Chapter Twenty-Five
New York City
“Do you know what the latest write-up says?” Stanny looks at me with a rakish grin, the latest copy of the Journal spread open beside him.
“No,” I answer, sitting across from him at his dining room table, the summer sunshine melting into a soft gold outside the window as evening settles over Manhattan.
He reads in a theatrical tone: “This fresh rose bears no resemblance to any living woman you have ever seen. This starlet has sung and danced before Manhattan’s millionaires; she’s inspired living legends such as Misters Gibson, Beckwith, Church, and Pierce; why, she’s even received a private invitation into the rarefied inner sanctum of the selective Mrs. Astor herself.
And yet, even to mention such a roster of elite names alongside hers, one must say: the truth is that Evelyn Talbot exists on a plane unto herself. ”
Stanny’s eyes dart back toward me as he quirks an eyebrow. “And they don’t even know the half of it.” With that he leans back in his chair, a pose of total contentment, and I allow myself to smile as I take a small sip from my sherry glass.
Stan reaches his arms in my direction, pawing at the air as a little child would do. “But, my beloved, you’re too far away over there. Come here, please.” I oblige, taking a perch atop his knee. Stanny burrows his face into my neck, breathing me in.
We are at his place on a warm Monday evening, the one night the theater goes dark.
Stanny is covetous of any time I can spare; work has been busier than ever now that I have a bigger part, playing the dancing girl Lakshmi in the new show Wildflowers, running at the Knickerbocker.
Just as Stanny promised, I’ve moved out of the chorus, and my star continues to rise.
Stanny carries on tickling my neck, nuzzling against my dark curls, which hang loose over my shoulders—just how he prefers it when we are alone at his home. I give his head a playful tap. “Are you some pagan?”
“I am,” he answers, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I worship the goddesses. And you are my goddess. I am helpless before you.”
I know it’s true—that he worships me, that I have some undeniable power over him. That the youthful enthusiasm and mischievousness I detected in him from our first meeting have now translated into a full-blown boyish infatuation with me.
Life has changed so much in the past year, it makes my head spin.
Stan and I have been sweethearts, as he calls us, since that eventful Thanksgiving week when Mamma went away and he first declared his love for me.
True, we are still keeping the details of our association secret for the time being, because Stan values discretion and he also feels it would upset Mamma—a point on which I readily agree.
After my initial shock at what the bedroom act actually entailed, I allowed myself to believe Stanny.
It’s like he told me on that first night: all the girls do it.
I’ve been backstage long enough now to see how many of the girls have arrangements with fellows of their own.
Each arrangement seems to have circumstances and rules uniquely its own, but the general idea is the same: We call them our patrons, our benefactors, our friends.
The gents are often older. The girls are always more beautiful.
We have the talent on the stage; they have the greenbacks with which they will willingly part.
No one knows what goes on between each actress and her benefactor when the two are alone, and no one asks.
Now that I’m the lead in a new show, my place in the dressing room and the company in general is different.
The girls in the Wildflowers cast are kind and affable enough, but they treat me with a sort of reverential distance, just as I once treated the beautiful leads in Fair Flora.
Besides, I’m almost eighteen, no longer the na?ve new kid in the bunch.
No, now I feel downright worldly. I see the bright eyes, the flushed cheeks—the fresh-faced girls who come nervously into our sorority at sixteen, even fifteen.
I don’t blame them for padding on a few years to land their spots—just as I did—but neither do I believe their fibs.
—
With Stanny at the helm, New York City has become my playground.
Together, we walk the beach at Coney Island, eating popcorn and hot dogs, taking rides on the Razzle Dazzle.
On days when we wish to stay closer to home, Stanny takes me for carriage rides through Central Park, or he arranges yachting outings up the Hudson.
Even after all of these months since we first “gave ourselves over to one another in pleasure,” as Stan describes our intimate encounters, he remains infatuated and attentive.
And Mamma does not raise a single objection, nor does she press for details as we step out together.
She doesn’t even mind when I sleep over at Stan’s brownstone.
“I’d rather know you are safe under Stanny’s roof than frolicking on your own throughout Midtown.
” She thinks of Stanny as a dear and trusted friend, and she’s right—he is a true friend, to both of us.
All he needs to do is remind Mamma of how many other men are pursuing me, men with less money and far less to offer us.
“You know that magazine man holds a candle for your daughter?” Stan will say to Mamma as the fragrant bowers of fresh-cut flowers arrive at our hotel suite from Mr. Condé Nast. “And Bobby Collier, that handsome heir living off the Collier entertainment empire, he’d pay court to her like a prince, but his intentions are more like those of a rogue. ”
Mamma practically shudders when she hears Stan’s words, when she thinks of me throwing everything away for a dalliance with a dashing young bachelor like Condé Nast. But how can they compete?
These fellows cannot, not with Stanley Pierce, a man who has traveled the world and now wishes for nothing more than to enrich mine.
—
My favorite nights are when he takes me up to the top floor of his tower.
Diana, naked and golden, spins before us, unapologetic and untiring.
Stan and I clasp hands and climb up his narrow, winding staircase, not pausing until we reach the very top, where the city sprawls before us.
Church spires, apartment buildings, even glittering Broadway with its theaters, none of it can reach us.
The elevated train that flies up Sixth Avenue sounds like music beneath us, a distant and gentle drumbeat.
That granite bridge that crosses over to Brooklyn looks like lace unfurling in the evening lights.
Farther down I can see the shimmering water of the harbor, where that other woman, Lady Liberty, welcomes the masses into this miraculous city.
Even Stan, who has seen the world, seems a bit cowed in those moments we share up there. He’ll wrap his arms around me and whisper, his voice low and tender, “It was my city. Now it’s our city.”
It’s true. He built this city, and then both he and his city fell in love with me.
It’s all ours. As the wind whips around the top of Stan’s skyscraper, I fold into his massive chest for a hug, and I feel both safe and loved.
And then he grips my shoulders, giving them a series of gentle squeezes.
“What are you doing?” I ask, tilting my face up toward him at an angle that I know he loves.
“I’m checking for wings.”
“Wings?”
“I think you fell into my arms from some magical land. You are my fairy, the object of my every wish.”
And when he leans forward for a kiss, I feel how this man, so powerful, who presides literally on top of the world, trembles for me and surrenders to the power that only I seem to hold over him.