“Hey, you’re fast,” one boy shouted with resentment.
“Like a horse,” called out another.
“Yeah, she does look like a horse.”
“Hey—Charley Horse!”
The boys burst out laughing, holding their sides and bumping shoulders as their pace slackened. They used the spontaneous nickname as a rallying call.
“Get Charley Horse!”
Little Charlotte Godowski ran hard then, as far as she could from the sound of the cruel nickname that poked fun at her face. It was hateful to be so mean. Mean, mean, mean.
Charley wasn’t her name. Her name was Charlotte. A beautiful name. Did she look like a horse? She couldn’t help how she looked…why would they say that? The name hurt and they knew it. They kept hurling it at her like stones as they chased. Charlotte felt a little afraid now, but she dug deep and ran faster. When she spotted the bleachers, she made a beeline for them. She would hide like before.
It was a dumb thing to do. She knew it the moment she ran behind them and saw that she was trapped by the chain-link fence. Like a pack of dogs they came after her, one from around the left side of the bleachers, two from the right. With cunning, they cornered her.
Charlotte moved away from the fence, instinctively allowing herself space. The boys clustered together, their young chests heaving, panting like dogs after the chase. As they stared, she saw conceit gleaming in their eyes.
The boys gathered closer. She could smell the candy on their breaths. Billy’s Keds were smeared; he had stepped in dog manure. The wind gusted, hurling the foul scent toward her. Charlotte shivered, wrinkling her nose, and searched through the slats of the bleachers to where the other schoolchildren were playing. Their high-pitched voices soared in the sky like birdcalls. They seemed so very far away. Suddenly, she felt very alone. She wanted her mother, her teacher. Where were the other girls? She didn’t like this game anymore. She didn’t want to play.
“Okay,” she said, putting out her palms. “You guys win.” She laughed, but it sounded queer, too high.
The boys looked at one another, nervously shifting their weight. Then one boy, Billy again, spoke. “If we catch you we get to pull down your pants.”
Charlotte paled and she sucked in her breath. She hadn’t heard this rule. She’d never have played the game if she’d heard this rule!
“Uh-uh, dog-doo foot,” she muttered, shaking her head and backing away with her palms turned outward against them. It was a big mistake, she thought, because she saw Billy’s eyes turn mean. “I didn’t mean it, Billy. I’m sorry. I quit this game. Okay? Please?”
Billy took the lead now. “Let’s see if she’s as ugly down there.”
Her breath stilled. Surely she hadn’t heard right. She looked at Billy with uncomprehending eyes. Ugly? How could that be? Her mama told her she was pretty. Just last night, at her bedside, her mama prayed to St. Levan for her to be pretty. No one had ever called her ugly. No! They were just being mean.
And yet…From some as yet unvisited place in her heart, Charlotte heard the whispering that it was true. For the first time in her life, at five years of age, Charlotte came face-to-face with her ugliness. Her arms slipped to her sides and she stared back at them with vulnerable eyes.
Sensing her new weakness, they were on her, pulling her to the dirt. Charlotte was filled with a panic she’d never felt before. She kicked her long, spindly legs blindly, with all her might, satisfied when she heard muffled
umphs
and grunts of pain. She fought hard but there were too many of them. With their sticky hands they held her down. She began to cry and beg them not to.
“No…Please…No!”
Their short, blunt nails scraped her hips as they pulled the pink flowered cotton down around her thighs. Then they looked, really looked, with their mouths hanging open, surprised that they’d actually gone through with it.
When the school bell pierced the air they all jumped back, startled, frightened by the reality of what they’d imagined. Charlotte instantly curled into a ball, tucking her thin yellow dress tight around her knees. With her face in the dirt, she hiccuped, tasting the salt of tears and the minerals of earth. She hated these boys. In the harshest jargon of a five-year-old, she shouted out, “You’re
bad!
”
Knowing what they’d done was wrong, the boys scuffed their shoes in the dirt in an embarrassed silence. From her level, Charlotte saw the manure still smeared on Billy’s Keds. When she looked up, she caught Billy’s expression before he turned heel and sped across the field to join the rest of the class as they filed into the school. Charlotte thought Billy had seemed horrified. It didn’t occur to her five-year-old mind that the boy may have been guilt stricken at his own behavior. All Charlotte thought was that maybe she
was
ugly—even down there.
