired him anyway. Still, do you really want someone like that working with you? What he is, dear, it’s unnatural.”
Marian huffed. She’d tried to talk Eddie out of going to places like the Marigold but he was, of course, his own man and made his own decisions. She wondered, sometimes, if her life would have been different if he’d consented to marry her when she’d first asked him all those years ago. Because
she
had asked
him
, because she thought he was being thick-headed, and then he’d broken the news to her that he wouldn’t be getting married, probably ever.
“Very well,” she said.
“Don’t be mad, Marian. It doesn’t become you. I need your more pleasant disposition. You’re always so full of sunshine.”
Marian wanted to huff and make a scene and get angry, but when Jimmy smiled at her like that, with his perfectly straight teeth shining, it was hard for her to remain angry. “I just am not sure about . . . well, it doesn’t matter now, I suppose.”
“You’ll be marvelous, darling. I’ll get Walter to write some more songs for you. You’ll light up all of Broadway.”
She nodded and sighed. She leaned into Jimmy and lay her head on his shoulder. “Thanks,” she said.
“Aren’t I good to you?” he asked.
“Of course, Jimmy. Of course.”
Eddie had more or less emerged from his quasi-coma a couple of days later and told Lane that he wanted to go downtown.
“What on earth for?” Lane asked.
“Do you have to be at the club today?”
Lane hadn’t been to the club since he’d taken Eddie to his apartment, and while it was true that it was starting to drive him nuts that he couldn’t be there, Eddie was more important. But there was a shipment due in that afternoon, so he thought he should at least drop by. “Not until later today.”
Eddie looked in the mirror and adjusted his tie. “I need to do this thing. I think I need you with me.”
“What are we doing?”
But Eddie shook his head.
They walked out onto 26th Street. Eddie hesitated at the curb. “Ah. The IRT?”
“That way.” Lane pointed east toward the subway entrance. “There’s a station on Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue.”
They walked together in companionable silence, Lane wondering the whole way what they were doing.
When they got to the subway station, Eddie led the way down the stairs. He dropped a nickel into the turnstile and plowed through, so Lane did the same. They waited for the train, and as they waited, Eddie grew increasingly agitated.
“Are you all right?” Lane asked.
“Maybe this was a mistake.”
Lane glanced around the platform. There was a woman in an outdated black frock a few feet away, and a couple of men lingering but not paying attention to Lane or Eddie. “I might feel better able to judge that if I knew what we were doing.”
“I just have to see.”
Lane put his hands on his hips and frowned. “Are you going to give me a clue at least?”
The train rumbled into the station before Eddie could answer that. Lane sighed.
They rode the train down to Canal Street. When they emerged from the station, there were pushcarts everywhere and lots of people moving around. Eddie started walking north, so Lane followed. Then, suddenly, Eddie stopped walking.
“That,” he said, pointing to a sign taped on a lamppost.
Confused, Lane walked over to the sign. It had been printed professionally, probably by someone with access to either a printing press or a lot of money, because there was a photo on it and fine print. The top half of the sign was in English, and the bottom was in strange letters that Lane thought might have been Hebrew. The photo was of a man with a huge light-colored beard. The caption under it read, R
ABBI
I
SRAEL
C
OHEN
.
“I don’t understand,” Lane said. “Did you want to go to the synagogue? It’s not a holiday. Or is there some holiday I don’t know about? I didn’t even know you were Jewish.”
Eddie sighed. “Would it change your opinion of me if I told you I was?”
“Of course not.” Lane put his hands on his hips and looked at Eddie, still baffled. Was Eddie Jewish? “What position am I in to judge another man? I don’t care if you’re Jewish. Are you Jewish?”
“Nominally,” Eddie said. He pointed to the sign again, right at the photo of Rabbi Israel Cohen. “That’s my father.”
The surprise of that was like a punch in the gut. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“I wish that I were.”
Lane looked around and realized that the black garb most of the people on the streets wore—and the signage on the stores, which was in English, Hebrew, and a German-like language that Lane assumed was Yiddish—had indicated that they’d walked onto a Jewish pocket of the Lower East Side. “Cotton is not your real name, then.”
“Does anyone in the theater perform under their real name?” Eddie grunted.
“Are we going to see your father?”
“I don’t know.”
This was frustrating. Lane pointed at the sign. “Did we come down here just to look at signs?”
“I don’t know what I thought would happen,” Eddie said.
Eddie’s confusion was something of a balm to Lane’s frustration. Lane took a deep breath and watched for a moment as Eddie struggled, and his heart went out to Eddie because he looked so lost. Eddie pulled his hat off his head and ran a hand through his hair—dark blond normally, but the gray streaks were apparent in the midday sun—then he sighed.
“I came down here because my life ended three days ago, or my career did. I don’t know. Something felt final when Jimmy Blanchard told me I was done at the Doozies. And I guess I thought that seeing my family would change something, but now that we’re here, I’m not sure what seeing him would accomplish. I haven’t seen him in so long. Twenty years, maybe.”
“That long? Really?”
“I left home when I was fourteen. Or my father kicked me out, more accurately. I told him that I wanted to be a great actor, and he told me that acting was not a respectable career for a Jew. I knew some other things by then, too, not just that I wanted to act and dance and sing and perform. Those were my passions. I also knew that I was queer, and that my father would never find that acceptable, and I never intended to tell him, but he caught me with another boy from the neighborhood, and . . .” He trailed off and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was ridiculous. And then Father told me that it was all right, if I really felt that I needed to perform, I could go to that Yiddish theater on the Bowery, do some productions with other Jews, but that’s not what I wanted, not that nonsense. I wanted to do vaudeville. I wanted to be in the
Follies
! But, of course, that wasn’t meant to be.”
“Your father kicked you out because you wanted to be an actor? Where did you go?”
“Not far. I went to Coney Island for a few years, performed for pennies on the boardwalk, taught myself to dance. And I never came back. I never wanted to. Not until the other day, when everything ended, and I thought, well, maybe I can go back now. Maybe I can see my father and tell him what happened and he’ll welcome me back. Except, now that I’m here, I think that was a foolish whim, because why would he do that? Why would he accept me now? He’d just make me marry a woman or go to rabbinical school or get whatever he considers to be a respectable job. And then I’d . . .” He shook his head. “Then I’d have to give up you.”
“Eddie.”
“They named me Elijah when I was born. I think now, though, that Elijah died twenty years ago.”
Lane wanted to do something, wanted to comfort Eddie in some way. His pain and distress were plain on his face. But there was little they could do with so many people around.
Eddie stared at the poster. “I had to see. I don’t know. This is all making me feel crazy.”
“How can your career be over? You’re too good. Forget the Doozies. Go try out for a different show. Go try out for Ziegfeld. Why do you feel you have to torture yourself like this?” Lane couldn’t fathom how the thought process in Eddie’s head worked, although a lot of other things were starting to become more clear. “Look, I’m yours if you want me. So don’t worry about that.”
Eddie continued to stare at the poster, now with his brow furrowed.
Lane pointed to the photo. “This man? He may be your blood, but he stopped being your family when he threw you out twenty years ago. What he wants for you doesn’t matter. The important thing is what you want for yourself. And you, Eddie Cotton, are a great performer. One of the best I’ve ever seen. He can’t take that from you.” Lane took a deep breath and briefly touched Eddie’s arm before withdrawing his hand. “I ran away from my family, too, and you know what I’ve learned? That you have to make your own family. Your friends, the people you choose to surround yourself with, those people are your real family. Me, Eddie.
I’m
your family.”