by Joy Callaway
“What did the agent say?” Lily asked. She seemed genuinely concerned, but I could tell that she was likely thinking what we all did—that continuing to run an illegal rye business was asking for trouble.
“That’s the peculiar thing,” Katherine said. “He asked where it was headed, and when Big Jim said Whitsitt, the agent asked him where. Big Jim’s smart enough to know you don’t answer questions like that, so he said he didn’t know. Then, the man got real close to him, almost like he was telling him a secret and demanded that he empty his pockets. The order slip was in his pocket, but Jim didn’t mind handing it over—it’s written as a mask letter just in case, same strategy the spies used in the war. In order to find the delivery details you’d have to know that the correct letter sequence is arranged in an S on the page—for Sanderson Rye.” Katherine stopped and paced toward me.
“Apparently, the agent knew about the mask because he traced his finger along the letter and read it,” she went on.
“How would he know to do that? How would he know which distillery Jim was from?” Mary asked.
Katherine shrugged.
“He said the agents know which distillers come through the area, though that’s news to me. None of our letters have ever been deciphered like that before.” Her gaze locked on mine, as though this conversation had some sort of significance to me alone.
“He told Big Jim that he knew everything about our operation anyway, letter or no. He said that even though bringing down our still would earn him a promotion, he wasn’t interested in interfering because the letter had given him all he’d need to take back what he’d lost. I don’t believe it, but . . .” Her fingers drifted across her cameo and she let out a breath that dissipated in a vaporous cloud. “Beth, I know you’re keeping your distance, but somehow you have to . . . you have to tell him to be careful. He could be arrested . . . at any time if they find it. The agent seemed particularly interested in Grant Richardson’s name written on the order slip.”
19
I’d arrived early to class for once, and sat staring at the leather-bound notebook in front of me and at the pencil I’d sharpened to precision next to it, wondering if I should move to the back of the classroom. I was just two rows back from Professor Cassidy’s desk—a prime location for being called on—and knew that there was absolutely no way I’d be able to pay attention today.
I hadn’t slept the night before, with Katherine’s words of warning echoing in my brain. I knew I had to talk to Grant, but hadn’t any idea how to convey the message. What would I say without telling him of the Sanderson family business? I’d started toward the Iota house at sunup, thinking I’d get it over with, but something had stopped me—namely, the thought that if I appeared to tell him to be careful without specificity, he’d think I was making excuses to see him, and I didn’t want to lead him to believe that there was hope for us since there wasn’t any.
I reached into my pocket. The new brown silk was stiff against my fingertips as my hand curled around his weathered note. I’d shoved it in my pocket after Lily had given it to me yesterday and had forgotten to remove it.
“Good morning, Beth,” Will said, slinging himself into the seat next to mine. I was surprised to see him. Since our conversation in the barn the night of the ball, he’d been sneaking into class late, finding a spot on the other side of the room, but perhaps our talk yesterday had settled us back into normalcy.
He straightened his sage green jacket, settled his bowler over the crook of his knee, and sat back. I noticed that he’d shaved, and looked presentable for the second day in a row. He smiled. He was staring at the front of the classroom, at Professor Cassidy, but I knew that he could feel my gaze.
“What’s gotten into you?” I whispered. He’d not only shaved and had his jacket pressed, but was early to class. For the first time in nearly ten hours, I felt myself settle, and knew it had everything to do with Will’s presence, that it meant our relationship was being reset.
The bell tolled and at once, students filed in around us. Chairs screeched, followed by the muted thud of bags dropping to the wood floor.
“Whatever do you mean?” He scrubbed his hand across his cheek. “I’m still not used to it.”
“Did you do this for me?” I asked. “The ironing, the shaving?”
His grin widened.
“Of course not. I’m so enamored by my big brother Richardson that I’ve decided to emulate him.”
Will was handsome whether or not he was tidy, but when I thought of him it was there—the contrast of beauty and ruggedness, the abrasion of his face against mine. Grant had always been striking—the polish to Will’s wild—but I didn’t want a blanched copy of Grant.