Mortified, her tears cascaded down her grossly sloping chin to pool in the dirt. She hated boys. They were mean and not to be trusted. And she didn’t like the girls, either. Why didn’t they help her? She would have helped them.
Charlotte didn’t go back to school but stayed behind the bleachers until the teacher came out to fetch her and scold her for not following the bell. Charlotte told the teacher that she was sick and wanted to go home. The teacher looked at her tearstained face and believed her. It wasn’t really a lie, but Charlotte told God that she was sorry for the sin, anyway.
But she wasn’t sorry for hating the boys. She promised herself she was never going to let them hurt her again.
December 1991
C
harlotte, weary after a five-hour dress rehearsal of
A Christmas Carol,
unlocked the door of the four-room apartment she shared with her mother. The paint was chipped around the door handle and the single bulb in the hall cast a seedy pall. A home fit for Scrooge, she thought, with a resigned chuckle. She rubbed her sore throat with her mittened hand. What a hectic day. Her voice was hoarse from shouting replies to the harried director and from prompting lines to the actors, who seemed unable to memorize a single scene of dialogue. Charlotte couldn’t understand how they could be so lazy. She knew everyone’s lines; her memory was razor sharp. Everyone depended on good ol’ Charlotte to deliver. Perhaps that was part of the problem. As the stage manager, it was her job to make things easier for everyone else—and she was very good at her job.
Not that she expected to be cast in a role herself, as much as she would have loved it. She would have to remain behind the scenes. She’d accepted her fate years ago, when she accepted her deformity. The theater was in her blood, however, even if only as part-time stage manager for the local company. She was in charge of all the details no one else liked to do, a satisfying enough position for a detail kind of person like herself. She arranged dressing rooms, kept the scripts in order, stepped in for rehearsals when an actor didn’t show, and generally made nice-nice to keep everybody happy. She didn’t mind being in the background. With her looks, it was her lot in life. Her greatest, most secret thrill, however, came during the actual production when she stood offstage, her face upturned in the lights, and whispered the lines of the play with all the feeling and heart that was lacking on stage.
“Mama, I’m home!” she called out, dropping her coat on the bench by the door. She went first to her room, closed the door behind her and switched on the music, delighted with a few minutes all to herself, with no one calling her name. After undressing, she collapsed on her bed, relishing the soft comfort she had no intention of leaving till it was time to go to Sunday mass the next morning.
“Charlotte, you’re home so late!” Helena called out. The large Polish woman’s broad shoulders, already humped over from years of cleaning other people’s houses, stooped a little more in relief at seeing her only child safely home. At forty-seven, Helena Godowski’s face was as pale, translucent and crackled as a piece of her treasured bone china. But she was strong enough to lift the bulky dark wood armoire that housed the fragile dishes, and her physical strength paled when compared to her stern will.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry!” Charlotte hurried to erase the frown from her mother’s brow. “Rehearsals were crazy today, and I had to stay until everyone had their lines down pat. It’s always like this before an opening.” She ran a hand through her hair, shaking it out. “I’m pooped. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
“Go to bed? But you can’t!” Helena raised the purple-and-pink plastic container that she carried under her arm. “Tonight there is nice party!” she said, her eyes bright.
“See, I brought my makeup. We will try something pretty, no?”
“Oh, no,” Charlotte groaned, her eyes closed tight in misery. Her stomach did a flip and she lost her appetite.
“The office party. I’d completely forgotten. Mom, I’d rather stay home.
A Christmas Carol
is on tonight. The old one with Alastair Sim. It’s the best one. And,” she added, thinking fast, “I’m so tired.”
“Movies,” Helena grumbled. “Movies and plays. Always this. You are a watcher. Day and night and never go out, except to that silly theater that doesn’t pay you enough for train fare. This is not good for you. You must live in real world, Charlotte. You can not always hide in your room. You’ll never find a husband like that.” Helena bent to pick up Charlotte’s clothing from the floor and folded the articles into a neat pile on the bed.
