Whispering Hearts Page 13

  Mr. Manning called me into his office as soon as I had a break.

  “What’s up, Emma? You’re having a helluva bad day,” he said pointedly.

  I sat staring down at the floor.

  “Well?”

  “My new roommate is leaving. She made up with her boyfriend, and they got engaged,” I said. “She’s leaving today.”

  “I see. There you go again. And you’re still not getting along with your parents? No help from them?”

  “Oh, no. My father is probably champing at the bit waiting for me to go rushing back to beg his forgiveness.”

  “I’m sure he’s in pain about it, too.”

  “Not in the way you think, Mr. Manning, not my father. Sometimes he leads me to believe I had borrowed my life from him and would be in endless debt.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’ve been giving Billy monthly reports about you. You haven’t written or called him?”

  “No, I have nothing good yet to tell him, and I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  “He’s pretty cool with it all, Emma. He’s been through it.”

  “Failure, you mean.”

  He held up his hands. “I’m not calling you a failure. You might want to step back and take stock, however. Maybe return to England for a while. Billy thinks you can get work singing there or go to music school anytime you want.”

  “I’m not giving up,” I said. I tried to sound as firm about it as I could.

  “Okay. But I’d like you to take a day or so off and rest up a bit. You’re driving yourself too hard.”

  “I need the money, Mr. Manning, more than ever now. I’ll be more careful. I promise,” I said. My voice resonated with pleading.

  “I’m giving you a little bonus you can use to compensate for the two days.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re my hardest worker. You deserve it.”

  I couldn’t help being suspicious. “Is this a bonus or a handout?”

  He laughed. “Handout? Didn’t take you long to become a New Yorker. It’s a bonus. See? I had it in here just waiting for the right moment. Just don’t announce it out there.”

  He reached into his top drawer and took out an envelope.

  “Go on. Take it and rest up. See you for the morning shift in two days.”

  I took it and got up. At the door, I turned and looked back at him. “This didn’t come from Mr. Wollard, did it?”

  “Don’t insult me,” he said, but I didn’t believe him. “I’ll post your apartment again. Go on.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and left. Despite what he had claimed about the money, I still felt like the recipient of charity, and just the vision of my father’s expression made me feel like some of or maybe all the homeless people I saw in the streets surely felt, diminished, less than human.

  Leo Abbot was either waiting for me or saw me coming home earlier than usual and didn’t wait for me at his doorway, either. He was there at the main entrance to greet me. I had a suspicion that Donald Manning might have called him, too.

  “Aren’t you feeling well?” he asked immediately.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It just wasn’t turning out to be a good day for me. Thank you.” I was not in the mood to do much talking, but he wasn’t stepping out of my way.

  “You should go home, Emma,” he said. “There’s no shame in it. You gave it as big an effort as anyone could.”

  “Oh, no, Leo. I’ve just gotten started,” I said, but not with the enthusiasm I would have felt when I had first arrived.

  “You could go home and get rejuvenated and then come back in the spring and give it another try, Emma.”

  “But I’d lose the apartment. You’d have to rent it.”

  “There are other apartments, ones not so expensive, in the Bronx or Queens. Now that you know the city better, you don’t have to be so close to the restaurant.”

  “Who says I’d still have that job?”

  “Go home. Rethink it all. It’s best to be around people who love you and those you love when you’re making big decisions about your life.”

  I shook my head. “Did you ever hear of a novel titled You Can’t Go Home Again?”

  “No, but I’m not that much of a reader. I should be. What happens in it?”

  “People back home believe you think less of them because you’ve left to go to places that are more exciting and promising. They realize you think you can’t be satisfied the way they were. It’s not exactly what happens, but it’s the way things often are. There’s a resentment and a pleasure in seeing you so desperate. Besides, Leo, I could tolerate living homeless more than living under my father’s ego now.”

  “It’s that bad, is it?”

  “For me, it is. I’ll make the rent. Don’t worry.”

  “You hurt me when you say it like that, Emma. I’m thinking more of you.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo. This isn’t my day for doing things right, even saying them right. I need some sleep,” I said, and headed up.

  He remained there looking up at me.

  I had a little dinner, read some to keep my mind off things, and went to sleep early. I had yet to do anything that was fun in New York, so the next day I decided to be a tourist for the day and even went to the top of the Empire State Building. It was cold but clear, and at least for a few minutes, I could feel like I was on top of the world.

  I had a call from a prospective new roommate the following morning and met her at the café on our corner an hour later. She looked to be younger than I was and had her shoulder-length hair dyed red, green, and yellow. Her name was Marla Green, and she said she was in New York working in a tattoo parlor, learning the art. When I described the costs, including one month’s rent in advance, something I had decided I had to have now, she started to negotiate, telling me she could get that after two months or so.

  I hated those two words: or so.

  At the moment, she was living with her sister and brother-in-law. She complained about her sister’s two children. I told her to call me later that afternoon. When I returned to the apartment building, Leo was working with an electrician in the lobby and again invited me to have a cup of tea. This time, I accepted. I wanted his opinion on my prospective new roommate.

