The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [112]
“You have to take lessons to learn,” Sonia, the eldest, said practically, “and you can’t afford the cost.”
Azaylee wasn’t sure she knew what “afford” meant, and she glanced at Missie plaintively. There was a scratch across her nose and Missie could see the line of dirt under her chin where she had finished washing before she sat down to her supper. It can’t go on like this, she told herself, it’s enough, enough … just look what’s happening to Misha’s daughter.
“You want to tell me what happened?” Rosa asked, glancing at the clock. Meyer was expected at seven and it was already half-past six. There was time, but she knew Missie would not stay when he came home; she knew she couldn’t stand Meyer Perelman.
Missie shrugged. “The foreman at the Pig Market,” she said, “you know the one I told you about, he picked me the first time for Zimmerman’s? He picked me again this morning and sent me to Galinski’s.”
Rosa nodded. She knew Galinski’s. It was a small operation, hand to mouth each week, picking up cheap itinerant labor when it was needed.
“There were only two other people there,” Missie said, “a cutter upstairs by the window and Mr. Galinski in his office. He showed me a machine and told me to begin. I worked steadily until noon, and then I took a break. ‘No pay for time stopped,’ Galinski said, and I told him all right, I knew. Then he put on his hat and coat and went out for lunch. I went back to my machine and the next thing I knew somebody was standing behind me. It was the foreman who had hired me.
“‘Everything all right?’ he asked me, coming closer.
“I told him yes and went back to work. He came even closer.” Missie blushed as her eyes met Rosa’s understanding ones. “Too close. He put his hand on my shoulder and slid it….” Lowering her eyes, she whispered, “He said there would be work for me every day, that he could make it easy for me, and I would earn good money—if I was nice to him.”
Rosa stared at her and said breathlessly, “What did you do?”
“I jumped up and picked up a pair of cutter’s shears and I said that if he came near me again I would stab him where it hurt and he would never be able to molest another girl again.”
Rosa flung back her head and laughed. “Missie O’Bryan,” she exclaimed, gasping, mopping up her tears, “six months ago you never would have thought of that! You have become a true Lower East Side girl.”
Missie glanced at Azaylee. “We both have,” she said bitterly.
“Anyway,” she concluded, “he told me to get out, so I did. He shouted after me that there would be no pay and not to come back to the Pig Market again if I knew what was good for me. So”—she shrugged—“that’s that.”
“You should go uptown, Missie,” Rosa urged. “You are too good for them here. There are smart shops on Fifth Avenue where they make beautiful clothes for rich women. They’ll need seamstresses, handworkers—anything would be better than the sweatshops. Take the five dollars,” she urged, pushing it into Missie’s hand. “Go tomorrow.” Their eyes met as she added understandingly, “Before it’s too late.”
That night when Azaylee was asleep, Missie took out the valise from under the bed and opened it and looked at the tiara with its golden sunburst, naked of diamonds except for the four largest, and the huge ice-green emerald. She wondered what would happen if she walked into Cartier and said simply, “I would like to sell the Ivanoff tiara.” Would they call the police? Arrest her maybe? Send her to jail for stealing it? She had no proof that it was hers, or that Azaylee was an Ivanoff. The only papers she had were the yellowing legal documents about some mines in India, and they were brown with age and the red sealing wax was breaking away from the pink legal ribbons.
She picked up the photograph and looked at Misha’s dear face again, as she often did when she was alone. Sometimes he felt so close to her, as if maybe somewhere he was thinking about her too. After picking up the brooch, she pinned it to her dress and went to look in the mirror. The diamonds sparkled under the light and the