Tidewater, Maryland, April 1936
Bette screamed herself awake. She jerked up in her bed.
A feeble glow outside her window pierced the predawn gray.
Her heart pounded hard and fast. She fought for air. What…what
happened?
A blast exploded outside.
Gretel’s scream joined hers. “Was ist los?”
Bette heard the sound of bare feet pelting down the hardwood
hallway and then down the steps. Her mother’s voice called out to
her stepfather, “Roarke, wait! Get your gun first!”
Bette tossed back the covers and nearly landed on Gretel in the
trundle bed below her. “Come on!” She grabbed her friend’s hand
and dragged her from their bedroom. Her mother, Chloe, was before
them, racing down the stairs to the foyer. “Mother!” Bette screeched,
afraid her mother might run outside into danger.
“Wait!” Chloe held up both hands to stop them. Bette and Gretel
halted near the middle of the staircase, both winded and panting.
Roarke hurried from the rear of the house, his rifle in his good
hand. “All of you stay in here till I see what’s out there.” He threw
open the door. Cold damp air rushed in and they all saw it at once.
A cross burned on their wide front lawn.
Bette gasped so sharply her tongue slammed against the back of
her mouth, nearly making her gag.
“What is it?” Gretel repeated in a hollow voice.
Shock and fear shimmered through Bette. She tightened her grip
on Gretel’s hand. “It’s the Klan,” she whispered.
At this, Gretel pressed herself close to Bette as if seeking refuge.
“Why? Oh, why?”
Roarke stalked outside.
“No, Roarke, they might — ” Chloe’s voice was overwhelmed by a
blast from her husband’s rifle.
“Come out, you lousy cowards!” he roared. “Show yourselves and
face me like men!”
Silent night was the only response.
“Cowards!” he shouted. He stalked to the cross and, using the
butt of his rifle, knocked it to the ground. It sizzled in the early
morning dew. Bette knew she’d never forget the sound, a hissing
like a poisonous snake. A snake poised to strike them.
He turned back to the house. “They shot out the parlor window.”
He marched onto the white-pillared porch and ripped off a paper
nailed to the doorframe.
Chloe joined him in the open doorway. “What is it?”
He shoved it into her hands. “Garbage.”
Mad to find out what the paper said, Bette tugged Gretel down
the steps. She peered over her mother’s shoulder and glimpsed the
brief note. In large, clumsy capitals, it read: “Get rid of the Jew Girl.”
“WHAT DO you think about what happened last night at Bette
Leigh’s?”
Bette froze where she stood behind the partition in the chemistry
lab of the Croftown High School. She recognized the malicious voice
as that belonging to a fellow senior named Mary.
Girlish snickering. “It’s about time.” It was Mary’s chum, Ruth.
The two led a nasty clique of girls at school.
“My daddy,” Mary continued with scorn, “says someone had to
set the McCaslins straight. That Jew girl should have stayed in
Germany where she belongs.”
The partition hid Bette from their view, letting them feel free to
spew their venom. What was worse was that Bette wasn’t alone. She
and the handsome new transfer student, Curtis Sinclair, had been
asked to wash up the glass instruments after the final chemistry
class. Even worse, Gretel —the target of all this ridicule —sat
hunched on a lab stool beside them, hearing everything. Her
expression showed that each word pierced her like thorns.
Despite the situation, Bette felt the hair on the back of her neck
prickle with an awareness of Curt. Ever since he’d first arrived at the
school, she had been fascinated with him. He was different than any
other boy here, and she’d found herself daydreaming about him
more than once. And now she stood side by side with this young
man, unseen, but able to hear every horrible word spoken about her
best friend. She wondered what he was thinking.
“Well, my mother said this all started when Miss Chloe ran off
and married that doughboy like she did.” Ruth sounded self
righteous. “She said Miss Chloe come back from New York City with
plenty of strange ideas.”
Bette’s hands trembled as she washed the glass tubes in the
small sink. Though she tried to make no noise, they clinked softly.
The enforced quiet maddened her. She wanted to explode around
the partition and confront them. But Gretel looked ready to faint.
Would putting a stop to this gossip session help Gretel or make
things worse for her?
This morning, someone—maybe a son of one of the cross
burners —had painted a swastika on Gretel’s locker. Gretel had
withdrawn further at this. Bette wanted to shake someone, scream
her outrage. Instead, she held her peace — for Gretel’s sake. Let
them leave, she thought now. Don’t let them know that we heard
their poison.
“A Jew girl, staying at Carlyle Place,” Mary snapped. “Daddy says
Miss Chloe’s ancestors are spinning in their graves.”
“Well, the whole family is strange. Adopting kids from an
orphanage,” Ruth said. “No decent family does that.”
“Well, Jamie McCaslin may be an orphan, but he’ll inherit half a
bank, and half a bank is good enough for me,” Mary said slyly. “And
he’s dreamy.”
Brisk footsteps ended the talk. “Why are you two girls loitering
here?” the chemistry teacher’s deep voice demanded.
“I wanted to ask you a question about the homework, sir,” Mary
replied in a butter-will-melt-in-my-mouth tone. She was nothing if
not quick on her feet.
“Just a moment.” The teacher raised his voice. “Miss McCaslin
and Mr. Sinclair, are you still back there?”
Bette couldn’t find her voice. She rinsed the last slippery tube
and handed it to Curt to dry. Now they had to walk out there and
face them. Dry-mouthed, she reached out for Gretel and urged her
off the lab stool. She couldn’t find words to comfort her friend.
