“And you’re so good!”
“I’m a damned failure,” Madame Irma said angrily. “But you’re right, I am good!” And she walked off into the night.
Anita was a little taken back by her new friend’s quick change in mood, but she knew that theatre people were famed for being temperamental and that this had been a show of that quality in Madame. She could well understand that the aging woman might be lonely and discouraged, and no doubt she had reminded her of what her life might have been like if her daughter had lived and grown up.
Anita went up to the tiny room, undressed and got into bed. Then she lay awake waiting for her husband-to-be to return — the beginning of a long vigil that lasted most of the night. It was after three in the morning and she’d had only a brief nap when she heard stumbling footsteps in the hallway outside. There was much fumbling of a key in the lock until, exasperated, she got up and went in her nightie to open the door.
Marty stood swaying outside, pale and ill looking. He exuded the sour smell of vomit and had been sick all over the front of his suit. Anita groaned and helped him in, leading him to the bed. He sat down heavily in a dazed fashion and tried to say something but his words came out slurred and twisted. She struggled to remove his jacket and then he collapsed onto the bed. When Anita lifted up his feet onto the bed, he was already snoring, stretched out straight on his back.
She went to the basin in the room and used cold water, soap and one of the thin towels to try and clean his jacket. It was a sickening task but she kept at it since she knew it was his best suit and the one he’d want to be married in. At last she had it fairly decent and hung it on a chair back to dry. Then she washed herself thoroughly and, dragging a blanket from the bed, she settled down in the easy chair and promptly went to sleep.
Marty greeted the morning sun, retching and cursing. Anita went down to the coffee shop below and brought up a pot of black coffee. Only after copious amounts of the strong stuff did he begin to come around.
“I really tied one on,” he said, seated on the side of the bed, a coffee mug in his trembling hands.
“You were disgraceful!” Anita snapped.
“What do you expect? A man has a right to celebrate the night before he gets married!”
“After seeing you last night, I’m not sure I want to marry you,” she told him sternly.
“Ah, now,” he said affecting a broad Irish accent, “that doesn’t sound like the delight of me life!”
“I worked more than an hour cleaning your jacket,” she said, waving at it where it hung on the chair back.
He got up and came to her unsteadily. “You’re a darlin’, that’s what you are!”
She kept him at arm’s length. “If we marry today, I want you to promise there’ll be not more wild drinking.”
“I need a little tot now and then,” he protested.
“You’d be better off not to drink at all,” she said. “You know that half the bootleg stuff is poison! You read about it every day in the paper! People are even blinded!”
“I’d say if you have to use a cane and black glasses, that’s the ideal way to get them,” he said, draining the mug of coffee.
“It’s not a joking matter,” Anita said earnestly. “I’m only a silly girl. But I can see you’re wrecking your health and your prospects. You surely don’t want to go on playing in places like Binghampton all your life?”
This seemed to reach him. He raised a hand. “Marry me and I’ll do better!”
“You’ll have to or you won’t have a wife long,” was her warning.
“Give me a kiss and let’s make up,” he said with some of his old charm. And he opened his arms for her.
She went to him and sighed, “What an idiot I am to be in love with you!”
“Ain’t it the truth!” Marty chuckled as he kissed her and held her close, sending the usual thrills through her. There was no question that he had the gift of easily stirring her physically.
She looked up at him dreamily. “Do you know we’re supposed to me at the office of the Justice of Peace in an hour?”
Marty groaned. “And I can’t even think yet!”
“You’d better work on it,” she told him.
He cleaned up and dressed. His jacket was presentable and he was able to wear it. Just to make sure there was no odor lingering Anita sprayed it with some cologne. Marty expressed distaste with this but she could see that he was secretly pleased.
They left for the tiny office of the JP hand in hand. The others were already there waiting for them. Romero gave her a bunch of roses and smilingly told her, “I promise I didn’t pull them out of my sleeve and they won’t vanish!”
“Thank you,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re a dear!”
