Juliana Read online

  The place smelled of old wood and camphor. This was my new home. Suddenly my heart beat in my throat. I’d never gone away from home before. I’d always wanted to get away from home. I dreamed of it and dreamed of it. Ever since I was eight. I read everything and anything I could find on New York City. All I wanted was to start my life away from the mother who tried to kill me. And now, here I was. The waiting was done. Today was the day. Right now, was the beginning of my new life, but all I could think of was getting back on that train to Huntington as fast as I could.

  “Hello. Welcome,” Mrs. Minton said, as she marched into the parlor, drying her hands with a dishtowel. “Sorry I couldn’t greet you at the door, but, as you can see, this work is endless.” Mrs. Minton was a big lady with tight, curly, gray hair and tortoiseshell eyeglasses. Her blouse buttons worked especially hard to stay closed. “Come in, come in,” she said cheerfully.

  Aggie marched right up to her; I held back wondering how to make my get-away. “Come, come,” Mrs. Minton said, her eyes looking over her glasses at me. “I hope you’re not shy.”

  “No, I’m not shy.” I threw my shoulders back and took loud, clompy steps toward her. This is my new home. I gotta make this work. I have no other place to go. I thought of those men living in boxes.

  “Good,” Mrs. Minton said. “I can’t be bothered with shy people. They’re such a bother.”

  I’d been called shy in my sixth-grade Sunday school class, but that was ’cause I didn’t know what to say when the teacher told us that the Jews might not go to heaven, ’cause they didn’t believe in Christ. Somehow, that didn’t seem fair, and I knew God must’ve put in a loophole for them somewhere, but I couldn’t find the words to tell the class what I thought, so I stayed quiet and let them call me shy. That night, I started reading the Bible beginning with Genesis 1. I figured if I kept at it every night I’d come up with that loophole. I didn’t find it the first time, so I read it again.

  “You have no idea how exhausting owning this business is,” Mrs. Minton said. “Watching out for working girls who think they’re grown up women, who think they can conduct their lives any way they please without any consideration for me is an endless job. I hope you two won’t be that thoughtless.”

  Aggie and I gave each other a quick look and then said together, “Oh, no.” I was sure the guys were in back getting a good laugh.

  “I hope you’re sincere about that, because if I have any trouble with you, I will contact your mothers and advise them that you are not ready to be on your own, and I’ll recommend they take you home. If they will not, I cannot be responsible for what happens to you, but you will no longer be permitted to live in this house, among Christian ladies.

  “This way,” Mrs. Minton directed. She waddled toward the desk in the corner of the parlor, and we followed. She turned back around and flicked her chubby fingers at the boys. “You two wait in the hall. Go! Go!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Dickie bowed almost to the floor.

  Mrs. Minton squeezed her ample self between the desk and the straight-backed chair and opened a book with lines and names running down the page. On the wall behind her was a plaque with a crucifix tacked on it .

  “We’re going on the stage,” Aggie said, enthusiastically.

  “We’re actors,” I added.

  “Actresses,” Aggie corrected.

  “Ah, yes, actresses.” Mrs. Minton yawned. “Isn’t everybody?”

  “No, we’re not like everybody,” Aggie said. “Someday we’re gonna be stars on Broadway and maybe Hollywood too.”

  “Yes, you’re special, special.” Mrs. Minton pushed her glasses back to her eyes. “Names?”

  “Oh, you don’t know who we are?” Aggie giggled. “But some day you will.”

  “I don’t read tea leaves or minds. Names.”

  “My mother, Mrs. Wright, called to tell you we’d be coming.”

  “Ah, yes, Phyllis Moore.” She sat back in her chair, remembering. “A lovely girl. She only stayed here a short time back in twenty-one, but she never broke one single rule.” She wagged a finger at Aggie. “I trust you’ll do the same.”

  “Yes,” Aggie said, but I knew Aggie was gonna have trouble with that one.

  “And you must be Alice Huffman. I don’t know your mother. I hope I won’t meet her under unpleasant circumstances.” She stood and looked down on us through those glasses like we were some awful smelly thing she’d gotten stuck on her shoe.

