Second Lives Read online

  The mantle clock ticked off several seconds.

  “What do you mean, you must?”

  Elisabeth kept her chin lowered as she looked up. “You taught me it is simply good manners to keep one’s appointments. Frances is undoubtedly already waiting for me. To send a note now would do her a great disservice. She may have had other plans that she canceled for my benefit.”

  Elisabeth watched her mother sit back against the burgundy moiré fabric of the parlor chair and lift the embroidery hoop from her lap. “I suppose I must allow it if only for form’s sake, but I must tell you I do not approve of your friend. She is overly headstrong and no doubt would descend upon us if you didn’t keep your appointment. Does this appointment have anything to do with her forthcoming escapade?”

  A wave of heat inched its way along the high collar of Elisabeth’s starched blouse. The escapade, as her mother phrased it, was a two-week summer session of ladies’ courses at Oberlin College in Ohio – which Frances would be attending unescorted and unchaperoned.

  It had been the subject of much discussion by her mother’s social acquaintances.

  “No, Mother. We are simply going to the library. She wishes to show me a series of history books.”

  The embroidery hoop quivered slightly. “Books I advise you never to bring into this house.”

  “No, Mother.” Elisabeth turned and walked to the wrought-iron coat stand next to the front door. She had just finished removing the hatpin from her unadorned straw boater when she heard a cough and returned to the parlor. “Yes, Mother?”

  “As long as you’re going out – ” her mother paused to assure Elisabeth’s full attention, “ – I wonder if you wouldn’t mind stopping in at the pharmacist.”

  “Are you not feeling well, Mother?”

  Lowering the hoop, her mother lifted one hand daintily to the starched lace of her bodice and took a ragged breath.

  “It’s just a small pain, here.” Her mother tapped the lace. “But I’m sure it’s nothing for you to be concerned with. It will pass, in time…it always does.”

  “What do you need from the pharmacist, Mother?”

  A small smile played upon her mother’s lips. “Oil of peppermint and tell them to put it on my account.”

  Elisabeth nodded as she placed the hat squarely on her head and secured it with the pin. “Of course, Mother. I won’t be long.”

  “See to it that you aren’t.”

  Her mother coughed once more as Elisabeth left the house.

  After the dark, cloying chill of her mother’s parlor the June heat was almost staggering, and the day was so bright Elisabeth raised one hand to the brim of her hat in hopes of extending its limited shade.

  Just the minimal exertion of stepping from the front stoop to the stairs immediately made her regret her choice of not bringing a parasol.

  Elisabeth almost fled back to the indifference and cold when she heard her name called.

  “Bessie! Finally!”

  Dressed all in white from hat to hem, Frances stood just beyond the property’s wrought-iron gate. It was, Elisabeth thought, a most appropriate color for so warm a day, but the appropriateness ended when her friend pushed open the gate to reveal both the shortness of her skirt, which showed a glimpse of leg above her high-top boots, and the object trailing from her hand. Elisabeth backed away.

  “Frances…no.”

  “Bessie, yes,” her friend said as she snapped open the patriotically colored sash and strung it crosswise over herself from right shoulder to left hip.

  VOTES FOR WOMEN

  Elisabeth pressed one hand against the rigid corset beneath her shirtwaist and looked back toward the carved front door. If her mother happened to look out from one of the narrow side windows that braced that door….

  Elisabeth hurried across the walk and stepped through the gate, slamming it shut behind her. Arm in arm, Elisabeth kept her head down and face averted to the cobblestones as her friend led her through the streets.

  When they finally stopped Elisabeth lifted her face only to step back in horror when Frances produced another sash identical to her own and held it out.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, Bessie,” her friend laughed, “it’s not a snake, it won’t bite you.”

  “But it could very well bite you.”

  “Never!” Frances said, “but I warrant it will bite many others before it’s laid to rest. Put it on!”

  Elisabeth shook her head.

  “Oh, very well then.” Frances slipped it back into the pocket of her skirt. “There, the snake’s put away. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

  “But you can’t possibly think of going to the library wearing…that, can you? They’ll bar us at the door.”

