Sirens

by Janet Fox

  She looked surprised. “Staying for a time. Beyond that, I haven’t a clue. No one tells me anything.” She smoothed her brows with one finger. “Now, listen. I’m on my way out, and Mummy is off doing whatever it is she does, and Daddy is still at work and heaven only knows when he’ll be home, so it’s just you and Chester.” She paused. “And the help, of course.”

  “Oh, great.” Chester. Three years younger than Melody. To say he was not one of my favorite people would be, well, an understatement. The scar on my back burned at the thought of spending time with him.

  Melody read my mind. “Cuz. It was an accident. This you know.”

  “Yes, Mel. I know.” That he hadn’t meant to start the fire was really beside the point.

  She moved, impatient. “Look, I have to go. There’s all the alcohol you could want in the hidden closet in the library. You just have to press the hutch door, you know, push on it like this, ’cause it’s a fake—”

  “I don’t drink.”

  Her perfect brows furrowed. “Josephine.”

  “Jo.”

  She waved her hand. “Whatever you like to call yourself. Jeepers, you’re seventeen. Almost eighteen. Everyone drinks. You don’t? Well, fine. You want to know why you’re here?” She leaned toward me. “I would guess it has to do with your daddy and the business he’s in.” She pulled back, and her eyes went distant. “Too bad Teddy isn’t here. He always knew what to do.” She snapped upright, turned on her perfect heel, the beaded hem of her dress splaying out around her knees. “Tomorrow, first thing—well, later, first thing, because morning is not my favorite time of day—we’ll tend to your hair.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. And I would, too, as the unpleasant weight of my hair draped against my damp blouse. Just a purely practical matter. That it would be modern was secondary.

  But Melody paused and smiled. “There. I knew there were a few outrageous thoughts in that smart brain of yours.”

  I stood at one of the tall windows in the apartment’s living room and watched the day draw toward slumber while the city below woke as if from a long nap. The windows of this room looked east, and the sky I could see between the buildings opposite already had a purple hue, while the sun reflected burnt orange in their windows. The avenue below growled with life. Nighttime was not rest time here but another facet of New York’s glittering magic.

  I thought again about my uncle’s other house, the one way up the Hudson, where the river ran below. That week when I was ten. I inched my hand up under my blouse and felt the scar that stretched across my back. The skin had seared to a sandpaper roughness. I thought about the playhouse.

  How the playhouse was, and then wasn’t. How what was left after they cleared the rubble was a blackened stone square. How I had been inside. How I’d run in for my doll, to save her. How Chester had been punished even though he hadn’t known that I’d run in for her, after he set the fire. How he set it for no reason. How he had been punished but not enough to my liking.

  How much I loved the river, and how much I hated the flames.

  Chester showed up in time for us to eat dinner together.

  I shifted in my chair at the table. “Where are you in school?” I tried to make polite conversation, even if I didn’t like meeting his eyes.

  “You mean, this year?” He smirked, leaning across the table over our soup. “School number four. In four years.”

  “Ah!”

  “Just left the last place. Seems I was cheating. Or failing. Or something. They packed me off without a wave or a bye-bye.”

  I thought about my own classroom in the school that had housed me for three years, and how Miss Draper would surely wonder why I was missing, even if my classmates gave it no more than a passing thought.

  He shrugged. “School is fine, if you like that sort of thing.”

  I tried not to slurp. Chester, because he was a boy, and a wealthy one at that, had every opportunity, which he tossed off without a second thought.

  “I’ve decided it’s high time I moved on anyhow.” He lifted his glass of wine and took a noisy sip.

  I couldn’t look at him. “Move on to what?”

  “Why, business. Banking looks good, since my dad can give me a position downtown. But heck, why not take up a little bootlegging on the side? Might as well. Your father’s in on it.” He paused, and our eyes met. I saw the light in his eye, and my stomach turned so that I couldn’t swallow my food. “Right, Josephine?”

  The blood rushed to my face.

