The Lions of Fifth Avenue: A Novel

CHAPTER TWELVE

New York City, 1914

Laura straightened up their apartment, moving from room to room, making the place hers again after the intrusive search by the detective’s men. The children had already scampered back in, disappearing into their bedrooms.

Jack followed close behind her. “I don’t get it. Now you’re demanding that I tell you what’s going on? If you were here more often, perhaps you’d already know.”

She shoved his desk chair back into place and whirled around. “Mr. Gaillard brought me to his office, asked me questions, and then told me they were searching our home. It was humiliating.”

“I gave him full permission as I have nothing to hide. They’re just doing their jobs.”

“He said that four books have been stolen. You’d said two.”

“Again, if you’d been around more, I might have mentioned it.”

“What was stolen?”

“Two more first editions. Nothing as valuable as the Tamerlane. The thief learned from his mistake, it appears.” Jack crossed his arms. “They’ve taken my key away, which is fine with me, as then they’ll see I’ve done nothing wrong. And now, if you’re done with your interrogation, I’d like to get back to my writing.”

“So you’re angry with me for being away, while you spend hours at a time on your book. Do you see how this isn’t fair?”

“You’re a mother. What did you expect?”

“You’re a father, doesn’t that count?” She remembered that cold day playing catch with Harry, how she’d created a fond memory for their boy instead of yet another disappointment. “You’ve been down in that basement more than up here these days.”

“It’s the only place I can write without all these distractions.”

Harry poked his head out from his bedroom. “I’ll be quiet, I promise. I won’t be loud anymore.”

“Harry, no, it’s not you,” Laura assured him.

“Laura?”

Her mother’s voice rang out from the bottom of the stairs.

“Distractions,” whispered Jack. “Everywhere I look. You should be here, not her.”

Laura ignored him. “Mother, please come on up.”

Her mother paused on the top stair, one hand on the banister, unsure. She wore a Persian lamb’s wool coat with a thick bow at the waist, a reminder of the cold that had encased the city the past few days. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course. The children are in their rooms, dinner is in the icebox. Jack was just on his way out.” She avoided looking at him.

After he’d left, Laura’s mother shrugged off her coat. “You look tired, my dear.” She brushed Laura’s cheek with her fingers.

Laura took her mother’s hand and gently kissed it, the ring finger adorned with only a gold wedding band. They hadn’t spoken of her sacrifice; Laura couldn’t bear it.

“Things may be difficult right now,” her mother said. “But I want you to know that I admire what you’re trying to do.”

“‘Trying’ is the key word. So far, barely succeeding.”

“He’s a good man. You know that, don’t you? He loves you so much.”

Laura couldn’t help wondering what might have been if she hadn’t been so awestruck by Jack’s dapper bearing and charm back when they met. He did love her, it was true, but their competing demands for self-fulfillment didn’t fit well together, like two balloons stuffed into a small box.

Her mother only wanted love out of life, and even if she hadn’t achieved it for herself, she’d made sure Laura attained that goal. But at what cost? Even worse, would Laura pass on a similar blind spot to her own daughter? She was simply too entrenched in quotidian concerns to be able to step back and view her own biases as a parent clearly.

After settling the children with her mother, Laura began writing the first draft of her thesis. The first paragraph had taken a good half hour, but the subsequent pages came more rapidly, albeit roughly. She’d edit and smooth out the prose later, like a sculptor working with words instead of clay. As long as she had something down on the page, she’d be able to make it work. There was so much to cover, so much going on that wasn’t even mentioned in the big newspapers. She’d prove to Professor Wakeman that a “woman’s story,” as he liked to call it, could impact history.

Two hours later, Laura slid her arm into Amelia’s as they climbed the front stairs of a handsome brownstone on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street. She’d been invited by Amelia to a salon at what she’d said was the premier gathering place for bohemians. Inside the town house, the entire parlor was done in white—a white marble mantel, white painted woodwork, white velvet chairs and silk curtains, a white bearskin rug on the floor. The effect was both pristine and shocking.

“Who lives here?” Laura asked. “It’s like being in a blizzard.”

Amelia laughed. “Mabel Dodge came to the city a couple of years ago from Europe and decided to pull together the people necessary to ‘dynamite New York,’ as she put it. Every week, she holds a salon for a hundred that brings together those willing to shake things up.” The room pulsed with energy and laughter, a contrast to the dinner parties Laura’s parents had given uptown when they were still flush, where dulcet, moderated tones were the only ones tolerated.

