After he cleared his throat in a vain attempt to get his tongue and brain coordinated, he gave it up and decided he might as well start with the basics. “Say, Miss Gilhooley, I don’t know about you, but I need to visit the comfort station. I expect you might need to powder your nose, too.”
“Powder my nose?” She gazed up at him blankly.
He grinned down at her. “Yeah. Euphemisms. You know. Powder your nose?”
Her blank look remained as she answered him. “Er, yes. Yes, of course.”
So H.L. led them to the end of the Midway, where the comfort stations, fabulous in their own right, had been built. “I’ll meet you here in a few minutes,” he said as he sauntered off to the men’s side of the building.
“Right. In a few minutes.”
Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Rose gazing after him, looking puzzled. As soon as she saw him, she blushed, turned, and hurried to the women’s side of the building.
Chapter Seven
Rose couldn’t decide if she’d made a total fool of herself or only a partial one, but she had her fears. But how was she supposed to know that a “comfort station” was where one could relieve oneself? Fancy words that folks used for things like privies had never been a part of her experience. And what was a euphemism?
She felt really stupid. It was true that she’d been to Europe. She’d even met queens and emperors and Kaisers—and why the Germans didn’t just call him a king like the rest of the countries did was a mystery to her—but she’d never encountered a “comfort station” before this Exposition.
Now that she knew what it was, she wondered what H.L. had meant with his comment about powdering her nose. Did he think her nose needed powder? Did he think it was too shiny? After she relieved herself, which was the first and most vital order of business, she peered into the elaborate mirror set up for female fair-goers to view themselves, presumably with an eye toward improvement.
Her nose did appear to be a trifle pink. She probably ought to have powdered it before walking so far in the sun, actually, but Rose didn’t use powder. The truth was that she didn’t use any paint at all, even during her performances, because she’d never thought about it. She did now. She held no moral qualms about using face powder if it would make her look better as she performed. Lord. Here was one more thing to discuss with Annie, she supposed.
Because the weather was warm, and the world-famous Chicago winds had blown up a lot of dust, Rose splashed cool water on her face and wiped it dry with a towel handed to her by an attendant. An attendant! She’d never heard of such a thing. She smiled politely, said, “Thank you,” and her mind slid back to the waiter.
Dagnabbit, she wished Annie had taught her how polite ladies acted when they went out to restaurants and dined with gentlemen. Annie knew, because she’d had more experience than Rose at these things. Rose had never thought about asking her how one was supposed to behave in a restaurant. Until H.L. May barged into her life, Rose hadn’t even considered that she might be made to feel foolish because she didn’t know if it was proper to talk to a waiter or not. When she’d eaten in restaurants before, she’d done so as part of her Wild West duties and the colonel had done all the talking.
“Bother.” It would do her no good to stand here staring at herself and brooding. Since she’d learned a little bit about tipping in Europe, she handed the attendant a one-cent piece, thanked her again, and bracing herself for further humiliation, walked outside to find H.L. May.
He was waiting for her. When he spotted her, he gave her one of his unfairly spectacular smiles and strode over to greet her. He had a long stride. And a confident one. Rose allowed herself a single moment to feel small, insignificant, and stupid before she braced herself and smiled back at him.
“You look beautiful today, Miss Gilhooley. Did I already say that?”
Rose felt herself flush. “I can’t remember.”
“Well, if I forgot to tell you so before, please allow me to do so now. You do look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Was it proper to say more than thank you when a man told a woman he thought she was beautiful? Rose had no idea, so she kept quiet.
H.L., evidently not expecting an elaboration from her, inhaled deeply and glanced around as if he were glorying in the day. “All right, how about we go to the Japanese Pavilion next? Have you been there yet?”
Thank God she’d managed to squeak past the beauty comment. “No. I haven’t really seen much of the fair yet. We’ve been quite busy at the Wild West.” Excuses, excuses. Rose, inferior being that she was, hadn’t wanted to explore the Exposition with anyone but Annie, since Annie understood her and never made her feel backward or dim-witted. Now she felt sort of silly about her lack of adventurousness.
