City of Girls

Seeing me so uncomfortable, the man himself became only more nervous. His face looked almost panic-stricken. He seemed legitimately distraught. He was either terrified of upsetting me, or he was reliving his own nightmare. Maybe both. Witnessing this, I gathered my senses about me, took a deep breath, and set myself to the task of trying to put this poor man at ease. What was my pain, after all, compared to what he had lived through?

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, in a slightly more steady voice. “I’m sorry for my reaction. It’s just a shock to hear my brother’s name after all these years. But it’s an honor to meet you.”

I put my hand on his arm, to give him a little squeeze of gratitude. He cringed as though I had attacked him. I pulled back my hand, but slowly. He reminded me of the sort of horses my mother was always good with—the jumpy ones, the agitated ones. The timorous and troubled ones that nobody but she could handle. I instinctively took the tiniest step back, and dropped my arms to my sides. I wanted to show him that I was no threat.

I tried a different tack.

“What’s your name, sailor?” I asked in a more gentle voice—almost a teasing voice.

“I’m Frank Grecco.”

He didn’t reach out for a handshake, so I didn’t, either.

“How well did you know my brother, Frank?”

He nodded once more. Again, with that nervous bobbing. “We were officers together on the flight deck. Walter was my division commander. We’d been ninety-day wonders together, too. Went in different directions at first, but ended up on the same ship at the end of the war. By then, he outranked me.”

“Oh. All right.”

I wasn’t sure what any of those words meant, but I didn’t want him to stop talking. There was somebody standing right in front of me who had known my brother. I wanted to find out everything about this man.

“Did you grow up around here, Frank?” I asked, already knowing the answer from his accent. But I was trying to make things as easy for him as I could. I would give him the simple questions first.

Again, the twitchy nod. “South Brooklyn.”

“And were you and my brother good friends?”

He winced.

“Miss Morris, I need to tell you something.” The patrolman took off his hat once more and jammed his trembling fingers through his hair. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“Why would I recognize you?”

“Because I already know you, and you already know me. Please don’t walk away, ma’am.”

“Why on earth would I walk away?”

“Because I met you back in 1941,” he said. “I was the guy who drove you home to your parents’ house.”

—

The past came roaring up at me like a dragon woken from a deep slumber. I felt dizzy with the heat and the force of it. In a vertiginous series of flashes, I saw Edna’s face, Arthur’s face, Celia’s face, Winchell’s face. I saw my own young face in the back of that beat-up Ford—shamed and shattered.

This was the driver.

This was the guy who had called me a dirty little whore, right in front of my brother.

“Ma’am,” he said—and now he was the one grabbing my arm. “Please don’t walk away.”

“Stop saying that.” My voice came out ragged. Why did he keep saying that, when I wasn’t going anywhere? I just wanted him to stop saying that.

But he did it again: “Please don’t walk away, ma’am. I need to talk to you.”

I shook my head. “I can’t—”

“You need to understand—I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Could you let go of my arm, please?”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, but he dropped my arm.

What did I feel?

Repulsion. Pure repulsion.

I couldn’t tell, though, if it was repulsion for him or for me. Whatever it was, it was growing out of a trove of shame that I thought I’d buried long ago.

I hated this guy. That’s what I felt: hate.

“I was a stupid kid,” he said. “I didn’t know how to act.”

“I really must go now.”

“Please don’t walk away, Vivian.”

His voice was rising, which disturbed me. But hearing him call me by my name was even worse. I hated it, that he knew my name. I hated that he’d watched me onstage today, and knew who I was the whole time—that he knew this much about me. I hated that he’d seen me get choked up about my brother. I hated that he probably knew my brother better than I did. I hated that Walter had attacked me in front of him. I hated that this man had once called me a dirty little whore. Who did he think he was, approaching me now, after all these years? This sense of rage and disgust compounded, and it strengthened something in my spine: I needed to leave right now.

“I have a bus full of kids waiting for me,” I said.

I started walking away.

“I need to talk to you, Vivian!” he cried out after me. “Please.”

But I got on the bus and left him standing there by his patrol car—hat in hand, like a man begging for alms.

And that, Angela, is how I officially met your father.

—

Somehow, I managed to do all the things I needed to get done that day.