He sat down, amused with himself.
“I’d like to invite you to our weekly workshops.”
“Have you lost your mind?” I asked.
“Rosie, just say yes. If I can’t...well. We can be friends and start this over the right way. What do you say?”
“I’m no poet,” I said.
“I don’t care,” he said.
CHAPTER 14
Ivy
The Law Office of J. W. Lawrence
June 13, 1925
Dear Ivy,
Ah, Friar Laurence. Wasn’t he responsible for that poor girl stabbing herself?
I generally give advice on contracts and wills, documents that have everything to do with human emotions, but the distant, dry legal verbiage greatly diminishes their impact.
Even so, I’m in the business of offering guidance, and I will not hesitate to give you some. First, I don’t have any siblings but I understand the relationships formed are often fraught with conflicting feelings. Is it possible this is the norm? Or, if you determine your case is an extreme one, could you somehow find a way to modify those emotions?
You are in a large city, Ivy. New York seems a place that cultivates loneliness along with vice. Please try to work out a way to accept your sister and make her your ally. It’s the safer route, really.
Friar Lawrence has spoken.
Kind regards,
J. W. Lawrence
Empire House
It’s got to be summer in this heat, 1925
Dear Mr. J. W. Lawrence,
When you get a minute, I want you to tell me what “J” and “W” stand for. At this point in our correspondence, I think it imperative I know who I’m dealing with.
Then again, you’re not obligated, because I lied to you. Well, maybe that’s a little harsh—I bent the truth. I’m not slinging hash at some greasy spoon. I am a waitress, but I’m serving drinks to the New York hot-to-trots in an underground speak. Cat, the glamour-puss I work for hired Rose to work in the dress shop above it—her story was legit.
Had to get that off my chest. Lies make it difficult to breathe, do they not?
More soon,
Ivy
“ROSE!”
I woke suddenly, heart pounding as I desperately tried to remember the vivid dream that had so brutally pushed me into the morning. Or was it a nightmare? The specifics lay just beyond my reach, but I knew I’d been running down MacDougal Street, bare feet tearing against the pavement. I tried to scream but nothing would come, and I’d wrapped my hands around my neck and squeezed, desperate to push out a sound. My mind immediately went to Asher. Was the dream a portent of what was to come? Was he in trouble? Would I never find him?
But how many people called out the name of the person they’d least like to save them? I was glad Rose’s bed was empty and she hadn’t heard. She would have come running, her eyes full of the pity that so incensed me in front of the Seacrest Home. That’s what got my goat: if I was the object of Rose’s pity, then Asher meant considerably more to me than he did to her. She worried for the house, and I worried for our brother. Why did she have to be so damn practical? I couldn’t stand to look at her after we’d stood side by side, grasping the bars in front of the awful crazy house. I didn’t speak to her on the way home from Coney Island, preferring to watch the city roll by, my eye scanning the streets for a man I hadn’t yet met. I managed a busy night at Cat’s, and then afterwards, sneaked into the Washing Room at Empire House with a bottle of hooch from the stash Maude keeps under her bed, and penned a response to Mr. Lawrence’s latest letter. I didn’t mention Asher or Seacrest. He’d know soon enough, but I couldn’t spell it out for him. How does one write about heartbreak? I told myself that I’d spill the whole story once I found Asher and could evaluate his condition myself. I wasn’t completely in the dark—I had a doctor’s name, and I knew he’d moved his patients to Manhattan. There couldn’t be more than a handful of hospitals on an eight-mile island. There was even one right on Eleventh Street here in Greenwich Village. St. Vincent’s. I’d start there.
With renewed confidence, I pushed myself out of bed and got dressed. Empire House smelled of freshly baked bread and percolating coffee, the comforting scent of Sunday morning. I sped down the stairs, barely touching them, and nearly knocked Rose over where she stood arranging flowers in the foyer.
“Ivy, you’re like an earthquake,” she said, her hand going to her heart. “You startled me.”
Rose’s dress and hair were smooth and neat as usual, but her eyes looked wild.
“What’s with you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Feeling skittish, I suppose.”
So she wasn’t going to tell me. Even though I’d promised myself I’d avoid her, I couldn’t help but push a little. “What happened this morning?”
“Nothing at all, except that you’re speaking to me now.” She pushed the vase to the center of the table and removed her gloves. “I’m sorry yesterday didn’t go as planned. I’ve given it a lot of thought, however, and I don’t think we should make any definitive assumptions.” Rose sat on the bottom stair, and after a moment’s hesitation, I joined her. “We should inform Mr. Lawrence,” she continued, her words twisting my nerves, “but if Asher’s condition can’t be proven, then I don’t know where that leaves us. He’s still missing, Ivy, and until we find him, everything is hearsay.”
My anger spiked again. She wanted to find him, but only to make smooth the legal process. That damned house in Forest Grove meant nothing to me—it wasn’t our father. Asher was a direct blood tie. He was family. Why couldn’t she see that one was the past and the other our future?
