Eastland Read online

  “Potatoes and eggs. Mmmmm.” A half day of work meant no lunch. I was ravenous.

  “It is all done? Oui?” Mama’s expression was laced with concern.

  “Yes. The last person has been hired.”

  I plopped into a chair. Silverware, napkins, and two glasses of milk had been set out on the table. I snatched up my fork, my mouth watering in anticipation.

  “Glad that whole nightmare is behind me. I couldn’t bear one more Eastland story.” I shuddered, remembering everything I’d heard over the past three days.

  Mama set a plate in front of me. I sniffed at the egg sandwich and fried potatoes and dove in.

  She laughed. “Easy, chérie.” She made herself a plate and sat across from me.

  I took two more forkfuls of potatoes and then wiped my mouth. “Remember how I tore my sleeve on Thursday?”

  Mama chewed as she nodded.

  “Well, it wasn’t exactly an accident like I’d told you.”

  I gave her a shiny version of events, starting with all the hopeful people at the gates looking for jobs and ending with Mrs. Volo and my job offer.

  “The ripping woman was the Mama of Johnny Volo? Mae’s friend?”

  “Can you believe it?”

  “I believe.” Mama gave a firm nod. “There are miracles all around us.”

  “I have more to tell you.”

  Mama set down her fork, folded her hands, and placed them in her lap.

  I gulped and plunged ahead, opening with the bit about me near the edge of the hull. I ended with the punch line, “And he asked me to attend a benefit with him. You know, to raise money for the poor, surviving families. It sounded like something you’d want me to do. So, I said I’d go.”

  I paused to gauge her reaction. Mama brought her folded hands up to the table. Her fingers were clenched so tightly together that the tips had turned red from the rush of blood. “All week you kept this from me?”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Mama unclenched her hands, the blood-red color in her fingertips draining back to a more natural skin tone. “This boy. This mariner. He was the one in front of Mae’s house the other night?”

  “I didn’t think you noticed.”

  “A handsome young man talks to my daughter and I do not see? Paaa! So, what is his name?”

  “Lars Nielsen. He’s a first assistant engineer.” I paused. “At least he was. But I’m sure he’ll find another job soon.”

  Mama smiled—for a flash of a second—and then abruptly banged the table.

  “Lars Nee-el-son.” She pronounced his last name with slow, steady emphasis. “It has a good sound to it. I want to meet him.”

  “You will! You can! If you let me go to the benefit with him.”

  She stood and pushed in her chair. She walked to the counter next to the icebox, turned to face me, and leaned back against the butcher block.

  “When is this benefit?”

  “This evening. At Midway Gardens in Chicago. It’s going to be a ballet! I’ve never been to one before. Oh, please, Mama, I want to go. The benefit is a good thing. Right?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she stood there, staring at the hardwood floor and tapping her fingers against the counter.

  I waited anxiously, her tap tap tapping stretching from painful seconds into a torturous minute.

  She’d let me go, wouldn’t she? She had to. I had no way of contacting Lars. I glanced down at my watch. It was twelveforty-five. No matter her decision, Lars would be here in about four hours to pick me up. The tapping stopped. My head shot up.

  “This was sure to happen.” Mama shook her head and sighed. “Mother Nature has her way. That was why I had to take in your dress.”

  What was she talking about? What did Mother Nature have to do with Lars?

  “You are a beautiful, young woman. The boys will notice.” Mama let out another sigh. “I was about the same age as you, when Papa first noticed me.”

  I knew by heart the tale of how my parents had met, but I never tired of hearing it. Or reciting it.

  “You were eighteen, working in Grandpère’s tailor shop in Le Mans, France. A young man about your age came in with torn trousers. He chatted with you a bit and then returned two days later to pick up his trousers. This time he had a shirt with a frayed cuff. You two talked some more. When he came back to pick up his shirt, he had a jacket. Every button was missing. He said he couldn’t imagine how they had all fallen off at the same time. You laughed and sewed new buttons on his coat for free. He bought you dinner in return. You married three months later and moved to Chicago so Papa could work with his uncle.”