  Chester sat back, watching me, his brown eyes narrowed, his smile thin, hair slicked back and parted in the middle with careful precision, his wineglass raised. “Come on, Jo. It’s the best way to make a mint. No taxes, just straight-on profit. A man can become a millionaire in no time.”

  “It’s illegal,” I muttered into my soup. It was the only thing I could think to say.

  Chester snorted. “As if that matters. Are you that naive? There’s a speakeasy on every block in this city. The police are on the take. The biggest bootleggers ride around in bulletproof limousines. Illegal? Who cares?”

  I cared, at least as far as my pops was concerned. My moral compass pointed toward the straight and narrow. And Chester, the last time we’d spent together, his moral compass was skewed by a desire to be reckless. I cared, but what could I do about it? If Teddy was here, he would’ve cared, too.

  Teddy, if only you could be here, would be here…

  Malcolm brought in the main course: a bloody filet in béarnaise sauce with sides of potatoes and snap beans dressed with almonds.

  When Malcolm left, Chester leaned across the table toward me, a glint in his eye that made me draw back. “I know what’s going on in that sharp brain you’ve got. You’re thinking about Teddy and wishing he was here. Perfect Teddy. He wouldn’t have done anything illegal, now, would he? No, sir.” Chester grinned. “Why, Teddy was destined for great things, wasn’t he. Senator, governor, maybe even…yeah, maybe even president. Yes. President Winter. Being groomed and heading for stardom. Perfect Theodore Winter, ready to become king.” Chester snorted. “Right.”

  I sat still, my eyes now fixed on my plate.

  “But the king has no clothes, does he?”

  “What do you mean?” I whispered, lifting my eyes, my back stiffening.

  Chester waved his fork in the air. “I mean, old Teddy went and disappeared, didn’t he? Kings die and become dead heroes. End of story.” Chester leaned over, punctuating his next words with his fork. “He should’ve thought that one through.” He turned his attention to his plate, sawing away at his filet.

  I let the air out of my lungs. Bluffing. Chester was bluffing, which I should have expected. But for a moment, I’d thought Chester knew about Teddy, knew our secret, what I had done for—how I had lied for—Teddy. But no. I kept Teddy’s secret. I held on to the belief he’d be back. I’d promised Teddy.

  After dinner Chester and I retreated to our separate rooms. I had my own private suite here—with a door I could lock. Melody had tossed a pair of pajamas on my bed, a thoughtful gesture. They were navy-blue silk with white pin dots, and came with a matching robe.

  And the closet was packed with clothes, as promised. Pretty things, classy and smart, if more than a little revealing. Short dresses, slim and silky, in pale colors and trimmed in handmade lace or long beading or wispy frills. If they weren’t the very latest fashion, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. I looked at those dresses for a long time, rubbing the silk between my fingers, admiring the details, but also feeling the blush creep across my cheeks as I imagined my near-nakedness when wearing them. They were nothing like the full-sleeved middy blouse and midcalf skirt I was wearing, and I looked down at myself with a rueful twist of my lips.

  I actually couldn’t wait to try some of them on though I’d have to pick the ones that didn’t reveal too much, or expose that ten-inch scar.

  My bedroom here was twice as big as my room at home. High ceilings, carved moldings, tal
l satin-draped windows that opened high above the noisy city so that the air they admitted was cooler and sweeter than the air down on the street. I had a private bath done all in black-and-white tile, and a medicine cabinet stocked with all the latest in personal items: deodorant, mouthwash, their smells spicy and antiseptic.

  And Melody had left me a small bottle of perfume—CHANEL NO. 5, read the label—that smelled divine, along with a note: “Enjoy!”

  I’d landed in a grand luxury. It was enough to turn my head. So why did I feel like I’d stepped behind bars?

  An empty bookcase waited, and I unloaded my suitcase, setting the books in place by author. I took the silk scarf with its sacred contents out of my suitcase and sat for a long time with it cradled in my lap. I had to keep faith with Teddy; he’d return. I tucked the scarf and its contents away deep inside my bottom dresser drawer.

