Strings Attached

Fourteen



New York City

November 1950



On Monday afternoon I met Hank in the lobby and we took the stairs down to the basement of the building. I stepped into a big room with a painted concrete floor. I followed him past the washing machines and into another room of storage areas separated by chain-link fences. Each apartment had its own space.

Hank went to the storage unit for 2A. He fitted a key into a padlock on one of the doors and pushed it open. Inside were cardboard boxes, a bicycle, and an overturned chair with stuffing popping out of the seat. The skates were balanced on top of a cardboard box.

“This is where we come when they drop the Bomb, I guess,” he said. “We’re supposed to duck and cover with the baby carriages and the bicycles.”

“Hey, don’t forget ice skates and catcher’s mitts.”

He picked up skates. “Will these fit?”

He waited while I tried them on. I wouldn’t call Hank’s mother and me a perfect fit, but her skates would do.

We took the crosstown bus to Rockefeller Center. Hank bought tickets and we laced up our skates. Hank took off quickly, and I stepped cautiously out on the ice. It looked so easy, but as soon as my feet hit the ice they slid out from underneath me and I fell backward with a whoop.

Hank circled and skated back to me. “Oh. You really don’t know.”

“You think I was lying?” I shook my head, laughing.

He held out his gloved hand, and I placed mine in it. “Come on, I’ll hold you up.”

We made a slow circuit of the rink. After a few turns I understood the rhythm of the motion, how to push off, how to glide instead of taking staccato steps. I let go of Hank’s hand.

We went round and round, not talking, smiling at everything and nothing — the little girl in the plaid coat, the older couple holding hands in their thick gloves. The music was playing, and people were laughing, and it seemed as though that golden Greek god posing so magnificently behind us was the still center of a quickly spinning world.

“I hope you get the part,” Hank said. “You were right — I am falling asleep in Science class.”

I laughed, and I heard it ring out into the cold air, a crack of happiness. I felt at that moment that things were just about to change. I’d get the part, I’d find another place to live. I would be free of all debts.

I tilted my head back as we skated, looking at all the people lining the railing looking down at us, no doubt wishing they were skating, too.

A soldier leaned against the railing. He had a camera in front of his face and he was aiming it at the rink. It looked like he was aiming it at me.

The toe of my skate locked in the ice, pitching me forward. Hank saved me from falling. When I looked back up at the railing, the soldier was gone. Could it have been Billy? That would be crazy — how could he find me in the middle of Manhattan?

“Tired?” Hank asked, and I nodded. “It’s not too late; we could get a hot chocolate.”

But I wasn’t feeling carefree anymore. My mind couldn’t hold the blue sky, the sound of the blades against the ice, the pleasure of my body moving in a new way. My heart had seized up like an engine, just because I’d glimpsed, for one second, someone who looked like Billy. “I can’t. This has been lovely, Hank, really, but — I really have to go.”

We skated off the rink, bumping onto the rubber matting. Hank awkwardly made his way on his skates inside to retrieve our shoes, and I sank onto a bench. I tore off my gloves with my teeth and went to work on my laces.

“Need some help?”

I looked up and there he was. All my breath went out in a rush. He seemed so much older in his uniform, with his new short haircut.

“How did you find me? When did you get here?” I tried to stand, awkwardly, with one skate unlaced, and I had to grab both of his hands to stay upright. Skin against skin, the hard feel of his cold fingers, the look of his mouth — it all sent a charge through my body, and it was all I could do not to throw my arms around him. I wanted to — why didn’t I?

His face changed a bit. I saw how he’d hoped that I would, but he wouldn’t push me. We were somewhere between sweethearts and friends now. “I went by your place, and you weren’t home, so I waited for a while. I saw your upstairs neighbor and she told me where to find you. You cut your hair.”

“I just did it. You don’t like it.”

“Your beautiful hair. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s still me,” I said.

“Kit, I have your shoes.”

Hank. I had forgotten Hank.

I twisted, almost losing my balance again. Billy dropped one hand and put his arm around me to steady me, then kept it there.

In all my imagined meetings with Billy, I had never imagined being this unprepared.

“Billy, this is my neighbor, Hank. Hank, this is Billy. Someone from home.” I babbled out the introduction. I didn’t say boyfriend because he wasn’t anymore. I wasn’t sure what he was.

“Glad to meet you,” Hank said.

“I think I can handle it from here,” Billy replied, taking my shoes from Hank. “Nice meeting you.”

His voice was cordial but I could see how flattened Hank was.

“Billy,” I said. “Hank and I came together. We can all walk back together.”

“Sure, let’s do that,” Billy said. He knelt down to take off my skates. He lifted out my foot and cradled it in his lap. Hank stared down at Billy’s hand on my foot.

“No, I — I have someplace to go first,” Hank said. “An errand. I forgot. I’ll see you later, Kit.” Hank took his mother’s skates and swiftly knotted them together and slung them over his other shoulder. “Bye.” He turned abruptly and threaded through the crowd, the skates bumping hard against his back.

“Sorry about that,” Billy said. “He seems like a nice kid, but after all, I’ve traveled on a bus for a million hours to spend time with you.”

When I stood up, my steps were uncertain, as though I were wearing lifts in my shoes. I could feel the air between the soles of my feet and the ground. It was like something important had altered, like gravity, or the air itself.