The Girls with No Names Page 7

  Any young woman in my place would have said yes.

  We were genuinely in love, for a time. I was still not comfortable exposing my hands in the light of day, but at night, in those early years of our marriage, Emory caressed them with as much delicacy as he would later caress our babies’ heads.

  It was obvious from the start that Emory was not a complicated man. He liked his job, took pride in his family and was content to do as he pleased. Before Effie was born, he’d had no hardships, no toil or struggle. He was an only child with wealthy parents who adored him. There are people who simply have a good life. Emory was one of them. I was lucky to be his wife, to be a part of that simple, good life. At least in the beginning that’s what I told myself.

  Leaving my mother was the hardest part, and my brother, Georges, who was only a lad of eleven. I had no good reason to leave them other than falling in love. Reason enough, some would say. My life, before Emory, was also blessed. I grew up wealthy, fatherless—which didn’t bother me as I’d never known him—with a mother who painted most hours of the day and a grandfather who worshipped me. He’d steal me away from my lessons and walk the streets of Paris with me hoisted onto his shoulders, proudly pointing out all the modern architectural advancements as if he had a hand in them. On Saturdays, he’d take me to the ballet. He would wait for me at the bottom of the stairs in his shiny black coat with his white cuffs peeking out like strips of peppermint, whistling that I “looked a picture,” as I skipped down to him. My world revolved around pleasing him. That’s the problem with being worshipped. You do whatever you must to keep the attention.

  Greedy for praise, I learned to dance for my grandfather. I was competitive and liked to win, which made me an excellent ballerina.

  I was ten when my grandfather died a shocking, sudden death, a fever that took him in the night. I screamed and pounded my small fists, refusing to believe my vivacious, sturdy grandfather was dead until my mother took me into his bedroom and I saw his ashen, lifeless face. I wept for days. My mother abandoned her brushes and canvas and sat with me until I cried myself dry. It was the most time I’d ever spent with her.

  After that, I danced harder, to keep my grandfather’s memory alive, but also because I had become addicted to the attention in the spotlight.

  Then it was just me and my mother, who marveled, half-heartedly, at everything I did: my mediocre sketches and lackluster piano playing, as well as my dancing. She knew talent when she saw it. She acknowledged an object when it had value. But when it came to me, she half listened, partly looked, smiled, praised faintly and walked away. She cherished me like one might an heirloom, or an antique, something of great value that you’re not sure what to do with. I think it would have suited her to keep me behind glass doors, to be taken out and admired only when she felt the urge.

  Then my brother, Georges, slid into our lives. His birth was as shocking to me as my grandfather’s death. I knew nothing of how babies were born and believed that my mother had just grown fat and a stork had dropped the boy through her window, as my governess told me. Not until I was sixteen and brought into society did I understand he was a bastard, and I wondered if this was why my mother seemed to hate him.

  The half-hearted admiration she gave me turned into a full-blown loathing for my poor baby brother. She needled him, scrutinized everything he did from the time he could walk. Only as a grown woman did I wonder about the circumstances of my mother’s pregnancy. I had come to the conclusion that it either happened against her will, or else she’d loved the boy’s father and he’d scorned her. Either way, she deeply resented Georges, and from the tone of her letters still did, even though he was the one who’d stayed behind to take care of her.

  I had not seen my mother since I married and moved to New York. We wrote regularly, but I couldn’t risk the trip with Effie’s health, and my mother had become too frail to travel. I hoped, very much, that Georges would come see us one day. My brother and I had written every week for the past seventeen years. From his letters, I could tell that he had grown into a thoughtful, wise young man. I was certain he would be a good influence on the girls.

  At the thought of my daughters, I pulled my watch from my pocket to check the time just as the train lurched to a stop and my purse went careening to the floor. The gentleman, his cigarette finished and disposed of, leaned over and picked my purse up, dangling it by its silver chain with an amiable wink.

  “Thank you.” I took it, blushing like a ninny and thinking how shamelessly bold and cruel young men were these days to flirt with a woman like myself.

