Dotty’s Suitcase

by Constance C. Greene

  A sneaky blast of wind crept around the corner of the porch and crawled inside Dotty’s cape, making her shiver and stamp her feet. If only Olive were here, I would be brave. I know I would, Dotty told herself through chattering teeth.

  Dotty hadn’t believed Olive was really moving until she saw Mr. Doherty, with the help of Olive’s three brothers, load the truck. First came all his carpenter’s tools, then Mrs. Doherty’s davenport. The davenport, covered in pale silk purchased years ago in Paris by Olive’s grandmother, had stuffing hanging down in an abandoned and rather carefree manner, which spoke eloquently to Dotty of past glories.

  “If she’d used some good sturdy material in a nice brown or gray,” Aunt Martha had sniffed after she’d been to the Dohertys’ for a cup of coffee, “it would’ve lasted a lifetime.”

  Then came the bed. Olive’s four-poster bed, the most beautiful bed Dotty had ever seen and probably ever would see. Its slender posts were made of rosewood, rubbed smooth and fine, and it had once boasted a canopy of organdy and lace, Olive told Dotty in hushed tones.

  The bed was the family treasure, although only Olive slept in it. It was a three-quarter bed, not wide enough for Mr. and Mrs. Doherty. Mrs. Doherty, though not known for her housekeeping, faithfully polished the bed once a week. All over. Not spit and polish. Everywhere. There was a hand-quilted blue-and-white coverlet, too, to add the final touch of elegance. Olive was not, of course, allowed to sit on her bed, and when Dotty went over after school, they always sat on the floor.

  “You’re not sitting on the bed, are you?” Mrs. Doherty invariably called out.

  “No, Mama,” Olive would answer.

  The bed was Olive’s inheritance from the same grandmother who had bought silk in Paris and whose picture was everywhere displayed in the Doherty house. The grandmother’s face seemed to Dotty to be filled with disdain. She seemed to be saying, “You, out there, you are not as good as I. You are not as rich or as stylish or as anything as I am.” Her eyes, set rather too close together to suit Dotty’s taste, had a sly look, and her clothing held her flesh in a tight embrace, which may have been the reason for her somewhat strained smile and her prominent eyes that bulged out in a rather alarming fashion.

  But what did it matter what Olive’s grandmother looked like? She had handed down the beautiful bed to Olive, and that was what counted. The bed was a symbol of what had once been and would be again.

  Olive’s grandmother was also said to be widely traveled, which made her more interesting to Dotty than any other thing about her. She had been to any place on the globe anyone would care to mention. And some other places, besides. But Dotty had made a careful study of the many photographs of her displayed in all the rooms (there was even one of her in the kitchen!) and never once had she seen a suitcase. Never once. Not in one photograph.

  When Dotty had asked about this lack, Olive had answered airily, “Oh, they have porters to load on the luggage. When you travel on an ocean liner, you don’t carry on your own baggage.” Olive had raised her eyebrows and trilled a laugh, unlike her usual laughter, which rocked the walls. “Mercy sakes, no!” she’d said, making Dotty feel like an ignorant peasant. Once in a while, even if they were the best, the truest of friends, Olive gave Dotty a pain. Not often, just once in a while.

  An ocean liner. Dotty had been astounded. When she got her suitcase, she’d planned on taking a bus and maybe even a train or two, in addition to the small boat up the Nile she’d mentioned to Jud, but never, in her wildest dreams, had she thought of an ocean liner. New vistas, new possibilities of modes of travel were revealed to her.

  Even now, standing on the porch, listening to the soft words, the music and songs coming from the radio, Dotty could see Mrs. Doherty, following close behind the four-poster, wringing her hands, imploring Mr. Doherty and her sons to be careful of the magnificent bed.

  “Watch it, Pa!” she’d cried. “Careful of the sides. They’re delicate. Boys, think of your grandmother! If anything happens to that bed, she’ll come back to haunt us all.” Thinking of the grandmother’s face, Dotty shivered deliciously and thought, She will, too.

