“This is Emma, Curly.”
He gazed at me and nodded without smiling. “You’re pretty enough, but how old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
He looked skeptically at Buck.
“She is. I told you, Manning hired her. You know we serve alcohol. Manning’s not someone who plays with the rules, Curly.”
“Yeah, well, me neither.”
He looked at the other man at the table, who shrugged.
“Buck says you sang in bars in England.”
“Taverns, mostly in one in our city, the Three Bears.”
“Was Goldilocks there?” the other man joked. Both he and Curly laughed.
“What kind of music did you sing?” Curly asked.
“Songs sung by Jewel, Barbra Streisand, Mariah Carey. Show tunes and famous ballads, even some Irish songs. What would you like to hear?”
Curly looked at me a moment, at his patrons, and then shrugged.
“You choose what you think they’d like. They’re who you got to please,” he said. “The piano player’s name is Bruce. He probably knows something you know.”
He signaled to the piano player, who nodded and closed his eyes at the smoke from the cigarette he held between his lips. His black hair was slicked and shone under the lights.
“Go ahead,” Buck said. “Show ’em what a real singer can do, Emma.”
I gazed about at the buzzing crowd. At least the patrons of the Three Bears came in expecting to be entertained when I was advertised to be there. Surprising this audience was going to take a lot more energy, I thought, but if I could do it, I’d surely be hired.
“Hey,” Bruce said when I approached him. I thought he looked tired and bored and wondered how long he had been playing today. But when I looked closer and smelled the smoke, I could see he wasn’t just puffing on a cigarette. He was smoking pot. He looked relaxed enough to melt on the piano stool. “What’s your poison?”
“Do you know anything Jewel sings?”
He smirked. “Jewel? Who’s Jewel?”
“What about Mariah Carey?”
He sat back and took a better look at me. “Don’t you know this is a jazz joint?”
“What?”
“How about a standard oldie but goodie?”
He started to play some melody. I racked my brain but couldn’t recall it. He paused, grimacing.
“ ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me.’ Nina Simone,” he said, and I shook my head. “How old are you?”
“I’m eighteen.”
“You gotta know Sinatra, right?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do ‘Fly Me to the Moon’?”
I nodded. I had sung it a few times, but it wasn’t a top number in my repertoire. He started to play and then nodded at the microphone.
Hope I remember all the words, I thought, and began.
Some of the patrons stopped talking. Some looked my way a moment and then went back to their conversation.
“Slip into ‘One for My Baby,’ ” Bruce said, and just transitioned into the melody, but I didn’t know it. He played a little and muttered, “ ‘Mack the Knife’?” I shook my head. He stopped. “What, then?”
“ ‘Memories’?”
He grimaced. “ ‘Memories.’ Streisand?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “Go for it,” he said with obvious disinterest, and began playing.
I sang with everything I had, drawing on visions of the patrons at the Three Bears when I had sung it. Again, some people paused, but most kept talking. Also, he was rushing the song.
“You got to light a fire under this crowd,” Bruce said when I ended. “Come back when you learn some livelier stuff.”
“I can sing livelier songs.”
He looked at Curly, who was shaking his head.
“Go talk to Curly,” he said. “See if he wants you to keep going.”
“Thanks, honey,” Curly said, even before I reached his table. “We’re looking for a different sound here.” He turned to Buck. “Get her a burger or somethin’ on the house, Buck.” He turned to the other man to continue their conversation.
I hadn’t felt this dismissed even at the open theater auditions. It made me feel so diminished and unimportant.
“I’m sorry,” Buck said as we started away. “I shoulda asked you more about what kind of singing you did at that tavern in England. This gets to be a rowdy crowd some nights.”
“It’s all right. Thanks,” I said, heading for the door.
“Hey, let’s get something to eat.”
“I’m fine, actually a little tired. Thanks, Buck. I know you meant to do something good for me. I really appreciate it,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek and then practically ran out of the restaurant and toward the subway station. I could feel the tears flying off my cheeks.
On the subway train, I sat with my chin in my hands, my fingers around my face, and stared down at the floor. I didn’t want to look at anyone. In my mind, I imagined even complete strangers looking at me and shaking their heads to commiserate. My head was an echo chamber filled with my father’s warnings. I could certainly imagine Julia shaking her head and waving her teacher forefinger at me, back and forth, like a metronome on a piano with the words I told you so chanted to the beat: I told you so. I told you so.
A few minutes later, when I emerged from my station and began walking toward my apartment building, the troubles and work of the whole day rained down over me. I felt fifty years older and more lost than ever. I had known it would be difficult; I had known that failure was the currency I had to live with until I had my lucky break, but there was no bounce back in my gait. I was walking like someone approaching her own funeral.
As I was turning my key in the door lock, I heard the phone ringing inside. It was Jon.
“I hope it’s not too late to call,” he said. “I called a little earlier, actually about ten minutes, so I assumed…”
“No, it’s fine. You didn’t wake me up. I’m just coming in.”
