A Kiss From Mr Fitzgerald

by Natasha Lester

  ‘If we say hello, we’ll be stuck here for hours,’ he explained as they rejoined Lil and Leo, who had taken possession of a bottle of champagne and were sitting on the sidewalk sipping from the bottle as if they were at a college party rather than the home of one of the richest families in New York.

  ‘Wasn’t that the elephant’s eyebrows?’ Lil asked with a grin.

  ‘More like the butterfly’s boots,’ Evie responded.

  Lil laughed. ‘See, you talk like a city girl already.’

  Lil and Leo got up and began to wind their way through the cars and away from the house as if what Evie had seen was nothing all that remarkable and could be dispensed with in one throwaway remark.

  ‘But how does she move around in that dress? Wherever did she get it? And wasn’t she Mrs Vanderbilt?’ Evie asked, unable to be as nonchalant as her three companions.

  ‘Could have been,’ said Tommy, smiling.

  ‘But that means you know the Vanderbilts,’ Evie said. That was bordering on the impossible, the Vanderbilts being heretofore the kind of people who were so fantastically wealthy they existed only in stories in newspapers and photographs in magazines.

  ‘Perhaps he’s just an accomplished gatecrasher,’ said Lil.

  Clearly being a New Yorker meant that one became used to extraordinary surprises being sprinkled through the city as ubiquitously as litter. Evie shook her head.

  Then Lil kissed her and Tommy on the cheek, linked arms with Leo and began to walk downtown. ‘See you again, Evie Lockhart!’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘You will!’ Evie called back, clutching her purse which held a scrap of paper on which Lil had scribbled her address.

  Lil and Leo’s laughter faded with their footsteps. Tommy and Evie continued walking up Fifth Avenue, on the opposite side of the street from Central Park. In the darkness, the park had lost its Tiffany-esque appearance and now resembled the night sky: an expanse of blackness, dotted here and there with constellations of lamps. The summer air was warm and the park sent them a slight breeze that settled on Evie’s skin like a blown kiss. If she’d been more sure of Tommy, Evie would have held onto his hand and run down the street with him, calling into the darkness, I’ve had the time of my life tonight. As it was, she found the silence uncomfortable and rummaged around in her head for something to say. Eventually, she settled on: ‘You’re very close to your mother, aren’t you?’

  Tommy smiled. ‘I am.’

  ‘It must be nice to know that she’s always on your side.’

  ‘Perhaps your mother will be too, once she gets used to the idea of your studying.’

  Evie stopped and looked up at him so that he couldn’t lie to her under cover of darkness. ‘Do you really think she might?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so.’

  Then the most surprising thing of all the night’s many unexpected events happened: as they started walking again, Tommy slipped his hand into hers. Her stomach cartwheeled. How good it felt to walk along Fifth Avenue hand in hand with a man who was decidedly handsome, not to mention kind and charming and fun. Evie was very aware of his body, just an inch away from hers.

  Thankfully, Tommy spoke, interrupting her wildly running thoughts. ‘William Childers telephoned this evening while you were getting ready,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’ Evie said nervously.

  ‘He wants to see you at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  Evie stopped again. ‘Does that mean he’s going to help me?’

  ‘He is.’

  She’d done it! She had taken her first step towards something that, until this moment, had seemed unattainable.

  ‘Hurrah!’ Evie’s jubilation was short-lived. ‘Oh no!’ she cried as a new thought struck her.

  Tommy tilted his head. ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’

  ‘It is. But I’m certainly tipsy or blotto or whatever Lil calls it and might still be in the morning. At the very least, I’ll have a headache. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

  Tommy pushed open the door to the Whitmans’ house. ‘Because I wanted to see what you looked like when you were enjoying yourself.’

  Evie lay in bed that night, her whole body aglow with the memory of holding Tommy’s hand, the thrill of Tommy’s words, and the look on his face when he’d said them. Because I wanted to see what you looked like when you were enjoying yourself. She was sure her face still shone more brightly than Mrs Vanderbilt’s dress, and her smile was so enormous that she rolled over to hide it in the pillow.