  Frances lifted her dimpled chin. “I would like to see them try, but the library will have to wait. We’re not going to look at history in books, Bessie, we’re going to watch it unfold.” Her hand clamped around Elisabeth’s wrist like a vise. “We’re going to be part of it!”

  Without giving Elisabeth a moment to think, Frances tightened her grip and pulled her in a the opposite direction to the library. Taken by surprise, it was all Elisabeth could do to keep pace.

  They hurried thus for two more blocks before Frances turned onto the broad thoroughfare that led to City Hall. A dozen steps more and Elisabeth stopped, shocked by the spectacle before them.

  “Oh, Bessie,” Frances gushed, loosening her grip on Elisabeth’s arm. “It’s just as I said – history in the making. Look…do you see?”

  Elisabeth could most definitely see, and what she saw made her tremble.

  A ceremony had been planned for that evening at the City Hall to commemorate a statue honoring those men from the area who had helped work on the soon-to-be-opened Panama Canal, but it was almost impossible to see the patriotic bunting and flags that draped the building’s marble façade due to the size of the crowd gathered before it.

  “…tramping out the vintage where the grapes of…”

  Given the number of angry red-faced men who shouted and cursed and belittled, it should have been impossible to hear the choir of raised voices from the women who stood and sang, side by side, along the iron fence that encircled the edifice. It should have been impossible to hear the hymn, but Elisabeth did and the sound only accentuated the horror unfolding before her.

  A small contingency of uniformed police officers stood on the steps of City Hall, safe behind the closed gates, batons in hand, but silent and passive.

  Watching while the women sang.

  Some of the women were dressed in white like Frances, others more suitably attired, but each wore the same incriminating sash that marked them, and her friend, as a Suffragette. A number of women held standards demanding the Right to Vote, others American flags, but each stood tall, heads high, and sang, ignoring the shouts and threats and anger until the first blows fell.

  Then the song stopped and their voices rose in screams.

  While the police officers watched and maintained their silent vigil.

  Elisabeth stumbled back a step, hands pressed against her lips as she watched crimson flowers bloom on starched white clothing.

  “NO!”

  She turned as a patch of white brushed against her and fluttered away. By the time Elisabeth realized what it was her friend was already halfway across the street and well into the melee, pummeling both tiny fists against the back of a gentleman in a well-cut business suit until he turned and struck her down.

  “Frances!”

  Elisabeth’s only thought as she rushed forward was to get her friend to safety, but when she touched the gentleman’s arm – “Please,” she shouted only to be heard. “Please!” – a snarl disfigured what might have been a genteel or even refined face.

  He struck so quickly that Elisabeth neither felt the pain of the walking stick spl
itting her skull nor the heat from the cobbled roadway when her body collapsed like a rag doll. It had all happened so quickly she hadn’t even time to….

  ELISABETH REGINA WYMAN

  November 22, 1874 – June 4, 1914

  Chapter Five

  Jamie

  Ryan held the wineglass against his lips and watched Jamie play with the baby, goo-gooing and ga-gaing while the baby’s parents – Jiro and Oren – puffed out their chests and recorded each moment on one or the other’s cell phone. It was all so fucking sweet Ryan wanted to vomit.

  Sachiko-Rachel Takahashi-Nachman, for whom the dinner party was being thrown, gurgled and spit up. Jiro moved in for a close-up while Jamie used a cocktail napkin to clean the coagulated formula off her chin. The birth-mother, a friend of a friend of a friend who’d played ‘eenie, meenie, miney, moe’ with two vials of frozen sperm before picking the one she wanted for insemination, had been at the party just long enough to take one picture before handing over the bundle o’ joy and collecting her fee for the nine months’ rent of her womb.

  Ryan lowered the glass and took a long swallow.

  “Just look at that face,” Jamie murmured to the bundle in his arms. “Isn’t she the prettiest little thing you’ve ever seen?”

