Unmentionables

by Laurie Loewenstein

  “You’ve had time. Didn’t you get those notices?”

  “Yes, but business has been slow. But now, I’ve got more sittings booked. Just today,” he glanced nervously at the clock, “in a couple of hours. I’ve got a customer coming this afternoon.”

  “So you don’t have the money now?”

  “No. But if you’d just give me—”

  “Not my problem. I’m taking the cameras.” He surveyed the room. “Got any crates?”

  “You can’t take them.”

  The man paused. “Oh yeah?”

  “But how am I going to make a living?”

  The man shrugged. “And you’re going to give me that expensive watch tucked in your pocket for my trouble.”

  After the downstairs door slammed behind the bill collector, Clay collapsed on a tufted chaise lounge that he’d paid a lot of money for, thinking it would be a nice prop, but none of his sitters wanted to use it. Too fancy, they said. He stared numbly at the ceiling, tracing the random paths of cracked plaster.

  He was in the same position two hours later when Tula stopped by on her way to the druggist. Dr. Jack had advised Epson salt baths for Marian’s ankle.

  “Are you sick?” she asked.

  “No. Yes.”

  “Your head?” She started to lay a palm against his forehead but he brushed her away and sat up.

  “No. He took the cameras.”

  Tula looked around, puzzled. “Who did?”

  “The bill collector!” Clay shouted.

  Tula blanched, her fingers against her lips. “You owe money for the cameras, besides what you owe Deuce?”

  Clay rose from the chaise, flapped his hand irritably. “Yes, yes. I owe money. I’m in debt. We’re in debt.”

  Tula’s chin trembled.

  Clay kicked one of the wooden brackets holding up a painted backdrop of a marble pillar and the whole edifice collapsed.

  “Oh, don’t,” Tula said. She pulled on one edge of the crumpled canvas to free it, then let it drop. “He took all the cameras?”

  “No, I’ve still got that second-hand gear.”

  “Well then,” Tula said.

  Clay looked at the clock. “Christ. Mrs. Johnson will be here in half an hour. Help me set up, will you?”

  Clay pulled a rickety tripod and an old camera from a small closet in the corner, fingering the camera’s cracked accordion pleats and wondering if they would hold.

  Tula set to work on the tripod. “So, what are you going to do about Deuce?” she asked, tightening the screws on the legs.

  “Talk to him. Convince him to give me another extension on the loan. You could help soften him up for me, you know.”

  Tula flushed and straightened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turned away, made a show of perusing the gallery of photographs Clay had mounted on one wall. She stopped in front of a portrait of an old couple. The woman was seated, the man standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder. Her arm was crossed in front of her bosom. Their hands were clasped as they smiled into the lens.

  “You took this for their twenty-fifth, right?”

  Clay was kicking a pile of canvas and strutting off to one side. “The Webbers? Yeah. She looks pretty good there. Who’d’ve thought she’d be dead in six months? And that old Henry would get hitched six months later?” Clay paused. “You know, it’s been what, three years since Winnie died?”

  “Two. So?”

  “So, I know you’re sweet on Deuce. You have been since grade school. And he seems to be taking an interest now. If you two got married . . .”

  Tula pivoted. “It would solve all your problems? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Clay held up his hands. “No. Not at all. But, well, that too.”

  “I’m not listening to you.”

  “Hmm.” Clay turned toward the window. With his back to his sister he continued, “You’re going to have to be more forward. Reel him in.”

  “I’m leaving,” Tula said, gathering up her pocketbook and hat and heading for the door. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “Why do I always have to be the practical one?” Clay asked himself aloud, after the street door slammed behind Tula.

  * * *

  Twenty-three minutes late for their appointment, Mrs. Johnson and her son could be heard mounting the gallery’s narrow stairway. Clay listened from behind the studio door as they entered the outer waiting room. He let his hand rest on the doorknob for a count of twenty before giving it a brisk turn and greeting his subjects.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Johnson. Please come in, I’m almost all ready for you. It’s been a busy morning.”

  “I’m sorry we’re late.” She sharply yanked the boy by his arm.