  Then she groaned when she recalled how she’d responded. She’d blushed for the hundredth time that evening, murmured something about needing to get to bed so she’d be ready for Mr Childers, and dashed up the stairs. She’d virtually run away from Tommy. And now she couldn’t get to sleep for thinking about him.

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Mr Childers gave Evie her corrected examination paper. There were some ticks. There were a lot of crosses.

  Evie’s head throbbed as if it was being trampled by the entire charlestoning throng from Chumley’s.

  ‘I’d thought it might be worse,’ Mr Childers said. ‘I’d hoped it might be better.’

  ‘Optimism will be useful.’

  ‘I’d prefer intelligence.’

  Mr Childers laughed. ‘You are intelligent. I can see that in your workings. You just haven’t been taught what you need to know.’

  ‘You must like challenges if you’ve agreed to work with me.’

  ‘I do.’

  Evie rubbed her forehead with her hand.

  ‘Thomas telephoned earlier and said you might be in need of coffee. I have some brewing,’ Mr Childers said.

  The same smile Evie had hidden in her pillow the night before bloomed on her face. Thomas had been thinking about her too. ‘Coffee would be just the ticket,’ she said.

  While Mr Childers made coffee, Evie glanced through the selection of books he’d placed on the desk. One was a book about the human body, with chapters entitled: Osteology, Angiology, Neurology. And then: Embryology. The Ovum. The Spermatozoon. Fertilisation of the Ovum. Segmentation of the Fertilised Ovum. On it went through language she hadn’t known existed.

  Mr Childers placed a mug in front of Evie. She took a sip of her coffee – Irish, she noted with a grin. It gave her courage. ‘What kind of doctors do women become?’

  ‘There are so few it’s hard to say. Columbia’s first female doctors will graduate this year – that’s only about five women. Cornell has graduated a handful. I know there are some female paediatricians at the Babies Hospital on Lexington.’

  ‘Only five from Columbia?’

  ‘Something like that. And, while I’ve tutored several women who wanted to be admitted to science degrees, I’ve only tutored one who wanted to be admitted into medicine.’

  ‘Did she get in?’

  ‘No.’

  Evie digested this fact along with her coffee. ‘Are any of these women obstetricians?’

  ‘I don’t know of any university-trained female obstetricians in New York City. Is that what you want to do?’

  Evie hesitated. No female obstetricians in Manhattan. Then how on earth could someone like Evie ever become one? She took another sip for fortitude. ‘Back in Concord, I saw a woman giving birth. I could have helped her, if only I’d known what to do. She died.’

  ‘It won’t be easy.’

  Evie felt a sudden flash of anger. If she’d been Charles or Thomas Whitman, a man with money, nobody would question her. But little Evie Lockhart wasn’t supposed to do whatever she wanted. ‘It won’t be easy staying in Concord and watching my whole life disappear as I sew hankies, all the while knowing that women are dying with no one to help them. I don’t want to be a nurse – that would be exactly like taking orders from my father. I want to be a doctor. And if you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who can!’

  As soon as the words were said, Evie realised she was being idiotic. No one else would tutor her. She
’d fired off her pistols and ended up shooting herself.

  But rather than throwing her out the door, Mr Childers said, ‘You’ll need to keep that level of passion if you want to succeed. And you’ll need to study harder than any man, because the only way you’ll get what you want is to be twice as good.’

  Evie reholstered her guns, let out her breath and held up her coffee mug. ‘Here’s to you helping me be twice as good.’

  Mr Childers clinked his mug against hers and sat down beside her. ‘And you’ll need to find your own reason for wanting to study obstetrics. Not a reason that’s about other women, but one that’s about you. That’s how you’ll stay the course.’

  ‘What better reason is there than wanting to help others? I delivered Rose’s baby. It was as if I knew what to do even without being taught.’

  ‘It might not be enough to get you through what you’re bound to encounter.’

