“But why? You know how they are.”
“They might read about the press conference in the paper. I want them to know that?—” She stopped herself, as she’d planned to go back to Catskill to tell them that the accusations against Minnie weren’t true. Instead she said, “I want them to know where you are, in case they’d like to write a letter.”
“They won’t.”
“If I can find someone who might take charge of you, I still have some hope of getting you released. Isn’t there anyone?”
“I told you before. There isn’t.”
“And what about this landlord who claims to have seen men going in and out of your room?”
Minnie felt something clutch at her insides. “What about him?”
“If I go and speak to your landlord,” she said, lowering her voice to match Minnie’s, “what will he tell me? Be honest, now.”
Minnie raced through the events of that night. At last, she could give an answer that was both true and useful. “He’ll tell you that he saw Tony’s brother there once.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“And why would Tony’s brother have been there?”
Minnie pressed her lips together. How many brothers did Tony have? She didn’t even know. Finally she said, “He came to speak to Tony. They were arguing over something. One of them owed the other money. I don’t even remember who started it.”
Constance watched her for a minute. Minnie could hardly stand the scrutiny.
“Well, I hope that’s all there is to it. I’ll speak to your landlord and make sure that’s his story. If it is, the prosecutor won’t have any evidence of . . . of that sort of wrongdoing to use against you. But, Minnie?—” Constance reached over and took the girl’s chin, forcing her to look up.
“I’m listening. You don’t have to make me look at you.”
“Are there any other witnesses? Anyone who might come forward and claim?—”
“No!”
Constance pressed on. “What I mean to say is this: Might the prosecutor find any of these men? Might he compel them to testify?”
Minnie had to think about that for a minute. How would anyone ever know?
“No. Anyway, why would they admit to it? Then they’d have to go to a reformatory.”
No, they wouldn’t.
Constance couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she knew it to be true. The nurse knocked at the door and Constance said, “Please, Minnie. Be a good girl. If you get any kind of a bad report while you’re in here?—”
“I won’t.”
Minnie clearly wasn’t in the mood for a sentimental good-bye. Constance brushed past the nurse and strode outside. Once she was free of the place, she practically ran for the train.
29
MINNIE HAD BEEN given a bed squarely in the middle of the dormitory, which meant that no matter which way she turned, a girl was eyeing her from the next bed. At last she rolled onto her stomach, pulled the blanket over her head, and tried, without success, to push away the memories of those last few weeks in Fort Lee when everything went wrong.
Could anyone blame her for being lonely? Even before Christmas, Tony had stopped coming around as much. She could see that he’d grown bored with her—and if she wanted to admit the truth, he’d probably lost interest after that first night. She knew as soon as she met him that Tony liked to have a good time with girls but wasn’t about to settle down with one.
Still, he did help her, by signing his name to the lease and passing her off as his wife. He came around often enough to make the story look plausible to their landlord, and carried the rent money downstairs himself once a month, even when he contributed so little to it. Apart from that, Tony showed little interest in taking up with Minnie on any sort of permanent basis.
What did that matter? There were other men. Minnie soon found that the Park Avenue boys who came up to Catskill for the summer weren’t any different from the dentists and lawyers of Fort Lee. They just wanted a little company.
That explained the man with the crinkly smile waiting outside the jute mill that day. He was a salesman with a new line of gaskets and belts on offer. He’d just paid a call at the mill and was wondering where he might find dinner when Minnie bumped into him.
He delivered his line easily, about Minnie looking like a girl his sister used to know. Minnie, for her part, happened to know a nice quiet restaurant at the edge of town. So it began.
In this way, Minnie got by. It wasn’t too different from anything she’d done in Catskill. None of the town girls thought anything of accepting a dinner or theater tickets from an admirer, and why should they? They hadn’t a dime of their own. How else were they to meet anyone, or to entertain themselves? Their mothers had antiquated ideas about dances and church socials, which didn’t cost a thing as long as you had a dress and a dance card, but nobody did that anymore. People went out in public for their entertainment. Entertainment cost money. Boys had money and girls didn’t—especially in Catskill, where the girls’ parents insisted on keeping what little wages they earned at the mills. It was as simple as that.
Minnie didn’t go to bed hungry anymore, and sometimes she didn’t go to bed alone. She never invited a man upstairs the first time. She had her standards. She wouldn’t invite a young man of limited means—she had one of those, in Tony, and didn’t want another—but he couldn’t be too old, either. If there was anything the least bit fatherly about him, she couldn’t bear the idea. She would let him buy dinner and give him a kiss when he presented her with a little bundle of steak and rolls to take home. But a man with a little gray around the temples, a man who probably had a daughter himself at home—a man like that couldn’t come upstairs and put his hands on her. He couldn’t.
As it happened, though, that left plenty of men who could. Young men of twenty-three with their father’s money in their pockets. Men in their thirties with their name on a door-plate somewhere, and a secretary who looked a little like Minnie (or so they said), and an automobile that took them right out into the countryside, anytime it wasn’t too terribly cold for a drive—men like that could come upstairs, and she was glad to have them. They banished her loneliness, they pushed away the emptiness, they lit her up like a candle. In their company she felt whole again, and splendidly alive. With each one of them she could see, for just one night, a different version of herself, another future in front of her, a day when contentment and satisfaction never left her. They had that to offer, however fleetingly, and she took it.