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CAROLYN’S ROOM WAS on the ninth floor, and like all the Barbizon’s rooms, it was tiny and narrow; you could almost stretch out your arms and touch the walls on either side. There was just enough room for a small single bed with a nightstand, a desk with a radio, and a table lamp. The green drapes matched the bedspread and the carpet. Bathrooms were shared and situated at the end of the hall. Carolyn didn’t mind. From her window, she could look out across the rooftops of the tan-colored town houses of Sixty-third Street and beyond to the entire city. Even after midnight, she learned, the streets were alive with noises: traffic, taxi horns, and the voices of people passing down below. For twelve dollars a week, this world was hers.
At the Barbizon, Carolyn did her calculations. She had nearly two thousand dollars in her pocketbook, made up of her prize winnings and her savings. This was more money than she had ever possessed, but still, she wasn’t naïve. She knew it wouldn’t last forever. She thought about signing up for a modeling school but feared the cost. In her room, she kept her folder of test shots, taken back home in Steubenville. She had posed down at the golf course, wearing the dirndl skirt she’d made herself in black and white stripes, her dark hair like satin and her lips painted and full.
Each morning, Carolyn dressed as if preparing to go to work, pulling at the fingers on her gloves until they were perfectly straight, pinning her hat on her head at the ideal angle, then taking the elevator down to the lobby. There she stood and watched as the hotel’s residents hurried out of elevators, chattering to one another as they pulled on their gloves and adjusted their hats, before streaming through the revolving doors, out into the world and their lives. More than anything, Carolyn wanted to follow them.
And so she did. Mostly, she walked, saving the subway or cab fare and learning the city as she went. She discovered Bloomingdale’s department store, right around the corner from the hotel, where she could admire the latest fashions. Walking farther, she stumbled on the Horn & Hardart Automat, just south and west of the hotel on Fifty-seventh Street. The food at the Automat was cheap and fresh, and stored in little glass boxes. You dropped the nickels in the slot, turned the dial, and then popped open the door to pull out your selection. Carolyn thought the Automat was so modern and clever, as if you’d just stepped into the future. No one minded if she stayed for hours, sitting by the window upstairs, looking out onto the hats of people passing by on the avenue below, only getting up to refill her cup of coffee from the spout in the wall. In Steubenville, when she went home at the end of the day, she spent her time clearing up after her younger siblings, washing dishes, cleaning house. But after she ate at the Automat there were no dishes to wash. And when she went back to the hotel, her room was her own; it was cleaned, and the bed made and turned down. She was free.
One day, only a week after she arrived in New York, Carolyn was at her usual spot at the Automat, looking out over Fifty-seventh, when a young man came up to her. He introduced himself as a photographer.
“You’re an attractive girl,” the young man said. “Ever thought about modeling?”
Carolyn told him yes, and that she’d even had some test shots taken while still home in Steubenville. The young man sat down; they started talking. The photographer knew people. He could introduce her.
Would she like to meet Harry Conover, owner of one of the oldest and largest modeling agencies in the country?
Carolyn nodded yes. The young man scrawled an address and number on a piece of paper—52 Vanderbilt Avenue. That day, Carolyn left the Automat and ran back to the Barbizon with the paper in her pocket, the ticket to her new beginning.
CHAPTER 2
Nina
That young and determined woman at the Barbizon is a person I never knew. By the time I was born, my mother was in her early thirties, married and living on Long Island, spending her days taking care of my two older sisters and me. When I picture her back then, I see her standing at the stove in our kitchen, head tilted slightly. She’s wearing her everyday blouse and slacks, either in white or pale pink. One hand is stirring something on the stove; the other is holding on to the counter. To one side is a glass of wine. Her cigarette is in an ashtray, and when she picks it up, she twirls it in her fingers absentmindedly. My mother is quiet and methodical in her movements as she stirs. Classical music plays on the turquoise turntable she keeps in the kitchen. I’m standing behind her, quiet as I can be, always worried she might startle if I make too much noise.
In my earliest memory of my mother, I’m still a baby. I’ve just learned to walk, and I’ve somehow maneuvered myself over the bar of my crib, sliding down onto the floor below, then going out along the hallway to the stairs overlooking our living area. I turn around to shuffle down the stairs on my knees, going about halfway down before I call to her. My mother’s standing below at the kitchen counter with her back to me. When she hears me call, she runs to me, scooping me up into her