“Oh, Mama. I won’t find a husband at the office Christmas party. All I’ll find is a drunk.” She shuddered, rubbing her bare arms at the dismal prospect of another party of long hours sitting alone, enduring snide remarks. “Oh, all right, I’ll go,” she conceded when she saw her mother’s disappointment. “But only because Mr. Kopp sent a memo that implied we all have to show up—or else.”
“Your boss, he won’t let anything be too wild. You’ll have nice time. You’ll see.”
The image of “Fast Hands” Lou Kopp flashed through Charlotte’s mind. Her boss was the very one women worried about most. “I’ll try to have a good time,” she said with a sigh of resignation. “If I can find something to wear.” She dug through the dingy, cramped closet stuffed with old shoes, worn suits and a collection of dusty hats. Her mother never threw anything out. Everything had a little life left in it.
Making things do
was the modus operandi for Charlotte and her mother. Their apartment was small and devoid of any charm, but it was located on a convenient bus line and the rent was cheap, so, like everything else, it had to make do.
If it wasn’t pretty, however, at least it was clean. Not a spot marred the old linoleum or the bland brown carpeting. Neither was there a stain on Charlotte’s old skirt or a button missing from her blouse. The pale green Formica in the kitchen might have been ugly, but it sparkled. As did Charlotte’s unpolished nails and polished shoes. And anyone who entered the narrow lobby on Harlem Avenue would tilt his head and sniff with closed eyes toward the delicious scents simmering behind apartment 2B.
“I have a good feeling about this party. You might meet someone,” Helena said with smug satisfaction. “I prayed to St. Jude.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes and turned her back to slip into an old red wool dress.
“A woman needs a man to look after her,” her mother continued. “And she must take care of him and his home. And his children. Matrimony is a holy state. A sacrament. Yah…I pray for that for you.” Her voice rose with emotion. “I don’t want for you to be alone and unhappy.”
Charlotte squeezed her hands around the hanger. In the mirror she saw herself as her mother refused to see her: an ugly, thin, twenty-year-old destined to be a back room accountant and live with her mother in this dingy apartment for the rest of her life.
“Mom,” Charlotte said, wrapping an arm around her mother’s shoulder. At just this moment, she needed to receive comfort as much as give it. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself—and you. We won’t be alone. I love you.”
She bent to kiss her mother’s cheek, thinking that each time she did so, there was less fullness to her face. Her mother stiffened, patted Charlotte’s arm, then gently pushed her away.
“You better get dressed now. Pretty, okay?”
Charlotte pulled back quickly. “Pretty…” she repeated, scorched by the word. She slipped the dress over her head, groaning as the tight waistband barely squeezed over her bust then cinched her waist. Either the wool dress had shrunk or her bust had grown, because the bodice felt like a vise around her chest. Looking up she caught the grimace on her mother’s face.
“You no can wear
that
dress to party!”
“It seems a little small, I know….” Charlotte tried stretching the fabric out from her chest.
“A little? I can see your…you know!”
“What?” Charlotte spun around to look at herself in the full length mirror. The dress clung to her long slender frame like a second skin, outlining her full breasts in scarlet, voluptuous detail.
Her mother flushed, pointing frantically. “Ach. The tips! They stick out—like coat hooks!”
Charlotte flushed as red as her dress. Her nipples did indeed protrude from the fabric. Mortified, she hunched her shoulders forward, but it was no use. Her breasts would not be concealed. Oh, Lord, Charlotte sighed with exasperation. Why did she have to have such big ones? In the dim light of a vanity lamp, she studied her figure, appalled. Her breasts were full and her waist was small; a figure most women dreamed of.
But she was unlike most women. Her figure was her nightmare. It attracted male attention—until they raised their eyes.
“You must wear something else.”
“I don’t have anything else! Except my church dress, and I’m not going to wear that old brown thing to a fancy party. I just won’t go.”
“No, no, you go. Maybe a jacket. To cover yourself. Is a sin to provoke.”
Provocation was the last thing she wanted. When Charlotte tried on a somber black suit jacket over the offensive dress, her mother visibly relaxed and nodded in satisfaction.
“It will do. You can wear jacket so nice. Like your father.”
“I hope he didn’t have a chest like this,” she muttered.
