Circled Heart (25 page)

“Exactly the problem, Mrs. McIntyre. Johanna is outraged that no women have been included in that group, and I believe she would like me to sit out the banquet in protest of its exclusivity.”

“Johanna,” commented my grandmother, “finds comfort in protest. Now go along and enjoy your evening.”

“I’ll try to return your granddaughter at a reasonable hour.”

“Johanna is quite grown up, Mr. Gallagher. I long ago gave up trying to set limits for her.”

“Johanna also has the power of speech and rational thought,” I interjected, irritated at being talked about in the third person as if I were invisible or absent. I leaned down to kiss my grandmother on the cheek. “Good night and don’t wait up for me.”

“I gave that up long ago as well,” Grandmother responded, but her eyes twinkled so I knew she was enjoying herself.

Settled into the motorcar with Drew in the driver’s seat, I commented, “I didn’t know you sent flowers to Grandmother.”

Drew turned to give me a quick, smiling glance. “I suspect there are a great many things you don’t know about me, Johanna.”

I sat back and made a pretense of smoothing the folds of my cape. “They say ignorance is bliss,” I replied calmly and heard him chuckle as the auto pulled away. “Do you have a speech prepared for this evening, Drew?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not used to this type of situation and I haven’t made up my mind what to say or if I’ll say anything at all.” His tone, gruff and defensive, sounded unlike him.

“Are you nervous about accepting the award?” When he didn’t answer, I exclaimed, “You are, aren’t you? I didn’t believe there was anything that could unsettle you!”

“I am not nervous and I am definitely not unsettled.” His reply came out somewhere between a snap and a bark.

“Of course, you’re not. My mistake.” Then after a pause, I said, “But if you were either nervous or unsettled, it would be a perfectly understandable state of mind. I know if I had to get up in front of the elite of Chicago, I’d be petrified even if all I had to do was recite my name.”

“That’s very kind of you, Johanna,” Drew’s voice was back to normal, “but you and I both know that nothing petrifies you, and if given the opportunity, you’d love to give Chicago’s capitalists a piece of your mind about their collective lack of social conscience. The truth is I’m not looking forward to the evening. I feel as though I’m receiving this award under false pretenses, that I’m an imposter pretending to be a solid citizen. Douglas would have loved the honor, but it’s not a role with which I’m very comfortable.”

“Douglas would never have had the creativity or compassion to have earned it.”

“Johanna, what image of me are you creating? Don’t turn me into a do-gooder out to save the world. That’s not who I am.”

“So you say. You act like I accused you of some particularly horrible character flaw. There’s nothing wrong with being a good person.” I paused before concluding, “Even if it is infrequent and half-hearted.”

He laughed. “What a comfort you are to have around! Did I mention that Cox’s is officially running in the black now?” and we were off on another topic of conversation.

As we chatted, I was conscious of a queer but deep compassion for this man who was made uncomfortable by his own good qualities. Once or twice before I had experienced this same feeling when in his company, a feeling that made me want to comfort and protect him, to place myself as shield between him and the world. And that was inexplicable because if ever there was a man who would not welcome and did not need such defensive attention, it was Drew Gallagher.

The Auditorium Building, built two decades earlier in a severe, rectangular Romanesque style that belied its gorgeous interior, housed a huge hotel, an office tower, and the lavish Auditorium Theater, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Over time it had become a prestigious and exclusive Chicago landmark. When Drew and I entered the lobby, I looked around in awe as speechless as I am capable of being.

Lowering my voice, I said, “Grandfather brought me here for an afternoon visit years ago, before the electric lights were installed, but I don’t remember the onyx walls or that grand staircase. How odd that I could forget such extraordinary beauty.”

Drew was in the process of lifting my cape from my shoulders to hand to the woman in charge of the lobby’s cloak room, but as I finished my comments about the Auditorium and turned back to face him, he became suddenly still, holding my cape in both hands and staring at me, clearly taken aback. In my admiration for the sumptuous building, I had forgotten that I’d worn the cape from his arrival at Hill Street and Drew hadn’t had a chance to see my dress. He certainly saw it now. With no apparent shame and as far as I could tell with no deliberate intention to discomfit me, he looked me up and down, lingering on several locations I suppose should have made me blush but didn’t. Finally his gaze came to rest on my face.

