He said: I’d stand in line to take you out to dinner. Dinner and a show, show and a dinner. Whatever you want, whatever order. You’re in charge, Mazie.
I had no excuse not to, except maybe then I’ll have to tell him the truth about what happened. But I told him I’d meet him tomorrow.
When I got home I told Rosie she’d have to stead me the next night at the theater. She can’t deny me a thing right now.
Mazie’s Diary, May 2, 1919
What a night! I can’t figure out if I should have seen it coming or not. If I should blame myself for not knowing what was going on in my own home.
I met the Captain on the corner by the theater, far out of Rosie’s sight. We walked together to Little Italy. I didn’t put my arm through his at first, but I did let him make me laugh. He took me to the Blue Grotto. I ate one of his meatballs. I nearly let him feed it to me, but then I took the fork from his hand. It felt too close, too fast. I liked how nervous he was. I was wearing my fuschia-colored silk dress I bought on Division Street last spring before I’d met him, before anything sad had happened. He tried hard not to stare down the front of it. After dinner he held my hand to his face. He wanted me to touch him. We could have been in love for all anyone knew.
I thought about telling him the truth, but I didn’t know if he would care or not. He never saw my belly grow. He never held my hair back when I was sick in the mornings. He didn’t bring me gumdrops from the candy shop when that was all I craved. That was Rosie, that was Jeanie. He didn’t know about any of it. He didn’t weep like a child, weep for me when I couldn’t. That was Louis.
What did he have to do with any of it?
So I decided to pretend it was the first time all over again. I pretended I was just a flirt, a good-time girl. It’s not a lie, anyway. I switched over. I felt myself doing it. I let myself be that person for the night. And it was a relief.
After dinner, we walked to the Thalia Theater. I’d been meaning to see Belle’s show that we’d lost Jeanie to these past months, and it was closing night. Belle’s leaving town, headlining her own national tour. I wanted the Captain to know that I was connected to a famous person. Oh how I wanted him to love me.
The show had already started. The theater was dark except for a light on the stage. A skinny magician was dangling silver hoops from his fingertips. There was a haze of smoke. The Captain pulled out a flask from his pocket.
He said: A little treat for you and me.
The tang of it was delicious. He put his hand on my knee, and it felt like it was supposed to be there, so I let it stay. I was dizzy with whiskey. Flames and fuel.
Next up were three tap-dancing sisters from Philly. It made me smile, thinking of me and Rosie and Jeanie, how we used to be thick as thieves, the Phillips girls. I started to forget for a second that our lives weren’t perfect, that no tragedy had struck or would ever strike, and that we had everything we needed. Just as long as this man in uniform sitting next to me kept handing me his flask with one hand and tickling my knee with the other. As long as we didn’t move, everything would be divine forever.
Then there was a tipsy juggler who kept dropping his pins, and then a comedian telling dirty jokes that didn’t make either of us blush. The Captain’s arm was draped around the side of me then, and then his other hand was clasped in mine. It was so comforting to be touched. I took another sip from the flask. The sting in the back of my throat was as perfect a pain as a girl could hope for.
The curtain opened again. Two white-blond men dressed in white sailor suits came out into the spotlight, a woman in a fluttery white gown hoisted on their fingertips. They threw her up in the air, and she spun in a circle once, twice, three times, her dress whirling all around her, and then she landed again in their hands. It was a goddamn sight. We all burst into applause.
The men lowered the dancer to the ground and spun her around again on her toes, passing her from one to another, the men spreading out farther apart on the floor. Eventually she was just whirling around everywhere. I worried she might pass out, but just when I thought she couldn’t take it anymore, one of the men stopped her spinning and dipped her backward. The dancer’s dark hair was wrapped up in a braid around her head, and her lips were brighter red than mine, but she looked like me. I rubbed my eyes and leaned forward in my seat. Well, I knew it wasn’t me. It was Jeanie.
I watched the men flip her, back across back, to the next man. They tossed her through the air like she was nothing. I had seen her practice her ballet moves a thousand times but never knew she could move like this. Oh god, I thought. She’s free. And there’s no way she’s coming home.
I couldn’t spend the night with the Captain after that. I was too shocked. I asked him to walk me home instead. I kissed him only on the cheek. He grabbed me firmly at the end. He told me he’d be up late if I changed my mind.
He whispered in my ear: Why?
I didn’t know him well enough to tell him the truth, and what would I have said anyway? My sister’s a liar. And I am too.
George Flicker
If Mazie was the wild sister, then Jeanie was the free one. I couldn’t forget either of them if I tried.
Mazie’s Diary, May 5, 1919
It’s been three days since we’ve seen her now.
Rosie says: Where’s Jeanie?
Louis says: Where’s Jeanie?
Ethan says: Where’s Jeanie?
No one knows. But me.
Part Two. Surf Avenue
4. Excerpt from the unpublished autobiography of Mazie Phillips-Gordon
So many of these lads came from chaos and tragedy. They didn’t have a fair start in life. Your heart would have to be made of granite not to feel something for them, give them a nickel or a dime after you hear a story or two. Families who didn’t care about them or beat them. Nothing to hold on to but the bottle. I never realized I was one of the lucky ones, having a family who loved like mine did. Maybe they held on too tightly, but they never let me fall into the gutter.
Mazie’s Diary, November 15, 1919
I haven’t written in all this time. We packed, we moved, we left Grand Street behind. Rosie said living by the ocean would heal us all. But what does she know about getting well?
And then I lost you in the move and it felt like I lost my life. All the things that happened till now, I’m not sure they were real unless I wrote them down. You held all the secrets. You’re the most precious thing I own. I didn’t know it till I lost you. I didn’t know it till I found you.
You were in that last box, sealed off in Rosie’s closet. I didn’t know the box was in there and I didn’t dare tell Rosie I was looking for you. I didn’t want her to know all my secrets were kept in one place. But yesterday Louis was taking us to the track, and he told us both to get dolled up. We were looking for a pair of Rosie’s high-heeled shoes for me to wear. They were midnight blue, and had an open toe and a heart-shaped jewel in the center. I remembered once I had worn them and felt like I was walking in the sky, alongside the stars. I kept on Rosie about them and finally she said she’d hunt them down. No one had seen them since we moved to Surf Avenue. Another treasure lost with the move. I was thinking about how we were leaving a trail behind us of our favorite things. Rosie was on her knees, digging through her closet. She ripped open the box with her bare hands, and there you were.
Rosie said: What’s this?
I snatched at it, and she clutched it to herself, over her heart.
I said: It’s mine. Give it now.
Rosie said: Still with this old thing?
I said: Why don’t you worry about your own business?
She looked down at her hands. I was waiting for her to say one of a million things. You’re my business, is what I was waiting for her to say. But she didn’t.
She said: You’re right. It’s yours.
Our blood barely stirred in us, no yelling, no fighting. That’s the way it’s been for months. I feel sorry for her, losing Jeanie like that. She feels sorry for me, losing the baby. She thinks I’ll never have love in my life. I can see it on her face. I never minded her pity before if it meant she would leave me alone. But some days I miss the spark of it. Fighting meant we were both still alive. Now I’m not so sure.
Still, she has her claws in me in one way. And Louis too. She makes Louis drive me to work and pick me up every damn day. I go from house to car to cage, then back again. No room to move. No shot at freedom.
Elio Ferrante, history teacher,