Here Today

“That’s okay,” Doris whispered back. “It’s already forgotten.”

  Ellie slept soundly until the morning. The first time she woke up, the clock in the kitchen read 6:52. Ellie watched the light in the single window brighten, watched Doris’s chest rise and fall, listened to voices and footsteps in the hallway, curled herself against Doris’s back, and fell asleep again.

  At seven-thirty an alarm rang, causing Ellie to jump and Doris to get out of bed with much greater speed than Ellie had expected.

  “Morning, hon,” said Doris. “Sleep okay?”

  “Fine.” Ellie sat up in the sofa bed and watched Doris dress in a plain blue skirt and jacket, a white blouse, nylons, and a pair of black pumps. She left all of her jewelry on her dresser, then checked herself in a small mirror mounted near the door to the apartment.

  “All right, Eleanor. I’m off to work.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat breakfast before you leave?”

  “Oh, I’ll grab something on the way.” Doris paused. “There isn’t really much food in the fridge, but you can get a great breakfast at Ollie’s. Just turn left when you leave the building, and Ollie’s will be on the corner.” Doris opened her purse. “Here,” she said, handing Ellie a few bills. “You’ll probably want to get lunch there, too. I’ll be home around six.”

  “Six? What am I going to do all day? Can’t I come to the theater with you?”

  “The theater? … Oh! Oh, no.” Doris laughed. “No, that wouldn’t be a good idea. You’d be bored.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Eleanor, I can’t bring you with me. But we can spend the evening together. You’re in New York City, for heaven’s sake. Go exploring today.”

  “It’s really okay to explore by myself?”

  “Sure. Just be careful. Use your head.”

  “How do I get around?” asked Ellie. “On the subway? I don’t even know where the subway is.”

  Doris considered this. “No, the subway’s a little confusing. But you can take a bus, if you can figure out the routes. Or take cabs.” She handed Ellie two more bills. “Or walk. That’s the most fun. New York is a great city for walking. Just pay attention to the neighborhoods you’re in. Do you know anything at all about New York?”

  “I’ve read a little.”

  “What would you like to see?”

  “Central Park and the Empire State Building.”

  “Well, you can easily walk to Central Park from here. Just go over to Fifth Avenue—you’ll want to see Fifth Avenue—and then turn left and walk a couple of blocks and you’ll be at one end of the park. Also, you’ll be at the Plaza—”

  “The Plaza? The Plaza Hotel?” squeaked Ellie.

  “The Plaza Hotel. Listen, I really do have to get going,” said Doris. “Have fun today. Be careful. I’ll see you back here at six, okay? Here’s the spare key to the apartment.”

  “Okay.”

  Doris hurried away, and Ellie stood by the door for a few minutes, taking stock of her feelings. She was disappointed, and a little hurt, that Doris had left her. She was embarrassed that Doris thought she would be bored spending the day in the theater. She was nervous about being on her own in New York City. But mostly she was excited.

  Ellie added the bills that Doris had given her to the remainder of her own money. She totaled it up and was satisfied. Then she found a pen and a pad of paper in Doris’s kitchen, sat on the unmade convertible sofa bed, and began writing a plan for the day:

  Go to Ollie’s for breakfast. REMEMBER TO LOCK THE DOOR WHEN YOU LEAVE THE APARTMENT!!!

  Ask someone at Ollie’s how to get to Fifth Avenue.

  At Fifth Avenue, turn left.

  Look in the store windows.

  See if you’re allowed in the Plaza Hotel.

  Walk around Central Park.

  Eat lunch somewhere—hot dog vendor?

  Ask someone how to get to the Empire State Building OR

  find a bookstore OR

  buy souvenirs for Albert and Marie.

  Do NOT spend all the money today.

  Be sure to get home before Doris does.

  Ellie read her plan over several times, then got ready for her breakfast at Ollie’s. While she was dressing (she chose some of her best school clothes), she realized that she had never eaten breakfast in a restaurant, had never eaten alone in a restaurant, and had never paid for a meal by herself. She thought about Thanksgiving dinner at the Starlight and remembered her father allowing extra tip money for Lorna. Was that something that was done only on holidays, or was it done every day? Ellie wished she could ask Doris, but realized she could watch the other diners at Ollie’s and do whatever they did. She added SEE IF PEOPLE ARE TIPPING!!! To the end of #1 on her plan.

