A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions, page 23
It was the calm in the center of a storm.
It was everything.
For that one night I could pretend that this night could go on forever and we’d always be young and sisters and together.
But I knew better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mira was grumbling about the late hour, and Bea was humming happily to herself and kept staring off into the distance and then smiling for no reason. I was too tired, too keyed up, but I was ready. Greta joined us at the curb as we waited for the Helpers to pick us up to go to tea. For a second a touch of guilt hit me for what restoring Andrew’s priority would take from her.
But she looked at me and only smiled back.
She wasn’t my enemy anymore. Maybe she never really was.
We climbed into the back of an unmarked car, and covered our own faces with embroidered pillowcases in order to protect the location of the Matron Circle. I have no idea how long we drove, although Bea, Mira, and I had run out of all the hymns we’d learned and had moved on to singing songs of a rowdier disposition, much to Mrs. Brown’s consternation. Iris’s low voice lent a deep alto to the drinking songs she’d taught us.
The car stopped. I fell over into Bea’s soft shoulders, and she propped me up sturdily.
When the doors opened the light filtered through the cotton and floss thread, leaving sun-dappled blurs against the white fabric.
A soft hand took my own, and a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize told me where to step and to be careful as I scooted off the bumper.
I felt suddenly self-conscious as I walked, my bag of my reports and homework weighing heavy on my shoulder, and my shoes rolling on what I suspected was a loose gravel road. With the pillowcase over my head, I didn’t know who was watching us, or where we were, though by the absence of street noise, and frequent birdsong, I knew it was outside a city somewhere. The air smelled crisp, like overly ripened apples and just cut grass, my dress warmed from a half-lowered sun. It was late for tea. From the grumble in my stomach I was well ready for supper.
They led us upstairs and inside a building, following a path I could not discern, my shoes clacking against a wood floor. Eventually we stopped and warm shoulders pressed against either side of me. My sisters. I reached for a hand, and I knew from her rough palms Bea stood at my left and from her cold skin Mira held my right. Once we heard the sound of a door closing, someone gently lifted the pillowcases off our faces.
The breeze felt so cold against my breath-warmed face, and I knew my curls had pulled straight because of the sweat that had turned even Greta’s face a little ruddy.
The room we found ourselves in was as large as a ballroom and windowless, with walls papered in an ornate flower pattern, and dark millwork creating borders and chair rails. Round tables filled the room, covered in matching white lace cloths and surrounded by Queen Anne chairs. A large buffet table in the back of the room held tiered platters full of squared fudge and caramels, coconut cakes, and cherry chocolate creams. Crystal bowls filled with a sparkling pink punch and gilded plates stacked in a neat pile seemed welcoming.
The few other women in the room were dressed simply but neatly. A Black woman with a soft smile and a patterned frock gestured toward the treats. “Please,” she said, “fill up a plate. The circle will join you shortly.”
Another woman, this one white and old enough that her shoulders bent over, her small frame appearing shrunken in her soft purple dress, touched my hand with a soft, cold, wrinkled palm and squeezed as she gave me the warmest smile. “After you, my dear,” she said, her voice rough but melodic.
I didn’t know any of these women, but I felt so welcomed and so hungry that I turned to the buffet and loaded up. Bea was already questioning the women about the recipes, and Mira’s cheeks were stuffed full of fudges.
“I’m Elsie,” I said to the older woman.
“We know.”
Right. I wanted to ask them more questions, to set them at ease, and get to know them, or who they were. Were they Helpers who were joining us, or were they members of the circle themselves? But how could I ask without poking into the secret that had sent me here with a pillowcase over my head?
So I kept my curiosity small, and spoke only about the food or their hair, the pattern on the wallpapers, and what books they’d been reading. They had us each sit at a different table, and more women filtered in, each of them hugging or gossiping as they grabbed a plate. The little older woman stayed by my side the whole time.
“I love your hair clips,” she said. I reached up and touched the crescent moon clips.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “They were my grandmother’s.”
She smiled, and I noticed the brooch on her dress was shaped like a crescent moon as well, with jade flowers like my grandmother’s. I glanced about, and spied crescent jewelry hung on necks and ears and wrists.
“Was my grandmother a member of the circle?” I asked suddenly. Those hair clips I’d inherited.
“The council,” she said.
I sat back in my chair.
“Not many legacies make it back to this room.” She smiled softly. “I’m glad you managed it.”
“What can I call you?” I asked, being careful not to ask for her real name.
“My name is Sarah,” she said, “but I like you so much you can call me Grandma.”
My eyes prickled, and a grief I hadn’t thought of in years made my throat feel tight.
More women filled my table, each of them smiling at me as they sat, and then turning to the other women whose names they knew and whose families they didn’t hesitate to ask about. Laughter erupted from Mira’s table, and Bea sat with a pencil, jotting down what had to be a recipe. Greta sat timidly, her usual gregarious disposition smaller as the women around her knew her good name and still ignored her.
I met her eye and gave her a smile, and she nibbled on a cookie, lowered her shoulders, and leaped into the conversation.
