Empire Girls (15 page)

A couple stood on the low stage, rehearsing something I didn’t recognize. Rose settled into one of the folding chairs in the front row, and I slowly walked up to the man pacing the proscenium. He wore a tattered black sweater, though it was a scorching day. His glasses were round and wire-rimmed, balanced low on his nose, and if I wasn’t so nervous I might have laughed. I glanced back at Rose, and her eyes shone with excitement. She looked like a stranger.

“Yes,” the man said impatiently.

“I hadn’t asked anything.”

“But you will.”

I gestured toward the door. “You advertised for actresses. I am one. An actress, I mean.”

“Isn’t everybody?” he said. “But we always give auditions. You never know when a star finds its way out of a black hole.” He barked something at the couple, and they slunk off the stage. “What have you prepared?” the man said.

Even in the hot room, I felt my blood go cold. I had nothing.

“She knows Shakespeare,” Rose said from the audience.

My blood was frigid, but my face was hot. The contrast made me nauseous. “I know quite a few monologues,” I managed to say.

“Then choose one,” he said briskly. “And be quick about it.”

The stage, no higher than a foot or two, seemed insurmountable. What was wrong with me? I lifted one heavy foot and then another, and turned to face him.

“Begin,” he shouted.

I quickly decided on the Player Queen’s speech from
Hamlet.
“‘So many journeys may the sun and moon...’” I began, the familiar words tumbling from my mouth as my mind wandered to Asher and the lost men, to my father, to our lives in Forest Grove. Had he been lonely, too? Had we all? Were we destined to stumble through the dark and never find each other? The director tapped his foot and I mangled the line about fear and love, the two words catching in my throat. Tears clouded my eyes and I tripped off the stage. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Once outside I tried to compose myself, but the tears kept falling. After a moment, Rose exited the theater and squinted into the late-day sun. “Ivy? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t think you can,” I said, and made a run for Empire House. Jimmy sat on the stoop smoking a cigarette. He grabbed my hand and drew me onto his lap.

“What’s got you, Beauty? Tell Jimmy your troubles.”

“You smell like another woman’s perfume,” I said, bolting inside and closing the door behind me.

* * *

From the Law Offices of J. W. Lawrence

Dear Ivy,

The “J” stands for “John.” The “W” is fiction, though based in enough embarrassing fact to still turn my face red. When I was in junior high school, I was the only boy tall enough to jump up and reach the basketball hoop. My fellow students called me “John the Wonder.” Aren’t you sorry you asked?

And, please review the enclosure. It was in an unaddressed, sealed envelope, found in my embarrassingly disheveled file cabinet. I’m sorry to send it, in a way, because it means you have not yet met your brother. This certainly changes your situation, and I’m honestly not sure if it is for the better. If it’s any comfort, it does seem your father intended to communicate with you from the spirit world, so to speak. I also found a letter addressed to both you and your sister in his safety deposit box, which the bank has finally let me open. I’ll send it along to Empire House.

That letter will remain unopened until you and Rose do the honors. It was not my place to read his private correspondence, so I hope it offers comfort, Ivy. As I said, your father was an unusual man, but also strangely prescient. I hope what he’s written doesn’t add to your grief, but rather adds another golden layer to our memories of him.

Sincerely,

John

Enclosure:

From the desk of Everett Adams

Mr. Lawrence,

Please add an addendum to the growing mountain of papers I’ve asked you to collect: If Ivy and Rosemary do not find Asher Adams within three weeks of my death, management of the estate reverts to Rosemary.

Regards,

Everett

PS: Do stop by for a cigar sometime.

Empire House

Oh-I-don’t know, 1925

Dear John-the-Wonder,

You do realize I am calling you that from now on.

So, lawyers are like doctors, right? You can’t repeat what I tell you in confidence. And what I am going to tell you is to be kept strictly on the QT.

I’m afraid of so much, and it seems this city knows it, clamoring around my head, leaving me senseless. Loneliness is not always pushed away by human proximity. I feel it working in Cat’s speakeasy, while surrounded by loud, chatty souls. I feel it walking through Washington Square Park as so many bodies brush past me. I feel it while tucking my sister into her bed, her wine-soaked breath hot on my skin.