“Good morning. Take your seats,” Professor Cassidy said as he rose from behind his mahogany desk, gesturing to the students at the back of the room.
Unable to resist the spectacle of an elegant Will, I stole a glance at him in my periphery. Sunlight streamed in from a tall window beside us, lighting his face.
“Grow it back,” I whispered.
“Today’s lesson is on nervous disorders, but if you’re following along in the syllabus, it’s actually a lesson I intended for next week,” Cassidy said before turning to the blackboard. “I was fortunate enough to visit a friend of mine over the weekend—a psychologist at Green Oaks insane asylum—and it inspired me.”
I yawned, hoping the lecture would at least be interesting. The man had such a marked monotone that I had to work to stay awake after a night of restful sleep, let alone on a night where I’d had none.
“Are you sure?” Will said quietly. “I was trying to look nice for you, I—”
“You always do,” I whispered, cutting him off. “I just prefer you the way you are.” I lifted my hand to my mouth in time to cover another yawn, and Will snorted.
“You mean that you prefer me to appear as though I’ve been living out of doors, without access to razors or washroom services?”
I nodded, but didn’t turn to him for fear that Professor Cassidy would call on me.
“Very well,” Will said, “Though I’ll warn you that my cheeks can feel rather barbed and I don’t plan to stay away.” Will’s promise to kiss me made me blush, and I turned away before he could notice.
“Most of the patients at Green Oaks asylum are women, and the majority of them are suffering from hysteria,” Professor Cassidy continued, and I glanced up to find him looking at me. “As most of you know, it’s commonly believed that a quarter of all American women will suffer from some variation of the disorder, so you’ll likely see it in many of your patients.”
The professor began to walk up the aisle. My stomach began to swim—an effect of the panic that came with being singled out. I knew he was coming to make an example of me. He began to turn down our row, but Will leaned in front of him.
“Excuse me,” Professor Cassidy said, but Will didn’t budge.
“If you’re planning to make Miss Carrington a specimen of some theory, don’t. She’s neither hysterical nor insane,” he said in a low voice.
“This is my classroom, Mr. Buchannan,” Professor Cassidy said. “Kindly get out of my way.” Will didn’t move, forcing the professor to remain where he was. I could feel the blood drain from my face. “Class, as you’ve likely read in your text, hysteria has many symptoms. One physician in the Sixties chronicled seventy-five pages of them, but the most common indicators are dizziness, irritability, muscle spasms, loss of sexual appetite, and insomnia. Most of the time, hysteria is treated by rest, hypnosis, or pelvic massage, but in some cases, a physician should recommend an asylum accompanied by surgical hysterectomy. When the afflicted organs are removed, the woman’s emotional well-being will be corrected.”
I couldn’t breathe. Of course, I knew of hysteria—many of my mother’s peers had been diagnosed with it at some point or another—but I’d had no idea that physicians had been directed to send women to asylums. Everyone I’d known with it had recovered normally
.
“I observed many cases this weekend, several of whom were recovering from hysterectomy, and I can speak for its remarkable results,” he said. “As a physician, you must be aware of the early signs. I’ve seen one of them in Miss Carrington here, just this morning. She was yawning rather frequently, and—”
“I sleep soundly almost every night,” I said, stunned that I’d found my voice. “And the insinuation that I’m succumbing to hysteria is nearly as ridiculous as the college’s hiring a man who hasn’t any field experience in psychology save a weekend foray to an asylum.”
A collective hush fell over the class. Fire rose to my cheeks, but I didn’t apologize. He was a lifelong professor who knew nothing except what the psychology journals told him.
Professor Cassidy laughed.
“You’re demonstrating my point more clearly than I could, my dear. A tendency to cause trouble is the most marked indicator that a woman’s organs have succumbed to—”
“Come with me,” Will said, and pulled me up, spilling the notebook and pencil from my lap. He pushed past Professor Cassidy and I followed him up the aisle.
