Ashes of Roses

by MJ Auch

I didn’t know where they had Maureen workin’ that mornin’, and Gussie kept me from lookin’ for her at the lunch break. “Wait till tonight. Papa will be out visiting his friends from the temple, and I’ll be at the union hall, so you’ll have the place to yourselves. It will be easier for you to show Maureen who’s boss in the privacy of home.”

  “I’ll show her who’s boss, all right,” I said.

  Maureen knew enough to hightail it out of there at the quittin’ bell, so I didn’t see her until I got home. I wasted no time gettin’ into it with her. “What exactly did ye think ye were doin’ today?”

  “What d’ye think I was doin’? Workin’, of course.”

  “And just how did ye meet that man?”

  “He was at the end of our block by the deli. He asked me if I wanted a job.”

  “The deli isn’t on the way to school.”

  “Who said I was on the way to school? I haven’t gone all week.”

  “Well, ye’ll be goin’ tomorrow, and don’t think I’ll be writin’ any excuse for yer teacher. Ye know what Ma said about stayin’ in school.”

  Maureen jutted out her chin. “Ma is a whole ocean away from here.”

  “Well, I’m standin’ two feet in front of ye, and I can give ye a lickin’ as good as Ma ever did.”

  “I’d like to see ye try.” Maureen just stood there with her hands on her hips and a smug look on her face. If I let her get away with disobeyin’ me, there was no tellin’ what trouble she’d get into next. I smacked her good on the side of her face, knockin’ her down on the feather bed.

  For a few seconds she looked like a frightened little girl. I was just about to comfort her when the little vixen jumped to her feet and came at me, duckin’ her head and pushin’ me backward into the wall.

  Then we were rollin’ around the floor, each punchin’ at the other, but missin’ our targets. It was a good thing we had no furniture in our room or we would have turned it into kindling.

  Just when I was about exhausted, Maureen gasped, “I give up,” savin’ me the humiliation of bein’ beat up by my little sister. I had yanked the ribbon partway out of her hair, and she lay there with half of her face covered, like a doll whose wig had come unglued.

  We both lay on our backs, breathin’ hard for a few minutes.

  “We’re a sorry pair of fighters,” Maureen said.

  I sat up and rubbed my bruised shoulder. “A disgrace to our fightin’ Irish ancestors.”

  Maureen rolled over and pulled herself up on her elbows. “Rose, just listen to me for a minute. If we each had a job, we might be able to get our own place. We wouldn’t have to answer to anybody.”

  “Even with both of us workin’, we couldn’t afford a whole apartment. We’re better off here.”

  “But Mr. Garoff doesn’t like us. He wants us to leave.”

  “That’s just his way,” I said. “He sounds grumpy, but I don’t think he dislikes us.”

  “But he called us a bad name. Shiksas.”

  “That just means girls who aren’t Jewish,” I said.

  “Well, he didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

  “No, I don’t suppose he did.”

  Maureen pulled the ribbon out of her hair and retied it. “We could at least save some money and send it to Da so the rest of the family could come over sooner. But Ma hated it here so much, Rose. Do ye think she’ll ever come back?”

  “Da will talk her into it,” I said. “Da can talk anybody into anything.”

  Maureen jumped to her feet. “Then it’s settled. We’ll stay here, but we’ll save all of the money I make, and we’ll send it to Da to get them over here sooner.”

  “Ye’ll do no such thing. Ye’ll go back to school tomorrow.”

  Maureen looked me straight in the eye. “I’m not goin’ to school, Rose. There’s nothin’ ye can do to make me, so ye might as well let me work.”

  Suddenly I knew why Ma had given up that mornin’ on the pier and let us stay in America. Maureen needed an education, but I couldn’t sit outside the school makin’ sure she stayed there. The more money we saved, the sooner the family could be together again and Maureen would be Ma’s problem—and Da’s. I had wanted to leave Ireland to avoid bein’ a mother at a young age. A lot of good that had done. Now, instead of carin’ for a sweet little baby, I was tryin’ to be mother to a headstrong, big-mouthed girl. “All right,” I said. “You win.”

