Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "What?"

  Mack took her arm and walked her away from the crowd and into a corner. She was, he said, exactly right about the barber's attractiveness to women, and he probably would be a draw but only if Belle could keep him under control. "The women may come in the shop to see him, but it's the men he'll be interested in."

  It took a moment for her to understand his meaning, and when she did, she hissed at him, "Mack McGinnis. You should be ashamed of yourself. You can't know a thing like that simply by looking at a person."

  "Yes, you can, Ruthie. Not all the time, but often enough. In fact, it's one of the few things that you can tell about a person just by looking at him."

  Ruthie looked again at the young barber, and the only thing she saw that made him different from the other men in the room was that his suit, shirt, tie and shoes looked new. They were not as elegant as Mack's, and Mack never would have worn those colors—they were too flashy, too attention-getting—but there was nothing else to set him apart. "Where did Belle find him?"

  "He worked for her in the other place."

  "Is he any good as a barber?"

  As if he'd heard the question, Ruthie saw him beckon to a man who obviously had not had a professional haircut or shave in a while. The man shyly but quickly got into the barber's chair, a look of pure joy on his face. He leaned back and was covered, foot to neck, with a striped cloth that the barber tied in the back. Then, as if by magic, the young man withdrew steaming towels from a shelf and wrapped them around the man's face. So quiet was the crowd that the man's pleasurable sigh was audible. The barber worked his straight razor back and forth along the leather strop, then touched the razor with his thumb. He nodded his satisfaction, then began whipping the shaving cream with the brush. Ruthie knew what he was doing because she'd watched Mack do the same thing a million times, but there was something mesmerizing about watching a stranger being shaved by another stranger. Especially with a straight razor.

  The young barber worked swiftly and surely, giving the chosen-at-random man a close, smooth shave, followed by a close, neat haircut. He patted lotion on the man's face and brushed his neck with talcum powder, whipped off the draped cover, and took a bow to the applause that filled the room. The women hovered while the men shook his hand and slapped him on the back. He received the praise graciously and gratefully. No matter his proclivities, this young man, Ruthie thought, would be a fine partner for Belle.

  Ruthie and Mack and Belle's mother, sisters and children—and the new barber—were the last to leave. Belle introduced him: James Jackson was his name, and he smiled broadly when Mack announced that he'd be in once a week—at least—for a shave. "No reason for me to shave myself when you're right in the neighborhood."

  "I hope everybody that was in here today feels that way," Belle said.

  "I don't think you'll be hurting for business," Mack said, hugging Belle.

  "How's Pa?" she asked. "And Beau? Y'all heard from 'em?"

  Ruthie nodded. "And from Mackie and Wilton." Everyone followed an unspoken and unwritten rule: They didn't ask about the boys, but Ruthie and Mack told everybody when a letter arrived, took the letter and showed it and shared it.

  "Oh, let me see," Emma Johnson exclaimed, and she took the letter and held it to her breast before she opened it. She read slowly, one word at a time, touching her finger to the paper, as if touching the words could bring Mackie and Wil closer to her. She truly did love the Thatcher boys like sons. "I'm so glad they're together," she whispered like a prayer, returning the letter to Ruth.

  They all were glad they were together. It was the one aspect of their being in the Army that was positive: They were together. They could take care of each other, protect each other. They both wrote, so the letters were long and chatty and by reading between the lines, Ruthie could tell how they really were, aside from the hungry, cold, hungry, dirty, and hungry they always were.

  "I expect it'll be busy in here right on through to Thanksgiving," Mack said, his arm around Emma Johnson. "But we'll be looking for all of you at my ma and pa's for dinner," he said as he and Ruthie took their leave. Then he turned and looked directly at James Jackson. "And you're welcome too, Mr. Jackson, if you don't have a place to be."

