The next day Nora started to search the boxes for the stack of pages she’d torn from magazines. Realizing they’d been rearranged every which way, she asked Joe, “Did you go through these?”
He nodded. “Sorry if they’re out of order,” he said. “One night when I was missing you so bad, I started to look through them.” He laughed. “I didn’t understand at first. I thought you were saving them for the stories. It took me a while to realize you were saving them for the ads.”
Nora held up a page advertising small radios. “I guess these are all old models now?” she asked.
“You’ll just have to find new ones,” he said.
When Nora woke the next morning, she found, fanned out on the pillow beside her, the current issues of Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping, and House Beautiful. On top of the last was a note in Joe’s careful block letters:
FOR THE DREAM APARTMENT
OF THE FUTURE MRS. JOSEPH DAMIAN REYNOLDS
Nora delighted in seeing the little changes as she leafed through the magazines: a new eggbeater with a handle that tilted, an armchair that folded out into a bed, a coffeemaker with a glass pot. It seemed that the postwar world was exploring every way to make life sleeker, faster, and easier.
Alongside the photos and stories about home improvements and housekeeping were references to world events that Nora had missed. In the anonymity of her cozy seat in the newsreel theater, she spent the days before Christmas trying to catch up—to understand the world of 1946. She saw images of the Nuremberg Trials, with the placid faces of the German leaders as they were sentenced to be hanged. The seventy-five girls who competed for the Tangerine Queen beauty crown. Nora saw the running of the Kentucky Derby and a three-year-old boy who swam the crawl. And, in one segment that would eventually be of overwhelming significance to her, she saw the announcement that the United Nations—an alliance Joe would later explain—had settled on New York City as the home of its permanent headquarters. The announcer spoke with what seemed like even more than the usual gusto: “The international organization’s wanderings are over. From Forty-second Street and the East River in New York, running north to Forty-eighth Street, the future skyscraper headquarters will occupy six blocks near historic Turtle Bay. Work of clearing the land for a magnificent world capital will start in a few months.”
Nora had grown up at 229 East Forty-eighth Street, right beside the neighborhood that would doubtless bloom with these new buildings. Back in their room, listening to the radio, she let herself remember her childhood home. Her room, with the lovely wallpaper and the flowery chandelier. The books on her shelves. The dresses in her closet. She saw herself taking her father’s arm as he escorted her down the steps for her coming-out ball—how he had put his large, slender hand on top of hers, an extra gesture of reassurance and courtliness. What she wouldn’t give for even five more minutes with him. Five minutes to tell him everything that had happened.
The music of Isham Jones and his orchestra came wobbling into the room, playing “Who’s Sorry Now?” Brushing back the tears she never liked Joe to see, Nora wondered what her father would have said or done about her situation. Probably he would have shaken his head at Nora and told her that she came from a long line of people who made the best of whatever they were handed. Frederick would have smiled wryly and quoted Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
And what if she actually had spent five more minutes with Frederick? Five more minutes in that hospital room? Perhaps she and Ollie would have gotten on a different subway, or even found a taxi. Ollie would have lived. She would have lived. Would she have gone back to Paris? Would she have gotten to show a painting in Ollie’s gallery, or some other? And would fate have somehow arranged for her to meet Joe anyhow?
Those were things she could never know. But one thing was undeniable. If she’d lived, she would now be free to see the United Nations firsthand as a forty-four-year-old woman. She wouldn’t be hearing about it in a newsreel theater as a twenty-three-year-old spirit who was dreaming of a life with a man twice her age in a one-bedroom apartment that seemed equally out of reach.
7
SO LUCKY TO BE
LOVING YOU
1946
Not counting the times he’d had to work shifts at the Piano, there had not been a Christmas in Joe’s life that he hadn’t spent in Queens. Some of his earliest memories, the ones that were telescoped deep in his brain, were about the original four of them—Damian, Katherine, Finn, and Joe—on Christmas Eve or morning. There had been church clothes and mass the night before, Katherine’s ham for dinner, the tree to decorate, the carolers in the neighborhood. Little and large things had changed over the years of his childhood. The mismatched socks Katherine had once hung from the mantel had been replaced by store-bought red stockings. The wooden icebox, after the family got its first refrigerator, had become the place to store important papers, pictures, and all manner of broken things needing repair. The scarves and Erector sets and other gifts of Joe’s childhood had been wrapped, before the Depression, in pretty paper, and the discovery of them Christmas morning had never disappointed a year’s imaginings. It took an entire day to suck a candy cane. Joe knew that because every year he and Finn had raced to see who could finish first, and by the time either of them did, their lips would be numb and the color of roses, and the peppermint would have lost its taste.
Over time, inevitably, the cast of characters had changed. Katherine had died. Finn had married Faye. Mike and Alice had come along. Damian and now Finn had died. For the past three years, the family Christmas in Queens had been just Joe, Faye, the kids, and whatever church friends or neighbors came by.
