Four of a Kind: A women's historical fiction (10 page)

Not to mention, revenge would be sweet for Mr. Phillip’s and Mama’s deception.

Mary Sue looked across the table at me and I gave her a promising smile. Her eyes hardened and she returned a look that could kill.

I returned to Annan with my tail between my legs, my virginity intact, my mouth shut. I started where I left off and joined in the celebration for winning the women’s vote.

Like I said, I was supposed to be happy. I walked in my place in the celebration parade, smiling and waving, tiny pieces of paper falling down around me as if the white fluffy clouds above me had burst. But with the chill in my heart, they might as well be snow. I wanted to step out of line but I didn’t know where else to go, so I did what I always did and followed behind the others.

“Okay, Mama, I’m here,” I muttered through clenched teeth, truly hating her. I hoped my face favored a smile, and while doing so, wondering how to get even with her. I didn’t want the other women in my group to think I was unappreciative. After all, we had worked hard for this. Yet, the one woman I struggled through this for the
most, didn’t show up yet again. She made it clear to me under no uncertain terms that it was my duty to march in her place. But to
marry
in her place – that’s a bit extreme. I had gone as far as I would go with that woman – damn hypocrite!

Yes, I festered, even with such festivity, complete with the high school band, zigzagging, tooting, booming, some blowing so hard into their wind instruments, their faces were red and blown round as beets. All were celebrating something that many in our midst had fought hard to prevent, or at the very least, had scorned and mocked.

I was reminded of the Henny Penny story where she could find no one to help her plant or harvest the wheat but plenty showed up to eat the bread.

My fellow suffragists looked genuinely happy, some letting white doves out of baskets along the way. We all wore banners that declared boldly, “Women Won the Vote!”

How many times had I petitioned for this moment? After nine years of hard lobbying, if my group knew how I felt now, if Mama knew how I felt … well, it couldn’t be helped – my heart wasn’t in it. Mama had spoiled my one day in the sun.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton predicted rightly when she wrote,
This is winter wheat we are sewing and other hands will harvest.

This was harvest time and women were finally declared as people, but instead, my head inflamed with complaint. In solace, I wrote a speech and was asked to give this speech after the parade. Poor timing.

In remembrance of Annan’s first Women’s Rights Convention of 1910, we used the large gazebo in the City Hall Park for the open-air ceremony. We ‘women-folk’ sat along the back bench, taking turns in speaking. The crowd numbered five hundred, I’d say; another implication of 1920’s open-mindedness to women’s advances.

Yet this gazebo also felt like poor timing for me in that while I sat inside there waiting my turn, I pictured us as colorful birds trapped in a large cage, while many people sauntered by looking at this strange species of females.

I had been instructed to speak for three minutes on my favorite topic of Susan B. Anthony, with the purpose of reminding our audience of sacrifices made, and to end this on an inspirational note.

I did this. And then ended it in writing, “As my mama wrote ten years ago and I sang so proudly here as an eleven-year old, ‘Women are people too; we are no less than you. Equal rights will see us through; to share where freedom reigns!’ To my mama, Ruby Wright, who could not be here.” I paused dramatically. “To the Ladies Legion, to Mrs. Catt, to Miss Anthony, to so many others, many of whom
are
here today, thank you for your courage. For standing strong. Now we must move forward. Don’t let us stand still. Ladies, be sure to cast your hard-earned vote in November!”

That was the last of my written speech and I should have stopped there, but the crowd’s standing cheers spilled over into an act of foolishness. I shouted like there was no tomorrow, “The
corset
of social injustice has been removed, so you must continue to remove
all
that binds you! Be free, ladies! That is the law of progress. Be passionately interested in yourselves. We must catch up to the men because our rights are not as developed as theirs. We must fight against child labor, women’s low wages, and men’s superiority, to name a few. Women no longer cling to the old separation of ‘charity and church work for women, politics for men’. We’ve waited seventy-two years for this! Celebrate our victory and our freedom!”

