A Tender Thing

by Emily Neuberger

  His handwriting was horrific. He worked in a felt-tip, so she couldn’t see whether some of the note heads were open or closed, and had to guess how long to hold them.

  “Good sight reader?”

  “Your handwriting—”

  “Don’t worry about the words. Sing ‘la’ if you can’t read them. I want to hear you sing the music. Start at measure eight. I’ll play a two-bar intro. Follow along.”

  He played a slow Alberti bass with his left hand, sustained chords with his right. It was a touch below walking tempo, slow enough that she could get her bearings. He played very loud, slamming the keys, in his customary dissonant style.

  She felt herself falter. Her ears were good, but without knowing the melody, the notes coming from Don’s right hand were close enough to her vocal line that she was mixing them up, until she felt her voice dipping under the pitch.

  You’re messing this up, she thought. Don must be laughing at you. You’re screwing up your one chance. You’re going to have to go back to Wisconsin, and that will kill you.

  “Thanks, Eleanor.” Don took his hands off the keys. He didn’t look at her yet and seemed to be thinking about something.

  Eleanor waited for what she hoped was a reasonable time. “I can try again,” she said.

  “No,” he said, still thinking. “That’s enough. Thanks for coming in, Eleanor.”

  This time, she didn’t wait until the hallway to start crying.

  * * *

  When Eleanor told her she was not going back to Wisconsin, Rosie was unsurprised.

  “But where will you live?”

  “I met some girls at the audition,” Eleanor said, the idea coming to her as she spoke. “They’re looking for another girl for their apartment.”

  Rosie did not look convinced. “What about a job? Your parents?”

  “My parents will be upset.” Eleanor tried to think of a “but” and none came. Rosie didn’t even know what Eleanor had done to come here.

  “And a job?”

  “I got a gig working at a tailor shop.” This, at last, was almost true: Eleanor had passed one on her way to the hotel and inquired about the Help Wanted sign in the window. She’d go back the following day to meet the owner.

  The owner, an old man named Mr. Rabinowitz, had written down her name. “Can you sew?”

  “I made clothes for my whole family.” This was also true; she wasn’t as good as Rosie but knew her way around a seam. “Men’s, too. I’m good with shirts and hems.”

  Rosie chewed her lip, making her look even more like a squirrel than usual.

  “They pay enough.”

  “New York is dangerous.”

  “I can take care of myself. Besides, it’s only been three days. My street smarts will come.” She shook Rosie’s arm. “Come on, Rosie. Did you really think I was going home?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean I liked it.”

  Rosie was so dear; her small, oldest friend. Everything about her—the dark hair on her arms, her pressed cotton blouses, the neat little earrings she took care to wear—tugged at something inside Eleanor.

  Eleanor thought about the callback, the way she had failed in her one chance with Don, and wanted to tell Rosie. But the weight of what had happened sat on her, until she felt her tongue swell and her eyes fill with tears. It was too horrible. Grief unlike any she’d ever known was setting in. Her dreams, they were all gone.

  “I’ll die if I go back home. I’ll grow old in a record store selling Perry Como. Even if this doesn’t work, even if I never set foot on another stage in New York, I have to be here.”

  * * *

  Thursday, Eleanor woke early to take Rosie to the train station.

  “You promise to write?” Rosie said, fiddling with the strap of her pocketbook as they walked.

  “Of course.”

  “But people say that and then don’t.” A crease had shown up between her eyebrows. “Promise me, Eleanor. You’re my best friend.”

  “I promise. I already told you.”

  “What am I going to do in Wisconsin by myself?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Eleanor that Rosie might also have wanted to stay in New York. With only a few blocks left before they reached Grand Central, she felt her stomach clench. She hadn’t been listening to her friend this entire week.

  “You can marry John Plutz. After all, he did provide our getaway car.”

  Rosie looked disappointed. “We might not all dream of Broadway,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to marry John Plutz.”

