“I’m not immune to it, Sal,” Mable whispered back, overcome with the vision that had already begun to fizzle across the room. She shook her head, willing the picture of the circus king to fade and leave her in peace. “But I’m also not going to wait around for it. I intend to live a full life with or without it.”
Sally sat up with a rustle of crepe and lace. She braced her hands on the row of nail heads lining the edge of the chaise, staring back at Mable with a somber look painted on her face. Dark violet half-moons shadowed the underside of her eyes.
“You mean to tell me you’d turn love away if it walked in your door? What gives you the right?”
Mable felt a twinge of empathy at her friend’s sullen appearance. The hollowness in her eyes spoke volumes. Still, Mable felt she had to speak truth. She’d always spoken from the heart with those whom she loved, and Sally was dear to her.
“No, Sal. I wouldn’t turn it away. But I won’t live in a cage while I wait for it either. And I certainly don’t think that marrying for money is the same as marrying for love. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t.”
Sally’s forearms tensed and her knuckles turned white in their grip on the chaise. She’d rebuffed Mable’s view before and no doubt would again.
Mable leaned forward and placed a hand over her friend’s. “You look tired,” she began, treading as gently as she could. “Did you sleep last night?”
Sally tore her glance away and instead studied the spread of bottles and canisters of rouge on the dressing table. She nibbled on her bottom lip, seeming distracted. “Some.”
“But you were up, weren’t you? I heard you coughing again in the middle of the night, even through my bedroom door.”
Sally bounced up and gathered her skirts to cross the room, then sat down on the bench at the oval-mirrored dressing table. She ran her fingertips over the ivory-handled hand mirror and horsehair brush on its surface, staring off in the distance as if lost in thought.
“Maybe I was.”
She lingered with her fingers smoothing over the top of a small group of bottles bunched together in front of the mirror. Though most were near empty, she grabbed one with the printed label Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup and pulled out the cork.
Mable watched as her friend put the bottle to her lips and took a long sip. She used the back of her hand to wipe her mouth and looked up in the mirror to find Mable staring back at her from behind.
“Something to say?”
“No.” Mable shook her head, keeping a firm connection with Sally’s golden eyes.
Sally was goading her to a quarrel, she knew. And as always, it wouldn’t work.
“You may be a starry-eyed dreamer, but you’re no better in that uniform than you were in any hostess or shopgirl’s uniform before it. Even at the World’s Fair. And you were rejected then too, weren’t you? Same as me. Rejected by life.” Sally spat the venom at the mirror, then curled her lips around the bottle once more.
Mable tapped the corner of the chaise with her heel, itching to cross the room to her embattled friend. But she stayed put, waiting for the outburst to subside.
Though they came more frequently now, the eruption would eventually pass.
“I’ll wear any uniform I’m given—as long as I’m happy while doing it. For now, I like it here.”
“What’s to like about this place?” Sally pounded a fist on the dressing table, causing Mable to jump and shaking the vase of roses until errant petals drifted to the floor. “Nothing but the taffy and spun sugar you can buy on the boardwalk, if you have more than two nickels to rub together, that is.”
“You’re tired, Sally. This is your lack of sleep talking . . .”
“It’s not sleep,” she choked out, her voice cracking.
Sally sniffed loudly, upending the bottle to drink the last of the tonic. She coughed again, choking slightly over a swallow of liquid that caught on an inhale of breath.
Mable rushed to her side and knelt, placing a hand on the space between Sally’s shoulder blades. She pulled a kerchief from her skirt pocket and handed it to Sally, whose chest erupted into fits again. She coughed into the kerchief with one hand braced against the dressing table.
“You can’t sing tonight,” Mable argued firmly. “Not like this.”
“I have to. We need the money.”
“Not at the expense of your health,” Mable said, lowering her chin to position her face in the sightline of Sally’s downturned gaze. When their eyes met, she went on. “I can take up a few extra shifts. We’ll stay afloat. And in the meantime, we’re taking you to a doctor.”
Sally’s refusal was so emphatic that she shook out a tendril from her updo. It fell down to mingle with the beads of perspiration gathering on her forehead. She slicked it back with one of her clammy hands, closing her eyes as she did so.
“Sal . . .” Warning bells were going off in Mable’s head.
Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
This was more than one of her friend’s syrup-induced rages. Mable pressed a hand to Sally’s forehead, feeling the heat emanating like hot coals beneath her skin. It was clear that this was sickness talking. And whatever it was, it looked to have a firm hold.
Gingerly, she took the kerchief from Sally’s hand and dotted her friend’s forehead, catching the wetness up in the softness of the cloth.
“You have a fever.”
Sally nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. “I know.”
“How long have you had it?”
“A day,” she mouthed. “Maybe two.”
Sally fell then, crumpling into Mable’s arms.
“I just . . . expected . . . more.” Sally was crying now. Unashamed. No longer angry but broken. She shook in Mable’s arms. “I didn’t think it would be so hard. Life is . . . It doesn’t feel worth living when it’s so hard.”
