by Delynn Royer
In the city room across the hall, she knew that most of the reporters, including Ross, would still be at work. In the press room, the men would be busy until nine or ten tonight, printing tomorrow’s first edition, but not one of them had reason to wander outside their own work area after hours. This was the chance she’d been waiting for all week.
She hurried back to her desk, donned her bonnet, snatched her handbag, and turned the lock on her way out the door. Once downstairs, she passed through the deserted job printing department. Unlike the busy pressroom upstairs, the jobbers went off shift with the office employees at five. When she reached the front business office, the blinds were pulled and the place was empty.
She made a beeline for one of the desks, the one where she knew the latest print orders would be waiting to be processed on Monday morning. Squinting in the shuttered light, she located the orders and began thumbing through them. There were many familiar names, some of them old customers of her father’s. That was what she was looking for, someone who had been loyal to Nathaniel in the past.
She finally spotted an order for billheads. It was from Henry Wilkerson, who owned the hardware store on West King. A former customer of her father’s, and, much like the crusty, opinionated Jacob Groff, a fellow who had never cared for Malcolm Davenport’s business practices or politics. Judging by the estimate of charges, Emily surmised that Malcolm was offering a discount off his usual prices, no doubt in an effort to attract her father’s customers away from the only other competition remaining in town, Denton’s Printing. Shrewd, Emily thought. But not shrewd enough. Not if she had anything to say about it.
“What are you doing?”
Emily almost shot through the ceiling. Shoving the print orders back into place, she spun around to see Ross standing in the doorway to the job press room. He was dressed for the street, his frock coat buttoned, his tie knotted, his top hat in one hand, obviously leaving work early. He’d come up quiet as a cat. Jiminy pats! How long had he been standing there?
Emily tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. She’d done her best all week to avoid him and had been fairly successful. Now she couldn’t decide if she should feel more guilty for her transgressions or angry with him for choosing this moment to sneak up on her.
“A... a handkerchief,” she blurted. It was the first lie that popped into her head.
“What?”
“I... I was looking for my handkerchief.” She lifted her handbag as if in proof. “There was, um, something in my eye, but it seems to be gone now.” She squinted in what she hoped was a convincing manner.
Ross’s discerning gaze narrowed, and she knew with conscience-stricken certainty that he sensed her fabrication. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a crisp white handkerchief and approached her. “Here.”
Emily inched backward, away from the desk and toward the door. “Oh, no, thank you. As I said, it seems to be gone now.”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze flicked to the desk she’d been rifling through, then back to her. “Are you sure?”
“Quite.” Emily retreated a few more steps toward the door. Unfortunately, she didn’t know the layout of this office as well as she knew her father’s. The heel of her shoe smacked into a brass cuspidor, shattering the stillness and making her wince.
“Emily...”
“I’m fine, Mr. Gallagher, just fine.” Sidestepping the cuspidor, she pushed through the bat-wing doors to the waiting area. “I’ve got to be going.”
In a blind rush, she went for the door.
“Oh!”
Before she could stop, Emily barreled out into the street and straight into a bustling mass of yellow-checked gauze and crinoline. Bouncing blond ringlets and an overpowering whiff of eau du lilac confirmed that this could be nothing less than the climactic scene in a very bad dream.
“Johanna!” Emily gasped.
“Emily! Why, mercy!”
They blinked at each other in feminine horror then rapidly disengaged, stepping back to straighten their respective bonnets—Emily’s a practical, black-banded straw bonnet, Johanna’s a white horsehair concoction trimmed with what seemed like yards of mauve ribbons and violets.
“Mercy, I was just—”
“Sorry,” Emily muttered. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“That’s quite all right, Emily, dear. I’m simply surprised, that’s all.”
The flamboyant, scooped neckline of Johanna’s gown and the flash of diamond pendant earrings signaled that she was dressed for a night on the town. Emily glanced over Johanna’s shoulder to see the Davenports’ double brougham waiting by the curb. At least now she knew why Ross was leaving work earlier than usual. No doubt an elegant restaurant dinner followed by a box seat for the new concert opening at Fulton Hall.
