The First Emma

by Di Maio, Camille

  “Sis? Can you hear me?”

  The telephone! She stopped it from swinging on its cord and held it up to her ear, gripping it with both hands as if it were a life preserver.

  “Yes! I hear you. Buck—is that really you?”

  Her brother laughed. It was the best sound in the world. The most exquisite. The most beautiful. The most perfect.

  “It’s me. Most of me. I’m minus an arm and a Jap bullet took an earlobe off, too, but other than that, I’m all here.”

  Her heart tightened at the thought; how could he be so nonchalant about that? But for Buck’s sake, she would keep to a chipper tone.

  “I can’t believe it. And yet I can. I knew I didn’t lose you. I would have felt it.”

  “I could always count on you, little sister. You’d never give up on me. That one thought carried me through.”

  “But where have you been all this time?”

  His voice muffled and then he returned to the receiver. “I’ve already passed up my time and there’s a hundred guys who want to use the telephone. But I wanted to let you know that I’m alive and I’m coming home.”

  “Oh, Buck. Don’t come to Baltimore. I’ve left.”

  “I’m not. Mrs. Molling told me that you’re in Texas. That’s how I got this number. What the hell are you doing in Texas anyway? Never mind. I can’t take up any more time. But as soon as she told me, I put in a request to go to San Antonio instead.”

  “You’re coming here?” It seemed almost impossible. Her brother was alive and he was coming to see her?

  “Yep. I don’t know when. There might be a quarantine and seats on cargo planes have a waiting list. So it could be days or weeks, but stay put and I’ll get to you.”

  “Buck—I can’t even tell you how much—”

  But the line went dead. No matter. The whole world could shut down and she wouldn’t care.

  Her brother was alive.

  In all her excitement, she’d nearly forgotten that tonight was a rehearsal for Green Grow the Lilacs and Erik was going to meet her at the house at five o’clock to walk over to the Little Theater. The set was nearly complete; in Erik’s absence, other volunteers had painted most of what remained. Tonight would be what they called a technical rehearsal. They had to run through the play with all the lights to make sure that the actors hit their “marks,” the bulbs were all working, and the layout of the fixtures were properly set.

  Five minutes early, the doorbell rang, but Mabel was ready.

  “I’ll get it,” she sang out to Helga. The housekeeper shook her head as she slipped back into the dining room, but Mabel could see the corners of her mouth upturned. Why did everyone in this household put on such a stoic exterior? As Mabel got to know them better, she could tell that they had soft hearts under all that stuffiness.

  Erik seemed to have no trouble demonstrating his feelings, however.

  She put her coat on and opened the door, seeing him as if for the first time. Because this was the first time that the newness of whatever they were together had been shared publicly: the yellow roses had, apparently, prompted quite the whispers among the Koehler family.

  “Hi,” she breathed.

  “Hi.” He smiled at her, looking down. The winter sun had nearly set. The porch lights illuminated him even as the yard behind him was dark.

  Erik stepped forward and handed her a box wrapped in colorful foil. “I bought something for you on my way back from Austin.”

  A present! Mabel hadn’t had a present since her birthday a couple of years ago when Ginger gave her a pair of silver-plated earrings. She’d learned to pass by Christmas-themed store windows and avert her eyes so as to avoid yet another season with no one to celebrate with. She pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and held it against her nose, hoping that he wouldn’t see that she was trying to hold back tears.

  “May I open it?” She spoke slowly so as to steady her voice.

  “Of course! And—you have to share. But only with me.”

  She closed the door behind her. “It’s almost too pretty to open.”

  He stood close to her and she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. “If you don’t, I will.”

  “You’ve convinced me.” She pulled at the twine bow on top and carefully opened the foil, hoping to save it for a future use. A plain package sat within. She slipped a fingernail underneath the tape that held it together.

  Inside were twelve chocolate balls. Such a rarity during wartime, but she had ceased to be surprised as to what the Koehler family could conjure.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up at him.

