Modern Girls

by Jennifer S. Brown

  I brushed a hair from Alfie’s face, and he moved to object, then changed his mind. It must have taken all his courage to ask, “Why are you going, Dottie?”

  I shrugged at him. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “Why don’t you have a choice?” Eugene asked.

  “Because I’m married. Where my husband goes, I need to go. And he’s going to Europe.”

  “And there’s a baby? Inside you now?” Eugene asked.

  I wished he didn’t know that. I nodded.

  “How did it get there?”

  Alfie and I exchanged looks. “Uh . . . ,” I began.

  “I’ll tell ya later,” Alfie said.

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “You know?”

  His turn to shrug. “I’ve heard.”

  Not trusting whatever Alfie had heard on the street, I said, “Maybe you should both ask Izzy.”

  “I’m still angry at you,” Alfie said.

  “I’m still angry at me,” I said.

  He nodded. The two finished their ice cream quietly. They were clearly still angry with me. But they were speaking to me. And I’d take that as a start.

  • • •

  THE rest of the day I listened to Ma’s instructions about where to shop and what to buy. She wanted to come with me, insisting she was feeling well enough to be up and about, but I kept pushing her down and telling her to rest more. In the evening there was another torturous dinner at the Kleins’. Willie and I couldn’t make our exit fast enough.

  When we left his parents’ apartment, the air held the slight coolness that hinted at autumn. I always looked forward to it—the changing colors, the promise of Rosh Hashanah, the excitement of a new season of clothes. What would fall be like in Paris?

  “I still haven’t told Linda and Edith about our marriage,” I said. “I should have stopped by yesterday, but there’s so much to be done.” It was an excuse. I was terrified at what they’d think.

  “So do it tonight. What do you say we make our grand appearance?” Willie asked, taking me by the arm.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Let’s hit the café on Second Avenue.”

  I leveled my gaze at him. What was he up to? “Do you think it’s the best idea?”

  “Why not?” He grinned, and I realized I was his prize to flaunt. He had his girls. He had me. Willie Klein was having his cake and eating it, too, and he wanted the whole world to know it.

  The idea chilled me. I wasn’t ready to face Edith and Linda, and on a Sunday night they would surely be there. Wasn’t tonight the night they were going to the Jean Harlow pic? It was a year ago that Edith had suggested going to the pictures, but really, it had been only last week. We always went to the café after a movie. And what about Abe? Would Abe be at the café?

  But Willie whisked me off in a cab, deaf to my protests, and we barreled down to the lower East Side. This was crazy. Downright insane.

  A half hour later, we stood at the entrance. Inside was the normal busyness of a Sunday evening. Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped by twenty degrees. I shivered.

  “You’ll be fine,” Willie said, and I wondered when he’d stop testing me.

  We opened the door and stepped in. As eyes darted to see who’d entered, a silence enveloped the room. Clearly our news had preceded us.

  Willie seemed a little nervous as he looked around the room, perhaps wondering if he’d grossly miscalculated.

  I caught Edith’s wide eyes; then she deliberately looked across the room. I followed her gaze.

  Abe. And next to him: Sadie Kraus.

  My breath caught in my throat. Willie saw me staring and looked in the same direction. When he saw Abe, a malicious smile stretched across his face. He threw his arm around my shoulder and led me in another step. Addressing the room, he said, “Isn’t anyone going to offer the newlywed couple a beer?”

  Abe stood abruptly, the table tottering as his friends grabbed hold of it. Raising his arm, he smashed his beer glass to the ground.

  “Let’s go, Sadie,” he said, grabbing her arm roughly. He stormed toward us—or, rather, toward the door. Sadie looked at me from beneath her eyelashes, a look of victory, and she gave me a half grin as she tried to keep up with Abe, stumbling in her fancy heeled shoes. Willie and I were blocking the way, and as I scrambled to move, Abe and I locked eyes, and I knew his expression would haunt me for decades to come. I wanted to reach out to him, to stroke his cheek, to ease his heart. My hand stretched out of its own accord, but I pulled it back. There was no point. Abe pushed between us. My last view of him was his hunched, angry shoulders. Sadie turned around for one last look, eyebrows raised triumphantly as the door closed behind them. Abe was gone.

