What Every Girl Should Know

by J. Albert Mann

  I opened the application. We stuck our heads together and began to read.

  “Name, address, yes, yes, yes,” Amelia mumbled. “Audition piece.”

  We stopped reading and our eyes met. We’d been considering a few pieces, but hadn’t decided on one yet. We turned our faces back to the page and continued reading. Amelia finished first.

  “As simple as ale, bread, and cheese,” she said. She handed me a pen.

  I spent the afternoon carefully printing every word, first on a scrap piece of paper and then neatly onto the application. At one point, I felt a little woozy, and discovered it was because I had been holding my breath. I stopped to rest my eyes, and breathe. I couldn’t help thinking of Mary. She would have loved to be here right now while I filled this out. Maybe even filling out one of her own?

  She was comfortable with the Abbotts, and they loved her. Who wouldn’t love her? She was a wonderful person. That didn’t change how stupid life was, and life was surely stupid if all of Mary Higgins’s promise was poured into some family on the hill. But then I remembered she was also pouring it into me. I picked up my pen.

  Amelia walked with me to post it.

  “The man born with a silver spoon in his mouth must have been born in stirring times,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “That was a joke,” she informed me.

  “Sorry.”

  “What is the difference between two mermaids, and spring and summer?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “The former are two sea-daughters. And the latter, two sea-sons.”

  I smiled.

  “Admit it, that one was funny,” she said.

  “You’re right. Two seasons. It took me a moment to understand it.”

  We walked beside each other in silence.

  “Are you quiet because you’d like to hear more jokes?” she joked.

  Now I did laugh.

  “I’m just nervous about the application,” I told her.

  “They will accept you,” she said. Not too happily.

  Strangely, I felt the same.

  The Plan

  There were ten of us all squished into Amelia’s room: Amelia, Minerva, Hazel, Marianne, Vivian, Vera, Rebecca, Leila, Edna, and me.

  “They will find us out,” Edna said, shaking her head.

  “They won’t, Ed,” Amelia said. “Maggie’s worked it out.”

  “But the window?” Minerva winced.

  “That’s my favorite part.” Hazel laughed. “I’ve always wanted to climb out a window.”

  “Who dreams of climbing out of a window?” asked Minerva.

  “Hazel Bateman, obviously,” cackled Amelia.

  Minerva rolled her eyes.

  “I’ll do it,” offered Marianne.

  Marianne was our group’s quiet one, and therefore no one was ever quite sure of the contents of her head.

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t going to do it,” complained Minerva, glaring at Marianne.

  Vivian and Vera exchanged a glance. They were sisters. Twins, although they didn’t look a thing alike. Vivian was round and serious. Vera was slighter with bright eyes.

  “We’ll do it,” Vera announced.

  “Leila? Becca?” Amelia asked.

  Both girls took a moment.

  “Augie Royter will be there,” Amelia coaxed.

  Leila enthusiastically nodded her head. I couldn’t hold back a dopey grin.

  Rebecca held out a tiny bit longer, but finally moaned, “All right, all right.”

  “We’re going to get in so much trouble,” mumbled Edna.

  “We are not,” I said. “I’ve devised a solid plan.”

  The plan wasn’t so much solid as exciting. Claverack had become my home. And I felt comfortable in my home. Comfortable with my friends. Comfortable in leading all of them on a grand adventure into the night.

  Our destination: the Hudson Opera House at the edge of the village, where the upstairs performance hall doubled as a dance hall. The goal: to dance our hearts out with our special admirers.

  Corey was in charge of our special admirers. They’d be executing their own plan, which didn’t sound as though it needed to be quite as elaborate as ours since the administration didn’t keep a close watch on the dormitory across the campus from us. The women’s dormitory had eyes on it all the time . . . except for the storage closet window on the first floor, which dropped into a thicket of holly bushes. Perfect cover.

  * * *

  “Ouch!”