Ross’s voice came from behind. “Everybody all right out here?”
“Everybody’s fine,” Emily muttered. “I’ve got to go.”
She didn’t spare a glance for either of them as she brushed by and hastened up the sidewalk. She didn’t want to see the glint of triumph in Johanna’s eyes when she took Ross’s arm. She didn’t want to see the admiration in Ross’s gaze when he looked at Johanna.
“Good evening, Emily, dear!” Johanna’s parting words nipped at Emily’s escaping heels, carrying with them an edge of gloating she recognized all too well from their spite-filled childhood.
Or perhaps, Emily reminded herself miserably, it was just her own childish resentment that transformed Johanna’s innocent words into antagonistic preening.
When she reached the corner of King and Queen Streets, she stopped to catch her breath. She told herself she didn’t care. She told herself not to look back. She had more important things to think about, but...
She turned around in time to see Ross handing Johanna into her family’s fine carriage. As he did so, Malcolm emerged from the newspaper office, and he too climbed into the carriage. Ross followed suit. The brougham moved off down the street.
Emily felt unable to move as she watched the carriage disappear around a corner. If it had been anyone but Johanna, perhaps she could have brought herself to accept it.
She remembered the year after that first summer with Ross. Before school had started, she was excited and looking forward to moving to the upper grade classroom to be with him, but that first week had dashed all her expectations.
When she’d looked around the class, she discovered that very few of the other girls wore their hair plaited anymore. They had traded their knee-length dresses and frilled pantalets for crinoline petticoats and long skirts.
And it wasn’t only the style of clothing that had changed. Most of the girls, even those Emily’s age, were beginning to narrow in the waists, widen in the hips, and develop breasts. It seemed that everyone was on the fast track to womanhood except Emily. Even her friend Melissa Carpenter had betrayed her, leaving school the summer before flat as an unleavened biscuit only to return, much to Emily’s chagrin, buxom.
Perhaps none of this would have bothered Emily if it weren’t for Ross. He was strapping and strong and growing handsomer every day. It was a sorry fact that when Miss Breckenridge presented her back to the class, most female heads turned to gaze in Ross’s direction. As for Ross, he never seemed to take notice. Like every other boy in their class, he was watching Johanna Davenport.
Johanna, with her expensive silk dresses, her burgeoning figure, and her soft blond hair was everything Emily was not, and Emily had felt those first painful stabs of jealousy. Could it be that she had already begun to fall in love with Ross even then?
*
April, 1856
Spring had sprung. Wildflowers had popped their buds and the air was pungent with fertilized fields. Trees wearing coats of new leaves lined the side of the road outside town.
Emily wasn’t in a spring sort of mood.
She grumbled as she marched toward home, kicking up a storm of dust clouds in her wake. In one hand, she carried a copy of Emerson’s Ari
thmetic, in the other her empty lunch pail. She’d done so poorly on her test that Miss Breckenridge had sent her home with a note. Emily knew she would catch high holy heck for the note, but her failing grade wasn’t what had her in a stew.
Her father had given strict orders for her to go directly home after school. No stopping at the drug store for a peppermint stick, no stopping at the newspaper to wheedle odd jobs. Mama had started spring cleaning and there would be an interminable list of chores. Washing knick-knacks, rug-beating, dusting houseplants for crying out loud. Emily thought she’d rather be dead a hundred years than spend an hour dusting leaves.
“I hate houseplants!” she shouted.
“Hey, Em! Wait!”
Emily didn’t slow her pace at hearing Ross’s call. Never mind that she’d already waited for him for sixteen minutes after school let out. Finally, she’d left without him in a huff. Now, ten minutes later, here he was. Johnny-come-lately. Ha!
“I don’t have time to wait!” she yelled.
“Come on now, buck up! You’re not the first person to flunk a test!”
Emily scowled when she heard him start to whistle “Yankee Doodle.”