  My parents might have been young, but they had a marriage that lasted ’til death had parted them. I hoped to be that lucky. Someday.

  “Wish Papa had lived to see you grow.” Mama sounded a lot like she had on the evening of the wakes.

  “When you took in my dress! You made my new mourning dress to fit my new figure. Mother Nature at work. I get it! I understand now.” But she still hadn’t given me an answer. “Please, Mama, may I go to the ballet tonight?”

  “This Lars Nee-el-son will come to the house to collect you?”

  “Of course. The benefit starts at seven. He said to be ready around five o’clock.”

  Mama kissed me on the nose. “Another miracle. You were saved two times. I am twice blest. So. What will you wear to the ballet?”

  I huggedher and then flew down the hallway to my bedroom, dragging Mama along for the ride.

  “You sit.” I deposited her on my pink bedspread. “And I’ll give you a show. We can decide on a dress together.” I flung open the two doors of my wardrobe and rifled through the hangers. “How about this one?” I held a peach-colored day dress against me.

  “Peach is good on you.” Mama tilted her head and studied me. “Makes you look so fair.”

  Washed out was probably more like it. Porcelain pale skin may have been the choice of her generation, but I preferred a little rouge. I hung up the dress.

  “What do you think of this?” I took the steely-blue dress I’d made for the picnic and pressed it against my waist. I spun around, watching the tassels sail.

  “Lars saw that one? Non?”

  Yes. Lars had indeed seen me in this dress. I stopping twirling and put it back.

  “Maybe that one.” Mama pointed to something in my closet.

  “Oh, no! Absolutely not! I’m not wearing a black mourning dress.”

  “I could add some ribbon.” She hopped up, looking excited. “Red, maybe pink.”

  “No! I refuse to wear it. I know you worked hard on it, Mama, but you have to understand. That dress holds too many bad memories. If it were truly up to me, I’d burn it.” She let out a startled gasp. “I would never do that,” I added quickly.

  Mama peered into my wardrobe, sifting through hanger after hanger. I flopped onto my bed. The springs squeaked in protest.

  “Someone needs new clothes. I had better get busy.”

  “I’d love some new dresses. Thank you, Mama. But what am I going to wear today?”

  She pulled out the dress on the very last hanger. “Take out here.” She examined the darts across the chest. “Nip in here.” She plucked at the waistband.

  The dress she’d chosen was blue. The color wasn’t a dusty, steel-blue like my picnic outfit or a stunning, green-blue like Lars’s turquoise eyes. It was more a pretty, robin’s egg-blue. Standing next to Lars in that spring-colored dress with a few alterations … I sat up.

  “Please, Mama. Could you hem it? Make it midcalf?”

  “This is the fashion?”

  I nodded. “All the rage.”

  “I must get to work.” She folded the blue dress over her arm. “My little girl must be modern.”

  “I’d love that! But I never thought you’d agree to shorter dresses.”

  “I can be modern, too.” She gave me another “Paaa!” and marched out the door.

  I stood, bewildered and surprised
. My old-world mother, a modern woman?

  Miracles. All around us. And I’d just witnessed one.

  28

  On Saturday evening Lars had called for me at the house, as Mama had wanted. He and I took the trolley into the city and then transferred to the State Street line for a long ride south to Sixtieth Street. We caught a third streetcar heading east toward Washington Park and what used to be the Midway Plaisance during the 1893 World Fair and Columbian Exposition. The streetcar rides had been sticky-warm and bumpy, but I didn’t care. I was having a lovely time just sitting beside Lars.

  “Did you know,” he said, sounding serious, “that if we kept going east, we’d get wet?”

  I stared at him, confused.

  “We’d drive straight into Lake Michigan.” He tickled me in the side, laughing at his own feeble joke.

  “Hardy har har. Very funny.” I stared out the window. “I never want to go near that lake again. No swimming and absolutely no boating.”

  Lars stopped chuckling. “Can’t let fear win. I refuse to let it ruin my life.”

  I turned to look at him. “You’d go out on the Eastland again if you could?”

