Chapter Four
Philadelphia
“Flo? Florence? Ah, there you are.” I can tell from the way Mamma bursts through the front door that she’s brimming with news. I look up from where I’m sprawled on the hearthrug beside Kit, both of us taking turns dangling a piece of scrap linen over Titania.
“Yes?” I peel my attention from our beloved cat, whose hair is now less matted, even a bit glossy, thanks to the baths and the milk we sneak for her.
Mamma strides into our small space, a rented room in a boardinghouse on Philadelphia’s busy Arch Street.
The place is bigger and slightly cleaner than the boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, and mercifully, I do not serve as the rent collector.
“I have news,” Mamma says, slipping the pins out of her thick hair and pulling off her hat. “Good news.”
About time. “What is it?” I sit up, attentive, as the cat paws my skirt.
“Tomorrow, you’ll come with me to Wanamaker’s.”
“The department store?” My voice lifts with hope.
Am I to have a new store-bought dress? Something other than the homemade patterns that Mamma styles me in?
It’s not that I’m complaining; she’s an expert with the needle, and I enjoy sporting her creations.
Even on the frequent days when we have too little to eat, I am always turned out well enough, thanks to Mamma’s love of sewing and her eagerness to practice new styles.
“Yes,” Mamma says, slumping down in the threadbare armchair beside our stove.
Mamma works the day shift at Wanamaker’s, selling fashionable dresses and other luxury finery to the ladies who live in the leafy estates out on the Main Line.
Mamma leaves each morning right after breakfast, returning home after I’ve fixed supper.
She doesn’t love the work, but we need the wages.
If she sells enough of Mr. Wanamaker’s dresses, hopefully someday she’ll get the chance to make some creations for the store herself.
“I’ve fixed it for you,” Mamma says, ignoring the cat curling its tawny body against her legs. “You’ll have a day shift on the floor. An errand girl at first, but if you put in good work, perhaps you can try your hand as a salesgirl soon enough.”
“A day shift?” I repeat the words, my mind trying to catch up. “But…what about school?”
Mamma offers a beleaguered wave of her hand. “Oh, never mind that school.”
Now I’m certain that Mamma can see my disappointment, and in spite of knowing better, I don’t try to hide it.
I’ve loved the past few months at the city school.
We’ve been reading the writings of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and studying the spring plants.
Walking to and from the school each day with Kit, our steps merging with the chattering crowds of other children, I’ve felt like I was where I was supposed to be for the first time since losing Daddy.
I was even on my way toward making a real friend or two.
Besides, Daddy always told me how important it was that I study hard. I’m only a year shy of entering high school. You’ve got the brains for it. You’ll even go to college. But how am I going to get there if I’m spending all day inside Wanamaker’s?
Mamma keeps her eyes averted, suddenly preoccupied with watching the cat make waves with its spine against the legs of the armchair.
It’s in that moment that I notice how many new strands of silver lace her hair, which was once glossy and dark, just like mine.
Daddy always waxed poetic about our gorgeous chestnut manes. But now hers is more salt than pepper.
When Mamma does go on, her voice is firm.
“You’ll learn more in one day just listening to and observing these ladies…
and I mean the things that actually matter, Florence.
Style, elocution, comportment. This will be the sort of schooling that’ll help you get ahead in life.
Now come here, I need to see your dress. ”
“Why?” I ask, stepping toward her. I throw Kit a questioning look; he answers me with a shrug that says he’s every bit as puzzled as I am.
Mamma begins yanking on the bottom of my hem. Swiveling in the armchair, she riffles through her nearby sewing basket until she pulls out her small scissors.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
Mamma snips and tugs along the bottom of my dress as though I’m a block of ice and she wants to cut shavings. “I need to take down this hem,” she says.
“But you always tell me it’s good to keep my hem high. The gentlemen like getting a glimpse of the gams.”
Mamma stops snipping for a minute, letting out an exasperated puff of air. “At Wanamaker’s you’ll be working among the salesladies. A lady, you hear?”
But I’m a girl, I want to say, though I swallow back the words of my confusion, allowing them to drop into my stomach like stones.
“As such, you’ll have to dress like one. And ladies wear long skirts. No more of these schoolgirl hems at the knees.”
