Silhouette of a Sparrow

by Molly Beth Griffin

  We all turned in early after such an “exhausting” day, and immediately I fell into a strangely vivid dream about Teddy.

  We were in his car, alone, and he was kissing me and kissing me. “We should go to the movie,” I said between kisses. “Alice and Adam are waiting for us.”

  “Not just yet,” he said. “There’s something I want to do first.” Then he was on me and all over me and I knew with every inch of my skin that I didn’t want this I didn’t want this I didn’t want this. I fought him, my hands flailing, my stomach twisting and crawling up into my throat. He caught my scream in his mouth and I lost the battle, going limp in his iron embrace, trying to think of something else.

  But then the scene changed, like a light switch flipping in my head, and suddenly the arms around me were soft and white and the lips pulling back from mine were red—red.

  Isabella laughed that chirping laugh and slipped out of the car and started to run. “Wait, wait for me,” I called. I followed her but she was too quick. I lost her in a crowd of people pressing into a big building. “What is this place?” I asked some faceless person.

  “The dance hall, of course.”

  I snapped awake. The dance hall. Of course. Now.

  Silently, I pulled my nightgown off and a dress on, and I tiptoed out of the hotel suite with my shoes in one hand. Not a sound came from the Harringtons’ bedrooms to change my mind.

  “Out so late, Miss Garnet?” the bellboy said from behind the front desk as I rushed through the lobby.

  “Can’t sleep. Just going out for a walk.”

  “Of course, Miss.”

  Then, in blurred dreamtime moments, I was pressing into the Saturday night crowd at the dance hall and making my way toward the stage. People talked to me—men with deep voices, women with a tang on their breath—but I kept moving. Shimmying bodies danced like ghosts in the dim light, and jazz pulsed deliriously from the very floor of the place.

  And there she was, on the stage, all sequins and fringe, bouncing out the most joyful Charleston I’d ever seen. Her costume shook and shuddered with the rhythm of it, and those bright lips matched that brand new slouched hat in a sassy red smile. The song ended I don’t know how many minutes later, and as she took her bow her eyes met mine. She nodded me toward the side door that was open to the outside. The band took up a slow bluesy song and I followed Isabella’s sparkling shape out the door.

  Back in the fresh air again, I finally realized what I’d done. This was not a dream. I’d actually wandered out, at night, alone, into the drunken revelry of the dance hall. It was crazy. Bold. Dangerous. Dangerous. I shouldn’t be here.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Isabella said, lighting a cigarette. “Want a smoke?”

  “No, no thank you.”

  “I’m glad you came out to see me. I wasn’t so sure you’d make it. Avery said you were sick today.”

  “Avery?”

  “The doorman over at the Galpin. He’s a good friend of mine.” Friends with a colored servant? Everything about this girl broke the rules. “He stopped in to say hi today and I asked if he knew you since you’re staying there and all. He said you were laid up and your aunt was here at the park without you. I hope it wasn’t serious.”

  She’d asked after me. She’d thought about me and asked after me and worried about me. My heart filled with that knowledge and I almost forgot to respond to her concern.

  “It was just a headache. But I went to the park on my own yesterday. It was wonderful.”

  “Good.” She blew out smoke and rested her elbow on her hip, the cigarette holder held out elegantly to the side like she’d been smoking all her life. Neither of us spoke for a minute and it was long enough for me to turn bashful, feeling ridiculous for coming out here. But then her hands were on my shoulders and she was turning me around and pointing up.

  “Look at that moon,” she said. It was full, pale, perfect.

  “Makes me want to howl,” I giggled, forgetting myself completely with her hands on me.

  “So howl,” she said. “Ouwwwooo!”

  But I couldn’t. I turned back to her, shaking my head.

  “Here. Have some of this. Then howl.” She reached down and pulled a tiny flask out of nowhere. It must have been tucked into her garter.

  “What is it?”

  “Gin.”

