Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert

Author:Rebecca Rotert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER 23

THE NEXT MORNING Mother feels terrible. David talks quietly and sweetly to her, brings things to her room—coffee, water, magazines, scrambled eggs.

In the afternoon, Rita appears.

Well, where is he? she asks when I open the door.

In the kitchen.

Rita glides past me, her back extra straight, one arm already out to the side as though getting ready to gesture broadly. I follow.

Well, look who’s back, she says.

David faces Rita. Have we met?

Oh, yes, you probably don’t remember it was so long ago. You stormed into my bar like some sort of two-bit gangster demanding to see Naomi. Ring a bell? Name’s Rita, she says.

I remember now, says David. Been awhile.

Rita sits down and looks around the kitchen. What are we making?

I’m putting on a stew for later.

Charming, says Rita.

You like a drink? says David.

Do I look like I need a drink?

Yes, ma’am.

Prosecco, then, she says.

He takes a deep breath as he passes me and fetches a drink from the liquor cart in the main room.

Rita looks at me. Where’s Mama?

Asleep.

You can say that again, says Rita, watching David return with her drink. You look, I don’t know, more manly than I recall.

David goes back to peeling a head of garlic. And you look more like a woman.

Rita tilts her glass. Hmm. All of the glamour, none of the bullshit. She empties her glass and sets it down on the table. Standing, she steps up behind David, rests her hand on his arm, and leans into his ear. I’m watching you. They are almost the same height.

I walk down the hallway with her to Mother’s room. She sits down on the bed and pulls Mother’s scarf from her eyes.

Wait, says Rita, pretending to think, Greta Garbo. Camille. 1937. No. ’36.

Hello, Mother says, and the sound of her voice makes my teeth clench.

Some night last night, says Rita.

Was I awful?

No, not awful, says Rita. But Big Doug rang me this morning, a courtesy call. Told me to have a word with you. Who knows. Maybe you’ll get a bigger crowd after this. Folks wanting to see the wreck for themselves. If that’s how this is headed.

Oh, Rita, don’t start. Not today.

And you know what my first thought was? When I heard? Rita sits down on the bed. I thought, It’s that man. The boy from back home she couldn’t WAIT to get all tangled up with again. SO disappointing.

This has nothing to do with him, whispers Mother.

Rita leans her back against the headboard and looks around the room. I’ve been thinking. She lifts a hairbrush from the nightstand and tugs the hair out of it. Look that way, she says. Mother looks away from her and Rita begins to work on the swirl of tangles at the back of her head.

Darling, Rita says as she works. I’ve never known anyone who wants fame more than you. It was this . . . engine humming in you the day we met. I thought, This kid has it. But then you began to realize how hard it is to get there.

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