Emilia Mae lay in her narrow bed listening for the sound of her father’s jazz records, her mother running a bath, the crazy way she’d sing to herself in a high wobbly voice, the smell of the Joy perfume she’d dab on herself after. It was Emilia’s first night at the Neptune Inn, the first night she’d ever spent away from home. She was only five or six miles away, but it might as well have been a million. She tucked the blanket tightly around her and felt the presence of the Oz brothers by her side. She thought about what it was like to be cut loose. Alone. No one’s child in no one’s house. She supposed it would be exhilarating, no one watching what she wore or what she ate, but right now it only felt lonely. She thought her mother would be so proud of her when she landed the job at the inn, but her mother barely acknowledged it. All she’d said was, “You’ll eat well over there. Just don’t eat too well.” Sam Bostwick had told her that her mother said she was “strong and capable.” The words looped in Emilia’s head before they turned on her and she realized she’d just been dealt a bad diagnosis. A betrayal. Her mother had said those things to Mr. Bostwick because she was trying to get rid of her. She could feel the Oz brothers turn away. She lay grappling with these thoughts until sheer exhaustion pushed her into sleep.
Emilia Mae’s job at the Neptune Inn was to wash the floors; dust and straighten the main hall; help Xena, the cook, serve the meals; clean the guest rooms once a day; and bicycle over to Shore Bakery and pick up desserts for the inn. The rooms were dark and smelled like wet dogs, but there were definite advantages to working there. She learned things about people: the women who walked the streets at night and turned in at six in the morning, the men who shared a bed and wore matching black turtlenecks, the couples who left odd stains on the sheets. These things and the detritus that strangers left behind made her see that there was a world beyond the tiny parameters of her own. Old magazines, books, torn-up notes, empty pill and liquor bottles: They filled her mind with questions of what life outside of New Rochelle might be like. She had her own room, a sliver off the kitchen. At night the briny smell of the Sound carried her to sleep. And she’d made a new friend.
Xena had lived at the inn since the Coolidge years, and some speculated that she and Sam Bostwick had been friends in the biblical sense for just as long. A tiny woman, a little under five feet, with a crooked nose and faded freckles on her wrinkled cheeks, she let her long gray hair run wild. By now she was mostly deaf, and her arthritic fingers looked like gnarled tree trunks, yet she managed to turn out eggs and bacon every morning and a three-course meal for anyone who was around at suppertime.
Xena washed the dishes while Emilia Mae dried them. They fell into a routine of singing together over the sink—Broadway hits from musicals like Show Boat, old songs like “You Are My Sunshine.” Xena had a surprisingly low voice for someone her size, like raindrops hitting the bottom of a barrel. When they prepared meals, they stood close to one another behind the wooden chopping block table. Xena taught Emilia Mae how to cook. “We add shredded carrots to the meatloaf for texture and color,” she’d say, or “If we use buttermilk instead of cream in our mashed potatoes, it will give them a tangy lemon flavor.”
Emilia Mae liked how Xena always said “we.” It made her feel as if she was a part of something. Xena smelled of earth and cinnamon, and Emilia Mae found that comforting. One night, when Xena was explaining how “we” make squash soup, the conversation took a different turn. “Squash soup was Wallace’s favorite. He claimed that mine was as smooth as God’s ermine robe.”
“What robe? Who’s Wallace?” asked Emilia Mae.
“I’m not sure if God even has an ermine robe. Wallace, my ex-husband, always said things like that. I never knew if he was making stuff up. That man had a way with words.” Xena shook her head. “I should’ve known that pretty words do not the man make. Our daughter, Frances, was stillborn. After that, Wallace would have nothing to do with me in the intimacy department, if you know what I mean. Then I discovered that he had been two-timing me with another woman since before Frances’s birth. I threw him out, and he pleaded with me to take him back, but I said never. How can you trust a man like that? Terrible, terrible, the betrayal. Betrayal, Emilia Mae, that’s the worst thing a person can do to another person. You’re much too young to understand this, but believe me, it’s true.”
