The Company She Keeps

by Georgia Durante

  Mom was the neighborhood Pied Piper. My sister and I usually walked the two miles to school with the other neighborhood kids, but the brutal winters sometimes called for a ride. It never failed—my mother stopped several times to pick up any kid walking in the cold. One day she picked up some kids who didn’t have boots. She told the four of them to wait after school and she’d drive them home. She showed up at three o’clock with a brand-new pair of boots for each of them. Heaven only knows how she plotted to get them. Upon discovering that this family didn’t have heat, my mother paid to have it turned back on. She always did this stuff behind my father’s back, and worried about how to pay for it without his finding out.

  Even though we were poor, Christmas was a big deal. We looked like millionaires with the number of presents under the tree. My parents worked the whole year to pay off the Christmas debt. My sister and I were the envy of the neighborhood kids when they’d see the presents we’d gotten. I guess my mother wanted to make up for all the years that she had received only an orange in her stocking for Christmas.

  One year when I was about eight years old, my mother sat my sister and me down a few weeks before Christmas.

  “Do you girls realize how lucky we are?” she asked. “There are children in this world who don’t have enough to eat, or a warm bed to sleep in. Can you imagine how you would feel waking up Christmas morning and not having even one present to open?”

  “No,” we answered.

  “Well, think about it.”

  Sharon’s delicate face tied up in a frown. “That would be pretty terrible.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’d feel very good about that,” I added.

  “How would you girls feel about giving up some of your presents to give a special Christmas to some children who’ve never had one?” Mom asked.

  Sharon and I were reluctant at first, but on Christmas morning my mother dressed up as Santa Claus, Sharon and I dressed as little elves with green tights and matching skirts, and we carted a carful of presents to the home of the kids with no boots. They lived about a mile down the road from us. Our house was a palace compared to their shack. The porch steps were broken and shutters were hanging half off the broken windows. The paint was peeled down to raw wood. The home looked abandoned.

  We watched as they tore open the presents. There were some toys for the little kids, but our gifts consisted mostly of clothing, which was very obviously needed by this family. Their mother stood with tears streaking her face. I discovered the warmth of the spirit of Christmas that day. My mother gave my sister and me the best gift of all—the gift of giving. It’s no wonder her name is Angela—she’s an angel. My father never knew about our little Christmas adventure and could never figure out why it still took so long to pay off the bills when there weren’t as many gifts under the tree.

  I was quite the tomboy when I was a young girl. My mother always wanted to dress me up like a little princess, but I wouldn’t have it. I couldn’t play rough like the boys with a stupid dress on. The neighborhood boys used to fight over whose team I’d be on. I think it was because I played better than most of the boys in our circle of friends. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what it was. We were too young to be thinking about other stuff. After I got the hang of how the game was played, the fighting was soon to be over. That’s when I elected myself captain of the team and chose who I wanted to play with me. We played in the street for hours—football, baseball, basketball, kick the can.

  I used to be pretty good at standing up for my rights, too. No one ever messed with me. If any boy tried to bully me, he’d get a surprise chop to his neck or a swift kick in the butt. I developed this “being in control” attitude at a young age, and though it lay dormant for a while it prevailed again later in my life.

  In the summertime, the nights were often sticky and sleep was hard to come by. I would lie in my bed in the tiny room I shared with my older sister, Sharon, and try to fall asleep. The familiar vibrating of my bed signaled a train’s approach. I could feel the rumble before the distant whistle whined. Faint and far away at first, it grew increasingly louder and louder until the entire house shook. I’d peer over at Sharon, deep in a peaceful, contented sleep. Then the sounds of the train faded, and in the far-off distance that whistle sounded again. Only then could I fall asleep. I would dream about someday riding that train—going to all the faraway places it was heading.

  When I was twelve, I decided, on a whim, to live out my dreams of adventure—of riding the train that raced behind our house every day. Kathy, who lived on Apple Street, was my best girlfriend. She went along with all my schemes, reluctantly sometimes, but she followed my lead. I talked her into accompanying me on this dangerous adventure and off we went. We climbed the fence between my house and the railroad tracks, and followed the tracks for quite some time before a freight train finally came by. It was traveling about twenty miles per hour when I grabbed onto the metal ladder and pulled myself up into the open boxcar. Kathy was still running alongside the train, conjuring up the courage to take hold. She finally did after I called her a coward several times, but she lost her grip and the train was dragging her, pulling her legs underneath the boxcar very close to the wheels.

  Terror filled her eyes as she screamed, “Help me, George! I can’t hang on.”

  With my heart racing, I extended my hand and pulled her up, using the power of adrenaline for my strength. I knelt beside Kathy as she lay down in the boxcar, breathing hard. After a minute of calm, she looked up at me and said, “Where we going?”

  I stood up and faced the direction we were heading with the wind blowing my hair from my face. “Wherever it stops!” I yelled, excited by the anticipation of the unknown and the intoxicating feeling of freedom.

