But if Sam Lewisohn was looking for her, Doris had sent him.
She would find one of her sisters today, at least, or she’d know the reason why.
• • • • • •
Sam Lewisohn’s house was a narrow, tidy town home on the Lower East Side, and even though the taxi ride felt like ages, it must have been less than ten minutes before Jo was charging up the stairs.
She took them so quickly that the beading on her dress jangled and knocked against her knees as she ran, and her stockings slipped an inch down her calves from the exertion.
She didn’t care—the Lewisohns could take her as they found her.
She knocked harder than was polite, five sharp raps with a shaking fist, and braced herself for whatever would happen.
Sam Lewisohn opened the door.
Her heart sank at the look on his face—surprised and wary—and she braced herself for the bad news (and to stick a foot in his door if she had to, until she knew whatever he did).
But that dark expression only lasted a moment; then he was glancing behind her at the street, and then he was opening the door for her.
“In the garden,” he said.
She was already running.
She’d thank him later. This couldn’t wait.
Doris was in the center, a book open on her lap. Next to her was Sophie, who was quietly bent over some sewing, and a little farther away at the edge of the garden, Violet was practicing the Baltimore, stepping gingerly over the stones when it was time for shines.
The relief was like a punch to the stomach, and it took Jo a moment to make sure she was still breathing.
Doris glanced up just before Jo shouted her name.
Over the surprised bleats Sophie and Violet made, Jo trampled down the stairs so quickly she missed one and staggered the last step into Doris’s arms.
Something was pinching her between two of her ribs, but by then Sophie and Violet had reached her, and she was trying to encompass all three of them at once, and for a moment it was a tangle of limbs and Violet and Sophie welcoming her back and telling Doris not to cry and Jo was holding them too hard, and Jo knew she was probably making a fool of herself.
When she had herself under control, she pulled back and held them at arm’s length, until she could rub the tears from her eyes and focus on them all properly.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
Doris laughed. “There’s the General we missed.”
She wiped her eyes with her cuffs, then frowned at them.
“I have to stop things like that,” said Doris. “Mr. Lewisohn Sr. gets in a fit when he sees you mistreating clothes, and I’m in enough hot water with him.”
Jo looked down at Doris’s left hand, which had a thin gold band on one finger.
After the first shock faded, she said, “When? Why? Where is he?”
“Well, don’t hit him or anything,” said Doris.
“That depends—now tell me.”
“He’s been the bee’s knees,” Doris admitted. “He was the first place I went after we ran—”
“Did you all get out?”
For a moment, Doris went pale and gripped Jo’s hands. “Oh my God, Jo, you really had no idea what happened to us, did you? Not for a month—oh, Jo, I’m so sorry.”
“So you all made it?”
“Yes,” Doris said. “Everyone.”
Jo’s legs turned suddenly to jelly, and she concentrated for a moment on standing up. She locked her knees.
“All right,” she said. Her mind was racing, she couldn’t focus—she wanted to know everything at once. “All right, tell me what happened to you.”
Doris grinned. “Well, I went to see him, with these two in tow, no less, and I was prepared to make a scene like you can’t imagine, but I never had to. He took us in lickety-split, and we were settled here before sundown.”
“Romantic. Is that why you just couldn’t wait another minute to get married?”
Doris blushed. “Not exactly. Father got in contact with Sam the next day, to warn him that we’d all gone off the rails and were hysterical and roaming the streets. Father said that if we ever contacted Sam, he should let Father know and he’d take care of it all.”
The hair on the back of Jo’s neck stood up.
“But Sam’s not simple,” Doris said, “and he knows a threat when he hears it. So he and I decided to get married by a justice of the peace, sooner rather than later, so that Father couldn’t make a case to drag me back.”
Jo raised an eyebrow. “Just like that?”
Doris pulled a face. “Mr. Lewisohn Sr. wasn’t thrilled,” she said. “But Sam pointed out that if I was good enough for him when he was sent to court me, then I was good enough for him now.”
Jo wondered if Doris knew she was blushing.
“A week ago we filed adoption papers with the court for Violet. It’s going to get ugly, I’m pretty sure, but Mr. Lewisohn Sr. hates Father so much for giving him the trouble of a daughter-in-law with none of the cachet that she promised, I think he’s looking forward to a little fight. When things come through, she’s going to school. Sophie’s too old to get protection for, but she’s safe with us until something else happens. We’re hoping Mr. Lewisohn Sr. can find her some work for evening gowns.”
Jo glanced at the embroidery Sophie was holding.
“Sophie’s stitches are so even that she’s almost made up for the awkward, poor, sudden daughter-in-law,” Doris said solemnly.
Jo saw that Doris’s book (it was the edge of it that had pinched her) was called A Tailor’s Companion.
She couldn’t help laughing. “Doris, of all people,” she said. “I hope he’s worth it.”
Doris’s blush spread. “It’s not perfect, but as problems go I’ll take these over the ones we had before. And he’s been a prince.”
“He has, truly,” put in Violet.
“We all like him,” Sophie said.
