A DOUBTFUL MOOD HIT THE SPENCER CLUB OVER THE following week end. Inspiration and new work were fine but, to their disappointment, they had not been permitted to work wonders immediately. First they had to sit through more training lectures. Then had come the dampening news that they would not report to their centers until Monday.
Besides, there was still the ferocious janitor to deal with. Although this problem was labeled “Cherry’s responsibility,” the Spencer Club was completing the painting with diminished blitheness. Every time they passed the trap door, even though it was firmly nailed down, they looked apprehensive. When the doorbell rang this rainy Saturday morning, they jumped.
“You go, Cherry.”
“You’re nearer the door, Bertha. You go.”
“Gwen is nearer than I am.” Gwen made a face at Bertha and did not budge.
The doorbell shrilled again. Josie timidly went over and opened it a crack. A lady in draperies and a man with a harp stood there. The girls stared, goggle-eyed. In fine, ringing diction, the woman enunciated:
“Is this by any chance the Garibaldi Music and Debating Society?”
“No’m, by no chance,” Josie stuttered and closed the door by falling on it.
They all let out sighs of relief.
“I think,” said Cherry, winding one black curl around her finger, “that we ought to get out of here today. Go sight-seeing or something. Anything to dodge the janitor a while longer.”
“Sight-seeing in the rain?” Bertha said sensibly.
“We won’t melt. Honestly, if that doorbell rings again, I’ll have nervous prostration.”
“We’ll all collapse with you,” Gwen sympathized.
The doorbell rang again. The four girls sat frozen. In a whisper Gwen said:
“There’s no law that says we have to answer the doorbell.”
Cherry hissed back, “I’ll die of curiosity if we don’t.”
Like a man going to his doom, Cherry plodded to the door and opened it. It was not the janitor. It was a pleasant, well-dressed woman who smiled and said:
“I’m your neighbor, Mrs. Jenkins. My husband and I live directly above you. I just stopped in to say that if you ever need help, Mr. Jenkins and I are within call.”
“How kind of you!” Cherry exclaimed. “That’s good to know. Won’t you come in, Mrs. Jenkins?”
Their neighbor shook her head. “I’m too busy just now, thanks. But I thought you all looked rather homesick. Would this help?” She held out a basket of steaming hot gingerbread.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” the girls exclaimed. As the neighbor smiled and vanished up the stairs, they decided New Yorkers were not so bad, after all.
When the doorbell rang a third time, Cherry paled. Not one of the girls stirred. Cherry whispered, “Our luck couldn’t hold out three times in a row!” They waited, without moving a muscle, while the doorbell rang furiously again and then they heard footsteps clumping away. A second later, outside their windows, they saw the top of the janitor’s head.
“There, I told you!” Cherry gasped. “He knows we’re home and he’s on our trail. We absolutely must get out of here!”
The girls ruefully agreed. They decided to wake Vivian and Mai Lee, who were busy sleeping till noon. At least, they were asleep until a kitchen shelf collapsed, raining pots and pans. A second later, the usual three fire engines went shrieking past their windows. The sleepers awoke with shouts of protest.
The telephone rang. Cherry seized it. “Oh frabjous day!”
“Hello, what’s the matter?” said Ann Evans’s calm, amused voice.
“Ann! Oh, how wonderful to talk to you! When are you coming down to see us?”
“Soon, if you’ll have me. How are you all?” Ann’s voice was so cool, so close, that Cherry could almost see her friend’s steady, dark-blue eyes and feel her poised presence. But Gwen took the phone away. All the girls insisted on taking turns talking with Ann.
“Ann wants us to call her back later and make a date,” Vivian said, as she hung up. “What’s this mad talk about doing New York in the rain?”
Josie wailed. She had just discovered she was wearing Mai Lee’s slip by mistake. “And besides, Cherry, where’ll we go? We haven’t much to spend.”
“Yes, that’s right!”
Cherry bit her lip. “Uh—ah—we’ll go to”—she said the first thing that popped into her head—“the Statue of Liberty.”
They looked interested despite themselves. But then Vivian and Mai Lee wanted to stay home and sleep.
“And face the janitor all by yourselves?” Cherry warned.
They glared at Cherry with her flushed cheeks and bobbing black curls.