Amelia subtly pointed out the guests. “You’ve seen some of the women already at the Heterodoxy Club meetings, like Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and Emma Goldman. Near the fireplace is Alfred Stieglitz. Max Eastman, editor of The Masses, is over there, next to his wife, Ida.”

Laura had to smile.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking,” said Amelia.

“What am I thinking?”

“That they look so normal.”

Laura laughed. After all that terrible uproar in the press, there they were, standing side by side, sipping cocktails like any other young married couple, as if nothing had happened. As if it just didn’t matter. “I guess I look pretty normal as well,” said Laura with a shrug.

“Don’t sell yourself short, you’re running with the new bohemians these days.”

“I’m here as a reporter. To report, not to run.”

“I see.” Amelia playfully bumped Laura’s shoulder with her own. “You have a mission.”

“That’s the truth. I want to write about so much, I can hardly stand it. The world is changing, and I want to be out there, taking it all down.”

“I love your enthusiasm, Laura. You remind me of me when I first went into medicine.”

“You’re much tougher than I am, though. I know I have a lot to learn.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re here, aren’t you?”

“What? Sipping cocktails?”

“If you want to get dangerous, I can make that happen.” Amelia held Laura’s gaze.

“Of that I have no doubt.”

Nearby, a woman spilled her champagne, breaking the moment. The man she was with tossed a handkerchief over the spill before leading the woman away.

“Now tell me, what exactly is your angle?” said Amelia. “It sounds like something bigger than some daily story for the Blotto.”

“Very funny. Our pseudo-newspaper is called the Blot. And yes, I have to admit that I think this movement, what’s going on down here, might be better as a long feature article. ‘The New Woman.’ There’s so much to encompass.”

“Be careful about writing about the club, though. Remember, what’s said there is strictly off the record.”

“Of course.”

The fact that Amelia had accomplished all she had by breaking rules, by pushing boundaries, made Laura a little less concerned about writing about the club, especially as it wasn’t for publication. Laura didn’t mention that she’d met some members for coffee, to ask them questions about the views and passions expressed during the meetings. Since she couldn’t openly take notes, it helped her round out the competing viewpoints.

One of which was being loudly discussed by a group standing next to the bartender, where Amelia and Laura waited for their drinks to be stirred.

“Don’t let men fool you.” The speaker, ironically, was a tall man, verging on gangly, with thick curly hair that spilled over his forehead and a jaw that jutted just beyond the point of handsome. As he spoke, he waved his arms, threatening the drinks of those gathered around him. “They love the idea of the New Woman, one who’ll raise their children, clean their house, and then make themselves available to all.”

A couple of women around him gasped.

Amelia stepped forward. “Then these ‘men,’ as you call them, notwithstanding that you’re one yourself, have the idea of a New Woman wrong. The New Women will make themselves available to whomever they choose, not necessarily to all. And what’s more, they will not only demand sexual power, they will also seize economic power.”

The man squared his shoulders. “Is that so?”

“Yes. And men are threatened by this. You see, while there is more than enough sexual power to go around, economic power is fixed. If we take more, you get less.”

“Your logic holds true. It’s a pleasure to meet an equal adversary.” He held out his hand. “I’m Frank Tannenbaum. Don’t believe a word I say. I’m only acting as devil’s advocate. We must be prepared to counterattack.”

“Dr. Amelia Potter.” Amelia had a glint in her eye.

“Dr. Potter, of course. Delighted.” Mr. Tannenbaum lifted his glass. “Let me put on my devil’s horns again: Women, the uptowners will say, are the guardians of what’s morally right. They keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow. If women throw off those shackles, won’t civilization be doomed?”

“Having a husband and child does not make one morally right. There are more ways of living than a man, a wife, and a brood,” said Amelia. “It’s time to expand our view of the household, and throw off the shackles of gender oppression. I can work, I can have a child, and I can love whomever I like. Just as you can.”

Laura, along with some of the others, nodded encouragingly. That was what she wanted also. Well, not the love-whomever part. But the work-and-raise-a-child part, certainly.

“We are restless, energized, and will not back down,” said Amelia, building momentum. “Whether for the right to vote, or access to birth control, or the right to make love outside of the bonds of marriage.”

Mr. Tannenbaum threw back his head and laughed. “I adore this woman.”

The discussion broke up as more guests arrived.

“Who is that?” asked Laura.