He had no reason to be in such a good mood. It was spring planting, a time of year when the Brenners’ called upon him to cut his hours at the newspaper and work on the family farm. In fact, Ross was lucky to be attending school at all. Most of the farm boys had to drop out at this time year, yet here he was, whistling like a fool, and Emily knew exactly why.
Johanna Davenport had motioned to him after school had let out, giggling as he approached, then pulling him around the corner of the building so no one could hear what she said to him.
Had they kissed…?
Emily kicked up a new swirl of dirt. Ross was smart as a whip when it came to book-learning, but when it came to Johanna, he didn’t have enough sense to fill a thimble.
“Are you mad at me for something?”
Mad? Why would she be mad? Emily ramped up her pace.
“Hey! Slow down!”
She concentrated fiercely on the narrow ribbon of dirt road ahead, her legs clocking along as fast as they could without breaking into an all-out run.
“Em! What’s wrong?” Ross pulled up alongside of her, matching her heated gait with long strides of his own.“Is it the arithmetic test? I’m sorry if I made fun.”
At the next bend, the Kissing Bridge would finally come into view. If only she could get that far, she could lose him.
“You got chores today or something?”
Chores? All boys were idiots. Ross was simply outshining the crowd today.
He grabbed her arm, snapping her to a stop and swinging her back around to face him. “Come on Em. What are you mad about?”
Emily glared at him. Today, her hair was pulled back and tied with a pretty blue ribbon at the crown of her head. Only three months before, she’d finally convinced her mother that she was too old to wear braids. Now, she batted a stray wisp from her face, remembering the first day she’d come to school with her tresses brushed to a shine and tied in a pink ribbon of silk. Ross’s reaction had been brief. “Hey, Em, you forgot your horsetails!” Then he’d given her hair a playful tug before proceeding to ignore her for the rest of the day.
Dad blast him.
“I suppose that’s what boys like!” she blurted.
“What?”
She jabbed at his chest with her lunch pail hand. “Figgers!”
“What?”
“Figgers!”
“Figures? Like in…arithmetic?”
“No! I mean bosoms, that’s what! Johanna Davenport’s big fat bosoms!”
Ross’s jaw dropped. For the first time ever, Emily saw his cheeks flush red. “Did you say…?”
“Bosoms! Bosoms! Bosoms! Darn tootin’ I said it! All you boys are staring at them every cotton pickin’ minute! Might as well just call them what they are!”
Ross still hadn’t closed his mouth.
“Don’t you ever think about what’s inside a girl’s head?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you care what’s in a girl’s heart?”
“Uh... sure. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Emily whaled him on the shoulder with her lunch pail, then spun around and resumed her path toward home.
“Hey! What’d you do that for? You have a crush on some boy or something?”
“NO!” Emily broke into a run, her heart pounding, her cheeks aflame. The truth was, she didn’t know the answer to his question. She didn’t know why frustration knotted as tight as a fist inside her belly or why she lately felt trapped in a little girl’s body that refused to grow up fast enough.
“Emily!”
“Leave me alone! I haven’t got time for your stupid—!”
Her angry words clipped off as she rounded the bend and came to a sudden, skidding halt to stare at the three big boys who loitered by the side of the road. John Butler, Marcus Eby, and Arnie Gibson.
Her Papa always said trouble came in threes.
“Afternoon, Emily,” John said. He leaned casually against the trunk of a sycamore, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his arms folded. A hank of brown hair hung over one eye as he chewed on a long blade of grass. His expensive frock coat hung off a nearby bramble bush.
Marcus Eby didn’t appear relaxed, but then, he was never relaxed. The son of a banker, he was sharp-featured as a rodent, with alert brown eyes and nervous hands. Now, he bounced on his heels as if he couldn’t wait for what would happen next.
“What’s the matter, Emily?” John asked. “Cat got your tongue today?”
