She flipped through photos of them together at Coney Island, on the Jersey shore, and on their day trip to Philadelphia, with a silly shot of his smirk next to the Liberty Bell.
They had gone out to Philly that day in his red convertible. Her thighs were warm and solid next to his. The leather seat compressed with each movement of her body. Billy related that the car was a high school graduation gift from his father. He said that he had almost failed English. The words blurred together whenever he tried to read and write, but he had found a way to pass by paying the honors students to proofread his essays. Sometimes they wrote entire essays for him, from their own goodwill. Billy could charm almost anyone.
His car was his pride and joy, an example of what his charm could win. It had chrome wheels and a massive hood ornament. It was a smooth ride, and it spoke of more money than Lisa could imagine.
Lisa had shuddered a little when he told her where it came from, but it was easy enough to move on to new things as her long hair whipped around in the wind on a leisurely, breezy ride with the convertible’s top down. The air changed as they drove over the state line to New Jersey. The trees were tall, and she had never seen so many at once. Her own car would have broken down at the speeds Billy traveled. It always smelled like a leak, and the motor made a clunking sound at forty miles per hour.
Billy talked more about himself on that trip than he ever had on their dates in Brooklyn. Let loose from his usual stomping grounds, he held his identity less tight.
He admitted that he was always restless and that his feet itched to move when he’d been sitting still for too long. His parents used to punish him as a child until they realized that buying things worked better. As he got older, the toys got bigger.
Lisa didn’t tell him that she had received a grand total of three toys throughout her childhood. She didn’t tell him that her parents used to save all year for her annual gift at Christmastime, and that usually it was just a new coat. Her old baby doll remained in her room as a treasured memory.
She didn’t take anything for granted—yet Billy was used to having so much.
* * *
She could barely even look at her clothes closet anymore, it was so empty.
Her standard-issue Pan Am uniforms and a few well-worn skirts and blouses weren’t enough.
She wanted to buy something special at the Starlite Dress Shop—a nice number that could impress Billy, or anyone else.
She decided to leave a few less dollars on the counter that morning for her mother’s grocery shopping.
Her mother noticed as she organized her pocketbook for the week. “Honey, are they paying you less money all of a sudden?”
“Pan Am started making the flight attendants pay for their food at the hotels, Ma,” she lied.
There were only so many ways she could break free.
14
Madeline
Madeline had last seen Fred face-to-face four years ago—a few months after he came to her apartment with Rachel.
It was at the divorce proceedings. One of his crony friends served as his lawyer. He denied adultery and got to keep all the money. He rolled out of the courtroom in his dark-gray suit, shaking hands with his representative and talking loudly about sports, as though a divorce from Madeline was yet another easy deal.
Madeline bit her lip when she saw him smoking his cigarette in the lobby. She slumped past him like a used tire.
Deflated. Useless.
He pulled her aside. “Listen, Madeline—” He hissed and exhaled a puff of smoke, which went straight into her eyes. “You’d better not start trying to spread any of your nonsense around about me. Nobody will believe you or give a damn about what you say.”
Fred towered over her, enormous in his elevated shoes.
She used to spit shine those same shoes.
“You must think you’re a big shot, Fred. A really big, fat shot.”
He shrugged and extinguished his cigarette. “At least I’m not a nothing, Maddy.” He smiled, sweeping his eyes to the floor as though he was referring to a mat—a doormat. He knew she hated that nickname. Fred’s greasy moustache was at her eye level, and the scent of his tar rushed into her nostrils. “Make sure you watch where you step, now.”
He grinned, and his icy blue eyes looked straight through her.
Soon his crony emerged from the bathroom, and they left the courthouse.
It was a hot, humid day. Madeline’s heels stuck to the sidewalk, which reeked like rotten garbage.
Her own lawyer caught up with her and patted her on the back. “The first installment of my bill will be due in two weeks, dear.”
The lawyer left; Madeline stood alone, crying.
It took a long eighteen months to get down to a zero balance on the lawyer bill.
She entered a routine after the divorce; she sewed, ordered, and sold her dresses during the daytime hours. At night, she held the twice-weekly, or sometimes thrice-weekly, sessions of the social club. She kept her food simple: corn flakes in the morning, canned foods for lunch, sandwiches from a local deli. Pastries for dinner, leftovers from the club. She bunked like a castaway, on the fold-out sofa in the back room.
Although she had her busy times, there were always the slow hours.
Like three in the afternoon, presently. A lone customer browsed the store, a little old lady who was taking her time to pick through the woolen hats on clearance.
The doorway bells rang, and Madeline emerged from behind the counter to greet someone who was entering.
It was Mrs. Hanover.
She was the wife of one of Fred’s cronies; Madeline hadn’t seen her in about four years, since sometime before the divorce—but still she beamed, as if it had been no time at all.
“Mrs. Hanover! It’s been so long!”
