“Let them go! Just like that?”
“Except I got a different officer to help me, and he’ll make sure they actually get to the jail.”
I didn’t like the way Jack kept avoiding my eyes. “And after that?”
“ . . . they’ll probably be out in a couple days.”
A couple days! After trying to break someone’s leg? “But what about Griff? Won’t they just try again?”
“Naw. That’s why I told Mr. Phillips about the plan and made sure everybody heard me do it. They’ll find someone else’s leg to break now. So don’t worry about it.”
My jaw must have dropped open, because he laughed. And then he kissed me on the cheek. “Been good knowing you, baby.”
“Ellis?”
I whirled from Jack to find Griff standing before us, a puzzled frown on his face. He was looking between Jack and me. “You know this man?”
I looked up at Jack. “He’s a friend of mine.”
Griff stuck out his hand. “Griffin Phillips. Nice to meet you.”
Jack shook it. “Same here.” He put a finger to his hat, then winked at me. “I have to be going now. So long.”
As Jack walked away, Griff took my hand in his. “Ellis, I really need to talk to you. I’ve been trying for a while, but something always seems to get in the way. I figure now is as good a time as any.” His free hand dove into his pocket.
I felt the tips of my ears flush, and my heart thrummed in my ears. “Yes?”
“Ellis, would you—”
“Oh, Ellis!” My mother severed our connection, taking me by the shoulders and shaking me, and then she gathered me into her arms with a sob. “We came early, we decided to be at the ceremony after all, but what were you thinking?!”
“I didn’t really—”
“How do you get yourself mixed up in these things?”
“I don’t really—”
“There’s been quite enough drama this summer. Now. I want you to come back with us and sit down so the ceremony can continue.”
Half the attendees had already fled the courtyard, and it didn’t appear as if they were coming back. If I’d just stayed in my seat like I’d promised, Jack would have stopped the man with the crowbar, Mrs. Phillips would have had her wing dedicated by now, and Griff would have already cut the ribbon. I’d messed everything up—again.
“Ellis?” My mother reached toward me, but I’d already stepped beyond her grasp. “Where are you going?”
“I think I’ll just go sit in the car.”
33
Both of my parents were waiting for me in the parlor when I came downstairs for supper, and Griff was there with them. Humiliation heaped upon humiliation. By the time I saw them all, they’d already seen me. I couldn’t turn around.
My father invited me to sit down across from them.
I sat.
“About the ceremony, Ellis . . .”
I didn’t want to think about the ceremony. I didn’t want to think about the pageant at the orphan asylum or how I’d lost Janie her job down at Central. Or Irene. Or my failed economics test. My life was one long series of disasters. “I’m sorry.” I looked up at Griff. “I ruined everything, didn’t I?”
“You stopped Griffin from getting his leg broken.” My mother looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to frown or smile. “It wasn’t all bad, and actually—”
Father interrupted her. “Actually what we wanted to know was how you discovered the plan in the first place. And why you didn’t tell anyone.”
I got up from my chair. Maybe I would run away to Hollywood after all. I could find Jack and ask him to lend me some money, and we could go together. That wouldn’t be so bad. Only . . . as I looked at Griff I knew I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. Griff was one thing I’d decided I wouldn’t run away from. I didn’t want to. Not anymore.
“Ellis?” Father prompted me with a steely-eyed look.
“It all started with Janie.” But . . . had it really? “Actually, it all started with Hollywood.”
My mother’s eyebrows put a fine point to her skepticism. “Hollywood?”
“I was planning to run away.”
“Run away? What—!”
“Just listen. Please? I’ve been planning it for a while. I’d been saving up money for the trip, but then I’d spend it. So I’d borrow money, and I’d spend that too. When Janie’s mother died, Janie had to go back up to Maine for the funeral. Only they wouldn’t let her go, like I told you, so she needed someone to take her place down at Central. I said I’d do it as long as I could have her two-weeks’ pay.”
Mother gasped. “Run away? But—why?”
