Home for Erring and Outcast Girls

by Julie Kibler

  Perfect.

  I hardly convinced my feet to leave, or my fingers to let go.

  Back at the table, Jess gazed at me. “Hey, you. Where’d you go?”

  A hand pressed the small of my back. “There you are. Should we get out of here?”

  As we left, Seth studied me with a touch of something that puzzled me. Maybe, it alarmed me. That seemed silly, so I shook it off.

  MATTIE

  Oklahoma City

  1916

  On Labor Day, the hotel manager promised Mattie could take off early if she finished her rooms quickly. Everyone would be watching the parade—if they weren’t marching. Their guests were working-class, and this was their day too. Mattie rushed through making beds, sweeping, and shining tubs and sinks, then changed from her maid’s uniform. She didn’t want to miss the start of the parade. It would be her first since moving away from Sister Welch, who had not been interested in parades, unions, or much of anything beyond the church.

  A few blocks from the hotel, spectators were seven or eight rows deep on the downtown parade route—a mile by half a mile. Mattie elbowed to where she could see well enough. Thank goodness the heat had broken, if only temporarily, with the expected high only in the upper seventies. All summer she’d sweltered under the weight of her wool work uniforms. Perspiration left embarrassing stains that dried white against the black fabric, and she was only allowed two, laundered weekly, so she spent evenings scrubbing the one she’d worn that day, then hanging it to dry. She’d been thrilled for a cool enough day to wear a gabardine suit she’d purchased from Kerr’s after she received her first pay packet. The forest-green fabric set off her eyes. She felt pretty. Even so, with the crowd pressing in and the midmorning sun beating down on her hat, she wished she’d worn her cotton day dress, though it was mended many times over. Others eyed her as she waved her fan vigorously at her cheeks and neck.

  The police musicians’ band led off, and then each union marched by, every division headed by another band. The unions had concealed their costumes for weeks, hoping to take the prize. After the third division appeared, Mattie leaned against a light pole and waved her fan faster. She was simply too warm. Finally, she pushed her way back through the crowd, ignoring annoyed onlookers. “Sorry! Excuse me!” She finally reached the wall of a building, where a cop walked, swinging a club back and forth to create a walking aisle.

  She’d stupidly skipped breakfast to work quickly. By the time she neared the hotel, she was nauseated. On a whim, she followed the aroma of refreshments inside a moving pictures theater half a block away. “Pardon me, miss,” the ticket agent called. “Have to buy a ticket if you’re coming in.”

  She nodded, undeterred. She needed food in her stomach. She’d never been able to go without a solid meal more than a few hours during the day, and sometimes she woke so hungry, she thought she’d keel over before she could eat. As a result, she’d only plumped up two times in her life, and that hadn’t lasted. People teased her for staying skinny. The truth was, she liked being slim—except it made no sense she got so hot.

  She handed over two nickels, and the agent pushed her ticket under the grille. A refreshments vendor carried a box suspended at his waist, overflowing with cones of popcorn and peanuts. “One each, please,” she said, pulling more coins out, then balanced the paper cones, unsure how to maneuver without spilling.

  An usher called, “Lights out in two minutes, madam. Better claim your seat.”

  She’d never been inside a moving pictures theater. She shrugged and went in. It was dark, cool, and nearly deserted. Everyone else was enjoying the weather and parade and other entertainments of the day. She quickly found a seat. Balancing the snacks on her lap made them easy to eat, and she crammed handfuls into her mouth, the combination of sweet and salty bringing her back to herself. She’d catch her breath, then return to her room to rest.

  A fellow in coattails sat in front of a good-sized organ near the front. He arranged music on the stand and then began to play as the lights dimmed and words came up on a white cloth screen, listing the director, the producer, the actors. She’d heard of Charlie Chaplin. The other maids and the hotel patrons went on and on about him. She’d thought of going at times—just once—to see what the fuss was about, but her conscience had always stopped her.

  Mattie had worked hard and toed every line for six years in OKC. When the hotel on the other end of the block from the drugstore offered her a housekeeping position, she’d assumed Sister Welch would be proud. She was aghast. “Mattie, what a terrible idea! It’s not a good area for single women, even if you weren’t surrounded by transient men in the hotel.”

