Bette

by Lyn Cote

  Chloe smiled and shook her head. “That’s not the way life works, honey. Not at all. You’ll have a wonderful life all your own. I just hope that this Depression is the worst trouble that life will throw at you. You’ve grown up so much, especially in the way you befriended Gretel. You have a loving heart and deserve a wonderful future.” Chloe embraced her.

  Bette loved hearing her mother talk like this. Still, she had a hard time believing it. But at least, she’d been asked to the senior dance by Curt Sinclair. That would be enough to remember all her life.

  Chloe released her. “Now go ahead and help Jerusha plant the flower beds. I have a letter to write.”

  Before she went to help their housekeeper, Bette wanted to ask for more particulars about the dresses, the shoes, the silk stockings. What if her mother, or whomever she contacted, didn’t know what would be appropriate? But how could she voice this doubt when her mother had been so wonderful? She decided for now she would have to trust in her mother’s instincts.

  With her thoughts and feelings whirling around in her head, Bette left to find Jerusha.

  Chloe watched her daughter walk out of the room, her mind obviously a million miles away. She wondered if Curt Sinclair made Bette feel the way Theran Black had made her feel nearly twenty years ago. Attraction between a man and a woman could prove powerful. In 1917, Chloe had been desperately in love with Theran, until . . .

  She sighed, sat down at her secretary, and pulled out a piece of her pink-tinted stationary. “Dear Minnie,” she wrote with a grin.

  Bette felt very grownup. Over a week had passed since Curt Sinclair had come into her life. Now on Monday night, they sat together in her stepfather’s den, the pocket door open. The muffled sounds of her family down the hall in the parlor listening to The Will Rogers’ Show, her stepfather’s favorite, drifted in. “But with Congress,” she heard Will Rogers’ distinctive twang, “every time they make a joke, it’s a law and every time they make a law, it’s a joke.” Radio audience laughter vied with her stepfather’s.

  Here, so close to Curt, she felt a world apart from the girl who would have been sitting with her family listening to the show. Bette couldn’t believe how her life had changed. Last Monday morning, Curt had started walking her to her classes. She’d felt many shocked and angry gazes following their progress down the school corridors. The infamous clique of girls led by Mary had glared at her, but they had fallen strangely silent. Maybe they didn’t know what to say.

  Bette studied Curt, his sandy hair gleaming in the low light. Why was he interested in her?

  He sat beside her at the desk where they had laid out all the information about the different aspects of the senior dance to finalize, such as the refreshment list with names of people who would donate food and drink.

  The dance is almost here. When will Mother say anything about the new dresses?

  “I sure wish we could afford live music,” Curt said.

  Staring into Curt’s blue eyes, Bette was caught off-guard. “What?” Then she stared at his lips. They were perfect to her—a gentle bow on the top lip and a slightly fuller bottom lip. And that golden stubble on his chin . . . She couldn’t look away.

  “Live music. Wouldn’t we knock everyone for a loop with a swing band?” He leaned forward.

  “Swing.” Bette realized that he was staring at her lips, too. Her mouth suddenly went very dry. “But we have no money for a band.” She let her face drift toward Curt’s.

  Curt looked at her in obvious wonder and tilted his head. “You got that right,” he mumbled.

  Bette moved the final inch till her lips were a mere breath away from his. Her blood pounded in her veins. Would he kiss her?

  “Bette.”

  Gretel’s woebegone voice startled Bette away from Curt. Bette swung around to see her friend in the doorway. Gretel was in tears. “What’s wrong?”

  “I . . . I . . .” Seeing her two friends so close together, Gretel faltered. “I thought Curt is gone already. I’m sorry.” She drew back to leave.

  “No,” Bette and Curt said almost in unison, rising together.

  “We’re done,” Curt said. “I have to get home to do homework, too.” He gathered up the papers and returned them to a folder. “I’ll see myself out.”

  Bette was torn. Gretel obviously needed her, but she hated to see Curt leave. At school, he’d shown his true colors, too. He’d insisted on walking her to class even with Gretel at her other side.

  On his way out the door, he grasped Bette’s upper arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow after English?”

