Dollface

by Renée Rosen

  The girls did whatever they could to distract me, keeping me busy with shopping sprees or Walnut Room lunches and double features at the movie house. And more shopping. I distracted myself with one purchase after another, foolish things I didn’t want or need: an extra set of china, crystal candlestick holders, new linens and a telephone table with an attached chair, along with dresses and shoes, hats and pocketbooks.

  Evelyn came by one day after I’d put Hannah down for her nap. She brought me the new issue of Vogue and a box of my favorite peanut brittle.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, looking at the racks of cookies and pies I’d baked the night before and earlier that morning.

  “You should see what’s in the icebox.”

  She peeked inside. “Who’s going to eat all this?” Earlier in the week I’d made stuffed peppers, a standing rib roast, deviled eggs and two gelatin molds.

  “I’m sick of shopping, and cooking’s the only thing that’s keeping me sane right now.” I had The Metropolitan Cook Book along with Mrs. Wilson’s Cook Book and half a dozen others sprawled out across the kitchen table. The radio was on, but I wasn’t paying any attention to the program.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Trying to find a recipe for pull taffy. I just saw it the other day,” I said, leafing forward and back, scanning through the pages.

  “You know how to make taffy?”

  “Of course not, but it’ll give us something to do— Ah!” I marked my place with my finger. “Found it.”

  I cleared away the other cookbooks and looped an apron over Evelyn’s head, tying it behind her waist.

  “Well”—she turned to face me, arms out to her sides—“how do I look?”

  “Like a real balabusta,” I said with a smile. “A real Yiddishe homemaker.”

  Evelyn peered over my shoulder while I mixed the sugar, corn syrup and butter in a saucepan. While it boiled, I took down two glasses and poured us each a drink.

  “You’re drinking an awful lot these days,” she said.

  “Not as much as I’m shopping and cooking!” I clinked my glass to hers.

  We sat and made small talk and smoked cigarettes until it was time for the water test. “Come.” I motioned for her as I spooned a droplet of the taffy mixture into a cold glass of water and waited for a ball to form. “Does that look like a hard ball or a soft ball to you?” I asked, rolling the mixture between my fingers.

  “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “A hard ball.”

  “Then I say it’s a hard ball.”

  “If this doesn’t work, it’s your fault,” I said, removing the taffy from the stove to let it cool.

  We went back to the table and I poured another drink. “So how’s Izzy?” I asked.

  “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to ask about him.”

  Evelyn had wasted no time getting back together with him. Though we never discussed it, I knew she resented me for stabbing him. After that incident she stayed in our guest room for two days. Two lousy days was all it took before she crawled back to that bastard.

  “Ready to pull some taffy?” I asked when the mixture had cooled down. I took a clump of butter and slapped it into her hands. “Butter up, baby!”

  Reaching into the saucepan, I took out the blob of taffy and plopped it into Evelyn’s slippery hands. “Now just stand still.” I grabbed a fistful of taffy and while she held on to it, I started stepping backward until I was about two feet away.

  Over and over again we did that, stepping farther apart each time, until I was on the other side of the kitchen and the taffy looked like a giant wad of chewing gum. It began to sag in the middle and almost touched the floor. I dived in to save it, landing on my rear end. Evelyn plopped down on the kitchen floor beside me, giggling as she held her half of the taffy up over her head. It was the first time I’d laughed in days, maybe weeks. We were howling, doubled over, holding our sides, and in the middle of all this, my laughter turned to tears. I dropped the taffy on the floor and broke down and sobbed.

  • • •

  By week two of the trial, Shep was in good spirits. He waltzed through the front door that Monday night, wrapped his arms around me, and gave me a deep kiss. “The defense busted the prosecution’s case wide open,” he said, moving over to the bar to pour himself a drink. “Now we just have to go through the motions. But this’ll all be over within a week, Dollface, and we can get back to normal.”

  Normal. Now, that was a relative term.