The crowd became more and more subdued as I rattled on, with only the rebel women left standing at the end of my speech.

Pearl had her fun with it as we walked home. “Oh dear sister. You said the word ‘corset’!” She placed the back of her hand to her forehead and pretended to faint, right there on the boardwalk. Such a public display made me wish we had taken a taxi to Mama’s rather than walk there for dinner.

“Behave, sister.” I cautioned.

“Well, it is an undergarment,” she said, wrinkling her powdered nose. “‘Remove all that binds you’. I love that line. Sounds like we should now walk nude in the streets. And this comes from someone worried about my knees showing. You are just too kippy!” Her bright
red lipstick spoke louder than her words. She tucked her bobbed hair behind her ears and slowed her pace beside me, her bangs oddly concealing her forehead. Why she wanted to look boyish passed all my understanding. I remained quiet, awaiting her theatrics to end.

She shook her head. “You don’t know if you’re a reformer or a stiff, do you?”

“Pearl, when I spoke of freedom, I did not mean it physically. I meant freedom of choice in occupation and economic independence. That should clearly be our goal.”

“My goal is not so high and mighty,” Pearl said. “I’d be happy if I could just earn a decent wage at that textile factory I sweat in. Ohhh, a dincher!” She bent down to a half-smoked cigarette and picked it up daintily from the grass with two red fingernails.

“Don’t you dare, young lady! We’re almost home. Are you trying cigarettes, too? Next thing I know, you’ll be drinking alcohol. And don’t bend like that. You’re displaying more than your knees in that loose sack you call a dress, sister.” The waistline dropped to her hips and her chest looked flatter than before, from the loose fabric, I supposed. That was before I discovered she tightly wound her chest with strips of cloth to hide her womanhood. She dropped the dirty thing and straightened to face her foe, someone who no longer knew her, and she no longer knew.

“Yes, I’m a smoke-eater. You know, sister, while you’ve been preaching on future freedom, us common girls have been living real times. Sweatshops, penny pay, and men bosses with roaming hands. I don’t live for the future, I live for today. And I’m going to have fun. And that includes hootch and smokes and petting parties. Damn the Prohibition, is what we say! You duds don’t dance! Do you think I’m going to live like you? A stuck-up Ritz living Mama’s dream? Don’t criticize my life until you get one of your own!”

Mr. Phillips came to mind and I thought,
Oh and you only know the half of it.
Pearl walked off ahead of me, her shoulders up, her hips swinging angrily. Familiar with her temper, I simply waited until her shoulders relaxed and she slowed her walk. We were soon walking
side-by-side again. I hid my hurt – part of what she said was true. But I worried about her careless live-for-today philosophy and told her so.

She shrugged her shoulders. “No need. Soon enough I’ll marry a snuggle pup and live happily ever after.” She quickly changed the subject. She extended her leg to show mesh stockings and slip-on shoes. “Aren’t I just fluky? How do you like my dog kennels? I told our dapper dad he should rename his shoe store from Walk Wright to Dog Kennels. Wouldn’t that be the cat’s pajamas?”

“Speak English!” I said, having enough. That seemed more than she could do at the time so she fell silent.

We arrived at our destination and Pearl pointed toward the front verandah of my childhood home, brighter nowadays, recently painted in pastel blue and yellow, gone were the brown and green colors. I wondered briefly how she could convince Papa to make any changes around there. Mama sat there in her eternal rocker. “As long as I can remember, she has sat out there rocking, rocking, rocking. I think I was born there.”

Mama must have heard Pearl. “I’m out here where it’s quiet,” she said as we walked up the verandah steps. “Your papa listens to that radio constantly.” She clapped her hands together and squeezed, her face lighting with a grin. “Hello my suffragist daughter!”

“Just call me Henny Penny,” I answered glumly.

She paused, looking puzzled, but I waved it away.

