The Secret Women

by Sheila Williams

  “Give me that!” Joan grabbed the bra and twirled it around her head while she did a little dance. Dorothy clapped her hands. Back in Cincinnati, Hubert Adams was still wondering how he’d been maneuvered into such a spot. If it was magic, it was a spell that Hubert had cast on himself, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  * * *

  “Only the best for my baby girl,” Hubert Adams had said proudly whenever bringing home yet another expensive dress or doll from Shillito’s department store.

  “Only the best for my little lady,” he had boasted when Joanie’s honors scholarship to UC was announced. “The best schools, the best professors.”

  “Daddy, the best professor in socio-anthropology in the country is at CCNY. I may have to transfer out my junior year,” Joanie told her father in the course of a benign conversation one evening after supper as she helped her mother clear the table.

  Hubert snapped the evening paper with a sharp, coordinated movement, glancing at his daughter over the top of his glasses. “What’d you say? What’s the matter with the . . . what’s his name? Dr. Wells over there at the University of Cincinnati?”

  Joanie shook her head slightly. “That’s what I’m telling you. He took a position at the City College of New York.”

  “Humph,” Hubert said with a tone of disapproval. “That doesn’t seem right. How are you supposed to get the best instruction if these fellows move all over the place?”

  “It isn’t the end of the world. I can always go and study with Dr. Wells in New York. Dorothy Mae’s there. I can . . .”

  As she talked, she knew her father was in his own world, a mélange of politics, baseball, and racing statistics. “Nona! That filly of Bernard’s, Tomorrow’s Dream, looks like it has all of the right things going on . . . It’s going to rain Friday, and that two-year-old does well in the mud.”

  “. . . transferred without losing any credits. I can start in September.” Joanie was still talking. Standing behind her father, her mother grinned. “I can manage the fees if I stay with Dorothy and Washburn. And Dorothy thinks she can get me a job at the electric company. She has a friend who works there. Dr. Rasmussen’s writing me a letter of recommendation.”

  “Start in September,” Hubert repeated. He glanced up at his daughter and nodded. “All right, baby girl, that sounds fine to me. You go ahead and start in September. Only the best for you.”

  Joanie grinned at her mother. Hubert hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

  Chapter 12

  Joan

  A transformation began, and Joan became her own fairy godmother. She gave up the “Joanie.” Joan Adams was bound for New York and, like a chess piece, one move closer to emulating her role model, Cousin Dorothy. Next, she changed her appearance. She had Eileen cut her hair, and she bought two tubes of red lipstick (Elizabeth Arden) to celebrate her new life. Joan was traveling farther than she ever had in her life. (Summers spent as a child with Grandmother Henry in Georgia didn’t count.) This was the jumping off point for adventures new and strange.

  In her most recent letter, Dorothy had given her detailed instructions, typed not handwritten. Joan read them over and over, handling the parchment-like stationery until its texture wore down to the slickness of silk. She memorized the words, chanting them like a mantra: “Grand Central . . . 42nd . . . two blocks . . . subway . . . Lexington Avenue northbound . . . Brook Avenue . . . between 135th and . . .”

  Dorothy had enclosed a snapshot of the building along with a neighbor’s telephone number. “In case you get scared,” she’d scrawled on the back.

  Why does everyone think I’ll be scared? Joan wondered. This comment—expressed by her mother, father, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends—irritated her. She wasn’t six. And she wasn’t scared, wasn’t even nervous. And besides, New York was not the end of her journey; it was only the first stop.

  After she arrived, she found Dorothy and Washburn lived on the third floor of a four-story prewar building in a three-room apartment with a tiny bathroom and a “stoop” off the back. Joan had never lived in an apartment before; it was the first time she’d lived elbow to elbow with other people. It was like the apartment building was itself a small city.

  Mr. Bell upstairs was the skinniest man she’d ever seen, but you’d never know that from the sound of his footsteps clomping around his apartment as if his home had been invaded by a herd of elephants. Amazing, considering how solid and snugly built the Cornell Building was. The Andersons next door seemed to argue a lot, their raised voices often crystal clear despite the thick walls. They argued and sang—an odd combination, Joan thought. Washburn laughed and told her that Connie and Tim were, among other things, actors and musicians—they’d studied at Juilliard and were in the chorus at the Met. “Probably rehearsing,” he commented.

