The Girl Is Murder (17 page)

“Harlem?” asked Pop. I shrugged, like I wasn’t sure what neighborhood we’d been in. “I thought it was a school dance.”

“I never told you that.” He couldn’t fault me for his assumptions.

“What’s that on your mouth?”

My hand went to my lips. Suze’s lipstick smeared my fingers red. “Just lip cream.”

“You’re too young for that.”

For what,
I wanted to ask.
Wearing makeup or having half of it kissed off me?
“A friend loaned it to me,” I said. “Everyone there was wearing it.”

“Have you been drinking?”

How could he know that? “I …”

“My God, Iris. What’s come over you? Staying out to all hours, lying about who you’re with, wearing makeup, drinking. And Harlem? What could’ve possibly possessed you to go there?”

My mouth fluttered open but no sound came out. I couldn’t tell him I was searching for Tom. Not yet.

“Who gave you the booze?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”

It was strange to hear him being so paternal and scared. About
me.
On the one hand, I was touched to find out that he cared, but on the other, it struck me as very inconvenient. “It won’t happen again, Pop.”

“You better believe it won’t. From here on out you go to school and you come home. That’s it.”

“I said I wouldn’t do it again. How was I supposed to know there were rules?”

“Because you live on Planet Earth. What fifteen-year-old girl is allowed to stay out until the wee hours of the morning—in a Harlem dance hall, no less—and come home reeking of booze? Why do I have to tell you that that’s forbidden?”

“Because that’s what parents do,” I said.

We stared at each other for a moment, each challenging the other to make the next move. I thought I had won—after all, my arguments were the most logical. But Pop had finally figured out the one essential thing about parentchild relationships: age trumps all.

“Go to your room, Iris.”

“But I’m not done.”

“Yes, you are. Go to your room.”

Whatever courage Rhona’s flask had given me had disappeared. With a huff, I turned and headed upstairs.

I didn’t fall asleep for at least an hour. It wasn’t the scene with Pop that kept me up. His anger would fade by morning. No, what kept my mind humming was everything I’d experienced that night: the hot jazz, the gorgeous dancers, the kiss that curled my toes, the sensation of Benny’s breath on the back of my neck. And of course all I’d learned about Tom Barney and his relationship with Grace Dunwitty.

Try as I might, I couldn’t picture the two of them together. Maybe that was why he’d robbed my locker and everyone else’s—to get the money necessary to woo a girl he had nothing in common with.

Poor Rhona. It had to be heartbreaking to learn Tom had replaced her with someone like Grace. Especially after enduring the rumors Pearl had supposedly spread about her. No, there was no
supposedly
about it. Pearl being Pearl, she was most likely jealous as all get-out of Tom and Rhona’s relationship. She had started the rumor, all right.

But Rhona wasn’t pregnant. She was sick, according to Maria.

No, wait—Maria had said Rhona wasn’t pregnant
then.

I was up until sunrise pondering exactly what that meant.

CHAPTER

12

I AWOKE WITH A BLINDING headache to the sound of the radio blaring downstairs. For a moment, as I strained against the sunlight streaming in the window, I thought I was sick. But as my eyes got used to the light, the night before came flooding back. Was this what alcohol gave you: a pounding head and a failing memory? If that was the case, I was done with it.

I put on my robe and went downstairs, worried that the radio meant that there was bad news on the war front. Mrs. Mrozenski had a habit of turning the volume up so she could continue working in the kitchen while listening to the news. She said the war got her so upset that she couldn’t stand to sit still and do nothing when casualty numbers were reported. But as I came down the stairs, I realized it wasn’t war news I was hearing. Someone had tuned the radio to WMCA, where
The Children’s Parade
was just starting.

The living room was empty. A cup half filled with Postum, a coffee substitute Pop drank because it was cheaper than the real thing, had been left behind, as had the morning papers. The front page reported that forty-six Nazi planes had been downed. I hoped that meant Pop would be in a good mood. I knocked on his office door, expecting to find that he was already at his desk working. There was no reply from inside. I tried the knob and found the door unlocked. I opened it, praying Pop was in a better mood than the night before.

