My summer job going into my senior year of high school was to help Aunt Marie three mornings a week give Kiki’s a deep clean. Although Aunt Marie hated doing domestic work with a passion, the money man she wrote numbers for had gotten busted a month ago in a police raid, and she needed to replace that income.
“Things are hot on the streets,” Aunt Marie told me, “and I don’t know who might run their mouth so it’s best to lay low. Do something else for a while.”
To hold us over, she accepted the owner of Kiki’s offer to clean up the place, and she paid me fifty cents a shift to be her assistant. In a bleach-stained T-shirt and gym shorts, I wiped down the tables and chairs, while Aunt Marie scrubbed behind the bar. While we worked, she sang along to Fats Waller’s “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” playing on the jukebox.
“When you mop the floors, get those corners good,” she called to me from behind the bar. She had removed the many bottles of liquor and was sponging down the floor-to-ceiling mirror with dish soap, white vinegar and water. The mahogany shelves she polished with Murphy’s Oil. I sloshed the mop in the soapy water, with a few caps full of ammonia. When I bent down to ring out the mop with my rubber gloves, a dizziness washed over me. I gagged and dry-heaved, then put my hand on the nearest wooden table to brace myself, belching up sour acid.
Aunt Marie’s oil-stained rag swept over the bar top, but her eyes never left me. “Told you ’bout playing with fire, didn’t I? Now your ass done got burnt.”
Her frankness irritated me as much as the raw, red skin that rubbed against my cotton knit panties. I had caused the chafing by wiping too hard and too often, searching for my monthly visitor.
“Give me that damn mop.” She came round the bar and snatched the stick from my hand so fast it caused a splinter. “Go sit your fast ass down somewhere.”
Inez had called me a fast ass after that thing with Leap, when she kicked me out the house over a year ago. Coming from Aunt Marie’s lips, the words stung like alcohol being poured into an open wound. Even though that time wasn’t my fault, this time was, and I cowered in the corner under the picture of Nat King Cole, refusing to let all my shame and self-loathing out.
It had started with a handwritten note.
Philadelphia had been blessed with a warm day in March after a snowy February, so I decided to sit on the front steps with a small canvas and my color palette. Rowdy boys were playing stickball with a dismantled broom and a piece of a tennis ball. I was focused on painting the filling station across the street when out of the blue, Shimmy trudged up the street. My stomach did a pirouette at the sight of him, but I quickly turned my head, hoping he had not seen me. When I looked again, he had disappeared inside his uncle’s paint store on the corner.
It had been so long since I laid eyes on him, heard his voice, felt his fingers caught in my hair. Smart Ruby should have retreated upstairs to the safety of the apartment, but the vision of him had weighed me down like iron to the cushion I used to pad my seat.
I tried not to think about him, to concentrate on my brush, dipped in green with a tint of yellow, as it stroked up and down the canvas, but my eyes kept darting toward the store every time I heard the swish and pull of the door, followed by the bell’s ding. A few moments later, Shimmy emerged carrying a gallon of paint and a few drop cloths tucked under his arm. He didn’t look my way when he strolled by me, but a piece of paper fell into my lap.
It had been ten months and four days since I broke up with him in Aunt Marie’s living room, and that white paper burned feverishly in my palm. I didn’t want to open it, but I didn’t know how not to.
Mr. Greenwald is out of town. Meet me at the back door of the candy store at 7pm. Please come. I need to tell you something. Knock three times so that I know it’s you.
Yours,
Shimmy
All the Jewish shops on 31st Street were closed on Saturdays, so the back alley behind the stores was deserted, except for an abandoned car with two flat tires, and a big blue trash dumpster that smelled of spoiled sardines. It was dark out. The sunny day had turned into a frigid March night, with the temperature dropping at least thirty degrees. My fingers were frozen as I timidly knocked three times.
The door spun open and Shimmy stood in the frame in a pair of dungarees, white collared shirt and a boyish grin on his face. He had grown nearly two inches in our time apart. His shoulders had filled out and his chest was defined. The string bean boy I had met had morphed into a stalk of a man. He reached for my hand and pulled me inside.
The lights were off, and the fragrance of the combined smell of chocolate, caramel, fudge and other sweets from the front of the store made me hungry. I followed him down a narrow hall and into a small storage room. In the middle of the floor was a makeshift table covered in a red checkered cloth. On top, there was a single candle lit, white Tupperware containers and plastic spoons. Two pillows were thrown on either side.