  Mrs. Johnson, an attractive young matron whose only flaws were a short upper lip and high waist, swept inside. Her four-year-old son Samuel followed, tugging uncomfortably at the short pants of his blue and white–striped suit.

  “I just have a few more adjustments to make with the camera. Please take in my photo gallery while you’re waiting,” Clay said.

  Mrs. Johnson approached a photo on the far left of a portly woman with an open book on her lap, gazing abstractly off to one side. “Isn’t this Flossie Batt?”

  “Yes, I was privileged to capture her likeness shortly after her husband was appointed county judge. And in the photo beside her is Judge Batt himself.”

  Mrs. Johnson squinted at the heavy jowls and drooping mustache.

  The next photograph, twice the size of the others, was a full-length view of a well-fed, carefully dressed man in his early fifties. He stood comfortably with one foot thrust forward and two fingers wedged in the small pocket of his vest, the pouches under his eyes and his large nose suggesting fleshy satisfaction.

  “Oooo. This is wonderful.” She tapped the brass nameplate screwed into the frame just like those on a painting. E. Mummert—Mummert Power Shovel, it read.

  “He has one just like it hanging over his desk,” Clay said.

  “Do these nameplates cost extra?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

  “Yes. The cost depends on the size and the number of letters, of course. Many of my patrons believe it’s worth it. Let me just check in my price book . . .” Clay started to move toward a small desk near the door but Mrs. Johnson stopped him.

  “Never mind. I don’t think Mr. Johnson would agree to the added expense.” She was turning away from the photo wall when an image caught her attention. The subject’s folded hands were resting on a papier-mâché balustrade while, in the artificial distance, the Leaning Tower of Pisa could be glimpsed.

  “Is this Jeannette Bellman?” Mrs. Johnson asked.

  “Yes. That was taken a couple of years back.”

  “Poor thing! Look at how lovely she was. It’s just heartbreaking.”

  The image showed a girl of about fourteen wearing a middy and pleated skirt. She was not pretty, but an appealing, eager expression played across her wide mouth. Her dark eyes caught the light in a way that reminded Mrs. Johnson of a sequined trimming she had ripped off one of her hats because it seemed too bold.

  Mrs. Johnson clucked her tongue. “I passed her just last evening as we were walking to Chautauqua. She and her parents were sitting on the porch. She’s lost so much flesh. It’s a pity.”

  As his mother exclaimed over the town notables pointed out by the man in the white smock, Samuel slipped silently backward. Among some props in a far corner, he spotted a toy lamb mounted on a little wheeled platform. It had a gilt collar from which a tiny bell dangled. As soon as he was clear of his mother’s reach, he ran to the corner and hugged the lamb’s woolly body to his own. It emitted a dusty smell. He set the toy down, preparing to pull it across the floor, but then noticed the animal’s rigid glass eyes. They were disproportionately large, with enormous black pupils. The irises were tinted an unnatural shade of blue. Samuel wailed in fright. The lamb wobbled on its wheels and tipped over.

  �
�Here, here. You’re not to have that.” Clay snatched the animal from the child’s grasp, placing it on a high shelf. Samuel bellowed more loudly.

  Mrs. Johnson rushed over, handkerchief in hand. “What did I tell you about mussing yourself?” she scolded, blotting his dampened collar. “Stop bawling this instant.”

  Samuel promptly shut his mouth but continued to sniffle as his mother tugged on his clothing.

  “If this continues, I’ll have to tell the Story Hour Lady you won’t be participating in the Chautauqua pageant,” Mrs. Johnson said. Samuel inhaled in preparation for renewed wails but then thought better of it. “Mr. Lake, did I tell you that Samuel has the part of Old King Cole’s page in the Mother Goose Festival? He’s to wear real velvet breeches. They passed out the costumes yesterday. There was a little white shirt too, but it smells something awful and he refuses to wear it.”

  Mrs. Johnson turned to smooth her son’s hair that had sprung loose from its anchoring of hair cream.

