It had long been Abe Herodetzky’s habit to sit in his rocking chair behind the meat counter and study the newspapers for mention of Palestine. With Becky handling things up front he often had an uninterrupted hour early in the morning to skim the English-language papers and then peruse the Yiddish press. The American papers ran little about what was happening over there, but the Forward and especially the Freiheit offered regular dispatches from the Holy Land.
The Freiheit was the Jewish Communist paper, and while Abe despised the Communists for what they were doing to the unions, he bought the paper for its coverage of Palestine. Ever since the Palestinian Zionists staged the bombing reprisals against the Arabs, the anti-Zionist Frieheit—despite Stalin’s devil pact with Hitler the Communists insisted that post-revolutionary Russia was the Jews’ Promised Land—afforded expanded coverage of the British administration’s efforts to “track down the terrorist fanatics.”
“Father,” Becky called for the third time. Giving up, she left her place behind the counter and walked back to the meat counter. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” She stopped abruptly. Her father was ghost-white. He was staring at his newspaper like a man reading his own obituary. “Father, are you ill? What is it?”
Abe looked up at her and chuckled. “Nothing. I’m fine.” He breathed deeply and laughed again. “I gave myself a good scare, that’s all.” He gestured to his daughter to come around the counter and read over his shoulder. “See here? Look what it says: Herschel Kol, just like in Kolesnikoff, yes Becky? I was reading about this poor fellow who got arrested for blowing up the Arabs, and then I got to his name and for a moment—”
“In your head you thought his name was Kolesnikoff.” Becky murmured. “Oh, I’m sorry . . .”
Her father had long ago confided in her that he studied the papers not out of Zionist fervor but because he still held onto the hope of finding mention of Haim. “One day his name—with a picture—will be in there,” her father predicted, wagging his finger. “With my luck the day I don’t buy will be the day it gets published.”
Becky scanned the article. It seemed that the man had yet to be sentenced. There was some flap about his being the grandson of a deceased famous painter, once a big shot in England, for that matter. Considering his crime, the young man’s heritage made for a good story. The British were afraid that if they hanged their prisoner, the publicity would exacerbate a sensitive political situation.
“Look, Becky,” Abe grumbled. “These Commies are saying the young man did it because he came from a wealthy background. They say that a boy from an honest worker background would never do such a thing.” Disgusted, he quit reading to crumple the paper into a ball. “Now, why were you calling me?”
“Just to remind you that I’ve got something to attend to this afternoon.”
“What, today? You’re leaving me alone in the store today?” Abe frowned, shaking his head. He remembered the crumpled newsprint still in his hand and set to work polishing the slanted glass windows of the meat counter. “You can’t go today. You know the freezer is coming.”
“Oh, Father, you can handle it.” The General Foods wholesaler was supplying the store with a small freezer to display frozen packages of fruits and vegetables labeled “Birdseye.” Abe had made room for the freezer by tearing out some of the old wooden produce bins.
“All right, go,” Abe said with a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll manage.”
At one o’clock Becky untied her apron and went upstairs to change her clothes. She’d been giving careful thought to her clothes for the last few days, so there was no indecision as she shucked off her skirt and sweater and put on her best navy blue dress with its white collar. Her best shoes were brown and low-heeled, but they would have to do. Becky sighed. At least they matched her coat, if not her dress.
She turned on the radio and absently hummed along as she looked at herself in the vanity mirror. She had no makeup of her own, but the drawers of the vanity were filled with her mother’s cosmetics. She selected a lipstick and carefully put it on, then peered doubtfully at her reflection.
She could not remember when she had last thought to wear makeup. She no longer attended school, had no beaus; there was no call for it in the store. There had been nobody to teach her how to put it on; all she had to go by were the photographs in the magazines.
