by Karin Tanabe
Anita felt an inward frisson of dissent.
“I don’t believe you,” said Lottie, her pink mouth turning up, “but I think we’ll get along just fine.” She took Joseph’s arm and guided the group toward the chapel for the afternoon’s first event, the annual lecture.
“You should believe me. It’s true,” said Joseph, positioning his tall, thin frame in the window light. “Just look at my face.”
Anita watched as Lottie examined the wings of his white collar standing up against his elegant neck, his high cheekbones, and small nose. Her roommate suddenly seemed to be finding Old Southpaw much more interesting.
“How are the top brass at the college? Expect a lot out of you?” Joseph asked the girls when they were all sitting in their senior seats in the chapel waiting for Mr. John Kendrick Bangs to begin his oration.
“Only the very highest success or a magnificent failure will satisfy them—mediocrity is the one unpardonable sin,” Lottie replied.
“Aren’t you a clever girl?” said Joseph, beaming at his prize.
“Clever, nothing,” said Belle, leaning over to Anita. “That’s a line from the Three Girls at Vassar books. At least she can memorize.”
The two exchanged a smile and listened to the buzz in the audience. It felt almost cruel to force a room of young people bursting with repressed sexual energy to calm themselves for an hour-long lecture. But since they had all been raised to act with decorum when required, they maintained their composure not just for the lecture, but through a concert of Hungarian music, dinner, and two Glee Club performances—which Anita and Belle slipped in to join—until the dining room and college parlors finally opened for the evening at eight o’clock.
As usual, boxes for the girls and their guests had been set up in the two parlors to make promenading and socializing easier, and refreshments were served in the faculty room. The dancing took place in the enormous dining room, and though the faculty tried to prevent it, promenading took place down the halls. Fifteen dances were planned that year, though the student government had lobbied desperately for twenty.
When Anita’s group of eight entered the dining room, they stopped short.
“We are in the Orient!” said Lottie, delightedly. The whole room was decorated with silks and paintings done in the Asian style.
“Are you behind all this, Lottie?” asked Caroline, motioning to a drape of muted gold and blue printed with cranes. She picked up one of the paper parasols in the entry and twirled it.
“I’m not,” said Lottie. “But I am not the only one captivated by the Orient. It’s quite in vogue now. Haven’t you read about the Japonisme movements in Paris and London, Caroline? It took a great while, but it finally trickled over here.”
“You were the one to bring it over, of course,” said Joseph, already comfortable teasing Lottie.
“Me?” said Lottie, flattered. “You might say that I did. At least on campus,” she continued, plucking the parasol from Caroline’s hand. “Come, we might need this later to fend off all our suitors. I am sure our box will be overflowing.”
“Someone stop Lottie before she bounds in,” said Anita, as her friend appeared ready to sprint into the dining room. “They are announcing our guests this year.”
This was a new custom for the class of 1897’s last Phil Day, and Anita had been anticipating it since the plan was announced. She had been playing with the way her name would sound with Porter’s for the last few weeks, mumbling it under her breath as she walked to class: Anita Hemmings and her escort, Porter Hamilton.
“Look,” said Caroline as they approached the door. “They are using colored ushers to announce the guests. Such a nice addition. For our first three years we had to do without them and walk in without so much as a nod,” she explained to her escort. “It was such confusion.”
“They do add a touch, don’t they?” said Belle. “And all so alike in their tailcoats. Like African statues.”
“I’m glad they’re announcing guests,” Porter said to Anita. “I’ve often said our names aloud together, myself.”
As the girls straightened their dresses and fretted over each other’s hair, Anita thought of Belle’s words. “All so alike.” She looked at the colored men, standing tall and proud, yet so deferential in their white waistcoats and black tails, and thought about how rare it was to see a black face on campus. She couldn’t help but think of the Negro rag song “All Coons Look Alike to Me.” Though she listened mostly to classical music, the song was one of the biggest hits of the year and unavoidable at many of the girls’ card parties, where it played on phonographs from cylinders sent from home. Anita’s spine stiffened at the thought of the song playing tonight, and she clutched Porter’s arm tightly. She looked away from the men and up at her date.