Emilia Mae had to bend over to shout into Xena’s good ear. “My mother. She’s resented me since I was born, thinks I literally have the devil in me. She told Sam Bostwick all these good things about me just so I’d get this job and she’d get me out of the house. I’d say that counts as betrayal.”
“That is terrible,” said Xena, cutting a radish into paper-thin slices. “What about your father? Didn’t he have something to say about that?”
“My mother’s a bully. My father tries to stand up to her, but she’s so overpowering he gives up. I wish he were stronger.”
“Sounds difficult.”
“Yeah. I’m used to it.” Emilia Mae looked down at the tomato she was chopping and smiled. This was normal conversation, unlike the silly chitchat that went on at the bakery, one of many advantages of working at the Neptune Inn. Food here was plentiful. Other than Xena, food had become Emilia Mae’s main companion. She knew she ate more than she needed. Xena was no help, always pushing leftover banana bread or cherry cobbler her way. “Go on,” she’d say. “It puts a shine in your eye like nothing else.”
Eventually, other things put a shine in her eye. Men started paying attention to her. An old man, at least fifty, asked Emilia Mae if he could touch her hair. She shrugged. The man closed his eyes and wove strands of it in and out of his fingers like sand. “So soft,” he muttered, his breath coming faster. She didn’t mind one bit.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, she said in confession. It made me feel special.
Father Daley, her priest at St. Bernadette’s, made her say seven Our Fathers.
Another man, pale as Swiss cheese, told her that her hips were beautiful: “Ripe for childbearing.” He fondled them in a way she knew was wrong, but his hands against her body made her tremble, so she let him.
Bless me Father, for I have sinned. But it felt good.
Father Daley warned her: “God does not forgive all transgressions” and made her perform penance for three days.
Emilia Mae wasn’t a looker, but she was eye-catching. By sixteen, she was big-bosomed and statuesque. Her baby fat was more sexy than flabby. Her auburn hair fell nearly to her waist. Against her pale skin, her chestnut eyes gave off an orange glow, as if they’d been baked into her head. She still thought of herself as plump, but more than that, she enjoyed being noticed.
The men who came through—lost souls, most of them—noticed her. They noticed how she batted her eyes and elongated her neck when she talked to them. A couple of them said she was the prettiest girl they’d seen in a long time. Some were wounded and coming back from the war overseas, so she probably was the only girl they’d seen in a long time. One fellow was missing teeth; another had a wild stare. Emilia Mae figured most girls would never pay them any mind. But she did. When the men touched and held her, she imagined she was getting the warmth and love she craved from her mother. At confession, she told Father Daley: “I’ve never fought in a war, but I understand how it feels to be alone, and these men are as alone as it’s possible to be. I listen to their stories. I offer whatever advice and encouragement I can. Sometimes, I even make them laugh.” Father Daley remained stone-faced. “Leave the encouragement to God.” Three more days of penance.
One man told Emilia Mae he’d enlisted at eighteen. “My father was an officer in World War I. The only way I could prove to him that I was a man was by becoming military. But I’m not the man he was. Sometimes I cried in front of the other soldiers because I was so scared. One time, a land mine went off not fifty feet from where I was standing.” He turned away from Emilia Mae. “I was so terrified, I messed myself. That’s when I got stuck with the nickname Shit Pants. Shit Pants? If my father ever found out he’d kill me.”
Emilia Mae understood how disgrace could have no mercy. She told the man he was brave to have stayed. “If it were me, I’d have run away, and I’d be Shit Pants for the rest of my life.”
Another young man, who had studied to be an army chaplain at nearby Fort Slocum, admitted how he didn’t feel he had any godliness in him. “Just the opposite, truth be told. I’ve done every sinful thing it’s possible for a man to do and still be alive. Things I could never tell anyone. I was hoping religion would absolve me, but deep down, I’m bad to the core.”
“My mother always says I was born with the devil in me,” she said. “Who knows, maybe I was. So what are people like us supposed to do, sit around and watch our souls rot? At least you’re trying.”
