Jami Attenberg - Saint Mazie

I said: No she’s not. She’s a street cat, can’t you see? The kind who’ll only rub against your legs long enough till you feed her.

He said: I see an injured creature who needs my love and support.

I waved my hand in front of his eyes a few times.

I said: Just checking to make sure they work.

He thinks he can handle a Phillips girl, let him try.

Mazie’s Diary, December 31, 1920

We closed the theater last night till the New Year. Gave everyone the day off, paid.

Louis said: Thank god this year is over, let’s hope the next one is better.

He handed everyone bottles of this and that and a hundred-dollar bill each. One of the ushers wept and hugged him, and sweet Louis hugged him back.

In the car ride home I smiled at Louis.

I said: You could have given them a tenner and it would have been fine by them, more than they expected.

Louis said: I could have given them a hundred more and it wouldn’t have been enough.

Now it’s lunchtime and we’re all lazing about the house. Rosie and Louis rose early and drove into the city and spent a fortune at Joel Russ’s shop. There’s an abundance of food before us. Jeanie’s eyes are clear. She’s got just a few days till the cast comes off, and she’s counting them down. She swears she feels healed. We’ve been picking at the whitefish, slicing off chunks of sour pickle, too, for the last hour. I’ve been flipping through the pages of this diary, looking at how lousy the past year has been.

Jeanie said: Anything good in there?

I said: You were someone else for a while it seems.

She said: Who was that girl?

I said: I missed you while you were gone.

She said: I missed you too.

I didn’t quite believe her though.

I said: So you and Ethan are back on, are you?

Jeanie said: It’s the oddest thing. He’s right where I left him.

I couldn’t help but think of the Captain. I’m right where he left me.

Mazie’s Diary, January 1, 1921

Jeanie said: This year’s going to be your year.

I said: For what?

Mazie’s Diary, January 5, 1921

Mack wants to take me out on a date. He’s insisting on it.

He said: A proper date for a proper lady.

I laughed.

He said: I’m an officer of the law. If you can’t trust me, who can you trust?

I said: Oh really, Mack Walters?

He said: I’m being a straightforward, honorable man.

I laughed some more. Mack, the biggest boozer I know, and that’s a lot coming from this boozer. Mack, with his oversized head and that extra chin and that beard that changes colors all year round, red to yellow to gray lately, like it can’t decide what looks best on his face. Maybe none of it does.

I said: Maybe.

He said: Mazie, Maybe’s what I’ll call you from now on. And I’m planning on calling.

Walked off whistling, like he knew something I didn’t.

Mazie’s Diary, January 9, 1921

Jeanie came back from the doctor’s, still on crutches, Ethan and Rosie helping her through the door. She’ll be hobbling for a while yet.

She said: I don’t know why I thought I’d be better. I was dreaming the cast would be gone and I’d be leaping through the streets, dancing in circles beneath the sun, whirling and twirling.

She waved her arms so gracefully in the air that I could nearly see her dancing myself.

Ethan said: You’re young and strong, you’ll heal just fine. Just do those exercises the doctor told you about.

I looked to see if Ethan was telling the truth and I could see that he was. Then Jeanie showed us her leg, scrawny and yellow and bruised.

Jeanie said: I nearly passed out when I saw it.

Rosie said: If that were a chicken leg I wouldn’t serve it for dinner.

All of Jeanie is thinner now, I noticed for the first time. Her dress was falling off her shoulders, her petticoat dragged on the ground. Bones poking from her neck. Her braids were loose. Somehow her hair has turned from black to brown.

I said: No point in feeling sorry for yourself now. You’re on the way to well.

She said: I’m not, I can’t do anything at all.

Ethan helped her to the living room, and there she began to weep. I could hear it from the kitchen. I could hear him comforting her. Nurse Ethan.

I could not bring myself to embrace her. I said I had to go to work. A train to catch. The wind was bitter off the ocean. By the time I arrived to the station my eyes were full of tears. On the train I had to assure several old nosy women nothing was wrong. I told them I only had a chill.

Mazie’s Diary, February 18, 1921

He was four days late, missed Valentine’s Day, and I don’t care because I’m not thinking about him at all, because who needs to bother with a lousy skunk? I put the postcard up in the cage anyway because the picture was pretty. The ocean, the other ocean across America. Mountains in the distance. I don’t know if I ever need to see a mountain in person, but I like knowing they’re out there. I’ve been turning and looking at it all day. I don’t know why, but it gave me a kind of faith in the world.

Doesn’t matter what it said on the other side of it, though. His words are so slippery they might slide right off the paper.

Mazie’s Diary, February 27, 1921

There was Jeanie in the living room this morning before I went to work, bending and stretching, trying to stand on her tippy toes. Desperate. Half squatting. Wobbly, leaning on the walls, breathing like a wretched old woman. I watched her from the doorway and she gave me a glance but kept huffing away. Then she fell backward and I rushed to her. There she was, tender in my arms. I kissed her forehead.

I said: You can do whatever you put your mind to.

She said: I want to be better right now, not later.

I said: You will. You’re from a family of tough broads even if you think you’re a fairy princess.

I hugged her, and she hugged me back.

I said: I didn’t realize I was jealous of you until you came home.

I didn’t even know where it came from, but now at last, there was a real truth hovering between us.

She said: I bet you’re not jealous now.

I said: No, I’m not.

So we’ll work on this for a while. We’ll work on getting our Jeanie stronger. Whatever she needs, I’ll give her.

Mazie’s Diary, March 1, 1921

Told Mack he could pick me up tomorrow in the early evening just to get him to shut up already. Rudy said he’d stead me. Rudy wishes I’d fall in love more than I do, more than Rosie, more than anyone.

Lydia Wallach

She did not have the best of luck with men. Dating in New York City has apparently always been terrible throughout history. You know: A good man is hard to find, and all that jazz.

Mazie’s Diary, March 3, 1921

Well, that was a flop.

First, the weather was cursed last night. Blustery spring wind, the kind that shakes up all the dirt and debris. I kept having to hold my skirt to my legs while waiting in front of the theater.

Then Mack showed up three sheets to the wind. He stumbled into a trash bin a half block away, and then struggled to right it. I laughed while I was watching him and then I remembered that was my date for the evening and it wasn’t funny at all.

I said: Oh brother, here comes trouble.

For his one and only act of chivalry of the night he removed his hat, but then promptly dropped it, and the wind grabbed it. I watched him chase it down the block. I turned to Rudy in the cage. Rudy whistled and looked away.

Eventually he got ahold of his hat and ran back slowly, then stood in front of me, breathless for a moment.