  “Shhhhhh! It’s just holly.”

  “It scratches.”

  “Watch out!”

  “Well, get off me, Becca.”

  “Shhhhhh! We’re going to be caught.”

  “We are if you don’t shut up.”

  “Everybody calm down,” I commanded.

  “Are we all out?” Amelia asked.

  “Coming,” Marianne whispered as she dropped lightly onto the ground and then arranged her skirt back over her legs.

  I counted heads as we crouched in the holly. “We’re all here. Everyone follow me.” I took a last look up at the dark windows of the dormitory. Lights out had happened thirty minutes ago. Every single window was dark. It was amazing how well we all listened. I didn’t see any movement behind the glass. I turned back to collect their gazes, acknowledging we were about to move. And then off I loped for the line of trees about twenty paces from the dormitory.

  I heard the heavy breathing and footsteps of my friends behind me. The way was down a little hill, making the going unsteady in the dark. Amelia bumped me from behind.

  “Sorry.”

  I kept moving until I was safely hidden among the trees. They entered the woods in clumps, each one bumping into the existing group of us in the shadows. Once we were all in, I looked back, scanning the windows again for any movement. I saw none.

  We mended our bellows, huddling together in the woods.

  “This is one balmy-brained idea,” Minerva said, but she was laughing.

  “You’re only two miles from Augie, Leila,” Amelia taunted.

  Leila’s face sobered. All our tails turned down as we considered Amelia’s words. None of us had much experience meeting boys in dance halls. I’d been secretly more excited about enacting my escape plan than I had been about dancing with Corey. In fact, this might actually be the first time I’d thought about him since we’d dressed and waited for lights out. I just loved the idea of having everyone counting on me.

  I glanced around at them. They were all standing quietly staring up at the dormitory. Part of me was thinking what I believed they were all thinking: maybe we should turn around. It was at this moment that the flaw in my plan occurred to me. How do we climb back up into the window we all just dropped out of? A wave of panic fluttered in my chest.

  “Maggie?” Viv whispered.

  I breathed. The only course of action I could see right now was continuing forward. I’d figure out the window later.

  I waved my hand to attract their attention. “Follow me,” I mouthed, grabbing Amelia’s hand. She turned and grabbed Rebecca’s, and so on, until we formed a chain weaving our way through the woods. Once we hit the road, we released hands and walked, openly chatting since no one at school could hear us now.

  The dance hall was a two-mile walk. There was some grumbling about sore feet and frigid limbs, which astounded me because two miles was a hop to the necessary where I came from. I’d give them the cold, though. February in New York was not the easiest of months for midnight walks.

  “Is this the right way?” someone whispered. There was fear in the voice, and it got picked up instantly by someone else. “Maybe we should turn back?”

  I tried to walk through it, show them I was completely aware of what I was doing, but I could feel them all slowing down behind me, their uncertainty growing. Before I knew it, we were collecting together in a tiny mob on the road.

  “Let’s go back,” Edna said.

  “But Augie?” Leila moan
ed.

  “He’s not going to marry a girl who shows up unchaperoned at a dance hall, Leila,” Edna snapped.

  “Marry?” I yelped. “Who is talking about marriage? We’re just going dancing.”

  “It’s never just dancing,” Edna said.

  “It is. I mean, it can be,” I babbled.

  “It can’t,” Viv agreed, shaking her head, her frown glowing in the moonlight.

  I looked over at Amelia. She didn’t look back. For the first time since I came to Claverack, I felt a pang of Corning in my gut. “But we’re here to become educated . . . so we might go on to become doctors and teachers and actors.”

  “We’re here to become educated,” Edna countered, “so we might educate our children.”

  The sound of the wind grew louder as we stood on the frigid, empty road allowing Edna’s words to sink through our overcoats and into our hearts. Our spirits melting, our faces dropped toward our boots. This was where Claverack led? Back to Corning and babies at worst, or some better town than Corning and babies at best?