  “But you said—”

  “I’m not so dull and small-town as you think, Eleanor.”

  Rosie did not look any less miserable by the time she boarded the train. Eleanor kissed her cheeks, feeling guilty. She knew she had the tendency to drive right over people and didn’t like doing so to Rosie.

  “Come back and visit?”

  “If I can.”

  “Lock the door to your train car.”

  Rosie hugged Eleanor once more. “I love you. I’ll miss you.”

  “Tell my parents—”

  “No, darling. That’s your job.”

  Eleanor kissed her again. “I’ll write to them today.”

  * * *

  To keep herself from crying, Eleanor stepped into a souvenir shop and poked through postcards. Now that Rosie was gone, a terrible feeling had rolled in like fog. Eleanor had a dwindling supply of money and nowhere permanent to live. She was due to start work soon, but other than that, she had no plans. By the time she had selected a Statue of Liberty postcard, she was in despair.

  When she cried, she liked a milkshake to cheer her up. Remembering the diner, she walked east and sat at the counter. Already this lifted her spirits, knowing a familiar place to go.

  She had settled in to read the ads on the back of the menu when she felt a tap on her shoulder. A smiling face appeared over her shoulder; it was the naval pilot from their first day.

  “Hello,” she said. His grin eased her. “Johnny?”

  “Tommy,” he said, but didn’t sound offended. “It’s Eleanor, right? May I join you?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “I guess I’ve invaded your regular place.”

  Last time they’d met, Eleanor had been too nervous to notice the openness of his face, the way his eyes were clear and blue, or the crinkles on the outsides of them when he smiled. “How’s the theater?”

  Eleanor dropped her head in her hands. “Oh, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Maybe we need something stronger than a milkshake?” He held his palms open. “I’m a gentleman, I swear. I’d be otherwise, but my mother would kill me.”

  She smiled. “Sure, but I’m going to finish the milkshake first.”

  * * *

  Four hours later, Tommy walked Eleanor home. She swayed on the sidewalk, pleasantly drunk, until he grasped her arm in his hand.

  “I don’t know why I stayed,” she said around a hiccup. “What has it gotten me? My friend left, I have no place to live, and now I’m drunk in the middle of the day. I’m a wreck.”

  “Maybe so,” he said, touching her chin. “But an awfully cute one.”

  She grimaced. “I think that’s the problem. Too Midwestern.” She’d told him everything, from the audition to Rosie’s departure, even lingering on her love and fear of Pat and his shop. Tommy was a good listener.

  “No problem for me.” He twirled some of her hair around his finger, and it glowed red in the setting sun. “Can I kiss you?”

  When boys in Wisconsin asked, it was with a smarmy and false chivalry. When Tommy asked, his voice rasped, desire clear. His hand moved to her waist, indicating his intentions in a way she found more persuasive. She lifted her chin.

  Right before his lips touched hers, another fa
ce flashed in her mind. She thought of Don, the fool she’d made of herself in front of him. What would he think of her, the country girl, kissing a boy on a dirty New York sidewalk?

  Chapter Five

  Eleanor waited at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Third Street for two hours. She held herself stiffly, afraid of a man propositioning her, but no one approached. As she was getting hungry, she saw Maggie Carmichael turn the corner. Eleanor hustled over to her.

  “Maggie!”

  She turned around, confused and annoyed. When she saw Eleanor, she widened her eyes.

  Before she could get too nervous to ask, Eleanor said, “I was wondering if I could live with you.”

  Maggie offered the kind of grin that comes out when one can’t settle on an expression. “Come upstairs?”

  The apartment was messy but not dirty. There wasn’t enough room for all the girls’ things, so shoes cluttered the whole length of the entry hall. A bookshelf with plays, family photos from three different clans, and a stack of audition magazines made up one wall. Maggie scooped up a few dresses that had been laid across the couch and gestured that Eleanor should sit, hooking her finger to pick up a mug with a dried tea bag stuck to the side.

