Chapter Two
The air was brisk, the newness of fall descending on Gladys and Margaret as they stood outside of the cobbler shop.
“Darling, if this is your idea of an exciting Saturday night, I am going to pen an obituary and etch a tombstone for you right now, because you’re already dead and buried.”
Margaret grinned. “And would you have come if I told you that we were going to be knitting?”
Gladys shook her head, her curls bouncing with newly set perfection. Unlike Dottie’s natural ones—assisted by only the tiniest bit of gel—Gladys’s spirals were the result of painful nights spent in foam rollers. Her hair was fiery—something Margaret always thought was a fitting crown for her personality. Between them, they made a complete set. Dottie with her ebony locks, Gladys the redhead, and Margaret with the shiny straight hair that her grandmother used to call “spun gold.”
And these were exactly the girls with whom she wanted to grow gray someday.
How she missed the days when how you styled your hair was the worst thing you had to worry about.
Gladys shivered and pulled a flask from her purse. “Hot chocolate,” she insisted before Margaret could comment. “I’m not a total lush despite reports to the contrary.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“Sure you weren’t. Look—I can prove it.” She pulled a small envelope from her coat pocket and opened it. Margaret could smell the rich aroma of the chocolate powder, even though she could scarcely make it out in the dim light. The blackout hour was nearly upon them and shopkeepers in the neighborhood had begun the process of shuttering their windows for the night.
“Did you get that at Rockwood?” Margaret asked, referring to the factory that sat near the Navy Yard. In the right wind, the scent of cocoa teased the workers, and more than once, Margaret had found her mouth watering as she sewed stars on a flag.
Gladys closed the lid and returned it to her pocket. “Not on your life. All of their stuff is going to the boys overseas. Getting chocolate out of them would be harder than breaking into Fort Knox. Nah, this here is from Ebinger’s.”
“Ebinger’s! Mama said she’s going to treat me to one of their Brooklyn Blackout cakes for my next birthday. Have you had one yet?”
“Sure I have. What’s the use of having a sweetheart working in a sweetshop if you don’t get a little sweetness on the side?”
“Gladys!”
“I’m pulling your leg, doll. You know I’m not seeing anyone, but gosh, I love your lack of guile. I saved some pennies and bought it with my own money since I don’t have a husband to make me account for every little whim. How long have you known me?”
Margaret sighed. “Until the day I die, Gladys, I’m not sure I’ll ever know when you’re kidding.”
“Keep ’em on their toes. That’s my motto.”
“You have a lot of those.”
“Have a lot of mottos. That’s my motto.”
Margaret rolled her eyes but knew that Gladys wouldn’t see that in the dark. “You’re incorrigible.”
“Is that another one of your fancy words?”
“Yes. From two weeks ago. I just haven’t had the right opportunity to use it. Until now.”
Gladys chuckled. “I know big words, too, you know. You don’t have the corner on the market. You’ll be jubilant to learn that I brought enough chocolate packets to share with you and Dottie.”
Margaret’s cheeks warmed at the image of the rare treat.
“Thank you, Gladys,” she said, mollified.
“You’re welcome. You’ve got a hot plate in there?”
“Yeah. Pops likes fresh coffee while he’s working.”
“And milk?”
“Nope. Mom uses all the milk rations for baking bread. So it’s black coffee for us until the end of the war.”
Gladys frowned. “And watery hot chocolate. Ah, what can you do? Just one more loss to lay at the feet of Hitler.”
“I think there are a few worse things attributed to him than that. Read the paper.”
“No doubt, doll. I pray every night that the bastard gets a bullet right in the heart. And by American hands, if possible.” She folded her arms. “But tonight I can also resent him for ruining the full Ebinger’s experience.”
“Of course you can.”
“Well, we’ll make do. We always have.”
“Hi, girls!”
They turned to see a silhouette of Dottie sidestepping something on the pavement.
“Oh my,” she said as she approached. “They need to repair that hole. Someone could get hurt.” She brushed the front of her skirt with her hands. “Anyway, I brought some yarn like you asked, Margaret.”
“Whatever would I do without you?”
“May you never have to find out.” Margaret knew Dottie was grinning as she said it. It was a familiar exchange between them, an echo of their barefoot days playing on the Brighton Beach boardwalk. Margaret had once splintered her heel running after a stray kite. Dottie, with saintlike patience, had worked with the tweezers, plucking it out in triumph. The first of many incidents in which the banter was apropos.
It was no wonder that Dottie was the first of them to be getting married and having a baby. She’d been a little adult ever since she was half the size of one.
Gladys took a swig of her hot chocolate. “My bones were not made for freezing, ladies, and my head wasn’t made for nostalgia. Shall we move this party inside?”
Margaret inserted a rusty key into the lock, marveling at how old it was. Her father inherited this shoe-making business from his father, and the key was an original. Her family lived just a block from the store, which made for an easy commute and saved on the expense of bus tokens.
She ushered the girls inside and closed the door behind them. Pops had already shuttered the store for the evening, and the curtains had been drawn to keep any errant light from slipping through the metal sheets that covered the windows. This new routine had quickly become habit ever since a few tankers had been sunk in New York Harbor by German U-boats using the Manhattan skyline as an unintended flashlight. Now, all of Brooklyn had to live in “dim-out” conditions once the sun set. Even motor cars drove without headlights. Times Square and Coney Island were likewise darkened.
New York became a ghost town at night.
Once the door was closed behind them, Margaret flipped on the switch and the overhead lights—hanging by their wires—flickered until they cast a yellow glow across the room. The Becks’ bread and butter money came from the rugged boots popular in workman’s Brooklyn. The shop served those at the Navy Yard, along with laborers at the nearby sugar refineries, dockyards, and glue factories.
They used to sell women’s shoes as well, embellished with buckles and embroidered flowers. Black patent leather. Flapper shoes designed for endless hours of dancing. Her mother, quoting Abigail Adams, had implored her husband to remember the ladies, and the side offerings had brought in a modest profit.
Now, everything was utilitarian in construct. Unimaginative, and a poor waste of her father’s talent for the trade. Instead of the needlepoint Margaret had once assisted with, her off-hours were often spent slicing through leather hides and fitting them around wooden lasts shaped like toeless feet.