Modern Girls

by Jennifer S. Brown

  I went back to the bed and slipped beneath the covers. “Willie,” I whispered. He didn’t move. “Willie,” I said louder, shaking him gently.

  He gripped my side and pulled me toward him, still half-asleep.

  “Willie, we need to go tell my parents we’re married.”

  His grip loosened.

  “We need to go before they worry.”

  Cracking open an eye, Willie looked at the clock. He groaned and closed his eyes again. “It’s still the middle of the night. We’ll go later.”

  “Tateh will leave for work soon. We need to go now.” A little frantic, I gave him another small shake.

  “You go,” he said. His speech was thick with sleep and barely more than a mumble. “I’ll go another day.” And he rolled back onto his side, away from me.

  I’d have to go to my parents alone. Sitting up again, I looked for my clothes, which in our passion Willie had flung across the room. I tried to make do in the bathroom with a washcloth and a bar of soap, but I had nothing fresh to wear, so I put on yesterday’s clothes. I was sorry I didn’t have a hairbrush or a toothbrush to make myself feel more presentable. I scrubbed my teeth with my finger, swishing water around my mouth. From my purse, I fetched lipstick and face powder. It would have to do. Glancing in the mirror, I saw I looked passable. Not my best day, but certainly no one would guess what I had gotten up to last night.

  When I was set for the day, I leaned over my sleeping husband, hesitating only momentarily before giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be back later,” I whispered. We’d agreed last night we would stay in the hotel until it was time to leave for Europe. Just the thought of Europe made me catch my breath.

  Before leaving, I scrutinized the near stranger with whom I was now locked in matrimony. His hair was disheveled and one slender arm lay atop the covers. His chest was pale and smooth, with barely a hair upon it. He looked innocent. Vulnerable.

  He looked like a boy compared with Abe.

  A sharp sense of regret mixed with last night’s bourbon made my stomach lurch. No point dwelling on what was lost forever. But still . . .

  What was I doing here? Here in this opulent hotel room, with an Asian-style ceramic vase filled with fresh flowers, a pale green chaise longue tucked in the corner, the double bed piled high with sumptuous pillows. This was the room I wanted Ma to make. This was the life the magazines promised. Well, I would embrace it. I was going to do everything it took to guard that it didn’t slip away. To make sure this was the life to which my child would become accustomed. Even if it was no longer the life I wanted, my child deserved every bit of it.

  Rose

  Friday, August 30

  MY body still felt feverish when I awoke Friday morning, but it was no longer boiling. My abdomen burned, but my energy was returning. Peeking beneath my clothes, I saw that the bleeding was slower, and a tremendous relief washed over me: I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital.

  Outside the bedroom door, I heard movement. “Ben,” I called, but my voice was hoarse. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Ben.”

  The door opened, and Ben peered inside. Seeing me alert, he smiled. “You’re awake. How are you feeling, my beshert?”

  The warmth in his voice soothed me like nothing else. When the world was falling apart around me, Ben could always hold me up. “Better,” I said. “Much better.”

  He came in and kissed my brow. “I’m so relieved. Perle will be back later this morning. I had a heck of a time getting rid of her last night. I thought she was going to sleep right there on the floor by the bed.”

  Though it sounded weak to my ears, I laughed. “Where’s Dottie?”

  “Zelda came by last night. Said Dottie would be staying with her to help with Shirley.”

  Help with Shirley? That was odd. What kind of help would Zelda need? “Why didn’t Dottie come herself? And why—” I was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and Dottie’s voice calling, “Ma? Tateh? Are you still here?”

  Ben kissed me again and said, “Ah, speak of the devil. I’ll go talk with her.”

  From the bedroom, I could hear their muted voices, Dottie’s rising in exclamation, Ben hushing it down. I was confused: Why would Dottie have spent the night at Zelda’s? Her apartment wasn’t big enough for Zelda, her husband, Shirley, and a guest. Why on God’s earth would Zelda need any help from Dottie? She had Perle for that. Although I supposed since Perle was with me . . . But no. Zelda’s mother-in-law was also available. And wouldn’t Dottie come to tell us herself if she was going to spend the night out?

