THE FLAPPER'S FAN

Chapter 17 - The Tale of a Girl

The next morning, my suitcase arrived while we were eating breakfast.  In the meantime, Charlie had borrowed a nightgown from one of the girls who was more my size, and I had rinsed out my underwear and dried them in the bathroom overnight.  Charlie was on a day-time shift and was off to the hospital soon enough, leaving me to work out how to spend my day.  More than at any other time, I wanted to go home, back to my own time, but I knew that even if I spent the whole day looking, I would not find the little store.  I couldn't go back until I'd solved Grace's mystery.  Who was she in danger from?  Who was the father of baby Sarah?  I felt a twinge at the thought that the answer could be Nick himself, if not to one question, then to the other.  After all, it seems I didn't know him at all and it turns out he was a pretty terrific actor, because he had me completely fooled.  I sat in the kitchen after all the other girls had left.  Mrs Henderson came to the door and looked at me sternly.  I knew she was going to tell me to get going, there was no lollygagging in this establishment.  But she surprised me.

"Come along, girl," she said brusquely.  "You can help me with my chores."  I felt like my mother had asked me to stay home from school.  Things I hated doing such as shopping and cleaning suddenly became the most exciting way to pass the time.  Scrubbing baths and peeling potatoes should have given me more time to think, but the physical energy expended kept my mind away from painful subjects and helped time speed by.  There was a stop for lunch, a delicious chicken and barley soup with fresh bread, and then it seemed it was the afternoon already, and moments after Mrs Henderson and I sat for a cup of tea together, the nurses entered laughing and chattering like a squad of monkeys.

"Eddie!" Charlie squealed, "guess what?  Harry's taking us to Kit Kat's tonight, isn't that fabulous?"  Two of the other nurses said they were coming too, and one of them looked me up and down and exclaimed that I would fit into Helen's concoctions, and had I asked her yet if I could wear one?  Charlie pronounced it a grand idea.

"Come on Eddie, lets go see Helen!"  She dragged me down the hallway to another room and knocked on the door.  A young woman opened it, she was small and dark haired with very thick glasses.  She wore a brightly patterned kimono open to show her underwear and stockings and her hair was pinned in the way the girls did to make waves and curls.  She looked me up and down.

"Come in," she said in a thick New York accent.  I entered what seemed like another world, although it was just a room as big as the ones that held two or three girls.  Every surface was covered in vivid fabrics of every colour and print.  Victorian style lamps were draped with sheer material creating a rosy glow.  A single bed neatly made was pushed into a corner and in the centre of the room was a large table, obviously used for cutting judging by the pinned patterns that lay there.  A sewing machine set into it's own table sat against the wall.  Baskets overflowing with fabric oddments sat beside and beneath the table and a set of drawers, mostly half or fully opened, some crammed with needles and pins, others spilling ribbons and thread filled the other wall.  Upon it, a number of silver and wooden frames held black and white photographs of people that obviously meant something to her.  The window here was open and an ashtray sat on the sill, a cigarette still smoking there.  Smoking was not permitted in the rooms, but the girls often stuck their heads out the windows for a quick puff or two.

She made her way through the clutter to a makeshift rack on which hung a number of incredible dresses.  Long, satin numbers and shorter, flapper style dresses in gorgeous jewel tones along with the classic blacks and whites, glimmered with sequins and beading that must have taken her hours. 

"I made this one for Lady Dulwich," she picked up the cigarette and took a drag, blowing the smoke out the window, then lifted a dress off the rack.  "She's about the same size as you are, here, try it on."