  I didn’t want to run away from home; I simply had a thirst for adventure. Kathy and I figured we’d hop off the train when we’d had enough and jump another one back home. We hadn’t even made it as far as Buffalo when a conductor from a passing train spotted us. He must have radioed the conductor of our train and alerted him of his cargo. The train was stopped soon after, and a police car awaited us. Kathy was scared. Her father used to beat her for no reason, and she knew that this might be cause for a short stay in the hospital. I, on the other hand, thought it was pretty cool. I was looking forward to riding in a police car. Little did I know then, it wouldn’t be my last ride in a car like that.

  By the time we arrived home, my parents were frantic. I’d never seen my dad so mad. He took off his belt and gave me a few really hard whacks, leaving big welts on my back. Now I was scared. This was the first and only time my tolerant father ever hit me. But I didn’t cry. I guess I knew I had it coming. Alone in my room, I could hear Kathy screaming from a few houses away. Suddenly I didn’t hurt anymore. Sympathy for what was happening to Kathy took its place. And it was all my fault.

  I was grounded for a month. This didn’t deter me, however. My thirst for adventure overpowered the consequences. After my parents went to bed, I used to escape out the bathroom window from the second floor, climbing onto the shed and jumping to the ground from there. I’d meet my friends at a secret fort we’d built in the woods. We’d smoke cigarettes and think we had really pulled the wool over. Neither of my parents ever found me out. I’m still baffled as to why, but I was becoming a renegade.

  Also when I was twelve, but looking far older, my mother took me to Eastman Kodak at a photographer’s request for a model test. He had seen me at Braemar Country Club, a business my parents had leased in Spencerport, about thirty miles from my hometown. We lived in an apartment above the clubhouse in the summer months. My father worked as the golf pro and groundskeeper, and my mother handled the restaurant, cooking for lunchtime crowds and big parties. Eastman Kodak was by far the dominant employer in Rochester during this time, and many of Kodak’s white-collar set were members of the club. They were actively in search of some local talent to use in their national advertising. It was a big honor to be chosen for Kodak’s model fi
les.

  Kodak had several studios set up in different parts of the city. The one I was taken to was their motion picture studio. The size of the place was intimidating. I walked into a huge room where several different shoots were taking place simultaneously, with models being primped by stylists and photographers. What was I doing here? I wanted to hide. As the thought was taking place, a woman appeared and led me into a dressing room where a makeup person waited. As she began working on me, the wardrobe person pulled a dress from the rack and held it up to me, shook her head in disapproval, and returned to the rack for other possibilities. She finally chose a bright-colored sweater and a pair of slacks. By the time they were finished, I looked like I was eighteen years old. I didn’t recognize myself.

  I was led back into the studio and positioned on a stool. Totally overwhelmed, I did the testing, feeling shy and awkward in front of the camera. I had to be told where to place my hands, how I should cock my head, when to smile and when not to. I was very uncomfortable and it showed. All I kept thinking about was the baseball game I was missing. Could my team win without me? If my friends could see the way I looked, they’d probably laugh their heads off. Finally it was over and the photographer, a short, thin man with an overly pleasant face and demeanor, came into the dressing room to talk to me.

  Sensing I really wasn’t into this, he said, “Honey, are you taking any secretarial courses in school?”

  “Yes, I’m planning to.”

  “Good. I think you should concentrate on that, because I don’t think you’re going to make it as a model.”

  Well, that did it. Someone was telling me there was something I couldn’t do! That was the wrong thing to say to me. I could do anything if I really wanted to. Now I was going to have to prove him wrong. What he was really saying, or the way I heard what he said, was, You’re not good enough. At first I felt hurt and rejected, but anger replaced that emotion fairly quickly. I thanked him nicely with the manners my mother had taught me and we left. When we got in the car I told my mother that I thought I could do better now that I knew what to expect. I asked her to find out what other studios did testing and to see if she could get me in there. When we arrived home, I washed my face, put my old clothes on, and went in search of my Apple Street gang.

  Mom managed to set up another test at a different studio the following week. In the meantime, I flipped through the pages of all the teen magazines I could get my hands on. It felt kind of stupid, but I practiced posing and smiling for hours in front of the mirror when no one was home. I didn’t really care about modeling, but my stubborn personality had to show that guy. I was a winner. Losing wasn’t part of my program.

  I was much more relaxed and self-assured for the second testing. I passed the test and was added to their files. Soon the phone began ringing on a regular basis.

  In the beginning a lot of the work was testing film. It was tedious, boring work, sitting in one pose through dozens of rolls of film, but good training for what was to come.

  It wasn’t until I started modeling that I became aware that we were poor. The other girls all shopped at Sibley’s, a fine department store. I had always gotten my clothes at Grants or J.M. Fields. I think I started out making about $80 a day. In 1962, that’s what most adults I knew made in a week.

  I was the youngest of the group. The other girls all seemed to be more knowledgeable about everything, and they spoke so eloquently. Because of my modeling assignments during school hours, I fell behind scholasti cally. I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth, and college wasn’t in my cards.

  Being thrown into an adult world at such a young age, I grew up much faster than my peers. I looked and acted much older than I was, but underneath the facade I was still just a kid with a lot to learn. I think my level of education dictated some of the choices I would make later in life, but in the final analysis, life itself would give me an education.

