Empire Girls (14 page)

There it was, my clue, and our chance to find our brother.

As I started to follow her, Sonny grabbed my arm. “Rosie, be careful, okay?”

I felt right then that he knew what we were doing. That he’d known it all along.

On impulse, I threw my arms around his neck. He returned the embrace and whispered words into my ear that made me blush. He whispered, “Just tell me you’re my girl and I’ll leave happy.”

Now, a clever, upstanding woman like Jane Eyre or Marilla Cuthbert would have been able to craft a response that implied a shared affection at the very same time as it kept the young man in his proper place. But I was realizing hour by hour that I was never going to be either of them. I was far more Anne of Green Gables, hungry for life, always ready with a mouth that had a life of its own. So instead, I said, “Of course I am.”

And chased off after my sister.

When Ivy ducked into the changing tent where we’d left our dresses, I looked back. I’d been right; they must have both known, because they’d left the line and were nowhere in sight.

“Quick, did you by any chance bring the matchbook and postcard?” she said, shimmying out of her swimsuit behind a curtain.

I smiled at her and brought them from my purse.

“Atta girl! You get a prize,” said Ivy.

“Look! I knew I recognized that address. Come on, let’s go.”

“But I thought we were looking for the card stand.”

“Yes and yes. Just get dressed and follow me.”

“Hey, Ivy?” I asked while I changed.

“What? My God, you are so slow.”

“Jimmy was in the war. Did you know that?”

“Nope. What does it matter? A lotta guys their age were over there. Asher, too. In France. Mr. Lawrence wrote me about it this week.” She paused, looking genuinely apologetic. “I thought I told you.”

“Well, now things are starting to make sense. If Sonny, Jimmy and Asher were in the war together, there’s a connection. And that’s what Jimmy was trying to hide last week when he started to say
three,
instead of
two!
”

“Rose, you’re babbling. Just get dressed.”

For the first time since we’d begun asking about Asher, I felt we were close.

* * *

Ivy was dragging me through crowds of people, dodging them and bumping into them sometimes. I felt I was saying, “I’m sorry,” and “Excuse us please,” over and over.

Then she stopped, and I bumped into her.

“Here we are,” she said.

Cards & Co. wasn’t a shop at all. It was a kiosk on the boardwalk in front of Nathan’s. I hadn’t noticed it, but she had.

“I even browsed while you were eating your hot dog and making moony eyes at Sonny. You need to watch yourself, do you hear me? Anyway, look.”

“Did you ask the clerk if they knew Asher?”

“Of course I did.”

“What did he say?”

“Jesus, Rose, LOOK.”

She walked to the stand and pulled a postcard out from a display called Streets of Coney Island, which held bird’s-eye drawings of different neighborhoods and streets around the park.

I walked to her and saw what she had seen. She held the matchbook cover up to the postcard.

Picturesque Oleander Drive.

I was so excited that I clapped.

“And the best part,” she said, “is that it works just like a map, and we are...here.”

She pointed to the boardwalk on the postcard. We were mere minutes away from the address on the matchbook.

* * *

The neighborhood past the park was quiet and lovely. I couldn’t believe it was part of New York. Tree-lined streets and people walking at a proper pace.

We walked down Oleander Drive and counted the house numbers together.

“Thirty-four, forty-two, fifty-eight...” The excitement growing in our voices as we got closer.

“Sixty-seven. This is it,” said Ivy very softly. We’d stopped in front of a two-story building with an iron gate. There was a metal sign affixed to the gate itself that quieted both of us.

It read:

SEACREST HOME.

The building was boarded up, but there was a man taking care of the front garden.

“Hiya, mister!” yelled Ivy.

He walked to the gate. “Can I help you?”

“Well, we were coming to meet our brother who lives here, but it seems we’re too late,” I said.

“Yeah, the neighborhood got bent outta shape with all those crazy people livin’ there. Got some kind of petition together to oust ’em.”

“What do you mean
crazy?
What kind of place was this?” asked Ivy, visibly upset.

“You know. Those ones that came back home after the war, only left most of themselves on the battlefield. Their minds, at least.”

