by Cat Winters
“Shouldn’t you be returning it to him before he leaves?”
I glanced back at Percy, who had gone pale again, although in a frightened way—an I’m about to get dissected by dental tools sort of way—with quivering lips and watery eyes.
“Um . . .” He stammered, “Well . . . th-th-there’s no need for her to return it to me right now. She got cold out here and should keep warming up. I don’t want her catching her death of pneumonia.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Father dropped his arms from the doorway. “How very thoughtful.”
I leapt inside the house. “Good night.”
Father shut the door, but before he could ask details about Sadie’s party, I launched myself up the staircase, closed myself in my room, and unwound Percy’s scarf until the crimson wool lay in a coiled heap upon the floor. With my head tipped to the right, I approached my oval mirror.
My reflection showed me two sore and bleeding puncture wounds on the left side of my neck—as vicious and angry-red as Lucy’s wounds in Dracula.
Not real.
Two blinks later, the marks retreated and left a purpling bruise in their stead, which was almost worse.
“But unlike Lucy and Mina,” I said to my solid face in the mirror, and I braced my hands around the curved wooden frame, “you will not be returning to your vampire for a second bite, Olivia Mead. You will not.” I swallowed and nudged Percy’s scarf away with my toes.
he following morning, my plaid wool winter blouse, buttoned clear up to the top of my throat, hid Percy’s bite mark from view. On my way downstairs to breakfast, I tested the durability of the top button by twisting it about until I felt confident the little pearl fastening would remain in place. A thin edging of lace tickled like a gnat beneath my chin, but the discomfort was minor—well worth the trouble of avoiding the topic of my virtue with my father.
Father sat at the breakfast table, his face a concealed mystery behind the newspaper, as usual.
“Good morning.” I took my seat and unfolded my napkin.
“Good morning, Olivia.” The newspaper didn’t budge.
“Are you playing billiards today?”
“It’s Saturday, isn’t it?”
“Yes”—I fluffed the napkin across my lap—“it is.”
“Then I’ll be playing. What are your plans?”
“I’ll probably go to Fran—”
A headline caught my eye and paralyzed my tongue:
OLD MOTHER ACKLEN FOR PRESIDENT?
My heart stopped. Nervous sweat broke out beneath that strangling straitjacket of a collar. I pulled at the lace to breathe.
“What’s the matter?” Father lowered the paper. “Why did you stop talking mid-sentence?”
“Is—is . . . ?” My eyes refused to budge from the newsprint. “I think I see a headline about one of the Acklens.”
Father closed the paper to get a better view of the front. “Oh, yes. That.”
“What does the article say?”
“It’s nothing to fret about.” He folded the paper in half so I could no longer see the article. “Some silly woman wrote to the editor, suggesting Judge Acklen’s mother would make a far better president than either McKinley or Bryan.”
I pressed my lips together. “Really? They printed a letter like that?”
“Surprisingly so. They usually keep suffragist drivel out of the Oregonian.” With a grunt, he unfolded and readjusted the newspaper so that it lay next to his plate with the second page on top. The only items left viewable from my seat were a political cartoon involving President McKinley and an article about the Socialist Eugene V. Debs.
Father raised his steaming mug of coffee to his lips, but before taking a sip, he added, with a quick glance at me, “Please, Olivia, don’t even think of reading the letter. It was probably written by a man, anyway.”
He sipped his drink.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Why do you think a man wrote it?” I asked.
He lowered the mug to the table with a smack of his lips. “It’s too well written for a woman.”
Before I could respond, Gerda glided through the swinging kitchen door on a bacon-and-egg-scented breeze.
A smile wiggled across my face. It’s too well written for a woman, Father had said. Well written. He believed my work to be well written.
Gerda set my breakfast plate in front of me. “Good morning, Miss Mead.”
“Good morning, Gerda.” My smile stretched to an unmanageable width.
She nudged my elbow below the table. “A lovely party last night?”
“Oh. Yes.” I lowered my eyes. “Lovely.”
“Good. More coffee, Dr. Mead?”
