Chapter Twenty-Three
The drumbeat in my ears recedes, growing fainter and fainter, as I become aware of the feeling of silk against my bare skin.
And under that, an ache, deep and unfamiliar.
I blink open my heavy eyelids, pushing against a fog that doesn’t wish to lift.
Darkness. There are bed-curtains, and they are drawn, and that’s the cause of the impenetrably inky black. I’m in a bed.
The sound next to me is slow, rhythmic—rasping breath. A snore. I am not alone! I squint to take a closer look. I know that large body. Stanny is beside me. Stanny, asleep and undressed.
I look down: the silk against my skin is the bedsheet and nothing more.
I, too, am undressed. I scramble to pull the sheets higher to cover my breasts.
I notice it again, that deep ache. I swipe the bed-curtain aside, allowing in a sliver of light, for it is daytime, early morning I guess, and I peer down under the sheet.
Two smears of red run along the tops of my thighs, a brighter color than the rich velvet bedding all around us.
And before I can think, I start to scream.
Stanny rouses from his slumber, his eyes opening into two wide coins. He seems far less dazed than I feel, for he immediately sits up and declares: “For God’s sake, Evelyn, don’t!”
“What happened?” I begin to cry, my throat raspy and dry, my tears coming hot and fast. Tears of confusion and fear and shame. What have I done? Lord, help me. What will Mamma say? I heave another sob, unable to stanch it even in spite of Stanny’s censure.
“Put this on,” he says with a sigh, reaching through the bed-curtains to grab something.
Even just that view of his bare back, pale skin stippled with copper and gray hairs, his white arms—it all makes me want to curl up and sink through the bed.
And then he’s facing me, and he tosses me a scarlet kimono.
Oh, I’ve had enough of this blasted red.
My head aches. And so do other parts of me, parts that I’ve never before named.
Stanny’s facial expression softens. His demeanor is suddenly tender as he reaches toward me and pulls me into an embrace, his fingers stroking up and down the bare flesh of my arms. “Please don’t cry, my darling.
It’s all over. You’ve done very well. And now we belong to one another. We love each other, don’t we?”
I don’t understand what he means. It’s all over. What is over? But I nod, because I need to be out of his arms. Out of this bed, this room, this very house. “Can I go home?” I ask, my voice sounding choked, more tears seeping out.
“Yes, my darling. I’ll have them bring round the auto. Shall I ride with you?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” I say, hoping he’ll believe my lie. I scramble out of the bed, feeling a fresh assault of stomach-curdling shame as I bend over to pick up the heap of my clothing from the floor, the beautiful sapphire dress of last night, which I have no recollection of shedding.
—
Back in my room at the hotel, alone, with the door locked, I fall into my bed, but there is no sleep to be had. My head aches and my mind fails me: I cannot make sense of any of this. How did I end up in Stanley Pierce’s bed, naked and in pain, with him asleep beside me?
The day brightens to midday, and New York teems outside my window like a menacing, unknowable place. I remain in bed, unable to move in any way other than this unstoppable trembling.
Mamma has me booked for work this afternoon.
I am to pose for a Mr. Willard, who has hired me as his model for a marble piece called Maidenhood.
I telephone the hotel concierge and ask him to send my regrets to Mr. Willard.
“I’m unwell,” I say, my voice shaky. I am unwell; it’s the truth.
Then I ask the concierge to also send a messenger to the theater to let them know I won’t be able to make it for the evening’s show.
I picture Penny and the crowded preshow dressing room, but it feels nauseating to think of them all there together, colorful and carefree, so I blink and force the scene away.
Tonight, for the first time since I’ve started working on Broadway, I will miss a performance.
They will pull another chorine to dance as the Spanish Maiden.
I’m not a maiden anymore! I collapse back into bed, clutching the bedsheets tight to my neck.
The sky darkens outside my window. I know I should bathe—I should wash the scarlet evidence of my stains off my thighs, but I can’t bring myself to rise from bed.
So there I lie, numb, as the hands of my clock make their slow and unrelenting rounds.
Later, when I hear a knock on the door of the suite, I still don’t stir.
I know who it is. Of course I know. I glance once more at the clock on the marble-topped bedside table—it’s nine o’clock in the evening. The show is well underway.
Stanny lets himself in. He has a key, I realize. He’s knocked all those other times, waited for a servant to announce him as a show of courtesy. But of course he has a key. He’s the one paying the bills. It’s his suite, after all. I’m here only at his pleasure.
“Kitten?” his voice calls out in the dark foyer. I don’t answer. My whole body clenches as I hear his footsteps against the cold marble floor, hear him fumbling around in the dark, for I haven’t clicked on a single lamp.
He does knock this time, at the threshold of my bedroom. “Evelyn?”
I make a sound like a groan, my voice hoarse, but he takes this as his invitation to enter. When he switches on the nearest lamp, it makes my head hurt even more. I wince as he asks, “Have you eaten anything?”