  Then she put on her coat, tucked her plan and the money in her coat pocket, stepped into the hallway of the apartment building, locked the door, and dropped the key down her sock, wiggling her ankle until she felt the key beneath the arch of her foot. Ellie was ready for her day in New York City.

  When she stepped out of the vestibule, greeted by air much cleaner and fresher than she had expected, Ellie suddenly drew herself up straight and decided that today she, too, would be an actress. She would act as if she had lived in New York City her whole life and knew exactly what she was doing. If this went well it would be a good sign, a sign that she would be able to manage if the Dingmans ever did move to New York City to live with Doris. And so, when she reached the bottom of the crumbling steps, Ellie turned confidently to the left, walked to the corner, and entered Ollie’s, which turned out to be a coffee shop not too different from the Starlight Diner.

  Ellie sat at the counter, studied the menu the waitress handed her, ordered scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice, and paid close attention to the man next to her when his bill arrived. She watched him pay for his meal, then slide a quarter underneath his plate before he left. So later, Ellie did the same after she had paid her bill. On her way out of Ollie’s she asked the cashier how to get to Fifth Avenue, then (sticking to her plan) she walked to Fifth Avenue and turned left.

  Although she once again found herself in a tunnel of towering buildings, she realized that she was already growing used to this sight. She no longer felt the need to stop and stare upward. Now she gawked at what was on the ground—fancy stores with jewels (probably diamonds) right in the windows, ladies nearly as dressed up as Ann Miller in Easter Parade, hot dog vendors and hot chestnut vendors and peanut vendors.

  Ellie looked at a street sign, realized she should be just about at the Plaza Hotel, turned a corner, and there it was.

  “Oh,” Ellie said under her breath. It was large and beautiful, carpeted steps leading to the front doors, horse-drawn carriages standing nearby. And across a side street, she saw an expanse of trees, paths, and grassy areas, which surely must be Central Park.

  Ellie felt as though she spent the rest of the morning gawking. She gawked inside the Plaza, which she was indeed allowed to enter, gawked as she walked through Central Park, and gawked at vendors until she decided to buy a hot dog from one for lunch. In the afternoon she poked in stores and bought souvenirs for Marie and Albert, then suddenly realized she was exhausted, so she returned to Doris’s apartment, which she found without any trouble.

  Ellie unlocked the door to 3B, carefully put her purchases in her suitcase, sat on the armchair, and looked at her watch. Three-ten. Doris wouldn’t be home for almost three hours. Ellie finished her Nancy Drew book. Three forty-two. Now what? She looked around Doris’s apartment for something else to read. She found nothing but the movie magazines. Bored, she decided to see if maybe, just maybe, her mother had squirreled away a photo or two, or the Christmas cards she and Marie had made. She knew she would feel better if she found any little thread connecting Doris to the rest of the Dingmans. So she rummaged through the dresser drawers and then started on the drawers in the kitchen.

  In the kitchen drawers were dish towels, some plastic forks and spoons, and a stack of receipts.
Ellie examined the receipts. One edge of each was perforated, as if something had been torn off. At the top of each was the word “Gimbel’s.”

  Gimbel’s.

  Ellie sat down hard on the kitchen floor. Gimbel’s. These were pay stubs. Doris’s name was on each one. Doris’s job was not at a theater. It was at a department store.

  Ellie, numb, managed to sit through dinner at Ollie’s with Doris that night. She said nothing about the pay stubs. The next morning she awoke long before Doris did, dressed and brushed her teeth, then climbed back in bed and pulled the covers around her.

  “See you tonight, Eleanor,” Doris called as she left the apartment.

  “See you.”

  Ellie was wrapped in a cocoon of covers, but the moment she heard Doris start down the stairs, she leaped out of bed and grabbed her coat. Then she swiped one of the strange-looking coins from the dresser. She had learned that the coins were subway tokens, and had seen Doris drop two of them in her coat pocket every morning before she left the apartment.

