by Amy Stewart
If they wouldn’t have her, what was she to do?
She didn’t have time to wonder. May Ward was about to walk away. She might never again be in the company of her idol.
Even if she was propelled by humiliation and desperation, at least she was propelled.
“Of course, ma’am,” Fleurette called. Her voice was clear and strong, and she felt in command of herself again. She even stood a little taller. “But that dress of yours is about to fall apart. You’ve been cheated by your dress-maker, and I suspect the chorus girls’ costumes are in even worse condition. What you need is a seamstress, and from the looks of that collar, you need one tonight.”
18
WHEN CONSTANCE RETURNED to work the next day, she was still feeling quite unmoored by Fleurette’s performance. To see her step so easily away from her familiar familial self and into a bold new public persona that represented the woman she was to become—it was dizzying, and terrifying. Here was the girl who slept late and dipped her finger in the sugar bowl, and complained about sewing on buttons but insisted that no one else did it properly, and sang snatches of song over the wash-tub. How could she be so brash and worldly on the stage? How could she command the attention of every pair of eyes in that theater, this tiny creature?
She understood how a mother must feel when she sees her son in uniform for the first time, or in his office, or with his stethoscope, practicing medicine. Mothers go about constantly wondering: How did this child of mine become a man—or woman—of the world?
Perhaps Constance could even understand how Eugene and Edith Davis felt. We don’t know Minnie anymore, they seemed, in hindsight, to be saying. She couldn’t possibly be one of ours.
MINNIE HAD BEGGED Constance for a little company and was rewarded with a move to another cell block. Now she was next door to Lottie, the nurse who didn’t like to talk about why she’d been arrested, and Etta, the stenographer who was all too happy to tell about how easily cheques could be forged, money moved around, and secrets sold.
Both were eager for some new topic of conversation and listened to Minnie’s story with rapt attention.
“You didn’t really think he’d marry you,” Lottie said, with the grim sensibility that came with her medical training.
“You never want to marry a man who deals cards on a river-boat,” Etta said.
“Of course not,” Minnie said carelessly.
“The only question I have,” Lottie said, “is how are you going to get out of this?”
Lottie and Etta leaned forward, eager to hear what Minnie had in mind. When she said, “Why, I’ll just tell them the truth—I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” they both burst into laughter.
“The truth will get you locked up until you’re past childbearing age!” Etta said. “Ask Lottie here. She’s seen it.”
“Oh, I suppose you’ve seen everything, if you’re a nurse,” Minnie said. “But there’s no reason to keep me in jail.”
Lottie had thin lips and a beaky little nose. She pushed those features together in an expression of distaste and said, “A girl of low morals is thought to be a hazard to our fighting men. They don’t want to weaken America’s forces right before we’re called to war, if you know what I mean.”
Minnie didn’t know, but she wouldn’t have admitted it. “I’m not worried about it. When I get into a fix, I always find a way out.”
“You’re lucky we have a lady deputy,” Lottie said. “There was another factory girl in here before you. Brought in on some kind of waywardness charge. The judge let her go because Miss Kopp said so.”
“Then why hasn’t she set you two free?” Minnie asked.
They both laughed. “We’ve had our trials,” Etta said. “We’re guilty, darling.”
“I’m only guilty of an accidental overdose,” Lottie said by way of correction. “I didn’t mean to kill the old dear. I suppose I’d be off at the state prison if they thought me guilty of murder.”
“But you won’t be a nurse again,” Etta said.
“I might start over out West.”
“Oh, I’d like that, too,” Minnie said.
They passed the rest of the day with that kind of companionable talk. Minnie found that she quite liked the company of lady criminals. There was a fearlessness to them, as if the very fact of their arrest, and exposure of their secrets, liberated them of the need to cower and pretend. Etta and Lottie were resourceful women who had made their own way in the world quite successfully until they were caught, and Minnie admired them for it.
She went to bed with considerably lighter spirits after spending the day in their company. Around midnight the sound of footsteps along the cell block jolted her awake.
“Is everything all right, Miss Kopp?” Etta whispered. The deputy had been away all day on a case.
“Ladies, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take Minnie back to my cell for a little talk,” Constance said.
“Miss Kopp’s all right,” Etta said as Minnie was led away. “You can tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Constance asked, but Minnie was too sleepy to answer. She stumbled along the concrete floor and around the jail’s central rotunda to the cell block where Constance slept.
“How are you getting on?” the deputy asked once they were out of earshot of the others. In Constance’s cell was an oil lamp, but they didn’t light it. They sat together on her bunk, in the purple darkness, under only the faintest light from a half-moon that shone through the high-domed window above.
“Jail’s not too bad,” Minnie said, with what little swagger she could muster at that hour.
It really wasn’t so terrible. Apart from the boredom and the drab, shapeless uniform, it didn’t particularly bother Minnie to spend her days and nights in jail. She’d been wondering for some time how she might get out of the mess she’s made with Tony, and now she knew. The most pressing of her worries—eviction and penury—had been eliminated through the provision of a bunk and three tasteless meals a day. She wondered mildly what might become of her, but assumed she’d be given a chance to tell her version of events to a judge, upon which time she’d be released.