  ***

  – Carrie's Crossing –

  Jonas

  Alice Corrinne seemed to know the exact second when all the adults were looking the other way. That's when she shimmied out of her highchair and on to the dining room table where her birthday cake held the center spot. She crawled over to it, sat down, and plunged both hands in. When her mother turned to see what she was doing—one of those moments when parents realize that the silence is unnatural—the little girl looked like a chocolate-covered bunny. Audrey shrieked, which caused Jonas to drop the camera he'd been loading film into. JJ hurried over to Baby Alice and the cake and grabbed his own hand full and stuffed it into his mouth before his parents could stop him. Ernestine, just coming into the room carrying a cylinder of fresh-churned ice cream, began to laugh so hard she gave herself hiccups and ran out of the room, which caused Ruby to hurry in to see what the trouble was. By this time, everyone was laughing hysterically, and it was into this scene that Alice and Horace Edwards arrived with birthday presents for little Alice Corrine.

  Audrey, gradually bringing herself under control, went to greet her parents, while Jonas, who'd finally gotten the camera loaded, began to take picture after picture of the two children with chocolate all over themselves, eating cake with their hands. JJ started to sing happy birthday and everyone joined in.

  "Allie! You're three years old," her mother exclaimed.

  Alice held up two chocolately fingers. Audrey held up three fingers. Allie looked at Audrey's hand, then at her own, and added a third finger. "Three. I'm three."

  JJ gave her a big kiss, then turned and started to run from the room.

  Jonas grabbed him. "Where you goin', Buddy?"

  "To tell Ernestine to bring the ice cream. You got to have ice cream with cake."

  "Don't touch anything, and ask her to bring a bunch of wet towels."

  "Yes, Papa!" he yelled and jetted out of the room.

  "Aren't you gonna say hello to your grandma and grandpa, Alice?" Horace asked as he approached the little girl and her cake.

  "Want some cake, Gran'pa?" She grabbed a handful and offered it to him, and Horace backed away.

  "No, Alice, I don't think I want any cake."

  "Papa want cake?"

  Jonas, still snapping pictures, leaned in and let her shove cake into his mouth. "Ummm, good cake, Allie."

  "Ruby did it."

  "Ruby's a very good cake baker."

  Ruby and Ernestine came in then with ice cream, bowls and spoons. They both spoke to Horace and Alice, who ignored them, though they didn't react, by now being used to the rudeness. Besides, Ernestine had opined, "them not speaking was better than what came out of their mouths when they did speak."

  They all sang happy birthday to Alice again, and, cleaned up now, she opened her presents—with JJ's assistance and supervision—and, after thanking and hugging parents and grandparents, she took her presents and her brother and went with Ernestine to play in the solarium; it was too cold and blustery this March day to be outside.

  Ruby had made a second cake—a coconut one—for Jonas's birthday and the four adults took coffee and cake to the living room where Sam had laid and lit a fire. It had caught and was roaring like some large beast. Jonas and Audrey sat together on the couch facing the fire, Alice and Horace took the easy chairs flanking them, and they ate cake and drank coffee and watched the fire. The peace and quiet was an unusual and welcome interlude, one that didn't last long because Horace abhorred silence.

  "Jonas, you remember I told you about those three lots of wool socks I got a line on? In a warehouse some place in New Jersey? You remember me telling you 'bout it?"

  "I remember."

  "I bought 'em and turned around a sold 'em at a two hundred and twenty
percent mark up. Now I got a line of long underwear that I'm gon' put out to bid. Every army's gonna want 'em, and now's the right time to offer 'em, just before it gets warm. They'll want to be prepared for next winter."

  "Suppose the war ends over the summer? Then what?"

  "War ain't gonna end over the summer."

  "Doesn't it bother you to be taking advantage of other people's misery?"

  "Take a good listen, Alice, to the sound of sour grapes," Horace chortled.

  "What are you talking about, sour grapes?"

  "You're mad now, Jonas, 'cause you didn't get in on the ground floor. I'm makin' money hand over fist and you're left in the dust—"

  Audrey jumped to her feet. "Pa, stop it. Always talking about money, how much you have, how much you made. Can you talk about anything else?"

  "You always take his side. Seems to me you'd be worried about all the money he's losin' 'cause he wouldn't go in with me on this idea. But don't matter to me. I'm happy to keep it all to myself."

