The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [126]
Once I even brought water to the table of a man who looked familiar, and I startled when I realized it was Forest Stapleton seated next to a woman I assumed to be his wife. He was dressed as a fine businessman, but the cuffs of his coat looked frayed. He wore a puzzled expression when I said, “Good afternoon.” He stared at my face and didn’t answer when I asked what beverage he might like. His wife poked his side and said more loudly than necessary, “It’s not polite to stare, especially at the waitresses.”
“Yes. Coffee. With cream and sugar. Don’t I know you?” He stared again as he handed me the menu.
“How could you, Forest? Goodness. She’s the help!” his wife said, grinding out the word help.
“You’re right, my dear.” I knew he recognized me. “How ever would I know a serving girl, not even from my youth?” He looked away.
I took her order, curtsied, and left, expressing silent thanks to my mother that she had offered me a different path from where my fantasy of life with Forest Stapleton might have taken me.
I put aside a little money each month in the precious packet that held the news clippings of the walk. The hotel work proved tiring, and I slept well but had little time for card playing, stamp collecting, or even trying my hand again at designing. Walks brought me by the Spokane River and the falls, and the views of the Twin Sisters mountains in the distance gave me riches.
Olea said I became more and more frugal. I’d be alone before long. My two friends were in their sixties and I’d likely outlive them, so I needed to prepare for what lay ahead. I found it difficult to accept Olea’s contributions to the household rent, but each of us contributed. That’s what family did.
Franklin continued to write to us all. I read the letters out loud. He and Sharon had settled in Montreal, and he’d acquired new work in the furrier field that still required him to travel. He encouraged me to offer up new designs. He sold the ones that had been made up as garments before and made certain I received the proceeds. If you come to Montreal, you could see them on the models at the fair next spring. The seamstresses in Paris plan to replicate the latticework cape. Bring more designs with you. You could keep a little finger in the business without any risk at all, except perhaps becoming known as a fine designer.
I had no money to go to Montreal, barely enough to take the streetcar across town.
Sharon always added a message or two in her tiny script. This time she told of the weather and the beauty of the city. “You must come visit,” she wrote. “Franklin says you are destined to travel.”
“She’s so much like you,” Olea said after we read the last letter aloud. “You could be sisters.”
“Clara has a sister?” Louise asked.
“We have the same name.”
“Your name is Sharon?”
“Her last name, Louise,” Olea said. “Doré. I didn’t say Clara has a sister, though she does. I said Sharon and Clara were so much alike they could be sisters. That tiny script, the same tall stature, that baby-fine hair.”
“And they both love Franklin,” Louise said.
“But in different ways,” I told her. “My hair has a bit of gray in it,” I said. I’d long ago let the blond grow out. “Sharon’s is black as mink.”
“What about your other sisters?” Louise asked. “What color is their hair?”
“They’re blondes,” I said. “They’re too young yet to have gray twining through their chignons.”
“Maybe you ought to see for sure,” Olea said.
FORTY-THREE
Accounting
Olea discovered the Unity Church of Truth on Sixth and Jefferson with an assistant pastor named Emma Wells. “The first woman pastor in Spokane,” Olea said. “It’s good to know the faith is expanding to allow women to be of greater service.” Though Emma Wells did not preach, she taught, and there was a calm about her as she did. She was gentle with Louise, so interested in what anyone had to say that I found hopefulness in her presence.
On Mother’s Day I thought of contacting my mother. It was her birthday month as well. Now that I had no “dirty money” behind me, perhaps I