  “Is this your stop?” he asked, standing as if already certain it was.

  I glanced out the window. “Why, yes, it is.” Forgetting to check the time, I put my watch back into my pocket and took the hand he offered. Humiliating desire raced through me as I clutched my purse to my chest and angled past him.

  “Your hat,” he called as I hurried down the aisle.

  “How silly of me.”

  I turned back and he caught my hand, grinning felicitously. “You really must take up smoking. It’s divine. It will ease that worry creasing your forehead.”

  A creased forehead was not a compliment, but I smiled and thanked him, graciously taking the cigarette he held out along with my hat and slipping it into my purse.

  It was an encounter I would think of often over the next few months as my manicured life was swept out from under me. A strange man’s seductive manner and genial smile, his faint scent of sage and cigarette smoke trailing my senses. It was the first time in years that I’d felt anything close to desire, and I would wonder, afterward, if God was punishing me for my sinful thoughts.

  In a moment, I forgot the stranger, hurrying home with my usual sense of urgency only to find everything as it should be. Luella came to dinner flushed and excited after her day of athletics in Westchester—I always knew the outdoors suited her. Effie was quiet, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. If it weren’t for Emory, avoiding my gaze and speaking sideways at me as if I was slightly out of his line of vision, it would have been a pleasant enough dinner. Not that my husband’s avoidance of me was anything unusual, but there was something aflame in his face, a heat similar to what the young man on the train had ignited in mine.

  Stupidly, I tried to touch my husband that night, slipping up behind him as he undressed for bed. He jumped, shoving me away with a mumbled apology about not feeling well.

  I must have looked pathetic because when he turned, he softened. “I’m sorry, Jeanne, darling. It’s just a spring cold. You know how I get them with the change of weather.”

  It was obvious he had no cold, but I said nothing as he climbed into bed and turned off his light while I quietly undressed, my gloves the last thing I removed before stepping into my nightgown. When had Emory stopped taking them off for me? I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but after that first kiss under the lamppost, the removal of my gloves had often become a seductive act between us. My resistance, Emory’s gentle determination followed by my quiet submission, something I imagine most couples played out removing a corset.

  I sat heavily on the edge of the bed. I rarely exposed my bare hands to Emory anymore. He never said as much, but I knew they repelled him. What had once been seductive had grown stale, and like our relationship, was better kept hidden under something shiny.

  “Oh—” Emory’s arm fluttered from his side. “I almost forgot, I bought you a new perfume. It’s on your vanity.”

  As I moved to the vanity, I saw a tiny glass bottle I hadn’t noticed earlier, Farnésiana printed in black lettering on the side. I picked it up. There was no card. No box or wrapping. This was not a gift, it was an apology. My husband could use a lesson in deception, I thought with disappointment. As I pulled out the glass stopper, a sickly-sweet smell hit me, a powdered sugar vanilla, a confection. I wondered if he thought this maternal scent suited me, or if he’d
stood at the perfume counter in Gimbel’s and pointed to the first bottle he saw without bothering to smell it.

  I was utterly fed up, with myself, with my husband. I’d been stupid to touch him. What had gotten into me? We hadn’t laid together as husband and wife since Effie’s birth. It wasn’t her fault, of course. I’d never dream of blaming our daughter. Not even a little bit. She couldn’t help being born damaged. Not wanting another impaired child, I’d kept my husband at arm’s length after her birth. At the time it was easy enough. I was an exhausted mother with a tantrum-throwing three-year-old, and a baby who turned blue every time she cried. I refused to let a governess, or nurse, care for Effie. If my daughter was going to die, I was going to be there.

  Emory couldn’t stand being denied. I should have seen that coming, but it was too late by the time I realized my mistake. And once he’d tasted his freedom, he liked it.

  Climbing into bed, I could smell my husband’s cedarwood aftershave, and the lingering scent of pomade that left a slight grease stain on the pillowcase even after he’d washed it from his hair. I flipped onto my side, irritated at how the blanket rose up over his high shoulder and let a draft under the covers.