“Doggone you, Cherry Ames,” Gwen said, slowly getting out of her chair, “why do you have to be a self-starter?” The others rose too.
The trek to the Statue of Liberty was not an unqualified success, but it kept them out of the janitor’s clutches. To get to the Battery, they fumbled around in roaring subways and emerged, thoroughly bewildered, at the foot of Wall Street skyscrapers. Here they found a tremendous stretch of grass, Bowling Green, and New York harbor. Gray ships steamed out of sight on a gray ocean.
Almost no one was out in the rain this Saturday except the six girls, pigeons, and a peanut vendor under a huge, dripping umbrella. They bought bags of peanuts and caught the ridiculous little boat going over to Bedloe Island, on which the statue stood. The boat’s other passengers were a group of visiting Texans, shivering but conscientious, and a knot of young sailors going sailing for a holiday, and—Cherry was informed by three small boys who shared her peanuts—the Wild Eagle Boy Scout Troop.
“It’s better than the janitor, anyhow,” Cherry thought.
They sailed out in the rain and the statue loomed up gray and enormous. Dashing from the boat up to the statue’s base, they felt like pygmies. Then they were inside the hollow, metal statue. It was electrically lighted and winding straight up it were spiral stairs, iron and exceedingly steep and narrow.
They started climbing and in no time at all they were puffing. Cherry began to feel muscles pulling in her legs that she had forgotten she possessed. Bertha Larsen’s hat tipped to one side of her head. Up and round, up and round they climbed. “You thought this up!” the girls hissed at Cherry. “You thought up painting the furniture, too!” But when they reached the top, the Spencer Club voted it worth the effort.
They were standing in the statue’s forehead. Under the rays of her crown were windows. The girls could see all of New York harbor and its skyline, and the Atlantic stretching away to the Old World. Cherry hung out one of the windows and, by painfully twisting her neck, contrived to look up. Above her soared the statue’s smooth, mammoth arm, upraised, the hand grasping the torch of freedom. Cherry’s neck was stiff for an hour afterward, but she would never forget the solemn thrill that went through her at that moment.
“The statue needs a paint job,” Bertha commented.
They all turned on her. “Will you shush!”
The descent down the steep spiral was even more dizzying than the climb up. “At least the janitor won’t look for us here,” Gwen cheered them on. No one tripped, however, and they ended up lunching belatedly at the hot dog concession outside in the rain.
“Let’s go shopping,” Vivian suggested. “Mm, pretty clothes!” Her soft eyes sparkled.
They plodded up to midtown via boat, subway, and Fifth Avenue bus. They were six dripping and bedraggled nurses who entered the gleaming doors of Saks Fifth Avenue.
In spite of the rain, the store was crowded. Cherry was so taken by the beautiful things on display that she almost forgot her “responsibility.” What dazzled her even more were these women shoppers, beautifully dressed, perfectly groomed.
“They look like they’re going to a party!” Bertha Larsen marveled. “Will you look at their hair-dos!”
“Look!” squeaked Josie. “Not one of them’s wearing rubbers!”
“Their furs, oh, their luscious hats,” moaned Vivian. “And their jewelry!”
Gwen was at a counter, happily burrowing into a heap of bright silk scarfs. As the other five came up to drag her forth, they caught sight of themselves in a large mirror. Simultaneously they halted. Against a background of fashion-plate women stood five soaking, smudge-faced girls, with wisps of hair sticking every which way, and horrified eyes.
“Oh, shame, is that us?”
“I distinctly see that saleswoman sniffing at us!”
“Let’s get out of here!”
All six of them turned tail and fled. They rode home under the beaten title of The Ragpickers.
At their apartment, they felt reasonably safe, for it was late. Late enough for the janitor not to bother them any more today. Mail was waiting for them.
The girls turned on lights and scattered, curling up in various rooms to read their letters. Cherry had just picked up hers when the doorbell rang. Without thinking, she answered it.
It was the janitor.
“So ye been dodgin’ me all day!” he growled at Cherry. “Lemme in!”
The other girls came running and stared, crestfallen, at the gnarled little man.
“No, no, you can’t come in!” Cherry stuttered. “You can’t!”
“I got a perfect right to come in. Got to see that trap door, I ain’t satisfied with it. Now lemme in!”
