by Michelle Cox
“No, I … I’m fine.” She tried to smile.
“Are you?” he asked, concerned. “I see you’ve had the doctor ’round,” he said, pointing to the bandage tightly wrapped around her ankle. “Is there anything you need? Any little service I might perform for you?”
Why was he so dreadfully handsome? With his dark hair and mysterious brown eyes, he completely paralyzed her, unnerved her with his beauty. She tried repeatedly to look away, and yet she could not stop herself, like a fragile moth drawn to the only source of light, no matter, in reality, how dull or inconsistent. “No, it’s nothing, really,” she stammered, embarrassed by his attention to her clumsiness. “I’ll be up in a few days.”
“It warms my heart to hear it, Miss Von Harmon. Perhaps when you are well, we might take a stroll in the park, if you’re feeling up to it,” he suggested, smiling, gesturing absently toward the window.
Elsie’s mind raced at the suggestion, which she felt sure was inappropriate. What would Stanley think? Or Mrs. Hutchings? Or Ma, for that matter?
Not waiting for her to finish, he went on. “But I can see that I’ve distressed you. Forgive me,” he seemed to say with real remorse. “It’s just that,” he glanced toward the window as if in despair, “I’m rather lonely sometimes and I do so enjoy your company.” He looked back at her now with such woeful eyes that Elsie was positively distressed. “Forgive me for thinking that you may have felt the same.” He managed to look hurt here.
“Oh, Lieutenant!” Elsie said earnestly. “Oh, you musn’t think that! I mean … I do … of course I enjoy your company, it’s just that …” How could she explain about Stanley? Was it possible that this young officer could really be in earnest? Surely that was impossible. A girl like her? He could have any woman, that was obvious, so why would he single her out? He couldn’t really be lonely, could he? Surely he had a multitude of friends back at the barracks, and yet his eyes did look so sorrowful …
“You have another, is that it?” he said, not waiting for her to finish. “This Dubowski fellow?”
“Well, actually …”
“I understand,” he said with a sigh. “It was foolish to think you were free.” Another despairing glance out the window. “Mighten we still be friends, though, Miss Von Harmon?” he said, looking hopefully back at her after sufficient pause.
“Oh, I should very much like that, Lieutenant!” Elsie said, relieved now.
“Would it … would it be impertinent to ask you to call me Harrison?” he asked softly, as he gazed at her, turning her insides to jelly. “Seeing as we understand each other so well… now that we’re to be just friends?”
“I … I suppose so …” she said, feeling wretched all over again. “I mean, no, I suppose it would be all right …”
“And, then, might I call you Elsie?” he asked, leaning forward slightly in a way that felt oddly intimate.
Elsie blushed. “Yes, I suppose that would be okay,” she said awkwardly, knowing full well that Mrs. Hutchings would have been outraged.
“Splendid! Well, I can see you are fatigued, so I will not tire you further with having to converse with the likes of me,” he said, rising now so that he stood over her.
“Oh, no, I … I enjoyed it,” she said eagerly.
“I merely wanted to see how you were getting along. But I can see you’re well looked after,” he said, allowing his eyes to travel and linger the length of her body. “No doubt Mr. Dubowski’s been very attentive.”
Elsie did not say anything in response to this, as there was nothing she could say. Stanley had not yet appeared at all.
The lieutenant held out his hand to her, and when she put hers in his, he leaned toward her and brought her hand up to his lips. “I know I would be,” he said smoothly.
Elsie felt her stomach flip and hoped he could not hear her swallow loudly.
“Goodbye, Elsie,” he said wistfully. “I’ll come again, if I may, in a few days to check on you.”
Elsie blushed yet again and was afraid she might not be able to speak. “Goodbye, Lieuten—I mean, Harrison,” she managed finally, and she could not keep from smiling long after he had descended the front steps into the rain.
Five and a half miles away, Stan could not hear the pelting rain as he stood on the line at the Sulzer Electrics Company soldering radios. In some ways it was easier than his job had been in the warehouse, which actually required physical stamina with all of the lifting and loading, but this required concentration. Well, it had at first, anyway. Now it had become routine, and he felt he could actually do this in his sleep. There were no windows in the factory, but he could tell from the rumbling of his stomach that it was almost quitting time. He looked at his wristwatch, a gift from his mother on his last birthday, and saw that he was correct.
