The last few months had changed her. Susie’s fourteenth birthday had come and gone with no fanfare. Her father had forgotten the occasion and she’d spent the night, as always, betraying the privacy of men’s thoughts at the docks for her great-uncle Donny. She remembered that night particularly, because the criminal they’d dragged in had looked at her before he died. Really looked at her. Like he’d suddenly realized she was there and hated her for it. As if he knew she had something to do with his fate, though she’d never said a word. She didn’t need to speak. Just a slight shake of her head would do it. They didn’t often see her, not really see her, even though she was always in the room. The greasers all knew that if you pushed it as far as Donny’s office, you already had one foot in the grave. A kid in the shadows meant nothing when you were pleading for your life. Still, that look had been unnerving. Then a Harlem sunset found the man’s throat and that look disappeared along with his worries.
No, Susie’s life under the mark of Donny and her father hadn’t changed at all. It was her that had changed. Inside and out. The last few months had seen Susie grow a few inches taller, her face narrowing and her body rounding out in places that made her pull an extra coat on when she peddled dope at her corner of the old park. She’d had too many grabbers and pervs over the last year to risk looking any more appealing than she could help.
But when she was safe, as she was now, hiding under the front porch with her best friend, that same change lifted her chin a little and quickened her smile. She was more confident. More self-assured. Because she had a secret. One that even Jake didn’t know.
“Run through it again,” Jacob was insisting.
“We’ve been practicing all afternoon,” Susie laughed. “I don’t forget that fast.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Okay. Um, distribute my weight across both legs,” Susie recounted, frowning in concentration. “Slightly bent knees. Elbows down, hands up.”
“Protect your face.”
“Protect my face.” She studied the cobwebs above her in concentration. “Strong arm back. Pivot off my lead foot, no walking or crossing my ankles or I’ll trip over.”
“Show me your arms.”
Susie held her arms up in front of her face from where she sat opposite him, knee to knee. She threw a punch, exhaling as she extended. Jacob caught her fist in his hand.
“Again. Palm down.”
Susie jabbed again, twisting her arm as she did so. She followed with her right hand in quick succession.
“Right upper cut,” Jacob instructed, and Susie complied.
“Left hook. Ouch!”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll live. Okay, right cross.” She followed through and Jacob caught her fist in front of his face.
“That’s right but always keep your free hand up to defend your own face. Don’t let it drop.” He leaned over and pushed her left hand into position.
“You’re pretty worried about my face, aren’t you?” Susie smirked.
A sheepish grin crept onto Jacob’s lips. “Yeah, well, I kind of like it the way it is.”
He looked at her for a moment, pink-faced and then leaned back on his arms.
“You’re pretty strong for a girl, you know.”
Susie laughed. “Gee, thanks.” He didn’t know the half of it.
Every chance they got after school, Jake was coaching her, in secret. If it wasn’t boxing, it was karate. He couldn’t use any of the proper equipment of course, because someone would notice it missing from the scout hall, but Jacob had given her his new boxing gloves and convinced his Ima to buy him another pair by saying he’d lost them. It had cost him a fortnight of extra chores. They’d even started fencing with switches from the garden.
At first it was just basic instruction, but now that Susie was getting the techniques down, it was hard to hold back her own strength in performing them. And she was fast. For every punch she landed, she could have given two. The sense of power sent a thrill to her heart. But Jacob was smart. Susie didn’t know how much longer she could keep it from him.
“You did great today, Susie Pocket,” he was saying. “I told you – soon you’ll be giving Gene Tunney a run for his money!”
“Thanks, Jake.”
“Mr. Iwate showed us a new move last week, I can show you tomorrow.”
Susie bit her lip. “I can’t tomorrow. Pop needs me.”
“Needs you?” A scowl found his face. “You mean needs to make money out of you.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve gotta do it. Besides, you’ve got baseball practice. I’m not going to let you miss it again. Not for me.”
“I told you, coach was sick anyway, I didn’t miss much. The boys were just fooling around,” Jacob argued.
Susie shot him a withering look. “That’s never stopped you before. You’d play underwater if you had to. Don’t miss it for me.”
“I don’t -”
“No, Jake. Besides, your pop is mad keen on you making the team again this year. You can’t let him down like that.”
Jacob sighed. “Thursday then.”
“Okay.”
Just then, the roar of an engine hit the far corner of the street. They both knew that sound better than their own heart-beat. Susie’s father, Roy, was home. Susie pressed her eyes to the pinstripe gap between the slats of wood hiding her from view. A dusty black Cunningham turned in to the driveway, bouncing over the curb and pulled up near the front porch. Her father got out, shoving his old fedora onto his head and leaning back into the open front window to retrieve a bottle of whiskey. He stood for a moment, scowling by the car, with one hand in the pocket of his grey trousers. His suspenders were sagging and his shirt crumpled. He swayed a little, then took off toward the front steps that led up to the porch.
“Susie!” he yelled.
Susie pulled back from the slats, catching Jacob’s eye. He knew well enough not to make any noise. If Roy found him, there’d be hell to pay.
