Of Irish Blood (2 page)

“No, no,” he says. “All taken care of. When I saw you and your sister…”

“Niece.”

“Niece, then—but the both of you running flat out, you reminded me of this game filly I own who can’t bear to lose so I had to lend a hand.”

“Game filly? A horse?” I say, ready to get mad but he laughs again and raises his straw boater hat. Wearing one of those new cream-colored suits that show the dirt.

“I’m Tim McShane, miss. Or is it missus?”

“Miss,” I say, “Miss Nora Kelly,” and stick out my hand. And doesn’t he take it in both of his and wink at me. Much too bold for the Archer Avenue tram at eight in the morning with every eye on us.

I pull my hand away and walk back to where Agnella waits with our friends Rose and Mame McCabe in the seats they save for us every morning since they board the tram earlier at the Brighton Park stop near where they live in a boardinghouse run by my Aunt Kate. The sisters work with me at Montgomery Ward, telephone operators too, taking orders for the catalog, the three of us, which my sister Henrietta finds suspect.

“Nattering away to strangers all day? Not what I’d call proper.” But my brother Mike loves to get us telling stories about the orders we get. He calls us “the Trio”—me the oldest at twenty-four. Rose with her big hazel eyes and round, sweet face is twenty-two. Mame’s just twenty-one but regal somehow—dark eyes, high cheekbones, straight nose … mine turns up a bit. All of us old to be unmarried, as Henrietta reminds me often. “Old maids, the lot of you,” she’ll say to me.

“Better than being a crabbed widow like you,” I say back to her. Cruel, I know, but that tongue of hers sets me off before I even realize it.

Henrietta loves to tear down the McCabes. Jealous because we three are always so well turned out thanks to Rose’s skill as a seamstress. Any outfit I can draw Rose can make. Mame’s wearing one of mine now—deep brown skirt with a burnt-orange fitted jacket. Though Rose copied her own navy blue cotton from
Woman’s Home Companion
. I had offered to design a dress for Henrietta that Rose would sew. She’d only laughed.

But now both McCabes shake their heads at me. Rose clicks her tongue.

“Oh, Nonie,” Rose says. “That’s Tim McShane.”

“I know,” I say. “He introduced himself.”

“No decent woman in Brighton Park would even speak to him.” Agnella nods along with Rose and then Mame speaks up.

“He is a bit of a bad hat, Nonie. Trains racehorses at the track in the Park.”

“So? What’s wrong with that? Mike and my cousin Ed go to the track all the time.”

“But they don’t spend their time with gangsters. They say Tim McShane does all kinds of things to the horses to make them win,” Mame says.

“Or lose,” Rose puts in. “And he’s Dolly McKee’s fancy man.”

“The singer, Dolly McKee? But she must be years older than he is,” I say.

I was twelve years old the first time Mam took me to the McVicker’s Theatre to see Dolly McKee perform and Dolly wasn’t young then. Still gorgeous though up there under the spotlight in that sparkly dress, singing “Love’s Old Sweet Song” with Mam crying next to me thinking of my father, who died so young. Still able to fill a theater all these years later is Dolly McKee, and living like a queen in the Palmer House. So she picked out Tim McShane. Interesting.

“Dolly is always at the track, and they say she owns the horses Tim trains. Took up with him years ago,” Rose goes on.

“You two have his seed, breed, and generation,” I say. “Why haven’t you talked about him before?”

“There’s a new boarder come to Aunt Kate’s who works at the track. A little runt of a Cavan fellow. He’s been telling us all about Tim McShane,” Mame says.

“And now he’s very kindly rescued Ag and me. I wonder, did I thank him properly?” I stand up but Ag and Rose pull me down.

“Nonie! Please!”

“Maybe I’ll ask him for tickets to Dolly’s show,” I say.

“Oh, Nonie! You wouldn’t!” Rose says.

“Not like you two to be so skittery,” I say.

“A man to stay away from,” Mame says. “According to the little Cavan fellow.”

“Look there, he’s getting off anyway,” Rose says.

The tram stops at LaSalle right near the new City Hall. Tim McShane steps off then looks up to see the four of us pressed against the window. He tips his hat and gives a half bow. The McCabes and Ag lean back, but I wave at Tim McShane and incline my head. He smiles. Oh!

And, of course, our supervisor Miss Allen is annoyed as the three of us come sliding into our chairs and clap the headphones over our ears just as the nine o’clock start bell rings. Mad at us for cutting the time so close and madder still that we’d made it and she couldn’t scold us. Not a bad sort really, Miss Allen, but not from Chicago, unmarried, no family here, a neat, well-dressed woman. Devoted to the company.

