Chapter 14
Daley’s Restaurant, opened the previous year to serve the workers on the Exposition construction site, was a bustling establishment on Sixty-Third Street near Jackson Park, with deep wooden booths and white-aproned waiters carrying heavy trays laden with food.
It was simple fare, and the clientele were working men and their wives, but the atmosphere was convivial, and Brendan, Danny and Maggie were here to celebrate.
Over a tumbler of whisky in his private quarters in Holmes’ building, Brendan had been offered—and had accepted—the position as manager of his drugstore, at fifteen dollars a week.
After her earlier reservations, Maggie had made sure to be only enthusiastic about the prospect, and, in truth, she was.
She was very glad Brendan would no longer be working in the stockyards, smelling of blood and guts, his hands chapped and covered in blistering sores.
This was a huge step up, and a change in all their fortunes, which could only be a good thing.
Whatever unease she had felt about Dr. Holmes’ smooth ways had evaporated in light of Brendan’s obvious enthusiasm.
A waiter led them to a booth by the window, handing out menus as they slid onto the deep wooden benches.
Maggie surveyed the offerings, from the promised oysters to various soups and Irish staples, including corned beef and chicken and dumplings.
There was no champagne, but Brendan ordered beer all around, and the mood was celebratory as they clinked glasses, toasting their successes.
“To friendship,” Brendan proclaimed after they’d already toasted and drunk once, and Maggie stiffened slightly. Was she being ridiculous, getting annoyed at how often he’d mentioned that they were friends, and only friends?
“To friendship,” she returned dutifully, forcing a smile to her lips. “And to our futures.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Brendan remarked, wiping the foam from his upper lip, “that I might take lodgings at Dr. Holmes’, in time.”
Maggie frowned. “And how would we explain that to Mrs. O’Malley and the other boarders?”
Brendan shrugged. “If you continue to design hats for Mrs. Stein, you could find your own lodgings elsewhere? You wouldn’t even have to be in Englewood, and you’d never have to see Mrs. O’Malley again.
I’m sure there are any number of boarding houses that would accept an up-and-coming designer and her brother as lodgers, or perhaps you could afford your own apartment?
Somewhere nearer to the department stores you love so much, and the mansions on Prairie Avenue. ”
Maggie’s frown deepened and she looked away.
She’d had her own vague daydreams about finding new lodgings, making a new life for herself, but they’d possessed very few details, and none as depressingly concrete as Brendan was proposing.
The image he’d painted in just a few words seemed both stark and lonely, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted it.
“I don’t know about anything as grand as that,” Maggie said with an attempt at a laugh. “But perhaps in time,” she allowed. “Even so, neither of us should be so precipitous. You haven’t even started your work yet, and I have not designed a single hat.”
“True,” Brendan replied with an easy smile. “But in time, as you say.”
He sat back in his seat, seeming so relaxed that Maggie struggled not to feel hurt.
Why should it bother her, to have Brendan making such plans?
She’d been making them herself, and she hated the thought that she was so hypocritical as to allow such a luxury for herself and not for him.
Of course he should be able to consider his own future apart from her.
It was the way she had wanted it, and the only emotion she should be feeling now was relief—and gratitude.
“And what about me?” Danny demanded, looking between them. “Where am I to live?”
“With your sister, of course,” Brendan replied, and her brother frowned.
“I don’t want to live in some fancy place,” he protested with a grimace. “With women coming and going, wanting their silly hats. No thanks!”
“This is all conjecture,” Maggie protested, trying once more for a laugh and not quite managing it. “None of it has remotely come to pass, but, in any case, Danny, your place is with me. With family.” She gave her brother a meaningful look, while he snorted and looked away.
“But it will come to pass,” Brendan asserted confidently. He leaned forward, his hazel eyes glowing, his gaze warm and approving. “I believe in you, Maggie.”
Maggie opened her mouth to reply, and then found herself, quite suddenly and alarmingly, near tears.
It was so unexpected, she felt as if her emotions had taken her captive, and she could not overcome them.
Blinking rapidly, she shook her head. “Excuse me,” she whispered, and stood up from the table, nearly stumbling in her haste to get away without Brendan seeing how his words had affected her.
