The Boston Girl (15 page)

I told him to go to hell.

A taxi pulled over and unloaded a bunch of college boys and I jumped in. It was my first taxi ride and I’m glad I did it, but oh my God, was it expensive. I didn’t eat lunch for a week.

The next morning, Cornish was back on the edge of my desk and said, “You’ll forgive me if I was a little fresh, won’t you, kiddo? I should never mix wine and whiskey.”

I didn’t answer him and from then on he got nothing but the cold shoulder from me. Finally he went back to acting like I didn’t exist, which was a relief.

Never apologize for being smart.

I didn’t see much of Miss Chevalier. She didn’t have a lot to do with the Saturday Club anymore and neither did I. Gussie was still a gung-ho member, but after Irene got married I sort of lost interest.

So when I ran into Miss Chevalier on the street after work, it was like seeing a rainbow. Except for a little gray in her hair and a few lines on her face, she hadn’t changed much in ten years. She was still wearing the same sensible tie-up shoes and her smile still made me feel like I’d won a prize. I asked about the library and Miss Green. She asked about my family and how I liked my job.

I don’t know why, but instead of saying what you’re supposed to say, which is, “It’s fine,” I went off about how the men in the office treated me like I was a servant and that I hated writing about how Mrs. Porridge served pink petits fours in honor of Mrs. Pudding, or who won the dahlia competition. I said, “I’m glad my name isn’t on that damn column.” It just spilled out of me.

Miss Chevalier said, “Oh dear.”

I was still writing Seen and Heard, but with strict orders to stay away from Cambridge and anything “controversial.” I also had to stick to the top of the Social Register and talk only to hostesses or chairladies, which meant that every program was “enlightening” and every speaker “distinguished.”

There were a lot of times I wanted to change “distinguished” to “over the hill,” but I didn’t want to lose my job. It wasn’t perfect, but in a newsroom at least you’re never bored, what with the crackpots on the telephone, the reporters’ tantrums, and the excitement when a story comes in late and a whole section has to be changed at the last minute.

But why was I kvetching to the woman who was my . . . what should I call her? My mentor? My guardian angel?

I said I was sorry.

“Never apologize for being smart,” Miss Chevalier said. “Why don’t you come to my house on Sunday afternoon. I’m hosting a few friends and I promise there won’t be any petits fours. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the conversation.”

I went, of course. I was curious to see where she lived and I wanted to say hello to Miss Green. Even though we had never had much to do with each other, she was the only person I knew who cared as much about Filomena as I did. I was missing Filomena a lot. She sent me a postcard every month, so I knew she was thinking of me, but it wasn’t much comfort when I was feeling blue.

The Ediths were living in an old brownstone in the South End—the kind where you go up a flight of stairs to get to the front door and all the rooms have high ceilings and tall windows. It was on one of those wonderful blocks with a strip of grass and trees in the middle of the street. There was an elegant marble fireplace in the living room, but the paint was peeling on the woodwork and the rug was a little threadbare. Shabby-genteel, if you know what I mean.

There were no tea cakes or even tea, just as Miss Chevalier promised. She served sandwiches and coffee, which seemed much more modern to me.

I was sorry that Miss Green was under the weather and didn’t come downstairs. But when I saw her paintings on the walls, in my mind I started writing a letter to tell Filomena about how her teacher’s purple skies and yellow hills reminded me of the tinted postcards she sent from New Mexico. I could imagine Filomena reading that and smiling.

Miss Chevalier introduced me to her friends, and what an impressive bunch. I met the president of the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, the director of the Boston school lunch program, a history professor from Wellesley College, and a lady doctor with a thick German accent.

The room was buzzing with conversations about politics and books—I didn’t hear a single word about dahlias or summering in Manchester. I remember thinking how nice it was that these old ladies had such good friends.

Ha! Those “old ladies” were probably in their fifties. Being eight-five gives you perspective. It also gives you arthritis. Maybe you should stitch these pearls of wisdom on a sampler. Do you even know what a sampler is?

Not everyone was “old.” There were a few girls like me, in their twenties, and they were interesting, too: a social worker for the city health department, a librarian, a high school teacher, and a law student.