“Not at the moment. Thank you.”
“Then I’ll let you two eat.” She wiped her hands on her apron and made her way back through the door.
I reined in my smile but longed to ask Father more about why he thought the letter was so well written, and if he felt swayed by the argument, and if the writer seemed to live up to her name: A Responsible Woman.
Instead, I buttered my toast with a rhythmic scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape.
“What did you say you were doing today?” he asked between bites of food.
“I’m bicycling over to Frannie’s.”
He swallowed the last bite and cleared his throat. “You’re getting a little too old to be riding around the city, don’t you think? Especially now that a young man is courting you.”
“I don’t care for Percy as much as I thought. Please don’t consider us courting.”
“You don’t care for him?”
“I learned his reputation isn’t as spotless as he made it out to be. I’m a good, chaste girl, so you should be proud of me resisting his charms.”
“He tried to”—Father coughed up crumbs—“charm you?”
“And what do you mean about me getting too old to bicycle?” I stopped buttering. “I see plenty of women cyclists.”
“I don’t know why that is, when there are so many households to run.”
“Are you saying I can’t ride anymore?”
“I’m saying we should perhaps only hire Gerda on the weekdays when you’re in school. You’re more than old enough to be taking care of the cooking and cleaning on Saturdays.”
“Gerda is relying on her employment here.”
“I’m sure she can find a family who needs a girl to clean only once a week.”
“But—”
“It’s time you took on more duties, Olivia. You’re not a child anymore.”
I dropped my knife to my plate with a clank.
“Or are you a child?” he asked. “Am I mistaken?”
I eyed the stack of newspaper pages piled up beside him and thought of my published letter to the editor buried inside. A Responsible Woman was what I had claimed to be.
“No, I’m not a child.” I dragged my teeth against my bottom lip and tried to still the wanderlust in my legs. “But can the change of her schedule wait until next week? I was planning to offer to help Frannie’s mother with preparations for tomorrow’s anniversary party.”
“Well . . .,” Father grumbled. “I suppose Gerda is already hard at work for the day . . .”
“Thank you.”
“But next week, this new schedule must start. And I must say, I’m sorely disappointed by this turn of events with Percy.”
“I am, too.” I picked at my eggs with my fork.
Father returned to the newspaper and grinned at the political cartoon, his dark eyes sparkling, a chuckle shaking his torso, while I ate my breakfast and rid my head of Percy.
I TIGHTENED THE LONG PINS THAT SECURED MY GRAY felt bicycling hat to my hair, hitched up my black skirt, and mounted the padded seat of my vermilion-red bicycle. Before Father could run outside and change his mind about letting me ride, I took off and pedaled down Main Street, amid horse-drawn wagons delivering fresh Saturday produce to the city’s grocers. Nearly a year before, the Oregonian reported that the city
now boasted one automobile, owned by a German immigrant named Henry Wemme, but I hadn’t yet seen the contraption. I’d only heard stories about how it caused horses to rear and bolt when it charged through the city with its motor howling.
Ruts and stones in the uneven road jostled my shoulders, but the ground was dry and firm, aside from the occasional pile of horse dung. Gunmetal-gray clouds loomed over the city, threatening rain, yet they were merciful and withheld their showers.
I turned left on Third Street, before getting anywhere near the sewage stink and unsavory characters of the waterfront district. Feeling the need to go faster, I leaned forward and powered the pedals with all my strength. My calf muscles burned, the bicycle chain whirred below my flapping skirts, and I caught enough speed to lift my feet and cruise past the towering brick buildings and streetcar tracks. Air rushed across my tongue; the wind fought to whip the hat off my head. The company names written on the buildings—INDEPENDENT STEAMSHIP CO., E. HOUSES CAFÉ, EMBERS PHOTO STUDIO, THE J. K. GILL CO., FUNG LAM RESTAURANT, and even METROPOLITAN—streaked into a blur.