Lottie and Joseph were to be announced first, and Lottie handed her card to one of the ushers.
“Louise Taylor and Old Southpaw,” his voice boomed, and Joseph bent over with laughter. “Thank you for that, Lottie,” he said as they made their way into the room.
“Anita Hemmings and Porter Hamilton,” the usher’s voice called out and the pair walked in arm in arm.
“I couldn’t be happier,” Porter whispered, and Anita relaxed her tight grip.
After the first and second promenades, Caroline motioned to her friends and said, “Come! Let’s go try the ices. Gratia said they have tutti frutti ice cream and cake.” They left for the parlor, all still with their escorts, though they had changed partners and had different names on their cards for the third dance.
“You’re in love, Anita, and it’s such a splendid thing,” said Belle, walking with her friend, ice cream in hand. “And from my observations, it’s requited.”
When the first square dance started, Porter led Anita to the center of the room. The girls had begged for years for round dancing, but the faculty had stayed firm, sure that dancing closer than several feet apart was improper.
“You look ravishing,” said Porter, as they took their positions. “Have I already said that?”
“You have,” said Anita. “But it’s not something one minds hearing more than once.”
He smiled. “Good. You, Anita Hemmings, will be hearing it for a lifetime.”
A lifetime, Anita thought as she moved in time with the other girls. That’s what she wanted. A lifetime with Porter Hamilton.
Anita added several other names to her dance card but made sure to give ten out of the fifteen dances to Porter. Even though such coupling up was frowned upon by the faculty, no one protested. Their affection was apparent, and the professors monitoring the dance knew Porter’s family name as well as the Vassar girls did.
With everyone out of breath from the fast promenade down the hallway, where bodies were much closer together than when the faculty was watching, the group of eight retired to their box, separated from its neighbors by velvet curtains.
“What time is it, Arthur?” asked Belle, still radiating excited feminine energy. “They’ll chime the bell at midnight, and I’m hoping we still have hours yet.”
“I’m afraid it’s already eleven,” said Arthur, a good-natured young man with three brothers and a reputation for awkwardness around women—though this group seemed to put him at ease.
“I wish we were in New York,” said Lottie. “Then we could stay out all night.”
“Grand idea,” said Caroline. “In the newspaper the next day it would say: ‘Miss Louise Taylor out all night long in the company of strange men.’ ”
“I think you mean, dashing,” said Porter. “Dashing, robust young men.”
Lottie shrugged. “It’s only bad if they don’t talk about you, isn’t that right, Joseph?”
“Of course,” he replied, handing her his handkerchief. “Back in Boston I am constantly fawned over in the society columns of the Globe. You’re from Boston, aren’t you, Anita? Surely you’ve read about me? Old Southpaw dining with Mayor Quincy yet again.”
“Of course!” Anita respon
ded cheerfully, hoping Lottie would take back the reins of the conversation.
“Is your family in Back Bay or on old Beacon Hill, Anita?” asked Joseph.
Anita’s family lived in Roxbury, the Negro area of town. Everyone around them was Negro, and the whites from Boston knew what Roxbury meant. Back Bay and Beacon Hill were dotted with imposing brownstones and ornate mansions, all redolent of money. Roxbury was not.
“I live in Back Bay,” said Anita, choosing the slightly less fashionable of the two.
“We’re most likely neighbors,” said Joseph, smiling. “For years my father’s family was on Beacon Hill, but when they filled in the bay, my grandfather was one of the first to have a house built. Now my family is at 148 Beacon Street, right next to the Gardners.” He paused as Lottie said something to Belle about Isabella and Jack Gardner’s ever-growing art collection. Joseph turned to Anita and pressed, “So, Miss Hemmings, are you my neighbor?”
“Not quite,” said Anita, confidently, having memorized the Boston streets and feeling thankful that she knew of the grand limestone house where Isabella and Jack Gardner lived. “I’m on the West Side of town. On Marlborough Street.”