Jo still stumbled over who “we all” might be, but then she heard a noise on the stairs and saw that Sam Lewisohn was just appearing in the doorway. He had loitered a little, then, to give them time.
“Come down, then,” she said. “I’d like to shake hands with my brother.”
Sam grinned and came down the stairs into the garden, though as it happened, he preferred to hug his sister rather than just shake hands.
“You had us worried,” he said. “We couldn’t find hide nor hair of you.”
“We even tried the paper,” Sophie said, “in case you’d left a message.”
“Of course we’d already thought about the Kingfisher, but we didn’t know if Father knew about it,” Violet added. “So Sam offered to go.”
“The man I spoke to froze me out but good,” Sam said. “I couldn’t tell if he even knew you.”
“And that was two weeks ago,” said Doris. “We were trying jails by then, but if you were under a false name we’d never know, and of course you would have been.”
Jo smiled. “I was last time.”
“You see, I knew it,” said Doris.
Jo watched some silent conversation between Doris and Sam, and a moment later Sam was going down the stairs into the kitchen—calling for breakfast, then.
(She’d have to learn not to worry about those things; just because Jo was in the habit of pulling people aside for news for the last month didn’t mean every private moment was a dangerous one.)
“All of us were stumped after that,” Violet said. “We worried Father had gotten his hands on you.”
“Some of us did,” said Doris. “I always figured that if he had you, you’d have cut the phone line so he couldn’t call around scaring people.”
“Some of who did?” Jo said. “Who else have you seen? Is everyone all right?”
“Rebecca and Araminta are still in the city,” Sophie said. “Araminta already has work at Bloomingdale’s. She’s a seamstress there, does alterations in Ladies’ Gowns.” There was a note of wistful envy in the words.
“
And Rebecca’s gone to school for stenography,” Doris said. “She had so much money stashed away that she could afford school three times over, but she’ll end up somewhere that does her good.”
Jo frowned. “So why aren’t they here with you?”
Doris cocked her head. “Why would they be? They found a place on a quiet street not too far north, and they have some money to live on.”
“But—” Jo faltered. “But wouldn’t you want—?”
“They like it,” Violet said. “Sam even offered, but they didn’t want to.”
“Because they didn’t want to impose on Sam,” Jo said, “but I’m sure if I found us a place to be all together again we could—”
“Jo,” Doris said. Her eyes were dark and serious. “They’re happy where they are.”
For a moment, Jo’s mind failed her, and she could only think in terms of things missing, as though she’d left something behind—something she couldn’t name—and it was already too late to ever find it again.
(They hadn’t failed, even though she’d failed them. It hadn’t come to her worst fears. She should be happier than this.)
When she looked around, she and Doris were alone in the garden, and Doris had led her to the garden bench and was looking at her a little strangely.
“Jo, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, all on your own. I can’t even think—I had Sophie and Violet with me and I knew the others had gotten away all right, but I still didn’t sleep for a week, not until I’d heard from Ella.”
Ella. “Where is she? How did you find her?”
“She found me, actually,” Doris said. “She guessed where I would go, and that Sam would be brave enough when it counted. She called him up—she was prepared to shout him out of town, I think, if he had let us go—but the next thing I knew he was handing me the phone.”
That made Ella a sharper judge of character than Jo had been.
“And Sophie found Araminta,” Doris said. “They both answered an advertisement for a position in alterations at Bloomingdale’s—they found each other in line on hiring day. You could have knocked me over with a feather. When Sophie came home with Araminta and Rebecca in hand I thought I would faint, I really did. I ruined two cuffs, I was crying so hard.”
It felt like Doris was laying stones on Jo’s chest.
“When—when did that happen?”
Doris said, “Just over two weeks ago. That was the night I asked Sam to go to the Kingfisher and ask about you, because I thought if we had one miracle in a day we might as well have two.”
“I wish you’d gone over yourself,” Jo said. “Jake thought it was a trap—I had warned him that nothing was to be trusted—and it’s why he waited to tell me.”
Doris sighed. “Well, that’s what happens when you let twelve suspicious girls loose on the streets, I suppose. Can’t be helped.”
Her skin prickled—she needed to see them all again, as many as possible and as soon as possible (sheep-counting was a habit that was hard to break).
“Boy,” Doris said, “do I wish Ella and the twins had gone a little later.”
Ella was with Hattie and Mattie, then. All three of them had gotten out all right. Jo made fists, released them.
“Where did they go?”
Doris wrinkled her nose and braced herself a little, as if she was still fourteen and waiting to be told whether or not they could go out dancing.
“Hollywood.”
Jo laughed.
It was a little loud and a little too long, but the morning’s emotions had been piled on too fast and too heavy for her to believe everything now; she’d have to laugh now, think later.
Doris barged on. “They went to the Swan the first night—to pick up men, I guess, from what the twins told me, though Ella won’t say anything now about what she’d really planned. I suppose picking up men is as good a way to make money as anything else, in a pinch. A producer saw Hattie and Mattie dancing. When he saw them going back to sit with Ella . . .”
Here Doris only shrugged. It was no question what would happen if a Hollywood man laid eyes on Ella.
