Chapter 37 1960
The morning of Aria’s seventeenth birthday is gray with storms. It has to be this way, the Marmont knows, because in almost four years’ time there needs to be a collision on a staircase.
Erecting a prison of rain around Aria is one way to make sure that happens.
Luckily the chateau can shut all its doors and close all its windows so it doesn’t have to look at the smile on Aria’s face, a smile it knows she won’t be wearing by evening.
When she wakes, Aria goes into the living room. Her aunt made it to her bed rather than passing out on the couch, which means it was one of her better nights. She might be up soon and they can have a birthday breakfast together.
Aria calls Schwab’s and orders French toast with extra syrup just the way Miss Devine likes it. Half an hour later, the food is set out on the table with coffee and her aunt’s daily supply of gin and ’ludes.
Another half hour ticks past. Aria goes into the kitchen and stares at the oven, wondering if she should put all the food inside to keep it warm. She turns a couple of knobs but nothing happens. It doesn’t even work.
She tiptoes over to her aunt’s bedroom and pushes open the door. “Miss Devine?”
No response. Miss Devine might have made it to her room last night, but she won’t be leaving it for hours.
Aria tosses the food in the trash. Calliope is away filming another movie with Peter Oldham.
Flitter is on set in a nonspeaking role in a low budget film, playing a maid.
“I’ve cleaned enough rooms at the Marmont that I don’t even have to act,” she told Aria with a grin that looked more like a grimace.
Maybe she can spend the day with Jupiter, riding cars that don’t go anywhere. But when she gets to the garage, George is there. “Jupiter’s sick,” he tells her. “Got that flu everyone’s been passing around. Isaiah and Maisie too.”
Marian Monti’s in Europe. Judith Crown and the babies are in Hawaii. Augusta Hepworth is in New York.
That’s okay, Aria tells herself. She’ll visit her bird.
But a year’s worth of rain is falling down. Her little bird tries its best to come out, but the raindrops are the same size as the bird and they almost knock it out of the tree.
So Aria and her umbrella cross the road to Schwab’s. It’s almost empty. She doesn’t need Calliope’s smile to secure a seat at the soda fountain. Jim is sick too and Aria doesn’t know the man making sundaes.
She orders a Schwab’s Special.
“We got vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate,” he says.
“Chocolate, please.”
Five minutes later he pushes a glass across the counter. It’s three-quarters full rather than overflowing. The ice cream is too cold for such a wintry day. Nobody comes into or out of Schwab’s. Nobody kisses her cheek or gives her a present.
She puts down her spoon. Hops off the stool. Goes back outside. Crosses the road. There’s a bus stop a bit farther down. She walks toward it before she can change her mind.
But it’s a bad day for buses. She waits for a half hour, getting wetter and wetter. When a bus does come, the driver doesn’t see her in her black dress; the day is so gray that Aria blends into it, truly invisible. As it passes, it throws up a cascade of water, soaking her from head to toe.
That’s okay, Aria tells herself again.
She goes back to her suite, has a shower, puts on a different dress, then takes the elevator to the lobby and crosses through the gardens to Matty Tamer’s bungalow.
He’s one of the few people who hasn’t left town and his party from the night before is still going.
Bob’s out of town, so she’s in no danger of running into him.
Aria walks into the bungalow, picks up a bottle of who knows what, and pours herself a shot.
She swallows it down, swallows again to keep it from coming back up.
Then she talks to a man a couple of years older than her who arrived last week with two parts dreams and one part innocence still in his eyes.
She gives herself a stage name, tells him she’s Edwina Elliott—the best she can come up with after no breakfast and no presents and a drenching from a bus.
It doesn’t take long before she’s making out with him in the corner of the room.
She lets him go a little further than Jupiter did. It’s a fair exchange—she needs someone’s arms around her on her birthday.