by Jill G. Hall
“They’ll get along for one night without you.”
Clair plopped down on the edge of the bed and started to cry.
“I’m sorry.” Aunt June handed her a lace handkerchief.
The front door slammed and June peeked out the door. “Good. He’s gone.”
Clair stood. “Then I’m off, too.”
“You’d better wait. He might be lurking outside.”
Clair paced the apartment while June checked her bread and made soup for supper. Thirty minutes later Farley returned with Dr. Johnson.
“Farley tells me you aren’t well.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! She’s fine,” Aunt June grumbled.
Her father opened the door. “Farley!” He shook his hand. “Dr. Johnson! Why are you here? Has June had a relapse?” He put his hand on his chest.
Farley lit another cigar. “No, it’s Clair. She’s gravely ill.”
Clair squinted her eyes at him. “You bastard!” She clasped her hand over her mouth and looked at Dr. Johnson and her father sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Crying, she ran past them out the door. “I’ve got to get to work.”
“See, this is what I was talking about.” Farley blocked her way.
Dr. Johnson took Clair’s hands in his. “My, my. You certainly aren’t yourself.”
“Then who would I be?” She smirked through her tears.
“Clair, don’t be disrespectful to the doctor.” Her father frowned at her.
“Let’s go to your room for a little exam.” Dr. Johnson escorted her by the elbow, smelling like the witch hazel he had prescribed for her pimples a few years ago. He sat her on the bed and put his black bag on the dresser.
Farley and her father followed them in.
“Gentlemen, you two can go now.” Aunt June closed the bedroom door and sat next to Clair. “This is not necessary, doctor. She’s fine.”
“We need to be sure.” He grabbed his stethoscope from the bag.
With his back turned, Clair jumped up and tried to leave the room.
He stood in her way. “Sit down.” Using the stethoscope, he listened to her chest through her blouse. “My, my, my. How are you feeling?”
“Angry as hell!” Clair shouted.
The doctor nodded, escorted Aunt June from the bedroom, and closed the door. Clair, alone in the bedroom, ran her fingers over her thighs, then got up and put an ear to the door.
“Is my Clair going to be all right?” her father asked.
“Leland, I have grave news.” The doctor kept his voice low, but Clair could hear him anyway. “My diagnosis is that she has what we call ‘impulse hysteria’ and needs to be confined to complete bed rest.”
“Really, doctor?” Her father sounded scared.
“Leland, that’s ridiculous.” Aunt June always had the voice of reason. “She was fine until Farley arrived.”
“I recommend she stay in bed for at least a week, Leland, under your direct supervision.”
Clair came out of the bedroom, put her arm through her father’s, and managed a smile. “I’m fine, now. I promise.” She wished she had heeded Varinska’s advice and not let them see her cry.
“Ha! I’ve discovered what caused this ‘illness,’” Farley sneered.
Everyone in the room stared at him.
“She’s been performing at a burlesque house!”
Clair’s body felt as if it were a chandelier falling onto a marble floor, shattering in a million pieces.
“That’s not true!” Aunt June looked at Clair, but when she saw her niece’s expression, she sat down on the sofa.
“Here’s the evidence.” Farley unrolled a scroll in his hand, held it up to the group, and gave it to her father.
Clair’s father studied the playbill, handed it to June, and dropped onto the sofa next to her, his head in his hands. “My little Raffie.”
“Women are runaway trains. If you don’t control them, they’ll crash.” Farley glared at Clair.
Dr. Johnson shook his head. “This won’t do at all. Won’t do at all. An upstanding young woman like you performing burlesque!”
Clair stood tall, put her shoulders back, and tilted her head up. “It’s not a juice joint or anything distasteful. Rudy runs a clean house!”
She tried to make another run for it. Farley stood in front of the door, and she pounded on his chest. Stopping her, he grabbed her wrists. “See, she’s out of control! Let’s lock her in the bedroom.”
“Don’t touch her!” Aunt June put a hand on Clair’s back. “Come with me, dear.”
The women sat on the bed. Aunt June shook her head. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
They listened to Dr. Johnson through the door. “Put four of these drops in water every eight hours and make her drink it. I’ll return tomorrow. If her fits don’t stop, there are other treatments we can use. One of my other patients never snapped out of it, and we had to send her to a sanitarium.”
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” her father moaned. “We’ll take good care of my girl. Goodbye, and thank you.”
The front door closed.
They let her out of her room, and the four of them—Clair, her father, Aunt June, and Farley—silently drank their soup and bread.
At bedtime, her father pulled the cork from the vial, counted drops into a glass of water, and made sure she drank it down. The reddish-brown liquid tasted bitter, worse than any hooch she’d ever tried, but she denied him the satisfaction of grimacing.
“It’s for your own good, Raffie. You need to get better.”
“But I’m not even sick.” She shook her head, deeply shocked by the day’s events.
53
Hot summer rain evaporated off the windshield as Farley steered his Lincoln down the street. His crooked smile didn’t seem quite right. A foreboding sense of fear with red swirls of panic flew into Clair’s chest, like falling in an elevator after the wires had been cut. She shouldn’t have agreed to this drive.
