“What are we going to do?” Vivian said in panic.

  “What can we do?” Henry asked.

  “I don’t know… . Can’t you do something? Bring them here?”

  “How?” Miriam said between tears.

  “It’s too complicated,” Henry said under his breath.

  Vivian felt so frustrated; she just wanted to burn the letter so she wouldn’t have to witness the pain her grandparents were going through. Unable to cope, Vivian left the kitchen, away from the sadness, uncertainty, and fear. She felt that the only way to escape this mess was to dive into her new job.

  * * *

  Since Vivian was to begin her job the following day, the outfit was set, along with the perfect lipstick and face powder that was laid on her dresser. She contemplated taking a hot bath with baking soda, followed by a manicure with a bright red nail color to raise her spirits.

  Yes, that would be a great plan, she decided as she suddenly felt a piercing pain in her arms. Her fingernails were the culprit, digging themselves into her soft flesh. So much for the distraction. The reality of her grandparents’ situation didn’t want to leave her subconscious. As she stared at the steaming hot water that fell into her bath, she felt guilty to be able to enjoy such a luxury.

  The following morning, with great enthusiasm, Vivian awoke at six, right before her alarm clock rang, as her hot bath with baking soda did her a world of good, calming her nerves, but she was still thinking of her grandparents. Nevertheless, she was ready to face the day.

  After a generous stretch, she sat up in her bed and took out the homemade cloth curlers from her hair, feeling quite pleased with herself as she saw the results in her vanity mirror. Old rags make the best hair curlers, she thought as the last strip of cloth released the perfect ringlet.

  Vivian swung her legs onto the floor, slipped her feet into her slippers, and walked to her bedroom mirror to begin brushing her creation into a smart but sophisticated hairstyle. She finished the look with a gold-plated hair clip, which was a gift from her grandmother. As she fastened it in her hair, the tears began to form, but she quickly wiped them away.

  “No. not now. Not on my first day,” she whispered to herself.

  After a quick trip to the bathroom, she got dressed in the outfit she carefully chose the evening before and walked downstairs to the kitchen, where she greeted her mother.

  “Vivian, where’s your lipstick?” Miriam asked as she was tying an apron around her waist.

  “Going to put it on after breakfast. Plus, some face cream—my skin has been so dry lately.”

  “Good idea. Use mine on my dresser.”

  “Mm-mmm,” Vivian nodded while she drank her Ovaltine. As the last sip was devoured, she put down her glass and squealed, “I am so excited!”

  “Of course, you are! This is your debut! Oh, they will just adore you. Wait until you begin to put outfits together—they won’t know what hit them!” Miriam said while Vivian looked down at the floor.

  “Why the long face?” Miriam asked.

  “I forgot to tell you. I was placed at the Revlon counter.” Vivian looked like she swallowed a sour lemon.

  “Oh, don’t you fret, young lady—you are still working at Sunderland’s. It doesn’t matter where you start, you just must start. Do your best, and they will see what a star you are. Then they will put you where you belong—in the clothing department.”

  “Really?” Vivian asked.

  “Really. Mommy always knows,” her mother said, “if anyone can handle this, it’s you.”

  Vivian smiled, then dashed upstairs to put on her mother’s face cream.

  A bouquet of Chanel No. 5 welcomed her into her parents’ bedroom. Her father was already at work, and their bed was made. Everything was in its place, as her mother had a habit of making her bed as soon as she awoke—a ritual that made the rest of her day productive, so she said.

  Vivian did the same, as her mind could not think clearly if her bedroom looked like a tornado hit it. Every clothing item in her closet had its place. Pants hung with pants, skirts hung with skirts, and so on. Sweaters were folded in drawers, blouses were hung, and shoes lined up like little soldiers. Vivian was tidy and organized as long as she could remember; if you took care of your clothes, they would not only look great but would last longer too. Clothes belonged on your body, not on the floor and needed to be placed away properly.

  The face cream was on her mother’s dresser and still in the box. As she began to open it, a framed picture of her grandparents that stood on her dresser caught her eye. The tear that was already in the works when she put in her hair clip not long ago was now fully developed into a full droplet of fluid and made its way down her cheek.

  “Damn,” Vivian said under her breath, smiling as she thought about the novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was the second trigger that opened the gate of unwelcomed emotions.

  She paused from opening the box, took a deep breath, and looked away from the picture to resume what she came upstairs to do, to apply the face cream, which made her skin glow as if there was a lightbulb underneath her chin.

  “Not bad,” she announced with approval. Vivian was thankful that one of her favorite shades of lipstick was from Revlon. It was called Fire and Ice, and it was the perfect red, making her teeth as white as the first snowfall of the season, before the buses, trucks, and dog pee polluted it. After painting her lips with her trademark shade, she smiled and nodded at her reflection, then went downstairs.

  Miriam was waiting in the hallway, holding the front door open. “You look wonderful!”

