The Sisters of Summit Avenue

by Lynn Cullen

  He looked John up and down. “Say, a big man like you—are you a nut about anything? Farm debt? Decreasing prices for crops? Corruption in Washington? Want to come talk to the Picklers?”

  “No.”

  John positioned himself between Ruth and the man. She asked around him, “Who are the Picklers?”

  “Oh, you know.” The man gave his cigar a chomp. “Just authors. Hoboes. Professors. Every kind of nonconformist or rabble-rouser passing through Chicago. Rich slummers. Me. Sinclair is supposed to grace our party tonight. We’ve got good jazz. You like jazz?”

  Ruth maneuvered past John. “Upton Sinclair?”

  “None other.” The Pickler poked a handbill into the next person’s ribs.

  “Forget about the telephone,” said John. “I’m taking you back to June.”

  The Pickler kept a keen gaze on John as he delivered another flyer. “Who are you, big guy, to boss this woman around?”

  “Oh, he’s all right,” said Ruth.

  “You sure? I don’t tolerate bullies.”

  “He’s fine.”

  The man scowled and moved on.

  “Your sister was right about you,” John said.

  “Upton Sinclair!” Ruth breathed. She hardly felt John aiming her over the trampled snow of the park lawn back toward Dearborn Street. “How brave Upton Sinclair was to go to the stockyards and expose the conditions there. And not just for the people, but for the animals. The poor lambs! It’s the lambs that upset me the most. Trusting those Judas goats.”

  John searched over the heads of the crowd closing in to hear the speaker. “Goats?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of the stockyard Judas goats?”

  “No.”

  “They’re actually rams, though they call them goats. They’ve been trained to lead the lambs to slaughter.”

  “This way.” He put pressure on the small of her back to get her moving again.

  His touch weakened her. She let herself be guided toward the lower edge of the park, across the street from the townhouses of Gilded Age millionaires. “The little lambs come crying in from the trains, and these Judas goats calm them down, nudging them with their heads until they get quiet. When they have the lambs’ trust, off they trot, gay as a boy at a fair. The little lambs follow them down the chute, kicking up their heels, happy—until the men meet them with sledgehammers.”

  “Excuse us.” John pushed his way through stragglers.

  “What kind of person would think that was okay to do to a little creature? Yet that person, some meatpacking baron, is living over there on Lake Shore Drive right now, drinking whiskey with the mayor and having his shoes buffed.”

  He looked down at her. “Why are you so angry?”

  Her heart took a jolt, as if he’d flung a tub of cold water on her.

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Yes, you are. And so is your sister. Only she hides her anger, and you wear yours like a badge of honor. Is that the only way you know how to get attention?”

  Words were her shield between people and herself, flashed to make her look smart and dangerous. They were supposed to ward people off, people like Robin’s old steady, who wrote Ruth Dowdy goes all the way on the back of the girls’ bathroom door.

  But the words weren’t supposed to keep you away. Not you.

  She wheeled onto the street and into the path of a car. Its ah-OOH-gah blasted her back to her days with Robin and his Bearcat, in which she did not go all the way, although close, because she was so stupid, so desperate, that she had wanted him to like her.

  John grabbed her. “You trying to get yourself killed?”

  She marched diagonally across the street, causing a car to screech to a stop, then darted down the first alleyway, into a crowd of ladies and gentlemen in stylish dress shuffling toward what looked to be a bricked-up stable. A single green bulb shone down on the entrance, its weird light illuminating the word DANGER daubed on the crumbling bricks. More words were splashed on the orange-painted door, but Ruth couldn’t make them out through the furs, veiled hats, and fedoras blocking the way.

  “What is that place?” she asked a woman nested within a high silver fox collar. An ostrich feather wafted from a band around her head.

  She crooked bright red lips. “The Dil Pickle Club.”

  Ruth shrugged away from John to get in the line behind her.

  He sighed wearily. “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing Upton Sinclair.”