My face must have betrayed my emotions because I saw the man’s eyebrows rise.

“Thought ya said your brother lived here,” he said with a wariness clouding his disposition.

“Sir,” I said, “we’ve recently found out we have an older brother. Our father has died and we need to find him. Everything we have points to this address, and any help you can give us is appreciated.”

“Well, now...I sure am sorry for your loss, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know where that doctor up and moved his patients to. Somewhere in the city, I think. Sorry I can’t say where.”

He walked away.

Ivy held fast to the bars, pressing her forehead, her eyes closed, against the metal.

“Ivy...”

“Don’t talk, Rose.”

“Ivy, that address may not mean anything. Why are you so upset? We’ll find him. We’ll shake the truth out of everyone....”

“I said don’t talk to me.”

She let go and walked by, going too fast.

“Ivy! What is the matter with you? We are chasing tiny tokens. We might’ve made the wrong assumptions anyway.”

She turned around and stood in the center of the sidewalk.

“You don’t understand anything. Besides, you don’t care about it the way I do. You want to find him so you can go home to that dollhouse life, that bubble we lived in.... You have an
agenda,
Rose. And this would suit you fine, wouldn’t it! To find out that he’s mad or slow-witted. To find out he’s ill...you’d write to Mr. Lawrence, get some kind of doctor’s note and that would be it! Ta-da! Rose saves the day! But that’s not what I want.”

Her hands were in fists at her sides.

“Then tell me what it is you want. I cannot read your mind, and you don’t often bare your soul to me, do you? So what do you want, Ivy?”

“What do I want? I want to find him, to get to know him, to have another person in our lives who may love us. I want to know if he likes theater and music. I want him to hear me sing...I want to stay in this glorious city and learn to live in it. Really live.”

Her face was red, and as the first tear fell, she turned her back on me and began walking again. Ivy doesn’t like to cry.

“Besides,” she said, “that was our only real clue, so now we might never find him.”

“We’ll find him, Ivy,” I said catching up and trying to put my arm inside of hers.

She shook me away.

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to take care of you while you throw up, or worry that you’ll embarrass me again.”

She said it because somehow she knew it was my Achilles’ heel, and even though I knew she might not even mean it, I snapped right back at her. I yanked her around by the same arm she’d used to shrug me off.

“If you could stop telling me what to do, maybe I could act the way you want me to act, or be the sister you’ve wanted me to be, but you just can’t. You can’t stand that I fit in so well to this life you expected would suit you. You’re jealous Cat asked me to work for her, and that she talks to me.”

She stared at me and then turned away.

We caught the six o’clock train and parted ways silently.

* * *

When I walked into Empire House, Santino was there with two other men. Nell was clucking around them. When she saw me in the foyer she came to me. “You must be quiet, Rose. Once a week, I let Sonny meet with his writer friends in the salon. They pay me for the space, in case you’re wondering. But don’t disturb them. He might be famous one day, that one. I do love supporting the arts.”

“You start this poem, Joseph,” said Santino.

“And if the night be long...” said Joseph, a pale man who I thought might be Asher when I first walked in because of his coloring, but he was too young.

“The twinkling fade of stars that were her own...” said Sonny.

“I have something to LOAN,” said the third man, thick, short and glistening with sweat.

To which Sonny groaned and banged his head on the table.

“No! Boris...it doesn’t have to rhyme. Dear God, man! What is the matter with you? Honestly, I think you may have to give this writing idea up. Can’t you be a mason or something? You lay one hell of a brick down with your words....”

Joseph was laughing. Boris, who I realized was drunk, tried to say something but stopped midsentence and looked at me.

That’s when it happened. Santino turned to me.

“Oh lady fair, come join me here.”

Joseph started to continue the poem, but Santino put his hand up in the air to stop him.

“I have a stone of nothing in my room for you to see,” I said. The words tumbled out so fast and seemed to make no sense but all the sense in the world. A chill of pleasure ran through me.