Emilia Mae gave these men carnal comfort when they asked for it. Until she came to the Neptune Inn, all Emilia Mae had known about sex was what she’d read in Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Sex was messy and complicated. It was also considered a mortal sin by the Roman Catholic Church. Turned out, she liked it. Liked the warm shiver of how it felt, the ease with which her body responded to it. Mostly, the men came at her like a drill. They pushed and grunted as if trying to make a point, and from the noises they made they seemed to enjoy it. She never lost complete control, but their hunger made her feel desired and powerful.
“If it weren’t for those men, the Germans would have taken over the world, or something like that,” she told Father Daley. “Allowing them my body is the least I can do for my country.”
Father Daley shook his head but said nothing. That was around the time that the Oz brothers took their leave.
Then, on a rainy day in August 1947, a real estate broker from Albany showed up. He seemed to be in his late twenties, with mud-brown eyes and wavy dark hair. He was a little shorter than her and stocky in build. He wore black and white wingtips with taps that tick-tocked against the wooden floors. The way he pursed his lips, it looked as if he might break into a whistle at any time. Because it was a Wednesday, he was the only guest at the inn. Emilia Mae served him dinner. He asked if she’d join him. “Why not?” she said and sat down at his table. His name was John. He told her that the Neptune Inn was cheaper and cleaner than any place in New York City. “I’ll be going back and forth a lot,” he said, giving her a sidelong glance.
“It’s a good thing you have such nice shoes,” she said. “I mean, with all that back-and-forthing, you’ll need them.”
John stared at his feet with a puzzled expression, before realizing she was making a joke.
Emilia Mae asked about his work. “The suburbs in this area are sprawling like fungus. Here in particular. And you know who is planning to get in on the ground floor of this development.” He pointed both thumbs toward his chest and smiled. That’s when Emilia Mae noticed the wide gap between his two front teeth, wide enough to run a train through. “And you?” he asked, still smiling. “Are you planning to remain in the hotel business?”
Emilia Mae laughed. “I’m hardly in the hotel business. I just clean and dust around it. My family owns Shore Cakes; it’s the only bakery in town. I guess that puts me in the baking business. Speaking of…the blueberry pie here is really delicious, it’s from our bakery. You should try some.”
As they finished their pie and last sips of coffee, John leaned across the table and grabbed Emilia Mae by the wrists. “A fella can get lonely on business trips,” he said. “Particularly on rainy nights like this one. I’d really like it if you would keep me company.” He smiled a purple-toothed smile.
“I am keeping you company.” Her smile was as purple as his.
“That’s not the kind of company I meant,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’m talking about company in the pit of night when you’re alone in a strange bed in a strange town and even the moon is hidden behind the clouds. That kind of company.”
Emilia Mae was flattered that a man like John would want her company. He was a grown-up in a suit and tie, and handsome in a professional way.
“Yeah, I get that,” she said. “Middle-of-the-night company. Why not?”
He studied her as she cleared the table, set their dishes in the sink and turned out the lights. In the darkness, he took her by the hand and led her to his room. He didn’t say anything but pinned her against the wall and kissed her hard after he closed the door. In bed, he held her so tightly that she thought he might have dislocated her shoulder, and when he came, he made noises as if he were crying. After he left, she found bubble-sized bruises on her arms. Unlike with the others, sex with him had made her lose her way and want more. After that, she didn’t bother to go to confession.
By October, Emilia Mae had been with John four or five times. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but something about the way his shirts were always neatly pressed and the inside of his suitcase smelled of lavender soap—not the kind a man would use—told her there was a wife in the picture.
Emilia Mae didn’t care. She liked the way John talked to her about the world: things like movies, books, Manhattan, and a lot about the New York Yankees—they’d won the pennant that year and were playing the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. She told him she knew nothing about baseball, and he said: “A night game at Yankee Stadium is something to see. Maybe you and I can go sometime.” She felt giddy, buoyed by the promise of a night game at Yankee Stadium. That was something to look forward to. He was something to look forward to. When he was gone, she could lose herself in the recounting of their lovemaking and the wanting and waiting that came with it.
