by Cat Winters
“It is.”
Without another word, we linked arms and headed upstairs to a celebration of two people who had learned to be kissing partners long before Frannie and I were born.
For a short while, all was indeed well.
Bittersweet, but well.
FATHER FETCHED ME AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, AND WE WALKED through the dark streets in silence with the soft swish of the bloomers brushing beneath my petticoat. Near the Park Blocks, I saw our shadows drifting ahead of us in the lamplight and, in them, the silhouette of a little girl with braided hair, sitting on the shoulders of a trim young man in a tall hat. Two steps later, the image shifted, and all that was left were the regular shadows of Father and me, walking three feet apart from each other.
“I miss when you used to carry me on your shoulders,” I said, still watching the sidewalk ahead of us.
“Yes, well . . .” Father cleared his throat. “I think you might be getting a little too big for that nowadays.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and I could have sworn I heard a low chuckle rumble from above his thick beard.
The wedge soon formed between us again. Our shadows spread farther apart, and they looked hunched and cold and lonely.
OUT IN THE BACKYARD ON MONDAY MORNING, WHILE MY classmates wrote compositions and solved algebraic equations in school, I scrubbed brown soap and Father’s undergarments across the zinc grooves of our washboard in the steaming double boiler. Hair fell into my face from the force of all the rubbing, and my hands reddened and absorbed the smell of lye.
After the washing, I pinned the laundry to the clothesline, and little flecks of rain flew at my eyelids and cheeks. “Don’t pour, don’t pour,” I begged of the sky, for I had come too far to lug everything down to our drying racks in the dark basement, where mice skittered about. I rushed to clip every garment to the line, and our backyard became a white wonderland of undershirts, petticoats, and drawers. Ghosts without bodies, just hovering in the mist.
I closed the door on that chore and climbed upstairs to pen a short note at my desk.
November 5, 1900
Dear Madam,
Please accept my deepest thanks for delivering my letter to the editor this past Friday. I was delighted to see the article’s publication in Saturday’s edition of the newspaper. The reception to the piece far exceeded my expectations, and I am now strongly considering a career in journalism because of the pure joy I experienced in sharing my words with the people of this city. May ALL women one day gain a voice.
Sincerely,
A Responsible Woman
THE TEAM OF FEMALE TYPISTS IN DARK DRESS SUITS AND ties clicked away at their tidy rows of desks in the Oregonian’s headquarters, and the same spirit of adventure I had felt on Friday coaxed me farther inside the building.
I noted one striking difference from the week before: a freckled young man with black hair sat at the front desk instead of the statuesque receptionist.
“May I help you?” he asked while unscrewing the cap of a fountain pen.
“I’m looking for the woman who worked at this desk last week.”
“She no longer works here.” The fellow set to scribbling a note on a sheet of company letterhead.
“She’s not here?”
“No, she’s been dismissed.”
“May I ask why?”
“Yes”—he grinned and peeked up at me—“you may ask, but I will not answer.”
“Does it have anything to do with that letter that was printed on Saturday’s front page?”
The young man stopped writing. “Oh, Lord. You’re not bringing another note of thanks, are you?”
“There are notes of thanks?”
“And violent hate mail threatening to set fire to both that letter writer’s house and our building. But mostly ghastly letters of thanks.” He reached down beside his desk and hoisted up a canvas sack spilling over with envelopes. “Ladies stuffed them through the mail slot all weekend long. One of our workers slipped on the piles when he first opened the office this morning. Nearly broke his neck. And then an hour ago, another batch”—the young man gestured with his head toward a bag slumped against a wall like a rummy in an alleyway—“arrived from the postman. Our editor, Mr. Scott, is fuming.”
My fingers itched to grab all those beautiful stuffed envelopes and rip them open, one by one. “Would you like me to burn the letters for you?” I asked.
The fellow lifted his eyebrows. “Burn them?”
“I’ll gladly take them and toss them into an incinerator. I’m opposed to the vote myself.”