“Another poet,” said Nell. “Why do all the fancy literati have to work here at Empire House? Hmm? Now no work will get done. None. Write a poem about that!” said Nell and walked away.

“I have something for you,” he said to me, reaching across the table for a box wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. He got up and handed it to me.

“Let me know what you think...” He was leaning against the door frame, more to hold himself up. He tried to smooth back his thick hair to no avail.

“Is it from you?” I asked.

“No. It’s from Boris. Of course it’s from me, Rosie! You agreed to be my girl, right?”

All three started to laugh. But Sonny stopped when he saw my face. I think he understood that something had happened to me, something too enormous for laughter.

“Are you okay? Did you find things you didn’t want to find?”

I couldn’t answer him. I ran up the stairs to the penthouse, but before opening The Poet’s present, I had more words that wanted to tumble out from my fingers.

Dear Asher,

Your youngest sibling, Ivy, thinks I don’t care about finding you. Well, that’s not true. She thinks I only want to find you so that I can get back to a life we used to live. Oh, say...a little over a week ago, yet it feels a million thousand years gone.

At first, that was true. I only wanted to find you because you were the key to my past. But now I realize she’s right—you are also the key to my future.

Only when we thought we’d found you, and then had not? When we realized that if the address was really a clue to you, that you could be ill?

We had a terrible row.

Who is Daisy? Who are Nell and all those who live here at Empire House to you? Where are you, Asher?

I can’t explain it, but what happened today with Ivy made me feel closer to you. Made me want to find you for the same reasons she gave me. And Asher, you really should hear her sing...I’m so proud of her.

If we find you, will you be kind?

If we find you, will the sins of our father be visited upon us? Please, if you are angry with him, take it out on me. Please release my sister from any sort of retribution. It was never her fault.

Your Sister,

Rose

I thought I’d burn the letter I’d just written to Asher, but I didn’t. I put it in a small tin I was using to save the earnings we didn’t spend on living expenses. We had eighty dollars. A far cry from three thousand.

Then I opened Santino’s present.

It was a stationery set with roses embedded in the border. There was a new bottle of ink and a fancy pen. The best part of all was a small, leather-bound journal that was inscribed:

“To my girl, Rosie. Write down your dreams.”

I held the new stationery to my chest and pulled out my new pen again.

I wrote,

Dear Santino,

Thank you,

Rosie

And when I was sure he’d left for the night, I placed it in the kitchen by the coffeepot.

When I awoke the next morning, Ivy was still sleeping, and she looked so lovely.

I touched her soft cheek with the back of my hand, and pushed away the black hair from her sweaty brow.

She woke up and reached to touch my face.

Then she pulled her hand away.

She put a pillow over her head, and I put on my apron.

* * *

I went to breakfast without her. Maude had saved a seat for me, and there was coffee already poured. Everyone seemed to be smiling.

There was a family here. Nell shouting orders to Claudia, who was bustling around the tables. Santino tried to engage me as he put more food on the tables, but I would not comply. The politicos were sipping coffee and not arguing, for once.

Maude had taken the bread basket from Claudia, and she was chasing her for it. Playing. It was nice to see her play.

Sonny clinked a spoon against a water glass.

“Nell, I have an announcement to make. We have another poet in residence. Miss Rose Adams...”

The room applauded.

I had no idea what he was doing.

He sat down, amused with himself.

“I’d like to invite you to our weekly workshops.”

“Have you lost your mind?” I asked.

“Rosie, just say yes. If I can’t...well. We can be friends and start this over the right way. What do you say?”

“I’m no poet,” I said.

“I don’t care,” he said.

CHAPTER 14

Ivy

T
he Law Office of J. W. Lawrence

June 13, 1925

Dear Ivy,

Ah, Friar Laurence. Wasn’t he responsible for that poor girl stabbing herself?

I generally give advice on contracts and wills, documents that have everything to do with human emotions, but the distant, dry legal verbiage greatly diminishes their impact.

Even so, I’m in the business of offering guidance, and I will not hesitate to give you some. First, I don’t have any siblings but I understand the relationships formed are often fraught with conflicting feelings. Is it possible this is the norm? Or, if you determine your case is an extreme one, could you somehow find a way to modify those emotions?