  “Sounds like you’re buying into trouble,” he said. “Wait for a bigger fish.”

  When Marla called later, I told her I had found someone who could pay everything immediately, and I was sorry but that’s what I needed.

  “Sure,” she said, and hung up abruptly.

  I did eventually get a more qualified roommate, a twenty-year-old woman who was studying at the Fashion Institute. Her name was Jennifer Richards. She was quite serious about her work, but as before with Clara, my schedule and hers rarely coincided, so we could not do much together. Jennifer had her own cadre of friends, too. After five months, she informed me she was moving in with one of them who had a place closer to the Institute.

  By spring, I had sung two additional gigs in two other clubs, again making extra money but not gaining any real employment. I thought I came very close at one of the open auditions, because they asked me to remain and sing again after dozens of other girls had tried out. They were nice enough to call to let me know I didn’t get the part, but they were keeping me in mind, whatever that meant.

  My tea time with Leo became more regular. He was becoming more like a grandfather to me, carrying me when I didn’t have the full rent and telling me more and more about his own life and his own family, never failing to remind me not to lose mine. I knew he wanted me to return to England, but after a while, he stopped suggesting it.

  “You really are a determined young lady,” he concluded. “But I’m not sure that’s always good.”

  For a while afterward, he didn’t appear when I returned home from work, and he stopped inviting me in for tea or just to talk. I thought he was giving up on me, too. I had gone through another roommate and was once again in debt. Actually, I was in the most debt since I had arrive
d. I imagined he was getting up the courage to tell me I had to leave, find a place less expensive.

  And then, one late afternoon after I had worked a long morning shift and lunch, he opened the door to his apartment when I entered the building and looked out at me.

  “I have something for you,” he said, “to consider.”

  “What could that be?”

  “Something that will keep you from going home with your tail between your legs and stake you well enough to pursue a singing career until your voice gives out,” he said. “Interested?”

  “Is the pope Catholic?” I replied. It was something he would say.

  He smiled and stepped back.

  I entered his apartment.

  And changed my whole life.

  EIGHT

  When Leo Abbot first offered me his suggestion for solving my immediate problems, I thought the worst of him, worse than I could think of any man his age. Thinking that all the concern and affection he had shown me was a façade, I nearly jumped up and ran out of his apartment before he could explain further. The expression on my face should have been enough to shatter his bones.

  “Just listen,” he said firmly when I started to rise. “I never told you much about my wife. She died twice, as far as I was concerned.”

  “Twice?” I lowered myself back to the chair. What did this have to do with what he had just said? Had he gone mad? Was he a closet alcoholic?

  “She had heart failure, and she was almost misdiagnosed, and at a big hospital here, too. But a young doctor detected her problem after they had used those paddles and gotten her heart beating again. He was already considered a talented heart surgeon. He told me she needed a heart-valve replacement. My wife was so impressed with him that she didn’t hesitate to say yes, even though it was quite a risky operation back then.

  “We kept in touch with this young doctor even after he moved to his hometown of Hillsborough to become the head of the cardiac department there. He lives with his young wife in his family mansion on the shores of Lake Wyndemere, a five-mile-long lake on the border between New York and Massachusetts.”

  What a beautiful story, I thought. The way he described it made it sound more like a fairy tale. I smiled like a little girl hearing one for sure.

  “Whenever he came into New York City to see a show or be at some medical conference, usually where he was a chief speaker, he’d stop by to see us, even before he was married. We went to his wedding, by the way. He took us to dinner many times, too. He was very fond of my wife, Rose. I think he saw her as the mother he wished he had instead of the one he had. You might say he was her surrogate son.”

  “I love happy endings,” I said.

  He thought I was getting up and held out his hand.

  “Wait. My daughter Toby was always very fond of him. She and her husband don’t live too far from Hillsborough, so they see each other often. Toby is especially friendly with Dr. Davenport’s young wife, Samantha. She knew her before she married Dr. Davenport, because Toby’s husband, Greg, is an executive in Samantha’s father’s company, the Avery Dental Equipment Company.

  “Long story short,” he said, sitting back, “is it’s Samantha Davenport, not me, who’d like you to consider being pregnant. Of course, she has to meet you first, and Dr. Davenport has to approve. You’d have to undergo some medical examinations, but I guess I’ve been talking you up so much with my daughter Toby that it was just natural for her to suggest you to Samantha, and since she and the doctor were coming to New York anyway, I figured I’d mention it to you. All of us are more like relatives than just friends, you see.”

  I stared at him as if he had gone mad.

  “Mr. Abbot,” I began. I couldn’t manage to call him Leo right now. “You want me to have someone else’s baby? Someone… this doctor’s wife, wants me to do this, I assume, with her husband, or doesn’t she care who the father is as long as she has a baby? Don’t you see what this sounds like? Why doesn’t she just adopt one?”

