Empire Girls (13 page)

CHAPTER 12

Ivy

ON FRIDAY NIGHT
the old thermometer wouldn’t take a dip below steaming, and all but the whirring fans came to a standstill in Manhattan as folks tried to stay cool. For once, Cat’s place was nearly cleared out as the clock hit ten. The hard-core drinkers of Greenwich Village, rendered listless by the heat, slowly floated up the stairs in search of relief. The basement speakeasy had somehow sucked up the night’s feverish air, the tapestries turning the room into a kiln that glazed every one of us in sweat.

“They all wanted water,” Maude complained. “I told them we ain’t a fountain. No reason why they can’t head over to the park and take a dunk.”

“Maybe we should have made gin ice-cream floats,” I said, sighing as I emptied the tip jar. Our take wouldn’t buy a block of ice.

Cat appeared from one of the tiny rooms behind the bar, looking remarkably fresh in a bright chartreuse-and-aqua-striped slip dress. She crossed the empty dance floor, scowling at the band as if its desolation was their fault. “Go home,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ll get more fans in here tomorrow night. This heat is unbearable.”

Sweat had completely wilted Stan’s suit, and he sighed in relief. He nodded to the guys and they disassembled their instruments quickly, most likely grateful they were heading home to cold-water flats. Maude and I placed cool cloths on the necks of the few remaining rummies slumped over the bar. “They’ll sleep here,” Maude assured me. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Cat collected the cashbox and dismissed us, too. “Leave before you melt all over my floors,” she said, and Maude and I scrambled for our things, bolting up the stairs before Cat could change her mind.

Being outdoors only improved our situation slightly—the night couldn’t shake the day’s heat no matter how hard it tried—but our spirits lifted on the walk home. Some kids had pried open a fire hydrant, and the water ran slowly down the gutters like a lazy river. I was tempted to kick off my shoes and dunk my feet. Heck, I was so desperate I thought I might toss off my dress and swim home.

Maude fanned herself irritably. “I don’t know how we’re going to get any shut-eye.”

“Is the Rivoli open all night? We could take turns sleeping,” I suggested. I had read in the paper that the Rivoli Theater had installed an air-conditioning machine—buy a ticket and get a free trip to the North Pole.

Maude shook her head, the damp ends of her bob sticking to her cheeks. “Forget it. The line goes around the block and then some. Got any other ideas?”

I didn’t. Sighing, we turned onto a more residential street. Maude whistled. “Now, they’ve got the right idea.”

Whole families slept on fire escapes, bare limbs dangling at odd angles. The metal structures snaked up the walls like extended bunk beds, each one occupied. Some threw their mattress down first, but others stretched out over a pile of blankets, which I imagined felt like sleeping on a waffle iron. I’d never seen anything like it. “Aren’t they worried about the little ones?”

“Naw,” Maude said. “Look at that doll up there.”

A small girl lay nestled against another child on an iron platform two stories up. Her pale face and blond hair glowed angelic in the streetlamp. She spotted me staring and wove her fingers through the bars to wave hello.

My mind immediately went to Rose. I wasn’t struck by a memory or led by guilty feelings; I simply felt something I’d never felt before—the overwhelming desire to know what my sister was doing right at that very moment. Was she broiling up in the penthouse, tossing and turning under the dirty skylight? Was she sitting in Sonny’s kitchen with a lemon ice?

Was she wondering about me?

I took Maude’s arm. “Let’s go back to Empire House. Nell doesn’t charge for cold showers, right?”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Maude said, but she quickened her step to match mine.

* * *

We heard the party from the street, the sound of female laughter, light and airy and somehow cool, drawing us toward the chaos that surely awaited in the garden. Maude and I had torn through the kitchen and out the back door, nearly stumbling over the Victrola someone had dragged out of the living room and set just outside the back door, and we stood openmouthed at the scene before us. Girls danced the Charleston in bare feet, hands clutching sweating glasses of gin, while others draped themselves over benches, and in some cases, the low hedge lining the wooden fence. It was as if the crescent moon had hooked Empire House by its chimney and pulled, dumping its inhabitants, half-dressed and dazed, into a private New York jungle.