  Finally Mr. Doherty had revved up the family truck, which had not been handed down by the grandmother but might as well have been. It too was an antique with delusions of grandeur.

  Dotty could feel Olive’s arms squeezing the breath out of her, could hear Olive’s voice whispering fiercely in her ear, “You write me, hear? We can’t be eternal friends if you don’t write.”

  “Come along now. It’s a long trip and we’d best be going.” Mr. Doherty had shaken Dotty’s hand, and Mrs. Doherty had pressed her dry cheek against Dotty’s.

  “Oh, how I’ll miss you!” Olive had cried as the truck took off in a cloud of dust.

  “Write to me!” Olive called repeatedly as her voice diminished, then was gone.

  Now, standing on the porch, hands clasped for courage and warmth, Dotty thought, If only I could go see Olive. If only. A finger of wind slipped inside a loose shingle on the side of the house and tapped an angry tattoo. Dotty jumped and almost cried out.

  If they don’t come by the time I count ten, I will go inside. I’ll just go right in and listen to the radio. After The Singing Lady comes Little Orphan Annie. I like that program second best. I don’t care who’s there. I’ll just go inside. Little Orphan Annie and Sandy will keep me company.

  The wind resumed its fury, the shingle tapped out a secret message to someone waiting in the woods, and under her burlap cloak Dotty trembled.

  CHAPTER 4

  She had reached nine, having lingered long over both seven and eight, when she saw the lights of a car and heard Laura and Mary Beth sing out their thanks for the ride. Quick as a weasel, Dotty skittered into the kitchen, threw off her finery, and, snatching up a spoon, stood with it in her hand as if she’d been stirring all the long afternoon.

  She fitted her face with a smile and kept it turned toward the door so they would see her there, smiling, the minute they came in.

  “Home already!” she cried, incredulous, as they burst in, laughing and chattering as always.

  “Oh, my poor feet!” Laura cried, taking off her shoes and rubbing first one foot, then the other. “My poor babies!” she crooned.

  “That’s what you get for wearing such high heels,” Dotty scolded. “You’re too conceited about your feet.”

  Laura held one high-arched foot up for them to admire. Every time she managed to scrape together three ninety-five, she marched right off to A. S. Beck’s over in Utica and bought another pair of ridiculously high-heeled shoes that killed her feet and, as Aunt Martha said, warped her toes.

  “Wait till you see this!” Mary Beth said breathlessly, spreading the pages of a new magazine. “Dotty, put the kettle on like a good girl. Wait, Laura, until you see the gown and veil on the cover and inside, too. You’ll die. Absolutely die. It’s so gorgeous it almost makes me cry. It’s the most beautiful gown I’ve ever seen.” The two of them bent over, giving the pictures their full attention.

  Dotty pulled her hair over her forehead, and from behind it she stared at her sisters. They are the two prettiest people I’ve ever laid eyes on, she thought. It’s not fair. It’s not at all fair that they look the way they do and I look the way I do.

  “All you ever talk about is what you’re going to wear when you get married,” Dotty said in a cross voice. “It’s very boring, if you ask me.”

  “Look at that! Just look at that crown made of seed pearls!” Laura cried. “Oh, wouldn’t that be perfect! A crown of seed pearls! Can’t you just see it?”

  “With your hair,” Mary Beth agreed, “but not for me. I think a lace veil held in place by a tiara would be nice. A lace veil,” she said softly, “the color of cream. The exact same color of cream.”

  “When I get married, if I ever do, which I don’t plan on doing,” Dotty announced, “I will wear a long black dress with long sleeves and a gigantic train, and a tall black hat with a point on top li
ke a witch’s hat, and I will carry in my hands a poisonous black orchid.”

  “The water’s boiling, Dotty darling,” Mary Beth murmured. “Will you fetch a tea bag for me?”

  Dotty plunked a tea bag into a cup and filled it with boiling water. “Besides, you’re too young for that stuff.”

  “Too young?” Laura raised her eyebrows. “I’m seventeen. That’s not too young to be thinking about things.”

