In the Beauty of the Lilies (30 page)

But at night, with the humid blue-black sky and its clusters of unreachable stars hanging close above the blazing stage
lights, everything was more intense and focused, the earth a fruit being pressed to yield its juice. The distant fairground sounds were sharper, more momentous; the underlying scents of dung and hay and cotton candy and car exhaust suffused the night air like an atomized perfume. The rectangular banks of stadium lights made rays in the corners of Essie’s dazzled, dewy vision. The cooling air prickled on her skin as her turn came to parade herself into the stage light, while the Wilmington band pumped away at a speeded-up version of “To Each His Own.” Her nervousness evaporated; the lights and all those eyes pressed on her body with a ghostly love that sealed in an ecstatic calm. There was a popping of flashbulbs; she didn’t wince. She could hardly see: beyond the lip of the stage, blurred expectant faces; beyond the lights, a close black sky with its own geography of thickly starry valleys and thinly populated heights. Holding her head as if on a string pulled taut from above, as Mr. Josephs had drummed into her years ago, she walked to the circle chalked on the scarred stage-boards; she turned once slowly, giving the crowd and the judges the backs of her ankles and thighs, and her ass (which she sometimes worried had become
too
round, too perkily protuberant from her slim long-legged frame), and the daring big V of exposed back (which was still tanned with a honey tinge from the summer days spent at beaches or pools with this boy or that; white as her smooth skin was, she took a good tan, with her touch of Moorish blood). She gave them the nape of her neck (exposed by the upsweep she and Momma had worked a good half-hour on, trying to control the stubborn brunette mass with a tumblerful of hairpins) and a Grable peek-a-boo smile; then she walked to the opposite corner of the stage, at a right angle like a tightrope, her feet in their wobbly wedge sandals seeming miles below her chin. The applause
that followed her turn sounded in her ears a little louder than that which the other girls had received, but then it merged with an applause of greeting for the girl behind her, a redhead stunning in a sheer white strapless sharkskin.

Backstage, behind the shabby flats—braces of raw pine supporting cutouts of some thick cardboard all spangly with tinsel on the painted side that showed—Essie felt chilled, and vaguely dirty, with the string holding her head erect cut. She looked around for Momma, who was carrying a velour robe bought specially for this adventure. But she had left Momma back on the opposite side of the stage. The
Bulletin
photographer touched her on her bare shoulder. She jumped, wound so tight. He said, “Sorry. Just wanted to tell you you looked fantastic out there. You’ve got it.”

She smiled, trying to settle down. A one-to-one encounter seemed so dry and meagre, after being the food for all those eyes at the center of the stadium.

“Got what? As if we didn’t know. The usual. Every girl’s got it, bub.”

He had the grace to be embarrassed, there in the uncertain, jostling light. “No, really. The
un
usual. The magic, the presence, great looks, whatever. Look, my name’s Doug, your name’s Esther—right?—and I’d love if you could spare me an hour tomorrow sometime for a shoot.”

“A shoot,” she said, not quite discarding her smile.

“Take some pictures of you. All I can get now is flashes. They’re brutal. I’d like to do some studies, in natural light, to show around.”

“T-t-to show around to who?” She had for a second forgotten his name, though he had just said it. That’s how excited she still was, from being onstage. She remembered. “To whom, Doug?”

“The
Bulletin
, first. And for me, just to have. There’d be something in it for you—I’d make you up some eight-by-ten glossies, for submission to agencies.”

“Agencies now. How often does this line of yours work?”

“Modelling agencies—you know what I mean. Come on, don’t waste my time. I should be out there snapping. Look: I’m real, honest. Here’s my card. I’ve written my room number on it. Give me a call in the morning. Or don’t. Either way, what I said is true. You’re special.”

She hesitated to touch it—the scrap of paper seemed part of the shabbiness, the shamefulness she felt offstage—but relented. It was a real business card, with raised engraving she caressed with her thumb. “W-where would we d-d-do this shoot?”

