“Something like that. Journalist. Artist. Whatever pays the most on any given day.”
This piqued her curiosity. She considered herself an artist, like her mother. But where Vera valued landscapes and flowers, Alice was drawn to man-made wonders. Buildings and bridges. The features that made a place unique, such as an arched ceiling or well-placed Doric column. It was what interested her in studying architecture, though she was only in the first-year math classes.
He continued. “I like when I get to capture the raw emotions of people. The wrinkles in a face that tell the story of hardship. The light that catches a child’s eye when he sees a balloon. There’s a bit of a trick to taking their picture just in the instant when their guard is down.”
She’d never considered this. A photograph seemed like such a fleeting thing, while a painting required long hours of observation. But they shared a need for the moment to be just right—for her it might be the way the sun reflected on a window before being shielded by a cloud.
Alice glanced at her wristwatch once more, this time hoping that her father would continue to delay his return.
But just as she’d thought that, she saw Angelo coming down the hallway with Bertie. She smiled at the two friends. Between them, they had one good leg. Her father had one remaining after the war, and as Bertie had contracted polio as a child, he could use neither of his. He’d fashioned a board onto wheels and sat on it, close to the ground, making him look about three feet tall. He kept pencils in a bag slung across his chest and etched tiny designs into their yellow paint and sold them to passersby in the concourse.
At first people would buy pencils from Bertie because they felt sorry for him and for the way he had to propel himself across the marble floor with wooden posts in each hand. But when they discovered his talent for carving amazingly detailed miniature scenes, they sought him out to buy them as gifts. He had the wild look of a man who lived on the streets, but he made a tidy living off his regulars, and the station manager turned his eye from the knowledge that Bertie did, indeed, sleep in the men’s lounge on the first floor.
He and Angelo had become fast friends when they’d first met years ago. Angelo overheard a child point out a “gimpy half man” who was rolling down the hall. That was all it took for Angelo to seek Bertie out, and they discovered not only a handicap in common but also a love of books and humor.
For as long as she could remember, they’d shared Sunday lunch with Bertie in or around Penn Station. If business had been particularly good, they ordered fountain drinks.
Alice’s father always had a soft spot for the less fortunate and never considered himself to be one. That was how he’d met her mother. She’d been a small child with a scraped knee, and he’d given her some gelato to make her feel better. And he’d even taken in a little boy who wasn’t his own. But that was long before Alice was born, and stories of young William had permeated her childhood.
Though every happy thing they remembered was tinged with melancholy. Her parents’ sadness over losing the boy was a language Alice understood before she could speak. There was always a sense that someone was missing from the table that had four chairs.
“I’ll be going now,” said the man with the camera around his neck. Alice watched as her father and Bertie came closer.
“That’s twenty-nine cents,” she responded. He handed her a quarter and a nickel and refused the change.
“I’m Emmett, by the way.”
“Alice.”
“After Alice in Wonderland?”
“After Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party.”
“If you say so, Alice in Wonderland. I’ll be seeing you.”
She opened her mouth in protest, proud of the name she’d been given in honor of all the work her parents’ beloved friend, Pearl, had done for women’s suffrage before she died. But he walked off before she could say anything.
Her father approached at that moment.
“You have that look about you, cara mia,” he said. “I know, I know. You’re late, Papa. I could hear you from all the way down the hall.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Not with words. But I know my girl. You and your mama get riled when I don’t make it to places in time. So I hear you in my head.”
“But if you know that it concerns us, why don’t you make an effort to get to places sooner?” It was a recurring question. A true mystery of the universe.
“Would it help if I told you that I was visiting with Bertie here about a birthday present for you?”
“Nice try. It’s not for two months.”
“For one who is always so early, you should be proud that I’m thinking ahead.” He kissed her on the cheek, and she found it impossible, as her mother did, to be upset with him.
She leaned over the counter on her tiptoes and said hello to Bertie.
“Hiya, Alice. Who was the young man you were talking to?”
“Uncle Bertie, you sound like my mother.” He always smiled at the affectionate term. After all, he didn’t have any nieces—or children, for that matter—of his own.
“I’ve got to look out for my girl.”
“Thank you, but as it happens, he was just a customer.”
“Looks like he stayed awhile and didn’t buy much.”
“A chatty customer, then. They come along once in a while. Not everyone at the station is in a rush.”
A woman arrived at the counter and asked for a pack of chewing gum.
“I’ll handle this,” said Angelo, stepping around Bertie. He gave the woman the pack and waved Alice away.
“Go. Go. You have a class to get to.”
Alice knew that at this point she would have missed at least twenty minutes, and the professor took students to task for far smaller things. So she decided not to go today. But she didn’t want to make her father feel bad.
She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Got it, Pops.” She picked up a pack of Juicy Fruit and kissed her father on the cheek.
She walked in the direction of the subway until she knew that he wouldn’t see her.