When the whistle blew ten minutes later, he gratefully made his way to his locker and gathered up his large lunch box and thermos as well as his coat before joining the crowd, hurrying now to get out. It wasn’t until he stepped outside the main doors that he realized it was raining and put up the umbrella his mother always made sure he left the house with. For once he was glad he had brought it. He made his way past the big gray fence and the large wrought iron gate amidst his fellow workers, who normally joked and shouted to each other as they passed through the gates, but who today were silent, bent over against the lashing rain as they hurriedly made their way home. If it weren’t for a car honking its horn at one of the more lightly clad employees who had dashed into the street without looking, Stan probably wouldn’t have bothered to look up at all. As it was, however, he did look up to see where the noise was coming from, and, as he did so, was quite shocked to see what looked very much like Rose Whitman coming toward him. She didn’t seem to notice him, however, but instead was determinedly walking toward the factory, swimming upstream against the current of men pouring out.
What was she doing here? Stan wondered, and, peering closer, saw that she was very wet as she made her way, shielding herself against the rain with her arm. Where was her umbrella? She would catch her death!
“Rose!” he called out, trying to move across the steady stream of men to catch her attention. “Rose!” he shouted again.
She heard her name called and looked around distractedly before finally catching his eye. “Stan!” she said, a hesitant smile breaking out on her face.
“What are you doing here?” he asked now that he was upon her, the crowd moving around them as he held his umbrella gallantly over her.
“I …” Rose began, her eyes nervously darting around before looking back at Stan. “I’m bringing my brother’s lunch, or should I say, dinner, to him,” she said, holding up a black rectangular lunch box. “He keeps forgetting.”
“That’s nice of you, seeing how it’s raining and all,” Stan said. “Didn’t you bring an umbrella?” he asked, disapprovingly.
“I was in such a hurry, I guess I forgot,” she said, smiling up at him, which caused a stray image of Elsie to pop into his mind somehow.
“Well, here,” he said after a longish pause, during which he remembered—it being Tuesday—that it was his mother’s chicken-pot-pie night, and the thought of potentially missing it caused him not a little anguish. He struggled to master these more base desires, however, and succeeded in finally offering, “Let me go with you,” calculating that if he hurried, he might still make it home in time.
“Oh, no!” Rose said quickly. “That’s okay. You go on home. I’ve gotten wet before, believe me, and I survived,” she said, smiling, two small dimples appearing. For a second, Stan’s heart constricted; in that moment he could have sworn it was Henrietta, but the vision evaporated as he shook his head.
“No, I insist,” he said weakly.
“You’re a real gentleman, you know that?” she said with a grin and put her arm through his in such an easy way that it surprised him.
“Your brother’s in repairs, right?” Stan asked, bent on his mission now, peering through the rain as th
ey walked. Since the wedding, he had looked up this Billy Whitman—just out of curiosity, mind—and had discovered that he was a decent-enough chap working on the repair crew, night shift, though some said he was touched.
“Yes!” she said, obviously impressed. “How did you know?”
“I know just about everyone here; I make it my business to know, you see.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” she said, giving him a coy smile.
They walked along in silence then until they reached the maintenance shed, which was really more of a long, low building in the back of the factory yard. Ironically, it was surrounded by broken bits of machinery amidst the tall grass, peppered with stray bits of litter, stacks of old tires, and rusting barrels. On the threshold, Stan’s insides quivered a bit as he recalled that it was an uncannily similar maintenance shed where Henrietta’s father had hung himself all those years ago. He had studiously avoided the Schwinn factory ever since then and had avoided this place as well. Who knew what horrors had been committed here? He hesitated now, just inside the door, but Rose had already moved past him and was making a beeline toward the back of the building, where she said her brother’s bench was. Stan had no choice but to force down his sense of the macabre and said a silent prayer against ghosts as he hurried to catch up with her.
