Bachelor Girl

by Kim van Alkemade

  Felix gathered up his note cards into a neat stack. “What will you do with yourself all afternoon?”

  “The weather’s been so nice, I might go up to the High Bridge after I catch up on my reading. And don’t forget we’ve got that concert tonight.” Our resident composer was giving a recital and all the tenants were planning to attend, including the landlady, escorted by the actor.

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, at least we’ll have Labor Day together.”

  “No, Felix, we won’t, remember? The Colonel wants me with him at the Polo Grounds for the last game of the season. It’s a doubleheader, so I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “But I wanted you all to myself for the day.”

  I knew how easily Felix’s optimism could sink into angry frustration when things didn’t go his way. I’d learned to think of his swiftly changing moods as the price I paid for his passion. Glancing at the clock, I went over to sit on his lap. “Don’t sulk, Felix. You have me now. There’s still time.” I was gratified to see his expression change. He untied the belt of my dressing gown and slid his hands around my waist. Holding me tight, he gave my neck a love bite. I told him not to leave a mark but he didn’t listen. By the time he left to attend his meeting, my neck was as bruised as an overripe fruit. I hoped I had a collar high enough to cover it.

  Alone, I stretched out on the sofa with a new issue of The Crisis. Clarence Weldon had been right about how differently the news was reported in the black press. If not for my subscription, I never would have heard of that poor woman who was lynched in Georgia, her swinging body riddled with bullets, for no other reason than protesting the lynching of her own innocent husband. Shaking my head at the injustice of it all, I set aside the magazine and picked up the Sunday paper. I pored over the lists of soldiers missing or wounded, sick or dead, their names in tiny type filling entire columns in the New York Times. It was a habit I’d started after King shipped out. I’d developed a strange superstition that by looking for his name I could prevent it from appearing. That day proved the rule yet again. Wherever he was, King Arthur of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, wasn’t on that list.

  I took the subway up to 168th Street and strolled back and forth across the High Bridge, the wind ruffling my hair and cooling my skin. Leaning over the rail, I watched boats and barges disappear under the bridge’s tall arches while trains snaked along the riverbanks. I gazed down at the Speedway and the Polo Grounds, both quiet on a Sunday. If the Colonel did build Yankee Stadium at the site of the orphanage, he’d be exchanging a view of the muddy Harlem River for a sweeping vista of the Hudson. Standing at the rail of the bridge, Manhattan spreading itself out before me, I felt myself at the fulcrum of the Colonel’s ambitions. Even more than the stadium, though, the key to creating a winning team was acquiring Babe Ruth. I hoped the information Helen had given me at dinner on Friday would be useful. If anyone could figure a way to use Frazee’s divorce as leverage to pry Babe Ruth away from Boston, it was the Colonel.

  • • •

  The stands at the Polo Grounds that Labor Day afternoon were as full as I’d seen them in months. If this many spectators had come out during the summer, the owners might have resisted the War Department’s demand to end the season early. Instead, they’d welcomed the idea, pocketing the unpaid portion of their players’ salaries and colluding not to poach one another’s rosters. New York was out of contention for the pennant, so I assumed it was Boston the fans had come to see, Babe Ruth chief among them. I made my way down to the owner’s box as the Yankees were rubbing the hump of their hunchbacked batboy for luck before taking to the field.

  “There you are, Kramer.” The Colonel had invited various dignitaries to sit in his box, including the Tammany candidate for mayor, John Hylan, and Al Smith, who had his sights set on being governor, but he’d saved the seat beside him for me. He gave me a once-over as I took it. “Given up on bow ties, I see.”

  I straightened my necktie and tugged at my collar, which was digging into the underside of my chin. “Ich habe etwas über Harry Frazee gehört.” I kept my voice to a whisper, as much to hide the subject of my words as the language in which they were spoken.

