The Way of Beauty

by Camille Di Maio

  Vera didn’t tell Angelo that she’d skimped on her own meals for weeks and endured runs in her stockings to save the money to have the woman across the hall check in on her father every few hours while she was away.

  “I want to go,” she assured him. “You know you’ll need help with William. Especially if you want to spend time with Pearl. I’ve never been to Washington, DC, but I can only imagine that it’s amazing.” She paused. “You should take your wife to dinner.”

  The more she said it, the more she would convince herself.

  The trio walked into the crisp air and Vera wondered, as she had every morning recently, how Pearl could endure the long walk. It was cold—the kind where your nose felt raw and your toes would no longer wiggle in your shoes. Perhaps the very act of walking kept them warm enough. She hoped.

  And for Pearl, at least, the drive of justice seemed an elixir more intoxicating than any brandy that could warm the bones. Her cause, yes. But maybe her addiction as well. An absinthe of advocacy. Vera suspected that Pearl would trade her very life for suffrage.

  Just four blocks later, Angelo, Will, and Vera ascended the first of the steps that led up to Penn Station. Its grandeur never ceased to amaze her. Angelo had given her a gift on her fourteenth birthday—a copy of each newspaper that bore headlines about its opening—and she’d read every word until they were memorized. From how it was fashioned after the opulent Gare d’Orsay in Paris (whatever that entailed, but it sounded wonderful) to how they’d sent a twenty-three-foot piece of tunnel to Jamestown, Virginia, to show it off at the three hundredth anniversary celebration of the colony’s founding. She’d read elsewhere that when the railroad first dared to construct tunnels under the shifting silt and bedrock of the rivers, people thought that they were as likely to go to the moon as they were to be successful.

  The moon, indeed.

  To love Penn Station the way Vera did seemed, at first, a betrayal of her father. After all, he’d lost his life—or the wholeness of it, anyway—to its marbled halls. But when she confessed this to Angelo, he assured her that her love for Penn Station was, instead, a testament to her father. He gave his youth so that people like them could marvel at the station’s beauty and follow its tracks to places that had been mere pinpoints on maps. Angelo was so good at making ugly things sound resplendent. Maybe because he lived around printed words, he knew how to say them so well.

  Vera felt differently. Her father hadn’t had the luxury of appreciating beauty. He’d taken the job as a sandhog because there were few others for “Krauts,” and it was an act of desperation to feed his family.

  Even as he’d begun to show the symptoms of the bends, he insisted that it had been worth it. “Long after we are all gone, princess, this station will stand. And I had a little something to do with that.”

  Optimism. It was something her father and Angelo had in common. Something she loved about them both.

  Something she missed lately from her father.

  For her fifteenth birthday—just a few years ago—Angelo had given her a sketchbook and pencils and encouraged her to draw every last corner of the place they loved so much.

  In only three months, she’d covered every sheet, and there was not a corner or surface of the station that she didn’t know.

  The following Christmas, he’d bought her more paper—“for painting,” he’d said—and one jar of red paint.

  “I’ll buy you the rainbow as I can afford it, Kid,” he’d told her. And he followed through weeks later with a blue the shade of the evening sky. After blue had come yellow, and with the three colors she was able to mix them and begin to paint in purples and oranges and greens.

  Which became a necessity, because there were no more paints after that.

  After that, he’d met Pearl.

  She’d spilled tears over the half-finished piece she’d been working on, depicting the sun setting behind the station. She had planned to give it to Angelo, but it was now relegated to a corner of her apartment, covered with a sheet so that she didn’t have to look at it.

  As they approached the steps, Angelo managed to put Will over one shoulder while carrying a bag for each of them.

  “Look over there,” he said to Will. “There’s Papa’s newsstand across the street. Your cousin Marco is going to look after it while we’re gone. Did you know that that’s where I met your zia Vera when she was just a few years older than you?”

  Will just sucked on his fingers and buried his head in Angelo’s shoulder.

  “You remember that, Kid?” he asked, reverting to the nickname she loathed. “And the rocks. Remember how we used to kick the rocks down the street? You were pretty good.”

  Vera thought of the rocks that she’d plunked into the bottom of the fountain. But the action had not dulled the memories, as she’d hoped in that fervent moment. She’d gone back a week later to retrieve them, but they were gone. She had only the one left.

  But she could start a new collection.

  “Maybe when Will’s older, we can teach him how to do it,” she suggested.

  “Una buona idea, Kid.” He grinned. “I’ll bet we’ll get him up to speed as soon as his legs are just a little longer.”

  She warmed instantly at Angelo’s smile.

  “After you.” They’d reached the top of the stairs, and he was holding one of the heavy doors open for her. She looked up at the eagles atop the building—a practice that had nearly become a superstition after her father once told her that they were his favorite part of the station. A mother gone in body, a father in spirit. But the granite eagles would stand forever on their perches, and no one could take them away from her.

  “Can you walk for me, big man?” Angelo set Will on the ground, and he and Vera each took one of the child’s hands. A happy little family, Vera thought. At least for the next few hours until they arrived in Washington.

