Parlor Games

by Maryka Biaggio

  My fondest memories of childhood are the times I spent with Papa, especially my visits to the saloon. Papa always greeted me the same way, bracing his hands on the bar and announcing, “Gentlemen, chère Mimi has come to entertain us. Make way.”

  The men hugging the bar would take their drinks in hand and ease back. Turning to me, Papa would hold out his arms and say, “Mimi, your admirers await. Come.”

  I’d run in under the bar gate—I was little enough not to need to duck—and sprint toward him, striding high so as not to slip on the slick floorboards. He’d catch me in full stride, hoist me over his head, and swing me around. As soon as he plopped me onto the bar, I launched into my pirouettes, holding Papa’s hand as if we were ballet dancers. How I loved the sound of the men clapping and hooting. I don’t believe I’ve gotten the thrill of it out of my bones, even after all these years.

  And to think some people claim I hate men. Such nonsense. Papa was the sweetest person I’ve ever known. Maybe if I could find a man who’s as carefree and cheerful as Papa I’d settle down. But, then, Papa wasn’t much for settling down himself. That’s what made life with him so exciting.

  Ah, Papa. I miss him still. What a thrill it would be to recount all my adventures to him: I believe he’d be proud. But when I was fifteen, just as I was growing into a young lady, Papa was shot and killed trying to break up a fight at the tavern.

  I vividly recall the night he died. I stole off by myself to the shores of Muskegon Lake. There I sat watching day’s color drain from the scattered birches and jagged-edged firs. Wind sweeping in off the lake lashed the loose strands of my hair against my bare, chilled neck. I blinked back tears as I recalled him once telling me, “You have more gumption and sense than your mother and Paul put together.”

  My ears hummed from veiled noises skittering through the forest, as if ghosts stirred among the fallen leaves and floated through the trees. I felt Papa all around me—in the shifting shadows, in the rustle of branches, in the lapping of the lake—and heard his voice: “You have to take care of the family now, Mimi.”

  I knew that that was what he expected—and that I would have to be cleverer than he was, for the sake of all of us.

  We buried Papa the next day, and by then Maman had attained an icy composure. Right after the burial she ordered all of us, “Pack up your clothes. And anything else you want from this miserable place.”

  Our forlorn family—Maman, Paul, little Gene, and I—took the last ferry of the season across Lake Michigan and boarded a train for Menominee.

  MY PRELIMINARY EDUCATION

  MENOMINEE—1884–1887

  By the tender age of fifteen, I had set my sights on Chicago: What youngster didn’t dream of strolling its modern streets, shopping at the crossroads of America, and gazing upon the sparkling new buildings that had risen after the Great Fire? But Menominee was as good a place as any in 1884 to acquire an introduction to commerce and society. It had over a dozen lumber mills roaring away and possibly the busiest port on all the northern lakes. Maman had a cousin here then, an ox of a man who supervised at Spies Lumber Company. We stayed with his family for a few months, until we took a home of our own on Ludington Avenue.

  I finished high school in Menominee and found the teachers much better than the ones I’d had in Muskegon. One of my teachers, Miss Apple, taught me how to manipulate numbers so I could do calculations in my head. I can illustrate. To determine if a number is divisible by 3, add the digits. If the sum is a multiple of 3, then it is divisible. Or, to add 148 and 302, take 2 away from 302, add it to 148 to make 150, and you quickly arrive at 450. I’ve had innumerable occasions to thank Miss Apple for all those little tricks.

  I never did develop any affection for Menominee, though I admit I partook of my share of gaiety in town. Any young girl with a sense of adventure would have found her way into the vaudeville shows and the stores selling fine fabrics, table damask, and hammered-brass lamps. It was in Menominee that I acquired my taste for elegance and lovely things. In fact, before I graduated from high school, Maman had introduced me to the society ladies in town by making certain I was in the parlor whenever they came to order or pick up a dress from her. I reveled in their proper speech, with its oh-so-carefully enunciated words, and their proud, erect carriage, which I practiced in the privacy of my bedroom.