  “Um . . .” Was I really reaching for it? What was I thinking? Oh, my god, was I really going to—“Okay.” I lifted the flask to my lips and sipped. The gin went down like fire. I sputtered. Then I turned and let out a feeble “Ooooww” toward that glorious moon. Even I knew it deserved better. Isabella laughed and nudged me. I took another tiny sip and tried again. “Oooouuwww!”

  “That’s better.”

  “I have something for you.” I pulled the gull’s silhouette out of my pocket and handed it to her. “From the park yesterday.”

  “You made this? For me?”

  “For you.”

  “I don’t know what to say. Thank you. The gulls are such a menace at the park, aren’t they? Won’t let you eat your popcorn in peace. But this is beautiful—perfect. How do you . . .”

  My vision blurred and tipped a little. I blinked and it cleared.

  “I have to go,” I said, handing back the flask. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Can I see you again?” she asked. “After work some day?”

  “Sure. I’m done at noon.”

  “I’ll meet you at the lake. Thursday. Down near the beach, at the three big rocks. Have you ever been fishing?”

  “Not.”

  “Well then, that settles it. And hey, if you’re ever worried about sneaking in and out of the hotel, use the back entrance by the kitchens. They’ll cover for you—just tell them you’re Isabella’s friend. Avery will watch out for you too.”

  She winked at me, tucked the flask and the cutout away beneath her dress, and stubbed out her cigarette. She turned to go back inside—the slow song was sighing to a close.

  “Hey, Isabella,” I called after her, curiosity getting the better of me. She looked back. “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen in September,” she said. “But don’t tell them that.” She gestured to the white-shirted men who stood near the stage, overseeing the show and the crowd like huge pelicans collectively foraging for a meal. One of them glanced over at Isabella and I could swear he looked hungry. And all at once I knew what that pang under my ribs was. Hunger. Isabella seemed to have that effect on people, and I was not spared.

  “Really, Garnet,” she said, reaching back and wrapping her hand around my wrist. “Don’t tell anyone. If they knew I was underage they’d kick me off that stage in a heartbeat.”

  Then she was gone. Before I could even promise I’d never tell. But my wrist still burned where she’d touched me.

  One of the pelican men was moving toward the side door. If Isabella was too young to be here, I was far too young. I couldn’t let him see me. I ran.

  I didn’t stop running until I reached the door of the hotel suite. Then I silently tiptoed to my room, undressed, and with my heart pounding, dropped into bed.

  Howling at the moon and drinking gin with Isabella and getting away with two secret excursions in two days must have given me some kind of crazy courage, because on Monday when I went back to work, I got up the nerve to say something to Miss Maple about the feathers.

  I crouched in the window, arranging a display of straw sunhats as she handed them to me. I pointed out a pheasant feather on one hat, a feather I knew hadn’t been shed naturally like the ones I used to find with Daddy.

  “They kill hundreds—thousands—of birds for these feathers,” I told her. “It’s illegal, but they do it anyway. It’s good money. Some of these species are going extinct. A lot of women refuse to wear real feathers in their hats now, you know.”

  “A lot of women won’t buy a hat without them, though, and I have a business to run,” she said, handing me a flounce-brimmed one with a lacy ribbon. “Besides, th
ere are always more birds. We couldn’t possibly kill them all.”

  I knew that was faulty logic. The extinction of the messenger pigeon had proven that we could, in fact, wipe out an entire species through unregulated hunting. Any Junior Audubon Society member knew that, and I’d been a member since Father signed me up when I was six and we did the Christmas Count together. I still cherished the pair of mail-order binoculars that came with the membership.

  But how could I explain all that to Miss Maple? Especially without losing my job?

  “By the way, how was your Fourth of July, dear?” Miss Maple asked, changing the subject. “Did you catch the fireworks last night?”

