The Cure for Dreaming (30 page)

For a short while, all was indeed well.

Bittersweet, but well.

FATHER FETCHED ME AT EIGHT O'CLOCK, AND WE WALKED
through the dark streets in silence with the soft swish of the bloomers brushing beneath my petticoat. Near the Park Blocks, I saw our shadows drifting ahead of us in the lamplight and, in them, the silhouette of a little girl with braided hair, sitting on the shoulders of a trim young man in a tall hat. Two steps later, the image shifted, and all that was left were the regular shadows of Father and me, walking three feet apart from each other.

“I miss when you used to carry me on your shoulders,” I said, still watching the sidewalk ahead of us.

“Yes, well . . .” Father cleared his throat. “I think you might be getting a little too big for that nowadays.”

I couldn't help but laugh, and I could have sworn I heard a low chuckle rumble from above his thick beard.

The wedge soon formed between us again. Our shadows spread farther apart, and they looked hunched and cold and lonely.

OUT IN THE BACKYARD ON MONDAY MORNING, WHILE MY
classmates wrote compositions and solved algebraic equations in school, I scrubbed brown soap and Father's undergarments
across the zinc grooves of our washboard in the steaming double boiler. Hair fell into my face from the force of all the rubbing, and my hands reddened and absorbed the smell of lye.

After the washing, I pinned the laundry to the clothesline, and little flecks of rain flew at my eyelids and cheeks. “Don't pour, don't pour,” I begged of the sky, for I had come too far to lug everything down to our drying racks in the dark basement, where mice skittered about. I rushed to clip every garment to the line, and our backyard became a white wonderland of undershirts, petticoats, and drawers. Ghosts without bodies, just hovering in the mist.

I closed the door on that chore and climbed upstairs to pen a short note at my desk.

November 5, 1900

Dear Madam,

Please accept my deepest thanks for delivering my letter to the editor this past Friday. I was delighted to see the article's publication in Saturday's edition of the newspaper. The reception to the piece far exceeded my expectations, and I am now strongly considering a career in journalism because of the pure joy I experienced in sharing my words with the people of this city. May ALL women one day gain a voice.

Sincerely,

A Responsible Woman

THE TEAM OF FEMALE TYPISTS IN DARK DRESS SUITS AND
ties clicked away at their tidy rows of desks in the
Oregonian
's headquarters, and the same spirit of adventure I had felt on Friday coaxed me farther inside the building.

I noted one striking difference from the week before: a freckled young man with black hair sat at the front desk instead of the statuesque receptionist.

“May I help you?” he asked while unscrewing the cap of a fountain pen.

“I'm looking for the woman who worked at this desk last week.”

“She no longer works here.” The fellow set to scribbling a note on a sheet of company letterhead.

“She's not here?”

“No, she's been dismissed.”

“May I ask why?”

“Yes”—he grinned and peeked up at me—“you may ask, but I will not answer.”

“Does it have anything to do with that letter that was printed on Saturday's front page?”

The young man stopped writing. “Oh, Lord. You're not bringing another note of thanks, are you?”

“There are notes of thanks?”

“And violent hate mail threatening to set fire to both that letter writer's house and our building. But mostly ghastly letters of thanks.” He reached down beside his desk and hoisted up a canvas sack spilling over with envelopes. “Ladies
stuffed them through the mail slot all weekend long. One of our workers slipped on the piles when he first opened the office this morning. Nearly broke his neck. And then an hour ago, another batch”—the young man gestured with his head toward a bag slumped against a wall like a rummy in an alleyway—“arrived from the postman. Our editor, Mr. Scott, is fuming.”

My fingers itched to grab all those beautiful stuffed envelopes and rip them open, one by one. “Would you like me to burn the letters for you?” I asked.

The fellow lifted his eyebrows. “Burn them?”

“I'll gladly take them and toss them into an incinerator. I'm opposed to the vote myself.”

“You are?” He plopped the rustling sack back on the ground. “I don't come across many middle-class young ladies who oppose the vote.”

“Are the bags heavy?” I asked.

“I don't think I entirely believe you're an anti-suffragist.”

I covered my mouth and gagged against my palm.

The man gave a start. “What was that?”

“My reaction to that terrible word that starts with an
s
.”

He lifted his chin and seemed to squint down his nose at me, even though he was sitting and I was standing. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Who are
you
?” I asked, just to be as impertinent as he was.

He stiffened at my question, and the typists behind him disappeared into ink-colored smudges. The clicks and dings
of their typewriters drifted miles away. The man was suddenly dressed in a white lace tea gown, as relaxed and comfortable as can be—as if he thought himself to be more woman than man.

“Oh.” I lowered my face, and the typewriters clacked back to life.