The girls crowded to the door in an unconscious surge, barring his way.
“Lemme in!” he roared. “Want me to report ye to the landlord?”
Cherry visibly shook. The janitor pushed his way into their living room. All eyes turned to Cherry, mutely signaling, “This is your responsibility, remember?” Cherry swallowed a large lump in her throat.
“Mr.—uh—Mr.—couldn’t you come back next week?”
“Naw, I couldn’t. The name is Sam. Out o’ my way.”
He strode down the hall, hammer and screw drivers clanking. The trap door was back there. Only a little farther on was the back parlor with its freshly painted furniture. The door was open, the lights were on. If the janitor did not happen to see the blue furniture, the smell of paint would surely lead him in there.
“Oh, why was I born?” Cherry moaned.
Fingers pressed into her sides and back. “Follow him!” the girls hissed. “Do something!”
“Yes, talk him out of it!”
The girls forcibly pushed Cherry forward.
“Remember, you thought this up,” Bertha intoned.
At that moment the janitor turned around. They all held their breaths.
“And furthermore!” he growled. “About the garbage!”
Cherry’s voice trembled. “What about the garbage?”
“Ye can’t just throw ’er out. Oh, no! It hasta be wrapped just so. In newspaper. Tied. The landlord says so. He’s very partic’lar. Very.”
Gwen said tartly, “Is the landlord as bad as you?” Instantly the other girls made motions of distress and faces meaning: “Be quiet! What are you trying to do?”
The janitor glared. “Look, Miss Smarty. If ye really want to know, I have a key to your place and I could come in any time I want to. But I’ve been polite about it, see? I ain’t a tyrant because I like it. I got my orders. The landlord is a hard man. If ye think I’m tough, ye should meet up with him sometime. I only wish it to ye.”
Cherry abruptly sat down. “This is just dandy,” she murmured. But the other girls lifted her to her feet and shoved her forward again.
“Paint!” The janitor let out a yelp. “Do I smell paint? Hey! What’s goin’ on here?”
He looked to Cherry like a knotted, evil gnome as he stamped into the back parlor. Surveying the furniture, his back stiffened and he let out another yell.
“Now ye’ve done it! Ye’ll have to buy a new dining-room set for sure! Ye’ll be lucky if the landlord don’t evict ye, besides!”
Hands pushed Cherry down the hall. She turned around once to mumble and implore, but it did no good.
“Sam—” she quavered. “Sam, listen—”
“Didn’t I tell ye not to paint without permission of me? Didn’t I warn ye? Just wait till the landlord finds out! Oh, I pity ye, ye poor idiots! I wouldn’t want to face the landlord in your shoes! When he sees how ye broke the rules and defaced his property—”
“We’ll pay,” Cherry choked out, “we’ll make it good—”
“Ye got paint on the floor, besides! Not only ruinin’ the furniture, ye injured the building! Vandals!”
“Sam, please, don’t tell the landlord yet—”
“Ye might as well pack up. Ever see eviction papers? Or court orders for a big, fat bill? Ye’ll see ’em now!”
The janitor knelt beside the trap door and started hammering with a vengeance. Each furious blow might have been meant for these undesirable tenants. Over the noise Cherry pleaded in vain. Sam shook his head and finally stalked out.
“Ye’ll be hearin’ from the landlord,” he threw over his shoulder.
In the terrible silence that followed, Josie spoke up:
“Well. Guess I’ll read my letters now. Cherry promised to get us out of this, and I guess she will, all right.”
The other girls, with black looks, retired amid mutters of “Eviction!” “Two or three hundred dollars for new furniture for the landlord!”
Cherry took a sharp hold on her emotions and, with a wrench of will power, calmed down. She paced around the apartment, thinking. That awful janitor was not joking. The possibility of having to pay for the furniture, or even of being asked to move, was very real.
Suddenly she stood still and exclaimed: “Now why didn’t I think of that before!”
“Are you still thinking up things?” Gwen asked wearily. Her freckled face changed to alarm as Cherry snatched up her coat. “What are you up to now?”
“Just a slight errand. Be right back.” She wanted to keep this secret, in case the answer was no.
