Strings Attached

  So when Jamie suggested we take the waxed paper and hold it across the Duffys’ back window at eight thirty a.m., the time Mr. Duffy reliably relieved himself of the pints he’d had the night before at Murphy’s Bar on Wickenden Street, Muddie and I thought it a swell idea. It was only when Duffy slowly realized that the arc that should be hitting the grass outside was instead splattering on his bare feet that we considered that we had neglected to plan our route of escape.

  We ran as Duffy hit the back stairs and landed on Muddie’s jacks with his bare feet. We hooted with laughter as he screamed and chased us across the yard, though we got a little nervous when he threw Mrs. Duffy’s prized Virgin Mary statue at us as we scaled the wall in three seconds flat. Now Mrs. Duffy was screaming, too, and we were on foreign soil — the Baptiste driveway. Mrs. Duffy hated the Baptistes, too, because they were from Cape Verde and “black as the ace of spades,” she’d say, which wasn’t true — first of all, they were dark brown, and second of all, it was puzzling, because every other house in Fox Point belonged to a Portuguese family. (“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she said, slicing a sandwich in half with a large knife, her meanness lending the slice an extra, deadly precision.) When we told Da about this, he had sighed and said that people climbing a ladder had a tendency to piss downward.

  The windows were open and we could hear the radio playing “The Dipsy Doodle.” Someone was singing along.

  The window was raised higher. Elena beckoned to us with her hairbrush. We didn’t know her well, hardly enough even to say hello to, but she was called “the pretty sister” out of the three, and we all agreed with that. “What are you waiting for?” she whispered. “Get in here.”

  One by one we wriggled up and in, Elena hauling us by the back of our shorts. We hit the floor and stayed there.

  A moment later we heard Duffy’s puffing breath and the slap of his fat bare feet. He asked for us, and we watched, impressed, as Elena sweetly lied and sent him away down Hope Street.

  She put her hands on her hips. “The famous Corrigan Three,” she said. She was mocking us and we knew it, but we didn’t care. “I think you could use some looking after.”

  She came over that night, when Da was furious and still berating us with a fork raised in the air as he turned the sausages.

  “Hooligans, that’s what I’m raising! What am I to do now with the lot of you?” He used the fork like a baton, orchestrating his irritation. “Who’s going to watch over you now?”

  The knock didn’t stop his tirade. Glad of the diversion, the three of us tumbled toward the door. Elena breezed right past us, wearing a flowered summer dress and sandals. She went straight to the kitchen.

  “Hello, Corrigan,” she said to Da. “May I come in?”

  Da stood in the kitchen, astonished, as she walked in. He nodded politely at her. And waited patiently while the sausages sizzled. “Did my children do something else?” he asked. “Break a window?”

  Elena laughed. “The thing is, it’s clear you need a hand with them.”

  “Ah, true. They roam the neighborhood like a pack of dogs, so I’m buying them leashes tomorrow.”

  “Instead,” Elena said, crossing the kitchen and taking the fork from his hand, “you should hire me. I see them outside, getting into trouble. They need a hand.”

  “I don’t have much to offer in the way of payment.”

  She turned the sausages. “I don’t need much, just a bit of money to help with things at home.”

  We watched how easily she moved from turning the sausages to slicing bread with quick, competent strokes, then spread them with butter. She flipped the sausage out of the pan and tucked it into the bread, folding it over and handing it to Jamie without even looking at him. “If you cook these with wine and a little garlic they’d be even better,” she said. “My father makes wine. I can bring over a drop or two to cook with.”

  Da looked at her as though she were speaking Japanese. “I’m a plain man, and plain cooking is enough for me.”

  “Well, I won’t be cooking your dinner, will I? I’m cooking for the children.” She swiped at the stove with a rag. “You’ll have to clean this place. I don’t mind wiping up, but this is just plain dirty.”

  Jamie ate the sausage, his jaw working as he watched. I saw he was already in love, but I didn’t mind, for I was, too. Elena turned and handed out sandwiches packed with sausage to me and Muddie. Da looked at the empty pan and the lack of his own dinner. We giggled. Elena rinsed and dried her hands.