“I’m going to find him,” I said, standing up. “I have an idea and all day to pursue it. Cat isn’t expecting me until this evening.” I smoothed down my bob in the foyer’s mirror and straightened my stockings. They were torn, but I didn’t care. I had money for the first time in my life. Not a lot, but enough to pay for my own without having to beg Rose. Enough to hail a cab or buy a plate of chop suey. Enough to feel like the city was mine, if just for the day.
I stepped out onto the front stoop. MacDougal shimmered in the noontime sun, a gemstone in the jewelry box of Greenwich Village. This is the beauty my father saw, what he tried to capture with his brush. I took a deep breath and walked into it.
“Wait, Ivy.” I turned to see Rose calmly moving toward me, purse in hand. “I’ve told Nell I’ll be gone for a bit. I’m coming with you.”
There was no question in her voice—she wasn’t asking me. Caught off guard, I simply asked, “Why?”
“I’m worried for him, too,” she said, and all at once I believed her.
“Okay,” I warned, “but you better hope Nell’s patient, because we’re on my timetable.”
Rose fell into step with me. “Fine,” she said, laughing, “but you don’t own a watch.”
Though we’d been silent with each other since the day before, Rose became chatty as we strolled, telling the story of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s birth and how she’d been named for the hospital we were on our way to visit; the doctors there had saved Edna’s uncle’s life just before she’d burst into the world, and her grateful mother repaid the debt with a namesake. Rose’s voice was animated as she told the story, as rich and vibrant as the cafés and art galleries that lined the streets. Perhaps I was wrong, I thought as we crossed Sixth Avenue. I’d focused so much on what I could take from the city that I hadn’t focused on what the city could offer—but Rose had. This was a different Rose. This Rose walked right up to the starched, prim nuns at St. Vincent’s reception and inquired directly about Doctor Spence.
“I don’t recognize the name,” the nun said, smiling down at Rose from her raised desk, “however, we have a number of doctors from other hospitals on consult. It is possib
le he’s been here, but we don’t keep formal records of the doctors’ comings and goings, just the patients.”
“Have a number of new psychiatric patients come recently?” I asked before thinking about how to best phrase the question. The nun turned to me, her mouth pursing as she took in my bobbed hair and short dress.
“It wouldn’t be in my rights to say,” she answered curtly.
Rose stepped forward, her innocent face upturned toward the sister’s stern countenance. “Our brother served in the war, and we have reason to believe his mind has been compromised. May we enter the men’s ward to look for him? I promise we won’t disturb anyone.”
The nun glanced toward the heavy doors leading into the hospital. “No women are allowed in there except the nurses....”
“Please,” Rose pressed.
The nurse relented, opening the heavy door and ushering us through. “The men’s ward is on the second floor,” she explained. “You have ten minutes. Anything more than that and I call the guard.”
The men’s ward was silent, orderly and half-empty. Patients lay in an endless stretch of beds, their privacy curtains pulled back, exposing healing limbs and feverish bodies. Nurses attended some; others, propped up by pillows, picked at lunch trays or played solitaire. We merited a few raised eyebrows, but most were lost to their own boredom, and, with the number of nurses bustling about, hadn’t the energy or desire to engage two young women.
“I don’t see him,” Rose whispered.
We walked to the end of the ward and back again, just to be sure. None of those men had Rose’s moonlit eyes.
“I’d like a cup of Joe when you get a chance,” a voice called out. The ginger-haired man lying nearest to the door smiled in our direction. He was older than us, but barely so, his large feet sticking out from under the thin white blanket. He winked. “Add a dash of cream if you’ve got it.”
“We’re not nurses,” Rose said, and he didn’t bother to hide his disappointment.
“Can you grab one of them holy dames for me? I need a pick-me-up.”
“Yep,” I said, “but could you do something for us? We went through the wrong door. Where’s the nuthouse in this joint?”
He thought for a moment. “Don’t they send the crazies to Wards Island? I haven’t heard of one here, but there is a charity ward on the fourth floor. Saddest thing. Lots of veterans and motherless sons.”
Rose nudged me. “It’s been five minutes.”
I shouted the man’s coffee order to a startled nun and ran for the door, Rose right behind me.
The charity ward looked identical to the men’s ward below, except for the patients. Their gaunt faces and sallow skin told me these guys needed more than a cuppa Joe. There weren’t any nurses visible, and Rose, clutching my arm, nearly buckled under the tidal wave of male attention. Luckily, serving drinks at Cat’s speakeasy had taught me how to handle groups of men. It appeared I had learned something from the city.
I stopped in the middle of the aisle and put my hand on my jutting hip. “Hey, fellas!”
The ones that could hooted and whistled.
“Anyone know a sap named Asher Adams?”
“Who’s he to ya?” one man bellowed.
“He’s my brother, and I’m looking for him.”
“Why should we care?”
Why should they? I racked my brain. “Don’t you care about your heroes? He fought in the war. In the Argonne. The Lost Battalion.”
Silence fell like a brick. Finally, one man sneezed, and the rest, grateful for the distraction, showered him with blessings.
“No need to be so glum,” I said when they’d quieted. “He lived.”
“Of course he did,” the loudmouth said. “He’s a New Yorker! All those guys were. It’s why they lived. A buncha survivors.”
