City of Girls (40 page)

“Are you sure it was him that you saw today?” I asked.

“It was
him
. He knew me. He came over and talked to me. Vivian, he’s one of the 704 Club. Jesus Christ!” Frank threw me a tortured look.

“I don’t know what that means,” I said as gently as I could.

“The men who stayed on the
Franklin
when we were hit that day—there were seven hundred and four of them. Captain Gehres named those guys the
704 Club. He built them up as heroes. Hell, maybe they
were
heroes. The Heroic Living, Gehres called them. The ones who didn’t desert the ship. They get together every year and have reunions. Relive the glories.”

“You didn’t desert the ship, Frank. Even the Navy knew that. You were blown overboard in flames.”

“Vivian, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I was already a coward long before that.”

The panic had drained from his voice. Now he spoke with dreadful calm.

“No, you weren’t,” I said.

“It’s not an argument, Vivian. I was. We’d been under fire already for months before that day. I couldn’t handle it. I could
never
handle it. Guam in July of forty-four—bombing the hell out of Guam. I couldn’t imagine how there was even a single blade of grass left standing on that island when we
were done with it, we rained such hell on that place. But when our troops landed at the end of July, out come all these Japanese soldiers and tanks. How did they even survive it? I can’t imagine. Our marines were brave, the Japanese soldiers were brave, but I wasn’t brave. I couldn’t bear the noise of the guns, Vivian—and they weren’t even being fired
at
me. That’s when I started being like
this
. The nerves, the shakes. The men started calling me Twitchy.”

“Shame on them,” I said.

“They were right, though. I was a pile of nerves. One day, we had a bomb fail to release from one of our planes—a hundred-pound bomb, just got jammed in the open bomb bay. The pilot radios in that he’s got a bomb stuck in the bay, and he has to land like that, can you imagine? Then, during the landing, the
bomb kind of shudders lose and falls
out,
and now we have a hundred-pound bomb skittering across the flight deck. Your brother and some other guys just ran right at it and pushed that thing over the edge of the ship like it’s nothing—and again, I’m frozen. Can’t help, can’t act, can’t do anything.”

“It doesn’t matter, Frank.” But again, it was like he couldn’t hear me.

“Then it’s August 1944,”
he went on. “We’re in the middle of a typhoon, but we’re still running sorties, landing planes even while the waves are breaking over the flight deck. And those pilots, landing on a postage stamp in the middle of the Pacific, in the teeth of the
gale—they never even
flinch
. Here I am, my hands can’t stop shaking, and I’m not even
piloting
the goddamn planes, Vivian. They called our convoy ‘Murderers’
Row.’ We were supposed to be the toughest guys around. But I wasn’t tough.”

“Frank,” I said, “it’s all right.”

“Then the Japanese start suicide-bombing us in October. They know they’re gonna lose the war, so they decide to go down in glory. Take out as many of us as they can, by any means necessary. They just kept coming at us, Vivian. One day in October, there were
fifty
of them that came at
us. Fifty kamikaze planes in one day. Can you imagine it?”

“No,” I said, “I cannot.”

“Our guys knocked them out of the air, one after another, but they sent more planes the next day. I knew it was just a matter of time before one of them would hit us. Everyone knew we were sitting ducks, not more than fifty miles off the coast of Japan, but our guys were so cavalier about it. Strutting around
like it was nothing. And there was Tokyo Rose on the radio every night, telling the world that the
Franklin
was already sunk. That’s when I stopped sleeping. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Terrified, every minute. I’ve never slept right since then. Some of those kamikaze pilots, when they got shot down, we fished them out of the water as prisoners. One of those Japanese pilots, he was being marched
across our flight deck to the brig, but then he broke away and ran right to the edge of the ship. Jumped off and killed himself, rather than be taken prisoner. Death with honor, right in front of me. I looked at his face as he was running to the edge, Vivian—and I swear to God, he didn’t look anything near as scared as I felt.”

I could feel Frank spinning back into the past now, hard and fast,
and it wasn’t good. I needed to bring him back home—back to himself. Back to now.

“What happened today, Frank?” I asked. “What happened with Tom Denno in that courtroom today?”

Frank exhaled, but gripped the steering wheel even harder.