I felt it standing on stage during a disastrous audition for an actress job. It paralyzed me, head to toe. I’ve never felt so disconnected from everything around me.

I miss my father, miss him with an ache I’ve come to realize will always live deep in my bones. I dearly miss a brother I haven’t yet met. As much as I hate to admit it, I’d miss my sister if she returned to Forest Grove. I will tell her about my father’s wishes. I will. But can I have a minute to sit back and catch my breath?

Ivy

CHAPTER 15

Rose

IT'S SURPRISINGLY EASY
to avoid people when you want to, even in tight quarters. Another week had passed since Ivy and I visited the wounded men, and Ivy’s subsequent—and rather unusual—lackluster performance at the audition. Something was wrong with Ivy and I didn’t want to think about it or face it. She made it easy...smiling at me then dashing off here or there. Too soon our silence compounded itself, and we were in a stalemate. There were so many reasons for her to be angry with me, but the odd thing was that none of them added up to the quiet, sad eyes she wore, or the moments when she started to address me, and then left the room as if haunted by a ghost. It was exhausting, so I simply started to ignore her.

I don’t like to admit that without her, well...without worrying about her or about what she thought of me...I felt free. Instead of seeking out her council, I went to Santino, or Nell, Claudia, Maude and Viv. Even Cat, when I dropped off dresses, or when she’d stop by to visit with Nell and her “Empire Girls.” When we’d first arrived, I thought the term derogatory. But as my fondness for Empire House grew, I longed to be called one, as well.

It was safe, spending time among my new friends. There was drinking and weaving of words and laughter. I didn’t feel as if I was under a microscope. With Ivy, I was always waiting for the next moment I’d disappoint her. Her silence had set me free.

A week after our trip to Coney Island, Ivy walked into Empire House after her shift at Cat’s to find me in the Salon deep in poetry, camaraderie and liquor.

When I saw that she was going to walk up the stairs without a second glance at me—again, the drink made my tongue too sharp.

“I never knew that she, the queen of night, could be a solid ass,”
I said.

“The harlot chased the king across the grass...”
said Joseph.

“Like Ivy growing up on solid brick, choking mortar, wisely lies,”
I continued, skipping Santino on purpose. I was talking to my sister, and I was being mean.

“And it can’t be a flower, no matter how it tries!”
said Boris, not knowing that his poor rhyme would slash both of us.

Ivy stared at me in disbelief and then stormed back out.

I felt my heart go with her.

“That’s it for me, boys,” I said.

“Don’t worry about Ivy,” said Santino. “She’ll come around.”

“Without a sound...” said Joseph.

Boris hit him playfully and then leaned over to throw up in the bucket Nell kept by his feet. Boris could not hold his liquor.

“That was childish of me, and you don’t know my sister,” I said. “Once, when we were small, I told her that I didn’t like a drawing she’d made, and she held it against me for months.”

Walking up the stairs, I reconsidered my actions. Besides petty things, what was I angry about?

We’d found nothing new about Asher. Our trail on Daisy had grown cold. And worst of all, I was starting to wonder what I would do if we did find Asher. The more I thought of Forest Grove, the lonelier that existence I’d planned for myself seemed to be.

For the first time since he’d died, I wanted my father. Yes, I’d grieved and yes, I’d missed him. But at that very moment I wanted to resurrect him from the grave and send him out into the city to find his wayward daughter and force her to divulge whatever secret was festering inside of her and ruining our precarious relationship.

I undressed and tried to go to sleep, but the air was becoming more and more oppressive. I thought perhaps a storm was coming. Or maybe the ghost of our father heeding my call. That thought made me sit straight up in my bed.

I needed air—fresh air, so I went to the window that looked over the garden. I opened it only to find Claudia sitting on the tiny platform of the fire escape, carefully with cupped hands taking soil from a burlap bag and pouring it neatly into little earthenware pots.

“Claudia, it’s so late! Why aren’t you asleep, little one?”

“I couldn’t sleep ’cause it was too hot, so I was getting a head start on somethin’ The Poet asked me to do. He said we should put flowers in pots so it’ll look like the garden growin’ all the way up the side of Empire House. I think he’s doin’ it for you.”

“He’s a love. How many pots do you have to fill?”

