Shattered Glass Read online

  “Joe, you need—”

  “Antoinette! I ain’t never hit a woman in all my born days, but I’m willing to make an exception, right here, right now.”

  We smiled at each other. There wasn’t a day that went by that Joe wouldn’t threaten me with that exact same line, several times an hour.

  “Yes, boss.”

  He flagged down the Greyhound.

  The bus rolled to a stop, kicking up dust and gravel. The door opened with a mighty wheeze. “Joe, I’m…” I threw myself at him. I was going to disintegrate.

  “Shhh. Remember, the sun’s shining, girl. No tears.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, Joe. I promise.” I turned my back on him as soon as I kissed his grizzled cheek.

  I paid my fare, collected the change and made my way to the nearest empty seat. I did not look out the window. I did not look back. I stared at the back of the seat right in front of me. And still it didn’t matter. The new me was going to be smart and fearless and sassy, but the old me didn’t stop crying until we got to Toronto.

  “Walk On By”

  (DIONNE WARWICK)

  AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN in a seat down and across the aisle from me offered up a clean white handkerchief. “Keep it,” he said before returning to his seat. I didn’t even say thank you. I seemed to be incapable of thanking anybody for anything. Mrs. Hazelton would have been mortified. I was mortified. Twenty minutes away from the orphanage and my manners were already shredded.

  Even I knew my reaction to leaving didn’t make any kind of sense. I had plotted and dreamed about getting away from the orphanage and all its rules and isolation for forever. Most of the others dreamed about finding their true mothers, who would, of course, be impossibly glamorous women who had somehow misplaced their offspring. The Seven would trace and weave convoluted stories to explain away the sins of their parents. I’d weave with them some of the time, even though I knew my mother was a monster and the last person in the world I’d want to find if she was still breathing. In my dreams, she had hurt me badly. Dreams or memory? Either way, I was not interested in finding her.

  So I’d fake it, pretend to get all moony and emotional along with the others. Ya goes along to get along, as Joe would say. But I’d never do it again. I wouldn’t have to. I didn’t care about the story of my parents. Did I? No. They hurt me. They left me. Period.

  Three lousy pieces of paper. It figured.

  When we were really little, Betty would get going with her favorite fantasies. She’d build elaborate stories about how we’d for sure get adopted by the same loving family and grow up as sisters with everyone admiring us. I knew better. My body was heavily scarred. No decent family would want me. I didn’t want me. Most of the marks were barely visible now. Only the faintest ice-pink ridges stained my shoulders, neck, arms and part of my torso. When my mind was clean and free of fear, I saw that. When it wasn’t, I was that little girl again, the one covered in scars inflicted by her mother.

  My fantasy had been to leave, to get away from the orphanage. But on that bus, as I blubbered into that man’s hanky, I would have sold my soul to be right back there at the orphanage, back with Mrs. Hazelton, with the Seven and with Joe.

  A man never knows what he wants until he loses it. It was another one of Joe’s sayings. Joe had a million of them. Most of them were eyeball rollers, but every so often he nailed it like spit.

  With a shock, I realized that the bus must have stopped. People were getting up and fetching their things from the overhead bins. I stopped sniffling and quickly opened up a small note that Joe had folded into his five-dollar bill. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read it earlier. I didn’t even know that Joe could write. As it turned out, he could and he couldn’t.

  You go strait to the Dundas subway stayshun. I have talked to you about the subways many times. Pay your fair and go till the Bloor stop. You can walk to Yorkville from their. Ask some nice lady how. Theirs lots of rooms to rent and lots of cafes their to. Get a job in one. Write as soon as your settled.

  Yes, Joe, okay, I thought. I’ll be okay. I clutched the piece of paper. There wasn’t a moment to linger. Everyone was already up and off the bus. I grabbed my bag and stepped into pandemonium.

  The entire city of Toronto must have been in that terminal. There was row upon slanted row of Greyhound buses, like a herd of behemoths both disgorging and swallowing people at an alarming rate. The newly ejected headed to a large hall, and I fell into their swirling mass. It was worse inside. Aside from the snaking lines of people who were waiting to purchase tickets, there were people shouting and screaming all around me. Some were crying because they were leaving, but most seemed to be crying because they had been reunited with their people.