You are in a large city, Ivy. New York seems a place that cultivates loneliness along with vice. Please try to work out a way to accept your sister and make her your ally. It’s the safer route, really.

Friar Lawrence has spoken.

Kind regards,

J. W. Lawrence

Empire House

It’s got to be summer in this heat, 1925

Dear Mr. J. W. Lawrence,

When you get a minute, I want you to tell me what “J” and “W” stand for. At this point in our correspondence, I think it imperative I know who I’m dealing with.

Then again, you’re not obligated, because I lied to you. Well, maybe that’s a little harsh—I bent the truth. I’m not slinging hash at some greasy spoon. I am a waitress, but I’m serving drinks to the New York hot-to-trots in an underground speak. Cat, the glamour-puss I work for hired Rose to work in the dress shop above it—her story was legit.

Had to get that off my chest. Lies make it difficult to breathe, do they not?

More soon,

Ivy

“ROSE!”

I woke suddenly, heart pounding as I desperately tried to remember the vivid dream that had so brutally pushed me into the morning. Or was it a nightmare? The specifics lay just beyond my reach, but I knew I’d been running down MacDougal Street, bare feet tearing against the pavement. I tried to scream but nothing would come, and I’d wrapped my hands around my neck and squeezed, desperate to push out a sound. My mind immediately went to Asher. Was the dream a portent of what was to come? Was he in trouble? Would I never find him?

But how many people called out the name of the person they’d least like to save them? I was glad Rose’s bed was empty and she hadn’t heard. She would have come running, her eyes full of the pity that so incensed me in front of the Seacrest Home. That’s what got my goat: if I was the object of Rose’s pity, then Asher meant considerably more to me than he did to her. She worried for the house, and I worried for our brother. Why did she have to be so damn practical? I couldn’t stand to look at her after we’d stood side by side, grasping the bars in front of the awful crazy house. I didn’t speak to her on the way home from Coney Island, preferring to watch the city roll by, my eye scanning the streets for a man I hadn’t yet met. I managed a busy night at Cat’s, and then afterwards, sneaked into the Washing Room at Empire House with a bottle of hooch from the stash Maude keeps under her bed, and penned a response to Mr. Lawrence’s latest letter. I didn’t mention Asher or Seacrest. He’d know soon enough, but I couldn’t spell it out for him. How does one write about heartbreak? I told myself that I’d spill the whole story once I found Asher and could evaluate his condition myself. I wasn’t completely in the dark—I had a doctor’s name, and I knew he’d moved his patients to Manhattan. There couldn’t be more than a handful of hospitals on an eight-mile island. There was even one right on Eleventh Street here in Greenwich Village. St. Vincent’s. I’d start there.

With renewed confidence, I pushed myself out of bed and got dressed. Empire House smelled of freshly baked bread and percolating coffee, the comforting scent of Sunday morning. I sped down the stairs, barely touching them, and nearly knocked Rose over where she stood arranging flowers in the foyer.

“Ivy, you’re like an earthquake,” she said, her hand going to her heart. “You startled me.”

Rose’s dress and hair were smooth and neat as usual, but her eyes looked wild.

“What’s with you?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Feeling skittish, I suppose.”

So she wasn’t going to tell me. Even though I’d promised myself I’d avoid her, I couldn’t help but push a little. “What happened this morning?”

“Nothing at all, except that you’re speaking to me now.” She pushed the vase to the center of the table and removed her gloves. “I’m sorry yesterday didn’t go as planned. I’ve given it a lot of thought, however, and I don’t think we should make any definitive assumptions.” Rose sat on the bottom stair, and after a moment’s hesitation, I joined her. “We should inform Mr. Lawrence,” she continued, her words twisting my nerves, “but if Asher’s condition can’t be proven, then I don’t know where that leaves us. He’s still missing, Ivy, and until we find him, everything is hearsay.”

My anger spiked again. She wanted to find him, but only to make smooth the legal process. That damned house in Forest Grove meant nothing to me—it wasn’t our father. Asher was a direct blood tie. He was family. Why couldn’t she see that one was the past and the other our future?

