His father shot him a sharp glance.
“It’s the neutraliser,” Mom explained, rolling up the wet newspapers.
Sophie stood in the tiny motel kitchen appalled by the bloody entrails leaking from cold, dead fish. Unaccountably, she wanted to cry. Instead, she groaned, “P-hew, yourselves, talk about stink!”
Her brothers laughed.
Mom put an arm over Sophie’s shoulder and addressed her husband and sons. “OK, remember the deal. You catch the fish—you clean them.”
Sophie was completely surprised by the next statement.
“We have some shopping to do,” she exchanged a knowing look with her husband, “to celebrate a young woman’s new hairdo.”
Sophie hated that her father knew what they had been talking about and closed her mind to any thought of her parents’ bedroom. She noticed for the first time in months, that Dan had grown even taller and more broad shouldered. He’d done a poor job shaving and she spotted a line of fur along his left jaw.
Mom insisted they dress up for dinner. She had bought candles, two more giant Pepsis and they stopped at Ida’s for a tub of mountain blackberry. Her father and brothers looked better now that they had showered.
She spent an hour in the motel bedroom deciding which new blouse to wear. She could hardly believe her tightwad mother buying two blouses. She even got something for herself—off the sale rack—an odd paisley turtleneck, a little too busy for Sophie’s taste, but now that they were becoming friends, one day, back in Denver, they’d have a long talk about fashion. Eventually, Sophie picked the blue blouse and just in time for as she emerged from the bedroom, Mom was putting supper on the table.
Her father sipped the last of his Scotch in short, swift sucks, as if he were inhaling oxygen. He raised an empty glass—“to two beautiful women in the family.” Mom beamed in her overbright turtleneck. Sophie smiled, playing with the back of her hair, surveying the baked potatoes and string beans and salad. It all looked fine except for that fleshy white fish. A long drink of Pepsi settled her stomach.
“Hey, sis,” Jimmy said sweetly, “you look really pretty with your curls, like someone on TV.”
Shelley Fabres? she was too cool to ask.
Dan chimed in. “Yeah, a completely new look. Very sexy.”
She wanted to crawl under the table or kick her big brother in the shins. Looking up, she found her mother watching her steadily, fondly, those tears in her eyes again.
“Thanks,” Sophie stared directly at the smudge of acne cream on Dan’s nose. “That’s what we were aiming for, ‘sexy’.”
Her father stifled a laugh.
Dan took a large forkful of potato.
Mom smiled.
What Sophie didn’t say was that she was saving her babysitting money to get her next permanent at the hairdressers’ school with Kathy. They’d have so much to talk about as they sat under the big, professional dryers. Kathy planned to have her hair frosted and Sophie wondered if she could get away with it, too.
Magic Peppers
Evelyn re-read the article at her window desk in the university newsroom. Mid-day: spring light was grudging so far. Three feet of snow had fallen this a.m., so she was waiting for that white luminosity. People teased her about harbouring in the corner. Why not take a desk in mid-fracas with the rest of the student reporters? They thought maybe she was snooty because of her grades and prizes. Quite the contrary; she wondered if they’d find out about her, discover she didn’t belong. Besides, she craved light, a likely inheritance from her Sicilian mother.
Evelyn was so lost in her notes that she didn’t hear Janet’s footsteps. Finally, she recognised the stride, familiar after four years of rooming together.
“Hey, Horace Greeley, the Pony Express arrives!”
Evelyn swivelled the chair, startled by a large white envelope. She noticed the university crest immediately; she’d dreamt about that return address. Why had Janet brought it here of all places?
Her friend read the expression. “I just know it’s good news. Don’t be mad at me.”
“Thanks,” she accepted the envelope. Evelyn wasn’t angry with her roommate. Janet was the kind of girl who got what she wanted and she assumed Evelyn would be a winner, too.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” The lanky woman leaned against the brick wall, trying to look casual.
“Of course,” Evelyn sounded rattled. “But I’ve got a deadline. This piece on the anti-war rally. For tomorrow’s paper.” She tossed back her brown pigtail and sat straighter in the wooden chair, her feet barely touching the floor.