“You are Montgomery Ward to the world,” she says to us now as she does every morning. “Your voice, your diction, your cool professional manner creates confidence in our customers. They need to trust you.”

I take out the dog-eared script she’s written for us and begin. Twenty of us in a long row push the plugs into the switchboard, then say in the clear, unaccented voice that Miss Allen demands, “Good morning. I am a Montgomery Ward operator, ready to take your order.” No deviation, as Miss Allen walks along behind us, listening.

We start together. The Good-Morning Chorus, Rose calls us, but with each call and order the pace changes. “What sizes? What colors? How many?” we ask.

“How much?” they come back. “How long before my order gets there?”

Men mostly.

My first caller’s new to the telephone. I imagine him standing next to the cracker barrel at a country store, shouting into the round black receiver. Had to be heard in Chicago, after all. He repeats his name and address twice, sure I wouldn’t get it right the first time.

“I’ll send your seeds out COD on the next train,” I say to him three times.

“Nora,” Miss Allen says to me, “keep it short.”

My voice tangles with the others as words twist up and down the rows.

Miss Allen moves to the other end of the row and I hear Mame, beside me, say, “Thank God your wheat is growing well!” She pauses and then says, “Yes, rain is a blessing. Though when I was a little girl in Ireland I thought God blessed us too well!” Another pause. “Oh, Sweden? How lovely. We have a large community of Swedish people living right here in Chicago. My sister and I buy the best rye bread there.” A pause, then, “Your wife makes rye? Wonderful,” and, “Yes, please send me the recipe. Address it to…”

Rose hisses at Mame but it’s too late. Miss Allen is standing behind them.

“Not again, Miss McCabe! How many times do I have to tell you, we do not engage the customers in private conversation?” Miss Allen leans over Mame and speaks right into the telephone: “Thank you, sir, for your order … Yes, I’ll tell the sweet little Irish girl.” She chomps out the words. Mame still has a hint of the lilt that came with her across the ocean.

Miss Allen ends the call, turns to Mame. “That’s it, Miss McCabe! You have been warned innumerable times. Now come with me to Mr. Bartlett’s office. You are fired.”

Rose stands up. “She was only being nice, Miss Allen.”

“You are here to take orders, not to be nice.”

I get up then.

“Now, Miss Allen, be honest. Doesn’t Mame get bigger orders than any of us? The customer starts talking and remembers something else he wants to buy.”

“That’s true, Miss Allen,” Mame says. “Why, yesterday this fellow had completely forgotten his wedding anniversary until I asked him how he met his wife and then…”

“You what?” Miss Allen says. “This is beyond anything I can even imagine!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Miss Allen,” I say. “I chat a bit, too, if the customer is willing. So what?”

“Time, Miss Kelly. Time and money. Come with me, Miss McCabe.”

“If you’re firing her, better fire me too,” I say.

Rose has already taken off her headset.

“And me,” she says.

The switchboard buzzes away, but no one is answering the calls. Every one of the girls is watching and listening to us.

I remember my great-uncle Patrick’s story of the strike he led of the fellows digging the Illinois and Michigan Canal and wonder if I say, “Girls, rise up!,” will they follow me?

Mame smiles at Miss Allen.

“I know why you’re upset with me,” she says. “You think I’m being disrespectful, that I ignore all your teachings and don’t deserve the money Mr. Ward pays me. But say that fellow does send his wife’s recipe to me, and I maybe write a note saying thanks. Wouldn’t he be more likely to think of Ward’s instead of Sears when he wants a new tractor?”

“That’s beside the point,” Miss Allen says.

She realizes the rest of the girls are ignoring the ringing phones. “Girls! Man your stations!” she shouts, and the “Good morning”s start up.

“Mame won’t do it again,” Rose says.

“Why not?” I say. “Miss Allen, take all three of us to Mr. Bartlett. You make your case, and we’ll make ours.”

Just then Josie Schmidt calls out from the end of the row. “I’ve a man here wants to give his order to the Irish girl who spoke to him in Polish. He and three other farmers have pitched in to buy a harvester, and he wants…”

“Tell him she doesn’t work here anymore,” I shout back.

Miss Allen doesn’t like that one bit. “Go and take the order, Miss McCabe,” she says, and to us, “You two get back to work.”