Belle Ames was standing by, dressed in her best two piece woolen suit. She had a boutonniere for Marty.
“Just what I needed,” Marty declared and kissed her.
The Justice of the Peace was a doleful little man with a small gray mustache and thin graying hair. He also had one turned-in eye which made him look almost a double for the cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin. This came to Anita’s mind as she and Marty stood before him and she had a hard time keeping her mind on the event.
He had a squeaky voice and conducted the brief ceremony in an almost automatic fashion, no doubt because he’d married people endless times before. They all had to sign the register. Anita was proud of the wide, brass wedding ring which Marty had picked up in some local jewelery store. The little man shook hands with them and wished them well and they all left his office together.
On the street she burst into laughter and said, “I can’t help it! We were just married by Ben Turpin!”
They went on to a local restaurant for a wedding luncheon, a simple affair of bacon and eggs. Toasts were drunk in water but Romero produced a flask from an inner pocket and laced the water generously with whiskey. They lingered at the table until mid-afternoon and became hilarious though not truly drunken.
Then Anita and Marty said goodbye to the others and went back to their room. Since they had several hours before having to report to the theatre Marty at once undressed her and set about enjoying his marital rights.
Making love in the afternoon seemed immoral to Anita, even though they were married. She’d always imagined that married people only made love in the dark late on Saturday night. Marty hadn’t even drawn the blinds, so they romped on the bed in the bright afternoon sunshine.
The experience wasn’t as painful as it had been the first time and Anita actually began to enjoy his thrustings. He seemed insatiable. He’d make love to her and then stretch out for a few minutes, only to begin again.
As the time to go to the theatre drew near she had to warn him, “You’ll wear yourself out! How will you have the energy to dance tonight?”
Astride her the naked Marty leered, “Don’t you worry about me, honey!”
She did worry and finally she coaxed him into getting dressed and ready. He was in his best mood and she wondered if married life would be like this every day. If so, she knew it was going to be an exhausting experience for her.
They reached the theatre barely in time. Marty went on and did his act while she watched in the wings. When Marty took his usual curtain calls, little Sherman Kress trotted out and with one of his famous fake smiles announced that Marty had taken himself a bride that very day. And then the little man came into the wings and dragged Anita onstage, blushing and smiling. The audience were kind and gave her a fine ovation and she was very happy indeed.
So Anita’s married life began. She’d been relatively innocent about sex until she’d married Marty. Now her training began and she was introduced to every variety of loving that active young lothario had picked up in brothels on the road during the several years he’d been in vaudeville.
Belle Ames and Madame Irma daily gave her stern warnings to avoid becoming pregnant, but with Marty after her every spare moment, she couldn’t think that this would long be possible.
They continued to play a series of small towns first in Ohio and then in Illinois. The weather became hot and the theatres were like ovens much of the time with only weak fan systems to cool them. Percy the seal was feeling the heat badly and not his usual perky self, while Belle met the crisis by wearing no undies beneath her skimpy costumes, which brought some outraged complaints from several ladies’ groups in the places they played.
When the heat was at its worst, Marty began to drink heavily again. No matter where they were playing he seemed to find a source of supply. Anita begged, argued and even refused to go to bed with him, but it only kept him sober at intervals.
She was beginning to be a worldly-wise trouper’s wife, but she was tired of standing during the performance and doing nothing and began to pester Marty about letting her join the act. She had written home that she was going to be his partner and she wanted to be able to send her angry folks the proof that she’d not made the mistake they’d insisted when she’d married Marty.
One hot night in their tiny hotel room she halted him as he prepared to make love to her for a third time, saying, “Only if tomorrow you begin to train me for the act!”
“Sure, honey,” he said kissing her and placing his sweaty naked body over hers.
The next morning she reminded him first thing when they woke up. “Today is the day!”
Marty frowned at her and ran a hand through his touseled red hair. “What’s today?”
“You start training me for the new act!”
He sat up abruptly. “Where did you get that idea?”
“You promised me last night!” she protested.