Curt looked at the two of them as he efficiently dried the last
vial. “We’ve just finished, sir,” he replied.
Bette envied him his calmness. She wiped her hands on the
white cloth beside the little sink and turned to pick up her textbooks.
She felt as though all her joints had rusted.
Then Curt touched her arm. Electricity shot through her. No
young man had ever touched her like that—so respectful yet so
intimate. “Shall we go?” He motioned her and Gretel to go first.
Her chin went up. I’m a Carlyle of Carlyle Place, and a McCaslin
by adoption. Her mother had taught her this litany when she was a
child and came home crying from grade school taunts. Of course,
she usually couldn’t help adding, But why can’t my family be like
other families?
Curt kept his hand just under her elbow, causing her to buzz with
a special awareness of him. He nodded, encouraging her.
With Gretel right behind her, Bette stepped out from behind the
partition. She did not want to face Mary and Ruth, but her mother
had always told her, “Honey, look them straight in the eye. That’ll
make them mad as fire.”
So she stared into her classmates’ eyes —two girls who’d
tormented her all her childhood, even though their families weren’t
perfect either. Seeing their expressions, she knew they were
embarrassed Curt had overheard their gossip and that somehow
they would try to make her pay for their indiscretion.
“Thank you, Miss McCaslin, Mr. Sinclair.” The teacher smiled.
She merely nodded at the teacher’s thank-you. And, her spine as
stiff as a broom handle, she led Gretel out into the hall. Curt stayed
right with them, his hand on her arm. The gesture was both tender
and devastating. She spared him a quick look as they made their
way down the hall. Curt Sinclair was her opposite. Only a few inches
taller than Bette, he had blond hair to her black, blue eyes to her
gray. And he dressed sharp. She didn’t. She wondered, what did he
think of what he’d heard? Did he merely think chivalry called for him
to protect them?
The three of them stopped at the end of the corridor and only
then did he let go of her arm. Gretel stayed right beside Bette,
saying nothing. Clutching her books to her chest as a shield, Bette
looked down at her scuffed Oxfords. Please don’t say anything about
the gossip. Please don’t.
“Do you need a ride home?” Curt asked politely. “My father
loaned me his car today.” He smiled and Bette noticed that his blond
hair was parted on the side and combed back smoothly like
Humphrey Bogart.
“We always walk to the bank and ride home with my stepfather,”
she replied automatically. Momentarily entranced, she detected
traces of golden beard on his cleft chin. She thought of running a
finger over it and experienced a rush of sensation that shook her.
For a second, all she could think of was Curt and his nearness. Then
the horror of the past few minutes and the early morning attack
surged back. She shook with it.
“I think it would be best if I drove you to the bank today,” Curt
said.
So he had heard about the burning cross. Bette wondered what
he thought about it. But didn’t his gallant actions give his opinion?
“Danke,” Gretel murmured, swishing her long dark braids over
the shoulders of her plain navy-blue dress. “Danke.”
Bette managed to nod before Curt hustled them down the
staircase, whistling. The sound did things to the back of her neck.
The three of them were passing the glass-encased bulletin board
next to the principal’s office when Bette caught sight of something
pinned there and nearly stopped in her tracks. No!
LATER ON, Bette sat at the kitchen table at Carlyle Place and set her
worn Oxford shoe on a flattened cereal box. Her mind buzzed with
ideas of what to do about the notice she’d seen on the bulletin
board. But she made herself carefully trace the outline of the shoe’s
sole onto the cardboard. Gretel sat across from her doing the same
to Bette’s other shoe. Bette’s mother and the housekeeper, Jerusha,
were chatting at the stove about someone’s new baby as if last night
hadn’t happened. The radio could be heard from the parlor, playing
“I’m Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.”
The image of the flaming cross kept popping into Bette’s mind,
along with the nasty words she’d overheard at school, like a bad
taste in her mouth. She wanted to take her mother aside and pour
out the awful, hateful gossip and then curl up in her lap. But that
was what she’d done as a child.
I’m nearly a woman now. I’m eighteen and I’ll graduate high
school in a month. I will only hurt Gretel and Mother if I repeat the
garbage I heard. That’s what her stepfather always called gossip —
garbage. What should she say to Gretel? Not a word about the
chemistry lab had been spoken between them. And what could she
do about the new notice on the bulletin board? Mary could be
viciously jealous and this would make Bette a prime target.
A knock came at the back door. Even that caused a spurt of fear.
But Bette stood up as calmly as she could manage and answered it.
One of their sharecroppers stood with his sweat-stained hat in his
dark hands.
“Is Miz Chloe home, please?”
“Certainly. Please step in. Mother?” Bette walked back to the
table.
Her mother went to greet the man. “Samuel, what can I do for
you?”
Bette looked over her shoulder, watching the interaction between
the bowing, ragged sharecropper and her kind, neat-as-a-pin
mother. Bette both liked and disliked her mother’s easy way with
people. Her mother was good to everyone, whether white or black,
rich or poor. Because of this, people respected her mother. But they
also gossiped endlessly about her. It didn’t make sense.
For a moment, Bette let herself imagine the kind of family she
herself wanted in the future: a husband and four children. A small
house in a small city. She would dress nicely and have the neighbor
ladies over for coffee…
Bette heard her mother close the back door and walk up behind
her. As she began cutting out the cardboard inserts for her shoes,
Chloe stopped and patted her on the shoulder. “New shoes for you.
Very soon. Thanks for being so patient.”
