Ten Cents a Dance Read online

  "Can you do anything?" Ma asked.

  The doctor shrugged. "Take aspirin," he'd said, and left the room.

  Most Sundays, I fussed over Ma's hair. Today I tugged out the pins, ran the comb through to lift the curls, and that was that. When I started cleaning up, she blinked as though she was surprised, then patted the sides of her hair, the back. Checking my work, her fingers stiff and crooked as sticks. But all she said was, in that same flat, tight voice, "I suppose you'll have to powder that eye. If Father Redisz sees it, there's no telling what he'll think."

  I dug her compact out of her purse and brought it into the bedroom. Mr. Schenker had finally finished his opera, thank God. Betty sat on the bed, still in her slip and bra, her hair half-combed. As soon as I walked in, she got up and closed the door.

  "One of the boys in my class saw Paulie last week," she said. Her big eyes shiny as brand-new pennies. "Hanging around a tavern on Fiftieth Street. Said he looked like a real tough guy. Said you could tell just looking at him that he'd killed someone."

  I ignored her and went to the little mirror hanging on the wall over our dresser. A deep red mark curved like a comma above my left eye, shaded to purple under my eyebrow. The lid wasn't swollen, at least. That was something.

  Betty reached past me and snagged the hairbrush off the dresser. "Let me have that powder when you're done," she said.

  "Are you crazy? Ma'll have a stroke if she catches you wearing face powder."

  Betty stopped brushing. She leaned back against the wall, facing me. "So is Paulie a good kisser?"

  His mouth pressed against mine had been soft and hard all at once. Like a question and answer both. Warm breath of cigarettes and earth. Better than good. Wonderful. And probably he'd never kiss me again.

  "Get dressed," I said. "Ma's mad enough without you making us late."

  I'd laid the powder on thick, but at Mass, Father Redisz did a double take before he laid the Host on my tongue. At least there weren't too many neighbors there to stare at me. The noon service was the only one where the sermon was in English, not Polish, so it was the least crowded. I didn't care, I hardly listened anyway. But Ma said she got enough Polish just walking down the street; she didn't need it in church, too.

  Walking the two blocks home, Ma took Betty's arm instead of mine. I pretended not to notice. Wind whistled down the street, sending tin cans and trash skittering and our skirts fluttering out ahead of us. When we got to our corner, I said, "I'm going to Angie's."

  "No, you're not," Ma said. "I told Mr. Maczarek you'd clean his flat this afternoon."

  I'd already started toward the Wachowskis' tavern. At that, I turned and gaped at her. "You what?"

  Betty shot me a look, half-triumphant, half-pitying. Cleaning for Mr. Maczarek was Ma's worst punishment. I gritted my teeth. Was one kiss worth this? Father Redisz's sermon had been all about God's plan for us. What kind of plan was it, to dangle Paulie Suelze in front of me, then snatch him away? "It's not fair f I said.

  "So what is?" Ma took up Betty's arm again and started walking. "Hurry up," she called over her shoulder. "I want you finished with Mr. Maczarek's by dinner. There's still the chores at home to do, and tomorrow's a workday."

  . . .

  I dropped out of school the day we pawned Ma's wedding ring.

  A few weeks after she saw the doctor, Ma lost her job. She couldn't get another. Factories, hotels, laundries, it didn't matter. One look at her hands, and that was that. She had to apply for government relief. Instead of money, we got a box of goods every month: oatmeal, prunes, coffee, soap, flour, sugar, canned tomatoes, canned milk, beans. The landlord didn't want beans. He'd been patient, but after three months of no rent, he'd had enough.

  The day after the landlord came, the three of us sat down at the kitchen table. Ma laid her hands in front of her. Her terrible twisted hands, the knuckles big as knots in a rope.

  "Get it over with," she said.

  The ring was beautiful; no diamonds, but a broad band of three-color gold worked in the shapes of leaves, with three tiny garnets tucked in a row. It took me and Betty half an hour to get it off. We started with ice, but the swelling in the joint wouldn't go down. Then we smeared on oleo, and I pulled and twisted until I thought I'd break Ma's finger sure. But every time I stopped, she said, "Go on, hurry up!" By the time we were done, her knuckle was scraped bloody and all of us were in tears.

  Ma took the ring from me and held it to her lips. Not kissing it, but just pressing it there.