“I’ve been trying to stay away, dear! For my pocketbook, you know!” She smiled genially as she ran her eyes up and down Madeline’s A-line dress. “Darling, I just couldn’t stay away any longer. My daughter’s getting married in June, and I just knew you’d have something special for the mother of the bride. I’m looking for something classic, you know? Something that doesn’t make me look too ancient,” she laughed.
The two of them combed through the racks for an hour, to no avail. Madeline even dove into the back room and brought out a few pieces that had just arrived in shipment, but nothing fit Mrs. Hanover quite right, so Madeline agreed to make a custom design.
Mrs. Hanover marked a few things she liked in Madeline’s fashion magazines, and Madeline sketched out a plan: a vision of a long sapphire-blue gown with silver edging.
“I really appreciate this. You know, I just trust your judgment, your style. You have all of it, darling. And you know what an important day this is to me, I’m sure. It’s my only daughter getting married.” Mrs. Hanover gazed into the distance, misty eyed with maternal feeling.
Madeline cleared the lump in her throat. “Of course. It will be something you remember forever.”
Then she ran to retrieve her measuring tape in a well-timed bid for supplies.
* * *
She worked harder on that gown than on anything she had ever made. The society ladies would behold her spectacular creation. They would mourn the years they had ignored her. Even after her long nights with the social club, Madeline woke at five AM and revved up the sewing machine. As the sun rose over Brooklyn Heights, she toiled in the back room, ripping out thousands of stitches in her effort to make a perfectly contoured bodice and the most fabulous flowing skirt to ever exist.
When it was complete, it was a vision.
She handed it over to Mrs. Hanover, whose whole face glowed like an angel. She spun herself around to look at it from every angle. “Making an old lady like me look so gorgeous—you’re a genius, my dear! I don’t know how you pulled this off!”
Madeline did a little wiggle of her hips. “Youth is all about attitude!”
After Mrs. Hanover changed back into her housedress, she paid what she
owed, along with a hefty tip. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Especially since … well, I know that none of us have been here in a while, really. But seeing you in person, darling … I know that none of those nasty things Fred said about you could be true. You’re a doll, a true doll.”
“Oh?” Madeline’s face turned white.
“I’m going to tell the girls to start coming back, Madeline!” Mrs. Hanover whisked herself out the door, and the bells jangled as she left the dress shop.
* * *
After a few days, they did start coming back. One by one, her formerly frequent customers—the society ladies—ran in to grab a scarf or a pair of knickers. At first, they purchased only small accessories, but after a very prominent lady of the group purchased a dress, more of them streamed in and Madeline got busy soon after, filling out overseas orders for the latest fashions from Paris and Milan and creating her own custom designs.
She was getting a glimpse of what her business could have been like without Fred’s interference.
Without his lies, she could have had something much bigger, this whole time.
These ladies had a little extra money to spend. She was finally making a nice profit. She even had to ask Harriet to come in part-time and take over the alteration requests because she no longer had the time to do them herself.
But although some of these society ladies had returned, they were wary.
They would glance over their shoulders constantly, as if checking to see if anyone noticed their whereabouts. And none ever joined Madeline in the evenings at the social club.
She would invite them; they all made excuses about their “prior commitments.”
She stopped asking them after a while.
“I was probably playing it a little too fast and loose anyway, inviting them for the nights,” she confided in Harriet. “I wouldn’t want them telling those men.”
But after a few weeks at least, as February turned to March, they seemed to glance over their shoulders less often.
* * *
Madeline’s feverish pains took on a life of their own, bound up in something bigger. She trimmed and sheared, sized and prepared the fabric. Her hands stirred in constant motion to construct tight ensembles from loosely wrapped reams of cloth.
Harriet worked to collect the measurements, and Madeline coached her in the art of speed: the quick flick to wrap a measuring tape around a waist, to extend it the height of a thigh.
“You’re getting faster, darling,” she told Harriet as she flew her own needle over the crisp edge of a skirt.
“Thanks. I needed this job, Madeline. My husband stopped giving me money to buy clothes! He said I’m a clotheshorse.” Harriet stood up to inspect her handiwork, shaking out her own full skirt. “Darn it!” she yelped, and bit her lip. “Nature has decided to bless me early this month.” She took off her cardigan and wrapped it around her waist. “And now it looks like this stool has been through a battle scene. Disgusting.”
“We’ll take care of it. Not like that hasn’t happened to me! Although there’s something wrong with me, darling; I only get visits from my Friend a few times a year. But it’s always a surprise!” She opened a small cabinet and pulled out sanitary pads and belts, tossing them over to Harriet.
Madeline’s cycle hadn’t been regular for years. Two decades prior, back in high school, a boy had taken her into a closet after school. She didn’t really know what had happened until her best friend told her she might be pregnant. Her mother found her on the floor of her bedroom—writhing, coughing—on the cusp of death after she tried to clean herself out with bleach. She was revived at the hospital shortly after, and the doctor proclaimed her scarred for life.
During her courtship with Fred, she told him this story. She told him directly that she could never have his children.