“But you never heard of Asher?” I asked, hope fading.
They all looked sincerely sorry they didn’t. Rose tugged on the back of my dress, and I reluctantly followed her toward the door.
“Is it true?” The man who spoke sat propped in his bed. He cradled his arm, which was a patchwork quilt of scar tissue. I walked toward him and tried not to stare.
“Is what true?” Rose asked gently.
“Was your brother in the Argonne?”
“Yes,” I said. He looked stricken, but I had to ask. “Were you?”
“Not quite,” he said softly. “But I served in France.”
I sat at the edge of his bed. “Our brother is lost again. We don’t know much about what he experienced overseas. Could you tell us about what happened there?”
“Those boys were surrounded by the Germans for almost a week. No food, very little water. Every day they must have wondered if they’d be saved, or if it’d be their last. So many didn’t make it.”
“Our brother did,” I said, my pride surging.
The man lifted his good arm and grasped my hand. “Will you tell him I’m sorry?”
“Whatever for?” Rose asked.
“We didn’t know they were there. We thought we were pummeling the Germans, not our own men! By the time we found out, we must have made their lives pure misery in that forest.” The man’s voice turned raspy, his throat full of tears. “We didn’t mean it,” he said as a sob escaped. “You’ll tell him when you see him, right?”
I squeezed the pale hand holding mine. “Yes,” I promised, “but I know what he’d say back to you—you’re forgiven, though there’s nothing to forgive.”
We each took a turn kissing his cheek and left him in that sad ward, crying for the sin he believed he committed.
* * *
Both Rose and I sorted through our thoughts on the way home. Our silence wasn’t bred of anger, but of contemplation.
How lonely those men must have been in that French forest! I tried to imagine their horror of discovering the direness of the situation—and the desperate need to keep the flame of hope flickering in their hearts. Did these hopeful ones survive, or was it the men who had none, and therefore acted with reckless bravery? If they were New Yorkers, it was more likely the latter. This city was full of cynics who paradoxically acted as though life was a party to be celebrated by walking a tightrope stretched across two willing skyscrapers. Was that who Asher was?
“Did you see that sign, Ivy?” With a start I realized we were already back on MacDougal. Rose had stopped, drawn to the Actors/Actresses Needed board nailed to the front door of the Republic Theater. Early in the week it had only been placed in the window. They must be getting desperate.
“I saw it.”
“Why not go in?” she said. “I’ll go with you. It’s just what we need right now. A little diversion for me, and a little bit of stardust for you. What do you say?”
No, was my first thought. I’m not ready. Rose’s face showed a confidence I couldn’t find in myself. Could I find some kind of courage in that? “All right,” I said, taking a deep breath as we stepped into the land of the Anarchists.
A couple stood on the low stage, rehearsing something I didn’t recognize. Rose settled into one of the folding chairs in the front row, and I slowly walked up to the man pacing the proscenium. He wore a tattered black sweater, though it was a scorching day. His glasses were round and wire-rimmed, balanced low on his nose, and if I wasn’t so nervous I might have laughed. I glanced back at Rose, and her eyes shone with excitement. She looked like a stranger.
“Yes,” the man said impatiently.
“I hadn’t asked anything.”
“But you will.”
I gestured toward the door. “You advertised for actresses. I am one. An actress, I mean.”
“Isn’t everybody?” he said. “But we always give auditions. You never know when a star finds its way out of a black hole.” He barked something at the couple, and
they slunk off the stage. “What have you prepared?” the man said.
Even in the hot room, I felt my blood go cold. I had nothing.
“She knows Shakespeare,” Rose said from the audience.
My blood was frigid, but my face was hot. The contrast made me nauseous. “I know quite a few monologues,” I managed to say.
“Then choose one,” he said briskly. “And be quick about it.”
The stage, no higher than a foot or two, seemed insurmountable. What was wrong with me? I lifted one heavy foot and then another, and turned to face him.
“Begin,” he shouted.
I quickly decided on the Player Queen’s speech from Hamlet. “‘So many journeys may the sun and moon...’” I began, the familiar words tumbling from my mouth as my mind wandered to Asher and the lost men, to my father, to our lives in Forest Grove. Had he been lonely, too? Had we all? Were we destined to stumble through the dark and never find each other? The director tapped his foot and I mangled the line about fear and love, the two words catching in my throat. Tears clouded my eyes and I tripped off the stage. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Once outside I tried to compose myself, but the tears kept falling. After a moment, Rose exited the theater and squinted into the late-day sun. “Ivy? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t think you can,” I said, and made a run for Empire House. Jimmy sat on the stoop smoking a cigarette. He grabbed my hand and drew me onto his lap.
“What’s got you, Beauty? Tell Jimmy your troubles.”
“You smell like another woman’s perfume,” I said, bolting inside and closing the door behind me.
* * *
From the Law Offices of J. W. Lawrence
Dear Ivy,
The “J” stands for “John.” The “W” is fiction, though based in enough embarrassing fact to still turn my face red. When I was in junior high school, I was the only boy tall enough to jump up and reach the basketball hoop. My fellow students called me “John the Wonder.” Aren’t you sorry you asked?
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