THE CRUCIBLE

I

The girl heard the key scratch in the lock and the door open, but she didn’t turn.

"When I walk into the room, stand up," said a calm voice.

The new inmate obeyed with a hint of contempt. The superintendent, a middle-aged woman with a sharp demeanor and a clear accent, sat down in the only chair and laid a notebook flat across her angular knee.

"Is Jean Fanshaw your full name?" she asked.

"I'm Jack."

"Jack!" The pencil floating down stopped abruptly, clearly disapproving. "You were sent to the shelter as Jean."

"Everyone calls me Jack," the girl insisted shortly—"everyone."

"Is your mom?"

Her expression darkened. "No," she admitted; "but my father did. He started it, and I like it. Why isn't it as good as Jean? Both come from John."

"It’s not appropriate for women," said Miss Blair, sounding authoritative. "Refined women don’t take on men’s names."

"How about George Eliot?" Jean quickly responded. "And that other George—the French woman?"

The superintendent struggled to hide her shock. Toughened by over a decade spent around moral deviants, up-and-coming criminals, and the mentally unstable, she prided herself on not being easily caught off guard. But something unexpected had happened. The newcomer had stirred something in her, and she was fully aware of it. Jean Fanshaw's dark eyes gleamed triumphantly at her victory.

Miss Blair took official refuge in her notes. "Where were you born?" she continued.

"Shawnee Springs."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen, two months ago—September 10."

The official wrote down "American" under the nationality section and said,—

"Where were your parents born?"

"Father came from the South—from Virginia." Her face lit up with curiosity. "His family once owned slaves."

"And how's your mom?"

The girl's interest in her heritage faded. "Pure Shawnee Springs." She dismissed the description with contempt. "Pure, unblemished Shawnee Springs."

But the superintendent was now on high alert for anything unusual. "I want straightforward answers," she warned. "What kind of religious training have you had?"

"Mixed. I think Dad was an Episcopalian, but he didn't really go to church; he preferred being in the woods. Mom's a Baptist."

"And you?"

"I don’t know who I am. I guess God doesn't care about me."

The official stepped back at her last standard question.

"Learning?"

"I was in my last year of high school when"—her cheek burned—"when this happened."

Miss Blair took the blush as a positive sign. "You can sit down, Jean," she said, pointing to the narrow iron bed. "Show me your knitting."

The girl turned in the assignment that had made loneliness even more unbearable.

The superintendent pressed her lips together.

"Have you never hung a stocking before?" she asked.

"No."

"Can you stitch?"

"Nope."

"Or should we cook?"

"Nope."

"'No, Miss Blair,' would be more polite. Have you learned any type of housework at all?"

Jean looked at her with deep disdain. "We saved help for this kind of work," she explained shortly.

"You need to learn this. These are things every woman should know."

"I don't want to learn the things every woman is expected to know. I can't stand women's work. I can't stand women either, and their weak ways. I'd give ten years of my life to be a man."

Her listener compared Jean Fanshaw's appearance with her ideas. Even the stark blue-and-white check uniform of the shelter suited the girl. She was immature in shape but rich in potential. Her features had no trace of masculinity; her mouth, chin, and especially her defiant eyes were undeniably feminine. Miss Blair's own pale gaze kept returning to those eyes. They reminded her of pools that forest leaves had stained. The brows were also brown and subtly shaped, but the thick braid of hair that fell all the way to the girl's hips was fair. The other woman reached out to touch the beautiful braid with envy.

"You can't escape who you are," she said. "Don't try."

"But I wasn't meant to be a girl. They didn't want one when I was born. They already had one girl, my sister Amelia, and they were expecting a boy. They were so sure of it. They had even picked out his name. It was going to be John, after my father. Then I showed up."

"Nature knows best."

Jean let out a bitter laugh. "Nature messed up," she shot back. "What does a boy have to do with a girl's body?"

The superintendent lost her patience. "You need to get rid of this nonsense," she said firmly, and then repeated, "You can't escape your gender."

"I'll do it if I can."

"But why?"

"Because this is a man's world. Because I intend to do the things men do."

"For a little while, you’ll keep yourself busy with things women do."

Jean's long fingers tightened at the reminder. The heat of emotion surged back. "Oh, the shame of it!" she exclaimed passionately. "The awful injustice of it!"

"You messed up. This is your consequence."

"My punishment!" the girl exclaimed. "My punishment! Is this the only way they can punish me? Am I a Stella Wilkes, just an ordinary person from the streets, who—"

The superintendent raised her hand. "Don't get into that," she warned firmly. "If you knew Stella Wilkes in Shawnee Springs—"

"I know her!"

"Don't interrupt me. I’ll say it again, if you know anything about Stella's history, keep it to yourself. A girl gets a fresh start when she comes here. Her past is behind her. And let me personally warn you not to talk about your life to anyone but me. Remember that. Don’t confide in anyone—not even the matrons—only me."

Jean eagerly examined the mysterious face. "I doubt you’d want to listen," she said straightforwardly, "or even if you did listen, you’d believe!"

Something in her tone broke through Miss Blair's official demeanor. "My dear!" she exclaimed.

The girl was quiet for a moment. Then, straightforwardly, she asked, "Do you think a mother can hate her child?"

The superintendent, because of her position, felt compelled to stand up for humanity. "Of course not," she replied.

"My mom hates me sometimes."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Sometimes it’s just dislike," Jean continued flatly. "It’s always been that way. Dad got over the fact that I was a girl. He said he would call me his boy, anyway. That’s where the 'Jack' came from. But mom—she was different. I bet if I’d been all girl, like Amelia, she could have accepted me. She was always holding Amelia up as a model. Amelia would get 100% on that quiz you gave me. Amelia can sew; Amelia can embroider; Amelia can make tea biscuits and angel cake."

"And what were you doing while your sister was making the most of her chances?"

"Improving mine," Jean replied confidently. "Why didn't you ask me if I could swim, box, shoot, and handle myself against a tough pickerel or trout?"

"Did your dad teach you those things?"

"Some of them."

"And to wear men's clothes and smoke cigarettes with your feet on the table?"

Jean sported a mischievous grin. "I guess you've picked up more than you’re letting on. But you wouldn’t have asked that last question if you actually knew him. He wasn’t like that. I did those things after—after he was gone. I didn’t really care for the cigarettes; I mostly wanted to shock that goody-two-shoes, Amelia. Besides, I only smoked in my own room. I had an amazing room—all posters, foil, and guns. That reminds me," she said, with a quick change of tone. "That woman who comes in here—the matron—took something of mine. I want it back."

"What was that?"

"A small clay bust that my dad made."

"Was he a sculptor?"

"No, a pharmacist; but he could shape things. You'll make her return it?"

"Is it like a dude?"

"Yep, from dad."

"The matron was right. We don't allow any pictures of men in the girls' rooms, and that rule applies here."

Incredulity, resentment, and helpless anger flashed quickly across her overly expressive face. "But it's Dad!" she exclaimed. "He did it for me! I’ve never had a picture. Don’t hide it from me; it’s just Dad."

The official shook her head firmly, believing strongly in the importance of red tape. "The rule applies to everyone. Also, you cannot mention men in your letters home. If you do, they will be deleted. You won't be allowed to have any mentions of them in any letters you receive from your family either."

"Are you going to read my letters?"

"Sure."

Jean quietly processed this new humiliation. "Then I won't ever write," she declared.

Miss Blair dismissed the discussion. "Forget about the rules for now, my dear," she replied, not harshly. "You'll understand the reasons for them eventually. Keep going with your story. Tell me more about your home life."

"It wasn't a home—at least, not for me. I didn’t feel like I belonged there once Dad was gone. Mom didn’t get me. She said I was more like the Fanshaws, not her side of the family, the Tuttles. Thank goodness for that! I never really understood her, that's for sure. When she wasn't tough, she was overly sentimental. Her softness was reserved for Amelia, though. They were inseparable in everything and always sided together in our family arguments. I think that caused a lot of the problems. If Mom had just let us girls figure things out on our own, we would have gotten along somehow and probably been better friends. But she couldn't do that. She always had to step in for Saint Amelia, no matter what. I can't remember a time when it was any different, from the days we fought over our toys to the last big fight we had."

"And that last situation?" her questioner pressed. "What caused it?"

"A social gathering."

"A social box!"

"Never heard of one? I guess you’re not from the country. Shawnee Springs acts all fancy when the summer tourists are around, but it’s pretty rural the rest of the year. Box socials are really popular. You see, the girls all bring boxes filled with dinner for two, which are auctioned to the highest bidder. The guys aren’t supposed to know whose box they’re buying. Anyway, that’s the idea. I thought it should be followed through, too, and when I found out Amelia had set it up in advance with Harry Fargo, I planned a little surprise by switching the wrapping. Harry bid on the box she signaled him to buy and ended up with his little sister as a partner. The man who bought Amelia's box was a bald old widower she couldn’t stand. It wasn’t much of a joke, I’ll admit, and Amelia didn’t get the point at all. She said she hated me right in front of Harry Fargo, and after we got home, she followed me to my room just to say it again."

An unofficial smile softened Miss Blair's seriousness. "But go on," she said, putting on a formal tone to make up for her mistake.

Jean's own quickly shifting eyes sparkled at the memory of Amelia's downfall, but it was only for a moment. "It was a funny joke for me," she said seriously. "Amelia was upset. She had a real talent for saying things in a nasty way, despite her sweetness, and she hadn’t lost her voice that night, I promise you. I said I was sorry for playing the trick on her, but she kept going on about it like a broken record, and one of our usual parties followed. It would have ended up in gossip, like always, if mom hadn’t jumped in. But when they both started up with the same old tune about me being a tomboy and a family disgrace, I got angry and told them to leave. When they didn’t move, I grabbed a Cuban machete that a Rough Rider friend had given me and went after them."

"What did you mean to do?"

"Just scare them. I didn’t realize until later that I actually hurt Amelia’s arm. Honestly, I didn’t mean to do anything like that. I swear."

"What's next?"

"Then Mom completely lost it. She screamed and ran downstairs, with Amelia following her, and they both rushed out into the street. The next thing I knew, the officer showed up. The rest feels like a nightmare to me—the arrest, the cell at the station, the clueless old fool of a magistrate who sent me here. He said he’d had his eye on me for a long time, and that I was hopeless. Hopeless! What did he know about it? He couldn’t even say the word right! What right does a guy like that have to ruin a girl’s life? He was just a washed-up lawyer who got his job because of politics. That’s what brought me here—politics! Mom never meant for things to go this far. I know she didn’t, even though she won’t admit it. She just wanted to scare me, but everything got out of control. Can you believe it? Three years among the Stella Wilkeses for a joke! My God, I can’t believe it! I must still be dreaming."

The superintendent searched through her collection of sermons for a suitable response, but nothing came to mind. Jean Fanshaw's situation didn't fit the usual categories. All she could do was remind the girl that it was up to her to decide if she would complete her full term.

"It’s possible to get your parole in a year and a half, remember," she said, getting up. "Keep that in mind at all times."

Jean seemed not to hear. "The shame of it!" she repeated in disbelief. "The disgrace of it! I will never be able to live this down."

She sat for a long time at her window after her visitor left, her grievances coming back to her. The two weeks of being alone had started to affect her nerves, which she had always considered to be strong. She didn’t want any human connection. She hadn’t been pleased when the superintendent came to visit, nor when the doctor came before that; if contempt could kill, the dreary line of her fellow residents walking along the snow-covered paths below would have dropped dead in their tracks. What she really wanted was the outdoors, and the daily walks under the watchful eye of a quiet matron only increased her longing.

She had scammed the bleak area until she felt like she knew every awful inch of it. Over there, at the end of the long courtyard, was the administration building, where Miss Blair had gone directly. Along the courtyard were the red brick cottages—each one just like its unattractive neighbor, all the result of a single architectural mistake—one of which she thought mindlessly would be where she’d spend her time during those lost years. At the very end, rounding out the group, loomed the prison, stark, with iron bars, and menacing as the dusk settled in.

This last structure had almost begun to feel like a living creature, a grotesque, sprawling monster with half-human features that twilight blurred and shaped. Now, as she watched, the main door, which was like its mouth, opened wide and released one of the two groups of wandering women that were constantly coming and going. She knew there were different levels of wrongdoing here and figured that those emerging from the monster's mouth must be the worst, but they seemed no better or worse than the others to her. In fact, in terms of appearance, they were generally more appealing. She felt no sympathy for them, only an overwhelming disgust—disgust for both the bold and the downtrodden; all of them were contemptible. Her pity was for herself, that she had to breathe the same air as them.

Until now, she had kept them all separate in her mind. This time, though, she reviewed them—the tough, the cruel, the purely animalistic, the simply weak; until she finally came across a striking brunette face that was overly attractive, and she suddenly stepped back from the window. For the first time since arriving, she caught a glimpse of the girl whose name had become infamous in Shawnee Springs, the one who represented and made real for Jean the harsh, undeniable truth of her downfall. Until now, she had faced everything without tears—bravely, as she would have chosen to say—but seeing Stella Wilkes stirred deep emotions in the femininity she thought she had rejected, and she collapsed, crying, onto her bed.

II

So the little secretary found her. Miss Archer was born under a more favorable star than her boss and routinely tried, in subtle ways like a wise advisor, to soften the strict leadership with kindness. She told Jean that she had come to move her to the regular routine, encouraged her to wash her face, and made light conversation while she gathered her few belongings. They walked across the courtyard in the chilly evening, turning into a cottage near the prison just as Jean was overwhelmed by the fear that the monster would swallow her whole.

At the doorstep, she felt a hand slip into hers.

"Be willing, sweetheart, and try to look as cheerful as possible," advised her guide. "I really want you to make a good first impression here in Cottage No. 6. It’s super important that you get along well with your matron. Everything hinges on that."

Jean melted at her kindness.

"I wish I could be with you," she said without thinking. "This place wouldn’t feel—what it is."

She framed this wish again when she faced the matron herself in the stark cleanliness of the hall. This person was a variation of the superintendent's detached type and an unoriginal copy of her mannerisms. A bundle of prejudices, she thought she was endowed with superhuman fairness; and now, in her confused pursuit of this idea, she quickly decided that someone who was obviously superior to the average should, logically, receive less consideration than the average. Jean, feeling hurt, went straight to her room.

Happily, she didn’t have much time to think about it. The relentless routine that filled her days pulled her into its rhythm. A fussy bell rang somewhere, her door, like everyone else's in the hallway, was unlocked, and she joined a line of uniformed individuals that silently shuffled down two flights of stairs and arranged themselves around the tables in a gloomy dining hall. Then, the matron, stationed at a small table set for herself and another official in black, raised her thin voice and repeated,

"The eyes of everyone are on You, O Lord!"

An unclear mumbling followed, which after straining to listen at many meals, Jean finally figured out,

"And You give them their food at the right time."

Thirty-odd chairs scraped across the bare floor. Thirty-odd appetites dove into the food piled high in rough earthenware on the oilcloth. Jean was fasting. She hated hash; macaroni didn’t rank much higher in her opinion; and tea was a drink she thought of as solely for women, which she had long avoided on principle. This left her with nothing but bread, and it just so happened that her portion of this staple came from the first baking of a young woman whose skills had until recently been focused solely on picking pockets.

Jean looked around the room. It had the same dull bleakness as the corridors; there were no pictures to brighten its terra-cotta walls. Another long table, identical to her own, took up most of the floor space; however, there was still room by the door for two smaller tables: the matron's, which she noticed when she walked in, and one occupied by five lucky individuals. Their uniforms, while similar in color to the others, looked more like those of a trained nurse, with striped patterns, and were further marked by white collars and cuffs. This table, like the matron's, was covered with a white cloth and had a small planter of ferns.

The matron's voice was heard again.

"You can talk now, girls," she said. "But remember to keep it quiet."

A bunch of voices suddenly erupted. The newcomer was shocked. How did they have the courage to speak? Their conversation was odd, strangely limited, barely drifting beyond the narrow world of the reformatory. A girl across from her said, "One year and five months more!" which sparked an enthusiastic comparison that bounced around the table and peaked with the envy of the girl whose release was in thirty-seven days. Jean noticed that the first speaker had a lopsided head; the person next to her had a narrow forehead; and a third, a couple of spots down, had unusual teeth. Almost everyone, in fact, showed some kind of oddness, either naturally occurring or artificially imposed by an institutional life where personal grooming had no place.

The gossip took a different turn, this time starting from some minor event in the gym. Jean listened intently when someone mentioned basketball, but lost all interest when the conversation awkwardly shifted to the sewing class.

"Aren't you hungry?" said a voice next to her.

Jean turned to a girl who was maybe a year older than her. The girl spoke in a gentle tone, with a slight lisp that was charming, and her face, while not very strong, was neither unusual nor rough. Without the refuge uniform, she would easily be considered pretty.

"I couldn't handle it at first," she continued, not pausing for a reply, "but I got used to it. We all do. On the days I work in the laundry, I feel like I'm half starved."

Jean was staring.

"They make you do laundry!"

"Sure. We all take a turn. Everything around here is done by the girls, you know—washing, cooking, sewing, gardening, and a lot more."

Her auditor fell into a depressed silence, adding a new layer of fear to her situation. At home, even the domestic worker they referred to as the hired girl hadn't been responsible for washing. A strong Black woman had come in on Mondays for that.

"I'm next door to you upstairs," continued the new acquaintance, in her self-effacing manner. "My name is Amy Jeffries. What's yours?"

She decided after a moment of thought. The old favorite "Jack" was right on the tip of her tongue, but she changed her mind. After all, "Jean" would work for this situation. She wished that instead of Fanshaw, she could use Jones, or Smith, or—ironically—the hated Tuttle.

"Jean Fanshaw is a nice name," Amy said casually.

Dreading more questioning, Jean jumped in with a question of her own.

"Why do those girls over there have a better uniform and a table to themselves?" she asked.

"They're top quality."

"What does that mean?"

"Six months without a grade." Amy Jeffries glanced enviously at the group at the side table. "I'd really love to be at the top. It must feel like living again to sit down to a table with a cloth. I’d like the cuffs and collars, too. I just love fashion. When I leave here, I think I’ll go into a dressmaking shop or a milliner’s."

Jean had a flashback.

"Tell me how I can leave this place in a year and a half," she asked. "Someone said it was possible."

Amy smiled weakly.

"I also wanted to know when I was inexperienced. I could just picture the guard holding the gate open as I left the grounds! It was a beautiful dream."

"Why weren't you able to?"

"Marks," Amy said seriously. "Getting parole in eighteen months means having a spotless record from the start. I thought I’d aim for it, but, wow, I’ve never even been a top student! There was one time I got close—just six weeks away—but I accidentally sent a dress to the laundry with a pin still in it."

"They care about something so small?"

"My gosh, yes! For less than that—buttons missing, the wrong apron in the lounge, and so on. I got my first mark for styling my hair 'pomp.' They won’t tolerate it here. They want to make us as unattractive as possible."

A pause highlighted the comments of the girl with unusual teeth.

"Jim was a great-looking guy," she said, "and he knew how to spend when he had money, but I used to tell him—"

"Delia!" The matron stood up, pointing a warning finger at Jim's biographer. "You know better. Leave the room immediately. No more talking."

The culprit sulked out, and no one said another word until the meal was over, when at a signal everyone got up and the matron said in a serious tone,

"You open Your hand!"

On this occasion, Jean easily caught the reply. The words, "And You fill all living things with abundance," seemed to come mainly from the fancy table, with a slight echo from Amy Jeffries, who still had the desire to eat from a nice cloth. At "abundance," one brave soul snickered.

The group trudged up the two flights they had taken before and scattered into their rooms. For twenty minutes, Jean sat in darkness and despair. Then the annoying bell rang again, the doors opened as before, the silent line formed up again, and the march down the stairs was repeated. They ended up in the recreation room. In a regular home, this room would have been avoided. Here, compared to the other parts of the cottage that Jean had seen, it felt cheerful. Potted geraniums created pleasant little spots on the window sills. A harmless print or two hung on the walls.

As the girls took their seats, the matron gave Jean a letter.

"You can answer it next week," she said. "All letter-writing happens on the third Friday of the month."

The girl took the letter with a flushed face. The envelope was already opened. The letter itself had been checked, and five entire lines had been removed. But her anger at this interference faded into the indescribable bitterness that soured her to the core as she read. It would have been better if they had erased every word.

The matron was reading aloud from a novel that her audience found captivating. Jean couldn’t pay attention to it. What were the made-up troubles of Oliver Twist compared to her real-life struggles!

The hands of a plain-faced clock moved slowly toward bedtime. The reader marked her place and, after a brief pause, started the first line of a well-known hymn. Jean disliked singing hymns outside of church. It had made her feel down even as a child, and later it brought back painful memories of her father's funeral. So, she clenched her teeth until they finished.

Suggestive of her father and the evening services they sometimes attended together after a Sunday in the fields were the words repeated by the lonely figures kneeling around her; however, she listened to them with sealed lips and a deep sense of protest against their personal meaning. These shabby individuals might admit that they had gone astray like lost sheep, if they chose to. She was not part of their group. The things she had failed to do didn’t bother her conscience. The things she shouldn't have done seemed trivial compared to the massive difference in the punishment they faced.

III

Life in a reformatory is a challenge, even at its best. It reached its worst under the strict supervisor that Cottage No. 6 referred to as "the Holy Terror." The superintendent's authority was at least rooted in a sense of duty; her follower's control was based on impulse. Jean's hope for parole after eighteen months quickly faded. Punished early on for breaking a rule she didn’t even know existed, her compliance became that of a prisoner. Scrubwoman, laundress, seamstress, kitchen worker—all the roles fate, as represented by the matron, forced upon her—were equally detestable. She did as little as possible in those jobs and looked down on those who tried to earn favor by doing their best. Sometimes, only the fear of the reformatory kept her from outright rebellion.

She soon discovered that there was a hell even worse than prison. One day, while clearing paths after a heavy snowfall, she saw a girl being dragged by, handcuffed and fighting against it, her head wrapped in a brown shawl, but still cursing loudly and clearly. Jean recognized Stella Wilkes.

Amy, who was working nearby, said in a quiet tone:

"I heard she messed up again. She's going to get what she deserves this time."

Jean glanced at the closest watcher in black before responding.

"But she's in prison, anyway," she said, using Amy's habit of keeping her lips still. "It can't get much worse for her than it already has."

"Can’t she, though! It’s the guardhouse this time."

Jean asked questions, and Amy supplied answers until the matron got close and interrupted them. It was an intense story from the days before the state got rid of corporal punishment, passed down with new twists from girl to girl. She realized the air was thick with such strange folklore—tales of superintendents who couldn't control things; of matrons, both wise and foolish; of wild riots and narrow escapes. Amy Jeffries was always the source that shared these legends with Jean's eager ears.

Jean kept her distance from everyone else. Only Amy seemed to share her sense of injustice. Jean didn’t invite anyone to open up to her, nor did she share her own thoughts; but little by little, as winter went on, the story of this delicate girl, whose world seemed more out of balance than her pleasure-seeking self, came into focus. It was a familiar tale, too worn out to tell in detail, even though it represented the essence of tragedy to its storyteller. By itself, it didn’t resonate with Jean. Its emotions, its temptations, its wrongdoings lacked appeal or logic; but she sensed that it was nature, rather than Amy, that had created this mess, and that, in a twisted universe, one was once again paying the price for the mistakes of two.

The arrival of spring both brightened and saddened Jean's situation. Working outdoors was no burden for her. She was familiar with the growing seasons and knew which soil was the richest; when to use the plow, harrow, spade, and hoe; when to uncover the strawberry beds from their winter coverings; when to cut the pale sprouts from the potatoes and plant them; when to sow peas and sweet corn; when to set out and nurture the drooping tomato plants; and she approached this cherished work with enthusiasm that nothing inside could inspire. But she also knew—and this was the painful part—exactly what was happening out in the nearby forest. With a heavy heart, she imagined the quiet movements of life in the pond, fields, and treetops; remembered the scent of the first arbutus; spotted the earliest violet; saw the jack-in-the-pulpit open up; observed the mandrake producing its fruit, the ferns unfurling, and the dogwood blooming.

The call of the woods felt strongest when she lay in her metal bed at twilight, because bedtime still arrived as it did in the early winter nights, at a time when the outside world was just starting to come alive. She could see a glimpse of the forest from her small window, and in her mind, she made countless adventures into its enchanting depths with a fishing rod or a gun. It was these daydreams of escapades, always ending behind locked doors, that first sparked her thoughts about escaping.

There were plenty of precedents. The buzz about reform was full of these wild stories. But no matter how cleverly some were planned or boldly others were carried out, all but one ended in the usual recapture. The exception caught Jean's attention. Amy Jeffries had shared the story one day when the gardener, worried about the damage from an insect invasion on the far-off currant bushes, left the team weeding the lettuce to fend for themselves.

"I never knew Sophie Powell," Amy started, "she left before I got here. But people say she had a similar vibe to you—kind of arrogant and good at bluffing. I heard the guys down at the gatehouse called her the 'Empress-out-of-a-job.' I have no idea what she was sent here for. She was as tight-lipped as you are. Just so you know, I'm not judging. It’s risky sharing life stories here. You're the only girl who's heard mine. If you don’t want to share yours, that’s fine. If you do, that’s fine too. I didn’t mention any names, and you don’t have to either. I wonder if he would do the same for me!"

Jean easily countered Amy's move.

"I don’t have any man's name to hide," she said directly. "But that doesn’t matter. I want to know about Sophie Powell."

Amy wasn’t offended.

"Oh," she laughed admiringly, "you really are a puzzle! Well, like I said, Sophie had a way with her and knew how to play her cards. She got top marks within a year and managed to get special privileges from the matron. The matron allowed her plenty of freedom in her room because Sophie knew exactly how she liked everything organized; she wasn't too picky about keeping Sophie's door locked, which was convenient since it was close to her own. One spring night, earlier than this, I suppose, since it was still dark at dinner, she pretended to be sick. She timed her episode for an hour when the doctor was usually busy at the hospital and let the matron fuss with hot-water bottles until the dinner bell rang. Then the matron went downstairs, leaving the door open to give poor Sophie some fresh air. As soon as she heard the clatter of dishes, the invalid got to work. She hopped next door, snagged the matron's best black skirt and a fancy white silk blouse she saved for special occasions, grabbed a hat and veil, a long cloak from the wardrobe, and the large set of house keys from a hiding spot she'd noted, tiptoed downstairs, and let herself out the front door."

Jean took a deep breath.

"But what about the guards?" she asked.

"She only ran into one—the easy target at the gate."

"The entrance!"

"Sure. Sophie didn’t plan to ruin her new clothes by climbing a ten-foot fence. She confidently walked over to the gatehouse, just like she’d seen the staff do, handed in her keys, and left in no time. The guard even tipped his hat—at least, that’s what he said before they fired him. That was the funniest part of it all."

Jean glanced over her shoulder. The gardener was still out of earshot.

"Go on," she said excitedly. "How did she do out there? That's what I really want to know."

"Then came even easier work. Sophie didn’t have a dime—she had forgotten the matron’s purse in her rush—but she had her courage. She rushed into town and asked for directions to the priest who comes out here twice a month for confession. She hoped he wouldn’t remember her since she wasn’t one of his girls, and he didn’t. His eyesight was bad anyway. So, she told him she was a Catholic and a stranger in town, looking for work, and that she had just received a telegram from home saying her mother was dying. She worked up the tears convincingly and suggested that he pitch in for the bus fare if he didn’t want her heart to break. It didn’t break."

Jean absentmindedly shaped the damp soil under her fingers into a rough image of a priest's face, which she quickly erased when it caught Amy's attention.

"Why couldn't they track her down?" she asked.

"Because she was too adorable to stay on her train. She must have hopped on the express when they slowed down for their first stop."

The fugitive loomed large in Jean's thoughts. She realized that the unnecessary strictness of her own treatment in Cottage No. 6 might be linked to her slight resemblance to Sophie Powell. She wondered how the girl was doing; whether she had to navigate life alone; what she had been up to. Was she perhaps living a good life, respected and loved, completely different in every way, yet always haunted by the fear of being captured again? She didn’t question whether such freedom was worth the price, because at that moment, the strong scent of the woods wafted to her from across the lettuce rows.

A bit of trash sparked her determination. She noticed it toward the end of her long day—a large rusty nail sticking out of the dirt—and immediately recognized it as the tool that would help her escape. Her mind processed the idea with surprising clarity, and her fingers were almost as quick. Not even Amy beside her noticed her stash the valuable find into her hair. From that moment until the doors were locked on her for the night, she was completely focused on her plans.

Duplicating Sophie Powell's feat was definitely out of the question. Her door was never left unlocked; the Holy Terror's clumsy clothes might as well be on another planet for all the good they would do. Even if those obstacles were overcome, she could barely expect to trick the guards at the gate. She needed to find a disguise somehow, but she happily left that detail up to chance. Getting away was the priority, and if a rusty nail could help her cross that bridge, there was no need to worry about anything that might make her lose her focus later on.

A monotonous clock in the town struck twelve before she finally started her task. The watchman had just walked past her window on his hourly patrol, and with the end of his slow steps on the gravel, the calm of midnight settled over everything. For almost two hours, Jean struggled with her crude tool to remove the staples holding the woven-wire barrier in front of her window. The first staple was the hardest to get out, but she had pried it loose by the time the watchman passed again. After another half hour, she had removed enough of the netting to achieve her goal, but she waited for the man to come and go once more before making her move. It was a tough wait, feeling like it lasted centuries, and anxiety started to mess with her mind. She wondered if she had lost track of time. What if she had let him catch her off guard? What if he had gotten a hint of what she was doing? What if he was even now hiding, like a spider, in the shadows?

Then the clock chimed twice in its usual way, the steady footsteps returned, and her mind cleared. Five minutes later, she pulled back the netting and measured the distance to the ground. She figured it was about sixteen or eighteen feet altogether, or a straight drop of more than half that distance if she hung by her fingertips. She couldn’t leave a telltale rope of bed linens hanging down. That kind of mistake would get people buzzing on the phone in no time. She had to drop, and drop wisely; because the grassy area she was counting on to break her fall was directly above a space that, while covered with grating, still offered poor footing.