“Great.”
She shot him a glance, wondering what was so great about being a coward, but she didn’t perceive anything on H.L.’s face that might signify he knew why she hadn’t seen the fair. Thank goodness. Maybe pretending not to be a hick was working. Of course, pretense wouldn’t save her indefinitely, since she didn’t honestly know what could be considered hick-like and what couldn’t. Talking to waiters sprang to mind.
Taking her courage in both hands, she decided to ask. Why not? She’d already admitted to having had no experience in dining out. “Um, is it considered ill-mannered to talk to waiters, Mr. May?” Because she thought that sounded too stupid to stand alone, she hurried to add, “I mean, in Kansas, we just talk to everybody.”
He shot her a glance filled with surprise. “Ill-mannered? Of course, not. Why’d you think that?”
Because she was a bumpkin? No. She couldn’t say that. Rose licked her lips as she scrambled through the sludge in her brain for a less damaging response. “Um, I only wondered. I mean, I wasn’t sure if I should have told that man that I enjoyed my meal back there in the Egyptian restaurant.”
She wished she hadn’t said anything at all when H.L.’s expression of disbelief intensified.
“Why not? I mean, why should you think it was wrong to tell the man you liked his cuisine? After all, he’s probably happy to know it.”
“Oh. Good.” What was cuisine? For only an instant, Rose wanted to cry. Firming her resolve to behave like a lady, she suppressed the urge at once. She’d ask Annie tonight. Let’s see. That was euphemism, cuisine, and what else? Oh, Lord, she’d forgotten already. She wished she dared write these words down. Oh, yes, she remembered now. Metaphor. She’d forgotten to ask Annie that one. Bother.
“Anyhow, I think you’ll enjoy the Japanese Pavilion. Did you know they eat raw fish in Japan?”
“Raw fish? Good heavens.” Rose really didn’t want to hear about eating raw fish on a full stomach, although she didn’t say so.
“They call it sashimi. I’m not sure it’s altogether raw. I guess they treat it somehow. They eat a lot of rice in Japan, too.”
“Oh, sort of like they do in China?” At least she knew that much.
“Right. Rice is a staple for a lot of countries.”
What was a staple? Mud puddles. Here was another word for Annie, Rose guessed. In spite of her resolve not to, she felt stupid. She only nodded as they walked up to a lovely building.
“I suppose we should have gone to the Moorish palace after that lunch, but I thought you’d be interested in Japan. They have lots of earthquakes there, and volcanoes. There’s a photograph of a volcano erupting.”
“My goodness. It’s sounds interesting.” If all she had to do was look at photographs and so forth, maybe she wouldn’t be expected to know too many words. As long as she didn’t have to read anything aloud, she’d probably survive. She could read to herself pretty well now if she was given time to decipher the hard words, but she still wasn’t comfortable reading aloud, although she practiced every evening. Annie would assign Rose some pages, and she’d listen and embroider while Rose read them to her. She was getting better. Annie told her so every day. She’d die of embarrassment if she had to read aloud in front of H
.L. May, however.
“The Japanese have a very stylized artistic style, too. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s really different from ours.”
“I’m sure.” She didn’t know what that meant, either. Stylized? Was that an art term? Rose wanted to be in the stable with Fairy and Betsy, who never expected her to know unusual words.
She was beginning to get itchy. She’d agreed, after all, to accompany H.L. May today because he said he was going to interview her. There had been neither hide nor hair of an interview that she could see thus far, although the day had been enjoyable except for the word issue.
That’s what worried her the most. Not the big words; the enjoyment.
She had a gnawing, itching, irritating feeling in her innermost being that, in the long run, it would be better for her if she found nothing whatever about H.L. May or his company enjoyable. He was, after all, a well-educated, big-city, newspaper reporter who wrote entire sentences for a living, for heaven’s sake, and she was an undereducated booby.
