The Chaperone (12 page)

When Alan first took
her to Wichita for dinner at his parents’ house, which was so beautiful and modern, with an indoor bathroom that had a little pull chain above the toilet that made it flush, she was nervous, certain they would be disappointed in her youth and plainness, even though she wore the flower-trimmed hat and the smart dress with the narrow skirt that Alan had purchased and sent to her at the Lindquists’. The very fact that he’d bought clothes for her to wear to the dinner suggested that his parents would be observing her closely, and she found another book on table etiquette and memorized its every instruction, worried that if she didn’t, she would be soon found out as the bumpkin that she was.

But to her surprise, she was greeted warmly. Alan’s parents and his pretty sister appeared charmed by every practiced sentence that came out of her mouth. His mother, a very tall woman with Alan’s eyes, declared Cora just as good-natured and naturally intelligent as her son had described. Alan’s father smiled as he made a toast to Cora’s “wholesome loveliness.” After dinner, Alan’s mother took her hand and said she understood Cora had suffered a horrible loss with the death of her parents, and that she hoped their family could bring her some solace. Cora was struck to see real kindness in the woman’s face—there was no hint of the judgment or ridicule she’d been afraid of.

Later, Alan told her he’d been honest with his parents, telling them everything about Cora’s legal case, and even her coming from New York on the train. She had their sympathy, he said. But there was a reason they had said nothing about her life before the Kaufmanns. His parents strongly believed it would be best, for Cora, and for everyone—as Alan and Cora were spending so much time together—if her origins weren’t publicly discussed. As far as they were concerned, Cora was a nice young woman who had grown up on a farm outside McPherson, and that was as much of the story as people needed to hear.

Cora was quick to agree. She was much in favor of a fresh start. There was no need for anyone in Wichita to know she’d come in on the train, that she’d ever been Cora X. And if Mrs. Lindquist was correct, and if her own greatest wish came true, she would soon be Mrs. Cora Kaufmann Carlisle, and that would be the name that mattered. She would be Alan’s wife, part of his family, and she would fully embrace her good fortune, his surprising and irrational love, just as she had when she first met the Kaufmanns, all those years ago.

PART TWO

Ah, no, he did not want May to have that kind of innocence,
the innocence that seals the mind against imagination
and the heart against experience …

—EDITH WHARTON,
The Age of Innocence

SEVEN

They were still out on the sidewalk
of West Eighty-sixth Street, the taxi pulling away, when Louise put down her travel bag, raised both arms, and declared herself in love with New York City.

“It’s
exactly
as I imagined it!” She let her arms fall and looked out at the street, at the honking, halting parade of cars, headlights bright in the dusking air. She turned to Cora with glistening eyes. “I’ve always known it, my whole life. This is where I’m meant to be.”

Cora, though exhausted, managed a smile. Louise had been like this since the moment they stepped into the main concourse of Grand Central Station. Even with people just behind them and just in front of them, so many speaking strange languages and wearing the dark clothes of foreigners, some smoking, some coughing, all exhaling too closely, Louise said she felt as if she were walking into her dreams. Cora had only nodded in response, her gaze moving around the concourse, taking in the arched blue ceiling and the wide exits on every side. It was a magnificent space, brighter than the station in Wichita and big enough to swallow it whole. But if she’d been there before, if the train she’d boarded with the other children had left from that very station, she didn’t remember. Nothing felt familiar. Maybe it would have, if she’d had more time there. But once Louise saw the exit for Forty-second Street, she walked toward it quickly, saying she couldn’t wait to get out on the famous street and breathe in the city’s air.