  I pulled one of my books off my shelf as I tucked into bed, and smiled. A perfect choice, under the circumstances.

  “About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate…”

  I woke in a cold sweat to the sound of a fire engine. The high-pitched wail echoed through the concrete canyons, tearing down the avenue and disappearing into the nighttime.

  I lay in the bedroom and watched the play of lights from the street below as they moved across the ceiling. Flash and fade. Red, then white. My back itched with the memory of pain, and I rubbed the rough skin, an old habit. The fire engine was gone, into the night, into another fire, not my fire, but it was a long time before sleep crept over me again.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lou

  One of the first things Danny took me to see after we’d become an item was Miss Liberty out on her little island. I’d seen the lights since I was small, that torch lit up at night like it was truly on fire, and how the Lady with the Lamp glowed across the water after Mr. Woodrow Wilson turned on the new lights in ’16, and how we four—Ma and Da and my brother and me—had watched it from the Battery when we were still one big happy family.

  But I’d never been there, right up close, unless you count me riding in Ma’s belly from Ellis Island not that far away. My ma and da didn’t take us around much to see the sights, especially if it cost time or money.

  I felt like a little kid when Danny said we should go and take a tour. I had to hold in my giddy feelings so as not to make Danny cross.

  Danny had a thing about that statue. He explained to me about how it had been made in France and carted all the way across the ocean and set up here, a gift to us Americans from the French people.

  I was so excited I couldn’t help it. I opened up and said, laughing, “I think French champagne is the best gift the French people gave us.”

  “This is America,” he said, his voice a razor. “I won’t have you speaking like an ignorant paddy just off the boat. You understand me, Louise?”

  “Of course, Danny. I didn’t mean…”

  He looked at me then, eyes to match his voice, and I shut up.

  That was when I really learned about Danny’s sense of humor. And when I learned to keep my mouth shut, except when I was saying something he’d think was smart. Which was usually something he’d taught me. I tried hard to be a quick learner, but I did wish he liked to laugh more.

  We took the tour, but I don’t remember much about what the guide said. I was busy watching Danny.

  Now, don’t get me wrong. Right after that little excursion we walked the neighborhoods, and Danny gave me sacks of candy to hand out to the kiddos, while he glad-handed their das.

  You know, he liked that Lady Liberty so much, but he couldn’t forget where he came from. He couldn’t forget his Irish roots. He was in America now, but he hadn’t been able to leave behind the feeling that he wasn’t good enough. And that made him both the most generous guy in town, and the most…well, I gotta say it: dangerous.

  Yes, Detective, it’s true. Even though I would’ve walked through wet cement for Danny, that’s what he was. Dangerous.

  CHAPTER 8

  MAY 21, 1925

  They were friends, and began rounding in there every noon for lunch.

  —From “New York by Day” article on the writers composing the Round Table at the Algonquin, The Miami News, May 19, 1928

  Jo

  The following morning I had the apartment to myself. If my aunt and uncle had come home during the night and departed again before I stumbled out of bed, I’d heard nothing. I found a white rayon sheath in the closet, the least revealing article I discovered, though it was a skinny silhouette that just hit my knees. It was at least practical and suited to the unseasonable heat; happily, Melody was only a little bit shorter than me and not too much smaller through the hips.

  The sun blazed through the open windows of the living room, and the cacophony of the city rose with the hours. After a lonely breakfast I wandered from empty room to empty room. The bookshelves were lined with books whose spines had never been cracked. The walls were white and hung with paintings that were modern, impressionistic, stark and linear. In the library were dozens of small replicas of statues; most were modern but for one striding Egyptian prince, modern in his own offbeat way. I stared at the painting in the foyer for long time, thinking I’d seen it somewhere, but its soft blue squares were so abstract as to be both familiar and foreign at once. The few tables in the apartment were bare. The floors were polished to a high shine.