  “We’re single women. We’ve lived in this area more than five years,” Mattie had said. Most of the guests were lodgers anyway, not transients.

  Sister Welch’s lips puckered. “I won’t be able to keep an eye on you.”

  Mattie promised to attend Sunday school and services. Now she dreaded them, and the church building was too close for comfort. At thirty-four, she felt as if she was experiencing life as an adult for the first time in years. The Home and the ministry could keep a woman sheltered forever if you let them, and what had come before now seemed as if it had happened to a different woman altogether. She kept those memories at a safe distance.

  She’d heard it preached often the last few years that moving pictures were sinful. She didn’t know why, exactly—just that they’d put her soul in peril. From the moment the lights went down, however, and the organ began to play and the short man with a funny mustache, dressed like a tramp, flickered onto the cloth screen, she was entranced. By the time the half-hour show ended, and the organist drew out the final chord, she understood the ban. Alcohol and morphine might turn some into drunks and fiends over time, but she was hooked on this miraculous entertainment in one stunning experience.

  The lonely tramp in The Vagabond busked for change playing the violin, harassed or ignored by most who passed. One day, though, he played for a lonely gypsy girl. He drove off the man who beat her and worked her like a slave, then slept outside her caravan to protect her. Eventually, he discovered she was a rich town girl, kidnapped by the gypsies.

  The story was melodramatic, and Mr. Chaplin’s antics over the top. A baseball windup with his bow. Pretending a stick was a fishing rod right before bopping a man on the head. Pulling a checkered shirt from his pocket to make a bathing towel for the girl, and later, a tablecloth. Mattie hadn’t laughed so hard in years. She’d been lonely for good company. In spite of her frustration there, she missed the Home. They’d had good times, mostly.

  When Mr. Chaplin sacrificed everything, but the woman still fell for a more sophisticated suitor, Mattie wept. As they rode into the sunset, the girl suddenly recalled the tramp’s kindness. She didn’t forsake her gentleman, though; she simply invited her rescuer along—the worst kind of burn. Mattie hoped the girl would see the light, maybe on the other side of the sunset.

  Mattie’s notion of moving pictures had been vague—people drinking alcohol, perhaps smoking cigars. Worse, having unmarried relations. What she’d seen instead was exactly what the church preached: a compassionate soul caring for one who was down and out.

  When the next feature began to roll, Mattie left. If The Vagabond wasn’t typical, she didn’t want to know. Not today. In a way, she was the gypsy girl, longing to be rescued again—this time, by someone who could make her laugh and cry grateful tears too. Her eyes were open, but if she could visualize her own happy ending vicariously through the sweet story, she would.

  Unlike the girl in the movie, however, she’d go with the right guy.

  LIZZIE

  Arlington, Texas

  1917

  Lizzie had wrestled all evening with the dark energy she hadn’t sensed in years. Fidgety and twitchy, she headed out for a walk. Docie had rushed to read her a note from Mattie, impatient to visit with the mid
dle Upchurch girl, who would leave for her first year of college the next day. Docie worshipped Miss Ruth, especially since Mattie had gone away, and ran to her for every little thing. At nearly twenty, the young woman seemed glamorous to Docie’s sixteen. She’d given her piano lessons and tutored her in school, and now Docie even fixed her hair the same way—with Miss Ruth’s assistance, naturally.

  Lizzie loved the Upchurches, but sometimes she envied the attention they showered on Docie—or more, the attention Docie returned, as if she were a real part of their family. Some days Lizzie felt useless. Docie no longer ran for Lizzie’s hugs and kisses when she had a bruised shin or feeling. Lizzie was no longer her favored giver of advice. Docie hinted that Lizzie shouldn’t tell her what to do, considering her history. Lizzie flip-flopped between shame and anger at her own child.

  Docie worked hard at what she wanted, but Lizzie wondered what she’d do once she finished her schooling. It worried her something fierce, Docie being so impressionable. Her sass hid innocence as pure as the day they’d arrived. Folks might take advantage. But she’d have to grow up some on her own. Miss Ruth was the kind of influence Docie needed, with a strong foundation from the Home to guide her too, so Lizzie was grudgingly grateful.

