Cruel Beautiful World

by Caroline Leavitt

  “I want you to live at school, to have the experience,” Iris told her. “And don’t look at me like that. I have plenty to do here.”

  The last thing Charlotte did before she left the house, her suitcases already packed and in the car, was to place her hand on the pane in Lucy’s room, thinking, Come back. Come back. It’s not supposed to be this way.

  IRIS DROVE HER to the campus, which was crowded with kids and parents. Iris parked by Charlotte’s dorm, North A, and helped her bring her stuff upstairs, neither of them talking until Charlotte was in her room, putting her suitcases on one of the small beds jutting from the wall. She was on the second floor, too high up for Lucy to climb and find her.

  “Well, this is lovely,” Iris said finally.

  Iris put some of Charlotte’s books on the shelves. She reached for clothes to smooth into dresser drawers. When everything was put away, Iris’s hand fluttered as if she were trying to grab onto something. “I’ll come home on holidays,” Charlotte blurted out. “I can make it away on some weekends.”

  “That will be wonderful,” Iris said.

  “I’ll still be looking for her,” Charlotte said. “I can put up posters, or ads—”

  “I’ll do that. You just study.”

  Iris didn’t stay long. “Your roommate will be here soon,” she said, gathering her things. She walked out into the hall, which was filled with girls and parents and steamer trunks, and then she turned and stroked Charlotte’s hair. “I’m not saying good-bye because I’m going to see you soon,” Iris said. “Just give me a hug and kiss now.”

  Iris held her so close that Charlotte couldn’t catch her breath. Charlotte watched the older woman climbing down the stairs, her hands clasping the railing. There was the shriek of girls racing up and down, a fog of cigarette smoke, and, somewhere, the sharp tang of dope. Everyone looked cooler than Charlotte did, in tie-dyed shirts and embroidered jeans, while Charlotte’s shirt was plain black and her jeans were just denim. These girls had long riots of hair and big, complicated earrings. Watching them, Charlotte pulled off her headband and roughed up her hair. And then the bottom door opened and closed again, and Iris was gone, leaving Charlotte in her new life.

  Chapter 5

  That night, alone in her house, Iris sat up in the living room in her nightgown and slippers. The hours ticked by. There was nothing but the occasional sound of a car’s engine or a dog barking. There was no Lucy. Iris wouldn’t let herself call Charlotte, not yet. She hoped that girl was busy with her roommate, getting to know people, having fun, and if Iris yearned for her, well, that was just the way the heart worked.

  Once again, Iris thought, here she was, undone by love and mad with grief because of it. She had seen that poster in Lucy’s room, that ridiculous sentiment that you don’t belong to me, and I don’t belong to you, but if we find each other, it’s beautiful. What a stupid thing to say! Of course people belonged to each other. Love owned you. It kept you captive.

  For Iris, it had been that way since 1917, when she first fell in love herself. She was twenty-seven back then, a Jewish girl with marigold hair, which she wore pinned up in a loose chignon, and a bowed red mouth she carefully painted, kissing a tissue to blot away most of the color, because nice girls didn’t wear makeup. The four years she had been in Boston, she had lived in a room in a boardinghouse in a marginal Dorchester neighborhood. She had to share the bath and shower with four other women, but at least her room had a view.

  That year, Boston was a city of women waiting for their men to return from World War I. There wasn’t money to spend on clothes or the theater or meals in fancy restaurants with real silverware on the table. Women worked swing shifts and used ration stamps. The married ones with families either stayed home knotted with worry or rushed from their jobs to feed their children after claiming them from babysitters they couldn’t afford, the kids roaring like fighter planes.

  The single women, like Iris, might hate the war, but still — though Iris wouldn’t say this out loud—you couldn’t help seeing it as an opportunity. Suddenly it didn’t seem to matter how plain you might be or how you might have the personality of a kitchen sponge, or even, like Iris, how close to being a spinster you were. Love threw itself at your feet. It became a question you just had to answer. Iris could go out every evening if she wanted, having her pick of the handful of boys who had stayed home, the ones with flat feet or bad backs, the ones she’d never looked at before. They were suddenly gleaming like jewels simply because they were available, and if they were boring or too fast, or resentful because they were at home, at least it was company for an evening.