  “Tell me after the game.” His gruff inflection did little to conceal his keen interest in whatever it was I’d heard about Harry Frazee, who was sitting in the visitor’s box over third base, a very young woman in a very wide hat beside him. A moment later, however, the Colonel’s eyes still on the field, he gave my knee a satisfied pat.

  The Yankees evened the score at one apiece in the second inning and there it balanced, precariously, until the top of the sixth when the Red Sox batted in two more runs. The Yankees’ pitcher held Babe Ruth to a single but angered the fans by hitting him twice with inside pitches. I hoped the youngsters in the stands couldn’t hear Babe’s curses. The Colonel was miserable until the Yankees got another run in the bottom of the eighth, putting them just one away from leveling the score. It was a run the Yankees never got.

  It may have been his eagerness to hear my news, or his disgust over the loss, that prompted the Colonel to leave before the second game of the doubleheader. A marching band paraded onto the field as I followed him down to the dugout where he shook hands with his dispirited players. He told Slim Love he ought to be more careful pitching to Ruth, then clapped Huggins on the shoulder. “I’ll see you in Shreveport in the spring,” he told the wretched little man. “You’ve still got my confidence.”

  Out on the Speedway we found Schultz asleep in the Packard, a newspaper tented over his face. “Let the man rest,” the Colonel said, gesturing me away with a nod of his head. “He’s got a lot of driving ahead of him. Tell me what you heard.”

  “It was Helen who heard it, actually.” I offered him a cigarette as we walked among the parked cars. He smoked thoughtfully as I summarized her story about Frazee’s divorce.

  The Colonel exhaled through pursed lips before responding. “Frazee would be a fool to sell Ruth if they win the World Series, but an alimony suit will put him in a tight spot. He’ll be looking for money his wife can’t get her hands on.” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “There are plenty of reasons to avoid marriage, Kramer, but none better than divorce. These men churn through wives, and what does it get them but ink in the papers? You remember the scandal when Jack Astor divorced Vince’s mother and married that teenager?” I did. The girl was younger than Astor’s own son, and already pregnant, if the rumors were true. The publicity drove the couple out of the country and right onto the deck of Titanic. “Such a tragedy. Jack was a friend of my father’s, you know. My parents, now, that’s what a marriage ought to be.” He blew a smoke ring before dropping the cigarette to the ground and stepping on it with the toe of his polished shoe. “And now Frazee has gone and bought his mistress a house on Long Island. Good work, Kramer, bringing me something the papers haven’t got a hold of yet.”

  “Like I said, sir, it was Helen who told me.”

  “Clever girl, isn’t she? How’s she doing with that theater of mine?”

  I told him she had a play lined up for the new season that was sure to be a critical success. “The only problem she’s having, sir, is with the Olde Playhouse itself. Those seats are so broken down, the audiences limp away with aching backs after every performance.” I took a breath and forged ahead. “She already bought new seats—well, not new, they’re used but in good shape—but she’s short the cost of labor to get them installed.”

  The Colonel caught on that I wasn’t just conveying news but making a pitch. “How much?”

  “She says five hundred would cover it.”

  He frowned, and I feared he’d turn Helen down. For a millionaire, he could be quite cheap—I’d seen him hold up a player’s contract over a few hundred dollars. Instead he said, “You see a lot of the girl, don’t you?”

  I nodded, not sure how to characterize my evenings with Helen. I’d expected to be jealous of Felix’s weekly Sabbath disappearance, but the moment
he walked out the door each Friday afternoon my thoughts turned to Helen with happy anticipation of the hours I’d soon spend with her.

  The Colonel put his hat back on. “Stop home with me, Kramer, and I’ll write the check. Come on, let’s wake up poor Schultz.”

  On our way down Seventh Avenue, the Colonel filled me in on his vacation plans, now that the baseball season was over. The new Railroad Administration had forbidden the use of private train cars during the war, but he couldn’t accept the idea of making the trip up to Rhinecliff as a common passenger. “I’m having Schultz drive me up.”