  Willie pulled me from the doorway into the room.

  “Well, Will,” one of his friends called from across the room, “you always did know how to make an entrance.”

  With that, the spell was broken and the room buzzed. A counterman cleaned Abe’s mess. Willie laughed and headed over to his friends. I was shattered, despondent. Abe. I wanted to run after him, to hold him, to comfort him. But I was Mrs. William Klein, so I swallowed my misery and made my way to Linda and Edith.

  The two girls stared at me as I sat down.

  “What in good God’s name have you done?” Edith said, a hiss to her voice.

  “Now, now,” Linda said, always the peacemaker.

  “No, I’m not going to now, now. Is it true? You’re married? And”—Edith spit out the word—“pregnant?”

  The tears came unbidden. I didn’t even care who saw them, not that anyone was paying attention to me; Willie commanded the room.

  Edith’s voice rose dangerously. “How could you do that to Abe?” Linda put a hand on Edith’s to signal her to quiet.

  I took slow, deep breaths to avoid heaving sobs. Linda pulled a handkerchief from her purse and handed it to me.

  Edith said, “How could you do that to us?”

  For a minute, I gave in to the tears, Linda rubbing my arm, Edith wild-eyed and angry. But they waited for me to cry it out.

  Finally, when I was composed enough to speak, I said, “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it to Abe. I didn’t mean to do it to myself.” I dabbed my eyes, afraid they’d start welling again. “Look at me. Look at the mess I’ve made of my life. Saddled with that . . . that . . .” I looked across the room at Willie drinking a beer, the life of the party. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “That buffoon.”

  With a snort, Edith said, “You made your bed. And clearly you’ve already lain in it.”

  “Edie,” Linda said. Anger tinged her voice. “Dottie is our friend. Show her sympathy.”

  “Sympathy?” Edith wiped the corner of her eye, and I realized she was close to crying. Edith crying? What had I done? “What about sympathy for us? Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you. We would have helped you.”

  “How?” I asked. “You would have taken me in with the baby? Helped me diaper it and walk it in the carriage?” I shook my head. “This was the only way it could have happened. You know that. If I had a baby on my own, I would be shunned for the rest of my life. Now at least I’m an honest woman.”

  Linda took my hand in her own. I looked gratefully at her. “I’m so sorry, Dottie,” she said. “I understand. You did what you had to do.” With a glare at Edith, she said, “Happy endings are only in fairy tales.”

  Around us, the room roared along as usual, with squealing and chitchat and flirting. But Linda and I were two unhappy women, lost in our thoughts of Abe and of Ralph. Of happiness and of necessity.

  Finally, Edith said, “Are you really going with him? Are you really leaving us for Europe?” Her voice was quiet now, but full of anguish.

  “I am,” I said.

  We sat another minute.

 
“Well,” Edith said, “let me at least buy you a beer.”

  Rose

  Monday, September 2

  THE invitation arrived in the afternoon mail, the same heavy cream card stock and the same engraved return address on the back flap. But instead of being addressed to Dottie, this card came to me.

  I gently opened the flap and ran my finger over the lining. Never had I touched such rich paper. Such luxury put one in more pleasant spirits.

  Pulling out the note, however, erased my good cheer. “The nerve of that woman,” I said.

  Hovering anxiously at my shoulder was Dottie. She was making me a little crazy the way she didn’t want me to do anything. But I was fine. A couple days of rest and now it was back to work. And so much work there was, preparing for Dottie’s departure. But this, I knew, wasn’t about my overdoing it; she recognized the envelope.

  “What? What did she say?” Dottie asked.

  Disgusted, I tossed down the note. “She invited us to dinner. Tomorrow. Not even for Shabbes.”

  Dottie fell with a plop on the couch, and for a moment I thought she fainted, but quickly realized she was only being melodramatic.

