“Mama!” Daisy yelled from the back porch, startling Violet at the clothesline. “Grandma Davies says to say . . .” She paused to poke her head inside the door and turned back to her mother. “She says to say—it’s quittin’ time, let’s eat!”
Violet swallowed hard and worked up a smile. “Well, thank you for that kind invitation. Please tell your grandmother I’ll be right in.”
“She’ll be right in!” Daisy stayed put, running her foot back and forth along the spindles on the porch railing.
Violet bent forward and dabbed the corners of her eyes with her sleeve before calling out, “Let’s eat!” She crossed the yard and took Daisy’s hand. “I don’t know about you, but I’m as hungry as a bear.” She pretended to take a bite out of her daughter’s arm.
“I’m a hungry horse,” Daisy replied, galloping past the screen door and into the kitchen.
* * *
“I’ll do those,” Tommy’s mother said as Violet gathered the dirty lunch dishes. When Violet started to object, Mother Davies waved her away with a dish towel. “I mean it. I want you to take it easy with those ribs.”
“Nonsense,” Violet said. “I’m almost as good as new.” Holding her side, she inhaled deeply like a swimmer preparing to go under. “I could use a favor though.”
“Name it.” Mother Davies scraped the plates, saving the little girl’s uneaten bread crusts for the birds.
“Will you mind Daisy for a few hours?” Her well-rehearsed reasons lined up at the starting gate and took off running. “There’s a sale. On fabric. At the Globe Store. Fifty percent off.” She paused to breathe.
“Can’t pass that up.” Mother Davies rolled her sleeves and started in on the dishes. “As long as you think you’re up to it.”
“Daisy’s growing up so fast. And she could use a new dress.”
“Of course.”
“And Tommy has a pair of pants that need mending.”
“Uh huh.”
“I need some matching thread.” The last excuse out.
Mother Davies handed the crusts to Daisy, who threw them off the porch before running back inside. “That’s fine, dear.”
“Can’t afford not to go, really. Fifty percent off. They’re practically giving it away.”
“Practically.”
“Unless you think I should stay close to home today. Maybe I better stick around.”
“I’m not thinking anything of the kind, dear. It would do you good, so long as you’re up to it. Daisy and I will be just fine, won’t we, sweetheart?” She patted the girl’s head and turned to the dishes.
Daisy shrugged and draped herself over her mother’s arm. “I want to go with you.”
Violet mindlessly stroked her daughter’s hair. “I’ll be there and back before you know it.”
“In fact,” Mother Davies looked at the pair, “I’ll bet today would be a perfect day for cookies. If only I had a helper.”
Daisy’s head popped up. “Me!”
“You?” Mother Davies eyed the little girl as if sizing her up for a new wardrobe. “Let’s give it a whirl,” she finally said.
Violet untied her apron and folded it over the chair. “Well, if you’re really sure,” she said, and headed toward the bedroom to change into something more appropriate for town.
Twenty minutes later, she walked out the door in a black wool coat over the bright red dress she’d worn several Christmases ago. Her hair was freshly brushed, and she had a touch of rouge on each cheek.
* * *
As soon as Violet stepped foot on the sidewalk, she noticed the widow waving to her from across the street. “How are you, dear? I was just coming to see you.”
“Much better,” Violet called back without crossing over. “On my way to town,” she glanced at her own mother’s house next door, hoping she hadn’t heard, “but I’ll stop by soon to say hello.” She waved her hand as if both women had agreed to this arrangement and started down the hill toward the square.
How awful, Violet thought. Just awful. The widow had been like a second mother to her all these years, and suddenly Violet couldn’t spare ten minutes to talk with her? Shameful, that’s what it was. Though ten minutes with the widow would turn into two hours, and that was God’s honest truth. Besides, Violet reasoned as she turned the corner onto North Main Avenue, she couldn’t be expected to drop everything she needed to do on a moment’s notice. Not even for an old friend. In fact, it would be selfish for the woman to think otherwise, and if she had anything to say on the matter, Violet would tell her about it the next time she saw her. Violet had a child to think about and a husband. What responsibilities did the widow have these days?