“That’s still not too far. Perhaps I can call on you over Christmas. Lottie said you have a very charming brother whom she is in love with but that I’m rapidly changing her mind about. See, your brother is not the child of a deceased geisha, so as wonderful as I’m sure he is, he is not me.”
“I didn’t say that, Anita! I never said such a thing,” said Lottie, while the rest laughed.
“I do have a brother,” Anita said, regretting Frederick’s visit to Poughkeepsie more and more every hour.
“Oh, good. What is his name? I’ll be sure to call on you over the holidays.”
“His name is Frederick Hemmings,” she said. “Though he is up at Cornell and I’m not sure if he’ll be returning for Christmas.
“That name sounds familiar,” said Joseph. “We must have met before.”
“Wonderful,” said Anita. But she was starting to panic, and Porter noticed her face change. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m feeling a slight chill. I’m just going up to my room to find a shawl. I’ll return in a moment.”
She stepped out of the box and didn’t turn around to see Porter’s face again, letting the crowd of mingling students envelop her. She took the elevator to the senior floor, hurried to her room, and sat on the bed. For five minutes she just sat, watching the snow fall outside, thinking of how foolish she had been. Why did she think she could braid her two worlds together again and again? What had she and Frederick done, letting him visit Poughkeepsie?
She had felt so shielded from stares and comments for the past three years, but this year was different. She was at the heart of Vassar, part of the newly coined “Gatehouse group”; she was Lottie Taylor’s roommate and sudden best friend. And now all the wires were crossing. She stood up quickly and took a thick shawl from her dressing table so she wouldn’t forget it and return really looking the fool. She picked up her mirror, quickly rearranging her hair, and prepared to go downstairs and not utter another word except to Porter. With the mirror still in her hand, she suddenly heard the parlor door open. She ran out of her bedroom and gasped as she saw Porter, closing the wooden door behind him.
“Porter! No!” Anita cried. There were to be absolutely no men anywhere but in the designated parlors and the dining room, and if one were to be found in the bedrooms, it would mean not only expulsion for the Vassar student, but an enormous scandal.
“You must leave at once,” she said, rushing toward him. “It’s grounds for expulsion. You have to go immediately. Please!”
“It’s all right, Anita. No one saw me come up. Lottie helped me.”
“No, Porter,” she said, standing panicked in front of him. “Please, I beg you. I can’t risk this infraction.”
“I couldn’t sit downstairs alone anymore,” he said, placing his hand on her arm. “I was concerned about you. You seemed suddenly unwell.”
“Porter!” Anita said, pulling her arm away. “Leave at once, I insist. I cannot have you here in our parlor. You’re putting me in a terrible position.”
“I will leave,” he said, taking her arm again, “but please tell me what upset you downstairs. Was it me? Am I not acting correctly here with you? Should I not speak so plainly about my feelings for you? Or was it the dancing with Lottie? Was that the concern? Anita, I never want to upset you. As long as I live, I never want to upset you. I want to spend my life watching your face light up with joy.”
Anita let him take her other arm and stood paralyzed with both fear and delight.
“I know we’ve only been acquainted with each other a short while, but I already know that I can make you happy,” he said, his face flushed with desire. “I can give you a life full of love. And I had no doubts over your feelings for me until a few minutes past. Your wounded expression suddenly gave me doubt. So tell me what is worrying you, what I did wrong, Anita, and I will leave at once. No one will see me. If I have to leave by way of the window and the roof, I will.”
“We have been on the roof,” said Anita, overwhelmed. He wanted to make her happy. To live a life full of love. “Lottie and I. We opened one of the fifth-floor windows, and the two of us ran across the roof looking down on the school. It was wonderful. But unless you can fly,” she said finally, looking at him, “you will be stranded there.”
“Good,” he said holding her close to him. “I want to be stranded there. Then I will come to the senior floor at night and watch you sleep.”
“And then we will both be expelled and bring great shame on all who know us.”