  “If you could come at seven in the morning and get their breakfast, too?” Da began. “One dollar for the day.”

  “I’ll be here at ten of. And a dollar and a quarter.”

  Twenty-six

  Providence, Rhode Island

  July 1942

  Of course it was a terrible thing to say, but war did make everything jump all of a sudden. As a sole provider for three children, with flat feet to boot, Da was exempt, but threw himself into the war effort, which consisted of teaching us three-part harmony for “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and turning us into a novelty act for radio. He got a better job in one of the now-booming factories, making parachutes.

  Soon Providence would be all noise and jive, with servicemen on the buses and cramming the trains. The bars would roar all night to accommodate their thirst. Brown University would hold commencement three times a year, pushing the men out toward service. Everyone would have a purpose, and somewhere to go.

  But July was early in the war, and we grabbed on to patriotism because every day in the paper the war news was bleak. For Fourth of July, the local theater was putting on a pageant, and it would be my first big solo show. At nine, I was the youngest performer. Part of the proceeds were going to war relief, and it would be a sold-out crowd. I had been rehearsing for weeks for the ensemble dance number to “You’re a Grand Old Flag” and the finale. And I had a solo, right after the opening number — just me on a stage, singing “Get Happy.” Forget your troubles, I had to sing to an audience full of people saying good-bye to sons, brothers, husbands. I was going to chase their blues away.

  I was only nine, so I was sure I could do this.

  When my feet hit the boards and I began to sing, I realized that I didn’t belong on that mattress in the closet, or at the tiny apartment on Hope and Transit, or in a classroom, or anywhere but where I was. I heard the crack of the applause and it hit me solid in the chest. I knew that everything, everything had changed. This was where I belonged.

  Afterward, there was a crush of people in the lobby — teachers, parents, families, some of the fathers and brothers already in uniform. It was a sight we all were getting used to. It was no longer a surprise to see that Mary McGee’s dad was now in the navy, or that Mr. Sankey, the gym teacher, was home on leave after basic training. The senior classes of the high schools had drained of boys in a rush to sign up.

  Through the crush of parents and relatives and neighbors backstage, I saw Da. Behind him was Delia in the gray dress she’d worn to work, looking somber in the midst of all the bright summer dresses. Jamie and Muddie lagged behind. Da was, as usual, crying.

  He swept me up and hugged me hard. “You were the best up there, and everybody says so!”

  “Shhh, Jimmy, have a little grace,” Delia said, looking around. “There’s other parents here with their own kids.”

  “Well, they know she was the best, nothing wrong with it.” Da slipped an arm around my shoulders.

  “You didn’t stink up the joint,” Jamie told me. He reached into his pocket and took out a ball. Smoothly, Delia took it and put it in her purse.

  “I thought for sure you were going to mess up at the end,” Muddie said. “I was holding my breath!”

  A plump woman dressed in a purple dress and a hat with a bird on it swooped down on us. “You,” she said. She bent over and looked me in the eye. “You like to dance, don’t you?”

  I nodded, trying not to stare at the stuffed bird. “I saw your name i
n the program. Kathleen Corrigan.” The woman’s eyes were as small and bright brown as the bird on her hat. Her mouth was as tiny as a gumdrop. “A bit too Irish,” she said. “I beg your pardon,” said Delia. “We call her Kitty,” Da said.

  “Kit Corrigan,” the woman said. “There you go — that’s your stage name. You’re her parents.”

  The woman turned questions into statements.

  “I’m her father, and this is her aunt,” Da said.

  “Your daughter,” she said, pointing at Da, “has a gift. When she’s onstage with the other dancers, nobody looks at anybody else.”

  Da beamed. “That’s just what I was saying. She’s a star.”

  “No.” The woman held up a finger. “She could be a dancer. With training. With my training. I’m Florence Foster. I’ve danced with the most prestigious troupes in the United States and Europe. I’ve danced on Broadway.”

  “Did you now!” Da said. “Did you hear that, Kitty?”