“Wowza” was the only thing I managed to say.

Maude kicked off her shoes. “You know what they say about the heat? If you can’t beat it, revel in it!” She joined the other girls, throwing her long limbs in the air, her awkwardness made fluid by pure joy.

I wanted to join her, but first, where was Rose? Instinctively, I looked up to our window, but the penthouse was dark, no sister pounding at the window. Still, the sharp nudge of a warning elbowed my consciousness, the feeling that something was going on and I was about to step right into it. I studied the dance floor again and noticed a couple tripping through the fox-trot, half leaning into each other to stay upright. It wasn’t Rose and Sonny, but Jimmy and Viv. He’d peeled down to his undershirt, and his trousers were rolled to the knees. His broad hand spanned the small of Viv’s back. After a moment he noticed me staring and winked. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
You’re next?
Or...
Mind your own beeswax?

Maude motioned for me to join her, but my feet wouldn’t move. The party seemed untouchable, an abstract painting I admired but could not understand. I sat on the stairs and leaned my cheek against the Victrola, letting the music zip through me, vibrating against my ear. It should have razzed me up, but still I didn’t budge. Why was I such a lump? I thought of my brother, living on the outskirts of life.
Where are you, Asher?
I thought. We could sit on these stairs and share a cig, and none of this would matter. Together we could shine.

Viv spun away from Jimmy, and he crooked a finger toward me. Part of me wanted to go to him, to run my fingers through his damp hair, to feel his hand lifting me slightly toward his expansive chest. The other part of me wanted the party to break off and spin away into the night like a wayward star. I closed my eyes, searching for an answer in the music.

“You’re gonna give yourself a headache,” Viv said. She stood in front of me, blocking my view of Jimmy. She plucked at her dress and hair, both limp against her body. “Your sis was in a state,” she continued. “She was climbing up Sonny like a beanpole. I’d go check on her if I were you.”

Escape. “Will do,” I said, pushing myself to standing. I wavered, unsteady without the music to ground me. Jimmy grabbed another girl from the crowd and spun her in circles.

“I’d bring a bucket,” Viv advised, smirking. “And some aspirin powder.”

Again? I snagged some supplies from Sonny’s kitchen and climbed to the penthouse. On the way up, I pictured Rose dancing with the other girls, arms reaching high, carefree and careless, their faces aglow with the joy of living. I saw her in Sonny’s embrace, laughing and gay. It was startling how easy it was to place her in the thick of things. Had this city changed her as much as—loath as I was to think it—it was changing me?

I could hear her voice as I poked my head into our attic bedroom. A single lit lamp brought a blush to the room’s bare walls. The air was heavy and damp. Rose lay on her bed, restlessly crumpling the sheets with her hands. She mumbled Sonny’s name over and over.

He was crouched next to her.

The way he was looking at my sister—a potent mixture of reverence and desire—was the way every woman wants to be seen in a man’s eyes. A good sister would think,
Bully for you, Rose,
but...I was not a good sister.

“I should have kept a better eye on her,” Sonny whispered. “But you know what? She was having fun. She’s a beautiful girl, but she’s a stunner when she’s smiling. It wasn’t just the booze, Ivy. She was happy.”

I dropped the bucket. “You should leave. I can take care of this.”

He turned, and his eyes adjusted to me, switching from reverence to pity, from desire to mild curiosity. “I don’t mind staying.”

“I’d mind if you did,” I retorted. “And so will Rose if she gets up heaving.”

Sonny stood and patted Rose’s hand. She murmured something incomprehensible and he touched her cheek in an effort to soothe her. “You haven’t found him yet, have you?” he asked softly.

“No,” I said. “And I don’t know if we ever will.”

Sonny hesitated for a moment, and then patted my shoulder in a brotherly manner. “You will because you have to,” he said before leaving. “That’s as good a reason as any.”

Was it? I wondered, but there was no one to ask.

CHAPTER 13

Rose

THE SUN WAS RELENTLESS,
and Maude’s music was too loud. I looked down at my bare arms and felt my hair loosed down my back.

“How did I even get to bed?” I asked, pulling a pillow over my face to drown out the day and stretching my legs out so they dangled over the side of the bed. The morning was hotter than Hades.

