Anything but Still Lives: The Worlds of Edward Hopper

gets stuck, she remembered, and her heart gave a little leap. No more nothing. Only white light. Here. Now.

  She leaned over the railing to get a better look. Yes. Maybe. Here it was after all. Waiting for her. To come.

  Laughing at Clouds

  (inspired by Hopper’s Chop Suey, 1929, in the collection of Mr and Mrs Barney A Ebsworth)

  Let me tell you the story of Jane and Frances. Well, more like it’s the story of Jane as Frances told it to me. See, Frannie’s the apple of my eye, tells me everything. It don’t matter none that most girls these days think their Moms are too old-fashioned, what with the clothes and the hair and this whole flapper thing. Me and Frannie – we’re tight, tight as a well-knit sweater.

  Frances now, she works at Macy’s downtown on 7th & 34th Street, in the lingerie department. She likes helping the ladies with their stockings and smalls, even though she don’t wear so much of them herself! She’s a little chatterbox, see, and the ladies coming to Macy’s appreciate that.

  But, she says, she never met anyone who could jabber on like Jane. Jane’s over in cosmetics, and when it’s a bit quiet on the floor or they have their tea break, there’s always time for a quick chat. Apparently no one can fell silences like Janie; she just chops straight through them like a log-busy beaver.

  Anyhow, these two were soon thick – same age, same interests. So they decide to start having lunch together each Saturday after the shops close at one at a chop suey place in Chinatown. Bit of a treat, you know. Well, one Saturday back in March, there they are at their regular table.

  Oh, it’s a simple place, Frannie tells me, but nice enough. The tables are always clean with little lamps on the windowsill. The girls can take off their coats and hang them by the door. Lots of well-to-do types pop in there, she says, because it’s always on the way to somewhere. Jane likes it because it’s easy to meet her boyfriend afterwards. He’s down at the Exchange.

  ‘Eddie always makes sure we do something special on a Saturday afternoon. After he’s rung through the 1.30 quotes to the papers, he’s free as a bird,’ she chirrups to my Frannie.

  OK, so Frances doesn’t have a boyfriend yet. But that’s not bothersome to me. She’s a pretty girl and bubbly to boot; soon enough the boys will come sniffing around. Turns out in any case that Jane meeting Eddie was a bit of a fluke. He studied at Brown, so they don’t exactly move in the same circles, if you get my drift.

  Well, the story is she’d had to run a message up to men’s wear, and was left waiting by Mr Symonds while he fitted a young gentleman with a new suit. When he came parading out with a dapper swagger, well, Janie couldn’t keep her eyes off him, and he neither! He made a point of tracking her down in the store after his purchase was made, and then asked for her personal attention while he chose perfume for his mother’s birthday – you can imagine how long he made that conversation last!

  Mother’s birthday? A likely story – oh, how I giggled when Frannie told me. I mean, we mothers have heard all these ploys before, we know a thing or two by our age, don’t we? But Frances was genuinely impressed – and who am I to spoil her fancy? ‘He must be a really sweet young man, Mom, to spend all that time choosing just the right thing for a birthday present!’

  Now, where was I? Oh yes, Jane had scored herself a beau. And one with money and education and background to boot! I’m sure you know how those boys who worked the trading floor with the brokers made out – very, very well, I can assure you.

  So on a chilly day back in March, the two of them head off to Chinatown to their favourite chop suey place, sit down, order, begin to chat. And, according to Frances, it all went something like this:

  ‘You’re never gonna guess what,’ Jane started. ‘Eddie’s asked me to marry him!’ Her brown eyes shone bright gold she was that happy.

  ‘He never!’ Frances countered. ‘I mean, how long have you been going out now?’

  ‘Well, it must have been a good six months since we met,’ Jane went on in between mouthfuls of rice and vegetables. They both negotiated their chopsticks with ease. It really was the done thing these days.

  ‘I mean, we’re being quite proper about it all. We don’t go to those petting parties … he’s squeezed my bubs a coupla times but that’s as far as we’ve gone – no nookie. Remember he took me up to meet his parents at Rhode Island a month back?’ She thought and chewed in sequence. ‘I guess he wanted to check on their reaction before asking. You know, whether I’d fit.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Frances managed before Jane started in again. She pushed bean sprouts around that little China bowl and kept right on listening.

  ‘You know, it’s the right time and all. So Eddie says. We’re in the middle of a bull market, a big bull market really, and they’ve been letting him buy on the margin and he’s managing to put away quite a tidy sum. He says.’