“Hush,” Mable cooed, running her hand over Sally’s brow. “Hush now. It will be okay.” She kissed Sally’s temple and whispered calming words, gentle words, praying they’d break through the pain to reach the broken parts of her friend’s heart.
“I’d always been taught that hope could ground a person. Forget dreams. Or money. Forget anything but hope, and you’ll still find joy despite life’s circumstances. But . . . God . . . has . . . forgotten me,” Sally countered, coughing and hiccupping through every syllable. “He can’t possibly redeem me now.”
Mable swallowed hard, praying for wisdom. Praying for the right words to say.
“Maybe He’s always been here, we just haven’t really looked to see Him. Maybe there’s something bigger at work than the two of us.”
Sally’s shoulders stilled. She trembled slightly but looked up, chin quivering.
“That’s what you’re really looking for, isn’t it? Money. Status. Power. They’re a ruse, Sally. They don’t make us who we are. A person has to know who they are to start out with, or all of that will mean nothing, even if the other things are attained.”
The wall clock chimed, signaling the dinner hour with a song that echoed around the room.
Sally squared her shoulders. She broke the connection with Mable’s eyes and turned back to the mirror, fumbling with the trinkets on the table. She grabbed up a puff and began quickly dotting powder and rouge to her tearstained cheeks.
“I have to go onstage,” she stated, her voice plain, almost emotionless.
Mable nodded.
She had the feeling her words had almost reached her friend.
They wound in, sinking deep in her own heart. But maybe that was the point. They were two girls dancing around the edges of a dream, never truly finding it. There was a place in her innermost heart that Sally kept protected. Never letting go. And never allowing anything or anyone to reach it.
; “Of course,” she said as she stood and turned to leave.
“Mable,” Sally called after her. She flashed a ready smile—one of those heart smiles that made every face beautiful. “I’ll see you after the set.”
“That would be nice,” Mable said as she moved toward the door. “Maybe we could take a walk down the boardwalk. Clear our heads a bit. Buy some of that spun sugar they sell on the pier.”
The last thing Mable saw was Sally nodding, the smile slowly fading as she turned away. Her friend would collect her resolve, and the fever with it, and ready herself to waltz out in front of the grand ballroom and sing her set to perfection.
Mable was sure of it.
Sally was strong down to her bones, and that strength was capable of overcoming the storms life brought. But this time, despite what Mable knew her friend possessed, they’d not take their evening walk.
Sally grew dizzy and passed out midset.
The pianist picked her up, and the hotel owner himself rushed her to the nearest sanitarium in his own car. Mable wanted to go with her—she’d even opened the car door to climb in the backseat—but Sally refused a companion, pushing her back in a bemused state of feverish refusals as she was loaded into the auto.
“No. Go to the pier, Mable,” she pleaded, her glassy eyes entreating with tumbling emotion. “Don’t waste another minute. Make something of this night. Walk for us both.”
ELECTRIC LIGHTS ILLUMINATED THE LONG STRETCH OF BOARDWALK.
The sky was ink that night, and the sea toiled in an endless barrage to meet it.
The pier was alive with tourists and laughter, and the wonderful smells of sugared pecans and hot dogs mingling in with the salty sea air. Tourists thrilled at the rides. Children ran ahead of their parents, weaving through the crowd in front of her.
Music drifted around Mable as she walked, a brass band playing lively tunes from some perch behind her.
She moved down the pier with purpose, holding fast to the old cigar box clutched in her hands. And she didn’t stop until her spectator heels nudged up against the aged boards nailed at the end of the pier.
Perhaps her friend had been right.
Dream chasing was not for the faint of heart.
Losing hope in a dream could break the spirit. She questioned hers now. Mable wondered if her catalog pictures and newspaper print wishes had caused her to tread water through her life. She’d moved from job to job and city to new bustling city, but what did she really have to show for it?
A cigar box with a penny souvenir fan and a pocket full of unrealized dreams.
The wind kicked up, grazing the wisps of hair at her nape, whipping her skirts against her slender legs. She knew the wind was strong enough to carry away her dreams on this night. And with the past years of memories rushing through her mind, Armilda Burton made a decision that had eluded her for so long.
The fan she’d keep, but the box with the bicycling ladies smiling on from the cover was poison.
It had to go.
She opened it and took out the fan, clutching its now worn edges in her palm. And with a rush of determination she extended her arms as far as they would go, allowing the searching grasp of the wind to pull the clippings, one by one, to float out across the surface of the water.
Every one of them danced . . . Photos of Steinway pianos. Drawings of pink roses. Catalog pictures of fashion models and newspaper articles from around the world: they all disappeared in the blackness of the sea.
It was a ticker-tape parade of forgotten dreams.
Mable stood there, watching the dreams float away, but she didn’t feel sad.
Sally’s lot only served to strengthen her resolve. From now on, Mable would say what she really felt. She’d do for others, and would never let another person in her life feel as though they didn’t hold an infinite amount of value. She promised herself that she’d not let an opportunity sift through her fingers before she’d do something about it.
