The Subway Girls_A Novel

by Susie Orman Schnall

  Olivia laughed. “I wanted to ask your grandma something about Miss Subways. But I don’t want to interrupt this intense competition.”

  “Who’s there, Ben?” Mrs. Glasser asked, coming to the door. “Olivia, hello. Come in, dear. We were just going to play Scrabble. You’ll join us. I made chocolate babka.” Mrs. Glasser then turned and headed back toward the kitchen.

  Ben looked at Olivia and smiled.

  “You’re right: she’s very hard to say no to,” Olivia said, entering the apartment.

  “Did you eat dinner, Olivia? I have leftover meatloaf,” Mrs. Glasser called from the kitchen.

  “Yes, I ate at the office,” Olivia called back. “But thank you.”

  “How are things going at work?” Mrs. Glasser said, coming back to the table, holding a cake plate.

  “We have that MTA pitch coming up this week. It’s a long story, but I have to give a preliminary presentation on Monday, and if my boss likes my idea, then I’m the one who’ll get to pitch the client on Friday.”

  “Did you decide to use the Miss Subways campaign in your presentation at all?” Mrs. Glasser asked as she sliced the babka.

  Admittedly, Olivia hadn’t known what a babka was when Mrs. Glasser had first mentioned it, but now she could see it was similar to a soft coffee cake, shaped like a bread loaf with thick veins of chocolate running through it. It looked delicious.

  “We really want to,” Olivia said, accepting the plate from Mrs. Glasser, “but our creative for it hinges on this concept of ‘Where Are They Now?’ and besides you, we haven’t been able to connect with any other Miss Subways. That’s actually why I stopped by. I wanted to see if you’d be interested in participating in the new creative, but I’m realizing it’s probably not going to even happen. I’m really sad about it because I thought the history and impact of Miss Subways were so interesting, but ultimately we’re probably going to have to go in a different direction.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mrs. Glasser said. “But I agree with you. You’ll have to tell me all about your other concept while we play. And then maybe after Scrabble, I’ll show you the scrapbook from my Miss Subways days.”

  “I would love that,” Olivia said, taking another bite of the heaven that was chocolate babka, her new favorite dessert.

  Mrs. Glasser and Ben were both highly skilled Scrabble competitors. Olivia was no slouch when it came to making words, but she didn’t know all the twos and Qs, and that was where they killed her.

  Olivia’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She looked at it while Mrs. Glasser was setting out her tiles.

  Matt

  I should only be about an hour. I’ll let you know when I’m downstairs. Thinking of u.

  Olivia

  Sounds good.

  And why the hell not? It was certainly true:

  Olivia

  Thinking of u 2.

  Olivia put her phone away and looked up to find Ben studying her. She realized she had a stupid grin on her face. She wiped it off and returned to studying and rearranging her tiles.

  Later, as they were cleaning up the Scrabble game, Olivia asked Mrs. Glasser if she would be up to showing her the scrapbook.

  “Of course,” Mrs. Glasser answered. “Leave this. I’ll clean it up later. Come.”

  Olivia and Ben followed her into the living room, where she opened a cabinet below the bookshelf and struggled to remove the heavy book. Ben took it from her and set it down on the coffee table.

  Mrs. Glasser sat in the middle of the couch and patted the cushions on either side of her. “Sit.”

  Olivia and Ben sat on opposite sides of her. Ben lifted the scrapbook onto his grandma’s lap.

  As soon as Mrs. Glasser opened the large book, Olivia could smell the years it contained. She looked at Mrs. Glasser, whose eyes had gone glossy. Olivia couldn’t imagine what it would be like to travel back in time like that. To be ninety and revisit what she looked like, felt like, dreamed of when she was twenty-one.

  “This was my best friend, Josephine. JoJo, I called her,” Mrs. Glasser said, pointing to a photograph of a girl with wavy brown hair and an exuberance to her smile. Mrs. Glasser took a deep breath.

  “Where is … Is she…” Olivia was hesitant to ask, but she also was so curious to know.

