I RAN AWAY from home in southeast Ohio—there, already an old maid at eighteen—hoping to be free. I’d wanted to go to Chicago and become a secretary but made it as far as Toledo before I realized I had enough money—saved from tending to an elderly lady, whose family paid me a dollar a week—to either get to Chicago or have a few good meals. I’d been foolish, not considering when I ran away that I had no abilities beyond the homemaking skills required for a farmer’s wife, no formal education beyond eighth grade, augmented by everything I’d been able to soak up from reading every book (most of them twice) in the small Carnegie library in our county’s seat.
I tried to get a job as a secretary or waitress or housemaid, but I was either too young, or inexperienced, or poorly spoken with my Appalachian accent (as one potential boss told me) for such work. I took the first job I was offered, selling cigars and cigarettes at the Century Club speakeasy, and felt lucky to have it, even if it meant keeping a forced smile in place while dodging handsy men.
Soon, I met Pony at the Century Club. He was the first person, besides my little brother, who made me laugh. The first man who’d shown interest in me, other than the boys Mama had pushed me toward back home, and he didn’t care if I could cook or sew or clean. I thought that meant he was interested in me—for me. Plus, he was the first man to call me “pretty.”
He was worldly. Full of big talk and promises. Filled my head with the hope that maybe, with his help, I’d get to see the world.
Naïvely, I didn’t wonder why he wasn’t already married or dating, why the other women at the club ignored him or gave him smirking, skeptical looks. I believed the big-fish tales he wove, and married him just months after meeting him, pushing aside my uneasiness when I asked him what he did for a living.
Pony was scrawny, with a long bony nose, and clammy hands, and, I found out later, was nearly twice my age. But he wasn’t handsy. He was respectful, even shy at first. He made me feel pretty. Special. He described his apartment in sparkling terms—it was on a trolley line and had a full bathroom and kitchen. (I stayed in a boardinghouse, sharing a room with three other girls, with one bathroom on our floor, and no access to a kitchen.) And he had a good, steady job at the Hocking Glass Company, which he seemed to like. He tipped me well enough without seeming to expect anything untoward in return, and I’d been saving those tips, still hoping to get to Chicago. But then we started going out, and one thing led to another, and I became pregnant, and so we married.
Two weeks later, I miscarried.
I was heartbroken when my body cramped and expelled a rush of blood and matter. Pony didn’t help me clean up myself or the mess. Just stared in disgust, then said, You’ll be all right if I go out? and didn’t wait for my answer.
Soon I realized Pony was relieved, and I wondered if he might release me from our marriage, but I was too timid to bring it up. The little bit of money I’d had when we married was gone, and I had no access to his.
I did my best to make sure a good, hot meal awaited him each night, though he mocked my “down-home cooking,” as he called it. I never resisted his desires. And I discovered the most wonderous place I’d ever seen: the Toledo Public Library, just a quick walk or trolley ride down from our apartment building. I’d loved reading the books available to me back home. But this library offered an exhilarating, overwhelming treasure of books, and in them, I found refuge.
A half year into our marriage, Pony was restless, hating the apartment he’d once described as “great,” refusing to let me work at the speakeasy, yet resenting the cost of anything that wasn’t liquor.
What Pony wanted from me: unquestioning admiration. If my eyes betrayed me with a flicker of anything less, the price was his hand striking me. If he was frustrated that he wasn’t progressing as quickly as he thought he deserved in Eddie’s organization, he took it out on me. I became, as he put it, “a ball and chain.”
A sentiment not much different from what Mama used to say of me. “A noose around my neck,” she’d called both me and my brother, but more often me.
I began to fear for my life. I understood, vaguely, that Pony was caught up in a side business as a goon who could make me “disappear.”
Then one fateful night, Pony said, “Put on your best dress, and let’s go to the Century Club.” His unusually chipper voice alarmed me. He was up to something.
My eyes strayed toward the book I was eager to finish reading, The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart.