“Look.”

She pointed down the staircase and I saw at least fifty little pots.

“That’s a lot of work, sweetheart,” I said. “Do you need help?”

“No. I like this kind of thing. And, miss? If ya don’t mind me askin’, don’t you, too?”

“I guess I do. Only I never thought of it as work. I suppose I’m just realizing that I grew up in a dollhouse.”

“What?”

“Nothing...I need some air. Is there another place to go? Not the garden or the fire escape. Is there a way to get to the roof?”

“Well, that depends—are you gonna go and do somethin’ foolish?”

“You mean, jump?”

“I guess, or other things. Nell says the stars lie to us, promise us things they can’t deliver. Make us think things can stay the same, only the stars are already burned out a long time ago. At least that’s what she says, and she’s smart, Nell, for an old lady.”

“How about this—I promise I won’t do anything foolish. Now will you show me? And, is it safe up there?”

“Safe, miss?” she said. “Is anything?”

* * *

She ducked back in through the window and walked me to a pull-down ladder hidden in a narrow, high eave across from her bed.

I walked out into the air, clearer up five stories, and looked across the city. Feeling small against its vast expanse was a welcome relief that straightened the backs of all my bent and twisted thoughts.

Ivy would warm to me again or she wouldn’t.

We’d find Asher or we wouldn’t.

In the meantime, I had to live.

These were the things I was saying to myself as I sat on the roof, my back against a chimney, my knees drawn up against me.

“Whatever is meant to happen, will happen....” I said aloud to the night.

“And when the rain is pouring, I’ll do my gypsy dance,” said Santino, who swung his tall body around from the other side of the large chimney. He held out a flask.

“How did you get up here?” I asked, smiling and taking the flask.

He slid down the bricks next to me so we were sitting side by side.

“There are many different routes to the same destination,” he said.

“Poet, sometimes a straight answer is a good answer,” I said, taking a large sip. It burned all the way down.

“There’s another fire escape on the narrow side of the building. Can I start again, please?”

“But of course.”

“And when the rain is pouring, I’ll do my gypsy dance...”

“The moon in awestruck shadows stood alone...” I said, and took back the flask.

“A Grecian Goddess, wayward made her peace...” he continued.

And so it went. Until the flask was empty and I was lying with my head in his lap.

“You’re a poet, Rose Adams. You’ve been one for your whole life, scrawling the words out of your beautiful mind from before you could walk, with that wickedly straight back.”

“Nope,” I said...my lips lingering over the informal
p
and liking it. “I am not the artist....” I said it
are-t-eeeest.
“I leave that to Ivy. Forever the actress, the singer, the dancer... The light of our lives. Me? I make lace. I sew. I’m a good girl.”

“A good girl,” he repeated.

“Good girl...” I said again.

“Gargoyle!” we said together.

We laughed then. My laughter didn’t sound like me. It wasn’t tight or tinny. It was real. And loud. It was from the bottom of my toes.

“What was it like, the war?” I asked.

“It wasn’t any fun,” said Sonny.

“This from the man of many words,” I said.

“It was dark. And the world was screaming. I can’t think about it too much or I’ll end up just like...”

“Just like Asher?”

He ignored my question. “We all became brothers when we stepped off those boats. And then, those of us lucky enough to step back onto them and come home... We got a new kind of blood runnin’ through us.”

The look in Santino’s eyes told me that he’d tell me more. That he’d tell me anything I wanted to know. But I didn’t want to evoke the same haunted look I saw in the eyes of the men Ivy and I visited at the hospital. Someday we’d talk of it, and maybe even write of it. But not right then. Not yet.

“Are you going to come clean about Asher? I know you know him, Poet.”

“Sometimes, we have to keep promises just so we can look at ourselves in the mirror.”

“Promise me, then, that if I get close enough to the truth, you’ll tell me, okay?”

“I promise, Rosie. I promise.”

I laid my head on his shoulder.

“Stay here, Rosie. I’ll get us a bottle of wine, okay?”

I nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“Just go get it,” I said.

He was back, fast, with two glasses and a bottle that was gone before I knew it.