  “JoJo died about ten years ago. Breast cancer,” Mrs. Glasser said sadly.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Aunt JoJo was the best,” Ben said. “We were very close to her. She was like a second grandmother to me. And her daughter and grandkids were—still are—like an aunt and cousins. They lived near us when I was growing up, so it was almost as if we had a bigger family.”

  “Family is so important,” Mrs. Glasser said wistfully.

  Olivia and Ben looked at each other over Mrs. Glasser’s back and smiled sadly.

  Mrs. Glasser turned the pages slowly, telling stories to Olivia and Ben about each page. Before the Miss Subways mementos, there were class photos, pictures of her family, pictures of her friends, and the program from her college graduation.

  Mrs. Glasser stopped for a while, without saying anything, on a photograph of a young handsome man. She touched the photo with her fingers as if she could somehow bring it to life. Olivia stared at the photo as well, wondering what the significance was, when she saw a tear drop onto the photo from Mrs. Glasser’s eye.

  Mrs. Glasser reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

  “This photograph was in a frame in my parents’ house on the mantel for years. I used to kiss it every time I walked by it. This is my brother. Harry. He died in the war.”

  Olivia put her arm around Mrs. Glasser’s shoulders.

  What must it be like to lose all the people you love? Olivia realized at that moment that besides James and Jenna, she didn’t love anyone. She was an only child, so besides her parents—and finding any love for them was difficult—she had no family who she was even remotely close to. A huge wave of sadness washed over her, and she felt like she was gasping for air. She didn’t realize she had made a sound until she felt Ben touching her shoulder. She looked at him over Mrs. Glasser’s back.

  Are you okay? he mouthed to her.

  Olivia nodded and looked back down at the scrapbook.

  Mrs. Glasser’s mood changed noticeably when she got to the Miss Subways mementos.

  There was a photograph of Mrs. Glasser sitting on the subway, smiling and pointing above her to her own Miss Subways poster, and a few posed ones of her from what she said was her launch event. She mentioned that most of the Miss Subways had had launch event photos taken of themselves with their families, but there were none like that of Mrs. Glasser. The only other photo from the event was a candid of Mrs. Glasser and a gorgeous young woman who looked like Elizabeth Taylor with a fuller face. In the photo they were talking to each other with serious looks on their faces.

  “Was that a friend of yours?” Olivia asked.

  “That was Rose Grant,” Mrs. Glasser said in a clipped voice, and turned the page quickly.

  Mrs. Glasser had included a bunch of newspaper clippings, some that mentioned her and some that mentioned Miss Subways winners who had come after her.

  She said there used to be a club of sorts of the Miss Subways winners, and they would go on outings and to dinners. She pointed to an article from Collier’s that featured her and a bunch of other girls playing around at the beach.

  “I saw that spread while I was doing research,” Olivia said.

  “What a glorious day that was! I haven’t looked at this scrapbook in ages. I’ve forgotten what’s all in here,” Mrs. Glasser said.

  Suddenly she closed the scrapbook and lifted it with some effort back onto the table.

  “Are you okay, Grandma?” Ben asked, concerned.

  “Just tired. All of those ghosts can do that to an old lady. You kids don’t leave on my account. I’m just going to bed.” She got up from the couch and started to walk to her bedroom. “Stay, stay,” Mrs. Glasser said when she
saw Ben getting up to walk with her. “I’m fine.”

  Ben and Olivia honored her wishes and silently watched her walk toward her bedroom. They heard her shut the door.

  “She must really be tired, because she never goes to bed without cleaning up the kitchen.”

  “I can do that,” Olivia said.

  “That’s fine. I don’t mind,” Ben said, pulling the scrapbook back off the table and opening it on his lap. “This book is amazing. She’s never shown it to me before. I feel like I’ve seen every photo album in this apartment a hundred times but never this scrapbook.”

