The Widow of Wall Street Page 2
“For goodness’ sake, Phoebe,” her mother answered, “you’re never anything but pretty. You think beauty’s the solution, but in truth, your gorgeous face is the problem.”
Even beauty could be a curse in her mother’s world.
• • •
“What a looker you are.” Jake brought Phoebe closer and hummed the melody of the Drifters’ latest hit in her ear before murmuring a few words of the song. “This magic moment, when your lips are close to mine.”
All around, couples swayed in the dim light of Jake’s friend’s finished basement.
Jake tightened his grip, and she leaned against his broad chest. He towered over Phoebe, preventing her from peeking over his shoulder to see if Helen saw them dancing. Last night she and Helen had spent an hour on the phone, trading time being in love. First Helen talked Alan, Alan, Alan, then Phoebe babbled Jake, Jake, Jake, until they’d nibbled every morsel of their sumptuous elation.
Secretly, Phoebe thought Jake tons more exciting than Alan, who’d planned his entire life by sixteen. Just about every girl in Erasmus Hall High School would pick Jake’s sardonic humor and tough-guy looks over Alan’s nose-to-the-grindstone personality.
Jake planned to conquer the world. Phoebe believed him capable of anything. Except, perhaps, being a doctor. Or a dentist, like her father. She laughed against his starched shirt.
“What’s so funny?” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Cute ears. Like little shells. Did someone spin you out of gold?”
“I’m imagining you as a doctor. You don’t have the patience for patients.”
“Very funny. Measuring me as husband material? Are you planning on marrying a doctor?”
She drew back. “Whoa. My parents warned me about going too fast.”
“Your parents don’t like me?” Jake’s wounded look touched her.
“Don’t be silly. How could they not like you? They barely know you.”
“So why are they worrying about you going too fast?”
“I’m only fifteen.”
“Years go by in a flash, as my father reminds me every day.” He pressed his hand against her back. “You won’t always be young.”
Phoebe frowned, not enjoying being yanked out of their magic moment. With his words her skin dried up, her shiny hair fell limp and drab, and her taut waist expanded enough to require a corset. “Good work finding the world’s most not-romantic thing to say.”
“Hey! You may not always be young, but you’ll always be gorgeous. You’re a thoroughbred. You won’t let yourself go. When my mother married my father, he considered her a babe. His hands could span her waist. I wonder if you’re small enough.”
Jake circled Phoebe’s midsection with his hands and squeezed. She sucked in until her stomach hurt, even knowing that he’d exaggerated.
“Now my father would have to hire a guy to help hug my mother all the way around.” His crooked grin shot sparks straight through her despite his appalling words.
“Meanie! What a way to talk about your mother.”
“Ha. She says worse about my father and me. Anyway, you’ve seen her, right?”
Sadly, yes. Phoebe and his parents both turned up to watch Jake lead the swim team to victory a few weeks after she and Jake began dating. Helen had nudged her and nodded in the direction of an overweight couple.
“Jake’s parents,” Helen had whispered.
Phoebe tried not to stare, but temptation hung heavy. Compared with Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, her parents were Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Her father kept trim and immaculate, his thick red hair always close cut, shirts ironed taut. Her mother girdled her body into submission, arranged her curls to flatter her wholesome, round face, and never left the house without swiping on her Royalty Red lipstick.
Jake resembled his father, but only in the broadest terms. Mr. Pierce drooped as though someone had vacuumed out his muscle, leaving only the doughy parts. His arms dangled like a monkey’s, making him appear shorter than Jake, even though he matched him in height—both of them nudging six feet, though losing out on the final half inch. But where his father wilted, Jake gleamed with rugged ambition and virility.
Even now, at the beginning of summer, Jake had become toasted-delicious, with a lifeguard tan matching his broad swimmer’s body, which narrowed at the hips. Sun streaks coppered his thick russet-brown hair. A cleft divided his chin. Rough skin and heavy-lidded eyes saved him from being a pretty boy.