  “I’ll get everything aligned so we’re ready to go,” Clay said, retreating under the black cloth draped over his camera, making unnecessary adjustments to the eyepiece. This kind of disruption was one reason he hated photographing children. The sessions took twice as long and almost always seemed to involve tears. What he would have liked to do was pinch little Samuel smartly on the fleshy part of his arm. But I need this sitting, he thought. And about fifty more like it.

  After the photographs were taken, and as Clay was ushering the mother and son out, Mrs. Johnson paused at one of the portraits near the door. A young woman with a slight, knowing tilt to her lips and an assured expression in her eyes clutched Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Solitude of Self closely to her breast.

  Mrs. Johnson snorted. “That Helen Garland has always read way too much for her own good.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WALL DOG

  FROM THE COMMUNITY BOOTH just beyond the ticket stand, Helen surveyed the track of beaten grass running across the Chautauqua grounds. Although it was two hours before the evening’s performance, a few determined old folks were already marching toward the tent. As they passed the stall, none so much as glanced at the Equal Suffrage Club pamphlets she had artfully fanned across the table. Use of the community booth rotated among various Emporia organizations. Yesterday, it had been the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Tonight, Emporia’s modern women, the suffragists, had their chance to bend the public’s ear.

  A bee circled the bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace intended to pretty up what some might consider dry piles of literature. Helen stood to swat it away. She sat down again, adjusting the white and yellow suffrage ribbon pinned at her shoulder, her shoe absently knocking against the table leg. The WCTU had left behind a box of temperance song books. She flipped through one. Tried humming “Ohio’s Going Dry” to the suggested tune of “Bringing in the Sheaves.”

  “Looks like you’ve got some instructive reading there.” Louie, the painter from the scaffolding outside her office window, was leaning against the tent pole on one side of the booth. He had changed from work overalls into flannel trousers and a suit coat. There was a change in his gaze too, which seemed less forward, more thoughtful.

  “I’m just passing the time before the crowds arrive.”

  “Looks like you might have awhile to wait.”

  “I’ll get some takers.” Helen resecured a tassel of hair that had come loose from her topknot.

  Louie picked up one of the brochures, glanced at it, and tucked it in his pocket. “I think you might have gotten the wrong impression of me. I take these sign painting jobs every summer. Puts food on the table the rest of the year.”

  “Oh, really?” Helen said coolly.

  “Yes, really. I’m an artist.”

  Helen sat up a little straighter. “That so?”

  “I took courses at the Art Institute up in Chicago. Even won first place in a student exhibition.”

  A farm family passed, mother in the lead, followed by a weary-looking fellow with a sack coat slung over his shoulder and five dark-haired children.

  Helen pushed the pamphlets around. “What do you paint? Landscapes?”

  Louie threw a leg over the corner of the table. “Used to, but now I’m a cubist.”

  Helen’s brows raised. “I’ve no idea what that is.”

  “It’s revolutionary is what it is. Take a walk with me around town, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I can’t. I’m the only one here.” She motioned to the single wooden chair.

  “I don’t think anybody’s going to miss you,” Louie said. “But okay. How about when the program starts?”

  Helen hesitated. “Revolutionary? How so?”

  “Give me an hour and I’ll bring you up-to-date on the most advanced, modern movement in the art world since—since I don’t know what.”

  The initial trickle of patrons had grown into a crowd. Not far away, Helen thought she glimpsed her stepfather’s boater bobbing her way. “All right. I’ll meet you under those elms at the edge of the grounds in twenty minutes,” she said hurriedly. Louie saluted and sauntered off.

  As Deuce’s hat drew closer, the throng parted. Marian, seated in an ancient wicker wheelchair, emerged feet first. Then came the tip of a cane, which she was sweeping back and forth. “Coming through!” she called out. Deuce’s face was flushed and sweat bloomed under his arms as he propelled the wheelchair across the bumpy pasture. Marian’s healthy foot tapped impatiently on the footrest, her mouth determined, her free hand scooting along the rubber wheels to speed up the motion.

  When she spotted Helen her face brightened. She waved the cane at the banner over the booth. “Working for the cause!” she cried.