  But what Iris really loved was when the soldiers came home on leave. Every magazine she read told her that all you had to do was give a little encouragement and bring a soldier home for dinner, and then maybe when he left, you’d have a diamond on your finger. A man would have to stay alive so he could get back to you. He’d fight harder because he had someone special to fight for. But even though girls at work popped up with rings on their fingers, Iris’s hand stayed bare. None of the soldiers she had made spaghetti for had wanted anything more from her than a kiss. Not even the one, a marine named Tommy Ruffalo, who had convinced Iris to take her shirtwaist off, “just for a moment,” so he could remember her beauty. He had never even written to her. When would it happen for her?

  All that summer the neighborhood women hung pictures of President Wilson in the windows of their brick apartments. They planted food gardens in bright-colored, cheery window boxes because no one had any sort of backyard, but the city light was so transient, so thick with soot, that Iris’s boxes usually yielded nothing more than a scrubby carrot or two. It didn’t matter. The rampant patriotism made her dizzy with hope that things could be different, that they could change.

  Iris was a girl with few skills, but it was wartime, and she had managed to land a job as a welder in a shipyard, working for a burly guy named Jackson Marks. Jackson had a tattoo of an American flag on his forearm, and he made sure to remind everyone that if he hadn’t had asthma, he would have been on the front lines. He told Iris that he hadn’t been the one to hire her, that his boss had, and personally he thought it was a mistake. “You people,” he said, “started this war.” Iris knew that he meant Jews and that like most people he was suspicious of anyone who wasn’t what he called purebred. Just last week, in her neighborhood, people had actually burned German books, because didn’t everyone hate and fear the Huns? Horrified, Iris had stayed in her apartment.

  The hours at the shipyard were long. Iris welded braces and vertical plates, lying flat on her belly, so hot and unsteady she knew that any moment she could faint. The fumes drove her crazy. The noise hammered inside her head. In the quiet of her bedroom, she still heard the sound.

  But Iris was proud of her work; as she welded heavy steel doors and braces for ships, she thought about all the handsome soldiers who might sail off to battle on the decks she was helping to build.

  Saturdays were the highlight of her life, when the public dance halls were open. Every Friday, Iris would go to Boylston Street as early as she could to rent an outfit. For three dollars, Iris could twirl around in a satin party dress. For a dollar, she could fit into shoes a hundred other women had probably danced and dreamed in, but for one glorious night, they would be no one’s but Iris’s.

  The night she went crazy was in the middle of July. It was nearly one hundred degrees outside. Just that morning she had found the perfect dress at the store. Red-and-white polka-dot with a fitted waist. Red patent leather shoes to match, with only a tiny scuff at the heel.

  The dance hall used to be an Elks Lodge. The walls were wood-paneled and decorated with crepe paper and American flags, and the floor was glossy with shine. Two mothy-looking elks’ heads, their mouths gaping open, lined up along the top of the paneling and stared down at the dancers.

  Iris didn’t care that inside was a steam bath, that the music came from a three-piece band and a singer who looked old
enough to be her grandfather. She wanted to dance. She wouldn’t mind marrying a soldier or a sailor. It sounded so romantic, and she wouldn’t be stupid like her mother, marrying her high school sweetheart right after graduation, a man who left her when Iris was only eight. Some father. Some husband. Her father was tall and silent, and he left the house every morning at seven, just as she was getting up, and he would kiss her on the head before he left. When he arrived home at eight at night, he wanted dinner and peace and quiet. Weekends weren’t much better. He wasn’t the type of father to take her to the zoo or the circus, though he did drive her to the library a few times. Still, he was her father. She felt he belonged to her. And then he came home one day, his face grave. “Sit down,” he told them, and Iris sat down beside her mother.