  “Let’s go back,” Viv mumbled into her scarf.

  “No,” I said. “No.”

  Their eyes snapped up at me in the dark. I hadn’t been speaking to them. But now I knew I would, and Sister Greeley’s face flashed before me because here I was again . . . and again, I wasn’t going to shut up.

  “No,” I repeated. “No to learning for the sake of others. No to always doing everything for the sake of others. It’s as if we don’t exist. Ever. Yes, our future children, if we have them, are important. Yes, being kind and giving to others is important. But aren’t we important? And don’t we deserve some attention from ourselves?”

  Folding my arms in front of me in defiance, I stared out at each of them. Although I purposely avoided Amelia’s gaze, afraid it might remind me of Emma’s. Maybe this was the end. Maybe this was where I lost her, too. My heart throbbed so loudly in my ears, and my breath was so raggedy with fear I could barely speak. My last words came out as a thin, raspy whisper.

  “I’m going to be an actress. Or a doctor. Or something. I’m going to be something, God rot it. And tonight, I’m going dancing.”

  Amelia clucked her tongue and wrapped her arms around my stiff shoulders, her love coming so fast, I couldn’t unwind myself to meet it.

  “You already are something, Margaret Higgins, but you’re not going dancing without me.”

  “Me too,” Marianne added in her matter-of-fact way.

  “I am most definitely dancing.” Hazel laughed. “Since I’m a much better dancer than I’ll ever be a mother.”

  “My mother is an excellent dancer,” chirped Leila.

  “Ours, too,” Vera said. “She can five step.”

  “My mother can polka.” Edna grinned amid gasps and exclamations and the moving forward of our little group down the road toward our goal.

  Amelia squeezed my hand. I squeezed hers back. Things didn’t always end in rotten vegetables and spittle, I reminded myself.

  * * *

  We heard it before we saw it. The tinkling of notes wafted across the dark road and a hum of talk and laughter reached us just before we came around the bend and there she was. The dance hall. I had ferried them safely from dorm to destination.

  “Finally!” Hazel declared. She was the first one of us to enter the hall.

  There was an awkward few moments where we spotted the group we’d come to meet, and the group we’d come to meet spotted us. The strange venue we found ourselves in had made all of us shy, even Hazel. Our two little groups caved in on themselves, becoming more interested in one another than in the band on the stage or the brightly lit hall or the person we’d each just risked life and limb to be with. But the band barreled down on a lively bit of music, and Vera couldn’t stop her feet from two-stepping right over to Wallace Thornton, and within three blinks the rest of us followed, pairing off and two-stepping right along with them.

  Corey Albertson wasn’t bad, once he got going. Not good . . . but not bad. He knew how to mug while he danced, making sure I knew he was doing his best and having fun. I admit I didn’t dance very well, either, but I certainly knew how to mug and have fun.

  I was twisting and tapping and sweating and grinning when I bumped into someone behind me. “I apologize,” I said into the twirling lights of the dance hall.

  “Yes, you do,” a voice answered. A voice that stopped my dancing feet.

  “Hello, Miss Higgins. Mr. Albertson.”

  “H-hello, Principal Flack.”

  “Enjoying yourselves?”

  Well, we had been. But we weren’t anymore. Especially when I saw the lineup of my friends’ stricken faces against the dance hall wall next to my Latin teacher, Miss Albrecht. A line that Corey and I quickly joined.

  The march back to school was quiet. There were no complaints of the cold or sore feet. Upon return, I didn’t remember feeling either. I did, however, remember both the irony of my thoughts on how things end as well as my failed plan’s biggest problem—the window—being solved.

  Miss Albrecht unlocked the front door using a key on a chain around her neck, and the line of girls solemnly climbed the stairs to enter.

  “One moment,” Principal Flack said.

