All for a Story

by Allison Pittman

  The women appeared to be close to Monica’s age, and since the narrowness of the stairwell wouldn’t permit them to walk side by side, the first sped up for the final steps and came straight to Monica, hand outstretched.

  “I’m Junie. Are you here for the club?”

  “I am,” Monica said, surprised by the girl’s grip. Mr. Morton had better mind his mischief.

  “I’m Stella,” the second girl said, keeping her own hands firmly clasped within each other. “What’s your name?”

  “Maxine,” Monica said without hesitation. It was a decision she’d come to on the second streetcar—a necessary step to protect her anonymity. Thankfully, neither girl had offered a last name, leaving her free to guard her own.

  “Good to meet you.” This from Junie, obviously the more talkative of the two. “Come on, we’ll show you in.” She grabbed the door and dragged it open—no easy feat, as it appeared to be made of solid steel. Stella entered first, and Monica followed, thankful to be sandwiched between two returning veterans of flirting forbearance.

  They entered a plain hallway, lit only by the light coming from an open door halfway down.

  “Why all the underground secret stuff?” Monica asked, instinctively dropping her voice to a whisper.

  “Oh, it’s not a secret,” Junie said, further establishing herself as the more forthright of Monica’s two new friends. “I think it’s just part of Miss Reighly’s philosophy of modesty.”

  “Interesting.” Though she’d hoped it was more to do with a fear of attack by forward-thinking flappers.

  While the journey thus far had been spartan and cold, crossing into the actual meeting space more than made up for the previous eerie atmosphere. The room itself was set up modestly with rows of chairs numbering no more than twenty and a battered wooden podium at the front. No flowers or ribbons or decorations of any kind. What the room lacked in ostentation, it more than made up for in charm. And warmth. Obviously the beneficiary of an active heating system, the room offered a warm embrace and encouragement for a girl to banish her overcoat to one of the rows of hooks along the back wall. Monica was wrestling with the buttons of her own when a different kind of warmth assaulted her—that in the form of a bleached blonde determined to help her with the process.

  “Welcome! I’m Arlene. Let me get that for you.”

  “I’m fine,” Monica said, knowing her notepad and pencil were tucked into the lining.

  “Nonsense. Since we don’t have any men around, somebody’s got to help a girl out.”

  In a flash, Monica’s coat was gone and Arlene was enveloped by a flock of chattering girls. She’d been prepared to face a roomful of crab apples; instead, she found herself in the midst of vibrant, vivacious voices streaming from women of all shapes and sizes—most of them her own age. Nobody looked like she’d fallen out of a fashion magazine, but neither did anybody lack a comfortable, modern style. These were shopgirls and secretaries with bobbed hair and light makeup. Quite a few were smoking cigarettes, and an impromptu foxtrot lesson was taking place in a corner at the front of the room.

  One by one they stopped and grabbed her hand. Lucy, Francine, Dalia, Marie.

  “Maxine,” she said, over and over, until she believed it more than she didn’t.

  A girl named Emma Sue with soft, rounded features to complement a mass of equally rounded curls took Monica’s arm and led her to a long table covered with a white cloth, where platters of doughnuts and pots of coffee waited.

  “Thanks,” Monica said, taking a steaming cup from a tall, skinny redhead. She grabbed a doughnut from the top of one of the pyramids and submerged it.

  “You’re a dunker!” Emma Sue exclaimed with the enthusiasm of finding a long-lost sister.

  Monica matched her tone. “Is there any other way?”

  She’d eaten the pastry to a C when the staccato sound of a gavel pierced through the conversations.

  “We’re starting,” Emma Sue said, and though Monica was perfectly capable of finishing her snack and finding a seat on her own, she gulped down the last of it, putting the empty cup in a washtub with all the others so she could stay by the girl’s side.

  “Have you ever heard Miss Reighly speak?” Emma Sue asked as they headed up the aisle.

  “No,” Monica said. “I only just heard about her a few days ago.”

  “In the newspaper?”

  “Yep.” True enough.