  "If you only knew how ridiculous you sounded."

  "Audrey Edwards!" Alice sat up straight, glaring at her daughter. "That's about enough of talking to your pa like that. It's disrespectful."

  "That's all right, Alice, she'll see the error of her ways one of these days soon."

  "Listen to this, Pa, and listen carefully: Last week, Jonas sold—"

  Jonas reached toward his wife. "Audrey—"

  "I'm going to tell him, Jonas. He needs to hear it."

  "Hear what? What did you sell, Jonas?"

  "Some beach front property in Florida. Miami Beach, Florida."

  "We don't own no property in Miami Beach. Not down there with all them Jews."

  "Not we, Horace, me. I bought the land with my own money—with our money, Audrey's and mine—two years ago."

  "And we just sold it for one and a half million dollars. That's what we put in the bank. So don't ever say again that Jonas needs you or your money or your deal."

  Horace and Alice sat with their mouths hanging open, Alice in amazement, her husband furious. "I better not find out that was a Edwards/Thatcher deal, or that you used any company money for that."

  "Shut up, Horace," Jonas said wearily.

  Ignoring the admonition, he looked at his daughter. "You keep sayin' our money. If some of it's yours, what do you get to do with your money?"

  "I'm starting my own business," Audrey said and enjoyed a couple of minutes of complete and total silence.

  "What kind of business?" Alice asked.

  "Interior decorating," Audrey answered. "It seems that I'm good at it."

  "Who told you that?" Horace spat.

  "I did," Jonas said. "Mack McGinnis did—"

  "You think you're some kinda interior decorator 'cause some nig—some jig said so? Where's your common sense, girl?"

  "Too bad you can't find it in yourself to be proud of your daughter, Horace, but for the record, she's decorated seven homes and right now is consulting on three others." And in case there was doubt, Jonas named names and invited his in-laws to call Audrey's clients to check if they didn't believe him.

  More silence followed during which Ruby came in with the coffee pot and plate of cake. Jonas held his cup to be refilled and his plate for more cake. Audrey punched him in the belly and suggested that he'd better start watching his weight. Ruby chuckled and said if she wanted to see what too much cake looked like around the middle, take a close look at Sam next time he was in the house.

  "Who's Sam?" Alice asked.

  In that instant Ruby realized her error, and Audrey and Jonas thought of how to mitigate it; there was a heavy thud from above, quickly followed by a loud wail. Audrey was on her feet and out the door in a flash, Ruby fast on her heels after shooting Jonas an apologetic glance. Jonas was up too, listening. JJ had added his cries to Allie's, but the volume was decreasing, and Audrey's footsteps had her almost at the top of the stairs. Between her and Ernestine, they'd have the children quiet and playing again in a few seconds. He returned to his place on the sofa, unaware that he was smiling.

  "What are you grinning like that for?" Horace asked.

  Jonas tried to straighten his face and didn't quite make it. "That Allie has a fully working set of lungs on her." His face broke into a wide grin again. "She's already got her big brother wrapped around her little finger. Did you hear him start up right after Allie started? He cries if she cries."

  "I told you you're making a sissy out of him."

  Jonas, immediately angry, started to reply, but stopped himself, reaching instead for his cake. He watched Alice and Horace watch him in surprise; both fully expected his defense of himself and his son, and when it didn't come, they were thrown off balance. Audrey taught him that. He wished he'd learned sooner.

  Horace recovered and shifted gears. "Why don't you go upstairs and see 'bout Audrey and the children?" he said to his wife: An order, not a suggestion.

  Silence reigned upstairs, and they all heard it. Alice looked questioningly at Horace, which he ignored. She, in turn, grabbed a handful of magazines from the basket beside her chair and, ignoring him, began to page through them. He glared at her, which she didn't noticed, engrossed as she was in the Saturday Evening Post. "I've never seen this magazine before," Alice said. "Does Audrey read it often?"

  "We both do," Jonas said.