She threw her brown shawl to the ground first and noticed, with some strange detachment, that it spread out on the grass in the shape of a huge bat. Her carefree childhood helped steady her nerves; she carefully climbed over the windowsill and for a moment hung still, her eyes focused below. Then, gathering momentum from a double swing, she suddenly let go, cleared the risky spot, and landed, unharmed and almost silently, on the springy grass.

IV

For a moment, Jean crouched and listened where she had fallen. Not hearing anything from inside, she picked up her shawl and quickly moved toward the spot where she planned to climb over the high fence that still kept her from freedom. There was no moon, but the night was bright with starlight, and she stayed close to the shadows of the cottages. These buildings were huddled together closely for the most part, but she soon came to a gap in the friendly darkness where there was a site waiting for a structure that the government had not funded. It was completely bare and lay in full view not only of the quadrangle that it interrupted but also of the gatehouse beyond.

Nor was this all. Drifting around the last protective corner came the smell of a pipe. Jean's heart sank. The trap! But then she realized that an enemy in hiding wouldn’t smoke, so she gathered her courage to take a look. Across the courtyard, she spotted the watchman standing still. He clearly had no suspicions. He had finished his rounds and was leaning against a fire hydrant, idly gazing at the stars.

So she waited for what felt like forever. But only fifteen minutes had passed when the man knocked the ashes out of his pipe, yawned loudly, and turned away. The moment the gatehouse door closed behind him, Jean dashed like a ghost across the open space, went around the hospital, the tool sheds, and the hotbeds, and disappeared into the depths of the garden. Everything else was straightforward. The tall fence didn't intimidate her; her climbing ladder was just a plank of wood. She cushioned the rough barbed wire with her shawl. When the town clock chimed lazily next, she heard it calmly. She was resting on a mossy slope a mile away.

She only stopped briefly, because the East, which she was heading towards, was already growing lighter. This wasn’t a reckless escape. She aimed for the hills on purpose, since beyond them lay the border of another state. All the other runaways she knew had foolishly stuck to the railroad or other well-traveled routes, and except for the brilliant Sophie, they had all met with disaster early on for that reason. Jean figured they were probably city girls who were scared of the woods. Their ignorance was astonishing. To fear something they should cherish! She took deep breaths of the fresh scent. She couldn’t get enough of it.

Still, she wasn’t ready to completely leave the cultivated countryside just yet. First, she hoped to somehow get clothing from it—clothing, and then food, which she was starting to feel she needed. The fact that she would probably have to get these essentials illegally didn’t bother her much. In some rosy, prosperous future, she could make anonymous amends. She roamed around the edges of three different farmhouses, but had no luck. None of them had any clothes left outside overnight. Some tattered rags were flapping from a scarecrow in a field of young corn; that was all. Edible items were tucked away just as carefully. Near the last farmhouse, she found a spring with a tin cup next to it. She drank for a long time and took the cup with her.

It was too bright now for foraging, so Jean continued her journey eastward, avoiding the main roads and sticking to hedgerows, stone walls, or thorny bushes where the woods faded. As the day went on, she saw farmworkers heading to their jobs, and once, in the distance, she spotted the tempting shine of a lunch pail. She was starving from her long fast and nibbled on one or two edible wild roots she remembered from before. They tasted bland today, even somewhat disgusting; and her mind lingered greedily on the bounty of orchards, gardens, and fields that would be abundant in just over a month. Still, she felt no regret for having seized the day a bit too eagerly.

Noon found her beside a lake up in the hills. She knew the area only from what she had heard. People came here during hot weather, she recalled. Somewhere along the shore should be some log cabins that city folks romantically thought of as pioneer, but they were actually close to a summer hotel where you could get ice, newspapers, gossip, and other perks of civilization. These cabins were still empty, of course—and without food; but the possibility of finding some discarded clothing, maybe too outdated for a girl leaving for the summer, but invaluable for someone in a blue-and-white check outfit, lifted Jean's spirits and gave her fresh energy. With another dress, no matter its style or color, she felt ready to face whatever came her way.

She had followed the wandering shoreline for maybe a mile when two things, hitting her senses at the same time, made her stop suddenly. One was the smell of frying bacon; the other was a deep voice that cut into the chorus of a lively popular song. Jean turned to run, but the enticing smell of bacon drew her back. She carefully pushed aside the underbrush and saw a young man swaying in a hammock stretched between two birch trees. He had a book in his lap that he occasionally dipped into while singing; his attention was also split between the sizzling bacon and a fishing rod propped against a stick at the water's edge. Jean looked at his methods with disapproval. It was neither the right way to read, sing, fry bacon, nor fish.

Possibly some idea crossed this overly adaptable person's mind, because he quickly rolled out of the hammock and focused his skills on the fishing line, which he started to reel in like it was some fun gadget. The harsh critic watching from a distance noticed the amateurish way he was rebaiting the hook and predicted an even bigger mess when he made his cast. However, her worst fears were nothing compared to what actually happened. She thought the wildly spinning lead would fly into the trees, but nothing prepared her for it coming down right on her. There was no way to untangle that weird mess of hooks quickly, and she didn’t even try. But she also couldn’t break the line. The bushes parted as she struggled, and a deep silence fell over the scene.

Jean stood up slowly.

"You're an amazing fisherman," she said.

The young man's confusion turned into a big smile.

"I totally agree with you," he said. "I should get a blue ribbon, or a pewter mug, or whatever they give to the person who catches the biggest fish. Let me help you with those hooks. I hope they didn't tear your dress?"

Then the blue-and-white check caught his eye. First, it was the girl's eyes that had drawn him in; then, her eyebrows; and after that, her contrasting hair. The uniform forced him to notice important details—the shawl, the rough shoes, the fallen cup.

Jean flushed under his gaze and quickly declined his help.

"No, but let me," he insisted, sounding so humble that she gave in.

"I know more about this stuff than you do," she said. "Do you realize you're trying multiple types of fishing with one line?"

"Oh, absolutely," he grinned. "You see, I have no idea what kind of fish swim around here, and fish can have really different preferences. Some like worms, some are into munching on little fish, and some, I think, are attracted to a few colorful feathers, which I must say don't seem very filling. I couldn't decide which bait to go with, so I just laid out a buffet for all the fish."

This was too much for Jean to handle. The fisherman remained unfazed by her laughter. In fact, he joined in on the laughter with her.

"Is it really that ridiculous?" he asked. "I thought I might have discovered something new. This equipment isn't mine; it belongs to someone else."

Jean's gaze quickly darted past him. The man saw and understood.

"We were supposed to camp together," he said, "but he got a telegram while on the train. It was really thoughtless of a great-grandmother to choose this time for her funeral. I expect him tomorrow or the day after."

Jean finally took off her dress and looked for her things. The young man bent down too. He was too late to grab the shawl, but he seriously returned the tin cup to her. She thanked him just as seriously, and after a brief pause, she added:—

"The least you can do is to keep quiet."

"About meeting you?"

Yes.

"Are you from the other side of the county?"

"Yep."

"From the—" he paused.

"From the House of Refuge," Jean said, looking him straight in the eye.

His own gaze was just as direct.

"But not that type," he said quietly, almost like he was thinking out loud—"not that type."

Jean, looking boyish, offered her hand.

"Thanks," she said simply. "You're absolutely right. That's exactly why I'm leaving. Bye."

"Don't leave!" He held onto her hand, his face filled with compassion and confusion. "I can't express how sorry I am. It would be tough for anyone, but when I see a girl"—his eyes conveyed: "And such a girl!"—"wandering the country like a—a homeless—"

"Hobo?" said Jean.

He blushed guiltily.

"Hang it all!" he concluded, "I can't take it anymore. You were spot on when you told me that the least I can do is to stay quiet. But I hope that's not all I can do. I want to help."

The girl got teary-eyed.

"You've helped; you believe in me."

"Who wouldn't!" His attitude defied the world.

"Several people. My family, for example; most of the officials back there at the shelter. But let’s not dwell on that."

"Okay," her new champion agreed. "Forget about that. Let's focus on the future and the practical matters."

Jean complied with the dispatch.

"Your bacon is burning," she said.

He guided them to his camp, and together they looked over the burnt wreckage in the spider. Jean could have eaten it as it lay there.

"And it's my first warm meal," the camper said sadly, "my first warm meal after five days of canned food! The other guy was supposed to be both the cook and the fisherman."

Jean quickly took control.

"Clean that spider while I slice more bacon," she said, rolling up her sleeves. "If you have potatoes, wash about a dozen."

The victim of a canned diet happily threw himself into the task, but stopped abruptly, halfway to the water, and waved the spider in the air.

"Not a mouthful unless you're going to eat too?" he said.

Jean laughed happily.

"Maybe I can be persuaded," she admitted.

With a skill that would have surprised even the most tired, and with a quiet pride in her new skills that she never thought she could feel, Jean started frying the bacon and potatoes, made a plate of sandwiches from soda crackers and a can of sardines, found a jar of olives that the owner had forgotten, and arranged everything on a box cover lined with a napkin. But that wasn't the end of the surprise. She even decorated the meat with a handful of watercress that she noticed and asked her impressed host to pick from a nearby stream.

They didn't say much during the meal since they were both really hungry; but while they washed the dishes together by the shore, Jean, under questioning, shared the story of her escape. Her listener's reactions grew more intense until finally, struck by a surprising thought, he dropped the plate he was cleaning.

"Hey!" he shouted. "Have you gotten any sleep?"

"I got here around 11 AM."

"One hour out of thirty!"

"It was sufficient."

"I'll hang the hammock wherever you want."

"I’ve never been more awake. There are so many things to think through and plan."

"Go ahead and take the hammock," he insisted. "You can chill and think things over at the same time."

She allowed herself to be persuaded, and he brought pillows from the tent. As she began to relax, she realized just how tired she had become and closed her eyes to fully enjoy the luxury of rest. The soothing sound of the little brook where the watercress grew was incredibly calming. It almost seemed to speak, with the small waves lapping at the shore providing a delicate background. She dreamily matched words to its song and soon, still smiling at the thought, wandered into a delightful place where water sprites are real and beautiful impossibilities are just normal.

The shadows had grown longer when she woke up. Her companion was sitting with his back against a tree trunk like before, but she noticed that he had stretched a piece of canvas to shield her from the angled sun.

"It was the best for everyone," he said, as she jumped up in disapproval. "It helped you and gave me time to think. I felt worse than ever while you were lying there, smiling and looking cute in your sleep, like a child."

"I hate that dimple," Jean said with disgust.

"You hate it!"

"It's super feminine."

"Of course it is; that doesn’t give you a reason to mistreat it."

"I think that's a really good reason. A dimple will be a big disadvantage in my life."

"Wow!" the young man said softly. "Some girls I know would do anything for that—But we can’t talk about dimples right now, can we? What I was trying to say, before you took my breath away, is that I think I’ve figured out the clothes situation. There’s a town about ten miles north—the county seat—and it just hit me that if I leave tonight, I can be back here early in the morning with everything you’ll need. I don't think they'll suspect me, even if they happen to read that a girl from the shelter has escaped. I can buy the skirt at one store, the hat at another, and so on, pretending they’re for my sister—or my wife."

Jean's stubborn dimple deepened.

"Make it your mom," she suggested. "Wives and sisters like to do their own shopping."

"Alright then. If you can write down the measurements and other details, I'll figure it out somehow. As for the money," he continued, noticing her hesitation, "I'll handle that too, if you let me. You'll obviously need a loan."

Jean swallowed hard.

"You're amazing," she said softly. "I'll repay you as soon as I make my first paycheck."

The brick blushed with a color that matched its title when she praised it.

"Anyone would be happy to help, you know," he stuttered. "And you don't need to rush to pay either. Just wait until you're settled in with your friends."

"I have no friends!"

"No friends!" He looked on in disbelief. "I know you can't really go back home, but I just assumed there had to be some place—someone—"

"There isn't any."

He sat down suddenly, confused by the complexities surrounding what seemed like a straightforward situation. Jean herself started to feel some doubt. For the time being, his view represented everyone else's.

"Where are you planning to go?" he asked.

"First, cross the state line; then head to New York."

"NYC!"

"Yes, to find a job. Why are you looking at me like I just mentioned Timbuktu?"

"I'm from NYC."

"Are you?" She lit up with excitement. "Then you can tell me where to find a job. I’m ready to do anything at first, but eventually, I want to get into a solid career. Women are doing well in business everywhere these days. Why do you look so defeated? Don’t you think I can succeed?"

"How can I respond to you! If only there were some woman I could introduce you to. I have a sister, but—"

"But she wouldn't get it?"

"No, she wouldn't get it. Neither do you," he continued nervously. "Being a stranger in New York, without a home, no friends, no job, constantly being followed by the shadow of that place over there; and you, being so trusting, unsuspecting, and open like the sun—Oh, I can't advise you. I just can't."

Jean was amazed, but not defeated.

"I'll take the chance," she replied confidently.

Twice he opened his mouth to say something, but instead stood up and walked around the trees. Finally, he faced her.

"Why not go back?" he asked.

Jean widened her eyes at him.

"Go back! Get to safety?"

"Yes. Why not go back and see it through? No, no," he pleaded, as her lip curled. "Don't think I'm trying to back out of my offer. That's still on the table. It's you I'm thinking about. Remember, no matter how much you achieve, those people over there will have the power to take it away from you. If you should marry—"

"I will never marry."

"Should you get married—oh, you will—they can embarrass you and the man whose name you take. Could you handle that? After all, isn't the other option better? Wouldn't a fresh start be worth it?"

She shook her head.

"You don’t understand what you’re asking. I can’t go back. I just can’t. You have no idea."

"I guess I don't," he admitted.

"I'd rather take the chance— the chance of them finding me, the chance, whatever it is, of New York. As for friends—" she smiled at him brightly—"well, I'll have you."

"Yeah," he promised. "You’ll have me."

He accepted her decision and immediately got ready for his hike across the hills. As they said goodbye, he reminded her that to him, she was still without a name.

"I'm not even sure," she laughed. "I’ll need a new name in New York!"

"But what now?"

"Alright, then—Jack."

"Maybe to balance out the dimple. Is it short for Jacqueline?"

"No, just Jack."

Jean's knight errant glanced back once before the tree trunks completely blocked her view. She had sat down on a log, staring out at the blue expanse of the lake. It was around six o'clock in the evening. By nine, she hadn’t moved from her spot. It was maybe an hour later when she suddenly got up, lit a candle that he had shown her while setting up for the night, and grabbed a pencil and paper to write a quick note that she pinned to the tent flap.

There were only two lines in total. The first one thanked him. The second said:—

"I've returned to see it through."

V

The refuge, in official terms, was taken aback. That any fugitive, especially one who had successfully evaded capture, would show up at the gatehouse was a unique twist to its otherwise dull history. Jean Fanshaw, just like Sophie Powell, had gained notoriety. Still, the refuge hid its feelings. An escape was an escape, and the harsh consequences were as unchangeable as the slow movement of a glacier or the phases of the moon.

But even from the supposed ventilator reached by a secret staircase, it was clear that the prisoner in the guardhouse was strangely not the rebel from Cottage No. 6. The girl who fell from the window would have found this confinement maddening. Four brick walls were its only limits; the only furniture was a mattress shoved through a reluctant door at night and taken away when the dull light filtering through a ground-glass disc in the ceiling signaled the start of a new day. It was always twilight inside, as the tasks of a guardhouse need little light. Textbooks, and no other printed materials, were sometimes allowed, but even these dry distractions weren’t for Jean; the school taught nothing she didn’t already know. Her options were two: she could knit or she could think. She usually chose the latter.

Another thing puzzled the refuge—still considered officially. It was not unusual for a song to rise to the makeshift ventilator (inmates often sang out of bravado when they were first locked up), but it was quite unprecedented for a girl with no bed except the floor, no view other than the walls, no activity other than knitting, and completely alone with her thoughts, to hum the words of a lively popular song as if she were truly happy.

Jean also couldn’t stop wondering. Why had her old views on life lost their value? Except for one random guy, men had always interacted with her in the boyish camaraderie she expected: why did that no longer feel completely appealing? Why had she once appreciated a bold insistence on her femininity? Why had she taken pride in practicing a traditionally feminine skill? Why had everything associated with being a woman changed in significance? And above all, why didn’t she feel any regret about this shift? Yet "content" didn’t quite capture her mindset. Her thoughts were a bubbling mix, from which the mysterious young man of the forest began to emerge as an ideal figure. And this ideal man had his own vision of an ideal woman! Here was the fundamental truth at last.

While she thought about it, two lonely weeks that everyone said should have been unbearable slipped away like magic. She feared them ending, knowing that at least six months of prison life lay ahead of her in the harsh reality of it all. To the average girl in a shelter, prison meant disgrace; for Jean, it also meant Stella Wilkes. However, this dreaded contact didn’t happen right away, as it turned out that in cases of escape, the authorities typically imposed another two weeks of isolation after being moved from the guardhouse. But isolation in prison was a relative term. The sights of the building could be hidden away; its sounds seeped into every corner.

Such sounds! One of them interrupted Jean's light sleep on her first night under the prison roof. At first, it was just a thread in the fabric of her dreams, a monotonous, tuneless lament, strangely exotic, unlike anything earthly except the wailing of wild women mourning their dead. She lay there half awake for a moment, the eerie chant gripping her heart. Then, as it grew louder and sharper with each repetition, she sat up straight, her hair standing on end and a chill running down her spine. It was a threat to the living, not a tribute to the dead; a fierce, explicit curse.

"The matron to hell! The matron to hell! The matron to hell!"

The prison came to life.

"The matron to hell! The matron to hell! The matron to hell!"

Here a woman laughed; there one softly echoed the cry; cell cautiously greeted cell.

"The matron to hell! The matron to hell! The matron to hell!"

The throbbing hatred of it now filled the hallways. A door opened somewhere, and a metallic footstep started to echo sharply from the metal stairs.

"Is it me you're wanting, darling?" called a deep voice. "I won't keep you waiting. I'll be with you in a jiffy!"

There was a sound of gunfire, a short struggle, the click of handcuffs, and a hasty withdrawal. Then a door slammed, and only the matron's footsteps echoed through the lower hallways. Far away, muffled by walls in between, two forceful words could be heard; that eerie defiance continued to rise and stubbornly persisted until it wove itself back into Jean Fanshaw's dreams.

That cry somehow captured the main feeling of the prison. Its bitterness, mental misery, painful repression, and simmering rebellion all focused in that emotional outburst against authority. Jean heard it repeatedly in the following months, and each time it shattered the quiet of the night. The second time it startled her, but didn’t scare her. By the third time, she resonated with its message, recognizing it as her own passionate heartache finally expressed. But that was later.

In the beginning, Stella Wilkes eclipsed their background. She and Jean had a familiarity from grammar school during the time before everything became respectable, and the Wilkes girl—known in Shawnee Springs—went their separate ways; it was to this era of democratic equality and relative innocence that Stella romantically chose to return when she first found an opportunity to speak.

"Honestly, I don't feel any older than I did back then," she said casually. "Do I look older?"

Jean replied. Stella really didn't seem different; at sixteen, she looked like a mature woman, and she had just been going through the motions since then. A mole, weirdly positioned near one corner of her mouth where another girl would have had a dimple, still intrigued him because of its unpredictability. Stella caught on and laughed.

"Remember how you little kids used to gawk at my mole?" she said. "It used to annoy me. I don't mind when people stare now, but I wish it was on my neck. 'Moles on the neck, money by the peck,' you know. Isn't it weird that two of us from the old West Street school should end up here together? It's just like if we’d gone away to college—I don’t think! Any news from Shawnee Springs to share?"

"No," Jean replied, bluntly.

Stella realized that her advances weren't welcome, and her mood shifted.

"Is that your game?" She leaned in closer, her expression harsh. "So I'm not in your league, huh? You were the one so eager for the guys! You annoy me. Like we're not all struggling for the same reason. Go tell the marines you're any better than the rest of us!"

It was Jean's first clear understanding of the harsh reality that the stigma of the reformatory was all-encompassing. The world soon reinforced this tough lesson. True to her word after hearing about the censorship, she hadn’t written home; but her mother's letters, as formal and fragmented as they were, had meant more to her than she realized until her downfall to the prison took that privilege away too. When she finally read Mrs. Fanshaw's letters, the overall impact was not uplifting. Despite the censorship, Jean gathered that Shawnee Springs now associated her name with Stella Wilkes. A refuge girl was a refuge girl; differences in misconduct faded into the murky sameness of the stigma. She felt a grateful surprise that her champion of the forest had the insight to see her differently. His idealistic faith and the occasional encouraging word from Miss Archer, when some rare task brought the little secretary close, together brought back her sense of humanity.

A scorching summer dragged into an autumn that was barely any better. The kitchen gardens were dry; the grass patches were brown; the few scraps of ivy that Miss Archer had tried to use to soften the architect's glaring mistakes hung dead, with no hope of revival; and the endless stretches of brick wall, soaked in sunshine during the day, gave off heat like giant ovens all night long. The officials' tempers got shorter, and their decisions became increasingly arbitrary; obedience grew harder every day; a full-blown riot was just waiting for the spark to ignite it.

This prison had a significant impact. Conditions were always toughest here, and the anger it created turned into a lingering hatred for the matron. It wasn’t just because she represented the law, although that did matter. The main reason she was so unpopular was her hard-nosed cynicism from her previous years working at a big city police station. If it had been paired with a temperament like the superintendent's, it might have been tolerable, even if people loathed it; however, the former matron of a "sunrise court" mixed her skepticism with a clumsy kind of cheerfulness that sincerity couldn't overcome. Her smile felt like a provocation, and her laugh was like a sharp slap.

The uprising revolved around an old issue. Breakfast was always a meager meal in the prison, and the laundry crew, who worked the hardest, had been asking for a mid-morning snack for months. This request made sense, but a complicated mess of bureaucracy, which no one really understood, had prevented it from being approved, and the matron ended up facing the consequences of others' actions. All week there had been tension. On Monday, about half of the laundry workers, led by Stella Wilkes, repeated their request and were dismissed with harsh sarcasm.

"Lunch, is it?" the matron said with her annoying grin. "I’m sure it’s Vassar College or maybe Bryn Mawr that these rich kids think they’re going to! How trigonometry, dead languages, and piano lessons can wear you out! Wouldn’t a club sandwich sound good, young ladies? Or perhaps a pâté de foie gras? Now, back to your duties!"

Jean didn't get involved in the demonstration, and as the Wilkes girl went back to her work, she cursed her for being a coward. Ever since the day she was rejected, she had carried her hatred like a chip on her shoulder. Jean faced this, as she faced everything now, with indifference. Stella, her unattractive coworkers huddled over the steaming tubs, the annoying matron—everyone was part of a surreal world, a nightmarish place that had to be endured until she woke up. The tomboy had turned into a mystic.

With a sense of detachment, she watched the storm brewing without any real interest. From Tuesday to Thursday, the tension was released through note-writing, a pastime reminiscent of Rabelais's style, which was, of course, against the rules. Still, the illicit pencils found clever hiding spots, and the notes themselves circulated lively. One of these letters, written by Stella and slipped into the laundry stove with a scoop of fresh coal, caught Jean's attention Thursday afternoon. It was meant for someone else, but a delay had messed up its delivery, and the flames revealed its contents. Stella noticed and leaned in closely.

"If you spill the beans, I'll kill you," she threatened hoarsely. "No doubts about it."

Jean brushed her off. She didn't take the scrawl's ungrammatical suggestions of violence seriously. Such nonsense was as common as it was pointless. She wasn’t fazed when, on Friday during recreation, the matron’s watchfulness caught, though it didn’t quite understand, a quick movement from Stella at the back. However, she did feel some shared tension that made the last day of the week different from the others. The atmosphere in a reformatory is tense. Always being quiet unless told to speak, constantly aware of a watchful eye, forever under the control of Yes and No—that's the usual experience. Double the feeling of restriction, and it becomes a prison and leads to hysteria. From the wake-up bell on Saturday until she fell asleep again, Jean’s senses were affected by vague, threatening influences. Everyone felt them. If sleeves brushed against each other, a scowl followed; whispered curses accompanied the passing of every dish at meals; and in the stifling night, someone raised a heart-stopping chant against the matron. This was the time Jean claimed as her own.

Sunday brought no relief. The heat was relentless; hard work, the weekday escape, was missing. Only the matron could manage to smile. That smile! The group of inmates, making their way to the chapel for Sunday service, felt the heat more intensely and life more bitter because of it. One girl blinked nervously; the fingers of another curled up like claws, then clenched; the jaw of a third tightened. If that woman laughed! The courtyard quickly filled up. Each building sent its blue-gray shadows into the paths. The earliest arrivals were already at the chapel steps when the prison girls, coming out from their grim archway last, stepped hesitantly into the glaring sun. Their smiling matron stood just within the shade, looking frustratingly cool in her white linen, and ridiculously at ease with herself and her tidy, ordered world. Then, suddenly, something trivial—maybe a missing button, possibly a curl that disrupted her otherwise simple appearance, nothing more significant—unleashed her sarcasm, her laughter, and her defiance.

A scream, unlike the midnight defiance but just as horrifying, erupted from one of the prison girls. High-pitched, bird-like, and prolonged, it was the kind of sound a tortured captive at the stake might have heard from the surrounding women. It was familiar in the refuge; each decade passed it down to the next, and it was always the signal for rebellion. As one throat after another joined in, the commands of the matrons turned into nothing more than frustrated gestures. Lines of people dissolved into chaos, and the crowd, eager for violence, waited for a guiding force.

A leader emerged. Stella had secretly sparked this upheaval; it was her opportunity to seize openly if she wanted. But it wasn’t just about bravery. This was her moment, hers by the right of strength; if someone else had taken the lead, she would have taken them down. With her dark hair messy, eyes blazing, cheeks flushed, needing only the red symbols of chaos to complete her resemblance to those women from other places who faced barricades like men, she attracted disorder around her like a stronger flame pulls in the weaker. Her followers streamed in from every direction of the courtyard—top-tier girls, those barely out of the guardhouse; older ones, younger ones; the rebellious, the submissive; kids from the tenements, stray from the countryside; beggars, drifters, drunks, criminals, temptresses, thieves. Hysteria met hysteria, madness met madness, like metal shavings to a magnet they arrived, and among them was Jean.

VI

Stella called out to the recruit with loud excitement, grabbed her by the arm to make sure she didn't change her mind, and signaled to her group of strong women.

"Break the prison first," she shouted. "We'll show them."

Back into the dark archway they rushed, a crazy, shouting crowd, and threw themselves into chaos. The window panes shattered first; then came the sounds of dishes smashing from the dining room and kitchen. Nothing fragile was left intact; where glass broke, they destroyed furniture; when there was no wood, they attacked the plumbing.

Following closely in Stella's destructive path, Jean wreaked havoc all around with hands that she vaguely felt were just puppets controlled by another unknown version of herself. She was living a double life, thinking one thing while doing the opposite. The active side was both unsettling and captivating to her critical true self, and she recognized, half alarmed, that if Stella Wilkes ever faltered in her leadership, the wild, foreign Jean Fanshaw would probably jump in to take her place.

But Stella had no intention of stepping down. Her reign had just started. What was the short time that had been enough to destroy the hated prison? There was plenty to loot in the cottages, she reminded them; even more in the administration buildings and the chapel. The chapel now! Just think of the amazing destruction they could unleash on the big organ! And after the chapel, why not attack the gatehouse? What was a handful of guards to them? The gatehouse and freedom! Excited by this vision of victory, the mob armed themselves with pieces of debris and made their way back to the entrance, ready for a complete surprise. Bolted doors blocked their triumphant advance—bolted doors and the matron, calm, determined, unarmed, and completely alone.

The quadrangle had seen its share of events too. With the superintendent missing, her assistant sick, and the few male guards at the gatehouse just going through the motions, totally unfit for the leadership the situation required, the outbreak could hardly have been more perfectly timed; yet somehow, order emerged from the chaos. Officials, acting independently, gathered those of their charges who hadn’t succumbed to panic into the cottages and rushed back to handle the open rebellion. This is where the prison matron insisted she should take charge. The situation had erupted in her area; it was her responsibility to put it out if her authority was to mean anything in the future; and she firmly rejected any assistance. Not even the guards were allowed to enter with her; she would face the situation alone.

The rioters stared dumbfounded at the solitary figure. Their loud chatter faded to whispers, then fell completely silent. Their eyes blinked and darted around under the chilling gaze that moved slowly from girl to girl, overlooking no one, judging everyone.

Suddenly, the matron pointed a finger at a weak-jawed offender in the van.

"Drop that stick!" she said.

The culprit nervously complied.

"You too!" She pointed to the next person, and once again, they followed her lead. In the back, someone whispered.

"Stella Wilkes, come over here."

Habit nudged the girl a step forward before she realized she was passively giving in, but she quickly caught herself with a curse and matched the stare.

The matron's voice got sharper.

"Stella," she said again, "come here."

The rebel tightened her grip on the club.

"Come here yourself," she shot back. "Come if you dare!"

The matron took action. Rather than using psychology, her experience at the police station had been influenced by force, and in losing her temper, she instinctively fell back on that blunt approach. A rush, a flash of hidden handcuffs, a brief but violent struggle, a blow, and a heavy fall—these were the whirlwind details of a fight that no one witnessed perfectly, but from which Stella, like a force of nature, clearly emerged as the winner. Like a mob, she was also ruthless, continuing to unleash blows that the dazed woman at her feet couldn’t retaliate against or block. One punch drew blood, a crimson streak that traveled across the matron's now pale cheek and stained the purity of her dress.

It was then that Jean woke up. She was no longer at the forefront. Separated from Stella during the chaos of the upper floors, she had fallen late onto a mirror belonging to the matron, miraculously untouched until she arrived, and had occupied herself with its joyful destruction until the others had surged downstairs and the confrontation at the door began. In her first moment of being away from the collective madness, she felt a strong reaction; just one glimpse of the scene below was enough to change her perspective. She cared for the defeated as little as the winner, but every instinct for fairness and decency screamed against the reckless violence, pushing her urgently through the crowd to the side of the stunned woman.