The screen door above them slammed and Roy’s footsteps thudded across the timber floor. “Where are you?” he shouted from inside the house. “Come and make dinner, ya lazy little crumb!”
“I better go,” Susie muttered, her lips tight.
“I hate him,” Jacob replied. His eyes meant it.
Susie smiled, miserably. She could always count on Jake to tell the truth.
“Yeah, I know.” She turned away, preparing to crawl out of the small gap at the side of the house. Jake would take off after a minute or two, when he heard her voice upstairs and knew the coast was clear. They’d done it plenty of times before.
“I’ll save you one day. I swear it.”
Susie turned back to face her best friend. Even in the growing darkness, she couldn’t have hidden the adoration that shone in her eyes.
“It’s okay, Jake. I can save myself.”
“But -”
“Just imagine what they’d do if you tried. I can’t bear the thought of you being in that kind of trouble.”
But Jacob’s expression had changed. The anger had gone. His eyes were wide, and his mouth had dropped open in surprise.
“But, I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did,” Susie replied, her heart quickening.
“I mean, not out loud -”
Susie’s skin flushed, angrily. Stupid! Stupid! Jake’s words had been crystal clear inside her mind. Inside her mind. She’d been careless. She’d dropped her defenses and tripped up. Just like she had with Donny.
“You must have,” Susie insisted, and pushed away, searching for an escape.
“But, I didn’t -”
“I’ve gotta go,” Susie cried, “I’m sorry.”
“Wait!” Jacob whispered urgently. He fell forward onto his knees behind her and grabbed her hand in the dirt. “Please.”
Susie froze. She closed her eyes. It was warm, his hand.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she slowly turned back, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She didn’t wan
t to see the look on his face. She was a freak. And now her best friend, her only friend in the world, knew it. Susie couldn’t bear the crushing pain at the thought of losing him.
“Please,” Jacob whispered, once more.
With a heavy heart, Susie looked at him.
He was smiling, a scared, tremulous kind of smile.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” Susie’s voice was barely audible. She was almost too afraid to breathe.
“No. I don’t. And - I should have guessed it. No one understands me the way you do. Like you can read my mind.”
“I try not to,” Susie said, quickly. “I swear.”
Jacob’s eyebrows lifted. “Girls don’t swear.” A teasing shine sparkled in his eyes, which were now almost lost in the falling dusk.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Susie looked down. She realized that Jacob was still holding her hand.
He looked down too but didn’t let go. His fingers tightened around hers.
All of a sudden, she felt strange. As if she was watching some other girl’s dream come to pass, and the warmth from his hand wasn’t really for her. Susie’s heart pounded as Jacob gently lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her fingers.
“Don’t shut me out, Susie Pocket,” he said gently, letting it go.
“Okay.”
The back of her fingers tingled where Jacob had kissed them, and they stared at one another, just breathing, with silly smiles on their faces.
He was like sunshine. At only fifteen he already had a blindingly bright future ahead of him. Opportunities would be created, and relationships forged by his adoring family, to build on their traditions and faith. The eldest son. The family name and pride. Jacob would have a happy life. A safe life. And she wanted him to because it was everything she’d ever wanted for herself. But it wasn’t hers.
Susie looked down at her fingers, suddenly self-conscious. The tingling stopped. There was no bright future for her waiting at the end of adolescence. Only an invisible chain that kept her tethered to the whims of the most powerful family in all of New York City. Her mother had escaped, but not with her life. It had taken death to buy her freedom. And Susie was far too valuable to Donny to consider any happier emancipation.
She was hiding under a broken home, surrounded by filth she couldn’t scrub away. Above her, the heavy footfalls and drunken contempt of her father shouting for his meal gnawed into her like a parasite. Later, after he’d eaten, and she’d scratched out as much homework as time allowed, Susie knew she’d be taken to Donny’s warehouse at the docks, where deceit and greed would tick the hours away until she was allowed to sleep. That was her reality. But not forever. That much, she promised herself every day. Susie took a deep breath, forcing back the tears. They never helped.
“I’ll save myself,” she said, resolutely. “One day. It’ll be like the pictures in those magazines, where everything is perfect and no one ever gets hurt.”
“What about me?” Jacob asked.
“Best friends,” she beamed, putting on a brave face. It was only in her own thoughts, she truthfully replied, as she crawled out the of gap to go inside.
You’re already perfect.
In the early hours of the morning, as Susie finally drifted off to sleep, bone-tired after spending another night in a cold chair, the words drifted into her mind again. I’ll save myself. One day. But could she, really, she wondered? Would she ever be rid of the terrible game they all played by Donny’s rules? Yes, she reaffirmed to herself. Because I have to.
She recited the words memorized from her schoolbook, that had given her hope and inflamed her courage. Though she be but little, she is fierce.
Deep inside, Susie felt a familiar burning beneath her ribs. A quickening. Adrenaline stirring up fate, to let her see beyond now, into what life could be like when.
When she was ready.
When the time was right.
It was only a matter of time.
Because there was something that Donny still didn’t know. Something she would never let slip, no matter what he put her through. Susie had discovered another secret.