  Mattie’s letter had been as rushed as Docie’s reading. Lizzie reckoned Mattie wasn’t telling everything. In the last year or so, her letters were less specific, and more howdy and see you soon, though she never did. Lizzie longed to see Mattie’s face.

  She sighed. Calling on the telephone was a fortune, and things were tighter than ever in the Home since they’d entered the war. Docie lectured everyone on saving every last cent for the cause—same as she heard at school. Sometimes Lizzie couldn’t help but plug her ears when Docie preached on Liberty Bonds.

  When Lizzie couldn’t talk to either of her favorite girls, she substituted this: a walk and a worry about them. At the end of the path between the big house and the tabernacle, she paused. It was still warm, even with the sun gone down, for the grass and dirt baked all day in the late September heat. She turned toward the burying ground. The trees had grown tall around it over fourteen years, and the grass was thick and green over the plots, making for cooler steps.

  Just in view, though, she ground to a halt. One moment she saw someone walking catty-corner across the cemetery, and the next, nothing but branches swaying in a breeze. If someone was paying respects, she wouldn’t interrupt. Two girls had lost babies lately, and the long-timers were still so torn up about Sister Susie dying, they often visited her memorial to grieve. Lizzie reckoned her eyes had played a trick. She carried on, walking the edges, careful not to step over the graves. Brother JT said superstition was of the Devil, but some things she couldn’t get past.

  She fixed her mind on a quiet prayer, for Mattie and Docie—and for her own attitude. But when she neared where she’d spotted the figure, she heard a low keening. She followed it toward a girl huddled over a headstone, too dark to identify. She was on her knees, and there was clinking and scraping, metal against the stone. The sharp sound raised the hair on Lizzie’s arms.

  She peered closer. In one hand, the girl held something thin and pointed, and in the other, something heavier. She hit at the stone marker with both. Lizzie considered running for Mrs. Nettie. Maybe the girl had recently buried a baby and was determined to get at it.

  Suddenly, though, the clouds cleared, revealing the moon. The girl raised her head. It was not a girl after all. It was Miss Hallye, kneeling with a chisel in one hand, a hammer in the other.

  Lizzie knew that headstone now. It had Miss Hallye’s own name on it, spelled the old way. Several years back, they’d been told, a girl had come and gone overnight, staying long enough to bear a stillborn child. Many of the stones for newborns were engraved with only “Infant” and a number. But the girl had seen Miss Hallie’s name in the Journal and wanted it for her child. She wouldn’t give up the lifeless bundle until they promised. None besides the doctor and matron had met the girl, and though the situation was pitiful, there’d been private laughs at Miss Hallye’s expense. Nobody in her right mind would name a helpless infant after such a fussbudget.

  Lizzie wished now she’d returned to the house when her gut said to. Mrs. Nettie would know what to do.

  “Who’s there?” Miss Hallye called, squinting in the moonlight, straining to make out Lizzie’s face. “Who’s spying? Go away…Don’t…” She collapsed, then curled like a child around the stone, holding the tools close to her chest.

  “It’s just me, Lizzie, Miss Hallye. What’s got into you?”

  “Leave me alone!” Miss Hallye cried. “Don’t come closer or I’ll—I’ll—” She thrust the chisel away, and Lizzie shielded herself in case Miss Hallye let loose, but she didn’t back away.

  Miss Hallye had been hacking at the letters on the stone. Likely, none were legible now. It was a crumbled mess, with dust at the edges and on the surrounding grass.

  “You don’t want to hurt me, Miss Hallye. Should I go for Mrs. Nettie? Or Sister Maggie Mae? You all right?” Lizzie treaded carefully, giving her the space to get ahold of herself.

  Miss Hallye pulled up again and wrapped her arms around her knees, letting chisel and hammer thud to the ground. “It was always taunting me. I know you girls whisper when you think I don’t notice. But I see you. Judging me, ridiculing me…I wanted it gone!”

