Chapter II. 1953 #4
But she stepped into the empty elevator, her stomach lurching as it carried her down and away, and the breath she held flooded out of her.
The doors opened onto the lobby, and she pushed herself toward the main entrance, her heels echoing through the open space, and then she was out and blinking against the glare of the late morning sun.
Her car was in the lot to her left, but she veered right.
She couldn’t go home this early. Her mother-in-law would tell Robert, and Robert would ask her what happened, and she wouldn’t be able to lie to him.
Wouldn’t be able to make up a fake excuse.
She didn’t want him to know she was a failure.
That she’d bolted at the first sign of trouble.
And had it even been trouble? What had Mr. Letting done after all? Touched her arm? Done some harmless flirting? Her head spun.
No. She would find something to do in the meantime. Rich’s was only a few blocks away, and she’d been thinking of a new hat. She would shop. Get some lunch. And unless Mr. Letting did fire her, Robert would be none the wiser.
Only once she passed under the Crystal Bridge and entered the revolving door, the air scented with delicate florals and leather, did the tightness in her chest finally unstitch itself.
She drifted toward the women’s section, her hands passing over the slick coolness of silk blouses and delicately spun softness of cashmere as she let the sensation bring her back to her body.
This was a world she understood. A golden, jeweled, rose-scented universe with which she was intimately acquainted.
A world that spoke the language of her girlhood, and she sank into it like warm water.
She drifted toward the hats, the displays feathered and tulled and shining with promise. Lifted a pillbox from its stand, the brilliant peacock tones set against a cream silk and a pop of sapphire netting.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it? It’ll bring out the green in your eyes.
” The shopgirl appeared at her elbow, a gilded mirror in her hand.
Mary sucked in a sharp breath as she stared.
The woman smiled, her mouth a perfect, scarlet-painted bow made even brighter by the golden cascade of curling hair.
Her dress clung at the hips and matched the color of her mouth.
A brilliant, burning thing amid so much beige.
“Here. Let me,” the woman said, and handed the mirror to Mary before placing the hat atop her head. She grasped Mary’s arms and peeked over her shoulder into the mirror, eyes the color of ice meeting Mary’s hazel ones.
“See? Lovely.” The woman pulled Mary’s hair away from her face, cool fingers brushing her neck. She felt herself begin to flush, and she silently begged her body to not give in to such an act of betrayal. “Everyone should have a hat like this, don’t you think?”
“I’m certain you say that to all the ladies,” Mary said, and almost clapped her hand over her mouth. She was not one to make jokes. To play at being coy. And yet here she was, a smile creeping over her own face as she arched an eyebrow.
“Only the ones I like.”
Mary did flush then, and she brought an ineffective hand to her chest in the hopes the woman wouldn’t notice.
“But we’ve never met. I could be terrible,” she said. The woman shook her head, that golden hair flying.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Want to know how I know?” She leaned forward, her whisper sending a delicious shiver up Mary’s spine. “It’s because you glow.”
Mary’s hand fell to the side as the heat she felt unfurled beneath her skin.
No one had ever been so forward with her.
Not even Robert during their courtship. Everything with him was a stoic set of expectations.
Romantic only in that it checked off a series of boxes set by some other person’s definition of tame flirtations.
But she wanted to glow. To be seen in the way this woman had seen her.
“I’m Sharon. Sharon Hutchins,” the woman said, pressing her hand into Mary’s.
“Mary Shephard,” she said, and something like grief stole over her as Sharon dropped her hand.
If she had been a good girl, the girl her mother had raised her to be, Mary would have turned away then. As her mother always told her, such things wore attractive wrappings but hid a serpent’s tongue.
Instead, she opened her pocketbook and withdrew her checkbook. Her heart fluttering, she looked directly into the deep blue of Sharon’s eyes and told herself not to look away. To be decisive for once. “Have you had lunch? And I’ll take the hat.”
Sharon did not hesitate. “There’s a café just down the street that does a beautiful chicken salad sandwich. Can you wait? I take my lunch at twelve fifteen.”
Mary nodded. It was almost noon. The afternoon sparkled with possibility. She would have waited hours if it meant even twenty minutes with Sharon Hutchins. Being in her presence was like sunlight after a long, gray winter. A warmth she hadn’t realized she was missing.
