Chapter 21
Therese sat cross-legged on her bed back at the inn with the cardboard box of letters Isabel had finally agreed to part with.
Tied with a yellowing bit of twine, the paper was thin nearly to the point of transparency, the handwriting in watery blue ink was slanted and full of flourishes and scrolls.
She looked down at the letters, and then at Maeve. “You’re getting dressed to go out on the town with some strange dude you just met, and I’m staying home and getting all tingly over the prospect of reading a bunch of letters that are over a hundred years old. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Maeve laughed. “It’s like we’ve traded places.” She held up a flowered cotton blouse. “How’s this? With my navy-blue skirt and flats?”
“Oh hell no,” Therese retorted. “You’re going pub-crawling, not to a First Communion party.”
She jumped up and began rummaging around in her suitcase. She handed her sister a rumpled inside-out T-shirt. “Wear this. With jeans. You do own a pair of jeans, right?”
Maeve held up the only jeans she’d packed, a perfectly respectable pair she’d bought on clearance from Old Navy a few years earlier.
“No, no, no. Where’d you get these mom jeans? Sears?” Therese grabbed the jeans and tossed them in the general vicinity of the trash can.
“Those were almost brand-new,” Maeve protested.
“Maybe in 1998, and they weren’t even a good look back then,” Therese said. She held up a pair of faded jeans from her own suitcase. “Levi’s 501s. Button fly. Never not in style. You’ve got a cute butt on you, little sis. Trust me, these will look great on you.”
Maeve turned the T-shirt right side out and dropped it like it was a poisonous snake. “Nope. No way I’m wearing anything that says ‘Butthole Surfers.’ That’s repulsive. Even for you.”
“That’s a vintage rock concert tee from my personal collection.
I sell those for two hundred and fifty dollars—when I can get one.
” Therese took another look at the shirt and shrugged.
“Okay, you might have a point. Wrong message for a first date. I’m guessing White Snake is out too?
” She dug out another tee, this one an emerald green. “Here. Dropkick Murphys.”
Maeve slipped the shirt over her head, and Therese shook her head again. “A little too on the nose for Ireland. Let’s just go with basic black. Def Leppard. Hip but not threatening.
“Now,” Therese said, after her sister was dressed, “the look is coming together. Next, shoes.” She pulled a pair of battered black leather boots from her suitcase. “Here. Don’t lose them. They’re my good-luck Doc Martens.”
“How am I gonna lose a pair of boots that weigh, like, twenty-five pounds? Besides, your shoes are a size larger than mine.”
“Put on another pair of socks.”
When she was dressed, Maeve stood in front of the mirror on the back of the door, secretly pleased with her appearance, although she’d be damned if she’d admit it to her sister.
“Now for some makeup.” Therese advanced on her with a pouch bristling with brushes, bottles, potions, and palettes.
“I’m wearing makeup,” Maeve protested.
“Sit.” Therese pointed at the only chair in the room, and in another moment, she was attacking her sister with concealer, bronzer, eyebrow pencil, lipstick, and tweezers.
“You’re lucky you’ve got the Dunagin lips,” Therese said. “I swear, the next paid acting gig I get, I’m getting fillers.”
She dusted Maeve’s face with a final coat of powder, then spritzed it with something that smelled like lilacs.
“Voilà!”
Maeve gazed at herself in the tiny mirror over the dresser. She blinked. Her eyes looked smoky and mysterious. She had actual cheekbones. And pouty, dare she say it, sensual lips.
“This is … amazing. Where’d you learn to do makeup like this?”
“Here and there. Tricks of the acting trade when you’re an actress on no-budget or low-budget productions. Plus I worked at the Lanc?me counter at Bergdorf Goodman for a couple months last time I lived in New York.”
Therese put her hands on her hips as she studied her sister. “It’s a little too basic. You still need something.” She leaned in. “Hmm. A nose ring would be good. I could pierce your septum. Won’t take a sec…”
Maeve recoiled in horror.
“Kidding.”
Therese reached under the collar of her own shirt and pulled out her rosary beads, placing them gently over her sister’s head.
“Yes! Chef’s kiss.”
“But … it’s sacrilegious to wear a rosary as jewelry,” Maeve said.
“You said yourself these were blessed by the Pope. Think of these as our family jewels.” Therese glanced at her watch. “Okay, Cinderella, I think your pumpkin is waiting.”
Maeve managed a nervous smile. “Thanks. Really, for the clothes and the makeup…”
“Get going,” Therese said, opening the door to their room. “And remember. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I can’t think of anything you wouldn’t do,” Maeve said.
“My point exactly.”
Therese unfolded the first of Kathleen’s letters home, smoothing the crackling paper with her fingertips.
The faded postal mark on the envelope was August 23, 1926.
Dearest Tommy:
I am here. In the States. The crossing was fearsome. I was horribly ill with seasickness most of the way, but my new friend Maggy was an angel and took care of me. When we reached Ellis Island I held my breath until the officials finally stamped my paperwork and proclaimed me fit to stay.
I don’t really have enough words to describe New York. The heat is like a furnace, suffocating, with not a prayer of a breeze. So many people, automobiles, and tall buildings.
But glory to God and Father McInerney, the priest at St. Mary’s, I now have a place to live. It’s just a small room in what they call a tenement building, on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of the city. Of course, there are no orchards in sight. Barely any trees.
We have a little cookstove to make tea and are lucky enough to have a window for some fresh air. There is a bed for me, and one for my friend Maggy and her little girl, who are staying here with me.
Maggy is from Cork, and her husband, who came over several months ago, was to meet her at the docks, but the saddest thing—he died, of some kind of fever, only a week before our ship arrived. She is still grieving, of course, and very worried about how she and her little girl will survive.
For now, we both have work in a factory just across the street, where we sew men’s shirts. We have arranged our schedules so that one of us will be home with Dolly while the other is at the factory.
It’s not hard work, but the hours are long, and my neck and back ache after spending a long day bent over a sewing machine. I am what’s called a collar and cuff girl, and I’m not boasting when I say I’ve gotten quite fast, which is important because we get paid by the piece.
On Sundays, Maggy and I go to Mass at St. Mary’s.
The church is very beautiful and the organ and choir, when they sing the familiar old hymns, make me ache and weep with homesickness for my faraway home and family.
I keep telling myself that this is my new home now, but I don’t know that I will ever get over missing the soft green fields of Ireland and the warmth of all I’ve left behind.
After church, Mrs. Meehan, who lives just down the hall from us, sometimes has us over for a roast and potatoes, and it’s the finest meal we have all week. I do miss you, Tommy, and every night I pray for you, and Mum and Dad and our sweet little sisters in heaven.
I hope you are working hard to help Mrs. Boylan, and I know you are a blessing to her. Please do write to me at this address and let me know how you are getting on. Let me know, too, what you hear of Lady Delia. I fear something horrible happened to her the day I left and think of her constantly.
Closing now, your loving sister, K