Copyright
This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2014 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
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Copyright © 2014 by Farran Smith Nehme
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ISBN: 978-1-4683-1078-8
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
SEPTEMBER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
OCTOBER / NOVEMBER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
DECEMBER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
JANUARY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
FEBRUARY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
MARCH
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
APRIL
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
MAY
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
AUGUST
CHAPTER 1
AFTERWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
For Jad, Zane, Alida and Ben
“When John was twenty-one he became one of the seven million that believes New York depends on them.”
—KING VIDOR AND JOHN V. A. WEAVER, The Crowd, 1928
SEPTEMBER
1.
THE WOMAN HAD LIVED IN THE BUILDING SO LONG THAT IT WAS HER own name, Miriam Gibson, on the buzzer label, and not some forgotten former tenant. She must have been in her seventies, but she was the most beautiful old lady Ceinwen had ever seen. Her face was barely lined, with fine features and pale brown eyes; she wore her hair coiled at the neck. Miriam stood straight. She wore tailored dresses and suits with scarves, everything perfectly pressed and matched. None of the elastic Ceinwen had quietly shuddered over as Granana wheezed around the house.
Miriam lived on the floor below them. Talmadge, Jim, and Ceinwen hated the climb to their place so much that if someone forgot to buy coffee or cigarettes on the way in, it would take half an hour of arguing to decide who had to run to the bodega. Miriam climbed slowly, but when she reached her door, she seemed no more ruffled than if she had just crossed the hall.
Their apartment was a sixth-floor walkup, but it had two real bedrooms and a double living room with a large alcove that could be closed off with screens for another roommate. There were no closets.
Ceinwen had moved in with Jim and Talmadge early that spring. Jim had the side bedroom, Ceinwen the back, and Talmadge was behind the screens. Ceinwen and Talmadge worked at Vintage Visions, an antique clothing store on lower Broadway where Talmadge was the star floor salesman, and Ceinwen was queen of the accessories counter by default. When they met, Jim had been working there, too, but now he had a better job managing a tiny costume jewelry store on the Upper East Side.
She told herself that living with two men made Avenue C safe, even if Talmadge was short and Jim was skinny. It took only a month to learn which hours were fine and which demanded a cab, which buildings were normal and which should be passed at top speed, which men deserved a greeting as they bought beer in the bodega or sprawled all day on the stoop and which ones were best dealt with by a sudden interest in something twenty yards down the street, no matter how emphatic their cries of “Hey, Blondie!”
Miriam, with her good clothes and comings and goings, worried Ceinwen. Weren’t old people apt to get mugged, especially if they looked well-kept? But after a couple of months, it became clear that the other locals treated Miriam with the same brusque respect she showed Ceinwen.
Ceinwen, though, got less of a greeting from Miriam than the stoop-dwellers did. Every time they passed each other in the dank, cramped lobby, she marveled at Miriam’s ability to stroll by with a nod on a good day and indifference on a bad. “Boy, is it hot out there,” “Could you believe how long the street music went on last night?,” “Great scarf”—all of these were met with “yes,” “no,” and “thank you” as Miriam continued to walk to wherever it was she went.
“Whoever heard of an old lady who doesn’t want to talk?” she wondered to Jim. “At the nursing home the problem was getting them to stop. All you had to do was say ‘Did you see Nightline last night?’ or ‘So when do you think they’ll finally fix that stretch of I-55?’”
“This is New York, honey. Not Yazoo City.”
“Or if you were really desperate, I mean really, you could ask how the nurses were treating them.”
“And yet,” said Jim, shutting his book on his finger to mark his place, “like I said, this is New York. Even the old people have actual lives. That’s the beauty of this town.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “So Mr. Rodriguez over at the Thrifty Mart wanted to tell me all about getting his mole removed on account of he’s got such a full life.”
“Maybe she’s just a bitch.” Jim opened his book again. “Why do you care?”
“She seems … interesting,” she muttered with false hesitation.
“Ever thought,” asked Jim, “that’s she’s got nothing to say?”
Together they had suffered through the summer without air conditioning, the heat drilling through the roof and the fans searching for a breeze that wasn’t there. But the first Saturday in September the heat broke, and the sun no longer fought through the haze. Ceinwen touched up her roots that morning and put on a new dress. Talmadge dated it to the mid-thirties: dark blue silk, ruffles at the hem, and a matching fabric belt. It had cost half a week’s salary and brought her cash supply down to a truly dangerous level, but it was cut on the bias and she thought it was pure Jean Harlow. And she was sick to death of antique dresses with a missing belt.
Talmadge was on the morning shift, Ceinwen didn’t work until the afternoon. Jim was upstairs in the apartment trying to scrape paint off the transoms. Ankle straps adjusted, red lipstick blotted, she clacked down the last flight of steps and into the lobby, where Miriam was getting her mail. The day held too much promise to be marred by courting a snub, so she set her eyes on the street door, which had a busted lock. Her last attempt to discuss this fact with Miriam had produced only, “I have a deadbolt.”