Becky turned away from the mirror, feeling depressed. She was certainly no glamor girl. Her nose was too big, for one thing, and she was far too fat. Compared to the angels in strapless evening gowns who filled the society pages, she was a cow. But at least her lipstick was on straight and her hair was clean and shiny. She was so happy she’d found the gumption to defy her father and have it cut into a fashionable shoulder-length page-boy.
She grabbed her coat and purse and was halfway down the stairs before she remembered the radio. She hurried back to the apartment to cut off the warbling and then thought to wonder about the time. The alarm clock in her bedroom read a quarter past two. She’d frittered away over an hour at the vanity, as if all the lipstick in the world could help her if she was late.
She flew down the stairs and rushed through the store, stopping at the cash register for a dollar. She hated taking money, whether it was to buy something for herself or just to have a little in her purse. Her father never commented on it, but he never failed to notice and winced at the amount, however small, as if his heart had begun to act up.
Today she had no choice. She had to have carfare if she was to be on time.
“I’ll try to get back before it gets busy,” she called to her father, who nodded morosely. She hurried out the door.
She took the subway to Fourteenth Street. As she rode she went over her strategy, trying to bolster her flagging courage. If this worked out, she would find the resolve to stand up to her father. He’d have no choice but to allow Danny to help out after school and on Saturdays.
She got out at her station and skipped up the stairs to street level. She ran the few blocks to Malden’s, the sprawling five-and-ten, crossed her fingers and searched the store’s plate glass windows. The small sign was still there. “Applications to be accepted for part-time sales clerks,” it read, and then the succinct instructions to apply on today’s date at three o’clock.
Inside Becky negotiated the maze of aisles through Notions, past Dress Goods, Costume Jewelry, Clocks, Hosiery, Stationery. She began to panic. It was just a few minutes before three. Where was Personnel?
“Help you, sweetie?” It was a matronly woman with silver hair and a badge that read “Floor Supervisor.”
“Oh, please,” Becky gasped, breathless with anxiety, “the personnel department?”
The light died in the older woman’s eyes. “Straight back, sweetie, just after Domestics. When you get there you can follow the thundering herd.”
“You mean, somebody’s here before me?”
“You poor kids.” The woman clucked sympathetically. “Go on, you’ve no chance at all standing here.”
“Thanks,” Becky called, hurrying off. In Domestics a woman dusting throw pillows directed her to a set of double doors marked “employees only.” Becky pushed through into pandemonium.
At least a hundred and fifty women from adolescents to grandmothers were crowded in like cattle in a box car, chattering to each other as they filled out applications with pencils tethered to clipboards. There were only three short rows of folding chairs and the women who’d claimed them showed no signs of budging. A woman tapped Becky on the shoulder and thrust a clipboard into her hands.
“Fill it out and wait till you’re called,” she said, her eyes darting past Becky toward the two women who had just come through the double doors behind her. “Move to the front,” she ordered. “Make way for the rest.”
At the opposite end of the room a bald, fat, weary-looking man in a three-piece suit sat behind a desk smoking a cigar. “It’s three o’clock,” the man called out, his tone harried. “I’ll be interviewing those with experience first.”
This is hopeless, Becky thought. I don’t have a chance. She began to burn with humiliation, pondering how naive she must have seemed to that floor supervisor—“. . . Somebody here before me?”
Furious, she bore down hard with her pencil as she began to fill in the application. Before she had finished printing her name the lead point broke. She looked around for the woman in charge of the clipboards and noticed a young man carrying a sign under his arm come from an interior office. The sign was of similar size and shape to the one Becky had seen in the store’s front window. She craned her neck, trying to read what it said. “Shipping,” “wanted” and “apply” were the only words she could decipher before he was past her.
She made her decision in an instant and dropped her clipboard to the floor to stride out of bedlam. There was no point in waiting around here; they’d fill the job before they ever got to her.
She made her way to the basement, past House Furnishings and through the dented steel doors to shipping.