  The Jewish Women’s Council luncheon was just a week away, and feeling optimistic about Shep’s case, I threw myself into the final planning stages. I met with the committee heads, reviewed menus and seating charts, inventoried all the donated items for the auction, and telephoned the wealthiest Jewish women in Chicago to remind them about the event.

  On day ten of the trial, I was walking home from a meeting at the Palmer House Hotel where we had reviewed the details for the luncheon. It was a crisp autumn day, and I thought I’d take the long way home and stroll along the lakeshore. I’d always found the waves washing up along Oak Street Beach to be soothing, relaxing.

  I passed by the newspaper boy on the corner of Michigan and Walton. He was holding up the afternoon edition, waving the Chicago Tribune in the air for all to see. One look and my heart stopped.

  Shep’s picture was on the front page. I reached for a newspaper and my mouth went dry. Assault . . . Carrying a concealed weapon . . . Transporting illegal liquor . . . Attempted murder . . . I couldn’t finish the article and set the paper back on the stack. I walked away briskly and then broke into a run.

  The next morning, after I’d tried to explain what could not be reasonably explained to my mother, I hung up, and two minutes later the telephone rang again. It was Adele Markey on the line.

  “What do you mean, you have concerns about the luncheon?” I was distracted, wrestling with Hannah on my hip, who was reaching for the teddy bear I’d set on the table when I answered the telephone. Hannah was at that stage where she was getting into everything and I was afraid that if I set her down I wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on her. “What kind of concerns do you have, Adele?”

  “Well, are you still planning on attending the luncheon?”

  “Of course I am.” I laughed and hoisted Hannah up further on my hip. “Why wouldn’t I be attending?”

  “Well . . .” She sighed.

  “What’s this all about, Adele?”

  “I don’t know how else to put this, but, well . . . I’ve heard it from several of the members. . . . If you’re going to be at the luncheon, we should expect cancellations.”

  “What? Why?” I set the baby bottle back down on the table.

  There was a long pause. I pictured her standing in her dark, cavernous hallway where her telephone sat on the mahogany table.

  “Adele, who said they wouldn’t go?”

  “All of them.”

  Another long pause hung on the line. I couldn’t speak.

  “Vera, you have to understand. . . . This business with your husband . . . It’s not good for the council’s image.”

  “But Shep hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s all a bunch of nonsense. He’s being falsely accused.”

  “That very well may be true, but it’s been all over the newspapers and the radio, too. I’m afraid we just can’t tolerate that sort of association with the Jewish Women’s Council.”

  “And if I cancel?”

  “Then the other members said they would be happy to attend the luncheon.”

  “But I chaired this event. I’ve planned the whole thing.” Hannah was wiggling in my arms, straining for her teddy bear.

  “I’m sorry, but the members are just too afraid to let that sort of element into the council.”

  “Afraid? Afraid of what?”

  “Vera, the Jewish Women’s Council doesn’t associate with gangsters. I’m sorry.”

  After Adele Markey hung up, I was stunned
. I dropped the telephone and almost dropped Hannah as she lunged for her bear on the table. It was as if I’d been struck with polio or influenza. I was infected. Guilt by association. I hoisted Hannah up higher in my arms and held her as close as I could. As soon as I felt her tiny arms cling to me, my eyes went blurry.

  My one chance to prove myself and it had been pulled out from under me. I wanted to blame Shep, but that wasn’t fair. But if not Shep, then whose fault was it? The very person who had propped me up in this town had also knocked me down.

  • • •

  The girls stopped by the house that afternoon to check on me and as soon as I let them inside, they knew something was wrong. Something beyond just the trial.

  “I spent the past three months working my tail off on this and now they’re taking it away from me. And why? Because they’re afraid of letting this element into the council.”

  “They’re afraid?” Basha fired back, grounding out her cigarette. “We’ll give ’em something to be afraid of, won’t we?”

