by Monica Nolan
Swinging the briefcase, Maxie went back to the great hall and ran lightly up the stairs to her bedroom. The canopied bed and jeune fille dressing table were unchanged. She pulled out the pink upholstered stool and sat down. Reaching behind a jumble of cut-glass bottles, she brought out a little cedar box, Maxie crudely wood-burned on the lid. This was where she kept her mementos. The second-class Girl Scout badge she’d earned with projects in hostessing and agriculture was buried under a jumble of dried flowers, old notes, her class ring from Miss Gratton’s, and a locket. Maxie unfolded a creased piece of notebook paper. Maxie darling, meet me in the third-floor storage closet, midnight sharp! C.W. Who was C.W.? Maxie couldn’t remember. She put the cedar box back and looked around the room. Was there anything else she needed? She started at the sight of herself in the mirror, hair tousled, face streaked with sweat and dirt. I look like an interloper.
She picked up the briefcase and tiptoed down the hall to her mother’s room. Cautiously she eased open the door and stepped inside. For a second she inhaled the familiar scents of Vandovar face powder, Bonne Souvenir perfume, and cigarettes, which mixed together spelled Mother as clear as writing on the wall. The drapes were drawn and the room was cool and dim. Maxie went to the carved mahogany dressing table and looked for the little lacquered box. It wasn’t there.
She sat on the foot of her mother’s massive mahogany bed in bewildered frustration. Had her mother taken precautionary measures? Well, really! Maxie thought indignantly. Imagine, treating your own daughter like a thief! She went back to the dressing table for another look. A rhinestone brooch twinkled mockingly from the silver tray of costume jewelry. The real jewels, of course, were locked in the safe in the closet.
Not that I would steal her jewelry, Maxie told herself virtuously, as she pulled out her mother’s glove drawer and felt around for the lacquered box. Would it be stealing though, if she took the amethyst set that had been given to her, Maxie, on her eighteenth birthday?
Maxie was on her knees before the safe, trying to remember the combination when she heard footsteps outside. In a split second she had shut the closet door and burrowed behind her mother’s sheared beaver.
It was Mumsy, she knew instantly. The quick impatient tap of heels across the floor, a drawer being pulled out and shoved in, rustling sounds that might mean she was taking off her hat. Was she changing clothes? Would she open the closet door? Maxie dug herself deeper into the wall of fur.
She heard the bedroom door open and close again. After a few seconds, Maxie emerged from the closet. She tiptoed to the door and opened it an inch.
“We’ll have lunch on the terrace,” she heard her mother say, as she descended the curving staircase.
Her guest responded with some indistinct pleasantry, and Maxie drew back.
What on earth was her mother doing home? She should be sitting in the Bay City Women’s Club dining room having the half melon filled with chicken salad, just as she did every Friday after her session at Countess Elfi’s.
It was time to take a powder. Maxie picked up the briefcase and then cursed, silently. Her pocketbook. She’d left it in the library. She had to get it. Not only did it contain her return ticket to Bay City and all her money, but it belonged to Lois!
Creeping down the stairs, feeling as conspicuous as a horsefly on a bride’s bouquet, Maxie made it to the library unseen and picked up the pocketbook. The French doors to the terrace were ajar, and her ears perked up when she heard her own name.
“And your daughter, Maxine, does she also do charity work?” The voice was female—cultured and suave. Whoever it was, she was important enough to make Mumsy miss her morning at Countess Elfi’s salon.
“Maxie has many interests,” her mother answered curtly. “Now, your main rival for the Beautification Committee is Hazel Houck—”
Maxie couldn’t resist peeking through the French doors at the unknown visitor. The table for two was set by the lilac bush. Opposite Mumsy was a woman in her thirties, Maxie thought, not quite the clubwoman type. Her air of brisk confidence reminded Maxie of Pamela’s boss, the head buyer at Grunemans—only this woman was a lot better looking. Her hair was platinum, and she wore a simple cream-colored suit that set off her tan, shapely legs to advantage. “The Houck woman should be easy to handle,” the stranger said briskly, as she unfolded her napkin.
Selma appeared with a plate of popovers, and Maxie lost interest in the conversation. Her stomach grumbled so loudly she was afraid the women on the terrrace would hear, and she drew back into the shadows of the library. She was starving, she realized. Walking three miles and scrambling around the ravine had really given her an appetite.