She could do more than just read minds.
Behind her perfumed pillow, Susie’s fingers found her mother’s precious box of trinkets. Each little object – a wooden clothes peg, a brass bell, a silver hat pin, the Jolly Joker playing card, a tarnished mirror, a tiny carved sparrow, an engraved locket - held memories of the birth-right Susie carried and the women that had come before her. Reminders and promises, both.
Like her grandmother, Peggy, Susie realized she was strong. Really strong.
And like her great aunt Rose, she was fast. Super-fast.
With every lesson Jacob gave her, and every practice she pushed herself through in the emptiness of her own home, Susie was finally learning how to use those gifts. Every day, her natural abilities were being harnessed and honed.
So that one day, she’d be able to use them.
Donnie didn’t know that.
Nobody did.
Susie smiled, and drifted into sleep.
Betty wove through the house, washing basket under her arm, picking up dirty clothes and hanging clean ones, straightening bed-sheets and fluffing pillows with breathtaking efficiency. The wireless rang out a jaunty song from the sitting room and Betty sang as she worked. The children were at school and George at work, leaving Betty some much needed time to herself. She’d waved all three of them off that morning, each with a lunch pail swinging from their hand. Inside each pail, she’d tucked a dried beef and cheese spread sandwich that she’d mixed up from the leftovers of last night’s dinner, neatly wrapped in thick wax paper. Two homemade gingersnaps, a boiled egg, a whole tomato finished their rations. George also had a thermos of coffee tucked under his arm and the children each carried a shiny penny in their pockets for a half-pint of school milk.
Another scrap drive was being organized through the neighborhood committee and both Nancy and George Junior had been busy again collecting rubber, paper and tin metal to aid the effort. When Georgie had offered up his beloved toy train, Betty had almost cried. In the end, she’d helped him dig old bed-springs from the shed and aluminum pots from the kitchen and followed him up the street as he knocked on doors filling his little red wagon with old newspapers. Nancy tilled the backyard soil to prepare for a Victory Garden and both had begun collecting pumpkin and apple seeds for planting. Betty was immensely proud of them.
She straightened up the books on Nancy’s bedroom shelf and twirled her daughter’s ribbons into small loops around her fingers, placing them neatly onto the dresser beside a silver hairbrush and porcelain ballerina. She slowed for a moment and carefully picked up the ornament. The golden-haired dancer fitted neatly in her palm. It was poised, in a graceful Arabesque pose against a rose petaled pedestal support, like a little fairy captured mid-flight. Its painted tutu was accented by layers of powder blue fabric, gathered at the waist and edged in gold paint. The toy was divine. As a child, Betty would have adored such a pretty thing of her own. How different Nancy’s childhood had been. In fact, Nancy’s childhood, was perfect.
Betty set the ballerina back on her lookout and gathered the dirty washing basket from the bed. Figaro mewled from the floorboards at her feet. He’d been scampering along behind her all morning.
“Thank goodness you can’t talk,” she said aloud to the kitten, “Imagine what you’d tell them.” Betty scooped him up, popped him in the basket and carried it to the laundry, singing as she went.
“My heart is on a blue-birds wing,
Since your diamond wedding ring,
Every day, a dream so gay, and shoo those rainy clouds away!”
The jolly melody of a brass band bounced off the walls as Betty busied herself pulling sopping clothes from the washing machine and feeding them one by one through the wringer. Into a rinsing tub the clothes went, first wi
th warm water then with cold, each time back through the ringer to remove all the suds. Betty powered through her work, barely a hair out of place where any other woman would sweat and puff over the steam and heavy handle. Into a basket they finally went, and out to the clothes line in the yard. She pinned them up with wooden pegs, still humming gaily, her fingers working a little too fast to seem right. On days like these, when she was alone, Betty let her gifts for speed and strength lend a hand. It made her chores much easier and if she were being entirely honest, added a little sparkle of fun and mischief to the tedious hours. Besides, there was no one around to see.
Snap!
A sharp noise in the bushes caught her off-guard. Betty spun around. The black and white kitten was behind her again, diving into a pile of leaves. She breathed a sigh of relief, picking him up.
Little scamp, Betty cooed as she walked back inside, shutting the laundry door behind her. You mustn’t scare me like that.
Next, Betty buzzed around the house with a pink feather duster, dashing cobwebs as if she were a master swordsman in a duel. She mused as she worked, about an article in the newspaper only a week earlier which had reported a man from Alabama had been found beaten to death by his wife with a feather duster after a quarrel. One hundred and fifty strikes had killed him most inhumanely, which Betty had considered a terrible tragedy.
I could have done it in two, she thought, wryly.
“Bother,” she muttered, spying a web far too high to reach. She held the very tip of the handle but still had no luck. Shrugging, Betty kicked off her pink peep-toes and shimmied up the door frame, a foot on either side and duster in hand, in an entirely unladylike way that seemed to defy gravity. Finished, she landed gracefully on her feet and looked up, pleased. Not a cobweb to be seen.
Avon Calling! Season One Page 19
