Tiffany Girl

by Deeanne Gist

  Flossie whipped the ingredients more feverishly. “Yes. Is that bowl ready?”

  Mother brought the greased bowl and steadied it while Flossie scraped the pudding into it. A sweet, citrusy aroma wafted up and around them.

  “Thank you for preparing this.” Mother’s voice was low, gentle. “Your father hasn’t been himself ever since he realized you’d have to quit. This gesture, well, it will mean a great deal to him.”

  Avoiding her gaze, Flossie set the pudding, bowl and all, in the pot of boiling water, then placed a lid on the pot so it could steam. Mother stood at her side. Flossie stared at the pot.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mother whispered, placing a hand on Flossie’s arm.

  Swallowing, Flossie looked down. “Mr. Tiffany—the younger Mr. Tiffany who does the stained glass? Well, he stopped by our class today.”

  Mother said nothing. Just kept a soothing hand on Flossie’s arm.

  “He was looking to hire women who could make stained-glass windows for his World’s Fair exhibit.” The heat from the stove warmed her. The scent of orange began to permeate the room. “He . . .” She took a deep breath. “He asked me to be one of them.”

  Mother went completely still. “What did you say?”

  Flossie fiddled with the apron strings wrapped about her waist. “I said yes.”

  Releasing her, Mother took a step back and rested her fingertips against her mouth. “How much is he going to pay you?”

  “Five dollars a week.”

  “Oh, Flossie. You make much more sewing for me.”

  Flossie looked out the window above the kitchen worktable. The view was no more than a wall of soot-covered bricks from the building next door. “I make nothing working for you.”

  “But you won’t make anything working for him, either. You’ll be giving it all to your father either way, so what difference does it make?”

  Flossie moved her gaze from the window to her mother, her mother whose brown eyes were so much like her own. “I won’t be giving it to Papa because I won’t be living here. I’m moving out.”

  Mother sucked in a breath. “You’re speaking nonsense now. You can’t move out. You’re an unmarried, beautiful young woman. What will people think?”

  “I suppose they’ll think I’m a New Woman.”

  “You cannot,” Mother hissed. “Your father will, oh my, he will—”

  The front door opened, muffled sounds from the street outside briefly reached them before being shut off as the door closed.

  Mother paled. “Good heavens. Oh, my. Goodness me.” She whipped off her apron, patted her hair, and rushed toward the hall. At the last moment she turned back to Flossie. “We’ll talk about this later. Do not mention anything to your father.”

  Blowing out a quick breath of air, Flossie collected plates from the kitchen cabinet and took them to the dining room. A few minutes later Papa joined her, Mother just behind him.

  “There she is,” he said, his voice bright. “My little sunshine.”

  With charm and grace, he relieved her of the final plate, took both her hands in his, and placed a kiss on her cheek. “How are you, moppet?”

  Unlike Mother, he wouldn’t have forgotten it was her last day at the School of Applied Design. He knew she’d be understandably upset. And as he always did when she was unhappy, he took it upon himself to lift her spirits.

  He was quite accomplished at it, actually. He’d had twenty-one years of practice putting on a jovial mood to coax her out of her pout. She couldn’t think of a time when his engaging smile and sparkling brown eyes had failed to do so.

  She studied him anew. He’d benefited from Mother’s handiness with a needle. His well-cut jacket and gray striped trousers marked him as a New York man—perhaps not one of rank, but certainly one who did well for himself. Never did he have a piece of black hair out of place or a white collar anything less than perfectly stiff. Only in the last couple of years had gray begun to touch his temples.

  Her favorite part of his careful grooming, though, the one she always associated with him, was the subtle aroma of coconut that wafted about him. It was his secret ingredient for enriching the lather of the shaving soap he used in his shop and in his own toilet.

  Slipping an arm around her waist, he danced her about the table and sang, his beautiful tenor filling the dining room.

  “Of all the days that’s in the week

  I dearly love but one day—

  And that’s the day that comes betwixt

  A Saturday and Monday.”