*   *   *

“Let’s go to Henricci’s for lunch,” I say when noon finally comes.

“Oh, Nonie,” Rose says, “that place’s wildly expensive.”

“So? We’re celebrating!”

“Celebrating?” Mame asks.

“A victory over Miss Allen. Hurrah for the working woman.”

Usually we duck into one of the tearooms or cafés around Ward’s that have discreet signs in the windows—
LADIES WELCOME
—because ladies aren’t welcome in most of the bars and restaurants downtown. Still a novelty for women to be out and about working. Lady shoppers could eat lunch at Field’s Walnut Room, but not in the establishments along LaSalle or State Street where the businessmen and politicians of Chicago gather to do their deals and slap each other’s backs. Henricci’s is the back-slappingest of them all and right near City Hall.

The headwaiter stands near the door, one of those starched white aprons covering him from his chest to the floor.

“His wife must spend half her days washing it,” Rose whispers to me as the man frowns at us and starts a lot of blather about a nice tearoom around the corner—not a Bridgeport fellow, not Irish even, but luckily Rick Garvey, a big-shot lawyer, is coming in right behind us and he says, “Hello, Nora,” and to the waiter, “You must know Nora Kelly, Mike Kelly’s sister, Ed’s cousin. Her uncles are Dominic and Luke and Steve and…”

I smile at Rick and say to the waiter, “I’ve loads of relations. Do I have to name them all for us to get a table?”

“No,” he says, and with a kind of snotty nod to Rick, he leads us past the tables with Reserved signs to the very back of the restaurant.

I can just about see the entrance from my seat. We order and eat chicken pot pies and drink two glasses each of root beer. “Let’s have sundaes,” I say. Not ready to leave. Keeping an eye on the door as I scoop up the last of the hot fudge taking my time. “For heaven’s sake, Nonie. Come on,” Rose says. “We have to get back. Can’t be late after all the bother this morning.”

“Bother?” I say. “What we should do is organize the girls into a union and march right out of Montgomery Ward’s. Why can’t Mame chat to the customers and make them laugh? I’m tired of all the rules and regulations they put on us! Jesus, that last memo Miss Allen pinned to the bulletin board—‘Operators should not adjust their underwear while at the switchboard’—all because Janie O’Brien loosened her stays. When women get the vote we won’t allow such nonsense!”

“There she goes,” Mame says to Rose. “She’ll have us standing on our chairs denouncing Mr. Henricci for putting us back here in the ladies’ section.”

“Not a bad idea,” I say, and pretend to climb onto my chair. And then I see him …

Tim McShane coming right through the door as if I’d conjured him out of the air, much taller than the headwaiter. Taking his hat off. Blond curly hair, big shoulders, those massive hands. And that cream-colored suit.

The headwaiter is laughing. Not so uppity now, bowing and scraping to a fare-thee-well.

Tim McShane doesn’t see us. The waiter leads him to a table by the window, and takes away the Reserved sign.

“Look,” I say to Rose and Mame, “it’s Tim McShane. What’s to stop me from going over there and saying, ‘What a coincidence!’ and ‘Thank you again for your rescue!’”

“We’ll stop you,” Rose says, pulling me back into my seat. “He’s a scoundrel, Nonie. Please.”

“Oh, Rose, you’re too good for this world. So he’s not a saint. So he’s…”

But the rest of the sentence sputters because who’s sailing into Henricci’s, flags and feathers flying, but only Chicago’s most famous soprano Dolly McKee herself. A woman who looks as if she doesn’t give a snap of her fingers about goodness. Lunchtime at Henricci’s, and she’s dressed for dinner at the Palmer House. All in black, with jet beads sewn over the front of her dress and the neckline cut so low her white bosom shines across the room.

I remember how, as a lone figure in the spotlight, she reached Mam and me high in the balcony of the McVicker’s Theatre. Now she overwhelms Henricci’s, moving toward her table and Tim McShane, who stands up. She offers him her hand, and doesn’t he kiss it.

I sit down. So does Dolly.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” I say.

“He’s devoted to her. That’s what they say,” Mame says.

Awfully bright at that window table, the light ducks under the brim of Dolly’s hat, hits her across her face. Wrinkles under all that powder and rouge. Fifty at least, I think. But every fellow in the place is looking over at her. Now the county clerk, the assesor, and two aldermen walk over to her table. She says a word or two to each man and then, with a lovely half wave, sends him on his way.

“Well, that’s that,” I say to Mame and Rose. “Let’s go.”