  “She wants . . . us? All of us? To dinner?”

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Do you think . . .” Dottie paused, carefully weighing her words. “Do you think you should be going all the way uptown? You’re not yet fully recovered.”

  So worried about her mama. Feh. That girl was worried about how we would look, how we would act in Molly Klein’s fancy-shmancy uptown apartment.

  “I can’t sit on a streetcar? Lift a fork to my mouth? I’m recovered enough for a dinner uptown.”

  I continued my stitching. I had much to do if Dottie was going to have a proper trousseau to take with her to the Continent.

  Dottie picked up the letter and scanned it for herself. “Why did you accuse her of chutzpah?”

  My fingers ached slightly, but my stitches were as delicate as ever. Something in which I could still take pride. “I invited the Kleins here.”

  “You did what?” Dottie leaped up and paced the small room.

  “She’s too good to come to us?” I finished the corner of the linen I was working on, tore the thread off with my teeth, and then switched to the next side. “Remember, Molly is Perle’s sister-in-law. I knew that family well. Too good for our home? Chutzpah.”

  “I still don’t see why you had to invite her here!”

  Dottie glanced around, and I knew she was trying to picture the Kleins here. That Dottie, she could be a prideful one. Our home was lovely; she didn’t appreciate it.

  “You’re making me dizzy with this back-and-forth. Sit.”

  Dottie sat in the chair next to mine. “Why did you invite her?”

  I set my sewing in my lap and cupped her chin in my hand, forcing Dottie’s gaze to my own. “Because meeting with your daughter’s in-laws is the proper thing to do. That Molly Klein would never have done the right thing on her own, and while I don’t relish an evening with her, it’s what’s required. They are our machatunim now, and we need to have them over.” As I released Dottie, my eyes grazed the note that was still in her hand. “Ridiculous!”

  “Of course,” Dottie agreed. “It’s insulting! We should not go. That will teach them.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “What, I was born yesterday?”

  She had the common decency to appear chagrined.

  “We will go,” I said. “Of that you can be sure.”

  • • •

  THE next afternoon, while Dottie awkwardly sewed linens, I dispatched Alfie to the garage to remind Ben to come home early to clean up.

  “I need to run an errand,” I said, putting my work aside and standing. My body felt stiff and my abdomen ached, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle.

  “Absolutely not,” Dottie said. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Don’t go rushing off.”

  “Who’s rushing?” I said.

  “I’ll go,” she said, getting up.

  “No. I’m just going to Perle’s. I’ll be fine.”

  “If you need Perle, I’ll get her and bring her back here.” Dottie’s eyes scanned my body as if she was waiting for it to fall apart. Her concern was sweet. And annoying.

  “I am going to Perle’s.” Looking at the cloth in her hand, I sighed. “Rip out those stitches. They are too wide. They’ll never last.”

  Despite her protests, I made it out of the apartment and over to Perle’s. Not that I would ever admit it to Dottie, but I was nervous about dinner at the Kleins’. What would I wear? What would we talk about?

  “Don’t you worry about that old biddy,” Perle said to me when I arrived and after she admonished me about making the journey. But sitting in my apartment made me cranky, and the fresh air did more for me than all that bed rest. “My sister-in-law has a fear of her Old World roots being exposed. Remember her father was a horse trader back home. The lowest of the low.” Perle laughed maliciously. “If it weren’t for Ira, Molly would still be living in the mud. Now, let’s see to your outfit.”

  Perle went through her closet, looking for something elegant. As a representative for the Workers’ Alliance, she sometimes had occasion to dress well. She found a deep green suit that, while a smidgen short and a tad snug in the bosom, did the job nicely.

  “You look high society,” Perle said.

  “What happens when I open my mouth? What if I embarrass us?”

  “That woman should be trying to impress you. Don’t you worry about what she thinks. She needs to show you that she’s worthy of the Krasinsky family.”

