The Tin Horse: A Novel (40 page)

“There’s no reason to go stir up trouble,” Mama grumbled. “We know where she is—on that train.”

The train was due to reach Portland at seven-forty, and that evening after dinner, Mama’s anticipation became so palpable that just sitting in the same room with her, I wanted to jump out of my skin. I retreated to my bedroom and opened
Beowulf
, which I had to read in Old English as well as in translation. But though I forced myself to stare at the book, all I could see was the train speeding closer and closer to Portland. At seven-thirty I gave up on studying and joined the rest of the family in the kitchen. They were gathered around the table, within grabbing distance of the wall-mounted telephone. Papa was playing a game of fish with Audrey and Harriet, and Mama was aimlessly straightening things in the cupboards.

At seven-forty we started stealing glances at the phone and the clock,
and by eight we simply sat and stared at them. When the phone finally rang, at eight-fifteen, Papa lunged for it. “Barbara!” Mama exclaimed, hovering at his elbow. We all hovered, listening to his end of the conversation.

“Sol, how are you?” Papa said.

It was an ordinary call, and I started back toward the table. Then I heard Papa say, “Burt called you long-distance from the train station in Portland? That’s good.”

“Sol Weber,” Mama mouthed. Burt Weber’s father.

“She’s not missing, of course not,” I heard Papa say. “Just thoughtless. She went to spend a few nights with a friend and didn’t tell us who.… Just this crazy idea my wife had.” He frowned at Mama. “But of course, she’s at a friend’s.… No, we don’t need any help. Thank you for letting us know.”

Papa hung up and then told us what he’d heard from Burt Weber. Papa’s telegram, delivered when the train arrived in Portland, had made Danny so frantic that instead of just sending a telegram in reply, he had insisted that Burt call home (Danny’s father still had no phone of his own) and make it clear that Barbara wasn’t with Danny. And in case anything had given us the idea she might be on the train, Burt assured his father that he and Danny regularly stretched their legs during the long trip by walking up and down the entire length of the train, and they would both swear Barbara wasn’t there.

“Sol Weber!” Mama groaned. “He’s got a bigger mouth than the worst yenta. What did you say in that telegram to make Burt Weber get so upset?”

“Who was so sure she was on that train?” Papa snapped in retort.

“Papa?” Audrey said, her voice tight with anxiety. We had seen Mama and Papa argue, but not like this. Usually Mama nagged and Papa got coldly disapproving; he rarely raised his voice.

“What is it, Audrey?” Papa tried to smile at her.

“If Barbara’s not on the train, is that bad?”

“No, in fact, it’s very good news. It means that your foolish sister is here in Los Angeles, after all.”

“When is Barbara coming home?”

“Soon. Look what time it is. You and Harriet should be in bed.”

“What if we write to Mr. Keen?” Audrey persisted. She was referring to
Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons
, a show on the radio.

“Go to bed!” Mama said. “Now!”

Audrey’s eyes brimmed. Poor kid, she was nervous by nature, and with all our attention glued to Barbara, no one had attempted to ease the impact of the family crisis on her.

“Hey,” I said to her. “How about if you get ready for bed, and I’ll read to you from
Nancy Drew
?” I put my arm around her, took Harriet’s hand, and led them to their room.

Harriet was too young to fully understand what was happening, and she was too naturally cheerful to be distressed by family storms. (At least, that’s what I assumed at the time, observing my ever-smiling youngest sister.) Audrey, however, was visibly frantic. I did my best to respond patiently to the questions she flung at me: What kind of job did Barbara have, and why had it been a secret? Why had Mama and Papa thought Barbara had left with Danny? Wasn’t Danny my boyfriend? I was able to answer those questions, albeit in edited form. But what could I say when she asked, “Is Barbara all right? Why doesn’t she call? Did something bad happen to her?” How could I soothe her anxiety when my own was churning?

I hadn’t really believed Barbara was on the train, but Mama’s speculation had given me a narrative to set against her absence, a story in which she combed her hair, drank coffee, and sat safely watching through the window as California passed by and then Oregon. She must be hiding out with a friend in L.A.—that had always been the most likely explanation—and it made me want to shake her until her teeth rattled. But she’d been gone for two days now, without a word, and I was no longer just irritated, I was scared.