“It’s all right, Mother. I don’t mind.” Bette felt guilty for imagining
a life so different from her parents. They were good people. Even
though her stepfather was the president of the local bank, times
were still hard. So many people needed help and farm prices were
below rock-bottom. No doubt Mary and Ruth’s parents didn’t bother
themselves about whether the A.M.E. reverend’s son needed costly
insulin injections to live, but her mother and stepfather did.
Besides, why should I even be thinking about having my own
family? I’m not beautiful like Mother. Not even pretty new shoes and
a dress would make Curt Sinclair notice me. Then she recalled his
light touch under her elbow and her heart pounded all over again.
Her two little brothers, Rory and Thompson burst in, slamming
the back door behind them. “Mom! Mom!” the two shouted in
breathless unison.
Chloe turned and bent down and, catching a body in each arm,
hugged them. The boys’ heads came only as high as her waist. “I
was wondering when you’d decide to come home. Which one of you
fell in the creek today?”
“We didn’t go to the creek!” Rory, who was fair like Chloe,
announced in his boyish soprano. “We went to see Mr. Granger’s
horses.”
In the background, the news came onto the radio. A broadcaster
announced in a smooth professional voice, “Today Secretary of State
Cordell Hull again urged that the US aid Polish Jews. Labor chiefs
join 350,000 American Jews in asking for a protest to Warsaw
persecution.”
Bette watched a shadow pass over Gretel’s face. The news from
Europe was never good if it was about Jews.
“Mr. Granger, he let us comb the horses,” Thompson, who was
dark-haired, continued their conversation. “It was really swell.”
“When are we going to get a horse, Mom?” Rory asked.
“Unfortunately that isn’t on our current list of priorities,” Chloe
replied mildly. “Now, go wash your hands and tell your father
supper’s ready and it’s time to gather in the dining room.”
Rory and Thompson crowded around the sink and then pelted
out into the hall, calling, “Dad! Dad!”
Soon all six of them sat around the long table. Thinking about
becoming an adult and leaving home made Bette look around at her
family differently tonight. Her stepfather Roarke, with his bent arm
that had been injured in the Great War, sat at the head of the table
and Chloe at the foot. Gretel and she sat opposite Rory and
Thompson, who were five and six years old respectively. Bette loved
them all more than words could express.
As her stepfather finished saying grace, another familiar face
appeared at the kitchen doorway. “Uncle Ira!” Gretel sprang up and
rushed to him.
The short, balding man opened his arms and clasped Gretel to
his thin chest. “Liebchen,” he murmured, looking meaningfully at
Bette’s parents over his niece’s head.
Seeing the worry there, Bette’s mother spoke up. “Everyone, but
Bette and Gretel slept —”
“Hey, Mr. Sachs, did you know that somebody burned a cross on
our lawn last night?” Rory asked.
There was a shocked silence. Then Roarke cleared his throat.
“We thought you boys slept through that.”
“Everybody at school knew about it,” Rory declared. “I told them
that you had a gun and they better watch out.”
“I hear about it also,” Uncle Ira said. Gently urging Gretel back
into her place, he pulled out a chair and sat beside his niece. “Good
evening, Mrs. McCaslin, Mister.” He nodded politely at them. Ira
Sachs showing up for supper on Fridays had become a weekly ritual.
Gretel stayed with Bette during the week so she could ride to school
with Bette. On Fridays, Uncle Ira came for Gretel and took her home
to spend the rest of the weekend with him in Baltimore. The routine
had begun nearly a year ago when Gretel’s family had sent her from
Germany to live with Ira Sachs, her great-uncle.
They’d met because Bette’s mother sold their excess eggs to Mr.
Sachs, who gathered eggs and then drove them to the Washington,
D.C., and Baltimore grocery stores he supplied. On one of his stops
in the early summer of 1935, Chloe had seen the new girl sitting in
his faded pickup truck and talked to her. She’d invited Gretel to
spend time with Bette and improve her broken English before school
started in the fall. It had been hard at first for Gretel to adjust to
living with a Gentile family, but her uncle wasn’t Orthodox so he
didn’t keep Kosher—as he called it —anyway. In the end, Gretel had
settled in as Bette’s first and only close girlfriend.
Again, Bette glanced around the table. The cross-burning was
just one nasty event in a continuing conflict between the majority of
people in northern Anne Arundel County and her parents. No doubt
Mary and Ruth would never invite the Jewish egg man to dinner and
no doubt their mothers would never take in an orphan like
Thompson. Chloe had explained to her why people didn’t adopt
orphans. They thought that most of them were bastards, children
who had been conceived in sin and who even their fathers and
mothers had rejected. Chloe had called it foolish, mean-hearted
prejudice. She’d used the same words to explain why people called
Gretel and Mr. Sachs names.
“I’m so sorry that you had to suffer this cross business,” Mr.
Sachs said in his thin voice, which still held a trace of German. But
he passed the bowl of mashed potatoes to Chloe as if nothing
untoward had happened.
“It’s just a few KKK, probably liquored up,” Roarke dismissed it.
“Gretel, you shouldn’t let it hit you too hard. They’re just ignorant
men, cowards.”
“Hitler would like them,” Gretel put in, sounding unhappy. She
stirred her greens with her fork, staring downward. Gretel’s parents
remained in Germany, trying to keep the long-held family business.
In letter after letter, Gretel had begged her parents to join her here.
But visas were hard to get.
“But they wouldn’t like Hitler,” Chloe said. “That’s what’s so…odd.
Burning a cross is just nastiness. But they wouldn’t hurt you.”