  At ten past noon on Saturday, September 25, 1926, Evelyn and I threw open the French doors of the Palmer House ballroom and walked into the Jewish Women’s Council’s luncheon followed by our shiksa girlfriends, Dora, Basha and Cecelia. It was gun molls on parade. We made some entrance in our short beaded dresses, our even shorter bobbed hair, cloche hats, feather headdresses and our biggest, flashiest jewelry.

  I quickly scanned the room. Barbara Perl nearly dropped her fork when she saw me and Esther’s mouth hung open as she elbowed the woman next to her. Another woman gasped, knocking her teacup off the table. The sound of china shattering echoed through the room. Within a matter of seconds, the eighty or so members all looked up from their chicken salads and watercress. Their ladylike prattle and the clatter of their silverware came to a halt. All was quiet except for the sound of our high heels clicking against the marble floor and the clanking of our bracelets.

  It had taken a bit of convincing on the part of Basha and Dora before I agreed to any of this. But they were right: I had nothing to lose. I would never be allowed back into the JWC. I was the wife of a gangster and now everyone knew it.

  Adele Markey excused herself from the head table and rushed up to me. “Vera—I thought I made it perfectly clear when we spoke on the telephone.”

  “Oh, you did. You made it perfectly clear, but you forgot one thing. I planned this event so we could raise money for a good cause, and that’s exactly what we’re here to do.” I turned to my posse. “Ladies?”

  And with that, my girls dispersed around the room, pulling up chairs at the various tables. The women’s faces turned the color of their chinaware and they were all on shpilkes, pins and needles. Barbara’s hands were trembling as she dabbed her napkin to her mouth.

  “Well,” I said to Adele, “what are we waiting for? Let’s start the auction.”

  “You heard her,” said Cecelia. “Let’s go. Chop-chop!”

  The entire room gasped for the umpteenth time since we’d arrived, and Adele, always the picture of grace and dignity, looked as though she’d soiled herself.

  When everyone calmed down, the auctioneer took the podium and presented the first item, the jade hatpin from Benny Alberts. “Ladies,” she began with a tentative bang of her gavel, “can we start the bidding at two dollars? Do I hear two?”

  Cecelia turned to Janice Kaufman, seated to her right. “You want that hatpin, don’t you?”

  Janice looked at her, bewildered.

  “Toots, this is no time to be shy.”

  “But I don’t want a hatpin,” said Janice.

  “I guess I didn’t make myself clear.” Cecelia smiled. “I don’t really think what you want matters.”

  “But I—”

  Cecelia grabbed Janice’s hand and raised it high in the air. “This woman right here bids twenty-five dollars!”

  After this latest round of gasps hushed down, Basha turned to Esther Bloomberg, who was seated next to her. “You’re not gonna let her have that hatpin for twenty-five bucks, are you?”

  “What?” Esther lifted her coffee cup with both hands.

  “I’d say it’s worth at least thirty, wouldn’t you?”

  “But I can’t . . .” Esther set her cup back down, nearly missing the saucer. “My husband would never let me spend that much for a hatpin—”

  “You think I give a crap about your husband? C’mon, now. Don’t make me ask again.”

  Esther’s voice was cracking as she raised her hand and said, “Thirty dollars.”

  Dora turned to Barbara Perl. “That’s a crime to let it go for only thirty bucks.”

  “Just . . . just, ah, just tell me what you want me to do.” Barbara’s voice was quavering as lines of worry etched across her brow.

  “Hmmm . . .” Dora drummed her red nails along the tablecloth. “Bump it up to forty-five bucks.”

  And so she did.

  Evelyn was next, and she was all over Adele. “What do you say we spend some of your money?”

  “I refuse to be intimidated by you.”

  “Aw, c’mon now, you’re the president of this group. You can’t let your members down. All it takes is fifty bucks, Adele. Fifty and we leave you alone.”

  Adele cleared her throat and raised her hand.

  It went back and forth like that, item by item, as my girls used the force of their presence to drive up every bid. At the end of the luncheon, we had exceeded our overall goal of raising one thousand dollars by a good measure and ended up raising five thousand dollars.

  All in the name of charity.