  At the sound of his name, Schultz turned his head to address the Colonel. “I hear the Albany Post Road’s paved the entire way now.” Just then the Packard bounced over a pothole. “Shall I go through the park, sir? It’s such a nice afternoon.”

  “No, Schultz, just get me home.”

  Sandwiched between the restrained white edifices of luxurious new apartment buildings, the Ruppert mansion jutted out from its stretch of Fifth Avenue as dark and jagged as a rotten tooth. A Victorian mess of porticos and pointed spires, its architecture and proportions were meant to proclaim its prominence, but its location at 93rd Street was purely practical. Old Jacob Ruppert, the Colonel’s father, had only to walk a couple blocks to reach his brewery, source of all that wealth. Perhaps it comforted him, on summer nights when the breeze was right, to smell the malt as he slept.

  Mr. Nakamura, the Colonel’s butler, was waiting in the open door to take our hats. Entering the mansion was like stepping back in time. The craftsmanship was undeniable but the design was appalling, a mash-up of Gilded Age excess and Bavarian kitsch: leaded windows and heavy drapes, curtained archways and hanging tapestries, fireplaces flanked by carved satyrs. The Colonel invited me to have a beer with him, and I imagined myself in medieval Munich as we sat on wooden benches in the basement bierstube. The room was cooler than the beer, which was dark and yeasty. It was all I could do to choke down a pint.

  “Another one?” he asked hopefully. When I declined, he looked longingly at the bottom of his empty glass. “Let’s take care of that business, then.” Compared to the bierstube, the Colonel’s rooms upstairs were practically modern. The curtains had been removed from the north-facing windows, his shelves of leather-bound books were kept in perfect order, and his collection of antique Chinese vases was displayed in glass-fronted cabinets. Sitting at an incongruously dainty desk, he wrote out a check for five hundred dollars and handed it over as casually as a business card. “Don’t deposit it. Give it to her yourself tomorrow after work.”

  “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “I’ll call you at the office once I’ve arrived at Linwood. Stay by the telephone, Kramer.”

  Mr. Nakamura handed me my hat and showed me out of the mansion. “Have a pleasant evening, Mr. Kramer.” Though he spoke English beautifully, his Japanese accent lent a musical lilt to my name. I wondered where the Colonel had acquired him.

  I practically chained myself to my desk all the next day, not even daring to go out for lunch. Even so, the Colonel’s call, when it came, took me by surprise. “Kramer, I want you to come up here tomorrow to see a property with me. Take the nine o’clock train.”

  “Yes, sir, of course.”

  “What did Helen say when you gave her the check?”

  “I haven’t gone to the Playhouse yet, I’ve been waiting for your call. I’m sure she’ll be grateful.”

  “She grew up in Rhinecliff, did you know that? Her father’s buried here.” There was a pause on the line so long I wondered if he’d ended the call. “When you see her, ask her to come with you tomorrow. It will do her good to see the place again.”

  Chapter 21

  I slid hangers along the rod in my closet. “Maybe I’ll run out and get something new to wear up to Rhinecliff. Gimbels is still running their Labor Day sale.”

  “Wait a minute, Helen.” My mother put her hand on my arm. “Tell me again, why did Jake invite you?”

  “I think he just wants Albert to have company on the train tomorrow. I did find out something for him, though, about Harry Frazee.”

  “You were able to help him? That’s good, Helen, good for you. You helped him, and then he invited you to Rhinecliff. You might even get to see Linwood.” She took out the crepe de chine dress I’d worn to the ballet back in May and held it up. “You’ll wear this.”

  “Isn’t that too fancy for a day trip?”

  “Not up at Linwood it isn’t.”

  “Well, I guess you would know. Oh, and that’s not all.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Albert talked Jake into giving me the money to install the seats at the Olde Playhouse.”

  She had a distracted expression, as if she were doing math in her head. “I wonder if you’ll meet his mother.”

  “But Albert’s from Pittsburgh.”

  “I mean Mrs. Ruppert, Jake’s mother. His sisters might be there, too, and his nieces.”