In the ladies’ room, she dabbed at her eyes, furious with herself for her ever-changing moods.
“You wanted this and now you have it,” she told her reflection in the cracked mirror, her voice as stern as a schoolmistress. “And there’s no use being sad about it now. No use at all!”
She took a deep, steadying breath and dabbed at her eyes again, determined that there should be no trace of her ridiculous tears.
What would Brendan think, to see her crying over his approval?
She could barely understand it herself, only that every time he said the word friend, something chafed against her soul.
Well, enough of all that. She was not some flibbertigibbet, to have her head turned this way and that, pouting when she didn’t get the attention she’d come to take as her due.
Because, Maggie realized with a sudden, scorching sense of shame, that was how she’d been feeling—and acting.
As if Brendan’s love and admiration was both accepted and expected, without her ever having any need to return it.
Yes, she’d scorned and disdained it, insisted she didn’t want it, but she’d counted on it all the same.
What a capricious creature she was! She wondered how Brendan ever could have loved someone so inconstant and volatile and then remembered that he no longer did. With another deep breath and dab of her eyes, she turned from her reflection to rejoin Brendan and Danny at their table.
“Are you all right?” Brendan asked, standing as she came to sit down with them again.
“Yes, I just had something in my eye. It very near blinded me.” She smiled at him brightly, more determined than ever to put the bruised jumble of her own feelings behind her.
If Brendan could do it, and seemingly so easily, then she could, too.
“I’m so much better now,” she stated, and reached for her glass of beer, taking a sip and trying not to wince, for as much as she wanted to celebrate, she had never grown accustomed to the taste of it.
Later, after full plates of oysters for Danny and corned beef for her and Brendan, as well as more beer, they walked home through the sultry summer air, the stars just beginning to glimmer above them in the velvety night sky.
The air was fresher than usual; there was no breeze, which often brought the smell of the stockyards to the neighborhood, and although it was hot and humid, Maggie found it pleasant.
“Dr. Holmes wants me to start next week,” Brendan told her as Danny sauntered ahead of them, a man about town with two tankards of beer sunk into his bony frame. “Only three more days as a pickler, and I must say, I’m not sorry.”
“I’m not, either.” Maggie had the urge to link arms with him, and she moved away slightly to avoid the temptation. “I hope your hands heal quickly. Perhaps Dr. Holmes has an ointment for them.”
“You’re so worried about my hands,” Brendan remarked with a chuckle, and Maggie blushed in embarrassment, glad the darkness covered the flush of her hot cheeks. He made it sound as if she were far more worried about him than he was about her.
“They looked very sore,” she said stiffly, and to her surprise, Brendan caught her hand in his and pulled her toward him.
“Why are you so prickly?” he asked in a low, teasing voice that made her blush all the more.
“I’m not,” she protested, and started to pull away.
“You are.” He held her hand fast. “More prickly than usual, which, I confess, is saying something.”
“Oh!” Flushing now with mortification as well as anger, Maggie yanked her hand away from his and marched ahead, her back ramrod straight and her nose in the air.
“Maggie…” Brendan began, his voice laced with amusement as he caught up with her. “Come on, don’t be like that.”
“Like what?” she demanded, and he sighed, sounding only tired now.
“Oh, I don’t even know.” He stopped, and she faltered in her self-righteous step, unsure what exactly had got her into such high dudgeon. “We always seem to be arguing, as of late,” he mused on another sigh. “I liked it better when we didn’t.”
“I don’t know why we should be arguing,” she burst out waspishly, unable to keep the hurt from her voice. “Since we’re such good friends.”
“Oh, it’s like that, is it…” Brendan murmured, his eyes glinting as his mouth curved in a knowing smile, and belatedly Maggie realized how much she’d revealed in that seemingly simple statement.
“Danny’s gotten too far ahead of us,” she mumbled, and picking up her skirts in her hand, she raced ahead, closing her eyes against the tears that came far too quickly, willing the warm night air to cool her hot cheeks.
“Maggie!” Brendan called, and started after her.
But, furious with herself as well as with him, Maggie kept running.