“You are?” He plopped the rustling sack back on the ground. “I don’t come across many middle-class young ladies who oppose the vote.”
“Are the bags heavy?” I asked.
“I don’t think I entirely believe you’re an anti-suffragist.”
I covered my mouth and gagged against my palm.
The man gave a start. “What was that?”
“My reaction to that terrible word that starts with an s.”
He lifted his chin and seemed to squint down his nose at me, even though he was sitting and I was standing. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” I asked, just to be as impertinent as he was.
He stiffened at my question, and the typists behind him disappeared into ink-colored smudges. The clicks and dings of their typewriters drifted miles away. The man was suddenly dressed in a white lace tea gown, as relaxed and comfortable as can be—as if he thought himself to be more woman than man.
“Oh.” I lowered my face, and the typewriters clacked back to life.
“What is it?” he asked, suited again in brown tweed and a necktie.
“I just . . .” I laid my letter for the fired receptionist upon his desk. “Will you please give this note to the woman who used to work here? It’s very important.”
“Are you a responsible woman?”
I sank back on my heels. “I—I—I like to think of myself that way.”
“You know what I mean.” He tapped the base of his pen against the desk. “‘A Responsible Woman.’”
“Oh . . .” I pushed my envelope his way. “So, you can see straight through me. Well, that . . . that simply makes us equal, Mr. . . . ?”
“Briggs.”
“Mr. Briggs. Believe it or not, I can see through you, too.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
I leaned my palms against the desk and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Deep inside, you’re not so different from me. Are you?”
He gazed at me with a face unnaturally rigid—the paranoid stare of a person whose inner workings were thrust on display against his will. His reaction made me feel cruel, so I stood and turned to leave.
“Here,” he said from behind me.
I shifted back around.
He lifted one of the mail bags. “Go burn them, Responsible Woman.”
“I will. Thank you.” I took the dense bag and dragged it across the smooth tiles, hearing the future jostling about in all those packed-together papers inside.
THE FIRST THING I DID WHEN I GOT HOME WAS TO GO TO my bedroom. I had hardly sat down before I began tearing open the envelopes.
Dear Responsible Woman,
You put into words exactly what I wanted to say to Judge Percival Acklen . . .
Dear Responsible Woman,
I wouldn’t be old enough to vote in this year’s election, even if women were enfranchised, but I want to thank you for giving hardworking, unsung females like my mother a voice . . .
Dear Responsible Woman,
Who are you, and are you already part of the Oregon State Equal Suffrage Association? If not, please join us at our next meeting . . .
Dear Responsible Woman,
I’m a pro-suffrage man, and although I’m cautious about discussing my sentiments among my colleagues at work, I applaud you for your bravery . . .
Dear Responsible Woman,
As you may already know, in June of
this year 3,473 “gentlemen” of Portland contributed to the failure of the statewide women’s suffrage measure. Please write more editorials to awaken the obtuse males of this city.
PLEASE!
Dozens of people thanked me. Even men praised my eloquence. Other people felt I should be horsewhipped and chained in my kitchen, but for the most part, the handwritten and professionally typed reactions set my hands trembling with gratitude and hope.
I widened my curtains to invite in more light for rereading some of the letters, and even fragile Mrs. Stanton and her wagon filled with pickling jars seemed to shine a little brighter out on the sidewalk.
That afternoon, I fetched my canvas Gladstone bag and packed my clothing—bloomers included—along with the one hundred twenty-three dollars. I then shoved the luggage under the pink ruffles of my bed.
In barely twenty-four hours, I realized, my knees still on the ground, my eyes locked on my hidden belongings, A Responsible Woman and the Mesmerizing Henri Reverie—Young Marvels of the New Century—will be venturing to the Portland Hotel and putting on one hell of a show.
ess than an hour after school would have been dismissed, Frannie showed up at my door with a basket smelling of chicken looped over her arm.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Well . . .” I raised the Fannie Farmer cookbook I was carrying. “I’m mastering the fine art of housewifery.”