  When I started seeing the son of one of the town’s lumber barons, Robby Jacobsen, Maman was so pleased: “Oh, May”—as I’d begun insisting everyone call me—“you’ve landed a real prize in that young man.” What she didn’t know was that this prize behaved like a gentleman only in the presence of adults.

  One spring evening, Robby escorted me to dinner at the Stephenson Hotel and for dancing afterward in their ballroom. I remember the dress I wore that night, though I wouldn’t show up at a country fair in it now—a baby-blue cotton thing with puffy sleeves and a high collar. Fit for a child, but not a grown woman, which I’d become as I approached eighteen. Two dances into the evening, Robby walked me back to our table, clapped his hand over mine, and said, “I’ve got a surprise for you at my house. Do you want to see it?”

  Now, I always enjoyed visiting Robby’s house. Or should I say “mansion”? It was without a doubt one of the finest homes in all of Menominee—a solid two-story wood building with turrets on the two front corners and a wraparound veranda. Everything about it—the translucent globe lamps, elaborately carved handrails, and Haviland china—declared: We are wealthy and know high style. Still, so as not to show too much eagerness, I said, “After one more dance.”

  It was early April, and we’d had a long string of nice weather. The snow was nearly all melted, but mud puddles still dotted the streets. Whenever we came upon a mucky stretch, Robby swept me into his arms—he was a strapping five eleven and I a blossoming five six—and gallantly carried me over the puddles. Oh, we did enjoy each other, laughing like youngsters on a lark, both of us playful and without a care in the world. We pulled off some clever high jinks together—once even switching a bottle of cheap champagne for the best in the house at his uncle’s hotel.

  That night, as we walked up the front steps of his house, Robby looked up and down the dark street, apparently checking for any nosy neighbors, and then lifted me into his arms and carried me over the threshold, as if he were welcoming a bride home.

  Setting me down in the entranceway, he hollered, “Hello. Surprise.”

  His voice echoed into the spacious parlor and down the first-floor hall. No one answered. I was well acquainted with Robby’s rapscallion side, so suspicion overtook me. “I see there’s no one here.”

  He dropped to a knee and grasped my hand. “Marry me, May, and together we’ll scandalize the town.”

  “Why, Robert Jacobsen, I had no idea,” I exclaimed, for I had no intention of marrying Robby: I wished to try my hand at Chicago’s extravagantly wealthy bachelors.

  Rising, he scooped me into his arms and bounded up the stairs. Forcing the partly closed door of his bedroom open with his foot, he whisked me into the room and plopped me on his bed, then dropped on top of me and smothered my neck and cheeks with kisses. “Ah, my little bride,” he said, massaging my breasts.

  “Robby,” I cried, bracing my palms against his shoulders and pushing with all my might, “you mustn’t.”

  He budged not one bit. “Please, my beauty.”

  My breasts tingled, not unpleasantly, beneath his touch, but I persisted in my attempts to push him off me. “I … I don’t want to get pregnant.”

  He bounced up on his knees and smiled devilishly at me. “But I’ve got a sheath.”

  “A sheath?”

  “An English riding coat, a love glove.”

  “Oh,” I said, comprehension dawning on me. It had certainly behooved me, a young woman with men flocking about her, to acquire some understanding about the prevention of pregnancy. So I had educated myself through medical pamphlets.

  I don’t imagine I need to spell out the rest of the evening. I h
adn’t planned on entering womanhood that night, but curiosity and the pleasant sensations Robby aroused in me overtook the ill-formed fears conjured by schoolgirl whisperings. For years it’d been clear to me that I had a certain power over the male sex—that is, if Maman’s warning to keep my admirers at a distance was any indication. Still, I knew little of the allure of the bedroom. Robby was as good a teacher as any, old enough to have had some experience, not terribly unpleasing in appearance, and a spirited sort. So I allowed the galoot to school me in the ways of love.

  By the time I graduated from high school, a few months later, I had completed my preliminary education in the mysteries of the bedroom. But poor Robby, once the deed was done, always fretted about the complications a pregnancy would force upon us.

