Dreamers of the Day Page 27

  Afraid! Why on earth should I be afraid of my own daughter?

  I don’t know, but it’s the truth. Or maybe you were afraid of who you really were. You had ideas of who each of us should be, and none of us was what you wanted. Everything real frightened you.

  Well, just look at the real you! Smoking, drinking, whoring with that Jew! Do you suppose it is my pleasure to find fault in my daughter? It is my duty, for all the good it’s done either of us. And now, when I think of you living without Jesus—Well, I can’t bear to think of what will happen to you when you die. You’ll be sorry, I expect. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

  “Oh, Mumma,” I said aloud, blowing smoke at her memory, “do shut up.”

  That’s telling her, my brother Ernest said. Good for you, Aggie.

  Mumma did the best she could, Lillie whispered. That’s all any of us can do.

  Cold comfort, I thought, and stood to leave my cabin.

  “Come on, Rosie!” I said, snapping on her leash. “Life is for the living! Pooh, pooh, skiddoo! Drink up—the night is young!”

  OF COURSE, IT IS NOT ALWAYS EASY for a woman of forty to conceive. What might seem a significant delay can be a mere irregularity. Before the steamer reached New York, I learned that I was no longer pregnant, if indeed I ever had been.

  It rained that night, and on into the next day. You won’t believe it, but I’d almost forgotten rain. Remarkable, how quickly one gets used to good weather.

  Rosie and I went out on deck as usual the next morning, and took our walk around the ship in the glassy, gray light of the North Atlantic. “Just you and me again, Rosie!” I whispered to her, my tears lost in the general soaking we got. “We’ll be all right, won’t we. We’ll be fine.”

  And we were, truly. For a long while, anyway.

  It was fully spring when we got home to Cedar Glen. Rosie had a fine time reacquainting herself with the yard, chasing a generation of chipmunks that hadn’t learned to fear her. We had missed the March mud entirely and the chilly April rain—that alone was almost worth the price of a trip to Egypt. Late-season tulips and daffodils were still in bloom. Lilacs and peonies were showing bud.

  Everything in the house looked powdered, but the weather was so balmy that I opened all the windows and let the breeze help me with the dusting. Seeing me outside flapping the cleaning cloths, the pastor from Mumma’s congregation stopped to say hello and welcome me home. “We’d be very pleased to have you come and give a lecture on the Holy Land, Miss Shanklin.” I promised I would think about it.

  Neighbors caught me up on all the news. There was a big snowstorm in late March. Old Mr. Ellison passed away, which everyone agreed was a mercy. A land speculator had been sniffing around the neighborhood. Name of Hartigan. He was looking to buy up properties for a development like the one those Van Swerington brothers built over in Shaker Heights.

  “Oh, and the Beasley girl got married,” I was told several times and always with a wink that implied: kind of a hurry-up deal, there. Then they’d shrug and say, “It’s a different world.” Naturally, I’d agree.

  “Well,” they’d say, “got to get to town. Did you have a nice time on your trip?”

  “Oh, yes,” I’d tell them. “It was very educational.”

  It’s funny, isn’t it, how you can be so different when you’re away from home? Then, surrounded by familiar people and things, you slip right back into all your habits, as though you were pulling on an old woolen cardigan: stretched out and unflattering, but comfortable and soft.

  Sure enough, Mr. Robert Hartigan contacted me through my lawyer, Mr. Reichardt. He wished to inquire about my selling him the house or, more accurately, the property it sat on, for he meant to tear it down and build something grander in its place. I declined his offer. He must have thought that I was holding out for a better price, but I simply hadn’t decided what I wanted to do next.

  One fine June morning, Pastor Eastman paid me another call—the third since my return. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was talk about my trip to Mumma’s friends, but I was running out of polite ways to decline his invitation to give a lecture to the congregation.

  That afternoon I made up my mind to look for an apartment in downtown Cleveland. It was exhilarating to survey all the possibilities, thinking of how my new surroundings would make me feel. The most exciting prospect was down on Euclid Avenue in a brand-new building with its own little fenced-in park, where Rosie could chase squirrels.

