Two

Sarah turned up the collar of her hand-me-down coat, still scented with the cheap perfume Fanny dabbed behind her ears. Hurrying to her usual hideout, she was surprised to find someone already on the fire escape stairs. The girl moved to make room for her. “It’ll be warmer sitting close together,” she said. “Brrrrr.”

“Thanks.” Sarah sat down, leaving a foot of space between them.

“Oh, I’m much warmer now,” the girl said with a teasing smile.

Embarrassed, Sarah moved closer. The girl was wearing a short green coat with frayed cuffs. The coat didn’t have pockets and the girl’s hands were red with cold.

“Here, wear these.” Sarah pulled off her wool mittens. “I can put my hands in my pockets.”

“Are you sure?”

Sarah nodded.

The girl pulled on the mittens and cupped her face in her hands. “This feels soooo good. Thank you. I’m Bianca Fiore. But, if you call me that, no one will know who you’re talking about.” She smiled and the wide space between her two front teeth added to the mischievousness she radiated. “My first grade teacher changed Bianca to Blanche. So that’s what everyone at school calls me. Ugly!”

“It’s not so bad.”

“Say it over and over again and it sounds uglier and uglier.”

Sarah hesitated.

“Go ahead. Say it,” Bianca urged.

“Blanche, Blanche, Blanche, Blanche.” Sarah smiled. “You’re right.”

“Do you have a name I shouldn’t use?”

“How did you know?”

“Half the girls in school are stuck with American names they hate! What’s yours?”

“Sadie!”

“Hmmmm. Sadie, Sadie, Sadie…”

“Stop! Call me Sarah. Please.”

“And you call me Bianca. It’s a pact.” She scrutinized Sarah. “I hide out here when I’m mad at the world. You don’t look too happy either.”

Sarah pushed her chin deeper into her coat collar. “I’m…frustrated.”

“Why?”

“It’ll just stir me up to talk about it.”

“You seem pretty stirred up already.”

Sarah saw sympathy, not ridicule on Bianca’s face. “What I say will probably sound stupid.”

Bianca shook her head. “Don’t worry.”

The story about her humiliation in art class wasn’t easy to tell, but once started, Sarah’s words flowed like dammed water let loose. By the time she had finished, her flushed face felt hot. “Sorry for running on so long!”

“Can I ask you a question?”

Sarah nodded.

“Now don’t get mad. Why did you paint the horse red?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Don’t be so touchy! I just want to understand.”

Sarah saw that Bianca was intent. She was listening. “I wanted to paint the horse so I’d give the feeling of freedom I felt watching them gallop at our cousin’s farm. And my brush just skipped brown and went to red.”

“I wouldn’t have had the nerve to do that! But you shouldn’t have been surprised when the sub didn’t like it.”

“She didn’t have to tear it in half!”

Bianca jumped up and slapped at her bottom. “I’m freezing!”

“Oh, that’s not funny,” Sarah said in a mock serious voice. “Cold bottoms lead to sore throats.”

Bianca snorted. “Your mother told you that, didn’t she? Italian mothers have crazy ideas about cold bottoms.”

Sarah smiled. “My mother’s Jewish!”

Bianca dismissed the information with a wave. “Italian mothers, Jewish mothers. No difference. They’re both crazy in the same way. I know because I have a Jewish Aunt Bertha.”

“I have an Aunt Bertha too! In New York. And an uncle…are you ready? Schmuel!”

“Schmuel, Schmuel, Schmuel…”

The ringing of the school bell interrupted their laughter.

“I don’t want to go back,” Sarah said gloomily.

“Let’s skip class and go to Halsted Street. I still have piles of birthday money to spend.”

“I’ve never done that.”

Bianca grinned. “Anyone who paints a red horse shouldn’t be afraid to skip class!”

“I don’t think you’re a very good influence on me.”

Arm in arm, they turned their backs on Jefferson High and walked toward Halsted Street.

§

Halsted was crowded, noisy, and restless with movement. Peddlers called out their wares as they pushed their carts, wheels creaking under the weight of fresh vegetables, fish, second-hand shoes, bicycle parts, tools, dishes, pots, used books, hats, wigs, or old furniture wobbling precariously. The air smelled of raw fish, over-ripe fruit, and unwashed bodies.

Sarah stopped to look at a display of women’s hats decorated with plumes and flowers. There were also two cigar boxes filled with…

“Bianca!” She pointed to the contents of one of the boxes.

Bianca shuddered. “Ick. I’d rather let my teeth fall out than use someone else’s old toothbrush.”

Sarah plucked up a velvet hat with a purple plume, put it on, and cocked her head at a coquettish angle.

The peddler, eyes big and dark as prunes, rushed to her side. “Beautiful! I give it away half price. Two dollar.”