  “Whoa… whoa…” he said, holding up the palms of his hands. “Steady, there. I’m not suggesting any sort of thing like you’re thinking. I’m sorry that I’m not explaining it well. I’m just understanding it all myself, and like my wife used to tell me, I have a habit of thinking after the ship has already sailed.”

  “Understanding it all? It’s not really hard to understand unless you’re four years old. I’d say five or six, but nowadays not even storks believe in that fairy tale.”

  “No, no, there’s no sex involved here,” he said. “I should have started with that.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s called in vitro fertilization. Everything will be explained to you in great detail. Best way it was explained to me was you’d carry their baby and give birth to him or her, but the baby is totally made from them.”

  “You mean like an embryo created in a petri dish in a clinic?”

  “Yes, yes,” he said excitedly. “I should have realized that you would know something more about it than me.”

  “I know what it is. I’ve heard of it, but in heaven’s name, why would I do such a thing?” I asked. I was actually feeling nauseous.

  “Well, some girl your age or about your age is going to be asked to do it, and they’re going to pay you or her a lot of money.”

  I shook my head. This was all so unreal and out of the blue, especially coming from him. My father was right when he told me that there was no greater mystery than the mind of someone you knew. No matter how friendly you were and how long you had known each other, there were layers and layers of thoughts swirling within him or her, thoughts you never imagined were there. “Just think of your own,” he had said. “How often do you surprise yourself with what you’re thinking?”

  Leo reached for my hand. “Believe me, Emma. The only reason I agreed to mention this to you is you have me convinced that you’re determined not to go home. You’re struggling something terrible here, and I’m worried about your welfare.”

  “My welfare? So that’s the reason you suggested my name for such a thing?” I asked, pulling my hand back.

  “Well, yes. I’m thinking of you, what might help you. I’ve observed you. I know you take as good care of yourself as possible. You’re not a party girl, by any means. You’re far more responsible than most young girls your age, very mature, in fact. Right now, this idea seems somewhat shocking to you, but to the Davenports, it’s the most serious decision of their lives. And don’t assume anything. Even after all I’ve told them about you, they still might not choose you.

  “On the other hand, if they both like you, Emma, they’ll give you seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Seventy-five thousand?” I could feel my eyes widen.

  “That’s not all. Until you gave birth, you’d live in the Davenport mansion, all your needs and then some paid for. All your debts here would be covered right into the future.”

  “Future? Meaning?”

  “They’d pay to keep the apartment for you so you could come back to it and continue to pursue a singing career in New York, if you like.”

  “Pay the full rent for the entire time?”

  “Yes.”

  I sat back. “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Well, he makes a lot of money, but he also comes from one of the richest families in the state.”

  I sat forward like someone with a hearing problem. “And they’d pay me seventy-five thousand dollars?”

  He nodded. “With that kind of money, for a while at least, you could do whatever you wanted full-time. You wouldn’t need a job. You wouldn’t be obligated to anyone.” He leaned forward. “These are financially sophisticated people. You wouldn’t be paying any income tax.”

  I sat back, astounded. It was like someone heaving a pail full of gold coins at me. Seventy-five thousand dollars? I would be lucky to make twenty-five thousand all year, and I knew how hard I would work for that.

  “Look, I’m very fond of Dr. Davenport and his wife, Samantha.
As I said, we’ve become like family. I’m not only thinking of you. I would never suggest you to them if I didn’t know you’d be perfect for it, for their sake as much as for yours. Please don’t be angry at me for suggesting it.”

  I nodded, still feeling stunned, and not because of any religious reason. Every girl thinks about what it would be like to be pregnant. Of course, it was uncomfortable, and giving birth was no walk in the park, but what sugarcoated it was you were going to have your baby, a child of your flesh and blood, conceived, you hoped, out of wondrous love. What Leo was suggesting was all mechanical. You were agreeing to sell your body, in a way, rent it. Why wouldn’t it be enough to send me packing? But seventy-five thousand dollars and all these added financial benefits kept me from getting up and running out of his apartment.

  Money had been the master in my family home for as long as I could remember. Had I brought that master with me to America? Would he always be beside me? I recalled the shock in Mummy’s face when my father once said, “Money is life.” When she started to object, he rattled off everything it could do, like end starvation, bring warmth and shelter, keep church doors open, but most of all, provide opportunity to grow and become someone, something of value.

  She looked at Julia and me helplessly. We were too young to offer any counterarguments to support her disagreement, and besides, it wasn’t only that our father was making another regal decree; despite what we wanted to believe, we both agreed. We were old enough to understand what he meant. The only thing I could think to say to soften it for her and myself was, It might be true, Mummy, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.

  I could tell myself the same thing now.

  “There’s one more thing,” Leo said. “If you agree to go through with it, that is.”

  “What?”

  “You’d have to keep your participation secret.”

  “How do I do that? A pregnant woman isn’t exactly someone incognito.”