Cherry hastened out the front door and onto the street. The rain had ceased, the moon shone down on city chimneys, and she heard singing and the rumble of the subway underground. She felt relieved already.
In a drugstore phone booth, she dialed Ann.
“Ann, it’s me. You’ve been living in New York long enough to know the worst about janitors and landlords, haven’t you?—Well, Jack has, hasn’t he?—Maybe the two of you can help, because—”
Ann’s chuckles punctuated Cherry’s earnest narrative.
“All right,” Ann replied. “I’ll be down tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, give me your landlord’s name and address—what? Spell it.—All right, Jack and I will see what we can do. ’Bye.”
Cherry almost skipped home. Ann and Jack might not be able to do anything except advise her. Still, even that would be a help. She could wait for tomorrow and Ann with an easier mind.
Now Cherry pounced on her letters and settled down to read them. She opened the one from her mother first. Even the familiar handwriting and Hilton postmark were enough to chase away worries.
“It’s unusually and wonderfully peaceful around our house now,” Mrs. Ames wrote. “With you away and Charles off to the university and Midge back in high school (thank goodness), I am at last getting the fall house cleaning accomplished. Velva—remember her?—is helping me. Dad complains that he gets chased from room to room. But the house will look nice when you come home for visits. I am sending you some more stockings, a chocolate mahogany cake, and Dad insists on putting this in, too.” “This” was a check. “He says it’s for a treat for the Spencer Club. Much love from us both—Mother.”
Cherry ran around the apartment waving the check. “Hey! My dad is treating us!”
“How very nice of him!”
“Wonderful. To what?”
“To anything we want, I guess,” Cherry said.
“Curtains!” they chorused. Mai Lee said, “We feel like we’re residing in a goldfish bowl.”
Cherry, much cheered by her letter from home, galloped back to read the rest of her letters. There was a note from Midge reporting that she was really looking out for her father, and Dr. Joe was looking better as a result. Charlie wrote that he was terrifically busy with his engineering courses, liked them fine, and had found many old friends on campus.
“Best for the last,” Cherry murmured, and turned to the letter from Wade Cooper. The tall, brown-eyed, brown-skinned flier had been her pilot when Cherry was a flight nurse, serving overseas. Now he was back in Tucson, his home town, grounded with an auto repair business.
“If I don’t see you soon, Cherry,” Wade wrote, “I am going to burst. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you? Think I’ll come to New York and pay you a visit. That is, as soon as this danged business will pay my fare.”
So Wade would be coming to New York! Hurray! When Cherry told the other nurses Wade was coming and had sent his regards to them, they all were pleased.
“Supper!” called Bertha, interrupting the discussion. The Spencer Club adjourned to supper and, not long afterward, to bed.
Next day, Sunday, the members of the Spencer Club were quiet as mice, to discourage the janitor, in case he had any ideas. The sun shone, and peace descended on the Village. The girls practiced bag technique in the morning, rather guilty at having put it off so long. Then they answered their letters. Josie, as the club’s corresponding secretary, importantly wrote a report to Marie Swift. For a long time the only sounds in the apartment were pens scratching on paper.
Cherry made it a point to write to Dr. Joe. “The visiting nurse service puts discoveries like yours, Dr. Joe,” she wrote, “into widespread, everyday use.” She knew he would be interested.
Cherry also wrote to Wade Cooper, notifying him that New York, the Spencer alumni, and particularly herself, would be delighted to see him any time he could come.
That afternoon the doorbell emitted three short rings. It was Ann’s signal. The girls let her in with greetings of pleasure and relief.
“Why are you smuggling me in like this?” Ann laughed. “Now, wait—I didn’t guarantee to work miracles! Can’t we have a visit first?”
Ann Evans, now Mrs. Jack Powell, was the same calm Ann with whom they had gone through nurses’ training. Her dark-blue eyes were still as steady as Cherry remembered them. Her smooth, brown hair was arranged a new way and she wore a blue dress which Cherry had never seen before—otherwise Ann looked exactly the same.
“Marriage hasn’t changed you a bit, Mrs. Powell!” Cherry teased, after greeting her.
“Why should it?” Ann smiled. “I gather Jack married me because he liked me more or less the way I was.”
“But—but—” Josie blurted, “I thought you’d at least get a different expression, or something!”