  The next time I got a call from Mr. Hartigan, he named a truly startling sum, and I agreed to sell. A few weeks later, we met at the bank in Mr. Reichardt’s watchful, lawyerly presence. “You’re a fine businesswoman,” Mr. Hartigan told me as I put pen to paper. “Reichardt here tells me you come by it honestly. I hear your mother was quite an entrepreneur.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and pardon my French, but I made damn sure Hartigan’s check was good before the contract was signed! Mumma would have been pleased by that much, at least.

  Laying the papers in his briefcase and snapping it shut, Mr. Hartigan asked, “Have you decided what you want to do with the things that are still in the house, Miss Shanklin?”

  “Sell them, junk them, give them away,” I said breezily. “Out with the old, in with the new! None of it will look right in my new place.”

  Mr. Hartigan left the bank happily planning to bulldoze my childhood home. Mr. Reichardt and I went to lunch afterward and talked about investments. “You ought to think about putting some of that money into stocks,” he said, handing me a broker’s card. “This is my man. He’s got the golden touch.”

  You might be surprised to know how many women played the market in the twenties. In fact, there were so many of us that stockbrokers often reserved special ladies’ salons in their offices. These were filled from the opening bell to the close with society women who had money to burn, with the wives of university professors and prosperous businessmen, and with heiresses like me. Perhaps that’s what made it easy to speculate in large sums: none of us had earned our wealth with the sweat of our own brows. The other thing was, in the twenties, money just didn’t seem as serious as it had before and would again later.

  The stock market was like Old Faithful, regularly spouting fortunes. Playing it was fun—like being paid to shop! And it was a social event, as well: someplace convivial to go, like a bridge club but infinitely more exciting. There were the ticker tapes with their exotic alphabetical symbols, clattering along like racehorses. You had to read them in a rush, and the ladies who could decipher them the quickest were held in high esteem. Awed by the panache with which more experienced women snapped out orders to the brokers, neophytes stood by diffidently until they raised the nerve to ask for a translation.

  Once you’d cracked the secret code, though, all you needed to know was, “Buy low and sell high.” Purchase shares in the morning and by that very afternoon, sometimes, you could sell them for enough to pay for a daughter’s lavish wedding, or your own mink coat, or a brand-new automobile.

  By then, it seemed we all had gasoline-engine cars. Plutocrats had once travelled at ten miles an hour behind a pair or two of horses, but now women like us could go thirty in a Ford. The fuel-tank wagon was becoming as familiar as the coal truck, delivering cheap and convenient heating oil to factories and dwellings. I didn’t own a house anymore, but I could just imagine how lovely it must have been to awaken in a nice, warm home without having to go down into the cellar to shovel coal into the boiler. Why, Americans would no more give up our autos and oil furnaces than go back to candlelight and cooking over an open fire! So I did well with Standard Oil of Ohio, as you can imagine.

  I bought into several airlines, as well, having heard Winston rhapsodize about the potential of the air. Man had achieved a three-dimensional existence, and before the decade was over, Trans-Continental could fly you from one coast to the other in under forty-eight hours. I missed out on R.C.A., though. I thought the stock was already too high when I discovere
d how much I enjoyed radio, but its ascent was only starting. Theaters, newspapers, and pulpits had a new competitor. Before long everyone listened to the radio and every program, night and day, was sponsored by an advertiser, and each advertisement fed the hunger for more and more.

  “Nature abhors a vacuum,” Mr. Arthur D. Little observed in 1924, “but only because she doesn’t have carpets to clean.” Appliances, fashions, furniture! The whole world seemed one glorious bazaar, filled with splendid things to buy. So we bought: wildly, extravagantly, recklessly, on credit and on margin.