“I wanted to see how your audition went tonight. You’ll have me going all over the city with friends to see you perform, I’m sure.”
“It did not go well, Jon. You don’t have to worry about following my nightclub career.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was just kidding, of course.”
“American bars are different from British taverns, I guess. I was foolish to think I could simply put on another dress.”
“Oh, you’ll find success. How about I cheer you up with dinner tomorrow night?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to be working a lot more hours for a while, Jon. Thank you, however.”
“Why more hours? You work quite a bit already, don’t you?”
“Piper deserted me. I’m advertising for a new roommate, but until then…”
“Oh, sorry.” He was silent and then quickly said, “Actually, think of it as having a silver lining. You could be better off with her out of your life.”
“That’s correct. I could be better off,” I said. “We’ll see. I must apologize, but I need to get some sleep. Thank you again for calling.”
“Sure,” he said, his voice drifting away even before I hung up the phone.
Every time you meet someone new in your life, you can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever see him or her again, if that will even matter. I certainly liked Jon. I didn’t know him long, and I’m sure there was lots more to learn about him, but, perhaps because of the way I was feeling, I wasn’t concerned. Maybe that was selfish and unappreciative, but right now, I was soaking in too much self-pity to worry about someone else’s feelings.
Once, Mr. Wollard had warned me, “You’ll have disappointments on the way up, Emma. Be kind to those who care. Sympathy isn’t always pity.”
I’d had no idea what he meant until now. When I said I was on a learning curve in New York, I had no idea how true that was. Marge once said, “This is a city in which sharks swim freely and eat people’s dreams for lun
ch, but if you’re successful, there ain’t no city where you’re celebrated as much.”
So far, more wisdom flowed in the restaurant where I worked than anywhere else I went.
Buck was very apologetic in the morning. I tried my best to look undisturbed and make him feel better about it and assure him I didn’t blame him. I was grateful to him for finding me an opportunity. One thing I didn’t want to see was everyone else pitying me. Marge obviously knew about it. She said nothing, but I could feel her watching me closely to see how it had affected me. As difficult as it was, I put on the expected happy face for my customers, but every quiet moment I had was jammed with concerns, now mostly financial.
No one had yet answered the advertisement for a roommate. I didn’t want to appear desperate when someone did. This time, I told myself, I’ll be far more discerning. I’ll ask more questions, and I’ll do just what Leo Abbot told me to do, demand half of the deposit. I might suddenly have become a beggar, but I would not give up being a chooser.
Before the end of the week, I gave Mr. Abbot the full rent. The extra hours and some good tables that I suspected Marge had sent my way resulted in a little more money than I had anticipated. It wasn’t enough to carry me through another month, but I assured him I had enough funds to provide for my utilities and immediate needs. However, he had learned how to read my face too well. There was no way to hide the concern that if I didn’t get a new roommate soon, I’d be faced with the same crisis when the next month’s rent came due.
In the meantime, the following week, there were three new auditions for smaller productions off-Broadway. When I went to them, I saw that the size of the production didn’t seem to matter, however. There were just as many girls trying out for the same roles as there were for larger, far more expensive musicals. And the pay for these smaller productions made it almost financially dumb for me to take a role if offered one. I’d have to give up too much time at the restaurant and essentially lose that job, earning less money. I was at the point where I was trying out just to see if I could get a role that I would then turn down. If it happened, it would be enough to restore my confidence, however.
None came my way.
The second day into the start of the following week, I was finally lucky, however. Another young woman contacted me about sharing the apartment, and she was far more mature than Piper, not only because she was four years older at twenty-six, but she had a stable position at an insurance firm. Her name was Clara Denning, and she was surprisingly forthcoming.
“I’m looking for a new apartment because I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend, Curtis,” she said. “We broke up just before he left for a sales conference in Houston, Texas. Being that sharing your apartment can be immediate, I’d like to come over to see it. You’re two stops away from my company. I was ready to just take a hotel room for a while.”
I invited her over whenever she wanted to come, and she replied, “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
You can never tell what people look like from the sound of their voices on a telephone. On the other hand, my father used to swear that he could tell if a prospective borrower was someone substantial or not from the way he or she phrased sentences or from the vocabulary he or she employed. He claimed “first impressions are rarely mistaken.” But I thought you had to have a certain amount of arrogance to believe that, something that was beyond self-confidence. I never doubted that was what my father had.
Maybe more of him than I wanted was emerging in me, but to me Clara even sounded like someone substantial. She spoke in clear, sharp, authoritative tones and did not giggle or laugh nervously after something she had said. Later, when I got to know her, I had no doubt she would realize her ambition to become the private secretary of the company’s president. My fear was she wouldn’t think the apartment was good enough and after a while would decide she had to look for something more fitting for a top executive secretary. After all, it still needed quite a bit of touching up and renovation. Piper hadn’t been interested, and I didn’t have the money to do anything, anyway.