“He comes up to me, Vivian, right before I’m supposed to testify. Remembers me by name. Asks how I’m doing. Tells me about how he’s a lawyer now, where he lives
on the Upper West Side, where he went to college, where his kids go to school. Gave me a speech about how well he’s done. He was one of the skeleton crew that sailed the
Franklin
back to the Brooklyn Navy Yard after the attack, you know, and I guess he never left New York after that. Still has that accent from right off the farm, though. But wearing a suit that probably costs more than my house.
Then he looks me up and down in my uniform, and says, ‘A beat cop? That’s what naval officers become these days?’ Christ, Vivian, what am I supposed to say? I just nod. Then he asks me, ‘Do they even let you carry a gun?’ And I say something stupid, like, ‘Yeah, but I’ve never used it,’ and he says, ‘Well, you always were a soft apple, Twitchy,’ and he walks away.”

“He can go straight to hell,”
I said. I felt my own fists balling up. A wave of rage overcame me so fiercely that the noise of it in my ears—a roar of rushing blood—was, for a moment, louder than the roar of the plane landing in front of us. I wanted to hunt down Tom Denno and slit his neck.
How dare he?
I also wanted to gather up Frank in my arms and rock him and comfort him—but I couldn’t, because the war had bunged up his
mind and his body so badly that he couldn’t even be held in the arms of a woman who loved him.

It was all so vicious and it was all so
wrong
.

I thought of how Frank had once told me that—when he came up in the water after being blown off the ship—he emerged into a world that was completely on fire. Even the seawater around him was on fire, blanketed with burning fuel. And the engines of the
stricken aircraft carrier were only fanning the flames. Burning the men in the water even more severely. Frank found that if he splashed hard, he could push the fire away and create a small spot in the Pacific that was not on
fire. So that’s what he did for two hours—him, with burns over most of his body—until he was rescued. He just kept pushing the flames away, trying to keep one small area
of his world free from the inferno. All these years later, I felt like he was
still
trying to do that. Still trying to find a safe radius somewhere in the world. Someplace where he could stop burning.

“Tom Denno is right, Vivian,” he said. “I’ve always been a soft apple.”

I wanted so badly to comfort him, Angela, but how? Aside from my presence in the car that day—as somebody who would listen
to his awful story—what could I give him? I wanted to tell him that he was heroic, strong, and brave, and that Tom Denno and the rest of the 704 Club were
wrong
. But I knew this wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t have been able to hear those words. He wouldn’t have believed them. I had to say something, though, because he was in such pain. I closed my eyes and begged my mind for something useful to offer.
Then I opened my mouth and just spoke—blindly trusting that fate and love would grant me the right words.

“So what if it’s true?” I asked.

My voice came out harder than I’d expected. Frank turned to look at me in surprise.

“What if it’s true, Frank, that you’re a soft apple? What if it’s true, that you were never made for combat, and you couldn’t handle the war?”

“It
is
true.”

“Okay, then.
Let’s agree that it’s true, just for the sake of argument. But what would that mean?”

He said nothing.

“What would it
mean,
Frank?” I demanded. “Answer me. And take your hands off the goddamn steering wheel. We’re not going anywhere.”

He took his hands off the wheel, set them gently in his lap, and stared down at them.

“What would it mean, Frank? If you were a soft apple. Tell me.”

“It would
mean I’m a coward.”

“And what would
that
mean?” I demanded.

“It would mean I’m a failure as a man.” His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.

“No, you’re
wrong,
” I said, and I had never been more fiercely sure of anything in my life. “You’re wrong, Frank. It would not mean that you’re a failure as a man. Do you want to know what it actually means? It means
nothing
.”

He blinked at me,
confused. He’d never heard me speak as sharply as this.

“You listen to me, Frank Grecco,” I said. “If you’re a coward—and let’s just say that you are, for the sake of argument—it means nothing. My Aunt Peg, she’s an alcoholic. She can’t handle drinking. It ruins her life and turns her into a mess—and do you know what that means? It means
nothing
. Do you think it makes her a bad person, that she
has no control over booze? A failure of a person? Of course not—it’s just the way she is. Alcoholism just happened to her, Frank. Things happen to people. We are the way we are—there’s nothing to be done for it. My Uncle Billy—he couldn’t keep a promise or stay faithful to a woman. It meant
nothing
. He was a wonderful person, Frank, and he was completely untrustworthy. It’s just how he
was
. It
didn’t mean anything. We all still loved him.”

“But men are supposed to be brave,” said Frank.

“So what!” I nearly shouted it. “Women are supposed to be
pure,
and look at me. I’ve had sex with countless men, Frank—and do you know what it means about me?
Nothing
. It’s just how it is. You said it yourself, Frank—
the world ain’t straight
. That’s what you told me, our
first night. Use your own words
to understand your own life. The world ain’t straight. People have a certain nature, and that’s just how it goes. And things happen to people—things that are beyond their control. The war
happened
to you. And you weren’t made for battle—so what? None of it means a damn thing. Stop doing this to yourself.”