“Together?” he asked. “Then I’m prepared for the worst. As long as it’s the two of us. I want our lives to move in a parallel line, Anita. I want you to be next to me. I want . . .”
He moved her closer to the open door of her bedroom and she didn’t protest when he took her in and sat her down on the bed, his knees touching hers.
“I want us to become engaged. We can wait for marriage, after we both have graduated, but I want to have the certainty that you will be my wife. Will you say that you will? Can you grant me that joy? I want to leave tonight knowing that we can start our life together after school. That you’ll come to Chicago. I know you want to study in Greece for several months first, but I will come visit you in Athens, and when I’m not there, I will write you the most romantic letters, they will put all the Greek prose you’re reading to shame. Then we will come home. You and I. Say yes, Anita, please.”
Without letting her answer, Porter took Anita into his arms and kissed her, pressing his chest to hers. He stopped, looked at her face, watched her nod yes, and embraced her again, all talk of expulsion forgotten.
In the next room, the parlor door opened.
Lottie walked through quietly and stood at Anita’s bedroom door with a coy smile on her face. She waited a moment before disturbing them.
“My, my, what am I interrupting here?” she said, rapping her knuckles on the door frame.
Anita and Porter jumped apart.
“Lottie, thank goodness it’s only you,” said Porter as he reached for Anita’s hands again. Instead, Anita pulled her body away in shame.
“The only thing you’re interrupting is our exciting announcement,” said Porter, standing up. “We’ve been discussing our engagement, and that seems to have warmed Miss Hemmings. She is not in need of her shawl, after all. Isn’t that right, Anita?” he said, turning to her.
Anita looked up at Lottie, her joy having flipped back to fear.
“I’m so pleased for you both,” said Lottie, rushing over to embrace Anita. “Such news for celebration!” She reached for Porter’s hand, too. “But it looks as if you were engaged in that already, celebrating as two, and little old me interrupted so rudely. My apologies.” She gave them both another congratulatory embrace and promised that their secret was locked away with her for good.
“No
one else will know about the engagement, or the passionate way you chose to mark the event, either,” she declared. “But you better get on, Porter. Joseph is asking for you, and if you are caught in our rooms, we will all be on a train home.” Porter turned to leave, but Lottie exited first to make sure the halls were empty, followed by Porter and, minutes later, Anita.
“Anita,” Lottie whispered when they were together again, walking back to their box in the dining hall.
Anita looked up at her, unable to hide her emotions.
“You’re engaged to Porter Hamilton. Engaged! Your life is splendid and perfect and full of love.”
Yes, Anita, nodded, looking across the room to Porter. It was.
CHAPTER 12
Boston was wrapped up in Christmas. Anita had been on the train from Albany for six hours, and the cold air felt restorative, stinging her face and hands, when she disembarked in Massachusetts. She was back home for the winter holiday, and for the first time since she’d been a student at Vassar, she was nervous about seeing her family. She was engaged to a kind, intelligent man, and she could not tell them. All she wished to do was go to her mother, put her arms around her, and say: I’ve done it. I’m going to be a Vassar graduate, and I’m going to marry a wonderful man whom I love and who loves me in return. But she could never tell her mother about Porter, and she could never tell Porter about her mother. She had been very careful in her daily letters not to mention her family. She sometimes spoke of her brother Frederick, so that it didn’t seem as though she’d sprung from a cabbage patch, but that was as far as it went. She knew that to marry Porter meant she would have to hide her family, cut ties with them, perhaps even with Frederick, and live as white forever. And in saying yes to Porter, a sliver of her heart had felt prepared for that.
Anita waited in the Boston train station for thirty minutes, sitting on a well-worn wooden bench reading her Greek for the next semester. It was a routine she always followed upon arriving in Boston from Poughkeepsie, to make sure there were no Vassar girls who could connect her to the school left at the station. After the half hour had passed, instead of taking a hansom, she walked alone with her small case to the streetcar stop to wait for the car to Roxbury.