  “We have to be going.” Delia pressed her lips together. I could see how she disapproved of Mrs. Foster’s hat, of her bright red lips, of the fat that strained her buttons. She didn’t look like a dancer.

  Then Mrs. Foster angled her body toward Da and waved her hand, and I saw the movement and the gesture as a single, fluid thing, not the aimless wave of a regular person. “I take some promising students, not many, for dance classes,” she continued. “My students go on to ballet troupes in Boston, New York — into show business, if that’s what they want. They become dancers.”

  She said the word dancers like it was a title, something special, like Doctor or Judge.

  “We really must be going,” Delia said again, and she took my hand.

  “We’re going out for ice cream,” Da said joyously. “Why don’t you join us, Mrs. Foster?”

  Delia threw him a look that could slice paper into ribbons. “I’m sure Mrs. Foster has her own plans.”

  “I usually do,” Florence Foster said with a cool glance at Delia. “Here is my card.”

  Da took it, looked at it, and placed it in his pocket. “We’ll be speaking to you, then. Sure you won’t come for a sundae? Ice cream at Wolfe’s?”

  This was a wonder. Wolfe’s was a downtown restaurant. On the rare occasion we went for ice cream, we went to the drugstore on South Main.

  “You enjoy yourselves,” Mrs. Foster said. “Call me next week — my classes fill up fast.”

  “Wolfe’s? Really, Da?” We all clamored for an answer, hanging on to his arms, and him laughing, pretending to be alarmed.

  He half ushered, half danced us to the restaurant, Delia having to walk in double time in her sensible heels. It was like a fine spring night with the warmth of summer, and the streets were crowded with other families hurrying to shops or restaurants, and servicemen still getting used to the deference their uniforms brought them.

  We bounced in our chairs, planning how many scoops and how many toppings, for Da was in a mood to splurge, that was clear. Sundaes arrived, along with Delia’s coffee.

  A family brushed by in the crowd, and the man stopped. It was Nate Benedict, dressed in a light-colored suit with an open shirt. The woman wore a dark print dress and matching hat. She looked at us for a moment, then turned away. She put her arm around the boy standing with them, a boy with dark hair and eyes and a lean, handsome face like his dad’s, minus the squashed nose. “We’ll meet you up front, Nate,” she said.

  Before he turned away the boy looked straight at me, and I hoped he noticed my satin costume, red, white, and blue.

  “Hello, Corrigans,” Nate said. “Good to see you, Mac. Miss Corrigan.”

  “Benny! Oh, I mean, Nate.” Da stood and extended his hand. “We’re celebrating the performance of our girl Kitty. She was over at the holiday show at the Carlton — you remember Kitty….”

  Nate looked down at me. “The one who can’t sleep.” He reached out his hand, and I felt Delia flinch for a second as he rested it on top of my head. “We saw the show. You were wonderful.” His compliment made me glow. Wonderful. Such an important word, a grown-up word.

  “She was the best one on the stage, let me tell you.”

  “I agree. Enjoy your ice cream.” Nate walked toward the entrance, putting on his hat. He joined the woman and the boy and they left, pushing through the doors to Westminster Street.

  “Can you imagine, that teacher singling Kitty out like that,” Da said, scooping off his cherry and holding it up. Jamie, Muddie, and I all grabbed for it, but Muddie was fastest.

  “Now don’t tell me that you’re thinking of those lessons,” Delia said tightly. She smoothed her paper napkin into little creases. “You’re going to fill poor Kitty’s head with dreams.”

  “What’s wrong with dreams?”

  “They don’t come true, that’s what. Life isn’t a picture show.”

  “But she singled Kitty out!”

  “She singled you out, more’s likely, as the softest touch in Providence. She should be singing in church, lifting her voice to God, not on a stage. You want your daughter to parade herself on a stage?”

  “Please, I’m begging you, Delia, don’t bring Jesus into this one. I know he wasn’t a song-and-dance man, but he did believe in pleasure. What about the wedding at Cana? Plenty of wine for everybody!”

