Secret Sisters

by Joy Callaway

  I turned away from Will’s room and stepped lightly toward the closed door at the end of the hall, my heart racing. Though I’d had one or two classes with him, I didn’t know Grant Richardson well and doubted he’d take kindly to a relative stranger sneaking into his room in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter, I argued to myself, I need to do this.

  Holding my breath, I pushed the door open before I could change my mind and stared at the form in the bed in front of me.

  He was handsome, extraordinarily so, his face the perfect mix of masculinity and beauty—of chiseled bones and full lips and black curls. I hesitated for a moment, watching his chest rise and fall under his thin white nightshirt.

  “Mr. Richardson?” My whisper was so soft I barely heard it myself. He didn’t budge. “Mr. Richardson.” I said it more loudly than I meant this time, and his lids fluttered open. He jerked at the sight of me, arm scattering his glasses and a pile of books on his nightstand as he stumbled and fell out of bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

  “Wha-what? What is it?” Holding his hand out in front of him as if to protect himself from attack, his dark eyes were wide with disorientation. I took a step back. Was I insane? I suddenly couldn’t recall why I’d thought sneaking into his room at night my only option for getting his support. “Who the hell are you? Why are you in my room?”

  This had been a mistake, I realized. I had to run.

  Gathering the length of my slate gray cloak in my hand, I whirled around to leave, but felt a hand clench down on my wrist, and was pulled back into the room.

  “I asked you a question,” he said, his voice low. A head taller than me, he glared down at me, not releasing his grip on my arm.

  I opened my mouth, poised to apologize, praying he’d not turn me in to Miss Zephaniah, or worse, President Wilson, but no words came out.

  He laughed, his narrowed eyes suddenly relaxing.

  “Miss Carrington? Will’s friend?” Mr. Richardson let go of my wrist, plopping down onto his bed with a sigh. “Forgive me. It’s the middle of the night and . . . in any case, he’s down the hall. Second room on the right.”

  My cheeks burned. “It’s not—”

  He shook his head. “I promise you it’s of no consequence. It’s happened before. It’s dark; all of our doors look the same. And don’t fret; I’ll keep your visitation in confidence so long as you’re discreet and don’t implicate Iota Gamma if you’re found out.” He glanced down at his lap and slowly pulled his red jacquard coverlet over his legs. “You did scare me, though. With your cloak pulled over your head like that, I thought you were either the grim reaper or the ghost of Christmas past. I’m reading Dickens.”

  He gestured to the red book on the floor next to the scattered contents of his bedside table, and at once, I heard my mother’s voice, saw the fire in the hearth reflecting in the window behind her as she began to read, “Marley was dead: to begin with,” but I forced the memory away.

  “I . . . I didn’t come here to see Will,” I said, my voice wavering.

  “You didn’t?” Mr. Richardson’s brow knit, but his lips turned up.

  “I came to see you.”

  “Well, in that case, what can I help you with?” he asked, smoothing the coverlet. “And why on earth did you decide to sneak into my room in the middle of the night?”

  “I knew that I couldn’t get you alone otherwise,” I said.

  He looked down at the bed and then back at me.

  “You’re beautiful, truly, and I’m flattered, b—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “No. Of course it’s not that. I needed to ask you a favor, and I’m not entirely sure that the faculty would be in agreement with it—or even the majority of the student population for that matter—so I couldn’t afford anyone overhearing our conversation.”

  “I see.” His gaze met mine and his lips pursed. “You do understand that just because I have influence, doesn’t mean that I’ll go along with what you want. There’s a chance that I might not be able to help you. I may dislike your idea.”

  “I want to start a women’s fraternity.” The words came out of my mouth like a tidal wave—quick and fast and muddled.

  His gaze didn’t waver.

  “Oh,” he said, pushing back against his pillows. “Why?”