  Many ladies in the brokerage salons were well connected and hinted at tips from high sources. These women were watched and their bets followed by the lesser players. It was like someone ordering dessert in a restaurant: Mmmm, that looks good…Waiter, I believe I’ll have one of those as well. More often than not, in those days, the speculation paid off; but if you looked carefully, you might have noticed that most people were buying because other people had bought.

  I, at least, had some logic behind my choices. I considered, for example, the arms manufacturers that Karl had endorsed, but war was the last thing on anyone’s mind in the twenties. With the Great War behind us, we truly believed that the problems of the turbulent past were solved. Yes, there had been terrible sacrifices, tragic losses, appalling destruction, but never again would men of such uncompromising, irresponsible stupidity rise to power. And look how good things were! Why would nations fight when they could do business instead?

  So I went into iron and steel companies instead of armaments, on the theory that they would make money in wartime or in peace. I was really quite successful and, after a while, not even Mumma tried to second-guess me. Weeks and weeks would go by without my thinking of her at all, busy as I was.

  Looking back, I must say that the twenties and my forties were the best years of my life. I made lots of friends—and yes, I took a lover occasionally. Even Rosie set a style! Several of the stock market ladies thought she was so cute that they sought out the breeder who’d taken Mumma’s last dachshunds in 1919. Before long several of Rosie’s grandnieces were curled on laps around the salon. If the little ones’ housebreaking remained somewhat unreliable, well, the steady flow of our commission money made it worthwhile for the broker to replace his carpeting now and then.

  When the morning’s killing was especially gratifying, our gang would go out for brunch in one of the fun new places that had sprung up just off East Ninth. Women who’d never been to a restaurant in their lives before the war now considered cooking too dreary to bother with. We’d order waffles and sausages to share with the dogs, and finish up with coffee and ice cream. We spread tips around like rose petals.

  After dessert I’d cry, “Let’s go share the wealth with Mildred!” and we’d all troop off to Halle’s. Every week there was something fabulous to try on: the latest Chanel suit in rose-beige jersey, or patterned stockings to wear under those new skirts with the asymmetrical hems, or “Mary Janes” with the diamanté trim on the straps. We kept up with all the changes.

  It never occurred to anyone to think, I have enough. It’s time to walk away from the table. Tomorrow was another day. We’d all be back for more.

  And then, it was over.

  To this moment, I can remember every detail of Black Thursday. All around me, disheveled panicky women stared at the ticker tape in stunned despair, or wept, or even fainted as their stocks dropped and dropped again. Balances that had done nothing but grow long strings of zeros suddenly became zeros. Late in that afternoon, there were frantic telephone calls, sobbing confessions, pleas for understanding. Husbands who hadn’t even known their wives were playing the market found out that they’d been bankrupted.

  And it wasn’t just the investment money that was lost. Many ladies had borrowed from brokers to speculate on sure things that were going bust before our eyes. “How can my balance be less than zero?” one saucer-eyed lady asked when the broker told her she owed him over $10,000. “That’s more than my house cost! I don’t understand—it’s simply not possible for something to be less than zero!”

  It was possible, as anyone who’d taught fifth-grade mathematics could have told her. You may be relieved to know that I was not as foolish as that poor woman. I never borrowed from the broker. For one thing, I’d had a horror of debt since my parents’ bankruptcy. And I knew the difference between playing the market and investing, thank you very much. An investment is a transfer of capital to an enterprise that uses it to create future wealth by generating goods and services that secure income or profit. Playing the market is just gambling: betting that some fool will pay more this afternoon for what you bought this morning.

  But when prices are dropping like stones, there are bargains to be had. It’s time to buy low, I thought with cool confidence, and poured good money after bad. In the next few weeks, my net worth melted like a block of ice in August. Before it was over, even the puddle evaporated. I was forced to sell the last of my stocks at the bottom of the market, in the summer of ’32.

  By then the full dimension of the Crash was apparent. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed. All of us were faced with unpalatable choices. I, for example, could starve in genteel comfort surrounded by elegant possessions that nobody had cash to buy, or eat Rosie. “You’re lucky you’re a stringy old dog,” I told her. “It would take too long to stew you. I can’t afford the gas bill.”

