by Karen White
We all have to convince ourselves that we’re better than someone else.
Then there are the others—reverse reflections like those in mirrors at circus fun houses.
They are a studious pair, a young man and woman, clutching books to their chests, both wearing thick glasses and clothes that announce their poor origin—practical brown wool trimmed in coarse thread. They sit at the bottom of the west stairs on the Main Concourse, unaware of the travelers hurrying past them or the hard, cold marble underneath them. They have eyes only for each other. He opens his book and begins reading to her, his cheeks blazing red. She stares at him from inches away, her thin hands like butterflies, brushing errant wisps of hair off her forehead, eyes wide with ardor for this simple boy. Love makes them beautiful.
I am suddenly ashamed of my scarlet lipstick, waved black hair, the green satin dress I’ve worn because he likes how it sets off my eyes. I was surprised when he bought such a dress for me. Only for special occasions, he said.
As I pass the young lovers I hear the young man’s voice. It is bolder than I would have anticipated, as if reading the words of another gives him power.
“Mon enfant, ma soeur, Songe à la douceur, D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!”
I do not speak French, but I feel the emotion behind what he reads to her. I somehow know they have chosen to read to each other from those exact books in this precise spot for their shared pleasure.
“Mama,” says the child at my hand. “Mama.”
He has been saying this to me for some time, but I’ve been too distracted to pay attention. When I look down, I see that my three-year-old son is staring at me. This sweet little person always knows how to recall me from my thoughts back to the present, to attend to the moment. “I’m hungry.”
I didn’t tell Timmy why we were coming today. I plan to do so just before we see his father for the first time since Timmy was five months old. My son knows about the man from whom he came in vague ways. On the side table there is a photograph of Mitch in uniform, handsome and stern; a line of dress shirts and pleated pants hangs in the closet next to my clothes; a framed, folded flag from his father’s military burial hangs on the wall opposite the door to our apartment. It is the last thing we see before we leave, and the first thing that captures our eyes when we walk in the door. Mitch says the flag is a sign of valor and strength, a perfect representation of his father. I stand up straight when I walk by it.
I lead Timmy past a great flag hanging between the departure signs in the Main Concourse, stopping for a moment to direct his attention to it. I think how different this flag looks unrolled, open, gently swaying over the commuters. It is more like an invitation than a command. I glance once more at the lovers at the bottom of the stairs where he continues to read and she continues to watch, and I’m hot with envy.
The round Tiffany clock in the center of the vast room shows one o’clock. One hour until his train arrives. No wonder Timmy’s hungry. The poor thing won’t get a nap today, either. A sheen of sweat dampens my forehead, and I reach up to dab it with my handkerchief, making a silent plea to God that Timmy doesn’t have a tantrum on Mitch’s first day home. I look down at the handkerchief monogrammed with our initials, MJM, now streaked with my makeup. Mitch gave me the handkerchief when we were courting. He said it was fate that our initials were the same.
I wish I remembered to feed Timmy lunch at home, because now we’ll have to go to the lower level. Underground spaces make it hard for me to breathe. I always take the bus in the city because I can’t bear to go hurtling under streets and buildings in a metal subway car. At least the ceiling isn’t too low under Grand Central, and the Oyster Bar is well lit.
As we move to the lower-level stairs, I catch the melancholy sound of a violin playing in the distance. The strains remind me of something I’ve sung in Moody’s Jazz Club, on the roof of my friend Sheilah’s apartment building, where I’ve spent so many magical nights while her war-broken husband stayed with our two boys. I feel pulled toward the sound, but I know I must continue in the opposite direction.
As we step onto the lower level, I can’t help but notice the clocks facing me. Clocks are everywhere in Grand Central. Fifty-five minutes left, they say. Mitch will be home soon. Fifty-three minutes. A moment in a long life . . .
