City of Girls

“Are you sure it was him that you saw today?” I asked.

“It was him. He knew me. He came over and talked to me. Vivian, he’s one of the 704 Club. Jesus Christ!” Frank threw me a tortured look.

“I don’t know what that means,” I said as gently as I could.

“The men who stayed on the Franklin when we were hit that day—there were seven hundred and four of them. Captain Gehres named those guys the 704 Club. He built them up as heroes. Hell, maybe they were heroes. The Heroic Living, Gehres called them. The ones who didn’t desert the ship. They get together every year and have reunions. Relive the glories.”

“You didn’t desert the ship, Frank. Even the Navy knew that. You were blown overboard in flames.”

“Vivian, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I was already a coward long before that.”

The panic had drained from his voice. Now he spoke with dreadful calm.

“No, you weren’t,” I said.

“It’s not an argument, Vivian. I was. We’d been under fire already for months before that day. I couldn’t handle it. I could never handle it. Guam in July of forty-four—bombing the hell out of Guam. I couldn’t imagine how there was even a single blade of grass left standing on that island when we were done with it, we rained such hell on that place. But when our troops landed at the end of July, out come all these Japanese soldiers and tanks. How did they even survive it? I can’t imagine. Our marines were brave, the Japanese soldiers were brave, but I wasn’t brave. I couldn’t bear the noise of the guns, Vivian—and they weren’t even being fired at me. That’s when I started being like this. The nerves, the shakes. The men started calling me Twitchy.”

“Shame on them,” I said.

“They were right, though. I was a pile of nerves. One day, we had a bomb fail to release from one of our planes—a hundred-pound bomb, just got jammed in the open bomb bay. The pilot radios in that he’s got a bomb stuck in the bay, and he has to land like that, can you imagine? Then, during the landing, the bomb kind of shudders lose and falls out, and now we have a hundred-pound bomb skittering across the flight deck. Your brother and some other guys just ran right at it and pushed that thing over the edge of the ship like it’s nothing—and again, I’m frozen. Can’t help, can’t act, can’t do anything.”

“It doesn’t matter, Frank.” But again, it was like he couldn’t hear me.

“Then it’s August 1944,” he went on. “We’re in the middle of a typhoon, but we’re still running sorties, landing planes even while the waves are breaking over the flight deck. And those pilots, landing on a postage stamp in the middle of the Pacific, in the teeth of the gale—they never even flinch. Here I am, my hands can’t stop shaking, and I’m not even piloting the goddamn planes, Vivian. They called our convoy ‘Murderers’ Row.’ We were supposed to be the toughest guys around. But I wasn’t tough.”

“Frank,” I said, “it’s all right.”

“Then the Japanese start suicide-bombing us in October. They know they’re gonna lose the war, so they decide to go down in glory. Take out as many of us as they can, by any means necessary. They just kept coming at us, Vivian. One day in October, there were fifty of them that came at us. Fifty kamikaze planes in one day. Can you imagine it?”

“No,” I said, “I cannot.”

“Our guys knocked them out of the air, one after another, but they sent more planes the next day. I knew it was just a matter of time before one of them would hit us. Everyone knew we were sitting ducks, not more than fifty miles off the coast of Japan, but our guys were so cavalier about it. Strutting around like it was nothing. And there was Tokyo Rose on the radio every night, telling the world that the Franklin was already sunk. That’s when I stopped sleeping. Couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Terrified, every minute. I’ve never slept right since then. Some of those kamikaze pilots, when they got shot down, we fished them out of the water as prisoners. One of those Japanese pilots, he was being marched across our flight deck to the brig, but then he broke away and ran right to the edge of the ship. Jumped off and killed himself, rather than be taken prisoner. Death with honor, right in front of me. I looked at his face as he was running to the edge, Vivian—and I swear to God, he didn’t look anything near as scared as I felt.”

I could feel Frank spinning back into the past now, hard and fast, and it wasn’t good. I needed to bring him back home—back to himself. Back to now.

“What happened today, Frank?” I asked. “What happened with Tom Denno in that courtroom today?”

Frank exhaled, but gripped the steering wheel even harder.

“He comes up to me, Vivian, right before I’m supposed to testify. Remembers me by name. Asks how I’m doing. Tells me about how he’s a lawyer now, where he lives on the Upper West Side, where he went to college, where his kids go to school. Gave me a speech about how well he’s done. He was one of the skeleton crew that sailed the Franklin back to the Brooklyn Navy Yard after the attack, you know, and I guess he never left New York after that. Still has that accent from right off the farm, though. But wearing a suit that probably costs more than my house. Then he looks me up and down in my uniform, and says, ‘A beat cop? That’s what naval officers become these days?’ Christ, Vivian, what am I supposed to say? I just nod. Then he asks me, ‘Do they even let you carry a gun?’ And I say something stupid, like, ‘Yeah, but I’ve never used it,’ and he says, ‘Well, you always were a soft apple, Twitchy,’ and he walks away.”

“He can go straight to hell,” I said. I felt my own fists balling up. A wave of rage overcame me so fiercely that the noise of it in my ears—a roar of rushing blood—was, for a moment, louder than the roar of the plane landing in front of us. I wanted to hunt down Tom Denno and slit his neck. How dare he? I also wanted to gather up Frank in my arms and rock him and comfort him—but I couldn’t, because the war had bunged up his mind and his body so badly that he couldn’t even be held in the arms of a woman who loved him.