Ann shook her head and murmured that none of them had changed noticeably, either. Cherry saw her glance with some concern at too-thin Vivian. “Your apartment looks nice,” Ann said. “I came down to help. Give me an apron and a chore.”
“We’re not going to do another thing to the apartment until the janitor decides our fates,” Cherry told her. “He’s a gnome, an ogre, a—a—” she broke off and gave Ann a sly look. “Or do you have a plan of action, Ann?”
“I have.” Ann’s eyes danced.
“Ann!” the others chorused. “Did Cherry tell you? Are you going to help her get us out of this scrape?”
But Ann only said, “I do think you might inquire after my husband.”
“How’s Jack?” they asked, ashamedly.
“He’s very well. I’ll tell you my plan presently. Now can’t we have a visit?”
Under Ann’s quieting influence, they settled down for a long talk. With her they exchanged news, stopped to quibble, laughed at Ann’s accounts of housekeeping. Cherry was doubly glad to see her old friend and classmate, for Ann came from Indian City, near Hilton, and knew Charlie. The afternoon wore on. They talked and talked, and it was evening before they knew it.
“Won’t you tell us the plan now? Please!”
“I was going to invite you all for Sunday night supper.” Ann’s dark-blue eyes twinkled at them. “But Jack’s parents are visiting us and—while they’re darlings—I was afraid two elderly people and you imps might not combine. So I trust you’ll permit me to have supper with you.”
“Shall we let her stay?”
“Well, just this once. As a special concession.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you! As a token of my gratitude, I will introduce you to”—Ann paused for dramatic effect—“your landlord.”
There was a puzzled pause. Gwen said glumly, “I know him already.”
“You saw him just once, when you signed the lease. Is that it? Well,” Ann had a wise air, “you are now going to meet him informally. As a friend.”
“Oh!” said Cherry, beginning to understand. “But will you please stop impersonating the Sphinx?”
“Get your coats,” said Ann, blandly grinning. “We are going to an Italian restaurant where your landlord, for old times’ sake, has his Sunday evening supper.”
The girls went for their hats and coats.
Strolling south of Bleecker Street and leaving Greenwich Village behind, Ann explained. In her husband’s office worked a young man of Italian descent, whose uncle was in the real estate business, who had a friend, who was the Spencer Club’s landlord.
“Simple,” Ann said, still grinning. “Your Mr. Ramiglia knows we’re coming. Dickie—in Jack’s office—fixed it for you. We’ll have supper in that restaurant, too. I’ve been there once, Dickie took us. For practically no money, you get heaps of the most wonderful food. I think I could look at that menu again and pick out something besides the date.”
“You mean the menu is in Italian?”
“I have plenty of misgivings about the landlord!”
“Since when do you speak Italian, Ann?”
“She doesn’t.”
“Neither do any of us.”
“We’ll starve in that restaurant!”
“Never mind a little thing like starving. Think of facing the landlord!”
Ann remained unruffled. They had entered a neighborhood where many Italian-American families lived. It was like any other part of town, except for the Roman-sounding names on the shopwindows and a few unusual wares. The people looked like the rest of town, except for their liquid, dark eyes and an extra vivacity. Here and there was a gesturing grandmother with a shawl over her head, or an old man in a rakish black hat reading an Italian-language newspaper. But anyone under fifty was thoroughly American, the younger the more so, right down to the angelic-faced children busy reading the Sunday funny papers.
“The place we’re going to is called the Grand Paradiso,” Ann said, leading the way. “20 1/2 Derby Street.”
“Can’t be very grand if it’s only a half,” Gwen ribbed her.
“Wait till you meet Mama and Papa Mediterraneo. Wait till you taste Mama’s pasta.”
“Wait till we meet the landlord!”
“Thank goodness, that’s Cherry’s responsibility. Stop groaning, Cherry.”
The restaurant was a small store with a few white-clothed tables and a kitchen at the back. Papa Mediterraneo, the waiter and cashier, was quite an old man. He remembered Ann, and bowing and smiling led the girls to a table. The landlord was nowhere in sight.