  Just then the doorknob turned and Gussie came in. Maureen ran over and hugged her. “Guess what, Gussie? Rose says I can work at the Triangle from now on.”

  Gussie looked at me over Maureen’s shoulder. “Oh, really? Well, we certainly know who’s boss now, don’t we?”

  27

  Saturday came at last. It had the feel of a special day right from the start. I decided to wear my ashes of roses dress, since we were goin’ out after work.

  “Isn’t that a bit fancy for work?” Gussie asked.

  “I want to look nice for when we go out.”

  Gussie shrugged. “I just hope you don’t ruin it.”

  The minute we stepped out the door, I noticed the air felt different.

  Gussie took a deep breath. “Spring at last. This is my favorite time of year. Everything seems to come to life again.”

  “Can we eat lunch out in the park today?” Maureen asked.

  “Eat wherever ye please, as long as ye get back in on time,” I said. “If ye’re goin’ to be a workin’ girl instead of a schoolgirl, ye have to follow the rules.”

  “I know.” Maureen skipped on ahead of us. She looked too young to be spendin’ all day in a factory. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake in givin’ in to her.

  “When the weather gets hot this summer, we’ll go to Coney Island,” Gussie said.

  I’d heard about the great amusement park with its roller coasters and scary rides. “Really, Gussie? Is it hard to get there?”

  Gussie grinned. She was so pretty when she smiled. “It’s easy. We’ll take the train. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Well, a roller coaster doesn’t seem like yer cup of tea. It might be too much fun. Ye could pass out from happiness.”

  Gussie poked me in the arm. “Don’t be silly. I like fun just as much as the next girl. I just don’t indulge in it every day.”

  I pondered that all the way to work, tryin’ to picture Gussie jumpin’ waves at Coney Island.

  When we reached the Asch Building, Maureen started teasin’ me about not usin’ the freight elevator. “Don’t be silly, Rose. Try it.”

  “I tried it once and that was enough.”

  “Well, I’m not goin’ to climb stairs when I can ride. They have me workin’ on the eighth floor today. Where shall we meet to go to the nickelodeon? Should I wait outside the front entrance?”

  “No, I don’t want to be lookin’ all over for ye. Come up to the ninth-floor dressing room. It usually takes Klein and Bellini a while to get ready to go.” Before Maureen could say more about me bein’ afraid of the elevator, I headed for the staircase and made my daily climb.

  There was a lot of excited chatter when I reached the dressing room. Almost everyone had plans for the weekend. In a city like New York, there was never a lack of things to do, even if ye didn’t have a lot of money. This day held two wonderful things for me—my first pay envelope and the nickelodeon. But I would have to wait until work was over for each of them.

  “Nolan, come see this,” Klein called. She pulled somethin’ bright pink out of a bag. “It’s my new suit for spring. What do you think?” She held the jacket up to herself.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, wonderin’ if I would ever have anything so elegant.

  “I have something new, too,” Bellini said. She put on a straw hat with delicate pastel silk flowers tucked up under the brim so they framed her face and made her dark eyes sparkle.

  “Ye could be a movie star lookin’ like that,” I said. “The two of ye are so fancy, ye won’t want to go to the pictures with the
likes of me.”

  Klein opened my coat. “Well, isn’t this elegant?”

  “My mother made it for me.”

  I felt proud of Ma as Bellini examined my cuff. It took a skilled seamstress to make stitches that small and even by hand.

  The workday seemed to drag on endlessly. I didn’t see Maureen at lunch. I figured she had gone outside to eat.

  Around four o’clock, I began sneakin’ looks at Mary Leventhal and Anna Gullo, to see when they would come around with the pay envelopes. Then, when I’d been concentratin’ on my work, I hadn’t noticed Mary makin’ her way down our aisle. “Here’s your pay, Rose.”

  “Oh, thank ye, Miss Leventhal,” I said, takin’ the precious envelope. I opened it and there it was, plain as day. Twelve dollars for two weeks’ work! I looked up to see Klein and Bellini smilin’ at me.

  At four-thirty, I saw Anna Gullo headin’ for the freight elevators, where the quittin’ bell was. Within seconds it rang, the machines stopped, and the room filled with the sound of conversation and chairs scrapin’ the floor. Freedom at last.