When I found out that Rita Metsky, the law student, was going to Portia Law School, I said I knew someone who had graduated from there. “Do you know Gussie Frommer?”

She smiled. “Everybody knows Gussie.” We traded stories about my outgoing friend, but Rita kept looking at the clock on the mantel and frowning. “My brother is supposed to give a talk and he should have been here by now. I told him I’d kill him if he kept these women waiting.”

When he did arrive—out of breath and carrying a suitcase—he said the train from Washington was late and apologized like he had nearly missed his own wedding. Miss Chevalier told him to take a minute and have a cup of coffee. He winked at Rita. “My sister would tell you I don’t deserve it.”

You couldn’t miss the resemblance between Rita and Aaron Metsky. They were both about four inches taller than me, with dark brown eyes; thick, almost black hair; and thin, straight noses, except that his was a little bit flattened on the end, like a hawk—but handsome.

He was a lawyer for the National Child Labor Committee and he’d been traveling around the country trying to pass the amendment against child labor. Aaron Metsky wasn’t there to convince Miss Chevalier’s friends about the need; those women supported everything they thought would help poor people, and keeping girls out of factories and sweatshops was one of their regular causes. He was there to report about how the campaign was going, but the news wasn’t good.

He had just gotten back from two weeks in the South, where states had been voting the amendment down one after another. They saw it as a plot by northerners to keep them poor and weak. He said, “They’re still fighting the Civil War down there.”

But even in the North, farmers, the Catholic Church, and even the anti-Prohibition people were all siding with the mill owners. They kept saying that the law was a communist plot to take children away from their parents.

Aaron shook his head. “When people find out where I come from, they say if Massachusetts voted this down, what makes you think it’s going to happen in Alabama or Mississippi? To tell you the truth, I don’t have a good answer for them.”

The social worker behind me jumped up and shook her finger at him. “I’ll give you your answer: Bert Forster, a fourteen-year-old boy who lost all the fingers on his right hand from working in the Connecticut tobacco fields. Or Selma Trudeau over at the Florence Crittenton Home, who had a baby at fifteen because some man promised to marry her and take her away from the Lawrence mills.”

The German doctor said that child labor could cause great harm later in life, too: deafness from loud machines, lung diseases from cotton dust, and nervous exhaustion that could lead to insanity and even suicide.

They were talking about my sisters. Betty was probably twelve when she came to America, Celia was maybe ten, and they went to work right off the boat. They got jobs wherever Papa went, which meant they worked in a candy factory and a shoe factory. When he became a presser, they learned how to use a sewing machine and worked in one sweatshop after another. Levine’s was better than most because there was a bathroom and he didn’t lock them in all day, but I remember how unbearable it was in the summer.

I wondered, did working as a little girl kill whatever strength Celia had been born with?

Betty was made out of stronger stuff, but she got away from factory work as soon as she could, and I knew she’d sooner cut off her arm than let any of her children work like she had. Betty and Levine wouldn’t even let Jake sell newspapers after school. “Let him play with a ball,” Betty said. “Let him be a little boy.”

It was different by the time I was born. Pretty much all the children in my neighborhood went to school at least until they were thirteen or fourteen, and a lot graduated from high school. Some of the bigger boys sold newspapers and I’m sure lots of little kids worked nights and weekends making paper flowers or sewing piecework at home, but it wasn’t as bad as factory work.

—

The discussion around me heated up. Miss Chevalier was standing up, pounding her fist on the palm of her hand. “The arguments against this law are outrageous. You hear things like ‘A mother could be arrested for asking her seventeen-year-old daughter to wash the dishes.’

“How in God’s name is protecting the young anything but just?”

Aaron didn’t seem to be listening; he was staring at Rita, who was sitting next to me. She poked me in the ribs and whispered, “My brother can’t keep his eyes off you.”

I looked again and realized that she was right; he was looking at me. When he saw that I was looking back, he smiled. Then I smiled. How could I not? He was smart. He had a nice way with words. He was Jewish. And he was good-looking.

Aaron seemed so perfect, I giggled. But then I remembered what rotten luck I had with men and went to get myself another cup of coffee.

After Aaron finished his speech, everyone rushed up to him with questions and advice. I waited for a while to see if he would come talk to me but I lost my nerve and left. I was halfway down the block and sorry I hadn’t been a little more patient—or brave—when I heard someone call my name.