To avoid the saloons and gambling dens (and Father) in the North End, I steered left and zoomed up Washington, my heart racing, heat fanning through my face, my arms, my legs. I veered down Sixth and rode three more blocks before turning right onto Yamhill. McCorkan’s Bicycle Shop’s forest-green awnings came into view, and a Christmas morning sense of elation stirred inside me. My feet slowed on the pedals. The chain click-click-clicked to a stop, and I planted my shoes on the road in front of McCorkan’s display window.
There they were, prominently displayed on two dress forms.
Bicycle bloomers.
Rational garments.
Turkish trousers.
Whatever one wanted to call them, the garments—so vibrant compared to our black physical-education pants, which were meant for female classmates’ eyes alone—resembled beautiful, billowing hot-air balloons that could lift a girl off the ground. One pair matched the blue of the American flag swaying in the wind outside the shop. The other was as shocking red as the bicycle I straddled. The pants swelled wide enough that they would make the future owners appear to be wearing skirts—if the young ladies kept their legs pinned together.
But as everyone knows, bicycling ladies don’t keep their legs pinned together.
The shop door opened with the soft tinkle of a bell, and out stepped Kate and her sister Agnes. Both of the Frye ladies had flushed faces and wore the American-flag-blue version of the bloomers. They headed toward two parked bicycles alongside the curb. Kate carried a little satchel tool bag meant for cyclists embarking upon longer rides.
“Oh.” Agnes squinted at me through the glare of the sun behind the clouds. “Look, Kate, it’s Olivia. Was that you I saw at the restaurant with two boys last night?”
“Um . . . well . . .”
“Are you looking for bloomers?” asked Kate.
“Just admiring them for now.”
“You should ask your father to buy you a pair,” said Agnes, putting her hands on her bloomers-clad hips. “Turkish trousers don’t get caught in bicycle spokes like that dangerous skirt of yours. Besides”—she winked at me—“today’s a day to celebrate if you’re a Portland woman.”
“It is?” I scratched my chin and tried to recall if we celebrated any famous Oregon women’s birthdays . . . or if there were any famous Oregon women, for that matter. “Why?”
Agnes lifted her chin. “Because that damned editor”— she didn’t even flinch when she swore like a sailor—“Mr. Harvey Scott, finally found the courage to print a suffrage letter in the Oregonian.”
“Language, Agnes,” said Kate with a twinkle in her eye.
I gripped my handlebars and tried not to topple over with my bike. “I read that letter, but I—I—I . . . I don’t . . .”
“I know, this historic occasion is enough to make a person speechless.” Agnes mounted one of the awaiting bicycles—a canary-yellow beaut with a silver horn attached to the handlebars. “I don’t know if you realize it, but Mr. Scott’s sister is our local suffragist leader, Abigail Scott Duniway. Up until this morning, that stubborn old mule has refused to print anything pro-suffrage in his paper. We blame him for the failure of the referendum.”
I shook my head. “But . . . I don’t understand. Why do you think he printed this particular letter?”
Agnes shrugged. “Perhaps he thought it was a joke. The headline tried to poke fun at the letter writer, but it failed miserably. Mother, Kate, and I all received telephone calls from friends who read the letter and want to personally toast this mysterious ‘Responsible Woman.’”
“Oh.” Prickles of both fear and pride crawled across my skin like hundreds of sharp-clawed insects. What have I done? I thought. What the blazes have I done?
Kate straddled the other bicycle with a swing of her right leg and pumped her pedals into motion. “Well, I’ll see you at school, Olivia.”
“Ask your father to buy you bloomers,” added Agnes, following her sister into the street. “Tell him you’re asking for trouble if you don’t adapt to modern safety advances.”
The young Frye ladies rode away, their bloomers flapping and billowing in the breeze like the sails of a schooner.
I know it was my eyes deceiving me again—a strange side effect of my awe over my letter’s publication, perhaps—but halfway down the next block, the wheels of both the Frye girls’ bikes lifted an inch off the ground, and the ladies careered down the street on the wind.
I FOUND FRANNIE PERFORMING HER FAVORITE BOOKSHOP duty: arranging new arrivals in Harrison’s display windows. I rapped on the glass, gave her a quick wave, and hurried inside the store. The jangling bell above the shop door announced my entrance.