“Young woman.” The voice came just as Ceinwen opened the door. Miriam was locking her mailbox. “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”
“Ceinwen.” Miriam had, of course, never asked her name, but Ceinwen had gotten used to social lying back in Yazoo City.
“Ceinwen.” Miriam repeated it like she’d said “Mary.” “Would you mind my asking you a question? If it isn’t inconvenient. I can see you’re on your way out.”
“
It’s all right, I’m early for work.” Now she was lying, too, but this was important. Miriam speaks! Sentences! And she had a great voice, low-pitched and classy, almost like Audrey Hepburn. She let the door swing shut.
“Forgive me, but I had to ask what you’re wearing.”
“It’s antique.” Miriam liked the dress. It had been worth going broke before payday.
“So it is old,” said Miriam.
What kind of a comment was that? As a matter of fact, lady, this dress is way younger than you. But as usual, Ceinwen’s Southernness emerged when least convenient. Hit by an urge to be rude to an old woman, what she came out with was, “It’s a collector’s item.”
“I see. You collect old clothes.” This was said in the same carefully neutral register that Ceinwen had used when discussing plate collecting with Granana’s pals at the nursing home. Knowing she was being patronized stung Ceinwen into her sales spiel.
“I work at a store that sells vintage clothing. I like vintage for the beauty and the style. It’s your own little personal bit of history,” she said.
“Depression history. Ah.” Miriam nodded as though this explained everything. Before Ceinwen, whose Mississippi training did have its limits, could reply, Miriam continued, “I was just curious why you always seemed to be in costume.”
“It reminded me of Jean Harlow.” Why did she have to defend 1930s clothing to a woman who’d worn this stuff when it was new? At least for once she didn’t have to explain who Jean Harlow was.
“Did it really. Then I’m afraid the effect’s incomplete.” Miriam was smiling. Sort of. Had she smiled at Ceinwen before? Did she smile at all? She had no smile lines, so maybe not. Ceinwen remembered that her bag was from the sixties and pulled it closer. “She didn’t wear bras,” continued Miriam. “Or slips or underwear. A dress, shoes. That was usually it.”
Hard to say which was more extraordinary, the information or the source. Granana occasionally had brought up the topic of Ceinwen’s underwear, but she would have had a word for a woman who just never wore any. “Well, I don’t want to keep you. Good-bye.”
As Miriam walked away Ceinwen managed to say, “It isn’t a costume. It’s a look.”
Miriam turned and really smiled this time. “It’s very pretty. I’m just not used to seeing young girls in old dresses.” And vanished up the stairs.
Ceinwen roared down the streets avenue by avenue, pausing to light her last cigarette in a doorway. It was fifteen minutes past one when she reached the store, and she hotfooted it along the sides to avoid the customers, down the length of the entire sales floor. After clocking in, she checked herself in the wall mirror that hung in the tiny back room. Sweat shone on her forehead, wet patches bloomed under her armpits, and she’d gotten herself into this state in order to stand in a lobby that smelled of urine and converse with an old woman who was insulting her taste.
The store was crowded, and she eased behind the long counter, in search of an activity that might make her look as though she had been there since one o’clock. She opened a case and began to straighten necklaces.
“Ceinwen,” a voice snapped. “Do you just not notice anything?” Lily was inches away. Her eternal black dresses and black hair always made Ceinwen think of the thunderstorms she used to watch rolling in over a field back home. Except you could always see a squall coming from far off. Lily dropped on you like a chicken hawk.
“Notice what?” She scanned the counter quickly; there didn’t seem to be a new shipment.
Lily came closer. Ceinwen hated having her space invaded, and she stepped back. “The note. In the clock room. Go back and look.”
She shut the case and walked to the clock room to check the walls. The only note she saw was the sign-up sheet for time off. She went back to the counter, where Lily was pushing a sale. “Lily,” she said, “I signed up for my vacation slot last week.”
Lily whooshed down about a foot from the customers, just far enough to pretend they weren’t supposed to overhear. “I meant the time card,” she said, loudly. “The note on the fucking time card. Go back right now and look at it.”
She walked to the clock room. At the top of her card, her name was circled in red and an arrow pointed to a note: “See Lily.”
Jesus Christ, she thought. She walked back to the counter. Lily had talked a woman into buying a brooch and was ringing it up. Ceinwen slipped back behind the counter and waited. “Did you see the note?”
“Yes,” said Ceinwen. “You wanted to see me?”
“You’re damn right I wanted to see you. You’re late.”