It had been weeks though, weeks of being locked inside the apartment. Weeks at a standstill.
“Please, Father,” she had begged. “If not the theater, I’ll find somewhere more acceptable to work. How else will we make ends meet?”
“Don’t worry. I’ve found another source of income,” her father had told her.
“Where?” she asked.
“Never you mind.” He shook his head.
And then the next evening, she saw Farley slip an envelope to him.
That man wouldn’t give up.
“Your reputation has been sullied. The answer is for you to marry me.”
“It’s for the best.” Her father frowned.
It felt as if she were a cow being sold. “Never!” she had yelled. She’d rather die than be married to Farley. He seemed obsessed with having control over her.
She thought if she continued to deny him, her father would eventually relent. Instead though, he kept doting on Farley. “Thank you for helping us, son.”
Clair had long ago run out of tears. The tincture made her dizzy and sleepy, so after a week she learned to feign swallowing it. As soon as her father left the room, she’d spit it into the now-dead philodendron’s pot.
Rudy and Winnie had tried to help. They showed up a few times, but there were strict orders that Clair wasn’t to talk to them. Aunt June had offered to help her get away, but Clair declined; if the men found her gone they’d be livid and might take it out on Aunt June.
She had become Clair’s constant companion; without her, she really would have gone mad. Attempting to cheer her up, June made afternoon tea, played cards with her, read Shakespeare, Austen, and the Brontës aloud. When no one else was around, Clair performed song and dance routines for her aunt.
That afternoon the doctor had recommended Farley take Clair out for a spin to get some fresh air away from the stifling apartment, and she couldn’t resist. As it grew dark, lights across the East River began to twinkle on. Farley drove the Lincoln onto the
bridge, and they left Manhattan in a stream of traffic. Lighting a cigar, he inhaled and let it out. The smoke soon permeated the car. So much for the fresh air that had been promised.
“Yes, this bridge is 1,595 feet long. A miracle as the first steel-wire suspension bridge ever built . . .” Farley continued to spew boring facts to her, unaware that she’d stopped listening.
She could barely make it out, but a sliver of moon peeked over the horizon, like the curve of the scimitar sword displayed over her father’s desk that she had left in the move. Clair wished with all her might that she could soar up there and stand on it. Some people believed it might be possible to visit the moon someday.
Clair had heard that the moon held the parts of your life that were wasted. Like her mother who had wasted away when Clair was so young. The memory of her rose scent and smooth skin filled Clair’s mind. How different her life would have been if her mother hadn’t died. Clair would have been loved and protected.
Farley glanced behind him, turned to Clair, and spoke softly. “If you’d agree to marry me, I wouldn’t need to do this.”
“Do what?” Clair’s body shook with fear. The car slowed down and a horn honked behind them. “Pull over before we have an accident!” Clair shouted.
He guided the car to the side of the bridge, put his hands on her shoulders, and pulled her close.
“Let me go! Do what?” It dawned on her that Farley might be planning to take her to a sanitarium.
“With time you’ll get used to me.”
She struggled to get away, but Farley held on tight, his evening whiskers burning her skin. She shoved him back, put her hand on the door handle, and tried to push it down, but it wouldn’t budge. She heaved harder, and this time it opened. She stepped out onto the bridge. Her eyes swept across it, back and forth, gauging which end was closer.
Farley revved the motor, honked, and backed up beside her.
Her shoes scraped along the metal grate as she ran away from him, back toward Manhattan, a string of lights above leading the way.
“Clair! Get back in here!”
She shook her head and tried to pick up the pace, but the full-length skirt Farley and her father insisted she wear restricted her legs from a quick stride. Leaning over, she flipped up the hem and held it in her hands. As a gust of wind swirled around her, her hair unfurled past her shoulders.
“Clair, stop!” Farley turned off the car, got out, and followed her along the grate. Horns honked as traffic passed by on the bridge, casting shadows.
“No!” She shook her head and kept moving away from him along the walkway. Glancing back at him, she saw he was bent over, hands on his knees as if out of breath.
The moon and the bridge’s V-shaped vertical lines called to her. She could feel the cold steel seep through her gloves as she grabbed the railing and held on. One foot on top of the steel, she looked down into the murky water. Did she dare jump?
Cars stopped and she heard voices yell, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words.
Farley caught up to her and grabbed for her waist. She attempted to kick him off, but he held fast and raised himself up behind her onto the railing, trying to pull her back down.
“Clair!” His voice caught in the wind and blew away.
“Leave me alone!” She yanked her body away, stood atop the railing, and gazed into the river again.
He reached for her and this time she let her body go; gravity pulled them both through the air—down, down, down. Clair pointed her arms forward, straightened her legs, and dove deep into the water that struck her body like a cold bath.
Farley screamed as his body plopped sideways into the river with a loud splat. Had he survived the fall?
She butterflied her arms back and forth, rose to the top, and gasped for air. The briny water smelled of fuel, rotten food, and human waste.
A wave splashed over her in the strong current. She began to sink and slipped off her Mary Janes underwater. By the time Clair returned to the surface, she knew that in order to survive she couldn’t panic. She turned onto her back in a floating position like she’d been taught as a child in the cove.