  Klein leaned across the table. “I’m going to change my outfit for the show. Meet us in the dressing room.” She and Bellini started down their aisle behind the other girls.

  Gussie and I hitched our chairs forward to let several girls get by. Everyone was in a hurry on Saturdays. I opened my pay envelope again, hardly believin’ I had earned so much.

  “I hope you won’t spend all of that right away,” Gussie said.

  “I suppose ye want me to use it on somethin’ sensible, like union dues,” I said.

  “I haven’t asked you to join the union.”

  “Not yet.”

  Gussie smiled. “No, not yet.”

  I could hear someone in the dressing room start to sing “Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own.” It didn’t sound like Bellini, but then I heard her join in, along with a few others. I tucked my pay in my purse. Since Gussie was still fussin’ with her machine, I squeezed behind her. “I’m leavin’. I’ll see ye later.” I had only moved past two or three more machines when I found my way blocked by at least a dozen girls ahead of me in the narrow aisle. I should have started out right at the quittin’ bell.

  The tables ran all the way to the wall on one end, so everybody had to exit by the freight elevators. It had to do with the way the machines got their power, but it seemed to me they could have worked out a better arrangement. The other thing that slowed us down was that we all had to go through the one unlocked door with the guard to have our purses checked. What would we steal anyway? All any of us had was one part of a shirtwaist. What good was that?

  I could hear Bellini’s voice soarin’ above the rest now. I thought how lucky I was to have her for a friend. I slipped my hand into my purse to make sure the pay envelope was tucked safely away. I fastened the latch, even though I would only have to open it again at the exit.

  The whole line was blocked, waitin’ for someone up ahead to move. Suddenly a girl screamed over by the windows. I looked to see what was wrong and saw flames outside the glass. At first it seemed like a picture show, only in color. Then I realized what was happenin’. The building was on fire!

  The girls behind started pushin’, but there was nowhere for me to go. When Anna Gullo shouted for everyone to be calm, the shovin’ got even worse. I couldn’t see Gussie. Too many girls had gone ahead of her.

  The girl behind me tripped on a work basket and fell to the floor. When I tried to help her up, two girls climbed right over her and knocked me down, too. I crawled under the table and crouched there, seein’ nothin’ but shoes and skirts pushin’ their way past me. There were loud pops and then the sound of shatterin’ glass. My heart was poundin’, and I couldn’t make my mind work. I knew I shouldn’t just hide under the table, but part of me thought it was safer than bein’ carried along with the crowd. Then I saw the face of the girl who had been pushed down and trampled. Her eyes were open and bulged out of their sockets, but those eyes were past seein’ anything. I screamed and buried my face in my hands.

  Suddenly someone grabbed my arm and yanked me out from under the table. It was Gussie. Flames were comin’ into the room now. Smoke billowed up to the ceiling. “We’re goin’ to die!” I screamed.

  Gussie climbed on the table, pullin’ me up after her. Other girls were doin’ the same thing, not waitin’ for the lines that were jammed in the aisles.

  Gussie pointed to a door. “We’ll get out that way.”

  I couldn’t move. “Don’t leave me.”

  Gussie smacked me hard on the cheek. “Move, or you’ll burn to death.” That brought me to my senses.

  I followed as she jumped to the next table. Then I felt a tug on my purse. The strap had caught on one of the machines. I dropped to my knees to untangle it.

  “Leave it!” Gussie yelled.

  “But my pay!”

  She grabbed me by the arm and yanked me off that table and onto the next. Fire was bubblin’ along the machines now. A piece of lawn in the trough caught fire. The flames took one piece after another, streakin’ down the whole table in seconds. The fire was movin’ so fast. Why wasn’t anybody tryin’ to stop it?

  An old woman was teetering on the edge of a table, afraid to jump off.

  Gussie stopped. “Keep going, Rose. I have to help her.”

  “There’s no time.”

  “Go on!” Gussie gathered up her skirt and jumped off the table, pushin’ through the debris, kickin’ aside a burnin’ wicker basket.

  Now I was alone, and the panic grabbed me again. I didn’t know which way to turn. Girls were runnin’ in all directions. Where were the exits? I couldn’t think.

