Unrivaled (13 page)

I looked into the first room. The walls were white-washed and so was the furniture. Just a narrow iron-framed bed and a small wooden table with a white basin and pitcher on top of it. The second bedroom was like it. And so was the third. When I looked into the fourth, though, I got a surprise.

“Mr. Clarke!” Jennie had been sitting on a bed, twisting something between her hands. She leapt to her feet when she saw me. The other rooms had been what my mother had always called “serviceable,” but this one was filled with color. The bed covers had been embroidered. There was a garland of red and white, green and yellow draped around the window, and there
was a tin can filled with what looked like flowers on her small bedside table. In fact, Jennie, in her black-and-white uniform, was the only plain thing in that room.

“What are you doing?”

She’d shoved whatever she’d been working on into her apron’s pocket. “I just came up to change out my shoelace. I only meant to be gone for a minute.”

“What was it you were making?”

She put a hand into her pocket and then, with a sigh, brought it out. “Just a bit of foolishness.” She held it out to me.

It was a Royal Taffy candy wrapper that she’d folded and wrapped into the shape of a flower.

“That’s nifty.” I looked around the room. “Is this how you made that?” I nodded toward the garland.

“Oh—not that. That’s much easier. You just take the wrappers and twist them a little at the edges . . .” Jennie smoothed out her flower and demonstrated. “Like that. The red is Royal Taffy. The green is Fancy Crunch.”

“That’s not going to be around for very much longer.”

I hadn’t realized I’d said the words out loud until her eyebrows had risen in alarm. “Why not?”

“I, uh . . . just heard . . . they’re going out of business.”

As she pushed to standing, the wrapper fell from her lap. “Out of business!”

“But—not just yet.” I shouldn’t have said anything. To make her forget my words, I pointed at the garland. “What others do you use?”

“Others?”

“Wrappers. For the different colors.”

Her brow hadn’t cleared, but at least she wasn’t staring at me anymore in that awful, wounded way. “Switzers and Tootsie Roll wrappers, all joined together with a length of thread.”

It was something my baby sister might have done. She’d always seemed to find a way to use whatever scraps of this and that someone had left lying around.

“You won’t tell, will you? About my being here? All the others think it’s a waste of time.”

I spied a wooden figure of a little bird. He was a colorful fellow, propped up against the tin can. It looked like . . . was it a whistle?

“I never do it when I’m supposed to be working. Except . . . well . . . for now. But I was about to go back downstairs.”

Her words drew my attention back to her. “Why would I tell?”

She sent a timid look up at me.

It caused me to remember something I’d forgotten. I wasn’t Charlie anymore. I was Charles. “Er . . . no. Of course not. Sorry. Just didn’t know . . .” I backed toward the door. “Sorry. I don’t belong here.”

Truth was, I didn’t really belong anywhere.

“Lucy?” My mother walked right past the parlor and continued on toward the kitchen. “Lucy!” The house had been a noisy place this morning, with visitors keeping the maid busy opening and closing the front door.

I placed my book on the divan and went to the front hall. I hadn’t really been reading anyway. I’d been daydreaming about
him
. That man from the ball with his delicious chocolate-colored eyes. “Mother?”

She whirled around, hand at her heart. “My stars, but you gave me a fright! That messenger was a man from the mayor’s office. They need you over at the air meet right away.”

“But . . . I was just there.” I’d opened the air meet for the city just three days before.

“I know it, but—” She threw her hands up in the air. “They’ve an automobile waiting for you outside. You need to change.
Now
.”

With the maid’s help, I put on my new canard blue crepe de
Chine dress with the hobbled skirt that my aunt had insisted on buying for me in Paris. Its scooped neck had fasteners in the Russian style on both the bodice and the drapery of the skirt. I’d seen hobbled skirts on some of the women in the city, but none of theirs could rival mine. I could hardly walk, it was draped so tightly. Fingering the satin
Queen of Love and Beauty
sash that I’d slipped on over my dress, I debated whether to coil up my hair and secure it in psyche puffs at the back, but I decided there wasn’t time. Instead, I gathered it up and wound it into a pompadour, sticking a few pins into it and jamming my hat down on top. There! Now no one would ever know what my hair looked like underneath.

Mother was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, but she was still in her green percale housedress.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“The doctor said he would stop by. I thought I should stay.”

“Then—”

I heard the screen door slap shut and the tread of heavy footsteps. “Where’s Lucy?” Sam’s voice.

“I have no idea,” answered Mrs. Hughes.

Mother was wringing her hands. “I sent the coachman down to the confectionery and asked him to bring back Samuel Blakely to escort you.”

I felt my brow lift.

Her mouth folded. “There was no time to ask anyone else.”

The service door swung open and Sam appeared a moment later. He’d slicked his hair back and was wearing a tweed suit coat over a white shirt and necktie. I couldn’t help but smile. If my life this year was going to be one long string of events, at least I had a friend by my side.

“Hello, Mrs. Kendall.”

Mother nodded before passing by me on her way to the stairs.
As she put a hand to the banister, she paused. “There will be newspaper reporters there. I don’t have to tell you . . .”

She didn’t. I knew all of her hopes depended upon me. And now, since my candy had failed, I was ready to accept that responsibility. If marrying well would save our family, then that’s what I was going to do. Unless it required encouraging the attention of Walter Minard. In that case, I was prepared to fail.

Sam helped me into the carriage, then took the seat opposite me.

“You look very nice today, Sam.”

A flush rode his cheeks, and he pulled at his tie. “Thought I ought to wear this. You being the queen and all.”

It suited him. As he sat there, idly thwacking his thumb against his knee, I considered Sam as I might have done a suitor. He’d become handsome while I’d been away. He’d grown into his nose, and maturity had filled out the lean hollows in his cheeks. Imagine that! Sam Blakely. A girl could do worse. A vision of horsey yellow teeth passed through my thoughts. A girl could do much worse, indeed.

