by Amy Stewart
When Mrs. Schaefer came around, Constance told her that Minnie was a good worker who knew her way around a knitting machine and a jute mill. Minnie obliged and said that it all looked very familiar.
“We’re always looking for girls with experience,” Mrs. Schaefer said. “You wouldn’t believe how many runaways we get. Girls who have never worked a day in their lives and want only to get out from under their parents and to do as they please. We’re not in the business of helping girls to go against their parents and run wild. There’s no fraternization with the men, and I want you in a good reputable boarding-house if you’re not going home at night.”
Constance said, “You won’t have any trouble from Miss Davis. She has every reason to work hard and to do well. She’s to room with Edna Heustis. I’d like a word with Edna if she can be excused.”
Mrs. Schaefer seemed satisfied with that. “If you two girls can help each other, and stay out of trouble, I’ll put you on the line.”
Edna was plainly nervous when she saw Constance, but when the matter was explained to her, she agreed at once to share her room with Minnie. The two girls shook hands solemnly, and Constance reminded them that she would be back to look in on them.
Mrs. Schaefer took Minnie off to be outfitted for her uniform. While she was gone, Constance told Edna what she hadn’t wanted to say in front of them.
“I know your room’s awfully small as it is, but it’ll save you both a little money. And to be honest, I’d like you to keep an eye on her.”
Edna nodded, wide-eyed. “Has she done something terribly wrong?”
“No, of course not. She’s had a difficult time, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before. I took quite a risk and, honestly, this is the only chance she’s going to have. I’m asking for your help, Edna. Do what you can to be a good influence on the girl, and promise me that you’ll send for me right away if she starts to go even a little bit wrong.”
Constance was worried that Edna would be furious with her for putting her with a girl like Minnie, but Edna seemed pleased to be entrusted with the responsibility and said that she would do what she could. “She’ll learn to like it here, just like I have.”
Edna seemed so sure of herself, and so accepting of the very little that life had given her. If Constance was being honest, she would’ve admitted that she put her sympathies in with Minnie, who wanted so much more than factory work and a rented room in a small town. But there was nothing she could do for Minnie’s ambitions, other than to win her a small measure of freedom.
“I’ll be back to check up on you,” Constance promised. “You’re both my responsibility, and I want to see you do well.” She said her good-byes to Edna and told her to walk home with Minnie and get her settled.
The five o’clock bell rang just as Constance left. As she walked back to the train station, she could hear dozens of girls calling to one another, their voices clear and free in the cold air.
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO MOVE a cot into Edna’s room. Instead, after much grunting and moaning and pushing and shoving, Edna’s brass bed went out and two cots went in. “I hope you girls get along,” Mrs. Turnbull said when she saw the arrangements. “You hardly have enough room to turn around.”
After she left, Edna and Minnie sat on their cots and faced each other. Minnie’s ambition was to sneak away that very night, or perhaps the next, and to go straight to New York, where she would take on a new name and a new life. But then Edna said the most remarkable thing, and Minnie stopped thinking about New York all at once.
What Edna said was: “It’s just like the Army.”
Minnie gave her a puzzled look.
“I mean, with the cots. You can almost imagine us in a military camp outside of Paris.”
Minnie shifted around on her cot and took in the rest of the room. Edna’s war literature was everywhere: there were leaflets on the wall, brochures on her bookshelf, and lessons and diagrams scattered across her floor, all of them having to do with bandages and signal flags and uniforms.
“What is all of this?” Minnie asked.
Edna watched as Minnie picked up a brochure and paged through it. Although Minnie was only sixteen, she had a certain swagger about her that Edna envied. Minnie was, as her mother might have said, brash: She was tall and broad-shouldered, she talked loudly, and she waved her arms around for dramatic effect. There was something larger than life about her. She picked up Edna’s things as if she owned them. She seemed like a girl who knew what to do.
It would be impossible to keep a secret from Minnie. Finally Edna said, “This . . . ah . . . it has to do with the war.”
Minnie looked up at her, her mouth hanging open. “The war?”
“Yes. In France.”
Minnie rolled her eyes; that much was obvious. “What about it?”
“I . . . well, I intend to go. To serve. In France.”
Minnie looked up abruptly and dropped the pamphlet. She leaned forward toward Edna, her elbows on her knees.
“You? By yourself?”
55
“I AM NOT GOING OUT there in front of his spies.” May Ward was only half-dressed, having ripped another seam in her haste and carelessness. She was leering at the audience from behind the curtain.
“But no one’s spying on you,” Fleurette whispered. She was frantically trying to stitch the seam without stabbing Mrs. Ward with the needle.
“You just haven’t seen them. It’s someone different in every town, but I can always tell one of Freeman’s operatives. They’re all the same breed of stocky matron like you see standing around in cheap dance halls. You wouldn’t know about that, would you, Florine?”
“Oh, I can imagine,” Fleurette said. She’d been trying very hard not to think of home, but at the mention of stocky ladies in dance halls, a warm wet lump came up in her throat and she had to push it down.
Mrs. Ward had taken her drinks too early in the day, which was always a disaster, as it made her drowsy right before the show. Fleurette tried to chase after her with coffee, but May simply waved it off and felt around in her bosom for a little vial of reviving powder she kept hidden there.