  She nodded, more interested in the stirring effect of his touch on her than his words. Then saying good night to both of them, he was gone.

  Bette wrenched her mind back to Gretel. “What is it?” Bette asked as she moved to close the door to the hallway. She turned to face her friend.

  “It’s Ilsa. A letter come today from Berlin”—Gretel waved it forlornly—“but I wouldn’t let myself read it till I had done all my lessons.” Gretel wiped her eyes with a flowered hankie.

  “What’s wrong with your cousin?” Ilsa was Gretel’s only cousin, five years older than she.

  “My parents write that her husband has divorced her. He never said one word to her.” Gretel pressed the hankie to her streaming eyes. “He just handed her the divorce decree.”

  “How could he divorce her without her knowing what he was doing?” Bette drew nearer Gretel. This didn’t make sense. Divorce created a huge scandal. How could a man hide that?

  “Because she is a Jew. The Nazi judge granted him the divorce because Ilsa is Jewish. That isn’t law. Her husband took all the money from their bank account for himself. He packed one bag of her clothes and put her out on the street. He shut the door of their apartment in her face.” Gretel’s voice quavered. “She walked all the way—over five miles—to her parents’ house. She did not have a penny. But her father is already fired from his civil service job because he is a Jew. How will they live with no money?” Gretel sank into the nearest chair.

  Bette reached for her friend’s hand. She imagined a woman who resembled Gretel standing alone on a dark, foreign street, looking back forlornly at the place where she’d lived with her husband. He’d shut the door in Ilsa’s face. The pain must be soul-destroying. Bette had suffered ridicule all her life for being different, but nothing like this. They could taunt her, even burn crosses on her lawn, but no one could do anything to her.

  “Ilsa, you know,” Gretel said, “ran away and married him. She was just eighteen and crazy in love with him. Her parents were not happy. He was not Jewish, but they still talked to Ilsa. They just didn’t see her often.”

  “Didn’t he love her anymore?” Bette asked, trying to make sense of this.

  “I do not think he must have loved her ever, do you?” Gretel asked, suddenly stiff with outrage. “My aunt told my mother that it is because he is married to a Jew. They were going to fire him from his job.”

  “He divorced her over a job?” Bette tried to believe this, but she failed. Ilsa’s husband must not have loved her. Bette knew that real love hoped all things, endured all things, and never failed. In her memory, she heard her mother reciting this verse. And her mother should know—she loved Bette’s stepfather and he loved her. Bette wasn’t mistaken about that.

  “I’d like to kill him. With my bare hands around his throat.” Gretel crumpled the letter in her hands and strangled it.

  Bette had never heard her friend’s voice so savage, so harsh.

  Chloe slid open the door. “Did Curt leave?”

  Bette walked toward her, instinctively seeking her help. “Yes, I—”

  “Gretel, what’s wrong?” Chloe went straight to the weeping girl. Gretel poured out her story as Chloe stood with her arms wrapped around her. Then Gretel dissolved into sobs.

  When Gretel could speak again, she said, “My mother says that Ilsa is going to apply for a visa out of the country. Both our families will try to get together en
ough funds to pay for her to come here.” Gretel gave them a despairing look. “Why have they waited? So long? Too long. Now Jews can only take twenty-five percent of their money out of Germany. If we had come here all together after Hitler came to power in ’33, when Grossfater insisted I be sent to stay with Uncle Ira, they would be safe now. I am afraid for them.”

  Over Gretel’s head, Bette and her mother exchanged worried glances. “Perhaps I can find a way to help,” Chloe murmured.

  “How?” Gretel asked and Bette echoed the question silently.

  Chloe shook her head. “I can’t make promises, but I’ll try.”

  Later that evening, Chloe opened the door of the pale-pink bedroom of her childhood, which Bette and Gretel now shared, and looked in. Bette was asleep on the bed and Gretel slept on the trundle bed on the floor beside it. Both girls wore prim white-cotton nightgowns and looked like the innocents they were. Dear Lord, keep them safe. Give them strength to face whatever may come.

