Family Secrets (9 page)

“I thought you would have a dresser,” she said.

“There’s an old lady who takes the costumes away to be pressed. Only stars have dressers.”

“That shows you how much I know,” Melissa said.

“Someday I’ll have a dresser,” he said.

“I’m sure you will.”

“You didn’t come here all alone, did you?” he said.

“No, my sister’s downstairs.”

“Well, uh … if you’re not doing anything, I always eat a sandwich after the show, at this restaurant where a lot of actors go, and it’s very nice and fun, and as long as you saw the show six times, well, I would be glad to take you and your sister out for supper if you want, if you’re not doing anything …” He shrugged like a clown and looked shy.

He was asking her out! He was an actor and a shagetz and Papa would kill her! On the other hand, Melissa thought, if she didn’t go out with him she would kill herself and save him the trouble.

“I have to take my sister home because she’s very young and I promised to bring her right back,” Melissa said. “But then I could meet you at that restaurant if you tell me where it is.”

“Oh, that would be swell,” he said, looking genuinely pleased. “It’s two doors down from the theater on the right. It’s called The Saloon. It’s not a speakeasy though, it’s just that they have it fixed up kind of Gay Nineties style. I could get my makeup off and dress and then I’d wait for you there in a booth, okay?”

“Okay,” Melissa said, jauntily. Okay. Why not? He was the first boy she had ever liked and she was going to sneak right out with him and she didn’t even feel guilty.

Hazel was in the alley, sulking. “Where’d you go?”

“I don’t know why you had to get lost,” Melissa said. “I was looking all over for you. Now you’re going to make me late for my class.”

“Class?”

“My night class. Advanced music theory is at six o’clock now. Come on, hurry up.” She practically dragged Hazel to the subway. “Now you go right home, and don’t forget to tell Mama that I’ll be late for dinner because of my class and not to wait for me. They can leave something for me in the kitchen.”

When the train bearing Hazel was rattling safely on its way toward Brooklyn, Melissa breathed a sigh of relief. She was sure Hazel would get off at the right stop; she’d been there often enough. Now there was no one to snitch on her. She was free! She skipped back toward the theater district like a little girl, all dignity forgotten. And Scott Brown was a nice boy, she could tell. He didn’t seem at all fresh. What a funny name, Scott Brown. She bet he hadn’t even made it up. He would have made up something fancier for the theater if it weren’t his real name.

He was waiting in a booth at The Saloon, just as he had promised. He was wearing a sweater instead of a jacket, and a shirt with no tie. All the other boys in the place were dressed the same way, or if they were wearing jackets they were disreputable ones. He smiled when he saw her, and when she sat down across from him he reached over for just a moment and took her hand and squeezed it, not hard, just nicely. It was fresh, but it didn’t seem fresh when he did it.

“I’m glad you came,” he said.

“I’m glad you invited me.”

“Would you like a near-beer? I’m having one.”

Beer! Oh, gosh, that was what shagetzes drank, beer! Beer was for goyim and lower classes and … actors.

“I’d love one,” she said.

The near-beer tasted terrible so she just sipped at it, and then they ordered roast beef sandwiches and talked about themselves. He was a boy like the other boys she knew, but he was as different as if he came from the moon. His parents came from England, which was why he spoke so nicely, and his father drove a milk wagon. They were poor, compared to the other people she knew, and his parents were proud that he had become an actor.

“I want to go on the stage but my father won’t let me,” Melissa said. “He’s very strict.”

“Oh …” He thought for a moment. She hoped she hadn’t embarrassed him or hurt his feelings by implying that the stage wasn’t good enough for her. “I bet he doesn’t know you’re out with me,” Scott said.

“Well, actually … he doesn’t. It’s not that I lied to him; I just haven’t seen him yet.”

“But I bet you won’t tell him.”

“No,” she said. “No, I won’t.”

“Does he let you go out with boys?”

“Yes. Boys he knows. They’re sort of like brothers. Boys I grew up with, friends of the family. It’s not very interesting.”

“How old are you?”

She thought of lying and decided honesty was the best policy, “Eighteen and a half.”

“I’m twenty-three and a half.” They both laughed because it sounded so silly.