It was all so vicious and it was all so wrong.

I thought of how Frank had once told me that—when he came up in the water after being blown off the ship—he emerged into a world that was completely on fire. Even the seawater around him was on fire, blanketed with burning fuel. And the engines of the stricken aircraft carrier were only fanning the flames. Burning the men in the water even more severely. Frank found that if he splashed hard, he could push the fire away and create a small spot in the Pacific that was not on fire. So that’s what he did for two hours—him, with burns over most of his body—until he was rescued. He just kept pushing the flames away, trying to keep one small area of his world free from the inferno. All these years later, I felt like he was still trying to do that. Still trying to find a safe radius somewhere in the world. Someplace where he could stop burning.

“Tom Denno is right, Vivian,” he said. “I’ve always been a soft apple.”

I wanted so badly to comfort him, Angela, but how? Aside from my presence in the car that day—as somebody who would listen to his awful story—what could I give him? I wanted to tell him that he was heroic, strong, and brave, and that Tom Denno and the rest of the 704 Club were wrong. But I knew this wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t have been able to hear those words. He wouldn’t have believed them. I had to say something, though, because he was in such pain. I closed my eyes and begged my mind for something useful to offer. Then I opened my mouth and just spoke—blindly trusting that fate and love would grant me the right words.

“So what if it’s true?” I asked.

My voice came out harder than I’d expected. Frank turned to look at me in surprise.

“What if it’s true, Frank, that you’re a soft apple? What if it’s true, that you were never made for combat, and you couldn’t handle the war?”

“It is true.”

“Okay, then. Let’s agree that it’s true, just for the sake of argument. But what would that mean?”

He said nothing.

“What would it mean, Frank?” I demanded. “Answer me. And take your hands off the goddamn steering wheel. We’re not going anywhere.”

He took his hands off the wheel, set them gently in his lap, and stared down at them.

“What would it mean, Frank? If you were a soft apple. Tell me.”

“It would mean I’m a coward.”

“And what would that mean?” I demanded.

“It would mean I’m a failure as a man.” His voice was so quiet I could barely hear him.

“No, you’re wrong,” I said, and I had never been more fiercely sure of anything in my life. “You’re wrong, Frank. It would not mean that you’re a failure as a man. Do you want to know what it actually means? It means nothing.”

He blinked at me, confused. He’d never heard me speak as sharply as this.

“You listen to me, Frank Grecco,” I said. “If you’re a coward—and let’s just say that you are, for the sake of argument—it means nothing. My Aunt Peg, she’s an alcoholic. She can’t handle drinking. It ruins her life and turns her into a mess—and do you know what that means? It means nothing. Do you think it makes her a bad person, that she has no control over booze? A failure of a person? Of course not—it’s just the way she is. Alcoholism just happened to her, Frank. Things happen to people. We are the way we are—there’s nothing to be done for it. My Uncle Billy—he couldn’t keep a promise or stay faithful to a woman. It meant nothing. He was a wonderful person, Frank, and he was completely untrustworthy. It’s just how he was. It didn’t mean anything. We all still loved him.”

“But men are supposed to be brave,” said Frank.

“So what!” I nearly shouted it. “Women are supposed to be pure, and look at me. I’ve had sex with countless men, Frank—and do you know what it means about me? Nothing. It’s just how it is. You said it yourself, Frank—the world ain’t straight. That’s what you told me, our first night. Use your own words to understand your own life. The world ain’t straight. People have a certain nature, and that’s just how it goes. And things happen to people—things that are beyond their control. The war happened to you. And you weren’t made for battle—so what? None of it means a damn thing. Stop doing this to yourself.”

“But tough guys like Tom Denno—”

“You know nothing about Tom Denno. Something happened to him, too, I guarantee it. For a grown man to come at you like that? With such cruelty? Oh, I promise you—life has happened to him, too. Something left him wrecked as a person. Not that I care about that asshole, but his world ain’t straight, either, Frank. You can bet on it.”

Frank started crying. When I saw this, I nearly wept, too. But I held back my tears because his were far more important, far more rare. At that moment, I would have given years off my life to be able to hold him, Angela—in that moment, more than any other. But it wasn’t possible.

“It’s not fair,” he said, through body-wracking sobs.

“No, it’s not, sweetheart,” I said. “It’s not fair. But it’s what happened. It’s just the way things are, Frank, and it means nothing. You’re a wonderful man. You’re no failure. You’re the best man I’ve ever known. That’s the only thing that matters.”

He kept on crying—separated from me by a safe distance, as always. But at least he’d taken his hands off the wheel. At least he had been able to tell me what had happened. Here in the privacy of his swelteringly hot car—in the one corner of his world that was not on fire at this moment—at least he’d been able to tell the truth.

I would sit with him until he was all right again. I knew that I would sit with him for as long as it took. That’s all I could do. That was my only job in the world that day—to sit with this good man. To watch over him from the other side of the car until he was steadied.

When he finally got control of himself again, he stared out the window with the saddest expression I ever saw. He said, “What are we gonna do about it all?”

“I don’t know, Frank. Maybe nothing. But I’m right here.”