“But tough guys like Tom Denno—”

“You know nothing about Tom Denno. Something happened
to him, too, I guarantee it. For a grown man to come at you like that? With such cruelty? Oh, I promise you—life has happened to him, too. Something left him wrecked as a person. Not that I care about that asshole, but his world ain’t straight, either, Frank. You can bet on it.”

Frank started crying. When I saw this, I nearly wept, too. But I held back my tears because his were far more important,
far more rare. At that moment, I would have given years off my life to be able to hold him, Angela—in that moment, more than any other. But it wasn’t possible.

“It’s not
fair,
” he said, through body-wracking sobs.

“No, it’s not, sweetheart,” I said. “It’s not fair. But it’s what
happened
. It’s just the way things are, Frank, and it means
nothing
. You’re a wonderful man. You’re no failure. You’re
the best man I’ve ever known. That’s the only thing that matters.”

He kept on crying—separated from me by a safe distance, as always. But at least he’d taken his hands off the wheel. At least he had been able to tell me what had happened. Here in the privacy of his swelteringly hot car—in the one corner of his world that was not on fire at this moment—at least he’d been able to tell the truth.

I would sit with him until he was all right again. I knew that I would sit with him for as long as it took. That’s all I could do. That was my only job in the world that day—to sit with this good man. To watch over him from the other side of the car until he was steadied.

When he finally got control of himself again, he stared out the window with the saddest expression I ever saw. He said, “What
are we gonna do about it all?”

“I don’t know, Frank. Maybe nothing. But I’m right here.”

That’s when he turned to look at me. “I can’t live without you, Vivian,” he said.

“Good. You’ll never have to.”

And that, Angela, was the closest your father and I ever came to saying
I love you
.

THIRTY-TWO

The years passed like they always do.

My Aunt Peg died in 1969, from emphysema. She smoked cigarettes right up until the end. It was a hard death. Emphysema is a brutal way to die. Nobody can fully remain themselves when they are in such pain and discomfort, but Peg tried her best to stay
Peg
—optimistic, uncomplaining, enthusiastic. But slowly, she lost the ability to breathe. It’s
a horrible thing to watch someone struggling for air. It’s like witnessing a slow drowning. By the end, sorrowful though it was, we were glad that she could go in peace. We couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.

There is a limit, I have found, to how much you can mourn as “tragic” the death of an older person who has lived a rich life, and who is privileged enough to die surrounded by loved
ones. There are so many worse ways to live, after all, and so many worse ways to die. From birth to death, Peg was one of life’s fortunate ones—and nobody knew it more than her. (“We are the luckies,” she used to say.) But still,
Angela, she had been the most important and influential figure in my life, and it hurt to lose her. Even to this day, even all these years later, I still believe that
the world is a poorer place without Peg Buell in it.

The only upside of her death was that it got me to finally quit smoking for good—and that’s probably why I’m still alive today.

Yet another generous offering from that good woman to me.

After Peg’s death, I was mostly concerned about what would become of Olive. She had spent so many years tending to my aunt—how would she fill her hours now?
But I needn’t have worried. There was a Presbyterian church over near Sutton Place that always needed volunteers, and so Olive found a use for herself running the Sunday school, organizing fund drives, and generally telling people what to do. She was
fine
.

Nathan got older, but still not much bigger. We kept him in Quaker schools for his whole education. It was the only environment gentle enough
for him. Marjorie and I kept trying to find him a passion (music, art, theater, literature), but he was not a person made for passion. What he liked more than anything was to feel safe and cozy. So we kept his world gentle, cocooning him within our peaceful little universe. We never asked much of Nathan. We thought he was good enough, just the way he was. We were proud of him sometimes just for
getting through the day.

As Marjorie said, “Not everyone is meant to charge through the world, carrying a spear.”

“That’s right, Marjorie,” I told her. “We shall leave the spear charging to you.”

L’Atelier continued to do steady business even as society changed during the 1960s, and fewer people were getting married. We were fortunate in one regard: we had never been a “traditional” bridal
shop, so when tradition went out of style, we remained au courant. We had
always sold vintage-inspired gowns—long before the word “vintage” was fashionable. So when the counterculture arrived, and all the hippies were dressing in crazy old clothing, we did not get rejected. In fact, we found a new clientele. I became the seamstress to many a well-heeled flower child. I made gowns for all the affluent
bankers’ hippie daughters who wanted wedding dresses that would make them look as though they had sprung fully grown from some rural meadow, rather than having been born on the Upper East Side and educated at the Brearley School.