Before I could say anything, Pony scowled. “What, waste Friday night in this dump?” But then he shifted to his best effort at a charming smile, as if he was convincing me, as if I had a choice. “C’mon, doll, let me take you out and show you off.”
In the smoky, dim Century Club, I soon understood why Pony really wanted to come: Eddie McGee. I recognized the gangster’s mug from a recent newspaper article; he was accused of setting up an assault on rival gang leader Marco Guiffre, which had resulted in the deaths of two alleged gang members, and of three bystanders. But there was no proof. McGee, one of the wealthiest men in Toledo, maintained the fiction that he’d made his wealth in the shipping industry, and that he now dealt in “insurance.”
I sat at a tiny table, miserably crowded between two women I didn’t know, trying to make small talk and appear chipper, sipping what was purveyed as the Century Club’s special—supposedly whisky with a sugar cube and a dash of lemon juice, but it really tasted like watered-down, sugared turpentine. It felt strange to be in my old place of employment, however brief it had been. I thought I might see some of the other girls I’d worked with, or the bartenders or bouncers. But everyone was new. Turnover is high in places like that, which somehow made me melancholy. I’d wanted to break all ties when I ran away, but I guess I wanted some bonds after all. Maybe that’s why I’d fallen so quickly for Pony. My gaze strayed toward him, but he was completely ignoring me as he anxiously lurked on the edge of a crowd of men gathered around Eddie. Pony looked like a puppy wanting to break into the ring of big dogs.
Then the already dim lights darkened even more. Three Black men came on a small stage, taking their places at an upright piano, a drum set, and a bass. I smiled, recognizing them. What a world I lived in, where musicians had the stable jobs. They played a few jazzy tunes, and I was relieved that their music gave me an excuse to not talk; I could gaze at the stage, take cautious sips of my cocktail, and nod along to the music’s rhythm.
But after a few tunes, Eddie suddenly hopped up on the stage. I was astonished. Was the great gangster going to sing? The whole joint went still and quiet. He grinned widely, holding the crowd in his thrall for a moment, and then grabbed a microphone and announced, “The Sweetheart Cousins are back!”
The crowd, apparently knowing what this meant, or at least that it was a good idea to cater to Eddie, broke into raucous applause and cheers, and two glamorous, gorgeous women, wearing sparkling dresses that were little more than slips, their hair perfectly coiffed in matching dos, took the stage.
Cousins, but at first I thought that they looked like twins. I soon noted, though, that one had a beauty mark, and somehow, though her movements were more refined, exuded a hold on the crowd that the other simply lacked.
Rosita McGee, Eddie’s wife.
And Claire Byrne, Rosita’s cousin.
They went through a set of easy up-tunes. But then Claire’s voice started to sound scratchy. Rosita whispered something to her, and Claire gave a little wave and trotted, unsteadily, off the stage. I wondered if she’d had a bit too much of the club’s specialty.
“She’ll be back,” Rosita said.
I sat up straighter, stared at her, unable to look away as goose bumps rose all over my skin. On its own, without being watered down by Claire, Rosita’s voice was like a balm of honey, pouring over me, promising comfort I didn’t even know I needed.
“But first, a song I love, a tune from the vaudeville days, ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,’” Rosita said, and then began singing: “At the end of the rainbow there’s happiness, And to find it how often I’ve tried, But my life is a race just a wild goose chase, And my dreams have all been denied. Why have I always been a failure? What can the reason be? I wonder if the world’s to blame, I wonder if it could be me?”
My heart rose so swiftly to my throat that I put my fist to my mouth, as if I might have to punch it back down. I’d heard the song before by another performer on that very stage, but never sung like this with such … knowing. And longing.
A knowing and longing I’d felt, too.
Did this woman, Rosita, the wife of powerful, wealthy Eddie McGee, also feel this way? Tears welled in my eyes.
And then she saw me, staring at her. Our eyes locked. I felt, for the first time, that I’d met a kindred soul.