  “They’re marzipan. An old woman in a little shop in New Braunfels makes them. She says it’s a secret recipe. She grows almond trees on her property and trades the nuts for cocoa beans.”

  Perhaps the war touched Texas differently with all this land to grow your own food. Residents of downtown Baltimore did not have the space to grow their carrots and zucchini and let alone almond trees.

  She offered one to him first, and then took one for herself.

  They took a bite at the same time. The taste was perhaps the best thing she’d ever had, overwhelming her mouth with what could only be described as a cloud of flavor. If one could fall in love with food, then she was instantly smitten. Mixed into the soft paste of the marzipan were slivers of almonds, just large enough to add crunch. And the richness of the dark chocolate covered them both.

  She watched Erik as he closed his eyes. He seemed to have a similar impression.

  “I am never eating anything else in my life,” she moaned, tilting her head back against the door frame.

  “I told you. Isn’t it sensational?”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  Erik took the hand that wasn’t holding the box and swept it behind her back, pulling her closer to him. He leaned down and placed a delicate kiss on her lips.

  “I’m never kissing another girl in my life,” he whispered. “Just so you know.”

  Mabel felt her cheeks redden. The combination of the sweets, the kiss, and those words made her head swoon. She had no idea how to give an answer that could come close to saying all that she wanted to.

  “Do you mind walking?” he said, pulling back and rescuing her from the impossibility of the moment. “It’s a nice night out.”

  “Of course. Let’s save the gas.”

  “Do with less so they’ll have more,” he said, quoting a popular war poster.

  “Do with less so they’ll have more,” she repeated. Though as she put the lid on the marzipan box, a pang of guilt settled in her heart. Ever since last spring, she’d saved half of her sugar ration, one pound a month, to give away to a local church, as she had no one to bake for and had acquired a taste for black coffee. But maybe when these indulgences came her way, she should be grateful and not worry about it.

  Maybe Mama sent little gifts from Heaven after all.

  Erik held her hand as they walk toward the gate and Mabel heard the quiet click of the door as Helga closed it behind them. “You have quite a bounce to your step tonight,” he said. “I’d like to believe it’s because of my excellent company, but you look like you have something to tell me.”

  She smiled. How astute that he could know this before she even spoke.

  “Oh, Erik. I have the most wonderful news and I’ve been bursting to tell you all day. My brother Buck has been found alive and is already back in the United States.”

  He stopped and turned toward her, pulling her to him in a near-suffocating embrace. “That is the best news. The best! What are you thinking, going to the theater with me? For a rehearsal? You should go out to dinner and celebrate. If I hadn’t already committed to this, I would join you.”

  She wiggled out, her body throbbing from how tightly he’d held her. But it delighted her to know that her news had been so genuinely welcome to him.

  “I don’t want to be alone. As much as I want to shout from the top of the Smith-Young buildi
ng, I would far prefer to be around people tonight. I feel so jittery.”

  “I have a cure for the jitters.”

  “You do?”

  He grinned and pulled her over to the iron gate, behind a hedge, where they couldn’t be seen. He pressed her against the bars of the fence, but not so much that it hurt. This tiny space they’d slipped into acted as their own private cave, away from any eyes watching from the house or any headlights of cars on West Ashby.

  Erik bent his fingers and brushed them against Mabel’s cheeks. “You are so beautiful, my love.” He bent down and placed his lips on hers, the faint taste of the dark chocolate still embedded on them. She gasped and he moved in closer, kissing her harder, even more so than when they’d been at the Majestic; for there, they’d been interrupted and here they were alone. He parted her lips with his and the most exquisite feeling raced through her all the way down to her toes. She arched her back, pressing her body into his, frustrated that two long winter coats separated them.

  She thought of that empty pool over at San Pedro. How in the summer, she could wear a fashionable swimsuit and he could wear the trunks that most men sported and there would be very, very little between them. The very idea of it sent a groan from her throat, which only prompted Erik to kiss her more deeply.

