She dreaded the looks of the couple poring over the low-slung case at the end. The woman was wearing a tight leopard-print dress, and leopard-print clothing was a sure sign of a mean disposition. The man was wearing a rumpled, untucked linen shirt that looked expensive but was all wrong for September. But when the woman gave a snappy little wave—I’m not a cab, thought Ceinwen—there was no choice.
“I want to see that,” said the woman, tapping one brown-polished nail against the top of the counter. Oh goody, a glass tapper.
“Earrings? Bracelet? Necklace? Pin?” She forced a smile.
“The earrings,” said the woman, in some sort of accent. “No, not those.” Tap, tap. “Those. No, in the back. The back.”
“The blue ones,” said the man.
She whipped out the velvet tray and set the earrings down. The woman picked up an earring, said something to the man in whatever language she spoke, and put it down. “No, I don’t like those at all. They look cheap.”
“Maybe,” said Ceinwen, “if you told me what you’re looking for, I could suggest something.”
“I’m going back to Italy tomorrow,” said the woman. “I’m going to a party this week and I want something new.”
La. Dee. Da. “That sounds wonderful. Where in Italy?”
“Modena.” Spoken in a slow, bored drawl that meant, of course, you’ve never heard of it. This was basically a dare.
“Oh, just like Mary of Modena.”
The man took his eyes away from the case and looked at Ceinwen. The woman said, “Who?”
“James II’s wife. He was king of England. Mary was a princess from Modena.”
“I know James II.” She sounded irritated. “I don’t know his personal life.”
“She was Catholic,” said the man, “just like James.” He had an accent too, British from the sound of it. “Bedwarmer affair. Mary helped get him chucked out.” Definitely English. He was looking at Ceinwen in that annoyingly surprised way English people always did when an American said something intelligent.
“The English,” said the woman, suddenly flirtatious. “Always persecuting the Catholics. Even the English Catholics.”
“Oh yes. We’ve suffered.”
Oh please. The man kept glancing at her, maybe wondering if an American who’d heard of Mary of Modena should be a museum exhibit, so she couldn’t check her watch to see how much longer she had to suffer along with the downtrodden Catholics. “Let’s move down here and see what we’ve got.”
Another case, more tapping, more picking up and discarding, more Italian, more opinions—too old-woman, too flimsy, too heavy. One more case and one more set of taps. “Those.”
“She needs a little more info, love,” he said softly. Maybe he was trying to be nice. Longish hair and some lines on his face. Probably too much sun. English people were bad about that.
“I’m pointing at them.” If nice was the idea, what was he doing with this woman? She was tapping at the back of the case. Ceinwen’s eyes followed the nail. Oh no. Not those. Please not those.
“Which color?”
“The silver, with the enamel.” Those. Goddamnit. She had put them on hold two weeks ago, waiting until she had the money, and in two more weeks they could have been hers. Lily had put them back in the case, and she’d been running around so much, she hadn’t noticed.
“They’re a hundred.” They were more expensive than most of the other jewelry, and sometimes people recoiled from paying that much in a store that sold old clothes.
The woman rolled her eyes, said something in Italian, and then, “We don’t care about the price.” Ceinwen took the earrings out slowly and set them on the counter. No velvet. Maybe they’d look worse that way. And they wouldn’t look good on this woman, either, not with that olive skin and long narrow face.
“Now those I like,” said the Englishman, and Ceinwen was back to hating him.
“Miss.” There was a pair of women at the other end of the counter. “Can we see that?” One was pointing at the back wall. She checked her watch as she walked over. 8:25. They wanted to see a hat, the black one with the net veil. Hats were a pain in the neck. People tried them on, giggled a lot, and never bought them. She took it down. Yes, it was wonderful that people used to wear hats. No, nobody knew how to wear them anymore. This one looks better if you tilt it forward a bit …
A hand closed on her elbow. Once again Lily was dragging her away, so that all parties could pretend that this exchange wouldn’t be noticed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m showing a hat.”