  “So tell me! What’s going on with you?” she asked on her way to the kitchen.

  “You must think I’m crazy.”

  “I have water and gin,” Maggie said.

  “Gin.”

  Maggie appeared with two glasses in hand.

  “I’m staying in New York,” Eleanor said. “I can’t go back to Wisconsin.”

  Freckles covered the tops of Maggie’s feet and ankles, going up her calves until they disappeared beneath her skirt. “It happens to the best of us.”

  “Do you have room on your couch?” Eleanor asked. “If you go from splitting your rent three ways to four, it will be better for everyone. I’m clean and I’ll be working or auditioning. What do you say?”

  “I have to ask the other girls.”

  Eleanor ran through things she could say, high points she’d left out, benefits to her presence that might convince Maggie, but saw that Maggie didn’t want to hear them. “I’ll write down the hotel number.”

  “Don’t go ape,” Maggie said. “I haven’t asked yet.”

  Eleanor blushed. The gin had sloshed over her hand, and she felt clean coolness where the liquid touched her. “How much alcohol is in this?”

  “In gin?”

  Eleanor sampled it for herself. “Maggie, did you get the part?”

  Maggie’s smile stabbed Eleanor right in the gut.

  “I start rehearsals Tuesday,” Maggie said, the businesslike tone dropping away. She gave a wiggle that reminded Eleanor of Rosie. “I am so excited!”

  Eleanor tried to drink and smile at the same time.

  * * *

  Ten days after her request—and, Eleanor suspected, about five more than were necessary—Maggie called to say they had space in the apartment. Eleanor didn’t have enough money to be prideful and moved in that night. Every morning, Eleanor shuffled around the kitchen making an egg salad sandwich while Maggie left empty-handed because she could afford to buy lunch. At night, Maggie roped Eleanor into running lines with her. Eleanor seethed and rejoiced each time Maggie missed a line—might the creative team grow disappointed in Maggie and let her go?

  Walking in New York helped scrub Charades from Eleanor’s mind. With a hundred people rushing past, coffees in hand, hailing cabs, breaking up, losing their jobs, it was difficult to be self-centered. What was one more actress? Far from being comforting, this made her seem even more foolish for thinking she had a chance. Yet the decision to leave Wisconsin felt more right as each day passed. Even when Maggie hogged the bathroom in the morning, unrolling the curlers from her hair and commenting that perhaps Eleanor should do something with hers, it was better than the pigs and the farmhouse. In New York, she felt free to be herself.

  With a place to live and a job, Eleanor mustered the courage to slip a nickel into the hallway phone and call her parents. She waited until evening, when rates were cheapest.

  When it started to ring, she nearly hung up. But then she heard the phone lifted off the cradle, and a second later, her father’s voice. “Hello?”

  “Dad, it’s me.”

  “Eleanor.”

  Even though she’d left without a word, her father sounded more relieved than angry. It cut her.

  “I’m calling to say I’m sorry.”

  “Your mother has called every hotel in New York. Eleanor, why didn’t you tell us you wanted to go?”

  “You would never have let me.”

  She twirled the cord around her arm. Perhaps this was why Rosie did that—the twirling gave her something to do during an unpleasant conversation.

  Eleanor told her father she’d found girls to live with and a job. “In a costume design studio.”

  “Fancy that.”

  “Yes. I even got to work on the ball gowns for the opera singers at the Met.” Eleanor had no idea where these lies were coming from. “I’m helping him construct the costumes—sewing on beads, ribbons, that kind of thing.”

  “He? Is it just you and this man?”

  His disapproval of her fictional job chafed at her. “They’re gorgeous pieces. I’m learning a lot. I’m very busy. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to call.”

  “What kind of girls are you living with? They aren’t Italian, are they?”

  “Dad.”

  “Your mother will want to talk to you.”