  ‘You make it sound as if I’m facing an execution.’

  ‘I’m very sure you’ll lose a part of yourself if you pursue this.’

  Evie stared at Mr Childers. His expression was serious. She hoped he was wrong. Which parts of her life could she give up? Charlie? Her family? Thomas? She squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to block out what he’d said. ‘Where do we start?’

  ‘With summer school, you’ll meet the minimum requirements to put in an application for medical school. But you’ll be competing with candidates who have four-year pre-med courses behind them. The last step is a personal interview with the dean of the college. It’ll come down to whether you can persuade him of your ambitions. Remember, the college catalogue said that they receive many more applications than they have places and that they choose the applicants they consider to be most capable. They don’t define what capable means, of course.’

  ‘Well, let’s start making me capable,’ she said, with more confidence than she felt.

  With that, the books were opened. They worked until late afternoon, when Evie began to confuse calculus with an oriental language, and a second Irish coffee proved to be more of a hindrance than a help. Mr Childers suggested they call it a day, which Evie supposed was his way of saying he’d had enough of her for the time being. As a parting blow, he said that her knowledge of physics was at the level of a fifteen-year-old boy’s, which only made her realise how lucky fifteen-year-old boys were. Large chunks of knowledge had simply never been passed on to her in her schooling.

  As she walked away from Mr Childers’ rooms, she ran through in her mind all the things she had to do: wrestle calculus into submission, write to her parents asking permission to stay on in New York for six more weeks, convince the dean that he should admit her. There’d be no shopping, no nights out, no drinking and dancing for now. No more enjoying herself with Thomas. And then, if she was admitted – even saying it in her mind made her smile at the possibility – she would have to persuade her parents to let her attend college and to pay for it. More obstacles than a steeplechase up Fifth Avenue. But meeting Lil last night, so fearless and daring, had given Evie a sense that a life freely chosen here in New York City was worth fighting for.

  Two girls of about Evie’s age exited an Italian restaurant that drenched the street with the smell of garlic and melanzane. Beside the restaurant was a bakery called Zito’s, whose delicious-smelling loaves made Evie’s mouth water. Further along was the delightfully named PingPank Barber Shop, with red velvet chairs, rows of shaving mugs lining the window, and a calendar of scantily clad ladies from late last century sitting proudly at the front of the shop. Then Mandaro’s, its balls of cheese hanging like Christmas baubles in the front window. Evie resolved to come back once she was settled in New York – because she would settle here – and have a celebratory meal of Swiss cheese on freshly baked bread, washed down with a bottle of the most exotic wine she could afford.

  Further down the street, she was cheered along by a fast, foot-tapping mix of saxophone and brass, which she would later discover was called the ‘Bugle Call Rag’. At the moment all she knew was that the song blasted away her worries and blew her hopes up as high as the notes trumpeting from the window above.

  She checked her watch. It was half past five. Would Lil be in? She continued on to Minetta Street, located the right boarding house and knocked on the door. A middle-aged woman whose gimlet stare could quench the desire of even the most ardent gentleman caller answered.

  ‘I’m here to visit Lil,’ Evie said.

  ‘You mean Miss Delancey? Second floor, room three.’

  Two girls dressed in robes with their hair wrapped in turban-towels were laughing as they crossed the second floor landing. A third girl poked her head through a doorway and called, ‘Nancy, I need to borrow your irons.’ Another door opened and a girl with the reddest lips Evie had ever seen appeared with a curling iron in hand. They were all so relaxed, so free, unburdened by parents with outdated rules. Evie knew she was staring but she couldn’t help it. The boarding house itself was like a cheap department store. The flooring was scratched, the walls undecorated, but the scent of the residents’ perfume, the colour of their clothes and the constant stream of chatter transformed it into a place where Evie would be happy to spend her time.

  Lil answered Evie’s knock with a grin, pulled her inside and produced a bottle of gin and two glasses. She patted the bed, which took up most of the small room. The only other furniture was a chair piled with clothes and the chest of drawers, which also served as the liquor cabinet and a place for the gramophone to sit.