She frowned. “Is that even a word?”
“I looked it up once, after Father used it.”
I dropped the book on the hall table and opened the door wider.
Frannie stepped inside. “How are you really doing?”
I shut the door and leaned my back against it. “My bags are packed. I’m ready for tomorrow.”
She nodded and bit her lip.
I nudged her basket with my knuckle. “What’s this?”
“We had leftover food from the anniversary party, and I thought”—she cleared her throat—“if you wanted to come with me, we could deliver it to Genevieve.”
“That’s terribly kind of you.”
“To be honest”—she closed one eye and cringed—“I want to meet her.”
“You mean you want to see if Henry is lying about her.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you mean.”
“All right”—she lowered her shoulders—“maybe that’s a little bit true. But as I said yesterday, if you’re concerned enough about her to put up with your father, then I’d like to see what I can do to help. And I asked Mama about that sort of cancer, and she said she’d be surprised a girl could have it that young.”
“Henry’s not lying.”
“No, let me finish. She said if a fifteen-year-old girl did indeed get diagnosed with it, that girl would certainly need extra support and encouragement.”
I glanced down the hallway, toward the kitchen. “I’m not sure if I can go. I have to light the stove for supper . . .”
“We’ll be quick. I’ll even pay for the streetcar so we can get there faster.”
“Hmm. I wouldn’t mind seeing how she and Henry are doing.” I grabbed my coat off the hook. “It has to be extremely quick. Nothing can go wrong.”
I KNOCKED ON THE DOOR OF ROOM TWENTY-FIVE AND tried not to breathe too much of the stale cigar smoke filling up the hall.
“I hope I’m not waking her,” I whispered to Frannie. “She’s had a fever, and Hen—”
The door opened a crack. Henry’s blue eyes peeked out. “Olivia. Hello. I thought you might have been the doctor again.”
“No, it’s just me. I’m sorry if we’re disturbing Genevieve’s sleep, but this is my good friend Frannie, and she’s brought some food.”
Henry opened the door a foot wider. “That’s awfully nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Frannie handed him the basket, which dipped toward the ground during the transfer, for it was heavy—I’d helped her carry it down the street. “There’s chicken,” she said, “fresh vegetables, bread, and two slices of cake. You can keep the basket until Olivia next sees you.”
“That’s far too kind.”
“Olivia told me what she’s doing to help, so I thought . . .” Frannie pulled her coat tighter around herself. “I wanted to do something, too.”
“How is Genevieve?” I asked.
“Um . . .” Henry scratched at his ear. “She’s, uh . . .” He peeked over his shoulder. “What did you say, Genevieve?”
His sister called something from inside in a voice too soft for me to hear.
“It’s Olivia and a friend,” said Henry. “They’ve brought food.” He shifted back to us. “A doctor was just here. She’s still running a fever. He’s still not sure if it’s a cold . . . or if . . .” He grimaced. “He’s not a cancer expert by any means, but he thinks . . . the tumor . . .”
He rubbed his hand across his forehead, and a vision attacked without warning.
Buckling knees.
Listless arms.
Sickly pallor.
Henry—not Genevieve.
I closed my eyes and kept my voice steady. “Is there anything else we can do?”
I opened them again to see Henry—normal Henry— shaking his head and swallowing.
“I don’t think so,” he said. And he dropped his voice to a whisper to add, “She’s been crying. She always gets upset after doctor visits. I was just about to go down to the lobby so she can sleep and recuperate.”
“I should have brought you some books,” said Frannie.
“No need for that.” He managed a small smile for her. “I’m sure you probably hate me a bit, if we’re being honest. But I appreciate your help with my sister.”
“I’d like to see Olivia,” called Genevieve, loud enough for us to hear.
Henry turned toward her, one hand on the door, the other on the picnic basket. “Are you sure about that?”
“Her friend, too. I want to thank them.”