Sharon rang up the sale and boxed the hat, her delicate fingers tying a thick cream bow across the top.
Mary’s skin prickled as she watched Sharon’s hands and wondered what it would be like to feel them, soft and cool against her skin.
She pushed the thought away. Focused on the sounds of the other shopgirls and their customers, the quiet murmur of wealth being transferred, as she wandered toward the children’s section to wait for Sharon.
“There you are.” Sharon materialized at her elbow. “You’ll have to come back wearing the hat, so I can get the full effect.”
“I’ll do that. I work just around the corner.
I can pop in any time.” Even as the words spilled out of her mouth, Mary could hardly believe her own bravado.
That mousy, mincing girl she’d always been suddenly flowering and daring.
Smiling back at this woman she didn’t know but desperately wanted to.
Pushing away all thoughts of what this meant on any level deeper than the want of friendship.
She could not think about the unread magazines she’d thrown in the trash or the reasons she’d done it.
Doing so would mean having to face why she was now waiting for Sharon amid a charming display of baby clothes, her hands blindly passing over frothy lace in a pantomime of interest. Right now, her child, the daughter she loved beyond reason and logic, was a faraway memory.
“That’s pretty.” Sharon came to stand beside her, a bland tan handbag tucked under her arm. “A little girl?”
“Oh.” Dumbly, Mary looked down at the tiny periwinkle dress she held. “Sweet, isn’t it?”
Sharon tilted her head, clearly waiting for something else from Mary, and she blushed. Of course. A little girl. Her daughter.
“Yes, a girl.” She put the dress back in its place as blood rushed her ears. “She’ll be six months on the fifteenth.”
Sharon’s gaze traveled to her left hand, pausing to take in her diamond engagement ring and the gold wedding band.
It could have been the lighting or a momentary shadow cast from the sun that filtered through the large windows, but Mary imagined she saw Sharon’s smile fall just a bit.
The moment passed, however, and even though Mary twitched her hand away, determined that these next hours not be filled with conversation about her husband and daughter, she felt as if something between her and Sharon had already been lost. She wondered if it was possible to grieve for a thing she never had.
“Shall we?” Sharon asked, and Mary nodded, blissfully allowing Sharon to lead her through the labyrinthine displays and then out onto Broad Street, where Sharon turned left, her heels a pleasant clattering along the pavement.
“Have you worked here long?” Mary asked, suddenly realizing she knew nothing about the woman who walked beside her.
That she’d somehow invited her to lunch for a reason she could not yet even admit to herself much less put into words.
Sharon stepped smartly ahead of her, and Mary quickened her pace so she would not lose Sharon’s response in the general commotion of the other pedestrians.
“A little over a year. It’s not much, but I have my own apartment over on Irwin Street. Food on the table. A little cat named Radish.” She smiled. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Ada.” Again, she felt the urge to change the subject, to lead Sharon away from anything related to Ada or Robert. Toward something safe. Something innocuous. “We’re in Hawthorne Springs.”
Sharon paused, and Mary had to draw herself up so she wouldn’t slam into her. She turned to face Mary, squinting against the sunlight. “So, you’re a member of that big church then? The Path?”
Her tone was light. Breezy. But something flitted across Sharon’s face.
A momentary darkness or confusion Mary couldn’t completely identify but which was obvious.
She suddenly had the urge to apologize or to tell Sharon she misheard, and she didn’t live in Hawthorne Springs at all, but it would have only made things more confusing.
“Yes. I grew up there,” she offered, but she had no way of knowing if that lessened or intensified whatever emotion it was that crossed Sharon’s face.
Looking at her now, at the slight smile that spoke only of interest, Mary wondered if she imagined it.
If it was her nerves twisting every reaction, every word, into something harsher rather than anything Sharon had actually done or said.
“Every girl I grew up with dreamed about marrying someone from Hawthorne Springs. The whole Cinderella fantasy.” Sharon resumed their walk, her voice dreamy.
Mary fell in beside her as she did her best to dispel the lingering memory of what she thought she saw pass over Sharon’s face.
“It was the talk of the town when Tracy Manning was invited to some party out there, but nothing ever came of it. She married Bob Crandell and that was that. Here we are.”