And after that? She didn’t know exactly where she would go or what she would do, but she was counting on her cache of jewelry to secure a train ticket and a fresh opportunity in a city where she could start again, under a new name if she had to. It wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible.
It was in that almost carefree state of mind that she submitted to Constance’s questioning. She didn’t believe the others when they told her that she could tell Constance everything—she was, after all, a deputy sheriff and on the side of the law—but Minnie had assembled a version of the truth that she felt reasonably sure would be accepted.
Constance spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “It appears the prosecutor is preparing to bring a white slave charge against Anthony—against Tony.”
“Because of me?” Minnie protested. “That’s ridiculous! I wasn’t exactly snatched from the sidewalk, if that’s what you mean to say.”
“That’s exactly what the prosecutor wants to say. He intends to make a case that Tony carried you across state lines for an immoral purpose.”
Minnie found the very idea insulting. She’d heard of girls going to jail over debauchery charges, but as the nature of their offense was never described, she’d imagined an act far worse than anything she’d ever done.
“But surely you’ve told them otherwise,” Minnie insisted. “He didn’t have to kidnap me at all. I wanted to go. I hated Catskill. Did you go and speak to my parents?”
“I did.”
“Then you know why I left. Wouldn’t you run off to New York, if you lived with them?”
Minnie could see that argument made an impression on Constance. “I probably would have, at your age,” she admitted, “but I want you to understand the difficulty you’d be in if you put it that way to the judge.”
“What difficulty? It’s the truth.”
Con
stance cleared her throat. “Well . . . I know the judge would appreciate your honesty. But if a girl is found to have . . . to have gone around with men, especially if she so freely admits to living under the pretense of marriage . . . well, she might not be set free.”
“But what else could they possibly do with me? I haven’t robbed a bank. Why would they keep me in jail?”
“They wouldn’t keep you in jail. They’d send you to a girls’ reformatory.”
A reformatory! The very word brought to mind girls in white uniforms being made to march in straight lines and memorize Bible verses. “But I’m not in need of reforming,” Minnie complained. “I just need to break away from Tony and find a place of my own. What’s wrong with that? You could let me go today, and I’d never make another spot of trouble. You just helped another girl get out of jail, didn’t you? Why can’t you do the same for me?”
Constance sighed and leaned against the wall. “Hers was a very different case.”
“I don’t see why.”
“Because Miss Heustis—Edna, the girl you’ve heard about—had done absolutely nothing to attract suspicion. That isn’t the case with you and Tony, and you admit it. Besides, Edna is eighteen. I’m sorry to put it to you so bluntly, but in your case a judge will see a sixteen-year-old girl who disobeyed her mother and ran off with a man she’d only just met. He might think her a girl of low scruples for pretending to be the man’s wife when she wasn’t. A girl like that is in need of reforming.” She turned and looked at Minnie. “That’s what the judge might think.”
“And you couldn’t tell him otherwise.”
“I could try,” said Constance. “But it would help if I had something in the way of evidence. Isn’t there anyone who could testify as to your character? A landlord or —”
“There was some trouble with him,” Minnie said morosely.
“What about your job? Could I speak to your boss?”
“I didn’t get on very well there, either.”
It was starting to dawn on Constance that her success with Edna Heustis had come a little too easily. Not every girl who got arrested came with character references. “Well, you won’t be released unless someone is willing to take you in and vouch for you. Are you sure you can’t write a letter of apology to your parents, and make things all right with them?”
“You know I can’t.”
“Isn’t there anyone else? An aunt, or a cousin?”
Minnie shook her head. “I never knew my mother’s family, and my father—well, you can imagine what his people are like.” She found it difficult to speak as her predicament became clear to her.
“And is there anything at all you haven’t told me? You heard what the prosecutor said the day you were arrested, about men going in and out of the place. Is there any truth in it? I can’t help you if I don’t know what really happened.”
Minnie forced herself to look Constance in the eyes.
“Of course there weren’t other men,” she said. “It was just me and Tony, and I thought we were to be married. There’s nothing else to tell.”
19
WHAT MINNIE MISSED most about her old life was perfume. The inmates were allowed nothing but tar soap in the jail, which smelled like hospitals. But perfume! It spoke to her of a life she’d held in her hand, however briefly.
She never did spray the fragrances liberally around her—she believed that to be uncouth—but instead she would allow the donor of the perfume to choose his favorite spot, and there she would apply it for him, every time: the crook of her arm, the underside of her neck, behind her knee. One man liked it on the very small of her back, and she wore it there just for him: their little secret.
She didn’t know enough to ask for parma violets and crushed white roses from the perfumeries in New York, but she did enjoy a few good imitations from the druggist in Fort Lee, with names like Dreams of the Orient and Empress’ Bouquet, names that hinted at their ability to transport her to another place, another time, another life.
Tony never asked her who bought the perfume. He wasn’t the kind of man to notice a little thing like the particulars of a girl’s toilette, nor was he attentive enough to remark on the fragrance behind her ears.