  Her father was one thing. Consumed by the farm, he didn’t care what she was up to so long as the tasks got done. Her mother was something else. In the O’Hanlon family, her mother had the temper and all the fear to fuel it. “Is Mama home?”

  “She’s at church group tonight. It’s Wednesday, honey.”

  “Sorry. I’d forgotten.”

  “I know it’s expensive, but could you call tomorrow?”

  A rustle came on the line, and then a loud, raspy voice came through. “Marty—Marty? Is that you?”

  “Hold on, Eleanor. Mrs. Leery, could we have five minutes?”

  The damn party line. Eleanor had always hated it—especially living next to Mrs. Leery and her inexhaustible list of conversation partners. But that night she leapt at the interruption.

  “It’s all right, Dad. I should go, too. I haven’t eaten dinner yet.”

  “Not had dinner—it’s nine o’clock.”

  “Marty, I need to call my daughter. She’s expecting me.”

  “One minute, Mrs. Leery—”

  “I’ll talk to you soon, Dad. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Eleanor. Now, tomorrow—”

  She hung up before she had the chance to promise another call.

  * * *

  Work at the tailor shop was better than she’d expected. Though she already had calluses on her fingers, Mr. Rabinowitz was kind. He let her go home before dark. Mornings were busy, passing quickly as she numbered items and handed back tickets. They cleaned as well as mended clothes. The rush slowed by eleven, when she could sit behind a row of coats wrapped for pickup and eat her pastrami. Tommy had turned her on to it; they’d seen each other four times more, and the second time he’d brought deli sandwiches and they’d fed the ducks in Central Park. Being with him was like nothing she’d ever experienced or thought to want. It was a paler, steadier pleasure than performing, but Tommy’s company was startling in its niceness. She started to do things like examine the pins on naval officers for their ranks, or look for the baseball scores when she passed a television.

  The second phone call with her parents never happened; in letters, she could better control the information. She mentioned Tommy. Her parents had always been nervous about the fact that she never talked about boys. Tommy looked great on paper, so she didn’t ev
en have to lie about him. She didn’t bring up the war bonds. They were gone, and after a few weeks, so was the money. It was a breach of trust that couldn’t be regained by a few words. A stiffness and chill lingered. She was ashamed; it fueled her to stay in New York.

  Meanwhile, Eleanor nursed her rejection. Despite her resentment, she would not let Maggie’s success stunt her own. Maggie had worked steadily in the chorus of several revues and supper clubs around the city. According to Maggie, she’d done everything onstage short of taking her clothes off. “You have to pay your dues,” she told Eleanor. “Success doesn’t come easy.”

  Eleanor recognized that, obnoxious as Maggie was, she had much to learn from her. She practiced daily, memorizing Maggie’s role in Charades, riding on her last hope. She eyed the newspaper for more auditions. None of them ended in either casting or embarrassment—just a simple thank-you. But the novelty of singing for a part on Broadway was still seductive. Every time Eleanor saw something about Don Mannheim in the papers, or one of his three shows running on Broadway, she felt an attack of desolation. Instead of rehearsing for his show, as she’d planned, she steamed armpit stains out of dress shirts while reciting lyrics in her head. Maggie regaled her apartment mates with stories about rehearsal, and though Don did not come in every day, she met him once, and told the story of his compliment to each roommate individually. “Such arresting charisma,” he had told Maggie. Eleanor wanted to vomit. Charisma? What about talent?

  Then the night of Maggie’s debut rolled around.

  Thanks to Eleanor’s short time in New York and only three weeks of work, she had no money for a ticket. It was a relief. But all day in the tailor shop, she shifted from foot to foot, wondering whether Maggie would earn a standing ovation.

  By eight, Eleanor could not handle the agony any longer and went to the theater to wait outside. At nine fifteen, the doors opened for intermission. Eleanor took in the women in their furs, their smoking, suited men. Before she could think about it, she slipped through the doors.