Bad Girl (Delmar)/Chapter 3
The Lotus Garden with its bright hanging lanterns and spicy native odors suggested a Chinese festival gay with curious, high-pitched music. One thought of red-lipped, sloe-eyed girls munching golden limes, queer eastern games of chance, and yellow youths with black silk hair. The delicately-molded Orientalism of the Lotus Garden was enhanced by the decorative presence of its owner. Herbert Yet Sim Nom, complacent blend of Mott Street and Times Square, moved quietly through the restaurant, diffusing his suave diplomacy among the makers, servers, and consumers of Chinese and American dishes all hours of the day and night.
Yet Sim Nom knew full well the languorous allure that dripped from every lantern, curtain, and incense-breathing idol in the place. He had planned it all, and his greatest pleasure was in watching the senses of the Americans reel dizzily under the triple assault of Chinese music, lights, and cookery. He knew that the young men and women who drifted in and out of the Lotus Garden pictured China as a dazzling expanse of golden dragons and fascinating symbols designed by Herbert Yet Sim Nom.
He enjoyed watching the diners. Those with mingled expressions of bewilderment and admiration did not please him. They were yokels. Those whose faces were grim, disapproving masks brought a faint glimmer of amusement into Yet Sim Norn's brown eyes. His delight was appreciative patrons whose easy familiarity with the menu card proclaimed them veterans of many Chinese cafés. He disliked most the person who ate, drank, and smoked, all without realizing that the Lotus Garden was as beautiful as the visions of a dreaming China maid.
Such a blind one was Eddie Collins. He had come to the Lotus Garden solely to eat chow mein, and he went about his business with a steady, systematic motion. Frequently he raised his tea-cup and when he did his eyes dwelt for one disinterested moment on the surroundings. His gaze would lower again with the cup, and Eddie Collins would once more apply himself vigorously to the bowl before him.
His companion was different. Her eyes sparkled as she watched other couples swing by in the rhythm of the dance. There was an anxious vividness about her. She wanted to be part of the swaying, squirming mass. Herbert Yet Sim Nom could see that the atmosphere had claimed her. Great splashes of color glowed on her cheeks, and she smoked her cigarette in a manner that marked her as a girl who only smoked on special occasions.
Yet Sim Nom strolled past them. They had been served by a new waiter, and the practiced eye of the owner quickly took in the table. The only impression that he carried away with him was that the stupid, sandy-haired youth had scorned the ash tray and was arranging a wet gray semicircle of cigarette stubs on his saucer.
The music stopped, and the dancers hurried back to the chow mein, growing cold and pasty in the course of many encores. A girl with lazy eyelids and dewy vermilion lips floated past the table where Dot Haley sat with Eddie. A vagrant cloud of perfume surrounded her. It seemed to spiral from her fluffy black bob to the heels of her slippers. They were red slippers.
"I know her," said Dot. "Her name is Maude McLaughlin. She went to school with me, and we used to go out together after we started to go to work, but she got going with a fellow steady, and she didn't have no more time for girl friends."
"Is that the fellow?" Eddie asked, looking curiously at a slim, dapper youth who wore a dark suit with a light gray vest smiling through.
"Yeh, that's him. His name is Ted Monroe. He bets on horses and he always wins, Maude told me."
Eddie laughed a little. "He's in a class by himself," he remarked.
"Well, I guess he's a clever fellow, Eddie. Maude's going to marry him. She told me she would have married him the first week she met him, only he didn't have enough money."
"No horses running that week?"
"I don't know. Maybe— Oh, Maude sees me. She's coming over."
Eddie kept his seat. If a coach of social etiquette had been there and said, "Eddie, why don't you arise?" he would have promptly replied, "Why? I ain't goin' no place."
Maude greeted Dot effusively and turned a careful appraising smile upon Eddie.
"How do you do," she said.
Eddie didn't know whether to shout "How do you do" right back at her challengingly or to say "I'm feeling well"; so he said nothing, which was quite all right, as Miss McLaughlin's interest in him had already flagged.
She was very different from Dot. Eddie felt the difference. She wore a large yellowish diamond and a dress with heavy sophisticated folds of satin.
"Why, Honey, I haven't seen you in ages. You should have come over to the house, you dear kid. You knew I'd always be glad to see you."
Her flood of affability embarrassed Dot. She floundered. "I— I supposed that you were always busy."
Maude smiled importantly. "Of course there's always a crowd around, but they're just a lot of hangers-on that don't mean much. You should have come over, Dot. Ted was just saying one night about a month ago that he wondered what had ever become of that nice little Haley girl."
Eddie didn't like Maude. He didn't like the way she acted toward Dot. There was probably a word for it, but he couldn't think what it was. She was acting as though she was giving Dot something. Eddie wished he could think of that word so he could tell Dot later.
"I'll get Ted to come over here and we will have a foursome. How would you like that, Mr. Collins?"
"Try anything once," Eddie responded gloomily.
Ted came over. It was obvious at once that he had never asked anything at all about that nice little Haley girl. He didn't remember having met her before and two minutes after his second introduction had forgotten her name.
