The Chelsea Girls

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Hazel

March 1967

Hazel put on her most comfortable shoes and skipped the elevator—it was stuck on the second floor again—and instead plodded down the stairs, around and around, her hand gliding along the bannister, to the ground floor. After Charlie had dropped her off in front of the Chelsea last night, she’d yanked off her gown, not even bothering to hang it up. She’d never wear the dress again. It was as though it had been stained by Maxine’s denials and excuses, invisible damage that only Hazel could see. Sleep had finally come as the sun rose, and she’d awakened abruptly at ten to the garish ring of the alarm, checking the hands of the clock in panic, like a schoolgirl who’d missed an exam.

By now Charlie would be with Maxine at the Bureau’s field office in Foley Square.

Walking west until she could go no farther, Hazel turned south, the Hudson River sluicing along on her right and the crumbling elevated highway to her left. Not the most peaceful stroll, but she liked the idea that she was getting some fresh air, even if she was sandwiched between car exhaust and polluted waters.

Before she’d headed out, the phone had rung. It was Stanley, saying that he’d watched the Tonys and loved her speech. She’d thanked him before explaining that she wouldn’t be moving from her room, and that he’d have to find somewhere else to put his rock band.

She was done with getting pushed around, by anyone.

He’d quickly agreed, and asked how Maxine was, said that they’d looked swell together onstage. She’d thanked him and hung up.

Maxine. The panicked look in her eyes last night had haunted Hazel in her sleep. They’d cornered her. What a fall from the brash, brassy woman Hazel had met in Naples, who owned the joint and made no bones about it. The one who fearlessly drove a Jeep into a frenzied crowd in order to save a couple of frightened boys. Whom Hazel had once considered her best friend in the world.

She’d said she thought she was protecting Hazel. The way Maxine spun it, she’d tried to deflect dangerous attention away from Hazel. If only she’d opened up and told Hazel what was going on, about the depths of the abuse by Arthur.

Hazel had witnessed his crass bullying firsthand, and hadn’t done enough. Hadn’t said enough. She should have insisted that Maxine leave him, taken her somewhere safe and out of his clutches. Maybe that would have changed things. But she could never have guessed the wicked winds that were swirling around them both. And Arthur was a master at turning on the charisma, at hiding his true self, just as he’d done over dinner that warm summer evening. All shy smiles and self-flagellation.

Another call came through soon after she hung up with Stanley, this time from her agent, a husky-voiced woman who hadn’t reached out to her in years.

“Do you have a play ready to go? We’re getting lots of inquiries.” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The Coast will want to know if you have any screenplays. Do you have any screenplays?”

Hazel had agreed to come in to her office for a meeting that afternoon. Over the past many years, a number of ideas had floated by, before dissipating in a puff of disapproval of her own making. Nothing had clicked. But even with all the newfound approbation, she knew better than to rush the process. She would never be bullied again, either by a movie producer or by a corrupt politician, that much she knew.

Her life hadn’t been the happiest, but it had been full, and Hazel was finally ready to appreciate that. Maxine and Hazel’s early definition of success, which had left Maxine corrupt, lost, and alone, would no longer be hers. This latest interest in Hazel’s work could be as fleeting as the last, but she would do this on her terms, relying on the grit and courage she’d always had, the rest of them be damned.

This time around, she’d please herself first. If that didn’t make the grade with the critics or audience, so be it.

She just needed an idea. A good one.

She also had Charlie back, possibly. Seeing him again had brought on a rush of emotions, one that she’d never felt for any of her other lovers. He’d kissed her lightly on the mouth as he dropped her off.

“You’re remarkable,” he’d said.

“I know,” she responded, which made him laugh. “You are, too, for sticking with this spy hunt for years and years.”

“I knew it was my way back to you.”

But she was getting ahead of herself, thinking about all that. Hazel stopped and stared out at the cliffs of New Jersey. She wondered when she’d hear next from Charlie. Maybe when they took a break for lunch. Turning back home, she picked up the pace.

When she was writing the first draft of Wartime Sonata, a walk by the water always helped her overcome whatever obstacle was bothering her, whether a weak plot point or a particular turn of phrase that needed to be fine-tuned. She’d enjoyed those early, quiet days in the hotel, when she felt she was part of something larger. A ship, Wanda or Winnifred had called it. A ship of fools, maybe, but at least they were trying to achieve something great, even if everyone was rowing in a different direction.

