“I shouldn’t,” I said, but I handed her a few of them, anyhow. “Just don’t let your mother know I’m supplying you.”
“Since when do my parents need to know what I’m up to?” asked this strange little teenager. She hid the cigarettes in the folds of her enormous fur coat, and gave me a wink. “Now tell me what kind of costumes you came in for today, Vivian, and I’ll set you up with whatever you need.”
—
Newaround.York was a different place now than it had been my first time
Frivolity was dead—unless it was useful and patriotic frivolity, like dancing with soldiers and sailors at the Stage Door Canteen. The city was weighted with seriousness. At every moment, we were expecting to be attacked or invaded—certain that the Germans would bomb us into dust, just as they’d done to London. There were mandatory blackouts. There were a few nights when the authorities even turned off all the lights in Times Square, and the Great White Way became a dark clot— shining rich and black in the night, like pooled mercury. Everyone was in uniform, or ready to serve. Our own Mr. Herbert volunteered as an air-raid warden, wandering around our neighborhood in the evenings with his official city-issued white helmet and red armband. (As he headed out the door, Peg would say, “Dear Mr. Hitler: Please don’t bomb us until Mr. Herbert has finished alerting all the neighbors. Sincerely, Pegsy Buell.”)
What I most remember about the war years was an overriding sense of coarseness. We didn’t suffer in New York City like so many people across the world were suffering, but nothing was fine anymore—no butter, no pricey cuts of meat, no quality makeup, no fashions from Europe. Nothing was soft. Nothing was a delicacy. The war was a vast, starving colossus that needed everything from us—not just our time and labor, but also our cooking oil, our rubber, our metals, our paper, our coal. We were left with mere scraps. I brushed my teeth with baking soda. I treated my last pair of nylons with such care, you would have thought they were premature babies. (And when those nylons finally died in the middle of 1943, I gave up and started wearing trousers all the time.) I got so busy—and shampoo became so difficult
to acquire—that I cut my hair short (very much in the style of Edna Parker Watson’s sleek bob, I must admit) and I’ve never grown it long again.
It was during the war that I became a New Yorker at last. I finally learned my way around the city. I opened a bank account and got my own library card. I had a favorite cobbler now (and I needed one, because of leather rations) and I also had my own dentist. I made friends with my coworkers at the Yard, and we would eat together at the Cumberland Diner after our shift. (I was proud to be able to chip in at the end of those meals, when Mr. Gershon would say, “Folks, let’s pass the hat.”) It was during the war, too, that I learned how to be comfortable sitting alone in a bar or restaurant. For many women, this is a strangely difficult thing to do, but eventually I mastered it. (The trick is to bring a book or newspaper, to ask for the best table nearest to the window, and to order your drink just as soon as you sit down.) Once I got the hang of it, I found that eating alone by the window in a quiet restaurant is one of life’s greatest secret pleasures.
I bought myself a bicycle for three dollars from a kid in Hell’s Kitchen, and this acquisition opened up my world considerably. Freedom of movement was everything, I was learning. I wanted to know that I could get out of New York quickly, in case of an attack. I rode my bike all over the city—it was cheap and effective for running errands—but somewhere in the back of my mind I believed that I could outride the Luftwaffe if I had to. This brought me a certain delusional sense of safety.
I became an explorer of my vast urban surroundings. I prowled the city extensively, and at such odd hours. I especially loved to walk around at night and catch glimpses through windows of strangers living their lives. So many different dinnertimes, so many different work hours. Everyone was different ages, different races. Some people were resting, some laboring, some all alone, some celebrating in boisterous company. I never tired of moving through these scenes. I relished the sensation of being one small dot of humanity in a larger ocean of souls.
When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the very center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere—wherever people are living out their lives. It’s a city with a million centers.
Somehow that was even more magical to know.
—
Ididn’t pursue any men during the war.
For one thing, they were difficult to come by; most everyone was overseas. For another thing, I didn’t feel like playing around. In keeping with the new spirit of seriousness and sacrifice that blanketed New York, I more or less put my sexual desire away from 1942 until 1945—the way you might cover your good furniture with sheets while you go off on vacation. (Except I wasn’t on vacation; all I did was work.) Soon I grew accustomed to moving about town without a male companion. I forgot that you were supposed to be on a man’s arm at night, if you were a nice girl. This was a rule that seemed archaic now, and furthermore impossible to execute.
There simply weren’t enough men, Angela.
There weren’t enough arms.
—
One afternoon in early 1944, I was riding my bicycle through midtown when I saw my old boyfriend Anthony Roccella stepping
out of an arcade. Seeing his face was a shocker, but I should have known I’d run into him someday. As any New Yorker can tell you, you will eventually run into everyone on the sidewalks of this city. For that reason, New York is a terrible town in which to have an enemy.
Anthony looked exactly the same. Hair pomaded, gum in his mouth, cocky smile on his face. He wasn’t in uniform, which was unusual for a man of his age in good health. He must have weaseled his way out of service. (Of course.) He was with a girl—short, cute, blond. My heart did a quick rumba at the sight of him. He was the first man I’d laid eyes on in years who made me feel a rush of desire—but of course, that would make sense. I screeched to a stop just a few feet from him, and stared right at him. Something in me wanted to be seen by him. But he didn’t see me. Alternatively, he saw me, but didn’t recognize me. (With my short hair and trousers, I didn’t look any more like the girl he used
to know.) The final possibility, of course, is that he recognized me and elected not to pay me any mind.
That night, I burned with loneliness. I also burned with sexual longing—I will not lie about this. I took care of it myself, though. Thankfully, I had learned how to do that. (Every woman should learn how to do that.)
As for Anthony, I never saw him or heard his name again. Walter Winchell had predicted that the kid would be a movie star. But he never made it.
Or who knows. Maybe he never even bothered to try.
—
Only a few weeks later, I was invited by one of our actors to a benefit at the Savoy Hotel to raise money for war orphans. Harry
James and His Orchestra would be playing, which was a fun enticement, so I beat down my tiredness and went to the party. I stayed for just a short while as I didn’t know anybody there, and there weren’t any interesting-looking men to dance with. I decided it would be more fun to go home and sleep. But as I was walking out of the ballroom, I bumped straight into Edna Parker Watson.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled—but in the next instant, my mind calculated that it was her.
I’d forgotten that she lived at the Savoy. I never would have gone there that night had I remembered.
She looked up at me and held my gaze. She was wearing a soft brown gabardine suit with a pert little tangerine blouse. Casually tossed over her shoulder was a gray rabbit stole. As ever, she looked immaculate.
“You are very excused,” she said, with a polite smile.
This time there could be no pretending that I had not been identified. She knew exactly who I was. I was familiar enough with Edna’s face to have caught that quick shimmer of disturbance behind her mask of adamant calm.
For almost four years, I had pondered what I would say to her, if our paths ever crossed. But now all I could do was say, “Edna,” and reach for her arm.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, “but I don’t believe you’re somebody I know.”
Then she walked away.
—
When we are young, Angela, we may fall victim to the misconception that time will heal all wounds and that eventually
everything will shake itself out. But as we get older, we learn this sad truth: some things can never be fixed. Some mistakes can never be put right—not by the passage of time, and not by our most fervent wishes, either.
In my experience, this is the hardest lesson of them all.
After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain—yet somehow, still, we carry on.