  “What happened? Were you fired?” Iris’s mother asked, and he told them that he was leaving, that he was in love with someone else, a waitress he had met at the diner where he always had lunch. They were going to move to Colorado so they could ski all year round. “But you don’t ski,” Iris’s mother pleaded. “You hate the outdoors.”

  “I like it now,” he said. He left Iris and her mother the house and said he’d send money, but it never came. Iris’s mother couldn’t afford a lawyer to sue him for it. Plus, there was the disgrace. “Tell people your father’s away on business,” she told Iris, even after the divorce came through. Iris’s mother had to get a job cleaning houses, leaving Iris with a neighbor until she was old enough to come home from school and stay in the apartment by herself.

  Iris saw how her mother suffered, how her sadness seeped through the walls, held there like a stain. “He’ll be back,” her mother said. Every week, she still went to the beauty parlor because she wanted to look her best for when he came back. She wore makeup and dresses and cooked elaborate roasts, because any night could be the night he was coming back, and wouldn’t he want something delicious to eat? Every day when Iris got home from school, her mother was at the kitchen table, looking at the society pages, and Iris never knew why until the day she came home and found her mother crying and then saw the photo of the young, pretty bride in a white gown, and her father standing behind her. Iris saw how young the bride was: twenty-three. Ten years younger than Iris’s mother. “Mom,” Iris said, putting one hand on her mother’s back, but her mother put the paper down and went into her room, and Iris heard the door close, and after that, they began eating macaroni for dinner. Her mother set her own hair and stopped fussing with lipstick. She still checked the papers, picked up bits and pieces of news from people who used to be mutual friends, and when she heard he was divorced again, she laughed out loud. “He’s coming back to us,” she insisted. “You wait and see.” She saved Iris’s A papers, her drawings, the medals she won, all this bounty, but all Iris could think was, Screw him.

  One day, Iris came home to find her mother weeping at the kitchen table, a letter in her hand.

  “What happened?” Iris asked, alarmed, and her mother shook her head.

  “It’s from your father.”

  “It is?”

  “He’s remarrying again, a woman—a girl—twenty-nine years old, Jewish and religious, and he can’t marry her unless I have a get. A Jewish divorce.”

  Iris stared at her mother, who was tearing the letter into confetti, her mouth set. “I’m not getting one. One divorce was enough. What does it matter? He’ll marry her anyway,” she said. She pointed a finger at Iris. “Take my advice. Never fall in love.”

  Her mother was wrong, Iris decided. Her father might have been a jerk, but her life was going to be different. She wouldn’t settle for a silent man who could leave his family—his child—as he might his old socks. And she would give herself all the things he hadn’t given her—love, attention, respect.

  NOW, IRIS STRODE OVER to the punch table. She liked to be early enough to have her pick of the men, but not so early that she seemed desperate, and she was happy to see a large group was already milling around. She recognized lots of the girls from the shipyard: Debby and Eileen and Mary, who came every week, the same as Iris. Their hair was pin curled, their cheeks flush with rouge. They nodded at her and waved and showed off their outfits, bright as hard candies.

  Everyone was dancing, clapping, and stomping their feet to “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!” And then “Always Treat Her Like a Baby” came on and the mood changed and she swayed to the music and let her hair dip over one eye and wondered whether she really looked a little like Theda Bara the way all the boys told her, and for a minute she didn’t think about her tiny apartment or the rationing tickets she had already used up or how tired she was. Instead she scanned the crowd hopefully and tapped her toes on the linoleum.

  She was pouring herself some of the watery red punch when she felt someone staring.

  “Excuse me, but I think you need to dance with me.”

  Iris swiveled to find a tall, striking man in an army uniform. He had eyes so black she couldn’t see the pupils. He smiled and bowed deep from the waist with a flourish, making her smile.

  He took her hand and led her onto the floor as if he had always known her. He had a loose, rangy build and he held her close when they danced to “You’re a Dangerous Girl.” He hummed the melody, swaying her, suddenly clearing his throat.

