Ten Cents a Dance Read online

  But she'd be sure to ask about her sister's gown, and what would I say? I slowed my steps. Worse, what if she caught sight of it in Ma's purse? I imagined her shrieking and crying, and my stomach clenched. I'd have to explain about the date with Tom and Jack. I'd have to tell her about the twenty dollars. I remembered how I'd let Tom kiss me, in the cab, and I felt my face go hot. She would think I was a bad person. Maybe she already did. I couldn't lie to my parents . . . it's different for you.

  But I didn't have a choice. She'd said so herself.

  I turned away from the school. I'd take Clara's gown to the cleaner's first. Once it was fixed, and I'd given it back, then I'd tell Angie everything. It would just have to wait a little while, that was all.

  Half a block away was Hirsch's candy store. Nobody on our block had their own phone; we all used the candy store's. If a call came in for you, the Hirsches either yelled for you—if you were in earshot—or sent a willing kid to your flat with the message, or told you about it the next time you came by.

  I plunked the nickel into the coin slot and dialed zero. "Greeley Arms Hotel for Women," I told the operator. My voice low, so Mrs. Hirsch couldn't hear.

  Ringing on the other end. "Greeley Arms Hotel," a woman answered.

  "Peggy deGroot, please," I said.

  . . .

  Peggy's room at the hotel was tiny, just big enough for a bed, a chair, and a cramped narrow armoire. But the chair was upholstered in a red flower print, a thick blue rug cushioned the floor, and the tall window let in bright winter light. At first, I barely noticed any of these things. I was too busy staring at myself in the mirror.

  The silk fell like water over my skin to the floor. The bodice was sleeveless, lower cut than Clara's gown. The shoulder straps were wide set, covered with sequins the exact same dark, smoky blue as the silk. The same color as my eyes.

  "It's perfect," I breathed.

  Peggy pinched the fabric over either side of my ribs. "Needs to be taken in a little. You're not that big in the bust." She let go and stepped back. Slipped a cigarette case off the top of the armoire, flipped it open, and offered me one. I shook my head. She lit one for herself, then walked around me, studying me up and down.

  "So who gave it to you?" she asked. "Not that steelworker Tom, or I'll eat my radio."

  I shook my head. Still staring at myself. Clara's gown was beautiful—but for the first time, I realized there was beautiful, and then there was beautiful on me. I looked like someone out of Angie's romance magazines. An heiress. A movie star. I looked like someone who'd never heard of the Back of the Yards. "He's just a fellow I know," I said.

  Peggy laughed, a short dry ha, and leaned to tap her cigarette into an ashtray. "If I knew a fellow with that kind of taste in stolen dresses, I'd latch on to him so hard he'd think he picked up a leech. Does he have a brother?"

  I blinked at her in the mirror. "What do you mean, stolen?"

  "Didn't you notice?" She gestured at the back of the dress. "The label's cut out."

  "You mean Pau . . . this fellow . . . he pinched this right out of a store?"

  Peggy grinned so that her crooked tooth showed. She laughed a lot, but she didn't smile much, I'd noticed. "If he has the brains of a monkey, maybe. No, this got boosted from a warehouse somewhere. Or a delivery truck. They swipe a dozen or two, cut out the labels so nobody can tell where they came from. Then sell them to a fence. That's where your fellow got it, probably, from the fence."

  "Reinhard's," I said. "On Madison."

  "How'd you know—" Peggy laughed again, shaking her head. "I can't decide if you're the luckiest babe in woods I've ever met, or just savvy and putting on an act." She crushed her cigarette. "Here, get out of that thing. There's a girl on the third floor who'll take in the bust. Unless you do your own sewing."

  "And try to explain to my mother where I got this from? No, thank you." She unzipped me. Reluctantly, I lifted the straps off my shoulders. A stolen dress. I should've been mad. Or afraid, or insulted. Instead, a thrill stirred, shivery-cold, under my ribs. I looked at the long, shimmering fall of silk. The way the color made my eyes seem deeper, darker blue. Just the way Paulie'd known it would. I was sure of it.

  . . .

  I brought the dress to the girl on the third floor. I gave her a dollar to do the alterations and another fifty cents to finish by six o'clock that night. Peggy'd promised to bring the gown to the Starlight with her.