The surprise of the attack, more than its strength, threw Stella off balance, and Jean helped the matron to her feet before they could retaliate. Quick thinking was crucial right then. Just as she charged, Jean spotted a coil of fire hose that had been used less than half an hour ago for cooling purposes. It was still attached to the hydrant, and its potential hit her instantly. Before the ringleader could even figure out what she was up to, Jean shoved the nozzle into the matron's hands and leaped to turn on the water. Stella recognized the value of this overlooked weapon now and tried to grab it, but a stream as thick as a man's wrist hit her square in the face, powered by the pent-up energy from the hills, and sent her gasping to her knees. Before she could catch her breath, she was handcuffed and powerless, and the matron, filled with energy and resourcefulness thanks to the change in the game, was giving sharp orders to a soaked, scared, and utterly submissive group of rebels, who had just surrendered completely.

To her true conqueror, Stella fully and explosively acknowledged her feelings. The guardhouse alone contained the fiery outburst that she directed at Jean's past, present, and future; the girls who listened were grateful that someone else would have to endure the crushing fear of such a consequence. The official response was more neutral. Aside from an occasional puzzled look, as if trying to solve an impossible puzzle, the matron did not distinguish her savior from the usual group of rebels, to whom she imposed even harsher punishments for their offenses. Instead of speeding up her return to life outside, Jean found out that she had narrowly avoided having her prison term extended, and that the fact that the good in her actions was taken into account against the bad was seen as an extraordinary act of mercy.

Yet even if that brief period of madness had added six more months of prison to the already existing six months, the lesson wouldn’t have been too costly. Just as she returned enriched by a new understanding of her womanhood from the escape that cost her prison time, she now gained sanity from her surrender to madness. It terrified her to think that she could have, even for a moment, become like those weak pawns in an incomprehensible game, and the realization fortified her with a level of self-control that she had never imagined in her girlhood. Fortunately, at this time, another equally beneficial and far-reaching influence emerged.

One winter morning, she left the prison accompanied by a clerk from the superintendent's office, who guided her to Cottage No. 6. Jean's heart sank as they crossed the threshold. In her hopeful mindset fueled by new resolutions, she had anticipated a different fate. But what good were new resolutions here? However, as soon as she entered, she felt a shift in the atmosphere. Despite their starkness, the corridors felt less institutional; the recreation hall, seen in passing, offered a nearly lively welcome; and the room where she was told to wait for the cottage matron's attention looked nothing like it did before, except for its four walls. Amy Jeffries, dusting the window seat as if she enjoyed it, was actually humming.

"Hey!" she called. "Welcome home."

Jean raised a warning finger.

"Someone will hear," she warned. "What will happen to your good reputation then?"

Amy smiled wide.

"Did you notice?" She turned around happily in front of a mirror. "Don’t I look just like a trained nurse? Can’t you picture me walking down the aisle with the grateful millionaire I saved from typhoid? Wow, I’m so excited to get out of working shifts!"

Jean was annoyed with her foolishness.

"You'll jump back into them really fast if she hears," she whispered. "Don't be stupid."

"She!" Amy turned to stare. "Wow, if you're not from the sticks! You can’t be serious—haven't you heard that the Holy Terror is gone?"

"Are you saying—"

"I mean g-o-n-e, gone—out of here, skipped out, took off. Can't you understand plain English? I thought everyone knew. She left a week ago to get married."

"Just got married!"

"Ain't that something? Can you believe that with a husband!"

Jean tried, but didn't succeed. As amazing as it was, this wonder seemed unimportant compared to the fact that Cottage No. 6 had lost its strict leader. No wonder the house looked so happy.

"And the new matron is different?" she asked.

"Different! Dif—" Amy became speechless with laughter. "Hey, you guys in the jug have been out of the loop since the riot! You really shouldn’t be, seriously. You're missing out on so much, you know. There was the Astor ball, the Vanderbilt dinner, and the most fabulous little supper at Sherry's I've been to this season—"

All of Amy's members were pinchable. Jean pinched the nearest one.

"Has something happened or not?" she asked.

"Would I be talking here like a normal person instead of an inmate if something amazing hadn't happened?" She had a table separating them now. "Honestly, I wouldn't be worth much at all. There's been a serious shake-up in No. 6. You couldn't even guess who's the matron if I gave you all day."

Jean's face suddenly lit up.

"Not Miss Archer!"

"You clever girl," said Amy, feeling down.

"Then it's true! It's really true?" The news was too amazing to believe. "I can't wrap my head around it."

"Neither can I. She even came over here for a lower salary. Isn't that strange? I know because I overheard her discussing it with the supervisor— I had to go to the offices on an errand, and you can bet I listened when I realized something was happening for No. 6. As far as I can figure it out, the riot is the reason, but I can't understand why that would make Miss Archer give up a better job and higher pay to stay here. It beats me."

Where Amy failed, Jean, with her deeper insight, quickly figured out the truth. It hit her at the end of an hour spent alone with the little matron—an amazing, inspiring hour she would remember as crucial—a turning point where choosing wrong would mean missing out on the best in life. Still, she could never dissect it; its essence was delicate. It didn’t help to remember that the conversation had started from one or another of the room's inanimate objects—some cast, book, picture, or piece of pottery—each reflecting Miss Archer's personality; yet one of them had undoubtedly been the key to a Garden of the Spirit where ordinary things underwent magical transformations. The vague longings and aspirations that the forest meeting had planted now seemed like rich, uncertain growths no longer; they felt precious and incredibly desirable.

Jean took a deep breath when they pulled apart.

"At first, I couldn’t understand why you came," she said; "but it’s clear now. It was to help—to help girls like me."

VII

It was during the second spring that Mrs. Fanshaw arrived. Because of the little matron, Jean had finally given in and started writing letters home, prompting her mother to see this change as a sign of remorse, which she decided to support with a visit after a suitable amount of time. Jean was really looking forward to the promised visit. With her whole perspective shifting, she now held herself responsible for many of the issues that, while minor on their own, had collectively made her home life difficult; and from this realization, a newfound tenderness for her mother emerged—one that was hesitant to be expressed in writing but eager to reveal itself through actions.

The official who led Jean to the waiting room and stayed close during the interview didn’t need to turn away discreetly during their meeting for Mrs. Fanshaw's benefit. She was as composed as the best manners of Shawnee Springs demanded in such unfortunate circumstances. Her expression showed a respectful mix of pious resignation and parental compassion when the slender blue-and-white figure rushed from the doorway into her arms, and she allowed the remorseful one to stay against her best alpaca fabric for a noticeable amount of time, fully aware that a cascade of lace, various silk bows, and a long gold chain were sadly crumpled by the impact.

"Focus, kid," she said firmly. "I've told you so many times to always work on your self-control!"

Jean held onto her tightly, overwhelmed with homesickness, not hearing a thing.

"Mom! Mom!" she repeated.

Mrs. Fanshaw stepped back, fixed the mess, and examined her daughter with a critical gaze.

"What a mess you've made of yourself!" she sighed. "The color of that dress looks nice on you, but the pattern! What have you done to your hair?"

"My hair?" Jean absently touched her braid. "Oh! You mean the front? It must look plain, you know."

"And your hands! You've never kept them like Amelia's, but now—wow, they could belong to a day laborer."

"They are," Jean said.

But Mrs. Fanshaw's attention had drifted elsewhere.

"I can't be too grateful that I saved Amelia from this ordeal," she continued. "Amelia was eager to come. She said she felt it was her responsibility, but I wouldn't allow it. She is so sensitive that she couldn't have handled it. Seeing her own sister in those clothes and in that environment would have left a lasting impact."

Jean now had herself completely under control.

"I have to say, the shelter might spoil Amelia's youthful charm," she replied coolly. "I hope you won't feel any side effects yourself, Mom."

"I'm sure I will," Mrs. Fanshaw replied earnestly. "I'm already on edge. But let's set that aside. No matter the cost, I would have come much sooner if you had always acted as expected. I couldn't come while you were rejecting God's will. Your stubbornness at the start—they filled me in completely, Jean; your unfeminine attempt to escape; that terrible uproar—all of it showed—"

"That's in the past, mom."

"Sure, it’s in the past; but it’s not forgotten. Shawnee Springs remembers everything. Your escape made the headlines. I told you all that."

"They never told me. Not in the local papers, not in the county papers?"

"No." Mrs. Fanshaw straightened her posture. "My consideration kept that from happening. The editors maintained the same respectful silence they had when you were arrested. But it seems you forget that city newspapers are read in Shawnee Springs. One terrible paper even published your picture."

The girl's face flushed painfully.

"Oh!" she exclaimed sharply. "How could they! Where could they even get it?"

Her mom hesitated.

"Amelia was somewhat responsible," she admitted. "She was naturally worried about your disappearance, and when a polite young man showed up and said that if he had your description he could help in the search, the sweet girl welcomed him enthusiastically. How could she know he was a reporter!"

"She gave that guy my picture!"

"Like a trusting child. Amelia has felt all our troubles so deeply. For weeks after you were sent away, she could hardly face anyone from her group. She said she felt like a refugee herself. I had to ask our pastor to help her realize that neither of us was at fault. She withdrew from the world even then, but the world still came to her."

"Meaning Harry Fargo?" Jean asked, suddenly coming out of the fog caused by Amelia's stupidity.

"Harry is really sweet," Mrs. Fanshaw admitted with a playful tone. "Honestly, he's like a son to me in every way except for his name. If Amelia would just—but I shouldn’t be gossiping."

Jean smiled without joy.

"I think she'll win him over," she encouraged.

Her mom frowned.

"What a common expression!" she scolded. "I thought I noticed an improvement in your language at first. Your voice is definitely better—much deeper. It's probably the prison discipline, I guess. But speaking of Harry, I honestly think we can view it as, well, fairly certain. I have to say I'm pleased. Harry is quite a catch."

Jean quietly considered young Mr. Fargo's qualities; he was an athlete unmatched at the local Y.M.C.A. gym; blessed with a tenor voice particularly impactful at church events when singing heartfelt ballads; set to inherit a mineral spring, a coal retail business, and a position on the board of the First National Bank; clearly on his way to becoming one of the respected leaders in his community. Along with these present and future virtues, he appeared genuinely, if not passionately, fond of Amelia, and Jean wholeheartedly wished her sister's prolonged courtship good luck.

Perhaps she expressed this less effectively than she could have. In any case, Mrs. Fanshaw reacted strongly to a reference regarding the suitor's prolonged pursuit.

"Given the situation," she said sternly, "it's surprising that he's even still interested. No eligible young man in Shawnee Springs would want a sister-in-law whose name is constantly compared to Stella Wilkes's, and you know the Fargo family is as proud as they come. I don’t see why they think they’re so special—the Tuttles owned land in the county twenty years before anyone even heard of a Fargo; but they definitely have some reason to avoid Amelia. You don’t seem to realize how painful her situation has been. People were just starting to find something else to talk about after you left, when you stirred up the gossip again by running away. That nearly ruined everything. I had it from the best source—Mrs. Fargo’s dressmaker is now mine—that Harry and his father actually had a fight. Then, just when we thought things had settled down, the embarrassing chaos happened. No one knew for sure if you were involved, but they naturally assumed you were, and of course I couldn’t honestly deny it when they asked me directly. It’s been awful—awful."

Jean was carried away by her own ego. She forgot that she also had her own perspective. Their mistakes were the biggest mistakes.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It's true I didn't realize. I don’t want to get in Amelia's way. You won’t have anything to complain about again while I’m here."

"I don't think I will. I can't imagine what else you could be doing, even if you were to start caring a bit about our feelings. If they would just get married before your term ends!"

Jean's lips pressed together.

"There's almost a year and a half left," she said grimly. "That's definitely enough time."

"It would be for anyone but a Fargo," her mother sighed. "They're slow at everything. We can only hope and wait. It's been really tough."

"I'll try not to make it worse later," Jean replied. "I guess I have to go back to the Springs first. When a girl goes out, they take her—home. But I won't stay. I'll leave right away."

"Go away! You can't visit any relatives. The Tuttles all feel the shame as if it's their own. As for your dad's side—"

"I’m not here to visit. I’m here to work—to live."

Mrs. Fanshaw focused her narrow-minded thoughts on this strange suggestion, adopting, as was her usual response to new ideas, an attitude of stubborn disapproval.

"Maybe you still think you can roam around the country like a man?" she said.

"No. I've moved past that. I’ll find some work suited for a woman."

"You mean you'll cook, clean, and do all the tedious chores you've picked up here? That would be a funny story to share around the Springs!"

"I would cook or clean if I had to, but I’ve learned other skills. One of the girls who's leaving this fall—her name is Amy Jeffries—knew just as little about making a living as I did when she arrived here, but she has a job waiting for her in New York that pays eight dollars a week. She’s going to work for a ready-made cloak company. It was Miss Archer who helped her get the job, and she says that when the time comes, she can probably do the same for me."

"New York!" Mrs. Fanshaw hesitated with a shy, country-like uncertainty at the exciting name. "You in New York! I have to get Amelia's take on this. What if it turns out to be a way out!"

During the rest of the call, the conversation mostly wandered through a jumble of Shawnee Springs gossip that Jean followed with a sluggishness, masking a deep ache inside her. She had come to appreciate her home, not for what it used to be, but for what it could become, and it was painfully clear that it felt even more like home without her. Mrs. Fanshaw had taken away an ideal.

It didn’t make the pain any easier to realize that her mom meant no real cruelty. In fact, as Jean recognized, she was trying in her awkward way to be kind. She brought up the positive change in the girl’s voice again, approved of her calmer demeanor, and, looking closer, even noticed a neatness overall that she acknowledged with some praise. It was during these final observations that she caught her daughter in a futile attempt to hide something in the folds of a dress without pockets.

"What are you doing?" she asked, clearly suspicious. "What are you hiding from me?"

The girl began.

"Nothing," she replied evasively.

"Nothing! You were always honest at least."

"I'm not saying anything important."

Mrs. Fanshaw held onto the shrinking hand tightly and brought its secret to the surface.

"Embroidery!" she said excitedly.

Jean's cheeks were rosy.

"Yeah," she hesitated.

"Who owns this?"

"Mine."

The hesitant one-word replies piqued Mrs. Fanshaw's curiosity.

"No more nonsense," she said firmly. "Tell me right now who gave you this."

"Nobody," Jean admitted weakly. "I—I did it."

"You!" A pair of black-rimmed glasses, striking and intense, focused immediately on the marvel and examined it thread by thread.

Jean waited, breathless. The little piece of needlework, created with endless effort that went beyond just manual labor, was surprisingly loaded with meaning. In the past, she had hated such work as fiercely as her sister loved it, but recently she had stubbornly decided to learn the craft, believing it would best represent her new perspective and her return to embracing her femininity. As a symbol of that, she had brought her work into the visitors' room. She had hoped that, before their meeting, her mother would understand it. Even now, despite feeling disillusioned, she still held onto some hope, though she didn't know what it was.

In fairness to Mrs. Fanshaw, it should be noted that she seemed to pick up on this. Compared to before, her smile was encouraging. From her perspective, she nearly hit the highest note of praise when, finally extending the embroidery, she said,—

"It’s nearly as good as Amelia’s."

The new Jean was still far from a saint. Pale with anger, she snatched the symbol of her renewal from Mrs. Fanshaw's disrespectful hand and ripped it into tiny pieces.

VIII

From that point on, Jean feared nothing more than going back to Shawnee Springs. For once, she was completely in sync with her mother, because as the time of her release approached, young Mr. Fargo's laid-back courtship suddenly picked up pace in a way he couldn't quite explain, leading to the surprising decision of setting a wedding date.

Dear Amelia naturally missed her sister at the peak of her happiness (as Mrs. Fanshaw said), but she had to think about the Fargos—they weren't very friendly, by the way—and if the refuge authorities didn’t mind, wouldn’t it be better if she met the official taking care of Jean at some middle point, from which she could head straight to her new role? Amelia was sure Jean would get it.

Jean understood perfectly but was grateful. She would rather spend another month in the shelter than be an unwanted guest at Amelia's wedding. In truth, if she had to choose, she would have opted for more time under her mother's roof anyway. She considered the reformatory, not Shawnee Springs, as home, and that included more than just Miss Archer and the renovated Cottage No. 6. She hated her life just as much as she did at the beginning, but time had connected her to every aspect of it. The subdued, dull groups no longer felt foreign. Their hardships, their minimal privileges, their rights, their wrongs, their sadness, their fleeting joys, all belonged to her. She had imagined bursting out of the gatehouse like a wild creature escaping a trap. In reality, she stopped to look back with a lump in her throat.

Yet the world outside was bright and cheerful, despite the fog and gloom of the November rain. Even the wet shine of the muddy ground seemed upbeat. A hundred little things, unnoticed by her companion, captured her wide-open eyes. The red and green bottles in a pharmacist's window drew her in like when she was a child; then the sparkle of a toy store tempted her, or the warm glow from a forge. The station and train were full of entertainment. Buying a ticket was a major event; the slot machines, the schedules, the newsstands, the ads—every part of the everyday human scene felt fresh and exciting. She noticed that women's sleeves were fuller than what the little tailor shop in the shelter seemed to realize; that men's hats had a tighter curl at the brim; that the train staff wore a different uniform; that one rural station or another had gotten a new coat of paint.

Mrs. Fanshaw was waiting.

"There's a train back to the Springs in twenty minutes," she said quickly, after a distracted tap on Jean's cheek, "and given the situation"—she was always dealing with situations—"I know you won't mind if I take it instead of waiting for your train. With gifts arriving, the dressmaker, and the snobby attitude of Harry's family, I'm expecting to find Amelia on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Every minute counts; we're so pressed for time. Honestly, I couldn't even find the time to pack a single thing for you to take to New York. Anyway, I gathered from your last letter that the shelter would provide you with the essentials, which is definitely a relief at this moment since I'm spending money left and right for Amelia. Why," she suddenly added, "your suit is actually custom-made!"

"Yeah," said Jean.

"Great material, too," said Mrs. Fanshaw, feeling the texture. "Does every girl do as well?"

"The girls in the lower grades don’t get jackets, just capes; and their fabric isn’t as nice."

"Then you're really important! You never wrote to me."

"I didn't think it would interest Shawnee Springs."

Mrs. Fanshaw looked upset.

"You’re a weird kid," she said, "so secretive and self-absorbed. I guess your suit was made at the shelter?"

Yes.

"By one of the prisoners?"

"By one of the inmates—me."

"Strange kid!" her mom said again. "Strange kid!"

Linked by nothing but an unpleasant past, they sat together for a while in awkward silence. Even at their friendliest, mother and daughter had always struggled with casual conversation. Soon, Mrs. Fanshaw's wandering gaze landed on the train schedule display, and her expression brightened.

"The Shawnee Springs accommodation is on time for once," she said.

Jean responded honestly that she was glad. The fact that her train was clearly marked as being an hour late, which obviously meant she would arrive after dark in an unfamiliar city, didn’t matter.

Mrs. Fanshaw opened her bag.

"Here’s the price of your ticket to New York," she said, counting out the exact fare. "You should buy it right away."

Jean did just that. When she came back from the ticket office, her mother was flattening the wrinkles from a banknote.

"Did they give you any money?" she asked carefully.

"With $2."

"Is that everything?"

"They covered my fare here."

"How stingy in such a big state! I can give you so little myself. But you will start working right away?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"Then ten dollars should be enough until you get your first paycheck, as long as you're not spending too much."

"I won't stop at the Waldorf," Jean promised, grimly. She took the bill, just like she took the money for the ticket, without any thanks, saying only, "I'll pay it back."

Another uncomfortable silence settled in. Mrs. Fanshaw shifted anxiously.

"I hope the Jeffries girl can be counted on to meet you," she said.

"I believe she can."

"It's definitely a convenience to know someone at the beginning, but I don't think she's a very desirable associate, regardless of what Miss Archer thinks. You can distance yourself from her later, of course, whenever it seems best."

"Let her go!"

Mrs. Fanshaw flinched at the intensity of the exclamation.

"How sudden you are! What I mean is that you probably won’t want to keep up these reform acquaintances. If I were you, I would make it a rule to avoid any of them you can, by any means possible. Maybe this girl is better than most of her peers. I don’t think you ever explained why she was sent to the shelter?"

Jean's eyes flashed with anger.

"You're absolutely right," she shot back. "I never have."

Mrs. Fanshaw was still waiting with patient anticipation for Jean to fix this oversight when her train was announced. They stood and faced each other awkwardly.

"Well, goodbye," said the older woman, offering her cheek.

"Well, goodbye," said Jean.

She watched her mom get into a car and followed her busy movements through the windows until she found a seat. Mrs. Fanshaw didn’t have time for a last glance outside, and Jean, relying on some vivid memories, sensed that she was focused on avoiding her seatmates. So focused, she disappeared from view. Jean could have easily cried, but she firmly stopped herself from doing so. She still held onto some of her old boyish disdain for tears, even though the experience had made her more aware of her emotions and less confident in her previous scorn. She now realized that tears, like tea, served women purposes beyond just the physical.

Happily, the everyday things in life still had a freshness that caught her attention. This second stop, similar yet different from the first; the slow train, finally arriving with a sense of importance; the exciting journey into the unknown, each moment had its own charm. As dusk fell, the landscape was filled with signs promoting breakfast foods, women's clothing, or current plays in the city’s theaters; while the villages became more stylish with better pavements and lighting until she mistakenly thought one or two were close suburbs of the big city itself. Then the open spaces became less common. If there was a glimpse of a field, it was crisscrossed by future streets or overshadowed by massive factories, featureless giants with a thousand shiny windows. Town connected to town.

When they had run for a long time within what she knew must be the limits of the city itself, a brakeman shouted something she couldn't understand from the door, and the train came to a stop. Jean grabbed her bag, but noticing that a flirty guy who had been sharing her seat for the past hour wasn't making any move, she was left uncertain.

"Isn't this New York?" she asked.

Her seatmate looked at her sarcastically.

"Some of it," he said. "Do you want any specific part of the village?"

"The main station," the provincial said, blushing.

"You mean Grand Central. Hang on then. This is just One Hundred Twenty-Fifth Street—Harlem, you know, where the goat joke is popular. I’ve never actually seen a billy goat there myself, and I lived on Lenox Avenue for a year as well."

Jean shifted his focus from discussing boarding houses to the car window. In the nighttime glow of the city lights, the street he referred to with a casual number completely matched her small-town idea of Broadway. If this was just the outskirts, what must the actual thing be like!

They shot through a tunnel, which the drummer criticized using phrases that were long familiar from the newspapers, navigated a maze of block signals and switch lights, and finally stopped in a huge cavernous space that she didn’t need any hints about from her now overly friendly neighbor to confirm was definitely New York.

The drummer urged his date to hurry, but she slipped away as she got out of the car and rushed into the crowd. As she approached the gate, though, she slowed down. The size of the train station overwhelmed her, and the noise from the cab drivers and streetcars outside made her feel uneasy. Amy had written that she would meet her if she could get away from work, but Jean couldn't spot her anywhere in the throng gathered in the bright glare of the arc lights beyond the barrier. Each face was unfamiliar and pale.

She had walked slowly down the human aisle and was hesitating on the edge, unsure whether to wait longer or take a chance for herself, when the drummer showed up next to her.

"Didn't your friends show up?" he said. "That's just rude. You should let me help you out. You seem like someone who can handle themselves. How about we teach them a lesson? We can grab dinner at a nice, cozy spot I know up the street, catch a show afterward, and then when we're ready, we can go find your slowpoke friends. Sound good?"

She looked everywhere except at him, spotted a policeman, and headed straight for the safety of his uniform. Halfway there, she felt her hand being grabbed, turned around angrily, expecting the drummer, and happily fell into the arms of a stylish young person who greeted her with an excited hug.

"Amy! I’ve never been so happy to see you!"

The girl stepped back from the hug, breathing heavily.

"I really think you are," she said. "Sorry to keep you waiting. There was a delay on the 'L.' What was that guy saying to you?"

When Jean told her, she eagerly scanned the crowd.

"I think having blond hair definitely attracts a lot of attention," she said. "So, he was a traveler, huh?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Kind of sandy, with a reddish mustache? I could only see his back."

"Sandy? I don't know. I tried not to look at him."

Amy stayed quiet as they moved onto the street, continuing to look at the faces around her. Once they had squeezed into a streetcar crowded with women standing and men sitting, she brought up Jean's adventure again.

"Did he say what products he was carrying?" she asked.

"No," Jean replied coolly. The scene outside on the pavement had already pushed the drummer out of her mind.

"Or where he stayed?"

"Where did he live?" She turned and noticed that the girl's eyes were really bright. "He said he had stayed around here somewhere—Harlem, right?"

"Harlem!" Amy's pink cheeks turned bright red. "And did he have a scar, a small white scar, near his eyebrow?"

"I didn't see."

"I wish you had."

Jean gave her a glare.

"I wish I had as well, if it means so much," she replied.

Amy put on a mask of clear indifference.

"Of course it doesn't matter," she said. "At first I thought it might be someone I used to know."

IX

They got off at a sort of wooded area surrounded by trolley lines and crossed by many paths, along one of which they walked. Even though it was November, the benches often had slouching figures, disheveled men or untidy women, who were ignored by everyone except a hefty policeman. Nearby electric signs brightly illuminated the lower part of the small park, and here, right next to restaurants, a vaudeville theater, and bars, Jean suddenly spotted a distinguished figure that she recognized from school history books when she was little.

"Wow, this is Union Square!" she exclaimed happily. "I recognize it by Washington's statue over there. And this street we're approaching must be Broadway."

"You're not that slow," said Amy, stopping at the curb. "Here's another chance to show how fast you can be. Make sure you move quickly when I see an opening." In the same moment, she pulled her companion into a narrow space between two streetcars, avoided a truck, went around a pushcart, and miraculously emerged safe and sound on the other side.

They walked along a street full of captivating shop windows that made Jean excited, but Amy, in her sophistication, quickly dismissed it with a comment that the real experience was somewhere else. With the same casual indifference, she mentioned, "This is Fifth Avenue," at their next intersection; however, she quickly downplayed Jean's admiration by adding, "It's not the fancy part, you know," and rushed out of its undeserving area toward a street under the elevated train tracks. This street was also very interesting, with its numerous little shops and stalls, but Amy only let her have a brief look at it before turning down a dimly lit street of houses, each with a small yard hidden behind an iron fence.

As they climbed the high steps of one of these houses, Jean respectfully noted that it was clearly a brownstone front—a kind of urban elegance that people from unvisited Shawnee Springs often speculated about; although its obvious state of disrepair, even in the dark, helped her feel more comfortable. A sign that read, "Furnished Rooms and Board," was prominently displayed in one of the basement windows, which was further decorated with a strange symbol on red cardboard, explained by Amy while they waited, as a silent plea to a certain arrogant city official responsible for garbage collection.

"The landlady's name is St. Aubyn," Amy added; "or at least that's what she goes by. She's the widow of an actor. Some people say her real name is Haggerty, but that doesn't really matter to us. We can't afford to be picky, or at least I can't."

"Me neither," agreed Jean.

Mrs. St. Aubyn, who at that moment opened the door herself, appeared to be a tired-looking woman in her fifties, with a touch of lingering charm in her expression. She greeted Amy's cheerful announcement of bringing her a new boarder without much excitement, saying that, although she had no issues with Miss Jeffries and figured she would get along just as well with her friend, overall, she preferred having men around.

"They all do," Amy exclaimed, pretending to be annoyed. "Every single boarding house in New York prefers men."

The actor's grass-widow didn’t question this broad statement, clearly seeing it as a given that needed no explanation or defense. She then continued, saying that since Miss Jeffries already knew the rooms and prices, and because she was completely exhausted, the turnips were burning, the cream puffs hadn’t arrived, and you couldn’t trust even the best servants too far, she would leave them to it. She said all this in a breathless rush while backing toward the basement stairs, until both her voice and presence faded away.

"Don't worry about her quirks," Amy reassured, taking the lead as they went up. "She's super excited to see you. The elevator's broken," she added jokingly, "but I'm on the first floor—counting down from the roof. It’s actually a nice spot, especially on hot summer nights when there’s not much breeze."

She showed the narrow back bedroom she was currently using; it was a slightly larger space, getting its air only from a skylight, which Jean could have for the same price; and finally, in an enviable contrast, there was a really spacious room at the front, boasting three windows—dormers, to be fair, but still windows—a nice closet, and a steam radiator. If they wanted to share, all of this was within their combined budget. Amy tried to present the situation objectively, but she couldn't evaluate the perks of three dormers, a proper closet, and a steam radiator without getting a bit worked up, and after just one look—not at those tempting features, but at Amy's expression—Jean quickly decided to go for the shared arrangement.

Amy gave her a big hug.

"If only you knew how much I've wanted this!" she exclaimed. "You can't get better value for your money than here. Take my word for it, I've walked all over to check. It has a lot of great features. For one, you'll be within walking distance of a free warm lunch, and that’s a big deal, trust me. Plus, you'll meet great people. There's a dentist on the second floor front who's really nice and sociable, and on the third floor back, there's an old man who works at the Astor Library. He knows so much that I almost hesitate to talk to him. They say he went to college! Then there's a girl who types for a law firm down on Nassau Street—she's on our floor; another one who does manicures; and a quiet older couple who used to have money but lost it on Wall Street. Those are all permanent residents. There are two others, a man and his wife, who could move out at any time because they belong to the profession."

"Which?" Jean asked, innocently.

"Why, the stage. Mrs. St. Aubyn always refers to it as 'the profession.' She brings in actors who are waiting for gigs. She must have known a ton of them back in the day."

