The Boston Girl(23)
Eventually I gave in and Miss Chevalier put us down for July.
Levine said of course I could have a week off and for the first time since Celia’s shiva, he came to the apartment and told Mameh and Papa that because I was such a good worker he was sending me on a vacation. Whatever else he was, my brother-in-law was a mensch.
I couldn’t be one hundred percent happy about going to Rockport Lodge because of its connection to Harold Weeks and what happened because of him. But it would be good to get away from the disappointment on my parents’ faces whenever the door opened and it was me who walked in and not Celia.
We took the train this time—cheaper than the boat. And the minute I stepped onto the Rockport station platform, smelled the air, and felt the sun on my face, it was like waking up from a bad dream.
We got to the lodge, and I loved how everything looked the same: the blue plates, the dust on the parlor chairs, the white curtains on all the windows. Mrs. Morse was just as wide as I remembered and there was still butter on the table for every meal.
Filomena and I had a room to ourselves again, which was wonderful. When we were putting our things away—this time I had extra clothes and even a valise—she said, “I want to ask you for a favor.”
I said, “I’ll think about it,” as if I wouldn’t have jumped off a cliff if she asked me.
Miss Green had given her a letter of introduction to an artist who had a summer place nearby. “I was thinking of going tomorrow when the others are at church. She lives on Old Garden Road.”
That was the street with all the mansions. I said, “Try and stop me.”
We walked up and down the block looking for the number on the envelope until Filomena lost her nerve. “Maybe it’s the wrong address,” she said. “It’s probably too early to call, and anyway this woman probably went to some fancy New York art school and thinks I’m just someone who paints flowers on china plates like an old lady with no talent and nothing better to do.”
But I found the house. It was hard to see from the road because you had to climb down a set of steep granite steps on the bluff facing the water. It was nothing like the fancy castles on the other side of the street. It was small and covered with unpainted gray wood shingles, which you only saw on fishing shacks in those days. The door was painted bright red—Filomena called it Chinese red—and it was wide open.
We could see inside all the way through to a wall made of windows, with a glass door and a little balcony that looked like it was floating over the water. The walls were bright yellow and there were wooden beams on the ceiling that a not-too-tall man could reach up and touch. Very artistique.
Filomena knocked a few times and when nobody answered, she said, “Let’s go.” But I was dying to see what kind of person lived in a place like that, so I hollered, “Anybody home?” A woman answered right back, “Come in, come in, come in,” like she was singing a song.
I almost laughed when I saw her, because she was practically a cartoon of a flapper. Her eyes were smudged with kohl and her hair was short and wet, which made her look like a seal. Her toenails were painted a weird shade of orange and she was wearing a man’s sleeveless undershirt and a pair of trousers rolled up over her knees. I thought she might be about Filomena’s age.
“Sorry I’m such a mess,” she said. “But who are you?”
I said I was Addie Baum and this was Filomena Gallinelli.
“Filomena?” she said. “What a spectacular name. I’m Leslie Parker but I’m trying to get people to call me Lulu.”
Filomena handed her the letter. “You met my teacher, Edith Green, in New York last summer and made her promise that I’d call on you when I was in Rockport.”
Leslie wrinkled her nose. “Edith Green? Can’t place her.”
“You were talking about glazes.”
She remembered: “Oh, the lady potter! But look at us standing around like a bunch of horses. Sit down, sit down.” She waved us toward the couch and stared at us with smudgy raccoon eyes and asked me if I was a potter, too.
Filomena said no, that I was staying at the lodge with her.
“Did you bring her along for protection in case I was some kind of crank? And I suppose I am. But why don’t you tell me all about yourselves: your work, your love life.”
I had never seen Filomena act so stiff or talk so formally. “I work with Miss Green in the Salem Street Pottery. Miss Green is an instructor at the Museum of Fine Arts school and a published illustrator of books for children.”
“I remember her perfectly,” Leslie cried. “She works in the style of William Morris, n’est-ce pas? Arts and Crafts. Very sweet, but I’m really crazy about African ceramics. The masks, and those figurines: shocking, don’t you think?”
I could almost see smoke coming out of Filomena’s ears—not that Leslie noticed. She was digging through a pile of magazines and papers on the coffee table. “Thank God,” she said, holding up a pack of cigarettes. “Addie, dear, do you see my lighter anywhere?”
It was still unusual for women to smoke in those days, at least for any of the women I knew, so I asked if her family minded about the cigarettes.
Leslie answered as if being an orphan was a little detail, like losing her keys. “My parents died when I was a baby. My uncle has taken care of me ever since; wonderful man and devoted to me. He’ll be back next week.