  “Well, as you know, most of the women on campus are studying divinity and there are only a few of us concentrating on other things. Our schedules are so rigid we hardly know each other and there’s certainly no camaraderie as it stands, so three of us decided to start meeting in secret a few weeks back to try to organize a—”

  “No,” he said, interrupting me. “I don’t care about all that. Why me?”

  I swallowed hard. “You’re close to the faculty, for one, so you could help me convince them that it’s needed, that we’re not heathens, and two, your grandfather brought this fraternity to campus, and your father, an Iota Gamma as well, helped you revive it. I thought perhaps you’d know a thing or two about starting one.”

  “My grandfather died before I was born.” Mr. Richardson yawned. “Miss Carrington, you seem like a lovely girl and I wish you luck in what you’re doing—I even admire that you snuck in here to talk to me—but I’m not at all interested, nor do I understand the point in a women’s fraternity. Men have no other option. They need to bond this way. We don’t have the groups you all have—the supper club, the women’s chorale—things like that.”

  I glared at him.

  “We’re not permitted to participate. The supper club and the women’s chorale are divinity programs,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Perhaps you should petition to join those,” he said. “Or start a knitting club or a finishing group. I’ve heard both are quite well-received on other campuses. In fact, my cousins are involved in both at the Lewis Institute in Mississippi.” He smiled at me and it took everything in my power to avoid throttling him.

  “Perhaps you should dissolve your fraternity and start a chess club,” I snapped, not bothering to take my case further. It was clear he couldn’t be convinced. “It was a mistake to come here. Even though you find my proposal ridiculous, I’ll ask that you keep it in confidence. Good day.”

  I pulled my hood over my hair and walked out of the room. His laughter echoed down the hallway.

  “I think you mean ‘good morning,’ Miss Carrington,” he called. “But, you have my word. Godspeed in getting back before Miss Stewart finds you.”

  4

  The sun was out this morning, a yellow orb masked by the haze of a morning snow sky. It was a welcome sight on my birthday, a day that had seen blizzards the last two years. As beautiful as campus was when it was cloaked in white, I hoped that the sun would remain. Ice and snow made getting to class—or anywhere else—a challenge and I wanted to at least be able to get to the cafeteria for Cook’s birthday dessert this year.

  Campus was quiet, save the clacking of my boots on the brick walk. I quickened my pace and rounded the stone-pillared front of Old Main. Wind whipped over me as it fled between the buildings and the brick wall around campus, frosting the sweat on my face. I jerked the collar of my worn fox fur coat around my neck. In the distance, I heard the chapel clock chime. It was fifteen minutes off, and I was fifteen minutes late.

  On a normal day, tardiness to Professor Fredericks’s class would have made me quake. I didn’t much enjoy being singled out more than I already was for being a woman in a classroom full of men, but this morning, I didn’t care. Today, the cause of my discomfort was rage. Ever since I’d left Mr. Richardson’s bedroom, his sarcastic sideways grin kept popping into my head, the amusement in his voice jabbing at my wits like a hot poker. He’d treated me like a fool.

  I drew my hand from my pocket, wiped my clammy palm on my coat, and yanked open the door to Old Main. Praying I wouldn’t pass him on my way to the classroom, I hustled down the hallway, hearing the steam guzzling from the heaters along the floor. He’d made it perfectly clear, in our ten-mi
nute conversation, where he stood on the topic of women’s education and women in general. He must be one of the close-minded asses who still viewed us as accessories.

  I knew that point of view well. My father had seen my mother that way. I’d recognized it plainly as she lay dying in a hospital bed at St. Luke’s. She hadn’t been conscious. I could still see her face now—rosebud lips ashen from lack of oxygen. Father had been holding her hand, muttering over and over to someone—I suppose it could have been God—that he needed her. I’d never seen him so much as kiss her cheek otherwise. In fact, the only times I recalled him speaking to her at all were in barking demands for dinner when he returned from work at night. Nevertheless, when the physician came in to tell us that she’d gone, my father broke down. At her funeral two days later, my father was still in quite a state, and when his cousin leaned in to embrace him, he whispered, “Don’t worry, you’ll find another one.” Seven months later, he was remarried to a woman he barely knew. A woman whose presence bristled like his, chilling the warmth of my mother’s memory. Mr. Richardson’s wife—whomever he chose—would be like my mother. She’d long to be loved, but at the end of the day, she’d be about as important as a tarnished pair of cufflinks in a forgotten drawer.