  “You’re in room three, top floor.” She squished up her face. “That’s three floors up, you know. And your beaux cannot help you with that baggage. They’re not allowed upstairs.” She smiled like the thought of us lugging our luggage up three flights was the happiest thought she’d had all day.

  Aggie said, “My parents are sending our trunks. They should be here in a couple—”

  “I believe I was speaking,” Mrs. Minton said. She unlocked her desk drawer and withdrew a piece of paper, her list of rules. She shook it open with a flourish. “No men allowed in the rooms under any circumstance. No men allowed in the parlor after nine p.m. Curfew on Sunday through Thursday, eleven p.m.; Friday and Saturday, one a.m. If you arrive late, the door will be locked.”

  “Welcome to prison,” I mumbled to myself.

  “What did you say, young lady?”

  “Nothing!” My heart beat in my throat like she was about to kill me. I have to make this work.

  She looked me right in my eyes. “If you miss your curfew, you may manage on the street in whatever way you choose.” I wouldn’t look away from her no matter how mean her face got. “However, I would not suggest seeking shelter in a local hotel. You certainly must know what people think of young girls who mysteriously arrive in hotel lobbies in the middle of the night—alone. Should you somehow survive the night and wish to be readmitted to Hope House, I will first call your mother. Then we shall see.”

  She finally broke off looking at me, and I started breathing again. “No eating or drinking in the room. That means no hot plates. No loud talking. No loud radio playing. No loud door slamming. No pets. No dancing. No Victrolas. No…”

  Suddenly, all I could see of Mrs. Minton was her mouth getting bigger and bigger and her giant lips opening and closing, and all that came out was, “no, no, no…”

  Chapter Two

  We headed toward some gin mill Dickie heard about, that only “special” people knew how to find. Aggie and I traipsed along back alleys and dark streets, through the heat, in our formal dresses and dang heels while the boys argued about which way to go.

  “I think it’s over here,” Dickie said, leaning against a tree, studying a wrinkled piece of paper.

  “No, it says Bedford . We’re on Barrow,” Danny said, pushing his fedora off his brow.

  “You sure it says that?” Dickie squinted at the paper under a streetlamp.

  All I could think about was the play we’d just come from. Something happened to me on that balcony. I was surrounded by all those others, and yet, I was alone. My heart was out of my chest and up on stage with the colors, sounds, vibrations, singers, and dancers all swirling around together. I could barely breathe.

  “Come on, let’s go down that street,” Dickie said, and we followed.

  In the play, a psychiatrist does psychoanalysis on this editor of a fashion magazine. I’d read about psychoanalysis and Sigmund Freud, ’cause I thought it might help my mother. But we didn’t have any money for that sort of thing. I could never figure out how it worked, but I learned all about it from the play. When the play was over, I just sat there. People clapped, got out of their seats, still, I couldn’t move. Danny had to drag me out of the theater. There were never any shows like that in Huntington. It was like I was coming alive for the very first time. Like I was Adam, the very first person, moving the very first muscle, breathing the very first breath, seeing the very first flower. I think it might have been ecstasy. I read about that once .

  And then they all wanted to come down here to find
this place they couldn’t find. How could they go on with their ordinary lives after that play?

  “Well, this isn’t it,” Danny said, punching his fist into a tree. “Where are we?”

  I took his hand in mine and kissed the knuckles. He put his arm around my shoulders.

  “Maybe we shoulda taken that other street?” Dickie said.

  Aggie stomped a foot. “Will you boys make up your minds? My feet are killing me. And whoever heard of a place with no sign on the door? How hot can it be?”

  “It’s plenty hot,” Danny said. “Hemingway and Fitzgerald hang out there. It’s so exclusive it doesn’t need a sign.”

  “Look,” Dickie said, pointing up at a street sign. “Over there. That’s Bedford.”

  We all tore off toward the sign, Danny holding me up so I didn’t fall. I’d never get used to heels.