Jean felt anxious about the idea of dining with such a mix of style, knowledge, and talent, especially when she realized they were all sitting at one long table; but the meal turned out to be incredibly casual. The intellectual powerhouse from the Astor, who sat at the head of the table due to either their smarts or seniority, engaged in friendly conversation with Jean and Amy, behaving just like someone with ordinary skills. The stenographer discussed winter fashion trends with the wife of the Wall Street investor, who had lost money but was momentarily distracted from his losses by a lively conversation involving the manicurist and the trendy guests about the President’s latest speech, a document that it eventually became clear none of them had actually read.

Mrs. St. Aubyn mainly talked about the food, directing her remarks at the maid, whose mistakes seemed endless. Yet even the maid, like everyone else in the room, found time to share a joke with the cheerful host of the evening, Dr. Paul Bartlett. Arriving last, the dentist instantly lifted the mood. He drew insightful comments about the play from the actors, got the bookworm’s take on a popular novel, asked the laid-off banker about the day’s events on 'Change,' discussed a murder trial with the legal stenographer, talked about the ridiculous increase in coal prices with Mrs. St. Aubyn, and chatted about the growing extravagance of women's sleeves with Amy and the manicurist, all between the soup and the fish. In short, as Mrs. St. Aubyn whispered loudly to Jean when leaving the dining room, he was the life of the party. Whether he heard this or not, Dr. Bartlett put even more energy into his interactions, if that could be called effort, as the group finally made their way into the drawing-room after drifting uncertainly around the main hall's newel post.

This was not a cheerful apartment. It stretched out oddly in length and height, Jean thought, sacrificing its third dimension, and was decorated in the dreary style of the decade right after the Civil War. The woodwork was black walnut, the chandelier was a tangled mess of twisted metal, and the mantelpiece resembled a marble tomb. A gaudy family Bible weighing about thirty pounds blocked one window, while a Rogers statue, similarly propped up, filled the other. The artwork was mostly sad and symbolic, except for one large engraving titled "The Trial of Effie Deans." Yet, despite these drawbacks, the dentist managed to make the room feel lively. Spotting a deck of cards on the top of the tomb-like structure, he performed a mind-boggling trick and followed it up with fortunes, told cleverly like a gypsy's, and impressive sleight of hand. Then, dropping onto the piano stool, he coaxed a lively two-step from the old instrument, making everyone tap their feet; he transitioned to a "coon song" that one could easily imagine was sung by a Black person; and, finally, the most amazing thing of all, he got everyone except Jean to join the chorus of the latest hit song. Amid all of this, he told the most entertaining little stories, mostly about dental offices, sprinkled with dental phrases and exclamations like "Holy Molars" and "Suffering Bicuspid," which sounded hilariously crude without actually being so.

The girls excitedly talked about him from their pillows in the beautiful room with three dormers.

"Didn't I tell you he was friendly?" Amy asked. "Can't he sing really well? And isn't he attractive?"

Jean nodded in agreement. She appreciated the young guy's easygoing nature. She also liked how clean he was and pointed it out.

"I noticed it first," she said.

"Yeah, and the best part," Amy added, "is that you'll never see him look any different. He says soap and water are worth money in his line of work. That's one reason why so many people want to see him at the salons. None of the other dentists there seem to mind."

"Then he doesn't have his own office?"

"Not yet. He works at a Painless Dental Parlor over on Sixth Avenue. You'll recognize the place by a tall guy in a uniform they have at the bottom of the stairs handing out flyers."

"Do you think he found it odd that I didn't sing along with everyone else?" Jean asked, worried. "He looked around twice."

"I’m not surprised. He couldn’t possibly know that you’ve been listening to hymns for three years straight. Even so, that song is brand new, and half of us didn’t know the lyrics."

"Did I do anything else weird?"

"Well, you worked really hard to pass the dishes along instead of letting the maid do it, and you kept glancing sideways without fully turning your head. I can't think of anything else right now except that you're as nervous as a cat. Miss Archer tried her best to make us girls behave like regular people, but unfortunately, she didn’t run the whole place. I've got a lot of things to be grateful to her for. Do you notice I don’t say ‘ain’t’ anymore?"

Yes.

"She got me out of that habit. She told me it would pay off to speak good English, and it has. It's already brought me in money, just like the doctor's soap and water."

Jean wondered how correct grammar could help in making cloaks, but Amy had suddenly become too sleepy to explain. The newcomer found it harder to rest. The muffled noise of the elevated train, ignored by city dwellers like the sound of waves, kept her excited mind awake. She fell into a deep sleep when she gave up on getting any rest, only to be jolted awake by Amy shaking her. The light from the three dormer windows was still dim, and the air was cold, because even though the prized radiator clanked and whistled loudly, it didn’t give off any heat.

Jean jumped up quickly.

"Am I late?"

"No; early. I thought it would be better for you to get to Meyer & Schwarzschild's a bit before your start time on the first day. You’ll have to wear your street suit there, of course, but you’ll need another skirt and a big apron for work. Just use these I’ve laid out for as long as you need."

"But you'll need them too."

Amy smiled enigmatically.

"No, I won’t," she replied, adjusting a sleek black skirt over a petticoat that made a distinct rustling sound of silk. "Actually, this is my work dress—or one of them." She turned slowly in front of the mirror for a moment, enjoying Jean's surprise, then continued: "I have to confess now. The secret was nearly revealed last night. I didn’t want to tell you until this morning. I thought it might discourage you. I'm not with Meyer & Schwarzschild anymore."

"You've left the cloak company!" Jean was shocked but tried to mask her disappointment. "I'm happy for you," she said, looking once more at Amy's beauty; "it's clear you've done well."

"Well, I guess! I'm a cloak model at one of the largest department stores in the U.S."

"A cloak model!" The phrase just made Jean think of a wax-faced mannequin. "What do you do?"

"Strut around in front of the millionaires' wives, making those chubby old ladies think they'll look as good as I do if they buy the outfit. But they never do look as good. I got the job through a buyer who used to come to Meyer & Schwarzschild's every so often. He noticed I have style and a decent figure, and that I don’t say 'ain't'—he actually pointed that out!—and told the cloak department that I was the girl they needed. Sounds simple, right?"

It sounded anything but easy to Jean.

"And you like it?" she asked. "But I don't even need to ask."

"Don't I! Maybe it doesn't excite you to strut around in a three-hundred-dollar evening wrap! But cheer up," she quickly added, noticing Jean's expression. "I'm heading to Meyer & Schwarzschild's with you this morning to send you off in style."

X

The part of Broadway where Amy led Jean, pointing out all the shortcuts that would save valuable time during lunch hour, appeared completely dominated by wholesale businesses with signs featuring Hebrew names.

"Yeah, this is Main Street of the New Jerusalem, for sure," she agreed with Jean's comment; "but you'll notice that there are different types of Jews in the clothing trade. I'd really dislike working for some of the chosen people I've encountered, but you'd have to search for a while to find a more well-meaning guy than old Mr. Meyer. I just hope he'll be here this morning."

Other workers, mostly women and girls, crowded into the rough freight elevator to go up, and a couple of them who got off with Amy called her by name. Jean noticed they were checking out Amy’s fancy outfit closely, and they exchanged knowing looks when her back was turned. Meanwhile, Amy paid them little attention and, without introducing Jean, walked past the flimsy wooden and frosted glass partition that separated the workrooms from the counting room, brushed aside an office boy who asked her what she needed, and knocked on a half-open door that had "Jacob Meyer, Sr." written on it.

The head of the firm, who welcomed them in, was a very old man with a long, white beard. He smiled kindly, recognized Amy after a brief pause, asked about her new job, and patted her on the shoulder when she told him he should treat Miss Fanshaw as well as he had treated her. Turning to Jean, he said that Miss Archer had never sent them an unqualified worker.

"I have the highest regard for Miss Archer," he added, with the demeanor of someone who enjoyed the sound of his own words. "Her charity is inclusive of everyone. I first met her here in New York while we were trying a charitable effort in the so-called Ghetto. It faced serious challenges, very serious challenges, and it's not too much to say—actually, I have no doubt in saying—that Miss Archer turned things around. I remember one particularly notable example of her skill—"

He would have happily continued talking, but Amy interrupted, saying she had to go. She squeezed Jean's hand encouragingly and quickly left. Her sudden departure seemed to throw off old Mr. Meyer’s careful train of thought, as he sat for a while staring at a letter file with his mouth hanging open, until he finally snapped back to reality and said, "As I was saying, my dear, I hope you’ll like our way of doing things,"—which Jean was sure he hadn’t said at all—and then he led her to the door of one of the workrooms and handed her over to its forewoman, a plump Jewish woman with shiny black hair combed low to hide her large ears.

Work had started, and the place was extremely loud with the noise of about thirty tightly packed machines that nearly touched each other, taking up almost the entire floor except for the narrow aisles where the operators' chairs were positioned. Jean was assigned to one of these sewing machines along with a huge pile of unstitched sleeves. The task itself was straightforward, thanks to the solid training she received at the refuge school, but the working conditions made it difficult for her to be efficient. The noise was constant, the lighting was poor, the low-ceilinged room was overcrowded, and the floor was less than clean. As the morning went on, the air quality got noticeably worse. Occasionally, the forewoman would open a window—she mostly stood by a door, playing with a flashy ring on her chubby index finger—but the relatively fresh air that came in only reached the girls closest to the window, and Jean was not one of them; those nearby soon started shivering and complaining about drafts.

By the time the hands of a grimy clock hit ten, her head was pounding violently and her back felt like one continuous ache. Her neighbors, except for a thin-cheeked woman who occasionally stopped to cough, turned off their machines with the regularity of habit, only straightening up to grab more supplies for their never-ending tasks. At noon, when whistles blew from all around and the other workers dropped their jobs and rushed for their lunchboxes or wraps, Jean slumped in her chair, too exhausted to get up. Food was out of the question—just the sight of the pickle-scented lunches that some of the cloak workers opened made her feel sick—but she finally dragged herself outside, and after heading down a side street where she could see trees at the end, she arrived at a small park marked by a marble arch, where she wandered aimlessly until she decided it was time to head back.

The streets she walked were now packed with men hanging out and smoking in the doorways of their various workplaces. They all openly stared at her, and some made comments about her hair, eyes, or what they called her figure. Her own doorway was also crowded. Most of the idlers were girls from the many garment factories housed in the big building; but a few men stood around, either leading or being the target of some playful teasing. One of the young women who had looked Amy over in the elevator nodded at her and seemed ready to say something, but Jean felt too sad to talk, so she went back to her assigned spot in the busy workspace, where, even though it was still before one o'clock, she sat down at her machine again. The air felt fresher since the windows had been opened during lunch, but the room was quite cold as a result, and her coworkers, returning in small groups, were complaining as they entered. Among them was the girl who had greeted her downstairs, and seeing her with more interest, Jean recognized kindness in her freckled face. Their eyes met again with a half-smile, and the girl squeezed down the narrow aisle for a moment of chatter.

"You'll find it better to have a lunch break, even if you're not really in the mood for it," she noted.

"How do you know I haven't?" Jean asked.

"That's easy. For one thing, I saw you walking in Washington Square. For another, a newcomer here never wants lunch. You're not used to this kind of thing, are you?"

"Yes to the work; no to the noise and the bad air."

"Where do you work now?"

"In a small town," she hinted.

"That's not the same. I guess you don't have the sweatshop in the country."

"Sweat-shop!" Jean had heard that creepy term before. "Is that what they call Meyer & Schwarzschild's?"

The girl laughed at how simple she was.

"I call it one," she replied, "even if it is on Broadway. Don't low wages, filth, bad air, and disease make it a sweatshop?"

"Disease! What do you mean?"

"Well, it's about consumption, for example. It isn’t bronchitis, like she thinks, that’s bothering the woman in the next machine. I could tell you more, but what’s the point! You won’t stay here any longer than I will, and that’s just long enough to find a better job."

The afternoon dragged on. At one point, a youngish man who was overdressed and had a loud personality, with thick, bright red lips, walked into their workroom and informed the forewoman that a certain order needed to be rushed. He lingered near Jean's machine for a bit, pretending to check her work, but mostly he just stared at her. As he moved down the aisles, he casually touched this girl and that one. All the girls he favored were pretty, and most of them smiled shyly at his attention, although a couple rolled their eyes afterward. After he left, Jean's thin-cheeked neighbor told her between coughs that this was the younger Meyer.

She ran into him again as she was leaving the office for the night, and he was once more staring at her with that disgusting, scarlet smile. She quickly realized that old Mr. Meyer must have mentioned her background at the reformatory, and she rushed past him with burning cheeks. The night air gave her a slight boost, but the journey home felt never-ending, and the three flights of stairs from Mrs. St. Aubyn's door to her bedroom seemed daunting. She walked in feeling faint from hunger and completely worn out in a way she hadn’t experienced since her early days in the laundry at the refuge.

Amy jumped up from a novel.

"Don't say anything," she demanded. "I had a feeling it would be like this when you didn't show up for lunch. Not that I really expected you to. I would have bet a pound of chocolates you wouldn't come."

Jean was happy to say nothing and let herself be cared for. Amy showed no signs of tiredness. She had swapped her black blouse for a white one made of soft fabric and looked as fresh and rosy-cheeked as if she had spent the entire day relaxing.

"Now for the pick-me-up," she said cheerfully, after tucking Jean comfortably among the pillows; and with a small kettle and a spirit lamp, some sugar she found in a bureau drawer, and a little milk from the natural refrigerator on the windowsill, she quickly made a delicious cup of tea.

Then, Jean finally found her voice.

"Did you know all along," she asked, "that Meyer & Schwarzschild's is just as bad as a sweatshop?"

"I worked there for a year," Amy replied with a serious tone. "I'm not saying it was always as bad as it is now. It was pretty decent at first, and I've heard that even now the room where the cutters work is fairly good."

"Does Miss Archer know? But that can't be true."

"Of course she doesn't. And, even if you don't believe it, old Mr. Meyer doesn't know either. Just look at him! He only thinks about hospitals and orphanages. He shuffles into work for about an hour a week, and if he ever sticks his nose into one of the workrooms, it's early in the morning before the air gets so thick you could cut it."

"But his partner—Schwarzschild? Where is he?"

"Dead. They keep the name because the company is an old one. It's all Meyer now, and that doesn't mean Jacob Meyer, Sr., but Jake. You probably saw Jake. He has bright red lips and a friendly attitude."

Jean was cold.

"Why didn’t you let me know?"

"How could I? Everything was arranged before I even knew you were going there. Anyway, it's a job while you're looking for something better. I'm hoping to get you a position where I am. I talked to a floor walker I know today. My department is full, but they’ll probably need more help downstairs for the Christmas rush."

"That would be just temporary."

"Most places are just temporary until they evaluate you. If you're what they want, they'll keep you on after the holidays, no worries. You might have to accept a lower starting salary than what you have now, but it will be easier to earn. Anything is better than Jake Meyer's place, I think."

This hope kept Jean going for the next three days. The situation at the cloak factory was never better—in fact, there were a couple of times when it rained and the girls showed up in wet clothes, making things worse; but she didn't skip any more meals, and by the second day, she got used to the constant grind of the machine.

At lunch on Friday, Amy had some news.

"Come by the store after you finish work tonight," she instructed. "Starting today, we're staying open longer. Take the elevator to the fourth floor."

"Is there a place for me?"

"I'm not saying that. I talked to my friend, the floor manager, again—he's in the toy department—and he told me to bring you over."

Jean easily found the large establishment. The real challenge would have been to miss it. She navigated through the holiday shoppers filling the massive ground floor, squeezed into an elevator, got off per Amy's instructions, and after a few twists and turns in a fantastic hat shop, finally arrived at her friend's section and saw Amy herself.

Or was it Amy? She looked twice before making her decision. It wasn’t just the expensive outfit, made of silks, embroidery, and lace, that caused the change—Jean expected that kind of thing. It was the actress inside Amy that pushed her to embody the role the costume suggested. With sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks, and straightened shoulders, she was no longer Amy Jeffries, the cloak model, but a child of privilege dressed for the opera or a ball.

"Did she buy it?" Jean asked, as Amy finally noticed her waiting and came over.

Amy sighed sadly.

"Yes, it's gone," she said. "You have no idea how much I hate losing it. It had started to feel like it was truly mine."

Jean couldn’t imagine Amy in a job more suited to her and sincerely hoped that such a desirable fortune would come her way.

"It seems like an easy job," she said. "What do they expect from a cloak model?"

"A thirty-six inch bust, at least, to start with. Did I ever mention that they refer to us by our bust sizes? We hardly ever hear our own names. I'm Thirty-six; that tall girl with the red hair is Thirty-eight; and so on. You also need to have good proportions and carry yourself well, plus be generally attractive," she added, innocently looking at her slim reflection in the nearest mirror.

At this point, "Thirty-eight" came over, and Amy introduced her, saying:—

"My friend here thinks she wants to be a cloak model. It’s not all fun and games, is it?"

The red-haired girl offered a knowing smile that came from experience.

"Wholesale or retail, it's tougher than it seems," she said. "I don't just mean showcasing dresses but all the other stuff that comes with it. Honestly, the amount of dieting, corseting, and those high French heels some models endure to stay in shape is just awful. But I prefer the retail side. I’d rather handle picky shoppers than buyers."

"I guess some of the buyers are new," Amy said shyly.

"Some! Better say one out of every two," Thirty-eight snapped back. "I know what I'm talking about. I was a display model in wholesale houses for three years—showing evening dresses, too! Oh, I know buyers! A decent girl just has to act like a dummy, that's all. She can't afford to have eyes and ears and feelings."

It was now closing time, and Amy took Jean to a lower floor that resembled Santa Claus's own kingdom. They encountered the floor manager, who was frowning at a young cashier who had stopped to play with a toy that she should have already wrapped for a suburban customer; however, he relaxed his frown when he saw Amy, with whom he seemed to have a good rapport. Jean expected a strict questioning about her qualifications, but after a brief mention of a reference, which Amy smoothly offered on her behalf, Mr. Rose simply told her to come in for a trial on Monday, at six dollars a week, adding in the same breath that she had a heart-wrenching pair of eyes.

Jean was confused.

"Do they let anyone in without any more formalities than that?" she asked as they walked out. "It seems like a pretty casual way of doing things."

Amy laughed joyfully.

"Not much! In some stores—actually, most of them, I guess—the superintendent handles the hiring. I had to meet with the manager of my department. You probably would’ve had to see the manager down here if he wasn't sick. I knew this when I asked Rosey-posy for the job. He took you on as a personal favor to me, or at least that's what he said, since he’s pushing me a bit. Honestly, I think your stunning eyes did the trick. You might not realize it, but you're a really beautiful girl. I didn’t fully appreciate it when you wore the uniform. Don’t blush! You’ll get used to it. Just trust the guys to tell you. Anyway, you’ve got your chance and can give Meyer & Schwarzschild the cold shoulder."

"I'll tell them tomorrow morning."

"Better wait until tomorrow night after you've gotten your paycheck," Amy advised wisely. "Then you won’t have to listen to any more nonsense than you want."

Jean took this advice, notifying the forewoman only after she turned away from the cashier's window with her hard-earned pay securely in her hand.

The Jewish woman tensed up, her plump shoulders shaking.

"Is this place not good enough?" she asked sharply.

"I have a better one."

"With another coat company?"

"No; at a department store."

The forewoman smiled sarcastically.

"Don't kid yourself that you'll be better off. Mr. Meyer! Mr. Meyer!" she shouted, raising her voice as the son of the house appeared in a doorway. "Here's another girl who's got the department-store fever."

Jean avoided providing more explanations, especially to young Meyer, but he hurried over immediately and asked the same questions as the forewoman.

"Which store is it?" he asked.

She told him and wondered why he was smirking.

"Is Amy Jeffries still working there?" he asked.

Yes.

"Looks like they're doing well? Dressed nicely?"

Yes.

Young Meyer stared again.

"Come over when you're tired of it," he invited. "Let Amy know too. You both make great cloaks."

She turned away from his lewd expression, feeling unsettled. Everything about him hinted at something sinister. The freckled girl, who had referred to the place as a sweatshop, took the freight elevator down with her and walked alongside her for a block once they were outside.

"I heard Jake chatting up there," she said. "Why didn't you smack him? Anyone can tell just by looking at you that no buyer got you your position."

"What are you saying?"

"You didn't realize what he was hinting at?"

"Nope."

The girl let out an astonished gasp.

"And maybe you don't know how Amy Jeffries got her spot either?" she added.

"She said a buyer for the company saw her at Meyer & Schwarzschild's and liked her appearance."

"That's straight," grinned the skeptic.

Jean shook her impatiently by the arm.

"What isn't straight?" she demanded. "You're the one hinting now. What do you mean? Spit it out!"

But the girl wriggled out of her hold and ran off laughing.

"Ask Amy," she shouted.

XI

Jean intended to investigate the mystery as soon as possible, but her determination wavered in Amy's company. If the girl's cheerful attitude didn't directly put her suspicions to rest, it at least diffused them. Amy's genuine happiness for Jean's freedom from Meyer & Schwarzschild made the questions Jean had planned to ask seem rude and ungrateful. Additionally, Amy was excited about a plan for the evening.

"I knew it was going to happen," she said with excitement. "Anyone who has eyes can see by the way he chooses to talk to you every night that you're getting to him. He came to me first to ask if I thought you would come, and when I said yes for both of us, he rushed out to get the tickets."

"What tickets?" She didn't ask who bought them; she had eyes, too.

"Tickets for the theater—a variety show."

Jean's face lit up.

"Vaudeville! I've always been curious about what it was like."

"You're not seriously saying you've never seen a vaudeville show?"

"Never. Nothing worth seeing ever came to Shawnee Springs. Should we go?"

"Are you asking if it’s respectable? Absolutely! It’s one of the best in the city."

"I don't mean that. Should we go in this way? I don't know him."

"Well, I do," Amy replied firmly. "And if there’s a nicer guy between High Bridge and the Battery, I’ll be surprised. Of course, if you want to get a headache and back out, you can. I’m going anyway, and I bet the extra ticket won’t go unused. The stenographer or the manicurist would love the opportunity."

"Would he take offense?"

"Awfully. He only asked me because he wanted you! Next time it will just be you."

Jean needed little persuading. She was really eager to see a New York theater, and she genuinely liked the laid-back young dentist. She was surprised during their evening talks to discover how much they had in common. He, too, had grown up in a small town, and even though he had first moved to a smaller city to study for his profession, his early impressions of New York matched hers closely. She later found the same shared interests with almost everyone who had a similar upbringing, but at that moment, none of Mrs. St. Aubyn's other boarders—or, as she preferred to call them, guests—were from the countryside, so Paul Bartlett got the credit for being more sympathetic. Therefore, tonight, he didn’t share Amy’s somewhat overly expressed surprise that Jean had never seen a vaudeville performance.

"Honestly, the closest thing I ever saw to it was a minstrel show, until I went off to dental school," he admitted as they began their journey. "In our town, we only had 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and 'East Lynne' performances. Man, they were a rough crowd! I could tell that even back then."

This also struck Jean as a significant coincidence.

"It sounds like you’re talking about the Springs," she said. "But we did have a circus or two."

"Then your town beat mine," Paul laughed. "We had to run over to the county seat for Barnum's. Otherwise, they seem to have come from the same batch of homemade stuff. I bet you even had box socials?"

Jean's face went blank.

"Yes," she said.

"Pretty much at the limit, right? I don't understand why Newport doesn't get involved. They're reckless enough. Still, I used to think they were a lot of fun. I would try to switch the boxes when I suspected some lovesick couple was planning to cheat. Maybe you've done that, too?"

"Yes," Jean said again uncertainly.

She was angry with herself for her unintentional change in behavior and flushed face, both of which, she worried, hadn't gone unnoticed by his sharp gaze. It frustrated her deep sense of honesty to always have to be careful about revealing her troubled past, but there seemed to be no way around it. Unfair as it was, the stigma felt just as real to her as it did to the most guilty, and she had to hide it.

If the dentist noticed anything wrong, he handled it smoothly and started chatting nonsense with Amy, which went on all the way to the theater's flashy entrance. Once they were inside, Jean forgot that she had a past that she might not want everyone to see. Amy happily squeezed her arm as they walked straight into the main part of the theater instead of taking the familiar stairs she used to climb when she paid for her own ticket; along with the squeeze, she gave Jean a look of excitement and awe when, following the usher, they went past the orchestra and entered a narrow hallway close to the stage.

"We've got box seats!" she whispered excitedly. "They must have cost him at least a dollar each!"

Jean felt a moment of shyness sparked by a vivid memory of two small, empty pigeon roosts that lined the cluttered drop curtain of the Shawnee Springs Grand Opera House. However, she quickly felt reassured when she realized she wouldn't have to feel so isolated here. There were plenty of boxes, and each one was filled with many people, including half a dozen others in theirs. The curtains were arranged in a way that allowed her to be as private as she wanted, while still being able to see everything happening in the play.

The play! It was a series of performances, filled with so many amazing things. Nothing she had imagined was anything like this constantly changing mix of laughter and tears. Because there were tears—real ones! Jean had often mocked girls who cried over novels, and those who could be moved to tears by a play, or at least the Shawnee Springs version of drama, were even harder to understand; yet tonight, when a simple story about an unhappy couple deciding to go their separate ways and coldly sorting through their meager belongings until they stumbled upon a dead baby's shoes unfolded, she found herself short of breath and her cheeks wet. At first, she felt a bit ashamed of this vulnerability, blaming it on her frayed nerves, but then she heard Amy sob, and, looking around, noticed handkerchiefs waving throughout the darkened theater. Paul, sitting next to her, cleared his throat a couple of times, and she thought he was annoyed by all this fuss over a baby who never existed, but when the lights came up suddenly, she realized his eyes were wet, too.

She appreciated this quality in Paul. She was also glad that he didn’t mock afterward, unlike some guys who were moved by the performance. It seemed like a good sign that he had the courage to feel empathy; you could probably count on that kind of man. His mental sharpness impressed her all over again. For him, none of the jokes from the Irish or German comedians were obscure, and he could easily explain the most confusing tricks of the Japanese masters of sleight of hand. She was quite curious about this unique knowledge, and when they left the theater, he mentioned that it had been his main childhood dream to become a magician.

"I gathered subscriptions, collected bones, scrap metal, and rubber for the tinman, sold anything people would buy under the tent, all just to make some cash for books and supplies," he admitted. "Once, when I was around sixteen and really smart, I put on a show, part magic lantern, part pure nonsense. I even rented the village hall, can you believe it? I had some nerve back then!"

Jean was really interested. This also brought back memories of the Springs and her own unchangeable playtime.

"Did people show up?" she asked.

"Did they! I made twelve dollars."

"My!" Amy mocked. "I guess you got yourself a car?"

"No, they haven't been invented yet." He turned back to Jean. "Guess what I did buy!"

"More equipment."

"Just as quickly as I could get a money order," he laughed. "You're quite the magician yourself. You must have been a kid once."

"Yes," Jean said. "I was."

When they got to the street, Paul suggested oysters, and after a slight hesitation from Jean, which a discreet pinch from Amy quickly silenced, he led the way to a restaurant. The place he picked had a German name and was decorated in a style Jean assumed was German too. The chairs and tables were heavily designed, reminiscent of medieval times, and matched the high paneling that lined the room and ended in a shelf holding a curious collection of mugs and flagons. In one corner, a small stage hosted an orchestra with a zither, two mandolins, and a guitar, playing lively but pleasant music that felt more American than German, with a bouncy and joyful vibe. Paul apologized for this imperfection in an otherwise perfect setting, explaining that the American customers outnumbered the German ones, but Amy proudly declared that ragtime was better than foreign music any day, and called the whole place as cute as can be, which really left nothing else to say.

Everyone was having beer with their food, or more accurately, eating a bit of food with their beer, and Paul ordered two or three bottles of the very dark kind that was really popular. He and Amy drank those. Amy teased Jean about not drinking and asked if she had signed the pledge, but Paul seemed to respect her choice.

"Felt the same way once," he said. "Whenever the local gossipers saw someone walk into the hotel on a hot day for a glass of beer, they thought he was heading straight for trouble. Naturally, the guys covered up a lot of stuff they didn't care about, just to maintain their reputations. It's a bit different down here."

"I definitely agree," Amy said enthusiastically. "My stepdad started sending me out for beer almost as soon as I could walk. The idea that it could hurt anyone! I don't think I'd even notice if I drank a whole keg."

Paul didn’t seem as impressed by this comment as the after-theater party at the next table did, and he took a quiet chance to move an unfinished bottle out of her eager reach. Jean beamed under the gaze of the supper party across from them, and after exchanging a glance with Paul, she soon got up to leave. Amy protested passionately, pointing out that there were still half an hour until midnight and that department stores didn’t open on Sundays, along with several other convincing arguments that clearly resonated with the attentive tables around them, but they didn’t sway her friends. Near the door, she unexpectedly teamed up with Mr. Rose, who listened to her complaints as thoughtfully as if they hadn’t already carried over to him from across the room, and immediately invited everyone to join him for what he called a nightcap. Jean politely declined, and although Amy was very tempted, she followed her lead. Once outside, though, she asserted her independence by walking off with Mr. Rose when he casually mentioned he’d stroll their way.

"Aching incisors!" the dentist exclaimed, grimly watching them move forward. "Where did I get the dumb idea that I was her date? Who is that person, anyway?"

"Our store employee."

"Oh!" said Paul. "Assistant?"

"Nope; a floor walker."

"Oh!" he said again, his tone shifting, which Jean noticed. "In her department?"

"No; in my opinion."

"Oh!"

Amy's laugh echoed sharply through the now rarely traveled street.

"I shouldn't have ordered so much beer," the man admitted. "It was too much for her, even if her stepdad—but let's drop that!"

Jean thought that this part of the Jeffries family history was probably best left alone. She picked up the pace until they were nearly on Amy's overly cheerful heels, and they continued to their door.

Amy regretted that she couldn’t, at this hour, properly invite Mr. Rose into Mrs. St. Aubyn's drawing-room. Since Paul unkindly failed to offer his own space, the floor-walker, with endless friendliness and composure, left on his own.

"I don't like Mr. Rose," said the dentist, in a voice too low for Amy, who was already going up the stairs. "I hope you don't."