  Will looked up as soon as they entered the main waiting room, reflecting the awe that still stunned Vera to this day. From the first time she’d seen it, the vastness of Penn Station made her feel her own smallness, as if she were standing in front of an immense ocean. Knowing that long after her time on earth, this place would be here to be enjoyed by the many generations after her. If an embrace could be built in marble, it would look like this.

  Her parents had taken her here for her birthday before her mother died. They went to the café to order sandwiches and hot chocolate that poured like lava and was served in metal teacups. Papa let her pick a flower from one of the stalls. She chose a rose. And the three of them read off the names of the cities on the departure board and picked which ones they’d like to see someday.

  Cathedral-like ceilings were adorned with concentric stone octagons, each one recessing deeper and deeper. A bronze statue of the railroad’s late president, Alexander Johnston Cassatt, loomed over them. Vera remembered her father saying that Cassatt had died four years before the station was complete, the latest in a long line of railroad presidents who died while in office.

  Cursed, her father had always said. But then, that could be the bends talking. Depending on the day, he either loved Penn Station for its grandeur or hated it for all that it had taken from him.

  Vera didn’t believe that such a place could be cursed, though. To her, the station represented beauty. Majesty. Sacrifice. Love.

  It was no accident that it had been built by someone with the heart of an artist. Alexander Cassatt was the brother of Mary Cassatt, the painter known for her depictions of mothers and children. Vera had never seen one in person—it was her dearest wish to—but she’d read about them and tried her hand at sketching similar pieces.

  She liked to imagine what it must have been like to grow up in the Cassatt home. Surely artistry and beauty must have been encouraged if the family produced two such accomplished people.

  If Vera ever had children of her own, she would encourage them to pursue what they loved. It reminded her again of the importance of the suffrage work. So that her sons wo
uldn’t have to toil in deathly conditions like her father had and her daughters might be able to paint if they so wished. Or do anything else they liked.

  Was it possible that such a world could exist for them?

  Pearl seemed to think so.

  Light streamed through abundant windows in beams that showcased a flurry of dust specks. Will reached for them as if they were some kind of fairy powder. Like the stardust that made Peter Pan fly.

  Her feet indeed left the ground, but not as she had hoped. A man carrying a large satchel knocked her over, mumbling an insincere “Pardon” as he hurried to his gate.

  “Watch it,” Angelo shouted in retort before putting out a hand to pull Vera up. She stumbled against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her. She smelled his cologne. Sprayed, perhaps, for the benefit of his wife, but enjoyed in this moment by her.

  It almost broke her. She’d been so good. So careful. Perfectly proper. But a thought she’d been pushing away raced to the surface as he consoled her.

  Being near him was becoming too hard for her to endure.

  “I should go pummel that man,” Angelo told her. His face had reddened, and Vera felt herself blush at his defensive sentiments on her behalf.

  “It was an accident,” she assured him, pulling away. “We might do the same thing if we were late in catching the train.”

  He laughed. “Must be an Italian, then. Always rushing to get there at the last minute. But not my little German friend. I can always depend on you to keep me on schedule, Kid.” He checked his watch. “Early, in fact. Are you hungry?”

  “I packed snacks for us.”

  “Let’s save that for the train and get a proper breakfast instead.”

  Vera thought of the coins in her bag. There were so few. Never enough. Her mother’s words echoed in her head. A sit-down breakfast was an unnecessary extravagance.

  “My treat,” said Angelo, as if he could read her thoughts. “How about the counter over there?”

  It was the same café where she’d eaten with her parents.

  Vera’s stomach rumbled at the delicious smells wafting from the restaurant under the arches. She nodded. Angelo picked Will up and took Vera’s hand in his. It’s just a protective gesture, she told herself. So that she wouldn’t get knocked over again. But his touch sent a shiver through her body despite the gloves that each of them wore.

  He didn’t let go until they’d arrived.

  A tuxedoed waiter brought them menus. The last time she’d sat in a restaurant and was handed a menu was when she went to Maioglio Brothers with Pearl.

  Pearl, whose feet were probably blistered. She might be limping along the last few miles as far as anyone knew.

  Traitor, Vera accused herself.

  Friend, she replied.

  He’s married.

  You loved him first.

  But he loves her now.

  Her interior debate raged back and forth throughout the meal, stealing her attention from Angelo’s small talk. She smiled and agreed every time he paused to take a breath. But her heart wasn’t in it.

  Pearl.

  Will.

  Angelo.

  After this trip, Vera had to consider that distance from them all might be the only thing to do to save herself from the daily wrestling of her mind. At best, the nearness created heartache. At worst, temptation.

  She’d get a job in another part of town. Even go back to factory work. It was the only way she could be a friend to Pearl. The only way to properly love Angelo.

  Because as she observed him now, the way he was smiling at her, the feel of his hand on hers, the feel of his arms when they’d just been around her—she wasn’t sure that being a friend was going to be enough any longer.

  Chapter Eight

  Angelo and Vera gathered their bags. Vera felt as if she could barely move after such a meal. Eggs, bacon, biscuits, fresh fruit. In March! She was a queen.