  “And I’m old for my age,” said Mary Beth, a year younger than Laura.

  “If this old depression doesn’t stop and folks start making money again,” Dotty said, “nobody can get married to anybody because they can’t afford to.”

  “What do you know?” Laura scoffed. “You heard what President Roosevelt said. ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ If you’re going to run around with your tail between your legs, scared of your own shadow, well, then, you’re in trouble.”

  “Who says I’m scared?” Dotty asked in a loud voice. “I’m not scared of anything. Of the depression or anything else. What in the Sam Hill is that?” She poked a finger at a picture of a little kid dressed in a ridiculous white satin suit.

  “That, Miss Smarty, is a ring bearer,” Laura said. “He carries the ring around on a little cushion. Isn’t he sweet!”

  “Looks to me like he’s carrying a pig that just died,” Dotty said.

  “See here!” Laura cried. “Look at this set of matched luggage!” She held up a picture of a smiling bride and groom cuddling a set of three suitcases in their arms as if they’d just had triplets. There was a small suitcase, a medium-size one, and a big one.

  “Just like the three bears,” said Dotty.

  “Matched luggage is very elegant,” Mary Beth said as if she knew. “You have your new initials put on it, and they give you a little key so you can lock the suitcase and nothing will be stolen. I think I would like a red suitcase.”

  D. F. F., Dotty thought. That’s me. Probably no one else in the entire world has those initials. D. F. F.—Dorothea Frances Fickett. It’s like fingerprints. No one else has the same set of fingerprints I do, either. The thought thrilled and interested her.

  “I’m thinking of going to Hawaii,” she announced. “To learn the hula-hula. I have always wanted to learn the hula-hula. I think I’ll fill my suitcase with pineapples when I come back.” Dotty continued to speak as if her sisters were enthralled with what she was saying, as if they were hanging on her every word. “I understand Hawaiian pineapples are the best in the world. I might also stop in San Francisco on my way home and swim in the Pacific Ocean.”

  Her remarks did not astound them, she saw.

  She leaned forward to look at herself in the mirror, her face as expressionless as Greta Garbo’s. She and Olive had seen Garbo in a movie, and both were impressed by her beauty and the fact that no emotion whatsoever troubled the actress’s classic features. They had practiced saying, “I vant to be alone,” so many times that their voices grew hoarse and eventually they collapsed into giggles.

  “I’m starving,” said Laura. “When’s Daddy coming home?”

  “He’s working late,” Dotty said. She ladled out the stew. “Sit down. It’s ready.”

  “Thank you, Lord, for this food and for all blessings,” the girls said simultaneously. Their forks were on the way to their eager mouths before the words had a chance to settle on the air. They ate with hungry intensity.

  Mary Beth was the first to finish. She always was. “I heard something today,” she said, slowly scouring her clean plate with a piece of bread. “Something that I’m sure will interest you. Although”—she made eyes at Dotty—“I think she’s too young.”

  Dotty looked unconcerned and kept her mouth shut.

  “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Mary Beth,” Laura said impatiently, “if she’s too young, then you shouldn’t have brought it up at all. What is it?”

  “There’s a woman,” Mary Beth said slowly, getting up for another piece of bread, “a woman at the World’s Fair in Chicago who dances.” She stopped and again scoured her plate.

  “Now you’re being a pain. So what if there’s a woman who dances at the World’s Fair? So what? Finish what you have to say and stop leaving us hanging,” Laura said.

  “She dances stark naked,” Mary Beth said. “Nothing between her and the audience but fans. She dances behind these tremendous fans, and she’s stark naked.” Her eyes glittered and her cheeks were red.

  Dotty kept her eyes on her plate and kept eating as if she heard things like this every day. Laura’s eyes grew big and round as silver dollars.

  “You don’t mean it!” she said.

  Pleased at the attention, Mary Beth smiled and nodded vigorously.

  “Her name’s Sally Rand and they say she’s the hit of the entire Fair.”

  Dotty choked on a piece of potato. Absentmindedly Laura leaned over and pounded her on her back.

