The Chaperone

by Laura Moriarty

  Cora could barely mask her disgust. It was as if she were breathing in a bad odor, yet trying not to change her expression. A rose in her heart? Pathetic. A ridiculous thing to say. This woman—this shrewd, pragmatic woman—had come up with bad poetry, that tripe, as a consolation. Had she really thought in those terms, flowers and thorns, when she lay in her bed at night, plotting out this visit, strategizing how she might get what she wanted without losing what she held more dear? Cora could see the misery, the real anguish in her eyes. But a rose in her heart? Was that really all she had to offer them both?

  Still, when it was time to go, Cora walked her to her train. She didn’t have time to be angry: these last few minutes were all she had. Mary O’Dell had not asked for her address in Kansas. She did not even pretend there would be another meeting. It was as final as death, the goodbye that was coming. Unhappy as she was, Cora would hang on until the very end.

  Later, she would be glad for these last few minutes, and for her inability to throw them away. Because it was only when they were on the dim, underground platform, with other passengers already boarding, that Cora had time to consider what she’d already known, and how it compared to what she’d just learned.

  “Mary.” It seemed the only name for Cora to call her. This woman beside her wasn’t Mother. But “Mrs. O’Dell” just sounded cruel. “How old was I when you left?”

  She didn’t turn toward Cora, her glazed gaze on the waiting train. In profile, or perhaps at that moment, Cora thought she looked suddenly older, more worn down, her pale skin sagging beneath her eyes. “You were six months old. Exactly six. They said I should stay to nurse you at least that long.”

  Six months old. Exactly. So she had left the first day she’d been allowed. No use in stretching things out. But Cora thought of the twins at six months, their milky smell, their grasping hands. As ill as she’d been after their births, she would have cut off both her arms rather than walk away from them, and she, too, had been seventeen. But then, it wasn’t fair to compare. Mary O’Dell had had no husband, no solicitous Alan, just the mettle to save herself. And there was no point in being angry, not now, when there was little time and more to ask.

  “But I didn’t go to the orphanage until I was three,” Cora said. “The records said I’d come right from the Florence Night Mission, so I must have been there for years. Without you.”

  She looked at Cora, wincing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I told them to take you to a home, a Catholic home, right away. I didn’t want to leave you there, around those… the kind of women they took in.” She drew in her shoulders. “I was scared one of them would try to take you. They didn’t like me much, that was clear, but they all wanted to hold you and pass you around. It made me so anxious. These were streetwalkers, you understand. Or at least very immoral girls. Some of them had diseases, or they were ruined with drink. They likely couldn’t have their own children.”

  Cora turned away. Such little sympathy. But she had to ask. It was now or never. “Do you remember a woman with long dark hair? And a shawl? She didn’t speak English?”

  “Ach. That sounds like most of them. They walked around with their hair loose, their ankles showing. And I was the only one with a proper coat.” She said this as if it were an accomplishment. “But I don’t remember a particular shawl, or a particular woman.” She looked at Cora, frowning. “Why?”

  “No reason,” Cora said. She never considered that the woman with the shawl could be a true memory—yet still hold no significance. Perhaps the woman she remembered had held her just once. Or perhaps she was just one of many women at the mission who’d held her, at seven months old, at eight months, at two years. In any case, there was no one left to look for. And Mary O’Dell needed to go back to Massachusetts without the thorn in her side, just the rose in her heart. Good thing, Cora thought, for she’d left her bouquet of real, yellow roses on the chair in the Dining Concourse. Cora had noticed them when they started to walk away from the table, and she almost said something, but then realized they might have been purposefully left behind. After all, it was likely no one in Haverhill even knew this respectable matriarch had come to New York today. In any case, coming home to Mr. O’Dell with an armful of roses would force a more elaborate lie.

  That was fine, Cora decided, as the train started to click and sputter, preparing for forward motion. The bouquet had been expensive, but perhaps some lucky stranger would find it and be pleased.