  Still shrugging into her coat, Ellie locked Doris’s door as quickly as she was able. She ran down the stairs. When she reached the vestibule, she burst through it, then stood on the stoop and looked first right, then left. She caught sight of Doris across the street from Ollie’s. Ellie sprinted after her and managed to follow her until Doris hurried into a subway station.

  Ellie ran in behind her, saw people dropping their tokens into turnstiles, saw Doris already through the turnstile, and saw her step into a subway car just as the doors closed and the train pulled away.

  Ellie skidded to a halt. She looked at a map of the subway system, a tangle of confusing lines, felt the token in her pocket, let go of it, and felt for her money. Then, breathing heavily, she left the station and stood at the curb, arm raised.

  “Taxi!” she called, and when one drew up next to her, Ellie hopped in and said, “Gimbel’s, please. And hurry,” just as if she were in a movie.

  The taxi took Ellie first east, then north. She watched the street numbers rise and rise. As they crossed 79th Street, Ellie said to the driver, “How much farther?”

  “Just a few blocks,” he replied, and a few minutes later he pulled up in front of a large department store.

  Ellie paid the driver, then stood looking into the store. It was much bigger than Harwell’s. She stepped inside and walked through the aisles until she saw a store directory. That was no good. She didn’t know what department Doris worked in.

  Then a thought occurred to her, one she found quite cheering. Maybe Doris was a model here, just as she had been at Harwell’s. That wasn’t as good (in terms of getting established) as an acting job, but it was better than working as a salesgirl. It was a step in the right direction.

  Ellie located the information desk and waited until the woman seated behind it glanced at her.

  “Excuse me,” said Ellie. “Do you know if there’s anyone working here named Doris Dingman?”

  “Doris Dingman?”

  “How about Doris Day?”

  “Oh, sure,” said the woman. “She’s at the perfume counter.” She pointed Ellie in the right direction.

  While Ellie was riding in the cab she had rehearsed what she might say to Doris. But now as she approached the perfume counter and caught sight of her mother in her plain blue suit, a bottle of perfume raised in one hand as she offered a customer a sample spray, the words were erased from her mind.

  For a moment, Ellie just stared. Then the customer walked away. Ellie stepped closer. “Doris?” she said.

  Doris dropped the perfume bottle and it fell to the floor, where it shattered.

  Ellie wanted to feel bad for her mother; wanted to be taken in by the look of alarm on Doris’s face; wanted to comfort her when she saw tears gathering in her eyes. But all she felt was anger. Doris had lied and cajoled and promised. Doris had betrayed her. Doris had betrayed all the Dingmans.

  Ellie’s mother was on her hands and knees now, mopping up the perfume with a towel, and brushing the pieces of broken glass into a small heap. “Oh, lord,” she muttered. She glanced up and down the aisle, then over her shoulder at a cashier.

  Ellie was tempted to help her mother, but she stood where she was, hands clasped behind her back, eyes fastened on Doris.

  “This is your acting job?” she said finally.

  “Eleanor—”

  “Don’t tell me it’s just your day job, because I know you don’t have a night job. Unless you get paid for sitting around Café Lune with—with—” Ellie found that she couldn’t remember the names of the people she’d met on Monday night; found that they were already both nameless and faceless.

  “Eleanor!” Doris’s tears had vanished. She stood slowly, then brought her fist down on the counter, and Ellie knew she had gone too far.

  Ellie turned and saw a woman approaching, a woman who apparently worked at Gimbel’s, who was wearing a no-nonsense black suit, with a nameplate on the lapel. “I’d better go,” said Ellie. “I think this is your supervisor. And I don’t want you to lose this job. Otherwise, how will you be able to afford—” She was going to say, “all those meals at Café Lune,” but changed her mind and said, “—to bring the rest of us to New York in June? I’ll see you tonight, Doris.”

  Ellie returned to Doris’s apartment and spent a miserable day there. She sat in the dark room, and the sparrows entered her mind and settled there like flies on a car-flattened squirrel. No matter how she tried to chase them away, they returned. The slamming, the ignoring, the humiliating, the teasing, the jeering. New York, moving to Gotham, was supposed to have been Ellie’s escape. And she was quite certain now that the Dingmans would not be moving to New York. Not on Doris’s salary as a perfume girl at Gimbel’s. Maybe her father could find construction work in New York. Ellie tried to picture him living and working in the big city, driving his pickup through the crowded streets and avenues, and was absolutely unable to do so. No. Her father would not leave Spectacle.