Which reminded me.

I pulled his handkerchief from my handbag and gave it to him.

He snatched it from me, with Fancy Crunch-colored fingertips. Seeing my look, he held them up. “We were panning nuts today. Pink candy coating . . .” He held the other hand up. “And green.” Folding the handkerchief, he tucked it into his suit pocket.

“Someone went to an awful lot of trouble to embroider that for you.”

He gave me a keen glance before looking away.

“She did very nice work.” Better than I could have done.

He said nothing.

“What does the ‘H’ stand for?”

“Howell.”

Samuel Howell Blakely. “Are you sweet on someone, Sam?”

“No!” A deep flush appeared at his collar and washed up toward his ears.

“Is it anyone I know?”

He refused to answer. But Sam was sweet on someone. I knew he was. It was the only explanation for his odd behavior. And the embroidery. Who could it possibly be? And was he . . . was he courting her? I couldn’t imagine Sam married. He was hardly . . . well . . . I supposed he
was
twenty now. That was a marrying age. If I could marry, then he certainly could.

As I thought about the sons of St. Louis, my stomach began to sour. I knew them all; I’d grown up with them. We’d taken dancing lessons together at Mr. Mahler’s. And attended fortnightly dances together as well. But while I’d been in Europe, they’d been . . . here.

I wanted someone different, someone . . . new. Someone like that man at the ball. Who was he? And which family did he belong to?

Sam leaned into the cushion and stretched an arm along the back of the seat. “Did you ever see one of those flying machines, Lucy? While you were over there in Europe?”

Flying machines? “No.” And I hadn’t been able to stay for the first day of the air meet, earlier in the week, either. I still couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that a man could fly.

When we got to the airfield the machines were lined up, one behind the other, like a row of overgrown mosquitoes. How on earth did they mount up into the sky? People said they soared through the air as if they were birds, but I remained a skeptic. I’d always held a secret affection for Doubting Thomas. Why
should
he have believed an impossible thing just because others said it was true? What was wrong with having to see in order to believe?

“Miss Kendall?” The mayor’s secretary approached us, wiping at the sweat that had formed on his brow. “If you’ll follow me.” He gestured toward the grandstand. “We’ve had word the president might be on his way.”

President?

Sam sent me a quizzical look.

I shook my head, not wanting to seem ill-informed. I’d ask the secretary later, in private.

The secretary escorted me to the stage, then held my hand as I sidestepped my way up onto it. On a table that had been set up by the podium, a large medallion had been displayed next to a bouquet of red roses. “These were meant for the winner of today’s race, but if the president decides to come, you’ll hand him the flowers and then the medallion. After that, I’ll step forward and ask if he’d like to address the crowd.”

Sam poked me in the side.

“Ouch!” I muttered it under my breath.

“Ask him!”
He mouthed the words.

“You said the president? The president of what?”

“President Roosevelt. He’s here for the Republican Party’s election campaign.”

Beside me, Sam’s jaw dropped open. “President—!” His eyes looked like they might pop from his head.

“He’s—but—he’s coming
here
?” Suddenly I found it awfully difficult to speak. My heart had doubled its beat. President Roosevelt! No one had warned me that there would be a president here. I might have . . . I might have . . . done a dozen things differently if I’d known! I couldn’t have worn anything better than I was wearing. But I might have taken the time to properly pin up my hair. And actually wash behind my ears that morning. To meet the former president! Everyone knew he was much better than the current one. “I don’t know if I—I don’t—”

“We’re not certain he’ll come, mind you, but if he does, at least we’ll be prepared.” The secretary showed us to a seat at the front and center of the stage before bringing the president of the Chamber of Commerce over. “Mr. Foster will introduce you. The mayor’s with President Roosevelt at the moment.”

“But—but how do I know if he’s coming? And what do I say?” No one had warned me. A simple “Welcome to St. Louis” speech couldn’t be very difficult. But what did one say to a president?

“On behalf of the city of St. Louis, I welcome you to . . . to . . .” There were so many people standing out there watching me. So very many people. Is this what the rest of the year was going to be like? Welcoming complete strangers to this event or that banquet? I looked back toward the grandstand. Toward the mayor’s secretary.

He shrugged.

Did that mean the president wasn’t coming? If he wasn’t coming, then what was I supposed to say? I smiled, took a deep breath, and rolled my shoulders back the way I’d learned in elocution class. “I welcome you to our fair city.” There. I’d done it. I stepped back from the podium only to realize I hadn’t actually opened the day’s meet. “And I officially pronounce—”

I heard a cough and turned to see the mayor’s secretary gesturing frantically at me to move aside. As I stepped back, the crowds before me drifted away as people began to line the airstrip and hawkers stepped forward to sell postal cards and candies.

State policemen, using megaphones, warned us all to keep our distance from the air machines. As the crowds stepped back, I could see a parade of cars come bouncing toward us across the field. A shout went up. Immediately echoed, it was accompanied by a fluttering of handkerchiefs.

Sam rose and came to stand beside me. He put a hand to his eyes. “I think—”

“What is it?”

“I think it’s—well . . . it’s the mayor. And . . . and the president! I’ll just . . . I’ll go see . . .” Without a backward glance, he hopped down from the stage and loped off toward the fast-approaching cars. But he wasn’t the only one to abandon me. As I stood there, the people sitting in the grandstand did the same. Soon I was the only one left.

Well!

What good was being the Queen of Love and Beauty if I was going to be stranded, alone, on a stage?

No one was watching me anymore, so I lifted my skirts just as high as I could, which wasn’t very high considering how narrow the skirt was, and tried to figure out how I was going to get down.