Astor Place Vintage: A Novel (31 page)

“Men are animals,” Sadie said, scooping more butter from the pot. “He wanted me, but not to get married. I didn’t want him
except
to marry.”

I thought of my father. He hadn’t been an animal—or so I believed; it was entirely possible I carried around a childish, idealized memory of him. After all, he’d kept the collapse of our finances a secret. Who knew how many other secrets he’d hidden?

The waiter arrived with my ginger ale and their pitcher of beer. The three of us gulped down our cool beverages with relief.

“You ask me,” Sadie said, pausing to belch quietly and pat her chest, “whoever wrote that play has a screw loose. Let that secretary live like us a week and see if she looks twice at any chauffeur.”

“And show me any chauffeur half as handsome,” Angelina added.

“Or a rich man who’d marry his secretary,” I chimed in.

Angelina cupped her palms around her cold glass. “Marriage is always a bargain, and somebody’s gotta get the wrong end.”

“Fifth Avenue sounds like the right end to me.” Sadie eyed me with obvious envy. “If only I could be refined, like you, then I’d attract the right sort.”

“Does the right sort exist?” I asked. “It seems as if every man who comes to my counter buys perfume for some girl on the side. I hate to think I’m encouraging them to cheat on their wives.”

“Why should you care?” Angelina said. “That’ll happen whether you sell them perfume or not.”

“But it’s horrid being nice to those beasts.”

“Men got their needs.” Sadie wiped crumbs off the front of her dress. “Always have and always will.”

I couldn’t agree. “That wouldn’t excuse them from running around with some tramp. What if their poor wives knew?”

“Wives know what they wanna know,” Angelina replied before taking a long sip of beer.

“And if children are involved?” I asked. “Why must a child suffer because of the parents’ mistakes?”

Angelina set her glass down. “If those wives stopped sleeping in separate bedrooms, you can bet that perfume wouldn’t be going to those tramps.”

I widened my eyes in amazement. “You’re blaming the wife for the husband’s behavior?”

“Sure,” she said, giving me a sly look. “If she thinks she’s too good to do it with him.”

I turned red as Sadie laughed with complicity. “Why else you think they got so many bawdy houses up Seventh Avenue?”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Angelina agreed. They clinked glasses.

That was when it finally dawned on me: Angelina’s gentleman friend . . . he was married. That was why she defended cheating husbands—and the women I’d just called tramps.

“Angelina, if I said anything offensive, I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to, honestly.”

She arched her eyebrows with disdain and said nothing.

“I didn’t mean to insult you or say anything stupid.”

“Why would I be insulted?”

“Well,” I stumbled on, “I don’t know, perhaps your gentleman friend might happen to be married.”

“What if he is?”

Sadie flagged down the waiter as he was racing past. “Say, what’s takin’ our food so long?”

“The kitchen is backed up.”

She held out the empty bread basket. “Then fill this up, will you?”

“I’d have to charge.”

“Never mind,” she said, letting him go. “Charge for bread? He’s sure got nerve.”

“I was speaking in general,” I said, still trying to dig out of my hole. “I don’t want you to feel judged. I wasn’t thinking—”

“You
weren’t
thinking,” Angelina said.

“But you sure was judging,” Sadie cut in. “You people take every chance you get to turn up your nose at people like us. Well, you know what? I didn’t have no chance to go to any finishing school. I barely got a chance to
begin
school before my parents made me go in as a cash girl when I was ten years old.”

“I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

Sadie turned to Angelina. “She don’t think us girls should have no fun.”

Angelina nodded. “Fun is only for rich folks, while we work ourselves to the bone.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Angelina said, her cheeks flushed with indignation. “You think I’m wicked. Sunk low as a woman can. Spit in God’s eye and gone to the devil.”

“No! You’re getting me all wrong. I simply think there has to be another way.”

“And which way is that?” Angelina said with a sneer.

“We’re all ears,” Sadie added.

“I’m not saying it’s easy,” I began. “We’re intelligent women.” They stared at me with feigned curiosity. “We can’t spend all our energy on serving the needs of men. We need to work, and make money, and
earn
our independence.”

“We work, all right,” Angelina replied, unimpressed, “but how much can we earn?”