Sarah took the hat off quickly. “I’m sorry. I have no money.”

“Never pick up anything unless you want to buy it,” Bianca said, as they moved out of earshot of the peddler.

“I feel bad. He looked so disappointed.”

“Do you know what that man over there is making?”

Sarah followed Bianca’s glance to a short, bearded man who was wearing a red wool hat pulled so low it almost hid his eyes. The straps of a box were slung around his neck and he was grating a turnip on the box’s toothed metal surface.

“Horseradish.”

“For horses?”

“I don’t think they’d like it!”

“Then what do you do with it?”

“Did you ever hear of gefilte fish?”

“Do you catch them in Lake Michigan?”

Sarah giggled. “Gefilte fish is fish ground up and made into dumpling-like things. Horseradish gives them a zippy taste.”

“Sweet PO—TAY—TOES! Hot, juicy SWEET POTATOES,” sang a rich tenor voice.

“There’s Big Harry!” Bianca grabbed Sarah’s hand. “Let’s get a sweet potato! Do you want to?”

“I love sweet potatoes.”

They moved quickly between carts until they reached Big Harry. His elephantine pants were on the verge of falling down. His head was pale and bald as an egg.

“Hi, Harry.” Bianca held out her hand, showing him two nickels. “What can we get for this?” She added, “It’s my birthday money.”

“Your birthday is it? And how old might ye be?”

“Fifteen.”

“Well, now isn’t that a lucky thing!” Harry’s grin pushed his small blue eyes deep into the folds of his skin. “If it’s a customer’s fifteenth birthday, I double the amount of money they give me. So your two nickels turn into two dimes. Ten cents apiece for the sweetest sweet potato this side of the drainage canal.”

Bianca looked at Sarah. “All right?”

“Yummm.”

“Two sweet potatoes for two sweet tomatoes,” Harry sang out as his fingers, fat as cigars, deftly folded a sheet of newspaper into a cone. He speared a potato from the oven, dropped it into the paper cone, and handed it to Sarah with a flourish. He presented the second potato to Bianca, acknowledging her thanks with a bow that endangered the position of his pants even more.

Sarah and Bianca watched as he trudged on, sending his song into the air.

“He’s so nice,” Sarah said.

“Most of the peddlers are.”

“Does your mother let you come here by yourself?”

“I just come. The secret is not to stay so long that she worries about where I am.”

“Ooooh! Hot!” Sarah yelped as she tried to peel the potato. Bianca blew on hers. They waited impatiently until they were able to remove the top half of the potato skin and take a bite. A loud clanging interrupted their feast. Four white horses raced by, pulling a fire wagon that trailed clouds of smoke. Sarah and Bianca jumped back, but not fast enough. A spray of greasy soot stained their clothes and turned their potatoes black.

They looked at each other glumly and Sarah started to dig out the sweet pulp from under the blackened skin with her finger.

Bianca whooped with laughter. “Your nose is black! No! Don’t rub it! You’re only making it worse!”

By the time they had managed to eat the potatoes they both looked like chimney sweeps.

“Delicious,” Sarah said. “Thank you.” She threw the blackened skin into a trash barrel.

“Have you ever been to Hull House?” Bianca asked, as they continued walking.

“I use their library.”

“I go there for an art class Tuesdays after school. You should come. Miss Benedict’s a good teacher. She’d let you paint a horse with purple stripes if you wanted to.”

“I take care of a little boy named Goosie on Tuesdays.”

“Couldn’t you do it a different day?”

“I guess so.”

“Well?”

“My father might say yes. I don’t know about my mother.”

“Why would she say no? The class is free.”

“She’s…just funny about some things.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s got very definite ideas. And,” she faltered, her voice stumbling like a cart that had lost its wheels, “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

Bianca stared. “But she’s your mother.”

“Mothers don’t have to love their children, do they?”

The enormity of the question hung in the air until Bianca broke the tension. “My mother has no time to have ideas about anything! She’s too busy taking care of babies.”

She averted her eyes. “She can hardly speak any English. I’m embarrassed if we go somewhere together. And I hate myself for it.”

“Doesn’t your father ever help her?”

“My father! He likes making babies, not taking care of them.”

“Oh…”

Bianca giggled. “I’ve made you blush.”

“You have not,” Sarah protested, blushing even more.

“Viola is the one with the ideas. She’s my oldest sister. Get her started on women’s right to vote and she can talk for hours.”

“My mother’s pretty boring on that subject too.”

“Well, I’m a girl’s rights person. And I say it’s your right to go to art classes at Hull House.”

Sarah smiled wryly. “Do you want to tell my mother that?”

Is it really possible, she asked herself, when she and Bianca reached the intersection where they parted, that I just met her today?