Secrets on 26th Street

S
ECRETS ON
26
TH
S
TREET

Elizabeth McDavid Jones

To my husband, Rick,

and my children, Mandy, Lindsay,

Whitney, and Michael

C
ONTENTS

Chapter 1    Threats

Chapter 2    A Figure in the Window

Chapter 3    A Secret

Chapter 4    Bluffing

Chapter 5    Inside Hell's Kitchen

Chapter 6    The Suffrage Problem

Chapter 7    Caught in the Riot

Chapter 8    Lester's Visit

Chapter 9    A Telegram and a Letter

Chapter 10  Tracking Down Mum

Chapter 11  Bea's Job

Chapter 12  Susan's Gamble

Going Back in Time

About the Author

C
HAPTER
1

T
HREATS

P
atience
.

As Susan O'Neal stood on the sidewalk in the drizzle, waiting for Helen, she thought having to be patient was the absolute hardest thing about being a big sister. If it wasn't waiting for little Lucy to painstakingly button her own shoes when Susan could have done it in a flash, then it was waiting for Helen to finish picking at her oatmeal in the morning so Susan could get the dishes washed up and she and Helen could get to school. Susan knew Mum needed her more than ever since Dad died last year, but sometimes it felt like no other eleven-year-old in Chelsea, maybe in all of New York City, had more chores than she did. Sometimes Susan thought it would be nice just to do what
she
wanted for a change.

Like now. It was cold for September, and all of Chelsea was gray—gray like the granite curbstones, gray like the factory smoke, gray like the Hudson River that formed the neighborhood's western border. The rain fell gray on the sidewalks and gray on the rooftops, gray on the streets and on the umbrellas of hurrying pedestrians.

It was a day for hurrying, Susan thought, not for poking along, waiting for little sisters. What Susan wanted to do was to rush home from school and curl up in front of the stove with the novel her teacher had assigned her to read. Susan couldn't wait to get home and dive in, for just an
hour
or so, before she had to start chores. There'd be no time to read later, that was for sure. Tonight the new boarder was coming, and Mum had to work late. She was depending on Susan to tidy up the flat and have dinner ready when the boarder arrived at six.

Susan knew if she didn't hurry Helen along now, there wouldn't be a
minute
to read, much less an hour. It was already a quarter past four, and they'd walked only six blocks, little more than halfway home to their building on 26th Street. Helen was being an absolute snail, and it was all Susan could do to keep from losing her temper.

“Helen, come on,” Susan said. “You've stopped to look at posters at every movie house on the avenue.” When Dad was alive, he would sometimes give the girls money to see a Saturday matinee. There was no money for shows now, though, and Helen sorely missed them.

Helen acted as if she hadn't even heard Susan. “Oh, Susie, isn't she beautiful?” She was staring dreamily at a poster featuring Mary Pickford. Helen loved the romantic pictures Pickford starred in, where the handsome hero always fell in love with her and they lived happily ever after. Susan preferred exciting westerns or the comedies with Charlie Chaplin.

Susan backed up to look at the poster Helen was mooning over. She wrinkled up her nose in disgust. It looked like the actress was once again playing a damsel in distress. Susan wished that just once Mary Pickford would catch the bank robbers herself instead of depending on the handsome hero to do it.

Susan turned her head sideways to try to see what Helen saw in the willowy, golden-haired Pickford. “I suppose she's pretty enough, but I think Mum is prettier. Mum's eyes have more life in them.”

At least they used to,
Susan thought. Before Dad died and Mum had so many bills to worry about.

“I'm going to be a star just like Mary Pickford someday.” Helen turned from the poster and strode forward with an eight-year-old's confidence that her dreams would come true. “You wait and see.”

Susan picked up Helen's book strap from the sidewalk where Helen had dropped it and scrambled after her. “A redheaded, Irish Mary Pickford?” Susan teased. She knew Helen's dream was impossible, though she wouldn't say so to Helen. After all, Susan remembered what it was like to be eight years old, even though it seemed like centuries ago.

“They have wigs, you know,” Helen said huffily. “And I could change my name so no one would know I'm Irish.”

“What would you change it to?”

Helen glanced at the shop window they were passing.
Rutger's and Jefferson's Clothing for Men
. Swelling her chest, she said regally, “I'll be Lillian Jefferson.”

“It's a grand name,” Susan said, “though you've stolen the whole of it. I don't think Mum will mind you using ‘Lillian'—even though it's the name
she
picked out back when she dreamed of acting in vaudeville—but Mr. Jefferson might object. When you become rich and famous, that is.”