That’s when he turned to look at me. “I can’t live without you, Vivian,” he said.

“Good. You’ll never have to.”

And that, Angela, was the closest your father and I ever came to saying I love you.

THIRTY-TWO

The years passed like they always do.

My Aunt Peg died in 1969, from emphysema. She smoked cigarettes right up until the end. It was a hard death. Emphysema is a brutal way to die. Nobody can fully remain themselves when they are in such pain and discomfort, but Peg tried her best to stay Peg—optimistic, uncomplaining, enthusiastic. But slowly, she lost the ability to breathe. It’s a horrible thing to watch someone struggling for air. It’s like witnessing a slow drowning. By the end, sorrowful though it was, we were glad that she could go in peace. We couldn’t bear to see her suffer any longer.

There is a limit, I have found, to how much you can mourn as “tragic” the death of an older person who has lived a rich life, and who is privileged enough to die surrounded by loved ones. There are so many worse ways to live, after all, and so many worse ways to die. From birth to death, Peg was one of life’s fortunate ones—and nobody knew it more than her. (“We are the luckies,” she used to say.) But still, Angela, she had been the most important and influential figure in my life, and it hurt to lose her. Even to this day, even all these years later, I still believe that the world is a poorer place without Peg Buell in it.

The only upside of her death was that it got me to finally quit smoking for good—and that’s probably why I’m still alive today.

Yet another generous offering from that good woman to me.

After Peg’s death, I was mostly concerned about what would become of Olive. She had spent so many years tending to my aunt—how would she fill her hours now? But I needn’t have worried. There was a Presbyterian church over near Sutton Place that always needed volunteers, and so Olive found a use for herself running the Sunday school, organizing fund drives, and generally telling people what to do. She was fine.

Nathan got older, but still not much bigger. We kept him in Quaker schools for his whole education. It was the only environment gentle enough for him. Marjorie and I kept trying to find him a passion (music, art, theater, literature), but he was not a person made for passion. What he liked more than anything was to feel safe and cozy. So we kept his world gentle, cocooning him within our peaceful little universe. We never asked much of Nathan. We thought he was good enough, just the way he was. We were proud of him sometimes just for getting through the day.

As Marjorie said, “Not everyone is meant to charge through the world, carrying a spear.”

“That’s right, Marjorie,” I told her. “We shall leave the spear charging to you.”

L’Atelier continued to do steady business even as society changed during the 1960s, and fewer people were getting married. We were fortunate in one regard: we had never been a “traditional” bridal shop, so when tradition went out of style, we remained au courant. We had always sold vintage-inspired gowns—long before the word “vintage” was fashionable. So when the counterculture arrived, and all the hippies were dressing in crazy old clothing, we did not get rejected. In fact, we found a new clientele. I became the seamstress to many a well-heeled flower child. I made gowns for all the affluent bankers’ hippie daughters who wanted wedding dresses that would make them look as though they had sprung fully grown from some rural meadow, rather than having been born on the Upper East Side and educated at the Brearley School.

I loved the 1960s, Angela.

By all rights, I should not have loved that moment in history. At my age, I should have been one of those stodgy old bitches bemoaning the breakdown of society. But I had never been an ardent fan of society, so I didn’t object to seeing it challenged. In fact, I delighted in all the mutiny and rebellion and creative expression. And of course, I loved the clothes. How fabulous, that those hippies turned our city streets into a circus! It was all so freeing and playful.

But the 1960s made me feel proud, too, because there was a level at which my community had already foretold all these transformations and upheavals.

The sexual revolution? I’d been doing that all along.

Homosexual couples, living together as spouses? Peg and Olive had practically invented it.

Feminism and single motherhood? Marjorie had walked that beat for ages.

A hatred of conflict and a passion for non-violence? Well, I’d like to introduce you to a sweet little boy named Nathan Lowtsky.

With the greatest of pride, I was able to look out across all the cultural upheavals and transformations of the 1960s, and know this:

My people got there first.

—

Then, in 1971, Frank asked me for a favor.

He asked me, Angela, if I would make your wedding dress for you.

This startled me on several levels.

For one thing, I was genuinely surprised to hear that you were getting married. It didn’t seem to be in keeping with what your father had always told me about you. He’d been so proud of you as you finished your master’s degree at Brooklyn College, and your doctoral degree at Columbia—and in psychology, of course. (With a family history like ours, he used to say, what else could she study?) Your father was fascinated by your decision not to open a private practice, but instead to work at Bellevue—exposing yourself every day to the most severe and grinding cases of mental illness.

Your work had become your life, he said. He fully approved. He was glad that you hadn’t married young, like him. He knew that you were not a traditional person, and that you were an intellectual. He was so proud of your mind. He was thrilled when you started doing postdoctoral research on the trauma of suppressed memories. He said the two of you had finally found something you could talk about, and that sometimes he would help you to sort data.

He used to say, “Angela is too good and too thoughtful for any man I’ve ever met.”

But then one day he told me you’d acquired a boyfriend.

Frank had not been expecting this. You were twenty-nine years old by then, and perhaps he’d thought you would remain single forever. Don’t laugh, but I think he may have believed you to be a lesbian! But you had met somebody you liked, and you wanted to bring him home for Sunday dinner. Your boyfriend turned out to be the head of security at Bellevue. A recently returned veteran of Vietnam. A native of Brownsville, Brooklyn, who was going back to school at City College to study law. A black man by the name of Winston.