  “We watched from the hotel veranda. Quite a show. I’d never seen so many at once. Like big bouquets of flowers in the sky . . . But about the feathers, Miss Maple—”

  A customer came in then, and my efforts were cut short. It was a start, though, and I felt good about bringing it up. At least now she knew it was an issue, even if she wouldn’t admit it was a problem. Progress. I’d just have to sell customers non-feathered hats as best I could in the meantime.

  I hopped down from the finished display and admired it with my hands on my hips. The multilevel arrangement of wheat-gold hats had a pleasing, midsummer-abundance feel to it. I was getting good at building displays. I was also getting good at helping customers.

  “Why don’t you go get lunch, Miss Maple. I’ll help Mrs. Anderson.”

  “Thank you, dear. I think I will. She’s looking for a church hat to go with her new lavender suit.” And she was looking at feathered ones.

  “These are lovely, Mrs. Anderson,” I said, leading her toward another stand. “Silk flowers in the bands are very popular you know, and look! Lilacs! How perfect. Let’s see if this fits you. No? Too tight? I think I’ve got another in back. Just one minute . . .”

  The days that followed stretched out lazily as I waited for my Thursday date with Isabella. I worked in the mornings, spent my afternoons on the veranda with the Harringtons or walking by the lake, and devoted evenings to studying every natural history and environmental science book the Excelsior Library could dig up for me. Having the time and freedom to sift through them was such a luxury; the lingering twilight soon became my favorite time of day.

  I also wrote letters and received letters during those long days, and if I hadn’t been so content with my work and leisure time and so looking forward to Thursday, the news from home would have been truly distressing.

  Mother assured me that Father was really making a lot of progress and all would be well before I got home, despite, she said, “some trouble at work.” What did that mean? Should I let myself hope for his recovery? Aunt Rachel said that Sarah was having health problems and most of her time was spent nursing these days. Alice wrote to invite me to, of all things, her wedding, which was set for October! She and Adam just couldn’t wait any longer, she said, so she’d decided not to go back to school in the fall. No need, she explained, since her future was now secure and she just couldn’t wait to start having babies. Even Teddy wrote a simple but kind letter to say he missed me and he was excited to go to the pictures with me once I got back to the city in August. He had an important question to ask me, he said, and he underlined important, as if I really needed another hint about what he meant to ask and how he expected me to answer. Then he signed the letter “Your Teddy.”

  Finally, Mother passed along my grades. I smiled to see the As in literature, French, history, and biology, and I cringed a little at the B- in typing and shorthand. I’d taken that class only because Alice thought she might get a summer job in an office and she wanted company. But it was dull work, and two weeks into it I wished I’d carried on with mathematics. This coming year, I thought, calculus. Then I remembered that Alice wouldn’t be at school, and wouldn’t even try to talk me into taking chorus or sewing or Raising a Model Citizen. I laughed a little and wiped away a tear.

  Then I saw the note from my biology teacher underneath the grades. “I’d be happy to give you a recommendation to go to the university next year,” it read in his compact script. “Please stop by once school starts up again to chat with me about your plans for after graduation.”

  My heart skipped. Then it sobered instantly when I saw the cheery comment Mother had clipped next to his words: “We know what your plans will be!” She may as well have drawn wedding bells underneath.

  In seven weeks I’d be heading home to confront all those things—family, friends, school, my future—but August twenty-sixth still felt like a long way off. I shook the thoughts away and instead focused on looking forward to Thursday.

  Great Egret

  (Ardea alba)

  Finally, Thursday arrived. I’d warned Mrs. Harrington that I’d be spending the entire afternoon at the library and she should not expect me for lunch, so after work I headed directly for the lakeshore. The three rocks where I was to meet Isabella for an afternoon of fishing stood near the beaches, a ways up the shoreline from the Galpin House. I was pretty sure I’d be out of sight from the hotel’s veranda once I got there, but the walk took me right past it, and I prayed the Harringtons were safely at their lunch in the dining room as I hurried by.

  The bellboy was helping a petite elderly woman up the front steps. He looked up and caught my eye. Oh, no! He saw me! Panic stopped me in my tracks.