  “I thought his sister died.”

  “Cornelia did, yes. I was working there then. The family was devastated. I meant Anna and Amanda.” She looked at me, as if seeing me clearly for the first time that day. “We’ll crimp your hair in the morning. Now, are you hungry? I made a pie.”

  “In this heat?”

  “I hated to turn the oven on, but what else was I going to do with all the peaches? They were starting to bruise.”

  I followed her into the kitchen. In the sink was a pile of stones from the fruit. “Why are you washing the pits?”

  “The War Department collects them to make gas masks.” She shook her head as she lifted a slice of pie onto a plate. “Thank God Rex is too young for this terrible business. Poor Mrs. Weldon is beside herself with Clarence overseas. I can’t imagine what those boys are going through. Lucky for you Mr. Kramer is unfit for service.”

  “Lucky for him, don’t you mean,” I said, the words muffled by the pie in my mouth. Meeting Albert had brought me luck, though. It may have been Jacob Ruppert who bought the Olde Playhouse and offered me a job, but it was Albert who’d set everything in motion, wittingly or not. That very afternoon he’d given me a check for five hundred dollars and an invitation to Rhinecliff. Tomorrow we’d spend the entire day together. I wondered if we’d have to stay overnight. What did they say about that inn at the center of town, that it was the oldest in America? Unless Jake offered us rooms at Linwood, though I doubted a woman whose mother had worked there as a housemaid would be invited to stay as a guest.

  I was waiting under the clock at Grand Central Station next morning, worried we might miss the train, when Albert came running across the concourse clutching his straw boater in one hand and a satchel in the other. We hustled down to the platform, the train jolting forward the very moment we climbed aboard the New York Central. Breathing heavily, Albert dropped into his seat.

  “You shouldn’t run like that,” I said, “not with your heart.”

  “I’m fine. Anyway, it’s my fault for being late. I had trouble getting out of bed this morning.” When the conductor came around for our tickets, he advised us that the dining car was open for breakfast. Albert said we’d take a table for two right away. “You haven’t eaten, Helen, have you?”

  Clearing my throat, I tasted the cold peach pie I’d had for breakfast and said I’d join him for coffee. I stood, my pocketbook rolling off my lap and onto the floor. Albert, swaying with the motion of the train, bent to retrieve it. Before he could straighten up, I noticed a bruise on his neck, above his collar and below his ear. I touched it with the tip of my finger. “Did you get a bee sting?”

  He adjusted his collar. “Something like that.”

  Albert ordered the royal mushroom omelet and a pot of coffee, which he shared with me. As we left the city behind, the train seemed to be riding on water as it rolled along its tracks, level with the ferries and yachts plying the Hudson. It all looked new to me, though of course I must have seen it before. But no, I remembered, we’d taken a late train when we moved to
Manhattan after burying my father. I’d seen only my own sad reflection in the train’s dark windows.

  “You’re sure you don’t want some toast at least, Helen?”

  I glanced around the dining car and was surprised to see it bustling with activity. “Maybe I’ll try the date nut bread.”

  Albert divvied up the pages of the paper and we discussed the news of the day as we breakfasted. The Czechoslovaks had been recognized as their own nation, and we guessed at what the new country would be called. The Red Sox had arrived in Chicago and Albert predicted their victory over the Cubs in the World Series. I summarized an article about the slacker patrols that were rounding up draft-age men out for a night on the town. I was frightened for his sake, but Albert told me they weren’t likely to look for slackers in the places he frequented. Before I could ask why not, he turned my attention to the casualty lists. We spent some solemn minutes squinting at the hundreds of names compressed into tiny type. It made me sad to imagine Mrs. Weldon searching for her son’s name in the paper. It had been a while since I’d gotten a letter from France, but I kept my promise and acted brave whenever she delivered my laundry. “I don’t see Clarence’s name on my lists, thank goodness. How about yours?”

  Albert shook his head. “No Clarence Weldon here. What about King Arthur?”