“Because I’ve never been able to do anything right. In fact, I’m not good at anything at all. I never apply myself, I’m incapable of buckling down, and I’m—I’m not even smart.”
“Yes, you are.” Dear, sweet Griffin. Always my champion.
“I’m really not.”
Mother extended her hand toward me. “I think you’ll find if you just try harder—”
“I do try.”
“Maybe if you studied more. If you applied your—”
“I can’t. I’ve tried. I’ve studied, or tried to, but I just can’t do it. I will never be the kind of daughter you want me to be. The only thing I’m good at is acting.”
Father had been listening to me, head cocked, eyes narrowed. “So . . . you wanted to go to Hollywood to act?”
“Yes.”
“In . . . movies?”
“Yes! I want to do something I’m good at.”
Mother laid a hand on my father’s arm. “We didn’t realize you felt so strongly—”
They didn’t realize anything! “Just let me finish. I started working Janie’s job, and it was hard! That first day, while I was trying to learn the switchboard, I listened in on a telephone call accidentally. I didn’t mean to. And that’s when I found out about the plan. Only I thought it was about someone wanting to murder Griff, not trying to break his leg. And then I met Jack, he was the policeman, and I would have told someone, only they’d have wanted to know where I’d heard it, and I didn’t want anyone to know I was working Janie’s job because then I’d have to say why and I didn’t want any of you to know I was planning on leaving for Hollywood.”
“We certainly would have found out sooner or later.” Mother was looking at me as if she didn’t quite know who I was anymore.
“I know. But I was going to explain it all in a letter. Then I’d have time to think of what to say and wouldn’t sound like . . . well . . . like this.”
“You stood up for what was right. . . .” It sounded like Father wanted to add a but to his words.
“And you did stop Griff from being hurt. . . .” It sounded like Mother did too. “But . . .” There it was. “I wish you would have told us you were so unhappy. To run away . . . we would have missed you terribly.”
“I’d hoped it would make life easier on all of you.”
“Easier isn’t always better. I admit you’re prone to outbursts, and you’re full of surprises, but you are an Eton, after all. . . .” Mother’s eyes had gone suspiciously shiny. “Just don’t run away. Please.”
“I won’t.” I ventured another look at Griff. “I don’t want to anymore.”
“We can work all these things out.” Father sounded as if the problems were fixed. “All we ask is that you do the best you’re capable of.”
“And apply yourself, Ellis. That’s all we really want.”
Hadn’t my mother been listening? “I’ll try.” I’d do my best for Janie and the scholarship foundation. “But I won’t promise anything.” I’d promised myself, after the ceremony, that I wouldn’t make any more promises. Not until I knew I could keep them.
Father got up and walked toward the front hall, patting me on the arm as he passed. “Griffin asked if he could have a word with you.” He waited for Mother to catch up to him and then gave her his arm.
I wanted, more than anything, to go w
ith them. After what I’d said about going to Hollywood, I didn’t think Griff would ever want to speak to me again. I would have explained it all in the note, about how it wasn’t him I didn’t like and it wasn’t him I was trying to run away from. It was me. But . . . how did you say something like that to someone, face-to-face?
He got up from his chair and came toward me, hands in his pockets. “I think it was kind of nice, you trying to save me and all.”
Then why was he trying so hard not to laugh? I slouched down in the chair. “If I weren’t so stupid, then I might have realized . . . everything. But I really thought that man was going to murder you.”
“I know you did. So thanks.” He reached a hand down to me, and I put mine in it. He pulled me to standing. “I thought you were really brave.”
He wasn’t going to make fun of me? “You—you did?”
He dropped my hand and shoved his hands back into his pockets. “I’ve always thought you were brave.”
“You have?”
“Sure. You’re always doing things no one else would ever think to do.”
When my parents said things like that, it always sounded bad. But when Griff said them, it sounded entirely different. He made it seem as if he admired me.
