The Fifth Avenue Artists Society

by Joy Callaway

  Past the lull of carriages along Fifth Avenue, the streets were bustling. Beggars were shouting, calling out for change or food, and businessmen whistled cheerily as they went about their days. My stomach growled as I inhaled the sugary scent of sweet bread. I hadn’t eaten all day, but didn’t reach in my pocket for a nickel to buy one. I knew I couldn’t eat if I tried. Even among the crowds of the city, I felt alone. I turned down an alleyway, wishing Mother or my sisters were with me. Bessie had gone to our neighbors’ wedding anniversary tea—an engagement she typically would’ve thought below her—in an attempt to avoid her misery, while Alevia had refused to go anywhere, alternating between crying in her room and playing straight through her books of Mozart and Stephen Foster tunes. Mother had declined on the grounds that Frank might come home.

  “Out of the way, miss!” A fat man lugging the wasted carcass of a gigantic catfish shooed me out of the way. The sulfuric scent of rancid fish flooded my nostrils, clinging to the inside of my nose. My eyes watered. The man flung the catfish and I ran to get out of the way.

  I emerged from the alley right in front of J. L. Mott. The building was made of plain brick with tiny windows running along each story. Not nearly as fancy as the previous headquarters in Mott Haven, I had a feeling old Mr. Mott would have had J. L. fired for moving it. I grinned a little at the thought, but felt my palms tingle with nerves as I started toward the front doors. I adjusted my trilby hat over my hair and slicked the stray wisps behind my ear.

  “Good afternoon.” I tried to sound pleasant to the man sitting at the reception desk, but my voice shook anyway.

  “How do you do, miss?” He tilted his head at me as I gaped at him. I’d lost the ability to speak. Vaguely aware of the suited men walking from the interior of the building past me toward the door, I blinked.

  “I-I’m sorry. I’m here to see Franklin Loftin.” The man snatched a huge stack of paper off the top of his desk and flipped to what I guessed was L in the directory.

  “There’s no one here by that name.” he said, still scanning the page.

  “I promise you, he works here,” I said, exasperated.

  “If he’s not on here, he doesn’t. I just received an updated list this morning. You must be mistaken.” I felt my face drain. It had only been one day. He should still be on the list even if he hadn’t shown up for work.

  “He travels. He’s a salesman. Does your list include them? He only works here when he’s in town and—”

  “Yes, it does,” he said, cutting me off. I stared down at the directory, fingers gripped to the front of his desk, knowing that it was the only thing holding me up.

  I turned, stumbling dizzily toward the door.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the man called from the reception desk. I ignored him and stepped out of the quiet lobby onto the busy street. My mind whirled, bringing me back to my visit to Frank’s office in Mott Haven. I’d been so angry, so confused, until he’d reassured me that my worries were in vain. I’d been wrong to believe him. Franklin had been lying to all of us.

  BRONX, NEW YORK

  A vagrant sitting against the side of a new brownstone looked up at the sight of me, and scooted back into the shadows. The night was completely black.

  As I’d expected, Franklin hadn’t been home when I’d returned from the city and no one had heard any updates. I’d spent the afternoon pacing around my room avoiding my family, alternating between fury at Frank’s lying and panic that he’d never return. There was no reason to tell the others of Frank’s deceit yet, of the job he’d lied about. It would only alarm them, so I’d kept the news to myself in hopes that he’d appear and tell us the truth.

  I made a valiant effort to get some sleep, but darkness always tended to give reign to the devil, and the worst possible thoughts tormented me. The most horrible curse of all was that in the past hours I’d remembered what had been said the last time I saw John. “God, Virginia, how you break my heart.” John’s words rang once again in my head, watering my eyes. I’d told him I loved him. Why hadn’t I said yes? I cursed myself for being so fickle. And then, I thought of my brother. He had come to my room to try to convince me to be happy, insisting that John and I were right for each other, and I’d yelled at him to get out. Regardless of my anger at his lies, I couldn’t bear the thought of that being his last memory of me. I prayed he knew how much I loved him, that they both did, but I couldn’t be sure.