By November, Emilia Mae discovered that her weight had shot up ten pounds, to 158. It only rounded her already curvy figure and didn’t concern her much until the night she was awakened by an unsettled stomach. Over the next two weeks, the unsettled feeling continued, and her sleep became more fitful. No amount of Pepto-Bismol could stem the heartburn and nausea that coursed through her.
Emilia Mae knew how babies were made. Whenever she’d ride her bike to pick up desserts for the inn, she’d watch the pregnant women at the bakery. They rubbed their bellies like fortune-tellers warming up crystal balls. They looked flushed and pleased in a way that was different from when they selected petit fours. She was definitely not one of them. I’m eighteen and not even out of high school, she thought. God knows I have nothing to be pleased about. I’m not pregnant like they are. Mother is right: Natures are natures, and maybe mine does have the devil in it. Maybe that’s what this is all about. It will go away soon.
But it didn’t go away. Emilia Mae was scared and tired and had trouble keeping food down. She needed her mother. Or a mother. Someone to comfort her, tell her she’d be okay. On her trips to the bakery during the week and sitting next to her mother at church on Sundays, she waited for Geraldine to notice. Surely, she would see her belly, the dark circles under her eyes, and ask what was wrong. As she grew out of her clothes, she wore the same overalls and large oxford shirt every day. She became careless about stains on the shirt and how often she washed her hair. She walked with the slumped demeanor of fatigue. The men who visited the Neptune Inn stopped noticing her. Still, her mother said nothing, and her father greeted her warmly as if nothing were amiss.
It was Xena who noticed her friend’s weight gain and stains on her shirt. She figured she was going through some sort of teenage moodiness and kept Emilia Mae in her prayers. One afternoon, as they were preparing a meatloaf, she asked Emilia Mae if she was a churchgoing girl.
“Not by choice. My mother makes me go with her to St. Bernadette’s on Sundays, but I’d just as soon clean dead mice out of the basement. I hate the priest over there. He’s cold and mean and has an oily voice.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like enough reason to hate the man.”
“Yeah, well he does these creepy sermons like he’s trying to scare us into believing.”
Xena nodded as she worked the meat with her hands. “A lot of them do that. What does he say?”
“The other day he talked about how a sinful soul could corrupt the flesh. Believe me, I wasn’t the only one who was secretly studying the skin on my arms. He’s always telling us that impure thoughts could make for a soiled life. He makes me feel dirty inside. His stories about fallen women who have improper intimacy with men are horrifying. The women always end up dying, but not before they suffer baseball-sized tumors in their throats or pus-filled sores up and down their legs.”
“What about the men?” asked Xena.
“He never says what happens to them. I assume they go off to play golf or hunt down little birds. Anyway, one time, Father Daley told us that demons could take over a person’s body if that person is evil. That’s when my mother poked me in the ribs as if to say, ‘There you have it.’ So, yeah, I hate the priest over there.”
“Do you really think demons have taken over your body?” Xena sounded incredulous.
Emilia Mae laughed. “I kind of do. If you count unkind thoughts as evil, I’ve got a tribe of demons living in me.”
Xena looked up from the meat she was kneading. “Wash your hands and help me with this. What kind of evil thoughts are you talking about?”
The cold meat squished through her fingers as Emilia Mae gave voice to her secret thoughts. “My mother. No matter what I do, I can’t make her like me. Sometimes I wish I had another mother. I don’t much like New Rochelle. The rich are too rich and the poor too poor here. I hate all those stores my mother’s always swooning about. Sometimes I wish a fire would burn the whole place down. How’s that for evil thoughts?”