Her father’s copy of Hard Times, her mother’s lacquered box, the jewelry safe—they’d all failed her. A raid on the refrigerator would help balance the books. Maxie was pushing open the door to the service corridor and heading for the kitchen almost before the idea had fully bloomed.
“You! You’re not supposed to be here!” Selma snapped. She was returning to the terrace with a tray full of avocado salad.
Maxie was beginning to perceive that the deference the servants had once shown her had melted away, like a thin crust of ice that had been concealing a dark pond of resentment. “Mumsy won’t want you to make a scene,” she called after the departing maid.
Hoping Selma would heed her advice, Maxie crept through the kitchen to the big pantry. Mrs. Grimes, the cook, who had terrified Maxie for as long as she could remember, was stirring something on the stove. Maxie looked around at the well-stocked shelves and gleaming refrigerator. Someone had sliced brioche bread and put it on a platter with smoked salmon—mmmm. Maxie had to make herself a little sandwich. Where were the capers kept?
“You put that down, you child of Satan! What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?” The cook advanced on Maxie threateningly, a meat tenderizer in one muscular hand. Maxie swallowed half the sandwich hastily. “Your soufflé is sinking, Mrs. Grimes!” she managed to say, just as the fearsome woman grasped her arm. The cook sniffed the air, her beady eyes never leaving Maxie.
“I’ll settle with you, you little brat,” she growled as she backtracked to the stove. Maxie seized a string bag hanging from a hook and snatched provisions at random from the refrigerator and pantry shelves, hurling them pell-mell into the bag. She tucked Lois’s pocketbook under one arm, picked up her father’s briefcase with her remaining free hand, and ran from the kitchen, down the service corridor, into the great hallway, past the suits of armor and under the faux medieval tapestry, which depicted Great-grandpa Mainwaring on a hunting trip in Loon Lake, and burst out of the front door, not bothering to close it behind her.
“See you, Pat!” she panted as she ran past the astonished groundsman and down the curving drive. At the granite pillars she turned back. Mrs. Grimes was a tiny figure, shaking her fist from the steps while Patrick stood indecisively, clippers hanging from one hand.
Maxie raised the hand that held the string bag in mock salute. “So long, old homestead!”
Chapter 8
A Writing Assignment
It was on the train ride home, munching a brioche-bread-and-smoked-salmon sandwich, that Maxie got her bright idea: She would write something for The Step Stool, earning money and acquiring a writing sample for the Sentinel at the same time!
She’d been flipping through her old report cards as the trees and half-timbered shopping centers flashed by outside the train window, looking at her Evaluations from Circle School. She’d attended the progressive school for wealthy girls with problems after her expulsion from Miss Gratton’s, a blurry year of free reading, automatic drawing, and sitting in the eponymous circle, discussing school rules in a democratic decision-making exercise that never seemed to end. At the Circle School, there were no letter grades, just Evaluations.
Enormous creativity . . . a talented writer, if only . . . Maxie read. Real potential as a leader, but . . . A delightful girl, although . . . Maxie ignored the quibbles and focu
sed on the praise. She had writing talent. She had potential!
Of course The Step Stool probably couldn’t pay much. The little homophile newsletter had struggled to stay afloat since its inception, and Pamela was always dragging Maxie to a “Save The Step Stool” bowling match or bake sale. But still, Maxie reasoned with newfound frugality, every little bit would help.
And wouldn’t it be nice if Pam picked up her precious newsletter and saw Maxie’s name in print? Then she’d realize that the ex-deb was capable of more than “shopping and chasing girls!” Maxie imagined a humble Pam, climbing the stairs to the ex-deb’s fifth-floor room, where she would be busily typing away. “I underestimated you,” Pamela would say. “Louise tells me you’re the backbone of The Step Stool!”
Maxie made a mental note to get hold of a typewriter, as she descended from the train in Bay City. Let Mumsy hide her lacquered box! Maxie didn’t need the Mainwaring money—she was creative and talented, and had the teacher’s comments to prove it. Between Miss Watkins and the gang at the Arms, the perfect position was bound to present itself.