  “You’re in for a treat. She’s fab, but be sure to listen close. She talks real soft.”

  “I wanted to take notes,” Monica said with a wistful glimpse toward the line of coats on the wall. How would she ever find her own again?

  “Oh, it’s not like that. Not like a lecture or anything. There’s no test. Well, I guess in a way there is. The test comes later, when you’re out there.”

  “Out where?”

  Emma Sue gestured vaguely. “You know, out walking around.”

  They’d made their way to the third row and were about to slide into two empty seats when a mimeographed paper was shoved into her hand.

  “What’s this?” Monica asked.

  “Oh,” Emma Sue said. “Those are the rules.”

  “The rules?”

  “Precepts, guidelines, whatever you want to call them.” She waved the girl with the stack of papers away, saying she already had a copy, thank you.

  “What am I supposed to do with them?”

  “Read them, silly. It’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

  Emma Sue fell into conversation with another girl, leaving Monica to read the purple print on the page.

  ANTI-FLIRT CLUB RULES

  Don’t flirt: those who flirt in haste oft repent in leisure.

  “Oh, brother,” Monica said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. Any hope she had that she wasn’t in for a lecture from the original Mrs. Grundy disappeared with that sentence. She’d never once felt the need to “repent” of a flirtation. If you didn’t count Charlie, that is. And that wasn’t so much repenting as it was coming to her senses—something for which she deserved a little credit.

  As if to avoid further judgment, she folded the paper into a neat little square and wished for a pocket to slip it into. By now her head was quite warm under her hat, so she took it off, set it top-down on her lap, and dropped the list inside.

  “No need to keep it under your hat,” Emma Sue said, jabbing Monica with her elbow and snorting at her own joke.

  Monica offered no more than a polite smile before turning her attention to the plain, diminutive woman behind the podium.

  Alice Reighly was substantially more attractive in real, animated life than the photograph in the newspaper allowed. Small in stature, her head barely cleared the podium, behind which she stood perfectly still, hands folded and resting as she scanned the room, waiting for the soprano chatter to die down. Obviously the gavel was not her weapon of choice, and she appeared ready to wait until dawn, but eventually the girls started hushing each other, and the chairs chorused in scooches as they turned to face forward. Not until utter silence had been achieved did Alice Reighly unclasp her hands, grasp the edges of the podium, and say, “Good evening, ladies.”

  “Good evening,” they chorused back.

  “My, what a nice, big group we have here this evening. Word must be getting out. Did you see me in the newspaper?” She punctuated this question with a cute, quick little gesture of a film starlet, to the rousing approval of the audience. Their cheers drove her to hide her face briefly, then grip the podium again as if to signal that the fun and games were over and it was time to get down to business.

  “I want to welcome all of you tonight to our little club, especially those who are here for the first time. I won’t make you stand up, but I hope you’ve been made to feel welcome.”

  Monica’s newest and dearest friend patted her hand. Why hadn’t she insisted on the aisle seat? She could have gotten up, grabbed her coat, and headed for the door before the next sentence. Instead, she leaned ove
r to touch her shoulder briefly to Emma Sue’s and determined to hear and memorize every one of Alice Reighly’s words.

  “Ladies—and you know that is the only title I will ever bestow on you. ‘Women’ seems somehow clinical, and ‘girl’ does not reflect the level of sophistication for which I hope to see you all strive. You are not ‘dames’ or ‘shebas’ or any of the modern, derogatory terms the uncultured man on the street might hurl at you. And you are nobody’s ‘baby’ but your own mother’s.”

  This last bit provoked a healthy spate of laughter, another chorus from which Monica abstained, though her lips succumbed to a smile.

  “You, my sisters, are ladies. Through and through. And though we may seem at times to be nothing more than victims of objectification, I believe—I stake my reputation and my heart on this truth—that if we will strive to comport ourselves as ladies, the world around us will embrace our efforts, and we will eventually turn back this tide of harassment and assault.”

