Early Tuesday morning, Johnny heard the commotion as soon as he crossed the tracks into Mickey’s neighborhood. People conferring with passersby, some heading in the direction of the slaughterhouse along the river, others away from it. A fire truck siren wailing a couple of blocks over. Mr. Secoolish’s horn honking as he backed his DeSoto onto South Washington Avenue from Birch.
“Mine cave-in!” Mickey called out from his second-floor porch. He punctuated the news with two high-pitched chirps from his pea whistle. “Hold up!” he hollered as he pounded down a set of steps on the side of the house.
“How bad?” Johnny asked, his eyes following the crowd.
“Not too, from what I’m hearing,” Mickey said as he approached, “but the water main’s busted. Fire department’s checking the gas line now.” He tugged at Johnny’s arm. “Let’s go see!”
“Thought you had vacation Bible school.”
“Huh? Oh, you mean First Holy Communion class? That’s not for another half hour. Besides, I’m not sure I’m going back.”
Johnny studied the boy. “Why’s that?”
“Every time we get to the door, Sister Maria yells, ‘The heathens are here!’ because we all go to public school.” Mickey stopped cold and dropped his voice. “Speak of the devil,” he said, dropping his eyes as a woman in a long black dress and veil followed the onlookers.
“Be careful!” Mickey’s grandmother instructed from the second-floor window.
“I will, Granny.”
“He’s with me, Mrs. McCrae,” Johnny said. “I’ll watch out for him.”
“See that you do. Last thing we need is another Jule Ann Fulmer around here.”
“Another who?” Johnny asked Mickey as they joined the crowd.
“Jule Ann Fulmer,” Mickey said. “Two years old. Out walking with her aunt and brother, sucking on a tangerine. She’s looking around and ends up a few steps behind them. Next thing you know, her aunt sees that tangerine roll by. She turns around and Jule Ann’s gone. So’s the sidewalk where the girl was walking. Mine subsidence, forty feet deep. Ground just broke open and swallowed her up. May she rest in peace.”
“That’s awful.” Johnny tugged at Mickey’s shoulder to slow his pace. “How’d you know her?”
“Didn’t. Happened in Pittston a few years before I was born. But I hear about it all the time. ‘Mickey,’” he said, mimicking his grandmother’s earsplitting inflection, “‘watch out when you’re playing near those mines. You don’t want to end up like Jule Ann.’ Every kid in town’s grown up on that story.”
“Show’s over, folks!” a uniformed policeman shouted through his bullhorn. “Go on back home!”
“What’s the damage?” a man called out.
“We got lucky this time.” The officer sounded relieved. “Only four, maybe five feet down.”
“How about the gas line?” Johnny yelled from the back of the crowd.
“Just the water main,” the policeman said. “Houses are safe. Check your cellars though.” He aimed his bullhorn toward rivulets of water running toward the storm grates along the street. “Drains could back up. They haven’t had a good cleaning in ages.”
As the people started to disperse, Johnny made his way forward. “I work at the slaughterhouse.”
“Not today,” the officer said. “Nothing’s shored up yet.”
“Guess I’m playing hooky,” Johnny told Mickey as they headed back toward the house.
Mickey jumped into a few inches of streaming water with his rubber-soled sneakers. “Think I will too.” The boy lifted a foot. “Keds are soaked right through.”
“I’d think again!” someone boomed behind them.
“Dammit,” Mickey mumbled as he turned toward the voice. “Sister Maria, I was only kidding around.”
“Then you won’t mind accompanying me on my walk to St. Mary’s.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean no, ma’am. Yes, I’ll join you. No, I don’t mind one bit.” Mickey rolled his eyes at Johnny. “Be seeing you,” he said, and fell into soggy step alongside the nun.
* * *
Johnny started to formulate a plan for the day as he made his way over the bridge and back up the hill. No sense stopping by the studio this early. Daisy wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours yet. He could swing by a phone booth, but he didn’t dare call her at home. She still hadn’t told her mother about him. He wanted to be mad, but as she’d pointed out on more than one occasion, he hadn’t told his mother yet either. Instead of resolving the issue, they’d ignored it for months, though that wasn’t going to work too much longer.