“What is it?” he asked, suited again in brown tweed and a necktie.

“I just . . .” I laid my letter for the fired receptionist upon his desk. “Will you please give this note to the woman who used to work here? It's very important.”

“Are you a responsible woman?”

I sank back on my heels. “I—I—I like to think of myself that way.”

“You know what I mean.” He tapped the base of his pen against the desk. “‘A Responsible Woman.'”

“Oh . . .” I pushed my envelope his way. “So, you can see straight through me. Well, that . . . that simply makes us equal, Mr. . . . ?”

“Briggs.”

“Mr. Briggs. Believe it or not, I can see through you, too.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

I leaned my palms against the desk and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Deep inside, you're not so different from me. Are you?”

He gazed at me with a face unnaturally rigid—the paranoid
stare of a person whose inner workings were thrust on display against his will. His reaction made me feel cruel, so I stood and turned to leave.

“Here,” he said from behind me.

I shifted back around.

He lifted one of the mail bags. “Go burn them, Responsible Woman.”

“I will. Thank you.” I took the dense bag and dragged it across the smooth tiles, hearing the future jostling about in all those packed-together papers inside.

THE FIRST THING I DID WHEN I GOT HOME WAS TO GO TO
my bedroom. I had hardly sat down before I began tearing open the envelopes.

Dear Responsible Woman,

You put into words exactly what I wanted to say to Judge Percival Acklen . . .

Dear Responsible Woman,

I wouldn't be old enough to vote in this year's election, even if women were enfranchised, but I want to thank you for giving hardworking, unsung females like my mother a voice . . .

Dear Responsible Woman,

Who are you, and are you already part of the Oregon State
Equal Suffrage Association? If not, please join us at our next meeting . . .

Dear Responsible Woman,

I'm a pro-suffrage man, and although I'm cautious about discussing my sentiments among my colleagues at work, I applaud you for your bravery . . .

Dear Responsible Woman,

As you may already know, in June of this year 3,473 “gentlemen” of Portland contributed to the failure of the statewide women's suffrage measure. Please write more editorials to awaken the obtuse males of this city.

PLEASE!

Dozens of people thanked me. Even men praised my eloquence. Other people felt I should be horsewhipped and chained in my kitchen, but for the most part, the handwritten and professionally typed reactions set my hands trembling with gratitude and hope.

I widened my curtains to invite in more light for rereading some of the letters, and even fragile Mrs. Stanton and her wagon filled with pickling jars seemed to shine a little brighter out on the sidewalk.

That afternoon, I fetched my canvas Gladstone bag and packed my clothing—bloomers included—along with the
one hundred twenty-three dollars. I then shoved the luggage under the pink ruffles of my bed.

In barely twenty-four hours
, I realized, my knees still on the ground, my eyes locked on my hidden belongings,
A Responsible Woman and the Mesmerizing Henri Reverie—Young Marvels of the New Century—will be venturing to the Portland Hotel and putting on one hell of a show.

ess than an hour after school would have been dismissed, Frannie showed up at my door with a basket smelling of chicken looped over her arm.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Well . . .” I raised the Fannie Farmer cookbook I was carrying. “I'm mastering the fine art of housewifery.”

She frowned. “Is that even a word?”

“I looked it up once, after Father used it.”

I dropped the book on the hall table and opened the door wider.

Frannie stepped inside. “How are you really doing?”

I shut the door and leaned my back against it. “My bags are packed. I'm ready for tomorrow.”

She nodded and bit her lip.

I nudged her basket with my knuckle. “What's this?”

“We had leftover food from the anniversary party, and I thought”—she cleared her throat—“if you wanted to come with me, we could deliver it to Genevieve.”

“That's terribly kind of you.”

“To be honest”—she closed one eye and cringed—“I want to meet her.”

“You mean you want to see if Henry is lying about her.”

“That's not what I said.”

“But it's what you mean.”

“All right”—she lowered her shoulders—“maybe that's a little bit true. But as I said yesterday, if you're concerned enough about her to put up with your father, then I'd like to see what I can do to help. And I asked Mama about that sort of cancer, and she said she'd be surprised a girl could have it that young.”

“Henry's not lying.”

“No, let me finish. She said if a fifteen-year-old girl did indeed get diagnosed with it, that girl would certainly need extra support and encouragement.”

I glanced down the hallway, toward the kitchen. “I'm not sure if I can go. I have to light the stove for supper . . .”

“We'll be quick. I'll even pay for the streetcar so we can get there faster.”

“Hmm. I wouldn't mind seeing how she and Henry are doing.” I grabbed my coat off the hook. “It has to be extremely quick. Nothing can go wrong.”