by Theasa Tuohy
He helped her up the two metal steps and showed her to her seat just as the conductor was yelling, “All aboard.” The steam engine whistled and the cars jerked against their couplings as she dug into her pocket for the nickel she’d had the foresight to stick there. “Thanks, miss,” the porter said with a wide grin, mopping his face with a huge checkered handkerchief. The car was stifling. The windows were open, but the overhead fans hung silent in the heat.
The porter put the valise marked with her mother’s initials, ETS, on the brass overhead rack, and Laura settled in by the window, magazines and newspapers on the empty seat beside her.
The redcap had picked her up when her taxi pulled to the curb on the Vanderbilt side of Grand Central Terminal. He’d seemed amused by her lack of luggage. “Travelin’ light, miss.” It was a statement, not a question, as he put her vanity case, traveling hatbox, and the small satchel—all unearthed at the last minute by Evelyn—on his big rolling cart.
Laura, who had read stories of the red-carpet treatment and glamorous setting of the 20th Century Limited, had been disappointed and more than annoyed when the ticket clerk at one of the many windows in the cavernous marble hall informed her in a condescending tone that the super train was in quite a rush to get to Chicago. “Madame, one would hardly wish to debark in Cleveland at two o’clock in the morning.”
“I might.” Laura couldn’t resist, and of course got little reaction other than a slight disapproving lift of the right eyebrow.
In some ways, though, Laura was just as happy not to be taking the special train. It really had been her mother’s idea. Sure, it would have been grand to ride with the swells, but it would have been difficult to get her expense account past Barnes. And she certainly didn’t want to have to admit to that big bozo that her mother had imperiously insisted on paying the all-Pullman train’s eight-dollar surcharge because she was feeling flush from having sold an article to Harper’s Magazine.
“Ticket, miss.” The conductor was rolling like a sailor with the motion of the train as it picked up speed, moving north following the path of the Harlem River, before it turned left heading for the Hudson. The activity stirred up a fine breeze from the fans and the open windows, bringing relief from the August heat.
Laura peered out in wonder at the sheer cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades, and speculated how anything this near her birthplace could seem so strange and exotic. She knew the answer, of course. She had barely left the confines of Greenwich Village until she went north to Barnard College. And the encompassing atmosphere of her childhood around Gay Street was indeed a world unto itself. A world of art and poetry and philosophy and free love. A bohemian enclave that she realized at quite a young age was not the best environment for a child. She’d learned early on to mother herself and, as often as allowed, to do the same for Evelyn, the woman who didn’t much like to be called Mom—the woman who was never too happy to acknowledge that she had a growing child. The woman who, in Laura’s eyes, had never grown up. Laura had always thought how nice it would be to have a normal family life, and proper friends.
She felt hypnotized by the unfamiliar scene whizzing past. The Hudson River flowed far below, as the train cut through a lush forest filtering fleeting speckles of sunlight on its way toward Albany before it would turn west.
A white-coated waiter came through with a dinner gong announcing that the evening meal was now being served two cars forward. Amazing, these trains, Laura thought, a hot meal. But what is the proper etiquette? Should she put her hat and gloves back on to go to the dining car? Nothing in the purposely nonconformist life of the Village had prepared her for this. She waited until she saw other ladies heading in the direction of the dining car. One had her hat on, two others had none. The heck with the hat, she picked up her handbag and took the plunge.
After swaying her way through two coach cars and the couplings between, Laura entered a narrow passageway that fed into an actual restaurant. Her eyes popped with wonder. All along the windows, on each side of a slightly off-center aisle, there were tables. Waiters in white jackets glided smoothly among the tables taking orders. A maître d’ wearing a black tie advanced toward Laura with a tight, practiced smile.