  Then he winked.

  I stared at him, flustered. A colored man winked at me? What was I supposed to do?

  After a moment of gaping and blinking stupidly, I did the only thing I could do: I smiled and nodded and scurried past.

  It had all taken no more than a few seconds, but I mulled it over for the rest of the walk. Finally, I resolved to ignore the unsettled feeling in my stomach. The bellboy—no, she’d called him a doorman and the term was clearly much more dignified—the doorman was a friend of Isabella’s and that made him a friend of mine. Besides, he was the cormorant who’d helped us all through the hailstorm and I’d liked him from the beginning; I’d just never thought of him as someone to make friends with. But I needed all the friends I could get if I was going to keep seeing Isabella in secret—and I had every intention of doing just that.

  Okay then, I thought. The doorman. Avery.

  I hardly recognized Isabella dressed in pants and without lipstick.

  The pants were rolled up almost to the knee, showing off firm, bare calves and little-girl feet, and she wore a sleeveless blouse with two buttons open at the neck. She managed to look grown-up in whatever she wore, even though she was hardly older than me.

  How does she stay so pale? I wondered, staring at the milky white collarbones that she thought nothing of exposing to the harsh summer sun. It must be in her blood.

  I felt silly in my dress and sun hat as I joined her on the rocks and I told her so.

  “Nonsense, you look beautiful,” she said. Then she set me up with a pole. I tried to imitate her casual posture, tried to hold the fishing pole in that comfortable, careless way that she was holding hers. It was just like the cigarette holder the other night—the thing just belonged with her; it was a part of her body that she carried with ease and confidence. I wondered if I looked like that with a sewing needle or a soup ladle, and I shuddered a little at the thought.

  “I’m glad you got away,” she said after a minute, looking out over the water. “Does your aunt know where you are?”

  “Oh, no. She thinks I’m at the library.”

  Isabella laughed, “And does she approve of that?”

  “I’m starting to think she doesn’t approve of anything. Except herself of course. And her daughter.”

  “Well, naturally. I know her type. They’re the ones that send the police to the dance hall every other night claiming that we’re ‘disturbing the peace.’ The managers hate that and so do I. You’ll have peace when you’re dead, that’s what I say. I bet she doesn’t care for books because ‘they give young girls all kinds of crazy ideas.’ How many times have I heard that
one? But I suppose books are more wholesome and refined companions for you than I am, right?”

  “That’s the general idea . . .” I squirmed in my seat on the rock. “But please don’t think, you know I don’t, I mean—”

  “Of course not, Garnet, don’t worry. I’m flattered, actually, to be considered a bad influence. You don’t think I got my reputation by chance, do you?”

  I laughed.

  “Do you think other hotel guests will see me out here and tell Mrs. Harrington?” I said, looking up and down the shoreline.

  “Someone might see you. And some of them are gossips, I’m sure. But most of them will be too caught up in their own outings on a warm, sunny day like this to be worried about you. You’d be amazed how self-involved people can be.”

  I sighed, shrugged. I was determined to enjoy this time with Isabella, despite the risk.

  “Plus, from what I hear, plenty of people don’t much care for your aunt. So it’s not as though the town is crawling with her spies. But let’s be quiet now,” she said. “We’re frightening the fish.”

  We sat there silently with our lines in the water for a long time and I could feel her beside me even though we didn’t touch. The fish weren’t biting but I didn’t mind—I could’ve waited all afternoon like that.

  But then a great egret swooped low and landed in the shallows not fifteen feet down the shore from us. Bright white, slender, and elegant, it stalked its prey from above on stiltlike legs. Now and then it plunged its sharp beak into the water and surfaced with a small, struggling fish or frog clamped in its bill. It swallowed the creatures whole. The egret was so beautiful and so fierce that I couldn’t help myself—I slowly set down my fishing pole and reached into my pocket for scissors and paper. I began to cut. Gradually, the bird’s dark twin emerged from the paper.