Ten Cents a Dance

by Christine Fletcher

  Maybe Paulie hadn't really hurt that private. Maybe none of it was true at all. Just rumors people made up to make themselves feel important.

  We kept walking, our heels hitting, tunk, tunk, on the sidewalk, keeping perfect time. Away behind us, a train whistle shrieked; on Forty-seventh Street, streetcar bells clanged. Just a couple more blocks to home. I wished I lived across the city so it would take us all night to get there.

  "Let's go to Davis Square," Paulie said.

  He must have been thinking the same thing. I smiled up at him. "You bet," I said.

  Only a few boys rambled across the park, kicking a can between them as they went. The hottest nights this summer, when it was too stifling to sleep inside, we'd come here along with half our neighbors to spread blankets and sleep on the grass. That had been only two months ago. Now it was almost Halloween, and the weather had turned sharp.

  "What school you go to? Sacred Heart?" Paulie asked.

  I shook my head. "I work," I said, and then wavered over telling him everything. About Ma losing her job, and the back rent, and the grocery stores not extending us any more credit. About: the two days last week the three of us—me, Ma, my little sister, Betty—lived off canned milk and a sack of stale, broken cookies Ma had bought for a quarter from Loose-Wiles.

  I didn't say anything.

  We came to the benches in front of the field house and sat down. Damp leaves whirled high on the wind. In the light of the lampposts, they looked like shining, crazy wings. Wings with no birds attached.

  "Cold?" Paulie asked. I nodded so that he'd put his arm around me again. He did. It felt more than nice. It felt like it belonged there.

  "So you work in one of the packinghouses, or what?"

  "Yeah. But just in the offices. Not . . . not on the floor."

  He grunted. "I've lived in the Back of the Yards all my life. All that time, I never met a girl from the packinghouses who actually packed meat."

  "Really?" I'd known dozens.

  "Nope. They all worked in the offices." He dug in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette pack. "Every single one."

  Another girl might have gotten mad. But I busted out laughing. "Let me guess," Paulie said. "They put you in bacon. Right?"

  "How'd you know?"

  "My ma used to work for Scully's. She said the prettiest girls always got put on bacon, 'cause that's where they bring the visitors through."

  I felt myself blush. He thinks Vm pretty. For sure I wasn't going to tell him about the pickled hog's feet.

  He lifted his arm off my shoulders. Cold air drifted across the back of my neck, and I shivered. "Any girl can hoof it good as you," he said, "don't need to work in no packinghouse."

  "There aren't any other jobs." Not for me, anyway. If I'd been smart, and taken classes in typing and shorthand, maybe I could've landed something in an office. But the typing instructor insisted all the girls cut their nails. And I'd had no patience for shorthand's squiggles and lines.

  Paulie offered me a cigarette. I took it. He lit a match and I leaned into the tiny flame, puffed until the cig caught.

  "What are they paying you?" he asked. "Twelve a week? Thirteen? I know it ain't more than that."

  "Twelve and a quarter." All of which went straight to Ma. I walked to work, to save the streetcar fare. I'd had to borrow a quarter from Angie to get into the dance tonight.

  "Girl like you could pull down forty, fifty a week," Paulie said. "Easy."

  I laughed. "Pull the other one." I'd never heard of any girl making that much, not even in an office.

  "No joke. A guy I know runs a dance academy. He's always on the lookout for girls to teach fellows the newest steps. You"—he turned on the bench, eyed me up and down—"the way you dance, the way you look . . . yeah, you'd do good."

  He seemed serious. Fifty bucks a week . . . we'd have the back rent and the grocery bill paid off in no time. We could buy meat for dinner again. I could get Ma's wedding ring back for her . . . I'd pull it out of my pocket and there it would be, shining in my palm. I imagined her mouth falling open in surprise.

  "I never heard of anything like that," I said. "What kind of girls work there? I mean, are they respectable?"

  "Sure they are. You think this guy wants the cops raiding his joint? But hey, if you're not interested, it's no skin off my nose. Stay in sliced bacon." He stood up, dropped his cigarette, and ground it out underfoot. He reached down a hand. I took it. His palm was so warm, I thought my fingers must feel like icicles to him. I was embarrassed, but he didn't seem to notice.