“I just wanted to come over and . . . well . . .” He took his hands from his pockets and took up mine again. And then he looked down at me. “You know I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while now.”
“Before you do, I just want you to know I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about that man. I wanted to, but I thought . . . I mean . . . it seemed like it would be better to figure out what was going on first. . . .”
“You could have been hurt, Ellis. Especially if they were planning to do what it was you thought they were.”
“I know. But . . . I didn’t want to hurt you by telling you I was going away. And then I did figure it out, kind of, but by that time it was almost too late. And then . . .”
He cupped my face with his hands. “And then?”
I dropped my gaze from his. “And then I decided I didn’t want to go to Hollywood anymore.” That’s what I hadn’t told my parents. I’d decided I wanted to stay.
He pushed a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“And . . . I’m just not good at very many things, Griff.” Why did I sound like I was pleading?
He bent and kissed my cheek.
“I always end up disappointing everyone.”
“Ellis.”
“And I don’t want to disappoint you too.” I felt my chin begin to tremble. Because that was the worst of it. That’s what staying meant. If I stayed, then eventually I’d disappoint him too.
“You could never disappoint me.”
Why wouldn’t he listen! “But even if I try my best, I can’t promise I’ll always be good, because, well . . . we both know I won’t be.”
“But that doesn’t mean you’re bad.” He planted a kiss on my nose. The softest, most delicate kiss.
It didn’t? He was staring down at my lips and I almost gave in and lifted my mouth to his, but then I realized I had to be strong. Sometimes the truth hurt, but I had to do what was right for him. “I’m just no good for you, Griffin Phillips! Don’t you know that?”
He just smiled that lazy Griff smile. “No.”
He still wasn’t listening. “Well, I’m not!”
“Why?”
“Because—because—because I flunked economics!” There. Surely now he would understand.
But his smile only grew wider. “I don’t want some perfect co-ed or some bug-eyed Betty. I want you.” He was . . . was he kneeling? “Ellis Eton, will you be my wife?”
“Wife! But I thought—I mean—I—” This wasn’t right. “I thought you were going to pin me, not propose to me.”
“I was. But it took so long to get you alone to talk to you, I don’t want to waste any more time. So . . . will you?”
There was such confidence, such hope, such love as he looked up at me through those gorgeous blue eyes. And I knew then something I ought to have realized long ago: There was a perfect role that had been waiting for me practically my entire life, and I didn’t have to run away to audition for it. I didn’t have to go to Hollywood. I didn’t even have to pretend to be somebody different. “There’s no one else I’d rather be.”
He stood and pushed an impossibly old-fashioned but perfectly right ring onto my finger. “You probably want something more modern, but—”
“It’s perfect. Completely and utterly perfect!” I flung my arms around Griff’s neck, causing him to stagger as I stood on tiptoe to kiss him. And from the front hall, a loud sigh went up from behind me.
My mother. “Oh, Ellis!”
Author’s Note
I purposely gave Ellis Eton one of those impulsive, restless minds diagnosed by modern medicine as having ADHD. I was curious to see what her era would have done with a person who just couldn’t concentrate no matter how hard she tried.
The Harvard Annex was created in 1879 for the private instruction of women by faculty from Harvard University. It took on the name Radcliffe College in 1894, when it was officially chartered by the state of Massachusetts. Radcliffe students were instructed, on their own campus, by professors from Harvard who essentially taught the same courses twice: once to the men at Harvard and once to the women at Radcliffe. Joint instruction in Harvard classrooms was instituted in 1943. Radcliffe women finally began to receive Harvard degrees in 1963, and in 1991, Radcliffe College was subsumed by Harvard University, although the name still lives on in the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study.
Griff’s finance commission, supported by many of the first families of Boston, worked very hard throughout the 1920s to collect proof of Mayor Curley’s wrongdoings. Supported by the underworld from his very first appearance on the political stage, allegations of ballot-stuffing, corruption, fraud, and misappropriation of government funds followed Curley wherever he went. Although he served a sentence for fraud in the early years of the century, it took until 1947 to convict him of wrongdoing, and even then it was only on mail fraud. Curley served four terms as mayor of Boston, one term as governor of Massachusetts, and two terms as a U.S. congressman as well as serving three prison sentences (during one of which he was re-elected mayor). President Truman later pardoned two of those convictions.