“I’m going to find him,” I said, standing up. “I have an idea and all day to pursue it. Cat isn’t expecting me until this evening.” I smoothed down my bob in the foyer’s mirror and straightened my stockings. They were torn, but I didn’t care. I had money for the first time in my life. Not a lot, but enough to pay for my own without having to beg Rose. Enough to hail a cab or buy a plate of chop suey. Enough to feel like the city was mine, if just for the day.

I stepped out onto the front stoop. MacDougal shimmered in the noontime sun, a gemstone in the jewelry box of Greenwich Village. This is the beauty my father saw, what he tried to capture with his brush. I took a deep breath and walked into it.

“Wait, Ivy.” I turned to see Rose calmly moving toward me, purse in hand. “I’ve told Nell I’ll be gone for a bit. I’m coming with you.”

There was no question in her voice—she wasn’t asking me. Caught off guard, I simply asked, “Why?”

“I’m worried for him, too,” she said, and all at once I believed her.

“Okay,” I warned, “but you better hope Nell’s patient, because we’re on my timetable.”

Rose fell into step with me. “Fine,” she said, laughing, “but you don’t own a watch.”

Though we’d been silent with each other since the day before, Rose became chatty as we strolled, telling the story of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s birth and how she’d been named for the hospital we were on our way to visit; the doctors there had saved Edna’s uncle’s life just before she’d burst into the world, and her grateful mother repaid the debt with a namesake. Rose’s voice was animated as she told the story, as rich and vibrant as the cafés and art galleries that lined the streets. Perhaps I was wrong, I thought as we crossed Sixth Avenue. I’d focused so much on what I could take from the city that I hadn’t focused on what the city could offer—but Rose had. This was a different Rose. This Rose walked right up to the starched, prim nuns at St. Vincent’s reception and inquired directly about Doctor Spence.

“I don’t recognize the name,” the nun said, smiling down at Rose from her raised desk, “however, we have a number of doctors from other hospitals on consult. It is possible he’s been here, but we don’t keep formal records of the doctors’ comings and goings, just the patients.”

“Have a number of new psychiatric patients come recently?” I asked before thinking about how to best phrase the question. The nun turned to me, her mouth pursing as she took in my bobbed hair and short dress.

“It wouldn’t be in my rights to say,” she answered curtly.

Rose stepped forward, her innocent face upturned toward the sister’s stern countenance. “Our brother served in the war, and we have reason to believe his mind has been compromised. May we enter the men’s ward to look for him? I promise we won’t disturb anyone.”

The nun glanced toward the heavy doors leading into the hospital. “No women are allowed in there except the nurses....”

“Please,” Rose pressed.

The nurse relented, opening the heavy door and ushering us through. “The men’s ward is on the second floor,” she explained. “You have ten minutes. Anything more than that and I call the guard.”

The men’s ward was silent, orderly and half-empty. Patients lay in an endless stretch of beds, their privacy curtains pulled back, exposing healing limbs and feverish bodies. Nurses attended some; others, propped up by pillows, picked at lunch trays or played solitaire. We merited a few raised eyebrows, but most were lost to their own boredom, and, with the number of nurses bustling about, hadn’t the energy or desire to engage two young women.

“I don’t see him,” Rose whispered.

We walked to the end of the ward and back again, just to be sure. None of those men had Rose’s moonlit eyes.

“I’d like a cup of Joe when you get a chance,” a voice called out. The ginger-haired man lying nearest to the door smiled in our direction. He was older than us, but barely so, his large feet sticking out from under the thin white blanket. He winked. “Add a dash of cream if you’ve got it.”

“We’re not nurses,” Rose said, and he didn’t bother to hide his disappointment.

“Can you grab one of them holy dames for me? I need a pick-me-up.”

“Yep,” I said, “but could you do something for us? We went through the wrong door. Where’s the nuthouse in this joint?”

