The Boston Girl

“I suppose not everyone has a taste for geology,” she said.

“Thank goodness she’s not the cook,” Irene said, and I cracked up all over again.

—

Irene didn’t come to supper that night. Rose said she’d gotten a bad sunburn. “But it’s her own fault for throwing away the hat. I’m washing my hands of that girl.”

I said, “She’s not so bad, but it makes you wonder why she’s here at all.”

Rose had found out that much. Her brother had sent her and paid her way. “I told Irene that makes him a saint in my book, and she gave me a look that would have boiled an egg.”

After supper, Miss Case opened her ledger to tell us about the schedule for the week, and it all sounded wonderful. There was going to be a breakfast cookout, a trip to Good Harbor Beach, blueberry picking, shopping in Rockport and Gloucester. We were going to a town dance, too, which got everyone whispering and giggling.

That’s when I noticed Irene peeking in from the hallway. She had a cloth pressed against her forehead and I went out and asked if she was okay.

She said she was fine. “If Mrs. Morse hadn’t sent into town for ice, I think my nose would have peeled off.”

“It looks like it hurts,” I said.

Irene shrugged, but then she hid her face in the towel and started to cry.

I sat down with her on the steps and she told me the story of how she had come to America with her older brother five years ago and the two of them had taken care of each other. But he’d gotten married and his new wife, “the cow, Kathleen,” wanted Irene out of their apartment right away. Without a word to Irene, the wife got her a job as a live-in maid in Worcester. “Do you have any idea how far that is from Boston?” Irene said.

The brother wouldn’t stand up against his bride, so he sent Irene to Rockport as a kind of peace offering. Irene called it “the old heave-ho.”

“I was in service once, and never again. The lady of the house thinks she owns you and calls you a thief if you eat the crusts she leaves on her plate, but it’s her who steals your days off. I’d sooner walk the streets.”

I said there had to be something we could do to help. She shook her head and said, “You’re a good kid,” and then she went upstairs alone.

I walked straight over to Rose and told her what was what with Irene. She called the brother a no-good bum and a few other things and said, “I feel terrible about what I said about the poor girl.” She went upstairs and told Irene that she would be staying with her until she got on her feet; no arguments and no thanks needed. “What are friends for?” Rose said.

And just like that, the chip on Irene’s shoulder disappeared. Her dimples became the envy of everyone and her impersonation of Miss Holbrooke had us rolling on the floor.

“Allow me to serve you a taste of scenery,” Irene said, in Miss Holbrooke’s voice, which was singsong and fruity, sort of like Julia Child’s, come to think of it.

“Now, who wants a piping hot slab of granite?”

It still makes me laugh.

You have a good eye.

The best part of that week was my time with Filomena.

We stayed up late every night talking, talking, talking. She seemed so grown up, I couldn’t believe that she was only nineteen—just three years older than me.

We started with our families and I still remember all of her sisters’ names: Maria Immaculata, Maria Teresa, Maria Domenica, Maria Sofia, and she was Maria Filomena—the youngest and also the only unmarried one.

Her parents died when she was a baby, so Mimi—Immaculata—raised her. The whole family lived within a few blocks of each other in the North End, and when I met Filomena, she was staying with Sophie—Maria Sofia—and sharing the couch with two of her three boys. Filomena said she looked forward to coming to Rockport Lodge just so she could sleep without a squirming child waking her up

.

Filomena left school when she was twelve and went to work sewing in a factory. A few years later, she started going to the Salem Street Settlement House on Saturdays. “I told Mimi that I wanted to improve my English,” she said, “but really it was just to have a little time when I wasn’t at work or taking care of someone’s baby.” Miss Chevalier noticed her sketching in the library when she was supposed to be reading, “But instead of yelling at me, she took me to meet Miss Green. And here I am.”

Not so different from my story, right?

Miss Green sent her to the Museum School for a drawing class. “I owe her everything,” Filomena said. “She taught me pottery and design and gives me art books to look at. She says that being an artist is more than a job or a skill; it’s a way of walking through the world.”

I didn’t understand what that meant until a few days later, when we went to the Headlands, which Miss Holbrooke said was the most beautiful view on Cape Ann.