Page 78 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
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Fern was fairly useless when it came to helping Helen in the kitchen the next morning. Cal’s aunt was polite about her ineptitude, but she couldn’t hold back the incredulous lift of her eyebrows when she assigned Fern the task of boiling a dozen eggs, and Fern had asked if that would be with or without the shells on.With, was all Helen said before shooing her aside and relegating Fern to the gas range’s oven, where she was instructed to flip the dozen bread slices toasting on a pan. After that, Fern laid out plates, cups, utensils, and napkins on the dining room table for the communal breakfast, served at seven thirty.
The men entered one by one, but none of them said anything more than a brief hello to her. The young man who’d kicked in the swinging door the evening before lowered his gaze, calling Fern “Miss” and quickly sidestepping her to give her plenty of room to move around the dining room. Oddly enough, she didn’t think it was in response to her scars. He had clearly told the othersabout Cal pulling a gun on him in the kitchen. They might have even recognized him. None of them were willing to set one toe out of line around Fern, which was both amusing and alarming. She worried one of them might leak it to the press that the judge’s missing daughter had been found in Streeterville, and then reporters and the police would show up on Helen’s front steps.
But when Helen sent her to retrieve the morning paper from the box out front, the short walk was uneventful. She flipped through the pages of theChicago Tribunewhile sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio console Helen kept on while she did the laundry in the wooden drum washer, which was also in the storeroom where she’d set up Fern’s cot the night before.
TheTribune’s want ads were packed full of employment listings, most of them detailing whether they desired female or male applicants. Young women were, by and large, being sought for all kinds of positions, from housekeeping and secretarial work to laundry folders, tobacco strippers, and factory line workers, as well as chambermaids, governesses, nurses, and stenographers. There seemed to be an endless number of job opportunities.
Fern checked the clock on the wall. Cal hadn’t said what time he’d be coming around again, and though he’d promised to take her to the nearby library to introduce her to his “guy,” she hated to think that the only reason she’d get a position was because of Cal’s influence. Helen’s boarders and how they’d warily avoided even looking at her was a case in point. Was thereanyone who would knowingly cross Cal or deny him a request?
Fern gathered the want ads pages and went into the storeroom where she’d shoved her suitcase and handbag under the cot. She pulled out the handbag, which thankfully had a few dollars in coins inside. It wouldn’t buy much, but it would at least pay for some calls from a phone booth. Helen tried to assure her that it would be fine for Fern to use the house line to make her phone calls, but she couldn’t, not when each call would be charged to Helen’s account. Besides, Fern needed some air, so Helen directed her down Chicago Avenue to Janko’s coffeehouse, where there were a few private phone booths.
Walking along the sidewalk, she kept her focus on the directions, not the cars or people passing by. If they stared at her face, that was their business, not hers. If she made them uncomfortable, that was their problem, not hers.
At Janko’s, she bought a coffee and then entered one of the pay phone booths. Fern slid the folded door shut and took a seat on the wooden bench. She’d come to place calls and inquire about jobs, but the first exchange that leaped to her tongue when she had the operator on the line was for her home on South Woodlawn.
Ulysses’s dignified voice answered.
“It’s Fern,” she said. “Is my mother at home?”
A beat of silence left her second-guessing her choice to call there. Then, “Yes, Miss Fern. Please hold.”
It wasn’t more than thirty seconds before she heard the rustle of the receiver on the other end of the line.
“Fern?” came her mother’s sharp voice. “Is that you? Where are you?”
“I’m all right, Mother,” she said, though she decided not to tell her where she was. “I only called to let you know that I’m fine.”
“How could you?” she exclaimed. “After everything your father has done for you, to run away from Young Acres like that, and with a no-goodthug. Mrs. Crane called the police, Fern. The police!”
She’d suspected the superintendent would call them. The Zionsville police had likely put out an alert right away, before first checking with Judge Adair, who would have much rather buried the whole event.
“I couldn’t stay there, Mother,” Fern said. “And Cal isn’t a thug. He’s…well, he’s not what you think he is.”
The truth was that he was probably much worse than anything her mother could have imagined from where she was, set up high, away from the real world.
“All I know is that he’s turned you into some wild, lawless young woman—I don’t even recognize you anymore.”
“I don’t know if that’s an insult or a compliment.”
Her mother gusted air, exasperated. “See? This is exactly what I mean.”
“Mother,” Fern began, staring through the glass of the phone booth door at the busy, unfamiliar street. “I need to stand on my own. I need to live my life. Isn’t that what you’ve wanted for me?”
Quiet plagued the telephone line. Then, “At what expense, Fern? Your father has his reputation to think of. He was even considering canceling the summer feteafter all this bad business, and you know how much he looks forward to it every year. How important it is to him.”
The air in the cramped booth felt thin and stale as Fern blinked back disbelief. “Canceling the summer fete. Goodness, that’s serious, Mother.”
Her mother didn’t pick up on the sarcasm. “Don’t worry, I told him it was impossible. I’ve already settled everything with The Falcon for catering, and they couldn’t possibly cancel. Not to mention that Mr. Bianchi and his wife already sent a block of ice for the sculpture. But there will betalk, Fern.”
She swallowed down a rising wave of disappointment in her chest. It would always be this way, she realized. Her mother would never change or try to see things from her point of view. Fern had run off with a gangster, and her mother’s primary concern was for the annual social gathering of her father’s business associates, colleagues, and friends.
“I have to go, Mother. I’ll…call again soon.”
As she hung the receiver in the cradle, a small bell chiming within the pay phone, Fern knew she wouldn’t call again soon; she might not call them for a long, long time. More determined than before, she spread out the papers on a small shelf in the booth and dialed the operator again.
She stumbled over her words in the first few calls, but on the fifth, she didn’t misspeak once. Positions had been filled, were being held for other applicants, or were no longer needed. Everything in Chicago moved quickly, including jobs. After making her eighth call, she stoppedand looked at the telephone directory attached to a chain in the booth.