Bette didn’t know if she agreed with her mother. Mary and Ruth
had malice enough.
“I don’t want you children to be afraid. Nothing is going to
happen to you,” Roarke said firmly.
Bette ate and watched everyone around the table in silence. By
telephone this morning, her stepfather had reported the cross
burning to the sheriff—even though identifying the culprits would
probably be impossible. And, after all, they were only guilty of
trespassing. People here could be hateful to Gretel, although if they
did more than talk, Gretel could prefer charges against them. At
least it was better than the situation in Germany, where Jews no
longer had legal rights. The idea boggled Bette’s mind. What did
Hitler have against Jews?Then she recalled what the bulletin notice
had announced—that she and Curt would be working together.
When Mary’s clique heard about this change, they’d be spurred on to
new heights of nastiness. She’d seen both of them “mooning” over
Curt.
I’ll have to call the sponsor of the dance and ask to he removed
from the list. Hope sparked inside her at this thought. Dad always
said that discretion was the better part of valor. Perhaps she’d be
rewarded.
She and Gretel were carrying dishes to the kitchen when the
front door knocker sounded. When she reentered the dining room to
get another armful, she stopped and stared.
“Good evening, Bette,” Curt said.
“Maybe you’d like to introduce your friend?” Chloe asked politely.
All the adults were staring at her.
Shock held Bette in place. Her tongue wanted to stick to the roof
of her mouth. Somehow she cleared her throat. “Mother, this is
Curtis Sinclair, a new student at high school.” Waves of hot
embarrassment flowed through her. She went on making the
introductions while Curt nodded and shook hands. He was well
dressed and looked like he belonged in this dining room more than
she did. Suddenly, she wished she could burn her faded dress and
card-boarded Oxfords.
“Do you know how to ride a horse?” Rory blurted out.
Bette’s face warmed more. How could she get Curt out of here
before she was embarrassed further? Who knew what might come
out of Rory’s mouth next?
“Sorry, I don’t,” Curt admitted with a grin.
“Bette, why don’t you take Mr. Sinclair,” Chloe suggested, “into
the parlor where you two can talk uninterrupted?”
“Mom, it’s almost time for Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy!”
Rory objected.
Chloe glanced at her wristwatch. “Jack won’t be on the radio for
ten more minutes.”
Throwing her mother a grateful glance, she walked out the door
to the hallway and opened the pocket doors into the parlor. Curt
followed her and then they were alone. What can I say if he brings
up this afternoon ?
CURT LOOKED around the formal parlor and sat down when Bette did.
He hadn’t expected Bette to live in a house like this. “You have a
really nice place.” His mouth was dry with the shock of it.
“My family’s been at Carlyle Place…a long time.”
A very long time, he agreed silently. Well, he’d come here, and
he’d have to go through with it now. “Did you see the notice on the
bulletin board?”
“Yes, I did.” She was blushing. “I’ll understand if you want
me…I’ll be glad to resign —”
“I don’t want you to resign.” Curt’s quick answer snapped
between them like a crack of lightning.
“You don’t?” Bette stared at him. “Then why did you come
tonight?”
Well, no going back now. “I’m glad I was moved up from
member to co-chair of the graduation dance committee with you.”
He gazed at Bette. Her ears were dainty. Her nose was just right and
sprinkled with the tiniest freckles though her complexion was
elegantly white, like something out of a poem. Her gray eyes were
large and luminous with honesty. She was such a sweet kid. And so
pretty. And she didn’t deserve the guff she got from people around
here.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve been watching you, Bette. You’re not
foolish-acting like so many girls at school. The world is being taken
over by communists and fascists and they act like it’s nothing. I
admire you for befriending Gretel.”
Bette stared at him. He was right. Most kids in their class barely
knew what a fascist was. But what did he mean?
“My family takes an interest in what’s going on in the world.
That’s what I miss about living near Philadelphia. It’s so reactionary
here I can hardly breathe sometimes.”
Reactionary? She’d have to look that up in the dictionary. “Oh?”
she responded cautiously. She tried to concentrate on his words, but
his thick brown eyelashes and that hint of blond beard, now more
pronounced, made it hard for her to breathe.
“And I wanted to ask you to go to the dance with me.”
Bette tried not to look surprised. Dance? With you? “I’d love
that,” she stammered.
“Well, I’ve got to go.” Rising, Curt held out his hand.
Bette took it. The contact of their palms ricocheted through her.
It was the first time a young man had shaken her hand. It was like
shaking on an agreement.
She had a date for the senior dance.
How wonderful.
How awful.
BETTE COULDN’T SLEEP that night. Gretel had left with her uncle without
a private moment in which Bette could tell her of the dance
invitation. Finally, the little boys had been put to sleep and the house
was quiet. Her nerves on edge, Bette tiptoed out of her room and
down the hall to her parent’s bedroom. She must tell her mother.
Chloe would need to know so that they could figure out how to get
ready for the dance only a month away.
Even though the door wasn’t closed completely, she raised her
hand to knock on it. Her stepfather’s strained voice halted her. He
said, “I got a letter from Kitty today.”
CHAPTER 2
“S
name.”
he still sends them to the bank?” her mother asked.
“Yes, just her street and state on the return address, no
Bette heard the scrape of wire hangers on the closet pole.
“What did she say?” Chloe asked.
“Not much. Just enclosed a check like she always does.”
A check? Bette thought. Why would Aunt Kitty send them
money? Were Mother and Dad in worse financial shape than she
thought?