  Unable to resist, she added the alto harmony to his favorite song.

  “For then I’m drest all in my best

  To walk abroad with Flossie;

  She is the darling of my heart,

  Her hair so fine and glossy.”

  The real words didn’t use her name, of course, but those of a girl named Sally who lived up in an alley. Still, Papa had changed the verses so often that when Flossie heard anyone else sing it properly, it always jolted her.

  He spun her through three more verses until he had her laughing and out of breath.

  “Now, there’s a good girl,” he said, bringing them to a stop. He lifted his nose and sniffed the air. “Am I smelling what I think I’m smelling?”

  She nodded. “You are.”

  “Did you make it?”

  “I did. It’s not quite ready, though. It’s only just now been put on the stove.”

  Studying her, his face slowly sobered. “You’re a very good daughter to have done that, especially today.”

  She looked down and took a step back. “Papa, I—”

  “Come, you two,” Mother said, surging forward. “It’s a good thing I had soup on the stove, for Mrs. Cutting didn’t leave until just before you got home, darling. So sit down and, Flossie, you come with me.”

  Papa grabbed Flossie’s hand, stopping her. “Not tonight, Mother. Tonight Flossie will sit at the table with me. No bringing in food and no scrubbing of dishes for my moppet. I have need of her at the table with me.”

  Flossie gently disengaged herself. “Don’t be silly, Papa. Mother needs some help. I’ll only be a minute.”

  He put on a pout, but took his chair as she knew he would.

  In the kitchen, Mother grabbed some applesauce that had been chilling on the windowsill. “Slice up some bread and, for heaven’s sake, don’t say anything about Mr. Tiffany’s offer.”

  Instead of answering, Flossie concentrated on her task, and within a few minutes all was on the table. Papa said grace, then kept them entertained with anecdotes about the men who’d visited his shop. When any lulls in the conversation occurred, Mother quickly filled in the silences.

  If Papa noticed Flossie’s reticence, he must have attributed it to melancholy over leaving the design school. Finally, she and Mother took the plates from the table and returned with his orange marmalade pudding.

  Despite Mother’s insistence on discretion, Flossie screwed up her courage. “Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany came to the studio today.”

  Mother gave her a sharp look.

  “Did he?” Papa asked. “Don’t tell me he was a guest instructor?”

  “No, he just came by to examine the students’ work.”

  “Did he see yours?”

  “He did.”

  Leaning back in his chair, Papa wiped a hand on the napkin tucked into his neck, a look of pride touching his face. “And what did he think?”

  “He said I had a good eye for shadows and highlights.”

  Papa’s eyebrows crinkled a bit. “That’s it?”

  “That’s what we were working on today, the underpainting.”

  “Ah.” His expression smoothed. “Did he see your Woman at the Seashore painting?”

  She shook her head. “No, I brought that painting home day before yesterday. I’ve been bringing a little bit home each day so I wouldn’t have so much to carry at the very end.”

  He placed his hand against the table, palm up. She slipped her
s into it.

  “I’m sorry you had to quit, moppet. It won’t be forever. And it isn’t as if you earn any diploma or anything. They don’t even have a set curriculum.”

  “I know, but every day I miss, I fall behind.”

  “You’re already so accomplished.”

  “I want to be more than accomplished. I want to have my paintings hanging in a museum.”

  Squeezing her hand, he gave her a placating smile. “All the great artists are men, my dear. That’s just the way things are. The sooner you accept that, the better. Yet another reason to take a break from the design school. I don’t know if they’re the ones putting these ideas into your head or if it is some half-formed aspiration thrilling upon your nerves that is to blame, but you must stop for a minute and consider how very comfortable your life is.”

  She removed her hand from his.

  He scraped the inside of his pudding cup, the glass clinking with each stroke of his spoon. “You certainly have more diversion than I do, as you look after our household, go to afternoon teas, and consider the complicated problems in women’s fashion.” He took his final bite of pudding. “No, only someone content with life could have as excellent an appetite as you and could sleep eight hours every night. You will get married before you know it and will find the rearing of your children infinitely more rewarding than having some piece of canvas hanging on a wall of a stuffy old museum.”

