The Lions of Fifth Avenue: A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

New York City, 1914

Tell me where you went to, when you weren’t in school.”

Harry was nestled beside Laura in his bed at home, where he’d been slowly recuperating the past few weeks, getting a little stronger every day. Laura gave a silent thanks. Harry was alive, they were well, and eventually everything would get back to normal, now that her energies were no longer diffused.

Harry avoided her gaze.

“I know you went downtown, with someone named Red Paddy, from school.”

Now she had his attention. In a strange way, the investigative skills she’d learned in journalism school were paying off, she supposed. She could follow a trail and wasn’t afraid to ask questions, which had led her to Red Paddy and his cohorts. She hadn’t told Jack what she’d learned, partly because she wanted to speak with Harry alone first but also because no doubt he’d blame her for not being around enough to know their boy had been skipping school, week after week.

“Tell me why, Harry.”

He shrugged. “I hate school. I was going to fail, so what was the point?”

“Why would you fail?”

“I don’t know. I can’t get anything right. The teachers would hit my hands with a ruler when I didn’t know the answers.” He clutched a stuffed animal that she’d bought for him after he’d returned home, a fluffy lamb with a small bell around its neck.

“Why didn’t you tell me or your father? We could have helped you.”

“You weren’t here.”

That was true. Jack had been busy either working or with his manuscript, and she’d been immersed in school and the club. And Amelia.

“I’m sorry, my love. But we’ll figure this out together now, all right? You know that I also failed out of school this year, don’t you?”

He gave a solemn nod. “Because you couldn’t understand?”

“Well, more because they couldn’t understand. But you see, I’m fine, and will figure out my next steps, just as we’ll figure out yours, too. We’re in this together, all right?”

He squeezed the lamb tighter, and the bell gave off a faint ring. “Will you read to me?” he asked.

She picked up Maritime Heroes but handed it over to him instead. “I think you should read to me.”

He sighed and turned to the bookmarked page. Holding the book only a few inches away from his face, he began reading, stumbling over word after word. After a paragraph, he threw the book down on the bedclothes in frustration.

“I can’t, I tell you. Please, will you read to me?” The plaintive cry broke her heart.

“Harry, can you not see unless you hold the book so close?” She picked it back up and placed it open on his lap. “What does it look like when it’s here?”

He pointed to his lamb. “Like him. Fuzzy.”

“The letters look fuzzy?”

“And the words. All of it.”

She almost laughed out of sheer relief, but caught herself. “You need glasses, Harry. That’s all this is. I’m sure of it. Once you’re well, we’ll get you a pair of spectacles, and you’ll be able to see, able to read, just like the other students.”

“You mean this isn’t what you see?”

“No. It’s clearer to me. Not fuzzy at all. No wonder you’ve been frustrated. You’re not seeing the same thing the rest of us are.” She held him close. “I’m sorry you’ve been through a terrible time of it. I promise I’ll be here from now on.”

“How’s my boy doing?” Jack stood in the doorway, beaming, and didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m almost finished with the editing. I’ll work all night tonight, and then the manuscript will be ready to go back to the agent. From there, it’s out into the world.”

His self-centeredness irritated her, but she supposed he had every right to be proud. She rose and let him envelop her in a bear hug, trying not to note how different it was to be hugged by Jack than Amelia, thick limbs and whiskers versus soft skin and a quiet lightness.

All that was over with.

Her family came first, from now on.

Dr. Anderson had been surprisingly compassionate when she’d told him she’d not finished school, and even asked if she would contribute to the next staff newsletter. She’d turned him down. If Jack needed a typist, she’d do it. If Harry needed spectacles, she’d take care of it. No one could manage these three people better than she could. Her own mother had been a dear to help out, but no one could take Laura’s place and no one else should have to. Her failure at Columbia only proved that there was no point trying to get ahead in a career unless a woman was unshackled, like Amelia, like so many of the other members of the Heterodoxy Club. Otherwise, the obstacles were insurmountable. She’d been reckless to imagine she could manage so much at once, and her failure to her family only proved that. If she’d been home, she might have noticed Harry’s problems with reading and taken care of it before he got punished and ran off with Red Paddy in frustration. This was her job, now. The children and Jack.