Ever since Atlantic City back in the spring, Faye and Joe had talked on the phone but seen each other less and less frequently. It had been three or four months since he had been out to the house, but tonight, Joe assumed, the family would be expecting him.
“Christmas with Faye?” Nora asked as she saw Joe wrapping the requisite Erector sets.
“With the family,” Joe said.
Nora nodded.
He put on a tie she didn’t recognize from their previous years—perhaps a gift from Faye, she thought.
Tentatively Nora asked, “Does Faye know I’m back?”
Joe shook his head. “Not yet.” He took a breath and put his hands on her shoulders. “Do you want me not to go?” he asked.
“No, it’s fine,” Nora said. “Maybe I’ll order from room service and see what waiter brings the tray.”
Joe had one sleeve of his coat on now and didn’t seem to know whether she was kidding or not.
“No, obviously you should go,” Nora said. “We’ll have Christmas Day together. Just like we did last year.”
“You mean just like three years ago,” Joe said.
Nora reached under a pile of her magazines to find Joe’s red scarf.
“Be here when I get back,” Joe said.
“Where else would I be?” Nora asked as she tied the scarf around him.
Joe laughed. “I don’t like to think about that,” he said.
* * *
—
Alice was fourteen now, her hair dirty blond, her face with that custardy skin of Faye’s.
“Uncle Joe!” she called from the top of the stairs, and ran down to greet him. She was wearing a red-and-gray dress whose skirt flared out like a Christmas bell.
“Did you bring my present?” she asked him.
“What makes you think you get a present?”
“It’s Christmas!”
“Well, were you naughty or nice this year?”
“She was both,” an unfamiliar voice said, and there, coming down the stairs, was a slightly chubby teenage boy, a shopping bag of gifts in his hand and a look of nervous pride on his face.
“
Who’s—?”
“Uncle Joe!” Alice said exuberantly. “I want you to meet Rusty!”
Rusty put down the shopping bag, slung one possessive arm around Alice’s shoulder, and stuck out his hand in the way that only a kid with his first girlfriend could. Reluctantly, Joe shook it. What business did any boy have thinking he was good enough for Alice?
She was taking coats off the stand in the hallway, handing the first to Rusty and putting the second one on herself.
“Where are you going?” Joe asked.
“Oh, I’ll be back,” Alice said. “We’re just going to Rusty’s to open some presents with his family. They’re ridiculous. They open them Christmas Eve.”
Rusty shrugged. “That’s just how we do it,” he said, and he picked up the shopping bag and grabbed Alice’s hand. They were laughing about nothing as they walked out the door.
Joe wondered where everyone else was. The church crowd didn’t seem to be on hand this year. There was no sign of Mike. He could hear sounds from the kitchen, though, so he figured Faye was there. When he walked in, he came face-to-face with a thin, smiling man who Joe guessed was in his thirties and a vet. The left side of his face was mahogany from what must have been a burn, and his jaw was slightly askew. But the injuries didn’t affect his smile, which looked perfectly genuine. Faye at that moment turned from the sink, where she was elbows-deep in sudsy water. The place was pure chaos. Paint cans, rags, and brushes cluttered the kitchen counters.
All the colorful bowls and pitchers that Faye had long ago placed atop the cabinets had been removed and stacked on the table, as had the old framed maps and prints of Ireland that they’d been put there to hide. The wall above the cabinets had been painted a fresh white, but the rest of the kitchen was only half done, and the sting of fresh paint and turpentine was sharp and overwhelming.
“So this is why I’m not smelling Christmas ham?” Joe asked.
“I’m sorry, Joey. We thought we’d be finished!”
She had put on just enough weight in the past few months to make her look less like a waif. Or perhaps she had done something to her hair. There was something different, at any rate, and it took Joe a moment to realize what it was: Faye looked happy.
“Joe,” she said, “this is Manny.”
Another handshake with a proud suitor. Joe looked at Faye questioningly. Who was this guy? Why hadn’t she told him anything about him? Faye smiled the smile of a survivor. Joe felt an unexpected stab of loss. It had nothing to do with romance. It was more that he felt he was losing Finn all over again, along with his family in Queens. Alice was already out the door on a date with this Rusty, and so far, Mike hadn’t even shown up.
Dinner turned out to be an extremely dry casserole that Faye had kept warming in the oven much too long. Joe, Faye, and Manny waited an hour, then started without the kids. They ate in the dining room, where the crystal candlesticks sat on the table but the candles hadn’t been lit. Neither Alice, who returned without Rusty or an apparent appetite, nor Mike, who arrived wearing his police uniform—obviously tipsy from whatever the precinct celebration had been—seemed to mind that virtually every Reynolds family Christmas tradition had been discarded. Joe had to wonder why he’d come at all.