  “You know you shouldn’t go in. Why do you have to give me such trouble?”

  She turned away from him. Was causing trouble the only way she knew to get what she wanted? What was it exactly that she did want?

  The furs and fedoras parted, revealing the splintered orange door. Ruth read out loud: “ ‘Step High, Stoop Low, and Leave Your Dignity Outside.’ ”

  “Great,” John muttered.

  She pushed the door open.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Chicago, Illinois, 1922

  Inside the vestibule of the Dil Pickle Club, Ruth let her eyes adjust to the smoke and the dark. John pushed back his cap until the ear flaps were even with his eyes as he strained to read. “ ‘Elevate Your Mind to a Lower Level of Thinking.’ That does it.” He took her arm.

  She shook him off. “Let me go. I’d like to see.”

  He spread his hands as if stuck up by a bank robber. “All right. All right. Have it your way. Your sister’s going to kill me anyhow.”

  “Admit it, you want to see this place, too.”

  He scowled at her. “Just be quick about it, would you?”

  Puffed with this small victory, she waded into the main room, a hot, smoky cave seething with hundreds of club-goers. Couples milled around brightly painted tables and chairs. Knots of men argued at a counter being wiped by a waiter. Jazz oozed from the band of Negro musicians playing in the corner. There were more Negroes in the crowd, more than Ruth had ever seen in her life, dressed like movie stars, and workers in coveralls, and women in sleeveless frocks. There were rich people, plenty of rich people, with their Hollywood suits and beaded gowns, and professor-types in tweed. Had she died and gone to heaven?

  Her admiring gaze trailed up one woman’s slinky gold lamé dress, then slowed on the woman’s jutting Adam’s apple, before halting altogether on the stubble peppering the woman’s jaw. Once Ruth had absorbed that truth, she scanned the room again, wondering which boys were girls, and which girls were boys, and then wondering, in a sobering flash, if it actually really mattered.

  Chuckling at the sensations that this colorful new universe rat-a-tat-tatted at her from all directions, she wormed her way to the counter, where a man was ordering a drink. His order placed, he waited, his brow pointed at the shellacked wood as if his head were top-heavy with brains. There was something familiar about the twin white haystacks heaped to either side of the pink line of his part, and about his long and horsey upper lip.

  Behind the counter, the server poured something from a fountain tap, then handed the owner of the haystacks the glass. “What’re you working on now, Mr. Sandburg?”

  Ruth winged John with her elbow. Carl Sandburg! she mouthed. The poet!

  Mr. Sandburg raised a bristly brow. “Lincoln’s early years.”

  “Poems about Lincoln?”

  “No. A biography this time. Well, maybe a few poems on the side. I can’t help myself.”

  “I know what you mean. Poetry will have its way.” The counterman wiped his hands on his apron then came down to Ruth. “What’ll you have, sweetheart?”

  “Whatever he’s having.”

  “That would be soda pop. Thank you, Prohibition. Say, are you old enough to be in here?”

  John bellied up next to her. “Whatever she ordered, it’s for me, okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

  Mr. Sandburg sipped his drink. “You her dad?”

  The counterman slid a drink at John. “Here you go.”

  Starry-headed, Ruth pushed away from the
counter as John dredged some coins from his pants pocket. A man in a pinstripe suit slid a flask from inside his lapel and tipped it over the drink. When he saw Ruth watching, he winked. “On the house.”

  She wandered over to the band, where John caught up with her.

  “Do you realize who that was?” Ruth shouted in his ear.

  “What?”

  “At the counter—do you know who that was?”

  He turned back around and looked as he took a sip. Carl Sandburg raised his glass.

  “This is so exciting!” She tipped John’s glass her way.

  He held it away from her. “No, ma’am.”

  “Why? What is it?”

  He smacked his lips. “Some kind of strange hooch.”

  The horns blared.

  “Is it good? I think that man meant it for me but I’ll share.”