“Frank Tannenbaum emigrated from Austria when he was young, went to Columbia. This winter he’s been organizing protests for the poor.”

Laura had read about the nightly protests in the newspaper, five or six hundred men marching through the streets before approaching a church to demand food and beds. “What exactly are they trying to prove?”

“When they’re turned away? That the clergy don’t really care about the unemployed, that they are heartless.”

“He seems awfully young to be leading protests.”

“He’s twenty-one.”

Interesting that Amelia knew his exact age. “You seem impressed.”

“He’s a natural leader. And smart, you’ve seen that. While we’ve been tucked away in our beds during this particularly harsh winter, he’s out marching, calling attention to injustice.”

“Why don’t I see you marching out there with him?” Laura teased.

“I’ll march tonight if you will.” Amelia’s eyes shimmered. “We can go together. They’re meeting at Rutgers Square and heading to St. Alphonsus Church on West Broadway. You can write about it for the Blotto.”

It would make a good item for tomorrow’s reporting and writing class, Laura had to admit. None of the other students would be out on a cold winter’s evening if they could help it. That would certainly prove to Professor Wakeman that she was as good as the men. Furthermore, she wasn’t quite ready to quit Amelia’s company.

She threw back her drink, wishing she’d worn long underwear beneath her skirts.

“Let’s do it.”

What looked to be over five hundred men had gathered in the wedge-shaped area off of East Broadway on the Lower East Side by the time Amelia and Laura arrived at the protest. The winds whipped their skirts as Amelia guided Laura across the street, where they took shelter in a doorway.

“Are you sure this is safe?” asked Laura. She’d never been out after dark like this without Jack; two women walking together attracted more attention than she would have liked.

“Walk tall, don’t make eye contact. Here he comes.” Amelia pointed to Frank, who strode through the crowd and pulled himself up onto the base of a streetlamp, hanging on to it with one hand for support. The light shone on him like a spotlight, glinting off his dark hair. Why he wasn’t wearing a hat on a night like this was beyond Laura. He began shouting for everyone’s attention, and soon all heads swiveled up at him.

A hush came over the crowd.

“I know that many of you are out of work,” he said. “Over three hundred thousand men are out of work, so you are not alone.”

The men cheered.

“This makes ten consecutive days that we’ve come out and raised a commotion. You deserve better, you want to work, to feed your family, and the city, the country, has failed you. This is the era of progressive policies, where the greed of capitalism will be replaced with a safety net for all. You, me, all of us, demand more from our taxes. More from our politicians. More from our government.”

The crowd was whipped up into a frenzy that matched the violent gusts of wind, some men leaping into the air. Laura looked around for other reporters covering the story but saw nothing, no men with notebooks nor photographers lugging their cameras. It was day ten of the protests, after all, and frigid. They probably figured there was nothing new to report. She could already hear in her head the professor’s disappointment at her lack of imagination, covering a story that had come and gone in the press.

Frank asked for the men to quiet down, and they obeyed. “Tonight, we’ll approach the Catholic church and ask for help. For beds, for food. If they refuse, we will expose their hypocrisy, as we have the other churches who refused us. For putting their own riches before the riches of their flock. This nation’s working class deserves more!”

In a graceful leap, Frank jumped to the ground and led the men to a church a few blocks away, reaching it just as the priest slammed the door to the church shut, locking it against them. A couple of men tried the side door, but no luck there, either. By then, Laura and Amelia had become swallowed up by the crowd and were being pulled toward the front steps of the church, where men pounded on the doors, cursing and screaming.

“The police!”

The two words sliced through the air. The mob heaved into itself as panic began to spread.

Sirens blared as a group of policemen came from behind, slamming their truncheons down hard on whoever stood in their way. Just to Laura’s left, the sickening sound of wood on bone, followed by a howl of pain, made her clutch Amelia closer. There was no way out, not against the bulk of so many.

“I’m so sorry, we have to get out of here, I’m so sorry.” Amelia wrapped her arm around Laura, and together they blindly shoved their way north, or maybe west. Laura had lost all sense of direction.

Laura lost grip of Amelia’s hand twice, and twice she flailed about like a drowning swimmer before reconnecting with her friend. Finally, they reached an alley where they could catch their breath in the safety of darkness.

On any other night, Laura wouldn’t have been caught dead in an alley in this part of town, where rats and drunks scrambled and thieves lurked, hoping for an easy mark. But tonight, she didn’t care that she couldn’t tell what muck she was stepping on, nor the source of the foul smell that emanated from the ground. The dark alley provided safety, for now.