The news from Burt had affected Mama and Papa the same way. When I returned to the kitchen, Mama was no longer trying to keep Barbara’s absence a secret; instead, she was going down the list I’d made of Barbara’s friends and calling them. Between calls, she moaned that this was God’s judgment for the heartache she’d inflicted on
her
parents. Then she took a deep breath and called the next number on the list. And Papa … I’d never seen him so unnerved. Pacing and chain-smoking, my usually deliberative
father careened between railing against his thoughtless daughter and worrying that she was in real peril. One minute he said we shouldn’t put ourselves through the aggravation of searching for her, since she was certain to waltz in tomorrow, blasé about the havoc she’d stirred up. In the next breath he wanted to call the police. “But why would the police get involved?” he said. “She’s eighteen, and she left a note, and look at where she worked … But that’s the point. A girl with a job like that, how is she going to have the good judgment to stay out of trouble? Elaine, what do you think?” He turned to me with imploring eyes. I started to stammer out a response, but he’d shifted back to cursing Barbara’s selfishness.

Since he was already on his feet pacing, Papa bolted into the living room when we heard someone at the front door. I was a few steps behind, and Mama quickly finished her latest phone call and followed, calling out, “Barbara!”

But it was Pearl, her face scrubbed of makeup and her hair in pin curls, as if she’d been getting ready for bed and rushed over. “I tried to phone, but your line was busy,” she said. “I got a call from Ruth Eder. What’s this about Barbara going to Vancouver with Danny?”

“Let’s sit.” Papa switched on a lamp and sat down heavily, as if he had just that moment turned old.

He got out Barbara’s note, which he’d been carrying neatly folded in his wallet, and told Pearl what had happened over the past two days. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Pearl exclaimed at one point, but she clearly wasn’t going to waste time being miffed.

When Papa had finished, she sat silently for a moment, her eyes closed in thought. Then she asked, “Does she have much money?”

Mama shook her head. “She gives most of her pay to me. Why?”

“I wondered if she could afford to get a hotel room for a night or two. Or even leave town. There are plenty of places to go, not just Vancouver.…”

Suddenly my map of where Barbara might be swelled from Los Angeles to the entire world, a universe in which she was lost forever. I choked back a sob.

But Mama was saying, “She has a little spending money, that’s all.”

“Well, she’s going to need any money she’s got,” Pearl said. “Why don’t we leave a message for her at her bank?”

“What bank?” Mama said. “Since when does she have a bank?”

“She asked me about opening a savings account—it must have been last winter. I told her I use Union Bank downtown, and I think she was going to go there.”

“You didn’t think you should tell us about this?” Mama said, ruffled as always that one of us had confided in Pearl. And her nerves were frayed; she’d just called eight or nine of Barbara’s friends, fighting to keep the panic out of her voice as one girl after another told her they had no idea where Barbara was.

“Charlotte, I assumed you knew,” Pearl said. “But I didn’t see it as something I needed to warn you about. I thought it was a fine idea, very responsible, for her to get a bank account.”

Mama bristled. “Isn’t that up to her parents to decide?”

“This note,” Papa broke in. “You’ll ask them to give it to her?”

“I’ll take it there first thing tomorrow and talk to my banker. He can alert the tellers and ask them to give it to her when she comes in.”

All of us went back into the kitchen so Papa could sit at the table to write. Mama resumed making phone calls, although it was ten-thirty by now. She woke several people up and had to endure their irritation, and she was no longer keeping the panic out of her voice.

Papa started several letters but kept crumpling them up. “I blame myself,” he sighed to Pearl. “I never should have let her take that job.”

“Oh, Billy,” Pearl said, patting Papa’s hand. “If it wasn’t the job, it would’ve been something else. Nobody could have stopped Barbara from spreading her wings.”

“Spreading her wings?” Mama, who was between phone calls, turned and glared at Pearl. “Is that the kind of advice you give
my
daughters, Pearl? To spread their wings?”

“Of course not. Not like that.”

“I’m sorry you don’t have children of your own, but if my daughters need advice, you send them to me.”

“Please,” Papa said. “The last thing we need is to argue.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to take her side,” Mama said.