I think of Mitch’s letters filled with news of USO shows, singers and beauties of the highest caliber. He told me that when Dinah Shore sang “I’ll Walk Alone,” there wasn’t a dry eye among the men, and how proud he was to have a wife like me waiting for him, walking alone until he returned from the war.
I pass the mirror outside of the Oyster Bar and stop to check my face and arrange my bangs over my forehead. My eyes are dull with exhaustion from the sleepless nights of this week. I finished my last night at the club just two days ago, and I’ve spent the others worrying over Mitch’s return. My skin is pale beneath the makeup. I reach in my purse and pull out a compact, pressing powder on my forehead and nose even though it’s rude to do so in public. No one seems to notice me.
There are many rouged, primped, set women wandering around the station today. We are our own army of wives and girlfriends, sisters and mothers, walking alone, bravely carrying on while our men rid the world of evil. Some of us hold photos in our pockets, others trinkets and flowers. I have a letter he sent me when the war ended. It is worn and the paper is soft from frequent handling. Mitch has always been convincing in his correspondence, but this note tops all the others. I cling to its words of love and tenderness, apology for past wrongs, and promises of a better future. I think that if I read it enough, I might believe it.
Before walking into the Oyster Bar, I place the compact back in my purse. My hand brushes against the wine cork my mother sent with her last letter. I lift it out and read the name stamped on it: Louis M. Martini, Since 1933. After my father’s death she moved with her spinster sister to a vineyard in Napa Valley. It was always her dream. She says California is the new promised land, where the weather is never harsh. She writes how the work is harder than she anticipated, but how pleasing it is to look over the rows of grapevines from her tiny cabin, watching the sun set over the abundant vegetation at the day’s end. I wonder if she is lonely or content. It is hard to read between the lines of her letters. She writes that she wishes she had more room so we could visit. We both know I can’t afford the trip, but fantasy has its value. The truth that we’ll probably never see each other again is too harsh to look straight in the eye.
“Pudding.” Timmy has pulled his hand out of mine and stands at the dessert case just inside the restaurant. Why not let him eat pudding? I don’t know if his father will approve once he’s home. I guide Timmy to the counter section, looking for two empty seats together, but the place is packed. There is an energy in the bar, a frantic mingling of noise and motion. I snake around the counter, inhaling the briny smell of the oysters, listening to the slosh of ice being poured over their rough shells, shouts from the shuckers to the waitresses. There are no seats to be found.
I turn back, planning to take Timmy to a hot dog stand outside the station, when a man grabs my arm, causing me to start. For one panicked moment I think it’s Mitch, off the train early and angry that we weren’t there to meet him. The man has blond hair instead of Mitch’s brown, however, and I breathe. He is dressed in a crisp business suit.
“Hey, aren’t you . . .” His voice trails off.
I don’t recognize him, but it occurs to me that he might have seen me at the club, and a new terror arises in my heart. What if some man approaches me when I’m with Mitch?
“I don’t think so,” I say, looking down and pulling out of his grip.
I walk away, still holding Timmy’s hand, and end up near a back corner. I am leaning on the counter by the kitchen to catch my breath when a hand reaches for mine. I flinch, but I see that it is a woman, probably in her midfifties, with lines around her pale blue
eyes, and graying strawberry blonde hair. There are seats open on either side of her, and she slides over so Timmy and I can sit together. I remove his coat, lay it on the stool, and place him on top of it, kissing his head before I sit.
The woman returns her gaze to the crossword puzzle in the folded newspaper in her hand. Without looking at me she says, “Something one is bound to do out of duty, ten letters.”
I’m only half listening to her as the waitress approaches us. She is frail and unkempt. I wonder how long it takes her to wash the oyster smell out of her hands and hair each night, or if she bothers. Perhaps she is used to it. When she sees my son, with his round, teddy bear eyes and crew cut hair, she becomes a different woman. A smile lights her face.
“You look like a little soldier, a brave little soldier.”