  Fifty dollars a week. Warm gloves. Pork roast. Ma's ring.

  But Ma wouldn't even let me wear lipstick. I could only imagine what she'd say about dancing with strange men for money.

  We crossed South Wood Street. Home only a block away. Tomorrow was Sunday. Mass at Sacred Heart, then sit around the flat, listening to the radio, helping Ma make the bean soup we'd eat all week for dinner. Then Monday, seven in the morning, slopping hog's feet in brine. Bone tired, wondering if this was the day I'd see the first sign of pickle hands, like all the old ladies had. Great red blotches, and sores that took months to heal.

  At the corner of Honore Street, I stopped. I could just see my building from here, gray like most of the other two-flats and four-flats on the block, with a wrought-iron rail on the front stoop.

  "If. . . if I was interested in this dancing thing," I said, "where would I go?"

  "It's called the Starlight," Paulie said. "Madison and Western, on the Near West Side. Ask for Del. He's the manager." He looked up the street, squinting a little. Already thinking where he was headed next, probably.

  I wanted him to ask if he could see me again. I wanted him to say, Boy, Ruby, am I glad I came to the dance tonight. I sure am glad I met you. I wanted him to try something.

  "I should go," I said. Ma would be sitting up, waiting for me.

  "Yeah, okay." Neither of us moved. Paulie's eyes like rain clouds in the dark. I wondered if I'd imagined the little flecks of color.

  "Thanks for getting my coat for me," I said.

  He kissed me. Not like Hank Majewski, who'd fidgeted and fussed until I'd felt like telling him to get on with it. Or like Robbie O'Brien, who'd grabbed me like I was a piece of ice on a hot day, and he'd better slurp me up before I melted. Paulie cupped his hand under my ear—how did his fingers stay so warm?—and he leaned down and laid his mouth on mine, easy, everything he did was easy, and his lips were gentle and warm and then he opened them and he was warmer yet. He tasted of cigarettes and beer and earth. I slid my hands under his coat. He felt solid. Tough.

  The kiss ended. Paulie tilted my face toward the streetlight. His fingertip brushed the bone over my left eye. It hurt. I jerked away in surprise.

  "You're gonna have a shiner," he said. "You better cover that up. Del thinks you're a scrapper, he won't take you on."

  "I'm only thinking about it. I didn't say I was going to do it."

  "I bet you will." Paulie's gaze wandered down my face to my mouth. "Just like I bet," he said, "you'll go out with me."

  It was cold enough now to make our breaths puff like smoke. Mine and Paulie's, clouds mixing between us. The look on his face smug and sure, like he knew exactly which way I'd jump. And he was right, and more than anything that rubbed me the wrong way.

  I stepped back. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe I have to think about that, too."

  He laughed, short and hard. Surprised. And angry. Ruby, you and your big mouth! Take it back, tell him, Sure, anytime, Paulie. . .

  "Think you're a pretty tough cookie, don't you?" Paulie said. He reached up and mussed my hair, like I was some kind of baby. I ducked and swatted at his arm, and he laughed again, still angry, a little mean.

  "So long, squirt," he said, and walked away. I tried to think up something bad enough to yell after him, to show him I didn't care. But the rain started coming down again, and I couldn't think of anything, and then he was gone. I turned to run home, and that's when I saw Mr. M
aczarek, our front-flat neighbor, standing on the stoop of our building watching me.

  TWO

  The next morning, Sunday, I woke up shivering. Betty had stolen the blanket again. I tried to pull it off her, but she muttered in her sleep and turned away from me toward the wall.

  Paulie Suelze. Last night, that kiss. I drew a sharp, cold breath, suddenly and completely awake.

  That kiss. Then right after, Paulie treating me like I was barely out of diapers. So long, squirt. I flopped onto my side, my face flushing hot.

  Was it because I'd turned him down? Or maybe . . . could I be . . . a bad kisser?

  All the other boys I'd kissed seemed to like it. Then again, they'd been kids from school, boys I'd grown up with. Paulie was different. He'd left and come back. He'd done things. Kissed a hundred girls, maybe. Girls in high heels and snappy dresses, not crummy saddle shoes and ankle socks.

