Entr'acte (13 page)

“This was my grandmother’s gentle way of nudging me toward pursuing my dream of acting,” Joyce concluded. “It’s sweet, but it isn’t any help to us here.”

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She picked up and fingered the car keys.

“Your wheels ain’t there, either,” Maurice said. “I found the receipt in your purse and went there.”

Joyce stared at him balefully, and the young man just shrugged again.

“So, what’s there?” she prodded him.

“At 40th and Broadway, where that ticket says your car is, is a theater. All kinds of people going in and out,” Maurice said.

Before they could examine the significance of that development, a key turned in the lock and Muriel was standing in the room.

She looked at Maurice and back at Joyce several times, and finally sputtered, “Jesus, Connie. What are people going to think?”

As if on cue, Maurice edged past her and out the door, with Joyce following. “She’s not like that really. You don’t know her the way I do. When I was growing up, she was an officer in the Portland NAACP,” Joyce said.

Maurice kept his voice even. “It seems to me that your grandmother is a woman of her times.”

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The city at mid-morning still smelled fresh and new as Joyce strolled along the streets near her grandmother’s apartment.

She was planning to look for work—waitressing was her first choice—and had dressed appropriately in a blouse and skirt of Connie’s that was fashionable without being splashy. She wore a peach colored sweater with a rhinestone starburst on the shoulder; it was Connie’s plainest one.

There was irony everywhere she looked. Although Joyce had always thought that the country had fully recovered from the Depression by 1939, many people looked desperately poor.

On Seventh Avenue, several children no older than 10, with dirt-streaked faces, peered down at her from the windows of what Joyce guessed was a garment factory. There was a blind beggar in Herald Square—at almost the exact spot where Joyce had seen an insolent panhandler wearing an i-Pod Nano three days earlier—

and 68 years later.

At the side of the Emmigant Savings Bank, next to the entrance to a subway station, an old man in a vest and cap sat shining shoes.

Above him, inside a glass-covered message board, was a quote 118

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from Disraeli: “The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”

Joyce stood for a few moments and watched the stooped old man rub black paste on the toes of a customer’s shoes, and then buff each shoe with a towel he took from around his neck.

The man accepted the proffered coin without looking up at his customer, who strode away importantly. This apparently was the opportunity the old man had seized.

Further down, along Fifth Avenue, a minimally employed man sat on a stool outside a storefront. The “sign man” kept his face impassive; his thoughts were not paid for and were off somewhere else.

The sign he held on a pole he balanced against his thigh said

“Roxy Jewelers, step inside.” Beneath that was an outsized silhouette of a hand with the index finger extended toward the doorway.

“We buy diamonds, pawn tickets, gold, silver, jewelry and antiques,” the sign said. “Highest prices paid.” The scruffy people milling around didn’t look like they had anything to sell.

One of the places that Muriel had told her might be hiring was the Whitehall Grill, all the way downtown.

Muriel, true to her word, had styled Joyce’s hair into a coil at the back of her neck, after cutting several inches off the ends.

The chignon, and the bow she wore near the top of her head, made Joyce look as up-to-the-minute as any woman her age on the street.

Although she had the train fare, Joyce walked the long blocks to Whitehall and Water Streets, crossing under the cool, dense shade of the curving metal elevated platform and emerging again into the bright sunlight.

The grill was in the middle of a block between a Rexall Drugs and a United Cigar store. Billboards for Oldsmobile and Rheingold Extra Dry beer crowned the building.

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The busy lunchroom was clattering with the start of the daily rush, as offices in the area started emptying out for breaks.

Joyce dodged several trays of food as she made her way to the back. “Sorry, hon. We filled that this morning. But check back with us in a week or so, people are always quitting,” a cheerful bookkeeper said.

As she left, Joyce heard the bookkeeper call out to her, “Hon, could you take that sign out of the window on your way out?

Should’ve been done before.”

Despondent, Joyce dropped her 10 cents into the metal fare box at the top of the platform, and took the train back to Muriel’s apartment.