"I don't know him."

"You really don't want to get to know him, trust me on that. This isn't just me being bitter because he interrupted, just so you know. If you were familiar with the city, I wouldn't have to say anything at all."

Jean looked at him directly under the dim hallway light. Paul held her gaze, which satisfied her.

"Thank you for tonight," she said, extending her hand to him. "Thank you for everything—the theater, the dinner, and for—this."

Explanations with Amy were impossible now, but the next morning, which the girls enjoyed lounging in bed, turned out to be a good sign. Amy woke up feeling remorseful. She admitted on her own that she had embarrassed herself at the restaurant, suggesting in her defense that her stepfather probably preferred a different kind of beer. She honestly acknowledged that the Rose situation was unjustifiable and promised to offer plenty of apologies to the dentist.

"He'll get it," she said. "Paul's not a Jake Meyer."

"Will Mr. Rose get it?" Jean asked directly.

Amy gave her a sideways look.

"Why not?"

"He's not—well, a Paul Bartlett."

"He’s not a Jake Meyer, if that's what you're implying," Amy shot back, propping herself up on her elbow. "I like Rosey and I'm not shy about it. What’s hiding behind those big brown eyes of yours? Someone has been feeding you some stories, I bet. Was it a kind friend at Meyer & Schwarzschild’s? What did they say about Rosey and me?"

"Nothing," Jean replied, wary of her friendliness; but now she clearly told her who and what they had referred to.

Amy listened, unfazed.

"There was definitely going to be some gossip," she said after a moment. "I expected that."

"You relied on it!"

"Absolutely. Jake knew the buyer's history inside and out, and there were more."

Jean felt a moment of dizziness and pulled back from her explorations.

"Did you?" she hesitated.

"Of course. Do you really think I couldn't read him like a book after everything I've been through?"

"Yet you went anyway! You—"

"I took a chance, and this time luck was on my side. He got a major offer from a company in Chicago and left town the same day I started in the cloak department. Oh, you don't need to look at me like that," she continued, a bit intensely. "Life hasn't exactly been nice to me, and I'm figuring out how to play its selfish game. Don't let it bother you."

"I can't help it."

"Then you're being foolish. I'm not as gentle as I seem. Plus, you'll realize you'll be pretty busy handling your own issues."

Jean fell into a deep silence. The new life was incredibly complicated. It held possibilities that made her imagination shrink back. A vivid image, recalled repeatedly, flashed before her once more. She saw a camp among birches by a clear lake; a boyish figure pacing; a straightforward, troubled face looking back at her. She remembered a voice saying, "To be a stranger in New York, homeless, friendless, without a job, with the shadow of that place over there following you...." Every word, every tone, was unforgettable. Where was he now, that perfect young knight of the enchanted forest, who had stopped her from making a mistake and changed the course of her life? He had promised to be there for her when, against his advice, she had dared to face this unknown world. Would he still believe in her if they met again?

Amy's laugh pulled her back into the room with three dormer windows.

"You seemed really far away," she said. "If you were a different kind of girl, I'd say you were daydreaming about your favorite guy. What! You're blushing! So, you were? Was it Paul?"

"Paul!" Jean threw a pillow to dismiss the suggestion. "Take that!"

They said nothing more about the buyer—thankfully, he was out of the picture; and even though Jean thought the dentist had a better sense of people in general, and floor-walkers in particular, than Amy, she decided for now to not take sides but to figure out Mr. Rose on her own. If Amy was treading on thin ice, at least she was a skilled skater, with the sobering memory of a serious fall. Additionally, to go back to Amy's metaphor, she had her own canoe to paddle, as she was roughly reminded that same afternoon.

XII

It happened at dusk while they were coming back from Central Park, which Amy had chosen as a key part of Jean's civic education. They were heading home via Broadway and had ventured deep into the theater district when Jean's guide suddenly grabbed her by the arm, pulled her into the nearest doorway, and rushed her up half the dark flight of stairs it led to. Even then, she insisted on silence, pointing to the square of pavement framed by the doorway. A moment later, the glamorous key to the mystery appeared—Stella Wilkes.

There was no doubt about her. For what felt like forever, she stood there, keeping an eye on the street, so clear under the lights that they could even see her mole. Then, just as aimlessly as she had arrived, she floated away again.

"Thank my lucky stars I saw her first that time!" gasped Amy, still nervously focused on the lit-up square.

"You knew she was in New York?"

"Yeah. I've seen her before. She came up to me one night looking even worse than she does now. She had on more makeup, and her eyes looked like burned-out holes. She said she was broke but had a promise of a place to stay. I think it was to sing at some bar. She really can sing, you know. Remember how she’d let her voice rip in chapel just to show off? I lent her a dollar to get her away from me. I was worried that someone I knew might see us together. I think she noticed that I was worried."

"You shouldn't have let her see; it gives her power over you. I won't avoid it."

Jean started to come down regularly, but Amy held her back.

"Wait," she begged. "Please wait a little longer. Wait for me, even if you don’t care about yourself. But you should definitely steer clear of her, trust me on that. She hasn’t forgotten the prison riot. She brought it up the night I saw her and said she’d settle the score with you eventually."

Tricked by her anxious feelings, Jean fell under Amy's panic. They hid nervously in the hallway until they were sure it was safe; then, they quickly dashed around the first corner to a quieter street that Stella was less likely to visit. Even here, they constantly imagined seeing her and looked for other doorways and turned more corners to find safety. Fear followed them home, tugged at them in their own street, climbed their own steps, entered their own door, and stayed with them from then on.

Nor did the busy weeks that followed bring forgetfulness or comfort for at least one of them. Jean constantly expected that dreaded face to sneer at her from the blurred crowd that passed by the little island in the toy department, where she sold children's games. While she explained the mysteries of Parcheesi or broke down maps for some overwhelmed mother of six, another part of her restless mind was vividly imagining Stella. She pictured the outcast's spiteful glee at ruining her and could almost hear her saying the unspeakable to anyone willing to listen. And who wouldn’t! She imagined herself shrinking in fear before the curious audience—the onlooking shoppers, the wide-eyed cashiers, the smirking clerks, and Mr. Rose, the floor-walker.

Once, coming out of such a dream, she found herself face to face with Mr. Rose, who had quietly approached her counter, and the vision was so vivid that she mixed up the unreal with the real and flinched at his voice.

"You're not taking morphine breaks, are you?" he asked, leaning kindly over the counter.

She stared blankly until he repeated his question.

"Morphine lunches! What are those?"

The man acted out the motion of giving himself an injection with a syringe in his arm.

"So," he said. "Some of the girls who can't have lunch at home get used to it. It's a bad thing—really."

"Why would you think I’m capable of something like that?" Jean asked, offended. "Do I look like a drug addict?"

"No offense meant. I just noticed a strange look in your eyes, that's all. Amazing eyes! I'd hate to see them messed up with drugs. Just a perfectly friendly interest, you know."

She welcomed the anxious interruption of a customer, but the woman was just returning an item, not making a purchase, and the exchange needed the floor-walker's approval. Once the shopper had left, he leaned towards Jean again.

"If you're worried about losing your position after the holidays," he said, "you shouldn't quit too soon. We've seen your work, and it's good. The forelady mentioned you've picked up the stock faster than any new clerk she's had in a long time, and you know she has high standards. No matter who else leaves, you should stay."

Jean let out a long sigh of relief, but she wasn't really thrilled about being practical.

"And what’s the pay?" she asked.

"The same goes for now. You’re still just starting out, you know."

"It’s barely anything. I heard the girl who had my spot left because she couldn’t make ends meet."

Mr. Rose tapped his prominent teeth with a pencil.

"She said something like that to me," he acknowledged. "She was being unreasonable—very much so. What did she expect for six dollars?"

The attractive saleswoman at the doll furniture counter was saying, "Oh, Mr. Rose! Oh, Mr. Rose!" with growing annoyance, and the floor manager hurried over to her, leaving his mysterious comment unaddressed. Jean asked a coworker for more information about her predecessor and found out that since she lived somewhere in the Bronx, both commuting costs and lunches were significant expenses. Luckily, she didn’t have to worry about those. Feeling permanent was already half the battle. She could manage on her current salary until a promotion came her way.

There was also a certain satisfaction in feeling like she played a part in this massive establishment that everyone had heard of when talking about New York. It was a major attraction in the city, one of the seventy times seven wonders of the New World. Its floor space was measured in acres, its roof covered an entire city block, its capital represented millions, and its products came from all over the globe. Nothing essential to life seemed to be missing. There were scales for your precious baby's arrival; baby foods, healing medicines, mechanical toys for your child's needs or troubles; textbooks for your developing mind; nice clothes for your growing social life; the essentials for your wedding; furniture for your first home from basement to attic; a bank for your savings; supplies for your office; postal service, telegraph, telephone, so you could shop without missing out on business; art, sculptures, cars, yachts, vintage wines, classic books, and masterpieces for your ultimate success; countless comforts—optometrists, dentists, discreet photographers, you name it—for your later years; and, yes, even the few indulgences you might take with you to your final resting place.

It attracted both the rich and the poor these days, and sooner or later, the toy department drew them all in. Although Stella didn't come, there were many familiar faces who did. Hardly a day went by without a greeting from someone Jean knew. Mrs. St. Aubyn came shopping because of an unforgettable grandchild she had to remember; the bookworm came for the simple reason that a cherubic niece brought him; the social butterflies celebrated a long-awaited engagement; the Wall Street crowd showed up to relive fading memories of a full wallet; the stenographer and the manicurist came just because they were women; and the dentist came because of Jean.

It was impossible to misunderstand Paul's intentions. Her coworkers hinted at it, Mr. Rose backed up their thoughts with his own, Amy added some colorful commentary, and finally, Paul himself made it clear. On the first evening, when he showed up at her counter close to closing time, he bought a game. On his second visit, a week later, he looked around for a long time but didn’t buy anything. The third time, he claimed he was just passing by; and on the fourth, he dropped the pretense and openly admitted that he was there to walk her home.

"Honestly, I'm feeling pretty lonely," he said as they reached the street. "Before you showed up, I never really had the chance to talk to the kind of girl I wanted to, except while I was working, and that didn’t mean much since it was always about dental stuff. I hope you won’t mind if I stop by to see you every now and then after work? It’ll help keep those guys hanging around the corner away from you and really help me improve."

Jean accepted his company as openly as it was offered. There was nothing romantic about Paul's behavior. He acted the same whether they walked alone or, as often happened, Amy joined them at the employees' entrance, where Jean had suggested they meet. His company was especially appreciated during the last week before Christmas when the big store stayed open late, and the shopping area was crowded every night. Then, maybe two weeks after the holidays, she overheard a conversation.

It wasn’t about her, or the girls she knew, or even in her department; it was just a petty argument between two outspoken young people who thought they were the only ones in the cloakroom. Black Eyes commented that she knew exactly what Blue Eyes was. She didn’t belong there; her place was on the East Side. To which Blue Eyes coolly responded that if Black Eyes didn’t shut up, she’d smash her ugly face in. This was clearly just for show, because when Black Eyes got even more personal, pointing out the ridiculousness of fifteen-dollar picture hats on a six-dollar-a-week salary, along with a jab at a bald floor-walker from the carpet department who waited for Blue Eyes every night, the only violence that occurred was the slamming of a door as Blue Eyes quickly left.

That evening, Jean told the dentist he couldn't come anymore.

"Suffering bicuspid!" he exclaimed. "What have I done?" This was in spite of her careful attempts to reassure him that he hadn't done anything wrong at all.

At first, it seemed really hard to explain, but when she suggested that the department store was a lot like a small town for gossip, he understood right away.

"Who’s been talking?" he demanded. "If it was that rookie floor-walker—"

"It wasn't. As far as I know, no one has mentioned my name. It's because they aren't supposed to talk that I've decided to speak."

Paul had a pair of shoulders that were definitely not small.

"Let me catch them in the act!" he said.

She became more observant of her fellow clerks after that. A few girls raised her suspicions, but overall, they seemed to be honest, hard-working, and pretty average, with their biggest dreams focused on cheap and unrealistic clothes. If a girl dressed better than her paycheck would suggest, which many did, it usually turned out that she lived with her parents or other relatives who provided her with low-cost meals. These fortunate individuals also had a social life that was out of reach for those fully supporting themselves, and Jean got a glimpse of this through a lively little chatterbox at the nearby mechanical toy counter. Friendly conversations between customers led to the discovery that they were neighbors, and this resulted in a visit to the three dormers. Later, Jean returned the favor one evening, visiting the family flat above an Eighth Avenue grocery, where "Flo," as she preferred to be called, enjoyed the exclusive use of a small bedroom that was ventilated but barely lit by an air shaft.

"Mom gave me this room when I started making money," she explained. "I only have to pay two dollars a week. Whatever’s left, I spend however I want. Dad says I buy more clothes than the rest of the family combined, and he almost lost it once when I paid twelve dollars for a lace hat with imported flowers. But still, he doesn’t like to see any of the girls I hang out with looking better than I do. Our group loves to dress up. What do you think of my cozy corner? I think these wire racks for photos are adorable, don’t you? I have a whole stack of guys’ pictures! I wonder if you know any of them. The guy in the tuxedo is Willy Larkin—he works in men’s furnishings. I put him next to Dan Evans—you know Dan, right?—because they’re really jealous of each other. If Dan takes me to a Sousa concert one night, Willy can’t relax until he finds something to show off, like vaudeville or an exciting play. They almost fought over a two-step I promised to both of them at the subscription hop our dance club had on New Year’s. That photo you’re looking at is one Charlie Simmons and I took at Glen Island last year. Oh my! Don’t hold my face to the light. I look terrible in a bathing suit. I do love swimming, though, but I think salt water is way more fun. Last summer, I had enough saved for a whole week at a great beach near Far Rockaway. There was a fantastic dancing pavilion, and sometimes you could hear the waves over the music. I just love the sea!"

Jean wasn’t jealous, but the girl’s endless chatter made her feel like her own life outside the store was boring. Mrs. St. Aubyn’s social circle was narrower than it first seemed. After a few dinners, it became clear that the landlady mostly talked about food and servants, the librarian stuck to discussing the weather, the shorn lambs talked about financial matters, and the stenographer, the manicurist, and Amy focused on women’s fashion. Meanwhile, the seasonal guests, who had once provided engaging insights about the Profession, were now sadly replaced by an insurance agent who went on too much about the uncertainty of human life. It also had to be acknowledged that Paul frequently discussed work. His stories, like his funny remarks, often felt connected to the office; he had a tendency to carry gold crowns or samples of dental work in his pockets, which, while undoubtedly impressive in their own way, were often awkward to show off in mixed company. Especially at those moments, Jean would imagine that more heroic figure, who looked so perfect in her mind, and picturing him in Paul’s place.

She noticed the dentist's quirks but didn't dislike him any less for it, and since the ideal was absent, she often went on Sunday trolley rides with him instead of the forbidden walks from the store. However, the fear of running into Stella made her turn down his invites to the theater and kept her off the streets at night. Paul thought these self-denials were just innocent reservations he couldn't quite grasp, and he felt more impressed than offended. But he was initially confused and then hurt when, as spring approached, their outings stopped altogether. Jean was vague when asked about it, while Amy had a knowing look but was too loyal to explain. A secretary, a manicurist, or any normal woman could have simply told him that Jean was just embarrassed about her clothes.

It was mainly because Paul misunderstood that Jean decided she wouldn’t just passively wait for a promotion anymore. Earning six dollars a week had its limits, especially since five of those dollars always went to Mrs. St. Aubyn for board. Still, from the tiny amount left over, she managed to scrape together enough to replace what she had borrowed from Mrs. Fanshaw's reluctant contribution, and she sent the whole amount off to Shawnee Springs with a sense of angry satisfaction that kept her spirits up for days. However, the lack of that money was a real pinch for her. Those ten dollars could have helped her avoid wearing the same suit, which, thankfully black, she wore every day of the week and it showed, especially now that the warm days were starting to outnumber the cold ones, and other girls were flaunting their early spring outfits. Many of the sales that the big store was constantly advertising would have helped her out in small ways, but the management was against its employees taking advantage of those deals.

During the ongoing illness of the department manager, Mr. Rose still held significant authority, so Jean approached him one evening as he made his way to the offices while the large staff hurried out of the building. The carpet and upholstery department, where they spoke, was always a quiet place, even during busy times, and aside from an occasional night-watchman, they felt quite alone. Rose listened to her, lounging comfortably on a soft pile of Oriental rugs, his eyes openly admiring her eager face.

Jean looked on in anger, realizing he no longer showed up.

"You’re not listening," she said, frustrated. "Can’t you see what this means to me? Look at my shoes! They’re all I have. Look at this suit! It’s my only one. I haven’t saved any money to get other clothes—it’s impossible. You say I’m efficient—then pay me a living wage. I can’t survive on what you give me. I’ve tried and I’ve failed—failed just like the girl before me."

The floor walker smiled as he emerged from the pile of rugs.

"She was incredibly plain," he said; "but you—" He spread his white hands in a useless attempt to find the right words.

"Forget about my appearance, Mr. Rose," Jean interrupted sharply. "I’m here to discuss business."

"So am I, my friend. I'm highlighting your resources."

She didn’t completely understand what he meant, despite his grin, and he came up with his own interpretation of her silence.

"You know we have plenty of applicants here," he went on. "There are a dozen girls eager to take your spot. We expect our low-paid girls to have other sources of income. Some of them have families; others—but you’re not naive. There are plenty of guys who’d be happy to support you. Why don’t you work something out with that young dentist? Or"—his smile became even sweeter—"if that’s not happening anymore, maybe I—"

Then something happened that he never quite grasped. It was clear to Jean. In the blink of an eye, she turned back into the sporty boxing tomboy known as Jack, and with her precise "right," Mr. Rose collapsed to the floor like a wilted flower.

XIII

Jean stood over him for a moment, her anger still boiling, but the store manager was done arguing and just cursed where he lay. Without saying anything, she walked past a grinning security guard and entered the nearby offices, where Rose was headed too. By now, she knew that members of the firm often stayed late after their staff had gone, and she was determined to get her story to them first. However, the office of the head of the firm was dark, and the voice that answered her knock at the door of a junior partner, where a light was still on, turned out to be that of a late-working stenographer.

As she hesitantly turned away, Rose, with a swollen eye, faced her again.

"Thought you were going to take it to headquarters, huh?" he said. "I suggest you leave it right here."

He flinched as she approached and pretended to block an imaginary hit, but she just brushed past him with disdain.

"Are you going to drop it?" he asked, following her to the stairs. "I don't want to see you get into trouble because of your bad temper. I'm willing to overlook you hitting me."

His persistence only strengthened her determination to expose him, and she rushed on without replying.

"Two can play at that game," he warned over the railing.

On the street, she paused uncertainly. The man would obviously protect himself if he could, and her story needed to reach someone at the firm that night. If she waited until morning, Rose could easily beat her to it. Yet she had become too worldly to feel comfortable about trying to bring her complaint into one of those men's homes. Just the other day, she had picked up a trashy magazine with a shop-girl story that Amy had praised, which described an incident like this. The son and heir of a wealthy merchant—so the author called him—had cruelly wronged a beautiful shop-girl, who, after enduring terrible sorrows, gathered her courage and faced the family home. She somehow gained access (details were vague here) and confronted the deceitful son at the height of a grand ball where the elite were gathered to honor his chosen bride. Jean had seen the ridiculousness of the scene in a way that Amy could not. Things didn’t play out that way in real life. The beautiful shop-girl would never have gotten past the presumably well-trained servants of the merchant prince, even if she had managed to evade the special policeman at the entrance, and Jean figured her own chances would be just as slim.

Nevertheless, there seemed to be nothing left for her to do but give it a shot. She checked a directory in the nearby drugstore and wrote down the home addresses of several members of the firm. One of the junior partners lived closest, though still not within walking distance, and she finally made her way to that address at a time when, judging by Mrs. St. Aubyn's schedule, she worried she would find her boss at dinner. She recognized the house as one that Amy had pointed out with pride on their first Sunday walk, and she couldn’t help but think, with some doubt, that it was a really believable setting for the story of the beautiful shop girl, if such things actually existed.

An elderly butler convinced her that this was her own drama. He wasn’t overly arrogant despite a lot of polite pretense; and if he looked down on her clothes, he didn’t let it show. His demeanor even hinted at a respectable disappointment that the master of the house wasn’t home. Jean walked down the steps, wondering if this was just an artistic lie, but, fortunately for the servant’s reputation, an electric cab pulled up at that moment and dropped off the man she was looking for. She recognized him immediately, as he had the most striking presence of the entire firm, resembling the more cheerful portraits of Henry VIII. Unlike the Tudor king, however, he was known to be happily married and a family man. He paused and gave her a sharp look when he noticed she intended to approach him.

"I just asked for you," Jean said. "I wanted to talk to you about something at the store."

"Do you work for us?"

"Yes. I'm a sales associate in the toy department. I want to make a formal complaint."

"A complaint? You should address that with your own department."

"I can't ask him to judge himself," Jean replied, straightforwardly.

He shot her another intense glance.

"Oh," he said, his tone shifting. "Come in." Then, to the elderly butler, who had been keeping the door slightly open, pretending not to listen, he added, "The Study."

Jean seemed to remember that the stunning shop girl had come across a "study" that couldn't have been more luxurious than this one. As she waited, she wondered what the library and more upscale apartments might be like. The room looked incredibly grand to her. It had paneled walls and ceiling beams, and a fireplace that matched the architecture nearly filled one end wall. Light streamed in from a gorgeous piece of opalescent glass that gave new hues to the oriental rugs below and added richness to the beautifully used mahogany. No other wood was allowed here. It had a soft glow coming from the beams, panels, and cornices; from the mantel, the bookshelves, and the ornate cabinet hiding a safe; from the massive desk supported by griffin legs where its owner, as flamboyant as his taste, was just taking a seat.

"Okay then," he said, "tell me exactly what you want me to pay you."

She left nothing out. Her listener stayed engaged and once, when she explained Rose's take on the company's policy, he shook his head in disagreement, but she couldn’t tell if he was disbelieving her or criticizing the floor-walker.

"This is a serious accusation," he said when she finished. "It involves not just Mr. Rose—who, I should mention, has always been very effective—but the reputation of the entire establishment."

"That's one reason why I came."

"Of the entire establishment," repeated the junior partner, as if she hadn't said anything. "Was there anyone else there?"

"There was a guard nearby, but he couldn't have heard what was said."

"You’re pretty sure you didn’t misinterpret Mr. Rose?"

"Totally."

"And we weren't biased against him beforehand? Floor staff, as a group, have often been misrepresented."

Jean thought deeply.

"I can't say no to that," she admitted honestly. "A friend had a low opinion of him and mentioned it before I started working, but I tried not to let that affect me."

"But it really did?"

"A little, maybe. I’ll admit I’ve never liked him."

For a while, the big man under the overhead light absentmindedly played with a paper knife.

"We'll definitely address this issue," he said after a moment. "If we need to clean house, we will; but I can't believe there's anything fundamentally wrong. No department store in the city treats its employees better than we do. We were among the first to close on Saturday afternoons in the summer; we offer generous incentives for extra effort during the holidays; we have created really appealing lunchrooms; and we even hope to introduce a profit-sharing plan when business conditions allow. What else can we do?"

Jean thought his rhetorical question was personal.

"You could offer higher wages," she suggested. "Then situations like this wouldn't occur."

For a split second, King Henry had one of his less pleasant looks on his face. It hinted at beheading or a long stay in the Tower. Then, just like that, it was covered up by a modern vibe.

"There you go bringing up economic issues," he responded with a sigh. "I wish we could start a lecture series for our employees to explain the principles that guide a large business. The laws of supply and demand, the pressure from competition, the need for expensive advertising—these and many other factors that we understand at the top never cross the minds of the shop girls."

Jean was overwhelmed by these impressive statements. They had never crossed her mind, for sure, and she wasn't completely certain why they should.

"We just ask for a living," she said.

"But you really shouldn't. We want the girl who asks for spending money, the girl who lives with her family. By the way, don't you have a family of your own?"

"My mom is alive."

"Is she relying on you in any way?"

"Nope."

"Can she take care of you?"

"Perfect."

"Then why doesn't she do it?"

Jean's eyes widened.

"Because I won't allow her."

Her listener just shrugged.

"The modern woman!" he sighed. "But that's beside the point. We pay just like everyone else. If a girl thinks it's not enough, she should look for other work. For now, I'm supporting Mr. Rose. His additional advice—as you mentioned—is a different issue. As I've said, we'll address it."

He rang a bell and got up, and Jean followed the older servant to the door. The motivation that had prompted her to come here had faded into deep exhaustion of both body and mind, but she walked down the path feeling fairly content. She had had her say. She had spoken, not just for herself, but somewhat for others too. Plus, the man's straightforward honesty seemed like a promise that justice would be served. She didn't think about exactly what that justice would look like.

Near her own door, she encountered Paul, who was anxiously waiting for her.

"I was starting to picture a whole bunch of nightmares," he said. "Amy had no idea what was going on."

"I didn't tell Amy I would be late," Jean replied. She offered no explanations, but Paul was grateful for her concern after what she had been through, and she added, "I'm sorry I made you worry."

He looked at her closely, pausing for a moment on the steps.

"Is there any need for a guy like me?" he asked.

"Why do you wanna know?"

"Because I think you’re in trouble. If I can help—"

"No, no," she replied quickly. "But thanks."

"Did something happen?"

"Yeah, at the store. I can't really explain it."

"Oh," Paul said, as if explanations were unnecessary. "I'm not so sure I couldn't be helpful."

She sensed that he understood something of what had happened, his familiarity with the floor-walker possibly deeper than hers, but he didn't say anything more. Jean felt strangely comforted by his attitude, especially since Amy's, as it stood, was quite lacking. Amy seemed less surprised by Rose's actions than by Jean's strong anger.

"I wouldn't have hit him," she said.

"What would you do?"

"I—I don’t know. Anyway, not that. A girl has to deal with a lot."

"I guess you wouldn't have reported him, right?" Jean shot back bitterly.

"No; I didn't—I mean I wouldn't."

Jean began.

"I think you really meant what you said at first, Amy," she exclaimed. "Has he told you the same thing?"

Amy squirmed.

"N-no," she started; "that is—"

"Almost there, right?"

Yes.

"And you did nothing?"

"I was too scared to do anything. I can't believe you took that chance. It's such a huge risk."

"I would have risked more by staying silent. I just had to take it to a higher level."

"But you said Mr. Rose offered to let it go," Amy said timidly. "You could have done that."

"That!" She couldn't find the words to express her disdain.

They went to bed and got up again in a tense atmosphere, and Jean walked to work alone. She was anxious about seeing Rose and dreaded another meeting with the junior partner, which felt even more daunting in the daylight. But neither happened. The floor manager didn’t show up in the toy department at all, even though someone had seen him go into the building. It was rumored that he was sick.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Jean noticed that she had caught the forewoman's attention and wondered hopefully if this important person had considered her for a promotion. Her pay envelope, since it was Saturday, soon provided a clue to the mystery in the form of a neat slip that informed her that her services were no longer needed.

"I'm here to answer any questions you might have," the forewoman said briefly, "but I assume you get it."

The girl turned to her with a pale face.

"But I don’t—"

"Then you’re not as quick as I expected. The company has checked you out, that’s all."

Jean gradually recognized the enormous injustice of it.

"I can't see," she faltered.

"Bosh!" interrupted the woman, feeling impatient. "Don’t try to pull a fast one on me. Who knows what kind of game you were playing, but you had more guts than common sense. You should have realized that when you tried to put your word against Mr. Rose’s, it was only a matter of time before they found out what your word was really worth. Your last boss informed them."

"What did you tell them?" blazed Jean.

"What do you think? That you'd been in a juvenile detention center, of course."

XIV

In her darkest moment, Paul arrived.

"I know," he said, finding her in the corner of the sad drawing room where she sat on Sunday afternoon with vacant eyes on "The Trial of Effie Deans." "Some of it I figured out, and a bit more trickled down from Amy via Mrs. St. Aubyn, but I got the last details from a guy in the store."

"The store!" Jean felt a quick rush of worry; she wanted to let Paul keep his illusions. "What man?"

"A guy in the drug department I work for occasionally showed up at the shops this morning. We're open on Sundays from eleven to one, you know."

Then, the ghost had followed her! She couldn't look him in the eye. But Paul's next words were comforting.

"He didn’t name anyone, but I connected the dots quickly when he told me that one of their new girls took out a new floor-walker the other night. I was proud to know you."

"Did he know about my—my discharge?"

"Nope."

"You didn't say anything about it yourself?" Jean hesitated. "Or say my name?"

Paul looked sad.

"That's a bit lower than I think I've got," he said with an air of superiority. "A guy who would bring up a lady friend's name in that situation wouldn't hesitate at the small things that still bother me. He—well, he'd even put a gold crown on a front tooth!"

She rushed to calm him down, incredibly relieved that his random informant didn't know the real reason for her firing. Amy could be counted on to keep it quiet for her own sake. Then Paul sparked her anxiety again with a request.

"I want to take care of Mr. Rose," he said, clenching his fist suggestively. "You started well, but the kid needs a proper job. I know where he's staying—he mentioned it that night he interrupted; and if you’ll just let me drop by as a friend of yours—"

"No, no. Promise me you won't!"

"But he needs it," the dentist insisted, sounding desperate. "I’d also like, if possible, to talk to the head of the company for a bit."

"Really, you can't," Jean exclaimed. "Promise me you won't say a word about it!"

"Can’t I even tell Rose what I think?"

"Never. I have to accept this and start fresh. I need to forget it and not dwell on it. You can't confront him, you can't tell him what you really think—most importantly, you can't go to the company. Promise me you won't!"

"Okay," he agreed, clearly confused. "A girl sees things differently. But I have another suggestion, which I hope you won't reject. Any issues with dentists, excluding you all?"

"No," Jean smiled.