The ex-deb made a stop at Central Station’s washroom to tidy up before visiting The Step Stool. A wetted comb put new life into her Fairweather Flounce, and a friendly traveler with some spot cleaner helped her remove the worst of the grass stains and dirt streaks. “Rinse with a little hydrogen peroxide when you wash it,” the woman advised. A brush from the washroom attendant and a quick polish at the shoe stand and Maxie was back in business, swinging her string bag as she walked down Lake Street. She was glad she’d pocketed the dollar bill from Hard Times. At least her parents had paid for her good grooming!
She hopped on board the 153 bus to the Olsenville district, and dropped her twenty cents in the coin box, feeling pleased with her economy; that was twice today she’d resisted the taxi temptation. “Transfer?” the driver asked her. “No thank you,” said Maxie politely, wondering what a transfer was.
Getting off at Loomis Boulevard, Maxie rang the worn buzzer above the label SOS. The Step Stool office was on the third floor of a narrow brick building half a block from the interurban tracks. There was a delicatessen on the ground floor, and Maxie looked at the liverwurst longingly as she waited to be buzzed in.
Bzzt! Maxie entered and started up the stairs. “Who is it?” Louise Elward, the managing editor, was peering suspiciously over the bannister as Maxie climbed.
“It’s just me, Maxie.” She came up the last steps and followed Louise through the worn door, which had S.O.S. painted on the pebbled glass. “S.O.S.” stood for “Sisters of Sappho,” but everyone always used the innocuous acronym.
The room was crowded with filing cabinets, two desks, and a long table where Maxie had once helped assemble and staple an issue of The Step Stool in its early days. At the far desk, a round-faced, curly-haired girl was tinkering with a camera. At the desk inside the door stood Louise’s right-hand woman, Donnie, obviously waiting for the managing editor.
“What can I do for you, Maxie?” Louise asked with a preoccupied air. When Maxie told Louise she’d come to offer her services as a freelance writer, the editor dismissed her: “Talk to Stella, she’s in charge of features now,” she said, pointing at the curly-haired girl before turning back to Donnie.
The features editor’s response was more enthusiastic. “Sure, we can use you!” she exclaimed. “Gosh, and you work with Mamie McArdle at the Sentinel! That’s just terrific!” She put down the camera, and Maxie sat in a straightbacked chair. “I’m Stella McSweeney, and I’ve just taken over the features department. I think I’ve seen you before, maybe at that bowling party in January? Oh, and weren’t you at Francine’s the other night? Wasn’t that awful? Louise and Donnie are planning an editorial. Now, where’s my notebook.... Gosh, this is great—I was worried I’d have to practically write this whole issue myself!”
While Stella chatted away, Maxie studied the peppy new features editor, who wore a blue-and-white-striped sailor shirt and matching blue capris. She was glad she wouldn’t be submitting her articles to humorless Louise!
“Here we are.” Stella unearthed a notebook and opened it up. Maxie got up to look over her shoulder at the “Feature Ideas” list: Married Lesbians, Medical Est., Biblical Evidence—the items filled the page.
“Movie round-up—that sounds fun!”
“I’ve already got someone lined up for that,” Stella told her. “How about something in the ‘Working Girl’ series I’ve planned? You know, advice, analysis—”
“What the working girl wears?” Maxie suggested.
“Sure!” said Stella. “Just be sure to give it that Sapphic-specific slant our readers expect—you know, ‘businesslike but not butch.’ ” She winked. “That always gets the letters coming in!”
She’d not only gotten an assignment, she’d made a new friend, Maxie realized as she left. And she’d lightened her load, leaving The Step Stoolers the big cannister of lemon drops she’d grabbed from the Mainwaring pantry in her haste.
Filled with zeal, she decided to get right to work. She stopped at a nearby newstand to purchase a stack of the latest magazines for some fashion background, tucking away the receipt carefully—Mamie had been a stickler about saving receipts for her expense account, and Maxie suspected The Step Stool would be the same.
Now I need to observe the Lesbian in her natural habitat. Francine’s would be dead this early, especially after last night, but the Blue Danube wasn’t far. A bus lumbered up, and Maxie boarded it. “Transfer?” the driver asked, and Maxie said again, “No thank you.” I should really find out what this transfer business is about, she thought.