It was a man’s job she was going after, of course. A woman had no more business working in inventory or on the loading docks than a man had on the sales floor, but down here at least she could talk to the man who ran the department. If she talked fast, perhaps she could demonstrate her knowledge of ledgers, of packing and unpacking goods—if he’d just give her the chance she’d lift something for him and her best dress be damned. She lifted heavy boxes in the store all the time, especially since her father’s heart condition was worse. She doubted that Malden’s sold anything much heavier than a cardboard carton containing three dozen ten-and-a-half-ounce cans of condensed soup.
The shipping and loading areas, which were closed to the public, differed greatly from the rest of the store. Here illumination was provided by bare bulbs encased in wire, and the institutional green paint on the cinder block walls was chipped and peeling. Wooden pallets of goods were stacked to the ceiling. The loading bays, where the trucks pulled in, were up ahead. Becky heard the lusty shouts of men calling and joking with one another. These were men who relied on the strength of their backs to earn a living. They swore, they spat; they probably forgot women existed for the eight-hour workday.
Of course Becky knew she had one chance in a million of getting a shipping clerk’s job. Even if by some miracle she managed to persuade the supervisor to hire her, management still had to agree to it. No, she was over-optimistic; her chances were closer to one in a billion.
But at least she would have the satisfaction of knowing that she’d tried everything. For the past couple of days she’d been able to entertain a wonderful dream of breaking free of the Cherry Street Market and starting an exciting new life of her own. That had ended now, but even if she did have to admit to failure, she was going to try everything.
“Hey, lady, you ain’t supposed to be back here.”
Becky ignored the shout and hurried toward the wide open bays of the loading dock. She saw two men talking as workers hurried to unload the cargo from several trucks backed up to the docks. One of them was older-looking and had close-cropped reddish-brown hair and silver-rimmed glasses. He was dressed in sturdy work clothes and a necktie. Holding a clipboard he unconcernedly puffed away on a briar pipe. Becky had spent enough time at the grocery wholesalers to recognize the boss when she saw him.
It was the man he was talking to Becky couldn’t place. He was in his early thirties, of middling height and wearing a splendid tweed suit with pleated trousers and a jacket with a belt in the back. He was clean-shaven, but even from a distance Becky could discern the blue-black shadow of his heavy beard along the strong line of his jaw. His hair was charmingly tousled, thick and black. There was a glossy sheen to it beneath the overhead lights.
He’s got to be a salesman, Becky decided. Nobody employed at Malden’s five-and-dime could possibly earn enough to afford a suit like that.
At that moment the well-dressed man noticed her. His hazel eyes stared into hers for a moment. He smiled and tapped the pipe smoker on the shoulder, pointing in her direction.
The manager glanced her way, did a double take and stared. “You shouldn’t be around here, miss. Did you lose your way?”
Becky took a step forward. “Hold it right there,” the manager squawked. “Don’t come past that there yellow line painted on the floor. There’s heavy loads here. This is no place for a woman.”
Oh, God, Becky thought. All around was the noise of bantering men, thudding boxes, idling truck motors. A driver, grown impatient, began to lean on his horn.
“Hey, I think you’ve scared her,” the man in the suit chided the manager.
“No, I’m not scared,” Becky shouted, trying to make her voice carry over the commotion. “I’ve come to apply for the job.”
Suddenly there was silence all around as the men stopped what they were doing. She could feel them staring at her. Only the impatient truck driver, who’d not heard, continued to lean on his horn. “Cut that,” the man in the suit commanded. The honking ceased.
“Honestly, mister,” Becky said to the manager, “I can handle this kind of work.” She realized that she was still shouting, and lowered her tone. “I mean, if you needed someone to sort out the manifests or—”
Behind her, someone had started to laugh. “Yeah, Charlie, why don’t you hire her? We wouldn’t mind a skirt around the place.”
Others joined in the laughter. Becky felt herself blushing, and cursed everything—emotions, gender, parents—that a person could not control.
“Hey.” The man in the suit swept his hazel eyes around the room and the laughter died down. He regarded Becky. “Come here.”