  Like so many others, I started each day circling want ads in the newspapers. Then I’d buff up my least run-down shoes, put on my best dress, and hop a streetcar to look for work. Finally one September morning, it looked like my luck had turned. Remember Mrs. Motta, my landlady? Well, she had used the money she made renting rooms to send her eldest son to college, and I read in the Plain Dealer that he’d just been promoted to principal at Murray Hill School!

  At first, Mr. Motta thought I was there to congratulate him, and indeed I was delighted for his success. We spoke about his late mother and swapped stories for a while, but the moment came to swallow my pride and inform him of my situation. I was over fifty and nearly penniless.

  Seeing the look on his face, I stopped before I asked about a job, but he knew why I was there. There were no openings for teachers, he said, and I understood, of course. There were men in breadlines, fathers with whole families to support, he added. He didn’t have to say the rest: single women were the last to be considered for any job. As I rose to go, he promised he would keep me in mind, but I supposed he was only being nice.

  Two weeks later, I was wondering if I could hire out as a tutor or a nanny to some family too rich to go broke when a letter arrived in the morning mail. There was a possibility of a part-time position at Murray Hill as the school librarian. The salary was pitiable, but it was the best Mr. Motta could do. Was I interested? Yes. Oh, yes. I was very interested indeed.

  And it was wonderful to be among young people again. Officially, I got off at lunchtime, but I enjoyed the work so much that I returned with Rosie most afternoons. Even in old age, she was a charmer and liked to snuggle with the children who began to hang around the library after school.

  “You know what?” I’d say. “Rosie just loves stories, but I’m awfully busy.” I’d hold out a simple book and look very serious. “I hate to ask, because I know you’re busy, too, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you would read her a story while I catch up on some paperwork.”

  This was patently absurd, but doing favors for adults makes children feel very grown-up and magnanimous. The good readers liked showing off, but even the more backward ones were willing to mutter and look at the pictures with Rosie at their side.

  One day it occurred to me to bring in “treats for Rosie.” I would spend the afternoon in a breadline and bring a loaf in after school. Then I’d watch to see which child gave the bread to Rosie willingly and which looked horrified. To the latter, I would confide, “I think Rosie’s getting fat. She really shouldn’t have all that bread. Why don’t you eat most of it
and just give her a little bit?”

  Well! Food, books, and a dog to pet—that’s a winning combination for any library. I would sit at my desk, shuffling paper but listening as the children read, slyly giving help when they needed to sound out a hard word.

  In my experience, most children—even backward ones—can do well in school. They just need one person who will cheer them on, one person who can say with serene confidence, “I know that you can do this.” When a child struggles, you can say, “That’s the best you’ve done so far!” Phrasing it that way makes each effort sound like a necessary step along the path to success, you see. “That’s better” can sound more grudging, as though everything that came before was failure and it’s about time they got it right.

  The opportunity to encourage those children was worth more than any salary, no matter how desperately I needed the money. When at last a squiggly jumble of letters began to form words, and sentences, and paragraphs of meaning—Well, it was like witnessing a miracle, and I was amply rewarded with a gap-toothed, face-splitting, ear-to-ear grin.

  As the Depression deepened, parents needed every nickel. Once again, sons and daughters were pulled out of school and sent out to sell newspapers or shine shoes, or even—in America!—to beg. Sometimes children would come to say good-bye to me and Rosie. I would dry their tears, open a desk drawer, and help them fill out a card request for the Cleveland Public Library.

  “The public library is like a giant bookstore where everything is free,” I would say. “Nobody will ever tell you to stop learning at the library. Rosie and I go there every Saturday morning. When it’s nice weather, we read stories out under the big tree. Come and visit us.”

  So you see, in the end, the sorrow borne in my middle years spared me much grief in my old age, for with my own family now long dead, my whole world was little children. To them, I had always been the nice old lady at the library. To me, they would be young forever, full of hope and possibility.