Father didn't believe in the radio. Momma only got one after the war, when she knew he wouldn't be coming home. "It's for the news -- for the tenants," she had told me. I would turn the dial towards the left to try and hear the music, but with Momma in the house I would always get caught. It was hard to keep my feet quiet once the saxophones took the melody, and she nearly came after me with her stirring spoon. It wasn't two weeks later before I chopped all my hair off, just like Louise Brooks. Momma hated it. Father would have loved it. The only boy he'd ever have.
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Despite the heat, I've taken the bus on Thursday to relish in the beauty of the Omni Severin. I could never afford to stay here, but there's no cost to sit in the lobby. I lean back into the lush armchair, rolling back onto its luxurious cushioning, closing my eyes and humming along with the sounds coming from the Radiola behind me. Slowly breathing in and out, I open my eyes to look up into the sparkling beauty of the chandelier dangling above me.
One day, I think to myself, I'm going to have one of these in every room - even the patio!
Nothing sounds ridiculous in my dreams, except for the strong probability that I might have to spend the rest of my days in Plainfield. But I'm determined not to end up this way: inheriting the dismal old tenant house, cleaning up after strangers on my hands and knees, laying out plates in front of them when they start to get that hungry look in their eyes that tells me it's already 5:30. Speaking of which, I'll have to be making my way home soon. It's nearly dinnertime.
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Mary and Jolie are waiting for me at the screen-covered door when I arrive. "Momma's weal mad," Jolie whispers in my ear as I lean down to give her a hug. She's only four, but she picks up on a lot of the tension in the house. She also picks up on the fact fact that I shouldn't be escaping to Indianapolis; "that big city of sin," Momma calls it. Frankly, I don't really care. I love the bustling streets, the music streaming out from the doors, and the women in their loose and billowy, wonderfully glamorous dresses.
Supper is already on the table by the time I've wiped the sweat from my brow and changed into a clean shift. Momma is glaring at me from across the room, but I know she won't say anything. A new tenant arrived last night and she knows that it's too much of a financial risk for anyone to hear us fighting. The walls are quite thin here, to my advantage. We tend to disagree with a vehement silence that only interrupts itself on the rare occasion when nobody else is around.
Everyone familiar is in the dining room already, but I have yet to meet this new guest of ours. Meals here usually consist of mumbled grunts from the middle-aged males who have gone yet another day without work. Mr. Williamson's wife moved out three weeks ago with their son. And Mr. George finally gave up the bottle last week, or so he says. I know that Momma worries about the presence of these people in her house, what with five daughters to worry about. But it's how we get by these days. Even when the residents can't pay, we can put them to good use here, fixing pipes and unclogging drains.
It's hard to be upset with this strong woman who raised us when I look across the table and see the tears secretly well up in her eyes, but then I remember that I don't have time to be sentimental. If I allow any of that foolishness, I'll never get out.
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The music on the radio makes its continued attempt at distracting us from the worries of the day. I try and lose myself in it, daydreaming of a grandiose stage, sequined fringe, and glossy black hair gleaming from the spotlight directed my way. "Dear, please scoot your chair in so that Miss Peters can get to her seat," my mother interrupts with an edge in her voice that is hardly masked by her imposed pleasantry. I turn then to see a woman so beautiful, I am in shock. At least, she seems quite beautiful, except for that awful scar etched across her young face. Nevertheless, she exudes something that one doesn't encounter very often. Something that I want so bad I have to wrestle with myself in order to stop from tearing it out of her. She is, if one can ever be, the essence of glamour. If, that is, you can ignore the entire left side of her face, I think with a smirk. I immediately regret it.
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Miss Peters is residing in the attic. She mostly keeps to herself, it seems. I feel bad for her, so I try to spend some extra time up there, changing sheets, making sure she has towels, hoping that some of what she is might rub off on little-old-me. Apparently, she grew up in Indiana, too. But she came here from California. She tells me that she used to be beautiful, vain and confident; that there was suddenly a car accident, a horrible one. I try to tell her that she still is quite beautiful, that she looks like one of those girls on the cover of LIFE, even though my voice quavers a little bit knowing that she can see the fixation of my eyes upon her scar. She gives a weak smile. Every once in a while, she'll brush her hand up to her face, so graceful as if she were a magician making a cloth disappear into thin air. She once dreamed of being a great actress, she says. "Now there's no use."
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After that, we don't talk much. Some days we'll simply sit up there in her makeshift room in the attic, watching out the window as new tenants come and go. Mostly, they come. No one ever seems to get back on their feet long enough to move out for long. Everyone is sad these days. Night after night, I find myself privy to the sound of Momma sobbing through the walls. Even Miss Peters, with all of her beauty, rarely looks happy. If I'd ever been to California, I'm sure I would miss it, too.
Sometimes when I get up to leave the attic, discouraged by all the silence, she'll reach up and hold onto my wrist, like she just needs someone to sit there with her. I want so badly to take off for good, to get away from the darkness of this house and the dismal reality of the only home I've ever known, but I can't help feeling like it's wrong, like I need to be here.
I don't like it.
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I take Miss Peters to see my chandelier. When I see it, I feel so high, like a part of my soul is contained within those particles of glass, glinting with the sun and refusing to deny a fate of living in normality.
It's the first time that I see her smile for real. With that, her entire face lights up, and i realize that she, even with that horrible scar, probably has a better chance in Hollywood than I'll ever have at dancing in New York. For a moment, I hate her. But she takes my hand and squeezes it. "Thank you so much, Birdie," she says. I feel like she really means it.
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And then she's gone. I'm out riding my bicycle one day in June, feeling the breeze catch the back of my sunburnt neck as I pedal past houses where good friends used to live, now boarded up with eviction notices. When I get back home, feeling lucky to have one at all, I race up to the attic in hopes of seeing a friendly face. But instead, a copy of LIFE from 1926 is there to greet me, resting gracefully on a perfectly-made bed. A scrap of paper rests on top:
You were almost right. I never had a cover, but I am on page 23. Thank you for bringing me back to life and making me believe I still have a shot. There is a rough road ahead for the both of us, but I feel like we might make it. Come see me anytime! All my love, Carole
Carole? I pick up the magazine and flip my way through to the page. A ticket is smuggled into the crease, next to the image of a beautiful young woman named Carole Lombard, just a few years older than myself, smiling at a dinner table with Clark Gable. I pick it up delicately with my fingers as if it might vanish. I can't believe my eyes; it's a one-way trip to Hollywood.
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I'm standing across the street from the Omni Severin. I can see my chandler through the front window. A suitcase is in my hand and the ticket from Carole is safely nestled within my wallet. I didn't tell anyone that I was leaving today; it just seemed easier to pack up and disappear. And now I'm stuck here, on my own personal square of sidewalk, where I have been standing for the past fifteen minutes. Is this where my father stood, five years ago? Wondering which road he ought to take? Did it take any thinking at all? Or did he just go without a care?
The bus station is three blocks to my left; home is fifteen miles to the right.
I sigh.