"Some people have, you know. I can't get it myself. Why isn't it as prestigious to work on teeth as it is to specialize just a bit higher up, like on the nose? Yet socially, the nose specialist gets welcomed in places where the dentist couldn't get in even with a powerful gun. It really annoys me. But that’s enough about that for now. What I wanted to tell you is that there's a job opening at the offices."

"For me—a girl?"

"For a girl?" Paul pretended to consider this issue seriously. "Sure, a female assistant is usually a man, but still—"

Jean was not familiar with this aspect of modern dentistry.

"What does she have to do?" she asked.

"Be a lady and help out. That really says it all. Some older folks might say thirty summers and an average look, but I believe in a positive vibe all the time. We've been looking for the right person lately—the girl who has the position now is getting married; but it didn’t even cross my mind to offer it to you until today. It would mean eight dollars a week right from the start, and a raise as soon as they notice the great energy you bring to the whole place. There could be even more if you enjoy the work enough to explore other opportunities."

"Branch out? How so?"

"Operating room. At first, you'll be the secretary and cashier, welcoming patients and making sure the janitor keeps the waiting areas tidy. Then, if you do well like I think you will, you'll probably get an assistant yourself and spend most of your time on other tasks. A smart woman can be a huge help in the operating room. For instance, if I'm doing a contour filling, which requires a sharp eye and a lot of patience, while I'm packing and figuring out how to do a great job, you can heat the gold and hand it to me in the cavity. Got it? One talented woman we had for a while earned thirty-five a week, but she was also a trained nurse."

Jean questioned her usefulness among all these technical details, but the office work seemed straightforward, and she gratefully seized the opportunity.

The dentist brushed off her thanks.

"I'm just making a solid business move for the Acme Painless Dental Company," he said. "I’ll tell Grimes in the morning that I’ve found the right person—Grimes is the company, by the way, the whole painless operation—and you can come by later to finalize the deal."

Jean's thoughts raced ahead to possible solutions, and she pulled a tattered shoe further under her skirt.

"Are you sure I'll be okay?" she hesitated.

"You! I just wish you could see some of the people who responded to our ad." Then, almost as if he could read her thoughts, he added with unexpected shyness, "If I were you, I'd borrow Amy's black feather boa for your first visit. It looks perfect on you."

She laughed at the hint. There were more things to borrow besides the boa for winning over Grimes. She appreciated Paul's obvious attempts to communicate and was happy that, in his slow way, he had finally figured out why their outings had stopped. So, thanks to Paul and Amy, within a week, the engaged lady assistant of the Acme Painless Dental Company left to get ready for her wedding, and Jean took her place.

The company's storefronts on Sixth Avenue were vibrant and eye-catching, both showcasing glittering examples of the amazing pain-free procedures performed inside. The African attendant wore a green and gold uniform and spent the day handing out advertisements to unsuspecting passersby, loudly chanting the full name of the business in a voice that easily cut through the noise of the elevated trains above. After passing this person, you climbed a staircase with every step reminding you where the reception rooms were, while other signs along the way clearly guided you to the top and through the unmistakable hallway leading to the one and only Acme Painless Dental Company’s entrance.

Entering to the sound of an electric bell, you stepped right into the main office, or as the brochures called it, the stylish lounge, from which the operating rooms branched off in every direction. This space had an eclectic vibe. Jean's little corner, complete with a telephone, cash register, and trendy roll-top desk, was totally current. Yet, in the opposite corner, a suit of stage armor playfully reminded the waiting patients of knights, tournaments, and the adventurous Middle Ages. In another area, a relaxed slave girl in minimal clothing but lots of bangles posed on a teak wood stool, surrounded by realistic details like Bagdad drapes and a palm tree that thrives in any weather and perks up with an occasional dusting. The chairs were straightforward Grand Rapids and built to last, even though the owner preferred a style he called "Lewis Quince"; and the gold he didn’t use here was lavishly spent on the frames of his pictures, which almost all depicted nighttime scenes with sparkling castle windows or a big moon artfully inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Amid all this, Grimes moved around, trying to placate the waiting patients with empty promises of quick relief, occasionally wandering into one room or another in fruitless attempts to make each patient feel like his clumsy services were unique—big, laid-back, a bit messy, yet popular.

Of the operating rooms, which were nowhere near as fancy as the parlor, the second best to Grimes's own was Paul Bartlett's, as Paul was an important person here. Among the four assistant dentists, he was both the best equipped and the highest paid, earning a commission in addition to his regular thirty-five dollars a week. The more discerning members of the odd clientele casually chose Paul over Grimes, but the older man wasn't upset. About a month after Jean arrived, he even offered his talented assistant a partnership, which Paul quickly turned down. He was aiming for his own practice when he had enough funding, and he envisioned it in a way that would have tired out his careless employer to even imagine.

"It's all incredibly terrible," he told Jean in response to her question about why he didn't accept Grimes's offer and push for reform. "You'd basically have to burn the place down from the lab to the front door. Advertising like he does goes against dental ethics, and the health department should crack down on his practice. Look at this garbage!" he added, shaking an angry fist in the face of the maid. "God knows how many good dollars this cost, and we only have one decent set of tools in this whole setup. I reach for a spatula or a plugger that I put down just two minutes ago, and I find it's been sent off by old Grimes to use on another patient. As for sterilization—yuck! You could catch anything here. I’m amazed he hasn't been sued by now."

"Still, I like him," Jean said.

"Me too. Everyone else does as well. And he's making a fortune because of it."

"I'm getting rich from it, too," Jean laughed. "Next week, I'll finally be able to put money in the bank."

Better paid, better dressed, with easy work and plenty of time to read, she felt that she had finally started to live. Her job still felt a bit new, as the dental company's clients were incredibly diverse and provided endless topics of conversation for her and Paul. They usually traveled to and from Mrs. St. Aubyn's together, and as the summer vacation season approached, their Sunday outings began to thrive again. Sometimes Amy joined them, but more often she made strained excuses, and they went alone. Jean noticed that Amy seemed more private and distant than before, and Paul also noticed a change.

"How did you two become friends?" he asked suddenly after one of Amy's refusals. "You're not similar at all."

"Friends are usually different, right?" Jean said, her skin starting to tingle.

"Not as much as you two. You're a lady, and she—well, she isn't. Have you known her long?"

Yes.

"Where did you meet? You were definitely new to the city when you came to our house. Amy's a true East Sider."

"It was in the countryside. Amy once stayed in the countryside."

"Shawnee Springs?"

"No way. Somewhere else."

"Is that where you knew Miss Archer?"

Jean gave him a sickly look, but Paul's expression was completely sincere.

"I've heard you and Amy talk about her a couple of times," he explained.

"Yeah," she stammered. "We both knew her there."

"Out of breath?" he asked, still too observant. "I thought we were walking at our usual pace."

She blamed the heat and steered him to talk about other things, but the day was ruined. She seriously considered whether it would be wise to come clean about her past, but Paul’s faith in her innocence had its appeal, and the right moment to shatter his illusion hadn’t come when Stella, who had almost been forgotten for weeks, complicated things to the point where honesty was impossible.

XV

The dental company's clients were quite a mix, but Jean never thought about the chance of Stella showing up until it actually happened. Fortunately, she was in another part of the office when the bell rang, signaling someone had walked in, so she was able to see the visitor with her admiring eyes on the slave girl. She quickly backed away without paying attention, and, by a cruel twist of fate, bumped right into Paul.

"What's going on?" he asked, gripping her tightly. "What happened to you?"

She was speechless in response to his questions. He noticed her pale complexion and assisted her into the nearest operating chair.

"There’s a patient waiting," she finally said.

"You're the first patient," he said, and brought smelling salts, which he used generously. "You girls have a roll for breakfast and a chocolate caramel for lunch, and then you wonder why you faint."

She finally convinced him to leave her by promising that she wouldn't move until he got back, so he went in her place to meet Stella, bringing her to a room close enough that they could hear almost every word. Stella clearly had been in the parlors before. She casually called Paul "Doc," mentioned other work he had done for her, and stuck around to chat after he scheduled an appointment. The dentist's replies were distant and routine, and as she left, she teased him about having lost his old friendliness.

He came back with a red face to find Jean acting just like herself.

"Better?" he said uncomfortably.

"Way better."

Paul tinkered with the chair's mechanism.

"As long as you're alright now," he continued, "I'm not upset you missed that party. That's the worst part about Grimes. He accommodates everyone. You heard her talk, I guess?"

"Yep."

He quietly glanced at her face. "I hope you don't believe we're as close as she claimed?"

"Oh no."

Paul looked really relieved.

"I really value your opinion," he said. "You're the kind of girl who makes a guy want to step up."

"Don't," she pleaded, squirming under his compliments. "You think too highly of me."

"Too high!" He laughed excitedly and grabbed her hand when she tried to leave. "You didn’t mind me telling you?" Then, without waiting for a response, he blurted out, "There's a lot more to say. I want to take you away from all this—away from people like the girl you didn’t see; I want—I want you, Jean."

She tried to speak, but he saw her troubled eyes and sensed her refusal, cutting her off.

"Don't answer right now," he pleaded. "I didn't mean to bring this up so soon. I don't expect you to say yes right away. I'm not good enough for you, believe me, but no one could care more. Just promise me you'll think about it. Promise me that, at least."

She would have promised anything to get away. Back at her desk, she tried to think things through, but from the chaos in her mind, only one clear idea stood out: she needed to find out the day and time of Stella's planned return because that detail had slipped her mind. So, when Paul came to get her at closing time, she made up an excuse, watched him leave for the street, and then rushed to search his operating room for the little red book where he kept his personal appointments. It wasn’t in its usual spot, not in his office coat behind the door, and not in any drawer of the cabinet. He must have put it in a pocket of the suit he was wearing.

She trudged home, filled with anxiety, hoping to catch a glimpse of the book while the dentist had dinner; but that plan didn’t work out either, since that night, unlike usual, Paul didn’t change his clothes. He had the book with him. She was certain of it, as a corner of its red cover shone ominously at her from underneath his coat. During an after-dinner bicep comparison, started by the insurance agent in the hallway, the book actually fell to the floor at her feet, only to be noticed by a group of onlookers before she could even think about casually picking it up. She came up with several excuses to ask Paul to let her see it, any of which would have seemed reasonable to his lovestruck mind, but she dismissed each one as too weak and likely to raise suspicion; and so, before a better idea came to her, the evening slipped away, and she climbed her three flights to spend hours in terrible insomnia followed by even more ruthless dreams.

Fate was nicer the next day. Paul placed the appointment book on an open shelf in his cabinet during the morning, and she took a moment when he was searching the place for one of his constantly misplaced tools to finally uncover its secret. She found the entry with ease. It was among the appointments for that very day: "Miss Wilkes, 11-11:30." The little clock on the cabinet showed ten minutes to eleven now!

She dodged Paul, who was coming back, grabbed her hat, and told Grimes that she was too sick to work that day—which the big guy sympathetically assured her he could see for himself—then panicked and fled to the stairs, only to see Stella's swaying feathers already approaching the sample showcase below. Luckily, Stella was going up with her head down, so it took Jean just a second to rush to the staircase to the floor above. From the landing, out of breath, relaxed but safe, she quietly followed Stella's rustling movements to the dental company's door. When she cautiously came down, the hallway was filled with a musky perfume that made her recoil as if she were physically close to the woman herself.

Luncheon brought Paul and questions, which she answered as best as she could from behind her closed door. He had no idea about the real reason for her sudden departure, assuming her illness, like yesterday, was due to not eating enough. He let his imagination run wild, joining Mrs. St. Aubyn's and the owner of a nearby deli in creating a tray filled with food that felt like it was choking him. It was painful for her to maintain this lie, but she couldn't see any other option, and there were no advisors to turn to. She might have confided in Amy if the need had come up sooner, but Amy had become a person of strange reserves and silences.

She left her room in the evening and faced the annoying concern of the dining room. Mrs. St. Aubyn was eager to pin down her exact symptoms and led a discussion about favorite remedies, with almost everyone sharing their own advice, from the librarian, who insisted on a newspaper cholera mixture, to the bankrupt, whose cure-all was fresh Adirondack air. Paul stayed out of the conversation, noticing that Jean really just wanted to be left alone. He was quieter than she had ever seen him at the table, and she caught him daydreaming twice, seemingly lost in thoughts about Amy. After dinner, he managed to create a private moment in an upstairs hallway, a casual meeting made easy by the boarders' summer habit of crowding the front steps in a social group, with Mrs. St. Aubyn, who was keeping an eye on other less tidy clusters, sitting at the top of it all.

"I didn't bring a solution down," he said, "but I've got one anyway. It's a vacation."

"But—" Jean started.

"No excuses allowed. I'm speaking now. You need a vacation, and you're going to get one. Grimes has taken care of everything. You're getting a week off starting tomorrow, and your pay will stay the same as always."

"This is your fault."

"No," he said; "it's Grimes's. I just mentioned that it would be more helpful to you now than in August. It was owed to you anyway."

"But I'm not sick," she argued. "I can't let you think I am. It's not fair to lie—"

"The question currently on the table," Paul calmly interrupted, "is, Where do you want to spend it? How about Shawnee Springs?"

"Nope."

"Not really. You never talk about the Springs like you actually want to go back. Have you ever tried Ocean Grove, where the Methodists gather?"

"Nope."

"Then why not? There's way more fun there than you might expect. They can't ruin the ocean, and Asbury Park is just a quick trip away whenever the hymns start to annoy you. I bring up Ocean Grove because Mrs. St. Aubyn's sister has a boarding house there—she calls it Marlborough Villa—where you can stay for a good price, especially if you go now before the busy season starts. I'll head down on Sunday and check in on how you're doing."

He had a response for every concern, and in the end, Jean allowed herself to be convinced, even though giving in here seemed to mean agreeing to other things she was sadly unprepared to face. The future loomed ahead, a tangled mess of complications. Maybe the ocean, the real ocean she had never seen—because Coney Island didn't count—would help her figure it all out.

Early the next morning, the dentist saw her on the boat.

"You won't mind if I come down?" he asked.

She smiled "No" a little weakly, but he walked away satisfied. She thought Sunday would be important. He would ask for his answer then, and she——Maybe the salty breeze would clear away these uncertainties.

But neither the breeze, filled with a sense of holiness, which refreshed the Methodists camping out, nor the worldly, yet not obviously immoral, vibe of the two resorts, had helped much when the weekend came for Paul to figure out the puzzle on his own.

Many things worked in his favor. Firstly, Jean was genuinely happy to see him, as the restless rocking chairs on the porch of Marlborough Villa showed. In a world she often found indifferent, Paul Bartlett had shown himself to be a true friend. She also felt a clear sense of pride in him as he held his ground against the intense conversation on the porch; it was a justifiable thrill that, in a social setting dominated by women, she had managed to captivate such an impressive man.

Again, Paul was considerate in following up on his welcome. His only concern on Saturday evening and throughout Sunday until almost the end was seemingly to make her happy. Sometimes she acted as a guide to her own discoveries: a model of Jerusalem, its tiny streets scattered with the peanut shells of nostalgic childhood; the pavilion where the best free concerts were held; the beach where the modestly dressed crowd was the most entertaining; or a little lake, far from the merry-go-rounds and cheap shows, which she secretly liked the most. Or Paul would showcase the results of his past explorations. He knew an alley in one of the big hotels, where she had her first lesson in the ancient game of bowls from him; a cafe that offered creams and ices beyond imagination; and a drive—Sunday morning this—past luxurious homes, whose residents they felt sorry for, to an old riverside tavern shaded by grand trees.

Sundown found them watching the crashing waves from the walls of their own sandcastle, which Paul had built, guided by her greater knowledge of medieval things. The shift from sandcastles to daydreams was effortless, and soon the man was planning his future.

"Grimes wants me to renew our contract," he said. "It ends on October first, you know. But I think it's time for me to be my own boss. I've gotten what I needed from the dental company—practical experience. If I stay, I might pick up some things I don’t want, just like the other guys who eventually fall into old Grimey's lazy habits. I don’t want any of his grime in my office. He can keep his fancy decorations, his maid, and his fake armor. I want a simple reception area, but happy; and an operating room that's even brighter. Maybe a canary or two; real plants—and decor that's completely modern. Electricity everywhere, the best chair on the market, instruments the highest quality money can buy, but out of sight. No spooky chamber for me! As for location, I'll take Harlem. I know a ton of people there, and I like the vibe. I've even checked out office spaces, and I found one on 'Hundred-and-twenty-fifth Street that’s just perfect. Well, that’s part of the plan."

Jean was awakened from her own dreams.

"I know you're going to succeed," she said.

"That's part of the plan," he repeated; then, less confidently: "The other part includes a cozy little apartment just around the corner, where a guy can easily stop by for lunch. I don't mean a bachelor pad. I mean a bona-fide home, with a wife in it—a wife named Jean!"

He was a charming guy—well-groomed, sincere, and masculine—as he waited in the twilight, and the home he offered had its attractions. Marriage would fix many issues. She would be free from the constant struggle for a living, which was dangerous because of the stigma from the shelter. She would also be free from the fear of the revenge Stella could take. If needed, it would be easy to tell Paul the whole truth once they were married. His love would make it seem less serious. As for her love—what was love, really? Where in life did someone find the perfect dream like in stories? Love was just a deeper liking, and Paul, as previously mentioned, was a charming guy—well-groomed, sincere, and masculine—as he waited in the twilight.

Yet, even then, there remained a vivid image where, against a backdrop of birch trees, an unmistakable hero of romance stood out.

XVI

Jean recoiled from the congratulations of the boarding house and the office, and they decided right from the start to keep their engagement private.

"Not leaving your mom out, of course," Paul corrected. "To follow the rules exactly, I guess I should write her a note. What do you think?"

"It won't be needed," Jean said.

The dentist sighed with relief.

"Happy to hear that. She'd probably say no right away if I did. Writing letters isn’t my strong suit. What will you say about a proposal like me, anyway?"

"Nil."

"Nothing? Better to say less, right?"

"I mean I'm not going to write."

"Not at all?"

"Not until we’re married. I’ll write home then."

Paul whistled thoughtfully.

"Mind telling me why?" he asked. "I can't say this play seems to follow the rules either."

Jean's true reason was based on her fear that Mrs. Fanshaw's unpredictable sense of right and wrong could lead to a motherly letter to Paul, revealing their family's past. So she said that she and her family didn't see eye to eye, and she was thrilled to discover that Paul found her excuse acceptable.

"I get what you're going through," he said. "My governor and I never got along either. But when it comes to writing to your mom: we'll need her permission, you know. You're still not twenty-one."

"I turn eighteen on September tenth."

"But we want to get married the third week of August."

"We can't," Jean said, and that was that.

This delay aside, it felt to her like she was speeding toward her marriage. Even before she went back to work, Paul informed Grimes of his plan to be on his own after October and rented the office he had mentioned to her. With the same energy that he happily claimed she inspired in him, he quickly had her searching in Harlem for the little flat, just around the corner, that he imagined. For such a simple thing, it turned out to be surprisingly hard to find, and it took what felt like ages, along with countless weekday outings, before they finally discovered what they were looking for in a building so new that the plumbers and paper-hangers were still busy on the upper floors.

The "Lorna Doone" was an apartment building. The brochure said so; the elevator and the hallway services confirmed it. Regular flats have stairs and spooky front doors that unseen hands unlock. Regular flats also sometimes have an old-fashioned spaciousness that apartments usually lack; but as Paul, with his well-rounded experience dealing with agents and janitors, observed, they lack style. This key feature—the agents and janitors all agreed it was key—seemed to him to radiate from the Lorna Doone in a way that wasn’t apparent in many more expensive buildings, which had far less onyx paneling and mosaic at their entrances. Besides style or, more accurately, as a part of style, this building had a great location, which Jean was surprised to discover was something worth considering even in this happily unfashionable area.

There was Harlem and Harlem, it seemed; and taught partly by Paul and partly by the real estate agents, she became skilled in the subtle differences between streets that appeared to just differ by their numbers. For instance, there was a neighborhood, the neighborhood to be precise, once known as Harlem Heights, which now, with its impressive cathedral, university, and the hero’s mausoleum, proudly claimed it wasn’t Harlem at all. They had explored this desirable area in their search, admired its parks, viewed the Hudson from its lofty windows, and hoped in vain to find some spot their budget could handle; but ultimately, they had to leave it behind. This glimpse of something unattainable was a strong, if not decisive, factor in their final decision.

"We can't just isolate ourselves and live in a hole," Paul argued. "I already know a lot of people here, and we’ll soon know even more. We have to do our part. Imagine the reputation we’d have in our group if we didn’t entertain every now and then like everyone else."

"Our club!" she repeated. "We're going to join a club?"

"Sure. The bowling club, I mean. Everyone bowls in Harlem. We need to think about the office, too. It's the women who can make or break a dentist's practice, and sooner or later, they find out how he lives and what kind of company he keeps."

After a thoughtful pause, he startled her by suddenly asking if she remembered a loud girl who had come to the dentist's office for an appointment on the day of her first illness.

"The talkative person who thought I wasn't friendly," he specified. "Her name's Wilkes."

Jean recalled.

"Well, she came back," the dentist continued slowly. "I filled a tooth for her the next morning. She had quite a bit to say."

She forced herself to look at him. If she had to confront the past now, she would do it like the honest girl she was. But Paul’s demeanor wasn’t accusing, and when he spoke again, it was neither about Stella nor about her.

"How much does Amy make a week?" he asked.

She told him, and he nodded as if he agreed with a point that had been made.

"Would you be surprised to find out that she earns five dollars less? That surprises you, doesn't it?"

"How do you know that?"

"My patient from the drug department told me a while back. I didn't think much of it then, since some girls can look great on very little; but—well, the bottom line is, that Wilkes woman knows Amy!"

Jean managed to regain her composure. For now, Amy's defense was her own.

"Do you really need to condemn Amy?" she said.

"Of course not," Paul replied wisely. "It could happen to you or anyone else. Maybe she says she knows me. What matters is how she came to know her. The Wilkes girl got pretty chatty when I let her speak freely. She had gotten tipsy for the occasion, and it loosened her tongue. I didn't pay much attention until Amy Jeffries's name came up, but after that, I started listening. I thought you deserved that."

"And she said—?"

"She said a lot that I won’t go over again, but it all comes down to the fact that they both graduated from the same reform school."

She has to tell him now! Pale and miserable, she gathered her courage to speak.

"Paul!" she called out.

He immediately became worried about her distress.

"Don't take it so seriously," he pleaded. "She isn't worth it."

"You don't get it. I—I knew."

"You knew that?"

"About the reformatory. I once mentioned that I met Amy in the countryside."

"I remember."

"Well," the confession came slowly, "it was the shelter I was talking about. I met her at the shelter."

She waited with her eyes turned away for the question that would reveal everything. Instead, she suddenly felt Paul's touch and looked at him to see a smile.

"You are a genius!" he exclaimed. "To know all along and never reveal it to her!"

He didn't understand! Shaking like someone who just got a stay of execution, she listened to him continue his self-deception.

"I was going to ask you to give Amy a break after we got married," he said, "but if you believe in her this much, I guess she's worth helping. I doubt all the girls at the shelter are like the Wilkes."

The crisis was over, and she somewhat regretted that she hadn’t mustered the courage for a full confession, but this feeling was temporary. Paul was satisfied with his own explanations and talked mostly about their apartment, and she soon found their home-building discussions interesting too.

A closer look at the Lorna Doone, after signing the lease, showed that its outward beauty came with some inner drawbacks.

"Looks like a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul on this trip," said the dentist. "Peter is the owner's first name, you know. The woodwork is cheap, the bathtubs are seconds, and the closets, as you mentioned, aren't worth mentioning. I bet the building laws have been ignored from the basement to the roof. I hear he has built a dozen places like this, and every single one is speculative. That's why we're getting six weeks' rent free. It's all to fill the house and snag some sucker who’s looking for an investment and never realizes the leases aren’t worth anything."

"Do they not?"

"Ours doesn't. The guy basically told me to get lost when the building changes hands, if that's what I want."

Jean looked around the cheerful little toy kitchen where they were standing.

"I don't want to leave," she said. "It already feels like home."

It felt more and more like a home as they got ready. They weren't officially supposed to move in until late in August, but the friendly owner gave Paul a key a few weeks early and had no problem with them moving in whatever they wanted. As a result, their simple six-room apartment in the Lorna Doone became, in a way, a refuge where they spent their evenings whenever they could, making it beautiful in their own way.

It was a valuable experience. It involved such smart planning! So much dedicated searching through ads, so much enjoyable shopping, and such great finds in summer sales! They didn’t realize how much they really needed until they saw it all laid out in a window display at a little shop that was never in style. In multiple show windows, each as big as one of their rooms at the Lorna Doone, this innovative store had set up an entire furnished apartment. Plus, they had added people to it. In the parlor, which was the first thing you noticed, a wax figure of a lady in a yellow tea gown was sitting and embroidering by the gas log, while opposite her lounged a wax gentleman in a velvet smoking jacket and slippers—a very inviting home scene, even if the atmosphere was a bit cluttered with price tags.

"That's you and me," Paul said, tenderly ungrammatical.

Jean was less caught up in romance.

"I totally forgot about curtains," she thought. "They'll cost quite a bit."

The dentist then found things he had missed.

"We need a bookcase," he said. "That combo bookcase and desk looks great. How about getting one like that?"

"Do you have any books?"

"I should smile. I've put together the best little dental library you can get."

"Then you'll keep it at your office," Jean decided quickly. "When we have a library about something other than teeth, we'll think about a case."

The shopkeeper's creative realism also reached the other rooms. Real fruit decorated the dining room buffet; the tidy kitchen was occupied by a maid in uniform, whom they called "Marie" and decided they could do without; while in one of the bedrooms, they found a crib with an occupant they intentionally avoided labeling.

"But for kitchenware," Paul said suddenly, "the five-and-dime stores have this place totally outclassed."

With this as a working model, which Paul continually turned to for inspiration, they made their purchases. It was mainly his money they were spending, but Jean also tapped into her small savings. They competed with each other in planning little surprises. Now the dentist would open a drawer and come across a set of tools for household carpentry, which his mechanical talent thrived on; or Jean would find her kitchen equipped with some modern ice cream maker, coffee machine, or dishwasher, which, in Paul's usual words, "practically ran itself." They also found endless entertainment in arranging and rearranging their belongings—a much trickier task than anyone outside their experience might understand, since the wall spaces in apartments, as all apartment dwellers know, are cleverly designed to fit nothing that upholsterers and cabinet makers create. Fortunately, they figured out this profound fact early in their shopping, though not before Paul, venturing alone among the "antique" shops on Fourth Avenue, fell for a tempting deal on a colonial sideboard that, combined with an equally heavy table, nearly filled their little dining room to the point where there was hardly space for chairs.

Half the excitement of all this was in keeping it a secret; even though the boarding house suspected a romance and openly hinted at its suspicions, it naively thought their many nights out were just spent at the theaters. However, a very different idea was going around at the Lorna Doone, as Jean unfortunately found out one Sunday when the chubby owner addressed her as "Mrs. Bartlett" while they passed each other in the entrance hall.

"Oh, they’ve always assumed we’re married," Paul said casually. "I figured it was too good of a joke to ruin."

Jean didn't think it was funny.

"We need to explain," she said.

"And be smiled at as a bride and groom! What's the point? It will be true enough two weeks from now."

She secretly decided that she would set the owner straight at the first chance she got, but the opportunity to speak never came up when much more serious events pushed it out of her mind completely as if it had never existed.

XVII

Amy had, to be fair, to be informed as August was coming to an end. In response to Jean's suggestion that either the stenographer or the manicurist would probably be happy to share the room with the three dormers, she replied that she could easily afford to keep it to herself while she was still there.

"It won't be for long," she said casually. "Actually, I'm getting married myself."

Jean wrapped her arms around her right away, forgetting the months of restraint.

"And you've never said a word!" she scolded.

"You're not getting any more from me," Amy replied coldly, despite the sweet talk.

"I get it, I get it. But you’ve seemed so different. You've been keeping to yourself, and I thought—"

"You thought I wasn't straight," Amy said bitterly as Jean hesitated. "I knew exactly what you were thinking every time I got a new blouse or a hat."

"You weren't honest with me."

"I can’t be."

"I don't get it."

"Because," she hesitated, feeling soft now, "because you are you, so uptight and—and strong. I've always been too scared to tell you how things really were."

"Are you scared, Amy? Scared of me!" Jean felt a deep sense of guilt. "I’m really sorry. Honestly, I never meant to be unkind. I've been struggling with my own issues and didn't want to make things worse for anyone else, especially you. You trust me, right?"

“Yes.”

"Then be your old self, the Amy who became friends with me in Cottage No. 6. Who is he? Someone I know?"

"You've met him."

"I have! Where is it?"

Amy's face flushed.

"Do you remember the night you hit New York?"

"Perfect."

"And the traveling guy who cheered you up?"

Yes.

"Well," she hesitated, "he's the one. His name is Chapman."

Jean was too shocked to respond quickly, but Amy was still going through her explanations.

"You shouldn't take his nonsense that night seriously," she continued. "It was just Fred being himself. He's a natural flirt. You'd really like him, Jean, if you got to know him."

Jean responded to her longing plea for sympathy with a woman’s understanding. At first, she found it hard to find the right words. Eventually, when she felt ready to speak, she wished her happiness.

"Does he know?" she added.

Amy's fair skin blushed a little.

"My record, you mean? No one knows it better. Don't you—don't you get it, Jean? He was the—he was the guy!"

"Hey! You're back with him again! The guy who watched your stepdad send you to the shelter and didn’t lift a finger—"

"Stop!"

"Who let his kid—"

"Stop, I’m serious!" She pressed her lips against Jean’s fervently. "You see! Is it any surprise I couldn’t bring myself to tell you? I wish to God I’d never said a thing."

Jean stared blankly at this lamb that had become a lioness.

"Forgive me," she pleaded. "Maybe I just don't get it."

"Get it? You!" She laughed wildly, "And yet you're going to get married! If you really loved Paul Bartlett, you'd get it."

"Don't say that."