“Not them.” Lily jerked Ceinwen’s elbow so she turned to face the couple. “Them.” The woman had put on the earrings and was absorbed in her reflection in the countertop mirror, angling her face this way and that. “What’s happening there?”
“She’s trying on the earrings.” The Englishman was standing back, observing his girlfriend’s varied pouts. Maybe he’d have the grace not to listen in.
“I know that. I see that. They’re pierced. Pierced earrings.” Her voice was rising. Answering Lily’s questions was always like this. She got mad if you said nothing, because the answer was in front of your face, and she got mad if you responded, because you were stating the obvious.
“I was helping those ladies with the hats.”
“And did you not tell her before you handed them over? Did you mention that there’s a regulation, a fucking health regulation that says she can’t try on the pierced earrings?”
The Englishman had turned and was easing closer. Yeah, your girlfriend got me yelled at. Now drop dead.
“Who are we supposed to sell them to now? Do we even have any peroxide or anything back there? I don’t know what is going on with you, but what I do know—”
“Excuse me.” The Englishman was in front of them.
“We’ll be with you in a moment, sir.” Back to Ceinwen. “You are in charge of what goes on behind this counter, and I should be able to trust—”
“I’m sorry, but it seems there’s a misunderstanding.” He wasn’t going away.
“If you just give us a minute sir—”
“I wanted,” he interrupted again—kind of nice to have someone interrupt Lily for a change—“to explain about the earrings. You see Seen When said—”
“What?”
“Seen When,” he said, affably, “isn’t that the name on her tag?”
Ceinwen hated her name tag for that very reason. “It’s KINE-wen,” she said.
A chuckle. “Sorry. Ceinwen.” Awfully glad you think my name’s funny, old bean. The woman hadn’t glanced their way once. She was still at the other end of the counter, checking out the way the earrings laid against her neck. He lowered his voice. “Ceinwen did in fact tell my girlfriend she couldn’t try on the earrings.”
Lily rounded on Ceinwen and demanded to know why she hadn’t explained. “I was trying to,” said Ceinwen. Before Lily could go into why Ceinwen needed to try harder, the Englishman leaned in and spoke lower still. “Anna’s Italian,” he said, with an apologetic little grimace. “Bit of a language barrier. And when I tried to tell her, she said I must be wrong because she couldn’t see how they looked without trying them on.” This, she thought, is one smooth liar. “Anyway, no harm done. I think Anna’s going to take them.”
Ah-nuh, he pronounced it. She even hated his vowels.
“All right then,” said Lily. “We’re always glad when people find what they need. Ceinwen will ring you up.” She walked past Anna and paused to check out the earrings. “Those are lovely. Art Nouveau. Very Mucha.”
You bitch, thought Ceinwen helplessly, as Lily left to harass the men’s side. She ran his credit card and gave the earrings a last pat as she put them in a box. Anna was still browsing the case, but the Englishman was watching Ceinwen as she twisted the tissue paper around the box and handed over the bag.
“Have a good evening.” She couldn’t bring herself to say thank you.
“You too,” he said, then
, lower, “and good luck.” Ceinwen twitched her mouth into a half-smile and turned her back as they walked out.
Granana would have made her say thank you. The longer she stayed in New York, the worse her manners got. Then again, he’d stood right there while his girlfriend hadn’t bothered to say thank you or please or anything else. Maybe in Mississippi she’d have been grateful. In Manhattan she’d had it with people who could act like that and worse, buy her earrings at full price.
The hat women had left during the earring episode. At least they hadn’t taken the hats, which would have given Lily a reason to yell about security, along with punctuality and hygiene.
There were no more customers after that. They counted out the register in Lily’s office downstairs, Lily remarking that the last sale of the night certainly helped. Ceinwen clocked out and walked home, wondering if whoever wore her dress before had had the same kind of luck with it.
The winding stone stairs to the sixth floor might once have looked like marble before years of pounding feet had worn a slope into the middle of each. They weren’t that narrow, but they were steep even for the Lower East Side, and on a night like this she had to concentrate on not tripping. She was winded by the time she reached the top.