She pointed toward the wicker settee. “Sit and tell me everything. Did you notice? I’m wearing my
Ladies Legion
colors today. My original white blouse and black skirt to honor our victory! Can you believe I kept it all these years? I remember cutting up a white sheet for the pattern and using the bone buttons from your father’s old vest. Isn’t it the dog’s pajamas?”

“Yes, I believe it is,” I said dryly. The blouse was ill-fitted and worn thin at the elbows and cuffs, and had yellowed a bit from old age. Thank goodness she hadn’t shown up for my speech in that garment.

Pearl rolled her eyes. “It’s
cat’s
pajamas.”

“Pardon?” Mama once again looked puzzled, as if now both her daughters spoke in another tongue.

“It’s cat’s pajamas, not a dog’s.”

Mama waved the comment away, just as I had done.

Her grin came back quickly. “How did your speech go? I wish I could have been there. Perhaps you will recite it for me later. Women make the best speeches, don’t you think? We’re more timid and decent, and less bothered with the obsession for public speaking.”

My attention shifted to Pearl, expecting her to cackle over my inappropriate public verbiage, but she was either repentant over her earlier tantrum or more docile now at home. She only smiled sweetly and sat still. Mama’s eyes sparkled with anticipation as I described the ratification and final countdown in Tennessee and the speeches of today, having decided to leave out my personal drama until we were alone. She always delighted in hearing of my conversations with Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, whom Mama had idolized since her own days of suffrage campaigning.

“Mrs. Catt asked about you, Mama. She said that during the early days of suffrage, women such as you were the backbone to the cause. Her words were ‘we needed more women like your mother, Ruby, because she could communicate to the common woman, whereas the educated woman was difficult to understand when coming to the masses.’” I paused for affect. “It’s a shame, really.” I enjoyed twisting that knife of guilt once in a while.

As Mama slowly took in my meaning and grimaced, Pearl’s eyes dulled and she excused herself to check on Papa. She paused at the door. “Be prepared for Papa, Bess. He blames me on you.”

“Yes, let me guess,” I said. “The suffragists, those men-haters of the world, have degraded and spoiled those green seedlings of female youth who needed a role model to light their way, to grow, but instead received the rain of dirty rhetoric and dark clouds of hot air blown about by hot-headed women who do not understand their place is in the home, caring living breathing for their husband, that
master of the house, that god of good and godly greatness.” I said this last with my hand over my heart, breathless at the end.

Pearl laughed loudly in only that careless way Pearl could, doing a little dance step and wiggling her hips - then resumed her hunched over position, poor posture – likely my fault too – from non-restrictive garments and no corset to keep her straight. “Yes, but you’re so
good
at dirty rhetoric!”

“Thank you,” I said stiffly.

My nineteen-year old sister was the antithesis of Mama’s Victorian mind-set with those ghastly knees showing. Where was I in this social change? Somewhere between the old and new.

Which was why I missed the point, caught in this gray blur between mother and sister. The contrast was too profound for my exhausted state and the shortsighted side of me could only focus on the more tangible comprehension of Mama and Mr. Phillips. I needed to ask Mama The Question and for this reason she and I went for a walk, turning right on the boardwalk and walking past the house next door where Mama’s old friend and suffragist had lived until about nine years ago, right after the Lighthouse opened. At that time she and her several children hid in the Lighthouse, bruised and frightened, until arrangements could be made to transport her to her brother’s home in Pennsylvania to live. Her drunken husband had beaten her for the last time, she had announced.

“Have you heard from Aimee?” I asked, not quite ready to talk Tennessee turkey.

“Yes, she rang me a few weeks ago to say her husband had been found dead from a liver disease, somewhere in New York City. Drank himself to death. Another reason why Prohibition must stay. Women have pushed hard for this because scores of men cannot control their liquor, it’s as simple as that. Now Aimee can move back here; he can’t haunt her home any longer. It will be wonderful … like the old days.”