Frank was not upset that you were dating a black man, Angela. Not for a minute. I hope you know that. More than anything, he was awed by your courage and confidence, to bring Winston to South Brooklyn. He saw the looks on the neighbors’ faces. It brought him satisfaction to see how uncomfortable you had made the neighborhood—and to see that other people’s judgments would not stop you. But most of all, he liked and respected Winston.

“Good for her,” he said. “Angela’s always known what she wanted, and she’s never been afraid to take her own path. She’s chosen well.”

From what I understand, your mother was less happy about you and Winston.

According to your father, Winston was the only subject upon which he and Rosella ever argued. Frank had always deferred to your mother’s opinion about what was best for you. Here, though, they parted ways. I don’t know the details of their argument. It’s not important. In the end, though, your mother came around. Or at least that’s what I was told.

(Again, Angela—I apologize if anything I’m telling you here is incorrect. I’m aware that I’m relaying your own history to you at this point, and it makes me self-conscious. You surely know what happened better than anyone—or maybe you don’t. Again, I don’t know how much you were shown of your parents’ dispute. I just don’t want to leave out anything that you might not be aware of.)

And then, in early spring of 1971, Frank told me that you were getting married to Winston in a small private ceremony, and he asked me to create your dress.

“Is this what Angela wants?” I asked.

“She doesn’t know yet,” he said. “I’m going to talk to her about it. I’m going to ask her to come and see you.”

“You want Angela to meet me?”

“I have only one daughter, Vivian. And knowing Angela, she will have only one marriage. I want you to make her wedding dress. It would mean a lot to me. So yeah, I want Angela to meet you.”

—

You came into the boutique on a Tuesday morning—early, because you had to be at work by nine. Your father’s car pulled up in front of my shop, and the two of you entered together.

“Angela,” said Frank, “this is my old friend Vivian that I was telling you about. Vivian, this is my daughter. Well, I’ll leave you both to it.”

And he walked out.

I had never been more nervous to meet a client.

What’s worse, I could instantly see your reluctance. You were more than reluctant: I could see that you were deeply impatient. I could see your confusion about why your father—who had never interfered with a minute of your life—had insisted on bringing you here. I could see that you didn’t want to be here. And I could tell (because I have an instinct for these things) that you didn’t even want a wedding dress. I was willing to bet that you found wedding gowns corny and old-fashioned and demeaning to women. I would have wagered a million to one odds that you were planning to wear the exact same thing on your wedding day that you were wearing now: a peasant blouse, a wraparound denim skirt, and clogs.

“Dr. Grecco,” I said, “it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I hoped you were glad that I had called you by your title. (Forgive me, but having heard so many stories about you over the years, I was a bit proud of your title myself!)

Your manners were impeccable. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too, Vivian,” you said—smiling as warmly as you were able to, given that you obviously wished you were anywhere but here.

I found you to be such a striking woman, Angela. You didn’t have your father’s height, but you had his intensity. You had those same dark, searching eyes that signaled both curiosity and suspicion. You nearly vibrated with intelligence. Your eyebrows were thick and serious, and I liked the fact that you appeared never to have tweezed them. And you had restless energy, just like your dad. (Not so restless as his, of course—lucky for you!—but still, it was notable.)

“I hear you’re getting married,” I said. “Congratulations to you.”

You cut right to the chase. “I’m not much of a wedding person. . . .”

“I understand completely,” I said. “Believe it or not, I’m not really one for weddings, either.”

“You’ve chosen a funny line of work, then,” you said, and we both laughed.

“Listen, Angela. You don’t have to be here. It won’t hurt my feelings in the least if you’re not interested in buying a wedding dress.”

Now you seemed to backtrack, perhaps fearing that you’d offended me.

“No, I’m happy to be here,” you said. “It’s important to my father.”

“That’s true,” I agreed. “And your father is a good friend of mine and the best man I know. But in my business, I’m not so interested in what fathers have to say. Or mothers, either, for that matter. I care only about the bride.”

You winced slightly at the word “bride.” In my experience, there are only two kinds of women who ever get married—women who love the idea of being a bride, and women who hate it but are doing it anyway. It was obvious what kind of woman I was working with here.

“Angela, let me tell you something,” I said. “And is it all right with you, that I call you Angela?”

It felt so strange to say the name to your face—that most intimate name, the name I had been hearing for years!

“That’s fine,” you said.

“May I assume that everything about a traditional wedding is repugnant and off-putting to you?”

“That’s correct.”

“And if it were up to you, it would be a quick trip to the county clerk’s office, on your lunch break? Or maybe not even marriage vows at all, but just an ongoing relationship, without getting the government involved?”

You smiled. Again, I caught that flash of intelligence. You said, “You must be reading my mail, Vivian.”

“Somebody else in your life wants a proper-looking marriage ceremony for you, then. Who is it? Your mother?”

“It’s Winston.”

“Ah. Your fiancé.” Again, the wince. I had chosen the wrong word. “Your partner, perhaps I should say.”

“Thank you,” you said. “Yes, it’s Winston. He wants a ceremony. He wants us to stand before the whole world, he says, and declare our love.”