Jim was in the kitchen, cigarette dangling and coffeemaker going. How he could drink coffee all day and night mystified Ceinwen. She reached into a cabinet and grabbed a half-finished bag of Dipsy Doodles.
“Is that dinner?”
“Yep.” She reached into the fridge for some seltzer. “I can’t help it. Lily’s been killing my appetite.”
“You smoke too much and you don’t eat enough.” He ran his cigarette under the faucet and tossed it in the trash. “And what happened to your dress?”
He pulled at a side seam. It had ripped about two inches straight up, showing Ceinwen’s torso almost to the edge of her bra. She didn’t know when it had happened or how long she’d been flashing skin. For all she knew, this was why the Englishman felt sorry enough to lie for her. The little match salesgirl.
“Shit.” She was almost in tears. Jim looked alarmed.
“It’s not that big a deal, honey. That’s what happens with these old clothes. The fabric holds up but the thread gets weak.” He patted her shoulder. “Take it off.”
She thrust a hip forward and said huskily, “What are you saying?”
“Take it all off, baby,” purred Jim. He examined the dress again. “I can fix this. It’s right on the seam. I’ll do it now.”
“Thank you, Jim.” She undid the belt and the hooks on the side. Jim had seen her in her underwear or stark naked so many times that she didn’t bother with formalities. Dress halfway over her head she said, “Want to watch a movie with me while you sew?”
A sigh. “Oh, all right. I’ll mostly be looking at the needle anyway.” He took the dress from her and turned it inside out. “I might stitch up this whole side.”
“The Ox-Bow Incident? I just got it.”
He looked suspicious. “I read that in high school. It’s a Western, right?”
“More of a morality tale. Only,” she admitted, “with cowboys.”
“So a Western. You know I don’t like Westerns. Neither does Talmadge. And wait, it’s got lynching, doesn’t it?”
“Talmadge would like Anthony Quinn.”
“No.”
“Dana Andrews was handsome.”
“I’m not watching a lynching Western and that’s final.”
“How about The Old Maid?” He wanted to know the plot. Told that it involved Bette Davis’ sacrificial mother love, he demanded to look at her video stash himself.
Ceinwen followed Jim through the living room where Talmadge was realigning the couch. It was a low-slung, high-backed, mauve-brocade affair that Jim had found in the street one Sunday night. The couch was beautiful, in a Victorian whorehouse sort of way, but it was missing a leg, which was how it ended up in the junk pile. After the three of them had pushed it upstairs—an operation that took nearly an hour and pissed off every neighbor they had, except Miriam, who was out—Jim positioned two cinder blocks where the leg should have been. This worked, but the couch was a touch shy of level. When they sat on it—and it was the only sitting option in the living room, aside from some floor cushions—the couch slipped a bit on the blocks. Every day it had to be moved back, and Talmadge had taken over this task.
Pushing the couch into perfect harmony with the blocks had become one of his rituals. Talmadge had a lot of rituals.
“Oh looky, it’s another Ceinwen lingerie show.” Jim didn’t care if she wasn’t dressed, but Talmadge kind of did.
“I’m getting my nightgown. And a movie.”
“Which one?”
“I’m picking,” called Jim, who was already in her bedroom running his finger down the rows. “Ceinwen wants all the depressing stuff. Because she obviously had a great day and she wants to make it even better.”
“It’s called perspective,” said Ceinwen, grabbing the slip she wore as a nightie.
“It’s called masochism.” Jim pulled out a tape. “All right. How about this?”
“Yes!” hooted Talmadge from the doorway. “Marlene!”
She always sat in the middle of the couch where the back was highest; she pulled over an ashtray and propped her feet on the coffee table. Talmadge put in the tape and sat down with a pint of ice cream and a spoon. Jim went to work on the dress.
Ten minutes in, Ceinwen was blowing smoke at the ceiling and wishing she were on a train, reeling in the suckers with Anna May Wong. She felt so much better that she didn’t even mind when she remembered Marlene Dietrich’s name in Shanghai Express was Lily.
2.
