“Of course she’s not here.” Patricia’s grip on the letter tightened. “I’ve always hated the way he hijacked the Homestead. He wasn’t content with you Girls, he had to own the nine of us too. Our whole histories. Our very relationships with each other.”
This was the first time I’d heard somebody close to Bellanger speak about him with that much disdain. I’d heard the bullhorn-loud criticisms, the sanitized slights published in scholarly journals, but not something like this. Up-close, raw hostility.
Patricia went to the somber Persian rug, kneeling to pull it back. The floor beneath was the same glossiness as the rest of the floor. No undercoat of dust. She deftly pulled up a floorboard, revealing a dark cavity, and reached inside, retrieving a small shoebox. Then she sat next to me, settling the box on her lap, and pulled out a crumpled pack of Virginia Slims. She plucked loose the cigarette, reached into the box for a lighter. Her hands were trembling. She exhaled a fog of smoke.
“The year you were born,” she said, “there was an ad for these cigarettes that your mother and I loved. It showed a woman. A superhero. Tall red boots, red cape flowing all around her shoulders. Standing with her chest back and her legs wide. The copy claimed that Virginia Slims were designed for women because women were ‘biologically superior.’” Patricia opened her eyes halfway, examined her own cigarette as if she’d forgotten she’d lit one. “Mere pandering. But that woman was beautiful. She looked exactly like Margaret.”
Patricia stirred the contents of the shoebox with her fingers. I wondered why she’d kept it. The hiding space felt like a soft spot in an otherwise impenetrable suit of armor. I thought of my mother’s hiding place inside the clock.
“Did your mother ever tell you about me, Josephine?” Patricia asked quietly.
“She told me you would steal her cigarettes,” I said, irritable. Her hostility toward Bellanger had set me on edge. “I see you have your own now, at least.”
Patricia laughed, her expression not lightening.
“I’m confused,” I said. “How did you all know each other, if it wasn’t through him?”
I was starting to feel like she couldn’t see me at all. Patricia addressed the room instead: “I met your mother in New York City, both of us arriving there without knowing a soul. We were roommates in a little walk-up. Margaret could barely scrape enough together to pay rent on that place, even with three other girls sharing the space. I had some money—my parents were generous enough with their money, if not with anything else—so I had a bedroom to myself. It was hardly a glamorous place. We had to pass two peep shows every time we went down the block.” But Patricia was smiling as she spoke, the smile of a woman handling precious memories. “New York was a fresh start for both of us. She was waiting tables, and I had a position at the public library.”
“You were a librarian too?” I asked. “My mother—she’s also—” But something in Patricia’s expression stopped me. Cate put a quick hand on my shoulder: Be patient.
“Your mother seemed so sure of herself, she intimidated me,” Patricia said. “Even though she worked long shifts at a diner, I saw her studying in her free time. She’d come to my branch and check out these dense, incomprehensible science books. I began to realize Margaret and I had a lot in common. As beautiful as she was, she didn’t go out with the other girls when they invited us. She had no interest in boys and parties. Eventually, I invited her to split my bedroom with me. She’d been sleeping in a curtained-off nook, but I had room for another bed in there. She started to spend a lot of time in our room. To me, that room soon felt like the safest place in the city. Our little refuge.”
I felt my fluttering heartbeat tucked in my throat.
“One day, I was getting off the subway, heading home from work, when I noticed your mother heading in a different direction. I followed her. I admit, I was curious. Imagine my surprise when she walked right onto a college campus. Back then, some of the most prestigious schools still wouldn’t even admit women. But your mother walked with her head high and vanished into a building. A while later, I finally worked up the courage to confess I’d seen her. Margaret seemed happy I mentioned it. I think she needed a friend as much as I needed one. She told me she’d worked out a way to sit in on biology lectures.”
Patricia paused, took a long drag on her cigarette. My mother had been interested in biology. Why had she never told me? Why hadn’t I asked? I’d always treated her story as if it started at the same time as mine did, when I came squalling into the world. The details she’d offered me—that she didn’t have much family, that she’d been adrift before she decided to heed Bellanger’s call for volunteers—were the same blandly mechanical ones offered up by textbooks or tell-alls.