Eastland (12 page)

I dragged myself up two flights of stairs to the time clock on
the third floor. I found my time card on the rack for the coiling
department and placed the cream-colored card into the pocketshaped slot on the front of the wooden clock. I pulled the lever
below the slot, and the clock punched me in at seven-twentyseven. I dropped my card back into the rack and turned toward
my department.

Who would be there? How many women had survived? How
many would be fit enough to come back to work today? My chest
tightened, making it hard to breathe. Why not sneak off and go
home? There was no one around to tattle on me.

Take a chance. Just this once.
I marched down the hall.
As I neared department 2322, I paused for a second to peer

through the glass in the top half of the wooden door. In a room
normally occupied by thirty women, I counted only eleven. I
continued down the empty corridor, pausing to peek through
each windowed door.

In department 2323, I found four women.
In department 2326, nine.
Department 2327, the coiling department,
my
coiling department, had how many? I wiped my sweaty hands on my skirt
and peered inside.

Maybe the gals weren’t up to coming back? It was probably
too soon. It couldn’t be anything else? Could it?
I couldn’t be the only survivor?
The whistle blew two long blasts, jarring me. I choked back a
sob as I opened the door and plodded toward workbench seven,
the station I’d shared with Mae only last week.
“Delia!” someone called from behind. I spun around.
Maria Tomaso, workbench four, waddled through the
door. She was alive and here and still quite pregnant. “Oh,
Dee! I’m so relieved to see you!” Maria stopped and clutched
her stomach.
I dropped my lunch basket and umbrella on the hardwood
floor and rushed to her side.
“The calls from the families came in drips and dribbles all
week.” She leaned on me as we hobbled toward her bench. “Mr.
Hofstedder and I could not believe that girl after girl had died.
And then we heard about you!” She looked at me, her dark eyes
brimming with tears. “We were both so thankful.”
I eased her onto her bench, and then I sat beside her.
“I still can’t believe they’re all gone.” Maria trembled, her
body wracked with sobs. “Eleanor, Rose, Helena, Frances,
Louise. Gone! All gone!”
I remembered the group of gals I’d seen in the Promenade
salon, chatting and laughing.
“My friend Jennie!” Maria went on. “Her younger sister,
Anna! Only sixteen!”
The two sisters had been dressed in similar white-eyelet
dresses like twins. Now, sweet, sweet Anna would remain sixteen forever, frozen in time like Mae. Tears streamed down my
cheeks and dripped onto my lap.
“We heard bell divers had found Lillian. She’d been buried
beneath a china hutch.”
My hand flew to my mouth. I struggled not to scream.
“Funny little Elizabeth. She could always make me laugh.
Barbara, Julia, Fannie! I loved Fannie. She made the best strudel. And Mae!” Maria seized my hands. “Oh, Dee! Your friend.
I’m so sorry.”
She wailed hysterically now. I wept with her.
And so we sat, the last two remaining coilers in department
2327, and mourned all the women who’d once shared this room
with us. They’d been our friends, our confidantes, our support
in times of need. I thought about the sweat we’d lost on those
unbearably hot, humid August days. How we’d sat so close
together in the lunchroom on chilly January afternoons.
“Miss Pageau,” a familiar voice called. “May I have a word?”
Mr. Hofstedder stood in the doorway, waggling a fat finger
at me.
“Please.” His voice squeaked with strain. “I need to speak
with you.”
I pulled a hankie from my pocket, wiped my tear-streaked
face, and blew my nose. “I’ll be right back, Maria.” She whimpered and nodded as I followed Mr. Hofstedder into the hallway.
“We have a predicament here,” he said, without so much as a
hail or hello or a breath. “A whole department and no workers.”
“I noticed, sir.” A blind man would have noticed the emptiness in that room.
“Oh, my. I’m terribly sorry. What must you think of me, Miss
Pageau? It’s only that I’m so overwhelmed. Everyone’s gone.
What to do? What to do?” He expelled a heavy sigh. “You were
on that boat? Right? You survived. But of course, you survived.
You’re standing here, aren’t you?” He whipped out the striped
handkerchief protruding from his waistcoat pocket and wiped the
sweat from his hairy upper lip. “Forgive me, Miss Pageau. I’m not
making any sense today. Nothing makes any sense today.”
He tucked the bottom of his moist handkerchief back into
his pocket, feathering the top of the kerchief for flourish. As if
anyone were around to notice.
“I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you. But
Western Electric has been devastated by the loss of nearly
five hundred employees. That’s why we need you to help hire
replacements.”
I thought of the desperate, silver-haired woman. “No! I’m
not up to that.”
“I’m sorry to put this on you, but you’re the only candidate.”
He nodded toward the room. “Poor Mrs. Tomaso is in no
condition.”
I looked back at Maria, who was still crying.
“Okay, not Maria. But not me! There must be another
solution.”
“You have the experience and the skills. You can do this.” He
opened the department door. “Starting now, you’ll report to the
personnel office for training.”

