Modern Girls (21 page)

Wednesday, August 28

ALL week I’d been snapping at my brothers, short with
Tateh
. And I was concerned about Abe. I hadn’t seen Abe since Sunday, and while that wasn’t unusual if things were hectic at the store, it was worrisome after Camp Eden. Was he avoiding me? Or was it as simple as a busy week? Not knowing ate at me.

Wednesday, as I did my morning toilet, Eugene shot into the tiny bathroom, nearly knocking me over.

“Alfie has more planes than me. Help me make more,” he said, flashing me those big eyes that always got him what he wanted.

But that morning even Eugene couldn’t alleviate my suffering. “Can’t I get a minute’s peace, even in here?” I said. My tone was sharper than I intended, and when Eugene slunk out, I saw the hurt streaked across his cheeks. Still in my slip, I took my dress, a smart navy blue from Ohrbach’s, from the back of the door and slid it over my head. I needed my mother to do the buttons up the back.

Emerging from the bathroom, I saw Eugene at the table with a stack of old
Forverts
, neatly tearing squares to be folded into the flying toys.

Glancing at the clock, I knew I didn’t have much time, but Eugene was so earnest in his work that I couldn’t help myself. I sat next to him and took a square. “I suppose there’s always time for an airplane or two.”

Eugene didn’t look up, but a smile tickled the corners of his mouth.

He was getting so big. How did it happen so quickly? When he was a babe, stashed away at
Tante
Kate’s home, I used to sneak off to visit him. I was forbidden to travel so far from the apartment by myself—
Tante
Kate’s home was over a mile away, down on Essex Street—but I hated coming home after school, hated having to prepare dinner, clean the house, and, worst of all, see my brothers Alfie and Joey lying there, sick, in Ma and
Tateh
’s bed. Izzy and I shared the second bedroom and
Tateh
slept on the couch. Ma would fall asleep sitting in the chair next to the boys’ bed. And then the worst: Joey was sent to the hospital. The emptiness of the apartment chilled me, and I wanted to be anywhere but there. The only way to escape first the stench of illness and then the loneliness was to leave the apartment.

In those days I was fast on my feet, and I could quickly cover the distance to
Tante
Kate’s, giving me time to spend with Eugene but still get back before Ma noticed I was gone. Not that Ma noticed much in those days, certainly not the dust gathering in the living room nor the burnt bread I produced.

Tante
Kate was always happy to welcome me, eager to run errands or socialize with friends without Eugene underfoot. I would sit with him in her apartment and play patty-cake, teach him nursery rhymes, feed him treats I’d pinched off the food carts. I made sure to speak only English to him. Eugene wasn’t going to be subjected to the humiliation I’d suffered in grammar school, when in kindergarten I couldn’t keep up because I didn’t speak English. No one believed I was American born, as all I could speak was Yiddish. I worked extra hard to catch up, determined to be not merely an equal to my classmates but their superior. And in math, at least, I succeeded, excelling, winning awards for arithmetic every year, even beating out the boys.

No, I made sure Eugene started school as an English speaker, a point in which I took great pride. Every day I spoke to Eugene
in English, sang to Eugene in English, read to Eugene in English. His accomplishments would be as much my own as his. The rush of love I held for Eugene was unlike anything I’d ever felt for anyone else. Until now. Until this feeling that was stirring for a creature inside of me that didn’t even yet exist.

Looking at Eugene, old enough this year to start
heder
after Rosh Hashanah, to begin learning Torah. I couldn’t imagine how empty my life would have been without him. His face had lost its roundness and he had a sureness in his ways he’d lacked mere months ago. His hands were steady as he ripped the paper, then folded each sheet with precision. Eugene had kept me levelheaded when the house had fallen apart.

What if the baby was the same? How could I look at Eugene and even consider not having this baby?

I’d folded two airplanes to Eugene’s five when we were interrupted by Ma coming out of the kitchen.

“
Ach
, look at the time. What is this nonsense you are doing?” Ma asked.