My mother and Mrs. Brown seemed to know every woman at their table, and many women would leave their own tables to hover around my mother’s, listening as she spoke of the fire, and I might be wrong, but I may have heard Mrs. Brown mention the words Duesenberg and joyride in the same sentence. The differences of each woman struck me, old and young, all shades of skin color and size, all manner of dress from expensive silks to simple cotton, each speaking as an equal.
The country wasn’t like this. Just sitting together in this room was against the Jim Crow laws of segregation. We worked and we built together, but the evil our society was founded to fight still loomed large and unbreakable.
But this was the future we were pushing for. Behind the secrecy and weight of my oaths, this was where we were going.
And if I had my way, this was just the beginning.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my notebooks. The newspaper with my article was folded carefully, but still it had creased. I smoothed the paper.
Sarah reached over and squeezed my hand again. “Just breathe in and out, dear one. We’re all ready to listen.”
I looked at her and realized my nerves were blissfully silent. She smiled again, a trained smile that filled her whole face and left me feeling so well loved that I knew she’d been called Mother.
“Thank you, Grandma.”
Her nose crinkled.
Miss Reynolds slammed her cane down on the floor, and a sudden memory of our training evaluations sent a chill up my neck. The room went silent.
Miss Reynolds sat at Mira’s table, dressed in a garçonne suit she fit very well, a cane in one hand, a top hat balanced across her forehead, shadowing her sharp pale cheekbones and heavy lidded eyes.
Miss Reynolds was a legend, though, already so influential. Her mind was sharp, but her strategies and her training were sharper. Her position was what Iris was working toward. She glanced around the room and then lifted one eyebrow. “All the circle members are here, so let’s start this meeting. I yield the floor to Maud Brown: Head Wife Matron of the northwest chapters.”
Mrs. Brown stood.
I swallowed back my nerves, and my stomach would not settle.
Mrs. Brown looked over us all. “To our Matron Circle, and their council, I thank you so kindly for your invitation. I’d like to introduce you to our former front-runner, Miss Elsie Fawcett. She has a speech prepared, and as many of you have read from her files, I expect this will not be the last we hear from her.”
I smiled at that unexpected compliment. Soft applause sounded, and I stood from my chair, picking up my notes and the newspaper, sliding around chairs until I reached the front of the room, and turning so those sitting faced me. Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Alvarez, our own chapter heads, sat together at a table near the back, and they both lifted their hands to wave as I spotted them.
I grinned, and the nerves I’d been fighting simmered down. At my nod, my sisters and my mother stood from their chairs and began passing out copies of the newspaper.
“As the women who selected Andrew Shaw,” I began, speaking to the members of the Matron Circle who hid here in this council, “I’m sure you know well how good and how kind he really is, a fact that I can confirm with my own experience. Andrew is a good enough man that I would let one of my best friends date him, which is as high praise as I can give. And he’s already lost so much. How can we take away his future? Look what one article could do. Look how this loss is already making him a kinder more compassionate person.”
A woman spoke from the crowd. “It is a good story angle. Voters will eat that up.”
My storming thoughts pushed me to close my eyes, because Rebecca was more than an election strategy.
Another woman spoke up. “I’ve always liked him and his mother.”
“With the right wife to guide him…”
Good. Andrew’s life was set.
Now time for my own. “I hope you will give Andrew his priority back. He’s going to make a great leader.”
Polite applause sounded and a few of the women turned back to their plates.
But I didn’t leave the podium. I glanced at the women, and for a moment I remembered when I was a girl and I’d give speeches to the trees in my backyard. I remember looking at the line of presidential portraits at my school and imagining my own face among them.
I knew what I wanted.
And all of a sudden, I wasn’t nervous at all. “I would make a great leader too.”
The soft chatter that had started hushed. “I wrote that article and changed minds with my words. You’ve read my test scores. Some of you have heard my speeches.”
“A few times,” Greta burst in.
I smiled at her. “And I would like you to help me run against him.”
“What?” The crowd erupted in voices. Dissenting voices for the most part. But I couldn’t hear them over the sound of my own voice announcing my own dream.
“But you won’t win,” Miss Reynolds said. The room silenced.
“I know. I probably won’t. Even if I have your support, even if everything goes right, I know it might take a miracle to even get me into the primary. I know this. But still, it’s possible. And I believe it is worth trying.”
Another woman spoke from Bea’s table. “You’ve seen how they treat suffragettes. You’ve studied history. Can you name a single woman throughout history who men would vote for?”
“Jeannette Rankin,” I said quickly. “She proves it possible. She was just elected to the Senate.”
“In Montana. The demographics are different in other states.”
“Rebecca L. Felton,” I continued. “Alice Robertson. Winnifred Huck.”
“These women are outliers. Some were only voted in because of their husbands—”
“—Mae Nolan,” I interrupted. “Florence Prag Kahn, Mary Norton, and Edith Rogers. These women proved that this is possible. They were elected without the society’s help. What could I do with it? I’m not here to ask your permission. I’m here to ask for your help.”