  “Not the Eastland, no. They’ll right her, but she’ll never be the same.” A shadow passed over his face. He frowned as though he might be missing that ship. “I signed onto the crew of the Christopher Columbus. Start on Monday.”

  “You mean you still want to be a Merchant Marine after all that’s happened this week?”

  “I don’t want to be a mariner. I am a mariner. I was born on Lake Michigan.”

  “What? How?” I knew how; I meant, “What?”

  “Dad was chief engineer on the St. Joe, making a daily between Chicago and Benton Harbor, Michigan. Mom often went along on the runs. She loved the water. She wished she’d been born a man, so she could work on the Great Lakes.” Lars paused and shook his head. “Mom probably should have stayed home those last few weeks of her term, but she was a stubborn one. Plus, Dad didn’t want to leave her alone. So on the morning of September 1, 1897, she got a cabin on the St. Joe, and well, the rest is history.” Lars crossed his heart with his thumb. “All true. I swear.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  I knew Lars didn’t seem the kind to lie, but he did say one thing that caught my attention. If he’d been born in 1897, then come this September, he’d turn eighteen. Same age as Karel. Same age as Papa when he’d met Mama.

  “So this Merchant Marine stuff is in your blood? But your job is dangerous.”

  “All jobs are potentially dangerous.”

  “Not all.” Like chocolate inspector—for example.

  Lars studied me for a moment. “So, Karel has some cushy job?” “Yes. No.” I exhaled. “Well, it’s safer than yours.”

  “Probably. And a lot cleaner, too. And I’m sure Mr. Cushy doesn’t need any of these where he works.” Lars crooked his right arm and made a fist. His bicep muscle bulged.

  My jaw went slack. I pretended to cough as I closed my mouth.

  “Right. Just what I thought.” Lars laughed and put down his arm, as the streetcar came to a halt.

  The driver opened the doors. “Cottage Grove Avenue. Washington Park and Midway Gardens.”

  Lars grabbed his umbrella from under the seat and stood. “After you.”

  I followed the other passengers out the door and onto the sidewalk, and stopped dead in my tracks.

  Midway Gardens sprawled out before us like a medieval fortress but with a strange, geometric twist. The massive entertainment arena was long and angular, constructed almost entirely in straight lines, squares, and rectangles. Now I understood why Dolly liked to come dancing here. Midway Gardens was the most unusual building I’d ever seen.

  “Something, isn’t it?” Lars stepped down beside me. “Chicago’s first indoor and outdoor pleasure garden.”

  We followed the droves streaming along the yellow-brick exterior toward the public entrance where two slender, female statues stood guard. With their heads bent and their hands folded across their chests, the statues seemed to be welcoming us with their serene gazes. Beyond the public entrance, toward the center of this block-long building, were two rectangular turrets that towered several stories high. Cement planks jutted out the fronts and backs of each turret like multi-layered diving boards.

  “See those statues?” Lars pointed to the two serene ladies above the public entrance.“Frank Lloyd Wright nicknamed them Spindles.”

  “Frank Lloyd who?” I asked, as we trailed along with crowd.

  “Wright, the local architect who designed this place.”

  “He must have some wild imagination.”

  We passed quickly through a public tavern to the indoor garden and dining room. Again, I had to pause to take it all in.

  The dining room was square-shaped with a wooden dance floor in the center and terraced balconies around all four sides. Tables covered in fine linen and gleaming silverware were arranged across the balconies. Waiters scurried up and down and all about with heavy trays of food. I inhaled deeply, intrigued as much by the delicious aromas as I was by the garden’s design.

  “Ready?” Lars offered me his arm. We crossed the length of the dance floor to the outdoor garden. This time, Lars paused. “I heard about this place, but seeing it firsthand. Well, there’s only one word to describe it.”

  “Breathtaking.”

  Hundreds of people mingled about this open-air arena enclosed on three sides by covered dining terraces. A sheltered stage took up the entire back wall.

  “Couldn’t afford a table, Dee. Hope you don’t mind sitting in the gallery around the stage?”