  I reached the end of the hallway and shrugged out of my coat. Through the classroom window, I could see Professor Fredericks pacing back and forth in front of an anatomical diagram of the human body and the same plaque of the Lord’s Prayer that was displayed in every room. I eased the door open quietly, though it was as if I’d run into the room flapping my arms and yelling fire. A symphony of chairs screeched back from their desks and fifty-three pairs of eyes turned to face me as I slid into a seat at the back next to Will.

  “Unlike you to be late, Beth,” Will muttered. “But then again, I didn’t expect to hear your voice coming from Grant Richardson’s room this morning, either.” He ran a hand over the blond stubble on his jaw and winked at me. “All I ask is that you’re careful. You know how the school feels about women in men’s quarters. If you were caught, I—”

  "I needed a favor . . . for a friend,” I said, cutting him off. Ignoring the questioning look that I’d see if I turned my head, I leaned down to fish a notebook and pencil from my brown leather briefcase. Looking up, I found Professor Fredericks and the rest of the class still staring at me.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said loudly.

  “Are you perspiring?” Will whispered. I ignored him and kept my eyes fixed on Professor Fredericks, wishing more than anything that I had an excuse. The truth was that I’d overslept. I’d made it back past Miss Stewart and into bed by two o’clock, but was apparently so tired that I’d fallen back asleep after Lily had woken me twice. “Are you ill? It’s five degrees outside, and I can still see my breath in here. Look.” I flicked my wrist at Will under my desk, annoyed that he kept trying to talk to me.

  Professor Fredericks ran a hand down the expanse of his long white beard and drummed his fingertips across the top of the plain oak podium, still waiting for me to provide an excuse. I looked at the amused face of Will’s fraternity brother, Sam Stephens, at the front of the room.

  “Miss Carrington.” My name came out with a boom. I dug my nails into the flesh of the pencil, as if the solid feel of the wood could steel me for the words to come. “Fifteen minutes late. Do you understand that, in the field, a matter of a minute—nay, less than half of a minute—could render a patient dead?” I heard laughter from the men around me and felt my forehead crease. “And, if your physician calls you and you’re late, you, as the nurse, will be to blame. As skilled as the physician may be, he’ll need more than two hands and—”

  I slammed my pencil down and stood up.

  “I’m studying to be a physician, Professor, not a nurse. That’s why I’m in this class, and with all due respect . . .” I stopped myself before I went in to the exact number of times I’d had to remind him of that fact. I knew full-well he only pretended to forget—just like Professor Blackwood had last year.

  He raised an eyebrow, daring me to continue.

  “Never mind,” I said, taking my seat again.

  “Right, Miss Carrington,” Fredericks said archly, prompting more snickering from the room. “Regardless, I trust you’ve gathered my point. If you can’t manage to doll yourself up in time to make it to class, I doubt you’ll be able to succeed in medicine.”

  I gripped the metal edge of my desk. Doll myself up? A hand materialized on my arm and squeezed.

  “Don’t let him see he’s getting under your skin.” Will’s voice came low beside me.

  I forced a nod at the professor, who was still regarding me with a smug grin.