The building was oddly abandoned except for Billy, whom they found standing over a workbench, upon which was what looked to be a large gearbox of sorts, partially disassembled, if Stan judged it rightly. Billy was a large man with broad shoulders and big hands, which made the image of him holding the tiny screwdriver in his left hand seem incongruous. His one-piece gray uniform seemed too tight and looked dirty already from grease and oil, or perhaps it had started the night out that way. From a distance he seemed a man to be reckoned with, but as they drew closer and Stan observed his close-cropped brown hair and the light brown eyes which held a slightly vacant look, he thought he looked more like an overgrown schoolboy. A red birthmark sprawled across his right cheek, making it look as though he was permanently slapped.
Billy looked up as they approached and gave a big grin. “Rosie!” he said happily with a dull, thickly idiotic voice. “What you doing here? Come to see me? Come to see me?”
Rose held up the lunch box. “You forgot this again, Billy,” she said reproachfully.
“Ah, gee, Rosie. Sorry. Sorry. I forgot again.”
“It’s okay, Billy,” she said, relaxing her frown. “Working hard, I see,” she said, observing the guts of the gearbox splayed out in front of them. “Billy’s a whiz with machines, aren’t you, Bill?” Rose said encouragingly. “He can fix anything; can’t you?”
Billy nodded dumbly in response and carefully placed his lunch on the back bench, adjusting it until it was perfectly aligned with the edge of the bench, tapping it slightly to perfect its position. Stan took the opportunity to survey Billy’s work area and approved of its tidiness and organization.
“Uh, huh,” Billy said slowly, scratching his head and turning back toward them, slack-jawed. “Most things.” He looked at Stan now as if seeing him for the first time. “Who’s he?” he asked thickly.
“This is my friend, Stan,” Rose said, chancing a glance at Stan as if silently asking him if it was okay to call him a friend.
Stan gave an almost eager nod.
“He works here, too,” she added.
“Doin’ what?”
“I’m on the line,” Stan answered with a slightly puffed-out chest. “Soldering mostly.”
Billy ignored his answer, Stan’s lofty new credentials seemingly lost on him. “You followin’ her?” he asked.
“Following?”
“Billy!” Rose said.
“You followin’ her?” he asked again.
The straightforwardness of the question confused Stan. It didn’t seem to be threatening, and yet he couldn’t think how else to interpret it.
“Lots a fellas follow Rosie,” Billy said, his face scrunched up in distress now. “You should see. Don’t like ’em much, I don’t. Not nice to her sometimes. I can see out my window.”
“Billy! We have to go now,” Rose said hurriedly, putting her hand on Stan’s shoulder.
“Once there was even a lady, but she only came once. That was a long time ago.”
Rose’s face had gone white now.
“Billy!” she said again. “You’d better get to work now before your boss sees you. Remember? And Stan and I have to go before we get locked in here for the night!”
Billy’s face took on a look of concentration then as he focused his eyes again on the pieces in front of him. “Okay, Rosie. Bye,” he said dully, seemingly dismissing them already.
“Bye, Billy. See you at home,” Rose said awkwardly and turned now to go.
“Nice meeting you, Bill,” Stan likewise added, but Billy did not respond. Stan hesitated for a moment as if he were going to say something more, but in the end he decided to simply follow Rose back to the front of the building. Her pace was surprisingly fast, and he hurried to catch up with her, which didn’t afford him much time to make sense of the strange encounter with her brother.
“You musn’t mind Billy,” Rose said finally, as if she suspected his thoughts. They stepped out of the shed now, the sky nearly black with the fading light and the heavy clouds, the rain continuing its deluge. Stan again covered them with his trusty umbrella as they huddled closely under it. “He’s a bit backward,” she said, clearly embarrassed. “He doesn’t mean anything. Don’t listen to what he says. He gets in trouble a lot because he gets distracted easily, but when he’s focused on his task, he can do wonders with machinery, actually. That’s why it’s good that he works alone … usually, anyway.”
They had passed through the factory gate and stood on Western Avenue now, cars hurrying past and splashing water from the puddles that were collecting by the crumbling curbs.
“Here, let me walk you home,” Stan offered. “Which way?”