  “Oh, when you start quoting the Bible to me, I know I’m being conned.” Delia drew her cardigan closer about her shoulders. “Don’t go casting me as some puritan. I like singing and dancing as much as anyone. I’m not a Baptist. But have you noticed Kitty’s grades? She should be concentrating on her studies.”

  “She has her heart set.” Da said this as if it settled the matter, even though, of course, it didn’t. He never had the last word.

  “Listen to you, her heart set. As though getting your heart set on something meant you should have it.” Delia wiped at her mouth with her napkin, scraping it across her lips.

  There was a silence. I didn’t know why Delia was so angry. I just knew I wanted those lessons more than I’d ever wanted anything.

  “I could go on Saturdays,” I said.

  “And who would bring you downtown?”

  “A trolley would bring her, Dee,” Da said.

  “She’s nine years old — she can’t ride a trolley by herself. Man, what are you thinking? With all these sailors and strangers around now? I know you’re raising these children like a pack of wild animals —”

  “Dee.” Da sighed, exasperated. He scooped up a bit of whipped cream and held it in front of her. “For once in your life, let someone else have something sweet without finding a way to spoil it. You’re turning into the sourest old maid.” He plopped the dollop of cream in her coffee.

  Delia stared down at her cup. Slowly, a tear ran down her cheek. The four of us stared at her, spoons aloft. Nobody said a word. The tears dropped one by one onto Delia’s paper napkin.

  Finally, unable to bear the waiting, Muddie ate another spoonful of ice cream. We all dug back into our sundaes, careful not to bang the spoon against the metal dish. Da gazed at his plate, at his lap, at the signs advertising cherry floats and ham and cheese sandwiches for ten cents, anywhere but at Delia.

  “You’re not an old maid,” I said finally. “You’re…” I searched for the perfect word. “Wonderful.”

  Underneath the table, she squeezed my hand.

  Her students called her Madame Flo, but she was about as formal as a Sherman tank. She was a hammer on my forehead, counting beats. I had to learn about beats until they were part of my bones and I could stop thinking about them and just move. I had thought dancing was only about steps and music. I didn’t realize that rhythm could be so complicated.

  When I started, suddenly nothing, it seemed, was right about my body. My feet didn’t have enough turnout. My shoulders — down! My chin — lift it! She became my life after school and on Saturdays, and I learned what discipline was. No longer could I flop around on couches and hunch over stoops. I learned how to stand a
s well as dance. I practiced tap on our bathroom tiles until Muddie and Jamie pounded on the door, begging me to stop, and Da laughed behind his newspaper.

  Through Mr. Loge, Delia got a war job in Washington, DC, in the summer of ‘44 and we didn’t see her until September. Elena came on Saturday nights to cook us dinner before Jamie, Muddie, and I headed out to the movies. She even cooked for Da now, laughing at his attempts to chop onions and pushing him out of the kitchen. “You’re making me weep just watching you, Corrigan,” she said. It seemed a terrible time to be happy, while the world was falling apart. But we were.

  As boys we’d known from the neighborhood or husbands and fathers were killed and gold stars began to appear in windows, we huddled on the living room floor over the newspapers, knowing our secret, that we didn’t care about heroes, that we got to keep our dad.

  Twenty-seven

  Providence, Rhode Island

  March 1945

  That last weekend — the weekend after Carousel— Elena came and cooked us chicken and rice. She looked pretty in a flowered dress and heels.

  “You have a boyfriend,” Muddie guessed.

  “Elena’s in love!” I said, and was surprised to see a flush on Elena’s neck. “Shut up, you two,” Jamie said. “Don’t be girls.”

  We did what we kids did every Saturday night — ate our dinner and headed to the Boys Club for free movies. That night, halfway through the cowboy serial, the projector broke. Everybody groaned. We waited, but finally we heard the bad news. We had to go home.

  The three of us sat on the curb outside, spinning out the evening, reluctant to go in.

  We heard heels tapping on Hope Street, and in a moment we saw Delia appear out of the gloom. We were surprised to see her. She had left for the convent on Friday.

  “What are you doing home?” Jamie asked.

  “I’m home, that’s all. Why are you sitting out here, you three? It’s your bedtime, isn’t it?”