  Olivia moved a little closer so she could see. Ben flipped it open to the middle, and it was the page of photos from Mrs. Glasser’s launch event. There was something about the way that Mrs. Glasser seemed to be reacting to whatever that Rose Grant was telling her that seemed strange to Olivia. She bent over to have a closer look.

  “You noticed that too?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah, your grandma looks agitated, doesn’t she?”

  “She does. But she turned that page so fast, I just figured she didn’t want to talk about it. I never heard that name Rose Grant growing up. I guess she was someone my grandma wanted to leave in the past.”

  Ben turned the pages, and they looked again at all the newspaper clippings. As they turned the last page, some letters slipped out onto the floor.

  Olivia bent over to pick them up and then handed them to Ben. He turned them over and looked at the return address. There were about ten envelopes, all sealed but one. All from the same return address: Rose Grant, 140 Westbury Road, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

  Olivia felt her phone buzz and looked at the screen.

  Matt

  I’m downstairs.

  Olivia

  Tell Nico to send you up. I’m just next door. I’ll meet you in hallway in minute.

  “I’ve gotta go, Ben,” Olivia said, standing up.

  “‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams,’ Olivia,” Ben said in a professor voice, and smiled at her.

  Olivia looked at him, her eyes opened wide. “No way. You didn’t just say that.”

  “‘Live the life you have imagined,’” Ben continued, his voice booming.

  “That’s my favorite quote,” Olivia said, bewildered.

  “Mine too,” he said, continuing to smile. “It’s wrong, you know.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The quote.”

  “What do you mean?” Olivia asked.

  “Thoreau actually said,” Ben said, clearing his throat dramatically, “and I quote, ‘I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.’”

  “Well, I’ll be…” Olivia said, surprised.

  “I was a philosophy major.”

  “I have that quote on my bulletin board in my office. The fake one, I guess,” she said, laughing.

  “It’s a good one. Too bad all the quote memes have bastardized it so that it’s more digestible by today’s standards. I liked it the way he originally wrote it.”

  Ben closed the scrapbook and set it down on the coffee table. He grabbed the letters and walked with Olivia toward the dining room, where she had left her purse.

  “Oh, let me help you clean up,” Olivia said, starting to put Scrabble tiles back into the burgundy velveteen pouch.

  “Don’t worry about that. You go. I’ve got it,” Ben said.

  “Thanks. And thanks for letting me crash your game night.”

  Ben started walking with Olivia toward the door. He was still holding the letters.

  “I’m fine. Thanks, Ben. I’ll see myself out.” Olivia really did not want Ben and Matt to cross paths.

  “No problem,” Ben said. “I was raised to show a lady to her door.”

  Olivia smiled nervously and opened the door.

  Just then the elevator dinged.

  “I’m fine, Ben, but thanks,” Olivia said, thinking if he closed the door now, he would be inside before Matt walked out of the elevator.

  But Ben just stood there in the threshold of his grandmother’s apartment, watching Olivia make her way four paces to her own apartment door.

  Olivia was fumbling with her keys, trying to get the right one. She finally had the key in the lock and had turned toward Ben to give him a telepathic message to shut his door when she saw Matt come out of the elevator.

  “Hey, Liv,” Matt said, smiling.

  Ben turned to look, and Olivia felt her stomach drop.

  “Hey, man,” Matt said kindly when he saw Ben standing there.

  “Ben, this is Matt Osborne. Matt, this is Ben.” She cringed, but she felt like Ben and Matt wouldn’t see her as anything but calm.

  Ben moved the envelopes from his right hand to his left and put his right hand out to shake Matt’s.

  “Hey. Nice to meet you,” Ben said.

  “Yeah, man,” Matt said. “Nice to meet you too.” He turned toward Olivia. “I thought you lived next to an old lady.”

  Olivia winced. “An older lady,” she said, emphasizing the “er.” “And Ben is her grandson. We just had a little game night,” Olivia added, smiling warmly at Ben.

  “Nice,” Matt said.

  Ben was looking at Olivia quizzically, but she just continued to smile as if it were normal to have good-looking men come to her apartment late at night. She didn’t owe Ben an explanation. So why was there part of her that felt like she did?