“That’s sweet.”

“I suppose so. I do love him. I only wish that I could send a stand-in that day, to do the job for me.”

“You hate being the center of attention,” I said. “Your father always told me that about you.”

“I despise it. I don’t even want to wear white. It seems ridiculous, at my age. But Winston wants to see me in a white gown.”

“Most grooms do. There’s something about a white gown—setting aside the obnoxious question of virginity—that signals to a man that this day is not like any other day. It shows him that he’s been chosen. It means a lot to men, I have learned over the years, to see their brides walking toward them in white. Helps to quiet their insecurities. And you’d be surprised how insecure the men can be.”

“That’s interesting,” you said.

“Well, I’ve seen a lot of it.”

At this point, you relaxed enough to start taking in your surroundings. You drifted over to one of my sample racks, which was filled with billows of crinolines and satin and lace. You started sorting through the gowns with an expression of martyrdom.

“Angela,” I said, “I can tell you right now that you won’t like any of those dresses. In fact, you’ll despise them.”

You dropped your arms in defeat. “Is that right?”

“Look, I don’t have anything here right now that would suit you. I wouldn’t even let you wear one of these gowns—not you, the girl who was fixing her own bicycle by the time she was ten. I’m an old-fashioned seamstress in one regard only, my dear: I believe a dress should flatter not only a woman’s figure, but also her intelligence. Nothing in the showroom is intelligent enough for you. But I have an idea. Come sit down with me in my workroom. Let’s have a cup of tea, if you’ve got a moment?”

—

I had never before taken a bride into my workroom, which was at the back of the shop, and full of mess and chaos. I preferred to keep my customers in the pretty, magical space that Marjorie and I had created at the front of the building—with the cream-colored walls and the dainty French furniture, and the dappled sunlight streaming in from the street windows. I liked to keep my brides in the illusion of femininity, you see—which is where most brides like to abide. But I could see that you were not somebody who wanted to abide in illusion. I thought you might be more comfortable where the actual work was done. And there was a book I wanted to show you, which I knew was back there.

So we went back into my workshop, and I fixed us each a cup of tea. Then I brought you the book—a collection of antique wedding photos that Marjorie had given me for Christmas. I opened to a picture of a French bride from 1916. She was wearing a simple cylindrical gown that came to just above her ankles, and was completely unornamented.

“I’m thinking of something like this for you. Nothing like a traditional Western wedding gown. No flounce, no whim-whams. You could be comfortable in this, and move about with ease. The top of the dress almost looks like a kimono—the way the bodice is just two simple pieces of fabric that cross over the bust? It was the style in the teens for a while, especially in France, to imitate Japanese clothing in wedding design. I’ve always thought this shape was beautiful—not much more complicated than a bathrobe, really. So elegant. It’s too simple for most people, but I admire it. I think it would suit you. Do you see how the waist is high, and then there’s that wide satin band with the bow on the side? Something like an obi?”

“An obi?” You were legitimately interested now.

“A Japanese ceremonial sash. In fact, what I would do is make you a version of this dress in a creamy white—to satisfy the traditionalists in the room—but then, on your waist, I’d give you an actual Japanese obi. I would suggest a sash of red and gold—something bold and vivid, to signal the unconventional path that your life has taken. Let’s stay as far away from the ‘something borrowed, something blue’ cliché, shall we? I could show you how to tie the obi in two different ways. Traditionally, Japanese women use different knots, whether they are married or unmarried. We could start you off with the unmarried knot. Then perhaps Winston could untie the sash during the ceremony, and then you could retie it, with the knot of a married woman. Maybe that could constitute the entire ceremony, in fact. Up to you, of course.”

“That’s very interesting,” you said. “I like this idea. I like it a lot. Thank you, Vivian.”

“My only hesitation is that it may be upsetting for your father, to see the Japanese elements in the design. Given his history in the war, and all that. But I’m not sure. What do you think?”

“No, I don’t think it would bother him. If anything, he might appreciate the reference. Almost as if I am wearing something that represents a bit of his history.”

“I could see him thinking that,” I said. “One way or another, I’ll talk to him about it so it doesn’t catch him by surprise.”

But now you seemed distracted, and your face became sharp and tight. “Vivian, may I ask you something?” you said.

“Of course.”

“How is it that you know my father, anyway?”

God help me, Angela, I do not know what my face revealed in that moment. If I were to guess, though, I would imagine that I looked some combination of guilty, afraid, sad, and panicked.

“You can understand my confusion,” you went on, seeing my discomfort, “given that my father doesn’t know anybody. He doesn’t talk to a soul. He says that you’re his dear friend, but that doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t have any friends. Even his old friends from the neighborhood don’t socialize with him. And you’re not even from the neighborhood. But you know so much about me. You know that I was fixing bicycles when I was ten. Why would you know that?”

You sat there, waiting for me to answer. I felt completely outgunned. You were a trained psychologist, Angela. You were a professional dissembler. You’d been around all sorts of madness and lies in your work. The feeling I got was that you had all the time in the world to wait me out—and that you would instantly know if I was deceiving you.

“You can tell me the truth, Vivian,” you said.

The look on your face was not hostile, but your focus was fearsome.

