Stony River (19 page)

Dearie set her shopping bag on the floor next to a white ottoman by one of the tables. “We'll take turns taking a load off here. Your dogs'll be barking by closing, seeing as you ain't wearing sensible shoes like mine.” Fat-heeled white leather lace-ups swallowed Dearie's feet clear to the ankle knobs. Tereza sank down into an armchair.

They'd taken two buses to get there, eating meatloaf sandwiches on the way, saving thermoses of tomato soup for later. They wouldn't get away until two in the morning. Most nights the restaurant closed at ten, but on Fridays and Saturdays Herman brought musicians in and rolled back the carpet to make a dance floor. Herman would drive them both home tonight, as he did Dearie every Friday and Saturday, because the buses weren't dependable or safe after midnight. Buddy
came for Dearie the other nights, but “Charles Atlas don't like him staying up past midnight.”

“He worships the guy, don't he?” Tereza said. “I seen his lesson book. Lot of pictures of a beefy guy in leopard-skin skivvies.”

Dearie snorted. “That's him. Buddy saw the ad in a comic book. Imagine spending a week's pay so a fella in a Tarzan suit can tell you to wash your privates in ice water.”

Tereza threw her head back and laughed. “Go on.”

“Honest injun. And Tarzan tells him to exercise naked and keep his winder open all the time. He's gonna catch his death up there.”

Buddy kept his converted attic room locked. Tereza had tried the door a couple times when she was alone in the house. How could he think freezing his balls off would make him manlier? Either Atlas was a con man or guys were stupid.
I was a ninety-seven-pound weakling
sounded like something she might've come up with herself.

Dearie lifted a white porcelain teacup from her shopping bag and set it on the table next to the ottoman. She dropped two quarters from her change purse into the cup. “I don't let it get too full in case my ladies think I don't need no more.” She poked Tereza's arm. “G'head, admire yourself whiles you got the chance.”

Tereza had been stealing glances at herself in the mirrored wall.

“I was the cat's meow too, once,” Dearie said. She grabbed her skirt at the hem, pulled it tight around her ass and strutted across the room. “Dresses were longer then. We had to hold our skirts so's we didn't trip. Pretended we didn't know how it made our heinies look.”

Tereza stood and checked herself out, front, back and sides. From Haggerty's robe, Dearie had made Tereza a uniform like her own except that Dearie's was the same bright pink as her hair and looser fitting to slip over her corset. Tereza wished Buddy had been home to see her all done up. She'd never worn so much black, including fishnet nylons Dearie had dug up somewhere and the pumps and wig Tereza had bought in Stony River. The only color came from her
Hot Tomato lipstick and the gold hoop earrings Dearie said had been taking up space in her dresser.

“Ava Gardner as the Waitress Vampira,” Tereza said, baring her fangs.

“Your skin's too dark for that. More vampy than vampire.”

“I zink you're right, dahlink,” Tereza said, extending a limpwristed arm.

Dearie bowed at the waist and kissed her hand. “Now you're talking. Put on an accent. Get the ladies buzzing.” She pulled a key from her pocket. “A reporter wrote about me once. He called me the Pink Lady, like the cocktail, and it caught on. You'd be surprised how many girlies know about me before they come in. Some ask for my autograph.” Dearie unlocked the door to a closet stocked with towels, little soap bars, toilet paper and cleaning crap. She pulled a stack of white towels off a shelf. “Every Saturday night after closing, Manny at the bar says, ‘Make you a Pink Lady?' and I say, ‘Twist my arm.' It's nice having a drink with them that stays around after closing. Buddy wants me to retire. We'd manage with Alfie's pension and what Buddy makes, but he ain't home much and I enjoy being with others.”

Dearie was right about Buddy not being around much, what with going to school and working at the Linden A&P all day Saturday and five to nine every night except Friday. After school he had time only for homework before changing into black pants, white shirt and clip-on bow tie. On Fridays he went out who knew where. On Sundays he waxed his car and did chores for Dearie. If Tereza didn't get up with him in the morning, she'd hardly see him at all.

She liked the way he smelled from the shower, his freshly slicked hair. Liked watching him fix himself eggs, toast (always brown), bacon, oatmeal and juice. “You slay me,” she said the first time she saw him drink milk, moving his mouth up and down like he was chewing it.

Coffee seemed to be against the Atlas religion, along with soda, sugar and a bunch of other stuff. Why Buddy had gone to the White Castle that night was beyond her; they didn't make anything he ate. He said Dearie couldn't keep his diet straight so he fixed his own meals except on Sundays. “She's getting on,” he said. “I'm happy you're with her when I can't be.”

Tereza couldn't recall ever being accused of making somebody happy.

Dearie took a soap bar from the closet. “Listen for the rattle of the lock in the stall and turn the tap on so's it's ready when she steps out. Hand her a new soap; be sure she sees you take the paper off. Turn the water off when she's done and hold out a towel.”

