Sing for Me (2 page)

Again, I say it: “Home.”

Rob drums his fingers on the steering wheel and waits.

“It’s creepy here.” I add a little quaver to my voice. “We could get mugged. Or worse. You read the papers. You remember last week, in a place just like this under the El, a man was murdered. The
Trib
said he might have been a member of Frank Nitti’s outfit—”

“Oh, buck up! This neighborhood is safer than the one you live in.”

Rob digs for something beneath the driver’s seat. There’s a crack and the smell of sulfur. A flame flares from a long wooden match—the kind Dad uses now to light the old oven in our kitchen. As Rob grins at me through the warm glow, the buzzing bee of my fury fades away completely, and I remember why I love him so, why I love only Sophy more in this whole wide world. And it’s not just because the two of them still ask me to sing. My cousin Rob, with his round gray-green eyes, curly golden hair, and deep dimples—he knows everything there is to know about me, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and still he’s as loyal as they come. He might get me in trouble, but he’d never hurt me. Not on purpose.

Rob reaches into the backseat now, the match’s flame wavering, and retrieves a big paper bag. He shakes the bag’s contents
onto my lap. I gasp as out spills a sapphire-blue dress, the kind I never thought I’d be able to have, especially not now. In the match’s glow, I can make out the flowing butterfly sleeves, the lightly padded shoulders, the narrow waist, the long, sweeping skirt. It’s the latest style, which I’ve only seen worn by the mannequins posed in the windows of Marshall Field’s, or on models photographed for the
Trib
’s fashion section. The fabric is so soft and silky that it might as well be water, moving between my hands. Maybe it’s rayon, the newest sensation. I’ve never worn anything made of rayon before. And there’s a zipper running up the side. Zippers have been hard to come by these last years, now that Mother makes most of my clothes. She says sewing zippers is too much trouble.

The match sputters out. Rob strikes another against the side of the box. I lift the dress close to the soft circle of light.

“Where on earth?” I brush a sleeve against my cheek. “This must have cost a fortune.” Or what my family calls a fortune now. Five dollars at least.

Rob shrugs. He pokes at a silver satin purse lying on the seat beside me, which must have spilled out of the paper bag with the dress. “Look inside.”

I unsnap the purse’s mother-of-pearl clasp, and there, nestled in the black velvet lining, are two matching mother-of-pearl barrettes, a tube of lipstick, a pot of cream rouge, a black eyeliner pencil, and a round white cardboard box with the words
Snowfire Face Powder
inscribed in scrolling letters across the top.

“It was a gift set, Rose, a real good deal. I got it just before Christmas. I’ve been saving it for you ever since—for tonight.”

“But . . .” I blink. “I don’t wear makeup.”

“Right. And you don’t sing songs like that.”

“I
don’t
.”

“Well, as of tonight, you
do,
Laerke. Really, truly. No denying it.”

I bite my lip. “If Mother and Dad ever found out we were even having this discussion—”

“And my mother, and Pastor Riis, and the entire population of the Danish Baptist Church, not to mention all the Scandinavian immigrants in Chicago, fresh off the boat or the farm . . . wouldn’t you be the talk of the town then, Rose, a real scandal? Wouldn’t that be
fun
?”

“No. That would not be fun. That would be bad.”

“Which would be good, as far as I’m concerned.” The flame sputters out. Rob lights another match. He frowns, looking me up and down. “You can’t go out on the town resembling a missionary to the heathen. At least, not with me.”

For the first time, I take in what Rob’s wearing: a silvery gray double-breasted suit made of soft, supple wool. I’ve never seen him in a suit this nice before. The heavily padded shoulders, also the latest style, make him look a lot more muscular than he is.

He notices me noticing. “Pretty snazzy, huh?” In the flickering match light, he cocks the rearview mirror, then cranes his neck to check the knot of his tie, which is the same gray-green as his eyes.

“You look very handsome. Now please tell me how you managed to come up with these duds on a secretary’s salary.”

Rob sighs, and out goes the match. He lights another. “I’ve been saving. Working all the time like I do, you got to save for something special.”

I finger his cuff. “Still, this plus the dress—”

Rob clucks his tongue. “Stickler for details, aren’t you. Well, if you must know, I found the dress and the suit at a pawnshop. Not a big surprise, right, with so many stuffed shirts going belly up since the Crash? Anyway, who cares how I got it? It’s an investment for my future. I’m going to be one of those stuffed shirts one day and buy lots of suits like this—even better. Just you wait, I’ll be the best-dressed lawyer in town. Oh, Rose.” Rob’s voice goes soft. “I want this, see? I want to live a little.” He clears his throat and firmly says, “You will, too—especially once you’ve given it a try.”

“Last time I checked, I was alive,” I mutter. But I can’t help but think maybe Rob’s right. I’m twenty-one, for heaven’s sake. I might as well be in my sunset years, for the way I spend my nights.

“You’re alive if living is cleaning up other people’s messes and taking Sophy out for walks.” Rob confirms my thoughts, but the bee buzzes in my head again.

“You talk about Sophy like she’s a dog!”

Rob ducks his head, appropriately embarrassed. “You know what I mean, Rose, and I don’t mean that.” Gently, he takes the dress from my hands and drapes it across the backseat beside my ugly, stinky coat. “Now get changed.”

A startled laugh escapes me. “Where?”

“There.” Rob jerks his thumb at the backseat. “When you’re done, you can use the rearview mirror to doll yourself up.”

I shake my head hard. “I’m not doing any such thing.”

Rob levels a look at me. “You
are
doing such a thing. Or I’m telling about those songs. Your singing.”

My so-called singing. It’s what I do when I’m alone, or I think I’m alone, only to discover Rob sitting outside my window
on the fire escape, listening, his eyes wide with astonishment and delight.

