“She probably means she’s looking for another job,” Steven said, then turned to his daughter. “Must you really bore our guest with all that?” he asked her in a much sharper tone than usual.
Ruth couldn’t help but add, “Just how often does your father have to offer you a job at Miles Enterprises? It’s getting a little tiresome how muleheaded you can be.”
“And just how often do I have to tell you that I don’t want to let Daddy give me a job in the family firm?” Wanda asked right back, imitating her mother’s tone. Switching back to her normal voice, she added, “After all, when Father was my age he went to work for Mr. Woolworth. He didn’t ask his own father for a job.”
“Harold isn’t altogether happy about your wild ideas either,” Ruth announced as though Wanda had never spoken. “He’s already complaining that he hardly gets to see you.”
“You and Harold are all cut from the same cloth, it seems!”
The argument went on, back and forth across the table. Sometimes the tone grew harsh, sometimes a little less so. Then all of a sudden, after a particularly bitter exchange, Ruth burst into tears.
“Ruth, my darling, don’t cry!” Steven reached out tenderly and brushed the tears from his wife’s cheeks.
She raised her face toward him.
“What did we do wrong? She’s always had everything she ever needs, hasn’t she?” she whispered, her voice thick with tears.
Wanda swallowed hard. They were talking as though she weren’t there—again! Even Aunt Marie was ignoring her.
“That’s how young people are at that age. At least nowadays. I’m quite sure that Wanda will apologize, as she knows she should, and . . .” Steven spoke to his wife in soothing tones.
All at once Marie pushed her chair back and stood up.
“That’s enough! I am sure you will excuse me if I leave the table. Nobody can put up with this kind of palaver.”
“Marie, please stay!” Ruth said, jumping to her feet. “I can’t let Wanda drive you away too.”
“What do you mean, Wanda? You two are the ones who are acting as though she were the first woman who ever wanted to work!” Marie stood in the door for a moment, shaking her head. “I just don’t know what your problem is,” she told Steven. “First you tell me that New York is the city of a thousand opportunities, but as soon as your daughter tries to seize one of them, you both scream blue murder! Good gracious—she isn’t planning to steal the moon from the sky! All she wants is to go to work somewhere nearby.”
Wanda stared at her, astonished—she had never heard her German aunt talk this way!
Ruth frowned. “It’s not as simple as all that. There are certain conventions we have to . . .”
Marie laughed out loud. “Conventions! Oh, and didn’t we care about those when we were Wanda’s age?” she asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “You’ve obviously forgotten that we were young once too . . .”
Shaking her head, she walked out of the room.
7
“Stop, stop, that’s enough, girls. We’re taking a break!” Pandora Wilkens clapped her hands and shooed her dance class over to a corner where a table stood with a carafe of water.
“You have to drink!” she called out. “Water is the elixir of life. Water and air, air and water, never forget that!”
Marie held her sides. “I can’t go on, I’ve got the most dreadful stitch,” she gasped. Exhausted, she lay down on the parquet floor, which had been worn smooth by the tread of countless dancing feet. Wanda passed her a glass of water and she took it, her hands trembling, and put it beside her.
When Wanda had asked her that morning whether she wanted to come to her weekly dance class, she hadn’t wanted to pour cold water on the idea. It was the first time that her niece had come to her with any such suggestion. So the two of them had set out together to walk to the southernmost point of Manhattan Island. Marie had been a little surprised when Wanda stopped in front of a shabby-looking brownstone building with three steep iron staircases zigzagging across the front.
A dance class? Here? How on earth did they squeeze a ballet studio in here? Would there be wall-length mirrors? Velvet ropes and gilded pillars? Then they went into the dressing room, which was no bigger than a broom cupboard, and Marie realized that Pandora Wilkens’s dance classes would be nothing like what she had imagined. She had been expecting a genteel pastime for young ladies.
Now she wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
“This is the first time we’ve gone out together—why did you pick something that’s such hard work?” she groaned as she tried to get back to her feet.