Johnny was falling for Daisy. Hard. He was willing to stand up to his family, if it came to that, but what about her? He needed to know before it was too late. Who was he kidding? He’d passed “too late” weeks ago. Still, it was time to find out where she stood. After six months in Scranton, Johnny realized he’d always be a small fish in this town. With the love of a good woman, he might be able to temper his ambitions and stick around. Without it, he should probably try his luck in a bigger pond. He’d bring up the subject with Daisy when he saw her today. But first, he had to convince her to play hooky. Maybe they could catch a matinee. There were four movie theaters within walking distance. He’d have to see what was playing, but in this heat, the air-conditioning alone would be a treat.
“Well, if it ain’t Jelly Roll Morton!” Kenny Wilkens shouted from the Woolworths side of Lackawanna Avenue.
Johnny darted across the street. “I prefer to think of myself as the Art Tatum of Scranton.”
“You’ve got to think bigger, my friend.”
“Bigger than Art Tatum?”
“Bigger than Scranton. In fact,” Kenny patted Johnny’s shoulder, “I was planning on running an idea by you this week.”
“Run it by me now.”
“I thought you were a working man.”
“Water main break. Slaughterhouse is closed for the day. I’m hoping to go out with Daisy this afternoon. Maybe take in a picture.”
“Surely you can do better than that.” A courtesy car pulled up to the curb and dropped off a couple of salesgirls. Kenny whistled as they headed over to A.S. Beck’s, the shoe store next door. “Mm-mmm,” Kenny said to Johnny, “I may have to see about a pair of nubucks when I get back.”
“Back from where?”
“Grab a coffee with me,” Kenny pointed to Woolworths, “and I’ll tell you. Train doesn’t leave for another hour.”
“Train?” Johnny peered down the street to where the sun hovered over the Lackawanna Station’s limestone facade.
“Going to the Big Apple.” Kenny lifted his bagged trumpet and pretended to play. “A friend of mine runs a nightclub in the Village. They’re looking for a new house band. Auditions are sometime this month.” Kenny propped his elbow on Johnny’s shoulder and struck a casual pose. “Thought I’d sign us both up.”
“That’s quite the idea,” Johnny replied. “When you coming back?”
“Midnight. So what about that coffee?”
“You buying?”
“I’ll do you one better.” Kenny pulled a ring of keys out of his front pocket and tossed it to Johnny. “Take my car. Show your girl a good time today.”
“I couldn’t.” Johnny tried to return the keys, but Kenny put his hands and his trumpet behind his back. “It’s only going to sit in that parking lot all day. Just remember to pick me up.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to go.”
“How ’bout Rocky Glen? Take your girl up in the Ferris wheel. Ride the Million Dollar Coaster. Best amusement park around.” As if intuiting Johnny’s next question, Kenny added, “Everybody’s welcome, if you catch my drift. In fact, the colored church down the road holds its Sunday school picnic there every summer.”
“Coffee’s on me,” Johnny said as he pocketed the keys and opened the door to Woolworths.
* * *
An hour later, Johnny parked in front of Mama Z’s house, half wishing she were home to see how good he looked behind the wheel of a 1952 two-tone, surf-blue and sky-gray Buick Roadmaster. Just as well, he thought, sliding out of the car. She’d probably have given him the third degree about his plans. She was a lot like his mother that way. Only difference, Mama Z would ask her own questions—and a few more from the great beyond. Or so she’d say. That was the problem with seers. If you accused them of being too nosy, they sidestepped the blame by claiming a spirit was directing their words, like some sort of phantom ventriloquist. A floating Edgar Bergen holding his Charlie McCarthy dummy in one hand and a crystal ball in the other. At least that’s how Johnny pictured it when Mama Z claimed to conjure the dead.
Johnny made his way upstairs to wash and change into a dress shirt and a pair of gaberdine pants. He knew enough to put his best foot forward. Rocky Glen might welcome everyone, but that didn’t mean everyone at Rocky Glen would welcome him.