  At the dry cleaner's, the man behind the counter tsk'd when he unrolled Clara's gown. I tried to make him guarantee he could get the stains out, but he only shook his head and said he'd try. Well, I'd have to keep my fingers crossed, that was all.

  The streetcar jolted and clanged. I sat with Ma's purse on my lap, almost flat now that the gown was gone, and I chewed my lip, thinking.

  If only Paulie had given me the dress yesterday, instead of today, things would be so much simpler. I'd never have borrowed Clara's gown. I wouldn't have spilled Chinese food on it, and I wouldn't have had to take money from Tom to buy a new dress.

  But now . . . I had the money. And the dress.

  Peggy would tell me to give Tom his money back. If I were you, I wouldn't wait too long. But how could I? He'd given it to me because the only dress I had was ruined. If I handed him his twenty dollars, while wearing Paulie's gown, he'd think I was a liar.

  Of course, I could buy another dress. I was dancing six nights a week, after all, eventually I'd have to have more than one. The other girls each had four or five at least.

  Then again . . . I reached inside Ma's purse and pulled out the pawn ticket for her wedding ring. The shop's address was all the way over in Canaryville, the Irish neighborhood east of the Yards. Ma hadn't wanted anybody to find out. That was why she hid her left hand anytime she went out of our flat, so no one would notice her bare finger.

  What I must've looked like, lifting Paulie's gown out of the paper sack—that's what Ma would look like, if I pulled her ring out of my pocket. Gasping, covering her mouth with her hand. Touching it like maybe it wasn't real. Only it was. It would be.

  At the next stop, I changed streetcars.

  Last year, in English class, we'd read a story where a fellow was so happy he felt like he was walking on air. I'd thought that was the silliest thing I'd ever heard. Ground was ground, and how anyone could mistake it for air or clouds or what-have-you was beyond me.

  But when I stepped out of the pawnshop with Ma's ring in my hand, I knew just how that fellow felt. Like I could walk taller than anyone, dance faster, shout louder. Like there wasn't anything I couldn't do.

  Best of all, I had plenty of money left. And I knew exactly what to do with it.

  In Ma's purse, too, were the store books that showed how much we owed at the shops in our neighborhood. I stopped at Graboski's first. When I asked Mr. Graboski for a box of Rice Krispies and one of Kix, his lips tightened. Fancy cereals were for people who paid their bills, not charity cases who owed six months' credit. I laid the tattered little book next to the boxes. Cash on top. "Ma asked if you could clear the book, too," I said.

  "Well, now," he said. His face like I'd parted the clouds. "Telephone work must pay pretty good, huh, Ruby?"

  "Pretty good," I said. I grinned, and he grinned back. He counted my money, wrote 0 in the balance column of the book, and handed it to me. Then he reached onto a shelf behind him. Took down a can of peaches, added it to the sack.

  "Free of charge," he said. "Give my best to your mother."

  At Burkot's, I bought coffee and canned milk and three Hershey's bars. Mrs. Burkot didn't give me a gift for clearing the book. But she did smile, the old sourpuss. "Gratuluje," she said, when I told her about my new job. "Enjoy it in the best of health. My regards to your mother, how is she?"

  Better, I thought with a sudden, fierce satisfaction, now that you won't give her the evil eye every time she walks past.

  At Stawarz's, the butcher, I eyed the roasts but settled for a pound of ground chuck. I took the wrapp
ed package, tied in string, and the butcher book, with its brand-new 0 in thick blue pencil. I stepped out onto the sidewalk, parcels in both arms, singing "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar." Not caring if people stared.

  I was almost home when the noon whistles blew at the packinghouses. A few women chatting on their stoops stood up and went inside. Ma did that—timed her baking by the whistle. In the plants, everybody would be stopping work and heading for the lunch rooms. Hustle and wolf down your food, hustle back. My hands just starting to warm up, when it was time to plunge them into the brine again.