“You’re awfully innocent for an eighteen-year-old girl,” he said. “Your father’s probably right not to let you go out with strangers. But he doesn’t have to worry about me. I promise to treat you with the utmost respect.”

“I didn’t think you wouldn’t,” Melissa said.

He looked at her to see if she meant it. “You’re so strange,” he said, rather admiringly. “I never met a girl like you before. You’re right out of another century.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Well, you are. Gee willikers, this is nineteen-twenty-two, and you’re Victorian. Not that I don’t like it. I love it. It’s just unusual, that’s all.”

“Everybody I know acts exactly like me,” Melissa said.

“Nobody I know does.”

They looked at each other for a while, and then he shrugged in that clown way she found so sweet. “I like you better for it,” he said. “Do you like me even though I’m strange to you?”

“You’re not so strange,” Melissa lied.

“I’m an actor—grr, that’s a dirty word—and a stranger, and I asked you out the minute I met you. Now that’s strange, isn’t it?”

“I went, didn’t I?”

“Yes. And you never had beer before and you hate it.”

“How could you tell?” she cried, amazed.

“I’m an actor, my business is observation. I observe all sorts of different people so I can imitate them. How do you know I’m playing me right now?” he said. “Suppose this was all a part?”

“I don’t think it is.”

“How do you know?”

“I just feel it,” Melissa said. “After all, I wanted to be an actor too, so I also observe people.”

“Touché.”

“Could I have a sarsaparilla, please?” she said.

He grinned and ordered one for her. “Now we’re always going to be honest with each other from now on, okay?” he said.

From now on? He had said “from now on.” He wanted to see her again! “Okay,” Melissa said, her voice trembling a little.

“What are you going to tell your father when you get home?”

“I’ll tell him I had a class.”

“Then you would have that class every Wednesday at this time, right?”

“I suppose so.”

“Then you could meet me between shows, just like today.”

“I guess I could.”

“Would you?”

“Would you want me to?”

“Yes,” he said. “I really would.”

“Then I’d love to,” Melissa said.

He looked at his watch. “I have half an hour till I have to get back. What would you like to do?”

“Could you take me backstage and show me how everything works?” Melissa said. “Oh, I’d really like that more than anything!”

So he did. He not only showed her backstage but he let her walk on the stage, among the furniture that was set up for the first act, and as she faced the closed curtain Melissa could imagine that empty theater filled with people, all of them looking at her. Imagine speaking lines to other actors, right here, and walking around this chair, and sitting on that one, and crossing to the mantle …

“We have to go now,” Scott said.

“Oh …”

“Careful, don’t trip on that rope.” He took her arm to help her. A man who was standing in the wings wearing overalls gave them a jaunty little wave. Scott waved back. With him holding her arm that way they looked like a young couple in love. Well, maybe they were. Why not? Stranger things had happened.

“I could just see the show all over again,” Melissa said, “Now that I know you.”

“Do you want to? I might not be able to arrange a ticket, but I could get you standing room for tonight.”

“Oh, no. I can’t stay out that late.”

“I forgot.” He grinned. “Old-fashioned.”

“I should hope you wouldn’t want your sister walking around all alone in the middle of the night,” she said indignantly.

“I would take you home.”

“Oh, no! I mean …”

“You mean he’d throw me right out of the house.”

“Well, he’s old-fashioned,” Melissa said. It was the first time she had ever uttered such a blasphemy.

“I still can’t figure out what’s so disgraceful about being an actor,” Scott said.

“It’s not just that. It’s that you’re not Jewish.”

“You’re Jewish?”

“What did you think I was?”

“I never even thought about it, to tell you the truth,” he said.

“Do you mind?” Melissa asked.

“Why in the world should I mind? I can’t figure out why he minds. It’s not as if I’m an atheist or an anarchist or a socialist. I’m a good, God-fearing Episcopalian.”

Melissa didn’t even know what that was, except that it was some sect of goyim. She thought that most of the people who came from England must be Episcopalians. She hoped it wasn’t as strict as Catholics.

“Are you religious?” She asked, fearfully.