  Her shoulders tensed. The skin about her mouth tightened. Rearranging the spoon beside her pudding cup, she lined it up perfectly straight. “Because of a strike, Mr. Tiffany has lost his glaziers and glassworkers.”

  Mother nudged her under the table.

  She refused to make eye contact with her. “He needs someone to help him finish making stained-glass windows for his exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition.”

  “Flossie,” her mother hissed.

  “He offered me and five other girls the men’s jobs.”

  “I’m sure you told him no.” Papa wiped his mouth with the napkin hanging from his collar. “Wonderful dessert, my dear. Simply wonderful.”

  “I accepted the position. I start January second.”

  He gave her a look of loving tolerance. “You will write him a very nice note then, thanking him, but telling him you are needed at home.”

  “I’m moving out.”

  Removing his napkin, he pushed back his chair. “Do not test me anymore, Flossie. You will not move out of this house until you are good and wed. And you will not take a job, ever.”

  “I am taking this job, Papa. You can go to the races on it. I will leave as soon as I can secure a room in a boardinghouse.”

  He’d narrowed his eyes at the word “races,” but it was the word “boardinghouse” that sent him completely over the edge.

  “A boardinghouse?” He gripped the table and leaned forward. “A boardinghouse?” His voice shook. “Have you lost your senses? You would be in grave moral danger. Why, men of highly questionable character swarm those places. You’d be ruined. No decent man would ever have you.”

  She sat on her hands, willing herself not to panic. “The world is changing, Papa. Lots of respectable women live in boardinghouses these days. The papers are filled with women who have become doctors and lawyers and all kinds of things.”

  He slammed a hand onto the table. She jumped. Mother squeaked.

  “No daughter of mine will be written about in the paper,” he roared. “Not unless she’s getting married or she’s dead.”

  She squeezed her hands into fists. “No one’s going to write about me in the paper.”

  “They most assuredly are not,” he continued, his voice blistering her ears. “Because no daughter of mine will hold a job, nor will she live in a boardinghouse.” He spewed the last word out as if it were Hades itself.

  She set her jaw. Out of respect for him, she’d not argue any further, but there was nothing he could do to stop her—and it wasn’t the first time she’d ever dug in her heels. She could tell he recognized the determination on her face.

  He waved his hand in a gesture of exasperation. “Do something, Edythe.”

  Mother clasped her hands. “Flossie, dear, think. If you do this, you will become a . . .” She glanced at Papa. “. . . a New Woman.” She whispered the last two words as if they were unfit for delicate ears. “You will be choosing the life of an old maid. Why would you do that? Don’t you want a man to love? Some children to enrich your life?”

  She did want that, there was no denying it. For years, all she’d ever dreamed of was growing up and becoming a wife and mother, but that was before women had any choices. Now they were earning degrees. They were asking for the vote. They were even securing jobs in professions never before accessible to them. But in order to keep those jobs, they had to remain unmarried.

  A moment of clarity and calm washed over her. Her shoulders relaxed. If she were going to be an old maid the rest of her life, then she certainly wasn’t going to stay in her father’s house, where her salary would not be her own. Besides, who ever heard of a New Woman living with her parents?

  No, if she was going to be a New Woman in the truest sense, she’d have to leave. There was no other way. “I’d love to have children, Mother, but I can’t seem to work up any enthusiasm for a husband who will withhold money from me when I’m the one earning it and who will keep me on a leash because he thinks he knows better than I what’s best for me.”

  Mother sucked in her breath.

  Papa’s face exploded with color. “He will know what’s best for you! Clearly.”

  Looking down, Flossie picked a crumb from her skirt and dropped it into her empty pudding cup.

  Papa squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Fine, fine,” he barked. “You can have the job at Tiffany’s, but by all that is holy, you will stay here at home.”