  Miss Hallye’s distress seemed enormous compared to an insignificant stone, but Lizzie gently called, “Miss Hallye, we only laugh to think why a poor girl who never laid eyes on you would give her baby your name. I’m sorry. It ain’t right. I’ll tell them not to—”

  “No!” Miss Hallye nearly screamed, and Lizzie jumped with the force of it. “Not a word. It’s gone now. Are you listening?”

  Lizzie hesitated. Common sense said she should run and get Mrs. Nettie anyway. But she could see how humiliated Miss Hallye seemed about the stone. Lizzie understood humiliation. But she wasn’t convinced that was all. Her mind skipped back across the years, over conversations with Mattie about Miss Hallye’s crush on Brother JT, so obvious, as if she didn’t realize they all saw it.

  The stone had been placed while Miss Hallye worked in West Texas, quietly in a corner, no ceremony to mark its arrival. Suddenly it hit Lizzie. Did Miss Hallye worry that the girls believed it stood for an infant not only named for her but maybe even belonging to her?

  She stared at the woman, always the picture of propriety, even with her obvious infatuation, her cheeks coloring when Brother JT was close, gazing with doting eyes when not. But if any of the girls so much as touched his sleeve, she bristled to remind them that ladies did not touch men who were not husbands or brothers or fathers.

  Miss Hallye seemed to have forgotten Lizzie now, and she rocked, whispering to herself. Or was she whispering to the child buried beneath that stone? She abruptly stopped and stared wild-eyed at Lizzie. The air felt chilled now, even in the warmth of the night.

  “Yes. Go get them,” Miss Hallye said, her words measured. “Tell them my shame, here in the dark, trying to hide from God and all of you. No better than any woman. All you girls are free to tell the places you’ve been, your awful deeds, the ruined lives. Encouraged to start over clean, while I…always must pretend that I never fell for anything. Or anyone.” She dropped her voice nearly to a whisper. “If I told what I know, who would be on the streets? Who has worked faithfully, year after year, without any real reward? I’d ruin too much with my truth.”

  Suddenly, Miss Hallye threw herself toward Lizzie, and Lizzie jumped back. Anyone hearing her insinuations—especially if they recalled the adoring eyes and blushing smiles—would grasp the stakes. If her rambling hints were true, it wasn’t just Miss Hallye’s life and livelihood at stake. It was Lizzie’s, Docie’s, and that of each woman and child in the house.

  “Miss Hallye,” she said, firmly, “let’s get you cleaned up, and t
hen you need to go on home. You been working too hard, and you ain’t thinking clearly. What you need is a good night’s sleep.”

  Miss Hallye’s eyes nearly burned a hole through Lizzie, but eventually, her shoulders curved. She allowed Lizzie to help her rise and walk to the laundry, where they scrubbed dirt and dust from her nails and brushed her skirt where she’d rubbed her hands and kneeled in the grass. Then Lizzie lit a lantern and walked Miss Hallye to the workers’ cottage. Across the road, lamplight from the windows of the Upchurch home gleamed in the dark. Miss Hallye’s breath caught at times.

  “If you talk to anyone, better be Brother JT himself,” Lizzie said, as she turned Miss Hallye toward the cottage. “Don’t bother Sister Maggie Mae. She don’t need to hear it. All this is our secret, for all time.”

  Miss Hallye walked inside without a word, as if Lizzie weren’t even there now, but Lizzie reckoned her advice was unnecessary.

  At Miss Alla Mae Upchurch’s bridal shower two weeks ago, across the street at their home, Miss Hallye had sat beside Lizzie, and as it ended, she’d said, “We should help Maggie and Nettie with the crystal and china in the kitchen.”

  The other two women had headed toward the back of the house moments earlier, but as Lizzie and Miss Hallye eased through the guests and down the hallway, voices floated softly from behind the half-closed door to the master bedroom. “I can’t believe Alla Mae’s marrying,” Sister Maggie Mae said. “Only yesterday I was wheeling her little rollie chair. She’s grown up so fast—though we’ve wondered if she’d find someone. But Frank’s a good one.”

  “He is that,” Mrs. Nettie said. “I should have been so lucky.” They all knew Mrs. Nettie’s husband had run off with another woman—her own sister. That was what landed her at the Home as matron.