The Glow
When her father accepted a new, higher paying job offer in New York City, one that necessitated leaving Marblehead, sixteen-year-old Melissa Perryman was forced to say goodbye to her friends in Massachusetts. Like most youngsters, she thought the change meant the end of the world, but her spirits improved greatly when she walked into the house in Bloomfield, New Jersey, and realized the entire third floor would be her bedroom. Despite its slanted roof, the converted attic was huge. She would have plenty of room for a bed, a desk, a portable television and a small couch.
The Perrymans postponed the move until the end of June, so their daughter could finish the school year in Marblehead High School. Melissa would then have the summer to get settled into her new home and hopefully have the opportunity to become acquainted with some of the kids in the neighborhood before classes started in September. A week after the family finished unpacking, the teenager got a part-time job at a nearby diner where she became friends with two coworkers, both of whom were her age.
Just when her parents believed the girl had successfully made the difficult adjustment to her new environment, Melissa discovered an old trunk deep in the corner of the attic crawlspace.
It must belong to the former owners, she thought as she dragged the heavy piece of luggage through the low door and into the center of her bedroom.
After brushing away decades' worth of dust, she opened the lid. Inside were clothes and personal items, which she deduced belonged to one Edwina Halsey, whose name was written inside several books that were stored in the trunk. The floor-length hemlines of the skirts were a clear indication that the girl had lived sometime around the turn of the century. Melissa picked up a skirt and held it against her.
"Whoever Edwina Halsey was, she certainly didn't have a weight problem," she declared, noticing the tiny waistline was a few inches smaller than her own.
Beneath the clothes there were more books, mostly romances. There was also a sepia-toned photograph of a young woman in her late teens that Melissa assumed was Edwina. Finally, at the bottom of the trunk was a vanity set—matching brush, comb and mirror—with the initials EH engraved in elegant cursive on the back of the mirror.
Since the original owner was probably long gone, Melissa reasoned the contents of the trunk now belonged to her. There was no way the clothes would fit, so she folded them neatly and put them back in the trunk. Then she placed the books on her desk and the vanity set on top of her dresser.
"I wonder if these could be made of real silver," she said as she picked up the mirror and held it in front of her so she could gaze in its reflective surface.
The image that she saw startled her. Through an eerie green glow, she thought she saw the doe-like brown eyes, pug nose and rosebud lips of Edwina Halsey.
By the following morning, Melissa managed to convince herself that the glowing reflection in the mirror had been nothing more than an optical illusion, a trick of the lighting in her room.
At breakfast she told her mother about her discovery.
"The clothes look like they're from the early 1900s," she explained.
"The former owners must have forgotten they were there," Mrs. Perryman hypothesized.
"You should see the vanity set that was in the trunk. I'm not sure, but I think the pieces are made of silver. Even if they're not, they're still beautiful."
"Anything else inside the trunk?"
"Just some books and a few photographs."
"They might be nice to keep. They're part of the history of our new home."
Melissa shrugged her shoulders. To her, "home" would always be the saltbox in Marblehead, not the three-story Victorian in Bloomfield.
* * *
The following weekend Melissa hosted a sleepover party with Wanda and Pam, her two new friends from the diner. The party began with the girls eating pepperoni pizza while watching a scary movie on Chiller Theater. When the movie was over, Melissa put her new Beatles album on her record player, and Wanda took a stack of Polaroid photos out of her overnight bag.
"I wanted to show you some of the kids you'll meet once you start school here," she said.
"He's cute," Melissa declared when she saw a handsome young man standing with a group of students at a high school dance.
"Is he ever! He's one of the best-looking guys in school. He's got a girlfriend, though."
While her two friends were looking at Wanda's pictures, Pam was examining the makeup Melissa had on her dresser.
"I love this color of nail polish," she declared. "Where did you get it?"
"At Woolworth's. But you don't have to buy a bottle. You can borrow mine any time you like," Melissa offered.
"Thanks."
After putting on a shade of pale pink lipstick, Pam picked up the silver hand mirror, which was lying on the dresser face-down. When she turned it over and looked at her reflection, she screamed and quickly put the mirror back down on the dresser.
"What's wrong?" the other two girls asked in unison.
"That wasn't my face," she explained.
"If it wasn't yours, then whose was it?" Wanda teased. "Brigitte Bardot's?"
"It was another girl, and she ... she ... glowed."
"Glowed?" Melissa echoed, with a slight quiver in her voice.
"Yes. She glowed as though she were standing in a bright green light."
"Sure she did!" Wanda laughed.
"I saw her, too," Melissa confessed.
Then she told the other two girls about her discovery of the old trunk in the attic crawlspace.
"Do you still have the clothes?" Wanda asked.
"Yeah, I do."
The girls retrieved the trunk, and Wanda, who was much thinner than Melissa, tried on the skirt and blouse.