The woman at my door twenty minutes later was shorter and thinner than I had envisioned. She wasn’t pretty, yet she wasn’t unattractive by any means. Her dark-brown hair was done in a neat pageboy style, but nothing about her hazel eyes and diminutive features particularly stood out. Her smile was friendly although firm. She wore a little lipstick. The shade was conservative, simply correct for her hair and complexion. I guess the best way to describe her was she was someone completely under control. I imagined there were times when her eyes looked a great deal brighter with excitement, but it wasn’t going to be now. She was too serious to pretend anything just to please me.
I had removed any trace of Piper from the apartment, throwing out anything she had left behind, fearing she had somehow contaminated it. I still waited anxiously as Clara inspected the bedroom, the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom.
“I think it will do,” she concluded.
I told her the rent and the deposit and showed her the only utility bills I had.
“Very good.” She sat at the kitchen table and crossed her legs. “Now, tell me about yourself. I don’t want to move in with some Mary Ann Cotton,” she said.
I laughed, but I was impressed. “You know who Mary Ann Cotton was?”
“One of your country’s most infamous female serial killers, a sort of black widow, right?”
“They believe she killed three of four husbands, yes.”
She finally smiled. I sat and told her more about myself in a half hour than I had told Piper the whole time we were together. She then took out her checkbook and wrote the total amount needed to move in with me.
“Most everything I have is already packed,” she said. “I have a car service to help bring my things over here.” She looked at her watch. “Let’s say by five?”
“That’s fine.” I fetched Piper’s key from the shelf by the door and handed it to her. “I have to be at the restaurant, but you can do whatever you have to and check the food in the cupboard and fridge to see what you want. I’ll be home at eleven tonight.”
“Very good, Emma. Thank you.”
Oh, no, thank you, I wanted to say, but I was determined not to sound desperate. She left, and when I was ready to go to work, I stopped at Mr. Abbot’s and told him about Clara and how she had written out the check for half the deposit as well as her month’s share of the rent.
“Knock again when you deposit the check into your account and it goes all right,” he cautioned.
New Yorkers, I thought. They were born with distrust and probably eyed their mothers with caution.
But even after the short time I had been here, I couldn’t really blame them. It just wasn’t who I was when I had arrived. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would soon be who I was when and if I left. Failure can change you in ways you least expect. For other reasons, I might be afraid to look in the mirror. Why and when? I wondered.
I knew the answer would come flying at me. I just didn’t realize how quickly.
SEVEN
Fall came, and the number of auditions diminished significantly as New York theater started its full-blown season. Even auditions for the smaller productions off-Broadway were few and far between, but that didn’t result in my getting to know my new roommate better. Because of our work schedules, mainly mine, Clara and I didn’t spend all that much time together. She had weekends off. I envied her for that, but more than ever now, I wanted to work seven days a week, because I had to earn the money for more than rent, utilities, food, and other basic necessities. I needed new clothes and nice shoes. How do you walk past all the wonderful department-store showcases and not think of something new and pretty for yourself?
New York had an earlier snowfall than usual that year, too. Colder weather was on the horizon. I needed even warmer clothes and boot shoes to walk the streets. All the other waitresses were coming to work in their fall and winter things, and I was still wearing clothes I h
ad brought with me from England. One girl, Lillian Thomas, even offered me some of her clothes she was replacing. I could feel my face burn with embarrassment.
“Thank you. I just haven’t had the time to shop,” I told her. “I will soon.”
Whenever Clara and I did spend time together, I could see it was on the tip of her tongue to ask me why I wasn’t wearing warmer things, different articles of clothing. I suspected she had gone into my room and inspected my wardrobe one day or evening when I was at work. Yet she said nothing that might embarrass me.
One late afternoon when I returned from work, I found a package at the door. It had no return address or any stamps to give away its origin. “EMMA” had been typed on a label pasted to the front of it. I took it in, went to my room, and sat on my bed, staring at it in my lap. I tore it open and found a pair of fur-lined leather gloves. My first suspicion went to Leo Abbot, and then I thought it was also possible Clara had done it. Deep in my heart, I had harbored the hope that it had come from England, even if it had come without my father’s blessings, but who would have taken it out of the package that revealed its origin? No, it simply had to have been left here at the door.
I went downstairs and knocked on Leo’s door. He looked like I had just woken him but rubbed his cheeks vigorously and said hello.
“What’s up, Emma? Something wrong in the apartment?”
“No. I wanted to know if you had bought these for me and left them at the door.”
I showed him the gloves. He took them and looked at them, pretty clearly revealing he had never seen them.
He shook his head. “Expensive. You have a secret admirer?”
“Very secret, apparently.”
“Well, as I’ve said before, never look—”
“A gift horse in the mouth. I know. Thank you,” I said, smiling.
He scratched his head. “Any news other than that?”
“I’m afraid not,” I said.
He nodded. Then he shrugged. “Well, don’t worry yourself about it. We all need a little Santa Claus from time to time.”
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