All She Ever Wanted (47 page)

Leonard began carefully reading the entertainment pages after that, keeping track of any advertisement, review, or feature story that mentioned Russell Bartlett. He had collected a good-sized stack of articles when Eleanor stumbled upon them, hidden under his bed, while cleaning.

“What are all these, Leonard?” she asked, waving the dusty pile.

“Nothing. They’re nothing. Give them here.”

She laughed, as if amused by his anxiety. “Too late—I already read them. I never knew you were interested in the theater.”

“Give them back, Eleanor. I’m not in the mood for your stupid games. Those are none of your business.”

“Well, I think they are my business,” she said, turning snippy. “I saw our name on all of them. That’s why you cut them out, isn’t it? This Bartlett guy is a relative of ours, isn’t he?”

A trickle of fear ran down Leonard’s neck. She was uncomfortably close to the truth—a truth their mother wanted kept hidden. Leonard didn’t blame his mother for not telling Eleanor. He had been devastated by what he’d learned, and the knowledge had altered his feelings toward his mother irreparably.

“He’s an uncle of ours on Father’s side,” Leonard lied. “I thought I might look him up if I ever went down to New York. Now, give them back to me.”

“Here!” She tossed them in the air, and they fluttered to the floor like falling leaves. “It gripes my middle kidney the way
some
people don’t even say
please
!”

Two days after graduating from high school, Leonard was sitting at the table reading the newspaper when his mother came upstairs from the store with an envelope in her hand.

“Here. Mr. Messina bought you this graduation card,” she said, handing it to him. “He’s downstairs if you want to come down and thank him.”

Leonard mumbled a vague reply. He didn’t even want to open the envelope, much less talk to that pompous man. The landlord had been a shadowy presence in his mother’s life ever since they’d moved to Deer Falls, and Leonard had never trusted him. No one really knew what all his socalled businesses were or how he’d earned all his money. The fact that he was rich was reason enough for Leonard to hate him.

He left the unopened envelope lying on the table until he finished the article he’d been reading. When he finally ripped it open, and a fifty dollar bill fluttered out, he was furious. It seemed like a slap in the face for Messina to swagger into the store, doling out charity to his poor tenant’s son. Leonard stuffed the money and the card back into the envelope and went downstairs, not to thank him but to give it back.

His mother sat at her worktable with a half-finished hat in front of her. Messina stood close to her—too close—wearing one of his expensive suits. His dark hair was slicked back and shiny with pomade. For some reason, Leonard halted halfway down the stairs, watching them. He saw their landlord cup his mother’s face in his fleshy hand and bend to kiss her. It wasn’t a chaste kiss on the cheek, but a long, possessive one, his greedy lips pressed against hers.

Leonard would have cried out, but he couldn’t draw a breath. He couldn’t even move. He watched helplessly as Messina gave his mother a parting caress and left the store.

When his strength finally returned, Leonard didn’t know whether to go back upstairs or to confront his mother. He felt rage billowing inside him, needing release, so he descended the stairs and threw the envelope on the table in front of her.

“Here. I don’t want this,” he said bitterly. “You can give it back to him the next time you see him.”

“What’s wrong with you? What did Mr. Messina ever do to you that you would treat him so rudely?”

“He’s the same as all the other wealthy pigs! They make themselves rich on the backs of the poor. What I want to know is why you’re so nice to him?”

“These are hard times. If Mr. Messina didn’t take my hats to Philadelphia to sell, we’d never be able to make ends meet.”

“Yeah? And how much profit does he keep from all your hard work? He’s using you, Mom. Don’t try to tell me he’s just being nice. Tell him to get lost.”

“Sure, and then how would we live? You read the papers, you know there’s an economic depression in this country.”

“We’re doing all right. You’re making a living from the store.”

“You think I can make a living and support two children selling hats in Deer Falls? Think about it, Leonard.”

But he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to add up all the things that she was telling him and the things he had seen. Helpless frustration welled up inside him, boiling over. “I saw him kiss you, Mom!” She looked startled for a moment, then embarrassed, then resigned.