  The only remotely cheering thought Ellie had on this long, dreary day was that surely Doris would come home to Witch Tree Lane now. Maybe she would even travel back with Ellie. It wouldn’t take her long to pack up her things.

  Ellie might not be able to escape Spectacle, but Doris could go back to it, and their family would be whole again.

  Doris returned promptly at six o’clock. She bustled through the door, saw Ellie sprawled on the rumpled sheets of the sofa bed, and said, “Put on your coat. We’re going to Ollie’s for dinner.”

  “Again?” Ellie said without looking at her. “It’s cheaper to eat at home.”

  “That’s fine if you want margarine and beer. Otherwise, put on your coat.”

  Ellie, scowling, put on her coat and followed Doris sullenly into the hallway and down the stairs. When they were seated at a booth in Ollie’s, Doris handed Ellie a menu and said, “Order first. Then we’ll talk.”

  Ellie ordered a hamburger and a Coke, then sat back, crossed her arms, and glared at her mother.

  Doris glared back, but soon lowered her eyes and reached across the table for Ellie’s hand. “Look, Eleanor,” she began, “the thing is, I didn’t have much luck finding acting jobs here. I tried, I really did,” she said when she saw Ellie open her mouth. “I had head shots taken as soon as I could. They were very expensive, by the way, but you have to think of them as an investment. I found an agent, too, and I went to auditions. But there’s a lot more competition here than there is in Spectacle. Do you know how many people show up at an audition? Sometimes hundreds, depending on the part.”

  Ellie, listening to Doris, felt a chill on her back and she shivered. She was afraid—her body was telling her to be afraid—but she didn’t know why. Something about what Doris was saying, or not saying.

  “Well,” said Ellie after a moment, “that’s too bad. You must be really disappointed.” And then, studying Doris’s face, Ellie knew why she was afraid. She was afraid because Doris didn’t look one bit disappointed.
/>
  “I guess,” replied Doris, “but the job at Gimbel’s is all right.”

  Ellie knew what she had to say next, and she felt her breath start to come in little gasps. She put her hands under the table so Doris wouldn’t see that they were shaking. “So … so you’ll be coming back to Spectacle, then, right?” Ellie said in a small voice. She was looking down at the table, at the water glasses, at the salt-and-pepper shakers, but finally she raised her eyes to Doris, and Doris, ever so slowly, shook her head at Ellie.

  “You could come back with me,” Ellie rushed on. “We can go tomorrow. Or on the weekend if you need more time to get ready. We just have to buy another bus ticket. Albert and Marie would be so happy.”

  “Eleanor—”

  “We all would. We miss you so much. Dad is—”

  “Eleanor—”

  “Dad’s trying really hard.”

  Ellie wanted to add, “You have to come back. You have to help me. Everyone hates Holly and me. They took my clothes in gym, and all the girls saw my bare chest. And they were slamming us. Do you know what that means? They shoved us and hit us and stepped on us. Our clothes were torn, and we were bruised. And we hurt. Every part of us hurt, especially our souls.”

  But Ellie slid her eyes across the table and saw that now Doris couldn’t look at her at all.

  “Eleanor,” Doris said again.

  No. I do not want to hear this.

  “Eleanor, I’m going to stay in New York,” Doris said finally. “This is my new life. I can’t—Spectacle—I’m stifled by Spectacle.”

  “But what do you have here?” whispered Ellie, even though she was fairly certain she knew the answer.

  The waitress arrived with their food, and Ellie glanced at her plate, then pushed it away.

  “Well,” said Doris, “I have …” She paused. “I have excitement.”

  Ellie nodded. She understood perfectly. Doris had a life that seemed glamorous, at least compared to life in Spectacle or Baton. She lived in a city that was nearly as bright at night as it was during the day. And she could spend her evenings with friends in theaters or restaurants or nightclubs, instead of eating supper in front of The Ed Sullivan Show and badgering Albert to do his homework. So what if she had to sell perfume during the day? So what if her apartment was the size of a walnut and her refrigerator held only margarine and beer? Gotham was at her feet. And Ellie couldn’t compete with it.