The subway side of the station was the part that Alice frequented most regularly, zipping north to the college on the Upper West Side. She was the only one of her extended Italian family pursuing higher education. The Bellavias valued manual labor. They were plumbers, electricians, shop clerks. Her interest in studying architecture was looked upon at the annual family gathering at Christmas as though she had an affliction of some sort. It wasn’t that she was a woman going to college. It was that anyone from the family was going at all.
But she had the encouragement of her parents, and that was enough.
She stepped into the grand concourse. The great train stations of Europe inspired it, and she hoped that she might see them all someday. The Gare du Nord in Paris. Victoria Station in London. She pored over their pictures in the library and imagined standing under glass canopies. Though she could not imagine the stations being any more beautiful than this. The sun poured through one dome after another and caressed the travelers with its warmth.
She found herself scanning the room and saw that Emmett had been right. Hordes of servicemen in their unused khaki uniforms gathered under the arches leading to the platforms on the other side. Benches were placed through the halls like church pews, the people filling them like worshipful parishioners.
Alice had grown up around these halls. She’d hidden under these benches. She’d scratched her initials into the underside of one of them. But to see them today was an altogether new vision as she watched soldiers swarmed by loved ones—mothers, fathers, siblings, girlfriends.
The families received cursory nods, perhaps the mothers a bit more, but the girlfriends and wives commanded the greatest attention. Their embraces were the last ones, the longest ones. Despite the onlookers, the soldiers would sweep their girls into their arms. The girls would wind themselves around the soldiers’ necks. And their cherry-red lips would leave a mark that they’d wipe awa
y with white-gloved fingers.
Daughter of an entrepreneur, Alice had the thought that one could make a tidy sum of money selling handkerchiefs to mop up the tears. And perhaps tea and water to resupply all that was lost.
Alice watched, mesmerized, at the scene that replayed with every couple. But something else caught her eye.
It was Emmett. He stood behind a column—not hiding yet somewhat hidden, as if he didn’t want to intrude. But he held his camera against his face, stretching the accordionlike arm that contained the lens. He waited, waited, waited, and then she saw his finger tap the top of it.
Her breath paused as if it had been waiting right along with him. Steady until just the right moment lined up. She admired his patience and realized that photography was about observation, as much as the skill was crucial for any painter.
Then he turned, and their eyes met. Maybe it was the heightened sense of romance that permeated this space. Or the sense of urgency that a war manufactured in the hearts of people who didn’t know if there would be a tomorrow.
But she knew already that she would never forget this man.
Chapter Twenty
“A pack of Lucky Strikes and a newspaper.”
Alice looked up from her magazine, and her throat became tight.
It had been a week since she’d first met Emmett, although she’d thought of him ever since. She felt comfort in putting things into categories. Her books were alphabetized by title. Everything had its place in their small kitchen. And her father’s haphazard newsstand had been transformed as soon as he gave her permission to reorganize it.
But Emmett rattled her. In that one encounter, he’d seemed young yet old. Casual though not ragged. And the things that came out of his mouth were just not what people said every day in conversations with those they’d just met.
She didn’t even know his last name.
“I thought it was ABC. Always Buy Chesterfields.”
“But you said the Lucky Strikes are on special.”
“They were last week.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to try something new.”
She turned around to the wall full of colorful boxes and selected a white package with the targetlike red circle on the front. “How’s your new philosophy coming along?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“The one where you smoke to relax and read the newspaper to count your blessings?”
“Oh, that one.” His eyes sparkled as he looked at her, but it could just have been the reflection of the light bulb that hung above the stand. “The smokes made me cough, and all the stories in the paper are sad.”
“And yet you bought both again?”
“Hmm. New philosophy. Try something at least twice before deciding to give it up, especially when a beautiful woman is selling it to you.”
She felt herself blush before taking a deep breath. She rubbed her hands down her cheeks before facing him again.
“Here you are. That’s twenty-nine cents,” she said.
He put thirty on the counter again and refused the change.
This happened for the next two Fridays as well. He always picked a different brand—Old Gold one week and Camel the next. He’d leave his coins on the counter, roll the newspaper under his arm, and saunter off, camera around his neck.
No more statements like beautiful woman, but she hadn’t really known what to do with that anyway.
Alice never prolonged the conversation, as he always arrived just as her father came to take over her shift so that she could get to class. But she found herself thinking of the curious young man while she worked out formulas and balanced algebraic equations.
But the fifth week marked the beginning of her break for the spring, and she came prepared. She wore the checkerboard dress that her father said looked like a picnic blanket. He knew nothing about fashion.
Emmett appeared right on schedule. Ten forty-five. He laid fifty-five cents on the counter this time.
“A pack of Pall Malls, a newspaper, and a Life magazine.”
“A magazine? That’s a change in your routine.” Alice remained poised despite the way her heart pounded when he was around.