I run my hand over his stubble, and feel an ache as I remember watching his soft chestnut ringlets fall to the floor of the barber shop yesterday. His father wouldn’t like to see his son looking so cherubic.
A word rises into my consciousness. “Obligation.” I turn to the woman at my side. “The word is ‘obligation.’”
She uses the eraser of her pencil to count out the spaces, and her eyes widen. “That’s it.”
I order a chocolate pudding for Timmy and an old-fashioned for myself. The waitress doesn’t judge me for my midday drink, and I’m glad for it. I feel so jittery, I’m afraid I’ll get sick.
Seated across from us are another set of lovers—a soldier and a young woman who is as primped and pressed as I am but altogether different. She is fair with brown eyes. She wears a pale blue dress with sleeves that puff at the top, and a matching headband. Light radiates from her, and her beau is basking in it. She reaches up and runs her hand over his face. I can’t hear them over the din, but I think she must be saying, “It is you. You’re back to me. All of you.” And he must be saying, “Thank God,” while a parade of the men he has watched die marches through his mind. He’ll hide this darkness to protect her.
I wonder if I will be so lucky.
The waitress brings my drink. I notice my hand trembling as I reach for it, and catch the sideways glance of the woman with the crossword. I take a healthy nip and set the glass down harder than I intend. My eyes dart to her and back to my drink.
She speaks without looking at me. “Nervy.”
“Excuse me?” I say.
“You’re nervy. Coming or going?”
“Waiting.”
“Ah. Boy’s father coming home on the two o’clock?”
I look at her, but she continues to study her crossword puzzle. “Eight letters. Faithful practice.”
“Yes, he is.” I reach up and even out my bangs.
“Monogamy,” she says.
The song restarts in my head. “I’ll Walk Alone.”
I’ve never dallied with anyone these years he has been away, though there have been plenty of chances. But I haven’t been faithful to his ideal. I’m a performer, a lounge singer. We bear the weight of the audience’s projections. Our songs touch their hearts and make them think we are singing only for them. Mitch doesn’t like people falling in love with me over their martinis, but I do. It’s a temporary respite from their cares, and I like to help people. So does Sheilah.
I met Sheilah at the Red Cross. She had her hair set so pretty and wore a polka-dot dress and shiny shoes, all dolled up just to roll bandages. I thought she looked like a movie star, and felt ashamed of my kerchief and worn dress, just a step up from the housedresses my mother used to put on. Timmy was just about a year old, and toddling all over the place.
Sheilah smiled kindly at me and winked. “Hey, doll, mind watching my piles while I grab some smokes?”
I shook my head.
“Thanks!”
When she walked next door to the corner mart, all eyes were on her. I wondered if she wore stockings or if she’d drawn lines on the back of her legs. She was back in a flash and placed her cigarette in a shiny ebony holder. I never saw anyone look so glamorous while rolling bandages.
We chatted, talking about the weather and war, and she told me that her handsome husband lost a hand in the fighting, and she was glad because he was home with her. He had been a sniper, but the enemy cut him down quick. She laughed when she said this, like it was a joke. The ladies near us glanced at us and shuffled farther down the table.
Sheilah told me my voice sounded deep and pleasing like warm, drippy honey. I laughed and told her that I used to sing in a big band in my hometown of Spencertown, New York, but I didn’t have much chance now with the baby, and my husband gone. When she mentioned the flower stall where her husband often bought her bouquets, I realized how close we lived to each other. It was the same place where Mitch bought flowers for me, though the thought didn’t warm my heart.
“We’ll have you and your little one to dinner sometime,” she said. “We love babies, but I don’t think I can have any since it hasn’t happened so far.”
I couldn’t believe how frankly she spoke, and with such nonchalance. She carried on in a way I had never seen a woman do. There was something different about her than almost every other woman I’d known, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
I was mentioning that my husband was still overseas when she interrupted me and said, “Why do you hide that gorgeous porcelain skin?” She reached up and made a motion to brush the bangs out of my face, causing me to flinch. I moved my bangs back into place.
