by Mary Burns
In my daze, I saw a horse rear up and near dump the man driving the wagon behind. People dodged the flying hooves and, in his haste, a man in a seersucker suit slipped on some horse leavings on the tracks. Boys laughed as he fell and rose again quickly, cursing the beast just then suffering his master’s whip even as he craned his big horse head around, teeth bared, wanting to bite. Another boy there today, smaller, his father hunched behind him holding a small stack of the extra papers. The little one’s voice a tin whistle shrill, threading through the two newsies already’d claimed the corner.
FIRE CAPTAIN DIES ON DUTY!
POLACK TENEMENTS DESTROYED!
RUSSIAN TROOPS DESERT ALLIES
JOIN BOLSHEVIKI!
Mr. R was studying Janet’s story when I passed through the shop. I could see his shiny hair over the top of the front page. Did he think he could find her? Or bring in Anna Eva, whose powers made a person shiver at all that lay behind the solid world, unsettling as the good people.
Mr. R and Anna Eva could go to that apartment building and call the spirit of little Janet. I believed they could do it, for I’d seen Anna Eva’s power at work and not just by means of the cabinet trick first amazed me. Though it’d been only the summer before, when Packy and I were promised and Margaret looking lonely, seemed already years ago I took her to one of them special afternoons Anna Eva put on for women shy of letting their minds be read among men. I made Margaret sit on the aisle and when the assistant—a young man, like there were young women assistants for the men performers—when he strolled up the aisle asking for volunteers, I lifted Margaret’s hand, and she tried, but not so hard, to lower it, and didn’t they choose her!
The young man—looked a little like Mr. R with the oiled hair and the mustache, but not the wrinkles, of course; no, his face was smooth—he asked Margaret to write a question on a pad of paper, something important on her mind. He then turned to Anna Eva, dressed in white, layers of it making the skirt and the neck nice and modest and her hair done up as it had been in all the pictures I’d seen on the posters. Anna Eva guessed it immediately.
A man. Will I ever find a husband? Margaret’d written, and Anna Eva assured her that she would indeed, and she flipped her hands out as if to say, Presto! Such certainty beamed from the stage we more or less looked over our shoulders, expecting Margaret’s intended to be right there, beside or behind us. Then Anna Eva cautioned Margaret, for the man meant for her might not be who she expected. Not long after came Harry, not the Mick Margaret supposed she would marry, and just as well, for she wouldn’t have to worry about the drinking and fighting went on in some households. Not with dependable Harry liked his beer at a picnic, his schnapps—but not much—before he’d snore off, this last something she discovered later.
§
“Mornin’, Mr. R,” I said, and over the newsprint he shot them blue-black bullets could go right through you. Did he guess what I’d done? Mentioned nothing about any missing money or any missing child, or Anna Eva, or the possibility of him and her finding little Janet, but only nodded as I minced past him to the back.
In my rush to erase the sins of the day preceding, I squared the orders on my desk if they slid so much as an inch off the pile, made a show of rattling the coins that dropped out of an envelope. It was one of them rare days Mr. M made an appearance. He was a more ordinary sort of man, without the dash of Mr. R. Hair thinning already on Mr. M’s head, and clothes seemed an afterthought—generally a button missing, a stain on his shirt. A bit of a beard, more a goatee that did not suit him, actually. You wanted to tilt your head, try different angles of looking, to get him all in a piece. Or maybe it was he never showed up often, once a week, if that. Left Eveline to deal with the business of the orders came in for the paper hats and nut cups, the streamers, and the noisemakers and such he peddled in the Rainbow Paper Company catalogue, more a brochure really. He got George busy, too, that day because he needed a new edition of the brochure, with a few additional items, including a line of paper lanterns in the shapes of balls and bells and flowers. Every one of us stopped at George’s drawing table to see him work from the model Mr. M had brought in. A distracting day altogether.