  “I have to go,” Mary O’Dell said, turning to Cora. Her voice was certain. But there was something so despairing in her gray eyes that Cora was again moved to step forward and put her arms around her. She did it more slowly, carefully this time, nothing childlike or impulsive about it. Mary O’Dell’s shoulders, narrow like her own, again felt stiff under her arms, but she held Cora back and didn’t let go until the train’s conductor called out the window for her to board, then she stepped back, staring at Cora, the gray hat a little askew.

  “It was nice meeting you,” Cora said, not really thinking. Her bland politeness was so ingrained.

  But it didn’t matter what she said, or whether it was true. The train sighed again, serious this time, and Mary O’Dell turned to go. She didn’t look back, not once. But Cora, unwilling to forfeit even a final glimpse, watched her lift the skirt of her dress and make a ladylike climb onto the train.

  FIFTEEN

  Despite the heat, and the fact that other dance students were already coming out the door, Cora waited outside until exactly three o’clock before going in to get Louise. She wanted just a few more minutes to collect herself before what promised to be a long evening of protecting her new wounds, still open and bleeding, from the salt of Louise’s provocations. The only way to do that, she decided, was to pretend, even to herself, to not be wounded at all. She would be disciplined in her thoughts, and not let herself think about Haverhill, Massachusetts, or thorns in sides, or the fact that her heart felt physically swollen with grief. At least it wasn’t the weekend, with two full days of chaperoning before her. In the morning, she could escort Louise back to dance class, return to the empty apartment, where, for almost five blessed hours, she could give way to her sorrow in private.

  She didn’t necessarily want to be alone. If anything, she wished she could go talk with Joseph Schmidt, sitting at the drugstore and having orange sodas. Maybe because she’d already told him so much. Maybe. It didn’t matter.

  Fortunately, the Louise she expected that afternoon, the sullen, post-dance-class Louise, would not be too difficult to endure. Louise was usually too tired to consciously provoke on their hot walks home in the afternoons. If she did speak, it was not to converse with Cora, but only to inform her on a variety of subjects—the grace of Ted Shawn, the stupidity of the other dancers, or how she couldn’t wait to get home to take her bath—nothing that required or even sought an answer or opinion from her chaperone. That would be fine today. Cora would welcome either silence or the distraction of whatever Louise wanted to talk about. She just didn’t want to be antagonized, not when she could still recall the smell of the roses at Grand Central, and the wrinkled back of Mary O’Dell’s dress as she boarded the train, not when she was so pathetic, still flexing her eyebrows high and swallowing so she wouldn’t cry on the corner of Seventy-second and Broadway.

  She could only hope today’s dance class had been particularly demanding and hot.

  But when she finally went in and started down the stairs to the basement, Louise called out to her from the foot of the stairs, and then ran halfway up to meet her. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide, and though she was still in her dance wear, she looked more exhilarated than fatigued.

  “They chose me!” She seized Cora’s elbow with a warm, damp hand. “For the troupe, Cora! They chose me! Miss Ruth is back, and they made the decision. She’s waiting to talk with you in the studio. They only chose one student to join them.” She pointed to the chest of her soaked wool suit. “Me.”

  “Oh, Louise!” Cora c
lasped her hands. “I’m so pleased for you!” It was true. For a moment, all her own disappointment was forgotten. Cora knew how much she’d wanted a spot, how hard she had worked for it. It was a pleasure to witness a dream coming true, even someone else’s.

  “Isn’t it the bee’s knees? Isn’t it? I have to telegram Mother right away. We can do it on the way home.”

  A tall, thin girl, her narrow face shiny with sweat, emerged from the door to the studio. Passing them on the stairs, she gave Louise a hostile look. Louise responded with a wave and a smile.

  “Who would’ve thunk it?” she called up to the back of the girl’s head. “Little old me! The only one they chose!” When the girl disappeared at the top of the stairs, Louise turned back to Cora, beaming. “They want me to start right away. I’m going to Philadelphia and performing with the troupe tomorrow night.”

  “Philadelphia?” Cora leaned against the stairway’s railing. “Tomorrow? I don’t understand.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I told them you wouldn’t. Miss Ruth will tell you.” She tugged, not too gently, at Cora’s elbow. “Come down and ask her. Ask her yourself. She’s waiting for you.”

