told myself. Memorize and perform. Every time I heard how difficult something was here, I could envision my father’s face, full of I told you so.
By the time my day ended, Donald Manning’s prediction had been hammered home to my feet and ankles. Marge, on the other hand, seemed energetic to the end, even getting stronger as the day wore on. The restaurant was always busy, and she barely took a break. She never lost her smile, even though a few of the customers were demanding and nasty. She raised her eyebrows and nodded at me.
However, many of the regulars who came into the Last Diner made sure to sit at her tables. No matter what work you do, I thought, you could become an expert at it. My father wouldn’t consider her profession something to pursue, but he would be fair enough to recognize she was good at it.
When we had a chance to talk, I told her about my ambitions. Donald Manning had already told her about Mr. Wollard and their history together. She listened with a strange, thoughtful smile on her face as I told her about my singing history and accomplishments. It was a strange smile because she didn’t look that pleased for me. She looked like someone who had heard a similar story so many times that it had become just another sack of nonsense, and by this time at the end of the day, her opinion had become important to me.
“I have to give it a try,” I said. It was as if I was underlining it all and following that with a herd of firm exclamation points, but I wanted her to see I was different, more determined than anyone who had worked here to support his or her ambition.
She shrugged. “What do I know about show business? But I don’t discourage anybody from doing anything,” she said. “All I’ll tell you is it’s not the end of the world to have to do something else. In the end, most of us do something else.”
She looked at my feet and then at her watch. “C’mon. The shoe store that has the best price for the ones I’m wearing is on my way to my subway station.”
“You don’t live nearby?” I asked, surprised. If I was lucky enough to get a place that was within walking distance, why couldn’t she?
“I live in the Bronx,” she said. “With my mother and my four-year-old daughter, Jodi. Saves on rent. Jodi’s in a preschool. It ain’t cheap. Before you ask, Jodi’s father’s a deadbeat. I don’t even know where he is these days.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Marge.”
“Yeah, well, some mistakes you pay for, and some you never stop paying for. Got a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Good. You know the joke about taking an aspirin on a date, if you should go on one?”
“No.”
“Keep it between your legs until you get home.”
“What?” I started to laugh.
“Let’s go. Your innocence is bringing me to tears.”
We went back to change our clothes, and then I followed along to the shoe store. I studied how she walked and how she avoided people, or, I should say, how she got people to avoid her. She didn’t bump into anyone who was oblivious and in her way, either. She could part the Red Sea, I thought, and told her so.
“Always look like you know where you’re going, even though you don’t. The babe-in-the-woods look attracts the mosquitoes.”
I revealed my dreadful experience after I had arrived in New York. It brought her to a complete stop.
“Baptized hours after you arrived?” She shook her head and then smiled and said, “Good.”
“Good? Why good?”
“It won’t happen to you again. You have been forced to wise up quickly. Trust no one, even if they sign a promise in blood.”
I was beginning to miss Guildford in more ways than I thought possible within forty-eight hours of arriving here.
“Let me do the talking in here,” she said when we reached the shoe store.
Perhaps because she pitied me because of what had happened to me, she went into the store with me and bickered with the sales manager, moaning about how we were hardworking girls surviving on a few dollars just like him. She went back and forth with him until he dropped the price another four dollars.
“Think of every dollar you save as a tip, and you’ll be a better consumer,” she said as we left. It was something my father would certainly say. “Know your way back?”