Bright Young Things (2 page)

2

THEY HEARD THE TRAIN A WHILE BEFORE THEY SAW IT, just as they passed out of the woods that separated Union, Ohio, from the next town over, and it was about that time that both girls broke into a run. Letty was shocked by how rapidly the train‧s noise approached, the screech of steel wheels against steel tracks. She looked over her shoulder to see how it towered over them, but Cordelia, her long legs moving as fast as possible, did not turn her head once. The cars shot by them, rearranging the sun-touched strands around Cordelia‧s face. Letty‧s bun was too firmly in place for that, but her old peacoat flapped open as she tried to keep up.

Cordelia was a year ahead of her in school and always spoke with an enviable sureness. As long as they‧d been friends, she‧d told Letty that they were both too good for Union, that someday they‧d find a way out. But Letty had always known it. She‧d known since she was a little girl that there was something special about her. The way she moved, the purity of her voice—she had an attention-drawing quality that her mother used to call her “magic.” And Mother had been a true beauty who‧d danced with the Cleveland ballet when she was young, before she‧d met Father. She used to whisper that Letty was her favorite, the most gifted of her children, when they‧d had their dance lessons on the first-floor parlor of the big house on Main Street—back when they were a happy family, before Mother was taken from them and Father decreed that dancing was one of the devil‧s tricks and that there would be no nicknames in the Haubstadt clan and began calling her Letitia, her given name.

Up ahead, at the Defiance Station, the waiting passengers stepped forward across the platform in anticipation. There was a flurry of activity—everyone shouting, luggage being thrust upward, boys who‧d been raised on farms saying good-bye to their mothers for a long time. They probably wore new coats over humble denim, which would of course give them away. But then, the dour quality of Letty‧s own dress and her straitlaced bun also gave her away, too, as the product of a very backward place. In the city, she used to like to tell herself before she fell asleep, all her most brilliant qualities would be instantly recognized and celebrated. For years, she had dreamed of going there—only, she could scarcely believe that dream was now about to become real, on this summer evening in mid-May of the year 1929.

That is, if she could keep her pace up. She had become breathless, and her legs were tired, and the duffel she carried over her narrow shoulders must have grown in size since they‧d left Union. It seemed to weigh almost as much as her younger sister Laura, who still demanded piggyback rides even though she was tall for her age, and even though their father frowned upon that sort of thing.

Up ahead the conductor yelled, “All aboard!”

“Wait!” Cordelia tried to yell, but her lungs were working hard already.

The porters had finished loading the crates of red berries and milk onto the freight car down the line, and all the passengers had disappeared behind the high glass windows. The family and friends who had come from miles around to wish them good-bye had stepped back. Beyond the station, the land stretched out, revealing clusters of clapboard houses and farms.

“All aboard!” the conductor bellowed, and then turned and took hold of the iron handle to pull himself up.

The girls were still a good way down the tracks, and in a moment of horror, Letty saw that they were going to miss the train. Then she would have no place to go home to. For once Father realized she was gone, he would never permit her to return. Father did not tolerate disloyalty or what he would deem frivolous daydreams. Summoning all the power her voice was capable of, Letty lifted her free arm and sang out, “Wait! Wait for us!”

The conductor paused, holding on to the side of the train, and squinted in their direction.

“Please, wait!” Letty‧s voice rang out.

“All aboard!” the conductor yelled.

They kept up their pace as they climbed the steps at the edge of the platform, and by the time they reached the conductor, their cheeks were rosy with exertion.

“Two more,” Cordelia managed once they were just in front of him.

“I can see that.” The conductor jumped down so the girls could go ahead of him into the car. Cordelia reached back for Letty‧s hand, and they ascended the ladder together. Letty barely noticed the rungs—they were only moving up into the train, and then down the car, along the aisle between green felt-covered seats. The bells began to clang, and the doors slammed shut, sealing the passengers in.

“I can‧t believe it.” Letty‧s voice was musical with wonder. “I can‧t believe we‧re really leaving!”

“I thought we wouldn‧t make it,” Cordelia returned in the same awestruck tone, as her breath slowed to normal.