  “What? I can’t hear you!”

  She plunged two fingers into the drink, then formed a damp flapper curl in the middle of her forehead. She took the newspaper clipping of the flapper from her purse and held it up next to her face. “Did I get it right?”

  John snatched the clipping from her then stuffed it into his pocket. “Why aren’t you happy just being who you are?”

  She couldn’t hear him over the galloping music. “What?”

  “WHY DO YOU LIKE TO CAUSE TROUBLE?”

  She yelled back, “BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO.”

  Next to her a couple bounced forward, kicked, and bounced back to the music. The Charleston!

  “Dance with me!”

  “No.” He took another drink. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you believe that you’re supposed to cause trouble?”

  Ruth stored away the dancers’ moves for practice at home. “To make June look good!”

  He shook his head. “June’s going to look good no matter what you do.”

  “Thanks a lot.” She turned away.

  He grabbed her. His serious expression surprised her. “It’s the truth. She’s going to shine no matter how you act, so why make yourself look bad? What are you getting out of it?”

  She wilted. “Do I really look bad?”

  He hesitated. “Oh, kid.”

  In that moment, she saw that he understood her. Her. Not her latest creation, Bad Ruth. Ruth Who Yelled Before She Got Yelled At. But the real her—Hurt, Desperate, Sad Ruth. Lonely Ruth.

  She grabbed his face and kissed him.

  He pulled back, blushing so hard that his skin nearly lit the dimness. “What are you doing? Are you crazy?”

  “Yes! I love you!”

  “Oh, kid, you do not love me. You don’t even know me.” He took a drink, then when he saw her still watching him, took another.

  Her chest ached with earnestness. “I know that you’re good. I know that you’re decent and kind.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know!” She swallowed. “I do know that you are a wonderful human being.”

  He stared at her through the throb of the clarinets. “You’re seventeen.”

  “Almost eighteen. I graduate this spring. That doesn’t mean I don’t know things.”

  “Don’t, Ruth.”

  She grabbed his face and kissed him again.

  “Stop that! I’m serious.”

  She did it again.

  He was red-faced and flustered. “Look, you flatter me. But really—don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He stared at her. “Because I like it too much.”

  She waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she kissed him again.

  He was glaring this time as he pulled away from her. “Now you’re starting to make me mad.”

  “You like me.”

  He reared back, stumbling a little. She wouldn’t let him go.

  “I can’t, Ruth.”

  She peered into his eyes. “Don’t you understand? I see you, and you see me, I mean really, truly see me. I may not be experienced but I know enough to realize that doesn’t happen much.” She reached up and touched his face. “You know it’s true.”

  He shut his eyes. When he opened them and spoke, his words were fuzzy around the edges. “I love your sister. Don’t you get that?”

  She raised on her tiptoes and, carefully, touched her lips to his.

  “This is all I ‘get.’ ”

  She kissed him, softly at first, then, feeling his mouth yielding, harder. She felt his forearms against her back, his hands pressing her shoulder blades through her coat. She leaned into the solidity of his body as music, commotion, blared around them.

  She was melting into him, the charge from his flesh dizzying her, when she heard a sharp “Ruth!”

  She opened her eyes. It was moments before her mind could assemble the pieces. Past pink-faced Carl Sandburg with his twin white haystacks of hair, past the dungareed laborer talking up the flapper in a gold lamé dress, past the beautiful Negroes, past the girls who were boys and the boys who were girls, past the hat-check girl reading The Age of Innocence, running toward the door was her sister, June.

  PART FOUR

  DOROTHY

  Junie’s here. They’ll be coming back to see you, dearie. Anything I can get you before they do?

  —What? Keep telling my story? Now? Well, all right. If that’s what you want.

