The Chaperone (34 page)

“How long have you not been listening? My God. I guess I’ve just been talking to myself.”

“I’m sorry, dear. What is it?”

“I
said
, Miss Ruth said I could move in the day after tomorrow. I thought you would like to know.”

“Thank you.” Cora feigned a smile. Friday. Her last day. There would be no reason she could give to stay longer. She could tell the Brookses she wanted to leave in the morning. Saturday, then. She would have three more nights in New York. She imagined herself on the train, looking out the window and seeing the same fields and towns and rivers she’d passed coming east with Louise, uncrossing every bridge she’d crossed. She could buy a new book for the journey, something light and distracting. By Sunday night, she would be home.

Louise was quiet as they walked past the luncheonette. Cora watched her glance through the big windows to the counter in the back. She did look somewhat remorseful, or at least put out that a friend had been lost.

“You might go talk to him,” Cora said gently. “Try to patch things up.”

Louise kept walking. “He hates me, I imagine.” She moved her bag to her other shoulder. “And I told you. He’s not my type.”

Cora, still looking ahead, cleared her throat. “But you let him think he was, Louise. You hurt him. And still, he saw you home. You might thank him. And apologize. Or at least say goodbye.”

Louise stopped walking. Cora did, too. An old woman grumbled and moved around them.

“What do you care?”

Cora sighed, fanning away a fly. A ridiculous question. Of course she cared. She cared about Floyd, but more than that, she knew it would do Louise good to consider someone’s feelings besides her own, and not to fear real kindness and caring. All these weeks they had spent together, she’d known Louise needed mothering, someone to fill in where Myra, apparently, had left off long ago. Still, Cora saw now that the whole time they’d been in New York, she’d focused on all the wrong things—what the girl wore, if she went out alone, whether or not she could wear rouge. Nothing that mattered, not in comparison with what Louise truly needed by way of instruction and example. Louise was already capable of kindness—it was she, after all, not Cora, who’d given those men water that first night in the city. And even now, it was clear that Louise wasn’t glad to have wounded Floyd, and that although she didn’t love him, and probably couldn’t, she at least missed him a little and perhaps understood she’d done him a wrong. It was a last opportunity, Cora thought. Now that they were about to go their separate ways, even now that she understood how much Louise had been wronged in her own life, Cora wished she would have spent more time on the essentials: when to say thank you and sorry.

“I think you feel bad.” Cora tilted the brim of her hat. She was aware of people moving around them, as if they were rocks in a quick-moving stream. “I can see it, looking at your face. You know you should go talk to him. You know it’s the right thing to do.”

Louise looked at the sidewalk, pushing her hair behind her ears. The pout seemed real, not for show.

“Right now? I’m all sweaty from class.”

“You look fine. You smell fine. You know you do.”

“You’ll let me go alone?”

“For one hour.” Cora rubbed the edge of her glove against the mosquito bite on her neck. “You’ll come back to the apartment in one hour. And you’ll go nowhere else. Do I have your word?”

Louise looked at her dumbly.

“Your word, Louise. Your promise. I’m trusting you. One hour?”

“Fine.”

“Your word?” Cora wanted to drill the concept home. “I have your word?”

“Yes. Yes, okay?” She seemed more flustered than annoyed. “Yes. You have my word.”

Cora nodded. “Good luck then.” She turned and walked on alone.

The apartment
wasn’t much cooler than the blazing street. Cora walked back to the bedroom, turning on the fan and immediately taking off her blouse and skirt and corset. She started to put on her tea gown but changed her mind—just her thin robe would be cooler. And she was tired. The sheets were dry, swaying in the breeze from the open window. She took them down from the curtain rod and made up the bed neatly, smoothing out wrinkles with the flat of her hand. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she and Joseph would lie in this bed, in these very sheets still warm from the sun. How long would they have? Three hours? Four? There might be time, as well, to talk, to go out to the front room and eat with him, or to just lie in bed with him as she had this morning, skin against skin. The feast before the famine. She put the folded blanket at the foot of the bed, unpinned her hair and lay down, her eyes still open. The water stain on the ceiling no longer looked like a rabbit’s head. She couldn’t imagine why she’d thought it ever had.