Looking at Ma, with the halo of hair floating about her head and her midlife belly starting to protrude, I thought to myself, once again, how attractive Ma would be if she watched what she ate and took some care with her clothing and hair. Maybe a dash of lipstick?

With an arched-eyebrow glance to Eugene, who gave a not-so-quiet snicker, I said, “I need you to button me up, Ma, and then I’m ready to go.”

“No breakfast? You must eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said. I took a hard look at Ma, to see what I was to become. Feeling cruel toward her, I said, “Perhaps you should skip a meal or two. Pass on the
kugel
, maybe? You’re starting to grow a belly.” Would my body, like Ma’s, curve permanently once it began carrying babies?

My eyes were quickly drawn up by Ma’s sharp intake of breath. “Never you mind my plumpness. If a woman my age can’t
allow herself to become a little fuller, then what is the point of it all? Now spin around.”

Would I ever again not be angry with Ma? I turned my back so she could do up the dress. The buttons did not give way easily, and Ma struggled to match the two sides. The dress squeezed about me.

Finally Ma said, “You need to find another dress. This one doesn’t fit.”

“But it fit last week.” I turned to scowl at her.

She shrugged. “And next week, it will fit again. But for now, you must find another dress.”

“Too much
kugel
for you, too,” Eugene said, with a laugh.

“Shush yourself,” Ma said, a touch too harshly. She turned to me. “Go. The green dress should fit. Change quickly and get to work. Head bookkeeper cannot be late. Especially as tomorrow—”

“Hush, Ma!” Tossing my head in the direction of Eugene, I said, “Little pitchers have big ears.”

“Aw, I always miss the good stuff,” Eugene said.

Without another word, I retrieved the green dress from Ma’s room and slipped into the bathroom to change. I left the navy dress in a heap on the floor, certain it would never fit again.

•   •   •

THE morning passed in a flurry of numbers, and at lunch, as always, I was alone. As the girls gathered to go out, a stab of loneliness gutted me. I longed to be included, to be frivolous and carefree, even as much as I despised Florence.

Florence. Florence, who paraded her new status, knowing her job was safe. Florence, who, I was sure, would wait patiently for Mr. Dover to propose, who clearly didn’t read the
Times
, which last weekend had announced his engagement, a spring wedding in Connecticut. A few weeks ago, I would have flaunted the paper, shown up Florence as just another girl who got herself into a bad place. But now, oddly, I was sympathetic, even a little
sad for her. Although as bad as Florence had it, it wasn’t nearly as low as where I was.

I needed to make one more try. One last-ditch effort. When the office cleared out for lunch, I picked up the phone. “Operator, please get me the offices of
The New Yorker
.”

The phone rang long enough that I feared no one would answer, but finally a woman picked up. “
The New Yorker.
Finest magazine that apparently cannot afford a receptionist. How may I direct your call?”

Momentarily confused, I said nothing.

“Hello. I haven’t got all day. Is someone on the line?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I said. “Is Willie Klein available?”

“May I tell him who is calling?”

“Dottie Krasinsky.”

I heard a muffle on the other end and then the woman’s voice calling out, “Klein! There’s a dame on the phone for you.”

After a moment, a rustle and then a masculine voice. “William Klein here.”

“Hello, Willie. It’s Dottie.”

Another rustle and voices in the background. “Dottie!” Willie was clearly startled. “What a surprise. I thought— Well, I’m enchanted to hear from you.”

“I’d like to meet up. We need to talk.”

Willie hesitated, and finally said, “I would love to see you. Did you mean—”

“I need to
talk
to you,” I said.

“Talk.” Was that disappointment in his voice?

Panicked he would refuse, I added, “I hurried out hastily on Monday, and I feel we left things . . . unsaid.”

He chuckled. “I would be delighted to talk, but I don’t have an abundance of time. I need to prepare for my trip. Do you want to meet after work on Friday?”