Someone else spoke from my mother’s table. “I’ll tell you the same thing we told the suffragettes. The good we do must be done in silence, or men will stop us. If they knew how we’ve turned their heads, they would discard us. We’ve failed because we’ve taken too ambitious steps before. We have to look at our history. This would fail and we’d be—”
“—We’d be closer,” I answered. “I’m not asking you to step out into the light. I’m not asking you for any risk that could bring harm to the women and children we’ve aided. We’d have decades to prepare for this, to find the right paths, the right arguments. With your resources if you help me train to run, I know we have a chance. And what’s the risk? With Andrew Shaw at the helm you have an excellent candidate, and a story I’ve helped build that will be nearly unbreakable. One I probably will not win against. I know I’m asking you to let me try, and to let me fail. I know what names the papers will call me, I know the comics will try to make me ugly and mock me for my size, but I am not dumb, though they will call me that. I am not uncultured, though they will call me that, and I am not ugly, though I know they will use that too. I know I am asking for heartache.
“But I also know that even if I lose, and am abused by the press, I know that by standing up anyway, I will inspire some other girl to take up the challenge. And then if she loses, it will be by less. And then someone else will come along, and another, and then eventually, some little girl will see our fight and decide to join in and that little girl will win.”
Tears blurred my vision, and the room was blissfully silent. My mother looked at me with so much worry, and also confusion. She couldn’t understand why I was asking for a life of heartache.
But this life was what I wanted more than anything. This was my dream. This was the change I could make that was bigger than the change my brother would make, or Andrew would make. They could be heroes.
But I could be me.
My mother stood. “I say we give her a chance.”
Bea and Mira stood and shouted—well, I have no idea what because they both spoke at the same time, but it was clearly in support. Then Iris and Mrs. Brown and even Greta stood and said something.
“I’ve had enough of Elsie’s speeches turned on me,” Greta said. “Let’s inflict her on the boys for a change. Honestly I could use the break.”
I narrowed my eyes, and she smiled at me.
Another woman stood, and then another. Each of them speaking in approval, some coming up with ideas I hadn’t thought of, ideas I jotted down so quickly that I couldn’t read my own handwriting. It was overwhelming, all those ideas, all those thoughts, shouted at once.
But I’ve handled storming thoughts before. And I could handle this.
And then Sarah, that little old lady who told me to call her Grandma, stood and said no, and part of my heart broke a little. Which was foolishness: I’d just met her, and I knew that if I was going to take this path, with or without the society’s assistance, then I’d need to get used to people not agreeing with me. No, I had to get used to people hating me.
But maybe the point of life wasn’t to be loved by everyone. Maybe the point of life was to make the right people angry. Then at least you knew you’ve stood for something.
More women were speaking, orderly now, because of the no. Speaking of plans, and challenges, and risks. Sometimes I responded, but most of the time women whose names I didn’t know answered for me. My words, my mission had become their own.
But the path forward seemed clear. I would write my way to the top. If I could only write enough articles to get the country accustomed to the sound of my voice, I knew I could get them to listen. Then we’d use connections to build my political experience, and start with local politics and school boards, and then as my experience grew, so would the size of my elections.
But so would the size of my risk as well. And the level of criticism.
I’d be sticking my neck out, like a rose from a bush. The society wouldn’t be able to hold back those gardener’s blades, inching ever closer.
But I wasn’t a flower, destined to bloom for a short season of beauty, then wilt and be cut away. I was a person and I deserved the right to dream. Women’s dreams should be perennials.
Miss Reynolds slammed her cane against the ground again, and the room silenced. She stood with some difficulty. “It does seem a manageable risk to take. At least for our society. But, Elsie, are you certain you want to attempt this? It will get ugly for you.”
I dragged in a breath, and then I nodded. “I’ve been pretty, and only pretty, for long enough.”
Miss Reynolds nodded at me like she’d just approved of the way I punched. “Then let’s vote.” She gestured to the table, and I crossed back to my seat.
All the women lowered their heads to the tablecloths, all except for my friends and me, who took a moment to realize that we were supposed to put our heads down too. I ducked down and pressed my forehead against the linen, not looking up but not being able to close my eyes either, so I just stared at a small crumb of cake next to a stain of dripped punch on the tablecloth as I heard women sit up and the softest brushing sound of hands making signals.
My curiosity won out. To do this, I’d have to start breaking rules, doing things that good obedient girls didn’t do.
So I peeked. There were eight women in the circle. About half were voting no. Even with all my arguments half of them weren’t ready to support a woman.
Then another woman sat up and raised her hand to vote yes. She met my eye after the vote was counted and put a dark finger up to her lips. The Head Gossip Matron was a Black woman. And her vote changed my whole future.
Miss Reynolds pounded her cane again, and the women around me all sat up in their chairs. I sat up, already knowing the answer but not believing it. It felt too new. Too fragile. It wasn’t going to be real, I couldn’t let myself believe it until it was called.
“The votes are in,” Miss Reynolds said. She looked directly at me, no clue or joy hiding in the light of her dark eyes. She opened her mouth. “This is historic. This is foolishness. And this is about damn time. Elsie Fawcett, your motion has passed.”