  Chloe closed the door silently and walked down the hall to her bedroom. Roarke met her as she entered and with his good arm drew her close. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. As she breathed in his natural fragrance, she reveled in the sweet assurance of his lips on hers. “I love you, Roarke.”

  “And I love you.”

  “We’re so lucky.”

  After an earlier explanation of Gretel’s bad news, Roarke understood what she meant. “I had never known a Jewish person as a friend until you invited Gretel into our home. Of course, I knew it would make us the topic of more gossip—taking a Jew, and the niece of the egg man, for heaven’s sake, into our home. But I didn’t care. It was right and I love the way you don’t care what people say about us.”

  “But that prejudice is nothing to what’s happening in Germany.” Chloe looked up at him, clearly asking for understanding. “I’m going to write to my old friend Drake. Do you mind if I ask him if he can help Gretel’s family?”

  Roarke knew why Chloe was asking him. She knew that sometimes jealousy still had the power to nip him, make him speak sharply to her. Forgive my unruly tongue, beloved. “Go ahead with my blessing.”

  Chloe kissed him and he forgot everything but wanting to hold her close and show her how glad he was that she was in his life . . . for good.

  Almost two weeks later on a Saturday morning deep in sunny May, boxes from New York City were delivered. One box was long and flat; the other was tall and square. The postmaster himself had made a special trip out to deliver them personally. His eyes shone with his eagerness for information. Chloe thanked him warmly, but gave him no tidbits to repeat.

  Then Jerusha helped Bette carry them upstairs to her parents’ large bedroom. Gretel, who was spending a rare weekend with them because her great-uncle had to go out of town on business, hovered around Bette. Bette was relieved that last weekend Gretel’s uncle had taken her to Baltimore and bought her a new graduation outfit. So Bette didn’t have to feel guilty. Chloe came in, beaming.

  “Mother,” Bette asked, peering at the mailing labels, “who is Mrs. Frank Dawson?”

  Chloe and Jerusha exchanged glances. Chloe nodded to Jerusha.

  “Mrs. Frank Dawson is my daughter’s married name,” Jerusha said, pride making her dark face glow.

  Bette knew their housekeeper had a married daughter in New York but it had never occurred to her that Jerusha’s daughter was the one who would choose her new clothing. Worry sliced Bette’s lungs. How would a stranger in New York City know what kind of dress she’d need for a dance in Croftown?

  Then Chloe cut the strings, lifted off the lid of the long flat box, and pushed back the white tissue paper. Bette’s gasp was only one of many.

  “Go ahead, honey,” her mother urged. “It’s your dress. You lift it out.”

  First rubbing her moist palms on the front of her skirt, Bette grasped the delicate dress by its shoulders and drew it from the white tissue. The dress was an unusual shade of blue-violet silk Georgette with a white-lace shawl collar, a peplum waist, and a gracefully flared skirt that ended just inches above her ankles. She’d never worn such a dress before. It was just like something Myrna Loy would wear as Mrs. Nick Charles in The Thin Man.

  “I knew Minnie would know just what you should wear. I told her to think very young ingénue,” Chloe crowed with satisfaction.

  “My, it’s fine.” Jerusha beamed.

  “What else is in the box?” Gretel asked, peering over Bette’s shoulder.

  Bette managed to drag her eyes back to the box. Inside were intimate items, everything she needed to go under the dress. “Wow,” she breathed.

  “Ja,” Gretel agreed. “Vow.”

  “Honey, do you want to try it on or open the big box first?”

  Like on Christmas morning, Bette wanted simultaneously to savor every moment and do everything at once. She took in a deep breath. “Let’s unwrap everything and lay it out on the bed.”

  When this had been accomplished, Bette stared at two pairs of shoes, three pairs of silk stockings, two pairs of gloves, undergarments, two dresses, and a small gift-wrapped box. One pair of shoes obviously went with the party dress. They were peau de soie high heels and had been dyed to match. The other pair were low-heeled light-brown pumps similar to what her mother wore, not Oxfords like the girls at school.

  Bette slipped the party shoes on and peered down at them. They were women’s shoes, not girl’s shoes. They looked funny with anklets instead of stockings. She glanced up.

  Chloe nodded and smiled.