Pony must have noticed my reaction, for suddenly he was beside me, shooing the woman next to me away, and roughly whispering, “What are you doing? Don’t act crazy!”
I ignored him as Rosita gently segued into the chorus. The band stopped playing, the musicians sensing that her voice was all this part of the song needed.
I’m always chasing rainbows, watching clouds drifting by. My schemes are just like all my dreams, ending in the sky …
As Rosita finished singing, tears slicked my cheeks. Pony growled at me to go clean up, to not embarrass him, but I paid no attention as Rosita signaled for the band to break and announced to the breathless crowd, “Claire and I will be back!”
Pony jerked my arm, forcing me to stand up. And suddenly, there she was, Rosita McGee, right beside us.
She, too, ignored Pony. “Excuse me, miss,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“She’s fine—right? Honey?” Pony pinched my elbow.
I jerked my arm away. Rosita was not concerned about Pony; she thought I could hold my own with him. I liked that. It made me think maybe I could. And I saw a flash of admiration in her eyes as I pulled from him. She liked my bit of spunk.
“I am fine,” I said, “it’s just your song—it—it—” I wasn’t sure how to explain that it made me think of the dreams I’d had just the year before when I’d run from home. That the way she sang it made me realize I’d only been running away, not toward something. So I just finished lamely, “—it reminded me of home.”
To my surprise, Rosita asked with genuine curiosity, “Where’s that?”
“Southeast Ohio. Nowhere important.” The way she’d sung it, I couldn’t help but wonder what the song meant to her. So the question burst out of me: “Is that what you were thinking of? Home? You seemed somewhere else when you sang. I think that’s why it took me back—”
“That’s nonsense, doll,” Pony said. “But ma’am, it’s good to meet you, and uh, before you womenfolk get to gabbing, I’d love an introduction to your husband—I did some, ah, work for one of his men, over on Third—”
That took me by surprise. He hadn’t told me this. But then, he’d been coming home late, sometimes after midnight. And he had given me a more generous grocery allowance, and told me to get better cuts of meat for supper. I’d only asked him about it once. He’d backhanded me, and when my nose bled, told me that’s what I got for being nosy, and then cackled like he’d just made the cleverest joke.
Pony went on, “We came here tonight ’cause I was hoping to meet him, but, ah, it’s hard to get—” He stopped, stared longingly over at Eddie’s table, then jumped a little, straightening his shoulders like he was already a good soldier, for Eddie was making his way over to us.
I almost laughed at Pony. Couldn’t he see that Eddie didn’t notice him, or me? That Eddie’s smoldering gaze, the hint of a tender smile on his otherwise cruel slash of a mouth, was only for Rosita?
But Rosita either didn’t notice or was purposefully ignoring Eddie, for she kept her gaze on me. Her voice was thoughtful, as if an idea had just occurred to her and she was turning it over carefully. “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” she said. “If you’ll come back to my shows—”
I looked down. I wanted to say no, to admit that I hadn’t wanted to come that night, that I didn’t want to come back here again, or have anything to do with the McGees. My stomach twisted, and I felt cold, even as hot bile threatened to come up in my mouth. Falling in with the McGees would only bring trouble, a voice warned. But was it my voice, or all the voices that had wanted to pin me down back home?
I like to believe that what I said next wasn’t because I knew the beating I’d get from Pony if I ruined this chance for him.
That instead it was in defiance of those past voices.
Or better yet, that I was speaking up for something I suddenly, desperately knew I’d needed but never really had all of my life.
A friend.
I looked back up at Rosita, and said, “Yes—I’d love that.”
“I’m Rosita McGee,” she said, holding out her hand to me, offering a wry smile as if she knew introducing herself, unnecessary as it was, was a private joke we shared.
Even knowing that Eddie McGee was a gangster, I didn’t really understand then the danger that I was walking right into by smiling, accepting her handshake, and saying, “And I’m Susan Walker.”