  • • •

  As we walked out of the Palmer House we were laughing, our arms slung around one another’s shoulders. I’d climbed up the social ladder and tumbled down the other side in one fell swoop. I looked at Cecelia, Basha, Dora, and even Evelyn. I was one of them now. There was no turning back.

  As we walked five abreast down the sidewalk, I threw my head back and let the autumn sun wash over my face. I felt like I owned the streets. Yes, my husband may have been on trial, but he was going to beat the charges. I was Mrs. Shep Green, and I was a force to be reckoned with. From now on, nobody was going to mess with me.

  This gaiety followed us back to the house. We were still toasting with a round of bourbons when Hymie and Drucci came to the door, letting a gust of wind blow dead leaves into the foyer as they stepped inside.

  I knew it. Even before they said a word, I knew it. My legs grew shaky as Hymie removed his hat and Drucci lowered his head.

  “The jury reached a verdict,” said Drucci, clenching and unclenching his fists.

  I sank into a chair and dropped my head to my hands. “Just tell me.”

  Hymie delivered the blow. “Guilty. On five counts. The judge sentenced him to eighteen months.”

  I kept my head low, didn’t say a word. Someone asked if I was okay but I didn’t respond. All that power I’d felt just moments before had vaporized. I was deflated and lost. Everything inside me grew still and quiet. The tears were immediate, running down my cheeks and leaving dark marks as they landed on the front of my dress. I didn’t know what this meant for me and for Hannah, only I knew that our world had been turned upside down.

  FINDING OUT WHAT YOU’RE MADE OF

  There was a cold, dank smell that clung to everything, like limestone after a rainstorm. In some ways I found that odor harder to take than the stench from the stockyards. It bothered me that this hellhole was attached to the courthouse with its majestic marble walls and floors, its intricately carved wooden seats and golden inlays.

  Peering through the cast-iron bars running floor to ceiling, I couldn’t bring myself to look at Shep. Instead, I stared at the concrete floor, the cinder-block walls, the metal bench hinged to the wall along with a cot. The mattress wasn’t more than an inch thick, and it was covered with yellow, brown and gray stains. My eyes landed on a bucket in the corner and, next to that, a couple of flies hovering over something dark and runny on the flo
or that I realized was a pile of shit.

  I drew a deep breath and dared to look at him. Within minutes, I broke my promise to myself and began to cry. Shep Green, the most meticulous man I knew, was unshaven, dressed in work overalls, his hair a tousled mess. He’d no sooner sleep on that filthy mattress than he would have lain in a sewer.

  “C’mon now, Dollface,” he said. “I’ve been in worse places.” He laughed, trying to reassure me by drawing comparisons to his childhood in Little Hell. When he saw it wasn’t helping, he changed his tone. “Listen to me, everything’s going to be okay. I met with my lawyer and we’re going to appeal. I’ll be back home before you know it.”

  I just nodded. There were no words.

  “And in the meantime, if you need anything, you just tell Hymie. He’ll take care of you and Hannah. You don’t have to worry about anything. You understand?”

  “I brought you some books,” I said, sniffling. “But they wouldn’t let me give them to you. I brought you Babbitt. We only made it to page fifty-seven. I thought you’d want to finish it. And you said you’d never read Frankenstein, so I brought you that, too, but they’re with the guard. Maybe they’ll let you have them after I leave. Make sure you ask them about the books, okay?”

  He nodded. “Listen, I want you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.” I don’t know why, but I thought he was going to ask me to visit his mother’s grave.

  “I don’t want you coming here again. Okay?”

  “But . . . ” My chin began to tremble.

  “I don’t want you seeing me like this.”

  “But, Shep—”

  “I mean it. This isn’t good for you and it’s not good for me. I’m going to be home soon anyway.”

  I squeezed the bars tighter and closed my eyes.

  “You just take care of yourself and Hannah and I’ll be home before you know it.” He reached through the bar for my hand. His fingers were covered in black ink from where they’d taken his prints.