  Looking into the dark, moonless room, the furniture indistinguishable from shadows, I told myself what I’d been telling myself for years. You were warned, Jeanne. You’re lucky to have him at all.

  Only tonight, I didn’t feel lucky.

  Chapter Seven

  Effie

  June arrived with a burst of tulips in the front yard, their pink tips bleeding into cupped white petals like watercolor. School was out and there was no talk of going to Newport for the summer. I was sure it was because of Daddy, who was seldom around these days, but Mama seemed unconcerned. She said it would be nice to stay home.

  “I can see my lilies bloom,” she’d said, and smiled. “I always miss them.”

  I hated holding Daddy’s lie. It was anchored in the pit of my stomach, deadweight, that woman entering our house, her laughter through the walls. I’d been careful not to write it down or work it into a story in my head. Daddy never asked to see my writing anymore. Sunday mornings he hardly looked up from his paper.

  I never told Luella what I witnessed that day she went to the gypsies without me. I didn’t trust what she’d do with the information. Ever since the day we met Miss Milholland, Luella had grown smug and emboldened in a way I’d never seen. Whenever Mama was out, she’d skip off to the gypsy camp with the fearlessness of someone who no longer cared about being caught. As much as I worried about losing Daddy to some strange woman, I was more terrified of losing my sister.

  I went to the gypsy camp with her, even though my blue fits had become a weekly occurrence. Hiding them was easy now, compared to all the other lies, especially since no one was paying attention. The day on my bed when my heart stopped haunted me. It was a message, a warning. Time was catching up with me.

  As much as I hated deceiving Mama, I found comfort with the gypsies, in their liveliness, in the intimacy of the crowded families who lived all very out in the open. In the walled-in, echoing, high-ceilinged rooms of my home, secrets could get stashed away forever. I felt cloistered in comparison.

  In this way, I could also keep an eye on Luella, sitting in the grass with my notebook watching her shed the trappings of her privileged identity and step into what she imagined was freedom: dancing in Patience’s clothes until her feet hurt, singing until her throat was raw.

  Tray would sit with me, quietly pulling up tufts of grass. Keeping me company got him out of chores, he said. I liked spending time with him, the feeling of familiarity between us another comfort. Only once did he ask about my writing. “Just stories,” I said. He told me his mother loved fairy tales from the old country, and I soon found myself sitting with Marcella as she wove her tales. “Things not of this earth must be kept in the hearts of young people,” she said. “Goblins and fairies, elves and dwarfs, ghosts and curses.” She told me of the evil eye cast on her husband’s people, of the spell put on her sister when she was born, and how the women in her family are given the sign of death before it comes. “Life can be ugly,” she said. “You must keep your imagination alive. That way you will have somewhere else to look if things turn unbearable.”

  I liked Marcella. She had an open strength and confidence my mother lacked and the freedom my sister craved. She was a grown woman with a grand imagination, and an unshakable calmness even in the midst of the chaos of the camp.

  The gypsies, I learned, fought as much as they sang. Insults, Tray informed me, were often hidden in their songs and fights broke out easily. These were usually between Sydney and his older brother Job, an intimidating pair. I was used to men with a disciplined, polished masculinity like Daddy, not the uncontained energy of these brothers.

  At first, I wasn’t sure why the gypsies accepted us, or let my sister get so close. When I asked Tray about it, he said it was his father, Freddy, who allowed it. “My brother Sydney is his favorite,” he winked. It was no secret that Sydney was mooning over Luella.

  Even though she never spoke about Sydney, I’d catch her dropping him a glance or a quick smile while she walked in lockstep with Patience, who I found more intimidating than her brothers. There was something about Patience I didn’t trust, and she knew it. She also made a point to avoid me, keeping Luella to herself, gifting her small trinkets that required something in return.

  By July, Luella had grown wide-eyed and agitated. The more time we spent with the gypsies, the more restive she became. Her rebellion took on a dutiful quality. I’d wake at night to find her sitting at the window, saying how unbearably stifling the room was and how nice it would be to sleep under the stars.

