Glimmer As You Can Read online

  “Absolutely. See you then.”

  Elaine hung up and pulled on her shoes and coat. She would escape the brownstone quickly, before she had a chance to change her mind.

  * * *

  Elaine paced more, this time outside the door to Benny’s Ice Cream Parlor.

  She startled back as a tot burst through the door, pushing it open with a surprising amount of energy as he wailed, his face covered with chocolate. His mother chased after him, and the two of them bumped into Elaine.

  “Sorry!” the mother apologized as she ran to grab his hand.

  Elaine pardoned them with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine.”

  She had arrived extremely early, and as she waited on the chilly sidewalk, she took to planning, bringing out a small notebook:

  Today

  1. Buy him something nice.

  2. Make an amazing dinner.

  3. Tell him casually.

  She stared at the third item on her list, then crossed it out, replacing it with:

  3. Inform him with conviction.

  She nodded at her own writing, though her lip furled inward, and she hesitated.

  She was startled, all at once, by a cheery voice—“Elaine! Great to see you!”—as Lisa grabbed her for a quick hug and a smile.

  The two stepped inside the warmth of the ice cream parlor, and Elaine suddenly salivated for a scoop of strawberry, topped with a cloud of whipped cream. They sat at the counter in their coats and settled in.

  Elaine laughed. “We’re a bunch of silly ducks, I suppose, getting ice cream in winter!”

  Lisa laughed uproariously; Elaine’s accent was entertaining. “Sorry— the way you said ‘silly ducks’—too hilarious!” she squealed. She sputtered into another fit of chuckles as she attempted to order. “A scoop of pistachio, please!” she snorted to the worker.

  Once their desserts were scooped, Elaine reached for her own, and for a brief moment it captured her: the tart taste of frozen berries on her tongue. But the ice remained, her throat numbed, and she struggled to spit out her words: “How have you been these days? It seems like you’ve been enjoying the Starlite.”

  “Yes, I’m having a ball! I’m finally getting to use the dance steps I love on American Bandstand!” Lisa took a bite of pistachio with her spoon as a guilty smile played across her lips. “I’m trying to get more into the writing, you know—the literary circle and all that. I mean, I do like poetry—I just don’t have a knack for it like you, I guess.”

  “Well, dear, it’s not that I have a knack for it so much as the need for it.” Elaine coughed. “It’s a way I couldn’t express myself otherwise.”

  “So, it’s almost like another way of talking for you?”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “You make it sound so easy!” Lisa laughed. “Is your fiancé a poet too?”

  “He doesn’t write, but he likes to read it from time to time. He’s really more of an engineer.” Elaine cleared her throat. “Well, he used to be an engineer. That’s not what he’s doing right now.”

  “What’s he doing right now?”

  The words froze on Elaine’s tongue: “On break … he’s on break.” She glanced at the question in Lisa’s face and hesitated, then decided to keep going. “I’m actually going to start a job soon, though.”

  “Oh? You are? Where?”

  “The Chronicle.” There was some embarrassment in her voice, almost as though it were too big for her. “I’ll be a fact-checker.”

  “Wow! That’s so exciting!” Lisa grinned and held up her ice cream spoon. “Cheers!” She clinked Elaine’s dish with her spoon; the two of them laughed. “So, your fiancé must be excited for you too! What did he say?”

  Elaine gave a weak smile and fiddled with her dish. “To be honest—it probably sounds absurd, but I haven’t told him yet.”

  “Oh? Is he one of those men who doesn’t like for a woman to work?”

  “At this point, I gather that he doesn’t.”

  “Oh.” Lisa studied Elaine’s face, which bore little expression. “Well, that sounds hard! Are you sure you want to do it?”

  Elaine took a deep breath and pushed her spoon into a bit of whipped cream, letting it melt on her tongue. “I think so.”