“We can stay here until it quiets down,” said Amelia. “Then we’ll get a taxicab and get out of here.” Amelia held both of Laura’s arms just above the elbow, and stared hard at her. In the darkness, Laura could tell that her mouth was partly open, her gaze fierce. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Thank God.”

As the mob began breaking up, the two women ran north until they came upon a taxicab. Inside, they sat close together. Laura felt Amelia shaking beneath her skirts, just as she was. She moved closer, drawing a renewed sense of strength and safety from being nestled together in the back seat.

“Well, that was exciting,” Laura said quietly.

Amelia let out an unladylike snort. “Your capacity for understatement never ceases to amaze.”

“I suppose I’m the one who got us into this mess by daring you. From now on, we will stick to cocktail party chatter.”

“I’m glad you dared me. I feel alive. Don’t you?”

Laura did. Her lips were raw from the wind and the cold, and her skin tingled with electricity.

When they reached Patchin Place, Amelia gave Laura a long hug. Laura clutched her friend close, unwilling to let her go. Finally, they parted and Laura headed uptown, where the library loomed like a tomb in the darkness.

Even though it was late, she sat down at Jack’s desk, eager to get started before the events of the evening faded away. Being a reporter was much like being a bloodhound: just as the dogs picked up a scent and tracked it from one spot to the next, reporters gathered up clues, moving from source to source, following the narrative to completion. She worried that if she waited until morning, the trail of inspiration might go cold.

She wrote of what had happened, moment by moment, but also of how the clash spoke to the hopes of the future and the failures of the past. She wanted to get down the whole picture, just as she wanted to provide a well-rounded thesis on the women of the Heterodoxy Club, and how their words and actions would affect their daughters and the daughters who came after that. She’d picked up the scent of change, of revolution, and wanted to see where it took them all.

The next day in class, she staggered to Professor Wakeman’s desk, bleary with exhaustion, and watched as he read it through.

“My, my, Mrs. Lyons. A protest, with police, even. When did all this happen?”

“Last night.”

“You didn’t make any of this up, did you?”

She wished he’d stop asking her that. “No, of course not.”

“Quite the intrepid reporter, aren’t you? What did your husband make of this?”

Jack had been sullen that morning, but that was nothing new. “My husband is fine with my studies, Professor.”

“Quite the modern man, then.” Professor Wakeman gave her top marks. She knew she deserved no less.

She also knew exactly who she wanted to share the good news with.

Downtown, she turned onto Patchin Place and stopped cold. Amelia’s door was wide-open. She stood on the stone step, her head tipped forward in a kiss, Jessie’s arms wrapped around her waist. The two women remained locked together, unconcerned by the bold display of affection.

Laura hung back, out of view. Here she was, bringing high-minded uptown morals downtown again. It was fine for two women to love each other. So why did she feel sick?

No, not sick. Angry. She had felt so connected with Amelia last night during their terrible adventure, racing through the rabble, maneuvering this way and that without signals or words, as if they were a pair of birds in the sky. Seeing her share a close moment with someone else this morning felt like a betrayal. It was their story, not Amelia and Jessie’s.

But that wasn’t it, either.

She was jealous.

Because she wanted to be the one kissing Amelia’s lips.

Jack was her husband, and made her so happy, or had made her happy. She loved being in his arms, his very maleness. But with Amelia, she could talk of her fears and worries without censoring herself or worrying that she’d take it personally and grow cold. They’d laughed more in these past couple of months than she and Jack had this past year. Part of that was the stress of his work and his book, of course, and her going to back to school. There simply wasn’t enough time.

In fact, it wasn’t fair to compare the two desires. Family life was far more complicated than this idea of free love could possibly encompass. She and Jack had children together, a household. A shared life.

Yet sometimes, when she and Amelia walked down the street and Amelia linked arms with her, Laura’s arm accidentally brushed Amelia’s breast and neither woman would pull away, not immediately. Even after, the ghost of the sensation lingered.

Maybe her jealousy was simply a reaction to being thrust into a new, dangerous, and exciting world. How could life in a library even come close?

She peered back around the corner as Jessie and Amelia kissed again, long and deep. She thought of Pearl and Harry, what would happen to them if she ever acted on her own desires. Women like her weren’t tolerated north of Fourteenth Street. This could not be.

Amelia was her friend; that was all.