Almost a Woman : A Memoir (9780306821110) (48 page)

We'd agreed to meet at his apartment afterward, and when I entered the black-and-white room, he didn't even greet me. He took me in his arms and loved me, and I knew that he knew the performance was for him. That every pore was focused not on the children who were the primary audience, but on the dark scowling face at the back of the theater who now covered my breasts with kisses.

Mrs. Davis at the Advertising Checking Bureau called me into a manager's office because she needed to speak to me in private. She'd been informed, she said in her best supervisor's voice, that I was no longer a student at Manhattan Community College. My job was designated as “cooperative education,” which meant I received credit for working, but only if I was enrolled in school. Since I wasn't, Mrs. Davis suggested that I take a full-time position elsewhere in the company, so that another student could be hired. Because of my performing schedule, I couldn't work forty hours a week, so I quit the Advertising Checking Bureau. As the holidays approached, however, it was clear that my income from children's theater couldn't keep up with my expenses, even after I dropped dance classes and workshops. Bill and Vera promised there would be more shows in the spring, as well as a tour, but they couldn't say how many dates, nor when the tour might be. Just as the year began, I was forced to leave Children's Theater International and look for a real job. I sobbed my goodbyes to Bill, who was also leaving for San Francisco, to Vera, to Tom and Jaime. It was difficult to imagine that I would no longer wear De Mora's outrageous mermaid costume, that there would be no chain dragging me offstage. In the year and a half I worked in children's theater, I came to love the enthusiastic responses of our audiences, the tension when the hero or heroine was in danger, the giggles at the
pranks of the monkey god, the cheers at the end when the prince and princess appeared in their full regalia, their future a cheerful certainty.

My own future didn't look so great. January wasn't the best month to look for work. Everywhere I went I was told business was winding down from the Christmas “rush.” The best the employment agencies could do was to send me to do inventory at department stores, whose stock had to be counted before the discount sales began. It was tedious work, and I resented the prospect of counting thousands of shoes, dresses, coats that I couldn't afford to buy, even at a discount.

Shoshana came to my rescue. She had dropped out of college and was about to start a job as a sample model for a manufacturer of junior dresses and skirts. She talked to the owner of the shoe store where she worked and convinced him that he should replace her with me. But I was not good at selling shoes. When a woman asked how white go-go boots looked on her, I tended to be honest —a virtue in life but not in retail. Mr. Zuckerman suggested I find another line of work. After a number of interviews in offices that demanded more skills than I could offer, I was hired at Lady Manhattan. When I told Mami, she was upset. “All this education so that you can work in a factory?” she wailed, and I assured her I'd be in an office, not at machines.

Now that I was employed nine to five, Ulvi and I changed our trysts from afternoons to evenings and weekends. When I wasn't with him, I saw Shoshana or went to the movies or met Alma for dinner. Alma had just started a job as a secretary at NBC, where most of the pages I knew had graduated to better-paying work as assistant producers and writers. She admired her boss, who was said to be headed for great things in the company. I met him once at her office. He looked like a younger version of Mr. Rosenberg, the producer of the Yiddish theater where I was an usher, only more high-strung.

My boss at Lady Manhattan was Iris, a woman in her thirties with kind hazel eyes, cropped auburn hair, and a body type Shoshana
described as
zaftig
––not fat, but not quite skinny either. As her assistant, I merited my own office outside hers, where my job was to maintain her files, answer her phone, keep track of her appointments, order her lunch, get her coffee, handle her correspondence. When she interviewed me, Iris didn't give me a typing test, and it wasn't until a week into my job that she realized she should have. It took me an entire morning to type a simple one-paragraph letter with duplicate. Every time I made a mistake, I took out the original and the carbon copy behind it and started over so that both would be perfect. Iris took one look at the pile of Lady Manhattan letterhead and carbon paper crumpled in the wastebasket and shrugged her shoulders.

“Never mind,” she said. “I'll type it myself.”

In her office, Iris had a wall-size bulletin board on which she pinned swatches of color for the previous, current, and two upcoming fashion seasons. Her job was to purchase the fabrics that the designers used for the blouses Lady Manhattan manufactured. She was good at her job, Iris told me without prompting, and if I was smart and paid attention, I could learn a lot from her. She had me sit in on meetings, ostensibly to take notes, but she admitted it was so that I could “learn the ropes.” Together we came up with the names of the next season's colors. I suggested “Teal”––she called it “Mediterranean Blue.” Never having seen that sea, I couldn't argue with her. When I offered “Dark Orange” she countered with “Pumpkin Spice.” If I saw navy blue, she envisioned midnight. It was clear to everyone else at Lady Manhattan, but not to generous Iris, that I didn't have the poetic or hyperbolic instincts necessary for success in the garment industry.

The office building where I worked was seven blocks from the Broadway theater where Allan was in
Fiddler on the Roof,
starring Harry Goz. Allan was in the chorus and also understudied the role of the idealistic student who married one of the daughters, at that time played by Adrienne Barbeau. One day he called my office to let me know he was taking over the role that evening and that he could get me a ticket to see him. I called Ulvi to cancel our time together. He didn't ask why, and I didn't go into details.

I'd seen
Fiddler on the Roof when
Allan was first cast. It was wonderful to see how he had grown in the role. He lent a boyish charm to the romantic part, an innocence that endeared him to the audience. Afterwards, I met him backstage, and he introduced me to Adrienne and to Harry Goz; to Florence Stanley, whom I'd met in
Up the Down Staircase
and who played Yenta in
Fiddler;
to Bette Midler, who portrayed the oldest daughter. After they signed autographs at the stage door, we walked across the street to eat at a long, tunnel-like restaurant whose walls were decorated with signed photographs of Broadway actors. The bar was smoky, crowded with garrulous actors still high from a performance. In the juke box, Diana Ross proclaimed someday we'll be together, its chorus repeated over and over again by a mushy group in a corner bidding goodbye to one of its members.