I loved the 1960s, Angela.

By all rights, I should not have loved that moment in history. At my age, I should have been one of those stodgy old bitches bemoaning the
breakdown of society. But I had never been an ardent fan of society, so I didn’t object to seeing it challenged. In fact, I delighted in all the mutiny and rebellion and creative expression. And of course, I loved the clothes. How fabulous, that those hippies turned our city streets into a circus! It was all so freeing and playful.

But the 1960s made me feel proud, too, because there was a level
at which my community had already foretold all these transformations and upheavals.

The sexual revolution? I’d been doing that all along.

Homosexual couples, living together as spouses? Peg and Olive had practically invented it.

Feminism and single motherhood? Marjorie had walked that beat for ages.

A hatred of conflict and a passion for non-violence? Well, I’d like to introduce you to a sweet
little boy named Nathan Lowtsky.

With the greatest of pride, I was able to look out across all the cultural upheavals and transformations of the 1960s, and know this:

My people got there first
.

Then, in 1971, Frank asked me for a favor.

He asked me, Angela, if I would make your wedding dress for you.

This startled me on several levels.

For one thing, I was genuinely surprised to hear that
you were getting married. It didn’t seem to be in keeping with what your father had always told me about you. He’d been so proud of you as you finished your master’s degree at Brooklyn College, and your doctoral degree at Columbia—and in psychology, of course. (With a family history like ours, he used to say, what else could she study?) Your father was fascinated by your decision not to open a private
practice, but instead to work at Bellevue—exposing yourself every day to the most severe and grinding cases of mental illness.

Your work had become your life, he said. He fully approved. He was glad that you hadn’t married young, like him. He knew that you were not a traditional person, and that you were an intellectual. He was so proud of your mind. He was thrilled when you started doing postdoctoral
research on the trauma of suppressed memories. He said the two of you had finally found something you could talk about, and that sometimes he would help you to sort data.

He used to say, “Angela is too good and too thoughtful for any man I’ve ever met.”

But then one day he told me you’d acquired a boyfriend.

Frank had not been expecting this. You were twenty-nine years old by then, and perhaps
he’d thought you would remain single forever. Don’t laugh, but I think he may have believed you to be a lesbian! But you had met somebody you liked, and you wanted to bring him home for Sunday dinner. Your boyfriend turned out to be the head of security at Bellevue. A recently returned veteran of Vietnam. A native of
Brownsville, Brooklyn, who was going back to school at City College to study
law. A black man by the name of Winston.

Frank was not upset that you were dating a black man, Angela. Not for a minute. I hope you know that. More than anything, he was awed by your courage and confidence, to bring Winston to South Brooklyn. He saw the looks on the neighbors’ faces. It brought him satisfaction to see how uncomfortable you had made the neighborhood—and to see that other people’s
judgments would not stop you. But most of all, he liked and respected Winston.

“Good for her,” he said. “Angela’s always known what she wanted, and she’s never been afraid to take her own path. She’s chosen well.”

From what I understand, your mother was less happy about you and Winston.

According to your father, Winston was the only subject upon which he and Rosella ever argued. Frank had always
deferred to your mother’s opinion about what was best for you. Here, though, they parted ways. I don’t know the details of their argument. It’s not important. In the end, though, your mother came around. Or at least that’s what I was told.

(Again, Angela—I apologize if anything I’m telling you here is incorrect. I’m aware that I’m relaying your own history to you at this point, and it makes me
self-conscious. You surely know what happened better than anyone—or maybe you don’t. Again, I don’t know how much you were shown of your parents’ dispute. I just don’t want to leave out anything that you might not be aware of.)

And then, in early spring of 1971, Frank told me that you were getting married to Winston in a small private ceremony, and he asked me to create your dress.

“Is this
what Angela wants?” I asked.

“She doesn’t know yet,” he said. “I’m going to talk to her about it. I’m going to ask her to come and see you.”

“You want Angela to meet me?”

“I have only one daughter, Vivian. And knowing Angela, she will have only one marriage. I want you to make her wedding dress. It would mean a lot to me. So yeah, I want Angela to meet you.”

You came into the boutique on a
Tuesday morning—early, because you had to be at work by nine. Your father’s car pulled up in front of my shop, and the two of you entered together.

“Angela,” said Frank, “this is my old friend Vivian that I was telling you about. Vivian, this is my daughter. Well, I’ll leave you both to it.”

And he walked out.

I had never been more nervous to meet a client.

