Chapter 15
“I love it.”
Mrs. Stein’s voice was rich with satisfaction and Maggie nearly wilted in relief. She had spent nearly every spare hour she had, and more besides, working on the hat for Mrs. Stein’s striped ensemble, and her erstwhile employer’s approbation was a balm indeed to her battered soul.
“I’m so glad,” Maggie said, her hands folded at her waist as Mrs. Stein tilted her head this way and that, admiring the flat brim of pale yellow felt with its wide band of deep blue silk tied in a flat bow at the front.
Maggie had kept it simple, not wanting the hat to compete with the bright stripes of Mrs. Stein’s gown, and trusting the paler yellow to complement the deep blue.
She’d spent hours dreaming up the design and then fashioning every last detail, and while it had been hard work, she’d been grateful for the distraction, especially after that distressing interaction with Brendan last week.
With her focus firmly on creating a hat for her patroness, she could convince herself that she was perfectly content with her friendship with Brendan, as he so obviously was.
Maggie had burned with humiliation at what she feared she had revealed to Brendan that night—that she cared about him in a way he clearly no longer cared about her.
And the truth was, while her affections might have become engaged, her resolve had still not changed.
She needed to focus on securing her future, not dillydallying with a man she soon would no longer have to call her husband, which was—or at least should be—nothing but a relief.
“You really have such a knack, my dear,” Mrs. Stein told her, twisting around to face her directly. “I shall be sure to tell everyone at the tea party of the talented young milliner who designed my hat!”
“That’s very kind,” Maggie murmured, humbled by the other woman’s generosity.
If she hadn’t run into Mrs. Stein in Field’s, she would still be dreaming of a day when things might change, fighting a sense of futility.
“I’m very grateful,” she told her, a thrum of sincerity in her voice.
“You have been so very generous in giving me a second chance.”
“You worked hard, and I like to reward hard work,” Mrs. Stein replied briskly.
Maggie suspected she had little use for sentiment.
She suppressed a smile as Mrs. Stein turned back to her reflection, her mouth curving in a small, pleased smile as she preened in front of the mirror.
“Yes, I shall be sure to recommend you,” she said with satisfaction.
“And Mrs. Brown, my housekeeper, has your payment.” She held up one hand to forestall any protest. “I know you said you would do it for free, but that seems unfair in the extreme. I reward hard work. Don’t forget it. ”
Maggie was still marveling at the sea change in her fortunes when she picked up the pay envelope from Mrs. Brown.
She waited until she was outside to check the amount inside, which had never been discussed—fifteen dollars!
Once again, she was overwhelmed by Mrs. Stein’s kindness.
If she really did recommend her as a milliner to her friends and acquaintances, Maggie reflected, she might be able to quit Field’s in just a few weeks…
and find new accommodation with Danny, which, she told herself, would be nothing but a relief.
Sharing a bedroom with Brendan had become unbearable, especially in the heat, when Maggie longed to throw off the covers, and Brendan slept only in his drawers and undershirt, and sometimes not even that.
Only a few mornings ago, the air stifling and still, she’d wakened with the dawn to see Brendan sprawled over the blankets heaped on the floor in nothing but his drawers, his arms outstretched, his head thrown back, his chest bare.
She’d turned away quickly, embarrassed, even though he’d been asleep, and she stayed firmly turned on her side, her back to him, until he’d arisen, dressed, and left for work.
Yes, it would be better, just as Brendan had said to her before, when they had their own separate accommodation.
She’d determinedly put aside her misgivings about the charismatic Dr. Holmes now that Brendan was working at his drugstore and clearly enjoying it.
Both their fortunes had turned for the better, and she chose not to begrudge any aspect of their lives.
With a determined stride, Maggie left behind the stately mansions of Prairie Avenue for the far humbler dwellings of Sixty-Third Street in Englewood.
“Did she like the hat?” Brendan asked when she returned to the boarding house, her dress sticking to her shoulders and her face shiny with sweat. Riding in the streetcar had been nearly intolerable thanks to the heat.
“Yes, she did, very much so, I think,” she replied with a smile.
It was Sunday afternoon, and they both had the day off, along with Danny.