“Oh, forget about it,” said Ivy. “You don’t want to know.”

“You don’t remember hanging all over Sonny in the garden?” asked Viv.

“Stop teasing me, Viv. I’m too tired for that,” I said.

“Too bad she’s not teasing,” said Maude.

I sat straight up and surveyed the room. My vision was blurry, and my head seemed to echo my heartbeat, but the penthouse, bathed in morning sunshine, depicted my sister and our roommates—who were in various stages of dress—in the warmest of possible lights. Vignettes of Greenwich Village Girls: Viv tying Claudia’s apron with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth and one eye squinted against the smoke. Maude, who patted Claudia’s hair reflexively as my little friend sent me a smile and scooted downstairs. Ivy, who was placing bangles on her arms, inspecting each one carefully.

“Careful,” teased Maude. “Those might burn you if you aren’t careful, especially if you wear them to the shore.” She grabbed some of the bracelets off Ivy’s wrist and ran to my bed, bouncing me so that I thought I was seasick, and holding up one of my arms to accept the stolen bracelets. “You two need to share. That’s what sisters do. Viv and I were just sayin’ the other day how you don’t even seem like sisters at all!”

Ivy glared at us and tied a bow on a pretty pair of black heels.

“Ivy, speak true. What happened? Should I be ashamed? Did I throw myself on him?”

“Listen, I said it before...I’ll say it again. You don’t want to know.”

The look in her eyes spoke volumes...and too soon one memory surfaced. Kissing Santino...for a very long time.

“Get up, Rose. We have things to do today.”

Then I thought of something, and popped my head out from under the pillow I’d pulled back over my eyes. Ivy was getting my dress ready.

“Who did you say was taking us to Coney Island, Ivy?”

“Who do you think? Jimmy, of course.”

“Is Santino...”

She sat next to me again and pushed my dress at me. I could tell she was calming herself down so she could get me out of bed and downstairs. She spoke slow, like I was hard of hearing.

“They both have the day off today, though me and Jimmy have to go to Cat’s later, but don’t worry. What happened with him already happened. We can talk about it later.”

“Okay,” I said. My head was pounding, and even though her patronizing was making me a little angry, she was right.

When we were ready to go, she looped her arm in mine, and we went downstairs to breakfast.

We walked into the bright, sun-filled dining room together, and I flinched. It smelled strongly of fresh fruit, toast and fine coffee, all of it making my stomach heave. I walked over to the table where Santino laid out the morning meal. It wasn’t the usual fare. “You aren’t the only one who got the day off, Rosie,” he said from behind me. “But Nell and Claudia put together a fine feast, as well.”

Ivy and I sat down together, but Santino sat across from us just looking at me. Then he got back up, stumbling toward the front door, opening it for Jimmy.

“Crap, he’s drunk,” said Ivy, whose body stiffened. She was nervous, I just didn’t know why. I turned around to face the two men who were going to take us to Coney Island. They looked like little boys who’d been up to no good, and they were giggling.

“You’re
both
drunk,” she said. “Boys, really?”

“Perhaps we should take the train,” I offered.

“It’ll take an age,” Ivy said, “and I told you I have to work later. If we don’t go with them, we’ll have to wait another week to figure this thing out.”

Jimmy walked over to the table, poured a cup of coffee and took a bite of a roll before proceeding to speak to my sister with his mouth full. He winked at her first and I felt her relax.
What is going on?
I wondered.

“Beauty, I’ll admit, we were drunk a little while ago...had things to work out. But now? We’re fine. You gals ready?” He rubbed his cheek, which I realized had a bruise on it.

“What happened to you, Jimmy?” I asked.

“He did,” said Jimmy, nodding his head toward Santino. They both started to laugh.

“What was it about?” I asked.

“Santino was defending a certain lady’s honor...” said Jimmy.

“Whose?” I asked.

The entire room broke into laughter. I understood, but didn’t want to understand.

“So, ya ready or what?” asked Jimmy.

Ivy shot me a look that was excited, wary and afraid all at the same time. We got up, and she skipped ahead of me with Jimmy down the front stoop steps. Santino held out his arm, but I wouldn’t take it.