  She lifted her chin and looked at a point just above her mother’s head. “I’m sorry, Papa. I cannot.”

  Taking in a wheezing breath, he drove his fingers into his hair and fisted his hands, the gesture ruining the perfection of his appearance. Genuine concern for his health swept through her. Surely her actions wouldn’t cause his heart to fail?

  No, no. She had to get ahold of herself.

  After a tense moment, he lowered his arms, weariness settling over him. His hair stuck up in tufts. “Your mother and I have spent a lifetime caring for you, training you, teaching you, encouraging you, loving you—even spoiling you, at times. We have put everything—everything—into preparing you for life as a wife and mother. You are all we have, Flossie. Why, after all we’ve done, would you do this to us?”

  Her eyes filled, her throat swelled. “Are you afraid I’ll fail, Papa? Are you afraid I’ll make you ashamed of me?”

  He gave her a look of acute sadness. “No, moppet, I’m afraid you’ll succeed. As a matter of fact, I know you’ll succeed. You’re so beautiful, and talented, and smart—too smart for a woman, actually. So much so, I’m afraid once Tiffany realizes what he has, he will pull you from the glasswork and make you a designer of his windows. Then you’d never come back home.”

  Love for him burst within her. She didn’t dare thank him for his unfailing belief in her, but it warmed her clear down to her toes. “And would my being a designer for Tiffany shame you?”

  Pursing his lips, he examined his immaculate fingernails. “No, I’d be quite proud of you, actually. Imagine us going to church and telling the people next to us that our daughter designed the windows.” He gave a wistful smile. “So long as you were designing them, it would be okay. Just like painting is suitable for a lady of your upbringing. But, sweet girl, how could we ever explain that you’d given up the very purpose God created you for? And all for a job? Especially one where you solder lead and cut glass? That’s man’s work, not woman’s.” The pain and injury in his eyes made her resolve waver. “It’s possible we could hide what you were doing—if you lived at home, that is. Then once you became a designer, if you still ins
isted on living somewhere else, we could look into it.”

  She swallowed. “I can’t stay here, Papa. I have to move out.”

  “Why?”

  “Flossie.” Her mother looked close to tears. “Please.”

  Papa tilted his head. “What is it?”

  Some inner sense kept her from stating the driving reason—that she wanted to keep her earnings for herself. She’d hinted at it before and he’d not picked up on it. Besides, no matter what she thought, she simply couldn’t bring herself to confront him about that or his gambling. But there was another reason, one she’d thought of on the way home from school, one that had been building up a great deal of steam and excitement within her.

  “If I lived in a boardinghouse,” she said, “I’d have siblings for the first time in my entire life, and I’ve always, always wanted them.”

  Mother clasped her hand over her mouth, the tears that had threatened earlier spilling over her cheeks.

  Too late, Flossie realized how her mother must have interpreted that. “No, Mother, I didn’t mean—”

  Shoving her chair back, Mother tossed her napkin on the table and fled from the room.

  Flossie rose halfway out of her chair, but her father stopped her with a hand on her arm. “No, moppet, I’ll go to her in a moment. Sit, and let’s finish this.”

  She sank back down. “I didn’t mean it as a criticism.”

  “Of course you didn’t, but your mother, she feels she failed me. I’ve told her a thousand times that you are enough, more than enough. You are more than any father could ever hope for, but it never occurred to her, I don’t think, that she’d failed you.”

  “But she didn’t fail me.”

  “Then why this sudden need to have siblings?”

  Setting an elbow on the table, she rested a palm against her forehead. It wasn’t a sudden need. It had been a lifelong need, or wish, anyway. “This is such a mess.”

  “We’ll get it sorted out, but you must stop this nonsense about a boardinghouse.”

  “Oh, Papa. Don’t you see? I want to spread my wings. I want to see what it’s like to be on my own, to be part of a big family. If I move into a boardinghouse, I’ll be able to do all of those things.”