He’d find her out pretty soon; there was probably no way to avoid it. And then he’d look down on her. Laugh at her. He might even tell the world, through his position at the Globe, that in reality Wind Dancer was a only dumb cluck from Kansas.
Rose didn’t think she could abide being ridiculed in print. It was difficult enough for her to know inside herself that she was uneducated. Reading banner headlines proclaiming her stupidity would be completely mortifying.
Not, of course, that any article about her would be headline news, but it would feel like it to her. Although the serenity of the Japanese pavilion appealed to her jumbled emotions, Rose decided it was time to tackle some pertinent questions and get some solid answers. She cleared her throat.
“What’s up?” H.L., who appeared relaxed and happy and absolutely at home, smiled at her.
His smile gave her a palpitation in the chest region, and her skin heated up. This was getting ridiculous, and she despised herself. That being the case, she spoke in a more severe tone than was perhaps necessary. “I had believed you wished to interview me, Mr. May. Don’t you think it’s time to get started?”
He lifted one of his eyebrows, the result of which was to give him an ironical expression that did nothing for Rose’s peace of mind. “You in a hurry or something? I thought you didn’t have to perform again until tonight.”
“I don’t. However, I like to have some time to compose my thoughts before a show, and I have to prepare Fairy.”
“Fairy’s your horse? That’s the one you rode last night, isn’t it?”
“Yes. She’s the one.” What was with this it nonsense? Rose didn’t like thinking of her horses as its, and she would have scowled at him, but she was afraid of seeing his handsome face sneering at her again.
Not that he’d actually sneered, but he’d looked mighty teasing, and she didn’t think she could tolerate another one of those looks without blushing and stammering, and that would be horrid. She gazed stonily at a magnificent landscape, framed and hung on the wall in front of her.
The artist’s rendering of the cherry trees, spring-like weather, and peaceful river appealed to Rose. She’d never seen a painting like it.
Hmmm. Maybe the way the artist had used his brush was what Mr. May had meant when he’d said the artwork was stylized. Rose would have to ask Annie. She’d like to ask H.L. May, but didn’t want to appear any more dim-witted in front of him than absolutely necessary.
“I’m sorry you’re in such an all-fired hurry, Miss Gilhooley.” He didn’t sound sorry. He never sounded sorry, blast him. “But I do believe I mentioned yesterday that my articles were going to be akin to sketches of you discovering the fair.”
She frowned at the glorious painting. “I suppose so. Is that what you’re doing now? Taking mental notes of my reactions to things?”
“Exactly. I’ll also be asking you some questions.”
“I see. Well, I think you’d better start asking, because I’m going to have to go back to the Wild West pretty soon.”
“Right.” H.L. pulled out the gold pocket watch Rose had seen earlier, flipped open the case, and gazed at the dial.
He sounded peeved, which Rose resented. She lifted her chin defiantly and told herself that she was well within her rights to demand that this disturbing man get down to business. After all, she was no wealthy society dame who could loll around all day taking in fairs and Japanese exhibits and stylized paintings. She had a job of work to do, no matter how out of the ordinary it was, and she aimed to continue doing it to the best of her ability. That’s what Colonel Cody was paying her for, and that’s what she planned to deliver.
“Okay.” He snapped his watch shut and slipped it into his watch pocket. He sounded cheerful again.
His relative good mood surprised Rose, who’d been preparing for another battle. In truth, his attitude took the wind out of her sails, and she didn’t know what to do with the fire she’d been storing up to fling at him. He was a most perverse individual, and she thought it was unfair of him to spring moods on her.
“So, let’s start our interview, then,” he went on, oblivious to her unsettled nerves. “What do you think of this painting? Have you ever seen anything like it before?”
Rose squinted up at him for almost thirty seconds as she mulled over his question and tried to determine if he meant it as it stood, or if it might somehow contain a subtle meaning that he’d ferret out and attack her with later. Although she thought hard, she couldn’t come up with any way in which an honest answer on her part might be used against her, so she gave him one.