“I’m sorry. I got a call …”
“Don’t you give me your excuses. This is the third time this week.” It was the second time this week, and the time before she had clocked in at two minutes past. Trouble was, Lily was the owner as well as the manager. You took two extra minutes, that was food Lily couldn’t eat and dates Lily couldn’t pay for. “You screw up everyone’s schedule when you come in late. Now here I am filling in for you, and everyone’s lunch hour is off. Not that you care. You seem to think because you sell a lot you can’t be fired. Well, think again. This is your warning. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” said Ceinwen, holding up a faceted bracelet, as if it were worthy of closer examination.
“Good.” Lily never got a pun or really any joke at all; she was the most humorless person Ceinwen had ever met. It even took the fun out of mocking her to her face. Lily stomped toward the entrance for a cigarette that Ceinwen could only pray would calm her down.
None of the people milling about were asking to see anything yet, and she went back to straightening. The counter was so long there were six different cases to fix. She loved arranging the jewelry, old pieces and new ones done in an old style, but Lily never liked the results. Ceinwen threw in scarves, mixed up styles and periods. Lily wanted everything by decade and designer, lined up so you could see every surface of every item. Ceinwen would get a case looking pretty, and the next morning Lily would redo everything, until it had about as much chic as a drugstore Tampax display.
Talmadge waved on his way to the men’s side, which was separated from the women’s by a wide, mirrored passage. She beckoned him over. Before she could say anything he sang out, “Ask-me-how-lunch-went.” He was so happy he didn’t need a rhetorical response: “I saw George.” George was the handyman at the discount clothing place next door. He was dark and muscular, exactly Talmadge’s type. Ceinwen preferred blonds, when she roused herself to prefer anything.
“Was his girlfriend with him?”
“Me-ow. He likes me.”
“Did he show you his supply closet?”
“Not yet.” Talmadge cast a look toward the front register. “I need to get back to my side. Not that anybody’s buying anything. Buncha joyriders today. Show me this, show me that, oh no not for me. And Lily is on the warpath.”
“Tell me about it. Listen, Talmadge—”
“Make it quick.”
“She’s out having a cigarette, I saw her go. Do you think it’s possible Miriam knew Jean Harlow?”
Too abrupt for Talmadge, who still had one eye out for Lily. “Who? Harlow? What?”
“Our neighbor. Miriam. Could she have known Jean Harlow?”
“Ceinwen, you’re obsessed.”
“I’m not. But today she wanted to talk to me about my dress.”
Talmadge was elated. “I told you that was a great dress. I told you to buy it. There you go.”
She diverted the torrent of Talmadge back to the topic. Miriam had said Harlow didn’t wear bras, or even underwear. Was it possible she had known her? Talmadge said Miriam probably just looked at that stuff in the movies more than Ceinwen did; “you made me watch Red Dust and even I noticed she didn’t have on underwear.” Or maybe Miriam read it somewhere. “I don’t see her in Hollywood. She’s way too New York.”
“But fifty years ago who knows what she was like?”
“There’s nothing California about her.
You always forget I’m West Coast.”
“You’re from Tacoma.”
“I know what I’m talking about. There’s a whole different vibe out there. Miriam’s too proper.” The front door to the store opened and Lily stepped in, and in the time it took Ceinwen to turn her head back toward Talmadge, he had slipped away to the men’s side.
He’s wrong, she thought. I bet Miriam did know Harlow. Old Hollywood was as good a setting for Miriam as any.
Talmadge was right about the customers, though. Once they realized she was there to show things, they kept her on the hop, wanting to see everything in the case and on the shelves. Then, if they bought anything, it was those thin, jangling metal bangles the store sold three for a dollar.
She had no time to consider her imaginary Miriam biography until her lunch hour, which didn’t happen until five. Lily prized her arbitrary lunch-dismissal authority. Breaks were timed according to whether or not Lily liked you at the moment, how many customers were in the store, and whether Lily herself was on a diet and therefore jealous of anyone else’s eating. That made three strikes today, so Ceinwen counted herself lucky to be getting a lunch hour at all. She devoured scrambled eggs at the coffee shop and sucked down a couple of cigarettes to keep her brain going. Miriam had been Jean Harlow’s assistant. Miriam dated someone who dated Jean Harlow. Miriam was childhood friends with Harlow—though that would mean Miriam was from Kansas City, and if it was hard to picture Miriam in California, Kansas City was impossible.
All right, she’d been an actress and she was in a movie with Harlow. Then why had Ceinwen never heard of her? I, she thought, have heard of everyone. And I’ve seen everything of Harlow’s. I’ve even seen Saratoga. Wait, could that be it? Saratoga! What was the name of that lady who stood in for Harlow when she died during filming? The one hiding her face behind binoculars and hats.
She couldn’t remember the name, but in any case that didn’t work. Harlow was tiny, Miriam was tall.
Lily was in such a bad mood that Ceinwen came back five minutes early just to be safe. But Lily wasn’t going to like it when she counted out the register and saw how low the day’s take had been. It was after eight and the sales probably weren’t going to get any higher.
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