But how could I tell you the truth? It wasn’t my place to tell you anything, or to violate your father’s privacy, or to possibly upset you right before your wedding. And how could I possibly explain Frank and me? Would you have believed me, anyway, if I’d told you the truth—namely, that I had spent several nights a week with your father for the past six years, and that all we did was walk and talk?

“He was a friend of my brother’s,” I finally said. “Frank and Walter served together during the war. They went to Officer Candidate School together. They both ended up on the USS Franklin. My brother was killed in the same attack that injured your father.”

Everything that I said was true, Angela—except for the part about your father and my brother being friends. (They had known each other, yes. But they were not friends.) As I spoke, I could feel tears standing in my eyes. Not tears about Walter. Not even tears about Frank. Just tears about this situation—about sitting alone with the daughter of the man I loved, and liking her so much, and not being able to explain anything. Tears—as with so many other times in my life—about the intractable dilemmas in which we can find ourselves.

Your face softened. “Oh, Vivian, I’m sorry.”

There were so many more questions you could have asked at that point, but you didn’t. You could see that the subject of my brother had upset me. I believe you were too compassionate to keep me cornered. Anyway, you’d been given an answer, and it was plausible enough. I could see that you suspected there was more to the story, but in your kindness, you chose to believe what I had told you—or at least not to chase any further information.

Mercifully, you dropped the subject, and we went back to planning your wedding dress.

—

What a beautiful dress it was, too.

I would spend the next two weeks working on it. I searched the city myself for the most stunning antique obi I could find (wide, red, long, and embroidered with golden phoenixes). It was criminally expensive, but there was nothing else in New York like it. (I didn’t charge your father for it—don’t worry!)

I made the gown itself out of a creamy, clingy, charmeuse satin. I fashioned a fitted slip beneath it with a built-in brassiere that would subtly make you feel more held together. I wouldn’t let my assistants, or even Marjorie, so much as lay a finger on that gown. I sewed every stitch and seam on my own, bent over my work in something like prayerful silence.

And as much as I know that you hated ornamentation, I could not help myself. At the spot where the two bands of fabric crossed your heart, I sewed one little pearl, taken from a necklace that had once belonged to my grandmother.

A small gift, Angela—from my family to yours.

THIRTY-THREE

It was December of 1977 when I got your letter saying that your father had died.

I’d sensed already that something was terribly wrong. I hadn’t heard from Frank in almost two weeks, which was highly unusual. In fact, in the twelve years of our relationship, it had never happened before. I was growing concerned—very concerned—but didn’t know what to do about it. I had never called Frank at home, and since he had retired from the police force, I couldn’t phone him at the precinct. He didn’t have any friends that I knew of, so there was nobody I could contact, to ask if he was all right. I couldn’t exactly go knocking on his door in Brooklyn.

And then came your note, addressed to me, care of L’Atelier.

I’ve saved it, all these years.

Dear Vivian:

It is with a heavy heart that I write to tell you that my father passed away ten days ago. It was a sudden death. He was out walking one night around our neighborhood, as he was wont to do, and he collapsed on the sidewalk. It would appear that he had a heart attack, although we did not ask for an autopsy. This has been a great shock to me and to my mother, as I’m sure you can imagine. My father had his frailties, to be sure, but they were never of a physical nature. He had such stamina! I thought he would live forever. We held a small service for him at the same church where he was christened, and he has been buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, next to his parents. Vivian, I apologize. It was only after the funeral that I realized I should have contacted you immediately. I know that you and my father were dear friends. Surely, he would have wanted you to be alerted. Please forgive this tardy note. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news and I’m sorry that I didn’t get word to you sooner. If there is anything that I, or my family, can ever do for you, please let me know.

Sincerely, Angela Grecco

—

You had kept your maiden name.

Don’t ask me why, but I noticed that right away—before I had even fully registered that he was gone.

Good for you, Angela, I thought. Always keep your own name!

Then the news hit me that Frank was gone, and I did just what you might imagine I would do: I dropped to the floor and I wept.

—

Nobody wants to hear about anybody else’s grief (there’s a level at which everyone’s grief is exactly the same, anyhow), so I won’t go into details about my sadness. I will say only that the following few years were a very hard time for me—the hardest and loneliest I ever experienced.

Your father had been a peculiar man in life, Angela, and he was peculiar in death, too. He remained so vivid. He came to me in dreams, and he came to me in smells and sounds and sensations of New York itself. He came to me in the scent of summer rain on hot macadam, or in the sweet perfume of wintertime sugared nuts sold by street vendors. He came to me in the sour, milky odor of Manhattan’s ginkgo trees in springtime bloom. He came to me in the bubbling coo of nesting pigeons, and in the screaming of police sirens. He was everywhere to be found across the city. Yet his absence weighted my heart with deep silence.

I went on about my life.

So much of my day-to-day routine looked exactly the same, even after he had gone. I lived in the same place, I did the same job. I spent time with the same friends and family. Frank had never been part of my daily routine, so why would anything change? My friends knew that I had lost someone important to me—but they hadn’t known him. Nobody knew how much I had loved him (how would I have explained him?), so I wasn’t warranted the public grieving rights of a widow. I didn’t see myself as a widow, in any case. That was your mother’s position, not mine. How could I be a widow when I had never been a wife? There had never been a correct word for what Frank and I were to each other, so the absence I felt after his death was both private and unnamed.