  “Naked?” Laura repeated.

  “As a jaybird.” Mary Beth nodded.

  “She must get awful cold,” Dotty said.

  “This girl I know said her uncle came for a visit, and he was telling her mother and father about this Sally Rand, and she eavesdropped.” Mary Beth waved the bread at them. “And her mother said why couldn’t the police stop such goings-on, and he said they tried and it was all legal and everything, and besides, she dances with these big fans in front of her and all so you can’t see everything.”

  “Oh.” Laura sounded disappointed. “So she’s not really naked, after all.”

  “Listen, you try waving a couple of fans in front of you while you’re in your birthday suit,” Dotty said, “and see how much of your behind people can see.”

  “Don’t be coarse, Dotty,” Laura said primly.

  “I wouldn’t mind seeing this Sally Rand,” Dotty said in a loud voice.

  Both sisters turned and regarded her with shocked faces.

  “What would Daddy think if he heard you?” Laura said.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see a naked woman dance?” Dotty asked. “Wouldn’t you just?”

  A silence, broken only by the sound of chewing, spread through the kitchen. Presently Laura, chin in hands, said softly, “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’m not sure it’d be worth a trip all the way to Chicago,” Mary Beth allowed. “If it was closer, I might go.”

  “Chicago might as well be Paris, France,” Dotty said, “for all the chance we have of getting there. Might as well be Timbuktu, for that matter.”

  “Didn’t you get to go to Utica last summer?” Laura demanded. “What more do you want?”

  Dotty poked her fork through the last piece of carrot, spearing it, and lifted it to her mouth.

  “Lots more,” she said finally. “Lots more.”

  The sound of a car coming up the driveway silenced them. Dotty put her finger to her lips, telling them not to stir. She tiptoed to the door and turned the key in the lock.

  Dotty imagined that the sound of stealthy feet on the front steps chilled her blood. She made herself walk slowly toward the telephone. She would call Aunt Martha. Aunt Martha would know what to do. But before she reached the hall where they kept their phone, a large, strong hand began pounding on the door. Then whoever it was took hold of the doorknob and rattled it.

  “Let me in!” a voice cried. “Let me in at once!”

  “It’s Daddy!” Mary Beth cried. She ran to unlock the door. “Daddy darling, you look so tired. We thought you were going to be late. Come in and sit down and rest.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The three of them crowded around their father, helping him with his hat and coat, making little welcoming sounds. Laura and Mary Beth practiced on him, Dotty thought, standing back, observing. Even if he was only their father, he was a man and his presence acted upon them like strong drink. After they’d gotten him settled comfortably, they twittered about, cooing and trilling, ruffling their feathers, while Dotty ladled out the supper.

  “We thought you w
ere working late tonight, Daddy,” she said, putting a steaming plate of stew in front of him. “Eat it while it’s hot,” she said in exact imitation of Aunt Martha.

  “Yes, Daddy,” the girls chorused, “we thought you were going to work late. We’re so glad you’re home.”

  Mr. Fickett picked up his fork and looked at it as if not sure what it was for. “I was going to go over my books,” he said in his slow, measured speech. “Straighten out my accounts, try to get some of the outstanding bills cleared up. If I could afford it, I’d hire a lawyer to collect some of the money that’s owed me. But I can’t afford it so I keep sending out the bills.”

  “Your supper’ll get cold,” Dotty said.

  He began to push the food around on his plate. “Then I turned on the radio and heard news of the robbery, so I locked up and came right home to make sure you were all right.”

  “What robbery?” Laura asked, exercising her dimples, smiling at her father almost the way she smiled at boys.

  “You didn’t hear?” He put down his fork. “A man robbed the bank today. Just as it was closing he came in and passed a note to the teller saying he was armed and wanted her to put all the money in her drawer in his suitcase. So she did as he said and pressed the alarm button at the same time. I’d like a cup of tea, please, Laura,” and Mr. Fickett took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose, where the glasses had pressed two little red ridges in their effort to stay put.