“Don’t be surprised to hear from President Wilson. The both of you,” the professor called out.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Will said. He flung the door open and pulled me through it into the sanctuary of the empty hallway. The door slammed into place behind us, and we stood together, staring at the stones jutting out from the wall in front of us.
“I’m sorry,” he said, facing me and reaching for my hand. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Now we have President Wilson to deal with. I know that you’re going to say that you had it handled, and you did, but I couldn’t take it, Beth, I—”
I leaned into him, cutting his sentence short.
“Thank you for standing up for me.”
I looked around, and finding no one in the hall, let my lips whisper over his cheek. I felt his body tense, and then his arm wrapped around my back. He sighed, and I smelled a hint of ginger. He’d been nervous to see me. I opened my eyes, finding his pinched shut, as though it pained him to be close to me. Something in my heart seemed to snap. I was hurting him. He wanted me, all of me, and I hadn’t been able to give myself completely. I pulled away and stared down at the tips of my brown leather boots.
“Your mother would be so proud of you,” he said suddenly. “For everything you’re fighting for, for the woman you’ve become.”
My eyes blurred. I blinked to stop the tears and her smile flashed in my mind—her mouth, wide like mine, indenting the swipe of a dimple in her left cheek. She’d always loved Will. Oftentimes, I’d come home to find him talking with her. He’d stay for hours, making her laugh—a bright spot in her days that were often dull.
“I love you,” I said.
“You know that I love you too.” He lifted a finger to my face, catching a tear that I hadn’t realized had escaped. The simple touch stirred my soul, and in that moment, I knew, without a doubt, that I belonged with him.
“Walk me to the house?” he whispered.
As he said it, I remembered my promise to Katherine. I still had to talk to Grant. It was the last thing I wanted to do.
“I’ve got to speak with Grant today.” The words came out quickly, and before I realized I’d said them, Will let me go and stepped back.
“Oh,” he said, his eyes dark.
“You misunderstood. I meant that I have to speak with Grant.” Will’s eyebrows rose, clearly not understanding the difference. “I promised someone that I’d get a message to him.”
Will laughed.
“There’s no need to explain yourself,” he said, starting to head down the hallway.
I followed, trying to make my case.
“I wanted you to know, so that if you saw me with him, you wouldn’t think . . . you wouldn’t think that I’m considering him.”
“Why? You’re not sworn to me, Beth.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I just told you that I loved you and—”
“If you’re planning to speak with him today, you’ll want to go to the house straightaway. He had some harebrained notion that we’re going to initiate the pledges early—tonight, in fact—and it takes considerable effort to prepare,” Will said, ignoring the rest of what I’d said.
James had mentioned that it would be a month until they’d be sworn into the brotherhood. It had only been a few weeks.
“Isn’t it early for initiation?” I asked.
“It’s not uncommon,” Will said. “They’re never told the real date. It’s supposed to come as a surprise, but Richardson usually gives us more time to arrange everything.”
He opened the door for me, and before we stepped out to the quad, I lunged in front of him, blocking his way. Will glanced down at me before lifting his eyes to the stained glass pane above my head. “What’re you doing?”
I grabbed his hand and pried his fingers open. “When I said I loved you, I meant only you.”
“There’s no way you can be sure. It’s only been a few weeks yet,” he said softly. His fingers closed around mine. I took a deep breath, inhaling his sandalwood scent. I remembered the note in my pocket and knew at once why I hadn’t felt compelled to respond to it: I didn’t love Grant, not a bit. My heart was whole again, and it belonged to the man standing in front of me, the man who’d held my hand all along.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure,” I said.
“I’m sorry for the way I reacted when you told me you needed to speak with Richardson,” he relented. “I’ll wait the rest of my life, so long as I know that when you say you’re mine, my name is the only one written on your heart.”
“There’s no one else,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I’m yours.”