“How long does it take to open an envelope?” Janet pouted.
“Janet!”
“Well, I opened my acceptance letter from Berkeley with you.” She played with the gold circle pin glinting from the collar of her angora sweater. “I didn’t even wait for Herb and you know he was dying for me to get into Berkeley, so he could accept the place at U.C. Med Centre.”
Evelyn looked at her pleadingly. “I’ve gotta concentrate now.”
“OK,” Janet shrugged her broad shoulders and threw on a white parka. “Sometimes your self-control is charming; today it’s a drag. I guess you’ll let me in on the news eventually.”
Evelyn heard the ticker tape. What now? Another village napalmed? Another assassination? More blather from the White House?
“Listen, Janet, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but …”
“Hey, whatever. I’m going to be late for my lecture on Schulman. Gotta run.”
Evelyn carefully tucked the letter in her big red purse and resumed writing. She needed the right tone for this important piece. Although she didn’t believe in objectivity, she did prize clarity and precision. Actually, reporting about the anti-war demonstrations was one kind of contribution to the peace movement.
The flurries diminished as she edited her story. By the time she finished, the sky was blue.
Evelyn grabbed a hot dog and walked down to the river which ran through her campus. Too cold for sitting, even in these thick textured black and red tights. So she paced the bank of the Mississippi eating the pungent frankfurter loaded with sauerkraut and green relish and extra hot mustard. She felt badly about Janet. Aside from Mama and Dan, Janet was the most important person in her life. To think they had met at Freshman orientation and now they were headed to graduate school. Four years before, Evelyn wasn’t sure she belonged in college at all and she couldn’t figure out why this brilliant musicology student from prep school would want to hang out with the child of an Italian widow who worked at a tire store on Lake Street. After picking up study skills from Janet, after getting a spot on the school paper (“Journalism?” Mama had asked. You make a good living at this?”), Evelyn relaxed into their friendship and enjoyed the differences.
The river ice was cracking. Despite this morning’s storm, they were headed for spring. Then summer. Where would she be next fall?
Dan hadn’t heard from any of the New York law schools—but he did have a back-up acceptance at Minnesota. They both did. Yet how much more exciting it would have been in New York, where they could visit grand museums and attend Broadway theatre.
“How you developed a taste for fancy culture, I don’t know,” Mama had said last week. “Besides, isn’t four years of college enough? Do you need more schooling to write for the newspapers?”
Evelyn unbuttoned her navy pea coat; the walking made her hot. If she exercised more, she’d lose a little weight.
She loved her mother, admired her, but sometimes shamefully wished for parents like Mr and Mrs Rosen. They didn’t think Janet was ambitious enough, urged her to get a Ph.D. in music rather than a teaching certificate. Dan, of course, understood Evelyn’s goals. He was going to spend three years in law school. Sometimes, though, she thought it didn’t matter to him if he stayed in Minneapolis his whole life. Evelyn knew she would die if she remained landlocked.
She savoured the last bite and pulled out the letter. After a short prayer, she slit the envelop
e from Columbia University.
Dear Miss Esposito,
We are pleased to inform you that …
She read the letter three times before she believed that she’d actually been admitted to the best journalism school in the country. It took four readings before she registered the fellowship.
At first she didn’t believe this grant. Then she did. Then she reckoned the fellowship was a mistake because they only accepted 25 percent women in each new class. She’d been advised not to expect funding. Maybe they thought she was one of those male Evelyns, from England. No, the letter was addressed to Miss Esposito (future foreign correspondent was in invisible ink). She couldn’t wait to tell Dan. Oh, damn, he was on that field trip to the state legislature. Tonight, she’d tell him tonight.
Meanwhile, she’d make up everything to Janet. She’d wait outside her friend’s class and share the happy news.
The taller girl pretended not to notice her, but Evelyn knew she’d been waiting.
Janet could read the good fortune in her friend’s eyes. “Evie! Evie! You did it! Congratulations. You did it!”