“One, miss?” he inquired. At her nod, he led her to a table for two, set with white linen. A small vase held a single tea rose. The hypnotizing trees were still whizzing by the window, although by now it was nearly dark and the pines took on a menacing scarecrow aspect. After taking the menu and seeing the prices, Laura gasped. The meal sounded substantial, but it should be: it cost $1.50! Visions of Barnes yelling when he saw the bill swam in her head. But the heck with it, a girl had to eat. And this train ride was his idea.
She was just digging into her mashed potatoes and gravy when a swell-looking guy with an unruly shock of red hair, which even Brylcreem couldn’t hold, appeared at the entry of the car. He was tall and needed to bend down to share a confidence with the maître d’. She had a funny feeling they were talking about her, and she saw what looked like a dollar bill change hands. Sure enough, they headed straight for her.
“Miss,” said the waiter, “would you mind if I seat this gentleman at your table? It’s customary for those traveling alone.”
I don’t buy that for a minute, Laura thought, but she gave a shrug of indifference. Let’s see what this lug is up to. Could be interesting. With my luck, he’s probably selling Good Housekeeping subscriptions.
As though on cue, he launched right in: “We’re seated in the same car, and I couldn’t help but notice that you had a number of New York newspapers.”
“Good grief,” she blurted out, “selling daily rags on a train.” Rude of me, she thought, but there is a limit, even if he is kind of cute. Not bad, no face full of freckles that usually goes with all that red hair. A little on the thin side, but a strong square jaw. Maybe he’s not so skinny after all, just that his suit jacket hangs a little loose. Probably had to get a size too big ’cause he’s so tall.
The young man chuckled. “I suppose in a way you could say that. I do work for a newspaper. I’m a reporter.”
It was Laura’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, sure, tell me another one. That’s a good pickup line if I ever heard one.” Laura was not very practiced with men, but she was excellent at fending them off, especially some of her mother’s friends.
“Why is that so funny?” He seemed at a loss.
The waiter brought a menu to the young man, then took away Laura’s plate and handed her a card with dessert suggestions. “Lovely hot apple pie today,” he said.
“You must have guessed that I’m a reporter,” Laura finally replied to the young man. “Work for the Enterprise-Post.”
His blue eyes went wide. “I work for the Trib in Chicago, and we only have one woman. She’s old as the hills and has nicotine stains on her fingers.”
“I’ve heard it said,” Laura gave him a broad grin, that New York is way ahead of Chicago. I’m on my way to Cleveland to cover the air races—the very first for women.”
“You’re kidding. The one they’re calling the Powder Puff Derby? Wow.”
Laura nodded, flipping open the dessert menu. “That pie sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”
He stretched his hand across the table. “Glad to meet you, I’m Joe Bailey.”
Laura blanched. “This isn’t funny anymore,” she said, putting down the menu. “My name’s Bailey too. Laura Bailey.”
“You said you’re from New York.” Joe’s smile melted to a slight blush. “I hope we’re not related. My family all comes from Chicago. Where are your people from?”
“This is getting pretty silly.” Laura signaled to the waiter for her check. “I really must go.”
“I don’t understand,” Joe Bailey said plaintively as the waiter brought Laura’s check and she hastily paid.
“Nice to meet you,” she mumbled, and departed.
The startled young man followed her with his eyes as she left the car.
Laura’s heart w
as pounding. Where are your people from? she repeated to herself. That sounded like a challenge. Sure, Bailey was a common name, but the encounter somehow unnerved her.
As she wound through the train, past the restroom, past the rows of seats, and swayed between the cars as the couplings clanked, she thought of how she’d gone on her own that first day of school at P.S. 41. Her mother’d been off somewhere with who knew what man. Laura had heard about school opening for the semester, so she went and signed herself up. She’d washed and ironed her best blue gingham dress the night before.
The teacher looked a bit surprised to see this scrawny, big-eyed eight-year-old walk into her classroom saying she wanted to enlist herself in the first grade. A knowing woman with her hair in a severe knot and a gentle smile—her name was Mrs. Kominsky—she let Laura stay and only bothered with the particulars after class. When Laura was taken to the principal for the grand enrollment process, she told them her name was Bailey, that her parents were jugglers off with a touring show, and that she was home on her own. She learned a good many years later that the two women hadn’t much believed her, but a child of eight who had yet to go to school spoke for itself, and they had obviously run into some strange tales from kids in those free-thinking days in the Village.