“Good morning, Livie.” Frannie stood up straight with a book in each hand. “Is everything all right?”
I poked my head around shelves to check for eavesdroppers. “Where’s the rest of your family?”
“Carl is out delivering a rare book, and the rest of the children are at Grandmother’s. My parents took a riverboat ride to celebrate their anniversary.”
“I thought they were celebrating with a fancy supper tomorrow.”
“They are, but Papa wanted to treat Mother today, since she’ll be cooking the meal tomorrow.”
I sighed. “Such a good man. Such a beautiful man.”
“I beg your pardon?”
I darted my head behind another bookshelf. “There aren’t any customers here, either?”
“No, it’s just me here at the moment. Why? What’s happening? More hallucinations?”
I approached her and lowered my voice, just in case anyone should emerge from out of nowhere. “Frannie . . .”
“Yes?” she whispered back.
I swallowed and summoned a burst of courage. “I’m ‘A Responsible Woman.’”
“Yes, of course you are, Livie.” Her tone and nod were patronizing. “Except for when it comes to your relationship with Percy Acklen.”
“No.” I scowled. “I’m talking about the pro-suffrage letter printed in today’s newspaper. I’m ‘A Responsible Woman.’”
Her brown eyes swelled as round and bulgy as my largest prized marbles. She exhaled with the sound of a deflating bicycle tire. “Egad, Livie. Really and truly?”
“Did you read the letter?”
“Of course I read it. It was the talk of the breakfast table this morning, and every woman who’s walked through the shop door has asked for publications by Abigail Scott Duniway or Susan B. Anthony.”
“They have?”
She set down the books she was holding and pulled me toward General Literature. “We’ve sold every single copy of Duniway’s women’s rights novels in the past two hours. See the gap?” She pointed to an empty space toward the end of the D section. “People think she’s the one who wrote the letter.”
“Holy mackerel.” I breathed a sigh that whistled through my teeth. “Maybe this will mean women won’t give up
the fight. Maybe there’ll be another referendum.”
“Maybe.” She raised her eyebrows. “But does Percy know you’re the one publicly making his father sound like a buffoon?”
“Oh. Percy.” I growled and held my head between the tips of my fingers.
“The party didn’t go well?” she asked.
“Tell me honestly, did he touch you?” I asked in return.
Frannie turned her face away and ran a knuckle across Charles Dickens’s spines.
“Frannie?”
“Are you still in love with him?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
“Then, yes.” She dropped her hand from the books. “I admit, he grabbed me last year when I was retying the lace of my shoe in the school stairwell. He came up the steps behind me, gave me a spank and a squeeze, and then continued up the stairs without even looking back. I hated myself the whole rest of the day.”
“Oh, Frannie. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was never sure if he simply confused me for someone else, or . . .” She fussed with the end of her braid. “I don’t know. It happened a whole year ago. I hoped he might have matured a little.”
“No.” I folded my arms over my chest. “He’s still a grabber . . . and a biter . . . and a terrible kisser.”
“You kissed him?”
“He kissed me, and it was awful.”
The shop door opened, and a woman and her twin daughters—girls no older than twelve or thirteen—strolled into the store.
“Do you have The Awakening by Kate Chopin?” asked the mother.
“I believe so,” said Frannie in a professional tone. She reached up and took hold of a tan book with green grapevines laced around the title. “Yes, ma’am. Here it is.”
I wandered to one of the front-window displays and thumbed through a Kipling book while Frannie proceeded with business. In addition to Chopin’s novel, the woman and her daughters purchased The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. I hadn’t read The Yellow Wallpaper, but I knew all three of the texts questioned the subordination of women.
After the sale, each of the customers retreated with a book wedged under her left arm, and before they reached the door, a transformation occurred. The little family brightened. Their faces, like those of Agnes and the other suffragists at the restaurant, shone with some sort of internal brilliance, and their hair—fluffed and pinned beneath a small straw hat in the case of the mother, long braids for the daughters— became the bold yellowish orange of firelight.