With that, she sets back to work, scowling as she focuses on the stitches.
The room darkens around us. On Mamma’s orders, Kit lights our one candle, and I stand there in the jumpy light, motionless, as I’ve been trained.
I am Mamma’s model, a statue, as she lowers my hem and works to turn me from a girl into a woman.
—
“Now, Florence, when we get inside, don’t gawk. Mr. Wanamaker has constructed something called an elevator. It’s a motorized trolley that floats up and down so the rich folks don’t have to climb the stairs.”
My wonder must show on my features because Mamma offers me a curt nod, standing beside me outside the grand front entrance to the city’s largest department store.
She gives me a final once-over, smoothing down a stray tendril of my hair, which is swept up off my neck in a prim chignon just like hers, and then she speaks in a low voice: “Keep your wits about you, Florence. It won’t do to gape like a fish. ”
I pat down my blue skirt, which now falls over my ankles, and stick close behind Mamma as we step off the street and into the cool, airy front atrium of Wanamaker’s.
All of Mamma’s entreaties not to gawk and gape fly away as I get my first glimpse of the inside of the store.
It is grander than anything Mamma could have prepared me for, or anything I could have imagined.
I’ve never been inside any building this massive, all creamy white marble and shiny golden embellishments.
And the ceiling! It soars skyward and I can’t help but count the tiered balconies that striate the bright space, like an oversized confectionary cake: one, two, three, four… “Five stories, Mamma!”
“Yes, Mr. Wanamaker built his store to be as grand as the indoor markets in Paris and London.” Now even Mamma lets slip a begrudging tone of admiration.
And it’s not just the sprawling space that I find so staggering—it’s all the treasure stocked inside.
The place is filled with riches! Glistening glass display cases and tidy lines of countertops boasting gloves, stockings, shoes and boots, pillow shams, chemises, hats.
One could wear a new outfit every day, turned out from top to toes, and still never make it through all of these frilly, fancy items.
“What did I say?” Mamma chides, again in a low voice. “Don’t gawk like you’ve never seen anything like it.”
“But I’ve never seen anything like it,” I reply. “Why, it reminds me of the caves filled with treasure that Daddy used to read about in The Arabian Nights.”
Mamma grimaces, but I can see she doesn’t understand the reference, so I ask, “Where did all this come from?”
“Mr. Wanamaker goes to Paris and London every year to pick out the finest items. Why, even the owners of Macy’s in New York City look up to Mr. Wanamaker for his taste. And Mr. Macy could not claim to have an elevator in his store.”
I’m wondering—and very much want to ask—if I might get the chance to ride that elevator, but Mamma chivvies me deeper into the cavernous front atrium.
I draw in a slow breath, luxuriating in the aromas of the air, so clean and sweet, a swirling bouquet of many different perfumes and varieties of eau de toilette.
We pass more elegant tables of gleaming dark wood and countertops piled with all manner of fine goods.
I want to pause and study a particularly dainty pair of lady’s gloves.
I assume they must be fashioned of the softest kid leather and embroidered with silver silk thread, but I have no time to dawdle.
It truly is like the caves of The Arabian Nights—look, but don’t dare to touch.
We pass faceless mannequins and orderly rows of dresses.
Garments of all styles and colors: chic polonaise gowns with bustles, day dresses for tea and calling, evening gowns with puff sleeves and frills, riding habits with clean lines of frogging and matching caps.
In spite of all the variety, each piece of treasure seems to have what appears to be a sort of label dangling from it, and I pause to examine one.
“Ah, yes,” Mamma says. “A price tag. Mr. Wanamaker’s is the first store in the country to use them.”
“But…what are they?”
“They tell the cost. No haggling, no vulgar negotiating in here like they do in more common establishments. Why, Mr. Macy liked the idea so much he brought it to Manhattan.”
I stare at the tag between my fingers. “Ten dollars?” I gasp. “For one dress?” We could feast for weeks on that.
Mamma nudges me to keep walking. “I told you you’d learn in this place—what life could be.”
We march toward the back of the grand atrium, where I spy a ring of circular counters sparsely populated by the other salesladies.
Each woman gives off a tidy and prim sense of preoccupied purposefulness, clad like Mamma and me in cream-colored blouses with jabot collars and dark ankle-length skirts.