Chapter Fifteen
Washington, DC
JULIA
Sally was getting awfully attached to her plans. Lucy knew from experience that cuddling an idea like a kitten and refusing to let it go was a good way to get scratched in the face. Sally was fifteen months younger, though. She could not be expected to know everything.
FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE
Julia and Michael headed down the narrow alley toward the Krazy Kat Club, where Mina and some others had gathered to celebrate the suffrage victory. Michael chuckled when he saw the message chalked above the door of the old livestock stable: “All Soap Abandon Ye Who Enter Here.”
“They’ll be out back,” Julia said.
Julia found it aggravating that Mina insisted the Krazy Kat was the only worthwhile speakeasy in Washington.
The city had a three-year jump on most of the country in going dry.
As a result, it was wringing wet, with literally hundreds of speakeasies.
It was a nice night to be here, though, an unusually mild evening for August in Washington, the temperature in the sixties.
Julia led Michael past the winding staircase that led upstairs to the bar and dance floor, around lumber and farm equipment, until they reached the back door.
Ordinarily, the Krazy Kat’s gravel courtyard was a bit seedy, but they had put clusters of candles on every table and strung Japanese lanterns on poles, which gave it a festive air.
“Duchess!” came a voice from above. Julia looked up and saw Mina leaning over the rail of the tree house. It was a simple structure, just a platform with a rickety railing built into the large oak in the center of the courtyard, but it had room for a small table and a few chairs.
“They’re over there.” Mina pointed to the corner, where Vera, Jane, Mitzy, and a few others were assembled around several wobbly tables. Mina came down to join them, and a waiter brought glasses of ice and tonic water.
“It’s supposedly from an embassy, though I doubt it,” Mitzy said, as she offered them the bottle of gin that was being passed around. Foreign diplomats, exempt from Prohibition rules, were allowed to import liquor, and Washington bootleggers all claimed to sell “embassy stuff.”
Vera, who looked as if she’d had a bit too much not-from-an-embassy gin, pulled her head back and squinted at Michael.
“You have a patch on your eye!” she said, when her squint finally allowed her to focus on his face. Julia was unable to suppress a giggle.
“I do?” Michael reached up and touched it. “How odd.”
Vera nodded earnestly, glad she had alerted him to this fact, and Michael thanked her for the information. A moment later, she began to wave her arms and sing, “What do you do with a drunken sailor?”
“Good God, Vera, shut up.” Mitzy rolled her eyes.
“So, Duchess, how was the mods’ celebration?” Mina asked, in a teasing tone.
“Packed, but fine.” Julia sighed inwardly.
Earlier that afternoon, she and Louisa had attended a celebration at Poli’s Theater, sponsored by the moderate suffragists.
Just as William believed women were tainted by any association with radical suffragists, Mina deemed any support of the moderates to be mildly traitorous.
When Tennessee had voted to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment eight days ago, it was a big moment, but last-minute maneuvers by the anti-suffragists created enough uncertainty to make full-throated celebration feel premature.
They had been waiting for the main event: the arrival of Tennessee’s certification, and its signature by the secretary of state.
Secretary Colby signed it at his home early that morning.
It was disappointingly unceremonious, given that twenty-seven million American women had just been enfranchised.
In part, the secretary was trying to stay ahead of an injunction, but the unwillingness of the factions to lay down their arms also played a role.
Both groups, radicals and moderates, ferociously lobbied the secretary’s office to be the only ones present at the signing. In the end, neither was.
Unsurprisingly, Mina’s question about the Poli’s event triggered grumbling.
“Have you heard what the moderates are saying?” Jane complained. “They’ve never understood this struggle. Just as we predicted, they’re acting like it’s done, like we’ve reached the destination, when it’s only the beginning.”
This, in turn, inspired everyone to name their favorite lingering inequities. As it was, admittedly, a very long list, the conversation went on for some time.
Julia turned to Michael and spoke quietly. “I’m sorry. I am afraid this is not what I advertised.”
He had phoned earlier and asked if he could celebrate with her. She explained that Poli’s would be mostly speechmaking, and suggested he come with her here instead.
“Don’t be silly. It’s actually interesting,” he said.