  “The gypsies don’t sleep under the stars,” I reminded her. “They sleep in tents and wagons.” But I had the feeling she wasn’t listening.

  It was the day after Luella’s sixteenth birthday, July 13th, when she threw a fit about having to go for an audition at the Metropolitan Opera House. The previous night we’d had a quiet birthday dinner and Daddy had given her a pair of tiny pearl earrings, which Luella had accepted graciously. It was the first meal she hadn’t spent glaring at him since the incident at Delmonico’s, and I was hopeful things were on the mend. But as I came down the stairs the next morning, I found Luella storming out of the parlor. She banged past me up the stairs with exaggerated disdain. Mama watched from below, her accusatory eyes flicking to me. “Come down here,” she ordered. I obeyed. Suspicion creased her forehead. “Is there something going on with your sister I should know about?”

  My first thought was relief she didn’t know already, the second panic that she knew enough to be suspicious. I kicked my shoe into the bottom rung of the stair. “No.”

  “Speak up.” Mama propped her finger under my chin and lifted my face.

  I pulled my head away, hating how small I felt. I was sorry, but also angry Mama couldn’t see what was going on with Daddy. The least she could do was show signs of distress, gaunt eyes or ashy skin, make Daddy feel guilty. Instead she looked clear-eyed and healthy as ever, smelling cheerfully of sweet vanilla.

  She looked as if she knew I was keeping something from her. “I said, speak up.”

  “And I said, no,” I answered loudly.

  Mama pulled back, and I was sorry I’d spoken so sharply. It wasn’t her fault we were all deceiving her. I looked at her self-consciously gloved hands with the urge to pull off her gloves and feel her twisted, bumpy scars under my fingers. It had been so long since I touched them. Marcella would have worked hard with those hands. Miss Milholland would have flaunted them. They were Mama’s strength and she hid them away. I didn’t want her to be weak.

  “Very well,” she said, and dismissed me.

  As mad as Luella was about having to go to that audition, she danced well enough to be given her first role as one of the seventeen angels in the Hansel a
nd Gretel Ballet Divertissement. She never went so far as to thank Mama for making her do it, but the honor, at least for a short time, raised her spirits. A glint returned to her eyes, and the rehearsals exhausted her into a sound sleep again. Mama and I went to every rehearsal with her, happy to escape the city heat in the cool theater on 49th Street, sitting in the plush velvet seats, watching the dancers glide and leap across the stage as if their bones were weightless, their arms rippling like wings. It was Marcella’s fairy tales come alive.

  One day, as I sat in my usual seat next to Mama, caught up in the swirl onstage and the rising crescendo of string instruments, the choreographer halted the music with a swoop of his arm and marched over to Luella. Clapping his hands inches from her nose he barked, “Fouetté!” Without missing a beat Luella raised an arm above her head, whipped her leg out and spun in a single rotation.

  Mama tensed, her hands moving in small extensions from her lap as she whispered to herself, “Croisé, yes, yes, fifth position.”

  “Fouetté!” The choreographer clapped again. “Fouetté, fouetté, fouetté!” Again and again Luella whipped around. There was no music, just the sharp clap of his hands and the soft thud of Luella’s toe shoes on the wooden stage. Finally, the choreographer dropped his arms and the theater went silent. Luella’s chest rose and fell rapidly against her tight bodice, her cheeks red-hot. The choreographer pointed a finger in her face. “I will not waste any more time on you. One more mistake and you’ll be replaced.” He waved his hand at the conductor, who raised his baton, and the ballerinas shuffled back into position.

  On our way home, Mama sat between Luella and me in the back seat of the car. The top was down and it was scorching hot. Pearls of sweat dripped down the back of our driver’s neck as we crawled along, the sun beating down on us, the noise of the trolleys and cars dizzying. Mama had just begun an animated critique of Luella’s performance when we passed a popcorn wagon and I burst out, “Can we stop for popcorn?”