“Seven per,” Sadie said. “Eight if we’re lucky.”

“It’s possible to work your way up,” I persisted. “If you stick with it. I’m hoping to become a buyer one day. They make an excellent salary, sometimes as much as the men.”

“That’s nice for a refined girl like you,” Angelina said. “But girls like us don’t get chances like that.”

Wasn’t she the one who changed her mind about our hat shop? “There’s no guarantee I’ll get the chance, either.”

“Don’t be coy.” Angelina scowled at me. “Everyone knows you’re Miss Cohen’s pet.”

“She thinks you’re a peach,” Sadie added. “A real jewel.”

On that sour note, the waiter arrived with our plates. Angelina and Sadie attacked their food, exclaiming how everything tasted so delicious. I could barely swallow my gristly meat. While they continued to gorge and babble, I pretended to enjoy the wretched meal. It surprised me how much their hostility hurt. I never could’ve predicted the friendship of two shopgirls would mean so much. Even if I did put on airs, they were the ones barring me from the club.

—

After dinner we took the trolley downtown. All three of us looked out the windows in silence as if traveling alone. When the trolley reached Fourteenth Street, Sadie and I had to leap off, calling out hasty good-byes, so we could catch the cross-town. After hopping aboard, we grabbed our straps as the conductor clanged his bell and the motorman pulled out.

Sadie chattered on about how the theater wasn’t half as jolly as a dance hall. “The other night some vulture picked the wrong girl to dance, and her boyfriend pulled a knife!”

“Good gracious. Then what happened?” At least she’d stopped going on about how beastly I was.

“By the time the cops hauled ’em off,” she said merrily, “two tables and a chair was broken, the floor was splattered with blood, and they had to close the place down.”

“Sounds ghastly.”

“Only because I had to go home early. No matter how much my feet hurt from standing all day, I swear I could twirl all night.”

I hadn’t a chance to change the subject until we got off the trolley. “I feel awful about Angelina.”

“You sure did put your foot in it.”

“I must seem like a naive idiot.”

“More like a swelled head. Wouldn’t hurt to come down off that perch.”

“And keep my mouth shut.” Still, I couldn’t resist trying to get more details. “I don’t suppose you know who the man is?”

“All I know is he’s loaded and just turned fifty-five.”

“Fifty-five?” That was ancient. Older than Father. How could she stand letting him have his way with her?

“You was imagining Prince Charming?”

“No.” Though I suppose I had been clinging to some such thought.

She returned to her favorite subject as we climbed the steps to the boardinghouse. “You ever been to a dance hall?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“You should come along next Saturday night. We’re havin’ a send-off for Joe. He’s leaving the next day for San Francisco.”

I followed her inside, wondering why Angelina hadn’t mentioned the party. “I don’t think so, but thanks for asking.”

She shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

Sadie joined some girls playing cards in the parlor. I retreated to my room. In any case, my dinner with Ralph Pierce was next Saturday, so I couldn’t have joined them even if I’d wanted to.

May 23, 1908

Angelina hates me. I feel wretched.

A few days later I went to the dairy restaurant for lunch, hoping to make things right. When I sat down with my egg sandwich, Angelina gave me a nearly imperceptible nod. The news that Evelyn Nesbit decided to drop her annulment suit had everyone talking.

“Now she’ll go after his fortune,” Joe said.

“What d’ya mean?” asked a girl from the toy department. “She’s already got it.”

“She has to be appointed guardian,” Joe explained. “You think the Thaw family is gonna let that happen? She only married him for his money—”

“In your opinion,” Angelina cut in, “which is worth exactly nothing. The fact is, as long as he’s stuck in that madhouse, she should have control of his money.”

“His money is Mrs. Thaw’s money,” said the vacuum demonstrator. “And they’ve already promised to pay the younger Mrs. Thaw a thousand a month not to cause any trouble.”

“Hah,” Angelina replied, “and the older Mrs. Thaw will cut off her daughter-in-law as soon as she can.”

Joe looked at his sister as if she were the one who belonged in the asylum. “You don’t believe that tart actually cared for Thaw, do you? For god’s sake, she used to be one of those Florodora girls, dancing around half naked on the stage!”