He rode the subway back to the terminal with one of his mother’s old maps of Ireland on his lap, and when he stood up, he saw that it had left a tidy line of gray dust on his coat.
* * *
—
Christmas morning, while Nora was still sleeping, Joe quietly removed her prized charm bracelet from the small first-aid tin in which she now kept her jewelry. He dressed in the bathroom and slipped out of the room, her bracelet in one pocket and, in the other, the brass Red Cap uniform button that Ralston had kindly given him without asking him why he wanted it.
The main machine shop in Grand Central was located one level below the lower concourse. Joe had expected it to be fairly empty on Christmas morning, but he was surprised to find it completely deserted. On a rangy Christmas tree just inside the entrance to the shop, someone had left a string of lights that pointlessly flashed red and green, like signal lamps on an empty track. As Joe walked past aisle after aisle of empty wooden workbenches, he found the quiet of the place unsettling. Usually it rattled, clanked, and screeched with the sounds of drills, tile cutters, saws, lathes, and hammers. There was none of that today, just the distant buzz of the subways and the ringing of the rails above.
Eventually Joe found the row of benches that had the small tools and the bright swan-necked lamps the men used for delicate work. There was barely a screw in Grand Central that hadn’t been designed especially for Grand Central, and special things required special maintenance. Nora herself, Joe thought smiling, fit into that category.
Sighing, he climbed onto one of the tall metal stools and turned on the radio, dialing past a few programs to hear Bing Crosby singing, of course, “White Christmas.” He took Nora’s charm bracelet from one pocket and the shiny button with the initials G.C.T. from the other. He pulled down half a dozen sets of pliers before he settled on the two smallest ones.
With the greatest care, Joe used a plier in each hand to separate one of the links on the bracelet, opening it up just enough to slip on the brass button, like another charm. As Joe worked, the radio kept him company, with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Sarah Vaughan.
He closed the link up tightly and, for good measure, used a steam valve to clean the whole bracelet. As he walked back toward the Biltmore, he was still hearing Sarah Vaughan’s voice in his head:
Time after time
I tell myself that I’m
So lucky to be loving you.
He stopped at Big Sal’s and bought two coffees and two pastries, then walked on.
I only know what I know
The passing years will show
You’ve kept my love so young, so new
And time after time
You’ll hear me say that I’m
So lucky to be loving you.
* * *
—
Joe and Nora had Christmas lunch at the Oyster Bar, festive with its usual red-and-white-checked tablecloths, and seasonal with its large wreaths of juniper and red ribbons hanging between old portraits on the rich mahogany walls. They had clam chowder, French fries, and beer. They finished with coffee and apple pie.
Walking back through the terminal afterward, they stopped to listen to the Christmas choir. Joe stood behind Nora, encircled her with his arms, then reached around to kiss her cheek.
“Remember when you snuck into that choir?” he asked her softly.
“How could I forget it?”
“That was the first time I figured out I’d have to keep an eye on you.”
“But not the last,” she said, turning to face him.
“Am I going to be able to trust you when we have our dream apartment?”
“Trust me for what?”
“Not to go too far.”
“So let me get this straight,” she said, teasing. “You just want me to play it safe.”
“And you just like playing with fire.”
“And you just like keeping the matches hidden.”
Joe laughed. The choir was singing “Angels We Have Heard on High.”
“I am in love with a woman who flickers out like a lightbulb when she gets too far away from the power source in the building where I work,” he whispered. “I am in love with a woman who was supposed to have died in 1925 and really didn’t, but who could now be killed for good by a sunset on a May Manhattanhenge. I am in love with a woman who I’m sneaking around with in the Biltmore Hotel. And you don’t think I’m playing with fire?”
* * *
—
Back in their room, Nora sat Joe down and told him to close his eyes. When he opened them, he was speechless at first.
She had given him a small painting—done in oil paints and collage—of the terminal’s middle window, her window. It was bright white with sunlight, light that looked like a stream or a river, so solid in its shape, so powerful in its movement through the air that it seemed strong enough to bring in Nora, a miracle, hope.
“Where did you do this?” Joe asked in wonder.
“Up in the studio that Mr. Fournier showed me.”
“And no one bothered you about being there?”
“No one,” she said. “Leon even helped me move an easel and a table and chair up there.”
Joe held the painting up appraisingly. “Isn’t this as good as most of the art they sell in the Graybar Passage?” he asked.
“I hope so,” she said.
“Maybe you really could sell this stuff.”
“Do you think?”
“But not this one. This one we’re going to put in the dream apartment.”
“What about that one?” Nora asked, gesturing to the map of Ireland that he had left on the dresser.
“What?”
“That map in the frame. Can that come with us too?”
Joe said nothing. He looked almost embarrassed.
Time After Time Page 32