She hoped that her grandmother would not be home when she got back. There was a growing awkwardness between them that went beyond just having Muriel finding Maurice in the apartment.

Joyce could sense that Muriel was building up to sitting her down for a long talk—something that was as rare in her family as a day when Lake Sebago is warm enough to swim in.

Adults on both sides of her family were demonstrative enough when it came to physical expression, but they communicated things like displeasure and anger with subtle gestures.

Muriel had passed the system down to Joyce’s father, and there were hardly any “heart-to-heart” talks while Joyce was growing up. Her parents just assured her that everything would be fine as they literally fled from the room.

But whenever the pressures built up to the point that such a showdown couldn’t be avoided anymore, the talks that followed were long and heated—like the one that preceded Joyce’s decision to move to New York.

From what she could tell, Muriel and Connie had the same kind of relationship her parents did. They loved each other and they allowed each other a lot of freedom, but they weren’t very 120

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good at letting each other know when something was really important.

But they expected each other to pick up on the non-verbal cues, and when something was missed the slighted person usually rode out looking for revenge.

It wasn’t the healthiest model, Joyce knew, but hers wasn’t a completely dysfunctional family. Nearly every time the non-verbal messages being sent out were received.

Here, though, she was stepping into a longstanding relationship without any guide to how it worked. Muriel was desperately trying to communicate something to her—Joyce could tell that by the pointed looks she got every time she opened her mouth.

Connie had always been referred to in her family as a

“flibbertigibbet,” a flighty, irresponsible person. But Joyce guessed that her recent behavior, even for Connie, was beyond the pale.

Muriel was disturbed by her “sister’s” mysterious comings and goings, and was trying to get her to stop those activities by signaling her displeasure.

Any talk about that was going to be a real doozy, since Joyce would not have the answers Muriel would be looking for.

Last night, as she lay between the crisp muslin sheets in Connie’s bed, Joyce could hear her grandmother in the next room fidget and sigh to herself, trying to figure out what to do.

Now as she climbed the stairs to the apartment, she could see a man in the hallway. Joyce pressed herself against the wall and watched him.

He knocked on the door and when it didn’t open in a few moments, he turned to go back down the stairs. Joyce saw that it was Bart, and that he had her puppy cradled like an infant in his burly arm.

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She skipped up the few remaining steps. “Looking for me?”

she asked shyly.

Bart whipped the battered felt fedora off his head, and Amelia, overjoyed at seeing her mistress, squirmed free from Bart and shot like a missile toward Joyce.

Amelia drove her head into Joyce’s midsection, pushing her back against the radiator grill and the window. She winced from the pressure on her sore ribs, and sank down to the floor. Her mistress allowed the exuberant puppy to slather her face with long wet licks.

Amelia put her paws on Joyce’s shoulders and systematically licked her from chin to forehead, while Joyce squeezed her eyes and mouth shut.

The puppy’s tail was wagging so fast it was cooling off the stair landing. “Want me to do anything?” Bart asked with an amused grin. “Or is this the way all your reunions go?”

Joyce pulled herself up on the radiator, and reached down to pat Amelia. That was too much for the puppy, who squatted and urinated in the hall.

“That dog sure pees a lot. She did that just before we came in,”

Bart said.

“I’ve got paper towels—a mop—inside,” Joyce said quickly.

She rolled out the metal pail and string mop into the hall and swabbed up the puppy’s “mistake,” while Bart waited at the kitchen table.

“Thank you for taking care of Amelia for me,” she said. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just name it.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Bart smiled. “There is definitely something you can do for me.”

Joyce checked her inner warning system that told her when unwanted attention and inappropriate suggestions were heading her way. There was no alarm ringing.

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Bart’s face was friendly, his manner easygoing. She pulled out the chair opposite his and sat down. “So? What is it?”

“The show I’m in the band of is closing tomorrow night. I wondered if you’d like to come and see it. There’s going to be a little party afterwards.”