  “You think this is it?” Danny asked. We gathered in front of a wooden door under the shadow of a cluster of leafy trees. The only thing on the door was the number 86.

  “The guy I got this paper from said Chumley’s is at eighty-six.” Dickie threw his arm around Aggie. “Let’s go.”

  We walked into a room filled with smoke; people laughed and talked as they huddled around splintery wooden booths and round tables, drinking beer and eating hamburgers. A waitress saw us standing there and said, “Sit! There’s a booth over there.”

  “Excuse me, miss,” Danny said. “Which booth is where Scott and Zelda sit?”

  She gave him a disgusted look and hurried along with her tray. Danny took off his hat, and the curl rolled down onto his forehead. He pushed it back and guided us toward the booth. His eyes were wide, staring at the dust jackets of famous authors’ books in glass cases that covered the walls: Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner. It was good to see him happy. It wasn’t easy for Danny to be happy. He waited for me to slide into the booth, and then he slid in next to me.

  “Imagine, Al. Hemingway could’ve sat right here in this very booth, on this very spot where I’m sitting now.”

  Dickie laughed. “He could’ve even farted in that very spot where you’re sitting now.”

  “Stop being disgusting,” Aggie said, punching his arm as she sat down. She placed her gloves in her purse. Dickie slid in beside her and lit a cigarette.

  “Weren’t those dancers terrific tonight?” Dickie said. “I just gotta get into a show. I’m gonna die at that Automat.” His body danced in his seat as he drummed on the table.

  We ordered beers, and the waitress brought a pitcher with four mugs .

  “Wasn’t that Danny Kaye a dreamboat?” Aggie said, sipping her beer. “Just like all the magazines are saying. I couldn’t believe they had someone that good-looking playing the sissy.”

  “I don’t think he was a sissy,” Dickie said.

  “That’s what they said in Life Magazine ,” I told them.

  “No kidding?” Danny asked.

  “Sure,” Aggie jumped in, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders. “You could tell by the way he walked. But he’s not one in real life. They’d never hire a real one for a Broadway show. He was acting. He’s not like those flits in that cafeteria this morning.”

  That morning, once we got settled into Hope House, we’d explored our new neighborhood. We found this place called Life Cafeteria on Seventh Avenue South. There were these people standing outside of it with their faces pressed up against the large windows staring in, and laughing at the people on the inside. We pressed our own noses against the glass to see what was going on. Inside there were real homosexuals eating breakfast. When they saw us staring at them, the men homosexuals did a fairy dance like they were girls and the girl homosexuals, wearing suits and ties, kissed each other on their mouths. It was disgusting.

  Aggie squealed, “Oh and wasn’t Victor Mature handsome and …” she whispered, leaning into the center of the table, “sexy?” She jumped up and down in her seat. “Wasn’t he, Al, wasn’t he?”

  “He sure was. And Gertrude Lawrence, too. Wasn’t she pretty?”

  “Get a load of that …” Aggie nodded in the direction of the bar behind us. “That guy over there. He’s a real sissy.”

  Danny turned to look.

  “Don’t look,” Aggie said. “I can’t believe they let those types in here.”

  “Sure they do,” Dickie said. “Greenwich Village is crawling with fags and bull daggers. Still, I don’t know if that guy really is one of them.”

  “No real man would ever hold his glass like that. He’s a flit for sure. You people better know what to watch out for so they don’t capture any of you.”

  “Capture?” Danny asked. “I don’t think they do that.”

  “Didn’t your mothers tell you not to talk to strangers?” Aggie went on proud of her advanced knowledge. “They go after people, especially children and other naïve persons who don’t know any better. They try to turn you into what they are, so you can’t be normal any more even if you try.”

  “You make them sound like vampires,” I said.

  “They are. Didn’t you see Dracula’s Daughter ? The way that lady vampire tells the young girl to take off her blouse so she can do ‘things’ to her.”

  “She didn’t mean that,” I said. “She was just gonna drink her blood.”

  “That girl was helpless ’cause that woman hypnotized her.”

  “But that was a movie. About a vampire.”