“Such a jumpy thing!” she said. As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, her gaze clouded. She was quiet for a whole minute without taking her eyes off me. Her look seemed to touch my skin, and the scar on my forehead tingled. I hoped she hadn’t seen it. She arranged a smile on her lips.
“We’ll have to have you over sometime,” she said.
—
Moody’s was on the roof of Sheilah’s apartment building, which was the first reason I fell in love with it. Living in a city like New York after having grown up in the Hudson River Valley, I felt the continual oppression of stone and brick, cramped rooms, tight corridors, creaky elevators. With so many people and dwellings crammed onto one island, one is bound to feel claustrophobic.
I took the steps slowly, swallowing gulps of fresh night air and gazing heavenward. Waiters in black shirts scurried over the rooftop, and a heavy, melancholy sound at odds with the energy of the place issued from the upright piano in the corner. The bartender, a slender man with a long nose and eyes twinkling from the reflected lights of the hanging strands, stared at me without bothering to hide it. I looked away, wondering where Sheilah was. The kindly old Irish woman next door was sitting in my apartment with Timmy while he slept. It was the first time I’d left him alone, and though I trusted her, it had been so hard to walk out of the building without him. Sheilah had told me to meet her at nine o’clock. I half hoped she’d stand me up so I could get back to him.
When the piano song ended, applause rose from the tables, and the hanging lights went off, dropping darkness over us like a blanket. Distant car horns rose on the breeze, and the stronger stars, those that could be seen over the glow of the city lights, flickered overhead.
A large, raucous group spilled from the top of the stairs onto the roof. A half-dozen women and a man or two pushed past me and seeped into the chairs around the midnight blue–covered tables. The waiters lit candles, and the hanging lights around the stage went on one section at a time, until the rooftop was ablaze. The silver stage curtain trembled from the wind gusts and motion. I took a seat near the table by the stairs. In moments, a waiter jotted down my order and vanished as the curtain parted.
The piano player had returned, but he didn’t have the same hangdog look as before, and I could see why. The gorgeous blonde accompanying him wore a red satin gown and shook her hip to his musical introduction. When she turned and began to sing, I saw that it was Sheilah. Her pretty
, open face and soprano voice were magnetic, and it was only her and each one of us, in our own place, listening to her sing.
I realized then that what made her stand out from other people was her happiness. I knew almost no one who was purely happy. Sitting in this rooftop bar was the closest I’d been to happiness in a long time, but it still didn’t permeate me the way it did Sheilah. By the time her set had finished and flowers rained down on the stage, she had made me believe I might be happy again someday. It was all I could do not to sing.
—
Within a month of seeing Sheilah’s performance, I began singing at Moody’s. Over the years I’d been dressing more plainly so Mitch wouldn’t have to worry about other men ogling me. I’d only kept the green satin dress he’d bought me to wear out for his birthday, but because it reminded me of him, I didn’t want to wear it. I started performing in Sheilah’s borrowed dresses, padding my brassiere to fill out her tops, using her lipstick, allowing her to set my hair. My neighbor let Timmy sleep at her house on the nights I worked, and after Sheilah had baby Andrew, her husband kept both boys. I performed only a couple of times a week, making just enough for extra pocket money, but it brought me more joy than I’d ever known.
It is this life I will miss the most.
Sheilah is a light, the best friend I’ve ever had. She has never judged me or pushed me for details, but always seems to understand that this was just a gig and that it would all end once Mitch came home. Two weeks ago was the first and only time she spoke any words out loud that showed me she understood about him.
I stayed the night on their couch after a great show at the club. Timmy slept on his little blankets in Andrew’s room. When the baby fussed, Sheilah brought him out to sit in the darkness with me and nurse him. The light from the street lamp lit her like a modern Madonna with long fingernails and makeup. She didn’t look at me. Once he’d latched on, she began whispering.