She tried not to think about Amelia, tried to forget their silly jokes and the way Amelia looked at Laura as she spoke, as if every word were a gumdrop to savor. Laura’s life had settled back to the way it was supposed to be. But she still missed Amelia terribly, missed the frisson that passed between them when they grew close, the physical joy of having the person she loved most sitting right next to her, the emotional connection with someone who knew exactly who she was, and loved her for all the right reasons. The person who wanted her to stretch, to reach, to challenge herself.

But it was too much to ask for.

She pulled out of Jack’s embrace. “I must be getting dinner on the table. We have so much to celebrate, don’t we?” She turned to her husband. “I have a strong hunch that our boy here needs glasses, which will make it easier for him in school.”

“Glasses?” Jack chucked him under the chin. “You’ll catch all the girls if you start wearing glasses, you know. It’ll make you look quite grown up and serious.”

“Really?” Harry blushed.

“Trust me, my boy. I know these things.”

Jack was a good father, a good provider. Now that his book was nearly finished, they could move on to the next phase of their lives. Maybe move out of the library, somewhere farther uptown nearer to her parents. Not downtown. That dream had died.

For a moment, she wondered who she’d be once the children had moved into homes of their own, with families of their own. The empty days stretching long as Jack wrote another book or toured the country giving readings. Would she regret her choice then?

No, no more aspirations for her. Let Jack be the dreamer.

Once Harry had fully recovered, she took him to the eye doctor, his first trip out since coming home from the hospital. The doctor told him he looked quite “scholarly” with his new glasses, and Harry stood a little taller on the way home. Laura gave a quiet prayer of thanks for the healthy color of his cheeks, which had finally replaced the flush of illness. On the way home, he read out loud all the signs and posters they passed, eager to show off his revived skills. She couldn’t have been prouder.

Pearl was curled up in a miserable ball in the armchair in the parlor when they arrived home. No doubt Harry’s illness had taken its own toll on her. “Pearl, what’s wrong?”

“Father is upset. He threw a book at the wall.”

Had the agent rescinded his offer? Did that kind of thing happen in the publishing world? Poor Jack. Laura looked around, searching for a blizzard of loose paper, finding none.

“What happened, exactly?”

“We were walking into the library and there was a lady standing at the information desk that he knew. She was bringing a book for you, and Father offered to deliver it.”

“What lady? What did she look like?”

“She wore a tie, like a man.”

Amelia.

Pearl bit her lip. “The lady didn’t seem to want to give him the book, at first, but Father insisted.”

“Where is it?”

She pointed to the corner behind the other chair. “He unwrapped it and looked at it, and then threw it over there and left.”

She told Harry and Pearl to go to their rooms, and only after they’d left did she reach down behind the chair and pick up the book, its pages bent and the binding broken.

The Awakening, by Kate Chopin.

Amelia was sending some kind of a message. That she missed her, perhaps. A heat spread across Laura’s body.

She leafed through it and noticed an inscription in pen on the title page.

XXVII—A.

She turned to page twenty-seven, and the warmth disappeared. Her eye went to the second paragraph of the page, where the heroine admits to being charmed by the sensuous beauty and candor of another woman: Who can tell what metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well call love.

Jack had seen Amelia and intercepted her delivery. He’d read the inscription and known. Known that it was a love note, bound in leather.

At the bottom of the page, one more word was written, in ink.

London?

Laura said hello with a tight smile to the workers she encountered as she made her way to the basement. She was relieved to find Jack in his office, where they could talk in private, away from the children. She had a chance, here, to explain.

“I saw your gift from that doctor.” He didn’t bother to wait until she’d closed the door behind her to speak. “I read the inscription.”

She groped for what would be the right words, but all were inadequate. She felt wholly incapable of explaining her feelings for Amelia and what had happened between them in a way Jack would understand.

“Is that where you’ve been spending all your time? With that woman, doing what? Were you not happy with me?”

“It wasn’t about not being happy with you. I’m very happy with you.” But she was happier with Amelia.