  Downstairs in the studio, Ruth St. Denis stood with perfect posture by the piano, her white hair pulled back in a low bun, her bare feet just visible beneath the low hem of a full, black skirt. She confirmed to Cora that yes, everything Louise had told her was true. Louise should come to class tomorrow morning with an overnight bag. The troupe, now including Louise, would leave for Philadelphia immediately after class. She expected the performance to end late, and they would stay the night in a Philadelphia hotel, but they would start out early in the morning and be back in time for the next day’s lesson.

  “There is no need to worry,” she told Cora. A jade bracelet slid to her elbow as she raised her hand in a dismissive wave. “I will be on the trip, and I will be personally responsible for Louise.” She turned to Louise. “She and I will be rooming together.”

  Louise, who apparently still had a rule against forced smiles, managed a neutral expression.

  “And if Philadelphia goes well,” St. Denis continued, giving Louise a steady look, “meaning the entire trip, meaning Louise proves she can adhere to the moral code as well as the aesthetic demands of Denishawn, she may join the troupe.” She turned back to Cora. “As a member, she could move into the boarding house we use as early as the end of next week. We have separate floors for men and women, and our own chaperone, of course.”

  Louise looked at Cora pleasantly. “So you can go home,” she said. “You could probably leave tomorrow if you wanted. I’m sure that would be fine.”

  Without waiting for Cora’s response, she turned and walked back to the dressing room. Cora watched her go, stoic. Clearly, even with the formidable St. Denis as a replacement, Louise considered Cora’s early departure good news, perhaps on par with the trip to Philadelphia and the invitation to join the troupe. Well, she was right, Cora thought. It was good news. She certainly had no reason or wish to stay any longer. She’d accomplished her goal in coming to New York, as surely as Louise had. She’d come with questions, and now she had answers, dismal as they were. Perhaps when she was back in Wichita, the sorrow she felt now would ease, and she would be glad, in the end, that she’d come to New York, grateful that she’d at least gotten to speak with her mother, even just once, and learned her father’s name. And she could go home with the memories of Broadway shows and subway rides and a building sixty stories high. And she could go home with the memory of Joseph Schmidt, of moving down the street with the radio in the baby carriage, of feeling so light and free, and then the touch of his fingers on the back of her neck, his gaze on hers. She would remember desire, felt and inspired. Would she be worse off for these memories? She didn’t know. She would find out when she got back.

  • • •

  For dinner, Louise insisted they sit at the counter across the street so she could tell Floyd Smithers the good news and work on her diction one last time. Cora agreed, in part because Louise deserved a celebration, in part because she wasn’t up for a fight, but mostly because she wasn’t up for a conversation, especially with Louise, and she guessed Floyd would be a good distraction. She was right about that. For a good half hour, Cora picked at a grilled-cheese sandwich while Louise ate a fudge sundae and occasionally smiled at Floyd’s last, desperate effort to impress her. He did his very best. His other customers got only rudimentary attention, but Louise’s sundae was given a fresh topping of whipped cream each time she requested it. He gave her an extra maraschino cherry, too, which she sucked on like a lollipop, the little stem sticking out between her lips, until her lips were bright red, as if she were wearing paint. Even then, Cora didn’t intervene. Louise would soon be Ruth St. Denis’s problem, and perhaps she could address the girl’s issues with proper decorum. Cora was on her way out, and more than happy to pass on the torch.

  It was only when Floyd started whispering to Louise over the counter, too quietly for Cora to hear, that Cora cleared her throat and declared they would be on their way.

  “Why? Why do we have to go?” Louise bit the cherry off the stem, chewing it like gum. “If you’re ready to go, fine. I’ll be up in a minute.”

  “You’ll come with me now,” Cora said, the ache in her chest moving into her voice, making it sharp and brittle. “Because enough is enough, Louise. Really. Enough is enough.” She stood, waiting, and the look on her face must have been something, as without any further protest, Louise dabbed her mouth with a napkin, and told Floyd to have a good night.