King Solomon controlled illegal activities in Boston and much of New England during the 1920s. He dealt in gambling and narcotics before expanding into bootlegging during Prohibition. Although he was arrested for his dealings in narcotics, he was acquitted. Later, when sentenced to jail in Atlanta for perjury during his previous trial, two congressmen intervened to have him transferred to a prison closer to home. Some of the inlets along Buzzards Bay were indeed used for smuggling liquor into the country, and college sports have always been of special interest to gamblers.
During the 1920s, nothing was done by halves. It was an era defined by its fads. It gave us the raccoon coat as well as bobbed hair and the kohl eye pencil. If the fringed flapper dress is still iconic, less well-known is the fact that flappers used to scorn all footwear but galoshes. In 1923 mah-jongg was the thing to do. In 1924 it was the crossword puzzle. And at one point, when the Charleston was all the rage, there were over four hundred different ways to dance it.
Self-improvement and psychoanalysis became prominent in that decade as well; the mania for auto-suggestion and a fervent belief in willpower swept the nation. Thousands of men and women across America started each day by reciting Emile Coué’s mantra, “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” His thoughts find an echo in modern society’s Law of Attraction.
So often we compartmentalize history. In textbooks, World War I starts in 1914 and ends in 1918. The Jazz Decade starts in 1920 and ends in 1930. On paper, there’s a gap separating the two eras. When you think about it, however, how could the generation of young men who had survived the horrors of trench warfare not have influenced the decade to
come? The careless, free and easy, anything-goes Roaring Twenties were a direct result of the war. Veterans came home wearied by war and burdened with survivor’s guilt. The rules of polite, tradition-bound living had gotten them very little in a world gone mad. Questioning the value of the rules they’d grown up with, they determined to eat, drink, and be merry because in their experience, tomorrow they might very well die. For them, the Jazz Decade was a definite and quite deliberate march toward self-destruction.
The suffragettes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries presented their crowning achievement of the vote to their daughters only to watch in horror as the jazz generation seemed to throw all that hard work away. Abstinence didn’t stand a chance when confronted with a “tomorrow we die” philosophy. Sex and drugs were originally associated with jazz, not with rock and roll. Everything done in the ’60s and ’70s was first done in the 1920s. There truly is nothing new under the sun. Our modern culture, which loves to push the unprepared and, perhaps, undeserving up onto pedestals and then tut-tut when they topple, got its birth in the ’20s. Countless Hollywood actors and actresses crashed and burned during the decade when their dysfunctional upbringings left them unprepared for the dual spotlights of fame and fortune.
The slide in morality among the decade’s youth can be blamed on two things: movies and the automobile. Many young men of the era freely volunteered that everything they knew about kissing, necking, and petting they learned from the movies. And the car changed everything. No longer did a man have to spend his time courting a girl within the confines of her family home at the invitation of her wary parents. Irene was right in some respects: If you were going to let a man buy you a drink or take you out to dinner, then you owed him something. This shift of control in the dating arena from the female to the male forever altered relations between the genders.
The golden age of movies began in the 1920s. Over 7.5 million Americans attended a movie every week, and an average of seven hundred feature films were produced each year. Ellis’s dream of running away to Hollywood might seem naïve to us, but magazines like Photoplay and Movie Mirror enjoyed a monthly distribution in the hundreds of thousands and were filled with stories of ingénues who were discovered by happenstance and went on to storied careers. Many of our greats—Greta Garbo, Douglas Fairbanks, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow—got their start on the Silent Screen. And speaking of movies, you might be surprised at what your grandmother or great-grandmother watched at the theater when she was a girl. Before the era of censorship, just about anything went!
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