It hit me funny. It relaxed me, and it was just what I needed. I tried to look noble, and I don’t know if I did or not, but all the time my voice was coming nice and easy. We got to the end of the first strain, and he really began to go places with the lead into the next. It was the first time all night the piano had really had much to do, and it came over me all of a sudden that the guy was one hell of an accompanist, and that it was a pleasure to sing with him. I went into the next strain, and really made it drip. There was a little break, and I heard him say, “Swell, keep it up.” I was nearly to the high G. I took the little leading phrase nice and light, and hit it right on the nose. It felt good, and I began to let it swell. Then I remembered about not yelling, and throttled it back, and finished the phrase under nice control. There wasn’t much more, and when I hit the high F at the end, it was just right.
For a second or so after he struck the last chord it was as still as death. Then some guy in the balcony yelled. My heart skipped a beat, but then others began to yell, and what they were yelling was bravo. The applause broke out in a roar then, and I remembered to bow. I bowed center, right, and left, and then I walked off. She was there, and kissed me. Wilkins whipped out his handkerchief, wiped the lipstick off my mouth, and shoved me out there again. I bowed three times again, and hated to leave. When I came back she nodded, told Wilkins to go out with me this time for an encore. “Yeah, but what the hell is his encore?”
“Let him do Traviata.”
“O. K.”
I went out, and he started Traviata. Now Di Provenza Il Mar I guess is the worst sung aria you ever hear, because the boys always think about tone and forget about the music, and that ruins it. I mean they don’t sing it smooth, with all the notes even, and that makes it jerky, and takes all the sadness out of it. But it’s a cakewalk for me, because I think I told you about all that work I did on music, and it seemed to me that I kind of knew what old man Verdi was trying to do with it when he wrote it. Wilkins started it, and he played it slower than Cecil had been playing it, and I no sooner heard it than I knew that was right too. I took it just the way he had cued me. I just rocked it along, and kept every note even, and didn’t beef at all. When I got to the G flat, I held it, then let it swell a little, but only enough to come in right on the forte that follows it, and then on the finish I loaded it with all the tears of the world. You ought to have heard the bravos that time. I went out and took more bows, and it was no trouble to look them in the eye that time. They seemed like the nicest people in the world.
At the end, after she had finished a flock of encores, Cecil took me out for a bow with her, and then my flowers came up, and she pinned one on me, and they clapped some more, and she had me do a duet with her, “Crudel, Perché, Finora,” from the Marriage of Figaro. It went so well they wanted more, but she rang down and the three of us went out to eat. Wilkins and I were pretty excited, but she didn’t have much to say. When she went out to powder her nose, he started to laugh. “They’re all alike, aren’t they?”
“How do you mean, all alike?”
“I thought she was a little different, at first. Letting you take that encore, and singing a duet with you, that looked kind of decent. And then I got the idea, somehow, that she liked you. I mean for your sex appeal, or whatever it is that they go for. But you see how she’s acting, don’t you? They’re all alike. Opera singers are the dumbest, pettiest, vainest, cruelest, egotisticalest, jealousest breed of woman you can find on this man’s earth, or any man’s earth. You did too good, that’s all. Two bits that tomorrow morning you’re on your way back.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. First the tenor stinks and then the baritone don’t stink enough.”
“Not Cecil.”
“Just Cecil, the ravishing Cecil.”
“Something’s eating on her, but I don’t think it’s that.”
“You’ll see.”
“All right, I’ll match your two bits.”
We got back to the hotel, Wilkins went to his room, and I went up with her for a goodnight cigarette. She snapped on the lights, then went over to the mirror and stood looking at herself. “What’s the matter with the dress?”
“Nothing.”
“There’s something.”
“... It’s all wrong.”
“I paid enough for it. It came from one of the best shops in New York.”
“I guess one of the best shops in New York wouldn’t have some lousy Paris copy they would wish off on a singer that didn’t know any better... It makes you look like a gold plush sofa. It makes that bozoom look like some dairy, full of Grade A milk for the kiddies. It makes you look about ten years older. It makes you look like an opera singer, all dressed up to screech.”
“Isn’t the bozoom all right?”
“The bozoom, considered simply as a bozoom, is curviform, exciting, and even distinguished. But for God’s sake never dress for anything like that, even if you’re secretly stuck on it, which I think you are. That’s what a telephone operator does, when she puts on a yoo-hoo blouse. Or a chorus girl, wearing a short skirt to show her legs. Dress the woman, not the shape.”
“Did you learn that from her?”
“Anyway I learned it.”
She sat down, and kept on looking at the velvet, and fingering it. “All right, I’m a hick.”
I went over and sat down beside her and took her hand. “You’re not a hick, and you’re not to feel that way about it. You asked me, didn’t you? You wanted to know. Just to sit there, and keep on saying the dress was all right, when you knew I didn’t think so — that wouldn’t have been friendly, would it? And what is it? You haven’t been yourself tonight.”
“I’m a hick. I know I’m a hick, and I don’t try to make anybody think any different. You or anybody... I haven’t had time to learn how to dress. I’ve spent my life in studios and hotels and theatres and concert halls and railroad trains, and I’ve spent most of it broke — until here recently — and all of it working. If you think that teaches you the fine points of dressing, you’re mistaken. It doesn’t teach you anything, except how tough everything is. And she, she’s done nothing all her life but look at herself in a mirror, and—”
“What’s she got to do with it?”
“—And study herself, and take all the time she needs to find the exact thing that goes with her, and make some man pay for it, and — all right, she can dress. I know she can dress. I don’t have to be told. No woman would have to be told. And — all right, you wanted to know what she’s got, I’ll tell you what she’s got. She’s got class, so when she says hop, you — jump! And I haven’t got it. All right, I know I haven’t got it. But was that any reason for you to look at me that way?”
“Is that why you fought with me?”
“Wasn’t it enough? As though I was some poor thing that you felt sorry for. That you felt — ashamed of! You’ve never felt ashamed of her, have you?”
“Nor of you.”
“Oh, yes. You were ashamed tonight. I could see it in your eye. Why did you have to look at me that way?”
“I wasn’t ashamed of you, I was proud of you. Even when you were quarreling with me, back there during the intermission, the back of my head was proud of you. Because it was your work, and there was no fooling around about it, even with me. Because you were a pro at your trade, and were out there to win, no matter whose feelings got hurt. And now you try to tell me I was ashamed of you.”