After a week of downpours, drizzles, and overcast skies, the rain
had finally let up, though not before leaving behind a humid
reminder of its irritating presence. I unbuttoned my cuffs
and rolled up my long sleeves after picking up my weekly pay
envelope on Friday evening. The number of unemployed still
clamoring for jobs outside the north gate had thinned since
Thursday morning. Western Electric security guards seemed to
be handling the situation on their own without the help of the
Cicero police.

Mr. Bruno, my bulldog friend from yesterday, trooped up
and down the line, demanding order.
“Anyone causes trouble, can take it up with this.” He thrust
his handy billy club into the air. He had turned to march back,
when he spotted me. “Make way! Step aside.”
I gave Mr. Bruno a wave of thanks and dashed through the
outer yard to the street.
“Yoo-hoo, Dee!” Dolly rushed up to me all breathless and
sweaty. “How’s the hiring going? Meet any handsome prospects?
Or two?” She gave me a teasing nudge. “One for you. One for me.”
I laughed. “Hey, I’m not your private match-making service,
you know.”
“Couldn’t hurt to keep your eyes open.”
“Well, maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll keep one eye open for you.”
I shoved her playfully away.
We laughed as we crossed Cicero Avenue. Dolly headed north
toward busy Twenty-Second Street. I continued west along my
new, direct route.
“So, what’re your plans for—Hey! Where ya going, Dee?”
“Home.”
“Don’t you usually go this way?”
“Used to. Now I go this way.”
“But I thought we might …” Dolly hesitated. “Maybe we
could walk home together? I want to hear what you’re up to on
Saturday night.”
“Nothing,” I mumbled as thoughts of Lars and the ballet flittered across my mind.
“Own up. Who is he?”
“Who is who?”
“That fella you were thinking about. I saw you smile.”
“There’s no one. Really, no one.”
“I don’t believe you.” Dolly turned her back on me. I rushed
after her.
“Honest. I have nothing special going on tomorrow
night.” I wiped the sweat from my face. “How about you?”
I said, trying to change the subject. “What’re you doing
Saturday?”
“Normally, I’d go roller skating at the Arcadia Ballroom or
dancing at that swanky, new Midway Gardens. But now, well,
I’ve lost so many of my partners.” She let out a long sigh as
though she were on the verge of tears. My heart pinched with
pity.
Rumor had it that both of Dolly’s parents had died of drink.
Dolly now lived with her grandmother, a sixty-year-old woman
with a stooped back and rheumatism. Dolly was the only breadwinner in the household. She had to feel the pressure. So what if
she wanted to let off a little steam on a Saturday night?
“Maybe you could do something else.”
“By my lonesome?” She shook her head, her mop of red curls
jiggling. “I’ll probably stay in and keep Grandmum company.”
We had passed the corner tavern and were approaching the
greengrocer when it dawned on me that I had followed Dolly
down Twenty-Second Street.
“Dee! Dolly!” Mr. Mazurski waved to us. “Oh, my dear girls!
I’m so happy to see you!”
The greengrocer scooped us up and squished us mercilessly in his hairy arms. He reeked of onions and bananas
and peppers. The combination made me queasy. I held my
breath, my air running dangerously low by the time he finally
released us.
“You kids would stop by on your way home. And now …”
Mr. Mazurski dabbed at his teary eyes with his apron and then
plucked up two yellow pears from the bushel beside him. “On
the house.”
I took the fruit and thanked him. Dolly snatched up her pear
and dropped it into her lunch basket.
“Grandmum will love this!” She pecked Mr. Mazurski on the
cheek. He lifted his apron and wiped his eyes again.
“Stosh! You promised you weren’t going to carry on so!” Mrs.
Mazurski closed the cash drawer. Her register chimed. “These
girls are alive. Be happy to see them.”
“Mrs. Mazurski’s right. We’re alive and well. Pinch me. Go
ahead.” Dolly held her arm out for Mr. Mazurski, who gave her
skin a hesitant tweak. Dolly laughed and threw her arms around
him. “Now don’t you cry. We promise to come see you every
day.”
Maybe Dolly would come this way every day, but I had my
own route home.
“Grandmum wants some celery,” Dolly said. “What else do
you have for her soup?”
Mr. Mazurski brightened. “How about a nice bunch of
carrots?”