“Please, sit.” He finally let my hand go, and when he did, I could still feel the warmth of his grip.
“What’s all this?” I folded my arms over my breasts cautiously.
“Dinner. I brought you some matzo ball soup and challah.”
I looked around the storage room at the shelves of boxes, bowls and stacks of supplies, while asking myself why I had defied my good sense of logic and reason by answering his call. No good could come from sneaking into the back of the candy store with a boy who should have long been out of my system.
“Please.” He gestured to the pillow on the floor opposite him. “While the food is still warm.”
My instinct was to say goodbye, but what tumbled out of my mouth was “I can’t believe you went through so much trouble,” and I felt myself being drawn to the pillow he had prepared.
“What have you been up to?” He took a bite, but I saw a slight tremble of his hands.
“Not much.”
On the walk over, I had decided to keep my guard up. Only coming to hear what he had to say. Not to rekindle a friendship and definitely not a love affair. But with him so close, the hard shell that I had worked up around me had already begun to splinter, and then I asked the question that had been burning inside of me.
“Where have you been?”
My voice came out much more intense than I had wanted, and he put down his spoon.
“New York, taking classes at Brooklyn College. Why? Did you miss me?” His face flushed.
I giggled away his question, hoping my eyes didn’t betray my truth. “Studying accounting?”
“Oh man, it’s much harder than I thought. But I’m making it. What about you? Still chasing that scholarship?”
I straightened my back. “It’s the only option for me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Shimmy covered my hand, and his eyes were a softer green than I had remembered. “It’s in the bag for you. When do they make the official announcement?”
“I’m in the running is all I can say. There are still eight of us for only two scholarships.” I fingered the braided bread. “What’s college like?”
Going myself was all I could think about. Shimmy was the only person that I had known to attend a university and I was dying to hear everything.
“Hectic. Everyone has an opinion. There is always someone protesting something. Definitely more of a melting pot than here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I go to school with people from all walks of life. And that’s been good for me. Helped me shape my perspective. Opened my eyes a bit.”
“Yeah? To what?”
“I think I understand you better.”
I laughed. “You spend ten months away, and now you understand me better?”
He put a hunk of bread in his mouth and chewed. “That’s what I’m saying. Living here, it was like I was trapped in my own little world. I only knew what my parents showed me. That was Jewish life, our little box. But up in Brooklyn, I had friends who were German, Italian, Negro and even Puerto Rican.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“I see you, Ruby.” He ran his fingers up to my elbow. “You said I couldn’t see our differences and that I was living in a safe bubble, and I understand that now.”
Just the fact that he had even considered what I said touched me. The care in his voice pried me open, and as we slurped down our soup, I felt larger cracks split my protective shell. It did not take long before we had slipped into an easy rhythm, catching up on the parts of each other’s life that we had missed.
“What happened with your mom?”
A lump formed in my throat at the thought of Inez. “I saw her over the holidays but that’s all. I think it’s fair to assume that Aunt Marie’s is my home until I leave for college.”
I had been practicing saying that out loud. When I go away to college. I had figured if I kept thinking it and saying it, it had to come true.
Shimmy unwrapped a chocolate-covered pretzel and handed it to me. “I know chocolate is your weakness.”
I took a small bite and thanked him with my smile. “So good. Can’t get these from the corner store.”
“I brought a little radio,” he said, as he reached up onto the shelf and fiddled with the stations until a song that I didn’t know came on. Shimmy cleared away the makeshift table just as the song shifted to “Rock and Roll” by Wild Bill Moore. It was the song he had played on the jukebox for me on my first visit to Greenwald’s.
“Wanna dance?”
“Right here?” I looked around the small storage space.
“Come on.” He reached for my hand and lifted me to my feet.
Mama, oh Mama
I want to rock and roll.
Shimmy put his hands on my waist as we twisted our hips and bobbed our heads. The lyrics of the song spilled from both of our mouths. In that moment, I realized that I had been bottled up inside myself since he had been gone. All my time had been spent studying, throwing myself into We Rise, helping care for Nene, but I hadn’t really been myself. This was the most fun I’d had in as far back as I could remember, and I felt free. We danced for so long my straightened bangs drew up on my forehead from the sweat, but for once I didn’t care.
“What did you have to tell me?” Out of breath, I had remembered the reason I was there.
“Oh, that I’ll be home every weekend now to help out Ma.”
“What about school?”