The attraction, from what Cora saw, was mutual. As she and Louise made their way through the big doors and into the muggy air, even with the rush of so many people moving in and out, all kinds of men—laborers in shirtsleeves, sailors, even well-dressed men who seemed to be in a hurry—let their gazes linger on Louise’s face before moving down the length of her figure. Beautiful women in silk dresses turned to look at her haircut, the blunt bangs so unusual even among so many bob-haired heads. At least Cora hoped the hair was why they stared. That morning on the train, Louise had returned from the ladies’ lounge in a light green skirt and a white short-sleeved blouse with such a low V-necked collar that she had to swear to Cora that her mother not only approved of the blouse—she’d bought it for her. Cora surrendered the argument. Either Louise was lying, or Myra had very poor judgment, and Cora hadn’t felt up to making a case for either. And so Louise had sauntered into the streets of New York with so many eyes on her lovely face and striking hair and rosebud décolletage. She pretended not to notice the attention she garnered, but Cora, glancing at her from the side, suspected that she did.

Cora herself, on the other hand, knew she did not look her best. She was in need of a bath; the train windows had been open for most of the trip from Chicago, and she felt as if she’d been basted in grease, thoroughly heated, and finally dipped in dust. And she was tired. Despite her more sensible, lower-heeled shoes, she trailed Louise across a wide street with its vaguely observed crosswalk to the taxi stand, struggling to keep up. “People move more quickly here,” Louise said, looking back over her shoulder. “Have you noticed? They walk faster, talk faster, everything! It’s swell!”

It really was something, all the bustle and commotion, so many people everywhere. Cora didn’t let herself look up at the buildings, gawking like the newcomer she was. She’d taken the warnings of people back home seriously, and she was on guard for pickpockets and hustlers, though during the short wait for the taxi, neither a pickpocket nor a hustler appeared. Once she and Louise were in a cab, with its relative safe and quiet, she tried to take it all in, looking out at more buildings and cars and trains and trolleys than she had ever even pictured in one place. She’d seen photographs of New York, street scenes and pictures of parades in the newspaper. For years she’d studied them, searching for anything—a street corner, a building’s façade, a passerby’s expression—that might remind her of her early life. But she couldn’t have imagined the noise of the actual city, all the engines and horns and jackhammers and drills and the jarring clatter of elevated trains. The only way she could think of New York, the only way she would be able to describe it when she got home, was as a hundred Douglas Avenues on the busiest day of the year, all of them pushed up against each other and on top of one another. She was at once amazed and overwhelmed.

But Louise’s enthusiasm was unrelenting, even after they arrived at the squat apartment building, even after they climbed three flights of stairs, even after they found the key under the loose board by the door just as the landlord had told Leonard Brooks they would, and gained entrance to the disappointing apartment.

“It’s not so bad,” Louise announced, trying and failing to turn on a lamp, which Cora hoped only needed a new bulb. The front room was small, with pale yellow walls, most of the floor space taken up by a writing desk and a circular table with three chairs. There was no window, just a framed oil painting of a Siamese cat hung above the desk. Cora followed Louise into and through a narrow kitchen that doubled as a hallway to the bedroom, which was shaped exactly like the front room, though the walls were painted pea green. The bedroom did have a window, and a ceiling fan. But no rug. A door by the bed led to a bathroom. The bedroom itself had no door.

Louise plopped on the bed, declared it very comfortable, and said New Yorkers didn’t really care about their apartments because they were never home. “That’s just fine with me,” she said, her voice growing louder to compensate for Cora turning on the faucet in the bathroom. “I’d live in a closet and be happy, as long as it’s by everything that matters.”

“We have warm water,” Cora called out. The bathroom had its own small window looking into an airshaft, and walls that had been painted, for some reason, blood red. But there could have been orange stripes on the walls for all Cora cared. A bath was all she needed. Easing out of her shoes, she stuck her head into the bedroom.

“I’m going to take a bath, dear. Do you need to use the bathroom before I get in?”

“I’m fine. Go ahead.” Louise crouched by an electric socket, plugging in the fan. “Just don’t take too long. I can’t wait to go out.”

Cora leaned against the bathroom doorway, fanning herself with her hand. “Are you hungry?” She had to talk over the running water. “We had that big supper on the train.”

“No, I’m not hungry. We should go to Times Square. We could take the subway.”

“Oh, Louise.” Cora shook her head. She was so tired. The sleeping berths on the train had been as comfortable as they could be, with drawn curtains and porter-fluffed pillows; still, she’d been too aware of strangers across the aisle, not to mention the steady rocking. She hadn’t slept very well.