I wiped the pear on my skirt, relaxing against an outside
brick wall under the shade of the shop’s orange awning to eat
while Dolly shopped. When she’d finished, she opened her pay
envelope and tipped out a few coins.
“How much?” she said to Mrs. Mazurski.
“Nothing!” Mr. Mazurski charged toward the register. “No
money today, not from these girls.”
His wife glared at him, but the greengrocer stood his ground.
Dolly took back her pennies.
“Ready, Dee?” She set her assortment of vegetables into her
basket. I took two more bites of my juicy pear and tossed the
core into the gutter.
We strolled along the boulevard past Giuseppe’s Barber
Emporium and the butcher shop. At the corner, Dolly stepped
off the curb as a man on a bicycle peddled past. Puddle water
sprayed her in the face.
“Watch it!” Dolly wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. The man
on the bike waved a fist at her and yelled something in Polish or
maybe Czech. Dolly shouted back in what sounded like the same
language.
“I didn’t know you spoke Bohemian.”
“I don’t. Not really. Just picked up a few choice words here
and there.”
We darted across the intersection, making it onto the opposite curb as the Twenty-Second Street trolley pulled up alongside
of us. We skirted around the line of people waiting to board. The
rest of the way home, Dolly entertained me with stories about
her ballroom adventures. As we neared my porch, I slowed.
Someone sat on the bottom step.
“What’s going on?” Dolly stopped beside me and glanced
up. “Ah! So there’s your mystery man. Wait. Isn’t that’s Mae’s
brother?”
“Yes, but that’s not—” I clamped my hand over my mouth.
“There’s two of them? Why you little rascal. Who would have
thought?”
“No! You don’t understand!”
But it was too late. Dolly was on the run toward my house. I
sprinted after her.
“You’re Mae’s brother?” Dolly stopped short of bowling him
over. “Karel? Right?” She put her hand to her heart. “I can’t tell
you how sorry I am about your sister. Mae was a great gal.”
Karel removed his boater and ran a hand over his slick hair.
“Thank you, miss …”
“Dolly O’Brien.” She smiled at him with those heart-shaped
lips. My chest tightened.
What if Karel took a liking to her? Dolly was pretty in a wild,
carefree sort of way. Men seemed to love that about her.
“I’m a friend of your Delia.”
“She’s teasing, Karel.” I skidded to a halt in front of him. “I’m
not
your
Delia. What she means—”
“Dolly’s right. This
is
my Delia. My dearest friend. I
couldn’t have made it through this week without her.” Karel
locked eyes with me. “She thinks I was her savior, but she’s
been mine.”
Isn’t that what Lars had said to me? They both thought I had
saved their lives?
But I couldn’t hold that thought because Karel was still gazing at me. He had a playful glimmer in those heather-grays, and
a cocksure smile that was completely irresistible.
“So, Karel,” Dolly cooed, as the front door opened. “What
brings you to our dear Delia’s house today?”
“I was hoping Dee might like to go for some ice cream after
supper.”
“She’d love to!”
I jabbed Dolly in the arm. “First, I need to check with Mama.”
Dolly was holding up a finger as though she wanted to say
something, when Mama strode onto the porch. “You should go
for ice cream,
chérie
.”
“What? Really? You don’t need me to do any mending? Or
chores?”
“
Non
.” Mama looked down at Karel. “You can come back at
seven?”
He gave her a gallant bow. “Seven is perfect. Can you join us,
Mrs. Pageau?”
“What? No!” Dolly shrieked. “No mothers on dates!”
“Sank you, Karel, but I feel a headache coming on.” Mama
touched her forehead with a backward sweep of her hand. I
struggled not to laugh out loud. Sarah Bernhardt couldn’t have
given a more melodramatic performance. “You two young
people go. Have fun.”
Karel pressed his boater to his chest as though his heart
had been broken. “Next time, then.” He turned his attention
back to me. “Dee, what do you say? A little ice cream tonight
with me?”
“She’d love to go with you!”
“Hey, I can speak for myself.”
“I know,” said Dolly, “just trying to help the cause. Yours,
not mine.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” I squeezed her hand. “But I can
take it from here.”
She curtsied and stepped back.
I smiled at Karel, and all the noisy clatter of the world faded
away.
There was only him and me.
“I’d love to go out with you tonight.”