If she ever had the means, Mable would see to it that life had color and vibrancy. She’d not wait anymore. She’d live. And she’d help anyone else who crossed her path. It would have to be gondolas and ballrooms. Steinways and roses. Laughter and love, or nothing at all.
“Mable?”
Her name, spoken breathlessly, caught her attention.
The worn cigar box was nearly empty now, the pile of aged photos and clippings moving with the ebb and flow of the waves that crashed the pier.
She brought the box back to her chest.
“Mable. Is that you?”
She recognized the voice and turned. Slowly. Wondering if it was all a dream. And she didn’t move to dry her tears. Didn’t hide the fan in her hand or smooth the wildness of her hair to appear more proper. She simply turned, heart shocked but open, to see the familiar eyes of John Ringling staring back at hers.
He looked older but not old.
The eyes were the same. Perhaps wiser somehow, with tiny lines now framing them at the corners. He stood in the soft glow of lamplight on the pier, allowing the sea breeze to toy with the edges of his silk tie and linen suit.
“Mable. It is you,” he said, looking from the fan and box she held in her hands back up to her eyes.
“John.”
“I’m surprised you remember me,” he said, his voice still deep-chested and strong, though in it she detected notes of regret.
She wiped at the wetness under her eyes, somehow unashamed to admit emotion had overtaken her. “I remember you well. We took a walk once.”
“We did.”
“And ran from a wall of fire, I believe.” She eyed him. Openly. Without anger. But her words, too, were tinged with regret. “I couldn’t have forgotten that, Mr. Ringling.”
John sighed, ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry.” And he seemed genuinely so. About not sharing his full name that day. About walking with her, truly connecting, and then just letting go in the span of a single afternoon. “It’s been so long. Years . . . What are you doing here?”
“A friend—she fell ill tonight, and I needed a walk to clear my head. So here I am.”
Mable stood still before him, wondering after his thoughts. Thinking herself that fate could be the cruelest of foes at times. It had certainly gained the upper hand on her thoughts at the moment. How could she have predicted John Ringling would show up here, now, when she’d just thought of him barely an hour before?
“And in Atlantic City?”
“I live here. For a few years now.”
His gaze—eyes only—drifted down to her left hand.
“No. I’m not married,” she added on a light laugh, answering the question he hadn’t asked. “I’m a working woman. Not the complete ideal of a Gibson girl, I’m afraid. But I still have the hairstyle and the uniform to pull it off. And the rest . . .” She shrugged. “I’m still chasing my dreams. But you make concessions when life calls for it.”
“How did you come to live in Atlantic City? From Chicago?”
“And New York, with more than one stop in between. I’m afraid I was rather spoiled with the exposition’s surroundings, and I missed that life after it closed. So a pier teeming with children and happy faces is about as pleasant a place as one could find.”
“So you came here.” He adjusted his gaze to the sights of an active boardwalk behind them.
Mable shrugged, as no polished Gibson girl ever would. “I’ve always dreamed of living by the sea.”
She brushed at a few stray locks of hair that the wind had wrapped across her forehead, moving them out of her eyes. Her skirt whipped in a frenzy against her legs.
“And what are you doing here, Mr. Ringling?” she asked, swallowing over the growing lump in her throat.
“Busines
s,” he whispered, never taking his eyes from hers.
“Yes. Business . . .”
Mable broke the connection, needing the space to look away.
She surveyed the pier—saw parents stopping at street vendors to buy saltwater taffy and popcorn for their children. Couples whisked by to and fro, opting for a light promenade along the pier. Even a trio of workmen had stopped and tossed fishing lines off the pier, and were now smoking pipes and chatting with lines drawn down in the water.
Everything moved about her, people happy and so far removed from the world she’d just left in Sally’s dressing room. And here stood John Ringling, a man of great wealth and prestige, threatening to damage what little bit of happiness she’d still felt alive in her heart.
On instinct, Mable’s feet began to move.
She edged a heel back away from him. It felt easier to be the one who’d choose to walk out this time, before she found herself in love and shattered like Sally.
Yes. Walking away . . . it was far easier than the alternative. Mable edged another step back, adding, “Well then, Mr. Ringling. It was lovely to see—”
“I never forgot you,” he cut in, sharp as a knife.
The thought made her laugh even through her tears. She hadn’t a clue why.
“That’s nice to hear,” she admitted.
And it was. Surprising, but nice all the same.
“And I’ve thought of you over the years, Mable . . .” He paused. “Often.”
“But you never walked through those restaurant doors again.” The wind toyed with a lock of hair at her brow, tossing it until it finally lay still, lingering over her eyes. She swept it away, tucking it back behind her ear.
“It would have been a pleasure to see you again,” she admitted.
John sighed and looked down to the tips of his spectator shoes for the briefest of seconds, thinking over, she assumed, how he’d reply. And then he surprised her by taking a step forward. Another step. And then another, walking slowly, not stopping until the tips of his shoes nearly grazed hers.
He looked down, studying her face. And then he shifted his gaze to the cigar box and worn souvenir fan clutched in her hands.
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