“Perhaps we’d better consider some testing by the district,” Mrs. Kominsky had said in a low breathless voice to Miss Blear, the principal. “Laura here may need to move up a grade or two. She reads, and she writes without block letters. And,” said her teacher, her breathlessness now so pronounced that Laura had to strain to hear her, “she also seems to have a passing acquaintance with Marcel Proust and Friedrich Nietzsche.”
“My word,” replied Miss Blear.
Laura peered through the train window into the dark. Instead of the river now, she could see only her own face reflected back by the overhead lights of the car. Taking herself off to school was one of the happiest things she’d ever done. School was nice. She liked the orderliness of it, the methodical way one subject came after another. And the time on the playground was frivolous and free. She did make friends there, but never saw them after school, never asked them to visit her home, although she had played hopscotch and jacks sometimes with one girl who lived on her street. She hadn’t understood at the time that it was the structure that appealed to her, a time to study and a time to play. Her studies progressed in an orderly way, not the scattershot reading she’d done before she went to school. That was what was nice about a job. Just like school, you had to be there at a certain time each day, no matter what. And she was trying to learn fast just what was expected of her.
She opened her purse and took out the sepia-toned photo she’d dropped in there when she was packing. The image was difficult to make out, it was so faded and scratched. The old-fashioned clothes were from a different era. The pretty young blonde wore a large-brimmed lacy hat—perhaps straw or some kind of stiff organza. Short ringlets were tucked around her ears. Her demure chemise appeared to be silk and she wore a long single strand of pearls. Her smile was sweet and shy; she couldn’t have been more than sixteen, the embodiment of flowering innocence.
Aunt Edna had given her the picture, but refused to answer any of Laura’s questions. “Ask your mother,” was all she would say.
“But how can I ask, if you won’t let me tell her you gave it to me?”
“Tell her what you want about how you found it, just leave me out of it,” Edna had replied.
Laura rarely saw Edna after that. The picture was her consolation prize. The poet was becoming better known and more people were making demands upon her time. Especially after the publication of the poem that gave her notoriety as something of a loose woman, and that she referred to as “Candle.”
Laura mouthed it to herself softly as she looked out the window of the speeding train. It will not last the night; but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—it gives a lovely light. Edna left for Paris shortly before Laura’s fifteenth birthday.
She looked at the picture now with new eyes, at the tiny imprint on the lower left-hand corner: Brown Hall Studios, St. Louis.
St. Louis! Another world to Laura, and probably one her mother was from. Perhaps she could try to go there for a day, after she finished her work in Cleveland. But that was stupidly unrealistic! Barnes would never stand for it. Yet how would he know? He’d know; he’d want her in the office as soon as she could get back after filing her last story. The young woman in the picture had such a reticent air, such a lack of guile, that Laura had always found it hard to believe that it really was Evelyn. But there was no question since the older man standing next to her looked like Laura—coarse dark hair, the same broad cheekbones. He must be Evelyn’s father, Laura’s grandfather. The faded inscription on the back said, Father Bernard.
Sitting on the train, Laura mused about why in all these years she had rarely looked at the photo and never asked Evelyn about it. She’d told herself when she was a child that it was pointless, that Evelyn would either lie or refuse to answer, as she always did when asked about her past. With time now to ponder as an adult, staring at her own image reflected back at her as the miles clicked by, Laura felt comforted knowing who her grandfather was, knowing she looked like him. It gave her a tiny bit of her own history, and she didn’t want Evelyn to try to take that away.
She had learned to take on a guarded, defensive posture at a young age, to tamp down worrying about questions that seemingly had no answers, and to just barrel along taking care of herself. She had no time for dwelling on the mysteries of life.