I slam my fists against my thighs. Rob catches hold of my hands and stops me from doing it a second time.

“Listen, Rose. Listen to me now. I’m on your side. You know that. Tonight is only for your own good.”

“You wouldn’t tell. You promised.” My voice cracks and falters. “But promises, promises. That’s you all over, right?”

“Come out with me and have a good time.” Rob tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “It’s just music, Laerke, music that’s made for you. A little good music never hurt anybody. And you know, if you’d just let ’er rip and sing what you really want to sing, your voice could . . . well, who knows what might happen! You’ve just got to believe, Laerke. You’ve just got to get past the past, your fears, your family.”

“I Got Rhythm,” “Pennies from Heaven,” “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” Songs of the world, not of the church. Songs that are wrong. These are the songs I love, in a different way than I love “Amazing Grace” and “At the Cross,” but deeply, so deeply, as deeply as Mahalia Jackson must love singing gospel. These are the worldly songs I sing that I shouldn’t, leaving Rob wide-eyed with astonishment and delight.

I want Rob to keep my secret. I want to hear some music. Most important (at least, this is what I tell myself), I don’t have another way home.

I climb into the backseat and begin to change.

TWO

M
inutes later, I’m a different girl. A girl Dad would call a tramp. A girl I’d avoid if I saw her on the street. Too pretty, I’d think. Too racy. Too rich. Too much like someone I guiltily wish I were, lying in bed in the dark with Sophy asleep beside me. And now in the dark, here I am. Here she is. That very girl in a dress that surpasses my dreams. I created her by match light. I saw her in the rearview mirror. Brown eyes accentuated by black pencil at eyebrows and lids. Cheeks rouged to shimmering pink and powdered with Snowfire. Lips lacquered until they’re be-still-my-beating-heart red. Wavy, shoulder-length hair swept up into a simple twist and secured, except for a few tendrils, with mother-of-pearl barrettes.

I’m jittery with amazement and guilt. Putting on “face paint”—that’s what Mother calls it. It came so easily to me. I must be looking at too many magazines when I should be getting what Mother needs for Sophy at the pharmacy. God forgive me.

“Minxy!” Rob says, God forgive him. “Course I always knew
you had a special allure, Rose. Now, come on, let’s go.” He blows out the match. When I reach for my coat, he says, “Leave it.”

Is pretty always this cold? That’s what I wonder as I emerge from the DeSoto into the wintry night air. The rough wind bites my bare throat. It flutters the butterfly sleeves, exposing my arms, and wildly whips the dress’s hem until it’s a blue froth at my bare ankles. (Rob made me take off my old stockings; he almost made me go barefoot, rather than let me wear my scuffed Mary Janes, but I put my foot down there, so to speak.) I’m shivering uncontrollably now. The wind nearly blows me back into the car.

But Rob slips off his suit jacket and throws it over my shoulders, then grabs my hand and drags me from beneath the El tracks, across the vacant lot, down the wooden sidewalk, and round the corner to where East Thirty-Fifth Street hums with lights, traffic, and people—black people, mostly—all of them wearing coats, many of them wearing fur coats, laughing and talking as they hurry past.

Back to the question I asked when Rob took his little detour under the El tracks. “Where are we, exactly?”

Rob licks his lips and smiles like he’s tasted something sweet on the bitter air. “Bronzeville.”

Well, that explains it. Bronzeville is the heart of Chicago’s black community, home to the very rich and the very poor, and to many in the middle. I’ve heard Dad speak with grudging envy of this neighborhood’s thriving businesses—the banks and beauty colleges, the department stores and movie theaters, the hospitals, and the offices of the nation’s most influential weekly newspaper, written for those who inhabit this community and others like it, the
Chicago Defender
, which speaks not of
“colored” or “black” people but of “the Race.” At least that’s what Dad says, his voice heavy with judgment and foreboding.

I blink into the wind. It must be close to eleven now. Once a month, Mahalia Jackson and her gospel choir do a special Saturday program that lasts late into the night, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning. I could be hearing that good gospel music right now, but instead I’m standing here.
Here!
Yet I’ve never been more awake in my life. Or felt more alive.

A car passes by, and from the half-open passenger’s side window comes a sharp whistle.

“That was directed at you, my dear,” Rob says. “Some University of Chicago snobs out slumming, I’d venture to say. At least they know a pretty girl when they see one.”

Dad would be horrified if he knew I was being perused in such a manner. Mother, too. And Pastor Hoirus and the entire congregation of the Danish Baptist Church. And me. I pull Rob’s jacket closer around my throat, tighter across my chest, covering the far-too-low-cut neckline of this astonishing dress. I want off this street. I want inside just about anywhere. Teeth chattering, I manage to ask, “Where now?”

Rob smiles slyly. “Guess.”

I look around. Where could all these people be hurrying to? A picture show is letting out of the Grand Theater across the street, but the box office windows are curtained, so it’s closed now. At the end of the block, bums huddle around the warmth of a smoldering ash can. My throat tightens at the sight; just last week, Dad said we weren’t so far from that kind of life. He was in one of his moods, but I can’t shake his words from my memory. Some of the men are in tatters, but others are more nattily dressed. It’s a slippery, swift slope to poverty, so the saying goes,
and as my dress and Rob’s suit prove. One swarthy white man wearing a red-and-black plaid hunting jacket and matching cap wields drumsticks. He’s rapping a beat against the side of the ash can. He’s got rhythm, that’s for sure. Another, more ragged man, a black man with thinning gray hair, is playing the harmonica. I can’t make out the melody, but something sure is setting the men’s feet tapping, keeping their blood flowing in the cold.