Jake’s mother had worn a housedress to the competition; the sort worn by women who lived in ancient apartment houses complete with basements perfect for murder. Phoebe’s mother described living in those dingy brick buildings as having tickets to a tiny bit of hell.
“Not even an elevator! You know who lives in those places?” she’d ask. “Lazy people who don’t care how their children grow up. Remember, girls, never let your husband come home to a messy wife.”
That bit of Mom’s wisdom seemed worth taking. After all, her parents still held hands. Daddy’s smile when he looked at her mother wrapped their whole family in love. At night, Phoebe could hear them giggle from their bedroom.
Jake twirled her in a circle, almost lifting her off the ground. “Once upon a time, my mother combined the looks of Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell in one woman—though personally, I go for the Audrey Hepburn type. Now my mother’s Sophie Tucker. Catching my father when she did was a good move for her.”
“You make marriage sound horrid. Like a game.”
He raised his dark eyebrows. “The game of love, baby. Everything in life is some sort of contest, and everyone wants to be a winner.” He squeezed her close. “You and I, we’ll always win.”
• • •
Phoebe slowed her steps as she and Jake approached her house. She almost tiptoed; if she made the slightest sound, her mother would be out on the porch before Jake’s lips touched hers.
Two weeks before, when she had come home from a date with scraped red cheeks, beard burn showing on both her good and not-so-good sides, her mother had lectured her for forty minutes on the fate of girls who got mixed up with boys who didn’t control themselves.
“Listen, Phoebe. No one ever blames the boy when something happens. You better believe girls always wear the mistake. You’ll be the one taking care of the results, and you can take that to the bank.”
Jake’s energy traveled at the speed of light, gathering friends and followers as he sprinted. He worked two jobs, but being miserly didn’t come with his hard work. Every time she turned around, he opened his wallet, whether buying burgers for the entire crowd or buying her a teddy bear that she had thought cute.
“Do you know how lucky you are? Look at this.” He spread his arms wide as though to hold the wide, leafy street. Buckingham Road resembled a miniature world. Walk one block away, and congested Brooklyn returned: people jostling into one another as they raced to the subway, hurrying from the candy store to the delicatessen to the Chinese laundry, everyone rushing like the tide at Coney Island. Molecules pressed in, all the breath, all the words flying out of people’s mouths.
In fourth grade, Miss Leanza had said that almost 8 million people lived in New York City. Sometimes Phoebe thought they all converged on Church Avenue.
Buckingham Road offered an oasis. An island of green divided it in two. A median of trees and grass lifted her street into something majestic.
Jake reached for her. A magnetic pull slammed them together. Since meeting Jake, she understood why her mother made such a fuss over Phoebe’s comings and goings. Without the rules of convention, Phoebe would crush her lips to Jake’s until they consumed each other.
He pressed against her. The sensation of wanting him closer, an arousal as agonizing as it was exhilarating, left her confused and breathless.
“Okay. Okay.” She pushed him away, excitement slowing her speech. “My mother will come out any minute.”
He walked her to the doorway, stopping for one more clench before they stepped on the por
ch. “Which window is yours?” he asked. “I want to imagine you curling up in bed.”
She pointed to the corner of the second floor. Her room overlooked the lush greenery. Sometimes, when her mother’s criticisms piled up and Phoebe began to see nothing but wispy hair and pimples in the mirror, she would stare out the window and imagine an amazing future when her life gleamed so bright that even her mother’s words couldn’t hurt.
For now, she had Jake.
CHAPTER 3
Phoebe
November 1963
“Come on, Pheebs. What’s the big deal in missing one class? You’re in college, not the army.”
Phoebe tuned Jake out, shuffling notes as she sat cross-legged on her bed.
“All the other girlfriends will be at the party,” he said. “Show up for me, okay?”
Phoebe gritted her teeth as Jake begged. “I told you. I’m not cutting class. My paper’s due.”
