too heavy to lift. Yet he was slender, his belly flat in the plaid shirt he had tucked into his trousers. He had Hank’s narrow, boyish face, and his eyes were too soft behind black-framed glasses. He shook my hand and looked into my face in a curious way.
“Hank tells me you live alone.”
“Well, my dad is up in Providence and can’t leave his job, so …” I smiled. “Don’t worry, I have family friends who look in on me.”
“And now you have us.”
A vein began to pulse in Mrs. Greeley’s forehead. “Tomato juice?” she asked, pronouncing it to-mah-to. I nodded, although I’d actually never tasted it. It wasn’t bad, cold and lemony and thick.
Mr. Greeley slid back into the armchair. I wondered if he was sick. There was something in the air here that I didn’t understand.
“So, Hank tells me you work,” Mr. Greeley said.
“At the Lido,” I said. “I’m a dancer.”
“A dancer! Did you hear that, Nancy?”
“I’m right here, Sam.”
“But you don’t go to school? Education is so important.” Mrs. Greeley got up abruptly and said she had to check the roast.
“I was just in a Broadway play — That Girl From Scranton!“
“I haven’t heard of that show. We don’t get around much anymore,” Mr. Greeley said apologetically.
With a lead-in like that, I couldn’t resist. I hummed the tune of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”
Mr. Greeley brightened and sang out the first line. It brought back a world to me, of music on the radio, of dancing with Billy on a Saturday night.
“Please, Dad,” Hank said. “You’ll crack the glasses.” Smiling, he turned to me. “So you sing, too?”
“I’m a better dancer, but sure,” I said. “I’ve been taking voice lessons since I was nine — plus tap, ballroom, ballet, jazz. I want to start acting lessons now that I’m in New York.”
Mrs. Greeley came back in and sat on the edge of her chair as though she was ready to jump up any second, and it wasn’t for the roast. “Perhaps you could sing for us,” she said. I could tell — she didn’t want me to be good. She wanted to expose me, not show me off. “Something from the show perhaps? That Girl From …”
“Scranton,” I said. “It wasn’t very good.”
I sang a few lines.
Let’s go to the Dappledown Dreamery
Right next door to the cold ice creamery
Don’t even stop to admire the scenery…
I stopped. “You see? Pretty awful.”
“It’s sort of catchy,” Hank said politely.
“Do you know ‘The Way You Look Tonight'?” Mr. Greeley asked. “Always loved that song.”
“I’ll play if you’ll sing,” Hank said. “C’mon.”
Hank sat at the piano and I sat next to him.
I loved the song, too. It was the saddest love song. It was like the person was singing how perfect a moment was even while they knew they were going to lose it. I sang it gently, softly, and when the last note faded, I turned and saw that I’d won over Mr. Greeley, at least.
“That was lovely,” he said. “Wasn’t it, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” For the first time, Mrs. Greeley smiled at me. “It was.”
And the lamps seemed to glow a little more golden, and the room seemed to come closer around us, because suddenly we were all getting along.
Hank swung into a popular tune, “Don’t Tell Me.”
Don’t tell me this is just for tonight,
Don’t tell me that hearts are meant to be light.
Your dreamy smile, your shelt’ring arms tell me what’s true.
No turning back, no second chance, forever us, forever you…
“It’s funny, you remind me of someone,” Mrs. Greeley said. “I just can’t place it.”
“Rita Hayworth,” Mr. Greeley said.
“Oh, Sam, really.” Mrs. Greeley shook her head. “I’ll think of it.”
I decided to ask the question I’d come here to ask. “Hank said the apartment has been empty for years,” I started.
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Greeley said. “Since the war ended. We don’t know why. Especially because of the housing shortage, we thought for sure it would be rented. Such a shame; we even asked about it because we knew a family looking for an apartment. One of the other teachers.”
“I didn’t realize you were teachers.”
Mr. and Mrs. Greeley exchanged a glance.
“Well. Not right now. We, uh…”
“Mom and Dad lost their jobs,” Hank said. “In the purge.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The Board of Education has been investigating teachers for what they call ‘subversive activities.’ With the help of the FBI,” Hank explained. “They targeted Mom and Dad.”
“You go to a meeting or a rally ten years ago, and they