  There was a strong smell like when Ma used to singe the pinfeathers off a chicken. But it wasn’t feathers. I felt the heat at the top of my head. My hair was on fire! I screamed and tried to beat out the flames with my hands.

  A machinist grabbed a pail of water and dumped it over my head. The shock of it took my breath away. He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward a door. But when we got there, he couldn’t open it. “It’s locked,” he said, smashin’ his fist against it. “They have us locked in!”

  The worktables were all burnin’ now, and the smoke had filled the room almost down to the level of our heads. There were a few girls still sittin’ at their machines, held fast by their fear, with flames all around them. I was torn between savin’ them and findin’ a way out, which left me stumblin’ helplessly in circles. The smoke burned my throat, and my eyes were stingin’ so bad I could hardly see. The fire roared like a train, and girls were screamin’ all over the room.

  Suddenly I heard someone shoutin’ my name. Bellini and Klein were in a crowd of girls over by the windows. I ran to them, and we clung to each other. “The windows are the only way out now,” Klein said, chokin’ on the smoke. “Come on.” She started to climb up on the sill.

  I grabbed her arm. “Have ye lost your mind? That’s a nine-story drop.”

  Klein clutched the edge of the window and stood up. “It’s all right. I can hear fire wagons. They’ll save us.”

  Bellini and I leaned on the windowsill. Klein was right. Fire whistles and bells were comin’ from all directions. But some of the girls weren’t waitin’ for them. Two men had taken the blankets from their horses and got others from the crowd to stretch them out. “Jump!” they called. “We’ll catch you.”

  “We’ll wait for the firemen,” Klein said. “They’ll take us down the ladders.”

  A girl a few windows away jumped for a horse blanket. When she landed, the impact tore the blanket from the men’s hands, and she landed hard on the pavement. Other men were runnin’ out with tarps and blankets, but they couldn’t save the fallin’ bodies.

  The first fire truck stopped right under us and started to raise its ladder. Bellini was sobbin’, but Klein stayed calm. “Hang on a few more minutes.”

  I was thinkin’ they’d better hurry, because the heat was almost un
bearable. My dress and petticoat had been soaked by the bucket of water, but now I felt dry in the back clear through to my legs. The ladder rose slowly, then stopped several floors below us. “They can’t reach us,” I cried.

  A girl jumped for the ladder, missed, and streaked like a flamin’ comet to the street.

  Bellini sobbed uncontrollably. Klein gripped her hand. “They have huge safety nets. They’ll catch us.”

  Bellini pulled away from the window. “I can’t. It’s too far.”

  “We’ll all hold hands,” Klein said. “We’ll jump together.”

  “If we’re jumpin’, let’s go,” I shouted. I gave Bellini a boost up to the windowsill and pulled myself up next to her. When I looked down, I almost lost my balance. Then the smoke billowed out from the floor below so I couldn’t see the ground for a moment. I tried to get a gulp of fresh air, but I was too terrified to take a deep breath. As we gripped each other for dear life, a girl jumped. The sudden movement made me feel like I was fallin’, and I held on tighter to Bellini. As the girl dropped, the firemen moved their safety net under her, shoutin’ encouragement.

  “See?” Klein shouted. “It’s like stepping off a curb.” The girl landed in the middle of the net, then bounced high and crumpled into a lifeless heap on the pavement.

  “It doesn’t work!” I screamed. “We’re too high up for the nets.”

  Girls were pressin’ in behind us now. “Jump or get out of the way!” one of them screamed.

  But before we could jump, three girls in the next window clasped hands and stepped off the sill. The smolderin’ hair of one of the girls broke into flames on the way down. A group of firemen rushed a safety net under them. I held my breath. How would it feel to fall that far?

  Then the girls broke right through the net. And through the sidewalk below—the sidewalk with the little glass windows.

  Klein’s hand went to her throat. “My God! They can’t save us!”

  “I’m not jumpin’!” I shouted.

  Klein reached in front of Bellini for my hand. “Don’t burn, Nolan.” She was coughin’ so hard she could barely speak. “We’ll die together.”