“All right.” Henry stepped back and maneuvered the basket out of our way. “Come inside, ladies.”
We entered, and I immediately saw her. A weak blue light on the bed. The lowest flame of a gas lamp. Hope seemed to be vacating her body.
Frannie and I walked toward her, and even Frannie, who didn’t see what I did, stiffened.
“I’m so sorry you’re not feeling well.” I cupped my hand around Genevieve’s arm, which felt solid, despite its unsubstantial appearance. “This is my friend Frannie.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” Genevieve gave a polite smile, but she remained a low blue glow. “Thank you for the food. I’m sorry I’m such a mess. The doctor was just here . . . and . . .” She turned her face away. Silent tears rushed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.” I squeezed her arm. “It’s all right to cry. Don’t be sorry.”
“I don’t want to worry Henry . . .”
“Neither of you need to worry,” I said. “You’ll soon be with a physician who knows how to help you. Just get some rest for now. That’s all you need to do. Please don’t lose hope. Don’t be afraid.”
I heard sniffling beside me and caught Frannie—who always managed to cry whenever someone else was crying— rubbing the back of her sleeve across her face. She lowered her arm when she noticed me looking at her.
“He’s not eating,” said Genevieve under her breath.
“What?” I leaned closer to the bed.
Genevieve licked her chapped lips. “Henry’s not taking care of himself. I know he’s not.”
I glanced back at her brother.
“Please tell him to eat and sleep,” she said. “I think he’d listen to you.”
“Are you not eating, Henry?” I asked.
“I haven’t been hungry. But”—he lifted Frannie’s basket— “we have good food now.”
“Then eat it.” I turned back to Genevieve. “And please make sure you try to eat, too. We’re almost there.”
“I kn
ow.”
“Get some good sleep.” I tucked her blankets over her shoulders. “You’ll be on your way to San Francisco soon.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you came.”
Frannie and I headed back to the door, where Henry still lingered with the basket.
I reached for his hand but remembered we had an audience, so my fingers fumbled and latched on to the cuff of his shirtsleeve instead.
“Please take care of yourself,” I said.
“Don’t worry.” He grinned, but his eyes lacked their persuasiveness. “Everything will be perfect tomorrow night.” He tugged on my own sleeve, and his finger brushed across the side of my thumb.
We parted ways. The door closed behind us with a low thud that traveled through my bones.
Frannie and I journeyed down the hotel stairwell, side by side, our feet slow and plodding in the echoing quarters.
By the time we reached the bottom, she was holding tightly to my hand.
NOVEMBER 6, 1900
uesday morning, an hour and a half after Father left for work in his operatory, I lugged the canvas Gladstone to its next hiding spot, across the city.
Every neighbor’s house I passed filled me with pangs of nostalgia for my life in the city. Each familiar street sign disappearing over my shoulder jabbed at my conscience and chipped away tiny flakes of my heart.
Yet I kept walking.
I passed a brick firehouse with a ballot-box table set up next to a black and red steam pumper engine in the garage. Out front, a line of men—a hodgepodge of hats and caps, coveralls, dungarees, and smart black suits—waited to exercise their democratic right and paid no attention to me strolling behind them with my overstuffed bag.
Two blocks later, a wagon led by a handsome pair of chestnut horses rolled past me with flags waving and cornets and trombones blaring “Yankee Doodle.” Banners hung off the wooden slats in the back, shouting, WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN! and ANTI-IMPERIALISM!
“Tell your father to vote for Bryan, little lady,” called out a man around Father’s age in red-striped suspenders that looked more like Henry’s peppermint candies than the American flag.
“I’m not supposed to have any say in politics,” I called back, but then I squeezed my lips shut and eyed the nearby pedestrians. My heart jumped around in my chest until I assured myself Father hadn’t just witnessed me sassing a political campaigner while wandering the streets with my worldly possessions. I kept my head down and my mouth closed until I reached the front desk at the Hotel Vernon.