  Slowly a delightful notion rose like bubbles in my mind, bubbles delicately floating heavenward, light and beautiful. Of course Dottie hadn’t been with Zelda. Dottie had succeeded! Dottie had spent the night with Abe.

  In the midst of my pain, hope surged. That must be what Dottie had done. I would plan a wedding. The hell with Mrs. Rabinowitz. I’d have to work quickly, as the baby would appear to be quite early, but this wouldn’t be the first time it happened. The engulfing relief worked its magic in reducing the pain. I needed fabric. I would sew Dottie a lovely dress. Finally my skills as a seamstress would be put to use on a labor of love.

  As Dottie dashed into the room, I couldn’t suppress a smile.

  “Ma,” Dottie said, rushing to the chair by my bed. I could hear Ben in the kitchen, making coffee. “What have you done?”

  “What have you done?” I asked, my voice singsonging with joy. “And who were you with last night?”

  Dottie shook her head. “Ma, tell me what you did.”

  “I did nothing,” I said.

  “Of course you did something. Why are you here in bed, sick, if you did nothing?”

  “Oh, my Dottala! Don’t worry about me. Tell me what you did!”

  “Ma!” Dottie’s voice held the same threatening tone mine did when I was speaking to the boys. “What did you do?”

  “I did nothing,” I said. “But I did lose a baby. I was with child. I miscarried. I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “Lost a baby? Is that what you call it?”

  “Dottala, I am sick,” I said. “Don’t make me strain myself.”

  She stared at me. “Lost a baby. How convenient that you lost a baby, the very same day I had . . .” Her voice faltered. She threw her shoulders back and took a deep breath. “The same day I had an appointment.” She looked at me hard. “You can say what you will of me, Ma, but you didn’t raise a fool.”

  “Coincidences happen,” I said. “Now don’t torture your old ma.” My voice teased her. “Were you with Abe last night?”

  Dottie was clearly reluctant to change the subject, but finally she took a long deep breath and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I wasn’t.”

  The bubbles started to pop.

  “You weren’t with Abe?” The ether should have worn off. But I was confused.

  “No, Ma,” Dottie said. “I was not with Abe.”

  And with that, the bubbles went flat, like seltzer left out overnight. Reality returned and the pain in my midsection cried for attention. Well, it wasn’t as good as it could have been if Dottie had seduced Abe. But we were no worse off than we were ten minutes ago, and it would all work out.

  “Ma,” Dottie said, “why didn’t you tell me you were with child? Why did you do this?”

  “You had your own problems! Why should I trouble you with mine? Besides, I did nothing, my bubelah!”

  Dottie looked at me hard, as if trying to see through me. But I, who had kept so many secrets, could keep one more. Swiftly she stood. She marched to my dresser and opened the drawer.

  “Dottala . . . ,” I warned, but my voice was weak, and I was so very tired.

  Pulling out the tin, she opened the top and dumped the contents into her hand. Barely glancing at the stack, she said, “If you did nothing, you should hav
e forty dollars left. You paid fifty. You owed ten more. So if you did nothing, why are there only thirty dollars here?”

  “Oh, Dottala.” I reached my hand out toward Dottie, beckoning her, hoping that would be answer enough.

  She put the money and the tin back and returned to the chair by my side. “Don’t lie to me after all this. Don’t you think it’s time for you and me to stop keeping secrets from each other?”

  I stared at my little girl, so grown-up, and gave her only the barest of nods. “It was my problem, not yours. And now it’s gone.”

  The tears came on suddenly, her body shuddering with her sobs.

  “Don’t you understand, bubelah? Everything is again possible. We will be able to take care of your situation. Now we can raise your child. We will figure out a way to make this work. You will have to quit your job anyway, so now you go to school full-time when we return. We don’t have the money anymore for Washington Square, but you’ll go to City College.”