Pearl stood. “Bill, if you want to write that note and get it to me first thing in the morning, I’ll take it to the bank,” she said, and stalked out.

“Aunt Pearl!” I hurried after her onto the porch.

“Elaine, if you have something on your mind, talk to your mother,” Pearl said loudly. Then she put her arms around me. “How are you doing? How’s school?” she whispered.

“All right.”

“Keeping up in your classes?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you dare let your sister take that away from you.”

I DON
’
T KNOW WHAT
Papa said in his note, but he went out early the next morning with Pearl to take it to the bank. Mama planned to continue calling the families of Barbara’s friends. I offered to help, but if there was one thing on which Mama, Papa, and Pearl agreed, it was that nothing should disrupt my education.

I had to force myself out the door to leave for school, pulling away from my family’s trouble as if it were a magnet sucking at me. Once I broke free, however, USC was a refuge. Everyone in Boyle Heights knew me as my parents’ daughter, one of “the Greenstein girls.” At USC I was simply another freshman. I didn’t come trailing my entire family.

Was that how Barbara felt when she went to Hollywood?

I wasn’t completely anonymous, of course. I ran into Paul on the quad. He had heard about Barbara and asked if there was anything he could do to help.

“No, thanks,” I said, on guard for some knowing look or comment, since Paul, like all of Boyle Heights, must have heard that we’d suspected Barbara had run off with Danny—and how could Paul Resnick resist the chance to throw me off-balance? But in his warm voice and eyes, I sensed only concern.

“I’m serious. Call me if I can help,” he said.

My Friday classes ended at noon. On my way home from the streetcar stop, three people asked me if there was any word about Barbara; and when I opened the front door, I heard, “The college girl, here she is!”

It was Aunt Sonya, planted on the sofa with her mending basket—though there was no sign of actual mending going on.

“I came over the minute I got the kids off to school this morning,” Sonya told me. “Anything I can do. Though why your parents let her work in a place like that! Well, I guess they paid even better than anyone realized.”

“What do you mean?” I hated to let Sonya bait me, but she clearly knew something.

“Your father went to the bank this morning, and guess what? Your sister had a savings account there, but not anymore. First thing Wednesday morning, she went in and withdrew every penny. One hundred and thirty dollars! Can you imagine?”

No, I couldn’t imagine. Barbara kept only two or three dollars from each of her paychecks, and she spent it on clothes and cosmetics and car fare. “How could she have so much money?”

“Not from anything respectable,” Sonya said darkly.

“You don’t know that,” Mama said, coming in from the kitchen. She was wearing her nicest housedress and a slash of lipstick, as if refusing to show any weakness in front of Sonya.

“Charlotte, face facts,” Sonya said. “Has my brother ever managed to earn a hundred and thirty dollars in an entire month?”

“Where
is
Papa?” I broke in.

“The nightclub,” Mama said. “He made an appointment to see the manager. Pearl took the afternoon off and drove him. He wants to find out what was going on there.”

“As if a man who runs a nightclub would admit anything!” Sonya sniffed. “And they’re gone two hours already. Didn’t I try to tell them, you don’t just walk in on a man like that and accuse him of—”

“Well, Sonya!” Mama forced a smile onto her face. “It was very nice of you to come over, but I don’t want to keep you from cooking your Shabbos dinner.”

“That’s all right. My girl is taking care of everything.” Sonya employed
a Mexican American girl to help with the housework. “That much money, there has to be a man. What is it with the women in this family? Hasn’t anyone heard of saving yourself until you’re married?”

“Sonya!”

“Pearl with that
schvartze
,” Sonya continued. “And now Barbara—”

“Sonya, shut the hell up!”

Both Sonya and I turned toward Mama in shock. I couldn’t count how many times I had heard her say,
If we didn’t need Elaine’s job at Leo’s bookstore, what I wouldn’t say to that woman
. Now she had said it.

“If I’m not welcome here …” Sonya made a show of stuffing the shirt she hadn’t touched back into her mending basket.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to start cooking dinner,” Mama said. “Elaine, don’t you have schoolwork?”

Gratefully I followed Mama through the swinging door into the kitchen. I offered to help her with dinner, but she told me to go study.