  They had folks waiting on them.

  Millions of people were crowded into that vast cavern of a place, yet I’d never felt so alone in my life. Joe would have said, “Get your girdle on, girl!” That meant to stand up straight and face what you had to face. I tried. I failed. I mean, how was I supposed to even find the Dundas subway?

  A man came up to me. “Hey, little chickie, lost your way?” He was pleasant-looking and very finely groomed, but he was a man.

  I froze.

  All the adults had warned me off speaking to strange men. But then again, since when did I pay 100 percent attention to what the adults told me to do?

  He walked all the way around me. “You look Irish, black Irish. There’s a call for that, pretty girl like you. Fresh out of the convent, are you?”

  Convent? Did I look like a nun in Peggy’s billowing uniform? I felt heat rising to my face, but I held my tongue.

  “Looks like you could be a dancer under all of that. Would you like that? Ever heard of Zanzibar’s, Irish? It’s famous—ask anyone. I’m like an agent. Can you dance?”

  Could I dance? How could he tell? I loved to dance! Should I show him? When I danced, I forgot who I was or wasn’t. I’d danced to Top 40 tunes while peeling potatoes, scrubbing pots and stirring oatmeal. Joe would show me moves. Nobody moved like Joe. He’d show me and then I’d show the Seven later when we were supposed to be asleep.

  I could be a dancer? Wait, did he say I was pretty?

  Stop. He was a man and he was talking and this was a bus depot. Everyone had been very clear on that point. But to be a dancer…

  “Maybe you’re one of them Mennonites, Irish. If you can’t dance, they’ll teach you. The main thing is, you got the look, if you know what I mean.”

  What look? Sweat gathered under the braid on my neck and then began to dribble down into Peggy’s underthings.

  “Cat got your tongue, Irish?” He reached for my arm.

  “Leave her be, jerk, or I’ll call the cops.” It was a girl—no, a woman, but a young one. She stepped right on over to him bold as brass. Even more shocking was the way she was dressed. I’d never seen anyone who looked like that. Her skirt was shorter than the shirt I wore under Peggy’s uniform! There were no pleats on it; it was just a piece of fabric stretched across her thighs. Her knees were showing! The skirt, such as it was, had bold, thick stripes in colors that God never intended to go together. She wore this floaty orange blouse, and she was all done up like the photographs pasted on the storefront at Stella’s Beauty Emporium back home. “Beat it!” she snarled.

  Well, the man didn’t beat anything, but he did disappear into the crowd.

  As soon as she’d chased him off, she turned to me. “What a creep! You okay?”

  Instead of answering or thanking her, I blurted out, “Gosh, you’re beautiful!” And gosh, I sounded like an idiot.

  “I’ll tell my boyfriend you said so when I see him in Simcoe.” At least she didn’t laugh at me. “Do you know where you’re going? Kids like you come through here all the time and…it’s best if you’ve got somewhere to go.”

  “Oh yes.” I showed her Joe’s note and then became embarrassed for both him and me at the same time. “His spelling’s a bit off.”

  She glan
ced at her watch. “Okay. Come on, I’ll point you in the right direction. I don’t want you to get confused down there. The Dundas station is yellow and so is Bloor. There are other colors in between. He’s right about getting a place in Yorkville; it’s going to be a happening place.” We walked a block or two and then she pointed me to stairs that led underground. “You’ll see a map and a place to pay your fare. Have a gas!” she said before melting back into the crowd.

  “Thank you!”

  I barely survived the whoosh of the subway trip. It felt like a rocket ship. Nobody else seemed to be worried, so I tried hard to button myself down. I examined my fellow astronauts. I saw another girl dressed sort of like my bus-depot savior, and another older lady who was actually wearing purple pants with a jacket to match. Other ladies wore very fitted dresses that flared out at the hips in a dizzying array of patterns and colors. The men, too, those not in suits, wore pullovers and shirts in every shade under the sun. Well, if nothing else, Toronto sure was a colorful place. This would be fine. I would be fine. Better than fine. Except my hands trembled so much that I gripped my bag tighter still.