She didn’t know what had prompted her to pick the name Bailey; when informed, her mother just laughed. “You changed yours,” Laura had said defiantly.
“So I did,” her mother replied with a firm and righteous nod. “I see no reason why you shouldn’t do the same, if you want to. I believe in absolute freedom for everyone. Nichts verdrängen, repress nothing.” And that was that. Henceforth, she was Laura Bailey. She’d never liked her mother’s name, Evelyn T. Sampson, and could never worm out of her what her real name had been. Laura had always wondered if there was an actual Sampson, who might have been her father, but she didn’t think so. The only sketchy details she knew of her mother’s earlier life she’d gotten from children of her mother’s friends who would eavesdrop when the so-called grown-ups were drunk or partying. The scuttlebutt on the kids’ circuit was that Evelyn had run off to Germany with a much older married man when she was quite young and they both changed their names to avoid detection by the wronged wife. Where Evelyn had run off from was a matter of some difference of opinion. Some said St. Louis, others said Louisiana. From snide references that Evelyn had made from time to time, Laura felt that it was the stultifying Midwest, whatever that encompassed.
Now she was speeding through the dark on her way there. This seemed like fun, not a job. What else was she going to find out about this story-chasing business, which she’d always thought was so crass? Maybe she’d start learning some things about herself that she hadn’t had time to think about before, always cramming and running to keep her scholarships. Who knows, she might even stumble on her father.
“I’m sorry you had to leave so abruptly.” It was the young man again, swaying with the train, holding onto the seat back of the row in front of Laura. He smiled; Laura frowned. “I would like to sit down, find out more about you,” he said. “I’m going all the way to Chicago, so we’d have plenty of time to talk.”
The conductor walked through calling, “Albany, next stop!”
“I’m sorry,” Laura said hesitantly, searching for a polite tone.
“Honest,” he said, “I mean it. I mean, you’re pretty and I like you.” His face took on the color of his hair, though he rushed on in the gale of her continuing frown and the commotion of other passengers pulling down their bags and crowding into the aisles. “You’re gutsy. I never met a young woman in my business before. It’s a tough job.” Now he was nearly out of breath in his headlong rush, but he pl
owed on as the train pulled into the Albany station. “It is tough, the job. You know what I mean. Dealing with cops and bureaucrats and rushing to fires.”
“I know,” she said crossly. Then stopped herself. He was sweet, a nice kid, she thought. Her mother kept asking why she had no boyfriends.“Seems unnatural to me, a pretty young girl with no beaus. All this studying is to be commended, but you haven’t developed your personality enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Laura said, patting the papers on the empty seat beside her. “I’ve got to read, bone up on this race. I only got the assignment this afternoon.”
And Joe Bailey was pushed toward the vestibule by those rushing to exit the train. As the old wave left, a new wave entered, and a fat woman with large bags headed for the empty seat beside Laura.
CHAPTER NINE
CLEVELAND
Laura, bleary-eyed from only catnaps, dumped her bags at her Cleveland hotel Friday morning and headed for the pressroom at the National Air Show. She was anxious to find out what had happened to the flying ladies while she’d been stuck on a train for twelve hours. It was urgent that she hustle before the race ended Monday, when everyone would have the same information—who won. She also wanted to find Cheesy, who had been sent there earlier.
She found John Riley, the Enterprise-Post reporter who’d arrived the day before to cover the show and races that would terminate here at the city’s municipal airport. He told her that the fliers remaining in the women’s race had traveled across Texas on Thursday, making five stops including Fort Worth, where they’d been greeted by twenty thousand spectators before bedding down for the night. They would be in Tulsa and Wichita, Kansas, today. At every stop along the way, thousands were turning out to greet them. Louise Thaden, an ace with lots of endurance records, seemed the likely winner. Ruth Nichols, a Wellesley graduate and debutante, was among the frontrunners, as was Amelia Earhart.