‘See you later, Catherine,’ I called as Bridget and I put on our coats. ‘I hope you have a lovely afternoon.’

My sister made a face at me. She hated that even after all this time I still sort of hoped that our distant cousin Catherine would one day turn out to be a nice person.

Catherine came out of her bedroom and glared at us. ‘I mustn’t be charging you enough rent if you’ve money for all this gallivanting around New York. The trouble is, you girls don’t appreciate how lucky you are to have a room of your own.’

‘Lucky? You’re the lucky one. We pay you a dollar every month for that tiny thing you call a room.’ As Bridget spoke, she pointed to our corner of the parlour. A curtain separated it from the rest of the room, and inside was a mattress, which until a few days earlier we’d shared with our friend Julia. Julia’s brother, Sonny, used to live in The Bronx with his wife Elena and their little baby, David. Now, though, they had a bigger place here in Brooklyn, and Julia had gone to live with them there.

‘Oh, that reminds me,’ said Catherine with a mean smile. ‘Now that Julia’s gone, I’ll be looking for someone else to take her place. Maybe by the time you come back you’ll have someone new to share with.’

Now even Bridget was speechless. The mattress had been a terrible squash when three of us were sharing, but we didn’t mind, as Julia was such a dear friend. Sharing with a stranger would be very different – and not in a good way.

Bridget found her voice. ‘Even you, Catherine,’ she began. ‘Even you wouldn’t...’

I took Bridget’s arm and led her towards the door. I love my big sister with all my heart, but I live in fear of her quick tongue getting us into a lot of trouble. Catherine was a mean, grasping woman, but we’d nowhere else to live except with her. Even if Bridget and I managed to find a vacant room, we could never afford it – our jobs didn’t pay that much, and we tried to save a little to send home to Ireland too.

What if Catherine asked us to leave?

What if she found new girls to take our place?

Where would Bridget and I go?

How would we live without a home?

This time Bridget chose not to continue the fight. As she followed me out the door and down the long stairs, I allowed myself to breathe again.

I turned my face to the sun, enjoying its gentle heat on my skin, so welcome after a long, cold winter.

The buildings around us were tall, but nothing compared to the huge skyscrapers over in Manhattan. The street was busy and buzzing with bicycles and horses and motor cars, but we were used to the noise and excitement by now. These days it was hard to imagine the quiet of our old home in Cork.

Bridget and I strolled along with our arms around each other’s waists, the way New York girls did. We were no longer newcomers, no longer unsure of where to go or what to say. Now we felt like real Americans.

I held my head high as we walked along. Nowadays the shawls we’d brought from Ireland were only used to keep us warm in bed on cold nights. We’d both saved up and bought very nice wool coats from the second-hand clothes shop. Our boots were old, but had no holes in them, and we both wore lovely gloves our granny knitted for us on our last Christmas in Ireland.

We dodged around a few thin, dirty children who were searching the gutters for rags and scraps of silver paper to sell at the junkyard. They’d only make a few pennies for their day’s work, and compared to them, Bridget and I were rich indeed.

‘I can’t wait to see Julia,’ said Bridget. ‘I miss her since she stopped living with us.’

I missed our friend too, but for her sake, I couldn’t be happier. We’d met Julia on our voyage from Queenstown in Cork. She’d come to America all on her own, but we’d helped her find her brother Sonny and his family. Now she was living the life she once only dreamed of.

‘She’ll be all talk about little David,’ I said. ‘She loves that baby to pieces.’

‘I guess you’re right.’

I smiled. These days all Bridget’s sentences started with ‘I guess’. One more sign of how American we were becoming.

It wasn’t far to the tea shop, where we were lucky to get a table near the window. I was a little shy of the brisk girl in the bright white apron who came to take our order. Luckily, Bridget wasn’t shy of anyone at all.

‘Our friend will be here in a minute,’ she said. ‘So we’d like three cups of tea, and one sugar bun cut up into three pieces – equal pieces, please, so we don’t kill each other fighting over the biggest one.’

The waitress laughed as she wrote the order in her little notebook, stuck her pencil behind her ear, and went back behind the counter.

We’d just poured out our tea when we saw Julia coming through the door.

‘Julia,’ I said, jumping up. ‘It’s so nice to…’

I stopped when I saw a rough-looking girl walking right up behind my friend, so close she could easily reach Julia’s purse. The girl wasn’t wearing a coat or shawl or anything. Her dress was clean, but almost threadbare, and torn in a few places. Her boots looked sturdy enough, but instead of having laces, they were tied up with twine. The girl made me nervous. New York was full of pick-pockets, and we had to be careful to mind the precious money we worked so hard for.

I didn’t want to make a fuss, and draw attention to us, but I had to say something. Julia was coming our way, and the girl was still right behind her, suspiciously close.

‘Julia,’ I said, pointing. ‘Watch out for…’

Now they were beside us and Julia was turning towards the girl.

‘Bridget, Sally,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to meet my friend Betty – I’ve asked her to join us. Betty, these are my dear friends I told you about. The ones who were so very kind to me when I first got to New York.’

I could feel my cheeks turning pink, and they went even pinker when Julia looked puzzled and said, ‘What’s wrong, Sally? Were you warning me about something?’

‘No,’ I muttered. ‘I was only…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence. I felt so ashamed and mean. I know what it’s like to be judged for how I look and sound. Why did I presume that because this girl looked poor, it meant she was dishonest too?

Dear Bridget knew me so well and guessed what I’d been thinking. She took my hand and squeezed it, showing me she understood.

‘Someone spilled milk on the floor a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘I guess Sally didn’t want you girls to slip and fall. Wouldn’t it be terrible altogether if one of you broke an arm or a leg? Wouldn’t it ruin the whole afternoon on us?’

Everyone laughed, and no one noticed that the floor was perfectly clean and dry, and I knew everything was going to be all right.

As soon as the girls had found chairs, Bridget waved at the waitress. ‘I’ll order some more tea for you, Betty,’ she said.

‘And maybe we can get another sugar bun to share,’ I added. I love sugar buns and wasn’t sure a quarter of one would be enough for me.

‘No,’ said Betty quickly, as the waitress came over. ‘I’m not hungry. I don’t want anything at all – or maybe just a drink of water, if it’s not too much trouble.’

‘No trouble at all,’ said the waitress, hurrying away.

‘Everyone’s hungry when there’s sugar buns,’ I said. ‘How could you…?’

I stopped talking as I saw Betty’s embarrassed face. The poor girl! Despite what she’d said, she looked very, very hungry. Maybe she’d no money at all for things like tea and buns; small, occasional treats that Bridget and I allowed ourselves every week or two.

Now the waitress came back, carrying an empty cup and a plate with a sugar bun on it.

‘That pot of tea I brought earlier is surely enough for ten of you,’ she said, placing the cup in front of Betty. ‘And a silly man ordered this bun and then changed his mind about eating it and it’d be a sin to put it in the trash.’

I looked at the waitress’s smiling face and remembered Mammy saying there are kind people in every single corner of the world. I thanked her with a smile, and Bridget took charge of dividing the new bun so we’d all...