"Then don’t say things that hurt me. Do you understand? If you really did, you’d know that it wouldn’t matter if he was completely terrible. But he’s not. Fred never knew about the baby. He cried when he found out—cross my heart, he did. He said if he’d known—but what’s the point of bringing up the past! He’s trying to make up for it now. He’s been trying ever since we ran into each other again. It was in the cloak department that he spotted me," she said with a faint smile. "I was wearing a white broadcloth, sable-trimmed evening wrap, and you should have seen how he stared! He couldn’t do enough for me. That’s where the new clothes came from. I could have had money if I’d wanted it—money to spare, because he earns a lot; but I wouldn’t take it. It would have felt—oh, you can see for yourself I couldn’t take money. You don’t sell love, real love, and God knows mine is real! I’ve never stopped loving him. I never can."

She also seemed to want to be in charge of an apartment when she became more relaxed.

"Not at first," she went on. "Fred wants to stay in boarding at first. He says I’ve done enough work for now. I told him I wouldn’t mind that kind of work, but he’s really determined to stick with boarding until I’ve had a good long break. Fred can be really stubborn. But eventually, we’re going to run the house together, and you’ll be able to tell me exactly what to do and what to get. You will, right, Jean?" she finished with worry. "You’ll support me?"

"Sure," Jean promised.

"And you'll come to see me afterward? Please say you will."

"Sure, I'll be there."

"And you won’t let Fred think that you’ve heard about—about everything? I want him to see that I know a girl like you. I’ve talked to him about you, but I’ve never hinted that you’re a girl from the refuge yourself. Promise me you’ll be nice to him!"

"I'll give it a shot."

Amy kissed her passionately.

"This makes me really happy," she sighed. "I think a lot of you, Jean. Honestly, I do. You come right after Fred."

As a sign of her love, she recently bought a wedding gift of a pair of silver candelabra that she could barely afford, and Jean accepted them only because she had to. These were placed beside Grimes's gift—since he was now in on the secret—a shiny clock for their mantel, filled with lively but cheerful Cupids, just like those in his admired "Lewis Quince." Mrs. St. Aubyn's contribution was a framed collection of American poets: Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, and Walt Whitman, the last one looking playfully out of place among the more formal company he found himself in.

Everything was finally set at the Lorna Doone, and with the start of their lease, Paul moved his belongings from Mrs. St. Aubyn's to the apartment and spent his nights there. This was August 25th. A week later, Jean climbed the staircase of the Acme Painless Dental Company, which was cluttered with signs, for her last day of work. She was a bit late because a fire had slowed down traffic in a nearby block, and the morning activities at the office were already in full swing. She got busy first at her desk, sorting the mail that the postman had just dropped off. Besides the office mail, there were personal letters for Grimes and the other staff members, which she started to hand out, reaching Paul's operating room last of all.

The dentist was working, but he looked up when she walked in and gave her a flirtatious glance over his patient's head. No one with eyes and a thinking brain could have misunderstood it, and the person in the chair, who had both, twisted to see what was happening; but Paul chimed in with a strategic "Wider, please," and kept the unwilling head firmly facing front.

"Throw them anywhere, Jean," he said, looking at her hand.

Her obedience was absolute; in the next moment, the letters scattered across the rug at his feet. As soon as the name was spoken, the patient suddenly twisted out of Paul's grip, and Jean found herself staring directly into the malevolent eyes of Stella Wilkes.

Paul discovered his voice first.

"We'll go on, Miss Wilkes," he said, his gaze still fixed on the tragic mask that was Jean.

Stella waved him off.

"Hold on, Doc," she replied calmly. "I ran into an old friend."

"Do you two know each other?" He directed the question at Jean.

Stella answered for her.

"Do I know Jean Fanshaw!" Confident about the situation between them and her own role in it, she jumped up from the chair and gave Jean's icy cheek a kiss. "Do I know her! We're like old friends!"

Somehow freed from that disgusting touch, Jean stumbled to her desk. Patients came and went, the office routine continued; her role in the process was performed automatically. Still, whether she rushed or welcomed, handled the cash register, processed bills, or comforted a nervous child, a spiteful little voice at the back of her mind kept whispering the shameful story that Stella was sharing in that inner room. Those lies would be hard for Paul to forget, maybe even to forgive, no matter what she said in her defense. The look on his face when Stella kissed him had been horrific. What was he thinking now?

Then, when her anxiety became unbearable, Stella showed up, her act of friendship dropped, revealing her true vengeful nature.

"I guess we're even," she leaned in to whisper, her face nearly touching Jean's. "I guess we're even."

She disappeared like the nightmare she was, but the nightmare stayed. Paul would want his answer now. He would come and stand over her with his accusatory look and ask her what this horror meant. She felt she couldn't go to him unless he reached out first. But throughout that long morning, the dentist stayed in his office, even though there were two times when she knew he was alone. Finally, her lunch hour—and his—arrived. She waited, but Paul still took his time. Finally, driven by a desperate need to confront the situation, she rushed to his room only to find it empty. Grimes told her he had seen Paul leave through a side door. The news was like a stab to her pride. Now, she was sure he must be looking for her.

Between five and six, a boring hour, he showed up, looking sad and trying to make peace.

"For God's sake, just clear this up," he pleaded. "Don't you have anything to say?"

"A lot, Paul. But first, tell me what that woman said about me."

"You got it."

"But what more?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing!" The thing was amazing.

"You're probably just happy to explain things yourself."

At that point, her burden was halved. Stella's cleverness had backfired. She believed she could torment her victim the most by making her betray herself, but she was mistaken in assuming that Jean had a genuinely shameful past to hide.

"Glad," she repeated. "Yeah, I am glad. I should have told you this someday, Paul. It's a long story."

The door opened to let in a visitor with a swollen cheek.

"Tonight, then?" said the dentist, quickly.

"Yes," she agreed. "I'll tell you tonight."

"At the apartment?"

"Yes; at the apartment."

Driven by her restlessness, she arrived at the Lorna Doone before Paul got back from his dinner and found the apartment dark. She felt relieved by this. It gave her a quiet moment to sort out what she wanted to say. She entered the small parlor and sat by an open window where a gentle midsummer breeze, wandering in from the river or the ocean, softly played with her hair. It was surprisingly peaceful for a city. The sounds from below—the footsteps on the pavement, the laughter of children playing under the young elms lining the street, the joking of the cigar-store crowd, the chatter of the girls gathering at the soda fountain in the corner drugstore, the jingling of bicycle bells, the rhythm of hoofbeats, the honk of passing cars, and even the tune of a street musician outdoing Sousa—merged together, softened by distance into something not quite unmusical and pleasantly human. As she listened, she realized that this city, not the countryside, this city, this exact place, this home that she and Paul had created, was truly home at last.

Right now, she heard Paul’s key in the lock and his footsteps in the dark hallway.

"You here?" he asked flatly. "We should probably get a light, right?"

"It feels cooler without," she replied. Even though her explanations didn’t need to hide, she believed that keeping things vague might make them easier to share.

Without any other greeting, the dentist moved to the window across from her, slouched tiredly into a chair, and waited silently for her to start.

Jean told her story fully: her tomboy childhood, the difficult family troubles, the final fight with Amelia, her time in the refuge, her escape, return, chaotic moments, and eventual release, as well as the deeper meaning of her recent struggle to make a living against overwhelming challenges. She shared it so honestly and so clearly that she believed no sane person could misunderstand; yet, initially vague and then painfully clear as she finished and looked at the grim, shadowy figure across from her, she realized she was facing doubt.

"Do you think I'm hiding something?" she hesitated, after a long silence. "Do I have to swear that I've told you everything?"

The man finally moved in his spot.

"I guess we won't need an affidavit," he replied grimly.

She waited through another silence, feeling impatient, then stood up proudly.

"I'll say it for you," she said quickly. "This means you're not bound by any promises to me, Paul. You're as free as if you'd never made them. You can follow your own path; I'll follow mine. It— it can't be harder than the one I've faced. Goodbye."

He woke up as she got ready to leave.

"Wait a minute, Jean," he said, stepping closer. "I think we can figure this out together."

"Compromise! I have nothing to give up."

"Haven't you?" He laughed bitterly. "I should say—but let's move on. Of course, after what’s come to light, you can't expect a guy to be so eager to marry—"

"I've told you that you're free," she interrupted.

"But I don't want to be completely free. We could be really comfortable here, Jean. The parson's nonsense doesn't mean much to me, and I don't think it should to you either. They think we're married downstairs. That part's a piece of cake. As for Grimes and the others—"

She had no urge to hit him like she had with the floor-walker. Waiting in his foolishness for a response, the man heard only the sound of her hurried footsteps down the corridor and the slamming of a door.

18

Yet, an hour later, Paul came looking for her at Mrs. St. Aubyn's, and, when he couldn't find her, came back in the morning before she had breakfast. After being unsuccessful a second time, and then a third, he wrote her two letters, begging her not to judge him based on a moment of madness.

Jean didn't say anything. Remembering Paul's many acts of kindness and hoping for the same understanding from others, she gave him the credit of being better than his worst moments. However, while she was willing to accept that the Paul who, in the immediate aftermath of her revelation, thought everything was terrible was not the true Paul, she wouldn't have been the person she was if his wrongdoing hadn't pushed him out of her life. Her choice was immediate and instinctive, not requiring any inner turmoil, although she couldn't help but later question if she had unknowingly opened herself up to humiliation and the intense shame that any man, including the dentist, could have ever looked down on her that way.

Necessity pushed her to look for options. The wedding plans had nearly wiped out her savings, and even though she was dressed better than ever, she didn’t have enough cash for even two weeks' rent. Finding a job was crucial, but when she looked around, the choices available to her were shockingly few. After her experience with Meyer & Schwarzschild, she was reluctant to return to her previous job unless absolutely necessary, and the department store life she had experienced was hardly any better. Initially, she hoped to find a job like her last one, but the ads only mentioned one dentist looking for an assistant, and that position was filled before she could even apply. From then on, she was navigating the vast sea of "Help Wanted: Female" without any direction.

The newspapers were filled with job offers for women. The label "Domestic Service" eliminated many of them from consideration, and the demand for stenographers, manicurists, and similar specialized workers ruled out many others; however, aside from these, opportunities still seemed to be everywhere. For example, the paper-box industry was looking for girls to sew, strip, glue, turn in, label, close, and tie; milliners needed trimmers, improvers, frame-makers, and people to work with feathers and artificial flowers; manufacturers of shirtwaists and baby clothes sought feminine hands to hemstitch, shirr, tuck, and press; skilled needles could be used for everything from theatrical glitter to gas mantles; agile hands could dip chocolates, stamp decorated tins, gild books, sort corks, tip silk umbrellas, curl ostrich feathers, fold circulars, and pack everything from Bibles to Turkish cigarettes.

But this huge demand, initially so promising, turned out to be limited upon closer look. Beginners were either not wanted at all or, if accepted for a trial, were expected to survive on goodwill or thin air. Experience was the big requirement. Day after day, Jean climbed dark staircases to face this obstacle; day after day, her resources dwindled.

Amy was very sympathetic and looked over the eye-straining ad columns just as diligently as Jean did.

"How's this?" she asked, looking up hopefully from one of these quests. "'Wanted: Girl or woman to take an interest in caring for the intellectually disabled.'"

"I tried that yesterday."

"Not good?"

"They just offered a home."

"And with fools! They must be crazy themselves."

Then Jean, moving to another column, thought she saw a glimmer of hope.

"Listen," she said. "'Wanted: Girl to pose for society illustrations.' Do you think there’s anything to this?"

"Too much," Amy replied wisely. "Don't respond to model ads. Those guys aren't actually looking for models any more than they are for artists. Real artists don’t need to advertise. They can find all the models they need on their own. I never thought to suggest posing. Why don’t you give it a shot? You have the looks, and it’s completely respectable."

"Is it?" Jean replied skeptically. "I thought this ad seemed good since it says 'society illustrations.'"

"It's perfectly fine to pose nude, if that's what you're considering. I know a really nice girl who does it. Her mom is paralyzed. But that's just one part of the scene, and it's all respectable. You'll even find art students doing it to cover their expenses. I know what I'm talking about because I've posed."

"You!"

"Just a little. It was for an artist who stayed here a while before you arrived. He moved uptown when he started to become successful, and now you see his paintings in all the magazines. I was a senator's daughter in one set of drawings and a golf girl in a poster. It’s pretty easy work once you get used to it, and it pays at least fifty cents an hour. The girl I mentioned sometimes makes twenty-five or thirty dollars a week, but she poses for life drawing classes; they’re in the schools, you know. I once decided to get into it."

"Why didn't you do that?"

Amy placed a mocking finger on her upturned nose.

"Here's why," she laughed. "It was like this: The artist who used to live here told me about another guy who paid three or four models regular salaries. He painted scenes of Greeks and Romans, and from what I heard, all those girls had to do was hang around in nice clothes and occasionally get painted. I went up there one day, and it was definitely a beautiful place, just like a house in a novel I'd read called 'The Last Days of Pompey.' A girl was posing when I arrived, and believe it or not, that guy had set up a wind machine that made her clothes flutter as if she were racing. Well, I didn't stick around long. The artist—he was around seventy-five or eighty, I’d guess, and pretty grouchy—turned to me, took one look at my nose, and said I was too old, nineteen hundred years too old! He thought he was hilarious. Someone told me later that he was a has-been who couldn’t sell his paintings anymore."

With the thought that modeling could serve as a temporary solution until she figured out another way to support herself, Jean immediately went to an agency that Amy had mentioned. She found the owner of the agency to be a twitchy little man with unsettling black eyes that seemed to take in every aspect of her looks, movements, and clothes.

"Chorus, front row, showgirl, or church choir?" he asked swiftly.

"I thought this was a modeling agency," Jean said. "I want to try posing if—"

"Right store. What line, please?"

"Dressed up."

"You don't get what I'm saying. Fashion model, illustration, lithography, or commercial photography."

"I'm not sure," she hesitated, confused by this unexpected expansion of options. "How much can I make?"

The little man waved his arms wildly.

"Might as well ask me what the weather will be next Fourth of July," he said angrily. "See that horse over there?" he pointed out his window at a horse in a heavy blanket heading to the blacksmith's. "How fast can he trot? You don’t know! Of course you don’t. How much can you earn? I don’t know. Of course I don’t. Do you see my point? Same situation exactly. Illustrators get paid anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar and a half an hour. Camera models earn between one dollar and three. And that's the deal."

"I have no experience."

"That's pretty obvious. It stands out like a sore thumb. But you don’t need any. In fact, you don’t. That’s the beauty of the business. Looks and determination, those are the important things. You’ve got the looks. A girl has to have the appearance, or I won’t accept her fee. It’s fair all around, you see. If a girl's face or outfit doesn't work for her, I have no reason to take her money. If an illustrator says, 'Send me a model who looks like this or that,' that's exactly what he gets. Top-notch models, top-notch illustrators, that’s my method."

"I need a job immediately," Jean said. "What are my chances?"

"Perfect. You should be ideal for the guy who called just two minutes before you arrived. A top-notch artist, recognized everywhere, great pay. There shouldn’t have been any hold-up at all if you had thought to bring your dad or mom with you."

Jean's mood quickly plummeted at this comment.

"My dad is dead," she said. "My mom lives out in the country."

"Then get her consent in writing. It takes time, of course, and time is money, but there's no way around it."

"Is it really necessary?"

"You'll need to have it to work with me," replied the agent, starting to shuffle through his papers.

"But my mom knows I'm trying to make a living," she argued. "Besides, I’m almost of age. I’ll be twenty-one next week."

"Come by when you get your letter," the little man said firmly. "No matter how small, I always require parents' consent. I have enough problems in my job without dealing with mom and dad. Have a good day."

Outside the door, Jean decided to take matters into her own hands. This option was too appealing and too close to give up easily. The thought of asking for Mrs. Fanshaw's permission was ridiculous, even if she could manage to do it—the term "artist's model" only brought scandalous ideas to mind in Shawnee Springs; but there was nothing stopping her from looking for work from studio to studio. Amy had shared the address of the illustrator who had made it big after leaving Mrs. St. Aubyn's world, and Jean resolved to reach out to him first.

Her errand took her to one of the countless streets where wealth and fashion are always retreating from a wave of craftsmanship that aims for them, to a commercial brownstone with a dressmaker in the basement, a art dealer in the living room, and a mix of artists, architects, and musicians scattered throughout the space between the first floor and the roof. She quickly located the studio of Amy's associate and, responding to a muffled call that answered her knock, pushed open the door to a small room that clearly used to serve as a bedroom. Here she paused. The only other door aside from the one she entered seemed to lead into the artist's personal life, as the outline of a woman's figure could be distinctly seen on the white iron bedspread.

"In here, please," called the voice. "I’m trying to finish while there's still light."

On the threshold, Jean couldn't help but smile at her own lack of sophistication. The so-called bedroom was just a part of the studio itself, and the supposed wife was a model posing as a hospital patient who was the main focus of a gouache drawing, to which the illustrator was adding a few final touches for emphasis.

"I see you don't need a model," Jean said, smiling at the girl in the bed.

He examined her with detachment, moved a brush from his mouth to his hand, and picked up a bundle of galley proofs.

"No," he said to himself more than to Jean. "It's another little heroine, damn her! But I'd appreciate it if you could leave your name and address," he added, pointing to a paint-smeared notebook that was among the brushes, inkpots, and paint tubes scattered on a small table nearby. "I might need someone like you any day."

Jean agreed, thanked him, and turned to leave.

"Try MacGregor, top floor—Malcolm MacGregor," he suggested. "Tell him I said to check out your eyes."

Much encouraged, she climbed two more flights, knocked, and, like before, let herself in with an informal greeting. This time, however, she went straight from the hall to the studio, stepping into an atmosphere that was startlingly different from the life she had left behind. MacGregor's Oasis, one of the illustrator's friends called it, and the phrase fit perfectly. The display of beautifully crafted small arms and long Arab flintlocks; the bright splash of color against the neutral wall created by some unusual musical instrument or Tripolitan fan; the strange jugs, gourds, and leather buckets of caravan living; the careless piles of oriental fabrics and garments from which, among the more muted folds of a barracan or camel's-hair jellaba, one could glimpse the red shine of a fez or the yellow glow of a vest decorated with intricate embroidery; the tropical sun-helmet—MacGregor's own—its green lining faded by the reflected light of Sahara sand; the antelope antlers above the doorway; the Soudanese leopard skins on the floor—these and many others, in bewildering number and variety, evoked the charm and mystery of the African desert that this man knew, loved, and painted with exceptional talent.

MacGregor himself, whom she found at his easel, was, despite his name, not Scottish but American, with seven generations of New England ancestors behind him. Tall, thin-faced, alert, and apparently in his late thirties, he had the curious, shrewdly humorous eyes that reflect, and possibly express, the Connecticut Yankee's view on life. He didn't resemble an artist in any way.

"I'll be done here in no time if you take a seat," he said, when Jean repeated the other artist's message.

Her wait paid off, as it clearly illustrated the agent's point that having initiative was essential for a successful model. The man now posing for MacGregor as an old Arab leading a caravan down a rocky path was sitting on nothing more impressive than a clever setup of packing crates, but he rode his makeshift saddle as though he truly were on the horse depicted in the painting. He got off eventually and vanished into a nearby nook, only to soon reappear as an ordinary young man in regular Western clothes, who pocketed his pay for the day and whistled as he walked down the stairs.

MacGregor looked at Jean.

"I really want a model," he said. "I want one badly. By rights, I should be painting over there,"—his gesture broadly pointed to Africa,—"but my market, damn it! is here. So I'm looking for a model. I've had plenty come who look the part (which you don’t) even Arabs from a Wild West show; but I haven’t found one who has any more imagination than a rabbit. I’m being honest with you because it’s clear you’re not the typical model. That’s why I asked you to wait. The model I’m searching for needs to work within certain restrictions of how Arab women are portrayed. Out there"—his hand again swept toward the Dark Continent—"you never see her face, as you probably know. You catch a glimpse of her eyes, if they’re not covered; you try to read their story. If even the eyes are hidden, you find yourself trying to interpret the draperies. Do you understand my problem? I want someone who can express emotions not just with their eyes, but without them. Now you," he concluded, with a touch of excitement, "you have the eyes. Don’t tell me you don’t have the rest."

Jean chuckled.

"I won't if I can avoid it," she assured him.

He picked up a costume that was resting on a low couch and rummaged through a pile of unframed canvases leaning against the wall.

"This sketch will give you an idea of how the dress looks," he said, and took his armful into the alcove.

When she reentered the studio, MacGregor was setting up a screen of a pattern Jean had never seen before.

"It was made from an old lattice," he said, setting a chair for her behind it. "I got it in Kairwan. This little door swings in its original position. You're looking now from a window—slightly open—through which generations of women, dressed like you are, have watched an Arab street."

He moved to the front of the screen and stared at her closely.

"Look over there," he said, pointing to a rose-water jar on a low shelf. "Expression," he paused, thinking. "How can I explain what I want you to suggest from the lattice? Don’t think about those women from the East. You can't really understand their lives. Think of something closer to home. Picture yourself in a convent—no, that's not right at all. Imagine you’re a prisoner, an innocent prisoner, looking through your bars at the world, longing—"

"Hold on," said Jean.

She immersed herself in his idea, shut out the studio and its achievements, and erased the busy city from her mind. She was once more a frustrated resident of Cottage No. 6, lying in her small room at dusk, while the woods beckoned to her with a hundred voices. There were flowers in the protected spots; arbutus, violets—

"You've got it!" MacGregor's excited voice brought her back. "You've got it! We'll start working tomorrow at nine."

"No entry, Mac?" a man's voice asked from the doorway. "I knocked according to the rules, but you seemed—" He stopped and stared intensely into the eyes that looked back at him with surprised curiosity from the lattice.

"I've found her, Atwood," MacGregor called out excitedly. "I've finally found her."

The newcomer took a hesitant step forward, stopped again, then quickly walked toward the screen.

"I think I have, too," he said, looking out the small window now. "It's Jack, right?"

XIX

And what about Jean?

It was as if she still lived in her imagination in that unforgettable past. She had broken free; she had arrived, a runaway, at the birch-lined edge of a secluded lake; her forest knight stood before her.

The amazed MacGregor, after waiting a reasonable time for some clarity on the situation, brought himself back to reality by simply folding the screen.

"Come on in, won't you?" he said with a smirk. "You might get cold by the window."

Atwood turned a lit face.

"It's been years since we saw each other," he said. "I wasn't sure at first—the outfit, the location."

MacGregor's gaze rested on him with a playful contemplation.

"Maybe you'll find a way to introduce me eventually," he suggested. "This has been a business meeting so far. We haven't gotten to names yet."

The younger man struggled, looking vibrant and healthy, but Jean kept her composure.

"Miss Fanshaw," she said quickly. "I should have mentioned it earlier."

She disappeared into the alcove, stared at her unfamiliar reflection in the small mirror, and started putting on her street clothes with fingers that weren't perfectly steady. There was a faint murmur of conversation coming from the studio, where MacGregor's sharp voice dominated. His companion's replies were scarce and quiet. When she stepped back in, Atwood was waiting by the outer door.

"At nine, then," MacGregor said. "See you later, Craig, if you have to leave."

"See you," answered the other, absently.

On the stairs, they looked at each other in amazement, still feeling the wonder of their meeting.

"You’re not a professional model," he said. "I should have come across you by now if you were."

"You’ve seen me get engaged for the first time."

"And with MacGregor! Was it just coincidence?"

"Just luck."

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "It could have been me. Yet it’s strange enough as it is. MacGregor in there was the guy I was supposed to camp with, you remember? The man whose grandmother—"

"Great-grandma, wasn't it?" she smiled.

"You remember!"

A silence settled between them for a moment as they glanced at each other shyly. He was acutely aware of the fuller curves that had marked her transformation into a woman, while she looked for signs of the youthful image that had returned with her through the gatehouse into captivity. He seemed more serious, fitting for a man reflecting on his vibrant twenties, with thoughtful lines around his eyes and a sharper definition of his jaw, which was still clean-shaven and pale, like someone who lived in the city. His mouth retained the sensitivity of youth, unblemished; and his direct gaze still held onto its warmth, though she sensed he was assessing her, wondering what kind of woman she had grown into.

"You went back," he interrupted the silence, "you went back to that hell because of what I said. You saw it through. Brave Jack!"

"Jean," she said.

"Why?"

"Jack was just another girl, a girl I hope I've moved past."

"Don't say that," he argued. "I knew her. But this Jean of the staircase—"

"Well?" she challenged, eager for his grown-up opinion.

"Makes me wonder," he finished, "if I've been outgrown, too."

It wasn't a satisfying answer. She recalled that growth could be anything but harmless.

"You!" she exclaimed.

"Why not? I was young, ridiculously young. If I had been older, I never would have had the guts to interfere with your life."

"Meddle!" she repeated, his self-blame resonating deeply; "you gave me the best advice a girl could ever get. That girl couldn’t see how wise it was, but this one does and thanks you with all her heart."

Atwood took a deep breath.

"You can say that!" he exclaimed. "You understood what it meant to come back; I didn’t. Ever since I realized the truth, my foolishness has given me no peace. I imagined—God knows what I haven’t imagined! To see you here, just like this; to have you thank me, when I thought I deserved your eternal hatred, feels like a second chance."

Jean's face lit up. "But you say you knew her!"

Their eyes met for a moment; then they laughed together joyfully.

"You're right," he admitted. "I don't really know either of you. But we can’t talk here, can we? We need—" He paused, then said, "Give me today," he pleaded. "We're not strangers. Just say you will!"

As they stepped onto the pavement, the driver of a passing cab held up a hand to signal them. Atwood nodded, and a moment later, they merged into the flow of traffic on one of the avenues and headed north. For Jean, quietly enjoying her first ride in a hansom cab, it felt like they had barely begun before they turned into one of the entrances to Central Park. They briefly followed the bustling afternoon crowd before turning onto a less busy path, where they got out. Atwood hadn’t said anything during the lively rush of the avenue and main roads, and he remained silent now as they left the paved paths for quieter trails, where their feet touched the earth and the scent of leaf mold filled the air.

Right now he stopped.

"Will you close your eyes for a bit?" he asked. "It's my desire."

She agreed, and they moved ahead slowly, her hand on his sleeve. She noticed the path sloping downward, gently at first, then with sharp turns past protruding rocks, where it seemed there was no path at all. Her sense of direction failed her, and with it, her memory of how close the city was. The sounds around her were all from nature. She heard the call of a catbird, the bark of a squirrel, and the playful murmur of a brook among the stones, which she guessed, if her ear hadn’t lost its touch with the woods, blended its irritable sound into some nearby lake or pool.

"Now," her guide said, pausing.

She looked, jumped, and quickly turned to Atwood to see him smiling at her immediate understanding.

"It could be the exact same thing!" she exclaimed.

"Mightn't it? The birches, the shoreline—"

"And the stream, even the little stream! I wonder if I could find watercress there?"

The guy laughed.

"Ah, it feels real to you! I also forgot about New York when I first discovered it. I even searched for watercress. But that little brook has no such purity! I've had to pretend with it, just like I did with the lake. The landscape designer was a clever guy. He makes you think there are distances out there—twisting channels, unexplored depths; he tricks you into believing you have a forest behind you. Sometimes he almost got me to throw a clumsy line into that thicket over there."

Jean's gaze came back to him quickly. He was smiling, but there was a serious undertone.

"You know it well," she said.

"I should have. It was here, the summer after we met, that I started to understand what I had asked you to do. I began to look into shelters. I visited as many as I could, mostly places for boys; I even tried to catch a glimpse of you or hear any news. Somehow, though, I never found the right official, and it seemed like men weren't allowed. I did learn a few things, though. I sifted through reports; I discovered what your daily life was like, who your friends must be, and once I saw a news article about a riot. But I heard nothing about you. How could I? I didn't even know your name—I, your judge!"

The girl walked over to the edge of the lake and for a moment stood gazing dreamily at its calm reflection of the shifting trees and September sky. To the wonder of their encounter was added the realization that just as he had occupied her thoughts during the difficult times, she had also held his.

"Will you sit here?" he asked, moving closer to her. "I want to hear the whole story—the one that started back with the other birches."

"It started long before."

"Not my thing."

"But it should. If you thought about me at all, you must have wondered how I ended up in a refuge uniform."

"I thought about it, sure; but I never truly cared. I could see for myself what you were."

She examined his face with the doubt that the world had instilled in her, then, with a quick gasp, looked away in belief.

"We have to start from the beginning," she said.

She shared her story with him just like she had with the dentist that awful night of explanations at the Lorna Doone. But whereas Paul's deafening silence had stifled her, made her doubt herself, and left her speechless, this listener’s belief in her energized her words, helped her navigate the tough spots where she hesitated, and wrapped her in a protective layer of kindness. Still, despite his understanding, it pained her; the consequences of her mistakes always felt so irrational, her regrets were so deep, and once, when she started to talk about Stella and the riot, he cut her off.

"Please don't continue," he pleaded. "I can see how much it's taking out of you."

"I'd prefer you to hear everything," she replied. "You deserve that."

Nevertheless, she didn’t share everything with him. She could talk about Stella, Amy, young Meyer, and the floor-walker, but the name Paul never left her lips. She allowed Atwood to assume that the shame of the refuge had pushed her out of Grimes's job, just as it had forced her out of the department store. The entire series of events connected to the dentist's name had suddenly become as confusing to her as it was to this extraordinary hero of a perfect day.

The sun was setting when she finished, and the long shadows of the birches on the lake reminded them of that other sunset.

"You were a lonely little figure when I looked back," he said. "I carried that picture with me through the hills, and it stayed my clearest memory. It was a sad memory, a silent accusation, like the poor things I bought for you to wear."

"Then you actually got them!" she exclaimed, her dress fluttering with excitement. "What were they like?"

"I'll show them to you someday."

"You still have them? I need to pay what I owe."

He shook his head. "They're not for sale. You'll see them when you come to my studio."

"Are you an artist, too?"

