Strings Attached Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked. “You’re going to get him out of it.”
    “He’s claimed his manhood,” Da said. “May it make him a man. Let him pack his suitcase and go.”
    “No!” I shouted.
    Jamie shook his head hard, back and forth, back and forth, as if to drive out what he heard behind Da’s words. Then he turned around and went to pack. Da stood over him, his arms folded, watching until the suitcase closed. Then he shook his hand and told him good-bye.

     
    He left a note for me.
    Kit,
Sorry for all.
J
     
    As if he didn’t even have the heart to sign his whole name.
    I knew Billy was gone when I read his name in the paper along with Jamie’s and all the others who had joined up to fight in Korea to defeat the Communists.
    Also in the paper, in a gossip column about Hollywood, I saw this:
    We hear … that Jeff Toland is back in Hollywood and raring to go after his automobile accident on Cape Cod this fall. Don’t worry, girls, that gorgeous profile is still intact! Word is he’s inking a new contract with Paramount and in talks for the lead role of Harry Manning in “Manning Makes Good.”
     
    Is that what Nate could do? Reach all the way to Hollywood and get Jeff a job? How many favors had he called in for that?

     
    My last argument with Da had us standing toe-to-toe, screaming into each other’s faces.
    “Let them make a man of him, let the army do it. God knows I couldn’t!” Da yelled, his face beet red with anger. “And you — no more working in nightclubs. What was I thinking, allowing that? No, from now on, it’s home after school and studying like a regular girl. I’ve lost control of this household. Thank the Lord that Muddie has a head on her shoulders.”
    “That’s no thanks to you,” I said. “You didn’t raise us. We just lived in the same house as you.”
    “I did the best I could —”
    “The best you could. Delia was right — you lived off us and you lived off her.”
    The words were out and I couldn’t take them back. Da turned away.
    I went on. “So now you want to catch up, prove you’re a good father? You’re going to let Jamie go to war just forthat?” I hurled the words down the hall. “Well, say a prayer for yourself, Da. You just might have killed him!”
    That afternoon I made my plans. Ironed my blouses. Packed my suitcase. Muddie begged me to stay, with tears in her eyes, and I told her I’d write, that I would be leaving when I graduated anyway, and she was the smart one, so why should I stay just for a diploma? She brought in her blue chiffon scarf and put it in my suitcase and then ran back out to the hall so I couldn’t say no.
    Every once in a while Da came and stood in the doorway, saying, “And don’t think you can come back!” and “You’ll be back once you realize how hard it is to keep a roof over your head!” and “Please, Kit, I can’t bear to lose you, too.”
    I let him talk, and I didn’t answer. I was right there, and I was already gone.

Four
     
    New York City
October 1950
    I heard the piano music in my dreams. He played early in the mornings, probably before school, and I was half awake. I started thinking of him as Mr. Broadway. He’d play a classical number, something I didn’t recognize, of course, and then he’d swing into “Embraceable You” or “I Could Write a Book.”
    I’d lie in bed, listening, and for a while the piano would chase away the blues. I was out of work, and even though I didn’t have to pay rent, I needed money for food and stockings and toothpaste. I was getting down to my last dime, and it was plenty thin. I’d been hoping to step into another chorus job, but none of my auditions had panned out. Today I would look for a waitress job to tide me over. I tried not to think of this as defeat. Plenty of girls had jobs and managed to take classes and go on auditions, too.
    I was up and circling want ads when the phone rang. I didn’t want to answer the phone, afraid it would be Nate, but I was waiting for a