Marty grinned and reached over and caressed one of her nipples. “I’ll say anything when I want it!”
Anita pushed his hand away and jumped out of bed. Pointing a finger at him, she warned him, “You’ll not be getting anything until you keep your word!”
So her dance training began. Anita picked up steps fast. Marty borrowed a small wind-up phonograph from Madame Irma for their rehearsals. He had several records especially made for tap dancing and they were played over until Anita expected they’d be worn out. She ended every session weary. But it was a new interest, and it diverted Marty from spending all his spare time with bootleg booze and sex.
Anita sweated and worked all through the summer and by the time the cooler days of autumn arrived she was good enough to make her first appearance. There was only one catch. Sherman Kress didn’t mean to hire another performer, so Marty had to make a deal.
He told the little man, “Anita will work free. We’ll call the act Nita and Nolan. You’ll be getting two for one.”
“Okay,” Kress said sourly. “But don’t get any ideas about holding me up. The two of you together are no better than one good talent.”
Anita asked Marty in their dressing room, “Why do you let him talk to you like that?”
Marty assumed one of his jaunty poses. “Because we can wait. We’ll smooth the act off with this unit and when we’re ready we’ll move on. Get a booking with some decent outfit!”
She saw the wisdom of the idea and went along with it. Anita’s first performance was in a small Pennsylvania town with an audience of hard-working coal miners. Not an easy audience to please, she was warned.
Sherman Kress announced them with a flourish: “And direct from Broadway, New York, the flashy team of
Nita and Nolan
!” Anita and Marty danced on. Anita wore a skimpy spangled bra and a tiny skirt of the same material which displayed her long, slender legs to best advantage. She thought she would faint with stage fright but the knowledge that Madame Irma, Belle and Romero, along with Pontiface and Percy, were all cheering for her from the wings, kept her going.
Then came the comedy skit, and though Anita’s voice trembled at first, she was able to make the proper saucy replies to Marty’s teasing comments. This went over well.
When they went into a second dance routine, it seemed they had won the audience over completely. The curtain fell to great applause.
Madame Irma came over and took Anita in her arms and cried, “You’re a natural, dearie! You’ve got true talent!”
Romero kissed her, Pontiface congratulated her gravely and Percy made seal sounds of approval. Only little Sherman Kress was restrained in his comments.
He frowned at her. “You could do better than that outfit. And you should smile more, though I admit that’s not easy with a partner like Marty.”
Marty made a mock gesture of punching the little man. “You always say the right thing, boss!” he said as Sherman Kress marched off with dignity.
Nita (for now this became her name) felt things had to get better. And they did for a while. Letters from Billy Bowers in Hollywood continued to arrive at intervals. Billy wrote about the Fatty Arbuckle scandal and said it had calmed down Hollywood for a while, but there was lots of excitement still going on. He had been friendly with Arbuckle but thought the fat man had lost all control. And he was repulsed by his part in the death of that unfortunate girl at his party in San Francisco. Bowers again suggested that Marty try his luck on the West Coast.
Marty held the latest letter in his hand and said, “If we could only get bookings to take us out there!”
“We could make the trip and be paid along the way,” she agreed. “But how do you arrange it?”
Marty’s youthful face was grim. “We’ll have to get away from this cheap circuit and go to New York. All the important booking is done there.”
“Do you think they’d even look at our act?” she worried.
Marty was indignant. “I’m a name! Maybe not a big one! But I’ve been in the business a few years. They’re bound to give me an audition. And when they see what we can do, we’re on our way!”
Nita was thrilled. The drudgery of one night stands bothered her less now that she knew that they would soon be heading for New York City.
Then she visited one of the small town doctors after a few worrisome months and came away with the unwelcome information that she was pregnant.
Anita had suspected for some time but she’d been afraid to face up to the truth. Now there was no question about it. She waited until she and Marty returned to their room that night and before they undressed for bed she told him in faltering fashion. Marty stared at her with shocked dismay as if she’d just informed him she’d contracted leprosy.