  The Smiths, both teachers, lived across the hall in 310-B. Mrs. Holland and her sister, Mrs. Nuñez, were at the end of the hall; the sisters baked constantly, infusing the weird yellow-green-painted hall with warm, yeasty aromas of baked bread infused with cinnamon and vanilla. Ellen and Bill what’s-their-name (Joan could never remember it, and once she did, to her embarrassment, she didn’t pronounce it properly) were medical residents, and Joan saw them infrequently since they worked all the time and mostly at night, while during the day they slept (or tried to, considering the noise emanating from the Andersons or other tenants). Mr. Wakefield, a friend of Washburn’s father, lived downstairs and worked at a restaurant in the next block, sharing barbecue, ham, fried chicken, and other delights with them on his days off.

  And then there was apartment 310-D and its mysterious occupant, a tall, slim, cadaverous-looking woman in her late twenties or early thirties who only said, “Good evening,” and whom Dorothy called Nosferatu because of her nocturnal ways and penchant for wearing all black. Rumors flew about Miss Phillips, and the more ridiculous they were (“She really is a vampire!”), the more they were believed. She kept to herself, and word was she paid her rent on time.

  Some nights Joan got buckets of sleep. Other nights she got a lot less. But thanks to the murmurs from the other apartments and the street noise that kept her awake, she picked up a few useful Spanish phrases for her trouble. On still other nights, she shared a shot of whiskey with the tenant in 310-D, Miss Gizzy Phillips (formal name, Griselda) who, Joan was not surprised to learn, was not a vampire at all but a private duty nurse working the night shift.

  She was mesmerized by the City College of New York, just the look of the place. There was something otherworldly about it, especially when it came into view near the end of her bus ride, the top of Shepard Hall rising slowly above the other buildings. Of course she could have taken the subway to school. It would have been faster, especially coming from work—Dorothy had indeed gotten her on at the ConEdison office. And it would have been warmer in winter and drier when it rained. But the bus ride allowed Joan the brief pleasure of letting the neo-Gothic buildings take over her imagination. One blink and she would be transported to another continent, another time. She imagined Notre Dame, its massive bells ringing, calling the faithful to Mass. She imagined gargoyles playing tag at the tops of the spires, creating mischief and waving to her. She decided then and there to apply for a passport so she could see the inspiration of her daydreams for herself in Paris. What could be more Gothic than Notre Dame?

  “But you just got here!” Dorothy said when she found out.

  Joan quickly learned the city’s ways. People didn’t say “Good morning” or “How are you?” like they did in Cincinnati. Some of her fellow students and instructors thought her accent was “flat” at best, probably “Southern” (not good) and obviously “country” (which was even worse). Joan had grown up thinking of her cousins in Georgia as “country”—and they were, living on a farm of more than one hundred acres, growing crops and raising chickens, hogs, and cattle. Now that was country, and self-sustaining if you wanted to make a point about it. It was a way of life. She was dismayed to discover that some of he
r fellow students considered it a moniker for stupid and inbred, and were boneheaded enough to say so.

  “There are studies to indicate a higher percentage of developmental problems in . . . those children—”

  “Studies whose results were thrown out,” Joan barked back in sociology class one day, “and the authors of the Fielding study, in particular, were thoroughly discredited. Fielding himself admitted that he made up the numbers. He was exposed as a fraud. Even his PhD was fiction!

  “The culture is based on agriculture, no doubt. It’s rural, but that doesn’t preclude it from being modern,” Joan also explained, trying to keep her temper in check. She spoke slowly so the nitwit who’d commented could understand her “accent.” “The knowledge required to raise beef cattle or grow a strong hybrid of corn is astounding, requiring in some cases a rudimentary background in botany, chemistry, and meteorology. Rural does not equal backward. It equates to growing and harvesting the food”—Joan glared at the man—“that you eat, raising healthy animals so that you can cook a steak or eat fried chicken.”

  “I was only saying that,” the bonehead continued. Just the sound of his voice made her want to smack him. “Pardon me, with your Southern sensibilities.”