IT WAS WEDNESDAY. PAYDAY WAS THURSDAY. THE RAIN STARTED SOON after Ceinwen arrived, and there were few customers. When Lily told her to go to lunch, she laid her assets on the counter and totaled them up. $1.28 in small change and half a pack of Marlboro Lights. As expected, Ceinwen was broke.
She could stretch the cigarettes until tomorrow, but food—food presented a problem. There was almost nothing in the house; she’d had the last of the pasta that morning. Talmadge, she knew, was also broke. He had some ice cream in the freezer, but he’d kill her if she ate it. Talmadge’s ice cream was another nightly ritual. She could have hit up Jim before he left for work, but Jim seemed out of sorts, and she didn’t want to bother him. Now she was regretting that decision. She had enough for a cup of coffee and a buttered roll, and that was it until 9:00 p.m. and a second chance at Jim.
She swept the coins back into her change purse. Time for Smelly Deli. She looked out the door—still raining. She pulled her coat over her head and dashed across Broadway.
Smelly was the name they’d given Demeter Deli, because of its Pine-Sol fragrance, which varied only in intensity—sometimes it was strong, most of the time it was unbearable. Smelly was a defiantly ugly place with lighting that made everyone look green. There were a few rows of junk food displays and a counter that made huge, cheap sandwiches, so it was always packed with NYU students. There were a handful of tables and chairs in the back, and seats were hard to come by, but the rain had kept the crowd down a bit and Ceinwen found a single empty table near the bathroom. She uncovered her coffee, spread out the paper wrapping for the roll and began tearing off one tiny piece at a time, hoping the bits would expand in her stomach. The problem was not chewing everything at top speed.
“Hello there.”
That voice. Mr. Rule Britannia from Saturday night. His hair was damp and his shoulders were spotted with rain. An Englishman with no umbrella. “Is that place taken?” He had a sandwich in one hand and a Coke in the other. She would much rather have had Coke than Smelly coffee.
“Go ahead.” Too late to pretend she didn’t remember him. She didn’t want to be openly rude, but she didn’t want him watching her eke out the roll, either. He was running a hand through his hair and putting his jacket on the back of the seat.
“I never did intro
duce myself,” he said. “Ceinwen, isn’t it? Matthew.” He stuck his hand across the table as he sat down.
Both her hands had crumbs on them. She shook his hand, and he rubbed his fingers against his thumb to get the crumbs off. She was supposed to say something, and “Why are you people always named Matthew?” probably wasn’t ideal. Well, she’d be damned if she was going to say “Where are you from?” She wasn’t such a hick as to make a fuss over every accented jerk who said hello to her. Besides, she had an accent, too.
“You live around here?”
“Live and work. I’m at Courant. Over on Mercer.”
“What’s Courant?”
“NYU maths department.”
Ceinwen took a sip. There was always something off about the coffee at Smelly, like it had absorbed the pine ambiance. “You look kind of old for a student.” That was openly rude. For once she didn’t care.
“I’m a postdoc. Been here since June. I teach a class, and I’m working on some papers with a professor there.”
From the depths of her memory she dredged up the one question she could ask about mathematics that didn’t involve counting out a register. “Pure or applied?”
“Applied,” he said. “Probability.” She was eating this roll too fast. It was more than half gone. She tore off another bit and popped it in her mouth, so that he wouldn’t expect her to talk for another minute. He didn’t say anything, just started eating his sandwich. It looked like roast beef, and at the moment it was considerably more interesting than he was.
“That isn’t much of a meal,” he remarked. “Did you eat earlier?”
“It’s fine. It’s all I wanted.”
“Are you sure? You look a bit pale.” So he could be rude, too. Although maybe, unlike her, he wasn’t trying.
“I’m Irish. I’m always pale.”
“If you’re Irish,” he said, sticking a straw in his Coke, “by which I assume you mean Irish descent, why do you have a Welsh name?”
“How Green Was My Valley. The book, Ceinwen’s barely in the movie. My mother loved it.” Wait a minute. “You know it’s a Welsh name?”
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