He wasn’t even particularly interested in her, but she only came to understand that later, in the solitude of her jail cell. When she went down to the dock that day in late September, she’d already decided that she wasn’t going to spend another winter in Catskill. She just didn’t know how, precisely, to pull it off. Tony was her opportunity. Why should he fall under the spell of her perfume, much less love her, if she saw him chiefly as a means of transportation?
It was near the end of the season for the pleasure boats that went up and down the Hudson. The men with whom Minnie had spent her summer evenings—the college boys and idle wealthy who took Catskill as their leisure grounds in July and August—had all retreated back to the city, to campuses and offices by day and theaters by night, forgetting all about their afternoons of lawn croquet and evenings with the local girls along the boardwalk. There was no one left, really, but the boys who worked on board the boats, and soon they would vanish, too, before the winter’s ice made the Hudson impassable.
She’d seen Tony before but had never spoken to him. He was older than her, and a natty dresser (the striped vest and red tie was a uniform, as he worked at the card tables, but she thought he made the most of it). He seemed to prefer the company of the steamboat’s crew to the locals who wandered the boardwalk, and as such had not shown any interest in her.
But that night, she saw him on deck by himself, just looking out idly over the river, and took a chance. “Do you know I’ve lived here my whole life,” she called, “and I’ve never set foot on one of these boats?”
He turned around and grinned at her. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
He had an easygoing voice that Minnie couldn’t resist. A friendly man, bestowing the bright light of his attention on her, could suffuse Minnie with a feeling of contentment that she so rarely knew any other time. It filled a certain hollowness inside of her and lifted her off the ground a few inches. She would live her whole life inside those moments if she could.
There was something substantial about this man, something in his shoulders and the line of his jaw, that made Minnie feel more solid herself. She gave her name with a little laugh and accepted his outstretched hand when she stepped on board. He took her around to see the red-carpeted card room and the restaurant with its white tablecloths and chandeliers. Then he introduced her to the captain, who touched the bill of his cap and bowed a little. It made her feel like a girl in a play. She didn’t ever want to stop feeling that way.
Then, all at once, it was time for the boat to leave, and Tony turned to take her back to the dock.
“Oh, but wouldn’t it be nice to take a little ride down the river?” she asked wistfully. “I’ve always wondered what it might be like.” She looked at him with all the longing that lived within her—longing for a new life, a new place, a new city, a new job, a new man. How could he resist?
He almost did resist, and perhaps he should have. Some kind of calculation hung in the air between them. With some reluctance he looked around at the empty saloon below-decks and said that there would be no harm in her riding along, and that she could get off at the next town and take the train back if she didn’t like it. She gave him a bright smile and kissed him on the cheek. He put his hand up to the place her lips had been as if he wasn’t sure what she’d just given him.
In a few minutes, the boat was set free of the dock, and she was watching Catskill grow smaller and smaller. That strange disassociated feeling of being a girl in a play grew even stronger. The curtain had risen on the rest of her life. A scene was in motion, and Minnie was at the center of it.
The boat was bound for Manhattan. Minnie had never been, but she had plenty of romantic notions about it. Tony talked about the city in a way that made him sound like a man of the world: he knew all a
bout the shops and the theaters and the lights in Times Square, and the all-night restaurants and the glittering dance halls. He said that the leaves on the trees in Central Park would be turning orange, and that from above, from some bejeweled rooftop at sunset, it would look like the city was on fire, but beautifully so.
Tony made the coming winter in New York City sound like an evening at the palace, with all the shop windows lit up in the snow, and fashionable girls ice-skating on the pond. There would be restaurants and Champagne. Minnie had never eaten at a real restaurant, much less tasted anything with bubbles in it beyond soda.
Tony wore a nice wool coat and a cashmere scarf. He was all wrapped up like a Christmas present. She wondered aloud how a girl might go about exploring New York City on her own, and Tony didn’t hesitate to offer to escort her around town. There was a delicious charge between them by that time. In Tony, Minnie saw the promise of a new life, freedom, a way out. What did Tony see in Minnie? The promise of a memorable night, at least. She could offer him that much.
As the boat drifted along, they sat below-decks and talked about the city, and where they might go first when they went ashore. She sat comfortably alongside him in one of the empty passenger lounges, with his coat over her legs. In the dim hours before morning, New York City rose up over the bow of the boat like a mirage, and she knew for certain that she had left home forever.
But she didn’t tell him that at first. She let him give her one perfect day in Manhattan. They saw the Menagerie in the park and the sheep grazing, and he bought her a warm roll and a packet of cheese from the little dairy. They rode in an open-air trolley downtown, which rolled slowly along but still didn’t leave enough time for Minnie to take it all in. At sundown they had dinner in one of the all-night restaurants on Broadway.
Still Tony didn’t know that she planned to turn that day into the rest of her life. He was ready to take her to the train station and send her home. By the time she arrived back in Catskill, she would’ve been gone a little over twenty-four hours. She’d be scolded if she told the truth and punished if she tried to lie, but Tony simply assumed that her parents would take her back, and that her life would go on as it had before.