  “My . . . what?” She paused to catch her breath and unclench her fist. She glared at the young man in the black eyeglasses who’d made the comments. “I’m from Ohio, and if your pea brain can recall fifth grade geography, Ohio is not now and has never been a Southern state. As for any sensibilities I might have, Southern or otherwise, they are none of your business.”

  She was too angry to do anything but gather up her books and handbag and leave the classroom before her temper got the best of her and she slammed her two-pound sociology book into his head. At the bottom of the stairs, Joan paused to catch her breath, then turned toward the exit doors and almost walked straight into a man she recognized as one of her classmates. Not the bonehead, however.

  “Oh! Excuse me! I’m—”

  “Sorry! I—” He stepped back quickly as if removing himself from striking range, then he said, “That guy’s an idiot. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  “There’s no need to apologize. It’s not your fault, Mr. . . .” What the heck was his name?

  “Topolosky. Richard. Just call me Rich.” He smiled. “You told him off in brilliant form. Actually, you sorta peeled his skin off.” He seemed delighted.

  Joan felt her cheeks reddening as she scrutinized him for the first time, taking in his uniform. Army. Lieutenant.

  “Yes . . . well . . . I get . . . carried away sometimes.”

  “He deserved it.” Richard extended his hand. “Your name is Joan?”

  “Yes, yes, it is. Joan Adams,” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, Joan, I’d like to take you out.”

  “Really, it isn’t necessary.” Joan turned to leave.

  “I insist,” Richard said.

  Okay, she said to herself. “Okay.”

  It was then that Joan realized Richard Topolosky was still holding her hand.

  Chapter 13

  Joan

  Their first date was a disaster. They ate at Omar’s, one of Richard’s favorite places not far from campus. It was Joan’s first experience with hummus, and she loved it. But it didn’t love her. The chickpeas gave her the trots, and she vowed never to eat hummus again.

  Embarrassed but not defeated (first impressions aren’t always destiny), Richard asked her out again. This time the evening wasn’t a disaster, just a mild catastrophe.

  They went to Teresa’s, an Italian place in Little Italy where Teresa cooked, her husband Vito was maître d’, and their sons Theo and Domenico served and tended bar. Joan ordered spaghetti alla carbonara. Richard ordered veal scaloppine but barely touched it. He spent the evening scrutinizing Joan with a nervous expression on his face, asking her after each forkful if she was okay.

  After the sixth query, Joan had had enough. She slammed her water glass down on the table and dropped her fork onto her plate.

  “That’s it!” she barked at him. “Stop asking me if I’m okay!”

  Water had splashed out of the glass and drenched the starched tablecloth. The fork had skidded off her plate and landed on Richard’s. Some of the scaloppine had found a home on the front of his shirt.

  “Oh my God! I am so sorry!” She snatched up her napkin and moved to dab up the spill. But the large cloth had other ideas. One edge of it soaked up a tablespoon of rich sauce while another caught on the rims of Joan’s water and wine glasses and tipped them over.

  Later, as they stood on the sidewalk outside Teresa’s—Richard’s shirt a damp, rude-looking mélange of brown; Joan’s new (purchased for the occasion) and now-damp madras skirt stained dark ruby with Chianti, her white blouse dotted with olive oil droplets—the situation shifted from tragedy to comedy.

  Joan looked down at her new purchase. The skirt was probably ruined, the blouse too, since oil stains were next to impossible to get out, and Joan noticed on the toe of her right shoe a small droplet of sauce—whether from the carbonara or the veal, she couldn’t tell. She looked up at Rich, whose expression combined horror with embarrassment. Technically, this had been their second date, yet this was the first time Joan took a really good look at him without his uniform on—he wore it only when he worked at the recruiting office. He was tall (at five feet three inches, everybody was tall compared to Joan) and slim, but he had a sturdiness to his body, and somehow Joan knew that his now-ruined white shirt covered muscular arms and shoulders. His face was long, his nose narrow, and his eyes a light brown behind the black eyeglasses. He was, in fact, very handsome despite the mask of self-consciousness he now wore. Richard also wore a small droplet of sauce on his right cheek. Joan couldn’t help herself; she reached up to wipe it away, then started laughing. Soon Richard was laughing too, and their giggles morphed into belly laughs.