  ‘Let’s get comfy,’ Lil said. She kicked off her shoes and wriggled to the top of the bed, then leaned back against the wall with her legs extended out in front.

  Evie did the same even though she’d never in her life sat on anyone else’s bed – not even Viola’s. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked.

  ‘Since last year.’

  ‘Are you from New York? You must be if you know Thomas.’

  ‘I am. One of the few. As for the rest, it’s a city of immigrants and looking-for-a-better-life dreamers.’

  ‘You’re not an immigrant, so that must make you a dreamer. Like me.’ Evie grimaced into her glass. ‘Does that mean I’m a cliché?’

  ‘You and me and a few thousand other women.’

  They sipped their drinks and Evie felt her head relax back against the wall as the gin and the conversation warmed her throat and loosened her tongue.

  ‘Are your grand plans coming to fruition?’ asked Lil.

  ‘I have to go to summer school. And I still might fail to be admitted to medical school if the other applicants are deemed more qualified than me. If that happens, I don’t know what I’ll do.’

  ‘Get a job and try again next year.’

  Evie laughed. ‘You’re assuming I’d be allowed to stay in New York. And what kind of job would I get? I’ve never been around women who work on anything other than their manners. Do you have a job?’

  ‘No one pays for this low-rent room besides me. I work at J. Walter Thompson. Advertising agency. I write copy.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I’m going to get out and have my own by-line in a newspaper or magazine one day, Evie. Until then, I’m going to learn to be the best writer I can be. And if that means working on what the fellas are too embarrassed to write about, like how Kotex are Jake because you can ask for them by name instead of having to blush your way through requesting sanitary pads from the drugstore, then that’s what I’ll do.’

  Evie shook her head. ‘Jake?’

  ‘Jake – you know, great.’

  ‘See, I don’t even understand the language.’ Evie paused.

  ‘What if it doesn’t work out for you?’ she asked, because she wanted to find out if anyone else in New York had doubts like she did.

  ‘Then perhaps I’ll marry Tommy.’

  Evie’s head snapped to the side. She hadn’t even thought about whether Lil might have her heart set on Thomas.

  But Lil was grinning at
her. ‘I thought you might be sweet on him.’

  ‘I hardly know him.’ As she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. Even though they’d only had a couple of conversations, she felt as if she knew Thomas better than she had ever known Charlie. And Thomas certainly knew more about New York Evie than Charlie did. ‘How do you know Thomas?’

  ‘My family and Tommy’s family have been pals for years. When you’re born in that circle you know everyone in it. Luckily Tommy was never a high hat. So we stayed friends after I was thrown out.’

  ‘Thrown out?’

  ‘When I finished school, I started going out at night and coming back the next morning. My folks told me to stop. But I didn’t want to. So I left. Found a job. Found a room in Mrs Lomsky’s boarding house. Here I am.’

  ‘You sound like a character in that novel.’ Evie nodded at the copy of The Beautiful and Damned lying on the chest of drawers.

  ‘It’s not just words on a page. It’s life. Who wants to marry and ask permission to go out or to buy a new dress when I can dance with whomever I choose, wearing whatever I please.’

  It was as if Lil had put into words all the doubts Evie had felt when contemplating marriage to Charlie and had also shown Evie that there really was another choice. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. ‘Can you show me around? I’ve never been in a boarding house before.’

  It didn’t take long. There were four floors of rooms, each room inhabited by one or two girls; downstairs was a dining room where they all took breakfast together, so long as they made it down by half past seven. On the very top floor, Lil nodded towards a single door. ‘That’s the best room. A whole floor. Because the roof slopes she couldn’t divide it up, but even with the low ceilings there’s still plenty of space. Charlotte and Irina are moving out next month. If I had someone to room in with me, I’d take it.’

  ‘And you’d be a long way from Mrs Lomsky on the first floor.’

  ‘See, one turn around the house and you’re already an expert.’