  That beautiful Irish Jacinski. That's what our Polish neighborhood always used to call her. They didn't much, anymore. Her hands looked a hundred years old. She still had her pretty, high-bridged nose—the nose I wish I had, and Betty had gotten, instead—but her cheeks had started sliding down into jowls, as if invisible hands pulled at her. For the first time in my life, she looked like other people's mothers. Like Stan's, like Angie's. Fading and old.

  She said, "You'll have to go to work, Ruby."

  I watched her press a piece of ice to her knuckle. "I know," I said.

  The next day, I'd gone to the packinghouse.

  . . .

  I carried two pails and an armful of rags over to Mr. Maczarek's. Pulled a pile of dirty undershirts out from under his bed. Heated a kettle of water on the stove and washed the dishes piled in his sink. Heated another kettle and scrubbed his floors. Meanwhile he sat at his window, listening to the radio and watching the neighbors pass by, telling me everything they wore or did. If it had been warm enough to open the window, he would have told me what they said, too. Old busybody, he was worse than any babushka biddie in the entire Yards. I nodded and said, "Uh-huh" and "Oh really," but I hardly heard a word.

  The money Ma got from pawning her ring had gone straight to the landlord to keep him from throwing us out. I spent eight hours a day stuffing hog's feet in jars, and we still ate beans. We had nothing, and we were going to have nothing. Once, right after Ma lost her job, I'd suggested borrowing money from my grandparents. She'd lost her temper then.

  "Those Poles already think I'm no-good shanty Irish," she shouted. "I'll be damned if I'll give them another reason to call me names behind my back."

  I'd argued with her, until finally she said, "Nothing comes for free, Ruby. Everything has its price. There's some things I'm not willing to pay, so just leave it alone already."

  On my hands and knees, I worked my way backward over Mr. Maczarek's kitchen floor. The rough, dented boards stretched in front of me like the years. In no time, I'd be just like the old ladies I worked with. Just like Ma. Respectable and broken down. Proud, and hurting everywhere. Every chance in my life gone.

  I wrung out the rags and dumped them in the empty pails. "I'm done, Mr. Maczarek, good-bye!" I shouted from his front door. He raised a hand but didn't answer; he was too busy trying to see into the flat across the street. In the hallway, I set down the pails and stretched. Feeling the ache of every muscle in my back, my shoulders, my arms. Seven o'clock tomorrow morning, I'd be hustling across a wet, greasy floor with ten quart jars hooked on my fingers, brine seeping under the tape on my knuckles.

  From the hall, I could smell the bean soup. Relief beans. I hated them.

  When I came into the kitchen, Ma smiled at me, the first time that day. "You're a good girl, Ruby," she said. "There's hot water on the stove to wash up with. As soon as you're ready, we'll eat."

  I didn't feel like a good girl. I felt used up. I felt old. At the sink Betty nudged me aside, pretending to wash her hands too. "I got a Baby Ruth at the matinee today," she whispered. "I saved you half, if you want it later." I smiled and bumped her shoulder with my own to say thanks. She must have borrowed the nickel from one of her friends. Ma didn't like us borrowing; if she knew Angie had spotted me the quarter for the dance last night, she'd have a fit.

  If I had fifty dollars a week, what could I do?

  A ton of coal. Pork roast. Ma's ring.

  "Oh, Ma, I almost forgot to tell you," I said. She was at
the stove, ladling the soup into bowls. "Angie invited me for dinner tomorrow. If it's all right, I'll go straight from work."

  "Dinner? On a Monday?" Ma asked. I didn't answer; I concentrated on working a lather out of the soap. "Well, all right," she said finally. "I want you home by eight, though."

  "Sure," I said.

  Our good name, Ma kept saying. How good was our name, if we couldn't pay the grocers, if Ma had to keep her ratty old gloves on in church so people wouldn't notice her wedding ring was gone?

  I wouldn't ask Ma about the dance academy. She'd never let me go and I knew it. If she thought bean soup was more respectable than teaching a few fellows how to dance . . . then maybe Ma didn't know what was best for us anymore.

  Maybe I did.

  THREE

  By day, the dance academy was a dump. I walked past it twice before a shoeshine boy finally put me right. I'd been looking for something more glamorous than a plain-Jane second-story walk-up over a butcher shop.