He grimaced. “I’ve heard of such things, of course, but my wife? What does ‘London’ mean? Does she want you to run away with her to London?”

“I never considered it, I wouldn’t do that, and told her so.”

“Don’t think for a moment that I’d let you leave with my children. I will never allow that.”

While she understood his shock, she couldn’t help but observe that—once again—she was being dictated to, being told what she could do and where she could go. His fury made him ugly.

She sat in one of the chairs and waited for his face to soften. They’d been together for so long, she’d forgotten to see him as a man, as a partner. Instead, he’d become someone else to have to take care of, another shirt to wash, another meal to cook. That wasn’t fair to him.

She reached her hand across the desk, but he didn’t take it. “I’m not going anywhere, it was a moment, I got caught up. I love you, I love the children. I’ve learned a lot about myself this past year, and now, with Harry getting sick, I understand that I don’t need all that.”

“All what?”

“To work, to do anything other than take care of you and the children. When I was downtown, it was a different world in so many ways, and I was dazzled by it all.”

“Dazzled? What are you, a showgirl?” Contempt dripped from the word.

“No, that’s not the right word. I’m not making much sense, I know. But it was a crush, let’s say, like schoolgirls get on each other. I love you. I love our family, what we’ve created.”

He took a quiet breath.

“I feel awful, Jack. I do. I’m sorry.”

“I should have never let you go back to school. That was a terrible idea.”

“I wanted to have something like you did, like your book, that took me out of myself. That’s all. That was why I wanted to study journalism. Amelia was something else, I can’t explain it properly.”

“Don’t say her name.”

Another edict. She should expect this, of course, but it still rankled. “You were wrapped up in your book, I wanted something like that for me, something that challenged me.”

“So you took a lover. A woman lover?”

To hear Jack name her relationship with Amelia so directly after they’d skirted around saying the words was like a slap in the face. It was finally out in the open. She had been having an affair, betraying her husband and their family. Her cheeks flushed with shame. “No. I’m talking about journalism school. They’re two separate things. Please don’t confuse them. She was just a friend who—”

He held up his hand. “Don’t say it. I don’t want to hear it. If this gets out, I’ll be a laughingstock. My book will never be published. I can’t believe you jeopardized all I’ve worked for.”

If only he would understand. “You had that book, which was all you could talk about for the past many years. You were away nights, working and working, leaving me alone. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but that damned book.”

“That damned book is going to put food on our table. But let me tell you, no agent will touch me if it gets out about your unnatural tendencies.”

The phrase “unnatural tendencies” was grotesque. Laura’s guilt tilted toward anger. As if Jack were such the model husband and father. “You love that book more than any of us. Even when Harry was sick, you still crept away to edit.”

“I was under a deadline.”

“Harry nearly died!”

She stood to go and he did as well, grabbing her arm. “I’m not done talking to you yet.”

“That hurts. Ouch, Jack!”

A movement near the door caught her eye. While she was sure she’d closed it behind her, now it stood slightly ajar. She stood and looked out just in time to see Harry’s back retreating down the hallway.

She turned to Jack. “Harry was listening. He must have followed me. My God.”

Jack took off after Harry, and she followed, up the stairs, up to the mezzanine. They couldn’t run; there were too many other people about; it would be unseemly.

Finally, they reached the apartment. As Laura opened the door, she heard Pearl crying out.

“Stop, you can’t do that.”

In the sitting room, Harry sat staring intently at the fireplace, where bright yellow flames flickered and flared. But Laura hadn’t lit a fire that morning; it was far too warm for that.

Harry held a poker in his hand and didn’t look up at them as they drew closer. The fierceness and sheer glee in his face reminded her of the boys downtown, that day when they’d mocked and taunted her.

“Harry, my boy, we should talk,” said Jack.

“He’s burning it.” Pearl was crying, pointing to the fire.

“Burning what?” asked Laura, but in an instant she knew the answer.

Jack raced to his study and back. “Where’s my manuscript? It was on the desk.”

Harry didn’t answer, just stared into the flames, as if hypnotized, where a stack of white pages curled into ash.