  “You are so naïve. You better watch out, Miss Innocence, before one of them gets you. ”

  “Well, there are none of them at this table,” Danny said. “So let’s order.” He signaled the waitress.

  We drank beer and ate hamburgers, only the city people called them burgers, and they were the biggest “burgers” I’d ever seen. I took it all in: the voices blending together, the cigarette smoke clouding the air, the smell of spilled beer seeping through the floorboards.

  “Hey, Aggie,” I said, “did you see that crucifix on the parlor wall at Hope House? Do you think Mrs. Minton is Catholic?”

  “That’s probably why she’s so nuts,” she said. “From eating all that fish on Fridays.”

  “Really?” Dickie said. “The owner of your boarding house is Catholic? Now, that’s the kinda person you really gotta watch out for.”

  “Do you think she’s gonna make us eat fish on Fridays?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Danny said. “Catholics always make people do things they don’t wanna do.”

  Aggie said, “I like fish. Don’t you, Al?”

  “Yeah, but not on Fridays. I wanna eat it on Thursdays .”

  We all laughed.

  “Did ya hear?” Dickie said, taking a bite of his hamburger while balancing his Lucky Strike between two fingers. “FDR is gonna ask Congress to extend the term of duty for draftees beyond twelve months. They’re gonna vote on it in August.”

  “Congress’ll never pass it,” Danny said, lighting his own Lucky Strike. “The ones in now are talking desertion if that law gets passed.”

  There was a man sitting at a round table in the center of the room with some other dressed-up people. Everyone was talking and laughing except for that man. He wasn’t even looking at them; he was looking at us .

  “It’s just plain wrong to have a draft during peacetime,” Danny continued.

  “Some folks been saying they may draft as young as eighteen,” Dickie said. “That’d sure throw a wrench into our plans.” Dickie wiped some ketchup from his mouth with a napkin.

  The man at the table was an older guy, like maybe twenty-nine, with black hair. He had a thin mustache and probably would’ve been considered good looking by some women.

  “That’ll definitely never pass,” Danny said. “Everybody knows Europe is always at war; it’s not our business.”

  If you looked at the man from an angle, he looked a little like Clark Gable.

  “Fighting in a war’s sposed to make a man of you,” Dickie said. “If they lower the age, maybe I will sign up.”

>   The man watching us sipped from a long-stemmed glass. A woman with light-brown curls swept on top of her head wearing a navy-blue gown sat close to him. The man smoked his cigarette in a holder like President Roosevelt and kept glancing over at us. It gave me the creeps .

  “Hemingway says that war has no purpose and brings no glory,” Danny said. “And he’s plenty manly.”

  The man straightened his bow tie and moved toward us.

  “He’s coming over here,” I practically shouted.

  “Who?” the others asked.

  “Excuse me,” the man said with a bow. “My name is Maxwell P. Harlington the Third and …” He looked at Danny. “I thought I heard you mention Papa Hemingway. Are you a friend of his?”

  Danny choked on his beer. “Friend? No.”

  Maxwell P. Harlington the Third pulled a straight-backed chair to the end of our booth. “Do you mind?” he asked as he sat down. “Papa is a good friend of mine, although, I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “You’re friends with Ernest Hemingway?” Danny gasped.

  “So, where are you kids coming from?” Maxwell asked, puffing on his cigarette holder, smoke drifting up toward the raftered ceiling in long strings of curlicues.

  “We just saw Lady in the Dark ,” Aggie told him, tossing her hair and fluttering her eyelashes.

  “How’d ol’ Gertie do? I haven’t seen her lately, but of course I was there for opening night.”

  Everyone stared at him, their eyes wide. Everyone but me. I crossed my arms over my chest and made a quiet hmph sound that no one heard. They were too busy drooling over this guy.

  “What a night that was,” he went on. “Opening night. Gertie was sick, you know, a bad case of the flu. They had to rush her to the hospital right after her half-hour standing ovation. But she was a trooper. No one knew how sick she was except those of us who were closest to her. I bet you’re actors. I really couldn’t tell.”