Letty nodded in agreement. The terror of having to go back to the Haubstadt home ebbed, and in her relief she began to laugh. The laughter became contagious as they located their seats and fell into them. Cordelia went first, sitting close to the window, and Letty followed, slumping against her shoulder in giggles.

“Tickets?”

It had not occurred to Letty, in all the furious excitement of leaving, that it would cost anything to ride a train. But before she could reply, Cordelia had taken a worn notebook from the inside pocket of the old trench she wore, and from the middle pages she removed an envelope stuffed with bills.

“Names?” the conductor demanded, as he positioned his pencil over two soft red booklets.

“Cordelia Grey and Letitia Haubstadt,” Cordelia announced, handing over the fare.

“Actually, it‧s just Letty now,” she corrected brightly, twisting to face the conductor. She plucked the ticket back from his hand, and then taking his pencil, carefully began to rewrite the name he‧d entered for her. “Letty Larkspur.”

There was a touch of knowing disdain in the way he punched their tickets, but Letty decided to ignore the contortion at the corner of his mouth. “To the end of the line?” he concluded.

“Yes,” said Cordelia. “To New York City.”

“We‧ll get there sometime tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes, I know,” she replied, in that crisp voice that brushed aside any criticism or doubt. That voice had been used over the years to protect herself and Letty both—from cruel classmates and bullying siblings and Letty‧s own doubts. Even now, Letty shuddered at the idea of bearing Union alone, without her friend‧s protection.

As the conductor moved down the aisle, greeting the other passengers, Cordelia put her feet up against the back of the next row of seats, stretching her long legs, turning the scuffed, narrow toes of her boots in toward each other. She slouched into her seat, sinking until they were the same height; when she turned her face to her left, her eyes just met Letty‧s.

“So what do you think?” Letty whispered, almost afraid to hear the opinion she nonetheless badly wanted.

“What do I think of what?”

“My new name.” She paused and widened her eyes. “Letty Larkspur!”

“I
like
it.”

“You do?” Letty whispered, relieved, even though she‧d known in her heart that the name she had chosen was incomparably pretty. She‧d been turning over those four syllables in her mind for a long time now, to make herself feel better during a long workday, or almost humming them just before she went to sleep, telling herself that everything would be different once she was known by them. That then, finally, her life would be buoyant and shiny and worthy of notice.

Cordelia pressed the back of her head into the seat and smiled wide. “I think it‧s perfect for you.”

“Isn‧t it?” Letty squeezed her eyes closed. “Doesn‧t it sound like the kind of girl who steps off the train into a big city and stumbles into a series of lucky breaks, each new one more glorious than the last, until she is known all around town and her name is up in lights?” The sun outside was fading, but what was left of it was playing in Letty‧s blue eyes. Cordelia reached over and drew the pins from Letty‧s hair so that it fell in straight, dark strands around her shoulders. “Doesn‧t it sound like the kind of name that almost guarantees I‧ll be a famous singer? Doesn‧t it sound like
me?”

“Yes, it sounds just like you. Except—you in the big city, far away from drab parlors and the small-minded people who occupy them, and their itsy-bitsy idea of the world.”

“The version of me wearing fur coats, with a puppy under my arm, and a retinue.”

“A retinue?”

“Yes, a
retinue.
A chauffeur and a maid and a cook—”

“—a chef.”

“Yes!” Letty sighed and shook her hair loose around the prim collar of her black dress.

Besides the three Haubstadt girls, there were two boys who wore their hair with military brevity and the same black trousers and shirts every day, even in the late-summer heat, even when they worked twelve-hour days on the family dairy farm. It hadn‧t always been like that—her father had been a joyful person once, but that was a long time ago, when Mother was still there to show him how. He must have been happy when they were married, because people were always happy when they got married.