  So I left the house, deciding that rather than wait until tomorrow, I’d look around Mott Haven. In the haze of early morning, it had seemed like a promising option. If they’d fled Manhattan, they could easily be hiding out here, a reasonably far distance from Fifth Avenue and the Hoppers’ mansion. So far, however, I’d seen barely anyone at all.

  I cut down a side street, through a grove of oaks to the sprawling lawn of St. Anne’s Church. We were Presbyterians and most of us had only been to St. Anne’s a handful of times for the odd wedding or funeral, but Franklin had told me a while back that sometimes on his way home from work, he’d find himself walking toward the church. He said something drew him there. Without him saying what, I knew it was the history, the strange need to hear the whispers of Lewis Morris III in the graveyard rambling about the Declaration of Independence or the first Gouvernor Morris arguing about his edits of the Constitution. Franklin and I had always reveled in the past, fascinated by not only our family’s history but also by the history of the people our family must have known.

  The brown stone seemed to gleam against the darkness. I tugged at the iron door, but it didn’t budge. The handle was freezing in my hand, but I gripped it hard and tried again. The door screeched open. I scanned the pews and my heart dropped to my stomach. Unless he was lying down, he wasn’t here. I walked toward the front anyway, past the Gothic stained-glass windows to the flickering oil lamps illuminating the cross.

  “Father, please,” I whispered. “Help me find them. I can’t do this on my own.” I stood there for a moment listening to the wicks pop, and then turned up the aisle and stepped outside, letting the door slam behind me.

  I walked back across the lawn and through a thin patch of trees to a side street that ran next to the river. I suddenly felt hopelessly alone. John and Frank had abandoned me. They’d left me to agonize over the possibility of where they’d gone and what they’d done. I thought of the rest of my family at home. They’d been able to settle their minds—at least enough to sleep. Perhaps that was my curse. Perhaps I loved too strongly, gave my heart away too readily to people who gave little consideration to mine.

  I could see the row of piano factories in the distance. The white block lettering on the Estey building was so huge you could spot it from about any point in the Bronx. I wondered if Alevia had gone to play after her appointment at the Carnegies’. She hadn’t been in several weeks. Symphony practices had taken up much more of her time than she’d planned—not that I thought she minded.

  Realizing my hand had been balled in a nervous fist in my pocket since I’d left the church, I stretched my fingers out as I turned up Third Avenue. I hadn’t seen anyone for at least five blocks and doubted anyone would be headed out toward the last bit of forest left in the Bronx at three in the morning. The moon was still dim overhead, but hung at eye level now.

  “Where are you?” I wondered aloud for the hundredth time. I stepped off the road and strode up the small hill. The early-morning dew soaked through the bottom of my skirt and stockings, freezing my ankles. I was breathing hard under the strain of the incline by the time I reached the entrance to the cemetery. I didn’t visit my father’s grave much, mostly because I knew his spirit wasn’t there. In life he’d thought cemeteries sinister and tended to avoid them, so I doubted he would be hanging around one now. Even so, sometimes I just wanted to talk to him, and knowing that the shell of his body—the smile I’d loved, the arms that had held me—was still there comforted me.

  I tapped my grandfather’s headstone and then my great-uncle’s as I walke
d under an ancient oak. All of my family members on my father’s side were buried here, sprinkled randomly throughout the graveyard. My father was at the very back of the cleared land in a secluded spot at the start of the forest. He’d ended up there because they’d run out of room in the graveyard proper, but at his burial I remember thinking that he wouldn’t have minded. He’d loved the wilderness like his father before him and had resented modern conveniences like the trolley line, commenting often that Grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew that the whizzing noise was drowning out the call of hungry owls and the crickets’ hum.

  As I advanced toward the patch of forest, my heart stilled with worry. Lost in thought, I almost didn’t register that Franklin was in front of me. Kneeling at our father’s headstone, his back was to me, heavy black overcoat pulled around his neck. I nearly screamed. Instead, I stepped toward him cautiously, afraid that if I spoke his name, he’d run. Two feet away, I started to reach out and touch him, but thought better of it.

  “Frank,” I whispered loudly. He whirled on his haunches and backed away, stumbling over a headstone behind him.