“Oh, Roarke, what are we going to do?” Chloe sounded pained.
“How can we get her to understand that we love her, need her in our
lives?”
“She doesn’t want to hear that. Doesn’t want to hear anything
from us.” Roarke’s voice was clipped, hurt.
Bette peered through the crack between the door and the jamb,
almost too shocked to feel guilty about eavesdropping.
“Do you remember telling me that Kitty was the only one the war
didn’t change?” Chloe sat in her pale dressing gown in front of her
vanity, smoothing cream into her hands.
“Yes, and it wasn’t the war that changed my sister.” In his striped
pajamas, Roarke sat on the side of their quilt-covered bed.
“What did?”
“That man.”
Chloe paused as though stung, and then leaned forward and
kissed her husband. It was a kiss of comfort, of enduring love. It
held Bette mesmerized. Would any man ever kiss her that way?
Bette stood there, her hand curled ready to tap. She was afraid
to breathe, afraid of being discovered. Puzzled, she turned back
toward her own room. What man were they talking about? And why
did Aunt Kitty, the aunt she barely remembered, send checks? And
why did that upset her parents? It didn’t make sense.
THE NEXT MORNING, Saturday, after everyone had gone off to do
whatever they had to do, Bette drew her mother into her parent’s
spacious bedroom. Bette had always loved entering the elegant
room with its high ceiling and soothing shades of ivory and light
green. The maple four-poster with sheer white draperies dominated
the room.
The conversation Bette had overheard in this room chased itself
’round and ’round in her mind, but she couldn’t ask her mother
about Aunt Kitty. Besides, she had something else more urgent to
discuss. Even though, in light of the crossburning, she felt guilty
bringing up something her mother might think trivial.
“Mother,” her tense voice quavered, “Curt Sinclair asked me to
the senior dance.” Saying this out loud to another living person
caused her heart to jerk and then race.
“Honey.” Chloe took Bette’s hands in hers. “He seemed like such
a nice young man.”
“He is.” Winded without running a step, Bette gathered her
courage. “I know a dress for the dance will be expensive, but —”
“Of course you’ll have a new dress for the dance, Bette.” Her
mother shook her head. “I apologize. Time has gotten away from
me. You’ll need a new dress for graduation, too. And dress shoes as
well as everyday shoes and silk stockings. And everything.” She
dropped Bette’s hands and began pacing.
“Silk stockings?” Bette’s mouth opened in shock. She leaned back
against the foot of the high bed for support.
“Of course. You can’t wear anklets and knee socks for the rest of
your life.” Chloe paused, looking Bette up and down. “When you
graduate, you will be a woman, not a girl anymore.” She looked
pensive, one finger pressed against her cheek. “Don’t give this
another thought.”
Bette felt hope inflate like a balloon inside her. “Will we go to
Baltimore or Washington to shop?” She’d overheard girls at school
planning such shopping trips and had thought they were beyond her
parents’ means.
“No, I think I have a better idea.” Her mother grinned suddenly
and then chuckled. “I know just what to do. Oh, she’ll be thrilled
when I ask her.”
Bette wondered who the “she” was, but was too tongue-tied to
ask. It still felt too good to be true. A new dress and silk stockings . .
. Wow.
From the bureau top, Chloe lifted her ancient maple-wood sewing
box and took out a frayed cloth measuring tape. “Yes, it’s time for
you to make your debut.”
Bette knew her mother had been a debutante and had attended
the debutante’s ball in Annapolis. But after Bette’s grandmother died
two days after Bette’s twelfth birthday, Chloe had decided that Bette
wouldn’t like that or going away to finishing school. Even so,
sometimes Bette wondered—if she’d been to finishing school and
been a debutante, would the girls from high school treat her the way
they did?
With both hands, Chloe reached around her with the tape,
measuring her bustline. “You’re growing into a beautiful woman,
Bette Leigh.” Then she measured her waist and hips and noted the
numbers down on a scrap of paper. “Your father would be so proud
of you.”
The mention of the father who’d died before she was born gave
Bette a warm feeling. Her mother always said things like that about
her father. They must have loved each other very much and Bette
thought the story of their romance wonderful, almost like a movie.
But looking at her mother reminded her of her own shortcomings.
“I’m not beautiful like you.”
Chloe turned her blue eyes onto Bette. “Honey, you are the kind
of woman who will grow more beautiful with every year. You aren’t
cute. You have a subtle, classical beauty that isn’t appreciated until
you gain some maturity. But” —she gave Bette a roguish smile
—“evidently, Mr. Sinclair has eyes in his head. He sees you better
than the children you’ve grown up with.”
Bette pondered her mother’s words. She’d heard them often
enough, but after the way she was treated at school, she’d had a
hard time actually believing in them. But now that she thought of it,
she mustn’t be that bad or why would Curt have chosen her as his
date? Oh, dear, when the clique at school finds out, they’ll be mad
as fire. Cold fingers of dread tingled through Bette.
“I’m afraid … I’m sorry that your stepfather and I make you an
object of curiosity.”
How did she know what I was thinking? But, then, her mother
was more perceptive than most other mothers. She often seemed to
understand how Bette felt.
Chloe’s voice had sobered. “But your stepfather and I must live
the way we think is right, the way we think God wants us to live. We
decided to ride out this Depression and keep our people on the land
—land their families have tilled for almost a century—not throw them
off in these bad times. And Gretel needed our help. I can’t be
bothered with the small-town prejudices here.”