  Will looked drowsy, and this time Vera lifted him over her own shoulder. She felt his heartbeat against her chest, and hers beat with his, as if they were one. She thought of rousing him as they walked into the grand concourse but decided against it. There would be another day to share this magnificence with him.

  The concourse looked as if it had been constructed from an oversize Erector set. Steel frames ran from ceiling to floor like giant metal stalactites. Stairs leading passengers from floor to floor were adorned with decorative trellises. Arches supported the weighty structure but resembled thunderclouds against the sky that oversaw it all through the glass ceiling. As if it were trying to compete with the room that they’d just come from.

  Grand upon grand.

  It wasn’t enough to merely look up. Looking out, Vera saw the bustle of New York, even more frenzied than what one saw every day on the street. A clock hung in the center, a common meeting place for people who might otherwise get lost in the throngs. “Meet me at the clock” became a catchphrase between friends, lovers, coworkers.

  The letters on the board were changed every few minutes to announce arriving and departing trains, heading to places that Vera could only dream of going. Places far away like Boston or Chicago. Places closer in like Poughkeepsie or Hartford.

  And Washington, DC.

  Vera’s heart leaped when she saw that board. She’d been distracted all morning with Angelo and Will, but two truths remained, overwhelming her as she stood there.

  She had never left New York. And she had never been on a train.

  The subway, yes. But a train, no.

  She had never walked down to the deepest bowels of Penn Station. Never stood next to the wheels that were nearly as tall as she was. The endless tracks. The smells tickling her nose. Her father once told her that the new electric engines were why Penn Station even existed. Prior to that there had been only coal-fed steam, but those engines had to be outdoors to vent the smoke. The routes had ended in Jersey City, where passengers would then need to board ferries to make it into New York. It was not uncommon for people to get sick on the choppy waters of the Hudson River. And Papa had told her that the river was dangerously congested with ferry traffic and other crafts. The Pennsylvania Railroad attempted to partner with its New Jersey counterparts to build bridges into the city, but no one was interested. So the advent of electricity created the engineering opportunities to dig tunnels deep underwater and save travelers from the uncomfortable commute. Sandhogs had existed long before her father came to it, tunneling under the streets to build the subway. But to do so under the water had been an entirely new and even more dangerous venture.

  The statue in honor of Mr. Cassatt was well and good. But Vera thought the workers like her father deserved to be immortalized as well. Far beneath the opulent offices of its administrators, men labored in the dirt and muck carrying buckets of sludge from the rivers, constructing steel rings inch by inch over ten years. For what? So passengers could travel in and out of the city in grand ignorance of the undertaking that had given them that privilege. Did they know how lucky they were to move into other boroughs, where they could have large houses and gardens and fly under the water in their suits to their offices in the city, returning home in comfort to a warm meal prepared by a wife who hadn’t died from overwork?

  Vera didn’t resent them for it. They were the very things she aspired to for her own children. But when she heard the commuters complain about the lateness of a train or the bruising on an apple or the lackluster performance of a dancer at the ballet, she wanted to grab them by their vicuña lapels and shout, “Do you understand what has been sacrificed to make all this possible for you?”

  Vera understood why Pearl did what she did, and she was grateful to be included in it. It was not merely for women. It was for the voiceless to be heard over the cacophony of boardroom gavels.

  She would travel through her father’s tunnels today, returning home to him in a few days with new appreciation for what he’d given to her. What he’d given to this city.

  “
Andiamo.” Vera shook off her thoughts at the sound of Angelo’s voice. He’d loaded their bags and was holding out his arms to take Will from her. The boy awoke as he was passed between them. Vera stepped into the second-class car and followed Angelo to their seats.

  “And here we are,” he announced, pointing out two backward-facing seats. “William can sit on my lap. And, son, let’s give Zia Vera the window.”

  Will stretched almost to the point of falling. “W-w-widow,” he wailed.

  Vera didn’t mind relinquishing her seat to the boy. “Really, Angelo. Please give him the window. Will wants it more than I do.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. But thank you anyway.”

  They configured themselves this way, but not for long. Will was too excited to sit on Angelo’s lap. He wanted the seat all to himself. He squirmed out of Angelo’s arms and placed himself right next to the cold panes.

  Angelo apologized. “He knows what he likes. I’m sorry, Kid. We’ll have to squeeze together unless we get lucky and no one takes their place across from us.”

  As it happened, two riders did indeed claim their spots, and Vera pulled her feet under herself so as to avoid touching them. Sardines, she thought. That was second class.

  Will, Angelo, and Vera were hip to hip in the two-passenger row. She had never been this close to Angelo for this length of time, and her heart beat faster than ever. Her leg touched his; her arm, his arm. Her head sat at his shoulder. She was flushed with warmth.

  It was sweet and it was unbearable.

  He turned to her, his face so close that it would have been romantic if it weren’t tragic. She saw every perfect imperfection, every bit of his beard that he’d shaved away this morning, only to peek through, darkening his skin. He called it the Italian Scourge, but she thought it made him look unbelievably handsome. She smelled his cologne again and it overwhelmed her, shooting sensations throughout her body that were unrecognizable but not unwelcome.