City of Girls

Once Vivian arrives back home, she knows something is wrong because Peg, Olive, and Billy are all waiting to confront her. A photographer outside the Spotlite snapped a picture of the three kissing. Walter Winchell, the feared gossip columnist, is planning to publish the photos in the next day’s paper. Worse yet, Vivian is going to be identified by name. Peg and Billy are flummoxed about how to defuse the scandal, but Olive has a damage control plan. She tells Vivian to clean herself up and put on a modest dress. Then the two go to the Stork Club to confront Winchell.

The gossip columnist has an intimidating reputation. Vivian says of him: “His was a predator’s stare. You might have said he was good-looking, if you could release your concerns about when he was going to eviscerate you” (268). Olive pleads Vivian’s case. Although Arthur and Celia are celebrities, Vivian is not, and her reputation could be ruined if her name is mentioned in the paper. Winchell seems unmoved by Olive’s speech or Vivian’s stammered apology and dismisses them. He warns Vivian that if she continues to associate with the fast crowd, she’s going to have to learn to fight her own battles.

The next day, Vivian is terrified to look at a newspaper but steels herself to read the article. Much to her relief, Winchell describes her only as “a leggy denizen of Lesbos” (277). Although she’s escaped public humiliation, Vivian must face other unpleasant consequences. Celia is fired from the show. Anthony says he never wants to speak to Vivian again. Everyone at the Lily is worried that Edna might crack onstage that night, but she rises above the scandal magnificently. Arthur merely looks irritable and tired and flubs his lines, as usual.

Edna summons Vivian to her dressing room after the performance. Vivian weeps and asks forgiveness, but Edna isn’t moved by the apology. Instead, she coldly tells Vivian that the girl is a nobody who will never amount to anything: “No matter how hard you may try to gain substance throughout your life, it will never work. You will never be anything, Vivian. You will never be a person of the slightest significance” (286).

Crushed by Edna’s rejection, Vivian calls Walter in the middle of the night at the training academy and begs him to take her home. He arrives with a driver to carry them back to Clinton. During the six-hour car ride, Walter browbeats Vivian unmercifully for her scandalous behavior. Even the driver chimes in and calls her a dirty little whore. Vivian half expects Walter to fly off the handle at this judgment; when he doesn’t, she realizes it’s because he agrees.

When the siblings arrive home, Vivian’s parents don’t ask any questions about why she’s returned in disgrace. As Vivian explains to Angela, “In case you have never been around White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. You need to understand that we have only one central rule of engagement, and here it is: This matter must never be spoken of again” (292-93).

Vivian’s spirit is crushed, so she becomes a dutiful daughter under her parents’ roof and takes a clerical job at her father’s company. In the summer, an article in Life magazine talks about Edna’s success in City of Girls. The actress claims that marriage is her favorite role. A publicity photo shows Edna and Arthur walking hand in hand through Central Park. Vivian thinks bitterly, “The dirty little whores had been disposed of; the man was allowed to remain. Of course, I didn’t recognize the hypocrisy back then. But Lord, I recognize it now” (296).

As she goes through the motions of fitting in to her family’s routine, Vivian begins to date a man named Jim Larsen who also works at her father’s company. Jim is kind, considerate, handsome, and boring. The couple eventually becomes engaged. When Vivian realizes in a panic that Jim will know she isn’t a virgin on their wedding night, she makes a tearful confession about her past. Jim says he won’t hold it against her, so they continue to make plans for their wedding. After Japan bombs Pearl Harbor, Jim enlists. Rather than rushing toward matrimony before he ships out like many other young couples, Jim says it wouldn’t be fair to make Vivian wait for him, and Vivian suspects that he is using the war as a pretext for breaking their engagement. This suits her, and she happily gives him back his ring, saying, “Among the many revisions and transformations that the Second World War would bring to the planet was this tiny plot twist: Jim Larsen and Vivian Morris were mercifully spared from matrimony” (310).