Bette tried to absorb this, tried to deal with the fact that her
mother was speaking to her as if they were equals.
“And because I won’t go along with their prejudices, it makes
people want to tell me off. But they can’t. I’m a Carlyle and Roarke’s
family owns the bank. So what people think about me, they mutter
at home and their children overhear bits and pieces. And being
human, they want to use it to tear you down and, they think, build
themselves up. In reality, it only makes them look smaller and
meaner.”
Bette thought about Curt’s opinion of the attitudes here.
Reactionary?
Chloe ran her fingers through Bette’s shoulder-length hair, lifting
it, letting her love touch Bette. “Not long from now, you will enter
the larger world and leave all this behind you. And your experience
here will make you stronger and kinder than you would have been
otherwise.”
Her solemn tone impressed Bette. She had never spoken to her
like this before. “I’m not going far, Mother. Just secretarial school in
Baltimore.”
Chloe smiled and shook her head. “That’s not the way life works,
honey. Not at all. You’ll have a wonderful life all your own. I just
hope that this Depression is the worst trouble that life will throw at
you. You’ve grown up so much, especially in the way you befriended
Gretel. You have a loving heart and deserve a wonderful future.”
Chloe embraced her.
Bette loved hearing her mother talk like this. Still, she had a hard
time believing it. But at least, she’d been asked to the senior dance
by Curt Sinclair. That would be enough to remember all her life.
Chloe released her. “Now go ahead and help Jerusha plant the
flower beds. I have a letter to write.”
Before she went to help their housekeeper, Bette wanted to ask
for more particulars about the dresses, the shoes, the silk stockings.
What if her mother, or whomever she contacted, didn’t know what
would be appropriate? But how could she voice this doubt when her
mother had been so wonderful? She decided for now she would
have to trust in her mother’s instincts.
With her thoughts and feelings whirling around in her head,
Bette left to find Jerusha.
CHLOE WATCHED her daughter walk out of the room, her mind
obviously a million miles away. She wondered if Curt Sinclair made
Bette feel the way Theran Black had made her feel nearly twenty
years ago. Attraction between a man and a woman could prove
powerful. In 1917, Chloe had been desperately in love with Theran,
until. . .
She sighed, sat down at her secretary, and pulled out a piece of
her pink-tinted stationary. “Dear Minnie,” she wrote with a grin.
BETTE FELT VERY GROWNUP. Over a week had passed since Curt Sinclair
had come into her life. Now on Monday night, they sat together in
her stepfather’s den, the pocket door open. The muffled sounds of
her family down the hall in the parlor listening to The Will Rogers’
Show, her stepfather’s favorite, drifted in. “But with Congress,” she
heard Will Rogers’ distinctive twang, “every time they make a joke,
it’s a law and every time they make a law, it’s a joke.” Radio
audience laughter vied with her stepfather’s.
Here, so close to Curt, she felt a world apart from the girl who
would have been sitting with her family listening to the show. Bette
couldn’t believe how her life had changed. Last Monday morning,
Curt had started walking her to her classes. She’d felt many shocked
and angry gazes following their progress down the school corridors.
The infamous clique of girls led by Mary had glared at her, but they
had fallen strangely silent. Maybe they didn’t know what to say.
Bette studied Curt, his sandy hair gleaming in the low light. Why
was he interested in her?
He sat beside her at the desk where they had laid out all the
information about the different aspects of the senior dance to
finalize, such as the refreshment list with names of people who
would donate food and drink.
The dance is almost here. When will Mother say anything about
the new dresses?
“I sure wish we could afford live music,” Curt said.
Staring into Curt’s blue eyes, Bette was caught off-guard.
“What?” Then she stared at his lips. They were perfect to her—a
gentle bow on the top lip and a slightly fuller bottom lip. And that
golden stubble on his chin … She couldn’t look away.
“Live music. Wouldn’t we knock everyone for a loop with a swing
band?” He leaned forward.
“Swing.” Bette realized that he was staring at her lips, too. Her
mouth suddenly went very dry. “But we have no money for a band.”
She let her face drift toward Curt’s.
Curt looked at her in obvious wonder and tilted his head. “You
got that right,” he mumbled.
Bette moved the final inch till her lips were a mere breath away
from his. Her blood pounded in her veins. Would he kiss her?
“Bette.”
Gretel’s woebegone voice startled Bette away from Curt. Bette
swung around to see her friend in the doorway. Gretel was in tears.
“What’s wrong?”
“I … I …” Seeing her two friends so close together, Gretel
faltered. “I thought Curt is gone already. I’m sorry.” She drew back
to leave.
“No,” Bette and Curt said almost in unison, rising together.
“We’re done,” Curt said. “I have to get home to do homework,
too.” He gathered up the papers and returned them to a folder. “I’ll
see myself out.”
Bette was torn. Gretel obviously needed her, but she hated to see
Curt leave. At school, he’d shown his true colors, too. He’d insisted
on walking her to class even with Gretel at her other side.
On his way out the door, he grasped Bette’s upper arm. “I’ll see
you tomorrow after English?”
She nodded, more interested in the stirring effect of his touch on
her than his words. Then saying good night to both of them, he was
gone.
Bette wrenched her mind back to Gretel. “What is it?” Bette
asked as she moved to close the door to the hallway. She turned to
face her friend.
“It’s Ilsa. A letter come today from Berlin” —Gretel waved it
forlornly—“but I wouldn’t let myself read it till I had done all my
lessons.” Gretel wiped her eyes with a flowered hankie.