She got off in front of the Blue Danube, in the heart of Little Bohemia. Peering in at the late lunchers, she spotted Barbara Babcock, the star of the television drama A Single Candle, deep in conversation with her “masseuse.” A table over, lyricist Louis van Heldt was consuming the restaurant’s famous kartoffelpuffer with gusto. Other less famous but equally artistic types chatted over schnapps and coffee.
Back to business, Maxie ordered herself. I’m not here to gawk at celebrities. She surveyed the crowd, focusing on apparel. Too bad she wasn’t writing for If, The Step Stool’s fraternal publication. She could do a whole paragraph on pocket squares. Her eyes lit on a knock-your-eyes-out number: bold polka dots, bracelets up to the elbows, and the giveaway low heels that said “Sapphic” to those who spoke the lingo of the shadow world. False eyelashes a foot long, Maxie scribbled in her notebook. She noticed her subject was waving vigorously, gesturing for Maxie to come inside.
“Dolly!” Picking up her briefcase and string bag and tucking her reporter’s notebook and pocketbook under her arm, Maxie pushed open the door to the Blue Danube, and wound her way through the tables to her polka dot–clad friend.
“Dolly, what are you doing here, besides having schnitzel?” asked Maxie as she joined her friend.
“Hoping for a break,” Dolly told her glumly. “I’ve just finished making the rounds. Nothing, nada, nichts! But there’s always the chance I’ll catch someone’s eye here.” She looked around hopefully.
A waitress in an alpine outfit handed Maxie a menu. “The soup today is sausage and pea, and our special is broiled Loon Lake trout with spaetzle.”
“Just coffee,” said Maxie hastily. “I’ve had my lunch.” There it was again, that rebellious desire to order a whole meal, just because she shouldn’t! “And some apple strudel,” Maxie amended her order. Then her conscience got the better of her: “Hold the ice cream.”
“But what really got me down,” Dolly continued, unaware of Maxie’s seesaw struggle not to spend, “is that my agent told me the Jarvises are going off the air—no more residuals!”
For years Dolly had depended on the residuals from Meet the Jarvises, the television show that had made her a child star, to round out her erratic income. Now she told Maxie despondently, “I’ll be in your boat, Maxie—this is just like losing my allowance.”
“Don’t worry, Doll
y,” Maxie consoled her. “You’re creative and talented—you’re bound to find something!”
Dolly looked dubious. “More likely I’ll be asking for a handout.” She nodded at the bag Maxie had set on the table. “Looks like quite a haul.”
“I raided the Mainwaring Manse, and with these eats, I won’t have to buy a meal for a week!”
Dolly sorted through the contents of the string bag. “Mmmm—smoked salmon! Too bad there’s not more.”
“I ate most of it on the train.”
“Look at this sausage! You could feed an army. But where are you going to cook it? And applesauce—this’ll last you a while.” Dolly looked at the giant jar she held in her hand in awe. She put it down and pulled out a package wrapped in wax paper. “Oh, lemon pound cake! Yum. What’s this?” She held up a small tub.
“Farmer’s cheese, from Loon Lake.”
“I’m seeing a lot of applesauce-and-cheese sandwiches in your future,” Dolly predicted. “I’m heading back to the Arms for my beauty nap. Do you want me to take the groceries? I’ll stick ’em in the icebox so’s we don’t die of ptomaine poisoning.”
“Dolly, you’re an angel.” Maxie hadn’t thought about refrigeration.
“I’ll take any available role,” quipped Dolly, departing.
Maxie made notes as she ate her strudel. Saddle shoes and cuffed linen pants, she wrote, eyeing a girl lunching alone. Unbidden, the image of Lon came to her. What had she been wearing last night? Men’s sport shirt, open at the throat, she wrote from memory. On the right girl, the mannish look can convey a certain devil-may-care flair.
She should be concentrating on her assignment, Maxie scolded herself. Not reminiscing about Lon’s good looks. And she’d forgotten to call Sookie, as she’d promised Mamie. She went to the bar to phone.
The call to the Carmichaels was a toll call, and she had to get change from the bartender. After all that, the Carmichaels’ maid told her Sookie was gone for the weekend. “No message.” Maxie hung up. Sookie was undoubtedly off on one of those leisurely weekends that were now part of Maxie’s past.