  Lisa nodded. “I guess you’ll have to tell him soon, though, right? And see what he says? It’s the Chronicle, after all …”

  “Right.” Elaine nodded, her lips set in a straight line. She would be opening Pandora’s box if she told him. Tommy might feel abandoned. Alone in the echoing brownstone, his drinking could escalate.

  Yet there was a small chance that he could be inspired by her ambition. He might even feel motivated enough to find a job of his own.

  At the ice cream counter now, Lisa searched her eyes. “So, you think you’ll tell him about it?”

  Elaine gulped. She had wanted to join the Chronicle for years, even before she worked at the radio station.

  “I think so.”

  “Good.” Lisa smiled in encouragement.

  Elaine gave her a weak smile in return. It would be embarrassing to deny such an opportunity, at one of the world’s leading newspapers. She couldn’t very well scorn her chances at success.

  * * *

  Elaine had decided: she would need to set the scene for him.

  He would need to be coaxed into the idea of her return to work. She would need to distract him—transport him to his happy place.

  After saying good-bye to Lisa, Elaine traipsed all over Brooklyn, searching for things that would fit the bill.

  She came to a used bookstore and hovered in the back, where she made a nice find: poems by Théodore Aubanel in the original French. A rare book, from the turn of the century. She paid and inscribed the front cover—Elaine amour—in her most beautiful handwriting.

  On her way home, she made a stop at Woolworth’s to buy some tissue paper and ribbon so she could make a nice little package for him.

  She would go home, and she would cook him his favorite meal: beef tenderloin with roasted carrot puree. They would share a nice sparkling wine, something lower in proof than his usual. Catherine would be out at the Starlite, so it would be just the two of them.

  Elaine rubbed her palms; it was difficult to hold so many packages with her palms coated in sweat. But it would be easier to reveal her truth when Tommy was relaxed.

  * * *

  When she returned, it was still daytime, yet the blinds were drawn down low. In the guest bedroom, Tommy was hunched over on the old red velvet couch. He was mumbling to himself as he pieced together wires with a pair of electrical pliers.

  “How can you see anything in here?” Elaine squinted uncomfortably.

  He held a little light to his contraption. “I have an eye for these things, Elaine.”

  “What are you making?”

  Old ideas lay in piles around the room. “A transistor,” he said briefly. His hands worked deftly, resetting small parts. His eyes were deep pools, and he peered into the device with a single-minded focus.

  Elaine held her breath. “Do you want more light?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “More light?”

  “I’m fine,” he finally answered.

  She left the room—she would give him the time alone before she dropped her news.

  In the kitchen, she unwrapped the tenderloins. Meat juices on wax paper dripped down to her hands. She had visited the best butcher in Brooklyn Heights—Marty on Remsen Street. It had been a long walk on the icy sidewalk to watch Marty pound the meat, and Elaine’s stomach had churned with each smash of the bloody hunks.

  At the produce store, the carrots were ancient, so she hiked another three avenue blocks to a different store. A blister was developing on her heel, but she still had to trek down to the wine shop, which was surprisingly crowded for that time of the afternoon.

  Now, back at the brownstone, she was making scalloped potatoes—a new recipe that Harriet had passed along to her at the Starli
te.

  She stirred things in pots and heated up the oven, and the scent of cooking food wafted through the house. Tommy was quiet in the other room, except for intermittent bursts of expletives when the wires didn’t twist to his expectations.

  “Dinner’s ready!”

  No response. She shouted again, to no avail. Tommy would be gritting his teeth, trying to wrap a piece of wire around something. She put on a low, alluring voice; she would sound more interesting than the wire.

  “I made you your favorite …” She held her breath, waiting.

  “That’s nice.” He answered in a monotone.

  Elaine swallowed the lump in her throat and retreated to the kitchen to sit alone at a wooden table Tommy’s father had made years ago, back when his mother was still alive. After Tommy’s mother died when he was in grade school, he was raised mostly by his aunt Mary, a sweet but sad woman prone to bouts of drinking and crying. I never cry. I’m not like my silly aunt, just bawling away—he’d once said during a particularly sour bout of drunkenness.