Becky cautiously eyed the supervisor, but his downcast expression combined with his sudden preoccupation with his pipe told her that in this particular instance he was not in charge.
As Becky approached, the other man cocked his index finger in her direction. “Ain’t you Abie Herodetzky’s little girl?”
“She ain’t little no more,” one of the workmen cracked.
“Hey, wiseacre,” the man snapped, “get back to work.”
“Yeah, everyone, back at it!” the supervisor echoed. He nodded at Becky. “You’ll see to the young lady and show her out?”
“Yeah, Max. Don’t worry about it, all right?” He turned to Becky as Max walked off. “You shouldn’t put Max on the spot like that. He’s okay, but he can’t hire you. You gotta understand that—” he closed his eyes, snapping his fingers, “—Rebecca, right?” When she nodded, he continued, “Yeah. Becky, they call you. I never forget a name, not when it belongs to somebody in the neighborhood.”
“Why don’t I recognize you?”
“Well, I’ve only been in a few times, buying smokes or chewing gum, you know? Anyway, usually I come by when your father’s around. We discuss business.”
“With my father?” Becky asked, puzzled. “What sort of business are you in?”
“Trucking,” he said smugly, rocking on the heels of his two-tone suede bucks, his hands thrust into his pants pockets.
Becky giggled. “You mean, ‘trucking’ like in dancing?”
He laughed. “Right, trucking.” He launched into a finger-waving, hip-rolling dance step, his two-tones moving quick as lightning across the rough concrete flooring of the loading dock. Becky offered a mile-wide smile in appreciation.
“Oh, yeah,” he grinned. “You an alligator?”
“What?”
“You cut the rug? Jitterbug?”
Becky’s mind went blank. “I listen to the swing on the radio.”
He stopped dancing. “Just listening to it on the radio ain’t no good, Becky. You have to experience swing. You like to dance?”
“I never went,” she admitted. In front of this handsome man it seemed a shameful confession.
“You want to go with me?”
This is flirting, Becky numbly realized. He’s asking me—me!—out on a date. She stared into his eyes, locking his gaze, because his tawny eyes were lovely and because she didn’t want him glancing down to notice that she was wearing brown shoes with a blue dress.
“I’m a stand-up guy, Becky,” he said quickly, evidently mistaking her confused hesitation for reluctance. “You see them trucks?” He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “They’re mine. And I got plenty more like ’em.”
“Is that how you know my father?” Becky cut in. “Because your trucks have made deliveries to the market?”
“Yeah, sorta like that.”
“I don’t know why I’ve never seen you then,” Becky mused. “I mean, you look familiar, but I’m sure I’ve never seen you in the store.”
“Like I said, you’ve never been there when I stopped by. Anyway, what brought you to Malden’s in the first place? Why’d you ever think you’d get hired as a shipping clerk?”
The date! Becky silently pleaded to him. Ask me out again on the date! Oh, why had she hesitated in the first place?
“I originally came to get a part-time sales job, but there were too many applying, and they wanted experienced help.” She shrugged.
“So you thought you could jive your way into the shipping department.” He shook his head in admiration. “Listen, the guy who was doing the interviewing, was he bald and fat?”
“Yes, and smoking a cigar.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded. “That’s Wilkie.” He winked at Becky. “Mr. Wilkerson to you. He’s just a flunky. We’ll go through him the way a hot knife cuts through butter. I’ll telephone Pinckameyer—”
“Who’s that?” Becky asked. The date—the date, she willed him. She’d already picked her dress for the big night.
“Pinkie’s a big shot at Malden’s,” he explained. “He’ll see to it that you’re hired.”
“What?” Becky wondered if she’d heard right. “Me? Hired?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “You come back here tomorrow to see Wilkie—Wilkerson, right? The guy with the cigar. You just tell me what schedule you want to work. It’ll go smooth as glass, I promise.”
“But they want experienced help.”