“Her feelings for Thaw don’t matter,” Angelina maintained. “She’s his legal wife.”

“Feelings don’t matter?” he cried out. “I can’t believe my ears. Weren’t you always going on about how Thaw was innocent because he murdered for love? So why should that girl get his money if she never loved him?” That was when Joe turned to me. “Let’s ask the only smart person here. What do you think?”

Since I planned to deliver my gracious apology to Angelina, and it appeared her opinion differed from mine, I shrugged and kept my mouth shut.

Joe leaned closer. “You agree with me, right?”

“I don’t have an opinion on the subject,” I said calmly, even as I wondered how he had the power to make my body feel just a bit more alive.

“Don’t you have an opinion on everything?” Angelina asked.

“Even if I had, I wouldn’t pretend to always be right.”

“Go ahead and tell us,” she said, “and we’ll decide if you’re wrong or right.”

The limits of my diplomacy had been reached. I’d been insensitive, fine, but she reveling in her wrath. “It seems to me that a thousand dollars a month is more than enough compensation for what she’s been through. And why insist on staying in a family who doesn’t want you? She’d do best to take her monthly check and move on.”

Angelina glowered. “Like a good little whore?”

Having silenced the table, she pushed back her chair and strutted out. How had this gotten so out of hand? I left the last bite of my sandwich, excused myself to the others, and caught up with her on the sidewalk. “Angelina, I wish we weren’t having a row. I’m so sorry I offended you. Can’t we be friends again?”

“I don’t need friends who judge me.”

“But I don’t judge you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s your fellow. He’s the one committing adultery.”

“You think his wife is suffering? She gets the fancy house in the suburbs, the fur coats, the dinner parties.”

The light changed. She dashed across the street. I scurried to keep up. She greeted the guard as we entered the building. “Then what about you?” I asked once we were safely past him. “You’re the one I care about. How long can this last? He could drop you anytime. And then—”

“I’ll be a used-up tramp?” she said, turning the head of a girl leaving the locker room.

“That’s not what I . . . Don’t you see how he’s taking advantage of you?”

Angelina laughed. “What if I told you I had a swell time with him? And not just because of the fancy hotel and the restaurants. If you weren’t such a prude—”

“I’m not a prude. I’m simply—”

“Better than the rest of us?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Slamming her locker shut, she left me standing there like a fool. My temples throbbed. I considered dashing to the sick office for headache powder, but then I’d risk a fine for lateness. Hurrying out of the locker room, I nearly collided with Joe.

“Whoa, there, what’s the trouble? My sister giving you a hard time?”

“I want to make peace but keep saying the wrong thing.”

“Don’t pay no mind to her. Angie’s got a temper.”

“Really? I’ve never been on the receiving end before.”

“Flares up like fireworks and fizzles just as fast.” He opened the door leading to the stairway to the first floor. “Coming Saturday night? You can celebrate seeing the last of me.”

Our footsteps echoed in the empty staircase. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“Now you’re saying the wrong thing to
me,
” he said, producing a gravely wounded expression.

“I’m sure you’ll get over it by the end of the day,” I teased, “or even by the end of our conversation.”

“Did my sister turn you against me? Don’t listen to her—I’m not such a rake as she makes me out.”

“If you say so.” I’d reached my exit to the floor.

“Listen, Olive, I mean it. You should come on Saturday.”

“I don’t dance.” Learning to waltz and minuet at Miss Hall’s didn’t count, not in a dance hall.

“Go on, you’re joshing me, right? You need to put on some glad rags and have some fun. The Majestic on Bowery, right around the corner from my place.”

“Thanks, but honestly, I can’t. I do hope you enjoy California.”

As I reached for the door, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him. I stepped backward. He stepped forward, trapping me between his body and the wall.

“The day I first set eyes on you . . .”

He stood so close. I found it thrilling to have him tower over me, not something every man could do. My knees wobbled under my skirts.

“ ‘
Bella ragazza,
’ I said to myself. That girl is swell elegant. Worth staying around for.”

I looked into his eyes. I couldn’t make out if this was on the level.

“Won’t you come?” he asked, looking squarely back at me.