Emily was still short-winded from her sprint. She threw a glance back over her shoulder. Ross would appear any second. If she ran back to warn him, maybe—
A meaty hand closed around her arm, and she looked up to see Arnie Gibson’s square, dull-eyed face. Arnie’s papa owned the saddlery on King Street, which made him a town boy, but Arnie didn’t look like a town boy and he didn’t act like one either. To Emily, he looked like a towheaded giant, as tall as a man, with long, thick arms and big-knuckled hands.
John spoke. “Don’t even think about trying to rat on us, Emily.”
Before she could open her mouth, she heard Ross come from around the bend behind her, and it was too late.
“Well and a day!” John said, pushing off from the tree. “If it ain’t the Pope-loving farm boy himself.”
Emily had not had time to warn him, but Ross sized up the situation quickly enough. His expression darkened at spotting Arnie holding Emily. “Let her go.”
Arnie grinned in response and yanked Emily farther out of Ross’s reach off to the side of the road.
“She’s fine, Gallagher,” John said, barring his way. “It’s you we want to talk to. We heard some things about you and we’re just wondering if they’re true.”
Ross’s hands closed into fists at his sides. “Get out of my way.”
Emily tried to wrest free of Arnie’s hold. “Let go!”
Arnie paid her no attention. He was too interested in the proceedings. Marcus was bouncing on his heels by now—up and down, up and down—simpering. “Hey, Gallagher! We heard your mama was a whore! Is that right?”
Emily didn’t’ know what a “hoor” was, but it wasn’t good. Ross’s expression told her that much. “Shut up, Marcus.”
The other boy laughed as John continued. “We wouldn’t want to pass false rumors, but we heard your mama got herself in trouble with some no good mick and then ended up whoring for her supper after he left. That true?”
“Let Emily go.”
John grinned and flicked a hand toward Arnie. “Sure. Emily shouldn’t be hearing such things anyhow.”
And just like that, Arnie dropped Emily’s arm. She glared up at him. “Big oaf.”
Arnie glowered back. “Skedaddle.”
“Skedaddle yourself!” Emily wasn’t above taking advantage of what she hoped was her feminine immunity to physical retaliation. Even b
ig, dumb Arnie Gibson didn’t go around beating up girls. At least, she didn’t think so. She took a few steps back just in case.
Ross raised his voice. “Go home, Emily.”
Surprised and a little hurt, Emily turned toward him, but Ross wasn’t even looking at her. He and John were toe to toe. “I’m not leaving without you,” she said.
“Just go.”
“No! There’s three of them and one of you. It’s not fair.”
Ross didn’t take his eyes from John. “She makes a good point, Butler. You’re real tough when you got those two jackasses to back you up. For once, I’d like to see what would happen if it was just you and me.”
“I can take you any day, Gallagher.”
“How about today?”
Emily wished Ross would just walk away, but she knew he wouldn’t. Not this time, and maybe never again. He meant to fight John and would probably end up getting beat silly by Arnie and Marcus to boot. Emily normally couldn’t abide Ross’s obnoxious friend, Karl Becker, but at least Karl wouldn’t run from a fight. She wished he was here now.
“I’m telling!” she blurted hoping to break the tension.
But no one moved.
Ross spoke through his teeth. “Get out of here, Em.”
For the second time in one afternoon, Emily cursed the fact that she was trapped in a girl’s body. She waved her arithmetic book at all of them. “I mean it! I’m going to tell and you’ll all be in trouble!” It was a pathetic, sissy threat, but she wasn’t concerned with her dignity. Things were turning bad fast, and she was desperate.
John smirked and leaned forward to say something, something so soft only Ross could hear. Whatever it was, it spent Ross’s fuse.
In a heartbeat, John was flat on his back in the dirt, a trickle of blood oozing from a cut on his lower lip. Touching it with two fingers, he gaped up at Ross in surprise, then his eyes narrowed. “You son of bitch.”
“Yeah? Do something about it.”
No sooner was the gauntlet thrown than John scrambled back to his feet, and Ross tore into him. John careened back into the sycamore tree, smacking his skull so hard against its trunk Emily thought for sure he’d had his lights knocked out, but no.