  A man's voice bellowed from the flat next door. I groaned. The Schenkers' window was only three feet from ours, and once old man Schenker started belting his German operas, nothing could stop him. Except Mrs. Schenker, and she was deaf.

  He never woke up Betty; she could snore through anything. I got up and pulled on my flannel housecoat, then shut the door behind me on my way out of the room. We left the door open at night, to get heat from the coal stove in the kitchen. Now Betty would wake up freezing, in spite of the blanket she stole, and I wouldn't have to listen to Mr. Schenker.

  Two birds with one stone.

  I slipped through the parlor and out our front door, then up the hallway to the bathroom. Good, it was empty. Since there was only one bathroom for all four flats—us in the downstairs back, Mr. Maczarek in the downstairs front, plus the Artyms and the Gurskis, upstairs—if you waited too long, you could be out of luck for hours.

  We hadn't always lived in the Back of the Yards. We'd had a house, once, near my grandparents, Pop's parents, in Wicker Park. I barely remembered it: the long carpet with blue flowers that ran down the stairs, the white voile curtains Ma made for the front windows. Me coaxing Betty into the cellar, then jumping out like the bogeyman to make her scream. A sunny yellow bathroom with a tile floor instead of chipped-up wood. A bathtub. Hot water that ran out of the tap.

  Then Pop passed away. Ma went to work in the packinghouses, and we moved here.

  Back in our flat, the kitchen felt like a cave of warmth. Ma sat at the green-painted table, in a pool of light from the bulb overhead, darning one of Betty's socks. A few pin-curl pins glinted beneath the edge of her head scarf. I'd set her hair last night, before the dance. She couldn't manage it herself anymore.

  "Morning, Ma." I bent to kiss her. She smelled like herself, like cold cream and raisins. Whenever she went out, she dabbed on lavender water; but I liked her better without it.

  Ma didn't look up. "Coffee's on the stove," she said. Her voice flat and tight.

  "Do you need some aspirin?" I asked.

  "No." Not, No thank you, dear. Not even her usual glance and smile. A twinge of unease pulled tight in my chest, like a snagged thread.

  Heat shimmered off the stovetop. The air smelled of hot metal and coffee and coal smoke. Cold weather smells. I poured two cups of coffee from the percolator. Last night, Ma had been cheerful enough—at least, until she'd noticed my shiner. But by the time I got done telling the story, she was madder at that stuck-up St. Augustine crowd than she was at me.

  I brought the coffee to the table and sat down. Under the glare of the lightbulb, Ma's face looked set and grim. While I worried about gloves for her, she'd probably been fretting about the almost-empty coal bin, and where we'd get the money to buy the ton we needed to last through the winter.

  Fifty dollars a week, Paulie had said. Just for teaching fellows the Lindy Hop.

  Would she let me try? I'd had to argue for days just to go to the dance last night. But Paulie said the place was respectable. If I could convince her . . .

  I warmed my hands on my cup. Pretended to look out the frosty window into the back lot, but really watching her instead. Trying to figure her mood. She stabbed her needle into the sock. Frowned, took it back out, aimed again. She used to be able to whip up an entire dress in a day. Now it could take her half an hour to sew on a button.

  "I heard the most interesting thing last night," I said. My voice wavered upward, like I was asking a question. I sipped my coffee, swallowed hard. "This girl was saying she works at a, well, a kind of a da—"

  "Ow!" Ma's hand jerked, and the needle fell to the table. Blood rose in a red bead on her fingertip. She made her aggravated noise, a sort of deep growling sigh, and put the hurt place to her mouth.

  I reached for the darning ball. "Here, Ma, let me."

  "Leave it alone!"

  I pulled my hand back, surprised. "I was only—"

  "Only what? Trying to help? Oh, yes, you're the good daughter, when you're not kissing thugs and hooligans on the street corner in plain view of everyone!"

  My stomach knotted. That spying old coot of a neighbor must've pounced on Ma at the crack of dawn. "Ma, wait, you don't understand . . ."

  "Bad enough if it was one of the neighborhood boys." Her blue eyes brittle. "But Paulie Suelze!"

  "You kissed Paulie Suelze?" Ma and I both swiveled to see Betty standing in the kitchen doorway, in her nightgown and bare feet, her chocolate-dark hair tangled and wild from sleep. She pointed to my eye. "Wow! What happened to you?"