Evelyn grinned shyly and hunched her shoulders. She didn’t think she’d done anything. Columbia had done it. And she kept wondering if what they had done was a clerical mistake.
“We’ll go out to celebrate, just the two of us.” She grinned. “Let me treat you to dinner at Poon’s.”
Evelyn leaned against a case of ancient stringed instruments.
“OK, and we can plan your visit to me in New York and mine to you in San Francisco.” Evelyn giggled. This forced air into her lungs and she realised she hadn’t been breathing much since reading the acceptance.
“You’re going to have to get better at writing letters,” Janet teased.
“Oh, wait,” Evelyn’s heart sank. “Dan. I really should celebrate with him first.” She stepped forward from the rickety display case.
“Sure,” Janet said. “I understand. Herb would expect the same. Men! Hey, isn’t it weird that we’re going to grad school? I mean it’s exciting and I don’t know, so hard to believe. And scary?”
They walked across the slushy campus to their dormitory.
“Scary?” asked Evelyn.
“Well, we have so many choices, what if we make the wrong ones?”
Waiting for the traffic light, they stepped back on the curb to avoid being splashed by a VW Bug painted in psychedelic colours.
“If we make the best choices,” Evelyn said, “that’s all we have to do.”
“Evie, honey, do you think you live too much in your head?”
She shrugged. Evelyn hated it when Janet and Mama said the same thing.
As Dan opened the door to his studio apartment, he looked surprised to find her in his easy chair under the reading light. He was also clearly astonished by the aroma of eggplant parmesan warming in the oven.
Evelyn was almost bursting. She tried not to be disappointed when he failed to appear at dinner time. Of course they had no plans. They saw each other on weekends and then usually on Wednesday night. This was Tuesday.
“A little celebration,” she said, now embarrassed by her grandiosity.
“When did you hear?” He grinned.
Evelyn knew he’d be happy for her. She ran over and threw her arms around Dan’s lovely warm neck. “This afternoon,” she whispered into his ear.
He stepped back, puzzled. “But I just heard tonight.”
She waited, wondering which of them was delusional. He rushed ahead. “Senator Bissell offered me a summer internship. Dad told me about my law school grant and …”
“You got a grant? When? Where? Columbia? N.Y.U.?” It had been her idea for him to apply to the New York law schools. She knew he’d get in.
He gave her that look. “Minnesota. The U. You know that.” His blue eyes brightened. “If I do well, he’ll keep me on next year.”
“That’s uh, wonderful,” she faltered, hoping she had left the shimmering white envelope in her bag. One celebration at a time. It was great that he’d have something to fall back on if the New York schools were snooty about Midwestern applicants. “I bought a bottle of Chianti. Shall we toast?”
Wednesday was long. She attended classes, of course, wrote a short article on a faculty senate meeting, but was distracted, agitated all day.
This afternoon felt much warmer. Despite grey skies, snow was melting. In New York, she wouldn’t notice the weather so much, surrounded by all those gorgeous buildings. She always loved O’Keeffe’s Manhattan paintings. In Minnesota, the weather was like a visiting relative, always demanding attention. In New York you could concentrate on important things. It was a landscape of ideas.
Dan’s summer internship was a good opportunity. He could hardly expect to get one in New York before he started classes. She was a little worried about his planning next summer already. For her part, she had dreams of summer in the City—she didn’t care how she had to support herself, waitressing, selling lipstick at Woolworth’s. Surely once he heard from New York, his horizons would expand.
Dusty’s Tavern was noisier than usual tonight and as she waited at their regular booth for him to bring the pitcher, she wished she’d suggested a quieter place. The tall, radical rally leader nodded to her. Good, her piece on the demonstration must have come out OK. Janet and Herb were slow dancing to a new Stones’ song, in love and oblivious to loud conversations and clattering glasses. Maybe she was just rattled. It wasn’t as if she had bad news. She wasn’t pregnant or sick. She was about to graduate summa cum laude.
