his open life. He wasn’t buried in secrets. He wasn’t tied up in lies. I didn’t deserve his friendship, but I wanted it. I wanted somebody to look at me like he did, like I was good.
“You look kind of shook,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Fine. Just a long night.” I swung into step next to him.
We didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “You know,” Hank said, “when I was a kid and I had a lousy day and didn’t want to talk or anything, my mom had this routine. I’d have to come up with one thing — just one thing that had made me happy that day. Like, I had pudding with lunch. Or I rattled a stick along a gate on the way home from school. Anything, no matter how little.”
We took a few more steps. “Actually, something good did happen to me today,” I said. “I got a callback.”
“Great! You see?”
We walked a few more steps. “What’s a callback?” Hank asked, and we laughed a little.
“I went on an audition, and I made the cut. I’m one of three girls up for a part in a new musical. A small part. But it’s good! It’s called A Year of Junes. I get one whole song, and a dance with the lead. And this choreographer, it’s his first show, his name is Tom Cullen — but he’s been doing work in Hollywood, and he’s the next Jack Cole, that’s what everyone says.” As I told Hank the news, I started to get excited again.
“Jack Cole.”
“He’s a famous choreographer. But this guy today — you can’t imagine how he makes me move — it’s a whole different extension. You should see what I had to do with my hands! Like this.” I bent my wrists, thrust out a hip, and did a slow slide step. “Hardest audition, I had to changement, changement, aire plié…” I burst out laughing at Hank’s expression.
“Yeah, I do that every morning when I brush my teeth,” Hank said. “And you cut your hair, too. I like it. It suits you.”
“Thanks.”
We were crossing Third Avenue, and a train roared overhead. Hank waited until it was gone. “Okay, we need to celebrate.”
“But I didn’t get the part yet.”
“Callbacks deserve celebration, don’t they? Let’s go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center on Monday — after school. You have time, don’t you?”
“Sure. But I don’t have skates. And… I can’t skate.”
“Don’t they have ice in Rhode Island?”
“Sure.” But we never had money for skates.
“You can pick it up in two seconds. And you can borrow my mom’s skates, or we can rent a pair. Say yes,” Hank urged. “You need a day off, don’t you?”
A day off from everything. The breeze quickened, and for the first time, I smelled snow in the air. It was almost Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving meant Billy. All of that was ahead, but right now I could take a few hours and learn to skate.
“Yes,” I said.
Fourteen
New York City
November 1950
On Monday afternoon I met Hank in the lobby and we took the stairs down to the basement of the building. I stepped into a big room with a painted concrete floor. I followed him past the washing machines and into another room of storage areas separated by chain-link fences. Each apartment had its own space.
Hank went to the storage unit for 2A. He fitted a key into a padlock on one of the doors and pushed it open. Inside were cardboard boxes, a bicycle, and an overturned chair with stuffing popping out of the seat. The skates were balanced on top of a cardboard box.
“This is where we come when they drop the Bomb, I guess,” he said. “We’re supposed to duck and cover with the baby carriages and the bicycles.”
“Hey, don’t forget ice skates and catcher’s mitts.”
He picked up skates. “Will these fit?”
He waited while I tried them on. I wouldn’t call Hank’s mother and me a perfect fit, but her skates would do.
We took the crosstown bus to Rockefeller Center. Hank bought tickets and we laced up our skates. Hank took off quickly, and I stepped cautiously out on the ice. It looked so easy, but as soon as my feet hit the ice they slid out from underneath me and I fell backward with a whoop.
Hank circled and skated back to me. “Oh. You really don’t know.”
“You think I was lying?” I shook my head, laughing.
He held out his gloved hand, and I placed mine in it. “Come on, I’ll hold you