Orphan Train

listen to, the cars they
     dream about, and the movie stars they follow. And like a magpie I bring these scraps
     and twigs back to the store. One of these girls will wear a new color or style of
     belt or a button-plate hat tilted to one side, and that afternoon I’ll pore through
     our vendors’ catalogs to find similar designs. I choose mannequins out of a catalog
     that look like these girls, with pencil-thin eyebrows and rosebud lips and soft, wavy
     hairstyles, and dress them in the latest styles and colors. I find out the perfumes
     they favor, like Blue Grass by Elizabeth Arden, and we stock those as well as standard
     ladies’ favorites such as Joy by Jean Patou and Vol de Nuit by Guerlain.
    As business grows, we push the shelves closer together, erect special displays at
     the ends of the aisles, crowd the lotions. When the shop next door, a jeweler’s called
     Rich’s, goes out of business, I convince Mr. Nielsen to remodel and expand. Inventory
     will be in the basement instead of in the back, and the store will be organized into
     departments.
    We keep prices low, and lower them even more with sales every week and coupons in
     the paper. We institute a layaway plan so people can buy more expensive items in installments.
     And we put in a soda fountain as a place people can linger. Before long the store
     is thriving. It seems as though we are the only business doing well in this terrible
     economy.
    “D ID YOU KNOW YOUR EYES ARE YOUR BEST FEATURE ?” T OM P RICE tells me in math class senior year, leaning across my desk to look at them, first
     one and then the other. “Brown, green, even a little gold in there. I’ve never seen
     so many colors in a pair of eyes.” I squirm under his gaze, but when I get home that
     afternoon, I lean in close to the bathroom mirror and stare at my eyes for a long
     time.
    My hair isn’t as brassy as it used to be. Over the years it has turned a deep russet,
     the color of dead leaves. I’ve had it cut in the fashionable style—fashionable for
     our town, at least—right above my shoulders. And when I begin to wear makeup, I have
     a revelation. I’ve viewed my life until now as a series of unrelated adaptations,
     from Irish Niamh to American Dorothy to the reincarnated Vivian. Each identity has
     been projected onto me and fits oddly at first, like a pair of shoes you have to break
     in before they’re comfortable. But with red lipstick I can fashion a whole new—and
     temporary—persona. I can determine my own next incarnation.
    I attend the homecoming dance with Tom. He shows up at the door with a wrist corsage,
     a fat white carnation and two tiny roses; I’ve sewn my own dress, a pink chiffon version
     of one Ginger Rogers wore in Swing Time, and Mrs. Nielsen loans me her pearl necklace and matching earrings. Tom is affable
     and good-natured right up until the moment the whiskey he’s tippling from a flask
     in the pocket of his father’s too-big suit coat makes him drunk. Then he gets into
     a scuffle with another senior on the dance floor and manages to get himself, and me,
     ejected from the dance.
    The next Monday, my twelfth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Fry, takes me aside after
     class. “Why are you wasting time with a boy like that?” she scolds. She urges me to
     apply to colleges out of state—Smith College in Massachusetts, for one, her alma mater.
     “You’ll have a bigger life,” she says. “Don’t you want that, Vivian?” But though I’m
     flattered by her interest, I know I’ll never go that far. I can’t leave the Nielsens,
     who’ve come to depend on me for so much. Besides, Tom Price notwithstanding, the life
     I’m living is big enough for me.
    A S SOON AS I GRADUATE , I BEGIN TO MANAGE THE STORE . I FIND that I am suited to the task, and that I enjoy it. (I’m taking a class in accounting
     and business administration at St. Olaf College, but my classes meet in the evenings.)
     I hire the workers—nine in all, now—and order much of the merchandise. At night, with
     Mr. Nielsen, I go over the ledgers. Together we manage employees’ problems, placate
     customers, massage vendors. I’m constantly angling for the best price, the most attractive
     bundle of goods, the newest option. Nielsen’s is the first place in the county to
     carry upright electric vacuum cleaners, blenders, freeze-dried coffee. We’ve never
     been busier.
    Girls from my graduating class come into the store brandishing solitaire