“Hey, you work in your pop’s store, right? That’s experience. That’s how I learned everything, working for my pop.”
“They’ll listen to you? I don’t mean to doubt you, mister—” She realized that she didn’t know his name.
“Benny Talkin. Call me Benny. Don’t you worry. Jews help Jews. They’ll listen to me. I do a lot of transport business for these people. They don’t make me happy, my trucks don’t roll, and that means empty shelves for Malden’s. Get it?”
“Got it.” Becky grinned.
“Come on.” Benny began walking her toward the steel doors that led out to the basement sales floor. “You gotta get going. I’ve still got some things to discuss with Max.”
“It’ll be all right? The job, I mean—”
“Piece of cake.”
“You’ll call—whoever it was you said you’d call—?”
“You come see Wilkerson tomorrow afternoon. Tell him when you want to start; it’s as simple as that.” He held open the door for her.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Anything for Abie Herodetzky’s daughter.”
Becky chuckled ruefully. “Now I just have to get my father to let me work here.”
“You mean he doesn’t know?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You’ll have to finagle that on your lonesome. Now beat it.”
Becky felt a pat on her haunch and then she was through the doorway alone, managing only a quick final glimpse of tweed stretched across Benny’s broad shoulders before the dented steel doors swung shut.
She floated home on a cloud, feeling as if a handsome archangel had swooped down on indomitable wings to lay miracles at her feet.
The job! Tomorrow she would have the job!
Tomorrow night she would have to break the news to her father, but for now she was entitled to savor her exultation. And so she would. There’d be no clouds in her sky at all if only Benny Talkin had thought to ask her out that crucial second time.
* * *
The next afternoon she put on the same dress and shoes and returned to Malden’s personnel department. As soon as she’d identified herself to Mr. Wilkerson he handed her some papers to fill in and asked her when she wanted to start. Any time and any schedule was fine with him.
Becky chose Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons from three till closing and all day Saturday. When she thanked Wilkerson he scowled suspiciously; Benny Talkin’s intercession had offended the personnel manager. Once again she thanked him, doing her best to show her gratitude for the chance he was giving her. When Wilkerson saw that she meant it he took the cigar from his mouth long enough to smile and say she was welcome.
On her way home Becky decided she’d stumbled upon a cardinal rule for a woman who meant to make her way up the ladder of success. To lose graciously was admirable, but to win graciously was crucial.
Now, if only she could apply the rule to tonight’s confrontation with her father.
She broke the news to him after supper. She was careful to present her tale the way she had rehearsed it, as a fait accompli. Not once did she ask his permission or opinion of her decision, nor did she imply that her mind could be changed. Her father said nothing as she calmly explained the hours she’d be working at Malden’s. Danny listened silently, his wide eyes restlessly shifting between his stony-faced, sullen father and his wondrous sister.
When Becky was done Abe asked, “You’ll work in the store until you go to the nickel-and-dime?”
“I said I would.” She caught the strident note in her voice. Calm down, she told herself. I think you won.
She watched her father gaze at Danny. How cold and aloof his eyes were. Danny began to fidget, and Becky felt for him, remembering all the times she’d suffered their father’s dispassionate evaluation.
“Right from Hebrew school you’ll have to come to help me,” Abe warned. “No more running with the other boys.”
“I know.”
“When you’ll have time to study I don’t know,” Abe sighed. “Ask your sister. Maybe she knows. She’s got all the answers.”
“Pa, I don’t study anyway—”
“You hear?” Abe grumbled to Becky. “And who’ll make the supper?”
“When I come home I’ll make the supper,” Becky said patiently.
Abe shook his head, rapping his knuckles on the table. “You don’t ask my permission so I don’t give it. Do what you want.”
After her initial enthusiasm wore off, Becky found working at Malden’s disappointingly dull. Wilkerson seized upon her experience to make her a cashier. Becky hardly talked to the customers and never got a chance to try and sell them anything. All she did was punch in the numbers on her register. She found her days at the Cherry Street Market to be more fun. There she knew who she was selling to and got to move around at least.