  “Thank you,” Vivian said as she knew that all this happiness and cheerfulness felt tampered while her grandparents were trapped in Poland. Last night’s question about her grandparents escaping to Canada was not answered with what Vivian wanted to hear. And of course, she very well knew that there wasn’t enough time to ask the question again as one foot was out the front door. As she stood there, the topic was screaming inside her head so loudly she couldn’t stand it. Maybe she would receive a different response if she asked again? Her parents had at least twelve hours since last night’s conversation to come up with a plan. New identities with fake passports or even tickets to Switzerland. Something. Anything. “Mother, why can’t bubbe and zaida come to Canada?” Vivian asked.

  Miriam’s face suddenly aged twenty years. “I don’t think they can. I don’t know how they could.”

  The weight in Vivian’s chest returned, and she could tell that her mother felt the very same weight that was infused with the word why.

  Why did she have to even think of an illegal plan with fake passports and escaping to Switzerland? Why couldn’t they just board a train? A boat or even a plane and come to Canada? Who was stopping them? Why couldn’t they just go? And the most crucial question that Vivian wanted to shout on her rooftop and scream was why were they forced into a ghetto with all their possessions taken away? What did they do to deserve this? Why wasn’t anyone doing something about it?

  These questions remained unanswered, and the feelings of uncertainty and horror were never shared out loud, and it drove Vivian mad.

  “Stop clenching your teeth, dear,” Vivian’s mother said as she touched her daughter’s cheek.

  They both stood in the doorway and looked outside. The sun was shining, and there was a slight breeze for a June morning. With a nod and a kiss on the cheek from her mother, Vivian went on her way and finally unclenched her jaw by the time she arrived at her bus stop.

  * * *

  As Vivian pushed the heavy hunter-green doors to Sunderland’s open, it was 8:15 a.m. Her shift didn’t start until 9:00, so she had some time, which was a good thing because her day hadn’t even begun, and she was in agonizing pain. Her feet were on fire.

  “You’re bleeding,” said an older lady standing at the scarf counter, who was filing her nails.

  “I’m not surprised,” Vivian answered. She looked up at the woman and tried to smile through the pain.

  Vivian stood in the middle of the department store aisle like a lost deer in a forest. People were buzzing around, getting ready for their shifts, while she just stood there, each of her heels felt as if they had their own personal knife slicing away at her skin. Vivian took deep breaths to plow through the pain, just as she did when she tweezed the hair off her upper lip.

  “I can’t believe these shoes are giving me trouble. It’s not as if I haven’t worn them before!”

  “But have you walked from home to the bus stop and then to the department store in them before?”

  “Only to parties.”

  “Completely different worlds. Treat your shoes accordingly.” The woman snapped her fingers and pointed to her shoes. Vivian slumped in defeat.

  “What have we got here?” Mr. Sand, the man who interviewed Vivian, came into the scene. “Ahhh! Hello, my dear!”

  “Mr. Sand! Pleased to see you again,” Vivian said enthusiastically, trying not to make a big deal out of her blistering feet and her punctured ego.

  “Your first day isn’t going so smoothly. Here.” Mr. Sand reached into his pocket and pulled out some tissues and a bandage. “I see you are not wearing hose—mistake number one. Alright, take the tissue, blot, and then bandage.”

  Vivian nodded as she diligently mended her feet while standing on one leg at a time. Those ballet classes she took as a child were finally paying off.

  “Good luck. See you soon!” Mr. Sand said as he scurried off into another department.

  Vivian was just finishing cleaning up her ankles when she said, “Oy vey! I can’t put my shoes on now!”

  The woman walked over to Vivian. “Excuse me … are you the new girl who is starting today?”

  “Yes, I am!”

  “Oh, right … then never wear high-heeled shoes to work. Wear them at work. Got it?”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “Never say that ‘oy vey.’ Nobody wants to hear that.”

  “Oh, okay.” A lump in Vivian’s throat appeared as she swallowed hard. Facing an anti-Semitic moment but too distraught to process.

  “Got a name?”

  “Vivian.”

  “Elaine.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Elaine.”

  “Likewise,” she handed Vivian a pair of fuzzy slippers.

  “You want me to wear these? Here? Now?” Vivian asked in shock as she couldn’t believe she was asked to put on bedroom slippers right then and there, in the middle of a department store! It was a good thing there were no customers around to see this parade of awkwardness.

  “Oh, yes. Not to worry.”

  “What will my boss say?”

  “Honey, I am your boss.”

  Vivian’s eyes widened in shock while Elaine smiled without showing her teeth. Vivian’s eyes darted around as she wondered if Sunderland’s gave out prizes to their employees who felt the most humiliation on their first day. She would win one for sure, and it would probably be a year supply of bandages.

  “As you know, you will start at the Revlon counter, but due to the state of your feet, you are in no condition to deal with the customers, so you will begin with inventory. Follow me.”

  Elaine straightened her dress and walked along the shiny linoleum department store floor while Vivian pitter-pattered behind in her borrowed slippers. As expected, Vivian scanned what Elaine was wearing from head to toe as she always did to any human being who stood before her. All of her pieces of clothing were recently advertised in the newspaper the other day—it was a Pierre Balmain dress in the color red, accessorized with a pair of black heels that she would bet were Christian Dior, along with a string of pearls that hung just below her collar bone. Elaine’s platinum-blonde hair was tied up in a chignon. Her whole ensemble framed the dress beautifully as she smoothed the sides of her hair as she walked the aisles of the department store, casually swinging her hips as she passed by each display, studying them to make sure they were just so.

