Chapter 12
IN CONCLUSION
It was six months since the tragic death of Alice Carrol. The Jay-Cee Club was closed to the public for the night, a private party was in progress.
Norma was there with him, but the party was for Terry and Jerry English, who had gone on a brief honeymoon three months previously. Now Terry was taking a hiatus from show business ... to become a mother. Naturally, Jerry was taking a terrific ribbing from the members of the show cast, but, despite his musician's armor of "in" attitudes, he was enjoying it all. Terry sparkled and joined in the teasing.
A number of things had happened in the six months since Alice's death and most of them had been good for John Carrol. The bitterness of Alice's death had almost caused him to sell the club but Norma's reasonable approach to his feelings of guilt and her logical business head had brought John back onto the track. Norma had run the club for that period-and business was never better.
The investigation of Alice's death had been a harrowing experience for John, but the coroner's jury had absolved him of blame in his wife's shooting, all the facts having been arrayed to produce a verdict of accidental and self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound. There was no doubt that Alice was temporarily deranged; a post-mortem had revealed she was also greatly under the influence of alcohol. The testimony of the police physician as well as the officers who had investigated the shooting; the testimony of club personnel as to Alice's actions preceding the shooting, all combined to produce an undisputed opinion of no responsibility on John's part, save the desperate effort to curb his wife's homicidal actions.
One thing which brought him a chuckle later was Frankie's description of what happened when she dropped to the floor at the first shot and John had dived at Alice. The stripper had grabbed her robe and struggled into it, behind the desk, retrieving her bra and g-string before the club personnel had burst in. Consequently, when they found her, concealed by the desk, she was buttoned into her robe, her skimpy costume safely concealed in one of the pockets.
"It was just instinct, John," she confessed, "and it was the first time in my life I ever felt the urge to get my clothes on!"
Norma had displayed a total lack of patience with any feeling of guilt on John's part. It only came to discussion between them at one time-they were both a little tight, at the time, celebrating the sale of John's house, which Norma had negotiated. John had begun to feel depressed and Norma had promptly mixed another pair of Martinis for them. Putting one into his hand, she sat down beside him on the sofa.
"Now look, John," she'd said, again in the no-argument, no-nonsense tone of voice he'd heard from her often in their discussions of other business, "you can't afford the luxury of feeling guilty about Alice's passing. In the first place, the coroner's jury found she was totally smashed and out of her mind. She was out of her mind because she crazed herself by jealous suspicions which-you know yourself-were completely unjustified in the five years you lived together. There was nothing anyone could do about a woman who insisted on this means of torturing herself. John, I had a husband who slept out on me as a way of life ... and, even so, our sex life was pretty good. But I'll bet I didn't torture myself one half of one percent as much over something I knew was going on, as Alice did over something which wasn't. Now, neither of us can do anything-anything to alter what's already done. If you have to feel guilty about something, you'd better be hard-headed about it, and feel guilty toward yourself for all the sex you missed. Alice gave you full credit for it, you know. What the hell sense does it make for you to feel guilty? No matter what you had done, you'd have been wrong, in Alice's book and it's just as crazy for you to feel guilt over what happened as to admit Alice was right. Now the thing to do is to take the good life offers you ... and forget the rest of it. That's all there is, John ... and I'm never going to mention this again. I just hope you recognize I know what I'm talking about...."
Frankie, grinning, winked at Norma and addressed herself to John. "You ever change your mind, boss ... just let me know."
"Ha!" Norma answered, with a wry smile, "he does and I'll scratch all your eyes out!" The group laughed at the grim sally. They knew Norma and respected her from the months of her calm administration of the club's affairs. John cleared his throat.
"I've had this on my mind for some time," he said, as the group fell silent. "I hadn't intended to bring it up right now, because I haven't discussed it with the more important party concerned ... sometimes referred to as the "party of the second part" ... and, believe me, that's the wrong designation...." he broke off, a grin broadening on his face. "By now, I'm sure you recognize that without Norma, this place," he waved his hand to indicate the club, "would probably be a supermarket. I could say that, to protect my investment, I have to do this-and it's true-but the fact is, I find that my life doesn't mean a thing without her." He turned to Norma, sliding an affectionate arm around her shoulders. "I have thought of trying to arrange a proper setting for this, but it scares me. So, while we're among friends-of both of us-I want to ask you if you'll marry me." His eyes held Norma's; she was looking at him, startled, as if she couldn't believe what she was sure was happening.