Another one of his silly tests. He knew I would be rushing home for
Shabbes
on Friday night. Besides, Friday night was too
late. Trying to put a purr in my voice, I said, “What about this evening?”

Silence on his end. Clearly he was wondering what I was up to.

“Hmm,” he said, and I could hear tapping, as if he was rapping a pencil against the receiver. “Sure, I could see you tonight.” I could hear people chatting in the background. “I’m putting together a piece on the Fernand Léger exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Meet me there and we’ll see where the night takes us.”

Sickened by his assumptions, I merely played along. “That’s perfect. What time?”

“Five fifteen.”

“Till then,” I said, trying to force a seductive lilt to my voice.

•   •   •

AT exactly five fifteen, I waited nervously in front of the Museum of Modern Art. I wasn’t acquainted with this museum, which was only about five years old. When I was a child,
Tateh
had often brought me to the Metropolitan Museum, and I loved losing myself in the sumptuous building and the stories in the paintings.

But the town house that contained the Museum of Modern Art didn’t have the gravity that an institute of art should maintain. Instead of a grand staircase, four simple steps led to a regular door. As a museum, it was as out of place as I.

Midtown bustled as well-dressed folk streamed past, men hurrying home, women with a
click-clack
of heels dancing past me on their way to meet friends or beaus. These were the people for whom Ma made clothing when I was younger. I could still picture Ma hunched over the garments, the needle flying rhythmically. In those days, I longed to help, begged Ma to teach me. But Ma refused. “You are too good for this,” Ma told me, many times over. “You will do great things. You will never need to sew for other people.”

Glancing at my watch, I saw Willie was ten minutes late. It took every ounce of willpower to keep from pacing the sidewalk;
it wouldn’t do to look anxious when he arrived. I tried for nonchalant, although my body longed to give in to fatigue, to plop indecorously on the front stoop like a rag doll tossed aside, tired and worn and discarded by all who used her. Where was Willie? “Fashionably late” was all the rage with the swell set, but I fretted that he’d changed his mind.

At half past five, Willie casually strolled up the sidewalk. “There you are,” he said, as if I were the one behind schedule. If he’d been Abe, I would have given him a piece of my mind. But of course, he was not Abe. Willie kissed me on the cheek. “Shall we go in?”

I nodded, not trusting my voice to hide my irritation, and I let Willie take me by the arm. As we walked in, he said, “I think you’ll be impressed by the exhibit. Are you familiar with Léger’s work?”

The lack of grandeur in the front hall disappointed me, and I debated momentarily if I should fake knowledge before admitting, “No. He’s new to me.” Willie led me up the stairs to the second floor.

“His work is probably unlike any you’ve seen before. His aim is to create ‘democratic art’ for and about the working class, with bold color and, as he calls it, ‘mechanical’ form.”

We reached a closed door at the top of the stairs. As Willie went to open it, a guard spotted us and said, “I’m sorry, sir. That exhibition isn’t open to the public yet.”

Willie tipped his hat and said with a tone that was both authoritative and colluding, “My dear friend Mrs. Crane would have called ahead granting me permission for a preview.”

The guard stood a little straighter. “Mr. Klein, I presume? Of course.” He walked over with a set of keys and unlocked the door, holding it open for us. “The museum closes in twenty minutes.”

“Thank you, my good man,” Willie said, turning back to the door.

“Who is Mrs. Crane?” I whispered to him.

“Mrs. Crane of the paper company? Her husband was a business associate of Father. She’s a member of the museum’s board of trustees. Come, let’s go in.”

As we walked into the room, I gasped. Willie was right. This art was like nothing I had seen before.

Willie watched me carefully as I meandered from painting to painting. The colors were muted—gray and yellow and black—yet dynamic. I was drawn first to a painting of three women lounging in a living room. They were nude, but not like the nudes I had seen at the Metropolitan. Their bodies were plush and rounded yet strangely disjointed. From behind me, Willie spoke softly, intimately, in my ear. “What do you think?”