“I’ve arranged my classes for the week to end on Thursday morning.” His eyes lit up, and I could tell from the sloppy grin on his face that he had assumed that I’d be a part of his weekend package. As much fun as I was having, I still didn’t think it was wise to go back. But before I could say as much, Shimmy’s hands were on my hips, guiding me closer to him, and then he was leaning down and pushing my hair behind my ear, leaving a hot trail down the side of my neck.
I shuddered.
“Ruby.” Shimmy had a way of saying my name that made me feel precious. “I missed you.”
“Really? Even with all those sophisticated college girls?”
“None as smart or as beautiful as you.”
“I bet the pretty little Jewish girls are pining for your attention like crazy.”
“But I want you.” He looked deeply into my eyes.
“Ain’t nothing changed around here but the weather. While you were off broadening your horizons in Brooklyn, North Philly’s still the same.”
“Try with me.” He brought me so close that all I smelled was him.
“When I saw you sitting on the steps today, it was like no time had passed. You are still right here.” He pointed to his chest.
Even though I wasn’t ready to admit it, I felt the same way. I had tried to entertain a boy or two at school in the time that Shimmy and I were apart, but I hadn’t found any that were remotely as interesting as Shimmy.
Our eyes met, and I watched as his hunger for me settled between his brows. Ten long months apart, and I had not stopped loving Shimmy.
“You are under my skin,” he whispered in my ear, and my knees buckled.
I had been so lonely before his note. And then we were kissing. It was the sweetest, most luscious kiss we had ever shared, but then ugly Leap flashed across my lids. I could feel his rough hands groping my breasts and him pushing his manhood against my thigh. I wrenched away.
“Sorry,” Shimmy said. “I didn’t mean…”
But I didn’t let him finish, before crushing my lips against his. This time I put my hands in his soft, silky hair as proof. Shimmy not Leap.
Shimmy, Shimmy, Shimmy.
From that evening on, our time together went like this: on Friday afternoons, while Aunt Marie was at Nene’s cooking her food for the weekend, I snuck Shimmy into our apartment. His father still drank with Mr. Leroy upstairs, so waiting on him was Shimmy’s cover. Most weeks, Shimmy had to wrestle his father out of the apartment so that they were not late for Shabbat.
On Saturday evenings, while Aunt Marie was working at Kiki’s, we took long drives in his father’s car to a place where people couldn’t see us. We talked for hours about everything.
Shimmy’s dad was drinking more, and his mother had threatened to put him out on the street, but the kids begged her to let him stay. We touched each other for so long that every cell in my body was alive with longing, and we listened to music and had song battles to see who knew all the lyrics by heart. On the nights when Shimmy thought it was safe, we’d sneak into the candy store and hang out in the storage room.
I had not planned to lose my virginity to Shimmy on the floor in Greenwald’s, on the red checkered tablecloth. But when he hiked up my skirt, I could no longer contain the tension that had been building inside of me ever since he walked into Aunt Marie’s house to fix the sink. Without thinking about what could go wrong, what I might be giving up, I let myself go. I let him have all of me.
After our first time together, Shimmy had cradled my face. I liked the way we smelled afterward. Our secret was fragrant, filled with notes of our connection.
“I’m so in love with you, Ruby, it’s hard to see straight.”
I knew exactly what he meant, because as Aunt Marie would put it, I couldn’t see for shit.
Aunt Marie finished cleaning the rest of the club herself, never even looking at me. Afterward, we didn’t talk the whole bus ride home. When we got to the apartment, she put on a pot of water and made two cups of tea.
“Sit down,” she said, finally cracking the icy silence between us.
I pulled a chair to the table and accepted the cup. Aunt Marie lowered herself into the chair across from me and wiped at her forehead with the kitchen rag she kept hanging from the stove.
“Edna from across the street told me Shimmy been sniffing round here. Is it his?”
Ashamed, I looked into my black tea.
“Goddamn it, Ruby.”
My hope was that the stress from sneaking around with Shimmy, keeping up with We Rise and working for Aunt Marie had made my friend late. But the tenderness of my breasts, the way I couldn’t hold anything down signaled otherwise. Aunt Marie had always been the type of person who knew things before folks opened their mouths, so her reaction was all I needed to confirm my deep-seated suspicion.
“White boys too good to use condoms?”
I kept my head bowed, because I couldn’t stand the disappointment that I knew swam in her dark eyes. What difference would it make that the condom broke? I had been the family’s piece of hope, the one smart enough to go to college, the girl to make three generations of tired, poor, Negro women proud.