He wound a stray curl, which had escaped my bun in the humidity, around his finger. I closed my eyes and the rooftop began to dance underneath me. We weren’t even there anymore. We were somewhere else. Two people in an ancient world of words, where there were no rules. We were free. I walked to a waist-high ledge and leaned into the night air.

He must have come around behind me while my eyes were closed, because all of the sudden I felt his hands, busy taking pins out of my hair.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said as my hair tumbled down my back, and I realized he was shaking. So I turned around to face him, and he picked me up. I wrapped my legs around him. “I don’t know anything anymore since I met you, Rosie. All I see, all I think about, is you. Please let me touch you. Please, I feel like I’m dyin’.”

I placed my hands either side of his face. “You already are,” I said as he placed me down on the rooftop on my back, where we lay together under the lying stars.

His eyes.

His kisses. A small kiss, and then a longer one, and a longer one. Each time he pulled away from me, each time searching my eyes for some sort of answer. And then, the kiss that did not end, that touched me in a place I did not know I owned.

“No,” he said, pulling away. “Not yet, not like this.”

Before I could feel any shame, he reached into his pocket, took out a pocketknife and cut a thin strip of white cloth from his dress shirt. He tied it around my ring finger.

“I’m saving money, Rosie, and I don’t want you to say anything to me now. Just know that when I come to you with a real ring, I’d like for you to consider the possibility of sharing your life with me. Will you think about it?”

“Of course I will.”

“There is something I have tell you. Well, there are a lot of things. Sort of, maybe only two. No, three.” He was talking in circles, nervous.

“Say anything to me, Santino. The sound of your voice is so beautiful that I could listen to you talk all evening,” I said.

“No, don’t be nice to me. Not yet... Oh, God. I didn’t want to tell you. But I have to do it or we can’t ever move past all this. And we have to, Rosie. We have to get on with our lives together, right?” The fear in his voice brought me out of my reverie and made me think the first terrible thought I’d had for a month.

“Then don’t say it. Is Asher dead? I knew you were keeping something from me, but I don’t want Asher to be dead. Please don’t tell me that. A few weeks ago I’d have told you he needed to be alive because of Ivy. But now? I know I need him just as much as she does. I need my family.”

“And I need
you,
” he said. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I saw you on the stairs.”

“I need you, too,” I whispered, trying to remember the last time those words had ever come off my lips, if ever at all.

“In that case, let me tell you a little more of what I know about Asher.”

“You don’t have to...”

“I need to. Okay...” I could tell he was struggling.

“Let me help. You were in the war together, the three of you? You, Asher and Jimmy,” I guided him.

He nodded.

“And you all grew up together?”

“No, not Jimmy. Me and Ash and...”

“Daisy?”

“Yep.”

“Who is Cat—was she around, too?”

Sonny took a deep breath and started to talk. “See, the thing is...”

“No,” I said, bringing my fingers to his lips. “You love them, and you want to protect them. I understand why you kept it from me. I won’t make you tell me more. Yet.”

The girl who got off the train sweating her way through Grand Central Station would have been cruel to him. She would have yelled at him for keeping any sort of truth from her. But the person I was becoming was very aware of how people interact when they care for one another. I mean, who was I to ask him to reveal secrets he was keeping for, what I could only guess, was the benefit of our brother? It was my own confusion that was making me angry. My own muddy intentions about Asher when we arrived in search of him. I’d wanted his signature on a legal document. It was a callous need. Nothing more, nothing less. These people I’d met, the ones who were becoming my family, they were right to keep Asher from me.

“You’re not mad?” he asked.

“No, I am not mad. I am so grateful you shared what you could with me now, and not a second sooner.”

“Oh, God, Rose, I’ve never been so happy to hear someone say anything. If the Virgin Mary were to come down from heaven right now and speak to me, it wouldn’t make me any more relieved. Rosie, I thought you’d hate me.”

“Hate you? I love you,” I said.

I thought he might jump up and hit the stars.

Once he was settled, he said, “Look. Maybe I can’t tell you everything I know, and it ain’t much, believe me. But I can help you look for Ash. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go on over to Washington Square Park? A lot of the guys who came back from overseas—how should I say this—different... They go down there to sleep. Lot of them with no place to go, no place to call home. I go every once in a while to check and see if I can find Asher. Maybe you’re the lucky charm.”