  All that work and nastiness, and I'd never accomplished anything like what I'd done in the past two hours. Tomorrow I'd go to Goldblatt's, the department store on Ashland Avenue, and buy Ma some wool gloves. I'd have enough for that. Then a coal delivery for the winter, that was next. Although, if I had my way, I'd toss that old junkheap of a coal stove out the back door and buy us a modern gas one, like my cousins in Wicker Park had. Like everyone had, except us. We might as well wear long skirts and bustles and put our hair up in buns. In fact, if it was up to me, we wouldn't live in that dark cramped flat at all. How would it be, to live in a pretty little place with tall windows that let in the light?

  Why not?

  The thought was so startling, I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. "Watch out, Ruby, I almost ran the baby carriage right into you," said a woman behind me.

  "Sorry, Mrs. Nowak," I said. I stepped aside and let her go by. Away beyond, smoke plumes from the packinghouses trailed up into the sky. Hardly any wind today. The plumes spread under the clouds like mold.

  If I made fifty dollars a week, and gave eighteen to Ma as my "wages" . . . and then of course I'd have to buy at least one more dress, and a pair of heels that fit me, but it wasn't as if I'd be buying gowns every week and if I saved what was left . . .

  I could do what Ma never could. I could get us out of the Yards.

  I stared at the smokestacks. But I wasn't seeing them anymore. I was seeing a clean, pretty neighborhood. With trees. No more everlasting soot, from the packinghouse smokestacks outside and from the stove inside. Lamps with soft, pretty shades instead of bare bulbs. Our own bathroom, tile and chrome, and a porcelain tub. We'd be happy, the way we used to be before Ma lost her job. Happier, even, because we'd have enough money to buy whatever we wanted.

  The pictures in my head were too big for walking. I ran the rest of the way home, the groceries jouncing in their sacks. Flew up the front stoop, up the hall, through our door.

  "Surprise, Ma!" I yelled.

  She came out of her bedroom, a dustrag in her hands. "Ruby, where have you . . . " She frowned at the parcels. "What did you buy?" she said, her voice sharp.

  "Gifts," I said. I bustled into the kitchen, set down the sacks on the kitchen table, shrugged out of my coat. "Come see."

  She did. And she threw a fit.

  "Meat!" she cried. And then, in an even more scandalized voice, "Peaches!"

  My victorious mood began to flatten. I hadn't expected this. Suddenly, it seemed I should have. "Ma, it's fine. Really. Don't worry." The ring lay tucked in my fist.

  "Worry? Why on earth should I worry?" She stood with her back to me, poking in one of the sacks. She threw her hands in the air. "Fifteen cents for Hershey's bars! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Ruby, what possessed you? When we owe so much already I'm embarrassed to walk past their stores! What must they be thinking?"

  "Mr. Graboski sends his regards." I held out my hand. The ring a dull gleam in my palm. "Mrs. Burkot asked after you, too. Ma, look."

  She didn't turn around. "I bet she did. Rice Krispies? What in the world . . ."

  "Betty hates oatmeal. Ma, please, will you just look?"

  "God only knows how much we owe now. Where are the books? Ruby, get my pur—"

  I walked around to the end of the table. Stuck my hand in front of her face.

  She didn't gasp. Her mouth didn't fall open. The only part of her that moved was her eyes, blinking. Twice, three times. Then she swung her hips sideways and sat down, falling so heavily the chair scraped an inch or so across the floor. For a second I thought maybe I'd killed her.

  "Get the grocery books," she said. Her voice as grim and tight as her face. She made no move to take the ring.

  What's wrong with you? I wanted to shout. You're supposed to be happy! "Ma, what . . ."

  "Get the books!"

  I slammed the ring down on the table. Reached in her purse and grabbed the books. One by one she studied them and laid them aside.

  "Where did you get the money for all this?" she said.

  Of course she would wonder. Of course she would ask. Why hadn't I thought she would? Why would I suppose she'd just accept what I gave her, without having to know everything?

  "Working," I said.

  "Working." As if I'd said flying. She pointed to the books. "Do you think I can't add? You've only been at the telephone company three days. How much did it cost to redeem the ring?"

  "Eight-fifty," I said.

  "It was more than that, there would've been interest. Where's the receipt?"

  The receipt was in my coat pocket, where I'd stuffed it, after the clerk had added, Crystal butterfly hairpin . . . 75 cents. The hairpin was blue. I'd thought it would look nice with the gown.