For a long second, lips parted in shock, Norma looked up at John and the, tears flooding her eyes, she nodded and suddenly covered her face with her hands as she came into his arms. The club was suddenly alive with cheers and applause as Norma, shoulders shaking, cried in John's tender embrace. Jerry knocked his chair over as he leaped to his feet and headed for the piano. Flipping up the key cover as he sat down, he broke into the opening bars of "Here Comes the Bride," but with a beat and phrasing which brought a shout of delight from the other members of the group. They dived for their instruments too, and as the volume of the twist beat rose to a crescendo, Terry and Frankie grabbed for Norma and John, pulling them out onto the small dance floor and, spotting them in the center, the gang formed a circle around them, twisting like mad and singing at the tops of their lungs: "Here comes the bride, yeah, yeah, yeah...!"
Norma finally mopped her eyes dry with John's hanky as, to encouraging shouts and applause, she fell into the beat and started to "twist up a storm," as Vera described it later. John with a helpless look, tried to emulate his beloved's gyrations but finally gave up and pounded his palms in rhythm as the group brought it to a crashing climax with a final sixteen bars. As they laughed and kidded, returning to their seats in momentary, panting exhaustion, Norma and John were surrounded by good wishes and words of encouragement from the club staff, entertainers and all. Jim the barman had cut for the bar mid-way through the music and returned to the table with another round of drinks.
Jerry took his and got to his feet, solemnly. Raising his glass he said, very formally: "I should like to propose a toast to these two, whom all of us admire...." Clearing his throat, for dramatic effect, he recited into the dead silence, as all except John and Norma stood, glasses raised before them:
"Here's luck to friends Norma and John;
"It's aces that they both have drawn.
"John's found him a girl
"Who'll make his life whirl-
"Like, man, git a hold ... and hang on!"
Jerry was rewarded by a burst of cheers and laughter for his extemporaneous limerick as the group drank to John and Norma. Urged to his feet by his wife-to-be, John stood shyly before them and then reached down to take Norma's hand to pull her upright beside him.
"I'll never be able to speak on my feet like Jerry English," he grinned, "just as there are few .musicians who could fill his seat at that piano." A murmur of approval and enthusiastic applause agreed with John's sentiment. "I'm going to let Norma make her own response to your good wishes. I just want to ask if you folks think you could keep this place going if I take Norma to get married and go on a brief honeymoon?" At the enthusiastic chorus of "yeas!" which followed, John bobbed his head and lifted his drink. "Thank you, from the bottom of my heart ... may you all find your heart's desire; you're the finest bunch of real pro's I ever knew." John drank and sat down, leaving Norma standing. She looked around at group and a tremulous smile touched her lips for a moment.
"What a man!" she said, "here I've been trying to lure him into popping the question with moonlight and roses ... and he waits until he's in the big middle of Grand Central Station to do it!" She waited for the laughter to subside before she continued, timing her next line perfectly. "You know, he's really got me worried. I'm afraid he'll only comes on at his best in front of a crowd!" Appreciative cries penetrated the laughter, and John, blushing a fiery red, heard Don, the bass player, advise, "Norma, book this act into Macy's window!" When it was quiet again, Norma looked at them and lifted her glass, a twinkle in her eyes: "Bless you all ... I'd have never made it without your help. Keep 'em clapping...."
Bidding Jim goodnight as he locked the doors, Norma and John strolled to his car, arm in arm.
"Norma, sweetheart," he asked, "where would you like to be married?" She hugged his arm, tightly, quickly against her.
"Look, mister, I've been all through that orange blossoms routine. I don't care whether I get married at the bottom of a well or on the roof of city hall. What bothers me is, when ... not where!"
"Would you believe," John asked, "a drive across the state line where there's a J.P. who's a real specialist in after-hour weddings?"
"John, who'd be awake...." she glanced at her watch, " ... by three forty-five. That's how long it would take...."
"Judge Williams would," John said smugly.
"Jud-how do you know?" she demanded, eyes searching his face.
"Because I called him at ten," John explained, "to tell him we'd be there between three-thirty and four."
Norma hugged him ecstatically. "Br-r-rother, you just can't trust men...."
"Have to find some way to keep you guessing," John said, handing her in to the car. "You're too sharp for my own good...."