None, Violet thought as she approached the square. No husband to fuss over. No children to tend to. For as much as Stanley stopped by to see her—and that wasn’t often—the widow may as well have been alone in the world. And Violet had just dismissed this poor soul with the wave of a hand. What was wrong with her these days? Violet stopped to consider whether she ought to return and apologize, but just then the streetcar pulled up, and she stepped on. She’d say her sorry tomorrow. The widow would understand.
Violet slipped coins into the box and found an empty seat toward the back. Seeing the widow naturally pulled Violet’s mind back to this business with Stanley. It was nonsense, really. All of this silly dwelling on lost love. After all, she’d had a concussion, and that sort of injury was bound to unsettle her, jumble her mind a bit. Stanley was in the past, and that’s where he would stay. She should have been honest with him from the start, but that was a long time ago. Too long. Nothing she could do about it now, and even if she could, what good would it do? Tommy knew the truth and that’s what mattered. He was her husband. She owed Stanley nothing. Stanley had judged her at the train station as she stood with the baby in her arms before she could even open her mouth.
She stepped off the streetcar in front of the Globe Store, so heated with anger all over again that she thought she might give him a piece of her mind. The day of the accident Stanley had told her that he loved her. Given that she was married now, such behavior was inexcusable, and frankly, too little too late. He’d had five years to say those words, but instead, he’d thrown away his chance, along with her heart. If she ran into him today, she might tell him just that.
By the time Violet finished her shopping—four yards of fabric and a new spool of thread—she was thoroughly convinced that she needed to set the record straight. She’d called him “my love” but she’d been in a state, her head concussed from the accident; she wanted to make sure he understood that. She didn’t love him; not in a way that mattered. In fact, as she carried her packages down Wyoming Avenue, past several streetcar stops in the direction of Hunold’s somewhere in the Alleys, she almost laughed at the thought—such foolishness, and from a married woman. No, she simply needed to lay the whole matter to rest with Stanley. And since she was already downtown, it was as good a day as any. Even Tommy would understand, though she doubted she would ever tell him. No need to stir that pot.
Lost in thought, Violet didn’t realize she’d found Stanley’s alley until she looked up and saw the Hunold’s Beer Garden sign hanging on a post in the yard. A notice on the front door read, Rooms to Let. She transferred her packages to one hand and finger-combed her hair. What now? She peered around the side of the building and saw a sign reading, Ladies’ Entrance, but Violet hadn’t been in a bar since she was a child looking for her father.
She walked up to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the patrons inside, but all she saw was her own image. The red dress under the open coat looked garish in the afternoon sun. Suddenly consumed with shame, she said out loud, “What am I doing?” Several blocks away, the clock at the courthouse rang three p.m.
Panic set in as Violet looked up and down the alley to find her bearings. The houses tried too hard and not at all. They’d been drenched in colors loud enough to clobber the eyes, but that had been years earlier, long before glimpses o
f weathered boards had muddied the palette. Women, just as loud and weathered, posed in doorways and windows, luring men inside the iron fences and past the occasional dog.
Across the way, a woman called over, “Honey, you lost?”
Now trembling, Violet turned toward the voice, trying to determine where it came from. “Over here!” the woman called again from the first floor of a bright green house which looked like an evening gown that had sat too long in a dirty attic. She waved her fingers through a partially opened window and laughed. “I knowed you didn’t belong here soon as I seen you.”
Violet pulled her packages tightly to her chest and willed her feet to move, but they remained fixed on the sidewalk.
“Go back the way you come!” the woman yelled over. “You’ll see a yellow house on the corner with a red door. Streetcar’ll pick you up on the other side.”
Knowing which direction to take seemed to liberate Violet’s legs. She managed a hushed “Thank you” and hurried down the alley as fast as her ribs would allow. A yellow house with a red door stood on the corner, and across the road, a sign on an electric pole marked a streetcar stop.
