was a two-bedroom, which was more expensive. The initial payments took up half my savings, but he said I should have no problem finding a roommate to share the expenses.
“New York is always burstin’ with young ladies lookin’ to hitch themselves to a star,” he said.
I didn’t like the way he had said that. I didn’t want to be part of a generic pack of lemmings running headlong over some cliff of fantasies. I knew it was going to be hard, very hard, and I would swim in a lake of disappointments. Eventually, I might drown in rejection, but I decided to do it anyway. Was that courage or blind stupidity?
“The apartment is furnished and has a passable set of dishware, pots and pans, and silverware,” Leo had told me. There was a pause, and he added, “Not real silver, you understand.”
When I announced it all at dinner the night before I was to leave, my parents and my sister were astounded and upset that I had done all this planning and arranging so quickly without their knowledge. I had hoped that they would be proud and impressed that I had taken care of so many details on my own. I had tried to be businesslike, explaining the costs for travel, the rent, and what I could make in my temporary side job. I even had a liabilities-and-assets statement for my father to peruse. However, when my father saw it, he crunched it in his fist and slammed his other hand on the table so hard the dishware and silverware bounced. He stabbed his right forefinger at me, forbidding me to follow through.
“Get that deposit back, cash in those plane tickets, and quickly. I didn’t raise a daughter, give her good room and board, clothe her, and get her educated to have her turn into a cock-up and embarrass this good family name.”
He spun on Mummy, still pointing his finger like the barrel of a pistol.
“I told you, Agnes Lee Moorhead, that permitting her to sing in those pubs before a crowd of worthless and wasteful lumps who don’t know a do re mi when they hear it would come to no good. They blew her full of herself. She’s just another impressionable young girl someone is going to exploit.”
“You can’t say she hasn’t got a beautiful voice. You’ve heard her in church and in school, Arthur,” Mummy said softly, light tears starting to swim in her eyes. “And you’ve heard how much she was admired. Maybe, if she continued to sing here in the pubs and—”
“Because she sang in church and school? That’s cause to waste young years, not to mention the real money she could be earning in a useful position? It will come to no good, and I won’t be part of it or have it be part of my family here or anywhere. I forbid it,” he said, then left the table, which was very unlike him, for he wouldn’t stomach anyone wasting his food. He told us his father used to make him eat for breakfast whatever he had left over at dinner.
Mummy turned to me, her face as crimson as it would be if she had stood too close to a fire. “You’ll have to reconsider, Emma. Maybe wait until he’s warmed to the idea.”
“He’ll never warm to it,” I said, looking after him as if there was smoke in his wake. “He wants me stuck in some bank-teller job or something and then have a brood of children to mind. Just because he buried every dream he has ever had doesn’t mean I bury mine. I’m eighteen and in charge of my future now. I’ve got to pack,” I said defiantly, and, like him, rose and left the table.
“They’re two peas in a pod,” I heard Mummy tell my sister. “Both stubborn and butting heads.”
Now he stood there in our entryway, the threats dripping from his eyes, his lips quivering with rage. I was trembling, too, but I wouldn’t let him see that.
“I’ll call you, Mummy, when I arrive in New York,” I shouted past him. She looked up and at me, tears streaming down her face.
“No, you won’t. You won’t call this house if you step out of it with that suitcase,” my father said. “I forbid your mother to speak with you, and your sister as well, if you leave. Send no letters, either. They’ll be burned at the door.”
Despite how hard I was shaking inside, I stood as firmly as