But tonight the powder was all gone, and the coffee made her violently ill. She was on her knees, ostensibly to allow Fleurette to make the repair to her dress, but it soon became clear that she couldn’t get back to her feet unaided.
Three pairs of dance slippers appeared around them. Fleurette looked up to see Bernice, Eliza, and Charlotte looking down at them.
“She can’t go on tonight,” Bernice said.
“Of course I can,” May Ward spat.
“Is she still on about the men following her everywhere?” asked Eliza.
“They’re not men. They’re very unattractive ladies,” said May.
Charlotte bent down. “No one’s following you, ma’am. But it’s time for the show.”
Mrs. Ward’s eyes were half-closed. Her head lolled over to one side, and she mumbled something incoherent.
Bernice said, “Let’s get her onto the divan. Fleurette can sit with her until the show’s over.”
May Ward jutted her chin up to make a protest, but no words came out.
“How are you going to do the show?” Fleurette asked.
“I’ll take her part,” Bernice said. “I’ve done it before.”
“But you’ll only have seven Dolls.”
“It doesn’t matter, as long as we have an even number. Charlotte will sit out with you. We’re already late. Help me get into her costume.”
With all of the Dresden Dolls gathered around, they managed to move Mrs. Ward to a little divan backstage and to relieve her of her costume so that Bernice could scramble into it. They wrestled Mrs. Ward into a kimono, whereupon she fell quickly asleep, as limp as a rag doll, her arms and legs draped lifelessly. Before Fleurette knew what was happening, the show had started, and she and Charlotte were by themselves on the floor, watching the actress sleep.
Charlotte rubbed her neck. “I can’t wa
it to go home,” she said, as the opening bars of “The Bird on Nellie’s Hat” drifted backstage.
“Home? Isn’t there to be another tour after this one?”
“Oh, no. Mrs. Ward’s leaving the stage for the moving pictures, haven’t you heard? This is our last tour. I’m going home to give singing lessons to little rich girls.”
“Don’t you want to get on with another act?”
Charlotte ducked down so that she could see a bit of the stage between the curtains. Fleurette turned to watch, too. Bernice was acquitting herself quite beautifully in the role of May Ward.
“Not really,” Charlotte said. “I don’t want to be a chorus girl when I’m old like Bernice. She’s been doing this for ten years. Can you imagine?”
“But you wouldn’t be a chorus girl forever,” Fleurette offered. “You’d have your own act.”
Charlotte laughed. “Like her?” She nudged May Ward, who was snoring faintly now.
“She doesn’t seem to enjoy it as much as I thought she would,” Fleurette said.
“She’s too high-strung for this life. Maybe she’ll do better in the pictures. She won’t have to travel around as much, and there won’t be so many people everywhere. They get her too wound up.”
“I always thought I’d like to have so many people around,” Fleurette said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . .” She turned around again and peeked at the sliver of audience she could see from her vantage point. “To be in front of a crowd like that. I used to dream of it.”
“Have you ever been in front of an audience that size?”
“Nothing like it,” Fleurette said. “We had a little theater back in Paterson, but it was nowhere near as grand as this.”
Charlotte was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chin. She studied Fleurette for a minute and then said, “You’ve learned every single number, haven’t you?”
Fleurette nodded, her eyes still on the stage.
“Then why don’t we both go?” Charlotte stood up and held her hand out. “May’s not going anywhere. Let’s throw a costume on you and get you out there for the next number.”
56
MINNIE DIDN’T RUN OFF on her first night in Pompton Lakes, or on the second night, or the third.
She had her reasons, of course. On the first night, she was simply exhausted over the day’s events and the sudden turn her life had taken. She thought she’d do better on the run if she’d had a good night’s sleep first, and a chance to consult the train-tables. It was also true that she hadn’t a penny to her name. Originally she’d planned to lift a dollar from Edna’s purse—just enough to get her out of town—but then she met Edna, and couldn’t do it. She told herself that it was only the difficulty of riffling through Edna’s purse in such close quarters, but there was more to it than that, even if she wasn’t quite sure, at first, what it was.
On the second night, she was bone-weary from her shift at the powder works. She’d had no difficulty in learning the machine, but she was out of practice and had trouble keeping up. She nearly fell asleep over her supper. By the end of the evening, she remembered that she hadn’t managed to put her hands on a dollar or a train-table, so thought she’d stay just one more night.
On the third night, it occurred to her that she might as well wait and collect a week’s pay, thus remedying the money situation without taking anything from the other girls, who, she could see, needed every penny to get by.
Still, something else was keeping her in Pompton Lakes. She found Edna’s war talk to be strangely intoxicating. Boarding a ship for France sounded infinitely more interesting than boarding a train for New York. She had an idea, already, of how things would work out for her in New York: from the minute her feet hit the pavement, she’d be looking for a way to earn some money, or someone who wanted to spend his money on her. The “someone” would inevitably disappoint. Relations would sour. Work—whatever work there was to be had—would be tedious and unrewarding. She’d be in a city overfull of riches: theaters and tango rooms, dining palaces and smart cafés, dress shops and perfumers. But none of it would be hers. She’d be forever on the outside, trying to maneuver her way in.