Relief washed over her as she settled onto a bench near the sign and waited. If the streetcar came along in the next quarter hour, she’d have plenty of time to get home and start dinner. No one would be the wiser except Violet herself who promised never, God as her witness, to succumb to such foolishness again.
She glanced up at the alley and realized she could not see Hunold’s from that distance. Just as well. Violet shook her head, and her eye caught hold of something familiar—Stanley, of all people, climbing the front porch steps of the yellow house, kneading his handless arm. Must be getting ready to rain, she thought. He always does that when it’s going to rain.
Impulsively and without regard to sense or propriety, Violet shot up from the bench, holding her rib cage and darted across the street. When she reached the other side, she opened her mouth to call Stanley’s name but caught herself just as the red door squeaked open.
“Don’t just stand there,” a voice said from the threshold. “Give Ruby a big kiss.”
“Concedentibus ad victorem per pertinent spolia.” Stanley pulled the woman onto the front porch. The kiss was fervent, wild. “To the victor belong the spoils,” he said, and started dancing her around.
Violet tried to back away but something held her in place.
“My reward,” Stanley said, dipping the woman who was laughing, her long red hair dangling behind her, “for winning the case.”
Violet watched in stunned disbelief as Stanley buried his face in Muriel Hartwell’s fiery red curls.
Chapter twenty-six
AT THE SOUND OF DR. PETERS’S VOICE, Lily tugged on her hat, but the shortened brim offered little in the way of concealment. She dropped her hands onto her lap and lowered her eyes. Dear Lord, she thought, slouching in her seat, I’m about to be exposed in front of the whole town. Her breath caught in her throat and stayed there, as if it too needed to hide.
Dr. Peters finally reached the front of the ballroom, his heavy footsteps a counterpoint to the rustle of skirts on either side. “A fine group of virtuous women,” he said, looking around the crowd.
Mrs. Silkman smiled, adjusted the podium, and began to speak. “On behalf of the Christian Ladies’ Society, I’d like to welcome Dr. Edward Peters to the Century Club.” The doctor mindlessly stroked his beard while muffled applause rose from the gloved audience.
Lily held up her hands reflexively, as if to clap, but they simply remained aloft, frozen like a frame around her horrified expression.
“We’re honored to have such an esteemed gentleman in our presence.” Mrs. Silkman reached for the pair of eyeglasses that dangled from a chain at her bosom and curled them over her ears. “Let me see,” she said, thumbing through note cards. “I had his credentials here a minute ago.”
“Please don’t go to any trouble,” Dr. Peters said to Mrs. Silkman. “I’ll be happy to introduce myself.” The left side of his mouth started a smile that stalled out before it ever got going.
“There it is!” Mrs. Silkman picked a wayward note card off the top of the piano and waved it at Mrs. Trethaway whose fingers rested gently on the keys. “Someone must have moved it on me.” The pianist bristled, stood, and returned to her seat in the first row.
Mrs. Silkman started again: “Dr. Peters received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He dedicated the first twelve years of his career to serving the poor unfortunates at Philadelphia’s Good Shepherd Infant Asylum, where he delivered countless illegitimate children into this world. He currently practices medicine at Hahnemann Hospital and is a founding member of the American Eugenics Society. It is indeed an honor to welcome Dr. Peters as today’s guest lecturer.”
After another round of gloved applause, Dr. Peters took his place behind the podium, and Mrs. Silkman sat down next to Mrs. Trethaway. “Thank you, Mrs. Silkman. I’m humbled by your generous introduction. Good afternoon, ladies, and thank you for your kind attention.” He worked at a smile and had better luck this time.
Lily kept her head down but allowed her eyes to mark the distance from her chair to the aisle, and the aisle to the door. Why had she insisted on sitting in the middle of the second row? Pride, she thought. And if Violet had accompanied her, as she should have, she would have said as much. And they surely would have taken less prominent seats. Lily counted—five pairs of stockinged legs including the two tree trunks next to her poking out from under Mrs. Jordan’s skirt. Even if she could press past them, then what? March back up the aisle and out the door as if she were ill? That sort of behavior would draw all sorts of attention.