  "I've got some business to discuss with Jonas, Alice, so if you don't mind—"

  "I've discussed enough business for the day, Horace," Jonas said.

  "No such thing as enough business."

  "There is for me."

  "Why didn't you talk to me about that Florida beach property?"

  Jonas gave him a disgusted look. "You mean the beach property down there with all the Jews? That beach property? Why would I talk to you about that?"

  He gave a Jonas a pained look, then glared again at his wife. "You know I don't discuss business in front of my wife."

  "Maybe you should. Audrey's the one who suggested I buy the Florida property. She said it would be a good investment, and she was right."

  "All my wife knows about money is how to spend it."

  Alice didn't seem to have heard him, but Jonas knew better. "You're probably wrong about that, Horace, as you are about so many things," he said, and the twitching of Alice's lips proved his point.

  "Horace wants to borrow some money, Jonas, to buy that lot of long underwear. Most of what he made selling the socks he owed out, and the rest he put down on that underwear. But he'll lose that if he can't pay the balance when it comes due." Alice had said all that without ever raising her eyes from the magazine, so she didn't see the look Horace gave her—a mixture of awe and anger. An unusual feat, Jonas thought.

  Horace sputtered a bit before he could form words. "How do you know all that?"

  Alice looked at him. "Just because you treat me like I'm stupid doesn't mean that I am. If you treated me like Jonas treats Audrey, I could be some help to you, keep you from making a fool of yourself some times. Like now, for an instance: Jonas is not going to lend you any money, and Audrey won't, either."

  "What won't Audrey do?" she said coming into the room, resuming her place on the sofa beside Jonas.

  "Lend your pa eleven thousand dollars," Alice said.

  Audrey froze in the motion of leaning forward to retrieve her coffee cup. The look she gave her mother was priceless. "How do you know Pa wants to borrow money? And from me?"

  Jonas got up. "I told you I was done discussing business for today, Horace, and I meant that. I'm celebrating my birthday and my daughter's birthday. No more talk about money today."

  "Then I won't talk to you, I'll talk to my daughter, if that's all right with you."

  "I don't care what you do, Horace."

  "Do you care what she does with her money?"

  "She can do what she wants to do," Jonas said and left the room.

  "Well, now," Horace said, face creasing into a wide grin. He clapped his hands, then rubbed them tog
ether, then leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. "It'll just be for five, six months, then I'll pay you back with interest—that is if you charge your pa interest."

  "All these years and you still don't listen to your wife." She leaned toward her mother. "What are you reading, Ma?"

  "This Harper's Bazaar magazine. You surely do have some interesting ones."

  "What does that mean, Audrey? You are going to lend me the money."

  "No, Pa, I'm not."

  "You have to, Audrey. I'm in some real trouble here."

  "I'm sorry, Pa. I really am. Maybe you should learn to save instead of spend."

  "I don't need advice from you," he snapped, and she wished again, for at least the millionth time, that her husband would end the partnership with her father. She knew he continued it for her sake, but she'd gladly release him from that sense of obligation

  The opportunity presented itself the following morning. Jonas and Rachel were doing a brisk business at the store when the phone rang. Jonas answered to hear Grady Allen's secretary ask if he'd be kind enough to come to the bank right away. Whipping off his apron and donning his hat and coat, he whispered to Rachel that he'd return as soon as possible and hurried out the front door, not bothering to get his car that was parked in the back. He half walked, half ran to the bank, unable to imagine why Grady would want to see him in a hurry. Not bothering with the bank's front entrance, he knocked at the back door—Grady's private entrance—and it was opened almost immediately by a man Jonas had seen before but did not know. The man didn't speak but beckoned Jonas to follow him into Grady's office, where he was surprised to find the old banker seated on the sofa while the man sat behind Grady's desk.

  "Hello, Jonas," Grady said, and Jonas risked rudeness to stare, which netted a wry smile and the wave of a bony hand. "Look like hell, don't I?"

  He looked like death, Jonas thought, then realized how right he was: Grady Allen was as near death as it was possible to be and not be tethered to a hospital bed. "Grady… I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."