  Surely anyone would find the subway a terrifying experience. I mean, it was underground, for heaven’s sake! What if you had to get off? What if you missed your stop? What if it halted in one of the never-ending tunnels? What if there was a stampede to get off? I swear, there were more people in this one subway car than there were in the entire town of Hope.

  This would be fine. I would be fine. Better than fine.

  Between the sheer speed of the subway and my taking in the things people wore and repeating my mantra, I did almost miss my stop. I emerged on Bloor, blinded by sunlight. I had to ask a number of ladies to direct me to Yorkville. They were mostly helpful, but I’d get myself turned around by the blocks and the sheer number of people around me within minutes of each set of directions.

  When I finally found Yorkville Avenue, it was almost four o’clock. Tea and toast with Mrs. Hazelton seemed like a lifetime ago. I knocked on every door that had a Room to Let sign. There were lots and lots of signs, but I was turned away again and again. I don’t truck in runaways, they’d say as they shut the door in my face before I had a chance to explain. Even though the houses were a bit shabby and run-down in a squished-together-tight kind of way, the actual street was a party. All sorts of people milled around or sat in groups on the stoops, laughing. Still, when the sixth door slammed in my face, it shook me to the core. Fear crawled in with the hunger, and they both grumbled ominously in my stomach.

  I’ll be fine…The seventh door slammed. What would Joe tell me to do? Use that thick smart head of yours, girl. The eighth door didn’t even open, but I saw a lady peeking out of her lace curtains. She shooed me away with her hand.

  I finally wised up by the ninth place. It was on Hazelton Avenue, as if Mrs. Hazelton had a whole street named after her. It had to be a good omen. I inhaled as I knocked on number 75. The freshly painted cherry-red door cracked open just as far as the chain lock would allow.

  “Yeah?”

  “Good afternoon, ma’am. I’m not a runaway and I have-money. I’m here about the room.”

  The door opened—I mean, all the way—and holy smoke, it was like Marilyn Monroe was on the other side. The woman wore a very tight black dress that scooped down rather shamelessly in the front. A cigarette hung from the reddest lips I’d ever seen. Bar none, she was the most glamorous woman in the world. What a city!

  “You got some ID, kid?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Maybe. It’s possible. What is that?”

  “Identification.” She started to close the door.

  To have come so close…“Wait. Please!” I opened my little carpetbag and riffled through the manila envelope until I found the release form, still proudly sporting the raspberry-jam stain. I handed it to her.

  “Geez, kid, you’re an orphan?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But the orphanage burned down. I’m here to find a job, maybe in a café, and, well, maybe my family too.”

  Was I? Wow, I was. Yeah, I was. I came to know it by saying it. If I was going to find the real me, I’d have to find out where the real me came from, right? I don’t know, it just felt like the right thing to say.

  “The orphanage burned down? Holy Hannah, you sure you’re not starring in a movie?”

  “Ma’am?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Okay, okay. I know I’m going to regret this, but come on in, Orphan Annie. I want two weeks rent up front. I get paid every week on the Sunday and not a day later, hear?”

  “Toni.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s Orphan Toni, ma’am. Antoinette Royce.” Royce. It was the first time I had used my newfound surname. It felt like I was wearing somebody else’s clothes, which, when you think about it, I was.

  “Ha!” She slapped me on the back. “Well, welcome to Toronto, Orphan Toni.”

  I shuffled into a narrow hallway with a very ornate but equally narrow staircase. A gigantic crystal ashtray decorated the top of a covered radiator. “Your room is at the top of the stairs. It’s the biggest and the prettiest room, but don’t get all excited—it’s also the hottest in the summer and coldest in the winter.” My new landlady stubbed out one lipstick-stained cigarette and quickly lit another, with an intricate gold lighter. “It’s five dollars a week, fully furnished. Bathroom’s on the second floor, and you only have to share it with the professor. He’s my only other tenant.”

