Secrets on 26th Street (5 page)

“I'm afraid we'll be moving to Five Points, little one. There's nothing more I can do.”

Bea set down the knife she'd been using to butter bread for Lucy. “Let's think about this a minute. What Lester Barrow really wants is his money. If you move, he loses all the rent you owe him, as well as a tenant. If he believes there's the smallest chance of getting paid, he's not likely to throw you out. Am I right?”

“You're making sense. But he knows I can't pay, or I'd have done so already.”

“Ah, there's a secret to dealing with men like him.”

Mum looked up from the table.

Bea spoke slowly. “You must appear calm and confident when you talk to him, like this.” She paused, Susan guessed, to let the effect of her voice sink in. “Never show despair. Even if you're frightened to death of him, don't let him know it.” Then her tone became urgent. “I tell you, Rose, despair is our worst enemy. Men like Lester will use it against us time and again. They've always used it against us. They know it makes us roll over and give up, rather than fight.”

Susan was confused. Who was Bea talking about? What did she mean by
us
?

Mum's brow furrowed. “I don't know, Bea. I can't see Lester being fooled by a change in my attitude.”

“I'm not thinking he'll be fooled, simply unsettled. He'll see you can't be frightened by his bullying, and—” Bea's eyes darted to Helen and Susan, both listening intently, then back to Mum. “We'll talk about it later, Rose, all right?”

Mum nodded, but Susan thought she still looked doubtful.

Anxiety lay heavy in Susan's belly. She wanted to believe Bea was right, but she was almost afraid for Mum to try what Bea suggested. It seemed like playing with fire to try to trick Lester, even if Bea said it wasn't really a trick. What would happen to Mum when Lester realized she had been stringing him along? Susan didn't want to think about it.

She asked to be excused and headed to the fire escape outside her window. The fire escape was Susan's retreat, a place she could be alone to think or to watch what was going on in the street below. Russell's fire escape was two windows over from Susan's, and sometimes they met out there to talk, away from the listening ears of parents and brothers and sisters.

As soon as Susan stuck her head out her window, she saw Russell on his fire escape, reading. Her first reaction was disappointment; she'd wanted to be alone. Then she decided it might be a relief to talk to him.

“Hi, Sue,” he said as she climbed out. “I'm just now getting started on my book for the essay assignment.
Great Expectations
. I can't seem to get interested in it.”

Susan smiled. Russell said that about every book he had to read for school. “Russell, the essay's due in three weeks.”

“I know, but I haven't had time to read, what with working two jobs. Did I tell you about my new job at the barbershop over by Penn Central Station?”

Susan rolled her eyes. “Only two or three times.” In fact, Russell had been bragging ever since he got the job about all the money he was making selling morning newspapers
and
shining shoes at the barbershop after school and on Saturdays.

Russell went on about his job as if he hadn't heard Susan. “My boss, Mr. Delaney, takes a cut of all our tips—he says it's his right since it's him who hires us out to the barbers—but I still average around two bits a day. I give half of that to Ma, but the rest I add to my newspaper money and save. You'll see, it won't be long now before I can buy a bicycle for my delivery service.” Russell had been saving for over a year to start his own delivery service when he finished grammar school.

“That's grand, Russell, grand,” said Susan. “I would think you'd be a favorite with your boss, making him that much money every day.”

“Oh, yeah.”

An idea was taking shape in Susan's head, a tiny grain of an idea that grew with every word Russell said about his job. It was a way she could help Mum get caught up on the rent. She believed it would work, if only Russell would help her. “I'm glad your boss likes you, Russell. That means you can put in a word for me, so I can get a job with him, too. Mum's behind on the rent, and I'd really like to help her out.”

Russell looked at her as if she were a thick-skulled dunce. “There's no way Delaney's going to give a girl that job, and you know it.”

“But he may give it to me,” Susan said, “if I pretend to be a boy.”

Russell stared hard at her, but now there was a light in his eyes. “This I've got to hear.” He closed his book with a bang. “You're telling me that you want to go to Delaney disguised as a boy?”

“Sure. I'll wear one of your caps and an old pair of knickers. He'll never know the difference.”

Russell screwed his mouth to one side and studied Susan. “You've got the hair already.” A few months ago, Susan had talked Mum into giving her one of the new bobs all the girls were getting. “It just might work.” A smile spread across his face. “I like it. Old Delaney's always working us to death, taking tips that should be ours. What a lark to see someone get the best of him. And a girl at that.” He chuckled. “When do you want to go?”

“Better sooner than later,” said Susan. “You talk to him tomorrow, then I'll go down the day after.”

“Sammy MacGowan, huh?” Mr. Delaney peered over his spectacles at Susan.

Susan's heart thumped against her ribs so hard she was sure Delaney could hear it. Russell's clothes itched, and his cap on her head was too big. It kept falling over one eye. Susan concentrated as hard as she could on Bea's words to Mum about showing confidence even when you didn't feel it. Then she answered boldly, “Yes, sir.”

Delaney's curly eyebrows knit together. He scrutinized her as if she were a plump turkey hanging in Paddy's Market.

Did he suspect something? Could he tell she was a girl? Susan's palms sweated.

He scowled.

Susan was sure he saw through her disguise. Maybe he would throw her out into the alley. Maybe he was on the verge of calling a policeman. She had the urge to run, but she held it at bay.

“You're Irish, aren't you?”

Relief washed over her. Is that all he was worried about? Susan was used to dealing with people's prejudices about the Irish. “Yes, sir, I'm Irish, but I work hard.”

“You're small.”