“What’s wrong with your cousin?” Ilsa was Gretel’s only cousin,
five years older than she.
“My parents write that her husband has divorced her. He never
said one word to her.” Gretel pressed the hankie to her streaming
eyes. “He just handed her the divorce decree.”
“How could he divorce her without her knowing what he was
doing?” Bette drew nearer Gretel. This didn’t make sense. Divorce
created a huge scandal. How could a man hide that?
“Because she is a Jew. The Nazi judge granted him the divorce
because Ilsa is Jewish. That isn’t law. Her husband took all the
money from their bank account for himself. He packed one bag of
her clothes and put her out on the street. He shut the door of their
apartment in her face.” Gretel’s voice quavered. “She walked all the
way—over five miles—to her parents’ house. She did not have a
penny. But her father is already fired from his civil service job
because he is a Jew. How will they live with no money?” Gretel sank
into the nearest chair.
Bette reached for her friend’s hand. She imagined a woman who
resembled Gretel standing alone on a dark, foreign street, looking
back forlornly at the place where she’d lived with her husband. He’d
shut the door in Ilsa’s face. The pain must be soul-destroying. Bette
had suffered ridicule all her life for being different, but nothing like
this. They could taunt her, even burn crosses on her lawn, but no
one could do anything to her.
“Ilsa, you know,” Gretel said, “ran away and married him. She
was just eighteen and crazy in love with him. Her parents were not
happy. He was not Jewish, but they still talked to Ilsa. They just
didn’t see her often.”
“Didn’t he love her anymore?” Bette asked, trying to make sense
of this.
“I do not think he must have loved her ever, do you?” Gretel
asked, suddenly stiff with outrage. “My aunt told my mother that it is
because he is married to a Jew. They were going to fire him from his
job.”
“He divorced her over a job?” Bette tried to believe this, but she
failed. Ilsa’s husband must not have loved her. Bette knew that real
love hoped all things, endured all things, and never failed. In her
memory, she heard her mother reciting this verse. And her mother
should know—she loved Bette’s stepfather and he loved her. Bette
wasn’t mistaken about that.
“I’d like to kill him. With my bare hands around his throat.” Gretel
crumpled the letter in her hands and strangled it.
Bette had never heard her friend’s voice so savage, so harsh.
Chloe slid open the door. “Did Curt leave?”
Bette walked toward her, instinctively seeking her help. “Yes, I —
”
“Gretel, what’s wrong?” Chloe went straight to the weeping girl.
Gretel poured out her story as Chloe stood with her arms wrapped
around her. Then Gretel dissolved into sobs.
When Gretel could speak again, she said, “My mother says that
Ilsa is going to apply for a visa out of the country. Both our families
will try to get together enough funds to pay for her to come here.”
Gretel gave them a despairing look. “Why have they waited? So
long? Too long. Now Jews can only take twenty-five percent of their
money out of Germany. If we had come here all together after Hitler
came to power in ’33, when Grossfater insisted I be sent to stay with
Uncle Ira, they would be safe now. I am afraid for them.”
Over Gretel’s head, Bette and her mother exchanged worried
glances. “Perhaps I can find a way to help,” Chloe murmured.
“How?” Gretel asked and Bette echoed the question silently.
Chloe shook her head. “I can’t make promises, but I’ll try.”
LATER THAT EVENING, Chloe opened the door of the pale-pink bedroom
of her childhood, which Bette and Gretel now shared, and looked in.
Bette was asleep on the bed and Gretel slept on the trundle bed on
the floor beside it. Both girls wore prim white-cotton nightgowns and
looked like the innocents they were. Dear Lord, keep them safe. Give
them strength to face whatever may come.
Chloe closed the door silently and walked down the hall to her
bedroom. Roarke met her as she entered and with his good arm
drew her close. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. As she
breathed in his natural fragrance, she reveled in the sweet assurance
of his lips on hers. “I love you, Roarke.”
“And I love you.”
“We’re so lucky.”
After an earlier explanation of Gretel’s bad news, Roarke
understood what she meant. “I had never known a Jewish person as
a friend until you invited Gretel into our home. Of course, I knew it
would make us the topic of more gossip — taking a Jew, and the
niece of the egg man, for heaven’s sake, into our home. But I didn’t
care. It was right and I love the way you don’t care what people say
about us.”
“But that prejudice is nothing to what’s happening in Germany.”
Chloe looked up at him, clearly asking for understanding. “I’m going
to write to my old friend Drake. Do you mind if I ask him if he can
help Gretel’s family?”
Roarke knew why Chloe was asking him. She knew that
sometimes jealousy still had the power to nip him, make him speak
sharply to her. Forgive my unruly tongue, beloved. “Go ahead with
my blessing.”
Chloe kissed him and he forgot everything but wanting to hold
her close and show her how glad he was that she was in his life …
for good.
ALMOST TWO WEEKS later on a Saturday morning deep in sunny May,
boxes from New York City were delivered. One box was long and
flat. The other was tall and square. The postmaster himself had
made a special trip out to deliver them personally. His eyes shone
with his eagerness for information. Chloe thanked him warmly, but
gave him no tidbits to repeat.
Then Jerusha helped Bette carry them upstairs to her parents’
large bedroom. Gretel, who was spending a rare weekend with them
because her great-uncle had to go out of town on business, hovered
around Bette. Bette was relieved that last weekend Gretel’s uncle
had taken her to Baltimore and bought her a new graduation outfit.
So Bette didn’t have to feel guilty. Chloe came in, beaming.