My prayers were in vain. No one was there.

I DEBATED STAYING at the house that day, but it seemed foolish to keep myself under house arrest when I wasn’t sure how sore Pop was. Instead, I made myself some oatmeal for breakfast, got dressed, and took the subway uptown.

After all, I was already in trouble. What was one more infraction?

Grace lived on Fifth Avenue, in an apartment that faced Central Park. I used to think her digs were no big deal, but as I approached after all those months away, I saw for the first time how fortunate she was and how grossly out of place I had become. In my scuffed saddle shoes and Suze’s skirt (smelling of smoke and who knows what else from the night before) I had to look like a servant’s daughter come to pay my mother a visit during lunch. Had I ever fit in here? I must have, and yet the idea suddenly seemed preposterous.

I approached the building and greeted the doorman. He was new, not that I would’ve expected the old doorman to still recognize me after so much time had passed.

“How can I help you?” He had a voice like the women at the cosmetic counter at Macy’s. Even though you knew they were working for their money, they still somehow managed to communicate the idea that they were better than you. He underlined his superiority by examining me with his cold, blue eyes, choosing not to linger too long on my outfit, as though just being asked to look at it was insulting to him.

“I’m here to see Grace Dunwitty,” I said. I tried to match his snobbery with my own tone, but I’d fallen out of practice. Instead of sounding rich and important, I sounded vaguely British.

He didn’t have the apartments memorized yet. He glanced at the list that provided extensions for each residence and located the Dunwittys’ near the top. “And who may I say is here?”

“Iris Anderson.”

He picked up the receiver for the internal phone, dialed the number, and paused. As he waited to be connected, he examined his recently buffed nails. “Good afternoon, Caroline, if you could please inform your mistress that there’s an Iris Anderson here to see Miss Dunwitty. Yes,
Iris
—like the flower.” He covered the mouthpiece and sneered at me. I’d failed the first test—the maid didn’t know who I was. She came back on the line before he could say anything to me. Whatever she said surprised him—I could see it in his face. “Really? Of course. Right away.” He deposited the phone on its cradle and offered me a more genuine grin. “You may take the elevator to your right. Miss Dunwitty will be waiting for you.”

I lifted my nose ever so slightly and sashayed to the waiting car. The elevator operator took me up to Grace’s floor. I only had one foot in the hallway when the Dunwittys’ apartment door burst open and Grace rushed out.

“Iris! Is it really you?”

“It really is. I hope you don’t mind the surprise.”

“Mind? I thought I was dreaming.” She hugged me and for a moment things felt just like old times. She’d grown taller in the months since I’d seen her, and she’d started wearing makeup. Since it was Saturday, she wasn’t wearing her Chapin uniform. Instead, she had on a cashmere twinset and a skirt that captured the sweater’s azure blue in a delicate plaid pattern. “Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

“I’m sorry about that. I meant to, but it’s been crazy since school started.”

“Never mind. I’m just glad you’re here.” She stepped away and took me in, keeping her hands wrapped in mine. “Look at you, Iris.” I wasn’t sure what that meant. Look at how I’d changed, how shabby my clothes had become? “Come on.” She pulled me into the apartment. “I’ve got so much to tell you.”

But first there were formalities. Mrs. Dunwitty was sitting in the front room, enjoying an early afternoon tea with a woman I didn’t recognize.

“What a lovely surprise. I’m delighted to see you, Iris,” said Mrs. Dunwitty. Her words never sounded sincere to me, though I recognized early on that they contained the same artificial quality no matter whom she was speaking to. That meant, I hoped, that I shouldn’t take it personally.

“Thank you, Mrs. Dunwitty. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“This is my dear friend, Mrs. Huckabee.” She turned to her companion. “This is Iris Anderson. She used to attend Chapin with Grace.”

“And where do you go now, dear?” asked Mrs. Huckabee, a woman so polished she gleamed brighter than the silver tea service.

“She attends public school now,” said Mrs. Dunwitty. She said
public school
like it was something very different from its reality. This wasn’t a generic term for schools one didn’t pay to attend, but a lofty institution all its own. “You must tell us all about your new home,” said Mrs. Dunwitty. There she was being careful again—there was no mention of it being on the Lower East Side. “How is your father?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Iris’s father was one of the very first veterans of this war,” said Mrs. Dunwitty. “He was injured at Pearl Harbor.”