  The conversation exhausted me. She reached for a handkerchief from the side table to dab her eyes. Wasn’t this just like her? I was the one sick in bed and she was the one carrying on. “Stop your tears. There is no more crying. We will go away; you will have the baby. We return and tell everyone the child is mine. Tante Kate can keep an eye on Alfie and Eugene while we’re gone. When we return, you will have all the time in the world. Your education. Marrying Abe. There will be no rush.”

  Shaking her head, Dottie said, “It’s too late, Ma.”

  Despite the fever, a shiver ran through me, a premonition of what was to come. I tried to sit up, but failed. It was like speaking with a toddler. “What do you mean, Dottala?” When Dottie continued to sob, I put my hands on her arms and raised my voice. “What do you mean?”

  “Everything okay in there?” Ben called from the kitchen, before moving to the bedroom doorway. “I hear crying.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “Dottie’s upset about my loss. You should be going to the garage.”

  “The garage can wait. Dottie, you shouldn’t be distressing your mother like this.”

  “Shah,” I said. “Leave it to a man to not understand the grief of a woman. Go. Let us be.”

  Ben eyed us for a moment, before giving a curt nod and retreating to the next room.

  I turned back to Dottie and spoke in a loud whisper. “Tell me now. What did you do?”

  Dottie tried to calm herself, so I gave her a moment, stroking her hair and brushing it from her face. “Tell me, bubelah,” I said, “It’s all right. We can fix most anything.” I picked up Dottie’s hand and right away I felt something hard and smooth. I looked down. At the sight of the plain gold band, I dropped her hand in shock and stared at her finger as if it were a pork sausage in my kitchen. Dottie made no move to hide her hand. In fact, she began to twist the band around her finger.

  I looked into Dottie’s face. “You married Abe?” I asked, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew this wasn’t the case. But the only other possibility was too horrifying to even consider.

  Dottie’s voice was hardly more than a murmur. “I married Willie.”

  A gasp flew out of me.

  “Last night. We married at his house.” She wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “It wasn’t supposed to work out like this.”

  “I—I don’t—” I was speechless. I looked helplessly at Dottie, waiting for her explanation.

  “I told Mrs. Klein about the baby. She sprang the wedding on me. I had no way to let you know.”

  “You married Willie?” My stomach hurt in a new way.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  So many thoughts fought for space in my mind, I didn’t know where to turn first: Dottie didn’t marry Abe. Dottie married Willie. What was Willie? A spoiled layabout. A seducer. Willie Klein was going to take care of my Dottie? The Kleins were now my machatunim? My daughter married and I wasn’t there to see it? “You didn’t want to try again with Abe?”

  “Abe is done. He guessed my secret.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t surprised.

  “Do you—” I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to ask. “Do you love Willie?”

  Dottie sat taller. “I’ll grow to love him. That’s what you said about Tateh. That you barely knew him. That first you married. Then your love grew.”

  “But it was a different time.” My voice softened. “Nowadays, people marry for love.”

  Dottie stiffened. “Well, I loved Abe. And he didn’t want me.”

  “But does Willie?” The idea of my baby hobbled to a man who didn’t want her crushed my heart.

  “He didn’t have a choice,” Dottie said, her voice catching. “And neither did I.”

  “But—” So many questions. Where to begin? I picked the most obvious. “Will you live with his parents?”

  Dottie trained her eyes on the ceiling, a trick of hers when she was trying not to cry. “No.”

  “But then where? Can he afford his own home?”

  Dottie brushed a stray hair behind her ear, the same way she’d done since she was a child, getting her hair out of the way to brace herself to be tough. “Willie is not giving up his job.”

  “His job? Speak plainly. You are going around in circles. What does an apartment have to do with his job?”

  She gave her eyes a last swipe with the handkerchief and then spoke in a tone that would brook no doubt. “Willie is a writer. The New Yorker is sending him to the Continent.”