“Today’s lecture,” Dr. Peters pulled several rolled sheets of paper from his vest pocket and smoothed them out on the podium, “is entitled, ‘Creating Heaven on Earth,’ but I must confess, as I look over this crowd, I feel as though I’ve already arrived in God’s Kingdom. It’s a privilege to stand before such wholesome ladies. The bloodlines in Scranton are strong: the Watresses, the Lynotts, the Silkmans, and all the God-fearing families that are represented before me.”
Mrs. Silkman nodded at Mrs. Trethaway as if to acknowledge the inclusion of her own surname and the absence of the pianist’s.
“It’s refreshing to see such strong bodies, minds, and characters.” He abandoned his notes on the podium and stepped into the aisle.
Lily hooked an index finger over her nose, draping the rest of her hand over her mouth and chin. She glanced once more at Mrs. Jordan’s thick legs, and determined that she definitely could not push past without creating a scene.
“Before I go any further, I must apologize for my lateness,” he pointed to his bruised left eye, “and in the process, explain my unsightly injury. As is my habit, I arrived a day in advance of my speaking engagement. After settling into the Mayfair Hotel, I walked the streets of Scranton in an effort to get to know her better.”
The Mayfair? Lily’s Mayfair? The hotel where George proposed? Where Lily and George had their marriage supper and for the first time shared a bed as man and wife? Lily didn’t dare look into Dr. Peters’s face, but she lifted her eyes to his hands. Those liver-spotted hands. They’d soiled everything she loved. Daisy. The Christian Ladies’ Society. And now the Mayfair.
“May I say,” Dr. Peters took a few steps back and returned to the podium, “your Masonic Temple is a marvel that can rival any of the best architecture in Philadelphia. A testament to the human spirit in these difficult times.”
A murmur of agreement passed through the crowd like a rumor.
“But as I meandered back to the hotel, I happened upon such a shameful sight that I could not believe my eyes.” He paused as if to prepare his audience for the shock to come. “Houses of ill repute—full city blocks of them.”
Most of the ladies nodded in agreement, but a few of them gasped at the nature of the speaker’s words. Lily used this opportunity to cover her face with both h
ands, as if overcome with emotion.
“I found this to be as upsetting as you do, young lady.” Dr. Peters stepped out from behind the podium, pulled a handkerchief from of his breast pocket, and handed it to Lily. When she reached out to receive it, their eyes met briefly, but he showed no sign of recognition.
Was it possible that he didn’t remember her? Did she dare to hope? He’d delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of babies at the Good Shepherd. And that was years ago. Maybe he had forgotten her. She touched a hand to her permanently waved hair and glanced once more at her silk dress. She was a different person altogether. He’d briefly known an awkward sixteen-year-old girl named Lily Morgan, but now she was a prominent member of society, Mrs. George Sherman.
“In fact,” he continued, remaining in place, “so distressed was I by this corruption, I foolishly went out to one of these bawdy houses this morning, hoping to convince some of the women to repent. Instead, I received a blow to the face,” he fingered his bruise, “from one of those so-called Johns.”
A sharp cry of sympathy rose up from the audience.
“I’ll be fine.” The doctor smiled and patted his heart. “But I wish I could say the same for your fair city. After my assault, I made my way to a police station and filed a report.” He stepped back and addressed the entire audience. “It was there that I learned of the other Scranton, a city where larceny, games of chance, prostitution, and even cold-blooded murder have increased two-fold in the last few years. Your policemen are so overwhelmed by the volume of crime it’s a wonder women feel safe in their homes anymore, let alone on the streets.”
“Amen to that!” someone shouted from the back row. Probably Pentecostal. Most likely there by invitation rather than as a member, Lily thought, without turning around.
“Amen indeed,” Dr. Peters went on. “For although I’m not here to preach, what I have to offer today are God-inspired solutions for these troubling times. And may I say this moral crisis is not limited to Scranton, Pennsylvania. Indeed, crime is running rampant across our great nation, and in order to stop its advance, in order to create a heaven on earth, people with moral fortitude must take up the mantle.”
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