  The line flinched as we came to a stop. None of us wanted to meet his gaze, but it seemed rude not to, so we did. He stood at the bottom of the stairs frowning up at us. The boys stood behind him, not daring to catch any of our eyes. Not that we caught theirs.

  “The nine of you should be prepared to discuss consequences tomorrow.”

  None of us moved but me. I looked sideways, in both directions. Nine of us?

  “Good night,” he said.

  We filed inside. Up the stairs. Down the corridor. Everyone watching their feet but me. Who was missing?

  A shadow caught my eye. I spotted Marianne slinking down the hallway, like a cat, behind us. How had she gotten in?

  She saw me, and tossed me a quick smile before she disappeared through her dormitory door. I suppressed a laugh, which would have been highly inappropriate. Marianne Murphy. I would have to keep my eye on her.

  Once in bed I let out a giant sigh.

  “Shhh.”

  I was sure it was Minerva. She said we’d get caught and we did. I hated that she ended up being right.

  I flopped onto my stomach and went back through the night in my head. Where did we go wrong? Where did I go wrong? What would Nan say if I was suspended? Or worse, perhaps they would expel me. Us. Amelia.

  I lay in bed writing a speech to Principal Flack in my head. It was a beautiful thing, and I fell asleep while I imagined myself reciting it at chapel.

  * * *

  The next morning, I was called to Principal Flack’s office before breakfast. All my fine language, my rich and sonorous phrases from the night before, flew out of my head. In an instant, I saw how lost I was speaking without proper preparation.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The principal was a small, thin man with a large head and high brows that made him seem often surprised. Although I couldn’t see this startled look because he was standing at his desk with his back to me, watching out his office window.

  I walked in and stood next to the chair.

  “Sit,” he said, as if he could see me.

  I sat down and my heart picked up speed. His quiet had me panicking. I’d never really believed I would be suspended, but now I was sure I was going to be expelled. We were all going to be expelled. And it would be my fault. I swallowed and swore softly under my breath at my stupidity. Stupid. That was what I was. Not only would I not become a doctor, but I was on my way to becoming an uneducated mother. I grabbed at the chair’s side to keep myself from popping out of it in despair.

  “Principal Flack,” I said breathlessly, not knowing what I was planning to say next but knowing my only line of defense was to be contrite. Very, very contrite. “Principal Flack, I’m . . .” Contrite was something I didn’t do well, and I f
ell apart. “In this moment, sir, I’m seeing some of my very real deficiencies.” Honesty I was a little better at.

  He turned his high brows my way. I snapped my saucebox shut and stared at him. Waiting for it to come . . . those horrible words that would send me home.

  “Miss Higgins,” he began.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, interrupting him. Wanting him to stop talking. To not say it.

  “Miss Higgins,” he began again. “Don’t you feel rather ashamed of yourself for getting those girls into trouble last night? For having them break the rules? They may all have to be sent home.”

  He was exactly right. It was my idea. My plan. And I loved being in charge. Leading them all through that window. Shockingly, I was contrite, too.

  “I’ve watched you, Miss Higgins. At chapel. In the classroom. Around campus. I’ve watched you since you came here to Claverack and I don’t need to be told you were the ringleader. I’ve noticed your influence over others. I want to call your attention to this, because I know you’re going to use it in the future.”

  I almost protested that I wouldn’t ever do anything again . . . no future planning or plotting, no future anything. Just let me stay. But all I did was scoot forward in my chair. Closer to the terrible words about to fall from his lips.

  “You must make your choice—whether to get yourself and others into difficulty, or to guide yourself and others into constructive activities that will do you, and them, credit.”

  “My choice. Yes. I know. I knew. I do,” I blurted, thinking of those two “me”s. Thinking of the bridge and the gloves and how I’d tried . . . and failed. My fingers reached for those old lumps on my head, warmly quiet behind my ears.

  “You’re excused, Miss Higgins. Return to the dining hall. Eat breakfast. Go to class.”