my daily routine, so why would anything change? My friends knew that I had lost someone important to me—but they hadn’t known him. Nobody knew how much I had loved him (how would I have explained him?), so I wasn’t warranted the public grieving rights of a widow. I didn’t see myself as a widow, in any case. That was your mother’s position, not mine. How could I be a widow when I had never been a wife? There had never been a correct word for what Frank and I were to each other, so the absence I felt after his death was both private and unnamed.
Mostly, it was this: I would wake up late at night, and lie in my bed, waiting for the phone to ring so that I could hear him say, “Are you awake? Do you want to go for a walk?”
New York City itself seemed smaller, after Frank died. All those distant neighborhoods that we had explored together on foot were no longer open to me. They weren’t places a woman could go alone—not even a woman as independent as myself. And in the geography of my imagination, a great many “neighborhoods” of intimacy were now also shuttered. There were certain subjects that I had only ever been able to talk about with Frank. There were places within me that he alone could reach with his listening—and I would never be able to reach those places on my own.
Even so, I want you to know that I’ve done just fine in my life without Frank. I grew out of my sorrow—the way people usually do, eventually. I found my way back to joyful things again. I’ve always been a lucky person, Angela—not least of all because my natural temperament is not one of gloom and despair. In that regard, I have always been a bit like my Aunt Peg—not prone to depression, thank God. And I’ve had wonderful people in my life in the decades after Frank died. Exciting lovers, new friends, my chosen family. I’ve never wanted for company. But I have also never stopped missing your father.
Other people have always been perfectly nice and kind, don’t get me wrong, but nobody was him. Nobody could ever be like that bottomless well of a man—that walking confessional booth who could absorb whatever you told him without judgment or alarm.
Nobody else could be that beautiful dark soul, who always seemed to straddle the worlds of life and death.
Nobody but Frank was Frank.
—
So you have waited a long time for your answer, Angela, about what I was to your father—or what he was to me.
I’ve tried to answer your question as honestly and thoroughly as I could. I was about to apologize for going on so long. But if you are truly your father’s daughter (and I believe that you are), then I know that you’re a good listener. You’re the sort of person who would want the whole story. Also, it is important for me that you know everything about me—the good and the bad, the loyal and the perverse—so that you can decide for yourself what to think of me.
But I need to make it clear once again, Angela: your father and I never embraced, we never kissed, we never had sex. He was the only man I ever really loved, though, with all my heart. And he loved me, too. We didn’t speak of it, because we didn’t need to speak of it. We both knew it.
That said, I do want to tell you that over the years, your father finally reached a point of ease with me where he could rest the back of his hand on my palm without flinching in pain. We could sit together in his car, in the quiet comfort of that touch, for many minutes at a time.
I never saw more sunrises in my life than I did with him.
If by doing that—by holding his hand all those times, as the sun came up—I took something away from your mother, or from you, I beg your forgiveness.
But I don’t think I did.
—
So here we are, Angela.
I am sorry to hear about your mother’s death. You have my condolences. I am glad to hear that she lived a long life. I hope she had a good life, and a peaceful death. I hope that your heart is strong
within your grieving.
I also want to say that I’m so glad you were able to track me down. Thank God I’m still living at the L’Atelier building! That’s the good thing about never changing your name or your address, I suppose. People always know where to find you.
Although I should tell you that L’Atelier is not a bridal boutique anymore, but a coffee and juice shop that Nathan Lowtsky runs. The building itself belongs to me, though. Marjorie left it to me after her death thirteen years ago, knowing that I would do a better job than Nathan at managing the property. So she put things entirely in my hands and I’ve taken good care of the place. I was the one who helped Nathan to get his little business up and running, too. He needed all the help he could get, believe me. Nathan, dear as he is, will never set the world on fire. But I do love him. He has always called me his “other mother.” I’m happy to have his affection and care. In fact, I am probably as embarrassingly healthy as I am for my ripe old age because he tends to me. And I tend to him, as well. We are good to each other.
So this is why I am still here—still in the same place I’ve lived since 1950.
Thank you for coming to look for me, Angela.
Thank you for asking me for the truth.
I have told you all of it.
—
Iwill sign off now, but there’s one more thing I want to say.
Long ago, Edna Parker Watson told me that I would never be an interesting person. She may have been right about that. That’s not mine to judge, or to know. But she also said that I was the worst sort of female—namely, the type of woman who cannot be a friend to another woman, because she will always be “playing with toys that are not her own.” In this regard, Edna was wrong. Over the years, I’ve been a good friend to a great many women.
I used to say that there were only two things I was ever good at: sewing and sex. But I have been selling myself short all this while,
because the fact is that I am also very good at being a friend.
I’m telling you all this, Angela, because I am offering my friendship to you, if you would ever care to have it.
I don’t know whether my friendship would interest you. You may never want to have anything to do with me, after reading all this. You may find me a despicable woman. That would be understandable. I don’t happen to think I’m despicable (I don’t think anyone is, anymore), but I will leave it to you to decide for yourself.
But do give my offer some thought, is my respectful suggestion.
You see, all the while that I’ve been writing these pages to you, I have been imagining you in my mind as a young woman. To me, you will always be that flinty, smart, no-nonsense, twenty-nine-year-old feminist who walked into my bridal shop in 1971. But I’m grasping only now that you’re not a young woman anymore. By my calculations, you are almost seventy. And I’m not young either, obviously.
This is what I’ve found about life, as I’ve gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It’s not that there is ever a shortage of people—oh, heavens no. It is merely that—as the years pass—there comes to be a terrible shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history.
Those people start to be plucked away by death, and they are awfully hard to replace after they go. After a certain age, it can become difficult to make new friends. The world can begin to feel lonely and sparse, teeming though it may be with freshly minted young souls.
I’m not sure whether you’ve had that feeling yet. But I’ve had it. And you may have that feeling someday.
All this is why I want to end by saying that—although you owe me nothing, and I expect nothing from you—you are precious to my heart nonetheless. And should you ever find that your world feels lonely and sparse, and that you need a new friend, please remember that I am here.
I don’t know how much longer I will be here, of course—but as long as I remain on this earth, my dear Angela, I am yours.
Thank you for listening,
Vivian Morris
So many generous New Yorkers (past and present) shared of themselves in order to help me create this book.
Brooklyn native Margaret Cordi—who has been my brilliant and beloved friend for thirty years—guided me through my research, accompanied me on all my field trips, tracked down my sources, and proofread the hell out of these pages in an insanely short amount of time. But she also stirred up my joy and excitement about this project when I was under deadline and under stress. Margaret: There is simply no way I could have written this story without you. Let’s always be working on a novel together, okay?
I will be forever grateful to Norma Amigo—the most gorgeous and charismatic nonagenarian I ever met—for telling me all about her days and nights as a Manhattan showgirl. It was Norma’s unabashed sensuality and independence (as well as her unprintable answer to my question “Why did you never want to get married?”) that allowed Vivian to come into full and free existence.
For more background on the New York City entertainment world of the 1940s and 1950s, I am also grateful to Peggy Winslow Baum (actress), the late Phyllis Westermann (songwriter and producer), Paulette Harwood (dancer), and the lovely Laurie Sanderson (keeper of the Ziegfeld flame).
For help in understanding and unearthing a Times Square that will never again exist, David Freeland was an essential and fascinating guide.
Shareen Mitchell’s insights and sensitivity about wedding gowns, fashion, and how to humble yourself in service to nervous brides completely shaped this aspect of Vivian’s story. Thank you also to Leah Cahill, for her lessons in sewing and tailoring. Jesse Thorn served as an invaluable emergency contact for my questions about men’s style.