  By night, though, I could spot the neon signs all the way from the streetcar stop, STARLIGHT DANCE ACADEMY in yellow, then in pink, underneath, FIFTY BEAUTIFUL FEMALE INSTRUCTRESSES. The street even more bustling than in the daytime. Honking cars, taxicabs swooping up to the curbs, crowds of folks going to movie theaters and restaurants and clubs and taverns. Everything lit up like Christmas. I clacked up the sidewalk in the three-inch heels I'd borrowed from Angie, my dress box tucked under my arm. I grinned at everyone I saw. All this electricity, and I was part of it. Me, a Beautiful Female Instructress!

  I could still hardly believe I got the job. All day Monday, at the packinghouse, I'd been so nervous I could barely do my work. In my head, I practiced the Lindy Hop. The fox-trot. The rumba. All the dances I'd learned from Ma, back when Ma could still hoof it, when she used to teach us to music on the radio. All the dances I'd learned from Angie and Stan and the kids at school.

  Whatsa matter, Jacinski, you got the jimmy legs over there? the foreman yelled. You break them jars, there'll be hell to pay. I didn't care. The quitting whistle hadn't finished blowing before I was running for the ladies' room. I scoured my hands until the scabs on my knuckles bled. Patted the face powder I'd snitched from Ma over my banged-up eye. Rolled on the Magnet Red lipstick I'd borrowed from Angie.

  Then I caught the streetcar uptown. In the dump above the butcher shop, I met Del.

  Del Giannopoulos was a squatty little man in a squatty little office that smelled like Italian meatballs. He sat behind a beat-up wooden desk, a racing form open in front of him and a plate smeared with red sauce at his elbow. He glanced up from his paper when I walked in. Hound-dog eyes, pouches underneath gray as old meat. He sucked his teeth, like he had a scrap of meatball wedged in there. He looked bored.

  Wow 'em first thing. Show 'em what you got. I walked up to Del's desk, stuck one hip out to the side and my tits to the front. Me and Angie picked that up from the movies. If you practice—the twist in the middle is tricky—it looks swell. But only if you've got the goods. One of those stick girls tries it, she looks like a scarecrow in a high wind.

  Me, I've got the goods. Sure enough, Del leaned forward. There, I thought. Got you.

  "What's with the eye?" he said. "You been in a fight?"

  My hand dropped off my hip, I was so surprised. I started putting it back, then crossed my arms, but that felt wrong, so I ended up with my hands folded in front of me as if Del was Father Redisz at church. "Fight? No I, um, I banged it on a door."

  "You married?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "Boyfriend?"

  "No."

  "No boyfriend?" He sounded like I'd just told him I didn't have feet.

  "My mother doesn't let me date," I mumbled.

  "Good for your mother." Del scraped one thumbnail under the other, then pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it clean. "Door, huh." He balled the handkerchief up in his fist. "You eighteen?"

  "Sure I am." Del narrowed his hound-dog eyes. I matched him, look for look. He sat back in his chair, and I let my breath out.

  "You fight, you're out," he said. "I don't care which dame says what to you, raise a hand and I'll can you that same minute. That's a rule. Got that?"

  I nodded. Del's gaze flicked to my tits, stuck there a few seconds, then slid down to my hips.

  Ever since I was thirteen, men had stared. Most talked straight to my chest. A few—old men at church, my foreman at the packinghouse—gave me the once-over with their eyes slitted and their lips tight. Disapproving. As if where their eyes went was my fault.

  Del, though—he sized me up the way Ma taught me and Betty to size up a hat. Did it go with the outfits we had? Did it make us look good, or would it be a waste of a dollar-fifty?

  "You start tomorrow," Del said. "I don't care what time you get here, so long as you're in your gown, gussied up and ready to hustle by eight sharp." He raised his voice on the sharp, like it was spelled in letters of fire. "Streetcar breaks down, you better take a cab. There ain't no cabs, you better run. You're late twice, you're fired. That's another rule. Got that?"

  I had the job. Fifty dollars a week. No more pickle juice wrinkling my fingers, no more scraping myself raw on jars. I felt like I'd jumped off a cliff, the wind carrying me safe away from every worry I'd ever had.

  "Mondays will be your night off," Del was saying. "You got a gown?"