Two knocks. Then four.

She stood up, annoyed, tying the sash of her robe. She’d hoped Louise would take advantage of her full hour of freedom, if only so she herself could have a full hour as well. But she made herself pause before she opened the door. She should show appreciation and approval: Louise had kept her word.

Her expression quickly changed to surprise, however, for Joseph, not Louise, stood before her in the entry, his face grave. He was unshaven, but wearing a clean shirt and overalls, his cap stuffed into a side pocket. A large canvas bag was strapped to one shoulder, and someone small stood behind him. Cora couldn’t see this other person, just a thin arm wrapped around his thigh. At the end of this arm, a hand clutched a wad of overalls above his knee.

“We have left the home,” he said. “This morning. We move out.” His voice was friendly, casual, but his eyes were locked on hers, with the look of an adult speaking in code for the sake of a child. “I need to say this to you. I worried you would go to the home.”

Cora stared, silent. He’d been caught. They hadn’t left early enough this morning. A nun had seen them. Or one of the girls had seen them and told.

“Please come in.” She stepped aside and gestured into the apartment. She, too, was communicating with her eyes. He had to come in, she was saying, and bring in the small person who she knew must be his scared little girl. She was so sorry. It was her fault. It had all been her idea. Her lark, her freedom in a different city. And now he’d lost his job. Their home.

“It is all right,” he said. “I have a friend in Queens.” The arm around his leg went tight, and he spread his feet to keep his balance. “He works now, but we go there at five. He is a good friend. It is all right.”

“Please come in,” she whispered. “Please.”

He limped in as if he had a wooden leg, the child still clinging to him. “Come on now, Greta,” he whispered. He tried to free himself, using his fingers to unclench her hands.

Cora, behind them, could see the child now. The top of her blond head reached his belt. She wore a mustard-colored dress patched under the arms, her hair cut to her chin. Her face was still pressed against his hip.

“Sorry,” he said, turning back to look at Cora. “She is not always so shy.”

“It’s fine.” Cora closed the door gently. Even as she moved past them, she wasn’t able to see the girl’s face. She wasn’t sure she could bear to. “Are you hungry? Is she hungry? I have toast and jam.”

The head popped out from behind him, so suddenly that Cora smiled. The child, however, did not. She had a pretty face, like her dead mother’s. Cora continued to smile, though her heart lurched inside her.
I have been you,
she wanted to say.
It’s all right. I have been as scared and as small.
She had to work to keep her face and voice composed. “I have strawberry jam. Do you like strawberry jam?”

Greta looked up at her father.

“You will like it,” he said.

Cora moved to the kitchen and put six pieces of bread in the oven. She wished she had something better to offer, something more substantial. Had they gotten to eat that morning? Had the nuns just thrown them out? She peeked out of the kitchen. “Do you like oranges?”

Greta nodded. She was still standing close to Joseph, staring at the picture of the Siamese cat. She would remember this, Cora thought. She would remember this day of upheaval, the strange details, the visit to the unknown lady’s house, the unknown lady wearing a robe and loosed hair in the middle of the day. The child would never see Cora again, but Cora would be part of the day’s painful memory, the unknowing and the fear.

She brought out two peeled oranges on a plate, setting them on the table. She went back to the kitchen to get glasses of water, and by the time she returned, Greta had already stuffed half the orange into her mouth. She was chewing as fast as she could, her little cheeks full, her lids aflutter over her pale eyes. When Cora set her water glass down, Greta grabbed what was left of the orange and put it in her lap.

“Slow down,” Joseph cautioned. “You do not want to choke.”

“And there’s plenty,” Cora added. She held on to the edge of the table, crouching low. “We have more oranges. And you can have all the toast you like. No need to rush.” She smiled, but looking at the girl, the sharp bones of her face, Cora felt the sting of tears. What did she think—that a pathetic meal of toast and oranges would make up for the harm she’d done? All of this was her fault. She’d gone to Joseph’s on her own, without being invited. All because of what she’d wanted. Now she could go back to her easy life, and they would have to pay the price.