The only way he’d please her at this point was to leave and let her finish writing “What People Think of the Poor.” He deserved credit, though. He’d helped her with the assignment, distributing her questionnaire to twenty of his Brooklyn College fraternity brothers and forcing them to fill them out. He’d even answered one himself, surprising her with some of his responses—quick and pointed; Jake was not typically one to indulge in pontification.
Q: To what degree do you think the poor are responsible for their own plight?
A: The rich will do anything they can to keep what belongs to them. Thus the poor must claw at the rich to get theirs.
Q: Which of these aphorisms do you think best describes your attitude toward the poor in America?
1. God helps those who help themselves.
2. The poor must pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
3. The meek shall inherit the earth.
A: Number 1!!! Everyone’s got to grab their own prize. No one hands over money.
Jake peered over her shoulder, reading the questions aloud as if seeing them for the first time. “ ‘Is society responsible for fair wages?’ ‘Can people be expected to rise above their parents’ societal place?’ You bet I’m rising above my parents’ place. Not that it’s a long leap.” He gave a lopsided grin. “But I plan to pole-vault to the top. For both of us.”
Phoebe reached back and patted his shoulder, his dense muscle almost distracting her determination to make this paper perfect. “I question plenty in this world, but your success never makes that list.”
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” He lay back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Plus, you’re so damned smart. You can go all the way. As much as you love books, you can get your doctorate. Teach college. Together we can do anything. I’ll make sure of it.”
He rolled over and traced the outline of her knee. “Our kids will be terrific, you know. We’ll give them everything we never had.”
She hardened herself against his dreams. “Rising in status and the size of a paycheck isn’t the only proof of worth,” she said. “What about people who want to help other people? Or those who devote themselves to the arts? Or teaching?”
“Like you?” Jake draped an arm around her shoulder. “People like you need people like me to support your do-gooding. So come to the party.”
“You’re relentless. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”
“Class is more important to you than me?”
“No. Class is more important to me than your frat party.”
“Everything at City College outweighs anything at Brooklyn College?”
“To repeat. Going to class trumps your Christmas party. Why are they celebrating in November, anyway?”
“Everyone’s gotta be with their family during the holidays. Anyway, we’re not having a Christmas party. We’re celebrating Hanukkah.”
“You’re a rabbi now?”
“And being in Manhattan has turned you into the Queen of England? Too good to go to my party?”
She hated when he twisted her words, as though going or not going proved her loyalty to him. “How about if I take the train straight to the frat house after class? So I’ll only miss—what? An hour or two?”
“Fine. Whatever you want. Have it your way.”
With a bare brush of his lips as a good-bye kiss, a bit of punishment masquerading as affection, he left. Jake was a two-headed coin. On one side lived the rough-sexy guy who knew how to both protect her and accept that he needed her—the guy who took her on magic carpet rides. On the other side was the man who bared his teeth when he didn’t get his way. She adored the first; the second wearied her.
She inched the front door closed, fighting her craving to slam the wood to splinters, knowing her mother would race in and ask, “What’s wrong? Are you mad at Jake?,” her voice betraying the truth that she hoped to hear about a problem in the relationship.
If her mother were Catholic, she’d be lighting daily candles at Holy Innocents, bribing God with her piety, praying for His intervention, that He would force Phoebe to dump Jake.
Which, at the moment, tempted Phoebe more than she wanted to admit.
From the day she received her acceptance letter, Jake had acted as though Phoebe attending City College of New York instead of Brooklyn College portended treachery against him, her parents, and the entire borough of Brooklyn. For Phoebe, being at the relatively more sophisticated CCNY made her impatient with Jake in ways she’d never been—reacting against the same traits in him that had impressed her a mere few months ago. Whereas before he seemed like the go-getter that her father had admired, now, especially compared with her brilliant sociology professor, his ambition seemed uncouth. When they were out with others, Jake squeezed her hand every other second, seeking squeezes back as admiration for something clever that he had said. Conversely, listening to her professor lecture about class differences in America made Jake’s glib talk seem thin as waxed paper.