But what of France? Here was unexplored territory. She knew nothing of Paris, or London, or of the German front. What did that matter? It was a new world over there. Men were taking up arms, marching against the Germans, and living in the most unimaginable conditions in trenches along the front. Women were working, too—not in factories, necessarily, although there must have been factory work for those who wanted to do it—but in hospitals, Army camps, and training schools. There were women working telephone switches and driving ambulances. Even in the grips of a military campaign, there was a lawlessness about it that Minnie found both terrifying and riveting.
And Edna wanted to be a part of it! Minnie had never in her life met anyone as thoughtful and purposeful as Edna. She was such a slight, mousy girl, with so little to say, but a steel cable of resolve ran through her. The notions of duty and service and country came as naturally to her as breathing. She was entirely sure that Europe had to be saved from the Kaiser, and that the Americans were the ones to do it.
“Yes,” Minnie tried to say one night, “the Americans, certainly. But—you?”
“Well, I’m an American, aren’t I?”
There was no arguing with that.
Minnie found herself attending the meetings of the Women’s Preparedness Committee with Edna. Soon she was sitting next to her in classes on bandage-rolling and soup-making. Late at night, they practiced their French.
“You don’t have to help me study,” Edna said.
“Deputy Kopp said that I was to follow your example,” Minnie said. “Besides, I ought to keep busy. I ought to do whatever you’re doing.” She’d been avoiding the other girls in the house. She saw herself in them, and saw how easy it would be to run around with them, and fall into their ways. She hadn’t entirely abandoned the idea of running off to New York—she’d only postponed it, one night at a time—but she didn’t want to risk being sent back to the reformatory over a silly dalliance with a man in Pompton Lakes.
She would study her French verbs, instead, thank you. And—here was another surprising truth—she would study Edna. Edna was becoming a source of fascination for her. She had the most astonishing ideas about the world, and her place in it. Here was a girl who could see ten miles down the road and ten years ahead, and who knew exactly the way forward, and was prepared to go, unwaveringly, through the hell of war if that’s where her convictions led her. Minnie had never met anyone like her.
She tried not to think about the fact that Edna would be leaving, or to wonder what would become of her after Edna was gone. When Edna and the society girls talked about their upcoming departure at the meetings, Minnie turned her head away and pretended not to hear.
57
TWO POSTCARDS ARRIVED from Fleurette in a single day. The first showed a stately theater in Philadelphia. On the reverse she’d written:
What a grand city!—and they adore May Ward here. They adore me too, as I had the biggest laugh of the night last night. We’ve been held over for two more shows, which means we won’t get the break we were promised. It’s no matter, as Mrs. Ironsides drags us around to museums and spoils our liberty.
F.
The second came from a hotel in Baltimore.
One of the girls twisted her ankle, another burned her neck quite badly with a hair-iron, and Mrs. Ward is convinced that we’re cursed. Tell Norma the parks here are full of pigeons who can’t be bothered to do as they’re told. She ought to come down and take charge of them.
F.
Constance didn’t know what to make of Fleurette’s claims of success on the stage. Was it really necessary for the girl to lie to them so deliberately? At least she continued to write, and gave no indication that she knew that she’d been spied upon. Norma, astonishingly, had lived up to her end of the bargain and not said another wo
rd about Freeman Bernstein, or about their ill-advised trip to Harrisburg. Some measure of domestic tranquility had settled over the Kopp household. When Constance was at home, she and Norma lived together peaceably, or at least in a spirit of resignation, having given up trying to change the other’s ways.
Things had calmed down at the jail, too, with Minnie Davis packed off to share a room with the ever-trustworthy Edna Heustis. Constance was more than a little pleased with herself for having put those two together. She’d already forgotten that Minnie had suggested it, and had begun to think of it as a program of her own invention, which might prove useful for the Democratic candidate for sheriff—whoever that might be, as he had not yet been named—in the campaign against John Courter.
She was, in other words, enjoying a rare moment of tranquility, both at home and at the jail. That was not to last. On a Monday evening in the middle of March, Constance walked into Sheriff Heath’s office and found herself face-to-face with a ranting, gesticulating, furious Freeman Bernstein.
He was pacing around the room, still in his coat and hat, gloves in one hand, ranting about a misappropriation of taxpayers’ money, abuse of power, and something called a writ of melius inquirendum, a term unfamiliar to the sheriff, judging from the way he raised his eyebrows in despair upon hearing it.
When he saw Constance in the doorway, Sheriff Heath said, “Mr. Bernstein, I believe you’ve met Deputy Kopp. I know she’s eager to hear your complaint and to see it settled, but I wouldn’t want you to have to repeat yourself after you’ve just given so thorough an account, so perhaps I will —”
“Nonsense, Sheriff!” Mr. Bernstein interjected. “She’ll hear every word of it. Or perhaps she can tell it all to me, as she’s the cause of it—she and that disputative sister of hers.”
It occurred to Constance briefly to defend Norma, but then she decided that she agreed with him on that point. Instead she took a place by the window.