That was when she’d soared. Poor Maxine—and how strange that Hazel was already forgiving her, a tiny, tiny bit, imagining the terror she’d gone through at the hands of that brute Arthur—never had that chance. She’d never found her own center, always struggling to please everyone around her. Hazel’s lingering jealousy and resentment of Maxine’s success were slowly chipping away, like flakes of marble from a statue. In spite of it all, Hazel’s moral center had held, and she’d stayed true to her beliefs and values when so many others hadn’t. Just as Maxine had remarked last night.

Approaching Eighth Avenue, Hazel considered what forgiveness might look like. Could she forgive a friend who had ruined her, all in the guise of protecting her?

It hadn’t been a guise. Maxine’s whimpered pleas last night, with the party raging below them, came from a dark, dreadful place. She’d done some terrible things—no doubt Charlie could set Hazel straight on that front once they were done interrogating her—but she’d gotten tangled in the machinery of an organization that was much stronger than she was.

Outside the hotel, an ambulance had pulled up to the curb, and Hazel’s heart flipped. Over the past several years, she’d gotten used to seeing the elderly residents being trundled into the back of an ambulance and never reappearing. Give it a few decades and she would be the one being transported off to an old folks’ home, having fallen and broken a hip, losing her dignity and independence in one fell swoop. But right now, her first concern was Lavinia.

The front door opened and a stretcher appeared, the body on it covered with a blanket. Behind the stretcher walked a young man in a leather jacket, next to a woman with frizzy curls.

Hazel stopped them. “Do you know who it is?”

The woman snapped her gum. “It was one of the transients, not a permanent. Someone who was only here for the night.”

Relief settled through Hazel. Another drug addict, probably. Last year, a drug dealer had been shot dead on the fourth floor. Stanley denied it ever happened. If anyone asked, he said the man they’d seen slumped in the stairway in a pool of blood had just been taking a nap, before quickly changing the subject.

“Someone famous,” offered the woman.

The man looked annoyed. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“Did they say who?” Hazel asked.

“Hmmm.” The woman considered the question, much to the irritation of the man. “She was an actress from the 1950s.” She looked at her boyfriend. “What was her name?”

He shrugged and stared off down the street.

Her face lit up with a dopey joy. “I remember, it was Trixie something.”

A shiver ran through Hazel.

Now the man was engaged. “No, stupid. Her name was Maxine.”

“Whatever.” The woman turned back to Hazel. “I saw her sitting here in the lobby last night, just hanging out. At, like, four in the morning. So sad.”

Hazel’s breath came in short gasps, she struggled for air. It couldn’t be possible. Maxine was downtown, with Charlie. The ambulance had already pulled away. Hazel rushed inside the hotel, almost slipping on the floor as she made the sharp turn into Stanley’s office.

The radiator hissed with steam in the too-warm room. Stanley was behind his desk, rifling through a drawer. He looked up when she came in and from the expression on his face, she knew it was true.

“What happened?”

“I didn’t even know she’d checked back in until this morning. The police said they found an empty pill bottle by her bed. This is terrible. The hotel will get a macabre reputation. I’m trying to make this into a decent, respectable residence, and now this. How could Maxine have done this to me?”

Hazel knew the answer. As she spoke, her voice broke.

“She wanted to come home.”

Hazel waited up on the roof for Charlie, shaking. He’d called soon after she’d arrived back at her room and she’d told him the reason Maxine had never shown up to her appointment. After hanging up, she had to get out of this room, where every corner held some memory of Maxine, dancing around with a martini glass in hand or pacing back and forth as she ran her lines, stamping a foot whenever Hazel corrected her or had to give her a cue. “Really, this script is terrible,” she’d joke. “God knows where they found this playwright.”

The memories crashed down on her. The two of them, in the ruins of Naples. Backstage at the Biltmore. In the safety of the Chelsea, where Maxine had found her final refuge.

The night before, while Hazel had been upstairs, staring up at the water-stained ceiling and trying to sleep, Maxine had been sitting down in the lobby. Had she approached the desk clerk to ask him to ring up, but then decided not to? If only Hazel had known.

Charlie burst through the roof door. Hazel ran to him, sobbing.

“We killed her.”

“No. She made some terrible decisions, one after another. Including taking her own life.”

“I wanted to forgive her, eventually. She was the first person to believe in me. She gave me the confidence to write and direct. I’d forgotten that, in all of the resentment and betrayal.”

Who knew what Maxine could have become if she hadn’t met Arthur at such a young age? But Hazel would never know the answer to that. And in spite of it all, Maxine had shined onstage, been brilliant on film. Her talent was undeniable.

“What a terrible waste.” Hazel wiped her eyes. “A terrible waste.”