Mostly, it was this: I would wake up late at night, and lie in my bed, waiting for the phone to ring so that I could hear him say, “Are you awake? Do you want to go for a walk?”

New York City itself seemed smaller, after Frank died. All those distant neighborhoods that we had explored together on foot were no longer open to me. They weren’t places a woman could go alone—not even a woman as independent as myself. And in the geography of my imagination, a great many “neighborhoods” of intimacy were now also shuttered. There were certain subjects that I had only ever been able to talk about with Frank. There were places within me that he alone could reach with his listening—and I would never be able to reach those places on my own.

Even so, I want you to know that I’ve done just fine in my life without Frank. I grew out of my sorrow—the way people usually do, eventually. I found my way back to joyful things again. I’ve always been a lucky person, Angela—not least of all because my natural temperament is not one of gloom and despair. In that regard, I have always been a bit like my Aunt Peg—not prone to depression, thank God. And I’ve had wonderful people in my life in the decades after Frank died. Exciting lovers, new friends, my chosen family. I’ve never wanted for company. But I have also never stopped missing your father.

Other people have always been perfectly nice and kind, don’t get me wrong, but nobody was him. Nobody could ever be like that bottomless well of a man—that walking confessional booth who could absorb whatever you told him without judgment or alarm.

Nobody else could be that beautiful dark soul, who always seemed to straddle the worlds of life and death.

Nobody but Frank was Frank.

—

So you have waited a long time for your answer, Angela, about what I was to your father—or what he was to me.

I’ve tried to answer your question as honestly and thoroughly as I could. I was about to apologize for going on so long. But if you are truly your father’s daughter (and I believe that you are), then I know that you’re a good listener. You’re the sort of person who would want the whole story. Also, it is important for me that you know everything about me—the good and the bad, the loyal and the perverse—so that you can decide for yourself what to think of me.

But I need to make it clear once again, Angela: your father and I never embraced, we never kissed, we never had sex. He was the only man I ever really loved, though, with all my heart. And he loved me, too. We didn’t speak of it, because we didn’t need to speak of it. We both knew it.

That said, I do want to tell you that over the years, your father finally reached a point of ease with me where he could rest the back of his hand on my palm without flinching in pain. We could sit together in his car, in the quiet comfort of that touch, for many minutes at a time.

I never saw more sunrises in my life than I did with him.

If by doing that—by holding his hand all those times, as the sun came up—I took something away from your mother, or from you, I beg your forgiveness.

But I don’t think I did.

—

So here we are, Angela.

I am sorry to hear about your mother’s death. You have my condolences. I am glad to hear that she lived a long life. I hope she had a good life, and a peaceful death. I hope that your heart is strong within your grieving.

I also want to say that I’m so glad you were able to track me down. Thank God I’m still living at the L’Atelier building! That’s the good thing about never changing your name or your address, I suppose. People always know where to find you.

Although I should tell you that L’Atelier is not a bridal boutique anymore, but a coffee and juice shop that Nathan Lowtsky runs. The building itself belongs to me, though. Marjorie left it to me after her death thirteen years ago, knowing that I would do a better job than Nathan at managing the property. So she put things entirely in my hands and I’ve taken good care of the place. I was the one who helped Nathan to get his little business up and running, too. He needed all the help he could get, believe me. Nathan, dear as he is, will never set the world on fire. But I do love him. He has always called me his “other mother.” I’m happy to have his affection and care. In fact, I am probably as embarrassingly healthy as I am for my ripe old age because he tends to me. And I tend to him, as well. We are good to each other.

So this is why I am still here—still in the same place I’ve lived since 1950.

Thank you for coming to look for me, Angela.

Thank you for asking me for the truth.

I have told you all of it.

—

I will sign off now, but there’s one more thing I want to say.

Long ago, Edna Parker Watson told me that I would never be an interesting person. She may have been right about that. That’s not mine to judge, or to know. But she also said that I was the worst sort of female—namely, the type of woman who cannot be a friend to another woman, because she will always be “playing with toys that are not her own.” In this regard, Edna was wrong. Over the years, I’ve been a good friend to a great many women.

I used to say that there were only two things I was ever good at: sewing and sex. But I have been selling myself short all this while, because the fact is that I am also very good at being a friend.

I’m telling you all this, Angela, because I am offering my friendship to you, if you would ever care to have it.

I don’t know whether my friendship would interest you. You may never want to have anything to do with me, after reading all this. You may find me a despicable woman. That would be understandable. I don’t happen to think I’m despicable (I don’t think anyone is, anymore), but I will leave it to you to decide for yourself.

But do give my offer some thought, is my respectful suggestion.

You see, all the while that I’ve been writing these pages to you, I have been imagining you in my mind as a young woman. To me, you will always be that flinty, smart, no-nonsense, twenty-nine-year-old feminist who walked into my bridal shop in 1971. But I’m grasping only now that you’re not a young woman anymore. By my calculations, you are almost seventy. And I’m not young either, obviously.

This is what I’ve found about life, as I’ve gotten older: you start to lose people, Angela. It’s not that there is ever a shortage of people—oh, heavens no. It is merely that—as the years pass—there comes to be a terrible shortage of your people. The ones you loved. The ones who knew the people that you both loved. The ones who know your whole history.