Evelyn took a long breath. Here she was on a regular Wednesday night date with her boyfriend—in truth, her fiancé, but they didn’t use that word because it seemed so bourgeois, because her mother would start sewing the wedding gown tonight. No, they’d agreed, no nuptials until after graduate school. She could never love anyone the way she loved Dan. He was intelligent, kind, funny. Janet said he was too quiet, but that’s because he was always thinking—about legal issues, about classical piano pieces, about her. Not enough people thought about things. She had imagined she’d meet more thinkers in college. She also knew one reason she loved Dan was that he loved her. He said she was different from the other girls, more serious. “Too serious,” Mama would say about both of them. Her mother found Dan dull, but appreciated that the law was a solid, lucrative profession.
“Hi there, Cloudy,” he set down the pitcher and glasses. “What’s got you brooding?”
“Just thinking.” She blenched. Evelyn raised the sweaty mug, then filled each glass to the brim. “We have something else to toast,” she said nervously.
He cocked his head. One of her favourite gestures. “Birdman,” she called him.
Evelyn raised her glass. “To Columbia University and their new Graduate Fellow, Evelyn Esposito!”
He took a long swallow and gaped at her. “Really, Evie? Really?!”
Her eyes filled as she pulled out the white envelope.
He read it scrupulously, as a smart lawyer might.
She repeated every word silently to herself.
He was crying now. “That’s terrific. I’m so proud of you!”
She beamed. “I just feel stunned. And antsy for the next letter from New York.”
“The next letter?” he looked puzzled and then—how she wished she hadn’t seen this expression in his face—guilty.
Oh, no, she thought, he’s been turned down and didn’t want to tell me. Poor guy. It wasn’t fair. Well, that was OK, she could stay here. It was a good school. She wasn’t going to desert him.
“Evie, honey, I have something to tell you.” He took a gulp of beer.
“I think I can guess,” she said gently.
“You can,” he looked relieved and apprehensive all at once.
“You didn’t get accepted in New York.”
“Something like that.”
Her turn to look baffled. Beer buzzed in her head. She pushed the glass aside on the thickly lacquered table.
The bones in her face ached. “What are we going to do?” She was more flabbergasted than angry or scared.
He refilled their glasses and spoke thoughtfully. “We’ll see each other at Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation. And spring break! We’ll write letters. We’ll phone.” His voice lightened, “We’ll have the summers. And Columbia only takes two years. Then you’ll be back here for good. I finish law school. We’ll do the ‘m’ thing,” he winked. “Nothing’s changed. Our plans just hit a little blip.”
She couldn’t catch her breath. Why such panic? All of a sudden she felt terrified. New York was a big city. She’d never imagined moving alone. Obviously he would be accepted wherever he applied; she had been the one with slim chances. People got murdered in Manhattan. She didn’t know anyone there. Her mind fast forwarded. She loved Dan and didn’t want to pass two years seeing him only on holidays. She felt dizzy, probably from drinking that second glass too fast.
“I think I need to get out of here,” she stammered.
“Sure, honey.”
She’d known Dusty’s was the wrong place tonight. She’d realised this the minute she walked in.
The view from Janet and Herb’s new apartment was stunning, like a travel brochure. Sailboats docking by the San Francisco Marina at the end of a hot August day. Beyond that, the magical Golden Gate Bridge spanned a glorious Pacific Bay. But how did she get here? This was the wrong ocean. New York faced the Atlantic. She should be watching sun rising over the ocean, not setting. Then there was Minneapolis, where you could cross the Mississippi in a couple of minutes and view risings and settings from either bank.
Evelyn had done a terrible thing: she’d accepted offers from both schools, then told Dan she couldn’t decide. Now she’d run off to California to see if Janet could help her sort things out.
It took nerve (or desperation) to impose on newly-weds in a small apartment, but her best friend said, you’re always welcome. Just for a week, Evelyn told herself. A week on the edge of the continent—far from schools, from Dan, her mother—this distance would help her resolve things.
The Night Singers Page 10