A few weeks later, he proposed to her.
She was a streamlined wife for him; he was able to cheat on her without the hassle of little ones to complicate his life.
It had been so easy for him.
* * *
Now that the society ladies were shopping during the day, her dress shop was buzzing, and she could barely keep up. Madeline complained to Harriet that she was slacking on the social club, forgetting even to get food some nights.
But now she was at that bakery on Henry Street to try to make it up to her regular ladies.
She was eying something fancy: a layer cake with chocolate crème.
She purchased it and watched the busy attendant tie up the cake box with red-and-white twine. She was entranced by the nimble motions of his fingers—a talent that she also prided herself on, the ability to prepare something beautiful for a customer in quick time.
“Thanks so much.” She handed her money over and turned to leave. Then her throat seized up suddenly.
She couldn’t swallow.
It was him.
Fred was perched behind a little table, sipping an espresso.
She hadn’t seen him since the divorce. Except for possibly the other week, two nights in a row, at the window of her shop.
It was like déjà vu from outside the courtroom; she had no choice but to walk right past him. Of course, she was wearing heels. And they clicked too loudly.
Fred turned to face her.
He gave a wide sneer of his yellowed teeth, and with a twinkle in his eye, he gestured to her cake box.
“Hosting a party tonight, Maddy?” His eyebrows rose, and he exchanged looks with his crony.
Madeline didn’t answer. She scurried away and tucked the cake box under her arm.
Fred guffawed as she left; he chortled so hard that he sputtered on his espresso.
Madeline hid her face from him, turning only to catch a final glimpse of Fred’s wide, pale forehead.
15
Elaine
It was all so tiring. When Tommy started to drift off on the floor, Elaine brought a woolen blanket and a toss pillow down to the carpet. He twisted around in a fitful languor before reaching to put the pillow beneath his head.
Elaine stayed on the couch near him and his unfinished transistor. She nodded off too.
He always got in his own way—she would get worked up—they both would get exhausted.
Now it was morning. They were thirsty as they sat on tall stools in the kitchen; they sipped down glasses of water and nibbled on slices of orange. The fruity acid was on their tongues—they didn’t exchange a word, and the volume of French poetry was between them, the one she had carefully selected.
She broke the silence. “What do you want to do today?”
He glanced at her with a devastating look—hair slicked back, hand on his stubbled cheek. Dark eyes intent. “I’d really like to stay at home, babe. Get some stuff done. I’m trying to finish that damn transistor. Just one more piece I need to get right.”
“What are you trying to do?” She gulped.
It was always just one more piece—one last stubborn piece. He always claimed to be close to complete, yet he never finished what he started.
“I just need to get the wires in the right place. It’s an amazing design.”
He was always so fixated on his projects—his gadgets, his music. His booze.
During their first years together, he had focused his intensity on her. He knew how to romance her, buying her extravagant bouquets or rare editions of literature. Yet during the early years of their relationship, she caught glimpses of his broken pieces. He would talk about his youth—his mother distant with melancholy, his father unable to help. But he never shaded in the details—he would always shift the conversation to something beyond himself, something about philosophy or art.
She had spent three years in courtship with Tommy before he surprised her with a magnificent diamond, a proposal on one knee, next to the Hudson River.
Without a question in her mind, Elaine had said yes. She couldn’t imagine being with anyone but him.
Then, shortly after their engagement, Tommy’s
father took ill. He hadn’t been well for some time, but his condition deteriorated, and he was in and out of wards for months with a slow-moving cancer.
Tommy had always enjoyed his drink, but after his father’s illness it became routine for him to add cognac to his espresso and a splash of whiskey to everything else. It took a full year for his father to succumb to the cancer; by then, it had become an established habit for Tommy—a splash here, a splash there, and a binge more often than not.
It had been three years since Tommy proposed to her; they still didn’t have a wedding date, and now she couldn’t compete with his other obsessions.
Though he seemed to observe, sometimes, that she was restless. There were moments when Tommy noticed after all.
Now, he was being especially attentive: “Or how about we take in a show today instead? Or maybe a play? I heard there’s a great new show downtown, in Manhattan.”
A rush of excitement bloomed in her cheeks; she couldn’t help it. “That sounds great! I’ll check the listings.”
She headed outside and grabbed the Chronicle from their stoop to check the times.
The Chronicle.
Elaine paused in the doorway, taking in the long list of editors and reporters on the second page. Her gaze lingered on the names of those who had interviewed her. She rubbed the newsprint; its ink bled gray onto her fingers. Her breathing quickened.
At once, Tommy came up behind her, arms around her waist. “Anything look good?” He pushed his stubbled chin inside her neck crevice.
Her cheeks grew hot, and she almost stammered. “What section would the theater schedule be in? I keep forgetting.”
“The listings? They’re usually towards the back of the paper, aren’t they?” He twirled her around and pulled her close to his chest. “You should know, right, babe? I mean, I never read this paper.”
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