"Whoever Edwina was, she must have been tiny. Look how short the sleeves are on me."
"I wonder if she's still alive," Pam mused.
"I doubt it," Melissa replied. "These clothes look like they're at least fifty years old."
Wanda shivered at the thought that she was wearing the clothes of a dead person, and she quickly undressed.
"Is this her?" Pam asked, examining the fading sepia-toned photograph. "She was pretty."
Suddenly, the face in the picture began to glow, and Pam dropped the snapshot on the floor.
"Did you see that?"
The other two girls nodded their heads.
"It's as though the mirror and the photograph are ... haunted."
"It does seem that way," Melissa reluctantly agreed.
Knowing she wouldn't sleep a wink if the mirror remained on her dresser, she put the vanity set and clothes back into the trunk, and then she, Pam and Wanda pushed the trunk into the farthest corner of the attic crawlspace.
* * *
In the remaining weeks before the start of school, Melissa managed to put the incident of the glowing mirror and photograph out of her mind. She was determined to enjoy the attractions her new state had to offer including Palisades Amusement Park, Lake Hopatcong, High Point, Seaside Heights, Asbury Park and Atlantic City with its famed boardwalk.
The summer, like most summers, passed quickly, and September arrived bringing with it the start of a new school year. Although Melissa had not been formally introduced to any of the students in her homeroom, she recognized a few faces as customers at the diner. By the end of the week, she felt right at home.
On Saturday afternoon Rick Barnard, one of her fellow students from algebra class, came into the diner. He sat at the counter and ordered two Texas wieners, fries and an egg cream. As Melissa mixed the chocolate syrup with milk and seltzer, Rick asked if she was going to the school dance the following Friday night.
"You bet. I already asked my boss for the night off."
"I suppose you have a date then," he said, shyly averting his eyes.
"No, I don't. I was going to go with Pam and Wanda."
Rick took a deep breath and bravely blurted out, "Would you like to go with me instead?"
"Sure," she replied, blushing as she handed him his egg cream.
"I'll pick you up at six o'clock then."
Smiling with relief, he attacked his hot dogs with gusto.
* * *
Rick and Melissa dated through September and October, and by the middle of November they were going steady. At the beginning of December, Rick invited Melissa to his house for his grandfather's retirement party. At first sight of Grandpa Gus, Melissa noticed the remarkable resemblance between the elderly man and his grandson. If she could magically erase the white hair and wrinkles, the two men would pass for brothers.
"I see my grandson knows how to pick 'em," the old man observed with a playful wink.
Melissa smiled at the compliment.
"Did I detect a Boston accent when you came in, young lady?"
"I just moved to New Jersey this summer from Massachusetts."
"Do you like it here?"
"Yes, I do," she replied, casting a quick, adoring glance at her boyfriend.
Grandpa Gus chuckled and asked, "Where do you live now?"
When Melissa told him the address, the old man abruptly lost his good humor and turned pale.
"I ... I knew someone who lived in that house—knew her quite well. But that was years and years ago, just after the First World War."
"Who was she, Grandpa?" Rick wanted to know.
"Her name was Edwina, and she was my first love. She was pretty, intelligent, vivacious ...."
His voice trailed off, and it was up to Melissa to break the uncomfortable silence.
"I found a trunk that belonged to her in my attic."
"How do you know it was hers?" Rick asked.
"There were a number of books inside with her name written in the covers."
Grandpa Gus smiled sadly and explained, "She always did like to read, poor thing."
"Why? What happened to her?" his grandson asked.
"She died. She worked at a factory in Orange, painting dials on watches with glow-in-the-dark paint. To get the fine, detailed strokes, the workers used to sharpen the points of the brushes with their lips. Unfortunately, back then no one understood the health risks associated with the radium in the paint. Everyone thought it was a harmless substance. In fact, many of the girls painted designs on their faces or used the paint as fingernail polish. Sometimes when we went out on a date, Edwina would paint a small heart on her cheek, which would glow in the dark when we were alone."
Gus smiled at the bittersweet memory.
"Edwina, who had been working at the factory since she was seventeen, began to suffer from anemia when she was only twenty. A year later she developed radium jaw: her bones started to decay, her gums bled and her teeth began to fall out. A number of the girls filed a lawsuit against their employer. Naturally, the company didn't want to admit its culpability, so its high-price lawyers attributed the girls' sickness and death to other causes. Hell, they even suggested some of the girls had syphilis. It wasn't bad enough the company abandoned the women and refused to take responsibility; it had to humiliate them, too."
Gus's anger, unabated for more than forty years, was evident in the harsh tone of his voice.
"Did the girls win the suit?" Rick asked.
"The company finally settled out of court in 1928, but by then ... well, Edwina no longer needed the money."
"She must have been young when she died," Rick said.