“Help!” Farley’s voice flew over the current a few yards from her. “Help! Help!”
His pleas reverberated in her head, and she realized no matter how despicable he had been she couldn’t let him drown. She swam against the current toward his calls.
“Help!”
If she was going to save him she had to keep him calm. “It’s okay. I’m almost there,” she said through chattering teeth.
Seesawing her legs, she finally clasped one of his arms.
“Ow!” he cried. “That hurts.”
“Your arm might be broken.”
She tilted him back on top of her chest and held him from behind. The current was so swift she wouldn’t be able to hold on for long. Farley grew quiet. He seemed to have fainted.
She needed something to hang onto. The nearby docks were too far away for her to carry him to. A shoe, a plastic baby doll, and an apple floated by, bouncing on the strong current. A log came toward them, but as she reached for it, it careened out of her grasp.
She almost lost her grip on Farley, but a tire, practically invisible on the dark water, approached with great speed. She stuck out her hand, managed to grasp it, and held on. With the other arm she readjusted Farley’s weight on her body.
Her wet hair draped around them like a mermaid’s. She continued to slowly scissor her legs back and forth while trying to hold Farley’s head above water. To stay alert she stared at the moon. As long as it was above her, they were still alive. She sang a desperate plea to the orb over and over, “Oh, moon, silver sliver of beauty. Save us!”
She wasn’t sure if it had been five minutes or thirty, but her strength was nearly gone when she heard a man’s voice call from across the water. “Ahoy there!”
A far-off light slid slowly toward them in the darkness until she could see a skiff.
The man yelled, “Ahoy!”
She gasped for breath and tried to call out. The skiff floated closer, and she could make out two men with knitted caps pulled low over their foreheads. One held a lantern and the other rowed.
“Farley, wake up.” She shook him, avoiding his injured arm.
The men pulled alongside them and reached out. The boat tipped on its side as they dragged Clair and Farley aboard, setting them on a slat seat amongst crates of bottles.
“Jingle-brainers! We saw you jump off the bridge.”
“You could have died.” The other shook his head.
“Yes, she almost drowned, but I saved her.” Farley resembled a wet rat as water dripped off his head.
Oh, for pity’s sake. “Yes, you are so brave.” She glared at him.
One of the men took off his peacoat and wrapped it around her shivering shoulders. “There you go, miss. We’ll have you to shore in no time.”
The man handed Farley a burlap sack. He covered his back with it and closed his eyes. The other man started to row and land soon came into view. They pulled the skiff onto a small beach between two boulders.
“Wait here,” the rower said.
From behind the rocks, the man with the lantern pulled a Ford truck toward them. The men loaded the crates of bottles onto it. One helped Clair into the passenger seat and the other climbed in the truck bed beside the bottles with Farley, and they quickly sped away.
“We’ll get you to a warm place soon. Need to drop off the stash at the warehouse first. It’s too dangerous to drive through Manhattan with it.”
As the truck pulled into the warehouse, a man walked over. “Stowaways?” He laughed gregariously.
“No, sir. Fell off the bridge, they did.”
“Glad you were there to save them.”
Clair would have recognized that voice anywhere. “Rudy?”
He frowned at her, confused.
She pushed back her damp hair. “It’s me.”
“Gal pal?” He rushed to her.
“Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
“Hey! Farley. You boozehound, you.”
Farley peeked at Rudy.
“You know each other?” Clair asked.
“Uh-huh.” Farley shrugged, a guilty look on his face.
“Sure, he used to come in the speakeasy all the time. Quite the dancer!”
“He did? He was?” Clair gave Farley a wide-eyed stare.
He shrugged again.
Clair tried to run her fingers through her matted hair. “I’m glad your guys came along when they did. We could have died out there.”
“That’s true. Come on, Clair.” Rudy opened the truck door for her. “I’ll get you home.”
“What about me?” Farley asked. “I’ve got a broken arm.”
Rudy snorted. “Ask the guys to help you when they finish unloading the truck.”
Billowy clouds covered the moon. Clair gave Farley a little wave as she climbed into Rudy’s tin lizzie. Her icy body had begun to thaw out, and her body ached from the fall. She could smell the river’s stink on her.
Rudy let his car idle and turned to her. “Clair, what happened?”
“I can’t talk about it now. Please take me home.”
“Want to go to Winnie’s instead?”
“No. I have to tell Father about Farley’s duplicity.”
When Rudy pulled up in front of Aunt June’s apartment he asked, “Shouldn’t I come in with you?”
Clair shook her head. “Better not.”
He smiled at her. “We’ve missed you. You’re welcome back to the theater anytime.”
“That’s good, because I plan to return there very soon.” She stepped out of the truck and he drove off.
54
As Rudy drove away, Clair tossed the stinky coat on the stoop. She certainly didn’t want the apartment to reek.
She stepped inside, and her father jumped up off the couch and hollered, “What happened to you?”
“Fell into the East River!” Feeling a bit woozy, she held on to the back of a chair and yearned to sit down but didn’t want her filthy dress to stain the furniture.