"I paint," he replied straightforwardly. "When you're not tied up with MacGregor, you'll find work with me. We'll sort that out ourselves. Old Mac has no idea about our secret."

"Is it a secret?"

"With me, at least. I've never shared. You see"—he looked away shyly, almost like a young boy; then back again with a nervousness that was youthful too—"you see, I was jealous of my memories. I wanted to keep them entirely to myself. Our meeting was—how should I put it?—a kind of dream. And you—have you shared?"

"Not a chance."

"Was it partly because of my thinking?"

"Yes," she replied, "partly for your reason."

"But those clothes," he said after a moment, "you'll smile when you see them. I've tried so many times to picture you wearing them, facing the world just like you planned so boldly. Maybe it wouldn’t have been any harder than it is now. Maybe—but that's behind us, thank goodness! You’ve earned your freedom and you have a better future ahead than just being on the run. I’m not talking about a model's life. That will be short-lived. There’s something in you, something special that just needs its chance. I can’t explain how I know this any more than I can define what it is, but I believe in it as strongly as I believe in my own existence. I know it’s true, as true as the fact that we’re standing here together."

By some kind of mental magic, he reflected her own unclear hopes back to her.

"But I’m a woman," she said, eager for more.

"So much the better. You live in a time for women. But don't forget that you've shared some of it with me," he added as she stood up. "My own special time isn't over yet. When we first met, you invited me for lunch, or was it breakfast? I'm going to return the favor."

"But—"

"You couldn't be better dressed for a park restaurant," he interjected, following her gaze. "They'll serve us under an arbor where the wisteria blooms in May. We'll just have to fake the wisteria, but that should be easy. The big pretense has come true."

XX

She found out from MacGregor what Atwood's simple "I paint" really meant.

"He's an illustrator who really brings things to life," he told her on their first day while they worked. "I mean—can you raise your left arm a bit higher, please? You've changed the pose—I mean he really gets into the characters of a writer, when they actually have some depth. If they're just vague ideas, he gives them a whole form with blood, bones, and skin. It's a rarer talent than you might think, despite all the jokes made in newspapers. You can count the number of people who can do this in New York on one hand, and in my opinion, Craig deserves to be recognized as the best. He could find a soul for a rag doll. But I'm just repeating what you'll find more emphatically stated in any top-tier magazine you pick up."

Jean hid her lack of knowledge in silence and relied on MacGregor's excitement for more clarity. After a productive wait, it arrived.

"But that's not all," he added, leaning back to look at his canvas through partially closed eyes. "The public doesn't really understand Atwood's true metier. He's bigger than they realize. I'll show you something in a minute. It's time to take a break."

He hesitated for a moment to make a brush stroke that, in one sweep, brought life to a lazy fold of fabric, and then he walked across the studio to the pile of unfinished pieces against the wall.

"Wait," he cautioned, setting a canvas in the trial frame and cautiously moving an easel. "It’s still a bit rough, but we can add light and a background. Now look. That’s what I would call portraiture."

Even her untrained eye could see its power. It was MacGregor looking out at her, MacGregor as she had seen him twice that day, with his work mode on, New York forgotten and Africa on his mind.

"And Mr. Atwood really did it?"

"Nobody else. He sat over in that corner while I worked in mine and painted what he saw."

"It's a great likeness."

"Likeness!" MacGregor shook the poor word with disdain. "Likeness! Kid, it's fortune-telling!"

He let her go early in the afternoon because it was raining off and on and the light was dim. As she left, she headed toward the Astor Library, motivated by the conversation she had with MacGregor. She was somewhat familiar with lending libraries, but this serious building felt overwhelming, and she looked around in vain for her older boarder who spent his days somewhere among its dreariness. While she was in this predicament, a polite staff member spotted her. His young face, framed by old-fashioned side-whiskers, reminded her of some of the middle-Victorian gentlemen in Thackeray's works that she had gotten to know during her visits to the dentist. This staff member took her into a large reading room and assured her that ladies were welcome, despite the annoyed looks from the mostly male patrons whose tranquility she disrupted. He then found her the two or three illustrated magazines she requested.

Without exception, these included Atwood's work, which impressed her a lot; and without exception, they demonstrated his superiority just as strongly as MacGregor did. She examined these drawings one by one, considering them much like she considered his spoken thoughts, and judging them, no less than his words, as honest reflections of his personality. As for what made this personality appealing, she neither had the distance nor the desire to define it; she could only feel its sincerity, its romance, and its power without any criticism.

She wanted to know more than what these silent witnesses could offer, so she found herself back in the grand chamber where the library seemed to come alive. There, overwhelmed by the wealth of the card catalogue, she was fortunately noticed by the quiet old man who added a sense of authority to Mrs. St. Aubyn's table. He smiled kindly at her over his glasses, wondering about her reasons for her request, just as he had contemplated the motivations of countless others before her. Without hesitation, from the depths of his knowledge that she felt she hadn’t fully tapped into, he provided half a dozen promising references and quickly sent a bright young boy to fetch them from a hidden area he referred to as the stacks. Meanwhile, he gallantly led her to a desk in a scholarly nook where only curious female glances acknowledged her presence.

So settled in, she found the information she was looking for in a bound edition of a journal focused mainly on the fine arts. She discovered that her knight in shining armor's full name was Francis Craig Atwood, that he was born in New York, and that he was a little less than ten years older than her. Then came a list of his schools, ending with Julien's Academy in Paris, where it seemed he had gone the autumn after they met and had showcased his paintings at the Salons for two consecutive years. His return to America and his immediate rise to fame happened around the same time she came to New York. The final analysis of his work was packed with technical jargon, but she read into it the traits she saw or imagined in the man, and, staring into the dusty corner across from her seat, became lost in thought about what such success likely meant to him. She assumed there were newspaper articles about his arrivals and departures, many sketches like this one in her hands, social opportunities, of course, the admiration of women, friendships with the clever and wealthy. It quite overwhelmed her to find out he was a celebrity, and in that moment, nothing could have shaken her composure more than realizing that a man she had been vaguely aware of nearby at another bookshelf was none other than Atwood himself.

"Thanks," he laughed, waving his hand toward the obvious page. "But there's better stuff to read in the library."

Jean clapped her hands over the loud volume and blushed deeply with embarrassment.

"You must think I'm really silly," she stammered. "Mr. MacGregor praised your work and showed me the portrait—"

"Of course he did. You’ve figured out Mac’s weakness and his risky charm. He thinks all his friends are brilliant. You’ll become as full of yourself as the rest of us eventually."

"And have the other arrogant friends done work like yours and said nothing about it?" she asked.

"A thousand times better. You have no idea how many clever men and women Mac knows." He quickly named several well-known artists, sculptors, and writers, adding: "But you'll see them all at The Oasis eventually. You've probably noticed that Mac is one of those rare people who can talk while they work. What stops most people only motivates him. And it motivates the other person too. I always stop by for a boost when my own work is sluggish. I was there this afternoon, actually, but for a different reason. I wanted to see you. It must have been telepathy that brought me down here; I thought it was 'The Gadzooks'!"

"'The Gadzooks,'" she wondered.

"Just my way of talking about the Revolutionary romance," he explained. "I'm showing another one, and I came in here to clear up my confusion about bag-wigs. My novelist seems to have created a new kind. But what about you: if you don't mind the weather and have nothing better to do, I'd like to take you to a Fifth Avenue art dealer to check out a so-called Velasquez that's just come on the market."

Jean took in more than just the true significance and quality of Velasquez's paintings. Whether it was wet or dry, the weather was perfect. If it rained, there were still other picture dealers' cozy galleries where one could linger comfortably; and during the sunny moments, the equally captivating shop windows beckoned, each offering a glimpse into the enchanting world of Europe, which her guide seemed to know intimately. They even talked about heading to the Metropolitan to check out a Frans Hals and a Rembrandt, suggested by the conversation about Velasquez, but Atwood's ridiculous watch, backed up by a few equally silly clocks in the area, clearly indicated that it was well past closing time at the museum and definitely the end of the day here among the shops.

He was reluctant to let her go.

"It's been like a really short trip abroad," he said. "I don't want to head home just yet. Why can't we have dinner like we did last night?"

She shrugged.

"Yesterday was a special day."

"Say Italy?" he insisted. "We've already covered England, France, and the Low Countries; why not Italy? I know a little spot that's as Italian as Naples. You'd never guess it was there. It looks like every other rundown brownstone outside, with no sign of its real purpose, because they say old Gaetano Sanfratello doesn't have a license. He checks you out through the basement grating, and if he thinks you're worthy, he leads you down a narrow hallway into the most amazing kitchen you've ever seen. It's spotless and a true treasure trove of shiny copper. Then you'll find yourself in what ordinary New York calls a backyard, but it’s actually a trattoria in the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, whose picture you’ll see above the door. There are bunches of ripe grapes on the trellis overhead, and Chianti or real Capri wine on the table beneath; they’ll serve you artichoke soups, cheese soufflés, and amazing chestnut dishes fit for the gods! And Gaetano's lovely daughter will wait on us and sing 'Bella Napoli,' and maybe, if we’re really lucky, she’ll let us take a peek at her baby, all wrapped up just like the one in that copy of Luca della Robbia you’re staring at right now. Aren't you tempted?"

She was, but successfully held her ground; and when he realized she was steadfast, he walked with her to her street, envisioning other vacations in a future free of shadows.

"You need to leave that gray time behind you," he declared. "Think of this as your real beginning—your rebirth, your renaissance."

So it really was. The weeks that followed were filled with rapid growth and maturing, which, as Atwood had suggested, found their driving force in the girl’s own determination. Her ambition to give her all for MacGregor, to learn what books could teach about the life he experienced, drew her back to the library repeatedly; then there were other ideas from the studio, which, even at its smallest, was a source of fascinating insights about everyday things that few, except the artist, seemed to notice as they really were. Who but he, for example, took the time to think that sunlight filtering through leaves fell in circles; that shadows were violet, not black; that tobacco smoke coming from the mouth was a different color than the graceful spiral coming from the tip of a cigarette? But this area of knowledge led into countless others in the vast world where her two friends expressed their unique talents; and these, in turn, connected with the boundaries of even more, whose only limits were those of Humanity. Life itself set the true horizon for MacGregor's Oasis.

Among MacGregor's close friends who shared the secret knock that let them in at all hours, but who, busy with their own lives, usually showed up after sunset, was a sculptor named Karl Richter. His specialty was the American Indian, but he also had firsthand experience with Arabs, and Africa, in its many forms, was always a topic of conversation when he and MacGregor got together. Listening to their discussions, Jean began to imagine the bronze-skinned people, the vibrant markets, the wild sounds of hautboys and drums, the gardens filled with fig, olive, orange, and palm trees, the roadside thickets of bamboo, tamarisk, or scarlet geraniums, and especially the mysterious, daunting, beautiful desert, as things she had experienced herself. One day, they were talking about camels and started to argue, and Richter, to make his point, pulled a lump of modeling wax from his pocket, which, under his skilled hands, quickly transformed into an impressive replica of the animal itself. It was barely an inch tall, but it looked just like a real camel—stubborn, complaining, alive. When MacGregor challenged him, the sculptor casually squashed the tiny creature with a pinching motion, tossed the wax aside, and shortly afterward went on his way.

Dissatisfied with his work, MacGregor quickly pulled his canvas off the easel and laid it flat on the floor, starting to rearrange pieces of cardboard to find a better composition. Jean, left to her own devices, picked up the discarded wax, tried unsuccessfully to bring back the lost camel, and then entertained herself with her own idea. She became so absorbed that MacGregor finished his experiments without her noticing, and when he didn’t get an answer to his question, he came over and peeked over her shoulder, still ignored.

"Great Jupiter Pluvius!" he exclaimed.

Jean spun around.

"Wow, you really surprised me!" she said.

"It's nothing compared to how you startled me. Where did you see that head you used as a model?"

"Oh, this?" She tried to put the wax away. "It's nothing—just a baby in our neighborhood."

MacGregor jumped on the model and held it up to the light.

"Nothing! Just a study from life, that's all! Just a little something created in your spare time!" He spun the small head around, bursting with exclamations. "Who taught you?" he asked, pacing back and forth. "Someone else had a hand in this besides you. There are lines here that can't be just instinctive."

"I used to watch my dad."

"Was he a sculptor?"

"He could have been, if he had the opportunity. But he had to focus on other things, and he got married—"

"I get it, I get it," MacGregor sighed. "Love in a cottage and forget about art! But he couldn't keep his mind or his hands away from it. He shaped it whenever he could."

Jean nodded dreamily.

"Sundays, mostly," she replied. "We used to head out to the countryside together. He discovered a good spot with clay near a creek where the mint grew. I can never smell mint without thinking of those times. I couldn't go back there after he died."

MacGregor shot her a sideways look, hesitated, took an unnecessary walk across the studio, and kicked a fallen burnous hard.

"But you kept modeling?" he asked as he came back.

"Yeah—eventually. Then I quit."

"Why?"

"I—I didn't have the clay?" she dodged.

MacGregor stared at her work for a moment longer, then set his jaw.

"You'll have the 'clay' from now on," he said.

XXI

At first, she was quite doubtful about his belief in her. Hadn't Atwood mentioned that MacGregor recognized genius in everyone he knew? But the younger man now regarded him as a very perceptive judge.

"It's the thing I figured out," he said excitedly, "the gold vein I believed in but didn't have the luck to find. Now to develop it! What does Mac suggest?"

"One of the art schools," Jean said. "I can go in the evenings, it looks like."

"And working days! You've got a tough schedule planned."

"But the school won't be a lot of work," she said. "Plus, posing is much easier now. Mr. MacGregor says my muscles are nearly as steady as a pro's."

"So he tells me. I'm going to insist on sharing your time. He’s had you all to himself for too long."

MacGregor's monopoly didn't end right away, though. When he discovered Jean's talent, his first move was to bring in Richter for expert feedback and guidance, resulting in the sculptor's studio being open to her during the day while MacGregor worked with male models. The clay modeling room at the art school was an amazing place. Its casts, tools, and techniques were a revelation compared to the rough methods her father had to use; but Richter's studio was on a whole different level, like a university compared to a kindergarten. Here, ideas were born that were immortalized in bronze!

The studio and the sculptor were both one of a kind. A small man with a fragile frame, Karl Richter took joy in the muscular and the massive, appearing like a little person among his own creations. Michelangelo was his idol; however, his style was distinctly his own, and the Native Americans and cowboys he loved to portray were far enough removed from the great Florentine's subjects to free him from any claims of copying. Despite his frail build, he made an effort to witness the primitive life he admired, and the slacker who dubbed "The Oasis" humorously referred to the sculptor's place as "The Wigwam," spinning a playful tale that Richter worked in a blanket and moccasins and frequently smoked a peace pipe that once belonged to Sitting Bull. Richter never disputed this story, which had by now been validated in print, and he took great pleasure in the puzzled looks unfamiliar visitors gave him due to his typical clothing. Nevertheless, the studio itself, which had been converted from a stable, was quite picturesque. It was filled with treasures from ranches and tepees, and, thanks to the Wild West show that occasionally provided MacGregor with Arabs, it sometimes hosted genuine, though somewhat sophisticated, Native Americans.

About this time, Jean left Mrs. St. Aubyn's, and Paul, after a period of feeling down and quiet, started visiting the area again. So far, she had managed to avoid him, but she felt that they would have to meet if she stayed. With Amy's sudden departure, which happened now, she moved to a boarding house recommended by Atwood in Irving Place.

"There are no signs of any kind of market here, whether trendy or not," he said. "It's just a cozy place, not too big or too small, where you'll mostly find art students. Many of them, like you, are carving out their own paths, and they're all completely serious about it. All the illustrators know Mrs. Saunders. Half of us have stayed under her roof at some point."

"You, too!"

He smiled at her vibe.

"I wasn't born with a silver spoon, you know. Some New Yorkers aren't. I got a bit of inheritance, but I'm not rich yet, even if some editors are nice to me. Julie and I really learned how to save money back in the day. Have I ever talked about my sister, Mrs. Van Ostade?"

"You talked about her the first day I saw you."

"At the birches?" he replied, surprised.

"You said she wouldn't get it."

His expression changed.

"I remember," he said. "And it's true. I’m afraid she wouldn’t understand now. She's been married and widowed since then. You’ll see her at the studio if MacGregor ever lets us start working together. She catches me off guard there when she thinks I’m ignoring my responsibilities to socialize. Julie has all the enthusiasm of a new convert in her efforts for society," he added with a laugh. "She married into one of the old Dutch families."

Jean discovered that a tradition from Mrs. Van Ostade's home in Irving Place still existed. She was referred to as Craig Atwood's sister, the smart girl who had maneuvered her way into prominence, earning nothing a year by engaging in fashionable charities. It seemed that settlement work had been the leverage she used. However, no one here had actually known her, except for Mrs. Saunders, who was extremely discreet when gossip was circulating. In fact, the lack of gossip, in the negative sense of the term, was a quiet accomplishment that her entire household could boast. Mostly art students, as Atwood had anticipated, the most interesting personalities among Jean's new acquaintances focused on the whims of the masters they secretly admired and often imitated. So, the life-class girl would wrinkle her pretty forehead over the sketch of a beginner in antique drawing, mimicking the exact "Ha!" and "Not half bad!" of the distinguished artist and critic who, twice a week, made her heart race with his sharp criticism or praise.

Illustrating, painting, sculpture, architecture, decorative design—whatever their individual choice, each person centered their life around the particular school they followed. Art—always art—was the focus of their conversations, and even the two young men, one a budding lawyer and the other an aspiring playwright, spoke the language of the studios. Adding to this shared interest was the realization that they all came from rural roots. Half a dozen states were claimed as their origins, and not even Mrs. Saunders, who seemed as urban as the City Hall, could say she was born in New York. They were filled with youthful confidence in their ability to achieve success in this foreign land of opportunity, which charged the atmosphere with electricity and inspired Jean’s already plentiful energy to tireless effort. Her days felt too short, and Atwood, whose invitations she constantly declined for the sake of her art, began to warn her about the risks of overworking herself.

"Philosophical nonsense, as my sister calls it, has its purposes," he said. "I usually agree with her social teachings, even if I don’t follow them very closely. You should meet Julie. I’ll ask her to give you a call."

Whether he did or not, Jean had no idea. In any case, Mrs. Van Ostade didn’t revisit Irving Place, nor did Atwood bring it up again. If the gossip columns were to be trusted, the lady was fully occupied with philosophical nonsense. MacGregor soon shone a probing light on her personality.

"See that bit of rude detail, the pointless gem?" he asked, poking at one of Atwood's drawings that a holiday magazine had printed in color too soon. "Craig never made it."

"Then who did it?" Jean asked.

"His sis."

"Is she an artist?"

"By proxy. I mean she suggested this just like she has suggested every misleading note that's crept into his work. Left to his own devices, Craig never overdoes it. But he looks up to her like a younger brother often does to a sister who has taken care of him. It was probably a good thing at one point—I admit she’s smart and driven; but now it’s time for the pampering to end. It eased up for a while when she got involved with the Dutch—she was too busy to bother with him; but now that her husband is underground and Craig is gaining momentum, it’s started up again. Artistically, she’s his bad influence. Of course, he can’t see it, or won’t. I’ve done everything I can to make him understand."

"You told him!"

"Sure; and her too. I've known them both for years. What are you smiling about?"

"Your honesty. What did he say?"

MacGregor frowned.

"Just the same old nonsense I've always heard," he muttered. "They called me a woman-hater. What do you think?" he challenged her suddenly. "You've been around me for a while. Do I come off as that kind of guy? I want your honest opinion."

Jean responded to him with equal honesty.

"A woman-hater?" she repeated. "Never. I think you are"—she searched for the word—"a woman-idolater."

MacGregor firmly told himself that there was no sarcasm meant.

"Explain," he directed.

"I mean, it seems to me that you hold women in such high regard that regular women can't meet your ideal."

"Humph!" he said ungraciously. "Where did you learn to make cheap remarks? It's probably just an echo of something you've read."

He called her different names like Miss Epigrams, Lady Blessington, and Madame de Staël as the work continued, always with deep seriousness, until finally, when he noticed her cheeks turn red from his teasing, he let out a hearty laugh and admitted.

"You're right, Miss Epigrams. That's one reason I'm still single. It's also why I haven't wanted to see Craig take the only guaranteed solution. A wife would show his sister her place, if she had the right qualities." He laughed at the image his words created. "But it would be a huge fight."

It was spring before Jean finally saw Mrs. Van Ostade. She had posed for Atwood several times after Christmas but had always happened to be with MacGregor or Richter when his sister came to the studio, until the April afternoon when Julie's knock interrupted an overdue illustration that Atwood was working hard to finish. He frowned at the interruption and answered the door without setting down the maul-stick, palette, and brushes that filled his hands; but his "You, Julie!" at the door showed no impatience, and his slow return suggested anything but rush as he stepped out with his dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned visitor from behind the screen.

"Those stairs!" the lady sighed. Then, noticing Jean, she put her through a harsh examination with her lorgnette, which scanned her from her face down to her gown—where the scrutiny lingered—and then returned to her face with renewed intensity.

Hot plowshares couldn't have felt more intense for poor Jean, who, fully aware that the dress she was wearing was a glamorous piece from Mrs. Van Ostade's evening collection left for the studio, was troubled by the idea that at some point in her uncertain past, she and this sister of Craig Atwood had crossed paths before.

A look of understanding for her embarrassment appeared on the man's face.

"This is Miss Fanshaw," he said, "an artist in her own right. You've heard me talk about her, Julie."

The lorgnon fell, and the two women shared a bow that was clear to see.

"I know that face," Mrs. Van Ostade said, with a detached vibe as if she were identifying a scientific phenomenon. "Where did I see it?"

Jean now remembered this elusive detail most clearly, but she stayed composed.

"Maybe in Mr. Atwood's work," she suggested coolly.

"Of course," echoed Atwood, eager to wrap up the situation. "You'll find Miss Fanshaw in about half of my recent work."

"The living face has no artistic connections at all," replied his sister firmly. "I'll remember eventually. But keep working, Craig. I didn't come to interrupt you—just to share a piece of news that I’ll tell you as soon as I catch my breath."

Atwood put a chair down and went back to his easel, pretending to work, which Jean’s trained eye recognized as his typical polite act for visitors who thought they weren’t interrupting. Meanwhile, Mrs. Van Ostade, tossing her furs back, dismissed the model as just another piece of the studio’s décor, which she now assessed leisurely.

"Those stairs!" she said again, catching her breath in her own special way by talking more. "Honestly, Craig, you couldn't have picked a more inconvenient place."

"We thought it was a miracle to have the money once," he reminded. "I bet I could find a more convenient workspace in one of the new office buildings, but then I wouldn't have my open fire."

"You could have it at Copley Studios, with modern amenities as well."

"Up there!" he mocked. "I don't fit in with the pink-tea crowd, Julie."

Mrs. Van Ostade wouldn't smile back at him.

"The location matters," she insisted.

"With certain people."

"With the helpful people. I've thought it through carefully; I've used my eyes and ears. The studio definitely has significance. It should be more than just a workshop, as you say. It needs to have character. Even our buddy down the street has managed that. Primitive as it is, MacGregor's studio has a clear artistic cohesion."

"Mac's place shows his work. So does mine."

"Yours! It's a mix of everything, a thrift shop."

"Of course it is," he laughed. "I've raided two-thirds of these treasures from the Ghetto. But even thrift stores have character—a musty one—so it only makes sense that my studio does too."

She tolerated his silly antics with a wonderful patience.

"Could you meet with Mrs. Joyce-Reeves in a place like this?" she asked sweetly.

"Sure; if any possible task could get that important person to step through the door."

"There's a possible reason."

Her tone caught his attention. Jean, overlooked by both of them, realized that he also attached some importance to the imagined visit. She couldn’t understand this, despite Mrs. Joyce-Reeves's standing in New York's social scene.

"Is this your news, Julie?" he asked.

His sister enjoyed his sudden interest for a moment.

"Some of it," she said. "She saw your dry-point of me at Mrs. Quentin Van Ostade's the other day."

"The dry-point!" he said dismissively. "It was just an experiment."

"So I told her. She asked if you do any oil painting for portraits, and of course I said yes."

"Seriously!"

"Well, haven't you?"

"Trash, absolutely; loads of it."

"Maybe you think your portrait of Malcolm MacGregor is worthless? Mrs. Joyce-Reeves didn't."

"She saw it!"

"I casually mentioned that it had been displayed with MacGregor's African studies exhibit on Fifth Avenue, and she noted the address. That was two days ago. This afternoon, I ran into her again—saw her leaving the gallery."

"Well?" Atwood urged, impatiently.

"She told me she bought two of MacGregor's pieces," continued Mrs. Van Ostade, taking her time. "She got a desert nocturne and that strange veiled woman at a window—you remember?"

"Do I!" He turned around. "Did you hear that, Jean? Mrs. Joyce-Reeves bought 'The Lattice'! Miss Fanshaw posed for it, Julie."

"Absolutely!" The lorgnon, once again raised at the familiar "Jean," acknowledged that young person's presence. "I'm not into it. But more importantly, Mrs. Joyce-Reeves brought up your portrait."

"Sure?"

"And this time I asked for your address."

"Wow! You think—"

"I'm sure she'll give you a commission."

"Wow!" he said again, "what a chance!" and walked around the studio. "But she might. She loves to act like she's a discoverer. What a chance! What a huge opportunity! It would mean—what wouldn't it mean?" He stopped excitedly in front of the desk where Jean was waiting to continue her interrupted impersonation of a note-writing debutante. "It would take a lot of nerve, tons of it. She's been painted by Sargent, Chartran, Zorn—all the big names. A guy would need to find a angle they missed. But if he could! You can't imagine her influence, Jean. If she buys a man's paintings, all the little fish in her circle rush to buy them too. That's not the main issue though, even if I recognize its importance. The chance to paint her, to discover the woman underneath—that's what really matters. I have a theory. I met her once—she bought one of my originals, thanks again to Julie—and something she said makes me think—but I'm talking like I already have the commission."

Jean barely heard. As much as she felt for him, Julie Van Ostade's face, from the moment Atwood's conversation stopped being just hers, caught her attention more.

"Craig," his sister interrupted sharply, "my furs."

He blankly touched the ground.

"Are you not going, Julie?"

"My fur coats," she repeated.

"But I haven't started to thank you," he said, following along.

"Isn't that a bit too soon?" She moved gracefully toward the door, which he quickly opened for her. The girl was just a blank slate in her way.

Then the door closed and Atwood, looking confused, slowly walked up the studio to face yet another issue in feminine psychology with the now completely furious Jean.

"Why did you introduce me?" she asked angrily. "Why couldn’t you just let me be an ordinary model to her? I'm just an ordinary model in her eyes—ordinary in every way. I remember exactly where she saw me, and she'll remember it too, don’t worry."

"Jean! Jean!" He rushed to her in distress.

"It was a bar, and the girl with me had had too much to drink. We totally entertained your sister's theater group. They were probably just checking out the rough crowd!"

He got a more relaxed version from her soon.

"I know the place," he said. "It was pretty popular before everyone realized it was just fake-German, after all. It's a perfectly decent rathskeller. You went with some guy, right?"

Jean's enthusiasm for confession faded.

"With a friend of Amy's from the boarding house," she replied briefly.

Atwood let out a relieved laugh.

"You've blown this totally out of proportion," he said to her. "But I'm glad you brought it up. I'll talk to Julie if she ever brings it up again. Don’t judge her too harshly, Jean. I know she seems a bit cold at first, maybe even rude, but there’s more to her than that, trust me. You saw how dedicated she is to helping me."

She had definitely seen, and that knowledge bothered her.

"You shouldn't have introduced me or made me share your conversation," she said. "You thought you were being kind, but it wasn't kind at all; it was humiliating, a—" Then the tension broke, and her head dropped down between her arms.

"Kindness!" He pulled her close with intensity. "Kindness, Jean! Can’t you see why I wanted you to share it with me? Don’t you understand that I want you to share everything? I love you, Jean."

For a long moment, she gave in; then she slipped away from him, and the writing desk was between them.

"Don't," she said firmly. "You can't say those things to me."

"Mustn't?"

"I can't marry you."

"Can't! Just a moment ago—"

"I can't marry you," she said again, breathless.

"But your kiss—"

"Was a lie—too bad—whatever you want. I was all over the place. I—I don't love you."

He looked at her face, confused for a moment.

"Jean," he ordered; "look at me!"

She confronted him.

"Now say that to me again—right in my eyes."

"Don't," she begged.

"Speak up!"

"You heard me."

"I want to hear it again—scout's honor!" He waited.

"I won't do it."

He confidently walked toward her.

"You can't," he shouted. "The kiss was real. It was the truth, the genuine truth! What kind of selfish craziness made you think you could fool me?"

"Think about your career," she said, "your sister's life, which is also your life."

But the time for reasoning was over.

XXII

What happened next between brother and sister, Jean didn’t hear or really think about. The details, reasons, and intentions were overshadowed by the huge fact that Julie called. The fact that she made this gesture at a time when even the slightest knowledge of the girl’s habits would suggest she wasn’t at Irving Place only gave Jean a huge sense of relief. The silent cardboard was intimidating enough on its own.

She felt even more relieved that, due to some bad luck, for which Atwood, who accompanied her, blamed himself, her return call found Julie not home. She didn’t have any visiting cards since she had never really needed them before; but Atwood helped her fake it in front of the rather intimidating servant by saying she had forgotten hers, and, writing her name on one of his own, took her out for an evening at the theater.

Here, for the course of a week, things settled down, only to give rise to a new embarrassment in the end, making calls seem trivial. This was nothing less than an invitation to dinner, and not just with Mrs. Van Ostade and Atwood, but as part of a somewhat formal gathering—so Craig explained to her—of the intelligent or socially important.

Jean listened to these disheartening explanations with a troubled expression.

"I can't go," she quickly protested. "Please don't ask me."

"Can't!" he repeated. "Why not?"

"You know why. They’re different, these people—completely different from me, like I was Chinese."