  I blinked back a vision of steaks and mashed potatoes. "A gown?" I said.

  "A gown! An evening gown, whatsa matter, don't you speak English?" Del waved a hand at my blue plaid skirt. "Think you're gonna dance in that?"

  "Of course not," I said, although I hadn't thought about it at all. I had my bridesmaid dress, from my cousin's wedding last year. It wasn't an evening gown, exactly. But it was pretty as could be, and floor length. "Yeah," I said. "I got a gown."

  "Good. Some girls hardly got clothes on their backs when they show up here." He flicked over a page of his racing form. When he picked up a pen and circled something, I turned to go. Just as I got to the door, he said, "Hey, I ain't finished with you. What's your name, anyway?"

  I turned back around. "Ruby Jacinski," I said.

  "Another Polack." His tone like he had Polish girls coming out of his woodwork. "All right, Jaworski. Park it in that chair and listen up. I'm gonna explain to you the rest of the rules."

  . . .

  I told Ma I got a job as a telephone operator.

  I'd seen a newsreel once about telephone operators. Dozens of women in a room, wearing headsets. They had to be polite and cheerful and efficient, and they had to dress nice, even though the customers never saw them. Most important, though: they had to work all hours.

  "The phone lines don't sleep," I told Ma. I remembered that line particularly, from the newsreel. "Only girls with seniority get the day shift. I'm new, so they put me on swing. Eight at night until two in the morning."

  "I don't understand," Ma said, flustered. The napkin she was folding scrunched in her hands. "You never mentioned a word about it."

  "I tried to tell you yesterday. I overheard a girl talking at the Union Hall dance. I didn't say anything because I didn't think I'd get the job."

  "How much?"

  "Eighteen a week," I said.

  I had no idea how much telephone operators made. I only knew it couldn't be fifty dollars a week. Not even foremen at the packinghouse made that kind of money. I picked eighteen dollars out of the air and held my breath, ready, if she didn't believe me, to take it back, to start over, to explain.

  Ma's eyes opened wide. She raised a hand with the napkin still crumpled in it to her chest.

  "So what do you think?" I asked. "Is it all right?"

  "Ruby," she said, "it's wonderful."

  . . .

  Under the yellow and pink neon of the Starlight, I hesitated. It was only seven thirty, but already a dozen men milled in front of the building. They hunched their shoulders against the wind, collars turned up, hands in their pockets. I'd have to push through
them to get to the stairs. I shifted the dress box in front of me, hugging it with both arms. All my life I'd always had someone, Betty or Angie or any of the couple dozen kids on our street, tagging after or leading the way, arguing or egging me on or threatening to tell Ma. I imagined Angie watching me now. What are you, chicken? she'd say.

  Just as I'd almost made up my mind to go in, a taxi pulled up to the curb. Three girls spilled out of it, one after the other, clutching their coats around them. The men stepped aside, opening a path.

  "You boys better make sure you don't freeze out here," one of the girls said. "I'm cold enough already, I ain't dancing with any Popsicles!" Some of the men laughed. I darted up behind the girls, as if I belonged with them, as if I was just running to catch up.

  Inside, we trotted up narrow wooden stairs. At the top we passed the ticket booth with its sign, $i ADMISSION, in bold red letters. Down that dim hallway to the left was Del's office. But the girls sailed straight ahead through a set of double doors, and before I knew it I was walking across the dance floor. Except for the four of us, the room was empty. The girls aimed kitty-corner across the hall, walking fast and chatting loud. I hustled after them. At first, the hall seemed like nothing more than an enormous bare, cold box. Then I noticed the row of high windows along one wall. The dozens of lights strung from the low ceiling. That raised platform at the far end, that must be the bandstand . . . over in the near corner, opposite, two dozen small round tables and oodles of bent-back chairs. Next to them, a middle-aged woman in a white waitress's cap wiped down a long counter. The lounge. Del had told me some rule about the lounge, what was it?

  The clicking of our heels echoed back at us. I swept a glance over the pockmarked shine of the floor. In no time at all, Angie's borrowed heels would be making their own dings and dents . . . I felt my arms break out in gooseflesh.

  The girls vanished through a swinging door at the far end of the dance hall. Through it, another dim hallway, and straight ahead, a door marked LADIES. I shifted the dress box higher under my arm and pushed the door open.