  “Now, let’s get on with it,” he said, turning to face the chalk-dusted board at his side. “As I was saying, you all know by now that anatomy is much more than just memorizing the parts of the body. The understanding of how they all work together—how the systems affect each other—will ultimately help you diagnose and treat patients.” He tapped the brain, the heart, and the spinal cord, and then waved a hand at the organs in the lower cavity of the body. “Today we’re going to review the cardiovascular system’s great influence. Why, you ask, since we just went over it before Christmas? Well, because I deduce, by the number of you who appear somewhat gray and weak this morning, that you’ve done little to no studying over break.” He whirled around and narrowed his eyes at us. “Don’t think I don’t recall the freedom of a break. I was young once and enjoyed many a drink and too many of my mother’s meals. It left me drowsy. That’s why I’m deciding to be generous and review this again, but keep in mind that you’ll not have the luxury of a reminder when you’re working as an apprentice. The physicians will expect you to know the body like the back of your own hand.” He gestured down the length of the diagram behind him. “And as soon as Miss Sanderson appears with the copies of the practice exam, we’ll be taking those.”

  Will huffed.

  “I knew I should have skipped this class.” I didn’t know whether he was referring to the test or having to see Katherine Sanderson, Mary Adams’s roommate, who always typed the examinations for Professor Fredericks as part of her secretarial coursework. I’d found them locked in an embrace in the ladies’ powder room after the glee club’s holiday performance, Will’s hands inside her bodice. Though her highfalutin manner had always irked me—she was Southern and as traditional as they come—I began to dislike her in earnest after I stumbled upon her and Will. Will had been adamant that kissing her had been a mistake and that she’d been more interested in him than he was in her after their tryst, making any proximity or interaction uncomfortable.

  “Beth—do you know the cardiovascular system?” he whispered. “I haven’t been paying attention.” I shook my head, keeping my eyes fixed on Professor Fredericks, who was pointing out the circulatory loops. “You don’t?” he continued. “Haven’t you been to every class?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I can’t remember all of it. And I won’t know anything if you don’t stop talking.”

  Edwin Putnam, a beast of a man in front of me, turned in his chair to stare at us. I forced my lips into a grin. He shook his head and shifted back to his notepad in front of him.

  “I’ve been to most of them, too, but Miss Sanderson ogles me the whole time. It’s distracting. Since she wasn’t here when I walked in, I thought perhaps she’d taken this semester off from helping Fredericks, but I suppose I was wrong.”

  A man sitting next to Will slammed the cover of his notebook shut.

  “For the love of Pete, be quiet,” he said. “If you would have been paying attention, you would know that you could eliminate your attraction to Miss Sanderson by recognizing and eradicating the erotic mental impulses she’s triggering in your brain.”

  “That, or kissing her at first urge instead of waiting three months,” Will whispered. I made a face. He hadn’t always been this vulgar and it didn’t suit him.

  “And, as you see, the s
ystematic circulation loop carries oxygenated blood from the left side of the heart to the organs, all the while removing waste and ultimately returning deoxygenated blood to the right side,” Fredericks continued.

  “What, Beth? It’s the truth,” Will whispered. “Had I given in the first time, I would have realized that she’s not the sort of woman I’d like for a wife.” I could hear the smile in his voice. He knew how much his carelessness bothered me, the thoughtless manner in which he made advances. It wasn’t really his true character. I knew he only did it to avoid facing the debilitating heartache of his breakup last year with then-senior Kate Cable. He confessed his love for her the morning of graduation, and she reacted with silence, leaving for a teaching post in Rhode Island the next day without a word. He’d found out she’d gone from her roommate. It hurt me to know that it still bothered him, but I knew nothing I could do would get him over it. I’d tried.

  The door to the classroom creaked open, and Katherine Sanderson, all five feet of her, materialized at the back of the room. Her mass of blonde hair was fashioned in an elaborate plaited arrangement at the top of her head, and I couldn’t tell if it was her attitude or her coiffure that prompted her chin to tip up. Despite my feelings toward her, I couldn’t help but admire her costume. Though the color was a common russet, the ensemble was trimmed with brown and light blue faille and fringe. Mary had told me that their shared closet was brimming with lovely dresses, even a few Worth designs, and that Miss Sanderson’s father—the owner of a large corn plantation in Morganfield, Kentucky—sent her a wardrobe of new costumes for each season. I couldn’t fathom the fortune that must be spent on the collection every year.