Page 20

"Usually, there's no one here," she said, but she didn't say it with any resentment. She smiled immediately.

Cleaning the rooms from top to bottom one at a time reminded me of my work as a chambermaid at the hotel. I wondered about some of my friends from the hotel, like Mrs. Boston, the chief housekeeper for the family, and Sissy, who by taking me to Mrs. Dalton, had unknowingly helped me to discover the secret of my abduction.

I dove into the work, getting on my hands and knees to scrub the floors and dusting and polishing the furniture until everything, no matter how old it was, glimmered like new. I washed the windows and cleaned them down to the smallest speck of dust so that it was nearly impossible to tell whether they were opened or closed. Every once in a while, Mrs. Liddy stopped by from a room she was doing and stood in the doorway, her hands on her hips, shaking her head. Later that afternoon she brought Agnes up to see my work.

"Isn't this wonderful, Agnes?" Mrs. Liddy said, clapping her hands together. "We've never had a pupil work as hard as this, have we? My own mother back at our rooming house in London didn't get our rooms as sparkling clean."

"Yes," Agnes said, gazing down. "I'll have to write a letter and tell your grandmother about this."

"Yes," I said. "Why don't you? Although that's not why I'm doing it. You might ask how someone who is so spoiled and selfish knows about cleaning rooms," I added, a small, tight smile around my mouth. Mrs. Liddy's eyes twinkled amusingly.

"Perhaps you're changing," Agnes said and walked away, leaving me feeling infuriated.

I passed my time visiting the museums and window shopping on Fifth Avenue. One afternoon, I went into the Plaza to just sit in the lobby and watch the fancy-dressed people coming and going. I tried to imagine Jimmy and me staying here for one glorious week. I would buy some beautiful dresses and we would go to the expensive restaurant and maybe even dance in the ballroom. I thought of my tall, strong Jimmy, his dark eyes staring down at me, a slight smile teasing his full lips, his hands warm and protective as he held me in his arms. Small shivers, delicious and terrifying, went through me at these thoughts.

Of course, Jimmy wouldn't want to dress up and he wouldn't want to put on airs and be someone he was not; but maybe, when he returned from being in the army, he would be different, older and perhaps even more ambitious. Why shouldn't he want the same things? I thought.

After I had returned from a day at the Museum of Natural History, I lingered in the sitting room, tapping out a melody on the piano. I never heard Agnes come up behind me, but suddenly, I felt someone else in the room and turned to see her standing there staring at me in the strangest way. For a moment I thought she was angry I had played the piano without asking her first.

"My father was a talented pianist," she said, "but he didn't think it was honest work for a man so he did nothing with it."

"Oh. Perhaps that's where you get your talent from, Agnes."

"Yes, perhaps," she said. I had never seen her look so melancholy. She was even dressed in black and wore little makeup and no jewelry, which was very unusual.

"Do you have brothers and sisters? I didn't see any pictures of any in your scrapbooks," I said.

"No, I was an only child. My mother went through such a time giving birth to me, she swore she would have no other." Agnes sighed.

"Didn't you ever want to be married?" I asked. The way she stared back at me I expected she would bawl me out for prying into her private life. Suddenly though, she smiled.

"Oh, I had plenty of opportunity, but I was always afraid of marriage," she confessed.

"Afraid? Why?"

"I was afraid marriage would clip my wings and put me in a gilded cage like a beautiful canary. I would still sing, but my voice would be filled with longing and dreams. It is very difficult to be a good wife and mother and live a life on the stage," she lectured. "Show people are a different breed. You will understand in time what I mean when I say our first love is the stage and no matter what promises we make to our loved ones, we will never betray our first love and never really sacrifice when it comes to our careers.

"Something happens to us when those lights go on and we hear the applause. We make love to an audience, you see. Actually," she said, looking about the sitting room as if we were on a stage, "I have been married all this time, married to the theater."

"Don't you think I can be a singer and still have a husband and a family?" I asked, desperation stealing through me at the thought that I would be forced to choose between my dreams.

"It's difficult. It will depend entirely on your husband, how understanding and loving he is and whether or not he is the terribly jealous type."

"Why jealous?"

"Because he will have to see you sing of love to other men and kiss them and recite vows of love so convincingly that audiences will believe you love these men."

I had never thought of these things before. It brought a heaviness to my heart that made it feel like a lump of lead in my chest. I tried to imagine Jimmy sitting in the audience watching me do the things Agnes described, Jimmy who seemed so tough to the outside world, but who I knew to be easily wounded.

"But," she bragged, "I did crush some young male hearts. Do you know what is in this vase I keep under lock and key?" she asked, approaching one of the cabinets. I had simply assumed it was a valuable antique.

"No. What?"

"The ashes of Sanford Littleton, a young man

who was so in love with me he committed suicide and left instructions for the remains of his cremated body to be given to me," she said and followed it with a shrill laugh.

"Oh don't look so glum. You don't have to plan your whole life this moment," she chastised. I wasn't glum; I was shocked. She turned to leave and then pivoted on her heels to look back at me. "A letter came for you today," she said.