  Elaine ate by herself; the food turned to a mess on her plate. When she had finished, Tommy finally emerged from the other room.

  It was some time before they spoke.

  “I was reading something you would adore, Elaine. A French piece on existence—what are we made of, what will continue?”

  Elaine drew in a sharp breath. “Perhaps only that which is started will continue. Everything else … who can say?”

  Tommy’s dark brown eyes flickered over hers; then he finished his food with a satisfied smile. “You really take care of me, you know.”

  He looked her in the eye, and she gulped.

  “I … I got you a little gift,” she stammered, and handed over the little package she had made.

  He ripped open the tissue paper. “Fantastic, babe. Really fantastic! The original French, too! A great find. Let’s go check it out. And I see you got us a bottle too!” His demeanor turned to excitement as he cracked the book open and poured himself a glass.

  He read aloud in French and stroked her leg. Heat crept up Elaine’s body as she sipped from her own glass of sparkling.

  It was getting late; then the moment faded as he drank more and more; then it was too late, as the entire bottle disappeared.

  Tommy grew sullen again, with dull eyes, and laid himself in the corner of the guest room, as if the sharp corners of the walls were a napping nook. He was talking about his childhood.

  “She was never happy, my mother. Never, never happy. Never happy!” His eyes were inebriated squints.

  “What makes you say that?” She usually didn’t ask him to explain.

  “She drank a lot, for one!” He found it amusing in spite of himself, and chortled with a low, throaty sound. “And apparently I was too difficult to take care of, because she ended her life. We found her right here.”

  “You what?”

  He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask him to explain. His eyes were fully closed as he hummed softly, ready to fall asleep on the floor.

  He would be alone in this house when she went to her job each day. Alone for hours.

  As he fell asleep, she went up to the bedroom and laid a damp cloth on her forehead, which also covered her eyes. She kept herself encased in the void behind her lids—awake in the darkness, her breathing short.

  Her thoughts twisted in circles, around and around in the darkness.

  I wouldn’t be the first to give up on a dream.

  Yet she couldn’t play second fiddle to his problems forever.

  13

  Lisa

  Lisa giggled until she was crying, clinking teacups with the ladies at the Starlite.

  As she wore the sparkly, elbow-length gloves she had won the prior night, she could breathe better. She walked around like a ballerina on tiptoe, with the fancy chamber music in the background, and others did the same. They pirouetted like dancers all over the store.

  She had smashed down some wall with these invisible pointe shoes. She joined the others in an improvised ballet class near the nylons, using the table as the barre. It was perfection, them in their vibrant dresses, prancing about the place. They acted like little girls, although Lisa looked more like an adult than ever before in the light of the golden lamps.

  She hadn’t met friends like this in a while. And it was all fun and free—until she noticed Madeline.

  Madeline’s face—previously lit a sociable glow—had turned pale, her pupils darting.

  Something must have happened in the blink of an eye.

  Madeline was talking quickly. “He came again; then he ran away.”

  She rushed everyone out the door, urging them to be careful. Her beautifully made-up eyelids twitched with the unknown.

  As they streamed out the door, a woman named Jackie spoke in a panicked whisper. “I hope my husband isn’t tailing me!”

  Jackie’s makeup was melting in her sweat, and Lisa caught sight of deep purple on her cheeks.

  They headed out in shifts, clustered together in tight packs to navigate the dark streets.

  Power in numbers.

  They each found their cars and headed home.

  * * *

  Back at her apartment, Lisa’s mother was still awake, doing needlepoint. Bent over, her mother looked older than her years.

  “I’m sorry, Ma.” In the shadows of the night, Lisa turned away from the lines on her mother’s face, the creases of age.

  “Oh no, it’s my own issue, dear. When you’re traveling and I don’t know what’s going on, I just go to sleep. You know what they say—ignorance is bliss! But when you’re out and about in Brooklyn and I don’t know what’s going on, it’s a little different.”