  “Doug. Some of the guys don’t give real names, but I swear to you, that’s mine.”

  Jewish. He was Jewish. She felt the heat rise in her face. “Iris,” she said.

  “Iris,” he said, as if he were chewing on her name. “You and me. We’re the same tribe.” Iris nodded.

  He told her he was from Paris, Texas, where he was also based, and he was in Boston for just one week before he had to go back. “They’re shipping me to France.” He gave her a blinding smile. “Don’t you worry. Those Huns don’t stand a chance,” he said. He dipped her and she let her eyes shut, just for a second, almost like a swoon.

  “You know, I always wanted to see Boston,” he said. “The streets are kind of noisy, but I guess I like it.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, I like it now.”

  Iris smiled and moved in closer. When the dance was over, she waited, but he didn’t leave her side.

  They danced every dance together, and all the while he whispered jokes against her hair, he tapped his fingers along her back. She couldn’t stop laughing. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. It was as if something had happened to her senses, as if the air suddenly had a taste, thick and sweet as cream. She leaned against his shoulder and didn’t care that nice girls kept their distance. She wanted to be close and she pressed herself against him. She needed to hear him sigh again. Just like that. Just like music.

  When the hall emptied out, couples paired off. She and Doug walked toward the park. The city streets were lit, casting her shadow against Doug’s, which she thought was a good sign. She commented on the old, beautiful brownstones, the cobbled streets, but he kept looking down at her, warming her with his interest. “Let me tell you the story of our life,” he said.

  “Our life?’ said Iris, amused. “We don’t even know each other.”

  “Oh yes, we do. And this is important, so pay attention.”

  He told her about the house they would build from scratch, a blue-and-yellow clapboard with a bright red door. And in their sunny, flower-strewn backyard, there would be a tiny replica of the house for their devoted dog.

  “Rex,” Doug decided. “We always feed him scraps from our dinner even though we know we shouldn’t.” He paused. “That’s okay for a dog’s name, isn’t it? Rex? It means ‘king.’ It’s got dignity to it. It’s noble.”

  “We sometimes let Rex sleep on our bed.”

  “Only when our cat Grace isn’t there.”

  She laughed. “And a pool. I love to swim.”

  “Olympic size, with fish painted along the bottom.”

  He walked her all the way back to her boardinghouse, and every detail he spilled out made Iris glow. Imagine having a life
like that. Just imagine. At her door, Iris tensed, waiting for him to ask to use her bathroom, to get a drink of water, even though the landlady had strict rules against male visitors. Instead he merely tapped her nose with his fingers. “Tomorrow,” he told her. “I’ll meet you here. I’ll take you to dinner.”

  Iris blinked at him. “Really?”

  “You don’t eat dinner? You don’t get hungry? Come on, you love steak. You can’t wait for chocolate cake. You always eat your portion and mine, too, and you stay small as a button.”

  Iris smiled. “I’m a fool for sweets,” she said.

  DOUG COURTED HER PROPERLY. Although he had danced with her close, he treated her with so much polite respect it made her crazy for his touch. In the movies, she leaned toward him, waiting, every rustle of his clothing amplified in the dark. She kept her hand on the armrest so he could easily find it and wouldn’t have to grope for it in the dark, and finally, when he folded her fingers into his palm, she couldn’t keep a sigh from escaping.

  He talked to her all through dinner, telling her about his parents, who ran a greengrocer back in Texas, about his married sister in Topeka. Iris could barely concentrate on what he was saying, because all she wanted to do was lean across the table and kiss his mouth. Love, she thought, was a chemical reaction, one person igniting another, like the hot sparks she made when she welded.

  But he didn’t come up to her apartment that day or the next. He didn’t do more than tilt her chin up and kiss her. His lips were dry, barely brushing hers. She didn’t know whether he kept his eyes open because she shut hers. She told herself he was being polite, a real gentleman. He surely knew the same stories she did, about soldiers who got girls pregnant and then left and never returned, and all the girl had to show for it was a fatherless child.