Dearie had started coaching Tereza on the gray city bus as it farted its way down streets lined with row houses and stores, Tereza only half paying attention, imagining Buddy bagging groceries and thinking about her. Staying in during the day so a truant officer or cop wouldn't spot her was boring. Being stuck in the house when Dearie and Buddy were both at work was like being on a deserted movie set. Tereza would wander from room to room, imagining herself a character written out of a soap opera. She didn't want back in that story but didn't know how to get into a better one. She kept meaning to get on the train to New York but hadn't found a day yet when it felt right. Hadn't found a day when she wanted to be that far away from Ma.

Dearie had said that if Tereza was going to stick around she needed to pull her weight. Her boss, Herman Schottler, was okay with Tereza helping her out, as long as she understood he wasn't paying double. Dearie made seventy-five cents an hour plus tips. The roly-poly, shiny-skulled Herman had shaken Tereza's hand when they got there and said, “Welcome to my humble eatery.” He didn't look humble at all in tuxedo and bow tie. He showed her around the dining room where other old guys in tuxes set tiny vases with rosebuds on tables.

A sudden image of Ma and John Derek at a table for two caught her by the throat.

The big room was quiet as air. Chandeliers dripped glass icicles and ornate, heavy mirrors covered the walls. The deep red of the tablecloths, flocked wallpaper and carpet sucked her in. It could've been a Hollywood set for a whale's belly or an Amazon's snatch. The restaurant held two fifty at a time. On a good night, Herman told Tereza, four hundred might come in for a meal and more, later, for drinks and a dance.

The deal was, Tereza and Dearie would split the tips which could be anywhere from a nickel to a dollar; on a good night Tereza's share could be as much as ten bucks. She thought about Linda cleaning house for nothing, about how many guys you'd have to jerk off for sixty dollars a week. Tereza could pay Dearie for room and board and not need to dip into more of Miranda's money until she moved on. She'd taken the money out of the briefcase and hidden it behind a loose cinder block near the furnace. No reason Buddy and Dearie had to know about it.

Tereza hustled all night, keeping up with Dearie's orders to check stalls, wipe sinks and countertops (“Tips don't crawl out of wet pocketbooks”), refill toilet paper holders, empty the towel basket and the ashtrays. Her legs went to jelly each time the door swung open. She didn't know a soul in Newark, much less anyone who'd come to such a ritzy place. But a spark of hope told her that Ma might want to find her bad enough to march through that door.

That night one woman puked. Someone else needed help washing blood out of her skirt. More than a few came in to light up and stare into space, their smokes growing into drooping worms of ash. Tereza didn't see anybody ask for Dearie's autograph, but some knew her name. Dearie received them like a queen on her ottoman, her cackle rising above the sound of flushing.

By the time Herman's closed that night, Tereza could size up
women by the way they reacted when she handed them a towel: the cheapskates waved her off, the nervous ones had to be told it was okay to throw it in the wicker basket, the self-confident ones thanked her and the assholes took it without looking at her, not even grunting. They made her think of Jimmy, made her want to take off in shame. But she didn't. It was still better than sucking dicks.

Thanksgiving was next week. Herman's and A&P would be closed. She'd sweet-talk Buddy into driving past the apartment. Drop in and see if Ma had turned into a puddle.

NOVEMBER 21, 1955
. Allen wasn't waiting for Linda and nobody answered the Dobras' door. Linda peered into their apartment through the window that overlooked the porch. Gone were their meager furnishings. An abandoned sneaker lay in the middle of the living-room floor.

Linda stopped in to see Rolf. He lived in a few dank rooms behind the store with his wife who was shrinking more each day from cancer, a constant smile stretched taut over her skeletal head. Tereza had claimed that Rolf was an escaped Nazi but Linda didn't care. She loved his accent and he'd loaned her
lederhosen
for fifth-grade Show and Tell.

“Zey must heff sneaked out in ze night,” he said. “Gone tiptoe. Zey owed me money, ja? Maybe run out on ze rent, too.”

Linda barely heard Rolf after “Gone tiptoe.” Her ears had begun to ring with God's accusing voice: if she'd only kept her fat nose out of things Tereza would still have a home to return to.

EIGHT

JANUARY 3, 1956
. Linda's winter boots trampled the crusty snow as she trudged home from school, her body frozen with anger and shame. She'd considered faking a sore throat this morning but missing school would onl have put off the inevitable.

She'd invited everybody in her seventh-grade homeroom to her first New Year's Eve party ever, the same kids who'd been at Kenny Ronson's party the night school let out for Christmas vacation. At Kenny's they'd had chips and soda. Danced. Played Spin-the-Bottle, Post Office and Flashlight. At Kenny's party,
his
mother hadn't come into the living room time after time during Flashlight, turning the lights back on and marching back out without a word. Why couldn't New Year's Eve have been one of Mother's sick nights? She'd gussied herself up in a scoop-necked maroon taffeta dress Linda had never seen before and greeted everyone at the door as if she was the hostess. Every time she came into the room to turn on the lights, the taffeta went
husha husha
against her nylons. Linda had wanted to die.