  "None of your business," I said, at the same time Ma ordered, "Go back to bed!"

  "It's freezing in there. And Mr. Schenker is singing," Betty said. Sure enough, with the bedroom door open I could hear him thundering away. She padded to the stove and poured herself a cup of coffee. Ma threw her hands in the air.

  "You see the kind of example you set for your sister?" she said. As if Betty were eleven years younger than me, instead of only eleven months.

  "It's not how Mr. Maczarek said, Ma. Paulie was just walking us home. Me and Angie. She was with us practically the whole way." Ma's lips thinned. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned Angie. Ma thought she was wild, because her parents let her wear makeup. "Anyway, it's not like I asked him to kiss me. He just did, that's all."

  "Then you let him believe he could get away with it. How many times do I have to tell you? You have no father to protect you and these boys know it. Thugs like Paulie Suelze are going to take advantage."

  I shoved my chair back. "He's not a thug and he didn't take advantage, he—"

  Her voice rose up sharp. "Remember Elena Radowski? Her parents still can't hold their heads up for shame. Is that what you want? To ruin our good name?"

  You're not my daughter anymore. That's what Elena's mother had said when she threw Elena out. Elena had gone to stay with "relatives," which everyone knew was just a polite way of saying a maternity home. "Of course not, Ma, but will you listen? Paulie—"

  "I knew that dance last night was a mistake. From now on, if you want to dance with your friends, you can go to Pulaski's drugstore. He doesn't let any funny stuff go on."

  The drugstore? Ten couples crammed between the counter stools and the window booths, barely room to turn around, and old goat-faced Pulaski glaring at us? "But I didn't do anything!"

  Ma shook her head and stood up, bracing her palms flat on the table. Part of me noticed and knew her knees must be hurting. A bigger part was too mad to care.

  "And anyway," I went on, "what's so terrible about Paulie? He was nice to me—"

  I heard Betty suck in her breath. Ma froze. "Nice to you?" she said. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the boy was in an army prison!"

  "—nicer than any of those stupid YMC galoots, and just because a bunch of old cats with nothing better to do tell stories about him that probably aren't even true—"

  Ma leaned across the table. Close enough to see the broken threads in her pink quilted housecoat, close enough to catch the coffee scent of her breath. Her eyes icy as the window. "You are not to have anything to do with Paulie Suelze," sh
e said. "If he speaks to you, you will ignore him. If he follows you, you tell me and I'll tell Father Redisz and he'll set him straight. Do you understand me?"

  Speak to me? Follow me? As if a boy rumpled a girl's hair, said, So long, squirt, then started hanging around like a lovesick puppy. Paulie gave me a chance, probably the only one I'd ever get. I'd played the tough cookie, and I blew it. But if—if—he ever gave me another one . . .

  "I said, do you understa—"

  "Yes! I heard you."

  Ma eased back into her chair. "Start the water heating for your baths," she said. "I won't have us late to Mass."

  We didn't talk much the rest of the morning. Betty bathed first, in the big galvanized washtub in front of the stove. Then me. Before I got dressed, I combed out Ma's pincurls. Usually I loved arranging Ma's hair: smoothing the pale gold into a sleek crown, coaxing her bangs into fluffy curls. I had the same gold in my hair, but Ma's was pure, while mine was as mixed up as me. Polish and Irish. Streaks of honey and ash, and underneath, a dark blond that was almost brown.

  Sometimes it seemed Ma's hair was the only part of her that hadn't changed. The pain had started a year ago, in her ankles first. She'd slept with her feet on a pillow, and that helped for a little while. Then her fingers started hurting. Then her knees, her hips, her shoulders, the pain worse all the time. Until she was taking so much aspirin she couldn't eat because of the new pain in her stomach. That was when she finally went to the doctor. A "real" doctor, as she put it, not the one at the packinghouse, even though the packinghouse doctor was free. I figured out later she must have known already what it was. The minute the packinghouse found out, her days would be numbered.

  I'd gone with her to her appointment, to help her undo her buttons. The doctor glanced at her hands. Asked where she worked. Then he said, "Rheumatoid arthritis. Classic case."