A tree grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith [210]
“Going somewhere?” she asked.
“Yup. Just got time to catch the show. They’ve got Van and Schenck and boy, can Schenck sing! He sits at the piano like this.” Neeley sat at the kitchen table and demonstrated. “He sits sideways and crosses his legs, looking out at the audience. Then he leans his left elbow on the music rack and picks out the tune with his right hand while he sings.” Neeley went into a fair imitation of his idol singing “When You’re a Long, Long Way from Home.”
“Yup, he’s swell. Sings the way Papa used to…a little.”
Papa!
Francie looked for the union label in Neeley’s shirt and pressed that first.
(“That label is like an ornament…like a rose that you wear.”)
The Nolans sought for the union label on everything they bought. It was their memorial to Johnny.
Neeley looked at himself in the glass hanging over the sink.
“Do you think I need a shave?” he asked.
“Not for five years, yet.”
“Aw, shut up!”
“Don’t-say-shut-up-to-each-other,” said Francie, imitating her mother.
Neeley smiled and proceeded to scrub his face, neck, arms, and hands. He sang as he washed.
There’s Egypt in your dreamy eyes,
A bit of Cairo in your style….
Francie ironed away contentedly.
Neeley was dressed at last. He stood before her in his dark blue double-breasted suit, fresh white shirt with the soft turned-down collar and a polka-dot bow tie. He smelled fresh and clean from washing and his curly-blond hair gleamed.
“How do I look, Prima Donna?”
He buttoned up his coat jauntily and Francie saw that he wore their father’s signet ring.
It was true then—what Granma had said: that the Rommely women had the gift of seeing the ghosts of their beloved dead. Francie saw her father.
“Neeley, do you still remember ‘Molly Malone’?”
He put a hand in his pocket, turned away from her and sang.
In Dublin’s fair city,
The girls are so pretty…
Papa…Papa!
Neeley had the same clear true voice. And how unbelievably handsome he was! So handsome that, even though he wasn’t sixteen years old yet, women turned to look after him with a sigh when he walked down the street. He was so handsome that Francie felt like a dark drab alongside of him.
“Neeley, do you think I’m good-looking?”
“Look! Why don’t you make a novena to St. Theresa about it? I think a miracle might fix you up.”
“No, I mean it.”
“Why don’t you get your hair cut off and wear it in curls like the other girls instead of those chunks wound around your head?”
“I have to wait until I’m eighteen on account of Mother. But do you think I’m good-looking?”
“Ask me again when you fill out a little more.”
“Please tell me.”
He examined her carefully, then said, “You’ll pass.” She had to be satisfied with that.
He had said he was in a hurry, but now he seemed reluctant to go.
“Francie! McShane…I mean Dad, will be here for supper tonight. I’m working afterwards. Tomorrow will be the wedding and a party in the new house tomorrow night. Monday, I have to go to school. And while I’m there, you’ll be getting on that Wolverine train for Michigan. There’ll be no chance to say good-bye to you alone. So I’ll say good-bye now.”
“I’ll be home for Christmas, Neeley.”
“But it won’t be the same.”
“I know.”
He waited. Francie extended her right hand. He pushed her hand aside, put his arms around her and kissed her on the cheek. Francie clung to him and started to cry. He pushed her away.
“Gee, girls make me sick,” he said. “Always so mushy.” But his voice was ragged as though he, too, was going to cry.
He turned and ran out of the flat. Francie went out into the hallway and watched him run down the steps. He paused in the well of darkness at the foot of the stairs and turned to look back up at her. Although it was dark, there was brightness where he stood.
So like Papa…so like Papa, she thought. But he had more strength in his face than Papa had had. He waved to her. Then he was gone.
Four o’clock.
Francie decided to get dressed