  “Virginia,” he breathed, eyes wide with shock. “Get . . . get away from me. If they see you with me they’ll . . .” He stopped midsentence and glanced around the cemetery. I kept walking toward him, but he held his hand out, keeping me back. Even in the dark, I could see that his face was haggard, stubble uneven and scraggly against his chin.

  “What’s happened to you? Where’ve you been?” Franklin backed into the woods and I followed. He remained half-crouched. “No one’s here, Frank. I just walked through the whole cemetery.” He straightened a little at my words, grabbed my wrist, and dragged me further into the woods. He smelled awful, like unwashed skin. Frank turned to look over his shoulder, jerked me behind a mossy boulder, and forced me down next to him.

  “You can’t be seen with me, do you understand?” he asked softly, though there was a sharp edge to his voice.

  “No,” I said simply. “I don’t.” A thousand questions flew into my mind.

  “We’re . . . I’m being hunted and if they see you with me, if they see me anywhere near the house, they’ll come for you to get to me. After Lydia . . . Tom sent the authorities to find me, John, and Doctor Hopper. Someone shot at me today as I was getting on the train; the police know I’m here.” Wind swept over us, unsettling the dry leaves on the ground, and Franklin’s head twitched toward the noise.

  “Why?” I asked. My hands began to shake in my lap and I gripped my fingers together to steady them. Frank leaned forward, dropping his head into the shadow of the stone. “Why are the police after you? Why have you been lying to us?” Anger swept through me, but I forced myself to calm, bracing myself for what he’d say.

  “Lydia,” he whispered. His voice cracked in the night, the high notes of despair echoing through the treetops. I started to look at him, but kept my eyes on the patchy grass instead. I’d asked him a question. He needed to answer me. “They’re after us because of Tom. After she died, he threatened us. He said he’d have us killed. I didn’t think he was serious, but John did. The minute Tom said it, John left the room and started packing his things. I thought he was being ridiculous and tried to reason with him, but he said that Tom had the money to hire a toxicologist and that we would be tried like that doctor William Palmer for murder.” Franklin stumbled over the last word and my heart stopped in my chest. He turned Grandfather’s gold band around his pinkie.

  “That’s impossible. Frank, you couldn’t . . . you couldn’t have had anything to do with her death. I know you. You would never hurt anyone. You don’t have it in you. Neither does John.” I noticed my voice was raised in a hysterical cry.

  “Ginny, you know I did,” he said bluntly. “You had to. Even if you didn’t know how, you had to know that something wasn’t right. It was the drugs, Ginny.” Frank looked straight at me. My stomach lurched.

  “What are you talking about?” At once, I felt Lydia’s fingertips trembling against my arms, saw her eyes wide and staring, and didn’t know if I could handle what he was about to say. I started to open my mouth to tell him, but closed it, forcing myself to hear the answer that would confirm a truth so harrowing I hadn’t let myself imagine it.

  “Doctor Hopper . . . that night at the opera he told you he was an innovator, an inventor, remember?” I nodded. Frank’s hand pressed down on my sleeve to stop my shivering, but I jerked away from him. His eyes flashed with understanding. “About a year ago, Doctor Hopper invented a drug, a combination of drugs actually, to help cure John, Tom, Lydia, Marcus, and a few others after Will’s death. They were going insane with depression and nothing was working.” I stared at him, unable to say anything, but needing him to continue.

  “John told me about the drug the day I met him on the train, after I mentioned that I was in sales. They were looking for someone to sell the concoction. He said that the going rate was ten dollars a bottle and that people were already begging for it. You know me, Gin. I’ll hear anyone out about an opportunity.” Frank’s lips turned up slightly, though his eyes were dull with pain. John had lied to me. Fury washed over the pain of his absence. “John made me swear right there that I’d keep the solution a secret whether I took the job or not. He said that Doctor Hopper wouldn’t allow advertising or the mention of it to anyone but the patient and that he’d only consider patients that he approved first. I remember thinking that system couldn’t possibly be profitable and mentioned the same to John. He laughed and said that his father would approve about anyone. Doctor Hopper only had that policy because he didn’t want to patent the medicine for fear the government would tax it.” I wanted to scream, to beat my fists into his chest, but I couldn’t move or speak. I could feel the fringes of my nerves fraying, threatening to snap. Selling drugs without a patent was illegal. Frank stared up at the treetops, pulling the lapels of his worn brown jacket around his neck.