“I think it’s beautiful. And no, I’ve never seen anything like it. Is all Japanese art like this?” She gestured at the painting, moving her fingers to indicate the intricate brush strokes and the way in which the artist had depicted the movement of water and the glory of the cherry blossoms, not to mention the bushes, which were all quite trim and neat looking. None of the bushes Rose had seen growing in American meadows had ever looked so tidy.
“Yup. It’s very stylized.”
Aha! So that was what stylized meant! Rose felt a leap of triumph, although she figured it was silly of her to do so.
“However, I once interviewed a sailor who went to Japan with Commodore Perry, and he told me that some of the Japanese countryside actually looks pretty much like this. Evidently, the gardeners there don’t believe in letting stuff grow naturally, but clip the shrubs and plants around temples and other buildings into strictly controlled shapes.”
“My goodness. It’s hard to imagine plants and shrubs really looking like those,” Rose ventured, hoping her hesitant comment wouldn’t be thought idiotic.
“I agree. It would be interesting to see in person, wouldn’t it?”
Thank God. Relief washed through Rose. Because she feared if she spoke now, she’d spoil the effect of her last comment, she didn’t, but only nodded.
After another moment spent contemplating what appeared to Rose to be a Japanese mania for tidiness—although it made for lovely pictures—H.L. said, “Say, as long as you have to get back to work, why don’t we take in the Ferris Wheel again. That way you can see the Exposition and Chicago in the daylight. I promised you a daylight view.”
“Oh, I’d like that!” Rose exclaimed.
H.L. laughed.
“What? What are you laughing at?” Rose worried that she’d done something idiotic by inadvertently demonstrating her eagerness to experience the Ferris Wheel again. Was one supposed to conceal one’s enjoyment and eagerness? Was that what sophisticated people did?
“Don’t worry, Miss Gilhooley. I’m not laughing at you.”
That was a mercy Rose hadn’t expected.
“It’s only that the Ferris Wheel is already the most popular attraction in the entire Exposition. You’ve just proved to me that even ladies who are star attractions in their own right are, in this respect, like all the other ladies who visit the fair.”
For some reason, that didn’t make Ro
se feel appreciably better about herself.
Chapter Eight
And thus it has been proved beyond a doubt to this reporter that even the most well-traveled and famous of performers are, at heart, only human. Wind Dancer: Bareback Rider Extraordinaire is as fond of Mr. Ferris’s new innovation as a seamstress from the South Side.
H.L. sat back in his chair and stared at the words he’d just typed on his brand-new Underwood Invisible Writing Machine. He liked it—the article, that is. The citizens of Chicago would like it, too; he was sure of it.
Would Rose like it? He wasn’t sure. He hadn’t written anything she should object to, but she was a prickly little thing. An adorable, prickly little thing. He grinned at the page before him, remembering their ride in the Ferris Wheel.
He’d just heaved a huge sigh when Grover Haley, his editor, walked by, smelling of spirits as he always did, and with a fat cigar stuck in his mouth. Good old Haley. He was one of the old-timers—gruff, cynical, literate, and jaded—and H.L. honored him for it. He was the sort of guy H.L. wanted to be in another twenty or thirty years. Maybe forty.
H.L. didn’t want to rush anything.
“Your story ready yet, May?” Haley stopped behind H.L.’s chair and peered over his shoulder. Taking the cigar from his mouth, he exhaled a cloud of smoke that blended with the whiskey fumes, creating an incense H.L. would forever associate with newspapers.
“Yup. Right here.” He ripped the sheet out of the typewriter. Real reporters never turned the platen to remove their stories. Doing so would defy tradition. He picked up the rest of the pages of his story, patted them together, and handed them over. “There you go.”
“Good. We’ve got to get this baby to bed. Took you long enough.”
H.L. shrugged. He knew Haley only said things like that because it was an editor’s job. Sam, who had looked up from his own typewriter, grinned at him, and H.L. tipped him a wink.
Coming Up Roses Page 10