  Applause and cheers. This time Monica joined in, lest her abstinence rouse suspicion. As it was, she hoped nobody noticed she held her fingers crossed as she clapped, keeping her eyes closed and repeating nobody’s “baby” but your mother’s three times. Whether or not she would ultimately agree with what the woman had to say, she was determined to work the clever phrase into the next column—with full attribution, of course.

  “Just the other day,” Alice Reighly continued, “I observed a young lady walking on the sidewalk in front of the drugstore. I say ‘lady’ out of a spirit of kindness, though her actions do little to justify the title. When she was not three steps away from the door, a man leaned out of his car window and howled like he was a licensed wolf. No doubt if she’d heard this same sound coming from the dark of the woods she would have run for shelter, but given the setting of the urban street, she abandoned her errand to turn and strike a pose for his pleasure.”

  Monica could well picture the scene. So well, in fact, she half expected Alice to describe the woman as a cute, petite brunette with Louise Brooks hair and a fox-fur collar.

  “That woman rewarded his behavior, you see. The next time he howls at a woman he will expect the same reaction, and my fear is that he will soon be unsatisfied unless his wanton attention is acknowledged. I do not consider myself a prude, nor would I wish that slur to be associated with our club. I simply encourage you to refrain from open flirtations with strangers, for both your own reputations and the protection of the freedoms of our sex.”

  No amount of finger-crossing and repeating would enable Monica to remember all of these words. Miss Reighly was soft-spoken and eloquent, and Monica really did need to lean forward in her seat and focus all her attention in order to catch every phrase. This was not the fist-wielding passion of one of Mom’s suffragette sisters, nor did her language drip with moral preaching. Still, there was something about the message that settled right at the base of Monica’s spine, eventually clawing itself up vertebra by vertebra every time a memory proved to illustrate a dangerous scenario.

  “And so,” she said, in a blessed tone of conclusion, “I am happy to report that I was able to meet with the mayor last week, and he has agreed to allow us to declare the week of March 4 Anti-Flirting Week.”

  Applause, applause, punctuated by declarations of wonder and joy—all of it loud enough to disguise Monica’s derisive snicker. As the noise died down, one woman near the front stood up and, to Monica’s relief, asked exactly what such a week would entail.

  “An excellent question,” Alice Reighly said. “Those of us in this room have committed ourselves to resisting the urge to flirt with men on the street. Our week in March will extend those efforts, wherein I will challenge all of you to remain flirt-free in every area of your lives for the week. And I hope the publicity generated will allow others to join our cause.”

  “With all due respect,” said another girl with peroxide-blonde hair and bright-red lips against her pale skin, “I don’t know how many more girls we can fit down here. We might have to move to an auditorium or somethin’.”

  “Well, of course I don’t expect them all to come here,” Miss Reighly said after allowing her own laughter to dip briefly in with the others’. “I’m hoping young women throughout the city will be flirt-free out in our streets and in their homes or places of business. Everywhere.”

  Flirt-free. Fun-free. Monica crossed her arms. And her legs—for once not giving a hoot about how much leg was showing.

  “How are we going to let everybody know about it?” This from Junie, the girl she’d met on the stairs.

  “We’re preparing a press release,” Miss Reighly said. “And sending it to select papers. And it would be lovely if a few of you could be here Thursday midmorning for a photograph to run along with it.”

  This invitation garnered squeals from several girls, along with loud protests from those who wouldn’t dream of being in a newspaper photograph.

  “Once the public sees you—” Miss Reighly accompanied the pronoun with a wide, sweeping gesture—“and can see the Anti-Flirt Club is not merely a bunch of dried-up old prunes—what’s that slang term those flappers use? Mrs. Grumpy?”

  Mrs. Grundy. Another voice in the audience corrected her aloud.

  “Ah yes. Mrs. Grundy, crab apples, wet blankets, what have you. When they see that we are comprised of healthy, vibrant, beautiful young women, they’ll listen to what we have to say.”