I force myself to look toward him, and I see that he’s carrying a tray of food from the kitchens downstairs. My stomach flips at the thought of sharing another dinner with him. The shame alone could make me sick.
Stanny lowers the tray onto my bedside table and sits, perched at the edge of my bed. I roll over, hugging my knees into my chest.
Stanny puts a tenuous hand on my back, and my frame stiffens. I hear him heave a sigh, but otherwise the room pulses with silence. A silence that he eventually breaks: “My darling, we did what two adults do when they are in love.”
Am I an adult? Are we in love? My head swirls, but this time I don’t cry. In place of the hot tears and raw ache, this time my entire being goes numb. I say nothing, so Stan eventually goes on. “Did you…well, did you know what that was?”
I shake my head. I’m still not sure, only that we did something, and it can never be undone, and now my thighs are stained, and my insides ache, and I don’t feel as if I’ll ever be able to look another person in the eyes again.
Stan sighs again, and when he speaks, his tone is that of a gentle and patient elder. “We offered one another our bodies for pleasure.” He must see my confused grimace, because he tries another tack: “Do you remember the painting I told you about, by Bosch? The Garden of Earthly Delights?”
I nod. That feels like another lifetime. Another girl saw that painting. Everything that happened before last night was in the life of another girl. Do you remember…The last thing I remember from last night is seeing my reflection in a million mirrors of shattered and splintered glass.
Stan goes on. “Why, it’s really only meant to be that—pleasure. You weren’t so unwilling last night. You never once told me no, or even asked that we stop.”
Is that true? I can’t remember; I don’t know. The shame is a white-hot coil in my stomach. I have to say something. “But…I didn’t know—”
“Isn’t that what I’m here for, my beauty?” Stan interrupts. “To teach you all the things that you don’t know? To show you all the wonderful things that make this life good and pleasurable? You told me yourself how thankful you are that I am teaching you about all of the finest pleasures in life.”
The room is tilting sideways. I blink, trying to understand. “Was it…‘good and pleasurable’?” I repeat his words, but I can’t bear this, so I close my eyes in shame.
“It certainly was.” He sits up a bit straighter on the edge of the bed. “You really don’t remember?”
I shake my head. I’m trembling again.
“There, there, no need for all this.”
But now I’m crying, and I can’t stop. Stan is still the patient and enlightened instructor opposite my wayward pupil’s demeanor.
“Kitten, darling, you must pull yourself together.” He exhales slowly.
“I heard that you had the hotel staff telephone the theater and tell them you are unwell. One night is fine. Everyone takes sick once in a while. But we really must get you back on your feet. I want you at work tomorrow, all right? You don’t want to give people any reason to doubt you. Or worse, gossip.”
Stan’s tone, his words, everything he’s saying to me right now reminds me that Mamma insisted I do as Stan said while she was away. I promised her I would.
Mamma! Just thinking about her makes my stomach flip on itself again. What would she say? How will I hide this from her?
Stan interrupts these miserable thoughts. His words are quiet, barely a whisper even though we are alone in the suite, as he leans toward me. “You do know that every girl does it, right?”
I swallow, and it feels as if I have shards of glass in my throat. But my curiosity gets the better of me, and I meet his gaze. “They…they do?”
Stan’s tone is one of unassailable certitude as he answers: “Yes, they do.”
“Everybody does…what we did?” Dinah? Dolly? Trixie? Even Penny? And yet I’ve never heard about it?
Stan nods. “Everybody does what we did, my darling. It’s just that nobody talks about it. At least, nobody who is smart.”
I let out a long exhale, realizing as I do so that I’ve been holding my breath.
I don’t know if I believe this. Every night when we are getting dressed backstage, and singing, and rouging our cheeks—all those girls around me, they’ve also done whatever it is I did with Stanny last night?
Is that why Penny asked me about kisses during my rides in the back of Stan’s motorcar?
Did she assume we’d done so, because that’s what she does with fellows?
“Now, then.” Stanny makes to rise from the edge of my bed.
“I’m going to leave so that you can rest. And you ought to eat something.
I’ll leave this supper here. Take a bath, Kitten.
Hopefully by tomorrow you’ll feel back to yourself.
Before I go, I’m going to give you a kiss.
Nothing more, my darling. Just a kiss, because that’s what adults do. ”
I shut my eyes, clenching everything tight as I feel his body lean toward me, and then he places a quick, chaste kiss on my lips.
When I open my eyes, he’s looking at me appraisingly. “Was that so bad?”
“I suppose not,” I say, but my heart is hammering, and my stomach feels tight as a knot. I’m glad that it was only a quick kiss. I don’t want anything more from Stanny. I want him to go, to leave me alone, so that I can try to think about all he’s just said.
At the threshold of my dim bedroom, Stan turns, hovering in the shadows. “Remember, don’t be a chatterbox, Evelyn.” His voice is cool now, with a hard edge. “That’s most unbecoming. Doing this…there’s nothing wrong in it. It’s the talking about it that gets a girl into trouble.”