When I still didn’t answer, Aunt Marie sucked hard on her teeth. “Well, I know someone who can make this go away. I’ll find out if it’s what you want?”
I knew enough about what happened to girls who got into trouble to know what she meant.
“Ain’t that illegal?”
“Lots of things illegal. Don’t make it wrong. You should know—sneaking around with a damn Jewish boy for Christ’s sake.”
I nodded, trying not to show that her words had landed hard against the side of my head.
“I need to hear your answer, girl. This ain’t kiddie play.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you want me to look into making it go away?”
“Please.” I scrunched my toes up in my socks. If Inez had looked into making me go away, maybe her life would have turned out better. The heaviness of it all flooded me instantly, and before I could wipe the water from my face, Aunt Marie was on my side of the table, enveloping me in her girth.
“Auntie will take care of everything. It’s going to be all right, sweetness.”
The next evening, Aunt Marie came home early from work and announced, “Got you that appointment.”
“When?”
She removed her chandelier earrings. “Tonight. Go in my room and rest for an hour, we’ll head out round ten.”
“I’m scared.”
Aunt Marie’s caramel-colored face looked ashen. Like she was weary down in her soul, and I regretted having to drag her into this. She squeezed my shoulder before I went back to her bedroom and stretched out, wondering what the procedure would be like. I knew it would hurt and I pictured a lot of blood. I didn’t want to die trying to rid myself of a child that I did not want. Like Inez had not wanted me.
It was not lost on me that we were almost the same age when it happened. Inez had gotten pregnant with me at fifteen, and I had only made it one more year and some months before suffering the same fate. Aunt Marie always said the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Had Nene wanted Inez to go to college, too? Did she have a promising future that I messed up? I tried not to think about the thing growing inside of me as an actual person. I chose to look at it as a roadblock, one that was in the way of getting me to college. And I couldn’t be detoured.
We caught the trolley, and then transferred to the 17 bus that carried us into South Philly. Once Aunt Marie pulled the cord signaling our stop, we walked three blocks to Tasker, and then ducked around the corner onto Gerritt Street, a tiny one-way with a broken streetlight at the corner. The house with the black-and-white awning and silver storm door was in the middle of the block. Aunt Marie knocked two times and then waited a beat, then tapped two more. A young girl with braids answered the door.
“Here to see Leatrice.”
The child let us in. There was a man with gray whiskers passed out in a recliner, snoring in tune with the radio. An empty fifth of Inver House sat on the coffee table in front of him. Through the dining room, there was a door to the left that led to the basement. I followed Aunt Marie down the narrow stairs that shifted and groaned under our feet. At the foot of the steps, I saw a tucked-in twin bed on one side and a bar on the other. The room smelled of raw liver, dried blood and urine. A frail woman wearing a gauzy white dress with a scarf knotted on her head stood up, waving her palms at us.
“You can’t be here.” Her voice was high-pitched.
“Juney sent us. We have an appointment,” Aunt Marie explained.
“Juney must ain’t heard. White girl died last night on the table. Bled to death. People asking questions. Business gone cold.”
My eyes grew big and a chilly sweat sprouted up and down my back. I didn’t want to risk dying just to get rid of the thing. What was the point in that? I was ready to bolt, but Aunt Marie grabbed hold of my shoulder and pushed me forward.
“She ain’t that far along. I’m sure this one be fine.”
The woman called Leatrice shook her head. “Can’t risk going to jail for nobody.”
“Secret safe wit’ me and I have cash. Please,” Aunt Marie’s voice pleaded. “I can pay extra,” she said, which worried me, because I knew that she was having a tough time with the numbers business shut down. Where would the extra money come from?
Leatrice looked up at the ceiling like she was considering it, then looked me up and down. “Can’t take the chance right now. I’m gonna have to ask y’all to leave.” She took a step forward.
Aunt Marie raised her chest, like she wanted to make a fuss, but then she saw that Leatrice had moved closer to the table. Underneath a newspaper, I saw the barrel of a gun peeping at us. Being a gun-toting woman herself, Aunt Marie dropped her shoulders as she submitted to the implications.
“Come on here, chile,” she said, ushering me back up the steps and back through the house. “We’ll think of something,” she told me once we got back to the bus stop.
As I stepped onto the bus, half of me was relieved that I didn’t have to go through with it, but the other part worried sick over what would come next.