  “I talked to Doctor Hopper the next week and took the position on the same conditions that John had stated on the train. Hopper reminded me again that he didn’t want me talking about the drug to anyone but the patient. And even when I discussed it with the customer, I wasn’t supposed to mention the ingredients because he wanted to protect his recipe. It’s not made of uncommon drugs. People could go down to the corner store and make their own if they knew.” Franklin grabbed a handful of dew-soaked grass and yanked it from the ground with a tug. I tried to make sense of it all, but the only thing I understood was that my brother and John were swindlers. Everything I thought I’d known about either of them was just a façade. The charismatic, talented writer I loved seemed distant and foreign. The memory of his proposal, the careful, kind way that he loved me felt fictional, a character I’d dreamed up. My heart that had hours before been so full of affection for him shriveled in the grip of reality. He’d been wrong to say that he loved me, that we were equals, and I’d been wrong to believe it. Our souls were worlds apart. I felt the same about Franklin, the one person I’d been absolutely certain I knew inside and out. My head snapped toward him.

  “You lied to me,” I hissed. “I asked why you hadn’t been at work and you lied to me. I’ve never deceived you. I never could. How dare you!” It was all coming together: The Benz, Lydia’s extravagant necklace, Franklin’s tailored suits. I’d caught him in a lie, but he’d talked me into accepting his explanation. I’d trusted him—just as I’d trusted John, as I’d trusted Charlie. I’d been a fool.

  “I know,” he said softly. My body finally caught up to my mind, and I swung my fist into his chest, knuckles striking the pewter buttons along his coat. “I’m sorry, Gin. I’m so, so sorry.” Frank’s hand grasped the back of mine, stopping the assault, and he started to cry. I wrenched my hand from his grip.

  “Why would you?” My voice was icy, so quiet I doubted he heard me.

  “It was good money,” he said. “We needed it. And I thought the drug was helping people. I believed Hopper. I thought he was a good ma
n. I still do.” I suddenly remembered what Franklin had said when I’d first attended the Society, that I would never lose love again because of money.

  “You didn’t do it for me, did you?” As angry as I was at him, my heart ached with guilt. Frank shook his head.

  “For all of us. We’d been living on the brink for so long. It was easier than selling iron and the money came fast. There are a lot of people on the verge of insanity. This drug made them happy. It stopped them from taking their lives or going through the pain of a lobotomy. Doctor Hopper called it Optimism Solution. At first, I only saw the good side effects. John, Tom, and Lydia were on it. They were normal.”

  “What was in it?” The traces of guilt disappeared and I could feel resentment taking hold.

  “Cocaine and morphine. The cheapest drugs you can buy,” he said. “Five hundred fifty milligrams of cocaine and forty-five milligrams of morphine. Patients inject it into their arms using a hypodermic needle once a day. It seems like a simple combination, but the cocaine relieves the depression and the morphine eases the anxiety.”

  “How could that combination possibly kill Lydia? We took those drugs as children, oftentimes together. Doctor Adelman used to give us cocaine for toothaches and morphine when we couldn’t sleep.” I was trying my hardest to hold to my belief that John and Franklin couldn’t be at fault. I turned away from him, to the rows of crooked gray headstones.

  “She’d had too much. Doctor Hopper emphasized that the mixture is only supposed to be administered once each day, but some didn’t pay him—or me—any mind. The amount she injected was excessive.” He slammed his hand on the ground.

  “I saw her body,” I said. Bile rose in my throat at the memory.

  “When?” I could feel his eyes on my face, but I stared up at the last remaining leaves on the gnarled tree limbs above me.

  “Tom came by the house the morning after. I was sleeping, but I heard Bessie scream. He told us about Lydia and then said something about you and John. I just knew the two of you were involved somehow, so I went straight to the Hoppers’ to find you and she was right there on the floor.”