“Remarkable,” said her friend.

“Iris has been a tremendous comfort to him during his recuperation. She has had so many challenges to face in this past year; she lost her mother right before he came home.”

I wanted to laugh. There was much more to the story than that, and yet somehow Mrs. Dunwitty had just rescued me from further inquiry. I was the daughter of a war hero, bravely nursing him back to health as I tended my own wounds over my mother’s tragic death. When they made the movie, would they cast Deanna Durbin or Shirley Temple in my role?

“You poor dear,” said Mrs. Huckabee. “It is, of course, these times of trial that show us how strong we can be.”

“Would you please excuse us, Mother?” said Grace. “I have ever so much to share with Iris.”

“You will stay for lunch, won’t you?” asked Mrs. Dunwitty.

“I would be delighted to,” I said.

As I followed Grace down the hall and to her room, my words echoed in my head:
I would be delighted to.
What would Suze say if she heard me talking like that? Even Pearl would’ve found it queer.

We closed the door to Grace’s room, and she launched herself onto the pink canopied bed. Little had changed in the last months, beyond the addition of cosmetics on the vanity top and a poster advertising a concert by Frank Sinatra and the Benny Goodman Orchestra at the Hotel Astor back in May.

“Sorry about that scene back there,” she said, pulling a china doll into her chest. “Oh nausea! That woman is insufferable, but since she’s in the Met Guild Mother has to put up with her twice a month.”

“It was fine. She seemed nice.”

“So tell me everything. I can’t believe you’re really here. It’s too much!”

I claimed the end of the bed for myself, leaning my back against one of the canopy’s posts. “There’s not much to tell. Public school is awful. I feel like I learned everything they’re teaching years ago. But I’ve made a few friends. What about you?”

“Oh, everyone is wrapped up in studying for the Slimy and Atrocious Torture. It’s all too desperate.” I’d forgotten about the SAT. No one at P.S. 110 ever talked about the test. Chapin girls were expected to go on to college; P.S. 110 girls had no such aspirations. The subject quickly shifted from academics to the goings-on of every girl I used to know—and a few I couldn’t remember—at Chapin. When she was done telling me who had changed her hair, gained weight, planned her coming out, and gotten pinned, Grace finally turned to herself. “Of course, I’m positively bored to tears without you. Fortunately, I found someone new to keep me busy.”

Tom. She was talking about Tom. Finally! I sat up a little straighter. “Really? Who’s that?”

“Her name’s Josephine O’Hara. She transferred to Chapin this fall and we’ve been inseparable ever since.” Grace flipped her hair over her shoulder. “You’d love her if you met her. She’s very mature and plays a mean game of Ping-Pong. All the boys think she’s zazz. And not just the ones our age, either. She’s always getting asked out by men who think she’s older. She’s just oolie droolie.”

I was obviously supposed to be shocked, but after being around Suze and Rhona, I couldn’t muster anything more than a nod. “And what about you?” I said. “Are you seeing anyone special?”

She stretched her legs, pointing her sock-clad feet. “Oh, you know. There’s always someone who catches my eye, but I’m not going steady. Playing the field is much more fun.”

What was it going to take to get her to talk about Tom? “Would you ever date someone who didn’t go to private school?”

“You mean like an older boy? Absolutely.”

“No, I mean like a public school boy.”

She pondered the question a little too long. “The hell you yell! You know how my parents are.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Are you going with someone?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, not yet. There’s this one boy I kind of like.”

“Do tell,” said Grace.

“There’s nothing to tell. We kissed, that’s all. Public school boys are just so strange. They seem rough and yet at the same time … I don’t know … I’m curious about them.” I followed the pattern on her quilt, trying to figure out the best way to get the conversation to go where I wanted it to.

“Just because you changed neighborhoods doesn’t mean you should forget your value. Have you gone on a date with him?” she asked.

I nodded. “Sort of. It was him and a lot of his friends. We went out dancing last night.”