It was near the end of the season for the pleasure boats that went up and down the Hudson. The men with whom Minnie had spent her summer evenings—the college boys and idle wealthy who took Catskill as their leisure grounds in July and August—had all retreated back to the city, to campuses and offices by day and theaters by night, forgetting all about their afternoons of lawn croquet and evenings with the local girls along the boardwalk. There was no one left, really, but the boys who worked on board the boats, and soon they would vanish, too, before the winter’s ice made the Hudson impassable.
She’d seen Tony before but had never spoken to him. He was older than her, and a natty dresser (the striped vest and red tie was a uniform, as he worked at the card tables, but she thought he made the most of it). He seemed to prefer the company of the steamboat’s crew to the locals who wandered the boardwalk, and as such had not shown any interest in her.
But that night, she saw him on deck by himself, just looking out idly over the river, and took a chance. “Do you know I’ve lived here my whole life,” she called, “and I’ve never set foot on one of these boats?”
He turned around and grinned at her. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
He had an easygoing voice that Minnie couldn’t resist. A friendly man, bestowing the bright light of his attention on her, could suffuse Minnie with a feeling of contentment that she so rarely knew any other time. It filled a certain hollowness inside of her and lifted her off the ground a few inches. She would live her whole life inside those moments if she could.
There was something substantial about this man, something in his shoulders and the line of his jaw, that made Minnie feel more solid herself. She gave her name with a little laugh and accepted his outstretched hand when she stepped on board. He took her around to see the red-carpeted card room and the restaurant with its white tablecloths and chandeliers. Then he introduced her to the captain, who touched the bill of his cap and bowed a little. It made her feel like a girl in a play. She didn’t ever want to stop feeling that way.
Then, all at once, it was time for the boat to leave, and Tony turned to take her back to the dock.
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be nice to take a little ride down the river?” she asked wistfully. “I’ve always wondered what it might be like.” She looked at him with all the longing that lived within her—longing for a new life, a new place, a new city, a new job, a new man. How could he resist?
He almost did resist, and perhaps he should have. Some kind of calculation hung in the air between them. With some reluctance he looked around at the empty saloon below-decks and said that there would be no harm in her riding along, and that she could get off at the next town and take the train back if she didn’t like it. She gave him a bright smile and kissed him on the cheek. He put his hand up to the place her lips had been as if he wasn’t sure what she’d just given him.
In a few minutes, the boat was set free of the dock, and she was watching Catskill grow smaller and smaller. That strange disassociated feeling of being a girl in a play grew even stronger. The curtain had risen on the rest of her life. A scene was in motion, and Minnie was at the center of it.
The boat was bound for Manhattan. Minnie had never been, but she had plenty of romantic notions about it. Tony talked about the city in a way that made him sound like a man of the world: he knew all about the shops and the theaters and the lights in Times Square, and the all-night restaurants and the glittering dance halls. He said that the leaves on the trees in Central Park would be turning orange, and that from above, from some bejeweled rooftop at sunset, it would look like the city was on fire, but beautifully so.
Tony made the coming winter in New York City sound like an evening at the palace, with all the shop windows lit up in the snow, and fashionable girls ice-skating on the pond. There would be restaurants and Champagne. Minnie had never eaten at a real restaurant, much less tasted anything with bubbles in it beyond soda.
Tony wore a nice wool coat and a cashmere scarf. He was all wrapped up like a Christmas present. She wondered aloud how a girl might go about exploring New York City on her own, and Tony didn’t hesitate to offer to escort her around town. There was a delicious charge between them by that time. In Tony, Minnie saw the promise of a new life, freedom, a way out. What did Tony see in Minnie? The promise of a memorable night, at least. She could offer him that much.
As the boat drifted along, they sat below-decks and talked about the city, and where they might go first when they went ashore. She sat comfortably alongside him in one of the empty passenger lounges, with his coat over her legs. In the dim hours before morning, New York City rose up over the bow of the boat like a mirage, and she knew for certain that she had left home forever.
But she didn’t tell him that at first. She let him give her one perfect day in Manhattan. They saw the Menagerie in the park and the sheep grazing, and he bought her a warm roll and a packet of cheese from the little dairy. They rode in an open-air trolley downtown, which rolled slowly along but still didn’t leave enough time for Minnie to take it all in. At sundown they had dinner in one of the all-night restaurants on Broadway.
Still Tony didn’t know that she planned to turn that day into the rest of her life. He was ready to take her to the train station and send her home. By the time she arrived back in Catskill, she would’ve been gone a little over twenty-four hours. She’d be scolded if she told the truth and punished if she tried to lie, but Tony simply assumed that her parents would take her back, and that her life would go on as it had before.
When she told him that she wasn’t going home—“Wouldn’t you like me to stay a night?” was how she put it to him—he looked down at her with a little half-smile and thought about it for a minute, making another calculation. Then he said that she might as well come with him to the home of a distant cousin who lived down on Mott Street. He slept in a chair, and she took the only spare bed, but she went to him in the middle of the night, or perhaps he found his way to her bed, but one way or another, by morning they were something more than two strangers who’d run off to the city for a day.
Next came the delicate question of what Tony’s obligations toward her might be. Minnie wasn’t going home, but she hadn’t any other place to lay her head. She’d been hoping that Tony kept a little room somewhere and would let her stay for a week or two. She was surprised to learn that he lived in his parents’ basement in Fort Lee and worked in their restaurant during the winter until the steamboat hired him back on in the spring. He couldn’t very well bring Minnie home to live in the basement.