He didn’t take offence, but he matched me, step by step, each of his growing more exaggerated. When we got to the bottom step, we both laughed. Only I had to hold my head. Even my jaw was pounding. Ivy shot me another warning glance from the backseat of Jimmy’s sedan.

“You have a handsome laugh,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. “I was flattered when you told me the same thing last night.”

“Is anyone going to tell me what actually happened? Seeing as you all seem to be in a fine mood, I’m put off guard.”

“Well, you complimented my laugh, told me I could call you Rosie, and you let me kiss you. Nothing more, nothing less.”

A wave of nausea rose unbidden and I tried to keep smiling, but sat on the bottom stair. He sat next to me.

“And by the way,” he said, “last night I told you that your laugh sounds like the way water sounds as it travels over stones. Powerful and quiet at the same time.”

“Rose, get in the car. God, do you think you could not sit in protest over everything?” said Ivy. Then she pointed at Santino, “And you, Poet? I warned you.” There was steel under the laughter in her voice, and her eyes were clear. Jimmy didn’t notice, but Sonny did.

* * *

The car was hot. I was so afraid I’d retch that I stared at the city going by and stayed still and quiet. Saturday in New York was a lovely thing. The city was always bustling with the prospect of adventure and life-altering opportunities.

Santino and Jimmy were singing in the front seat of the car, and Ivy was leaning forward and talking to them, an effervescence streaming off her that I wanted to bottle and drink. Looking at them was a mistake, because I couldn’t take my eyes off Sonny.

He looked even more handsome in the front seat of Jimmy’s car. He was a man who liked to laugh, and Jimmy seemed to know all the jokes. They were both so sturdy, yet complicated. Each of them seemed to be hiding something deep inside.

Santino was, to me, the more interesting of the two. I watched him talk, sing and laugh with Jimmy, but sitting in the back, I could only see his profile. He didn’t turn around to talk to me; I supposed Ivy had scared him. But he looked up at me and caught my eye in the rearview mirror. His fine nose and strong chin...his eyes that always carried a searching kind of look. And again, my heart seemed to skip a beat every time he glanced my way.

I wanted to remember more about last night because the fleeting images were making my mouth hurt. The ache inside me, one I did not understand, was quietly eating away at me.

“Hey, sourpuss. We are on a grand adventure. Look! The Brooklyn Bridge... Come on, Rose, don’t ruin this. We’re so close...” I could see she enjoyed that little inside joke about finding Asher. I smiled at her, but I could tell by her posture, and by the way she kept trying to tangle me up in their conversation, that she was worried I’d ruin everything, and that thought reminded me of a day, years ago:

“You always ruin everything,” Ivy said when she was thirteen and I was fourteen. She was having so much fun as she began turning from girl to woman. I, on the other hand, thought it was messy and strange. She’d wanted to accept an invitation to a party being thrown by the parents of a handsome young man in town.

Father had been away, and Mother said Ivy could go, but only if I went along, as well. I refused, and that’s when she told me I “ruined” everything. She didn’t speak to me for a month.

“Sing with us. Come on, Rose...” said Ivy, bringing me back to the present.

“Meet me down at Luna, Lena, meet me at the gate.... Do not disappoint me Lena...”
Then she hummed a bit, forgetting the words, as Jimmy and Santino forgot and remembered other words. It was quite funny and I began to feel more alive.

“We’ll take a trip up to the moon

For that is the place for a lark

So meet me down at Luna, Lena

Down at Luna Park...”

The end was sung off-key on purpose with the clashing notes hanging in the air amidst their laughter.

Before I knew it, the four of us were leaning against Jimmy’s car and staring out at the beautiful ocean. “I’d love to go swimming,” said Ivy.

“There’s a shop, the Seaside Dream, right next to Nathan’s. They have some nice suits you can get. Only make sure you get a real skimpy one, Beauty,” said Jimmy.

“We don’t have money to waste on that kind of frivolity, Ivy,” I said.

“You don’t. But I do. I’m flush. I’ll buy them. We deserve a treat, don’t you think? Boys, give us a sec alone, would ya?” said Ivy.