At ten after eleven, Johnny called Daisy at the studio and cajoled her into canceling her classes so they could spend the day together. He didn’t mention the car. He wanted that to be a surprise, so he told her to meet him in front of Woolworths at noon. In the meantime, he sat on the porch, admiring the Buick like he would a famous painting, or better yet, a beautiful woman. The body’s gracious curves. The grille’s toothy smile. Maybe after Rocky Glen, he’d swing back home and show the car off to Mama Z after all. Now that he thought about it, he could kill two birds and introduce her to Daisy as a kind of dry run. Let Daisy see he meant business without bringing his own mother into it just yet.
Not a bad idea, he thought as he pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. Not bad at all.
* * *
Daisy never should have said yes to Johnny. It was hard enough to get classes up and running without canceling them on a whim. Not that it mattered to the Belisario sisters whose ballet lessons she’d called off. They’d yipped for joy on the other end of the phone, something about a birthday party they could now attend. And Opal seemed just as happy about postponing that evening’s falsetto work. The widower she fancied went to bingo on Tuesday nights, and she was eager to make an appearance.
Rearranging the schedule is not the problem. Daisy sighed. It’s having so little to rearrange. After three months’ time, she only had a handful of voice students and three dance classes, two ballet and one tap. She’d scrapped modern dance altogether since no one had shown any interest. No one had signed up for her piano lessons either, a genuine disappointment after the trouble it had taken to get the instrument up the steps.
Well, trouble with the Summerlin brothers. Johnny had been a godsend. If he hadn’t come along, that little Tom Thumb might still be sitting on the sidewalk. And Daisy might still be pining for Atlantic City. When she’d come home to help with her father, she hadn’t intended to remain in Scranton, yet that’s how life goes sometimes. She’d mustered the courage to leave once. She couldn’t break her mother’s heart again. Thankfully, Johnny seemed content to stick around. Daisy closed her eyes and pictured him standing in front of her.
Startled by a sudden surge of desire, Daisy opened her eyes and surveyed the empty room: a stack of oak folding chairs, the old cobalt sofa, that little red piano—a wedding gift from her Grampa Owen to her Grandma Grace. “May you never want for music,” he’d told his bride. Daisy loved that story, but there were others. Like how, as a little girl, her mother’s feet couldn’t reach the pedals. And how she’d offer to play hymns to get out of chores.
Or how she’d given up the piano after her sister’s death. Twin tragedies, to Daisy’s thinking. She couldn’t imagine life without music.
That’s why she’d fallen so hard for Johnny. He needed music as much as she did. Maybe more. When he laid hands on a piano, it was like watching a prophet saving souls.
When she was a child, Daisy had thought an awful lot about souls. The way the minister used to talk about them, she was sure they were nestled deep inside a person’s chest, but no one ever mentioned what they were made of, or how they looked. Sometimes she’d imagine them shaped like hearts on a frilly valentine. Or cut like teardrops in a crystal chandelier. Then again, maybe souls were like the flame of a candle or a wave in the ocean. Or malleable, like jellyfish but without the stingers. In all those years, she’d never settled on an answer, though when Daisy thought of Johnny, she was sure his soul was split in two, each half stretching from his palms to his fingertips like rays on a starfish.
So, Daisy thought, if a man has not one but two hand-shaped souls, you clear your calendar to be with him. The studio be damned. She’d rearrange the schedule in a day or two, and in another week she’d start advertising for fall classes. Most new students signed up in September, anyway. She should have thought about that when she’d opened in May. And surely the bus strike would be over soon, so the students she’d had in Providence could catch a ride into town. Moreover, her Aunt Lily’s husband, Frankie, had given her the studio rent-free for a whole year, plenty of time for Daisy to get on her feet. All in all, her future in Scranton looked promising.
Daisy glanced at the clock. Five minutes till noon. She hurriedly tucked the tails of her blouse into her fuchsia pedal pushers and grabbed her clutch. After a quick swipe of Secret Red, she dropped her lipstick in the bag, ran down the steps, and out the door.
On the other side of the street, Myrtle Evans and her sister Mildred walked arm in arm toward A.S. Beck’s. Leave it to Daisy’s busybody neighbors to come downtown today. She waited until they crossed the shoe store’s threshold before darting over to Woolworths. Almost immediately, a blue and gray Buick drove up to the curb and Johnny jumped out.
“Your chariot awaits,” he said, opening a door.
Daisy slipped into the leather passenger seat. Yes, she thought, as Johnny closed her door, the future looked promising indeed.