For a moment I was self-conscious and then, seeing a look in his eyes that was extremely flattering, I said, “You recommended dramatic and I took your advice to heart.” He cleared his throat before he spoke.

“The one and only time then that you have ever listened to me or respected my opinion.”

“That is simply not true.” I suppose I had hoped for a more definitive reaction—an enraptured exclamation at my beauty would have been satisfactory—and the absence of any such gratifying response explained the touch of curtness in my voice.

Drew finally handed my cape to the waiting woman, then came to stand before me, looking down at me with a guarded, quizzical expression I could not decipher. “It is gospel truth and you know it, but I don’t care. If anything I said is responsible for you looking like that, I can’t begin to tell you how satisfied I am that you chose to listen.” He lifted my chin with his index finger, and I had the very real feeling that he might kiss me. Instead he said quietly, “You look spectacular, Johanna. I don’t think you understand how very attractive all your attributes are to a man.”

Then the moment passed, and he tucked my hand under his arm. We walked through the lobby together, speaking in a desultory manner with each other and stopping every few steps for conversation and introductions to people we met along the way. I recall a few comments directed to me that recollected my grandfather and I know several people congratulated Drew but by and large, I have few memories of any of those early conversations. Because I had been taught well, I went through the motions of courteous smiles and social greetings, but inside I was remembering Drew’s frankly admiring stare and the low, intimate sound of his voice as he complimented me. The Auditorium’s lights turned the gold that flecked through the amber silk of my dress into tiny, muted sparks. How propitious, I thought, because for a moment sparks of another sort had flown between Drew Gallagher and me. Even if it were a game he was playing, I believed that for all his practice and experience, I had held the better hand for a little while.

The awards banquet was scheduled for the hotel’s dining room on the tenth floor. As guests of honor, Drew and I were seated at a large table with a glorious view of the lake through the wall of windows on the opposite side of the room. The reflection of the moon gleamed off the dark water and stars were everywhere, so many that it seemed there were more stars than sky.

We sat side by side and as the dining room filled up with crowds of darkly tailored men and women in resplendent gowns, all of them facing Drew and me as we sat at the head table, I whispered, “Are you all right? No jitters?”

He turned and brought his mouth close to my ear. “Not a one, Johanna. You?”

“Me?” I was surprised and turned quickly to face him so that his face and his mouth were very close. He didn’t move away and I resisted the impulse to pull back. Instead, I murmured, “I am strictly ornamental, Drew, here because you felt compelled to ask me along for a reason that still escapes me. You’re the one with the obligation.” He smelled wonderful, the same fresh, slightly spicy fragrance I remembered from our time on board the San Francisco.

“Do you really not know why I asked you to come with me, Johanna?” Drew asked but before I had a chance to respond, Mayor Harrison came up behind us and clamped a hand on Drew’s shoulder. I pulled away quickly from the unsettling proximity, my abrupt movement making Drew smile with what I considered an unseemly smugness before he turned slowly toward the mayor.

“Well, Gallagher,” Mayor Harrison spoke with the common bonhomie of politicians, “this is a night for you to remember.”

“Yes, Mayor, I admit it is,” but something about Drew’s tone made me think that he was not speaking entirely of the Starr Award.

After the dinner several prominent businessmen received recognition for one thing or another and all of them made brief speeches celebrating Chicago’s past and its burgeoning business future. Listening to the last man, whose name was synonymous with the meat-packing business, became almost unbearable for me. I knew for a fact that he treated his workers abominably, paid unlivable wages, and refused to correct the dangerous working conditions of his plants because—as he had once been reliably quoted—“the Irish and the Germans are a dime a dozen off the boat.” I must have made some kind of unconscious movement at an especially outrageous self-congratulation because Drew casually placed his hand over mine as it lay on the table.

When I looked at him quickly, he said in a voice only I could hear, “I thought you were reaching for a knife.” His comment made me laugh out loud and when I tried to cover my inappropriate giggle with a cough, he handed me a glass of water and murmured solicitously, “Will you be all right, Johanna?”