  After the baby was born, I stayed on with my cousin Mildred. Though I had an infant waking to feed three times a night, I still had to do the wash, keep the house, and cook three meals a day, complete with dessert, always with dessert, even if it were just some kind of crisp made from whatever fruit was in season. How I came to loathe cooking for that woman! I was so worn out that I fell asleep sitting up while doing the mending at night. But where else was an unwed mother going to go? Edward had not come for us, yet.

  One afternoon, when the baby was six months old, she was napping in her basket while I was browning some chicken backs for dinner, when a knock sounded on the front door.

  My heart did a flip. Edward?

  Mildred wasn’t home from work yet, so I took the pan off the stove, wiped my hands on my apron, checked the baby, and answered.

  Papa was standing on the doorstep.

  “Father?”

  With a crush of fallen leaves, he came in and took off his bowler hat. He still had a full head of black hair, his best feature. I don’t know why I expected him to look different. It had not quite been a year, although my own hair had gotten shot through with gray. I wanted to tell him that I missed him, and Mother, and that I had worked hard and been good. Could he forgive me? But before I could find the words, he wiped his feet as if he were still on the doormat, then cleared his throat.

  “Can I see the baby?”

  Not a letter had come from Mother or him since they had sent me away. I thought they had washed their hands of me. But he wanted to see the baby! Did this mean that they forgave me? Did this mean that I could go home?

  I ran to get the baby.

  When I brought her in, one of her cheeks flushed from sleeping, he touched her head. “She looks just like you.”

  I kissed her to hide my delight. Bragging about your child was like bragging about yourself, so I said the worst things about her that I could.

  “She’s a little spoiled. She won’t let me put her down once I pick her up. And she has to eat the minute she gets hungry. You’re a little crybaby, aren’t you?” I kissed her again.

  He withdrew his hand and tucked it under his arm. “Dorothy, the Lambs want her.”

  I could not quite understand what my father had asked. His words seemed like a foreign language. “What?”

  “The Lambs want her.”

  “My baby? They want my baby?”

  “I’m supposed to get her.” He glared past my shoulder. “And take her back.”

  My heart stumbled. I must have stumbled with it.

  He grimaced. “It won’t be so bad.”

  Then it dawned on me. Wa
it a minute! Edward wanted us! Oh, Edward, I knew it!

  “When should we go?”

  My thoughts raced ahead—what should I wear? What would the baby wear? Oh, Edward, wait until you see our beautiful child!

  The baby, seeing my excitement, chuckled.

  Father said, “Not you, Dorothy.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know what he meant.

  “I can stand living with them, if that’s what everyone wants.”

  “No, Dorothy. They just want her.”

  “But—we go together. We go together, don’t we, Father?”

  “She can’t stay here. Mildred doesn’t want a baby crying in her house.” He glanced around the shack. “Anyhow, it will be a better life for her.”

  I still didn’t understand. “They want to keep her?”

  He kept his gaze on Mildred’s chair. “That’s what they say.”

  “Will we live with you and Mother in the house?”

  “I told you, it’s just her.”

  “She will live with them,” I stated.

  He still wouldn’t look at me. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

  A bubble of hope rose. “Will Edward be there?”

  “That I do not know.”

  Calm yourself. Edward must want this. Picture our daughter as heir to the Lambs’ beautiful home, with its silver wallpaper and stained-glass windows, the staircase that sails up three flights. Her inheritance. She will want this.

  “He will call for me.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  I clung to my thinning hope. Surely once things were right, Edward would call for me. Surely he would be sorry he’d made me wait and worry and wonder, but he’d had to smooth things over with his parents. He’d had to make things right. That must be hard for them. It wouldn’t be easy to accept the housekeeper’s grandchild as your own.

  I understood now. It was temporary. Not for keeps.

  Father put aside Mildred’s knitting and sat in her ugly peach chair. He fingered the wooden armrest as I laid the baby on the floor and then flew around the cottage, gathering her necessities. The baby was still nursing but could be weaned, though my breasts throbbed—or was it my heart, cushioned behind them—just thinking about it.