  • • •

  Later, when she was in bed, trying to read the last few pages of The Age of Innocence, Louise asked what she was so sore about.

  “You’ve had your face all scrunched up all evening.” She stood next to the bed in her nightgown, which was a pale pink silk, sleeveless and barely falling to her knees. It looked like something from a bridal trousseau, and Cora couldn’t imagine why or how she’d gotten it. She continued to read, or to try to read, but she could feel the girl standing there, watching her. For someone who liked to hold a book up to her own face so often, Louise certainly didn’t seem to mind interrupting someone else’s reading.

  “What’s the story? Should I be afraid? You look like you want to slug somebody.”

  “I’m fine.” Cora looked up and managed a smile. But her jaw ached, and she knew she’d been clenching her teeth. She wasn’t angry, though. She wasn’t. She was just sad, just full of disappointment, fatigued from the miserable day.

  “Mother says making faces like that is what makes you wrinkled. Not you in particular, I mean. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She stepped into her heels, clicked back across the floor into the bathroom, and shut the door. Cora looked back down at her book. If Louise wanted to see what her nightgown looked like with heels, Cora supposed she could, provided she stay in the bathroom. She had no wish to start any argument. She only wished to be left alone, to read her book in peace. But even the book was bothering her. Louise had been right about the hero, who wasn’t a hero at all—even now that he was old, and the wife he hadn’t loved was long dead, even then he couldn’t muster the strength to look his real love, now old as well, in the eye. Cora read with narrowed eyes. A horrible end for a book. Yet she took in every word, even as her jaw ached, even as her vision blurred. When she finished the last line, she closed the book and crossed her arms, staring at the pea-green wall. A terrible ending for a book. A foolish man, a waste. She could feel herself scowling, the lines of her face settling in. Louise and her mother were probably right—she was making herself look old. And now Cora knew just how she would age, what she would look like in twenty years, maybe less. She would look like Mary O’Dell.

  Louise opened the bathroom door. She stood in the doorway, silent, clearly waiting for Cora to look up. Cora did, irritated, but then Louise looked away, a strand of black hair catching on her mouth. She was still wearing the heels, moving the hem o
f her gown around her knees as she shifted from side to side.

  “Did you hear about the shooting last night?”

  Cora shook her head, though Louise was still looking away. Louise looked back at her, waiting.

  “No,” Cora said, “I didn’t.”

  “Oh. Well. It should be in the paper tomorrow. A girl was talking about it in class. It was just one block up from where she lives.” She held on to the doorway as she stepped out of her shoes. “She said a Prohibition agent got a tip about a still, and when the police went in to check it out, somebody started shooting. This boy was killed on the stoop. The girl in my class said there was blood and maybe his brains all over the stoop.”

  Cora squinted, her mind going right to Howard and Earle, as it always did when she heard of some boy, any boy, harmed or killed. “That’s terrible,” she said.

  “Yeah.” Louise walked to the bed, a shoe in each hand. “She said her neighborhood has been a lot scarier since Prohibition started. She said things like that never used to happen. It used to be safe.”

  Cora nodded, wary again. Of course Louise had an agenda. She wanted an argument. “I’m not sure about that,” Cora murmured. She shimmied down under the sheet, her head flat to the pillow. “It’s too bad the boy chose to get mixed up with bootlegging and stills.”

  “He didn’t.” Louise dropped her shoes next to her side of the bed. “He didn’t have anything to do with the still. He just lived in the building with his family, and he happened to be on the stoop. The girl in my class said she’d known him forever, and that he was just a nice boy.”

  Cora was silent, listening to the whirling fan. She would not be provoked into an argument. She didn’t have one in her tonight.

  Louise sighed as she lay down on the bed, smelling of dental cream and talcum powder. The nights had been so warm that they slept with just the top sheet over them, the thin cotton bedspread folded at the foot of the bed. “It’s so stupid,” Louise said, pulling the sheet up. “People are still drinking. And they always will. People want to drink. That’s all there is to it.” She squinted at the collar of Cora’s gown. “Is that thing comfortable to sleep in? I mean, that lace at the neck. It can’t be comfortable. And what does your husband think?”