ships, and she and Shirley’d said good-bye amid the stink of the
exhausts and the shouts of the dispatchers, after they’d hugged and
laughed at their momentary friendship, Vi kept thinking of Shirley. She
86 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
imagined Shirley observing her, observing her behavior in the street
and in the employment offices and out onto the street again, Shirley
noting how Vi did things that she’ d do in a different and maybe a
better way, and Vi explaining to Shirley why she did what she did.
Shirley would remain in Vi’s brain or spirit for a long time, listening to
her, approving her, surprised by her, commenting on her, as though
those hours beside her in the truck had been enough to pass something
of Shirley and her cool bravery into Vi, to see her through: like Virgil
and Dante.
The women’s hotel, when she reached it, had no room for her, and by
the look of the white-haired pince-nez ladies who ran it never would—
one glance at Vi and her shabby suitcase was all it took. They were
delighted to direct her to the YWCA, a wonderful place they were sure
would suit her. Vi set out for this place, and reached it feeling wearier
than she ever had after any day’s work on the ranch: the pavement harder
on her feet and legs than any hardpan; the constant draw of thousands
of faces passing you on the street, the constant need to look away from
them if they caught your eye, just as they looked away too; the air filled
with sounds to be listened to, radios blaring from stores, car horns urgent
but mostly meaningless, gunshot backfires, police whistles, sirens
announcing disasters that maybe she should run from but couldn’t see
(for the first time she became keenly aware that you can shut your eyes
but you can’t shut your ears). And there were no rooms at the Y.
“Nothing? I’ve walked a long way. I’ve got a job, starting tomor-
row.”
“I’m so sorry,” the woman at the desk said, and she seemed to mean
it; she was no older than Vi, and badly frazzled. “I can put you on our
list. I mean people come and go so fast here, you know, they get more
permanent places, I’m sure there’ll be something soon.”
“Well,” Vi said, not turning away, hoping she’d somehow be taken
on as a desperate case and her problem solved, even when the frazzled
woman moved off to busy herself with other things and avoid Vi’s eyes.
Vi looked around. Something calming and bounteous about the place,
a couple of oil portraits, old lady benefactors Vi guessed, the wicker
furniture and the bookshelves. They had a gymnasium, just for the
women! Vi thought she could live here forever. But she couldn’t just
hangdog it here in front of the desk, it wasn’t going to work.
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 87
Turning to look for a solution she saw a woman seated in the lobby
regarding her intently, who then raised two fingers to summon her. Vi,
with a glance at the receptionist’s back, went to where the woman sat,
a pretty plump brunette Vi’s age.
“I know you need a place,” she said to Vi in a hurried undertone.
“Look, you can stay in my spot. I work the late shift, and you can have
the bed till I get back.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They don’t like us doing that, though, so you know, mum’s
the word.”
Closer to her now, Vi saw that the girl’s eyebrows were carefully
plucked and redrawn, like a movie star’s, and her makeup done with
care.
“Okay?” she said.
“Oh. Yes,” Vi said. “Yes, sure, thanks so much. My name’s
Violet.”
“Terry,” said the girl, and held out a hand, limply ladylike, but the
nails short and what seemed to be small burns on thumb and knuckle.
“It’s 302 upstairs. Just go around and down to the gym, then up the
back stairs from there.”
“Okay.”
“See you in a bit. They won’t mind if you rest here. Read a maga-
zine, something.”
“Okay.”
She was gone. Vi watched the seams on her stockings flash: where’d
she get those? Then carelessly she drifted through the lobby, picked up
a paper, sat down out of sight of the desk. Women came and went, yak-
king and laughing and calling to one another, some in work clothes
and boots or saddle shoes, some in dresses and hats, some toting lunch
pails or toolboxes. After a while she got up and followed the sign down
to the overheated gym, which was empty except for a couple of large
women on stationary bicycles; Vi could hear the echoey splash of the
pool and smell chlorine. Then up the narrow back stairs to knock at
the door of 302.
The room was tiny, a narrow bed, a little dresser with a mirror, a
white curtain in a window that looked out at nothing. Terry was redo-
ing her makeup, getting ready to go, she said. She did her lips with a
88 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
dark lipstick, not the stick itself but a brush she wiped across the
obscene little red tip poking from the cartridge. Vi asked her what
work she did.
“Welding,” she said. She named the shipyard, famous for its speed,
a great tycoon had streamlined the works, they called him Sir Launch-
alot in the papers. Terry plucked a sheet out of a box of Lucky tissues
and pressed her lips on it. “Where you going?”
Vi took from her bag the form she’d been given and read the name.
“Hey, that one’s out on the island,” Terry said into the tiny mirror.
“You’ll have to take the ferry out.”
“That’s what they said,” Vi said.
“Why’d you pick that one?”
“Well,” Vi said, feeling Shirley in the room too, wondering too, “I
guess because they said they have a softball league. I thought I could
play.”
Terry looked at her without judgment but conveying clearly that Vi
was a greenhorn and didn’t know the basics. “They all have softball
leagues,” she said. “And bowling leagues and glee clubs and theatri-
cals. Anything you want. Anything to make you happy.”
Vi said nothing, afraid that if she asked further she’d find out she’d
made a dumb mistake.
“You play softball?” Terry said kindly. “You like it?”
“Yes.” Vi decided to make the claim for herself, not be shy. “I played
on a good team in high school. WPA built the town a diamond and
stands. We were all-state, 1935. I played at normal school too for one
year.”
“Well.” Terry looked at her and nodded, smiling, as though a child
had told her of some little accomplishment. “Real teams.”
“My brothers were stars. Baseball. It was all they cared about. They
taught me. I’m good.” She tried to say it plainly, as though she’d said
I’m tall. “Anyway it would be fun to play. I thought.”
“Sure,” Terry said, popping her lipstick into an alligator bag. “Let
me tell you how you get out there tomorrow, okay?”
How many stories she had read of people on journeys—there was
Kidnapped and there was Alice in Wonderland and Pinocchio and so
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 89
many more—and in them the one who’s on the journey meets persons,
one after the other, who either help or hurt him—sometimes seeming
to offer help but then turning on him, sometimes gruff or rejecting but
then kind underneath. Some of them seem to know a secret about the
traveler, or to want something from him. That’s how the story pro-
ceeds: sometimes going from bad to good, sometimes bad to worse