He looked at her again, not having heard the stutter the first time. It gave him a slight power over her, and she in turn over him, as a weakness does when it is exposed. He spoke more slowly, taking care to sound businesslike. “Outdoors, not far. If you’re really strapped for time, the hotel has a courtyard, with a swimming pool nobody uses this time of year. The light might be nice, out of direct sun. There would be chairs and things for you to sit on. I’ll shoot some rolls of black-and-white and a little Kodachrome. Bring a couple switches of clothes, including this bathing suit. There’s changing rooms for the pool. Maybe you should allow
two
hours.”

“But I—”

“I know. You’re not sure. Well,
get
sure, Esther. What’s to lose? It can’t hurt and might help.” Softening his voice as if not to scare away a child, and twisting his lips in a curious flash of a pout, he said, “Don’t get ideas. I’m on the up-and-up; I’d really like to do it.” His lips were fleshier and more mobile than Benjy’s; he was used to fast-talking.

“Why?”

“Purely business for both of us, Esther. I’m a professional photographer, and you’re a Delaware peach.”

Momma, limping up with the velour robe, heard this, and gave a look that would have withered Doug, if he hadn’t already turned his back, to go back to the beauty parade with his flash camera. As Essie knew she would be, Momma was against it. They had a day planned in which after the morning rehearsal they were going to drive down to Lewes to see the old Sifford homestead once more; they had heard that the developer, who up to now had been renting the farmhouse, was going to tear it down for more little summer houses to sell. The barn, the corn crib, the cow shed were long gone, but the house and the little orchard behind it had been spared, all through the Depression and the war. “He said it would just take an hour,” Essie told her.

Momma snapped, “A lot can happen in an hour. A lot can happen in twenty minutes.”

“Right in the hotel courtyard, by the pool,” Essie pleaded.

“So he said. Watch if this boy doesn’t suggest you move to his room. Already he’s given you the room number. You may think I know nothing of men.” Momma blushed angrily, as if Essie had called her a cripple.

Essie flushed in turn. “Come watch, then. Do. Be a chaperone. Nothing is going to happen. Momma, honestly. If I can take care of myself in Basingstoke, I can take care of myself here.”

“Basingstoke boys are one thing—” Momma began, and then left off. She was not absolutely forbidding it, Essie saw—she, too, was tempted by this unforeseen opportunity. Hadn’t they come here in hope of something happening, something neither could quite imagine? “I didn’t like that young man’s
manner,” Momma said, stalling. “He’s a wolf.” Even she sensed that the term had become, in the last year or so, quaint.

Now the other girls were pushing and hissing directions around them; it was time to go back onstage, for the concluding medley. It sounded much better and stronger under the stars than it had beneath the sun. “… There’s
no
business I
know.…
” They linked arms, the girls in bathing suits, two rows of them swaying in opposite directions like a flexible valve opening and closing, and when it was over amid the applause they all spontaneously hugged and kissed and wished each other good luck tomorrow. That was one more new experience for Essie, being embraced by another girl, wearing only a bathing suit and high heels—the redhead in the white suit especially. Her hair held more fragrance, and her front was more springy, than a boy’s.

Back in the room, she sensed how sad Momma was to miss the drive down to Lewes. This had been a big part of her life, and Essie’s life was almost all ahead of her. They compromised: Esther would pose for Doug right after the rehearsal tomorrow morning, and be done in plenty of time for them to drive down to Lewes and back by five-thirty. The contestants were supposed to assemble in the hotel ballroom fully gowned for the farewell banquet before being taken with their escorts in two buses over to the stadium for the decisive night. Essie was afraid she would be too stirred-up to sleep, and prayed,
Dear God, let me sleep so I can be poised and not make a misstep or stammer onstage tomorrow and look radiant enough
. Then with her eyes she did crisscrosses on the shadowy ceiling of the room while Momma was already raspily deep-breathing in the bed next to her. The light from the street below came in through the Venetian blinds like that scene in
Casablanca
or for that matter
The Big Sleep
with Humphrey
Bogart not so handsome this time and
The Killers
with Burt Lancaster as this broken-down boxer destined to be killed. Essie felt threatened by these movies about seedy cities and men and women desperate to escape and bitter about their lives.
The Postman Always Rings Twice
, with Lana Turner, left her hurting for days, like a stab with a dirty knife. She liked musicals:
The Harvey Girls
, where Judy Garland tames the West and even the town prostitutes pitch in to rebuild the burned-down restaurant. She liked movies where you feel a woman’s confident power, like
Gilda
with Rita Hayworth doing that dance with the gloves, and
The Outlaw
, which she wasn’t supposed to have seen but Jamie Ingraham took her, his arm creeping around her shoulders and his other hand up from her knee, and
Duel in the Sun
, which had Jennifer Jones painted brown and in tight blouses after being Bernadette;
that
movie was so moving and terrifying, with Vincent Price dying of throat cancer clinging to the fence and believing too late, that Essie cried though she was far from being a Catholic. She shut her eyes and tried to shut her ears to the traffic five stories below and thought of the redheaded girl in the white bathing suit she embraced at the end tonight, the different silkier feel a woman’s skin has, not to mention the chest, a woman would know just how to touch her, here, and not stop too soon. The next thing she knew she was awakening from a tumble of exasperating dreams and Momma was moving about the sunstruck room in her hippy-hoppy way. Nobody was perfect but God always answered Esther’s prayers: that was the curious thing.