“Aye,” she said quietly. “And I kissed him in return.”

“He’s a married man! A fat, filthy pig! How could you have feelings for him?”

“I don’t!” she said sharply. “I hate him as much as you do—maybe more.”

“Oh, no…” Leonard groaned. He shook his head as if he could shake off the truth as he realized what his mother was saying. “Don’t tell me… you’re not…”

“I do it for you and Eleanor. It’s the only way we can get by. I have no other choice.”

“NO!” he shouted, covering his ears. “It isn’t true!” She stood and pulled his hands away, gripping his wrists, forcing him to listen. She was angrier than Leonard had ever seen her, her beautiful face pale with fury.

“If you want to take up a cause, Leonard, why don’t you fight for all the women who have no husbands to take care of them, women who have no way to support themselves or their children. Women who can only get low-paying jobs in sweatshops or as maids and waitresses, jobs that don’t pay enough to support a family. Go ahead, get angry, Leonard—but get angry at a world that gives women like me no other choice but to let men like your father and Lorenzo Messina take advantage of us.”

She released him and sank onto her chair again. Leonard shook with anger, his wrists red and aching from her grip. He felt as helpless as his mother did, and it enraged him.

“I’ll go to work! I’ll take care of you!” he said. Fiona reached for his clenched fist and cradled it in her hands, rubbing it to soothe him.

“My sweet Leonard. I know you would gladly take care of your sister and me. But you’re only eighteen—and there are so many men out of work.”

Leonard knew then what he had to do. The idea had been simmering in the back of his mind for days, but now he was certain.

“I’m going to enlist in the army,” he said quietly. “I’ll send you my pay every month.”

“You can’t enlist!” she said in horror. “Europe is at war. What if America gets involved in it, too?”

“I believe we will get involved. I think it’s inevitable. But like you said, this is the only way I know to get by. I have no other choice.”

She leaped to her feet and threw her arms around him, clinging to him as if she could hold him back.

“No… No, please don’t do this. I couldn’t bear to lose you, too.”

“I’m sorry, Mother.” He pried her arms away. “I can’t stay around here, knowing that you’re… I have to get away. Besides, it’ll mean one less mouth for you to feed.” He turned and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time, eager to start packing before he changed his mind.

Eleanor took the news very hard and did her best to talk him out of it.

Leonard had always felt close to his sister, protective of her, in spite of her indifference to the labor movement and all of his other causes. In many ways she was very sophisticated—dressing well, wearing makeup, and fixing her hair in the latest styles. She considered herself middle class or even a notch higher, unaware that they were, in fact, poor and forced to survive in a society that abused the poor. He felt sorry for her. Eleanor didn’t know the truth about their father or Lorenzo Messina, either—and Leonard would die before he told her. Let her live in her fairy-tale world. The only regret he had in leaving was that he wouldn’t be around to protect her from men like them.

“Listen, Eleanor,” he said as he prepared to say good-bye. “And I want you to really hear me and not just shrug it off, okay?”

She nodded tearfully, gazing up at him from where she sat cross-legged on his bed.

“Every summer all the snobby rich boys come to town to stay at their families’cottages. You’re a pretty girl, and they’re going to fall for you— and I won’t be here to look after you. Don’t trust them, Eleanor. Don’t listen to their lies. They’ll promise you all kinds of things to get what they want and have their way with you, but none of it is true. You’re just a summer fling to them. They’ll go back to Philadelphia or New York or wherever and marry snobby rich wives and never give you a second thought.”

“They’re not all that way—”

“Yes!” he cut in. “Yes, they are! I don’t care if you don’t believe anything else I ever tell you, but believe this. Don’t trust rich men! Stay away from them!”

She leaped up to hug him, and he felt her tears on his neck. “I’ll miss you so much! Do you have to go?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah, I have to go.”

Chapter
33

D
EER
F
ALLS
, P
ENNSYLVANIA—
1941

N
othing is the same,
Eleanor thought. She sat high in her lifeguard’s chair, scanning the nearly deserted beach. Ever since Pearl Harbor last December, everything had changed. She adjusted the angle of the umbrella that shielded her from the warm summer sun and glanced at her watch. Only one more hour to go.