He leaned in and took the Life magazine from her hands. “I have to show you something. I haven’t been able to show anyone yet.” He flipped through the pages, looking back and forth until he found what he was searching for on page thirty-two. He smiled and turned it around on the counter so that she could see it.
It was a beautifully composed photo that captured a soldier kissing his lady goodbye. But what was spectacular about it was the way the sunlight shone through the shapes of their faces pressed against each other. The rays found their way through the web of her hair and the spaces where the arches of their noses didn’t quite come together, and even down to the place between their necks. It formed something that looked like a star that enveloped them and clearly exhibited the skill necessary to capture that exact moment.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the bottom of the picture.
Photo credit: Emmett Adler.
Well, now she knew his last name.
“It’s one of mine!”
“I see that,” she said, feeling a sense of pride on his behalf—and delight that he’d shared that moment with her.
She watched his face as he beamed at the page. He looked as if he couldn’t believe it. His distraction gave her a chance to observe him without knowing it.
His jaw was somewhat rectangular. His cheeks rosy, not from being flushed or warm or cold but a natural color that she’d seen on him before. His blond hair was cut near his head but was just long enough to tell that it would be curly if he let it grow. Combined with his last name and sharp blue eyes, it was easy to fit him into a category that she was familiar with: German. Like one half of herself.
But it was risky these days to mention that heritage, given that the homeland of her history was at war with the homeland of her heart. Her grandfather had been forcibly registered with the government as a German citizen and put on a travel ban merely because of the country of his birth, as if he ever even left the apartment. Her mother must have slipped through the cracks, perhaps because her last name had been Bellavia for so long or because she’d come to the United States as a very small child.
German restaurants replaced their red, gold, and black flags with American banners, and they advertised liberty cabbage and freedom sausage instead of sauerkraut and bratwurst. Even German shepherd dogs were now called Alsatians.
It was not a good time to have ties to Deutschland. She would keep her assumptions about him to herself.
“How did you manage that?” she asked him. “That’s no small thing to be published there.”
“I send in my pictures regularly. They’ve been picked up by smaller publications—a newspaper here and there. But never something on this scale.”
“Will that help you in the future? Giving you a certain level of credibility?”
“I hope so,” he said. “It would be nice to be able to do this for a living. But those kinds of jobs are hard to come by. Unless you want to travel to the war zones. Lots of pictures to be had there.”
She wondered again why he wasn’t overseas like others his age—their age—but there must be a reason, and she didn’t know him well enough to ask.
Emmett closed the magazine and set it on the counter. She returned part of his money.
“It’s on me today. You shouldn’t have to pay for a copy of your first photograph in Life magazine. My father would say the same. In fact, he would probably go so far as to give you the entire stack so that you could hand them all out to your friends and family.”
Emmett’s smile faded. “Well, I haven’t got either of those, so I’ll just take that one.”
It was an unexpected statement, laden with an unspoken history. Once again, she wanted to know more.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” he continued. “I’d love to celebrate. Are you free after your shift or do
you have to catch the subway to school?”
She inhaled quickly. “How do you know I go to school after this?”
He grinned, and she enjoyed the shy expression that came over his face. “I—I may have asked the man on the wheel board about you.”
“Bertie?” The old matchmaker. Of course he would have offered up anything if it meant being able to witness young love. She’d always suspected that he was a romantic.
“Yes. That’s the one. With the pencils.”
“Mmm-hmm. What else did Bertie tell you?”
Emmett looked down at his feet. “That you want to study architecture and that any man who takes you on had better be prepared to have his work cut out for him.”
“He didn’t!” Her blood rushed to her cheeks, and she felt chagrined.
“He did. But he said it with fondness. If that doesn’t sound too confusing.”
She clenched her jaw and nodded. “He’s always told me that if I pursue the career I want, it will be hard to find a man who won’t be jealous of it.”
Emmett nodded. “How does that make you feel?”
She leaned her elbows on the counter and looked up at the dangling bulb above her head, as if it might be able to give her the right answer.
“I suppose I’d like to have a man in my life as much as the next girl. But also I want to study and restore old buildings. I don’t see why it should be impossible to hope for both.”
She held her breath. In her household, her father had always supported her mother’s dreams, buying her new paints and canvases as he could afford them. Though her ambition to attend the Parsons School was far beyond their reach, Vera made a modest sum selling abstract pieces that depicted revolutionary subjects about women’s rights and workers’ unions. But those proceeds she donated to causes in Pearl Pilkington’s name. For her own pleasure she painted flowers and scenes from nature.
“Well, that’s pretty much what I told Bertie. I think life could be pretty interesting with a woman who will keep me on my toes.”
Alice could not have been more surprised by his answer and felt a buzz in the back of her neck over the fact that he and Bertie had been having a whole conversation about her.
The Way of Beauty Page 20