What’s worse, I could instantly
see your reluctance. You were more than reluctant: I could see that you were deeply impatient. I could see your confusion about why your father—who had never interfered with a minute of your life—had insisted on bringing you here. I could see that you didn’t want to be here. And I could tell (because I have an instinct for these things) that you didn’t even
want
a wedding dress. I was willing
to bet that you found wedding gowns corny and old-fashioned and demeaning to women. I would have wagered a million to one odds that you were planning to wear the exact same thing on your wedding day that you were wearing now: a peasant blouse, a wraparound denim skirt, and clogs.

“Dr. Grecco,” I said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I hoped you were glad that I had called you by your title. (Forgive
me, but having heard so many stories about you over the years, I was a bit proud of your title myself!)

Your manners were impeccable. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, Vivian,” you said—smiling as warmly as you were able to, given that you obviously wished you were anywhere but here.

I found you to be such a striking woman, Angela. You didn’t have your father’s height, but you had his intensity.
You had those same dark, searching eyes that signaled both curiosity and suspicion. You nearly vibrated with intelligence. Your eyebrows were thick and serious, and I liked the fact that you appeared never to have tweezed them. And you had restless energy, just like your dad. (Not so restless as his, of course—lucky for you!—but still, it was notable.)

“I hear you’re getting married,” I said.
“Congratulations to you.”

You cut right to the chase. “I’m not much of a wedding person. . . .”

“I understand completely,” I said. “Believe it or not, I’m not really one for weddings, either.”

“You’ve chosen a funny line of work, then,” you said, and we both laughed.

“Listen, Angela. You don’t have to be here. It won’t hurt my feelings in the least if you’re not interested in buying a wedding
dress.”

Now you seemed to backtrack, perhaps fearing that you’d offended me.

“No, I’m happy to be here,” you said. “It’s important to my father.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “And your father is a good friend of mine and the best man I know. But in my business, I’m not so interested in what fathers have to say. Or mothers, either, for that matter. I care only about the bride.”

You winced slightly
at the word “bride.” In my experience, there are only two kinds of women who ever get married—women who love the idea of being a bride, and women who hate it but are doing it anyway. It was obvious what kind of woman I was working with here.

“Angela, let me tell you something,” I said. “And is it all right with you, that I call you Angela?”

It felt so strange to say the name to your face—that
most intimate name, the name I had been hearing for years!

“That’s fine,” you said.

“May I assume that everything about a traditional wedding is repugnant and off-putting to you?”

“That’s correct.”

“And if it were up to you, it would be a quick trip to the county clerk’s office, on your lunch break? Or maybe not even marriage vows at all, but just an ongoing relationship, without getting the
government involved?”

You smiled. Again, I caught that flash of intelligence. You said, “You must be reading my mail, Vivian.”

“Somebody else in your life wants a proper-looking marriage ceremony for you, then. Who is it? Your mother?”

“It’s Winston.”

“Ah. Your fiancé.” Again, the wince. I had chosen the wrong word. “Your partner, perhaps I should say.”

“Thank you,” you said. “Yes, it’s Winston.
He wants a ceremony. He wants us to stand before the whole world, he says, and declare our love.”

“That’s sweet.”

“I suppose so. I do love him. I only wish that I could send a stand-in that day, to do the job for me.”

“You hate being the center of attention,” I said. “Your father always told me that about you.”

“I despise it. I don’t even want to wear white. It seems ridiculous, at my age.
But Winston wants to see me in a white gown.”

“Most grooms do. There’s something about a white gown—setting aside the obnoxious question of virginity—that signals to a man that this day is not like any other day. It shows him that he’s been
chosen
. It means a lot to men, I have learned over the years, to see their brides walking toward them in white. Helps to quiet their insecurities. And you’d
be surprised how insecure the men can be.”

“That’s interesting,” you said.

“Well, I’ve seen a lot of it.”

At this point, you relaxed enough to start taking in your surroundings. You drifted over to one of my sample racks, which was filled with billows of crinolines and satin and lace. You started sorting through the gowns with an expression of martyrdom
.

“Angela,” I said, “I can tell you right
now that you won’t like any of those dresses. In fact, you’ll despise them.”

You dropped your arms in defeat. “Is that right?”

“Look, I don’t have anything here right now that would suit you. I wouldn’t even
let
you wear one of these gowns—not you, the girl who was fixing her own bicycle by the time she was ten. I’m an old-fashioned seamstress in one regard only, my dear: I believe a dress should
flatter not only a woman’s figure, but also her intelligence. Nothing in the showroom is intelligent enough for you. But I have an idea. Come sit down with me in my workroom. Let’s have a cup of tea, if you’ve got a moment?”