He thought for a moment. “Don’t they send the crazies to Wards Island? I haven’t heard of one here, but there is a charity ward on the fourth floor. Saddest thing. Lots of veterans and motherless sons.”

Rose nudged me. “It’s been five minutes.”

I shouted the man’s coffee order to a startled nun and ran for the door, Rose right behind me.

The charity ward looked identical to the men’s ward below, except for the patients. Their gaunt faces and sallow skin told me these guys needed more than a cuppa Joe. There weren’t any nurses visible, and Rose, clutching my arm, nearly buckled under the tidal wave of male attention. Luckily, serving drinks at Cat’s speakeasy had taught me how to handle groups of men. It appeared I had learned something from the city.

I stopped in the middle of the aisle and put my hand on my jutting hip. “Hey, fellas!”

The ones that could hooted and whistled.

“Anyone know a sap named Asher Adams?”

“Who’s he to ya?” one man bellowed.

“He’s my brother, and I’m looking for him.”

“Why should we care?”

Why should they? I racked my brain. “Don’t you care about your heroes? He fought in the war. In the Argonne. The Lost Battalion.”

Silence fell like a brick. Finally, one man sneezed, and the rest, grateful for the distraction, showered him with blessings.

“No need to be so glum,” I said when they’d quieted. “He
lived.
”

“Of course he did,” the loudmouth said. “He’s a New Yorker! All those guys were. It’s why they lived. A buncha survivors.”

“But you never heard of Asher?” I asked, hope fading.

They all looked sincerely sorry they didn’t. Rose tugged on the back of my dress, and I reluctantly followed her toward the door.

“Is it true?” The man who spoke sat propped in his bed. He cradled his arm, which was a patchwork quilt of scar tissue. I walked toward him and tried not to stare.

“Is what true?” Rose asked gently.

“Was your brother in the Argonne?”

“Yes,” I said. He looked stricken, but I had to ask. “Were you?”

“Not quite,” he said softly. “But I served in France.”

I sat at the edge of his bed. “Our brother is lost again. We don’t know much about what he experienced overseas. Could you tell us about what happened there?”

“Those boys were surrounded by the Germans for almost a week. No food, very little water. Every day they must have wondered if they’d be saved, or if it’d be their last. So many didn’t make it.”

“Our brother did,” I said, my pride surging.

The man lifted his good arm and grasped my hand. “Will you tell him I’m sorry?”

“Whatever for?” Rose asked.

“We didn’t know they were there. We thought we were pummeling the Germans, not our own men! By the time we found out, we must have made their lives pure misery in that forest.” The man’s voice turned raspy, his throat full of tears. “We didn’t mean it,” he said as a sob escaped. “You’ll tell him when you see him, right?”

I squeezed the pale hand holding mine. “Yes,” I promised, “but I know what he’d say back to you—you’re forgiven, though there’s nothing to forgive.”

We each took a turn kissing his cheek and left him in that sad ward, crying for the sin he believed he committed.

* * *

Both Rose and I sorted through our thoughts on the way home. Our silence wasn’t bred of anger, but of contemplation.

How lonely those men must have been in that French forest! I tried to imagine their horror of discovering the direness of the situation—and the desperate need to keep the flame of hope flickering in their hearts. Did these hopeful ones survive, or was it the men who had none, and therefore acted with reckless bravery? If they were New Yorkers, it was more likely the latter. This city was full of cynics who paradoxically acted as though life was a party to be celebrated by walking a tightrope stretched across two willing skyscrapers. Was that who Asher was?

“Did you see that sign, Ivy?” With a start I realized we were already back on MacDougal. Rose had stopped, drawn to the Actors/Actresses Needed board nailed to the front door of the Republic Theater. Early in the week it had only been placed in the window. They must be getting desperate.

“I saw it.”

“Why not go in?” she said. “I’ll go with you. It’s just what we need right now. A little diversion for me, and a little bit of stardust for you. What do you say?”

No,
was my first thought.
I’m not ready.
Rose’s face showed a confidence I couldn’t find in myself. Could I find some kind of courage in that? “All right,” I said, taking a deep breath as we stepped into the land of the Anarchists.