  The guys never asked me out in my high school. I know now they were just intimidated, but then I thought they didn’t like me—an insecurity left over from the gossips of my youth. And my successes seemed to stir up even more vicious rumors. I now fully understood what my mother had endured. I hung out with my model friends and ventured more into the city, making friends away from my hometown. I seemed to be accepted more on the outside, by people who had no idea that I came from the “wrong side of the tracks.”

  Kodak wasn’t the only game in town. Plenty of modeling assignments came from other industries in the area, such as Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, French’s mustard, Champion sportswear, Ragú, Genesee beer, Sara Coventry jewelry, Corningware, and Rochester Telephone, as well as several department stores and other smaller businesses that needed to advertise. By the time I turned fifteen I was making $250 to $300 per day. I really thought I’d hit the big time then—until I began working outside of the Rochester area, where my day rate rose to $1,000 per day or more, depending on the market.

  During summers at the golf course before modeling became my focus, my dad was training me for the women’s tour. I’d had two holes-in-one during the summer I turned eleven years old. He saw my early talent as a real possibility at the big time, but I was discovering other talents. Golf was something I did to please my father and pass the time. What I enjoyed most, after getting beyond the first hole and out of daddy’s sight, was tearing down the fairway in the electric golf carts, causing my young passengers major heart palpitations.

  There were little bridges, designed just wide enough for golfers who were pulling their golf bags to cross over. Those who chose to drive electric carts had another designated path to follow. My mission was to make it across these little bridges in the electric cart. (Where there’s a will there’s a way.) After measuring the width of the bridges and the wheelbase of the cart, I figured I had an inch at the most for error, but it could be done if I got the angle exact. After many attempts, landing either sideways or upside down in the stream with minor injuries and destroying about a third of my father’s fleet, I finally got it perfect.

  Due to complaints by club members and the cost of getting the electric carts repaired, my dad finally made the carts off-limits to me. He’d hide the keys, but that didn’t stop me—I figured out how to hot-wire them. I’d call my friends in the area after my parents were safely asleep and we’d have drag races down the fairways. In the dense darkness we sometimes drove over the greens, causing my father some backbreaking work.

  A love for driving fast developed, and it became an obsession. Eventually I went from stealing the golf carts to stealing the car for midnight joyrides. Of the many times I’d done it, I’d gotten caught only once. I took my punishment for a few weeks and then continued with my shenanigans. My father would get upset, but he loved me unconditionally and accepted his untamable wild thing. My mother threw up her hands as well, recognizing that I had inherited her free spirit. How my parents got through those years without killing me, I’ll never know. I was a holy terror.

  One of the waitresses who worked at the country club had a sixteen-year-old son, Mike, and a daughter, Patty, who was the same age as me, fourteen. They lived just up the road from the golf course. My parents liked these kids. They were wholesome types doing regular kinds of teenage things, or so they thought. While Patty’s mother was working large parties for my mother on Friday nights, we’d be sneaking out to the 414 Club, located about ten miles down the road. We were underage, but Tom Torpey, the big bouncer at the door, used to let us in.

  The 414 had the best bands in the city playing there on the weekends. We’d dance and drink beer with the older boys way past our curfew hour, and, since our parents were working, they never found out. I bonded with a whole new group of people. My world was suddenly getting bigger.

  Mike and his friends used to build race cars in their garage. I started to hang out with Patty in the garage on hot summer days, sipping cold sodas and listening to the radio blaring while we watched them work. Patty was a cute little redhead with smoky eyes and soft fea
tures. She loved to laugh, flirt, and raise hell. We bonded immediately, united by our girlish mischief.

  The guys were really cute, and I guess they thought I was too, because they let me participate in what they were doing, explaining everything as they went along. After learning the names of all the tools, I’d hand them whatever they asked for. I felt like I was a part of it. I was beginning to become aware that boys were attracted to me and I to them. On Saturday nights, they’d haul the race car down to the local speedway for the big weekend race. Patty and I would tag along, cheering them on from the pits. Spencer Speedway became my weekend home. It wasn’t long before “cheering from the pits” wasn’t enough for me. . . .

  The drag race was about to begin. My hands gripped the wheel tightly and I could hear my heart pounding loudly in my chest. I looked over at my twenty-year-old male opponent while revving up my engine. He had a cocky grin on his face as he returned my confident stare. I wasn’t really confident—just gutsy and determined. The flag went down and we were off. I shifted into second gear and had him by one car length. He never caught up. The crowd cheered as I entered the pits, and my clan couldn’t stop praising me. Now that I had their confidence, I raced every weekend for the rest of the season without ever losing.

  Tragedy stuck that summer. My girlfriend Patty was hit by a passing car and killed. It happened as she was walking from her house to the golf course to visit me. We had been best friends in the all-too-brief time we had known each other. Becoming acquainted with death at such a young age was a shock to me. It aged me somehow, mentally. I’d lost my pal, along with the excitement that surrounded the racing life.

  I didn’t do much racing after that first season, not only because of the loss of my friend, but because my modeling career had begun to take up more of my time in the summers. My life, like the wind, began to move in another direction, but I always thought that one day down the road I’d again find myself behind the wheel.