She let Momma call Doug’s room number and say that her daughter could meet him down by the pool at twelve-thirty. Doug must be saying that the light was too much overhead because Momma said, “Very well. One o’clock at the latest.
And we
must
be off by two, young man—my daughter and I have an important engagement elsewhere.”

It was agony to have Momma sound so prissy and scolding; Essie vowed to talk to Doug privately when she had a chance. He was nice, the bony shape of his head showing intelligence, and the way he made quick faces between his sentences. The rehearsal went on for much longer than anybody expected, trying to cut down the part where each contestant before showing off her talent answered in one sentence or two the question “How Would You Make the World a Better Place?” Some of the girls wanted to talk forever, about the Iron Curtain and all the killing in India and so on. Then there was a weaving thing at the beginning, like a march routine, while the band played “Ole Buttermilk Sky” and then “They Say It’s Wonderful.” It was after one when they got back to the hotel, all breathless and not having eaten, but Doug wasn’t mad, and in fact ordered them sandwiches from a bellhop before they began. She had never posed for a photographer before, just fussy little Mr. Purinton in his studio upstairs two doors down from the Blue Hen when she was five and then at thirteen in her confirmation dress that Ama had made. Doug told her to lift her chin and part her lips slightly but let her face relax: “Sometimes it’s best when you think of nothing. At me, Essie.” Doug heard Momma call her Essie and took it right up. But then: “Look off, and then back to me with your eyes. Nice. Again? Very nice. Your hair, that piece of it—my goodness, what a lot of hair to keep under control! Maybe your mother could take this comb—” He wanted to touch her hair himself, she knew, but was inhibited by Momma’s being there, sitting upright by a round glass table. The pool hadn’t been cleaned in some days and cigarette butts and yellow leaves were floating in it. When Essie threw her head
back from the canvas poolside chaise he had her posing on, with one leg lifted so the skirt of her sundress fell upward from her thigh, she saw three walls of windows framing a square of blue sky that she mentally drew an X on, connecting the corners. “Lovely,” Doug said. “Lovely throat. I know it feels awkward, but could you bend back even more? Yes. The hand. Could you do something with your left hand, Essie? Lift it from your side, as if—as if you were holding something very gently. Yes. Nice.” Last night he was using a big clunky Graphic but today he had in addition a smaller flatter camera called a Contax. “Thirty-five millimeter instead of four by five,” Doug explained. “Much more maneuverable, and it gives you a whole sequence of shots to choose from. The Germans make it.”

This seemed very urbane and progressive, that he would be using a German product, so soon after our hating them so. Each roll of thirty-six shots she thought would be the last—Daddy used to stretch a roll of twelve exposures over a whole week’s vacation at Wildwood, and Christmas pictures would still be in the old Kodak on her birthday in February—but Doug kept saying, “One more roll of color, then you can go. But the light—God, it’s just getting lovely.” He provided a dusty-pink sweater that was tight in the waist but with a loose wide neck. Bolder now, even with Momma watching, he tugged it off one shoulder, à la Jane Russell. He came closer, closer with his lens, and said to her in a softer voice, so Momma couldn’t hear, “Make love to the camera. Look right into it and think of something you want, something you want very much.”