“I'll be so rich, I'll split it with him.”

Susan laughed. She was thinking, though, about her own dream for the future. It wasn't a career in show business she wanted, but it was nearly as impossible. That's why she never spoke of it, not even to Mum. Why, it was just as silly for Susan to dream of going to City College to study literature as it was for Helen to dream of being Mary Pickford, or Mum to dream of performing on the vaudeville stage. Who ever heard of a poor Irish girl from the tenements going to college? Most of the older girls Susan knew had gone straight to work in the factories after finishing grammar school. If she was lucky, Susan thought, she'd end up like her friend Russell Cochran's older sister: a chambermaid in a mansion on Fifth Avenue, wearing an apron and picking up other people's dirty laundry. The thought depressed her immensely.

The sky darkened with Susan's mood; the rain picked up, and the wind changed direction and blew the rain into their faces. Some people scurried to get out of the downpour, hailing cabs or huddling under awnings. Susan and Helen simply hurried faster along their way—past Kelly's Stables and the blacksmith shop beside it, past Kosler's butcher shop, past the secondhand store where Mum bought most of their clothes. In the empty lot next to the store, a pile of rubbish, blown by the wind, swirled into the air, danced gaily for a moment, then dropped back to earth.

The scene sent a wave of restlessness rushing over Susan.
I might as well dream of wearing diamonds on my toes
, she thought glumly,
for my dream'll never happen
. She plunged right through a puddle and ignored Helen's scolding. They were almost home now—in front of Murray's Tavern on the corner of 28th and Tenth.

Susan glanced up at two women standing in front of the tavern holding signs. The printing on their signs had faded in the rain, but Susan could still make out the large, bold letters: VOTES FOR WOMEN.

Suffragists. Every now and then, they would show up in the neighborhood with petitions for people to sign. Sometimes they would stand on soapboxes on the sidewalk and talk about things Susan mostly didn't understand, like “enfranchisement of women.” Most folks didn't pay them much mind. Susan remembered one suffragist very well, though. Some of the tough boys had pelted her with rotten tomatoes as she was speaking, but she'd stood her ground. With tomato running down her face, she'd shouted them down and dared them to throw another one.

Susan had thought if that woman wasn't Irish, she should be, and for the first time it had made Susan curious about suffrage. Soon afterward, there was a suffrage parade down Fifth Avenue, and Susan had wanted to go. But Mum wouldn't take her; she said she didn't have twenty cents to spend on carfare for such a lost cause.

“Why don't those ladies go in out of the rain like everyone else?” Helen asked.

The yellow chrysanthemums on the suffragists' hats were drooping in the rain. Susan shrugged in answer to Helen's question. “I dunno, Helen. They're suffragists. Too stubborn to give up, I wager. Figure they'll get their way if they keep hounding the men to give them the vote. But whatever they do, it won't change our lives.”

Only two more blocks to home, but Susan was feeling so gloomy, it seemed the two blocks stretched forever. At 27th and Eleventh Avenue, a newsboy was screaming out headlines about the war in Europe. Susan knew that England and France were fighting Germany and Austria. The newspapers were always full of war news—battles and troop movements. But the war felt far away to Susan, and she'd gotten so used to the headlines she scarcely noticed them anymore. “Read all about it,” the newsboy cried. “German spy caught in Paris!”

This particular headline, though, grabbed Susan's attention for an instant—she had just finished reading an exciting book about Nathan Hale, a Revolutionary War spy. But the smell of D'Attilio's Bakery reminded her that Mum had asked them to stop on their way home from school and buy bread for dinner.

Helen drew in a deep whiff. “Oooh, the bread smells good,” she said. “Since Mum didn't tell us what kind to get, does that mean we can choose?”

“I guess it does,” said Susan. The thought of choosing among D'Attilio's delicious loaves—rye, wheat, pumpernickel—chased away Susan's gloom. “Depends on what he'll give us for a nickel.” A nickel was only enough for day-old bread, but it was all Mum could spare, and she'd told Susan to try to talk D'Attilio into a fresh loaf. “If we can't feed this boarder decently,” Mum had said, “we can't hope to keep her, and we have
got
to keep her. She's our only hope to make this month's rent.” Susan couldn't forget how Mum's eyes had burned with intensity. She reached in her pocket and fingered the nickel's cool hardness. She hoped she could live up to Mum's faith in her.