“Do you mean do I go to church every Sunday? No, I sleep every Sunday, because I give two performances every Saturday and I’m tired. My mother goes to church and my father doesn’t, except of course for special holidays like Christmas and Easter.”

“Well, we’re the same, then,” Melissa said happily. “We all went to Sunday school when we were younger, and the boys were bar mitzvahed, and my parents go to temple on the big holidays like Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and Passover, but they don’t go every Saturday morning either.”

“So then it doesn’t matter,” he said happily.

“Not a bit.”

But it did matter. It mattered a very great deal, as Melissa knew and had been taught, but it was something she wasn’t going to think about now. After all, she had just met the boy, and he had asked her out again, but who knew if they would hit it off and if it would last? There was no point in worrying about religious differences when they had just met and neither of them had the faintest idea if anything would come of it. She was too young to get married. She couldn’t picture herself running a house and raising children. She wouldn’t dream of getting married until she was at least twenty-four. When you got married you were stuck together for ever after, and twenty-four was a much more sensible age than nearly nineteen. She wasn’t going to worry about it now.

He walked her to the subway entrance. “Thank you for a lovely time,” she said.

“Thank
you
.”

“I’ll see you at The Saloon next Wednesday at about a quarter to six.”

“Could I … no, I don’t suppose I could.”

“Could you what?”

“Telephone you sometime in between?”

“Oh, no!” she said, panicked.

“I bet your father doesn’t even have a telephone,” Scott said.

“Of course we do,” she said indignantly, and then she realized he was kidding. “Oh, you!” she said, and flounced down the subway steps. She was so happy she wanted to skip, but she wasn’t going to skip in public any more, ever. She was a grown-up young lady with her first real boyfriend, and from now on she would behave with more dignity. No more tantrums; at least she would try. She would be kinder to Hazel. She would be pleasant around the house and would try not to sulk. She might even learn to cook. Scott Brown … ooh, what a beautiful name, and what a handsome boy he was! She’d just love to take him around the neighborhood and show him off; everybody would just die. Lie down and die from shock and envy. But it had to be her secret. No one could ever know, not even Lavinia. No, especially not Lavinia. It was Melissa’s secret—Melissa’s and Scott’s. And that somehow made the whole thing even better.

ELEVEN

In a family constellation each member has his place, and Rosemary’s was The Good Soul. Nobody had designated her the good soul; she had simply chosen it as her way of gaining attention and appreciation. If you didn’t notice, she would remind you how good she was. It was she who was always first to offer to run an errand, to take care of Aunt Becky’s children, to take care of Hazel, for gosh sake, who was older and should be taking care of
her
. And then later she would remind them all. “I wiped your behind,” she would say to little Ned, who stared at her at a loss as to what he was supposed to do to repay her for this favor. “Don’t you forget it,” she would say. “Someday …”

Someday they would all pay her back. She was saving up her IOUs, doling them out to each of them from the oldest to the youngest. Went to drugstore for medicine for Mama. Lent Melissa her hair ribbon. Returned library books for Lavinia and repaid fine, two cents, out of her own money. Let Hazel come with her to Prospect Park. Lent Basil her roller skate key, which he lost. Gave Andrew her dessert when there wasn’t enough for seconds. The Good Soul. What did they ever give her?

It was no fun to be the youngest. Nobody appreciated her. She was the one stuck with all the jobs no one else wanted. Lavinia was at work every day with those foreign women, dragging them around, speaking Yiddish to them and teaching them English, so everybody thought she was noble. The boys were supposed to concentrate on their studies because they were going to grow up to help Papa in his business. Melissa was always running off to her music theory lessons, and at night she was allowed to go out on dates, so she got all the new dresses. Nobody expected anything from Hazel, who could just laze around the house and play with her doll. Oh, Rosemary knew Hazel still had a doll. She had walked in on Hazel one day when she was actually talking to it. “Baby,” Hazel called it, “my baby.” Seventeen years old and she had a baby doll. But what did she, poor Rosemary have? She wasn’t even pretty. She hated her hair—it was too curly—and she hated her freckles, and her eyes were too small, and she loathed her little tiny pointed teeth. She was too skinny, and her feet were too big. She was fourteen years old and she had pimples on her face.