“Oh, no! I’ll be all right.”
“In this rain? Without an umbrella?” Stan asked incredulously. “Not a chance! And, anyway, what’s this about these guys following you?”
“Oh, don’t listen to Billy. He … he gets confused …”
“But who are they? Are they dangerous?”
“Just stragglers from the Marlowe or the Melody Mill. You know how it is …” her voice trailed off.
Stan did very well know! It was just like Henrietta all over again.
“Listen, I’m walking you home, and that’s final!” Stan mustered.
“Please, Stan. Not tonight. It’s just my dad at home, and he’s been drinking. You know how it is, right?” she asked again, attempting what Stan swore was a suggestive sort of smile. Or was she just trying to be brave? Stan couldn’t tell exactly. The more he studied her, the more she just looked like a frightened young girl to him. “Well …”
“It’s just a few blocks,” she said, pulling back from under the umbrella.
Stan followed her, still trying to hover the umbrella over her.
“Please, Stan,” she begged.
“Well … if you’re sure. Here—” he thrust the umbrella into her gloveless hand. “You take this.” When she tried to hesitate, he said more forcefully, “I insist!” And as if to prove his sincerity, he backed out from under its flimsy protection and stuffed his hands in his coat pocket, allowing himself to be fully pelted by the rain.
Rose stepped toward him now so that they were both covered again. She was standing so close to him that he could smell her perfume, made all the stronger by the humidity in the air. Oddly, it was rose-tinged, just like her name. She further shocked him, then, by reaching out her free hand and placing it on his cheek. “Thank you, Stan. It’s too bad you have someone else,” she said wistfully. Before he could say anything, she had turned and was already crossing the street. “I’ll make sure you get this back!” she shouted, looking at him one last time before hurrying down the block.
Stan sto
od watching her for a few moments, horrified by the excitement her simple touch had elicited in him, and forced himself to think of Elsie instead. Slowly he turned toward home, knowing his mother would fret that he did not have his umbrella, especially as he was quickly becoming drenched. He should probably make his way to Palmer Square to call on Elsie, he thought, as he awkwardly struggled to pull up the thin collar of his coat, as if it would be the slightest help against the downpour. He hadn’t seen her since the wedding, but it was already getting late, and he risked arriving home to a cold chicken pie if he delayed any longer.
Each morning he told himself that he would stop by to see Elsie after work, but each day as he was leaving the electrics, he found some reason not to. Like now. But he couldn’t just turn up looking like a drowned dog, could he? A part of him knew he was just making excuses, but, gee whiz, nothing was the same now that they had moved, not like the old days when they had all been crowded in together in the little apartment. For one thing, when he did call, no one was ever around except Elsie herself. Eugene, of course, was gone, and the boys were always off somewhere in some other part of the house supposedly studying, but knowing Eddie and Herbert as he did, Stan wasn’t buying it. And the little ones, to whom he had previously delighted in bringing sweets, were always shut up in the nursery now with the nanny or the maid, or whatever she was called. Even Mrs. Von Harmon wasn’t around much, spending most of her time, Elsie said, in her room. Elsie seemed to think it was because Ma wasn’t used to all that space, that she seemed more comfortable living the way she had always done, in just a couple of rooms. Indeed, Elsie had told him on one of his early visits, just after they had moved, that Mrs. Von Harmon seemed reluctant to occupy any of the other rooms unless someone else was there with her. And then there were the servants to deal with now, most of whom always made Stan feel somehow not himself. Karl seemed all right, but he had a pretty good idea that the housekeeper, Mrs. Schmidt, did not approve of the likes of him. He could tell by the way she asked if she could take his hat and coat, as if it were an odious chore, and when he did hand them to her, he could swear her face held a look of disgust as she gingerly hung his belongings in the hall. The only one who was always about was Elsie. She seemed to be always there, eager and available, with nothing else to do but wait for him to turn up, it seemed. But wasn’t that a good thing? he asked himself as he crossed California. Of course it was a good thing, he argued, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of being suffocated when he went to visit, as if there wasn’t enough air in the new place, which didn’t make any sense at all, considering how much bigger it was than the apartment.