  “They fit perfectly,” Bette said in wonder.

  “I sent Minnie a cutout of your Sunday shoes, so she’d get the right size. How do you like your graduation dress?”

  This dress was a navy-blue-and-white dotted Swiss shirtwaist with a matching belt. Its skirt ended mid-calf, a bit longer than a girl’s dress. And there was a little wisp of a navy-blue hat with a net veil and matching gloves. The ensemble altogether looked very grownup, somewhat intimidating. The sense that in two short weeks—after the senior dance and after graduation—she would be changed trembled inside her. A humbling and frightening feeling. She had difficulty swallowing.

  “Everything’s just perfect.” Holding the dotted dress to her, Bette whirled around like a little girl.

  “You must write Minnie a thank-you note,” Chloe said.

  “Minnie tell me,” Jerusha added, “she happy to go shoppin’ for a girl for a change. She and Frank only got the one boy.”

  “Your daughter has very good style, ma’am,” Gretel voiced the majority opinion.

  The first song of the evening, “I’m in the Mood for Love,” played on the school’s new electric Orthophonic phonograph. Curt led Bette to the polished high school gym floor. The gym was draped with yellow and white crepe paper, the school colors, and most of the overhead lights had been left unlighted. The gym had never looked better. Tonight, Bette hoped to begin her new grownup life—if her old rivals would let her. But if looks could kill, Mary’s and Ruth’s would have done Bette in upon arrival. Well, Cinderella wouldn’t be the same without the evil stepsisters.

  Tonight, Bette felt exactly like Cinderella at the ball. The grownup way Curt looked in his dark suit with his white carnation boutonnière swept away her ability to speak. He put his hand around to the small of her back and held her other hand out and they began the fox trot. For the past two weeks in the parlor with the furniture pushed against the wall, she and her stepfather had been dancing, practicing until she and Gretel could dance with assurance.

  Under the watchful eye of the chaperones, Curt kept a respectful distance. She took a deep breath and began to follow Curt’s lead. She would treasure forever this moment. She would treasure forever the looks on the nasty girls’ faces as she’d walked in tonight on Curt’s arm in her evening dress. She noticed that Ruth’s and Mary’s eyes followed her every move. Her only regret was that Gretel had gone home with her uncle as usual last night. But Gretel didn’t need a date for graduation. They�
��d still share that.

  “I hate to repeat myself,” Curt whispered in her ear, “but this dress makes you look as beautiful as I knew you were. Now these other rubes are wondering why they didn’t see it before.”

  One of the chaperones caught his eye with a stern frown and he pulled his head away from Bette’s. He chuckled only for her as if saying, “Aren’t they old-fashioned?”

  The dance ended and Curt took her to the white cloth-draped refreshment table adorned with fresh daisies and black-eyed Susans and got her a cup of punch. Bette felt people staring at her. She lifted her chin and smiled at Curt. One sip and she saw Deep Rose lipstick on her glass punch cup, something else new for her. Her mother had warned her to touch up her lipstick throughout the evening.

  The class president strolled up and asked her to dance. Her mother had impressed upon her not to let Curt have every dance. The next song, “The Way You Look Tonight,” began and Bette let the class president lead her to the floor.

  “I heard that the box this dress came in had Saks Fifth Avenue on it,” he said as they began to dance. “My mom couldn’t stop gabbing about it.”

  Bette shrugged. The speed of gossip once again astounded her. He tried to pull her a bit closer and a nearby chaperone clucked her tongue. Her partner grinned and gave Bette a wink. The dance continued. As the final note sounded, he said, “Don’t let Curt think he’ll have you all to himself.”

  With these heady words echoing in her mind, Bette walked from the floor and went straight to the ladies’ room on one side of the gym. She needed to get away from everyone for a moment. Another dance started behind her, “Cheek to Cheek.” She doubted, however, that any couple would be allowed to dance that way here tonight.

  The decoration committee had done their best to liven up the bilious green-tiled institutional bathroom, without much success. But Bette appreciated the pink and white tissue paper carnations over the mirrors and the box of tissues on an embroidered scarf-covered table by the sinks.