Those people start to be plucked away by death, and they are awfully hard to replace after they go. After a certain age, it can become difficult to make new friends. The world can begin to feel lonely and sparse, teeming though it may be with freshly minted young souls.

I’m not sure whether you’ve had that feeling yet. But I’ve had it. And you may have that feeling someday.

All this is why I want to end by saying that—although you owe me nothing, and I expect nothing from you—you are precious to my heart nonetheless. And should you ever find that your world feels lonely and sparse, and that you need a new friend, please remember that I am here.

I don’t know how much longer I will be here, of course—but as long as I remain on this earth, my dear Angela, I am yours.

Thank you for listening,

Vivian Morris

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

So many generous New Yorkers (past and present) shared of themselves in order to help me create this book.

Brooklyn native Margaret Cordi—who has been my brilliant and beloved friend for thirty years—guided me through my research, accompanied me on all my field trips, tracked down my sources, and proofread the hell out of these pages in an insanely short amount of time. But she also stirred up my joy and excitement about this project when I was under deadline and under stress. Margaret: There is simply no way I could have written this story without you. Let’s always be working on a novel together, okay?

I will be forever grateful to Norma Amigo—the most gorgeous and charismatic nonagenarian I ever met—for telling me all about her days and nights as a Manhattan showgirl. It was Norma’s unabashed sensuality and independence (as well as her unprintable answer to my question “Why did you never want to get married?”) that allowed Vivian to come into full and free existence.

For more background on the New York City entertainment world of the 1940s and 1950s, I am also grateful to Peggy Winslow Baum (actress), the late Phyllis Westermann (songwriter and producer), Paulette Harwood (dancer), and the lovely Laurie Sanderson (keeper of the Ziegfeld flame).

For help in understanding and unearthing a Times Square that will never again exist, David Freeland was an essential and fascinating guide.

Shareen Mitchell’s insights and sensitivity about wedding gowns, fashion, and how to humble yourself in service to nervous brides completely shaped this aspect of Vivian’s story. Thank you also to Leah Cahill, for her lessons in sewing and tailoring. Jesse Thorn served as an invaluable emergency contact for my questions about men’s style.

Andrew Gustafson opened up the wonders of the Brooklyn Navy Yard for me. Bernard Whalen, Ricky Conte, and Joe and Lucy De Carlo helped me to understand the life of a Brooklyn patrolman. The regulars at D’Amico Coffee in Carroll Gardens took me on the most colorful trip through time you could ever imagine. So thank you to Joanie D’Amico, Rose Cusumano, Danny Calcaterra, and Paul and Nancy Gentile for sharing your stories. You guys really made me wish I had grown up in South Brooklyn back in the day.

Thank you to my father, John Gilbert (LTJG, ret., USS Johnston), for helping me to get the Navy details right. I am grateful to my mother, Carole Gilbert, for teaching me how to work my ass off and how to be resilient in the face of life’s difficulties. (I never needed it more than this year, Mom.) I am grateful to Catherine and James Murdock for their keen copyediting skills. Because of you this book has five thousand fewer commas than it needed.

Without the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library, I would not have been able to read the papers of Katharine Cornell, and without Katharine Cornell, there would be no Edna Parker Watson.

I am grateful to my great-aunt Lolly, for giving me those old Alexander Woollcott books, which set me down the path of this story. But most of all, Lolly, thank you for modeling the extraordinary optimism, cheer, and strength that make me want to be a better and braver woman.

I am grateful to my extraordinary team at Riverhead—Geoff Kloske, Sarah McGrath, Jynne Martin, Helen Yentus, Kate Stark, Lydia Hirt, Shailyn Tavella, Alison Fairbrother, and the late and beloved Liz Hohenadel—for publishing my books so brilliantly and boldly. Thank you to Markus Dohle and Madeline McIntosh for investing in me and believing in me. Thank you, also, to my friends and colleagues at Bloomsbury—Alexandra Pringle, Tram-Anh Doan, Kathleen Farrar, and Ros Ellis—for keeping things so bright and cool on the other side of the Atlantic.

Dave Cahill and Anthony Kwasi Adjei: I cannot run my world without you. I hope I never have to!

Thank you to Martha Beck, Karen Gerdes, and Rowan Mangan, for reading thousands of pages of my writing over the past few years, and for wrapping me up in the great big wingspan of your collective love. Thank you to Glennon Doyle, for sitting by my door all those nights. I needed it, and I am grateful.

Thank you to my sister-wives, Gigi Madl and Stacey Weinberg, for their love and sacrifice during such a hard season of pain and loss. I could not have survived 2017 without you.

Thank you to Sheryl Moller, Jennie Willink, Jonny Miles, and Anita Schwartz, for being enthusiastic early readers of these pages. Thank you to Billy Buell, for lending me the use of his fabulous name.

Sarah Chalfant: As ever, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Miriam Feuerle: As ever, I love rolling with you.

Lastly, a message to Rayya Elias: I know how badly you wanted to be here at my side while I wrote this novel. All I can tell you, baby, is that you were. You are never not at my side. You are my heart. I will always love you.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic and Eat, Pray, Love, as well as several other internationally bestselling books. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, The Signature of All Things, was named a best book of 2013 by The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine,The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and The New Yorker.

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