“Mother,” Bette asked, peering at the mailing labels, “who is Mrs.
Frank Dawson?”
Chloe and Jerusha exchanged glances. Chloe nodded to Jerusha.
“Mrs. Frank Dawson is my daughter’s married name,” Jerusha
said, pride making her dark face glow.
Bette knew their housekeeper had a married daughter in New
York but it had never occurred to her that Jerusha’s daughter was
the one who would choose her new clothing. Worry sliced Bette’s
lungs. How would a stranger in New York City know what kind of
dress she’d need for a dance in Croftown?
Then Chloe cut the strings, lifted off the lid of the long flat box,
and pushed back the white tissue paper. Bette’s gasp was only one
of many.
“Go ahead, honey,” her mother urged. “It’s your dress. You lift it
out.”
First rubbing her moist palms on the front of her skirt, Bette
grasped the delicate dress by its shoulders and drew it from the
white tissue. The dress was an unusual shade of blue-violet silk
Georgette with a white-lace shawl collar, a peplum waist, and a
gracefully flared skirt that ended just inches above her ankles. She’d
never worn such a dress before. It was just like something Myrna
Loy would wear as Mrs. Nick Charles in The Thin Man.
“I knew Minnie would know just what you should wear. I told her
to think very young ingenue,” Chloe crowed with satisfaction.
“My, it’s fine.” Jerusha beamed.
“What else is in the box?” Gretel asked, peering over Bette’s
shoulder.
Bette managed to drag her eyes back to the box. Inside were
intimate items, everything she needed to go under the dress. “Wow,”
she breathed.
“Ja,” Gretel agreed. “Vow.”
“Honey, do you want to try it on or open the big box first?”
Like on Christmas morning, Bette wanted simultaneously to savor
every moment and do everything at once. She took in a deep
breath. “Let’s unwrap everything and lay it out on the bed.”
When this had been accomplished, Bette stared at two pairs of
shoes, three pairs of silk stockings, two pairs of gloves,
undergarments, two dresses, and a small gift-wrapped box. One pair
of shoes obviously went with the party dress. They were peau de
soie high heels and had been dyed to match. The other pair were
low-heeled light-brown pumps similar to what her mother wore, not
Oxfords like the girls at school.
Bette slipped the party shoes on and peered down at them. They
were women’s shoes, not girl’s shoes. They looked funny with
anklets instead of stockings. She glanced up.
Chloe nodded and smiled.
“They fit perfectly,” Bette said in wonder.
“I sent Minnie a cutout of your Sunday shoes, so she’d get the
right size. How do you like your graduation dress?”
This dress was a navy-blue-and-white dotted Swiss shirtwaist
with a matching belt. Its skirt ended mid-calf, a bit longer than a
girl’s dress. And there was a little wisp of a navy-blue hat with a net
veil and matching gloves. The ensemble altogether looked very
grownup, somewhat intimidating. The sense that in two short weeks
—after the senior dance and after graduation—she would be
changed trembled inside her. A humbling and frightening feeling.
She had difficulty swallowing.
“Everything’s just perfect.” Holding the dotted dress to her, Bette
whirled around like a little girl.
“You must write Minnie a thank-you note,” Chloe said.
“Minnie tell me,” Jerusha added, “she happy to go shop-pin’ for a
girl for a change. She and Frank only got the one boy.”
“Your daughter has very good style, ma’am,” Gretel voiced the
majority opinion.
THE FIRST SONG of the evening, “I’m in the Mood for Love,” played on
the school’s new electric Orthophonic phonograph. Curt led Bette to
the polished high school gym floor. The gym was draped with yellow
and white crepe paper, the school colors, and most of the overhead
lights had been left unlighted. The gym had never looked better.
Tonight, Bette hoped to begin her new grownup life —if her old
rivals would let her. But if looks could kill, Mary’s and Ruth’s would
have done Bette in upon arrival. Well, Cinderella wouldn’t be the
same without the evil stepsisters.
And tonight, Bette felt exactly like Cinderella at the ball. The
grownup way Curt looked in his dark suit with his white carnation
boutonniere swept away her ability to speak. He put his hand around
to the small of her back and held her other hand out and they began
the fox trot. For the past two weeks in the parlor with the furniture
pushed against the wall, she and her stepfather had been dancing,
practicing until she and Gretel could dance with assurance.
Under the watchful eye of the chaperones, Curt kept a respectful
distance. Bette took a deep breath and began to follow Curt’s lead.
She would treasure forever this moment. She would treasure forever
the looks on the nasty girls’ faces as she’d walked in tonight on
Curt’s arm in her evening dress. She noticed that Ruth’s and Mary’s
eyes followed her every move. Her only regret was that Gretel had
gone home with her uncle as usual last night. But Gretel didn’t need
a date for graduation. They’d still share that.
“I hate to repeat myself,” Curt whispered in her ear, “but this
dress makes you look as beautiful as I knew you were. Now these
other rubes are wondering why they didn’t see it before.” One of the
chaperones caught his eye with a stern frown and he pulled his head
away from Bette’s. He chuckled only for her as if saying, “Aren’t they
old-fashioned?”
The dance ended and Curt took her to the white cloth-draped
refreshment table adorned with fresh daisies and black-eyed Susans
and got her a cup of punch. Bette felt people staring at her. She
lifted her chin and smiled at Curt. One sip and she saw Deep Rose
lipstick on her glass punch cup, something else new for her. Her
mother had warned her to touch up her lipstick throughout the
evening.
The class president strolled up and asked her to dance. He