  Rarely had I spent time alone in such a vast and new-minted place. It made me uneasy, this impersonal, empty luxury. I thought about my own home, with its scuffed floors and threadbare armchairs and scattered objects—the little vases Ma collected, the antimacassars, the folded newspapers left at the fireplace by Pops. I missed my ma, my quiet little room, and Felix, our mouser cat who mostly hissed in my general direction but sometimes acquiesced to a soft ear rub.

  Here I stood in someone else’s clothes in someone else’s room, and new fears crept through me: fears that I would never find my dreams or my brother. Whatever Pops had gotten himself into he’d dragged me into it as well, and I’d have to find my own way out.

  The only room in the apartment in which I felt comfortable was the windowless library off the foyer. Books lined all four walls, and the chairs were dark leather, the lighting just enough for reading. I settled in and opened one of the books and read until Melody roused around eleven, heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

  She was a different person in the daylight hours, without her makeup and with her eyes like slits and her skinny frame wrapped in an oversize robe. I tried to hide my surprise, which reappeared when she emerged from her rooms an hour later, primped and wide-awake and put together. She peered in the library door, squinting.

  “There you are. Hiding. It’s time we put you right,” she said as I stood up, and then she looked down at my old black shoes. “Good grief. First order of business is new shoes. And for pity’s sake, take off those awful stockings before we leave the apartment.”

  “I’m not a flapper,” I said.

  “Yeah? Well, we can fix that,” she responded. “Come on.”

  I heard Pops’s voice in my head berating flappers—and then I felt a tiny thrill of rebellion, so I let myself be led by Melody. She treated me to a shopping trip that changed me from top to bottom.

  We started at the hair salon.

  When the hairdresser took hold of my thick dark locks, she said, gleeful, “Snip, snip!” And with a few bold cuts she held twenty-four inches of my former glory in her hand. As she worked, shaping and thinning, she spun me away from the mirror. Melody nodded approval, and when the hairdresser spun me back so I could take a good look, I gasped.

  I looked older. Heart-shaped face with blue eyes. Dark hair that now formed pleasing angles to frame my face. I sat up and lifted both my palms against the blunt-cut ends, feeling as if a weight that had tied me down had been lifted.

  I wondered what Moira would think, what the other
girls would say. I wondered if I might see them again next fall and whether they’d treat me differently, whether the boys might notice me for the first time. I smiled at that thought, then promptly shot it down. Modern was fine. Turning into some silly, moony flapper swooning over boys was not.

  Still, I couldn’t help it; I was happy with the bob. Thrilled, in fact.

  As if to echo my reaction, the hairdresser said, “Honey, I’d swear I was looking at the next big moving-picture star.” She smiled, shook her head. “Just dreamy.”

  “It sure is a change,” Melody said.

  It was a change, all right. I was shedding some old skin that I’d outgrown without knowing it.

  I touched my hair again. One of Teddy’s favorite things to say about me had to do with my stubborn determination. Tenacity, he said; I had it in spades. Like the ornery mule he’d had to buck around that summer out at Great-Aunt Elizabeth’s, or maybe like old Aunt Lizzy herself, whom Teddy claimed I took after. When I wanted a thing done, Teddy said, that was the end of it.

  Although that tenacity fought with niggling doubt. Hair was just hair, right? Or in this case was hair a link in a long chain? A long chain leading me to foolish thinking and foolish behavior? I bet Teddy would approve. Even if Pops would give me the business.

  Well, too bad. I put that thought straight out of my mind.

  Melody took me to Macy’s next. Shoes first—sweet, pale little pumps with straps—and flesh-colored stockings, of real silk, rolled up above my knees. I already had the closet full of her cast-off dresses. After buying me a soft green cloche, a pair of gloves, and what she called “the right clutch,” she plunked me down at the cosmetics counter, where, over my feeble protests, a salesgirl painted my cheeks and colored my lips and eyelids. Melody held up the hand mirror, and again I was taken aback, but I did kind of like what I saw, even as my cheeks grew pinker all on their own. Good thing Pops wasn’t here; when the salesgirl and Mel weren’t looking, I wiped off the worst of it.