CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
In February, 1949, Gimbels was the largest chain of department stores in the country, one that had grown from a carefully cultivated rivalry with Macy’s, and its popularity rose the previous winter with all the publicity that came with the release of the movie “Miracle on 34th Street.” It was the biggest and best department store in Milwaukee. It’s where Connie worked on the second floor in sales in the women’s clothing section. It was the first week in February and the first week of her first job since the accident.
Gimbels was on Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee’s main downtown street, in an eight-story building that loomed over the Milwaukee River, its front door within a few feet of a drawbridge that went up and down all day long in the summer, but rarely in the winter. The Milwaukee River was covered by an ice floe, as it usually was every February. River traffic this time of year was nearly non-existent, so the drawbridge didn’t get much of a workout. This was a good thing, as its closure meant that the steady streams of shoppers and business people could move up and down the avenue without having to stand still in freezing weather waiting for the bridge to go down. And this flow of people meant a steady flow of people going in and out of the store.
On her fourth day of work, it was snowing hard—big Nutcracker Ballet snowflakes, which collected on hats and shoulders, snowflakes that had crystalline patterns that were so big that it was easy to see that no two were alike. People brought them into the store with them, alight on their winter hats and coats, if they didn’t get brushed off first. The biggest snowflakes made it up the single file escalator to the second floor before succumbing to a meltdown.
Lots of snowflakes made it up there on the shoulders of one woman’s gorgeous floor-length mink coat. She was a rather plain woman, almost diminutive, in her late thirties. She moved slowly in her dark fur coat with matching hat, looking like what an iceberg might look like in the night: massive, dark, unstoppable, but indeed she stopped, right in front of Connie who, standing over the counter of couture gloves, was mesmerized by the woman’s approach. Connie had never seen so much fur on one creature, unless it was the grizzly bear that was mounted on its hind feet, claws extended, at the Milwaukee Museum of Natural History, poised to attack. This customer, however, was not poised to attack. And, in fact, Connie’s second impression, the one subsequent to the grizzly bear image, was one of a woman who was definitely not feeling well and, possibly, in need of assistance.
Connie quickly stepped around the counter, ignoring the tweak of pain in her left leg, as if to personally welcome the woman into the department, but her intentions were much more altruistic.
“Hello,” Connie said in her friendliest tone, as she approached within a few feet of the fur-bundled woman, “Forgive me, but would you like to sit down and rest for a minute and catch your breath?”
The woman smiled uneasily back, clearly fatigued. “Yes,” she replied, seemingly in some discomfort, “Yes, that would be nice. Thank you.”
Connie instinctively took the woman by an arm and led her past a couple of clothing racks toward a wall of the store that was near some mirrors and the changing rooms, where she knew there were a couple of chairs. The massive amount of fur that Connie’s arm was suddenly wrapped around wasn’t lost on her. The coat was very distinctive. Besides being a full-length mink coat, it had large lapels that, when turned up, fully collared the wearer’s head in fur, and the sleeves ended in cuffs that were so deep they could have been made into stoles with no loss to the coat’s good standing as a coat. Connie had never seen cuffs that big. “Maybe,” Connie thought to herself, “it was the weight of the coat that was causing her fatigue.”
“May I help you with your coat?” Connie offered, “You might feel more comfortable with it off. It’s warm in here.”
The customer assented in silence, turning her back to Connie and allowing her to help her with the very heavy coat. Connie set it on one of the chairs along with the fur hat that had been handed to her as well. When she looked at the woman, she was shocked to see how thin she was. The coat had masked her frailty.
“Here,” Connie said, with the chair in front of them at last, “sit here a minute. Rest a bit. May I get you a glass of water?” she offered.
The now furless woman nodded and with some difficulty said, “Thank you, yes. Water would be nice.”
Connie went into the dressing room area and through a service door where she knew she could get some water for the customer and returned within a minute, a full glass in hand. The customer appeared to have caught her breath but looked no better for it.
“Here’s some water for you. Maybe this will help.” Connie put the glass into the woman’s outstretched hand and noticed a very slight tremor in it as she grasped the glass on her own and raised it to her mouth for a sip before lowering it.
“Thank you. Thank you for your kindness,” the woman in fur said and continued, “I haven’t been feeling well lately… been undergoing treatments for cancer.”
This bit of news was certainly not good. “Oh,” Connie said, a bit surprised over the woman’s candor, “I’m so sorry.”
The customer drank again from the glass of water and looked up at Connie. “You’ve been so kind. What’s your name?”
“My name is Connie.”
“Really?” replied the customer. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Connie. My name is Connie, too.” She put her right hand out to offer a handshake.
Connie shook the customer’s hand and said, “It’s nice to meet you too, Connie,”
The frail woman then asked, “Is your name from Constance or Consuelo?”
“Constance.”
“Mine too,” the woman replied and softly smiled, adding no other comment.
Connie then said, “Please rest here as long as you need to, but I have to get back to my counter.”
“Oh, certainly, and… and thank you again Connie. I hope I can return the favor someday.”
With that, Connie returned to the counter, with the slightest limp, and took up her sales position once again, looking for ways she could assist other customers.
A half hour later, Connie returned to the chairs by the dressing room. The fur-coated woman had departed, and an empty glass was on the floor under the chair that she had been seated on.
At the end of the day, on the bus on her way back to the Catholic Women’s Residence, where she had leased a room on a monthly basis, Connie thought about the woman she had helped and how she’d never seen so much mink on one person and how deathly pale its owner had looked. She also noticed her left leg throbbing softly but steadily with pain and wondered if she would be able to stand at a counter day after day. She decided she would try to stick it out for a few more weeks, maybe even a month or two—maybe it was just something one gets used to, and after a while, she’d be fine on her feet all day. If the pain didn’t subside after a while, she’d have to find a different kind of job. She would call Mama and Henry that night, since they’d asked her to call them every night to let them know how her new life in Milwaukee was going.
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A Love Story with a Little Heartbreak Page 39