“I’m fine. It’s only—”

“I understand exactly,” Drew said, and I knew that somehow he did understand, had read my thoughts, and felt the same reaction. For the first time I understood what he meant when he said he felt like an imposter, a man who didn’t belong here, and I sympathized. The speeches of Chicago’s industrial elite generated that same feeling in me, a feeling that made me think I must live on a different planet and speak a different language from everyone else in that grand, vaulted room.

The mayor concluded with a speech that would have been twice as effective if it had been half as long and then introduced Drew as the “brilliant creator of a new idea for industrial employment, sure to reduce the threat of labor unions and foster a more tractable and obedient workforce.” The man managed to turn the reality of the Cox Experiment—what I knew to be an exciting, mutually beneficial arrangement to better the life of poor working women—into a cleverly disguised opiate to pacify workers so they wouldn’t get in the way of profits. Drew, his hand still resting comfortably on mine, gave it a brief squeeze and stood to take his place at the podium.

From where I sat, I could watch his profile as he spoke, a very nice profile now that I had the chance to study it, straight nose, strong chin, a well-defined brow, and blonde hair that brushed the top of his collar in back, just long enough to give him the air of a semirespectable pirate. Not quite the current fashion but dashing and undeniably attractive. Drew might pride himself on his dissipation, but he looked trim and muscled and one would have thought from the clarity of his eyes and smile that he had no acquaintance with vice whatsoever. Contemplating Drew’s appearance made me miss the mayor’s words as he handed Drew the Starr Award, a small, plain wooden plaque with a modest appearance that contradicted its prestige. After the polite applause ceased, the audience waited for Drew’s words. Truth to tell, so did I because I was suddenly and unaccountably nervous on his behalf. By contrast he looked very comfortable as he stood smiling out at the guests and holding up the award in both hands, giving the impression that he wanted to share it with everyone present. Drew’s speaking baritone, despite the tables crowded with people and the dining room’s high ceilings, carried out and over the crowd.

“Last October, if anyone would have suggested that I would stand in front of you this evening to receive one of the highest honors of the community from the hand of the mayor himself, I would have laughed at the idea. My brother Douglas was the financial genius, a man who went to work faithfully every day and used his business acumen to increase the size of his company’s coffers. My purpose however—as many of you may know from firsthand experience—was to fritter away the family fortune just as quickly as Douglas increased it.” A small swell of laughter greeted that remark, indicating that at least a few listeners understood Drew’s oblique observation.

“But last spring two events occurred that for better or worse changed the direction of my life, and both incidents are directly responsible for my receiving this award. First, as many of you know, my brother died in the Titanic disaster,” Drew’s mention of the catastrophe, still fresh in people’s minds, caused the room to grow still, “and because of that sad and terrible calamity, I became wealthy literally overnight. But it isn’t Douglas’s death, as tragic and shocking as it was, that is the primary reason I stand before you this evening. In fact, if what followed my brother’s death hadn’t occurred, I have no doubt I would still be happily spending my prodigal way through Douglas’s hard-earned prosperity.”

From my seat, I could observe the room and it was obvious that Drew’s remarks with their touch of pathos and air of mystery had commanded everyone’s attention. Even the well-dressed waiters who stood against the back wall listened carefully.

“One day in early May I met a young woman named Johanna Swan,” Drew went on, “and I stand here today, award in hand, because of her.” His effortless words took me completely by surprise, but besides one quick, reflexive intake of breath, I continued to smile faintly and keep my attention on Drew, acting—at least on the outside—with an aplomb that suggested I had expected the allusion. Several heads turned to seek me out at the table, apparently saw nothing out of the ordinary, and returned to Drew.

“Miss Swan comes from a fine Chicago family known to many of you, but that’s not what this is about. Instead, this is about Miss Swan’s remarkable vision of the future, a vision that somehow made the Cox experiment seem a reasonable and natural undertaking. Miss Swan sees a world where women have both a voice and a vote in their own political future. She envisions a time when all laborers earn a fair wage and work in environments that do not threaten life and limb. She sees a world that offers healthcare to the poor and fresh air and water and enough to eat to all children. Miss Swan sees—no, she demands—a world free from fear and poverty and it is her world that I came to see, too. I take some small credit for being the brain and the bank of the Cox Experiment, but Miss Swan is its heart and as such, it is she who truly deserves this award. I thank you and accept it on her behalf.”