Her first Broadway party! “What’s the show?” she asked.

“The Hot Mikado. It’s a swing version of the Gilbert and Sullivan. It’s really…hot,” he said.

“Who’s in it?” Joyce asked. She was trying to sound casual but interested. Instead, she could see that she was hurting Bart’s feelings.

“I’m in it, in the house orchestra,” he said, a pained expression on his face. Joyce reached over and put a hand over his. “Bill “Bo jangles’ Robinson is the lead, if that’s what you mean.”

She looked at him; Bart’s face still wore a hurt look, but his eyes were twinkling. He was having fun over her discomfort. “I’d love to go,” she murmured.

“Great. It’s at the Broadhurst. I’ll leave a ticket for you at the will-call window. The show’s at 8, come backstage afterwards.”

Joyce nodded, then a thought hit her. While she was stranded at the very end of what had been the golden decade of Broadway musicals, she might as well see as many shows as she could.

“Where I come from, a woman can ask a guy out. How about accompanying me to the matinee tomorrow of whatever Ethel Merman is in right now?” Joyce asked.

Bart was a nice guy and the only person besides Maurice who really knew what had happened to her. But despite her breathless assertion, Joyce herself was not in the habit of asking men out.

Once a year for the school’s Sadie Hawkins Dance, maybe.

A palpably long silence followed, and Joyce looked up to see Bart smiling devilishly at her. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easy.

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“Would this invitation include lunch?” he asked.

“No. You have to buy lunch. And it has to be a restaurant with a menu,” she shot back.

“Umm… Okay,” he said. “Actually, I have to work. We do a matinee too. But we can still have lunch together.”

Joyce smiled her assent.

“Merman is in “Stars in Your Eyes.” It’s not her best show, but Jimmy Durante is pretty funny,” Bart said. “It’s on its last legs too.

You can probably get a ticket for it at Gray’s.”

Joyce looked blankly at him.

“Gray’s Drugstore in Times Square. He’s got tickets for shows that aren’t sold out. You go to the back counter a few hours before showtime; whatever the box office can’t get rid of that day they send over to him,” the musician explained.

“There’s a booth in Father Duffy Square now, then, in my era.” Joyce always got stuck over how to describe the year she had come from.

“Who’s Father Duffy?” Bart asked.

“He was a chaplain with the American Army in Europe during World War II,” she answered quickly. Then, seeing the confusion on Bart’s face she added, “It’s going to get started in a few months.”

“Those conferences all the leaders are having won’t be able to head it off, huh?” he asked reasonably. Joyce shook her head.

“How long is it going to last?”

“Until 1945,” she said.

“Are, uh, we going to win?” Bart wanted to know.

“Sure, eventually,” Joyce said, flustered.

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In the uncomfortable silence that followed, she got up and filled an enamel pan with water and set it on the floor for Amelia.

The dog sloshed some onto the linoleum.

“Isn’t it possible that you are this Connie woman, and you are living here with your sister?” Bart finally said.

Joyce’s face clouded. “I’ve been thinking about that too, but I don’t think so.” She told him about the differences in sizes and appearance, and that from the items in her bedroom Connie could be involved in something dangerous.

“If I was her, I would know more about that, wouldn’t I?” she asked.

Bart got up and went over to Joyce. He put his arm protectively around her. His manner and voice were almost brotherly. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.

Just then the key turned in the lock and Muriel bounded into the room.

“Connie! A man AND a dog? You are going to get us thrown out of here.”

Ignoring Bart entirely, she went on in one breath, “Some of the chorus kids are having a little party, and some fellas from 125

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Columbia are going to be there. They’re always good for a laugh.”

Joyce started to beg off, and Muriel shot a pained look at Bart.

“Bring him, I don’t care,” she said. “By the looks of things the two of you need to get out of this apartment and with other people.”

Muriel strode angrily ahead of them as they walked to the party in the gathering twilight. People were milling on the sidewalks, collecting in knots around open crates of fresh produce, newsstands and various hustlers plying their scams.