  It wasn’t a happy day when I broke the news, over my graduation dinner in the Erdlitz dining room, that his fears had been realized. Once I’d urged him to ingest the only reliable antidote to his unflappable verve—three after-dinner Cognacs—I whispered, “Robby, we have to talk. I’m afraid I’m with child.”

  Robby scooted his chair toward mine, bumping the table and nearly upending our candle. His broad nose and plump lips, which always gave his face the impression of looming too near, pressed close to mine. “But I thought, that, uh …”

  “I know, I thought so, too.” I glanced around nervously. It was Saturday night, and the town’s bankers and lumber barons, accompanied by wives in fresh spring fashions, huddled around dimly lit tables, abuzz with cozy conversation. Blinking my eyes, I said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll get married right away. I’ll tell my parents tomorrow.”

  I clamped my hands together and widened my eyes. “No, I can’t ruin your and my reputation. The baby will be born in under nine months.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Who cares what anybody in Menominee thinks?”

  “Consider your family, Robby. And my poor mother.”

  “We can leave, go to Green Bay. You know I’m itching to get out of this place.”

  “Oh, Robby, you’re a real gentleman, that’s what you are. But I don’t want to start like that—running away like we’ve got something to hide.”

  “I don’t see what else we can do.”

  Fearing his urgent whisper had carried to the next table, I glanced in that direction to alert him. I tapped a finger to my lips, trying to think of a solution. “What if I went away to have the baby? Found a nice couple to give it to? You could join me later. We could get a proper start.”

  “I don’t want you to go away without me. And I don’t want to give up our baby.”

  “Robby, you can’t just think about today, or the next nine months. You have to think about the rest of our lives.”

  “I am thinking about our future. And your mother, too. When we’re married, she won’t have to take in boarders and sweat over that sewing machine all day.”

  “Elsie is not a boarder. She’s an employee. And Maman is an excellent dressmaker, which your mother and every other nicely attired lady in town knows only too well.”

  Robby winced. “Fine, your mother can do whatever she likes. I’m just saying I can provide for you. And your family, too, if you want.”

  “And if your father disowns you for running off, what will you have then? How will you support me and our children?”

  “Damn it, May, I can manage on my own. You think I need my father’s money?”

  “I only know you’d be a fool to spurn your family and their good fortune.”

  “You’re the last person I’d expect to hear that from. Don’t you have any faith in me?”

  “Of course I do. I just don’t want you to do anything rash.”

  “I intend to design furniture. You know I’ve got a knack for it.” Robby smoothed his hand over the fine-grained dining table, as if that proved his point. “I want a business of my own. And you alongside me.”

  “But it takes time to establish a business.” I glanced about, at the wall-mounted kerosene lamps flickering over the diners’ animated expressions and tingeing the air with smoky scents. I lowered my voice. “And I have to plan for two now.”

  He glared at me. “I’m trying to plan for three.”

  “Please, Robby.” I cupped my hand over his. “I have to do it my way. Please understand.”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Robby said, extracting his hand and pushing back in his chair.

  I slapped my hand on the table. “No, I will not bring scandal on me, you, or some innocent child. I simply won’t do it.”

  Robby flared his nostrils. “I hate it when you dig your heels in, May Dugas. You’re worse than an old mule.”

  I sat up straight and folded my hands on my lap. “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  He clamped his lips together and shook his head. “Damn it, sometimes I wish I weren’t so taken with you. You’re impossible, that’s what you are.”

  In the end, Robby gave me the money to travel to Chicago. A mere four hours into my journey, as the train lurched out of the Manitowoc, Wisconsin, station, I felt the familiar trickle of my monthly visitor. I guess I had jumped the gun—I wasn’t pregnant after all. But it was too late to turn back.

  THE TRIAL

  FRANK’S CHARGES

  MENOMINEE—JANUARY 22, 1917

  As the judge settled into his seat, I gazed across the aisle at Frank and offered a friendly nod and smile. You see, animosity is not my style. But I would have preferred an actual tête-à-tête with her: “Frank, dear, I spotted a few strands of gray hair this week—the result, no doubt, of strain from the trial.” Then I would tinkle out a laugh and add, “It can’t be easy on you, either.”