  He stopped, thankfully, not because she wanted him to but because she had no breath left. But as she sighed, he began to brush her neck, her cheeks, her ears with delicate strokes.

  Oh, this was far more delicious than marzipan.

  “Mabel,” he said in hurried tones. “Mabel, Mabel, my darling. You make it so difficult to—”

  He took a deep breath and stopped.

  “Difficult to what?” she asked.

  He put his forehead against hers and made the tiniest bit of space between them. “To be a good man.”

  “What do you mean? You are a good man, Erik. The best of them.”

  “You’re a smart girl, Mabel. Surely you can see what you do to me. This is exactly why I’ve always called for you at Auntie Emma’s house and never taken you to my apartment.”

  She wondered if Ernestina had ever been to his apartment and the thought sent a chill through her.

  Had Erik wanted to be a good man with Ernestina?

  She ached to know, but didn’t want to ask him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. Again, it pleased her that he could read her so well.

  “Nothing. Nothing. There’s just so much to take in this evening.”

  He stood up straight. “Darling, I’m being terribly unfair to you. You’ve had some wonderful news today and you don’t need me to muck that up.”

  She placed her hand on his arm to reassure him. “You were taking away my jitters.”

  “Did it work?”

  She felt her cheeks warm. “It did.”

  They looked at each other for a moment, not speaking, letting the early moonlight find its way to them through the thick shrubbery and the iron slats.

  It didn’t matter what Ernestina might have had in the past. Erik had demonstrated his love for Mabel now and that’s what mattered.

  She tried to ignore the knot in her stomach. The fear that something would come crashing down.

  .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “YOU’RE ALL ATWITTER this morning, Miss Hartley. Are you ill?” Mrs. Koehler’s words were impatient. Mabel knew that her employer was agitated that they had not progressed more in the dictation. Mrs. Koehler did not lay the blame at Mabel’s feet, but rather at her own, gnarled ones. It frustrated her that she drifted to sleep so easily and that she had only a few hours in a day when her mind was truly sharp. A recent attempt to begin the discussion on Otto’s murder had been waylaid by a terrible bout of senility and paranoia in which she accused Mabel of trying to steal a silver punch bowl and Frieda of poisoning her with bad lemons.

  Helga had called Doctor Weaver to hurry over and Mrs. Koehler finally allowed him to administer some medicine.

  “That’s how you know she’s near the end,” Helga whispered to Mabel as the doctor injected Mrs. Koehler with a calming serum. “She never accepts what she calls chemicals. Says all one needs to live a long life is unpasteurized ale.”

  That had been yesterday, and Mrs. Kohler had spent the rest of the day in bed. Today, however, she seemed to have lost ten years and was eager to get on with the work.

  “Tell, me, Mabel, are you ill?”

  Mabel shook off her thoughts. “Oh, yes. I mean no. I mean, I am quite well.”

  “You’re fidgety this morning.”

  Erik had used the same word.

  “I’m eager to get to work and I know you are, too.”

  Mrs. Koehler rolled her wheelchair over to Mabel’s chair. She put her bony hands up to Mabel’s chin and pinched it, turning it right and left. “Just as I thought. You’re love struck.”

  “Emma!” She hadn’t forgotten her employer’s missive to call her by her given name, though it still felt unnatural on her tongue.

  Mrs. Koehler sat back. “You’re in love with my nephew, aren’t you?”

  Mabel felt flushed. “I—we—”

  “Don’t prance around things like an antelope, dear. Are you or aren’t you? You must speak up. Women don’t speak up enough. There’s no question that he’s gone and lost his head over you, so you might as well decide now if you’re going to rise to the occasion or break his heart.”

  “We’ve only known each other a month.” She’d only known Artie for a night before falling for him. But that was so different. Artie had not even pretended to be a good man.

  Mrs. Koehler didn’t buy it, either. “That’s an excuse. You young people think you need to have all this time to get to know each other. As if you could know everything about a person before making a decision about them. Trust me. It takes decades. And you won’t always like what you see. But what is it about Erik that makes you hesitate?”