  ‘What’s on the margin?’ Frances asked.

  ‘’Oh, don’t ask me,’ Jane sniffed. ‘Something to do with the stocks and buying and then selling them again and making money.’ She thought and chewed some more. ‘Oh, that’s right, I remember now – I think he has to borrow the money first to buy the stocks, but then he doesn’t have to pay it back till he sells them again, and by that stage he’s made a profit.’

  ‘Sounds a bit dodgy to me,’ said Frances.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I suppose that’s just how it’s done. The big cheese, he really knows his onions, and he just tells Eddie how to do it.’ She shrugged. ‘Eddie trusts him ‘cause he trusts Eddie – that’s how it works in business. It’s only Eddie he’ll send down the speakeasy to get him his gin, you know. Eddie says it’s real funny – he goes in a door and up a flight of stairs and suddenly there’s a guy sitting at a table. You plonk your dollar down in front of him and ask for a fifth of gin. The guy makes it in his bathtub out the back and then he’ll put any label on it you want. Ain’t that funny? It’s the same gin, and all, but you get to choose your own label!’

  Fran was busy with her vegetables.

  ‘Anyhow, Eddie says it’ll be real easy to set up house together. All this margin stuff means he’s got a good credit rating, so we’ll be able to buy all our things on instalment. Even a car – maybe even a breezer! So yeah, Eddie says it’s the right time to get married, so he asked me.’ She giggled and blushed all at once. ‘This afternoon we’re going window shopping for the ring – at Tiffany’s.’

  ‘Baloney!’

  Jane nodded. ‘No, really! He makes good money, so why shouldn’t he spend it on something nice?’

  ‘Yeah, but Tiffany’s? That’s a bit more than nice,’ Frances reminded.

  Suddenly serious, Jane leant across her bowl and hissed: ‘Look Fran – I can’t keep showing up at his college reunions and prom nights with cheap junk like this,’ pointing to her blue paste earrings. ‘It’s another world. There’s a lot of high hats in those circles, you gotta know how to act, what to wear, what to show off. I’m sitting pretty and I’m not going to blow it.’

  She took Frances’ silence as approval, popped a water chestnut in her mouth and went on. ‘Eddie’s shown me this article that says if you put $15 a month into stocks and shares, you’ll make $80,000 in 20 years. Imagine that! It’s this bull market, see. We have to make the best of it.’

  ‘Well, bully for you,’ muttered Frances and stared at the table.

  Jane humphed into the blackening atmosphere. ‘What’s eating you? I thought you’d be happy for me, and I was going to ask you to be my maid of honour,’ she fidgeted, ‘but if you’re not interested …’

  ‘Yeah, sure I’m happy for you! And I’d be thrilled to be maid of honour … thanks, thanks for thinking of me!’ Frances hoped her tone was positive enough. She patted at her cloche hat, smoothing bumps that weren’t there, loosened the scarf at her throat.

  ‘Aw, applesauce,’ came the textbook coy response.

  That done and dusted, they chatted amiably about customers they’d served in the morning. Which ones needed more attention than
others, and what they thought of the new stocking range just arrived – art silk in ‘boulevard’ and ‘Spanish brown’. Perfect for summer, they agreed. Jane told that her mother had bought some Butterick patterns to try out the flapper fashion. They giggled and wondered if she’d be brave enough to swap her corset for a Lastex girdle.

  ‘Do you want to trade books this week?’

  ‘Mmmm,’ said Frances. ‘Shall we order some noodle juice first?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ signalling to the waitress for a pot of Chinese tea. Mid-afternoon sun streamed in through the restaurant windows and Jane blinked into its sudden shaft of light. ‘Oh look, the sun’s come out,’ she observed. ‘It’s nice when the sun comes out.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Frances squinted, pulling a New Eagle Library book from her handbag while making her own weather prediction ‘Those clouds look menacing.’

  Jane screwed up her nose at the book’s title. ‘The Man She Hated? Do you really think that’s the sort of thing I should be reading right now?’

  Frances laughed. ‘Well, you know what’s gonna happen – they’ll get together in the end. And it’s a good one,’ she continued. ‘Mrs Alex McVeigh Miller – you like her, don’t you?’

  ‘OK,’ Jane agreed and brought out her own book to share, The Tie That Binds by Bertha M Clay. ‘See if this’ll convince you that life’s more fun with a man!’ she