"Not even twenty-five."
Melissa shivered, feeling compassion for the poor girl who had once lived in her house.
Moments later, Rick's mother announced that it was time to eat, and all discussion of Edwina Halsey and the "Radium Girls" came to an end.
* * *
Gus Barnard could not sleep that night. His mind was far away, not in distance but in time. Mentally, he was back in the 1920s. The Great War in Europe was over, and the country was enjoying a new period of prosperity. For him, a young man on the threshold of adulthood, life held the promise of fulfilling the great American dream: a good job, a home and a woman he loved to share his life. Tragically, that dream came to a bitter and sudden end when Edwina Halsey got sick and died.
God, how I loved her! he thought with despair.
When death had finally released the dying girl from her agony, he wished the Grim Reaper would claim him, too; but, alas, such was not the case. He had to continue living. It took him years to pick up the pieces and rebuild his shattered life. Yet although he had fallen in love again, married and fathered four children, he never forgot his first love. Thankfully, time had helped soften the sharp edge of his grief, and he was able to look back on his time with Edwina without longing for his own death.
Gus sighed. He was no longer a young man. At sixty-five, his best years were no doubt behind him. Now it was his grandson Rick's chance to experience love. The old man prayed the boy would never know the heartbreak he had endured.
* * *
When Rick joined Melissa and her family for Christmas dinner, the couple's topic of conversation eventually shifted from friends, school and gifts to Edwina Halsey.
"It seems as though my grandfather really loved her," Rick said.
"I'm not surprised. She was a beautiful girl," Melissa added.
"How do you know?"
"There was a picture of her in the trunk."
"You never told me that."
"Come upstairs. I'll show it to you."
Melissa took him to her third-floor bedroom where she removed one of Edwina's romances from her bookshelf.
"Here it is," she announced, taking the sepia-toned photograph out of the book.
Rick looked at the delicate facial features, the large brown eyes and the short, curly bobbed hair and whistled in appreciation.
"No wonder Grandpa loved her. What else was in that trunk?"
"Clothes. These books. A comb, brush and mirror set."
Melissa removed the trunk from the crawlspace. When Rick reached inside and took the mirror out, both teenagers noticed a green glow emanating from the surface of the glass.
"You don't think this stuff is radioactive, do you?" Melissa asked.
"I don't know, but if I were you I wouldn't take any chances."
Rick helped Melissa carry the heavy piece of luggage out to the back yard where they burned Edwina's clothing, books and photograph before setting the trunk itself on fire. They then buried the vanity set in a deep hole, as far away from the Perryman house as possible.
"You should be safe now," Rick announced.
However, when Melissa saw a faint green cloud above the dying embers of the fire, a shiver of apprehension went down her spine.
* * *
On December 31 the Barnard family held its annual New Year's Eve party. Friends, family and neighbors flocked to the house where Mr. Barnard, who owned his own restaurant supply business, had arranged for a scrumptious, catered buffet, including a well-stocked bar.
At 8:15 Rick heard Mr. Perryman's Ford Fairlane pull into the driveway, and he raced to the front door to greet his girlfriend. When he saw Melissa standing on the front stoop, however, he was momentarily stunned.
"Like my new hairdo?" she asked, fluffing the short, curly bob with her hand.
"S-sure," he lied, thinking she had looked much prettier with her long, straight hair.
As surprised as Rick had been, it was Grandpa Gus who was most taken aback by Melissa's haircut. It wasn't only the girl's change in appearance that disturbed him. The previously shy teenager was suddenly demonstrative and gregarious, so much so that several times that night she shamelessly flirted with the old man. Her behavior was so uncharacteristic that the Barnards wondered if Melissa might have had alcohol earlier in the evening.
"What's going on, Mel?" Rick asked her when the two of them went down to the garage to get a few more cases of Coca-Cola. "You're not acting like yourself."
"I'm having fun; that's all. Is there anything wrong with that?" she asked defensively.
"No, I've just never seen this side of you."
He was not sure it was one he particularly liked.
"Your grandfather doesn't seem to mind," she laughed, aware that Gus had been watching her most of the evening.
"What does my grandfather have to do with the way you're acting?"
"Nothing, silly!" Melissa said, throwing her arms around Rick's neck and kissing him on the cheek. "I just have a little crush on him. That's all. I think he's cute."
Rick didn't care for the change that had come over his girlfriend, but he didn't object as she moved her lips from his cheek to his mouth. Engrossed in the kiss, he failed to notice the small heart that glowed green on the young woman's cheek or that she whispered "I missed you, Gus" beneath her breath when she broke the kiss.
While the characters here are fictional, the story is based on the tragic true case of the Radium Girls (employees of the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey).
No, Salem is not suffering from radiation exposure. He is just wearing green makeup for the Dropkick Murphys' St. Patrick's Day concert!