  "I don't have it. I . . . I lost it." And then the answer came to me, and before I knew it, the lie was in the air. "I got an advance," I said.

  That surprised her. "An advance? On your pay?" she said. "After only three days?"

  I licked my lips. Thinking fast. Ma'd gotten an advance once, years ago. I cast back, trying to remember. "I guess I'm doing pretty good. Better than I thought. Anyway, I asked, and they said okay."

  "You should've checked with me first," Ma said. She looked at the books, the ring. "This is a week's wages. What are we supposed to do next week? What are we supposed to give the landlord for the back rent? Did you think about that?"

  The back rent. I'd forgotten. I sat down and tried to call back all the pretty pictures, the glory I'd felt right up until I'd walked through the door. Why couldn't things just be simple? What was so hard about saying, Thank you, Ruby, you're a wonderful daughter?

  "I thought this was a good thing," I said. "I thought it would make you happy."

  "Oh, Ruby, don't you see . . . ?" Ma sighed and rubbed the side of her face with her hand. "We can't think about happiness, the situation we're in. We have to be practical."

  She was wrong. Maybe she'd forgotten. Maybe she never knew. There was more out there than just scraping by. I'd touched it.

  "You're telling the truth. About where you got the money." She didn't ask it like a question. I lifted my eyes and met hers. Pale blue and afraid. What was she afraid of?

  "I told you," I said. The lie smooth as a cab ride now. "They gave me an advance."

  She nodded. Her mouth relaxed, the lines around her eyes eased. "After last week," she said, "with you and that Suelze thug, I thought maybe . . ."

  "He doesn't have anything to do with it," I said. Too "Have you seen him since then?" she asked.

  I dropped my eyes. "No."

  She didn't say anything and for a minute I thought she didn't believe me. If she took it into her head to ask Betty . . .

  Ma leaned forward and picked up the ring. Brought it to her lips and kissed it. Then she smiled at me.

  "Better get the oleo," she said.

  EIGHT

  Customers always rush the new girls," Yvonne said. Loud, so the entire Ladies' could hear her. "They'd line up for a mule, so long as they hadn't seen it before. It doesn't mean a thing."

  It was the first break of the evening, almost a week after Paulie had given me the blue gown. I sat in front of my locker, emptying tips out of my new satin garter purse. Yvonne perched on one of the dressing tables—not hers, of course—her back against the mirror and her ankles crossed on the back of a chair. She wore her hair down tonight, coiling loose and dark over her shoulders, a beaded
barrette at each temple.

  "I give her a month before the chumps catch on," Gabby said. She sprawled in the next chair, looking like a dropped egg in her gold and white gown. Next to her, the redhead, Stella, spritzed her pompadour with hairspray.

  "A month, my eye." Yvonne took a last drag off her cigarette, hollowing out her cheeks. Grinding the stub into an ashtray, she said, "As soon as the men get a good whiff of her, she'll be cooling her heels in the meatpen with Fat Alice over there." The meatpen was what the girls called the folding chairs on the side of the dance floor. Alice always spent half the night sitting there.

  "Hey, Alice!" Stella called. "Be sure and save Cinderella a seat. She's about to turn into a pumpkin, just like you." Chuckles from around the room. From my locker, I saw Alice duck her head, so that her sausage curls hid her face.

  "And then it's back to the ash heaps for Cinderella," Yvonne said. "What do you do, darling, that gives you such a lovely stench?"

  She asked me that at least once a night, always at the top of her voice, always when the Ladies' was packed. Yvonne was like my sister, Betty, that way—once she got an idea into her head, she was like a dog with a bone, gnawing and gnashing and refusing to let go. Of course I wasn't going to spill anything about the packinghouse. First—as I knew from living with Betty—it was the surest way to drive Yvonne crazy. Second, the last thing I wanted was for these cats to find out I'd been a meat-packer. Paulie told the truth when he said girls wouldn't admit it, not even when they lived in the Yards. Not even when everyone knew they worked in pork trim, or sausage casings, or canned ham, and the girls knew they knew. It wasn't about being a snob. It was because people looked at you differently. As if, because you worked there, you must not mind the smell, the grease, the filth. As if— almost—you were an animal yourself.