  Helen rushed around the table of pamphlets.

  “Goodness, Papa, you didn’t shove her all the way from Tula’s on this bumpy ground?”

  Marian jumped in. “Oh, no. He pulled the motorcar as close as he could to the ticket booth.”

  Deuce fanned his face with his boater. “Really, it was no problem.”

  “You know, I think I could just use this cane.” Marian started to push herself up out of the chair. “I just hate being carted around like a sack of—”

  Deuce pushed her shoulder down firmly, rolling his eyes at Helen. “I have strict orders from Tula that you’re to stay in the wheelchair, remember?”

  “Where is Tula?” Helen asked.

  “Up at the Bellmans’. Jeannette’s better and Hazel was finally willing to let someone else take over the nursing and get some sleep,” Deuce explained.

  “Thank goodness,” Helen said.

  Marian nodded. “Yes, it’s tremendous news. Didn’t I tell Dr. Jack she’d come around?”

  “Speaking of Dr. Jack . . .” Deuce began.

  A surge of ticket holders was making its way toward the tent. A loosely strung youth with wrists well clear of his cuffs tripped over Marian’s back wheel. “Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled, lifting his hat.

  “Slow down, son,” Deuce said as he steered the bulky wheelchair out the stream of traffic.

  “I just hate feeling like someone’s old granny.” Marian thumped the wicker armrest. “But the good news is that the doctor says it’s only a sprain.”

  A pair of elderly sisters passed behind Deuce, murmuring to one another. “Such a pity about the Bellman . . .” They glared at Marian.

  Deuce, unaware of the exchange behind his back, was fidgeting with his boater, rotating it through his fingers as if crimping a piecrust. He spoke up: “I’d like to check in with Dr. Jack. See if he’s treated any more typhoid cases. Seems to me like there’s fewer coming down with it. Has he passed by here, by any chance?”

  Helen shook her head.

  Marian continued with her train of thought: “Anyway, Deuce has been very kind to push me around in this contraption. I thought I’d go stir-crazy if I stayed cooped up in that sleeping porch any longer. But really,” she turned to Deuce, and handed him his suit jacket that had
been draped across her lap,“I’m sure Helen and I can manage from here.”

  Looking relieved, Deuce said, “Yes, I really need an update from the doc. You can get Marian inside, Helen?”

  Helen’s first impulse was to shout out, Of course! Here was the chance to talk with a famous suffragette, but . . . she hesitated. Her mind leaped to Louie and something stirred inside, tugging her away from Marian and toward the darkening trees at the edge of the grounds.

  “I don’t know if I can, you know, leave the booth. But I’m sure—”

  “Of course not,” Marian broke in. “You’re doing important work. Deuce can commandeer someone. How about the fellow over there? This is just too frustrating. I don’t know why I can’t use this cane.”

  “No, no. Let me get you inside right now and I’ll track down Dr. Jack later,” Deuce said in what Helen recognized as his polite, out-in-public voice.

  * * *

  A few stragglers trotted past and then Louie and Helen were alone under the elms, the shadows vibrating with the rhythmic creak of late-summer crickets. Louie took her hand. For a short while they walked in silence. Everyone, except the very ancient or very sick, was at Chautauqua and the streets were quiet under the old trees. Ahead, twin rows of streetlamps shone along State Street.

  “So, what’s a cubist?”

  “You heard of the Spaniard Picasso?”

  Helen twisted her lips to one side. “Maybe.”

  “Okay. How about the Armory Show a couple of years back?”

  “The one that was so controversial?”

  “It started out in New York, then came to Chicago. I saw it and it changed my life. Changed my whole way of thinking. Before that exhibit, I was doing landscapes, snow in the woods, that sort of thing.” Louie paused to light a cigar. A house cat silently descended some porch steps across the street and melted into the bushes.

  “But now, whole different ball game.” He made an expansive motion with his hands, fingers wide. An odor of turpentine eddied from his jacket.

  “This way?” he asked, taking Helen’s arm and pointing up the street with the cigar.

  “Sure. Fine. All the streets end up in the same place anyway. Go on.”