  He was leading me past table after table of outdoor diners toward a semi-circle of folding chairs when someone called my name. I froze, jerking Lars to a stop. He turned.

  “What’s the matter, De—Well, speak of the devil.”

  I dropped Lars’s hand as Karel stepped toward us.

  “Fancy meeting you two here,” he said.

  Lars sneered. “Fancy’s not exactly the word I’d use.”

  “Karel, why didn’t you tell me that you might be coming tonight?”

  “Yeah, why?” echoed Lars.

  “Spur of the moment thing. I remembered you two talking last week about some ballet benefit. Thought I should look into it. Maybe do something in Mae’s honor.” Karel gestured to the table behind him. “So I reserved a table for ten and invited some friends. Just so happens that I have one empty place setting. Care to join me, Dee?”

  I stared at him. Speechless.

  “Dee thanks you for the generous invitation,” Lars said. “But we already have our places reserved for tonight.”

  “Great.” Karel glanced around. “So, where’s your table? Not too far off to the side, I hope. Might be hard to see the stage.”

  “As it so happens,Lars and I are sitting right up front.We have an unobstructed view of the stage. Thank you for your concern.”

  “You mean those folding chairs?” Karel snickered. “The cheap seats?”

  I snatched up Lars’s hand. “Enjoy the show.” I marched away, tugging Lars after me.

  I didn’t stop until I reached the usher. Lars showed him the tickets. He handed us some programs.

  “Who cares about a table when you have seats like these?” I plunked down in the second row. “And look!” I extended my arm. “I can almost touch the stage.”

  Lars shrugged and tucked his umbrella under his folding chair. “You’re really not disappointed we don’t have a table? I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted to sit with him.”

  “You really wouldn’t mind?”

  Lars exhaled. “Of course, I would! I don’t want you to go anywhere. You’re with me tonight!”

  “That’s more like it.” I leaned back, pressing my shoulder against his and studied my program.

  At a dollar-fifty each, these seats were still expensive, at least for an assistant engineer. That was probably a whole day’s wages for Lars. But what ab
out the table Karel had purchased? Bet that cost a pretty penny. I knew he did it just to disrupt my evening with Lars. But still. All the money he’d donated to the benefit and in Mae’s name? That was really sweet.

  But so was Lars.For suggesting this whole thing in the first place.

  I looked up at him. “You are truly—”

  “Remarkable?”

  “I know my mother thought so.”

  Mama had seemed genuinely surprised this afternoon by the sight of Lars in his crisp white uniform. I wasn’t sure what she had expected, but when he’d presented her with a bouquet of daisies, she’d gasped.

  “Sank you for saving my little girl.” She seized his hand. “You have saved my life, too.”

  Lars blushed. “No need to thank me, Mrs. Pageau. I couldn’t let Delia drown.”

  “No! No drowning.” Mama pulled him by the hand into the parlor and offered him a seat on the sofa. “So, you are taking Delia to the ballet?”

  Lars had given Mama a detailed description of our evening, complete with performance times and streetcar schedules.

  “You won Mama over today with those flowers.”

  “Guess so.” Lars shrugged. “Only wish you had liked your bouquet as much.”

  “What? I loved the violets.” I placed my hand on his upper arm to reassure him. My breath caught. That bicep I’d seen earlier was even more impressive to touch. I fanned myself with my program.

  “I saw you recoil when I handed you those flowers.”

  “No! You have to believe me, Lars. It wasn’t the flowers. It was their color.”

  He stared at me for a moment and then his mouth fell open. “Purple!” He hit himself on the forehead. “How could I be so stupid?”

  “You’re no such thing! You were very thoughtful. I flinched because, well, because, I did. It’s some kind of response to that color. Maybe my whole life now, I’ll cringe whenever I see something purple.” I gazed into his big, sweet face. “I adore violets. Especially when they come from you.”

  “Well, next time, I’ll bring you flowers in your favorite color. Which is?” He stared at me, waiting for a response, but all I could think about was that there was going to be a “next time.”