“That’s astonishing. How did you think of it?”
“Women do everything for their husbands: they make sure their shirts are ironed and their meals are prepared; they even plan their social schedules. Maude Van Luyen calls her husband’s secretary twice a week to coordinate his appointment book.
“It’s the same with the children. Once a woman has children, her time is spent choosing the right schools, taking them to lessons, arranging birthday parties.
“Women need something of their own to be happy. A private notebook isn’t much, but it’s a start.”
Harley took the notebook to the counter.
The salesman wrapped it in tissue paper and tied the package with a satin ribbon.
Pandora and Harley walked onto the sidewalk. It was midafternoon, and children played in the park. A family licked ice cream cones, and two women in floral dresses passed by with hat boxes.
“Can I buy you an ice cream to thank you?” Harley asked.
She liked being with Harley. It felt different from being around Owen. She’d always had a slightly anxious feeling with him. And there was none of the spirited banter she had with Archie. She felt comfortable with Harley. And he was so handsome women turned around to get another look.
She nodded and took his arm. “It’s so hot, an ice cream sounds perfect.”
Pandora thought Harley would order from the Good Humor wagon parked on the corner. But he walked past the ice cream truck to Finley’s drugstore. Inside, there was a soda fountain and a row of high-backed stools. A huge mirror stood behind the soda fountain, and there was a selection of glass bottles arranged in front.
“Prohibition is the best thing that happened to soda fountains,” Harley said, sitting on a stool. “People can’t go to bars to drink, so they go to soda fountains instead.” He picked up a menu. “It’s all the craze after the theater. In New York the fountain drinks have the same names as regular cocktails. Hippodromes and Buster Browns and Gibson Girls. Except a Buster Brown is made with chocolate ice cream and pineapple sherbet with poured-over caramel nut sauce and catawba syrup. And a Gibson Girl is two sliced bananas and oranges, chilled in a punch bowl and served with vanilla ice cream and crushed pineapple.”
Pandora burst out laughing.
“How do you know these things?” she inquired.
“The Triangle Club often goes to New York to see plays. It’s great fun. There’s nothing like the camaraderie of actors and playwrights.”
Harley ordered an ice cream sundae, and Pandora had a banana split with whipped cream and chopped nuts.
“My mother couldn’t stop talking about you after the house party,” Harley said. “I worry about her when I’m at Princeton. She must get lonely. Perhaps you could go to lunch with her or go shopping. Maybe even see a movie. My mother loves Mary Pickford, but she doesn’t like going to the movies alone.”
The ice cream suddenly tasted gummy in Pandora’s mouth. She found it hard to swallow.
Harley was just like Owen. He saw her as someone he could use. But instead of using her to help him win at tennis, Harley was looking for a companion for his mother. It didn’t matter how many beautiful dresses Pandora wore or what witty things she said. Men of Harley’s social class would never treat her as an equal.
She plunged the spoon into the banana split. Even if she did fall in love again, it would come to nothing. The Lillian Clarksons and Lucy Vanderbilts would always live in estates on the Hudson, with their banker husbands and English setters and children dressed in pinafores and sailing suits. Pandora would remain on the sidelines, grateful to be invited to the occasional house party with Archie and Virginia.
Even Virginia was like the other young women. At any moment, she could change her mind about starting a literary salon and marry whomever she liked. All she had to do was appear in a Worth gown and one of her mother’s tiaras, and suitors would line up to ask her to dance.
Adele Enright might be open minded, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Milton was old fashioned; he might not accept someone from Pandora’s social station as a daughter-in-law. And Harley himself had likely learned to choose a certain type of bride at Princeton and his eating club.
Pandora’s father was right. She had ruined everything by throwing away her chance to go to secretarial school. Now her future was as bleak as the women Adele Enright helped at the factory.
Pandora brought her eyes up to meet Harley’s. She forced herself to smile.
“Of course,” she said with a nod. “I’d be happy to spend time with your mother.”
Later that day, Pandora sat in the kitchen at Riverview. She stirred a cup of tea.
She’d have to keep searching for a proper job; she couldn’t help Esther forever. But what was she qualified to do? The thought of becoming a maid at Rosecliff or Beechtree was too awful to contemplate, and she’d already discounted the idea of working in a factory. She could work behind the counter at the bakery, but it would hardly pay enough to get the food stains out of her dresses.
Through the window, she noticed a delivery boy. He held a box of chocolates in one hand and a bunch of lilacs tied with a pink ribbon in the other. Pandora smiled to herself. Esther’s suitor, Ronald, often sent flowers or chocolates, but never both. He must be close to asking Esther to marry him.
Pandora opened the back door.
“Esther isn’t here, but you can leave them on the counter.”
“They aren’t for Esther.” The delivery boy handed them to her. “They’re for Pandora Carmichael.”
Pandora’s eyes widened. The chocolates were from a confectionery, and the flowers were from the florist on Main Street. A card was tucked inside the ribbon.
She waited until the delivery boy left. Then she opened the card and read it aloud.
“Dear Pandora,
Forgive me, I don’t know which you like better, flowers or chocolate, so I sent both.
They’re staging a production of George Bernard Shaw’s play The Devil’s Disciple at the Poughkeepsie playhouse next Tuesday. It’s one of my favorites; the Triangle Club performed it three years ago.
I hope that you’ll join me.
Warm regards,
Harley”
Pandora’s cheeks flushed with pleasure. Harley wanted to see her again! He wasn’t only interested in her as a companion for his mother.
She wondered why he hadn’t called and invited her. Perhaps he was shy when it came to dating and wasn’t comfortable talking on the phone. Archie said that Harley hadn’t had any girlfriends before.
Outside the window, the sun slipped behind the Catskill Mountains. The lawn shimmered pink and gold in the evening light, and the river glinted as if it were scattered with diamonds.
First, she’d put the flowers in water. Then she’d call Harley and say she’d love to go to the play with him.
Chapter Eight
August 1926, Hyde Park, New York
At the end of August, the Vanderbilts would hold the last house party of the summer. There would be golf and games and afternoon tea served on the lawn. The grounds boasted two thousand rosebushes, and Frederick had commissioned New York’s leading landscape architect, Charles Platt, to design the pergolas and swimming pool. Guests could visit Frederick Vanderbilt’s farm, and the invitation promised a tour of the mansion and the multitiered gardens, each with its own type of plant.