I thought of telling my chum Gladys about my date, for we would go out together at lunch, and hadn’t I listened for hours to her doubts about Charles Francis Brown, her wondering if he would stop in the Cosmo to say hello, or just pass in the lobby and nod, thinking of something, or someone, obviously not her. Did the maroon shirtwaist she’d worn until spring make her sallow complexion appear yellower? Should she use a bit of rouge on her cheeks to appear younger? For while they were near the same age, she and Charles Francis, maybe he thought her older on account of her complexion. Ah. For all she dwelled on him, Charles Francis Brown never did turn out to be what she wanted. On account of her blindness in that regard, but for other reasons too, the better choice of confidant would have been wiser Eveline, her never without a man, it seemed, and she got them to buy her not only dinners and shows, but necklaces and even a hat.
Eveline. Not as pretty as fair Florence in the front, but sparky with that short upper lip left her mouth a bit open if she forgot to press her full lips closed, and hair so long she could roll it into a chestnut crown. Lanky, she wore her skirts shorter than anyone else in our place—could not get a normal skirt to cover her, she claimed—but she didn’t care how much leg showed. And why would she, with stockings too nice for an office girl? No doubt another gift, and one she drew attention to by leaning down and stroking them, as if they’d got wrinkled and needed smoothing. Not cotton or wool but real silk they were.
Not hard to imagine what Eveline might be willing to do for those stockings and the rest of it, and if the “what” some thought was true, love might not even a come into it. Not the kind of love Desmond Malloy’d seeded in me, and so I never did confide in Eveline then, which left me with Gladys. Though I toyed with the notion of spilling the beans when lunch came and we walked over towards State with the idea of looking at the Boston Store window, at a particular hat she thought Margaret could copy, we happened to get caught up in a welcome home parade of colored soldiers. Them marching in uniform, many lined along the road cheering, including children waving the flags of the men’s unit and the Stars and Stripes. Band playing some of the ragtime tunes you heard then. The opportunity to spill my secret to Gladys never came, nor did we see the hat, for we could not cross through the soldiers marching, some dancing, them had the limbs for it.
Despite the commotion Mr. M caused, and even though my mind wandered toward evening as I patted the hair springing out from my damp scalp—it was that stifling in our place, despite the fan turned lazily above—no one could fault the dutifulness of Maeve Curragh that afternoon. Slice an envelope open, roll an order form into my machine, type, type, hit the carriage return. A soothing sort of rhythm to the work. Just before leaving I went to the lav to damp my face and do my hair over and fix the violets at my throat, and they were a lovely color. But it crossed my mind Desmond Malloy could have forgotten in these almost two days passed since we sat across from one another in the café. A strike looming and his ball team winning and losing and maybe another lady hopped on his car caught his fancy. For all that—my dark Ennis eyes fair brimming with possibilities thrilling and sad—my thoughts strayed to Janet Wilkinson. Little Janet, and I whispered a prayer for her safe return.
Eveline stood near Clyde’s desk in the lobby, gassing with the doorman as he surveyed the comings and goings of all the people passed through the grand foyer. Gladys lingered nearer the door. Of course the hat, the one we couldn’t see during the lunch hour. But more than the hat, I knew my chum wanted to talk about Charles Francis and did I think he loved her and would he be faithful, and if he was truly interested—as he must’ve been to stand her to lunch that winter day—why did he insist on working most nights, so the only time they spent together he was bent over his drawing board, while she chatte
red from the high stool he generally waved her to. Always suffered over that man, Gladys did.
Of course I couldn’t go with her that evening to study the store windows, and though Gladys would only smile and her eyebrows would go up at the inside corners, and she would go all big on me and hug me and say, I knew it—as though she could peer into my private space and understand—I didn’t want anyone knowing about Desmond. Not yet, no. I wanted to keep him for myself. That’s what it was caused me to make up a story about having to meet my sister to look for fabric for her wedding dress.
“Then I should come right along with you. It would be perfect, Maeve. Good practice, for our turns will come soon enough. Where does she plan to start? The Fair’s always good to give you ideas, or The Boston Store. Or is she thinkin’ a specialty shop? More expensive, but if she’s goin’ to be makin’ it herself, costs nothing to look.”
“That I can’t tell, Gladys. She made me promise not to, for doesn’t she want to keep it a secret until the day itself.”