But then Letty remembered the events of the day, and realized that was perhaps not always true. “How John must be crying,” she said softly, thinking what a tender person was at the core of that tall, strong boy and how sincere he had sounded when he‧d said,
I do.
There was to have been a celebration at the Fields’ that evening, and Letty thought of all those uneaten pies with pity, for surely no one in their house was in a festive mood now. John had been a worse one than Letty for following Cordelia around, hanging on her words, trusting in whatever she thought was interesting or correct, and it pained her to imagine him alone back in Union and yearning terribly. But that pain gave way to another melancholy realization: Letty‧s own flesh and blood probably had not heeded her absence with even half so much woe.

“John isn‧t the kind to cry.” Cordelia spoke with a sad certainty as she pulled the skirt of her dress down over her knees.

“I can‧t believe we made it,” Letty marveled again, because she could see her friend didn‧t want to pursue the topic. But some of the glitter had gone out of her voice now, and there was a tightness in her throat.

“Well, we haven‧t made it yet,” Cordelia corrected.

But as if in response, the train lurched into motion. And though Letty was afraid of what she had done, she was relieved, too, that she wouldn‧t have to sit around that sad, silent dinner table anymore, always doing as her father told her, and her tender ears would no longer be exposed to his shouting when he was in one of his foul moods. She leaned forward and began to undo the tight lacing of her boots. Once she had shucked them, she folded her black stockinged feet under her thighs and put her head against her friend‧s shoulder.

“We haven‧t made it yet, but we did make it out of Union.” Letty closed her eyes and tried to dwell only on the audaciousness, and not the sadness, of their feat.

“Yes!” Cordelia replied, and then she turned to gaze a final time at the only world she‧d ever known. It was a landscape Cordelia felt no love for: Dull and repetitive, any beauty in the greenery only reminding her how bare and brown everything would soon enough become, before the harsh winter. That monotonous and familiar brown that infused everything as seasons stacked up into years. And yet as Cordelia placed a palm against the window, what she saw outside did cause her to feel something like surprise.

The tallest boy in Union High School‧s class of ‘29 sat on a pile of railroad ties east of the station, watching her. His legs too long, bent upwards, elbows rested on knees, the boyishness of his features suddenly effaced by sorrow. The cuffs of the white dress shirt he had worn to the ceremony were rolled up, and his tie had been removed, so that his Adam‧s apple created a poignant shadow in the dying light. His feet were too large for his lean limbs, and they looked especially ridiculous in the fancy borrowed shoes he wore. As the train went past, Cordelia‧s eyes met his, but he didn‧t raise a hand to make even the slightest wave. It was as though he had been sitting there a while, waiting to see her pass. He must have realized she had left some time before, and then guessed where she‧d be going.

But a train travels faster than she could ever have imagined, and with cruel concision, he was gone.

Cordelia gazed out at the cabins on the horizon line, with their kerosene lanterns in the windows. The sky was heavily curtained with purple now, and the small towns and the great spaces in between passed by at a speed that she had known was possible but had never experienced. It was all receding into their past just as quickly as they could have hoped, framed neatly by the train‧s rectangular, black-rimmed windows.

“I walked right out the front door,” Letty murmured. The lids of her eyes were falling shut, each word following the last more slowly now as the haziness of sleep settled around her. No doubt her day had been long already—she must have been up with the dawn, milking cows, finishing her chores so as to be on time for the wedding—and when she started talking of sad things, she often became tired and withdrawn. “None of them even noticed.”

Cordelia watched her friend‧s face, which was as quiet and white as the moon, though it glowed with the full vibrancy of the life beneath the skin.

“Louisa was making dinner, I guess, and the boys must‧ve still been on the farm …”

Despite her family‧s long history of insensibility, Cordelia knew her friend was wounded by their final indifference, by their failure to recognize that she was leaving forever. It was obvious in the way Letty had gone limp against her shoulder.

“They probably won‧t even realize until, one day, they open the newspaper and find the name
Letty Larkspur
… which I suppose won‧t mean anything to them. But they
will
recognize the picture next to it … maybe a picture of me onstage, during a standing ovation, heaps of roses at my feet …”

By the time Letty trailed off, her eyes were sealed shut and her lips had parted just slightly so she could exhale the soft, warm breaths of the unconscious.