Aaron was running with his suitcase in one hand, his coat in the other, and a dopey smile on his face. “It’s Addie, right? Rita didn’t get your last name. I’m Aaron Metsky, her brother.”

I said, “It’s Baum.”

“What is?”

“My name.”

“Baum?” he said.

I laughed, he laughed. Then he asked if he could take me to supper, but only if I was hungry, or maybe I was already busy. Or was someone waiting for me? A fiancé? Or did I think it was too early to eat? Did I know what time it was?

He was adorable. But he kept on talking and talking, so I put out my hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”

His hand was warm and he didn’t let go of mine. We stood there grinning at each other like we’d hit the jackpot. Finally, I said, “Where do you want to eat?”

He asked if I liked Chinese food.

I said I’d give it a try. Did you know there was a time before all Jews loved Chinese food?

It was quite a long walk to the restaurant, but it went by in a flash. I had never had a conversation like that with a man. Not that it was profound or personal; it was just easy. We went from one topic to another, we interrupted each other, and we laughed.

Aaron used to tell people he fell in love with me at first sight, which sounded ridiculous the first hundred times I heard him say it.

When he said, “Here we are,” I thought he was joking. “Here” looked like an empty brick factory. When he led me down a stinky alley, there was one second I wondered if I was doing something stupid.

But I knew I wasn’t. Not with him.

He opened a big metal door and I felt like Alice in Wonderland, but with chopsticks. The room was huge. It must have been a metal shop or some kind of factory. The machines were gone but you could see the wear on the wood floors. It was full of people—mostly Chinese—sitting at long tables on benches, putting food on each other’s plates, and talking loud. Louder than my own family, which is saying something.

Aaron said there weren’t any menus. You pointed to what was on a plate near you or let the waiter choose. But he had been there before and ordered some Chinese dumplings—like kreplach, but much better—and two plates piled with chopped vegetables, meat, and rice.

I couldn’t believe how delicious it all was. Maybe it’s something genetic, the Jewish Chinese food thing.

I asked Aaron if he knew what we were eating. “I don’t know but I’m sure it’s not cat.”

“Cat?”

He said there was a nasty rumor that the Chinese killed stray dogs and cats for meat. “It can’t be true, because I’ve eaten a lot of Chinese food and I never wanted to chase mice afterward.”

Aaron was getting more adorable by the minute, and the way he looked at me made me feel like I was floating.

He started walking me back to my boardinghouse but I didn’t want the evening to end, so I said I knew where to get the best coffee in Boston—if he wanted.

Of course he wanted, so we went to Filomena’s favorite café in the North End, which was another long walk. The waiter sat us in a back corner where it was dark and quiet—as if he knew we wanted to be alone.

I asked Aaron if he liked his work. He said yes but also no. They had made a big mistake by writing the law to apply to everyone under the age of eighteen when all the state child labor laws were for fifteen- or sixteen-year-olds and younger.

“But I won’t give up yet. My parents think I should leave Washington, move back to Boston, and go into my brother’s law practice. It would be Metsky and Metsky until Rita passes the bar and then we’ll change it to Metsky, Metsky, and Metsky.”

He smacked himself on the forehead. “If Rita were here she’d tell me to shut up and let you talk.” He took my hand and said, “Tell me something.”

By that time, I was so comfortable with your grandfather that I talked about my sisters. I told him they had been child laborers when they came to America, and that after listening to what the German doctor said about how mental problems could show up years later, I understood Celia in a different way.

Aaron touched my cheek. He said the reason he’d gone to work for the child labor committee was his mother, who had worked in a cotton mill as a little girl. “There’s a famous picture of a barefoot girl standing next to a big loom. Her eyes look old and hollow, the same as my mother’s before she died. It was her lungs. The doctor said it was probably from the cotton dust.”

Aaron was fifteen when he lost his mother. I was sixteen when Celia died.

Oh, Ava, there is so much sadness in this life.

—

It was a Sunday night and so quiet we could hear our own footsteps down Commonwealth Avenue. I didn’t feel cold but under the streetlights I could see Aaron’s breath in the air and I wondered if he was going to kiss me good night.