Monday through Friday, breaking up seemed the best course; come the weekend, feeling Jake’s shelter, knowing she’d caught the love of the guy that every girl wanted and every guy admired, she shoved those thoughts away. Walking through the world with Jake meant half the work was already done. He cleared the way for her.
The downside of those weekends was their going-all-the-way arguments. She didn’t want to sleep with him. Not yet. The more he pushed, the tighter she locked her legs against both of their cravings.
“Are you afraid that I won’t respect you?” he’d ask. “I damned well worship the ground you walk on! I love you. You know I’m marrying you, right?”
Soothing her with talk of a wedding didn’t help. Despite his sway over her—even after three years of dating, his touch thrilled her—getting married seemed like a final chapter in a life that she hadn’t yet led. Why the rush to marry him? To marry anyone? Sex sealed a deal she didn’t want at the moment.
Yet saying no was hard. Whatever “physical chemistry” meant, they certainly owned the formula. Wanting him had never presented a problem, but she’d fallen in love with college, too. Recently, the City College of New York brought the roses to Phoebe’s cheeks. She skipped off to her Introduction to Sociology class as though running to meet her lover. Poli-sci class met her with a hug of newness. In high school, she had done okay—she was especially good at taking tests—but the distractions of Jake’s attentions, along with staying on top of her clique, had distracted her from studying. Now education drew her as though it wore the sexiest cologne on earth.
Being smart and writing reports, getting good marks—that didn’t satisfy her anymore. Phoebe wanted to be learned. School left her just about breathless.
• • •
The next day, on the subway ride from Church Avenue in Brooklyn to 135th Street in Harlem—a long, soporific ride—Phoebe faced up to another reason for the roses in her cheeks and her motivation for never missing an Intro to Sociology class.
Professor Robert Gardiner.
Phoebe rolled the name around as
she walked onto campus, entered his classroom, and chose a seat two rows from his desk. When he smiled, she beamed back. She slipped her pen and pencil from her bag and pulled out her notebook. She was cool and ready.
Professor Gardiner had most definitely not come from Brooklyn. For the first few weeks of class, Phoebe hadn’t wanted to speak for fear of sounding like a parody of a Brooklyn girl, all dese and dose. At night, she whispered to the mirror: cahn’t, instead of caint, and cahfee in place of cawfee, until she went too far and sounded like Katharine Hepburn. Jake spotted the changes right away. “Stop putting on airs,” he’d ordered.
Life became complicated. Phoebe spoke in a manner she thought sounded educated when outside Brooklyn, and then reclaimed her accent as she exited her neighborhood subway stop.
“Today we’ll jump ahead and study deviance and crime,” Professor Gardiner announced.
While her Jake was no shrimp—he almost touched six feet—Gardiner topped him. Sun-colored hair hung in his eyes. When he spoke about pioneer social worker and suffrage activist Jane Addams and the settlement house she helped found, he sounded as reverent and impressed as Jake did when talking about Mickey Mantle and the Yankees.
Each quiet word Professor Gardiner uttered provided depth and clarity. Like Phoebe’s father, her professor understood the worth of being good. Unlike her mother, who shook her head in frustration and muttered “Enough!” when Phoebe’s father dropped a coin into the cup of every beggar they passed. (Though she knew her mother secretly admired Daddy for his generosity—as she did everything. To her mother, Daddy was a minor god.) Phoebe stared trancelike as Professor Gardiner lectured. His strong, straight white teeth impressed Phoebe the dentist’s daughter, and his blinding smile screamed fourth-generation American—he looked like a sexy portrait of Jesus.
She scribbled down the golden nuggets of information that Gardiner provided, resentful of others—mainly girls—who were similarly engaged in doing so. She wanted him to be only her discovery.
As he turned to the board to write down the key events tying the Industrial Revolution to changes in social conditions and crime, the door opened. A panting woman wearing a too-long skirt clutched a clipboard to her sizeable chest.