The last six months of high school had gone by in a blur, with everyone focused on the war that America was now fighting. Every last boy in her graduating class had enlisted, as had most of the men in town between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. And while Deer Falls was usually bursting with summer people this time of year, the beaches and cottages were nearly deserted. The town was always boring enough during the wintertime, but at least Eleanor had always had summer to look forward to—when there would be dances and parties and interesting new people to meet.

She had never forgotten Leonard’s warning, though, and had quickly discovered that he’d been right. She’d learned these past two years not to trust the wealthy “summer boys” who blew into town with their fancy cars and smooth words. They were fun to dance with, fun to build bonfires with on the beach and join for an afternoon sail. But she knew better than to fall for one of them in a summertime romance. She had bigger plans in mind for her future. Her mother had always encouraged Eleanor to be independent, to get a good education, to be her own person—and that’s exactly what she intended to do.

By the time Eleanor’s shift as a lifeguard ended, there was no one left on the beach at all. Other years, she usually could count on a handsome guy or two to offer her a ride home. Instead, she would have to walk. She climbed down from her perch and turned the sign on her chair around to read:
No Lifeguard on Duty
. Then she went inside the beach house to change into street clothes and prepare for the mile walk home.

She hadn’t hiked very far when a shiny black car glided to a halt beside her and someone called to her from the open window. It frightened her until she saw that it was Mr. Messina, her mother’s landlord.

“Can I offer you a ride home, Eleanor?” he asked. “I’m headed that way.”

“Sure. Thanks.” She climbed into the passenger’s seat, the leather upholstery hot beneath her thin summer shorts. She wondered how Mr. Messina could stand to wear a three-piece suit on a hot day like today.

“So, have you been out for a swim?” he asked casually.

“No, I don’t get to swim—unless someone decides to drown,” she said, laughing. “I’m the lifeguard.”

“The lifeguard! I’m impressed!” he said with a grin. “That’s a lot of responsibility for a young woman to take on.”

“I’m eighteen. I graduated last month.”

“No kidding? I remember the first time I saw you—you were just a little girl. But if you’ll forgive an old man like me for noticing, you’ve turned into a very beautiful woman.”

“Oh… well… t-thank you, Mr. Messina,” she stammered. She felt herself blushing. A few of the “summer boys” had called her pretty, but no one had ever told her she was beautiful before—much less called her a woman. And Mr. Messina was a grown man, a city man who had surely seen a lot of women. She glanced at him to see if he was serious and saw nothing but admiration in his gaze. He was a very good-looking man, even if he was old and a little overweight.

“Hey, please don’t call me Mr. Messina,” he said, making a face. “It makes me feel old. You’re an adult now. Call me Lorenzo, okay?”

She shrugged. “Okay.” But she was too timid to try it out. She liked being called an adult, though.

“So what else are you doing this summer besides working at the beach?” he asked.

“Nothing. That’s the problem. There’s nothing to do around here now that all the men have gone off to war. It’s almost as boring as in the wintertime.”

“Do you like to sail?”

“Sure—but there aren’t any ‘summer boys’around to go sailing with, either.”

“We’ll have to see if we can do something about that.”

Eleanor wondered what he meant, but she didn’t have time to ask; they had reached her apartment. She gathered up her beach bag and opened the door.

“Thanks a million for the ride,” she said. “Bye!” She didn’t quite have the nerve to say “Lorenzo.”

She was halfway home from work the following afternoon when Mr.

Messina happened to drive by once again and offer her a ride. This time they got on the topic of food. “What’s your favorite restaurant?” he asked her. She laughed.

“It’s hard to have a favorite restaurant when I’ve never eaten in one.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No,” she said, laughing again. “We can’t afford to eat at any restaurants in Deer Falls. And I’ve never been anyplace else. You can’t count the diner, can you?”

“You have a beautiful laugh,” he said, gazing at her. “I would tell jokes just to hear it again, if I knew any. But seriously, what about all your boyfriends— don’t they take you out to nice places?”