“I wish we were allowed to enjoy one night.” Julia sighed.
On Haven Point, she had been frustrated by her friends’ lack of investment in the suffragist cause, and her family’s repressed emotions and unwillingness to speak openly.
But the candor and free expression that Mina and her friends considered the highest virtues often came off as plain rudeness, and Julia was tired of the relentless complaining.
Michael smiled and lifted his glass. “Cheers.”
Julia clinked her glass to his and took a sip of her not-from-an-embassy gin and tonic, grateful that Michael was with her.
He had invited her to several parties since she returned from Maine, but she declined them, offering up alternatives instead—a ride in the park, a lecture, a film at the Knickerbocker.
Michael did not seem to understand that routinely having one girl on his arm was an impediment to his meeting another. The thought of someone taking her place made Julia feel wistful at times, but she still felt it was wrong to stand in the way.
Julia was only half listening to the wider conversation, but when she heard Jane the Socialist mention Pelham Stewart’s name, both ears pricked up.
“… and nobody seems to know when he’ll come back.”
Mina must have seen her look up. “It’s a good thing you and Pelham never became an item, Julia.”
Julia’s curiosity got the better of her. “What’s that? Sorry, I missed what Jane said.”
“Pelham Stewart has taken up with some Russian woman.”
Julia stiffened. Feeling Michael’s eyes on her, she gave her head a slight shake she hoped was perceptible only to him. She had not told Michael that things were over between her and Pelham.
“Some Trotsky aide, I guess, who’s now in France, trying to lure people to Russia to start up agricultural communes. I gather she’s frighteningly beautiful.”
Julia couldn’t know whether Pelham “took up with” this woman before or after they broke up, but she had suspected something like this.
Julia desperately wanted to escape, but she worried the ever-perceptive Mina would take note of the timing of her departure.
For twenty long minutes she sat, pretending to be unbothered, until the conversation veered into other subjects, and she could finally ask Michael to take her home.
As they walked to his car, she tried to summon some topic of conversation to fill the pregnant silence, but she was not up to the task.
“Julia, are you all right?” Michael asked finally, as they made their way up Connecticut Avenue.
“Yes, thank you. Mina merely added details to what I already knew. If you do not mind, though, I would prefer not to speak of it.”
“Of course.” Michael rallied with some neutral subject to occupy them, and when they reached her home, he walked her to her door and took her hands.
“I will not speak of anything unpleasant, except to say that I wish you were happy.”
She gave him a hug. “Thank you.”
Julia did her best to distract herself over the following days, but she could not stop thinking about Pelham’s “frighteningly beautiful” Trotskyite.
Though not ordinarily inclined toward rumination, it proved an easy habit to pick up.
Within a week, her imagination had conjured a full picture of the woman.
She was of Nordic descent, with blond hair, light eyes, and a perfect complexion.
Julia imagined Pelham musing aloud to the woman, wondering how he ever got mixed up with a silly schoolteacher with no special talents, no willingness to commit. It was when Julia gave the mystery woman a name (“Svetlana”) that she began to see how dispiriting a habit this could be.
The start of the school year was a blessing. Though her general dissatisfaction lingered, it had plagued her so long, she had grown sadly used to it, and she was busy, at least.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.
She went home for Christmas, and she and her family pretended everything was fine.
Julia still felt adrift, but over time, it became an unpleasant background hum, and slowly the acuity of her grief over Pelham, and even her memories of him, began to fade.
On a Sunday evening in early March, Julia heard a knock at her door and opened it to find Mina, who had just returned from a weekend in New York.
“How was it?” Julia asked.
“Fine,” Mina said, her tone clipped. Julia offered her a drink, but Mina shook her head and walked around Julia’s living room, idly picking things up and putting them down again.
Mina’s entire bearing said, You are in trouble, and we are going to have a talk, but only when I am ready. Julia waited, feeling exasperated by the drama.
“So,” Mina said, finally turning to face Julia. “You never told me you and Pelham Stewart were in correspondence.”
“I told you I saw him at the Seabornes’ house before he left for war.” Julia was far less concerned about Mina’s anger than she was about the context in which she had gathered this information.
“You didn’t tell me you had written to one another.”
“What was there to tell? I wrote lots of people.”