"This is a rotten place," Maude said. "I'm glad I have the car downstairs so I can get away from it quick."
"Is it your car?" Dot asked in awe.
"Yes, of course. That is, practically. It's mother's car really."
If Maude had gone a little further she might have reached the truth. The car, a three-year-old Buick, really belonged to a friend of Maude's mother. A most intimate friend of Maude's mother. A friend, in fact, whose intimacy with Maude's mother good people could only deplore.
The orchestra was at work again, but neither of the couples noticed it. Eddie was smoking a cigarette and listening to Maude McLaughlin. He wished he could think of that word. Ted was drinking tea with a certain masculine grace that showed off his soft, well-kept hands. Dot fashioned narrow golden skirts of pineapple with the side of her spoon and thought of Maude at the age of seven sitting on the steps of the teachers' entrance, holding forth on the subject of where babies come from.
She wasn't telling "secrets" now, though there would always be a certain aura of naughtiness surrounding Maude's words. It was because her eyes carried forever with them the look of an easy and unrepented surrender.
"And you, dear, what have you been doing?" Maude had finished discoursing on what she termed a perfectly ghastly summer, and she was ready to listen now in case anybody else had anything to say.
"Oh, I've been working," Dot responded. "That's about all I ever do."
"You poor thing. I simply couldn't stand an office routine. I nearly went mad rushing downtown every day. If I hadn't quit I'd have had a nervous breakdown, I feel sure."
Eddie moved uneasily and lit another cigarette.
"Hold the light," Maude said. She lifted a cork-tipped cigarette to her lips and put cool white fingers on Eddie's hand to steady it. A faint, light breath crossed Eddie's cheek, and the match was out.
He withdrew his hand. "That's my last match," he said, and he turned to blow smoke out at the dance floor.
The waiter brought the checks. Ted Monroe covered them with one hand and endeavored to look unconcerned under Eddie's steady gaze. He was ready to begin the popular good-humored argument when Eddie said quietly, "Let me have my check, Monroe."
Ted passed it over, smiling as he did so. This Collins was a strange guy, obviously low-class. Ted looked at his own check and asked Maude for three dollars and eighty cents.
Eddie got up noisily. His chair hesitated for a brief moment on its two back legs, then settled down to normal with a bang. The three at the table eyed him disapprovingly. Dot looking up from her powder compact to do so.
"Come on," he said to her. "Quit fussing. You'll look just as bad when you're finished."
Dot closed her vanity with a hasty little snap and jumped to her feet. Maude was still seated, and Eddie was starting away.
"I'm going, Maude. See you again," Dot said, stopping for a moment at Maude's side.
Maude laughed. "Your rough Romeo has you trained," she said. "Do you jump through hoops for him? I was going to have you both come home with me for a while. Wouldn't you like that?"
"Oh, sure, that would be swell." Dot's ready smile disappeared as a doubting look overspread her face. "But maybe Eddie wouldn't come. Wait, I'll ask him."
He was leaning up against the door at the top of the restaurant stairs. His hat was on his head, and his cigarette burned close to his fingers.
"Ready to go now?" he asked.
"Eddie, Maude wants—" Dot gulped; he was looking at her coldly—"wants me to go over to her house."
"Well?"
"I thought you'd like to go, too."
"You thought cock-eyed," he returned, opening the door. "What'll I do with that jane and her sweet boy? You go."
He was over the threshold. Dot caught his hand, and the door closed behind them. They were at the head of the stairs, looking down at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street.
"Eddie, I came out with you and I'm going to stick with you. I ain't like that Higgins girl."
His sulky eyes blinked, but he never faced her. He was watching the light on his cigarette creep closer to his hand.
"Please come, Eddie. Maude and Ted want you and I want to go so badly."
"Well, go," he said, flinging what was left of his cigarette to the little tile foyer below. "They're your friends and I suppose it means something to you to go calling on them. It means nothing to me."
Dot's teeth wandered from one finger to another in vain search for a scrap of nail to bite. She turned her head away from Eddie and looked at the wall, an uninteresting but safe view.
"It means nothing to me either," she said finally, "unless you go, too."
He did not answer. There was silence on the landing for a second; then a strange, smothered sound reached Eddie's ears.
"Say, are you crying?" he demanded. "You make me sick, crying 'cause you want to go to some dame's house and won't."
"Oh, it isn't that, Eddie."
He could see her face now. Her eyes were unbecomingly red. The lips that were warm and full were misbehaving. She could hardly make him hear, so low did she speak to keep her voice from ending in a silly little sob.
"It's because you're so mean, Eddie. You speak so cross to me. I guess you don't like me, Eddie."
"Aw, for Christ's sake!" he said, drawing the words out slowly so as to get the maximum amount of contempt in each. "If you want to go to that dizzy broad's house that bad, come on."
"Oh, you're a darling," Dot said, brightening up and making a dive for her compact.