“Oh, well then.”
“Another day? Maybe even tomorrow? For the hat?”
Just then Eveline laughed that laugh of hers, unmistakable, kind of breathy and trumpety at once, and Clyde, too, snickered, though with his head lowered, I saw, for we’d both turned. Gladys blushed like they were laughing at her. Then I was sorry to have put her off because she’d been my friend for nearly as long as I’d lived in Chicago, and if she wasn’t worldly in the same way as Eveline, she’d always been kind to me, Gladys. She was one for fashion, sure, and I told her so, and complimented her on her shirtwaist, the one with a square collar like in a sailor’s suit and with navy stripes around the edges. Too, I promised to ask Margaret if she might come along next time, for Gladys could give advice if anyone could, better advice than me. She nodded as she headed for the whirly doors, and looked back and waved before she stepped into them. But her face had that pinch beneath the eyes showed her hurt. Maybe I’d convinced her, and I hoped I had, for I never aimed to trample on her feelings. Well, isn’t it true fibs are only stories after all, a matter of replacing one set of words with another?
§
Finally I was free, like Margaret and me got to be free of the mission school with the money I pinched for our dream of Chicago, the good life we’d heard of there and no snakes and no alligators. A place to make your fortune. There was nothing for it but to go ahead now I’d dug myself this far in. Wait at the corner of Clark and Van Buren, he’d said, and there’s where I stood listening to the clack-clack music of the trains on the El threw a shadow I sheltered in, for the day had not begun to cool, though a breeze snuck down, sifting soot through the air. The crowds hurrying, everybody always hurrying, and bigger crowds it seemed, with the soldiers back—some in uniform like it was the cloth itself’d made them who they were—and they’d look at me, not all, but a few, because wasn’t I standing there with my pocketbook and a bag besides and those crazy violets at my throat. I kept my lips straight and refused to catch any of the glances tossed my way.
Over all the racket, newsboys hollering what a body could read in the late editions.
NEW SUSPECT TAKEN IN LOST GIRL HUNT!
FLAT FAMINE RAISES RENTS!
ZOOKEEPER FIRED!
CAR PARLEY STUCK ON 8 HOUR DEMAND!
While I wanted to know about Janet, it’s true, my taste for stories about all transpiring in our city, and indeed the world, that day waned in anticipation of the evening. The great din of the motorcars and horns blaring and the elevated above and me waiting for my man. More motorcars here at this corner, aiming towards Michigan Avenue, a grand parade of them. With precious few rules to keep everyone where they were supposed to be, automobiles battled for road space, just as the office workers jostled for sidewalk. Some of the men after loosening their collars, taking off and carrying their jackets over their shoulders, hooked on a thumb. A man with his boater pushed back on his head, tie like a noose hanging round his neck, carrying a satchel, strode towards the avenue like there was free beer and he’s the fella wanted to drink it. Across the street a few other men gathered around one holding up a pair of pants, white pants, and Lord only knew why they’d be conducting their business there in the middle of the street, but it mesmerized me all the same to see the pants go from hand to hand, one matching them up to himself, then passing them to the next.
Girls strolled by in pairs, and I saw one of them reach around and pick her dress loose from where it must have been sticking to her arse this hot day, me thinking she might have left her bloomers at home and how daring. Thrilling to be out of my normal routine of life, more thrilling because secret, but after today, after today, if we made another date, then I’d bear Margaret’s tendency to scold, and tell her she had nothing to fear from this car man at least. For all they’re known to be flirts, we were not above a little flirting ourselves, to save the fare. A nickel was a nickel and if a girl could save one for the price of a smile, we smiled and let them think what they wanted.
It came down to me counting the bolts worked into the steel beams held up the El tracks. Counting them and noting the little cinders in the grit layered them. Must’ve been nearing six, but I had no watch. Me a girl without a watch, when just yesterday was found a watch without a girl. To Irene with love from Mama. That suffering woman, so good to her daughter, somehow gave her a watch. I could a stopped one of the passing men with chains bounced and glittered across the front of their waistcoats, but sure it could not have been as long as it felt I’d been idling there. I wouldn’t wait forever, but I’d wait until forever was on the doorsill.