Xena rinsed her hands and wiped them on a towel. “I will say, your priest sounds a bit severe. I can tell you this, not all houses of worship are that harsh. It’s not my business to meddle, but it troubles me the way you seem not to be caring for yourself. You can ignore what I’m about to say and tell yourself that Xena’s just being an old busybody, but I spoke to the reverend at my church about you—it’s the First Baptist Church across town. I told him how you were living on your own, and he said you’d be as welcome at our church as any other member of his congregation. His name is Aloysius Klepper, and I think you’d find him to be a gentle man. His services are joyful, nothing like what you described. I could sure use the company if you’d care to join me some Sunday.”
“But I’m Catholic.”
“Reverend Klepper always says that the Lord only sees our hearts and doesn’t much care about the rest of us. He says that anyone who passes through our doors is welcomed to be loved, not judged.”
Emilia Mae liked the idea of not being judged. Even more, she thrilled to the thought of never having to see Father Daley again.
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll try it.”
The following Sunday, Emilia Mae dressed up in a pale blue caftan with beige stripes and a pair of beige pumps. She and Xena linked arms against the lacerating wind. As they got closer to the church, Xena said hello to the parishioners. It was a small congregation, and everyone knew everyone else. A stranger was the object of curiosity, and there were stares, not all of them friendly. “Keep walking,” whispered Xena, never dropping the smile from her lips.
The church was like a child’s drawing, with a steeple and double front doors. Inside, it smelled like a moldy attic. The walls were white and spotless, with a stark cross above the pulpit and wooden pews that looked as if they’d been recently stained. Xena led Emilia Mae to the second-row pew. There was a hum of conversation behind them, which switched off the moment Reverend Klepper strode to the pulpit in a long white robe. He was a big man, uneasy in his body and clumsy in his movements. He was pale and had thick brown wavy hair with glints of gray. He had a large nose that seemed to have been broken and a malleable mouth that could stretch into a hymn and fold to a whisper. His bulging brown eyes took you in. No one knew if they were naturally that way or if he had some big-eye disease, but when he preached, the entire congregation paid attention, because everyone thought he was staring straight at them.
Emilia Mae was certain his invocation was aimed at her: “Welcome. Today I am happy to see some familiar faces and new friends. In the eyes of Jesus, we are all one. So, let us come together in this house of worship in friendship and in harmony.” He led the congregation in the hymns “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “How Great Thou Art.” Their voices blended exuberantly and lifted Emilia Mae to a place where she floated above herself. They prayed and read from the scripture in unison. When it was time for his sermon, Reverend Klepper walked among the congregants, nodding at people as he spoke.
Father Daley never left his pulpit, never made his sermons personal. Reverend Klepper’s white robe swayed as he walked. In this sermon he spoke about a difficult time in his life. “Only when I learned to find within myself the love and affection that had been taken from me did I lose my bitterness and gain my strength. Only then did I learn to forgive.” His sermon, about isolation and forgiveness, echoed many of Emilia Mae’s own thoughts—though she was unsure about the forgiveness part.
Before she knew it, he was saying the benediction. People were freely crying out “Hallelujah” and “Amen,” and the service was over. Xena and she waited in line to say hello to Reverend Klepper. When it came their turn, Xena gently shoved her toward him. “This is the child I told you about. Emilia Mae. Emilia Mae Wingo.”
Reverend Klepper took her hand in his. “Emilia Mae Wingo,” he said, “we’re so pleased to have you here today. I hope you enjoyed the service.”
“I sure did,” she said.
“Good, then perhaps that means you’ll join us again.”
“I’d like that.”
“And we’d be honored to have you.”
Three weeks later, on a Saturday night, John from Albany showed up at the Inn, slipped into Emilia Mae’s room, and without words took what he’d come for. In the morning light, as he dressed in his traveling clothes, he saw how she struggled to pull her caftan over her distended stomach. Such a dark expression came over his face she thought he might hit her. “Gee, you look…different,” he said.
“Nope, it’s still me, I’m fine.”
He must have noticed the putty lines under her eyes and how the act of pulling on her caftan put her out of breath. “Well, you certainly don’t seem all that fine.”