Now that the hat was finished, Maggie found she didn’t know what to do with herself.
It was too hot to go outside, but a day sitting in the boarding house seemed an unpalatable proposition, and things between her and Brendan still felt awkward, each conversation something to be navigated, and not always successfully.
Perhaps she could find Danny and suggest they go out for a soda, but that seemed churlish to Brendan, leaving him alone.
She took off her hat, fanning her face. “Goodness, but it’s hot!” she remarked. “I don’t know if it’s worse inside or out of doors.”
“Well, I know one place where it will be better,” Brendan told her, and Maggie raised her eyebrows in query, uncertain as to what he could mean. “The lake,” he explained. “Danny suggested we all go bathing this afternoon.”
“Bathing?” Maggie shook her head, flummoxed as well as wary. “But I don’t know how to swim.” She’d never had the opportunity, and she couldn’t imagine doing so now.
“You don’t need to swim if you don’t want to,” Brendan told her with an easy smile.
There was something about his relaxed manner that contrarily put Maggie ill at ease.
“Just get your ankles wet if you’d rather,” he suggested.
“You’d still cool off, and the breeze off the lake is sure to be refreshing.
” He smiled. “We can celebrate your triumph with an ice cream afterwards.”
“So many celebrations,” Maggie remarked dryly. She was more discomfited—as well as tempted—than she wanted to be by the thought of an afternoon at the lake with Brendan.
“We’ve had much to celebrate.” He stood up from the chair in the corner of the room where he’d been sitting, polishing his shoes with a sheet of old newspaper and a tin of lampblack. “What do you say?”
“I don’t even have a bathing costume,” Maggie protested.
“Ah, but you can rent them for fifty cents at Lincoln Park,” Brendan told her. “There’s a beach there. Mrs. O’Malley said they’re planning to build a public bathing house soon, make a proper place of it. There’s not much there now, but you can still go in the water.”
Maggie shook her head, resisting instinctively—but why?
It was hot, and the prospect of cooling off in the water was welcome indeed.
And, she realized, she wanted to spend time with Brendan—and Danny, too, of course.
She felt as if she barely knew what her brother was doing these days, since they were both so busy, and an afternoon of fun and leisure would be pleasant.
“All right,” she said a bit recklessly, and Brendan grinned.
“It’ll be fun,” he promised, and for a second, Maggie remembered when he’d planned another afternoon’s entertainment, when he’d rented a sleigh and they’d gone through Central Park in the snow, all the way uptown.
Her heart had fluttered with hope then, and she’d entertained vague daydreams of a life together, as, she knew, had Brendan.
It had felt like the beginning of something both frightening and wonderful—but, of course, it hadn’t been. Maggie had made sure of it.
In any case, today would be different, she told herself sternly.
Brendan had made it plain as plain could be that he no longer thought of her that way, which was just as well.
And so they would enjoy each other’s company without it meaning anything more than the fun Brendan had promised.
Fun between friends… which was what she wanted, after all.
An hour later, they were on North Beach in Lincoln Park, having rented swimming costumes from a stand by the lake and changed in a makeshift booth covered by a tattered curtain.
The new public bathing house couldn’t come soon enough, Maggie thought, as she emerged from the booth, self-conscious in the scratchy bathing costume, complete with blouse and bloomers, its skirt only coming just past her knees, which felt rather scandalous.
She’d never had her ankles out before, never mind her calves.
Brendan and Danny had changed also, in vests and drawers of dark blue flannel, their arms and legs both bare.
“I can’t help but feel ridiculous,” Maggie said, glancing down at herself, embarrassed by how scantily she was clad. She had never had so much flesh on display before, and she felt nearly naked.
“Well then, we all look ridiculous,” Brendan replied cheerfully.
His glance barely skimmed over her before looking away, seeming utterly unaffected by the sight of her.
Maggie tried not to mind, knowing she had no right to, and yet she could not deny that her feminine vanity was dented by his seeming disinterest.
There were a handful of bathers on the beach by the North Avenue pier, dressed in similar costumes, some of them seated on the sand and others knee-deep in the blue-gray waves of Lake Michigan.
In the distance, Maggie could see the factories and warehouses that still lined the lake, belching their dark smoke into the sky.