“Don’t talk like that about your father! He was a fine man. A fine man,” her mother repeated, smoothing out her sweater like ruffled feathers. “From a fine family in Warsaw. What grand house they had. And servants! And his mother—oh, such a lady. There was a woman who never had to lift a finger.”
Charlotte turned away and slipped off the jacket. It didn’t flatter the dress but, like everything else, it would have to make do. They were poor, had always been poor. What value was there in coming from a family that had once upon a time been wealthy? It was just another fairy tale.
“You are so like your father,” her mother continued wistfully, happy in her memories.
“But I don’t look like him.”
“What you know how he looked?”
Charlotte shrugged. Even as a child she’d thought it odd that there were no photographs of her father. All her classmates had albums full of relatives. She hadn’t even one.
“You told me he was handsome.” Her comment floated between them, like a challenge.
“You are smart like him,” her mother amended, picking at her sweater. “And you have his nose. A strong, noble nose. Still, you have my eyes, your grandmother Sophie’s eyes.”
Listening, Charlotte’s gaze traveled in the mirror up from her full chest, beyond her thin shoulders and long neck to her face. It wasn’t often that she suffered the study of her own reflection. Staring back were the large, wide, vivid blue eyes under dark, finely arched brows that resembled her mother’s. And the straight, narrow nose of her father.
“But from whom,” Charlotte asked bitterly, “did I get this grossly sloping chin and these drooping lips? Who do I have to thank for these fine features?”
“Hush, Charlotte,” her mother pleaded, her face ashen.
“You got your looks from God.”
Charlotte swallowed her retort and lowered her head, ashamed for the angry thoughts she’d just had about God. Besides, she didn’t want to upset her mother with useless anger. After all, what choice did her mother have but to accept her only daughter’s ugliness as God’s will? Charlotte’s own daily prayer was that she herself could accept the face.
“Someday,” her mother said, beginning the phrase that was more a prayer in this Polish Catholic house than the Our Father. “You will meet
Someone.
A fine man who will love you for all your good qualities. And you
are
a good girl, Charlotte.”
Charlotte pressed her lips together and turned away from the mirror. There would be no
Someone.
Not for her. “The jacket won’t fit under my coat,” she said. “I’ll carry it.”
Her mother closed her mouth and looked wearily at her hands. “Yes,” she said softly. “The jacket will be fine. Nice girls don’t need to advertise.”
Charlotte forgot her jacket. In her mind’s eye she could see the black wool lying on the bench beside the front door. How could she be so forgetful? she thought, mentally kicking herself. One minute of stupidity meant hours of agony.
She’d wave at her boss, enough to let him know she was here, then duck out. Charlotte peered in through the entrance of the banquet hall. Round tables, decorated with garish faux silk poinsettias festooned with glittering red and green ribbons, were assembled on an enormous revolving floor.
“Come on in!” someone shouted from the crowd. Charlotte took a small step into the room, clutching her coat close to the neck. Beyond, revelers slowly traveled a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree tour of Chicago’s skyline to the tune of “A Holly Jolly Christmas.”
Everyone was there, from the top management to the lowly file clerks. McNally and Kopp was a small accounting firm, but when you multiplied that number times two, it didn’t take great math skills to know that at least one hundred people were assembled to celebrate the holidays. And from the sounds of it, most of the guests were already on their second or third drinks.
In the far corner, a group of men in suits gathered at the bar. Between laughs and swallows, their eyes scanned the room with the hungry look of animals on the hunt.
“Charley!”
Charlotte cringed at the name. Looking up, she saw Judy Riker, her office manager, approaching wearing a peekaboo dress of red sequins and straps that barely held her together. Boy, oh boy, Charlotte thought with a smile. Her mother would be shocked to see so much of Judy’s “you knows” exposed. The men at the bar noticed, too, and Charlotte saw them lean over and comment to one another as Judy passed.
“I was just leaving,” Charlotte said as Judy walked up.
“Leaving? Nonsense. You’ve just arrived. Come on, don’t be such a wallflower. It’s time you had some fun.” Judy coaxed a reluctant Charlotte out of her coat. “My, what a nice dress,” she said, barely disguising her surprise.