  Vivian watched in amazement and declared to herself that she had officially arrived at a world she wanted to be a part of so badly, for so long.

  The rest of Sunderland’s staff stood by their counters arranging what they were selling that day in neat piles and proper order. Ties were fanned out. Creams and lotions were faced in the display cabinets making sure not to have any empty spaces that would reveal that there was a missing product. Most importantly, everything was spotless. The cabinets gleamed, and the staff that stood behind the counter were standing tall, without a hair out of place, nor any trace of lipstick smudges on their teeth.

  The fuzzy bedroom slippers that Vivian was wearing made her feel juvenile, as if she was following her babysitter to bed early because she was a bad girl. Funny enough, the employees didn’t seem that shocked with the situation. They walked past the Revlon counter as well as the perfume collections, which showcased a generous bottle of Chanel No. 5, which Vivian decided she would love to buy for her mother one day.

  At the end of the aisle, both facing a door, Elaine turned around to look at Vivian.

  In her peripheral vision, Vivian noticed a man fixing a hat display while raising one of his eyebrows as he watched. Concerned, she looked around to see if her slip was showing or if a button on her blouse was undone. All was tucked in and buttoned.

  Elaine beckoned with her index finger, and Vivian followed her down a case of wooden stairs into a basement that was cold and damp, which made her reconsider the outfit she had chosen to wear that day.

  Right in front of her was another woman surrounded by shoeboxes. She was dressed in dungarees and a work shirt that was tied at her waist.

  “Oh, hi! Just making pairs out of misplaced shoes!”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Vivian replied.

  “No, it’s actually not that nice,” the woman said with a straight face. Vivian got the sense that she didn’t want to be there, and to be honest, neither did she.

  “That’s not for you, dear. Follow me,” Elaine said.

  Vivian sighed in relief as she followed Elaine around the corner. She soon faced two huge metal shelves that held hundreds and hundreds of different colored nail polishes from a selection of brands. Vivian scanned the humongous collection with wide eyes.

  “I’ve never seen so many nail polishes in my life!”

  “That’s what they all say,” Elaine replied as she reached down into a drawer and pulled out a huge spiral-bound notebook that had the Revlon logo on the front cover and presented it to Vivian with a pencil.

  “This is the Revlon inventory list. Go through each color and mark down how many we have. You may find other brands here, and if you do, put them to the side in a separate box and mention what they are and how many we have of them.”

  “I’ll be counting nail polishes?”

  “Counting and cleaning.”

  Vivian looked confused.

  “We can’t have dirty nail polish bottles on our floors! Look at this!” Elaine took her finger, swiped the top shelf, and placed her finger that was covered in black soot in front of Vivian’s nose. “See? The dust from the shelves falls onto our nail polishes, and then we have dust-covered nail polish bottles. How could we sell these, and most importantly, who would want to bring dirty nail polishes into their home?” Elaine said as Vivian slowly scanned her eyes up and down the nail polish rack.

  “At the end of your day, come see me so you can fill out your employment papers.”

  Vivian nodded, thinking how official this was becoming. Working at the department store of her dreams had finally come true, but she did not sign up for this! Putting her clothes properly away and making her bed is one thing. But cleaning? In a cold secluded basement? Where were the beautiful clothes and all the pretty shiny things?

  “Feh!” she said as Elaine walked up the stairs to the department store.

  Lilly’s Doctor—1942

  Seventeen-year-old Lilly was waiting in line at the drugstore to pick up a prescription for her mother. While she glanced at the sleeves of her blouse, the corner of her lips pulled down as she wasn’t pleased at what she saw. The material was faded and worn, and there were a few oil stains that couldn’t come out in the laundry. She wondered how her blouse looked originally when bought from the store, as it was a hand-me-down from her cousin. As she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, Lilly wondered what it would be like to purchase a brand-new blouse right off the rack. She decided that it would feel empowering, just like the scores she received on her report cards. Lilly still loved going to school, ingesting every subject like a sponge and hoped to continue onto university after graduation. However, her mother’s grocery store needed help, and just like Anna, she was expected to be dutiful. She wondered what it would be like to sit in a real university classroom, until a man walked up to join Lilly in line, which completely interrupted her daydream and brought her down to an attractive reality.

  * * *

  The author interrupts this vignette, to clarify an issue that may confuse the reader. The male character in the chapter of Lilly’s Doctor has been named He and/or Him, for reasons that the writer felt was necessary for what you will read below.

  * * *

  He was dressed in a three-piece suit, with hair that was well groomed and smelled like fresh pine. He had the lightest blue eyes she had ever seen. They were almost white, which accentuated his pupils that grew larger as he smiled.

  Small talk sprouted like warm spring raindrops, as he waited patiently for Lilly to pay for the prescription, and then they found themselves outside of the drugstore, and beside his car. As He opened the car door for Lilly to climb inside, feeling hypnotized, she got in, and their first date officially began.

  He insisted on replacing the blouse that made her feel sad, and she was game.