  Monica scanned the room as inconspicuously as she could, outwardly applauding, inwardly verifying Alice Reighly’s assessment. For the most part, she agreed. Besides the occasional dowdy dress and long hair, these were perfectly decent girls, but she couldn’t imagine any one of them capturing a man’s attention—much less drawing him in—without a concentrated, targeted flirtation. Why, she herself, as vibrant and attractive as she objectively knew herself to be, would lead a lonely, man-free existence if not for the practiced use of her eyelashes, her pout, her legs, her list of well-crafted suggestions. And even that was no guarantee. Take Max Moore for instance. She could flirt with him until her head fell off, and he wouldn’t even notice. Maybe that should be the topic of the next meeting: men who find flirting to be a nuisance.

  “Are there any more questions before we adjourn to partake of our lovely refreshments?”

  Monica’s head swam with questions, but she knew her anonymity hinged on a low profile, so she tucked them into the back of her mind and stood as the others around her did.

  Alice Reighly then said, “Remember, girls. Don’t flirt. Those who flirt in haste . . .”

  “Repent in leisure!”

  This was spoken in one resounding voice resplendent with feminine power. For a moment, Monica feared they might be called upon to recite all ten principles, but after this proclamation, the crowd broke into its previous smaller groups. Emma Sue excused herself to go take her turn serving coffee, but not before steering Monica straight into Alice Reighly’s path and making an introduction.

  “Hello, Maxine. So nice to see a new face.”

  Oddly enough, it was more difficult to hear her voice standing practically nose-to-nose than it had been when she was behind the podium.

  “Thank you,” Monica said, resisting the urge to shout. “I enjoyed your speech.”

  “And what made you want to join us this evening?”

  “Oh, you know. Men . . . cars . . .”

  Alice nodded, understanding. “They will treat us the way we allow them. Only we can demand and enforce respect.”

  “And how.” It was all she could think to say, and it must have been enough because Alice gave her a warm pat on the arm before moving on to some other wide-eyed girl who was studying the list of rules as if bent on devouring them.

  Monica made a break to the back of the room and walked along the wall of coats, finally finding her own. She shrugged into it, stuffing her own list of rules into one pocket while checking the other for her notebook. First stop she could—at a diner or coffee shop or even a little
place nearby she visited with Charlie once last November—she would sit down and script out everything she could remember. Not for her own sake, of course, but for the sake of the story. Much of this was nothing but a load of applesauce. She’d had occasion to look over Tony’s shoulder to see that sometimes the pages of his little notepad were dotted with blood. He’d been that close to the scene of the crime. Alice Reighly and her ilk were nothing less than a crime to modernity, no matter how many big words the woman wrapped around her weapons.

  Several of the girls fluttered good-bye upon her exit, and she managed to leave without making any promise to return. She’d had enough. After retracing her steps in the dimly lit hallway, she flung the basement door wide open and let it fall shut behind her as she raced up the steps to the street level. It wasn’t until she was at the top, when she knew for certain none of the sirens below would pull her back in, that she exhaled the last of the overly warm basement air and took in the full, fresh, stinging cold.

  In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.

  SHAKESPEARE, HENRY V

  MAX CONTINUED TO PACE the sidewalk in front of the apartments, giving himself one chance after another to leave before she found him. What kind of an editor follows a reporter to a story, anyway? Would he lurk over Tony’s shoulder as they watched a body being loaded into the coroner’s wagon? But then, he hadn’t hurt Tony’s feelings with a new assignment. Quite the contrary. Just the other day the man had called in with a lead on a story about a three-legged dog that led federal agents to the home of a man thought to have buried two of his three ex-wives in a garden plot beside his house.

  “They think the fourth leg might actually be buried there too,” Tony had said, his normally stoic tone losing ground to an enthusiasm obvious even over the phone. “People love a good dog story. What’s more heartwarmin’ than that?”

  “Get the story,” Max had said. It was a start.

  Monica, however, had disappeared. He’d not seen a wisp of her since that meeting in his office, and while he knew her work ethic to be flighty at best, he had no way of knowing if she intended to follow through on his assignment. Phone calls to her boardinghouse had been met with messages that she was unavailable, and even a visit from Trevor delivering a check written for a modest amount had the boy returning with a tale of leaving the envelope with a sleepy old lady.