My stomach grumbled despite my little sandwich and the treat of a cake Florence’d brought in to celebrate her birthday. Baked by her mother and carried from home for us all. Oh, yes, it’d been a big day—the cake, singing Happy Birthday to Florence, Mr. M and the paper lanterns. Desmond Malloy’d mentioned supper, he said we’d make an evening of it. Maybe he’d bring a picnic and I could dawdle with whatever it was he’d packed until it went too dark to venture into the water, for I wouldn’t be the fool and claim again to have eaten already, like one of them girls in the pictures, Dorothy Phillips included. So slim, life barely touched them as they spectered through it.
I tried to concentrate on the foot traffic, looking for a tall man with the peak aiming down his forehead. Terrible aching my feet were, though, standing there. What felt good for the novelty after sitting at my desk most of the day had worn with the minutes. More of them passed than ought to have and then I started thinking, praise be to Mother Mary for not having to test myself against the smooth ways of Mr. Desmond Malloy. Wasn’t this a gift from the God I’d been talking to only yesterday? Yes, it’d been long enough. The copper on the corner, the one directing traffic, had been looking my way smiling, me nodding, then drawing my eyes back out to the street to make it clear I was looking for someone. God only knew what he suspected of me. It had to be near to an hour I’d waited.
Just then a small group gathered across, a man and two women, all three in somber missionary wear, as if the word of God was serious indeed. How they must have been dripping under them clothes, but in the spaces between the trains, their voices spiraled sweet in some hymn I didn’t know, though it comforted me all the same. Whatever disappointment rose in me could not compare to the grief poor Janet’s mother had to be feeling.
The shadows shifted and if the letdown caused my feet to sting all the more, relief let me bear the suffering, for I could tell Margaret he’d stood me up—she didn’t have to know who—and, feeling sorry for me, she’d ply me with something, as our mammy used to do. Let me cook you an egg, she’d say, for we had eggs for comfort more than anything else. A nice soft-boiled egg with the skin clinging to the rounded knob at the end I’d pop in my mouth while she salted the rest, scooped it into a cup. Two mouthfuls and gone. Something so delicious coming out of that button-eyed hen clucked at the back stoop and wouldn’t lay in
a proper nest, but wherever she felt like it, so some went wasted even though we thought we knew all her hidey places.
Thinking of home, more than eight years after I squeaked open the wicket gate and crossed into the single room housed us all. Even though I could buy myself eggs and eat them every day, they never tasted savory as that surprise Mammy would find for one of us. To think she might find only one, too, while there in the shops along Halsted were dozens displayed, creamy white, fawn brown, and speckled.
I crossed the street, right past the policeman winked at me as I went, must a been he’d decided me an honest woman. I tried to look up and admire the buildings and thought I might even stroll into the Palmer House a few blocks away, as once I’d done, venturing past the liveried boys, onto the marble walkway, up the stairs into the grand lobby with the ceiling painted like a cathedral, angels and cherubs and gold leaf. The same year we arrived in Chicago, me just turned sixteen, and one of them in livery thinking me there to pick up the laundry or polish the silver. The gilt, the marvelous designs in the plaster, the chandeliers with lights Bridey never would have believed, bright, yet spreading gently onto the seating area as if breathed down from the ceiling by one of them broad-winged angels. The liveried one took my arm and tried steering me over to the housekeeping department, thinking I wanted a job.
But my bold words saved me, me who doesn’t talk much, something made me different from the start at home where, if talk were money, we’d all a given Potter Palmer and his kind a run for theirs. I lifted my chin and said, “No, I am not here for work, but to meet my father.” Did he believe me, the bell captain? If not, he pretended to and escorted me to a straight chair, velvet, in my favorite blue, color of twilight. I rested from the outside bustle, imagining my da limping up them marble stairs in his cap and his black jacket going orange with age, collarless shirt, stubble on his cheek, the way he’d come through the door at home some days, smiling, smiling, like he’d a secret when he was only imagining something and how he would be reaching for his book to describe every thought.