Mama Mediterraneo, a monumental old lady with satiny, coal-black hair, in a spick-and-span gingham dress, came out of her kitchen to beam at them. Diamonds flashed in her ears, and her eyes and teeth flashed nearly as brilliantly. Cherry did not understand the voluble Italian but the tone of voice was unmistakable. She smiled back and that was enough. The Mediterraneos, laughing at the girls, took away the menus. They gestured that Mama would outdo herself for Signora Powell and her friends.
And then Mr. Ramiglia came out of the kitchen, beaming and carrying a platter of ravioli. Two small boys tagged at his heels, bearing plates and silverware.
“Hello, Mrs. Powell,” Mr. Ramiglia said, coming over to their table. He was a stocky, middle-aged, fatherly looking man. “These are my sons, Johnny and Joe. Are these your frightened young ladies?” He looked amused. “Oh, yes, Miss Jones. I remember you. How are you?”
Gwen looked uncertain as to whether she wished to be remembered or not. She stuck a blue-stained hand in her pocket.
“Mr. Ramiglia, my friends mistakenly—” Ann started.
“Mr. Ramiglia, we painted the—” Cherry gulped.
“You mean you painted that dining-room set?” He waved a hand, gave a forkful of ravioli to Johnny, then one to Joe. “That old, dilapidated set? Fine, fine.”
“Then you don’t mind—” Bertha said slowly.
“I hope you didn’t spend too much on the paint. Furniture isn’t worth it.” He set the platter down on the table next to theirs, seated himself, and took a big mouthful of ravioli. “Order ravioli. Take my advice. Come, boys, sit down.”
Cherry turned full around in her chair, eyes like saucers. “But, Mr. Ramiglia! Your janitor—he—”
“He scared you?”
Suddenly they all burst out laughing.
“Sam scares everybody. It is his one pleasure in life. Pay no attention. I will speak to him, maybe on the phone tonight. Johnny! Don’t eat so fast. No, Joe, no—”
When Mr. Ramiglia turned back to his ravioli the girls looked deep into one another’s eyes. All that worrying and tiptoeing for nothing!
“You see,” said Ann softly, “even in New York landlords aren’t so terrible.”
Cherry felt ten years younger. Her appetite, which had lagged all week, returned to normal, particularly when a platter of ravioli arrived for them.
Never in her life had Cherry eaten such magnificent food as came out of Mama Mediterraneo’s kitchen. What went into it even Bertha could not guess, beyond pure olive oil, fresh mushrooms, and the best Texas beef. Then came frozen pudding with almonds. They ate in a sort of rapture, while Papa Mediterraneo stood over them emitting cries of approval and Mr. Ramiglia smiled across the little restaurant. When Papa Mediterraneo gave them their check, it was only fifty cents apiece. They could not believe it.
“You know what?” Cherry asked, after they had exchanged cordial good-byes with the Mediterraneos and Mr. Ramiglia and staggered out into the street. “I think our landlord is a human being. I think our janitor is a character, to put it mildly. I think New Yorkers who eat any place except at the Grand Paradiso are crazy.”
“They don’t know about it,” Ann replied.
“They should, when it’s right in their own town,” Cherry retorted. “It’s a shame for people to keep cooking like that to themselves! Maybe it’s time all the people of different antecedents got better acquainted.”
Bertha nodded wisely. “Wait. I will take you to a Swedish smorgasbord restaurant my uncle’s brother-in-law runs. I mean, if we can ever eat again.”
Mai Lee said she was almost too full to talk, but offered, “I’ll take you to Canal Street someday. We’ll have Chinese roast duck.”
“I mean more than restaurants,” Cherry persisted. “I mean—I mean—I just have an idea.”
“You told us to ignore you whenever you had one of your ideas,” Bertha warned.
“You mean,” Vivian prodded gently, “it’s a new one, so you’re rarin’ to go.”
“No, it’s a good idea.”
Gwen sighed. “Well, what is it? Tell us in advance, so we’ll have time to duck.”
“I’m—not sure,” Cherry said. “I have only a piece of an idea so far. But wait!”
When they arrived back at No. 9, a gnarled, gnomish figure was waiting on the step. It was the janitor. He approached them politely and said, in tones they had never heard issue from him before:
“Is there anything you young ladies would like? A stepladder? Or some fuses, or—or anything?”
They gasped. Cherry had just presence of mind enough left to say:
“Could you lend us an extra paintbrush?”