A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [158]
“I hope she’s not fool enough to tip him,” thought Evy.
“Does Mama know you’re supposed to leave a nickel tip?” thought Neeley. “I hope so.”
“Whatever Mama does,” thought Francie, “it will be the right thing.”
It wasn’t the custom to tip in the ice-cream saloons except on special parties when you were supposed to leave a nickel. Katie saw that the check was for thirty cents. She had one coin in her old purse, it was a fifty-cent piece which she laid on the check. The waiter took it away and brought back four nickels which he laid in a row. He hovered nearby waiting for Katie to pick up three of them. She looked at the four nickels. “Four loaves of bread,” she thought. Four pair of eyes watched Katie’s hand. Katie never hesitated once she put her hand on the money. With a sure gesture, she pushed the four nickels toward the waiter.
“Keep the change,” she said grandly.
Francie had all she could do not to stand up on her chair and cheer. “Mama is somebody,” she kept saying to herself. The waiter scooped up the nickels happily and rushed away.
“Two sodas shot,” groaned Neeley.
“Katie, Katie, how foolish,” protested Evy. “I bet it’s your last money, too.”
“It is. But it may be our last graduation, too.”
“McGarrity pays us four dollars tomorrow,” said Francie, defending her mother.
“And he fires us tomorrow too,” added Neeley.
“There’ll be no money after that four dollars until they get jobs, then,” concluded Evy.
“I don’t care,” said Katie. “For once I wanted us to feel like millionaires. And if twenty cents can make us feel rich, it’s a cheap price to pay.”
Evy recalled how Katie let Francie pour her coffee down the sink and said nothing more. There were many things she didn’t understand about her sister.
The parties were breaking up. Albie Seedmore, the leggy son of a prosperous grocer, came over to their table.
“Go-to-the-movies-with-me-tomorrow-Francie?” he asked all on a breath. “I’ll pay,” he added hastily.
(A movie house was letting the graduates attend the Saturday matinee two-for-a-nickel providing they brought their diplomas along as proof.)
Francie looked at her mother. Mama nodded her consent.
“Sure, Albie,” accepted Francie.
“See you. Two. Tomorrow.” He loped off.
“Your first date,” said Evy. “Make a wish.” She held out her little finger and crooked it. Francie hooked her little finger into Aunt Evy’s.
“I wish I could always wear a white dress and carry red roses and that we could always throw money around like we did tonight,” wished Francie.
Book Four
43
“YOU GOT THE IDEA NOW,” SAID THE FORELADY TO FRANCIE. “YOU’LL make a good stemmer in time.” She went away and Francie was on her own; the first hour of the first day of her first job.
Following the forelady’s instructions, her left hand picked up a foot length of shiny wire. Simultaneously her right hand picked up a narrow strip of dark green tissue paper. She touched the end of the strip to a damp sponge, then, using the thumb and first two fingers of each hand as a rolling machine, she wound the paper on the wire. She placed the covered wire aside. It was now a stem.
At intervals, Mark, the pimply-faced utility boy, distributed the stems to the “pet’lers” who wired paper rose petals to them. Another girl strung a calyx up under the rose and turned it over to the “leafer” who pried a unit, three dark glossy leaves on a short stem, from a block of leaves, wired the unit to the stem and turned the rose over to the “finisher,” who wound a strip of heavier-textured green paper around the calyx and down the stem. The stem, calyx, rose and leaves were now one and seemed to have grown so.
Francie’s back hurt and a shooting pain ran through her shoulder. She must have covered a thousand stems, she figured. Surely it was time for lunch. She turned around to look at the clock and found that she had been working just one hour!
“Clock watcher,” commented a girl derisively. Francie looked