  “I’m not hesitating. I’m trying to be prudent.” Mabel picked at her fingernails. It was uncomfortable to be having this discussion with his aunt. Still, Mrs. Koehler was a very wise woman and Mabel would do well to listen to her advice.

  “Prudence makes old maids. Do you want to be an old maid?”

  Mabel pursed her lips. “No.”

  Then she took a deep breath and continued. “But you wouldn’t want me to be imprudent would you?”

  Mrs. Koehler’s mouth was firm, but her eyes sparkled. Mabel got the impression that she enjoyed being challenged. People probably never questioned her. She was a formidable matriarch and an intimidating one if you weren’t used to her.

  “Don’t assume in life that you have to be one thing or its opposite. Being reticent is as foolish as being reckless. Substitute those words with nearly any other and you will find the truth to be the same. It’s all about finding the balance.”

  Like Erik’s description of water, fire, and alcohol. Anything in excess was dangerous.

  Mrs. Koehler sighed and continued. “My dear, my nephew does not have one questionable bone in his body. He is as fine a young man as there has ever been. I took Erik in when his father lost their home in Germany in a poker hand and his mother became destitute, forced to earn money by prostituting herself to soldiers. She died of a wretched illness she acquired because of it. If anything, Erik has been abundantly scrupulous in his behavior out of fear of becoming like either one of them. I half-thought that Ernestina’s influence would give him just the right amount of tarnish, but even then he gave no leeway for her antics.”

  Mabel sat back, stone-faced. Erik had hinted at the troubles with his father and had never mentioned his mother at all. How similar their tragic paths were. Fathers lost to their addictions. Mothers lost to illness. And yet how stalwart Erik remained through that. Maybe because his aunt had rescued him. Maybe because it was in his nature to be optimistic in the face of challenges like that. Mabel felt duly chastised, but not by her employer. She again found herself guilty of wallowing. Of closing
her eyes to the difficulties that other people were facing. She realized that adversity was not intended to rip one out of the fabric of life. It was the fabric of life. Strengthened in unity. She’d survived by hanging on to a single thread when she could have shared her sorrows with others and woven a rope of impenetrable thickness.

  “Oh, Emma,” she said. “I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

  Mrs. Koehler patted her hand. “That may be. But you are still young. My advice is this: don’t waste any more from now on. Promise?”

  Mabel nodded. “I promise.” She felt a heaviness lifting from her. This is the counsel her mother might have given to her.

  “Good. So, with that behind us, let’s continue. We have much work to do.”

  A dark look came over her face. “My husband, you see, had few scruples.”

  1911

  I got everything I wanted for Pearl. A seat on the board. Otto’s votes that supported mine. Though it was still a struggle more often than not.

  My employees received their ten percent raise and I decided to postpone the hike to twenty-three cents until the following year rather than risk a rejection to the ground I had succeeded in gaining.

  What I also received, which was a delightful surprise, was a sense of loyalty and camaraderie from the workers. It became known, though not from my mouth, that I was the one championing their causes. In return, they gave me smiles, tips of their hats, and little treats as they could afford them. Chocolates or grapefruits or bags of hand-shelled pecans from their yards. I would promptly tour the brewery and share the bounty, lest it ever be thought that my kindness demanded rewards. Or could be bought.

  The result? I was one of them. I was one of the workers, even if I sat in a wheelchair in an office.

  And more than ever before, I considered them my family.

  I know for a fact that three infant girls over as many years were named Emma and I served as godmother to all of them.

  Once the labor dispute was behind us, I set my attentions on more political matters. There was a groundswell of support to turn Texas into a dry state and I worked with the board to put considerable pressure on the governor to limit enforcement in dry counties. They could pass their laws, but if the police turned a blind eye, the laws were ineffective. I had our best Pearl lager delivered to officials in counties across the state.