“The way I figure it, you’re both leanin’ on my car...” began Jimmy.

Santino punched him playfully, and ran down the beach, and Jimmy ran after him.

“Absolute children,” said Ivy.

“Why do you want to go swimming?” I asked. “We’re here to find the card shop, right?”

“Right, but Rose...we have to lose them. They’ve all been lying to us, I think. So let’s just take in the sights, and then, in a few hours we’ll shake them. There’s a train that goes back to the city at six. So, put on your best face and let’s have some fun. When I ask you if you want to freshen up with me, that’s our cue, okay?”

“You planned all of this already?”

“You slept in, remember?”

* * *

There’s nothing quite like the seaside, all open and airy. I felt better almost immediately and watched Ivy relax as I smiled and laughed more. I almost forgot about finding Asher because of the way Santino kept looking at me.

The four of us walked along the boardwalk and made it to the enormous and beautiful gates of Luna Park. I’d never seen anything like it. A spectacle. With structures higher than the imagination and all sorts of things to catch one’s eye. Everything covered in gold paint and sparkly glass.

“I could use a drink,” said Jimmy. “What do ya think, Sonny?”

“I’m game. Rose?”

“She’s fine,” said Ivy. “But I could use one.”

A man stood at the side of the entrance. He didn’t look like he worked there.

“Rose, you’re the one who looks the least likely to do anything bad. Do me a favor, would ya? Go give that guy this money,” Jimmy took a few dollars out of his back pocket.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Come on, Rose,” said Ivy.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” said Santino.

“Can everyone stop talking at me? You’re like seagulls after a crumb, squawking. My head might explode.”

I took the money from Jimmy, and walked up to the shadowy man.

He held out his hand. I didn’t want to shake it. He was dirty, as if he’d taken a bath in coal. And he was short, shorter than me. Shifty.

“Shake my hand like you know me,” he said through clenched, smiling teeth.

I shook it then tried to give him the money.

“Are you crazy? Women. Can’t trust ’em...” he said, grabbing me. He pulled me behind a large wall painted with animals and futuristic machines. From the front it looked like magic. Behind, it was just a bit of wood. And I was hidden with Mr. Shifty.

“Now,” he said.

I handed him the money again, and he gave me a bottle from inside his jacket.

“Tuck that away safe, dearie,” he said.

I walked back to Ivy, Sonny and Jimmy and said, “I’ve bought gin. Does that make me a criminal?”

They all looked at me, and then laughed so hard they started to cry and people began staring at us. We’d become a sideshow all our own.

That started another wave of laughter that I had to join. “Sometimes you have to laugh at yourself, Rose,” said Ivy.

It felt good to laugh.

* * *

As Ivy and I were there for another purpose altogether, and our “fun day at the beach” was to be a ruse of sorts, the fun we had at Coney Island that day was unexpected and blissful. The boys put gin in lemonade they bought from a stand. I wouldn’t drink any because of the debacle the previous night, but they did and it relaxed all of us. It’s funny how you can be drunk on sun, sand and good company alone.

We ate hot dogs at Nathan’s, which were delicious. We hadn’t had them before. And we did, in fact, buy bathing dresses. I couldn’t talk Ivy out of the one that was too short. She simply glared at me. And the way Jimmy was looking at her made me a little angry.

She’d been lecturing me about Santino with her eyes and her gestures all day long, but she and Jimmy were worse! I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized their attraction sooner.

We swam in the ocean. Running back and forth like children.

We even rode the Roller Coaster, which was brand-new and terrifying.

Then we went back to the boardwalk.

Ivy, sun kissed and glorious-looking, was admiring a booth where a paper moon was hanging. It was enormous and there was a line of people waiting to sit on the crescent and have their picture taken. A man working at the booth came up to us and asked, “And how are you young ladies doing today?”

“Oh, we’re doing fine...enjoying the park!” said Ivy.

“Would you like to have your picture taken on the Paper Moon?”

“We sure do!” she said. “Boys, will you hold our place in line?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at Jimmy.

“Sure thing, Beauty.”

“Let’s freshen up, Rose. For the picture!”