The Daughter's Walk - Jane Kirkpatrick [75]
“We’re halfway to New York,” she said. “It would be an opportunity for you to see the city in a different light than when you were there last. Louise and I can check on our interests, and we need to confer with Franklin as well.”
“But we’ve already been gone nearly six months.”
She shrugged. “What would you have done if you’d been in Spokane all this time?”
I’d have been Olea and Louise’s secretary, which I continued to be; I’d have worried about encountering my family, half hoping I’d see them, half afraid I might not. I might have visited with Olaf again.
“I suppose I’d have spent time at the library or talked with my professors about what they thought would be a good investment for a young woman. Maybe I’d have gotten to know my banker better.”
“So come with us to New York. See how the fur fashion industry really works. Personally, I think it has a better future than coal or railroads. People have to dress, and they have to stay warm all around the world, and fur provides for that. Designs change, so there’s natural challenge but also the excitement of new seasons with young designers. As Louise would say, fur fashion is much more romantic than hard coal. Deal with soft, beautiful pelts, coats and muffs. There’s your investment.”
These women supported themselves well with fur and could afford to pay me and their agent, and live a good yet simple life.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s head to New York.” And then I decided to exert a little independence. “But we’ll make a side trip first to Michigan.”
“Whatever for?”
“It’s where my father’s from. I want to see if I can find him.”
THIRTY-ONE
Namesake
I began my investigation the afternoon I arrived in Manistee, Michigan, a small city on the state’s western coast. I presented myself at the newspaper office as a woman of means researching a business connection rather than anything personal.
“What’re you looking for? Maybe I can help,” the editor said as he chewed on an unlit cigar.
“I’d like information about the Doré Lumber Company.” I’d seen the sign with the announcement “position available” when I came into the town.
“Looking for work, are you?”
“To invest,” I said. He smiled and shook his head as though such a thing would be impossible for a woman.
“Where are you from?” He cocked his head in curiosity.
“Spokane, Washington,” I told him.
“Oh, well, that’s big timber country. It’ll be years before we harvest the replant here. It’s been over thirty years since the big fire. Stick with the West,” he said. “That’s my advice. Don’t waste your money here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, “though I suspect your local boosters wouldn’t like to hear you say it.” I turned to the newspaper piles he’d laid out for me, removing my white gloves so as not to rub the ink onto their tips.
I left two hours later with tired eyes, an address, and an obituary. The next morning, I’d make my move.
I was alone in the hotel in Manistee. The curling iron didn’t sizzle. Not hot enough. Each time I waited for it to heat on the kitchen Monarch or over the small burners in the marbled train stations of the larger cities we’d traveled to, I thought of my mother. I recalled how she heated a curling iron in Idaho or Nebraska and even Pennsylvania, heated it over the lantern, then lifted a width of hair no wider than Lillian’s palm and rolled the strands around the curling rod. She was ever careful not to burn my scalp, holding the iron and hair until she could feel the heat against her palm. Then she’d ease the strands free.
Once in Minneapolis, when Louise touched her fingers gently to my scalp, she said, “Oh, honey, you have the softest locks, like rabbit down.” She kissed my temple as though I were a child, as my mother had, the memory so vivid that my eyes watered. Later that same day, Louise introduced me to hairpieces that gave lift and marked the styles of 1902. Extensions, she called them, though I think they had a more formal name. Imagine, wearing hair someone else grew then sold! But