It was Thursday night three weeks after she began her job. Becky was leaving with the other girls via the employees’ entrance. She heard a car horn beep, and saw Benny Talkin grinning at her from the driver’s seat of a maroon convertible that glistened like a garnet beneath the streetlamps.
“Who’s that?” one of the girls cooed enviously. “He’s waiting for you?”
“I guess,” Becky said, feeling nervous as she crossed the street.
“I thought I’d come by to see how you were doing,” Benny greeted her.
“I’m okay.” Becky said shyly. Since the first and last time she met him she’d compiled imaginary lists of clever things to say in case she got this chance. Now her mind was blank. She should have written those lists down. Looking at scraps of notes was only half as foolish as standing like a tongue-tied idiot.
“I know who you look like,” she blurted. “It’s been bothering me—I mean, you looked familiar, but I knew we’d never met. You look just like John Garfield in Four Daughters.”
“An actor!” Benny laughed, not displeased.
“Did you see it?” Becky demanded. “I saw it twice—”
“Get in.” Benny didn’t get out of the car, but leaned across the gleaming leather front seat to open the passenger door. When he sat upright he saw that Becky had not moved. “Come on, it’s cold out there. I ain’t going to bite you.”
“Okay.” She came around and got into the car, shut the door and leaned against it. The interior of the car smelled of leather and Benny’s cologne. His suit was grey flannel. His arm and shoulder muscles strained the fabric as he ran his hands over the steering wheel. His hands were large, strong and capable-looking. The gold pinky ring with its large, glittering stone looked out of place on such fingers.
“You like it?” Benny asked.
“What?” Becky asked, startled. “The car? Sure, it’s great.”
“It’s a ’39 Cadillac. I get a new one every year. Do you know how much it cost me?” When Becky shook her head, he laughed. “I didn’t think so.”
The conversation lagged for a moment. “You want a smoke?” he asked, taking a packet of Chesterfields from the top of the dash.
Becky accepted a cigarette and Benny lit it. She was very conscious of her fingers touching his as she steadied the flame. He watched her exhale.
“You don’t look old enough to smoke.”
“I’m old enough to vote,” Becky sighed. “But I know what you mean.”
“I like how you look,” Benny murmured. “A pretty girl don’t need much to set her off, and you’re real pretty, Becky.” He was sliding closer to her across the leather.
During the silence that ensued, Becky set her cigarette into the ashtray and leaned back. This-is-it-I’m-going-to-be-kissed—
Benny Talkin froze with his arm halfway around her shoulder as a long, gurgling growl reverberated from the depths of Becky’s stomach. He began to hoot with laughter as Becky blinked back mortified tears.
“When did you eat last?” he managed to demand.
“This morning. I don’t have time to eat lunch.”
Benny waved her quiet. “You’re gonna waste away to nothing’ He made a point of giving her buxom figure a lascivious once-over to make her laugh. “A girl like you oughtn’t to be skin and bones.” He winked.
“Not much chance of that,” Becky demurred.
“I guess the first stop is this little steakhouse I know.” He pulled away from the curb.
Becky felt a brief twinge of guilt. Her father and her brother were waiting for her at home, waiting for their supper. They’re not crippled, she told herself. Let them make their own supper for once. She would telephone from the restaurant and tell them that she and some of the other girls had gone out for a bite.
And if her father complained, he would just have to get used to the change. She’d been his dutiful daughter long enough.
“You’ll like it better in the spring,” Benny said, cutting through her thoughts. “Pardon?”
“The convertible,” he said cheerfully as he put the powerful Cadillac through its paces. “When the weather turns warm and we put the top down, that’s when you’ll really enjoy it.”
At a stop light Benny finally did kiss her. He patted the seat next to him, and Becky sidled close as if she’d been doing it forever.