The Glow of the Spotlight: My Journey with Rebecca

If Rebecca can stay strong to deliver the note to Edna, I know I can, too. The factory is close by, too.

By the time Rebecca and I reach the factory, a crowd of young women already fills the sidewalk, waiting for their shift to begin. Rebecca scans the group and spots a girl near the back, calling her name. She looks barely twelve. But just as the girl turns her head, a bell clangs loudly inside the building and the women surge toward the door.

Rebecca pushes through the crowd to reach Edna, but the crowd sweeps us forward and through the doorway into a cramped, dim hallway and up a flight of stairs to a room lined with tables. Dozens of half-finished hats sit piled everywhere, trimmed with ribbons, bows, and artificial flowers that look more angry than pretty in the gray light.

A man yells for the youngest workers to get into the closet. He pushes a small group of girls, along with Rebecca and me, into a narrow space beside the doorway. I ask what’s going on and am shushed by a wave of shushes. Edna whispers that we are all younger than the minimum age of fourteen. Another girl says the city inspector must be coming. If we are caught, no more job.

I stay quiet after that, though panic claws at my chest in the airless closet. I hear a rustle as Rebecca leans towards Edna and hands her the note. I lift my chin, trying to find a sliver of air. I don’t think I can last much longer packed in so tight with strangers. I reach for my purse where my nesting dolls are stashed and begin to pull them apart.

Just as the darkness starts to spin, the door bursts open. Rebecca yanks me out into the hallway and pulls it shut behind us. I gulp down air and look up to find the foreman glaring at us, his face red with fury, demanding to know what we’re doing out here.

Rebecca tells him, calm and steady, that we aren’t his workers. We were just delivering an important message, and now we’re leaving. He barks at us to get out and points us toward the stairs. A thin, rumpled man climbs up just then, clipboard in hand, clearly the inspector. He eyes us with suspicion, but Rebecca simply nods and keeps walking, and I hurry after her, down the stairs and out into the street.

Fresh air has never felt so good. I’m relieved knowing I’ll never have to set foot in that factory again, the nesting dolls still clutched tight in my fist. But my relief fades fast when Rebecca frets that if Edna gets caught hiding, she’ll lose her job right along with the rest of the girls. Edna is the only one in her family bringing in any money at all, and I can’t help wondering where she’ll turn if that work disappears.

As we walk, I glance back at the brick factory, its windows patched with cardboard. It must be horrible, working there, I say, pointing out that those girls are kids, just like us. Rebecca agrees, but reminds me that some children don’t have any choice.

And suddenly, I know it’s time for me to go home. I tell Rebecca, and she says she’d want to go home to be with her family, too. But she’ll miss me awfully.

As we walk back to Rebecca’s home arm in arm, I think about how lucky I am to go to school instead of a factory floor, to study my times tables instead of pinning artificial flowers onto hat after hat until my fingers bleed. Everything around us looks the same as it did an hour ago, and yet I feel changed by what I just saw.

When I get back to the antique store, everything looks the same, and yet I feel so different on the inside. Mom wraps up her deal, and I line up the nesting dolls on the shelf, tucking the smallest ones back inside the rest. As we leave the shop and head down Thirty-Ninth Street toward the ferry, I take Megan’s hand. At first, she pulls back, surprised, but then she relaxes and gives my hand a squeeze. Despite the chilly breeze off the waterfront, I feel warmth all over.