  I think that was supposed to be my cue to exclaim how wonderful it sounded. But I was too hungry, too relieved and too bone weary to do so. When I didn’t say anything, she narrowed her eyes. “You do your own tidying and linen laundry though. I don’t look like a cleaning lady, do I?”

  “No, ma’am, you look like a movie star.”

  My landlady patted white-blond hair that did not budge in the patting. “Everybody says that.” But she appeared to be pleased with me again. “My name’s Grady.” She removed a key from a key ring that was hanging on the wall. “Go on, check it out. I’ll be up to collect the rent in a minute, and I’ll show you the ropes.”

  Three long flights later, I turned the key in the door to my room.

  Wow. It was huge. The ceiling slanted down in places, but the room was full of light and the wallpaper had a cheerful paisley pattern. It was almost as perfect as Mrs. Hazelton’s bathroom. No, it was more perfect. It was mine. There was a cast-iron bed covered in a patchwork quilt, a nightstand with a lamp, and a bureau with an actual mirror on it. In the corner farthest away from the window there was a little sink with a bit of a counter right beside it. A hot plate stood on it, with a small pot beckoning to me. I couldn’t remember ever being hungrier. The rafters and wallpaper swirled as I dropped my bag. I’d lived a lifetime in the past twenty-four hours. The fire, the river, Mrs. Hazelton’s envelope, sneaking away from the Seven, the bus ride, the strange man at the depot, the subway and finally this. I had made it. I lay down, in Peggy’s clothes and all. I didn’t even know—or care—what else was in the bag. I just lay down. There was time.

  I had made it.

  “Needles and Pins”

  (THE SEARCHERS)

  MY LANDLADY’S FULL name was Mrs. Grady Eleanor Vespucci. “The Eleanor is silent—remember that. The rest is Italian and Irish, or, in other words, wop and mick stuck together, and a deadlier combo was never born and should never have married, I might add. Sit, sit.” She waved at a beautifully carved chesterfield. “When I came upstairs last evening, you were passed out cold. So I thought, what the hell, eh, and here we are now.”

  Mrs. Vespucci was “entertaining” me in her front parlor. She kept reminding me that this wasn’t going to be a regular occurrence. “Don’t get used to it, kid.” Tea and toast. Again. Even though my head was spinning with the newness of it all, I remembered to come down with my rent money and to stay away from the jam.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” she said, eyeing my now-wrinkled uniform, “but is t
hat all you got to wear?” It was like Peggy’s uniform was a personal affront of some kind. “Look, the coffeehouses aren’t bars—they don’t have liquor licenses—but still, they got their standards.”

  “I have other items, ma’am. I have another white shirt and two more sets of essential, um, underthings. I have soap, a hairbrush and a toothbrush, an extra pair of knee socks, paper and pens, ribbons for my hair, needles and pins, and, you know, some private personal care items.” I knew I was blushing.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.” She squinted at me, hard. “It’s like you’re straight out of Dickens.”

  I adored Charles Dickens and all his splendid novels. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  My landlady rolled her eyes. “You got to quit ma’aming all over the place. Makes me feel old. Call me Grady.”

  I had another piece of toast, and Grady lit another cigarette. Her lipstick was shocking pink today. She kept eyeing my uniform. “Look, you said you want a job in one of the cafés, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you’re a bright thing, so you must have noticed that people here dress a little different.”

  I nodded again, remembering my depot savior and the ladies in the subway. “Oh yes, it’s quite wonderful! Like what you’re wearing.” Grady had on a pale-blue taffeta shirtdress with a wide, shiny black belt cinched in tight at the waist.

  “Thank you,” she said, smoothing the skirt. “It’s practically couture.”

  I nodded again. I didn’t understand half the things these city people said.

  “Look, sweetie, I know your money has got to be tight and all, but you’re not going to get a job in the Purple Onion looking like an underage Quaker. Do you sew?”

  I shook my head. Dot and Sara and Tess were the ones who sewed, and Dot had real talent. Where was she now? Where were Betty and Malou and…? My eyes stung.

  Wait, what was the Purple Onion?