Don't Forget to Write: A Novel(14)
“If only I had a daughter like you,” she said miserably. “You must have men lining up to marry you.”
“Just one,” I said. “And that’s why I’m here. I said no, and my parents sent me to Ada.”
“You’re so lucky. With that figure and that complexion.”
“Looks aren’t everything,” I said delicately. What I wanted to say was that she was an awful mother. She had sat there telling my great-aunt what a wonderful cook her daughter was, how she could sew and mend anything, how obedient she was. Heck, I would marry her if I were a man. Looks fade for everyone—except maybe Ada—but someone who can cook, darn socks, and listen to every inane word you say was forever. “I wish I had half her domestic skills.”
“You don’t need them. You’ll marry well.”
There it was again. That assumption that I would stop existing except to pop out babies and pick up some husband’s dirty socks.
It took every ounce of self-control I had not to let her have it. Instead, I bit my (thankfully un-made-up) lip and kept quiet. When the coffee was done brewing, I let it sit a moment longer, hoping I had given Ada all the time she needed, before leading Mrs. Stein back to the sitting room.
Where I almost dropped the entire coffee tray.
We had been gone six minutes. Maybe seven. But the girl in front of us wasn’t the same girl who had slunk through the door after her abusive mother.
Yes, she was nearly six feet tall, looming over the rest of us, but her shoulders were back now. Ada had belted her dress neatly at her almost nonexistent waist, brushed the hair out of her gorgeous chocolatey brown eyes, and applied rouge and lipstick, which, upon closer inspection, was mine.
She would never be beautiful. But with her mouth shut over her teeth and her posture corrected, her cheekbones stood out, giving her a handsome appearance despite the large nose.
Mrs. Stein’s mouth was open, her eyes bulging. Ada instructed Hannah to twirl around, which she did.
“How did you—?”
“She’s got wonderful bone structure,” Ada said. “You’re going to take her to Gimbels, down on Market Street. Ask for Charlotte. I’ll call ahead. She’s going to take care of you. And I’ll call you later this week with some matches.”
“You’re a true bal-shem,” Mrs. Stein breathed.
When they left, I asked Ada what bal-shem meant.
“Miracle worker. Yiddish.” She shook her head angrily. “The real miracle was me not slapping that awful woman. Who treats another human that way, let alone their own child?” She went to the desk in the corner and made a note. “But she’ll worship the ground any future husband walks on for taking this problem off her hands. Meanwhile most of the men in this city should be so lucky.” She looked back up at me. “When you go buy a lipstick, get me another one in that same shade. I gave yours to Hannah.”
I smiled at this glimpse into her true colors but turned away so she wouldn’t see it.
CHAPTER TEN
When Ada dismissed me for the afternoon, I took the paper from my pocket and began my adventure on the Philadelphia trolley system. We were in Oxford Circle, far from Center City, as the talkative woman next to me on the first trolley explained. I wasn’t used to strangers being so polite and tried to ignore her at first, but she made that impossible. But my aunt had chosen to live in the community she worked in.
I wanted to ask how far Market Street was from the Liberty Bell, but after realizing I sounded like a tourist for asking Shirley how to get to it from Ada’s house, I decided to keep the question to myself.
It was nearly an hour, much longer than when Ada drove at breakneck speed back from the train station, before I stepped out under the gold awning of Gimbels. The store took up a full city block. I had been to the New York one, of course, but with its Philadelphia roots and reputation for skimping on frills, it wasn’t the New York icon that Macy’s, Saks, or Bergdorf Goodman was. But it would do.
Two lipsticks later, I was back on Market Street, looking at the people going about their daily lives and wondering where they were going and where they had come from. There was a little boy on the corner selling newspapers, and an electronics store with a window full of televisions, a sign above them reading “Watch the future as it happens.”
I stepped off a curb and narrowly missed being hit by a trolley; I was used to the traffic in New York City that could smoothly move around pedestrians with a honk and outburst of profanity from the driver if the pedestrian was in the wrong, an extended finger and outburst of profanity from the pedestrian if the driver was. This would take some getting used to.
But there, across the street, was a sign with the shape of a bell on it. I smiled in my new lipstick.
That smile faded, however, as I reached Independence Hall, after walking along the tree-lined street outside the building where the Constitution was signed. There was no line, and a sign on the door read “Closed for Renovations.”
“Who renovates the Liberty Bell this close to the Fourth of July?” I asked out loud in frustration. I tried the door, but it was locked, the windows papered over to hide the view of what was happening inside.
I stomped my foot, cursing this town, and then turned and made my way back toward the trolley stop for the long ride back to Ada’s house.