  “I-I better go home,” Joan stammered, her words punctuated by giggles. She ran her palm across the wet front of her skirt. “This is sticky. It won’t be long before I attract every bug around for miles. And you . . .” She reached up again and touched Richard’s veal-hued shirtfront. “Your shirt is a mess.”

  Richard grinned, his lean face relieved of its self-consciousness. “Are you hungry?”

  Joan stared. “Hungry?”

  “Hungry,” Richard repeated. “We barely ate. Remember?”

  Joan smiled. “You’re right.” She was starving.

  “Dimitri’s Coney is in the next block. Do you like hot dogs, JoJo?”

  She’d been called Joan, Joan Ann, Joanie, and Baby Girl, but never JoJo. She liked it.

  “I love hot dogs,” she said.

  “Good,” Richard murmured, taking her hand. “Because I don’t think we can go back to Teresa’s.”

  But Richard was wrong. They held their own private wedding reception at Teresa’s—sitting at the same table they’d nearly destroyed months before—eating the same meal, toasting the occasion with Chianti.

  It hadn’t been love at first sight but pretty close. They were nearly inseparable from that day forward. Joan and Richard got married at City Hall, a janitor and the judge’s secretary their witnesses. They chose the surreptitious path to matrimony because they wanted the moment to be theirs and no one else’s. When she learned of her younger son’s choice of bride, Bella Topolosky sat shiva. Nona and Hubert sent their congratulations in a sparsely worded letter. “I don’t know what to say,” Nona wrote to her daughter. Hubert said nothing.

  “What does he do, anyway?” Dorothy asked Joan as they sat together in the East Harlem apartment’s kitchen one evening not long after the wedding.

  “Do? Who?” Joan’s thoughts were miles away.

  “Richard. You know, your husband.” Amusement brushed across Dorothy’s words. She’d been reading her aunt’s letter. “What does he do for a living? Uncle Hubert will want to know that he’s able to support you in the manner to which he
thinks you should become accustomed.”

  “Army intel,” Joan echoed Rich’s answer to the question. A flurry of images—none of them pleasant—passed through her mind. “What does that mean?”

  Rich smiled slightly.

  “Among other things, it means I can’t talk about it. For now, I’m on assignment. Civilian. Nothing dangerous. Language school.”

  Joan was silent for a moment. The war was over. But new conflicts were growing and a few old ones had reasserted themselves. Rich was fluent in German and Russian. “Language school” sounded reasonable. But the unsettled sensation in her stomach was still there.

  “So . . .”

  “Just tell them I work for the government,” Rich had told Joan. “That my specialty is red tape and towers of paperwork.”

  “You’re a spy,” Joan had said to him.

  A wry smile had come to Richard’s lips. “Me? A spy? Think about that. Do I really look like a spy?”

  On the slim side, dark brown hair, light brown eyes, and Buddy Holly glasses. Okay, not a spy of movies.

  “Army analyst, soon to be poor civilian college instructor. How’s that for a profession?” Joan took the cigarette from Dorothy’s fingers as she repeated her husband’s words. She blew one raggedy smoke ring and then another, smaller but more perfectly formed. This time she didn’t cough.

  Dorothy shrugged. “I guess it’ll have to do,” she said.

  Chapter 14

  Joan

  From the beginning, it was just the two of them. Aside from Dorothy and Washburn, who loved jazz almost as much as Rich did, family support was in short supply. In the case of Richard’s parents, it was nonexistent. Bella and Ira Topolosky were at odds over their son’s unorthodox marriage: as far as Bella was concerned, Richard was dead; Ira, as uncomfortable with his wife’s reaction as he was with his son’s choice of wife, did not seem to know what to do. Richard and his wife (“Dad, her name is Joan.”) were welcome in their home, but “welcome” was not the feeling Joan got the first and only time she visited. Bella refused to make an appearance. David, Richard’s brother, who lived in Brooklyn, met them for dinner and apologized for his parents’ obtuseness, but it didn’t change things. Richard could not go “home” again, but he didn’t seem too upset about. “Mother and I . . . we’ve never really seen eye to eye anyway.”