It was very late when I arrived home. Mami raised her head from her pillow, waved me in, went back to sleep. The next day, I was exhausted at work, and while Iris went to a meeting in New Jersey, I asked the switchboard operator to handle calls, locked myself in Iris's office, and slept for two hours on the floor. When I checked, there were several messages from Ulvi. He was home, and, even though it wasn't one of our nights, he insisted that I come to his apartment because he needed to talk to me. He was furious, I could hear it in his voice.

“What's the matter?” I wondered, but he refused to talk about it over the phone. “Come after work,” he said.

He prepared dinner for me, as he often did. His concoctions were simple—sautéed vegetables sprinkled with feta cheese, salad, steamed spinach with a soft-boiled egg in the center, roasted eggplant. I came to appreciate the subtle, delicate flavors of fresh vegetables—seldom served at home, staples in Ulvi's diet. This time he cooked steamed cauliflower with generous helpings of store-bought Hollandaise sauce, my contribution to his diet. He wasn't as fond of the dish as I was, and it made an impression that he bothered to make it for me. We ate in silence on the leather-topped coffee table. I could tell something was wrong, felt the tension in the room as solid as the four walls. As soon as we
cleared the dishes, he led me to the pull-out sofa bed, sat on one corner, pointed to the other, where I sat, one leg folded under me.

“Chiquita,” he began. “Where were you last night?”

I told him about the play, Allan, the rest of the cast, the smoky, noisy restaurant. He listened attentively, asked about Allan. When did I meet him? Where? Was Allan my boyfriend before he met me?

“Oh, no,” I laughed, “it's not like that with me and Allan. I love him very much, but not that way. We're friends.”

Ulvi nodded, a finger curled to his lips. “Tell me, Chiquita, do you have many men friends?”

“Yes,” I answered truthfully.

He stood up and in three strides was at the door. “Get out!” He was so angry he glowed red.

I was stunned, unable to move, speechless. He opened the door and repeated his words with such venom that I had no choice but to push myself off the couch, pick up my purse, and leave the apartment. He slammed the door after me. In the elevator, in the lobby, outside his building, down to Third Avenue, I was carried by the force of his rage. What had I done? What could I possibly have said? I walked to the train station, waited behind a column, my thoughts focused on every word I had uttered in his presence. In channeling my English through Spanish, had something been lost? Did he misunderstand what I'd said as he translated English through German to Turkish? Or had I broken some Turkish taboo by spending an evening out with friends? Turkey was a Muslim country. Followers of Islam didn't drink. Was he offended that I went to a bar? No, he was angry that I had male friends. Was that forbidden to women in Turkey? Is that why he reacted so violently? I held my sobs until I reached home—earlier than usual, Mami noted with raised eyebrows. I locked myself in the bathroom, filled the tub with scalding water, soaked and sobbed for an hour, while outside a sister or brother periodically banged on the door because they had to pee.

It was over, just like that. The most words Ulvi and I had
exchanged since the day of the parade led to our first and only fight. Was it even a fight? Didn't a fight require at least two people? It was so one-sided. I didn't get a chance to defend myself. From what? Had I done anything to deserve the way he'd treated me? His fury was so unexpected, swift as a scorpion's sting, as painful. “Get out,” he said. With two simple words he kicked me out of his life. As I tossed in bed next to Delsa that night, I moaned and wailed so loud that Mami came to see what was the matter.

“Something I ate,” I said, “made me sick to my stomach.” Five minutes later she brought me a cup of chamomile tea with honey. I sipped it in front of her, and from time to time, bent over with sobs, pushed my arms against my stomach to still the hurt that pulsed not there, but a little higher up and to the left.

Iris noticed that I looked drawn and exhausted the next morning. She called me into her office and asked what was the matter. It was impossible to contain the tears that lurked so near the surface; they flowed against my will.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Iris said. “A man did this.” I nodded, my face in my hands. She came around her desk to where I sat and put her arms around me. She rubbed my back, offered me tissues, pushed back the hair matted on my cheeks. But she had no words of womanly wisdom that could help me get over the pain. “He's a dog,” she finally said, although she'd never met him. Again I nodded. She gave me the rest of the day off.

I called Shoshana at work, and we agreed to meet for dinner. I left the office and walked briskly up Seventh Avenue to Central Park. It was a cold, drizzly winter day, and my red eyes, swollen face, and occasional sobs went unnoticed by passersby. As I reached the spot where Jurgen had confessed his occupation, my heartache turned to anger. How dare Ulvi throw me out of his apartment with no explanation? What kind of a stupid fool was I to do as he asked? What would have happened if I'd refused to leave, if I'd argued with him? A couple of times I turned toward Ulvi's apartment. But as I played possible scenarios in my mind, they seemed melodramatic, too much like a
telenovela,
too close to what was expected of a passionate Puerto Rican who'd been wronged. I squelched the desire to kill him and walked on, letting
the drizzle soak me through until I reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I stood in front of the Seurat painting where I had first met Avery Lee and was sorry I'd said no to him. Had I said yes, I'd be living in luxury in El Paso, where it never rained. Avery Lee didn't expect more from me than what I gave Ulvi. And he could speak English. I stared at the painting for a long time but still could find no more meaning in it than the first time I saw it.