  Matt walked toward Olivia’s apartment and turned back to Ben. “Hey, it was nice meeting you, Ben. See you around.”

  Ben nodded, and Matt went into Olivia’s apartment.

  Olivia was about to follow him inside but turned toward Ben, who was about to go back into his grandma’s.

  “Hey, Ben,” Olivia called.

  “Yeah?” He turned around, a dejected look on his face.

  “Are you going to read those letters?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Okay,” Olivia said gently. “Good night. Thanks again.”

  Ben nodded and turned away again. Olivia felt a pang of something she couldn’t quite interpret. And then she followed Matt inside.

  CHAPTER 15

  CHARLOTTE

  MONDAY, MARCH 21, 1949

  Charlotte flew down the stairs. The telephone had rung several times, and she wanted to answer it before the caller gave up, since she was anticipating a response from one final agency. She would most likely hear via letter, but, Charlotte thought, it wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary if they decided to phone her instead.

  The plan was that if it was another no, she’d put on her most comfortable shoes and her most confident expression and walk up one side of Madison Avenue and down the other until she found a suitable placement. At this point, even unsuitable would do. She’d actually considered canvassing the engagement notices to see if any of the girls were in advertising, their impending nuptials most likely indicating their present employer would soon need to fill a seat.

  “Is this Charlotte Friedman?” a familiar voice asked. Charlotte sensed a bit of urgency in the voice, like a drop of grapefruit juice in a morning glass of OJ.

  “It is.”

  “This is Diana Fontaine from the John Robert Powers Modeling Agency. Rose Grant, our first selection for July’s Miss Subways, is unable to fulfill her responsibilities. Since you were Mr. Powers’s next choice, would you be able to come to our offices right now to do the photo shoot?”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  “What happened to Rose?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Does that mean—”

  “It means you, dear, are officially Miss Subways for July. Are you able to come?”

  “It’ll take me about an hour on the train, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Charlotte hung up the phone and fro
ze. So many questions ran through her mind. What on this great green earth had happened to Rose? Unable to fulfill her responsibilities? What could that even mean? But Charlotte knew she had no time for fruitless reverie.

  Thankfully, she was fully dressed, as she was planning on going to Manhattan anyway for a class. She’d call Professor Finley’s secretary later to claim illness, though Professor Finley was well known for not excusing any absence unless it was due to the student’s own untimely death.

  Once she was on the train, and had offered a prayer of thanks to the Miss Subways goddesses via Thelma Porter’s poster overhead, Charlotte was able to think about what this could mean. A second chance at her plan had to be some sort of sign, right?

  She couldn’t wait to tell JoJo. Sam was a different story. After their proposal fiasco on Friday night, Charlotte had woken up late the next morning. The sour taste in her mouth no match for the dull thud in her head and the sharp ache in her heart. Memories of the night before had come rushing back, and Charlotte tried to parse out her confused and conflicted feelings for Sam and Rose. Was her anger justified? Or was she overreacting to something that was just a joke? A lame joke, perhaps. But a joke, nonetheless.

  The more Charlotte scrutinized the previous night, the clearer the lens through which she viewed everyone’s actions. And while Charlotte wasn’t madly in love with how the whole night unfolded, she was certain that Sam and Rose were just having fun. And perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing. She had been confident that when Sam showed up later that day—which he most certainly would—with a bouquet of flowers and an apology as fragrant, she’d forgive him.

  But Sam hadn’t shown up with a bouquet, an apology, or otherwise on Saturday afternoon. Or the entire weekend, for that matter. Charlotte’s speculations as to why that was ranged from the morbid—he must have been hit by a crosstown bus and is in a coma on the top floor of a Midtown hospital—to the unlikely—he was so drunk that he woke up the next morning having no memory of the fight the night before—to the self-flagellating—he finally realized that after all those proposals, she would never say yes, so he packed up his hopes with his overtures and set out to find a less difficult woman.