“I figured you might be tired.” Louise tugged on the low neck of her blouse. “That’s all right. Is there anything you want me to get?”

Cora stared at her. In the street below, a car backfired. Louise blinked back at her, smiling, as if what she’d just said made perfect sense.

“It’s almost dark.” Cora nodded toward the bedroom window, which, aside from the whirling fan, held only a view of a brick wall maybe six feet away. “And you have your first class in the morning.”

“Not until ten. I’ll be fine.” She slid past Cora into the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and gave her reflection a brief but appreciative glance. She looked beautiful. She did not smell at all. It was as if for her, even in these warm rooms, even after the long journey on the train, sweat and dust and fatigue did not exist. She was still in heels. Cora had already eased out of hers, and so in the mirror, they appeared the same height.

“Louise,” she sighed, bracing herself. There would be no avoiding an argument. She glanced back at the tub, checking the height of the water. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you go out by yourself.”

Louise looked back, her smile gone. She took in a deep breath, lowered her head, and moved past Cora into the bedroom. “I won’t go far. I’ll just walk around here for a while. Don’t worry. I’ll stay close.”

“I can’t let you go out by yourself at all.” Cora leaned against the doorway. “Honestly, I think you know that.”

Louise turned, the dark head slightly lowered. Like a bull, Cora thought.

“I don’t know anything.” She crossed her arms, standing between the pea-green wall and the bed. Because of the low-cut blouse, Cora could see the flush across her pale chest. “I didn’t know I was a prisoner. What’s my crime anyway? What exactly have I been charged with?”

Cora rubbed her eyes. She was in no mood for this nonsense. And if she didn’t take her corset off soon, she would burst out of it like an overstuffed sausage.

“I am hungry.” Louise raised her chin. “I just realized it. I’ll go around the block and find something to eat while you’re in the bath. I won’t be long.”

“If you’re truly hungry, I’ll put my shoes back on and go downstairs with you. I saw a luncheonette on our way here, and it was still open. On this block, I think. We can go to the market tomorrow to get some things for the kitchen.”

Louise clicked her tongue and gazed up at the ceiling. “It’s so stupid. I just want to walk around. Why do I need an escort?”

Cora looked up at the bedroom’s ceiling as well. A large water stain in the middle was shaped like a rabbit’s head. “For your protection.”

“From what?”

Exasperating. They had been over this. Cora shook her head. She wouldn’t tolerate more of Louise playing dumb, asking ridiculous questions to get answers that she would either laugh at or question again.

“Protection from what, Cora? From what someone in Wichita might think of me? My future husband’s gossiping friends?” She smiled, shaking her head. “That doesn’t matter here. No one knows who I am.” She looked up again, batting her eyes, her fingers laced against her cheek. “Just think. I can actually walk down a street by myself and still hope to get married someday!”

“Do you want to be raped?”

The girl was silent, clearly startled. It was satisfying for Cora, finally, to be the one to shock. Still leaning against the door frame, she flexed her feet and toes, feeling the cool of the tile floor through her stockings.

“You seem to like being frank, Louise. So I thought I might be frank with you. My apologies if you’re taken aback. But yes, that is one of the very good reasons I can’t let you go out in a strange city by yourself at night, especially dressed like that.”

Louise looked down at her blouse, her fingers grazing the collar.

“And then there’s your tendency to make friends with men you don’t know. Letting them buy you things so they can get you off into a corner. You’re not exactly discriminating.” Cora lifted her travel bag onto the bed, unsnapped it, and took out her long cotton gown. “Honestly, if something happened to you, something horrible, I’d have a hard time making the case that you weren’t partly to blame.”

Carousing voices, both male and female, sang from the street below.
“Oh the Bowery! The Bowery! I’ll never go there any more!”
A man yelled out something unintelligible, and a woman’s laughter faded into the steady rumble of traffic.

“Fine,” Louise said quietly. She was looking hard at Cora’s face, memorizing it, it seemed. “I’ll stay in.”