  Her mother was ready to nod off. Lisa wrapped her arms around her mother’s thin shoulders. Her bones were fragile, knobby.

  It was cold in their apartment. The radiator knob was turned all the way to the left—her mother’s technique for saving money.

  “Ma—you should come with me to this place. There’re all these women there. There’s some closer to your age too.”

  She could give her mother something else. Something beyond grocery money.

  “That’s quite all right, darling. I really have no desire to be out and about. My only desire is to see you home safe. Good night, dear. I’m going to bed.” With her robe dragging behind her, her mother shuffled into the bedroom, where Lisa’s father snored.

  Lisa pulled her skirt over her knees, alone in their shabby little living room. She had a few days before she had to jet out of town, and she wasn’t ready for sleep.

  But she forced herself to her bedroom, and once in bed, she fell asleep quicker than she’d thought—straight into her Technicolor dreams of the Mediterranean Sea and the Starlite, where they all danced on aqua-blue waves, like ballerinas.

  * * *

  It was almost noon when she woke the next day. She stumbled out of her room feeling hungover, though she hadn’t drunk too much the previous night.

  She poured herself some cereal, trying to feel normal.

  Bzzzzz. The buzzer rang, and she jumped.

  Her mother wasn’t home. Sometimes she went shopping and forgot her key. Lisa peeked out the window, parting the curtains so she could see down to the sidewalk.

  It was Billy, on the stoop.

  He was rubbing his hands together in the cold, stomping in place in his work boots. The sound was familiar: a quick two-step on the sidewalk that Billy always said made him a “winter Fred Astaire.” He would grab her hand and twirl her around, right on the street. His eyes would twinkle. A Brooklyn Ginger Rogers.

  Now the top of his head disappeared under the awning to her building and the buzzer rang again.

  Lisa struggled to inhale. She darted her head around the room. Then she crawled beneath the table, where she crouched for ten minutes on the linoleum, next to the stained legs of the kitchen chairs.

  Once the buzzing stopped, she scooted over to the edge of the window fr
ame on her hands and knees.

  Billy was stepping down the icy sidewalk, away from her apartment.

  Lisa exhaled and stood upright, pacing in the narrow aisle between her dresser and bed. An animal energy pulsated in her legs as she circuited the messy space in leaps.

  Elaine.

  Elaine probably hadn’t started her new job yet—she should be home.

  Lisa located the crumpled airline napkin with Elaine’s phone number on her dresser, and she bounded to the phone on the kitchen wall. The line rang a dozen times; there was no answer.

  She slammed the phone in its receiver and paced in little loops around the furniture. On the corner of the table, she made a misstep and slammed her leg too hard. Rare expletives erupted from her mouth. She pressed the injured area, pushing her muscles inward.

  A slam of a door downstairs meant that her mother had returned home from food shopping.

  Lisa held in her shakes as she jumped to help. She sprinted down the steps to get the bags, one by one.

  Then her mother handed her a piece of mail retrieved from the mailbox, without comment.

  It was a white envelope addressed with her name. She ripped it open.

  DEAR LISA.

  Billy liked to write in capital letters.

  I’M SORRY. I HOPE YOU CAN FORGIVE ME. Next to this pitiful apology was a small, blurry sketch of a face, maybe his own face, with a juvenile drawing of a mouth tilted in a sideways line of guilt.

  Lisa smuggled the note into her room as her mother put away cans in the cabinets.

  Her mother shouted to her bedroom, “You slept late! You must have been tired.”

  “Yeah.”

  She slipped the envelope into her underwear drawer, in the back—underneath the lingerie she’d purchased for a fantasy of a honeymoon. She slammed the drawer shut and turned on the radio. It was a Western, some irritating show with twangs and blasts.

  She raised the volume to produce a protective cloak of sound and threw herself on her bed. She grabbed a photo album from a shelf, something she had once made, from when she and Billy had first starting dating.