  I nodded and studied myself again in the mirror, bending this way and that to try to see myself in my entirety. I looked good. Uptown. For the first time, I could almost understand Dottie’s concern with clothes. There was something nice about feeling so elegant. Perhaps I should sew myself some new clothes. Through my sadness for Dottie and the baby, one thought had been furtively lurking: I was free to resume my work. As soon as Dottie’s trousseau was prepared, I would purchase some cloth for myself. I’d have new things to wear when I met with officials for the Women’s Conference. To wear when I worked for the union again. Because I had decided. It was time. I would return to the union. It needed me.

  “You look nice.” Perle put her hands on my shoulders. “You will do fine at the Kleins’. The only thing you need to remember is to use the silverware from the outside in.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” I asked.

  Perle laughed. “You’ll see. She’ll have enough silverware for four meals at that one dinner. From the outside, in.”

  I glanced again at myself, pleased. “From the outside in.”

  Dottie

  Tuesday, September 3

  AS we entered the building, I kept a sharp eye on Ma, trying to gauge her reaction. But she showed no emotion as I gave our names to the doorman, entered the elevator, and walked down the endless hallway to the apartment. Ma looked sharp in a green suit I’d never seen before. When I asked where it came from, she just gave me a sly smile. But I was pleased she was trying. I was also relieved that Ma had suggested the boys stay at home—the boom boom boom of the Allied planes would not go over well at the Kleins’—but as much as I tried to suppress it, I was self-conscious about the smell of oil and gas that hovered about Tateh. He had scrubbed himself in the tub—an unheard-of luxury for a Tuesday evening—but the smell would never completely disappear, and his hands advertised the inky black of his profession.

  When the maid opened the door, Ma nodded at her, as if she were accustomed to servants, and held her head haughtily as she walked in. If I hadn’t known better, I would never have guessed that four days ago she was bedridden. Tateh handed his hat to the maid, who disappeared with it into another room.

  “Ah, Rose, Ben. So good of
you to join us,” Mrs. Klein said in English as she walked into the foyer to greet us in a beautiful dress of pale peach chiffon. Her words were welcoming, but her bearing was stiff. She shook Ma’s hand and then barely grasped Tateh’s, no doubt concerned the dirt of the garage would soil her. At that moment, I despised her. But I willed myself to smile.

  “Dottie,” Mrs. Klein said, leaning in to kiss my cheek. The gesture was almost warm, almost convincing.

  “Mrs. Klein,” I said.

  “Ours is the pleasure, Molly,” Ma said awkwardly in English. “Where is Ira?”

  “He’ll be joining us shortly,” Mrs. Klein said. “Delayed by business.”

  Under his breath, Tateh muttered in Yiddish, “But I had to leave the garage early?”

  “Shah,” Ma whispered back.

  “Why don’t we step into the parlor? Willie will fix us cocktails.”

  Mrs. Klein led the way as Tateh barely contained his laughter. “‘Cocktails,’” he whispered. “La-di-da.”

  Ma was trying not to giggle. “Behave yourself, Ben.”

  “Of course, my dear,” Tateh said, placing his arm about Ma’s waist.

  “Ma! Tateh!” I said. “Please.”

  Ma gave me a wink as we followed Mrs. Klein. I was alarmed that Ma was not taking the evening seriously.

  The parlor was every bit as intimidating as I remembered, but this time, I noticed the flaws: the crack in the wood by the fireplace, the way the fabric on the backs of the chairs didn’t match the fabric on the fronts, the uncracked spines of books that were clearly meant only for show. Was it possible that imperfections made it even more perfect? It was so . . . high society.

  “How do you do, Mr. and Mrs. Krasinsky?” Willie said, standing to greet us. He came over to shake Tateh’s hand. I noticed Willie wince as Tateh grasped a touch too firmly. I longed to scold Tateh, but didn’t dare.

  “We are family now,” Ma said to Willie. “We are Rose and Ben.”

  “Rose, then,” Willie said, kissing his new mother-in-law’s hand.

  “Darling,” Willie said to me, kissing me gently on the cheek. Then he whispered into my ear, “If I keep the cocktails extra strong, we should be able to get through this.”