  New Yorker? Continent? What continent? Our conversation from earlier in the week came rushing back to me. What was it she’d told me after she’d lunched with Willie? He was going to be a writer in Europe. He’s one kind of dummkopf if he thinks he’s going to Europe. He’s another kind of idiot if he thinks I’m going to allow Dottie to go with him. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

  “We leave for Paris on the twelfth.”

  “Paris! There’s a war brewing on the other side of the ocean. I’m struggling to bring my brother out of that treacherous place, and you are going there? What kind of fool is this Willie that he thinks it’s right to head into trouble with a wife and child?”

  “He’s the kind of fool to whom I’m married. Willie is going to Paris. I am going with him.”

  Who was this stranger sitting across from me? Such determination I’d never seen.

  “You cannot go. Who will help you with the baby in Paris?”

  “I’ll have to manage on my own.”

  “But how?”

  “Ma, you managed on your own when you came here. You traveled all the way from Russia by yourself. Found work. Found Tateh. When you had me, you didn’t have your parents here to help.”

  “But I had my brother, my cousin Ida. I had the landsmanshaft. I had Perle. And I didn’t have a choice. There was nothing for me in the Old Country. I had nothing to lose.”

  “There is nothing for me here.” Dottie’s voice remained firm and calm, but I slipped into desperation.

  I wanted to scream, to let myself wail, but I needed to keep myself quiet so Ben didn’t hear. “Nonsense. You have your parents. Your friends. Your future as an accountant.”

  “I have a child on the way. My future as an accountant is gone with this child. If I stay here, I stay in shame. Everyone will know I betrayed Abe, and then they’ll say there must be something wrong with me when my new husband deserts me. And when the baby comes in six months . . . No, Ma. There is nothing here for me.”

  I leaned back in the bed. Dottie was right. I knew that. But I couldn’t accept it. “No, my child. This cannot be.”

  “Don’t worry, Ma,” she said. “I’ll have Willie. I’ll find my way.”

  I closed my eyes. A heaviness settled over me and I longed to drift back to sleep, to wake up later and not remember this terrible dream. “No,” I said again. “I forbid it.”

  When I opened
my eyes, I saw Dottie looking down at her hand, not to avoid me but to gaze at her ring as if it were giving her courage. “I’m a married woman. I am expecting. You cannot forbid me.”

  I studied her face. She was no longer my red-cheeked toddler who ran wild in the streets, barefoot till the first snow, and even sometimes after. She was no longer the girl who longed to sew like her ma, who managed to always be underfoot. She was no longer the little mama who cared for her younger brothers. No, she would be a mother. My melancholy deepened. “What will Eugene do without you?”

  Dottie startled. I’d found the chink in her armor. Eugene.

  But she refused to be rattled for longer than a moment. “I can’t think of Eugene,” she said. “Eugene is your baby. I have my own baby to consider.”

  Nodding, I said, “Yes, he is my baby.” The time had come, it appeared, for me to take care of the children I had left. “So? Where is this husband of yours?”

  “He’s . . .” Dottie hesitated in such a way as to make me wonder if I was about to hear a lie. “He had to be at work early. I came home to tell you and to pick up some of my belongings.”

  “What kind of a man is that, not accompanying you to greet his in-laws?”

  “Ma, it’s not like it was. These are modern times.” But a flicker in her eye belied her tone, and I could tell she was hurt.

  “My little Dottala. All grown-up and married.”

  She gave a half smile, but I could see the tears gathering once more.

  “Come here, my bubelah.” She leaned in and I wrapped my arms around her, pretending one final time that she was my little girl and that I could make everything better with a kiss and a cookie.

  Dottie

  SEEING Ma weak was almost as shocking to me as knowing what she’d done. Why hadn’t she confided in me? But then again, if I were her, would I have confided in me? I was a mess. I didn’t know where to begin, what to feel. Heartache. Guilt. Fear.