Steve glanced across. “Why would you want to see Auntie Mame?”
“Why would I want to see The Fly?”
Steve turned to face the window, already giving up. Eleanor felt a flash of pain, then satisfaction—he couldn’t even handle three sentences between them.
Rosie jumped in. “Hersh’s is fine—as long as you boys buy us a milkshake.”
Eleanor recognized every single person inside the diner. They filed into a red plastic booth, and Eleanor ordered grilled cheese, extra pickles. Rosie ordered a milkshake, extra whipped cream. Steve surprised them all by ordering pancakes. “With bacon, please.”
“Well, I for one need a real meal.” John ordered a burger, pleased with himself for maintaining the status quo.
At the thought of bacon, Eleanor lost her appetite. She leaned against the vinyl with a sigh.
“You all right, Ellie? You look a little . . .” Rosie pushed her soda toward Eleanor.
She held up a hand, hoping her suffering was apparent. “I’m fine.”
Rosie turned to the boys. “Eleanor doesn’t like bacon because she lives on a pig farm.”
“You can only name so many pigs before you lose your appetite for them.” Eleanor stood. “I have to use the ladies’.”
Rosie leapt to join her. When they were alone, Eleanor turned to her. “He’s got the brain of a sardine.”
Rosie plumped her breasts in her brassiere. “He’s nice.”
“Oh, well then. Doesn’t he just razz my berries.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, all the good ones are taken,” Rosie said. “Soon I’ll have to go to Madison for a typing course to meet someone.”
“Your daddy would never let you go to Madison. Too commie.”
“So don’t ruin this for me,” Rosie said. “I’ll be single forever!”
Compared to life with these fools, Eleanor didn’t think that sounded so bad. Men! How could the same word describe John Plutz and Don Mannheim—the latter so vital and handsome, and able to spin lyrics that wrenched her very soul? They didn’t seem the same species.
“I wouldn’t mind being single forever.” Eleanor thought of Pat, putting on a record as he set the table for one, maybe adding candles to heighten the evening, and her hands went numb. But wouldn’t she be just as lonely, married to someone who stifled who she was?
“It’s not about John,” Rosie said. “It’s about kids.”
When they returned to the table, Eleanor tried to talk to the boys. But she couldn’t be so unfaithful to herself as to laugh at John’s jokes. Eleanor watched Rosie, who didn’t seem nearly as torn apart by the act of pretending, who could act happy despite it not being true. Eleanor sat against the vinyl, aware she was pouting, feeling sorry for herself as they stopped including her. She watched them, wanting to be someone who could participate, lost as to how, feeling nothing but a persistent anxiety that put her off even pickles.
They skipped the movie and stopped instead at a bar, where the conversation got bawdier and John and Rosie disappeared for long minutes, during which Eleanor pushed her bottle cap along the sticky tabletop while Steve talked to a group of girls she had known in high school but no longer pretended to be friends with. Then, at midnight, Rosie and John dropped her home, John harping on about doing this again next week. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Eleanor left it at good night.
Chapter Two
In her bedroom, Eleanor took the false bottom out of her jewelry box and removed the money she’d amassed during the last twelve years. It wasn’t enough. She had counted many times and knew there wasn’t enough to get her to New York. She flung herself on the bed, but the tears didn’t come. Instead, she went to the old fantasy that she often played in her head: A spotlight. A costume, a crowd. All the people in Wisconsin talking about how she’d done it, really made it to Broadway. Don Mannheim, holding a dozen roses, watching from the wings.
Rolling onto her stomach, she reached for her pocketbook and retrieved the audition notice from Pat. The open call was in five days. An eastbound train came through the Wisconsin Dells on Sunday mornings. She could arrive Monday afternoon for the Tuesday audition. Eleanor knew her voice was good, and it wasn’t because of what people said, nor was it ego. She knew because of how good it felt to sing. Her voice rang in her face, her throat, her chest. The sound vibrated between her molars, up the socket behind her tongue, in her forehead. Resonance. No breathy, wispy sound; it was full and powerful and a real, solid thing. It wasn’t something just anyone could do. She didn’t have money or experience, but she could sing.
She’d sing a Gershwin song, wear her blue dress, and borrow Rosie’s red pumps. Her résumé was blank and she had a school photograph instead of a headshot, but she had talent. Enough that she deserved a chance. Maybe her life didn’t have to be filled with distant obsessions about the latest record in Pat’s store. Maybe she could spend her mornings inside rehearsal rooms instead of pigsties. People would respect her instead of offer ridicule. She’d spend evenings memorizing lines instead of out with boys who ignored her if she didn’t pretend to laugh at their jokes.
Her body tightened with anger until she was wide awake, her skin hot. She sat up. She wasn’t a farmer; she was a singer. As Pat had said, an artist. When had she decided that this place—Hersh’s, the boys, her parents’ harping about grandchildren—was what she deserved? Here was a chance, a slim but real one, to get out.
In a year she’d have saved enough.
But in a year, there wouldn’t be an open audition for a Don Mannheim show.
Blood pounded in her ears. She slipped out of bed. Suspending herself from the two railings, she shimmied downstairs without touching a step. In the living room, she retrieved the box where her mother stored the war bonds.
She spread them on the carpet, moonlight shining through her mother’s hand-tatted curtains. During the war, when Eleanor was a girl, her parents had scrimped along with everyone else and, whenever possible, loaned $18.75 to the federal government. Eleanor’s mother still talked about how good she felt, counting up coins to protect their freedom, in Eleanor’s name. Each bond would appreciate. Eleanor would receive the money upon her marriage, to help her husband buy a house or land.
She put them down. It was as good as stealing. Her parents had designated this money for one purpose. Abandoning her parents with two fewer hands on the farm, and the shame of a renegade daughter, was a betrayal.
The bonds were for her future. But Eleanor could not imagine living the future her parents had planned for her.
She went to the kitchen and dialed Rosie.