mints. I felt the sharp taste of peppermint explode in my mouth. We settled back into our seats, not talking, just waiting in suspense for the first notes of the orchestra.
The next act began, just as dark and sad as the first part. I cried again, sopping up my tears with the edge of my cardigan. We’d run out of tissues because Delia was crying, too.
We stood on the train platform. The music from the play still vibrated in my body and I tapped out the rhythms of the songs, making my feet move to the ballet. The girl who played Louise Bigelow wasn’t that much older than I was. I could dance that part in a few years. I sucked on the last mint, feeling it crumble in my mouth in a satisfying way.
“Is he rich, Mr. Benedict?” I asked. “He was wearing a camel hair coat, and I think that pin had rubies in it, the one his wife was wearing.”
“Stop asking me questions about him. I hardly know him.” Delia looked at her watch. “Where is the train?”
“This was the best day of my life. I’m going to be on Broadway someday. Do you think I could be, Delia?”
Delia looked down the track for the train.
I began to sing the lyrics of “What’s the Use of Wond’rin'?” piecing together the parts of the song I could remember. It was the saddest love song I could imagine — something about how love could be false or true, but you had to love him anyway, and that was that.
Delia whirled and slapped me across the face. I was nearly sent to the ground, not so much by the ferocity of it but the surprise. Delia had never struck any of us. This wasn’t a slap on the rear to give us a little propulsion to set the table. This was a slap, a grown-up slap of anger and frustration. Tears sprang to my eyes. My cheek felt as though it had burst into flame.
Delia’s eyes glittered with what looked like fever.
“Stop your noise,” she said. “I’ve had enough, do you understand? I’ve had enough.”
We were peppered with questions from a sleepy Jamie and Muddie when we got home. Da was asleep, deep into the cushions of the couch. I could hardly talk. Delia went into her room and closed the door.
Late that night I woke and went to the bathroom. The door was shut but not locked. I pushed it open.
Delia sat in the tub, the water up to her waist. Da had left his shaving things on the tub as usual — he liked to shave in the tub. I saw the sharp glitter of the razor. There was a towel on the floor, which surprised me, because Delia was fussy about things like towels.
Steam rose from the water and I saw the pale perfection of her skin flushed from the heat. Her breasts were full and rosy. Her hair was loose and streamed into the water.
That’s when I noticed she was crying. She turned her head and looked at me and I saw it was hard for her to focus. She’d been lost in a dream, or a memory, and we stared at each other through the steam.
The water stirred as she lifted a hand, and I thought she would cover herself, but for once she had no shame. She lifted that hand as if to entreat me, or apologize, I still don’t know.
I backed up and shut the door.
Ten
New York City
November 1950
Ten o’clock in the morning and the knock was at the door to the street, not the door off the kitchen that led to the lobby. I was barely awake, and I yawned my way to the door. I peeked through and saw Nate looking over his shoulder. He was carrying a load of shopping bags.
I opened the door and he stepped in right away.
“I took the liberty,” he said.
“What’s this?”
He went into the living room and put down the shopping bags. He began to take out boxes and dump them on the couch and the floor, flipping the lids off and taking some of the items out of the tissue paper quickly as he talked.
“I have a client, someone I’ve known for years. Last year he sent his daughter off to college with a trunkful of clothes. Only she lived in jeans and sweatshirts and ran off with some poet. Dropped out of Smith.” The beautiful clothes were tossed against the cushions and the