“I'm quick, sir.”

“You think so? We'll see about that. You've got one day to prove yourself, boy. Any tips you make today I keep.” He was scribbling on a scrap of paper. “Here's the barber you'll be working for. Do you know the address?”

Susan nodded, but she swallowed hard. The address was on 36th Street, on the northern border of Chelsea. It was one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city. It was called Hell's Kitchen.

C
HAPTER
5

I
NSIDE
H
ELL'S
K
ITCHEN

After the first few days of work at the barbershop, Susan's apprehension left her. Hell's Kitchen was not that much different from Chelsea—dirtier, perhaps, and the residents poorer and more desperate. Yet her customers were generally decent, honest people.

Although shining shoes was hard work, Susan enjoyed proving that she could do it, and do it as well as the boys—even better. She made it a point to arrive at the barbershop early enough every day to get organized before the shop got busy. She would set up her stand with shine rags and brushes on one side and her polish bottle, paste wax, and suede brushes on the other—everything always organized perfectly so that her hands could fly from brush to polish to rags without her ever having to take her eyes from her work. She also learned that if she popped the shine rag across the shoe, making a sound like a firecracker, the customer thought she was really hustling and would give a bigger tip.

After a couple of weeks, Mr. Delaney was actually praising the job she was doing. Susan figured that those large tips had a lot to do with his attitude. Some Saturdays she made as much as fifty cents.

Susan saved her money and kept it hidden in the bottom drawer of her bureau. She was proud of how much she was saving, and she wished she could tell Mum and Bea what she was doing. She had decided from the start, though, to keep her work at the barbershop a secret. She knew Mum wouldn't approve of her using deception to get the job, so she led Mum and Bea to believe she was working on her essay every afternoon at the library. She hadn't really lied to them, but she hadn't been totally honest either, and she felt guilty about it. She told herself, though, that she was doing it for the good of the family. When Lester Barrow threatened Mum again, Susan would be ready with money to help her. Then she would tell Mum the whole story, and if Mum wanted her to quit the job after that, she would.

Though it was ten blocks to the barbershop, Susan refused to spend her money on carfare. She made a game of seeing how many different routes she could take to work. Sometimes she crossed to Eleventh Avenue and walked by the Borden train terminal to watch the refrigerator cars full of milk and ice cream being unloaded. Sometimes she would go one block farther to 12th so she could walk past the Chelsea Piers where Dad used to work. The piers were connected along the street front by a continuous bulkhead that had huge arched windows and a gabled roof at the entrance to every pier. Susan thought the piers were the fanciest buildings in Chelsea. If she went by way of 12th past the piers, she was careful to avoid Pier 67 between 28th and 29th. On that block was the office of Hudson River Shipping, where Mum worked.

During her third week at the barbershop, Susan was walking up Ninth Avenue past the post office when she thought she saw Bea on the crowded post office steps talking to a fashionably dressed older woman. Susan ducked behind a pillar of the elevated train overpass and looked again. It
was
Bea. Susan had walked right past her, and Bea hadn't recognized her in Russell's clothes.

What was Bea doing up here when she was supposed to be at work? The Nabisco factory was way down on 14th Street. And who was that society lady she was talking to? The woman looked like she belonged in Gramercy Park instead of on Chelsea's crowded streets—she even had a little pug dog dressed in a sweater at her heels. What possible business could Bea have with such a wealthy-looking woman?

While Susan was puzzling on this, another strange thing happened. Lester Barrow came out of the post office and greeted Bea as if he knew her. Susan couldn't hear what they said, but Lester and Bea were both nodding and laughing, and Lester shook hands with the society lady. He even reached down and petted the little dog. They talked for a few minutes, then walked down the steps to the street together. Finally, Lester tipped his hat to the ladies, walked up the avenue, and disappeared into the crowd of pedestrians.

Susan stood in the gloom of the underpass, scarcely able to believe what she had just seen. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought Lester and Bea were old friends. Susan had never seen Lester act so gracious to anyone. She could see why he would be courteous to the rich lady—but to Bea? Bea was a nobody, a woman who boarded with tenants in his own building. Why would Lester be so gracious to
her
? And, Susan wondered, why would Bea act so friendly to
him
, knowing the way he had threatened Mum?

Susan puzzled on it the rest of the way to the barbershop, but she couldn't figure it out. And she certainly couldn't ask Bea about it, not without risking giving away her own secret. The incident nagged at Susan all afternoon. A voice in her head kept whispering that perhaps she didn't really know Bea as well as she thought she did.
After all
, said the voice,
Bea's been with you scarcely more than a month. How can you know a person in such a short time?
Susan closed her ears to the voice's murmuring. She
did
know Bea. Bea was practically part of the family, the big sister Susan had never had, and Susan was sure there was a reasonable explanation for Bea's behavior.

Yet Susan was even more perplexed by Bea the following evening. Mum came home upset because her friend at work, Kathleen, had been fired. Mum said that Mr. Riley had accused Kathleen of not working hard enough, but Kathleen claimed Mr. Riley had found out she'd marched in a suffrage parade and had ordered her to condemn the suffrage movement. When she refused, he fired her.

By the time Mum finished her story, Bea was red in the face, and her eyes had a fire in them that Susan had never seen. “What did you do about it?” Bea demanded of Mum.

“What did I do?” Mum looked confounded. “There was nothing I
could
do. Riley never listens to any of the women around the office.”

“Why didn't you stick up for Kathleen? If every woman in the office had threatened to quit, your boss wouldn't have dared sack her. His business would have come to a standstill.”