  Poor Frank. I should have known she’d take our parting as poorly as any male admirer. Frank is a hardy woman: She freely gives herself over to life’s pleasures; she adores fishing and hunting; and she can jest and josh with the best of them. I certainly wouldn’t have engaged her services if she weren’t a first-rate attorney. And I always admired her fresh, self-assured charm, a little like the bluster of a confident young man or a lady testing the lure of her beauty. Not that Frank has anything close to beauty. She’s thick of trunk, with matronly bosoms that she secures under double-breasted suits. But when she smiles, her broad cheeks crinkle into plump mounds of delight, and her jolly, deep-from-the-belly laughter never fails to enliven a gathering.

  “Please be seated,” the judge boomed, drawing his robe aside and planting himself on his high-backed chair. “We are here for the civil case of Miss Frank Gray Shaver versus Baroness May de Vries. Counselor Sawyer, would you like to make your opening statement?”

  The sallow-complexioned Alvah Sawyer rose to face the men sitting motionless in the jury box. Clasping his delicate hands together in prayerful pose, he began, “Gentlemen of the jury, I will show you, beyond any kind of doubt, that Baroness de Vries, as she insists on being called, cooked up an elaborate plan to defraud my client of more than a hundred thousand dollars.”

  As soon as Sawyer rattled off that sentence, my attorney, George Powers, sprang to his feet. “Objection. Her legal name is Baroness de Vries.” (I had warned him they would try to diminish me and my title. Honestly, it’s not as if I manufactured my marriage to the Baron.)

  The judge planted a hand on his jaw and shook his head. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mr. Powers, it’s his opening statement. And, Mr. Sawyer, a title is a title. At least grant her that courtesy.”

  Sawyer tugged at his vest and puffed out his chest. “As I was saying, the Baroness defrauded my client of over a hundred thousand dollars. With her brothers, Paul and Gene Dugas, and assistant, Miss Belle Emmett, she conspired to steal from Miss Frank Shaver all the money and property Miss Shaver inherited from her father.

  “How did she manage this? My head spins trying to keep track of her conniving ways. She persuaded Miss Shaver to borrow forty thousand dollars from her family and then ate her way through it like a hungry wolf. She even convinced my clie
nt to invest nine thousand dollars in remodeling her mother’s home right here in town, over on Stephenson Avenue.” Sawyer jerked his head to the side, as if we might actually glimpse my family’s house through the brick wall.

  “The Baroness’s actions were bold as could be. Just three months ago, she tried to cash in one hundred and sixty shares of Westinghouse stock rightfully belonging to Miss Shaver. And in 1913, during the illness of the Baroness’s mother, she played on Miss Shaver’s kind sympathies and talked her into paying for the medical specialist brought in to tend her own mother, claiming she’d repay the debt. The Baroness even went so far as to trick Miss Shaver into making a will bequeathing the sum of eighty thousand dollars to her, promising she’d do the same.”

  Sawyer paused and swept his gaze over each juror, as if preparing to serve up some shocking revelation. “Did she repay the forty-thousand-dollar loan? Did she settle up the medical expenses for her mother? Did she write the promised will with Miss Shaver as beneficiary? No, no, and no.”

  Mutters erupted from the spectators. The judge thumped his gavel. “This is a court of law, not a playhouse. I will not allow such outbursts.”

  Sawyer settled back into his tirade, and the onlookers stifled themselves as he harangued on and on. I scanned the faces of my twelve-man jury—twelve Menominee men whose wives have no doubt repeated all manner of titillating rumors about me. Do they think I know nothing of their dirty laundry—with my two brothers living in this town for the last three decades and rubbing elbows with the lot of them?

  There’s jury foreman Arthur Wheaton, a butcher widowed last year, after thirty-some years of marriage to Opal. That Opal could talk circles around an auctioneer. I’ll wager Mr. Wheaton is pleased to report for jury duty. The poor man’s probably been as bored as a tree stump without Opal’s company. Personally, I have no objections to Mr. Wheaton. He’s a quiet sort, with doleful eyes, and not much of a backbone. They probably elected him foreman out of deference to his age and state of mourning. Still, he’ll just follow the crowd.