Eddie said nothing. He fumbled for another cigarette and was scratching a match on Herbert Yet Sim Norn's frosted glass panel when Maude and Ted joined them.
"Has Air. Collins decided to favor us?" asked Maude. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and she broke into a little light laugh when Dot answered:
"Yes, he says he'll go over for a while, Maude."
Ted was already in the car. There was a small pucker of discontent between his dark brows as he watched Maude come downstairs with Eddie and Dot. Why did Maude do such things? he wondered. What amusement could she derive from entertaining that little dumbbell? And if the girl wasn't bad enough, there was this Collins with the manners of a ditch-digger.
"Your friend can sit with Ted," said Maude as they reached the car. "I have so much to tell you, Dottie."
Wordlessly, Eddie climbed into the seat beside the wheel. Ted sat expressionless and silent, waiting for the girls to get seated in the rear.
"Wanna go right home?" he asked Maude.
"I have to," she answered. "I may get a long-distance call from mother. She's in Atlantic City," Maude explained to Dot. "Then Sue Cudahy is going to drop in for a minute. You know Sue, don't you, Dottie?"
"Oh, sure. She's the girl who couldn't graduate, ain't she? She had to get her working papers."
"Yes," Maude answered, sudden compassion oozing into her voice. "Poor Sue. I give her all my cast-off clothes. She's coming in for some I promised her tonight. Don't let on you know about it. She's sensitive."
"Oh, I wouldn't," Dot promised.
The car started, and for a moment no word passed between the occupants. Motoring was a rare treat for Dot. She loved the motion of the machine, the wind in her face, the feeling of luxurious privacy. She felt sure that if ever she owned a car she would ride throughout the night. Not alone, of course. Somebody would have to be with her; so she would take Eddie. Maybe sometime they would ride all the way to California. Dot had heard of people doing that.
"She's a telephone operator now," said Maude.
"Oh, yes—Sue." Dot got in step with Maude again.
"She's got a sweetheart who is simply impossible." The dewy vermilion lips came together in a long, thin disapproving line. "He's a drug clerk, so they say, but I think he's just a plain soda jerker. Poor Sue, she'll probably marry him and have six children and wear my clothes for the rest of her life."
"Yes," Dot said rather stupidly. She was thinking of Sue Cudahy as she remembered her. Big, blonde Sue who had once whispered a wickedly fascinating tale having to do with Maude McLaughlin and a boy in the Junior High. So wickedly fascinating was the tale that it spread like a plague throughout the school. There was no one in the building that did not hear, and Maude went about her business with her dark eyes leveled at scholars and teachers alike and a brazen inquiry in the depths of them. That was six years ago. Now Maude was Sue's best friend. But was she? It certainly was kind of her to give Sue charity. Not so kind, though, to talk with careless freedom of Sue's circumstances. That could be avoided. Still the fact remained that Maude said nothing ill of Sue and had acted generously toward her. Dot was puzzled. People were hard to understand. It was like a riddle: "When is a friend not a friend?"
"How do you think I look?" Maude asked suddenly. She had lighted a cigarette and was leaning back, idly blowing smoke.
"Gee, fine," said Dot. "Swell diamond you got."
Maude smiled contentedly. She liked other girls to notice her ring. "Isn't it lovely?" she said. "I didn't want Ted to go over a thousand dollars, but he is such a silly."
Dot gasped. Over a thousand dollars! Maude was trying to look very casual after having delivered that piece of information. Girls didn't usually take it like Dottie. They generally made an effort to match Maude's casualness. One had said, "Well, he'd have to go over a thousand, Maude. A girl wouldn't wear what a fellow could get for a thousand." But Dot was so frankly dazzled that for a second Maude was afraid that she had made it a little too strong. She grew easier as she saw Dot getting back to normal but decided not to tell Dot that her winter coat was costing thirty-five hundred dollars. Eighteen hundred would do nicely in this particular case.
"When are you going to get married?" Dot asked.
Maude threw her cigarette away and drew closer to Dot. Her voice sank to little more than a whisper as she said, "I have another offer. There's a man forty-two years old, a banker, who's simply wild about me. He has a hundred-thousand-dollar home and four Rolls Royces. He's divorcing his wife simply in the hope that I'll take him."
"Oh, Maude, you wouldn't marry an old man?" Dot asked, horrified.
Maude adopted the woman-to-woman attitude. "I don't know, Dot," she said. "To be perfectly frank with you, I'm not sure I wouldn't. What have I if I marry Ted, although I do adore him? Suppose he does have an income of, say, three or four hundred dollars a week. What's that, after all? It's nothing compared to what Mr. Shaw could give me."
"Shaw is his name?" Dot asked.
"Yes, George Bernard Shaw," said Maude. "Isn't that distinguished?" For a second she hung in dizzy suspense. The name had a too familiar ring. Suppose it was the name of a movie actor? But presently Maude breathed regularly again. There was no inkling of suspicion in Dot's expression. Maude smiled to herself. What if George Bernard Shaw was a movie actor? Dot was so darn dumb it wouldn't make any difference.