Dead Man's Ante

A Day for a Doll

Knock knock. The abrupt sound shook through the halls of the heavily wallpapered home. Harold Kinney, a lanky man with a chiseled face, stood on the front porch. He was the absolute last person the twenty-four year old woman had wished to see. Untying her apron and crossing her arms, she shuffled across the parlour to open the door, revealing the dreaded man outside. 

       "Yes?" she discontentedly prompted the older man across from her, his mouth falling agape and his appalled expression mismatching with his formal attire. In a smooth move he removed his fedora and held it across his chest, appearing sheepish.

"Oh uh, my apologies, dame, I thought yous had gone to the textile mills by now," Harold shifted awkwardly in his place. "I wanted to chat with yous father."

"Oh! Go chase yourself, Harry! You're too upstage for your own good. I already called off our engagement, you have no reason to be here," although her voice was rising, she tried to stop the twinge at her heart when recalling the argument they had a week prior. "And just so you get it right, I don't work at the mills no more. I'm going to have a job to myself, a respectable one, like a librarian!"

"That's alright now, but uh I still need to see um mister Atkins. Is he in?" Harold questioned once more, needing to request permission for an event having to do with their community church. 

She stressfully raked her fingers through her honey blonde hair, wanting to give him more of a harder time than she had, before relenting and extending her arm out to the interior. 

"He's not in at the moment, but he should be in a jiffy. You know your way around by now." 

"Much obliged, broad," Harold, feeling successful in his goal, waltzed past the woman and swiftly placed his hat on a rack as if the woman still standing in the doorway were a familiar neighbor, and not the woman whose heart he had recently shattered. She finally closed the door, and in a few moments came a tense silence. 

Lifting a vase from upon an embroidered tablecloth, he inhales deeply before uttering deeply,  "Now, I hope yous don't have any hard feelings for me, Eloise." 

"No, don't, don't you give me that. We never would have courted anyway were it not for our arrangements at church."

"You caught my eye, Eloise, I never meant for all this fuss to happen."

She scoffed, "well your eyes are not devoted as yous pledged prior. That's enough of this blather. Should be only a few minutes yet until pa comes. Good day." Without waiting for the next remark, she gracefully snatched her silver mesh handbag and disappeared out the door. The air smelled crisp as the elm trees' scent filled her nostrils, the breeze acting as a refreshing jolt from the depressing atmosphere she had just stepped out of. 

Five minutes of walking in her emerald voile blouse covered in white beads, her long white, cotton skirt swayed in the breeze, and she needed to adjust the plaid ribbon that wrapped around her waist. She smiled at a few women as they strolled past in matching checkerboard-inspired outfits, and they flashed their pearly yellows in return. With a loud engine sound, Eloise gazed in awe at the few automobiles that whizzed by her on the street. The Model Ts had been mass manufactured for quite a bit by 1920, however cost 260$, which was an amount Eloise had initially been putting forth towards the wedding she had planned for herself in a few months. Nonetheless, it would do no use for her to worry about how much time or funds she had wasted with her estranged lover. To be fair, she never did consider him a lover, yet, the memory of discovering him with a sheba wasn't a pleasant one, and the fact that the whole town was aware of his affair made it even more humiliating. Regardless, shaking her head to erase her thoughts, she had to admire Henry Ford for his innovation of the automobile.