20
“If I’d known volunteering to spy on initiation would be an all-night commitment, I would have suggested shifts,” I whispered to Mary, who’d been taking brief naps propped up on the edge of a limestone block. We’d been hiding for six hours on the side of the freshman men’s dormitory, Wilson Hall, waiting for the Iota Gammas to come for James. It was now three o’clock in the morning and we had yet to see a soul pass through the arch separating campus from the dormitory down the hill. I was starting to think Will had been mistaken, though when I’d followed him back to the Iota house, all of the members had been scurrying around as though they were preparing for something—everyone except Grant, who’d been absent.
“Perhaps Grant’s in trouble and they had to postpone. I couldn’t find him today, you know.” I’d asked around, but none of the brothers had had any idea of his whereabouts. I’d been content to postpone my warning him until the morning, but now I worried I hadn’t been diligent enough, that I was too late. “Or do you think we could have missed them? I suppose they could have gone in the back door.” I lifted to my tiptoes, trying to relieve the bridges of my feet that had begun throbbing. “Mary!” I poked her in the shoulder.
“I heard you,” she muttered. “I didn’t feel the need to answer, because nothing’s amiss with Grant Richardson. If there was, we would have heard about it on campus. And, you know good and well that they have to come through the arch regardless. There’s no way we’d fail to notice them.”
“Unless they went down to Main Street and came up the back of Hideaway Hill,” I said, choosing to accept Mary’s logic about Grant. The Iota house was located on the southeast side of campus, separated from Wilson Hall by a patch of woods and a little river that ended in a pond at the base of the Five and Dime in downtown Whitsitt.
Mary shook her head, the hazy moon casting a golden sheen on her hair, which was gathered in a low bun beneath her black cap.
“Too much effort. Those men will take the path most traveled,” she said, and glanced up at the three rows of windows above us, craning her neck back to find the one at the top. “James obviously isn’t concerned that they haven’t come for him yet.”
James’s room had been dark since he’d left us st
anding behind the hedge of boxwoods at five minutes to nine. He’d asked repeatedly if we’d rather he just tell us about it later, rather than hide behind shrubbery for hours on end to see for ourselves. But I knew that even with the best of intentions, he’d leave something out, and we wanted every detail. Plus, I was uneasy about Grant’s absence given Katherine’s apprehension about the rye delivery. There was no other option but to wait.
“Perhaps Grant changed his mind,” I said through a yawn, hoping that that was the reason for the Iota Gammas’ absence and not that Grant had been apprehended by the authorities. I yanked a pin from my hair. Sighing with relief, I scratched at the spot and then withdrew another. It was like playing dominoes—once one fell to the temptation of comfort, they all did.
“I surely hope not,” Mary said, and scooted closer to the stone and closed her eyes, shifting her head along the limestone as though she could actually get comfortable. “You’re on a short leash with Miss Zephaniah. It’s a miracle that she permitted us an overnight pass at all, let alone at the last minute. I doubt she’d do it again.”
It was one thing for Miss Zephaniah to grant evening permission and another altogether for her to agree to girls being absent overnight. Mary and I had pleaded with her, saying that Mary’s mother had offered us second-row opera tickets in Chicago, and we’d somehow been convincing.
I laughed.
“Who says I’d want to do this again?”
“It’s for the fraternity. Of course you would,” she said. I shoved another pin into the pocket of my dress, thankful that at the very least, the early March night was somewhat balmy. I breathed in the old-estate scent of the boxwoods in front of us, reminded of the first time I’d ducked behind shrubbery. It had only been last fall, during my second week at Whitsitt. Lily and I had been coming back from lunch when my stepmother, Vera, emerged from the dormitory. I hadn’t been expecting her, especially alone, and had listened with equal parts shock and expectation as she questioned Miss Zephaniah on the particulars of the tuition on the front stoop. She wasn’t asking after me, or inquiring about my studies, but simply wanted to know how much it cost to send me, to house me. “We have a son to educate, you see.” I could still hear her words at the end of Miss Zephaniah’s explanation, and realized that she hadn’t come to see me; she’d come to make sure father wasn’t squandering their money on me, money that she wanted for Lucas.