Joseph touched her arm. “Really. It is all right,” he whispered. “We can go to Queens. I just did not want you to think—”

She nodded, wanting to believe him. Maybe it would be fine. Maybe he would find another job and be able to keep his daughter with him. He had savings. She could try to give him money. She already knew he wouldn’t take it.

When the toast was ready, Greta, who had already eaten two oranges, devoured a piece slathered with jam.

“I tell you you like jam,” Joseph said, and he and the girl exchanged smiles, which were similar, Cora noticed, with matching overbites. He looked at Cora. “We talk?” He tilted his head toward the kitchen.

As Cora stood, she leaned down toward Greta. “You can take the jam with you,” she said. “The whole jar.” She almost touched the girl’s thin arm, but thought better of it. It would do no one any good if she lost her composure.

She led Joseph through the kitchen to the bedroom. She saw the made bed, the clean sheets she’d just been lying on, dreaming of tomorrow, the meeting that wouldn’t come. She continued into the bathroom, wanting to be out of Greta’s vision, out of her hearing. By the time she turned around, she was crying outright, cool tears on her cheeks.

“The nuns saw me leave?” she whispered. “Is that why?”

He moved toward her. “I only tell you so you will know. I did not come to make you cry.” His hand moved to her cheek and then down her hair.

“It’s my fault.”

“No.”

“Why did the nuns make Greta leave? She didn’t do anything.”

“They did not. They want to keep her, but I say no. I want to keep her with me.”

She nodded, suddenly exhausted, depleted. Yes. He was right to insist. If they put her on a train, she’d be gone.

“You can stay with this friend in Queens? You can go there? You’re certain?”

“Ya. He is good friend.”

“For how long? How long can you stay there?”

He shrugged. He was putting up a front, she thought. He was scared. He must be.

“Where will you work? Who will look after her when you work?”

He looked down, his thumb and forefinger kneading the skin above his eyebrows. Even with the window open, cars moving by in the street, the apartment was quiet. From the bathroom, two rooms away, she could hear the clink of the knife against glass, Greta helping herself to more jam. Cora listened, as pained as she’d been as a young mother, distraught by the wails of one of her boys in another room. This was just a different kind of wail: quiet, cunning. Greta didn’t believe the unknown lady would really let her take the whole jar with her, so she would eat all she could now, even if she was stuffed. Cora understood. She’d done the same during her first meals with the Kaufmanns. She’d eaten mashed potatoes until her stomach ached; she’d hidden entire biscuits in the folds of her skirt, sneaking them off to her room.

The knife again scraped against the jelly jar, and it was then, at that very moment, that the answer came to her, a ringing bell in her head. She drew in a deep breath and held it. Of course. She heard the engine of a truck, the cooing of pigeons, yet the world felt still, silent. She put her hand on Joseph’s shoulder. She was already certain, every part of her. It was him she would need to convince.

“Come with me,” she said.

He frowned. “Where?”

“Wichita. Bring her. We have a big house. Empty rooms.” She watched his eyes. She would have to speak before he did, to lay out the reasons before he sealed off his mind.

“It’s how you could stay with her. How else can you? We have an entire floor, unused. She could go to school.”

He was already shaking his head. “Stop this. I will not take charity from you.”

But it wasn’t charity. Not at all. How could she make him see what she was just now seeing so clearly? What did she have in Wichita, now that the boys were gone? Lunches at the club? Dinner parties? No. She was meant to help this child. She’d learned nothing at Grand Central, nothing of who she was supposed to be from poor Mary O’Dell. And why should she? All this time she’d had the Kaufmanns. She had them even now, as if they were in the very room with her, pushing her on.
“We’d like you to come live with us and be our little girl.”
She remembered Mother Kaufmann wearing her bonnet, crouching low.
“We have a room all set up. Your room. With a window, and a bed. And a little dresser.”

“Of course you would earn your own living, Joseph. You could get a job there, a good one.” She heard the desperation, the pleading, in her voice. She was pleading for herself. She wanted to help this child as she’d been helped, but she also wanted more time with him, just to see, just to see. At least some part of her believed she deserved that.

“My husband has influence. He could help you find a job, and when you’re working, I’ll look after her.”