“They did a screen test,” Sophie said from the window.
Violet said, peevish, “We didn’t get to go.”
Jo smiled at her, wondered if she would ever be able to look at her and not see a girl in a nursery.
“And they’re already on a train?” she asked Doris.
“They left on Thursday,” Doris said. “They wanted to wait to see if you would find us again, but the scout said this was going to be their only fare-paid invitation, and I told them to take it.”
Jo raised her eyebrows.
“Don’t look at me that way, Jo, please. You know that she and the twins are going to be the toast of the town, and they’ll get better work there than here. They had two appearances lined up before they even got on the train. Ella’s going to send me a postcard when they’re settled, to let me know their new names—they have to talk to the studio about it first, apparently. No one wants them using the old name.”
The old name. Ella and the twins would leave it behind; Doris already had; Violet might soon. No one had called Jo by her last name since she’d left the steps of her father’s house.
The Hamilton legacy was doomed in earnest.
Jo thought that served her father right.
“And what about Rose and Lily?”
Doris shook her head. “No word. They left together. We’re hoping they’re all right.”
Poor twins, Jo thought with a twisting stomach.
She recalled every time she’d ever overlooked them, all at once; she felt what she should have felt, then, and a rush of awful imaginings of what could have happened—images of them trapped in some factory, in some train car, in some alley frozen dead. They were still missing, and they’d had no one to look out for them, no one who even knew them well enough to guess where to start searching.
Jo was beginning to realize how little she’d known about them, when it mattered.
She was beginning to realize how little they needed her now.
(Why did she feel so tangled?)
“Jo,” Doris said. “You look pale—what’s wrong?”
She shook her head. It was too embarrassing to say aloud. She had to pull herself together.
“And where have you been?” Doris shook Jo’s sleeve once to punctuate. “At least we knew the twins had gotten out—when we ran you were still shouting at Father like to raise the dead.”
Jo could only imagine what it had sounded like from the outside. “He threatened me with the mental hospital,” she said.
Doris went pale. “What?”
“For all of us,” Jo said, “if we insisted on defying him.”
Off Doris’s horrified frown, she explained, “Father found out that we went dancing at night. He wanted us put away for it.”
“Oh my God.” Doris pulled her hands back and pressed one open palm to her chest. “Jo, tell me that’s not where you’ve been. Please, no.”
Jo shook her head. “I got stalled by van de Maar, but he faltered and I made it out of there before anyone could reach me.”
“So where have you been? What are you doing now? Have you seen anyone?”
“Here,” Jo said. “I’ve been here the whole time, and I’ve seen everyone in the world but the people I wanted to see. I host the Marquee.”
There was a beat of silence. Then it was Doris’s turn to laugh until she cried.
“We’ve all been dying for a dance,” she said, “but we were too afraid to go out anywhere until we knew what had happened. We didn’t know what to do, and Ella went to that new place and never went back because it wasn’t the same. You’re awful for keeping it a secret, Jo—don’t think I’ll ever forgive you because I won’t.”
Doris stood up, said, “Wait until I tell them all we get to go dancing tonight!”
Then she ran into the house, her little gold ring catching the light.
Still, Jo couldn’t shake,
just for a moment, the image of Doris at eight years old, learning new steps, grinning like her face would split the first time she got them right all the way through.
And now Jo sat in Doris’s husband’s garden, where most of her sisters had already been and gone, and wondered if any of them would ever need her again the way she must have needed them.
(Lou. Lou had loved her in earnest; but that didn’t bear thinking about.)
• • • • • •
After Jo had told Jake about Lou and Tom, there was a long and measured silence.
“Married,” he said finally.
“A month ago. They were on the road to Chicago, last I knew.”
Jake frowned, shook his head like he was clearing water out of his ears. “Are they in love?”
“I don’t know,” Jo had said, around a lump in her throat. “She needed to get out, and he was willing to take her. I wouldn’t know what happened after that.”
Maybe nothing had happened between them. Maybe they were sniping back and forth to cover an awkward silence every time they crossed paths.
Maybe they were in love by now. (She tried not to imagine what that would look like—a dance floor, maybe, a tawny head and a bright one, two wide smiles.)
Jo knew that even Lou, sooner or later, would have to love somebody, and Tom could make himself easy to love.
“I never took Tom for the scoundrel type,” he said.
“He isn’t,” said Jo, because at least that much she was sure of. “He did it as a favor.”
She stopped herself there, and she had said it so plainly that it might have sounded like nothing but the facts, but still Jake looked up at her for a long time, as he ran his finger around the rim of his empty glass.
After a while he said, “You have a real knack for getting people to do you favors.”
“Only with the ones who care about us,” she said.
She didn’t want to pin Jake down on his longing for Lou just now—it was cruel to make too fine a point—but she would if she had to.
He must have seen she was willing to do it; he didn’t answer.
“I don’t know how to reach them,” he said instead.
She dropped her head into the frame of her hands for a moment, fingertips framing her temples and chin.
But he was thinking things over.
The Girls at the Kingfisher Club: A Novel Page 22