She looked at John, at his smug face and expensive clothes. He was a successful businessman, but so what? He was also a cheater and a liar. She wasn’t movie-star gorgeous, but she was okay-looking, and everyone always told her how smart she was. Emilia Mae knew from her own life that you couldn’t force someone to love you, but she knew she deserved better. She’d just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and thought about Francie Nolan, the main character, who always stood up for what was true and right. Like Dorothy in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Francie had become a friend, one she felt she could rely on in a moment like this. She took a deep breath and said what she thought Francie might say: “Just because you come waltzing in here in your fancy suits and shoes doesn’t give you the right to judge me. I’m as fine as anyone you know, probably even finer. I’d never marry a man who cheated on me or used my suitcase, which, by the way, reeks of lavender soap. I suppose you take me for some simple girl in the baking business who would never figure that out. Well, I’m more than that.”
She heard the sound of raked rocks in her voice, and it made her feel powerful. John gave her a weak smile that showed the tunnel between his two front teeth. It was the kind of smile that told her she would never see him again.
“I suppose this means you’re giving me the boot.”
“I suppose I am.”
She watched as he walked out of her room. The last she heard of him was the tick-tocking of his shoes against the wooden floor. “Holy moly,” she thought, “I sounded just like my mother.”
Despite her bravado, she was sad. She’d miss the wanting and the waiting. She’d looked forward to seeing a night game at Yankee Stadium and had gotten used to the smell of lavender soap. Knowing that she was going to church this morning and would hear one of Reverend Klepper’s plague-free sermons gave her small comfort. But first she needed to see her mother.
Geraldine was alone in the baking room, preparing the dough for the next morning’s bread. She didn’t see Emilia Mae enter and was startled when she heard “Mother.” She turned to her daughter with a smile. “Well, look what the cat’s dragged in. To what do I owe this honor?”
The lightness in her mother’s voice made Emilia Mae think this conversation would be easier than she had anticipated. “Well, I thought we should talk a little about church.”
“Do you mean about how you haven’t shown up for the past couple of weeks? You know, I’ve missed you.”
“You have? I wasn’t sure you would notice.”
“You think I wouldn’t notice that my daughter was missing?”
Emilia Mae couldn’t remember when or if her mother had ever used the word daughter in her presence, and it stunned her to think that her mother might actually miss her.
“Well, it’s nothing personal, but I think I’ve found another church, where I feel more comfortable.”
“Oh…I didn’t know you felt uncomfortable in this one,” said Geraldine defensively. “Is there another Roman Catholic church in town?”
“Um, it’s not Roman Catholic. It’s Baptist. The First Baptist Church.”
Geraldine wiped her hands on her apron and pulled a cigarette from her pocket. “You’re a Catholic, or have you forgotten that?” The concern went out of her voice.
“Their doors are open to everyone.”
“You know I’m as tolerant as the next person,” said Geraldine. (Did she notice the look of surprise on Emilia Mae’s face?) “But joining a Baptist church? Really, that’s stepping one foot over the line. You’re a smart girl. You must know that it’s a mortal sin for a Catholic to neglect Mass.”
Emilia Mae nodded. “It’s a little late for mortal sins. Besides, church is church. God’s as likely to hear me there as he is at your place.”
Her mother picked loose a piece of tobacco from between her teeth. “Let me ask you something, Emilia Mae. You come here looking like someone’s dirty laundry and tell me that you are defying everything your father and I believe in. Are you deliberately trying to hurt us, or do you come by it naturally?”
“Really, Mother, it’s got nothing to do with you. The cook at the inn invited me to go to church with her. We’ve become friends, so I went, and met the reverend and liked him. I feel comfortable there. I’ve never felt comfortable at St. Bernadette’s.”
Geraldine stared at her daughter long enough for Emilia Mae to see pain in her eyes. It had never occurred to her that she had the power to hurt her mother. She suddenly felt sorry for her and tried to think of something to say that would soften the moment. But the moment didn’t last long.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this.” Her mother’s words came out hard. “But I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for a while.”
And just like that, everything was the way it had always been.