  Ryan knew it had to be a rhetorical question, because to him the baby looked like a cross between Toshiro Mifune and Winston Churchill, the epicanthic folds clearly showing that Jiro’s juice had been the winner in the baby-making contest.

  The baby spit up again and Ryan felt his own stomach quiver.

  “Oh-oh, your tummy not feeling so good?” Jamie cooed while baby-slime soaked into the weave of his IZOD polo. “Well, don’t you mind, sweet girl, these things happen.”

  “God, Jamie, wipe that off,” Ryan said. “The smell’s never going to come out.”

  Jamie looked up and offered him the benevolent smile of the truly blessed. “It’s okay…it’s baby smell.”

  “No, it’s curdled milk smell.”

  A half dozen faces turned away from the precious little spit-up machine and scowled in his direction.

  “That’s only a part of the baby smell, Ry, and it’s precious. You wanna hold her?”

  Ryan downed the rest of the wine in one gulp.

  “Need a refill first,” he said and headed for the bar. Across the room the goo-gooing resumed.

  He didn’t mind kids, they were fine…in small to medium doses…but he’d never given any thought to becoming a father. His brother had provided enough ankle-biters to carry on the family name so—

  “Looks like you’ll be next.”

  “What?”

  Oren took Ryan’s empty glass and replaced it with a full one, clinking his own against it. “L’chaim!”

  He nodded back. “Likewise.” And took a sip.

  “So when are you and Jamie going to do it?”

  That was a two-meaning question – 1) When are you two going to ‘make it legal’, and 2) start a family? – neither of which Ryan wanted to think about or answer. Not here, not now, not yet.

  So he shrugged and smiled.

  “You two,” Oren laughed, “always thinking about today and not tomorrow.”

  Ryan let the smile drop.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that you two aren’t getting any younger.” Oren’s glance shifted from Ryan to the Jamie-and-Child tableau. “He’s so good with her.”

  “Yeah, he’s always been good with kids and puppies…but that doesn’t mean I want to start breeding dogs either.”

  Oren’s pale blue eyes turned back to him. “Babies aren’t dogs, Ry.”

  Ooh, he’d hit a nerve. “No, they require much more care. When a puppy’s one, it’s an adult. Kids take longer. Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound nasty.”

  “That’s okay. Jamie said you’ve been pretty stressed at work. Hope the merger works out.”

  Ryan took another mouthful of the sweet white wine. Jamie had been flapping his lips again. Ryan couldn’t remember how many times he’d told him not to do it – but it never helped. Jamie was a talker, a giver, a ‘let’s get everything out in the open’-er.

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “Fingers crossed.”

  “Well, that still doesn’t mean you should put your life on hold. Babies are the future, Ry, the only real piece of immortality we get on this crazy ol’ planet.”

  “For Jiro maybe.”

  Oren’s smile widened. “We’re already talking about a second one…this time with only one donor. Me. How old are you guys again? Twenty-seven and thirty-nine, right?”

  As if he didn’t know. “Right. I’m the senior spokesman.”

  “Well, that’s still not too old.” Oren leaned in slightly. “Just don’t wait too long – tick, tick, tick. Excuses…gotta go get my baby before Jamie decides to take her home.” He took three steps and turned, winking. “Remember – tick, tick, tick.”

  “Tock.”

  Hah. Hah. Hah.

  He still had a hard time realizing that he’d be forty in two months. How in God’s name did that happen?

  Ryan stayed by the bar just long enough to see Jamie’s reluctance as he handed the baby to Oren – after a few moments of comedic ‘no you can’t have her, she’s mine’ routine – before walking out the French doors and into a little piece of rural Japan tucked into a modest, middle-class Los Angeles suburb. Live bamboo masked both the chain-link fence that surrounded the property and the neighboring houses, and clustered around the small gazebo-like ‘teahouse’ at the back of the garden.

  Ryan lifted the glass to his lips.

  “How many is that?”

  Ryan turned to find Jamie frowning at him.

  “How many swallows? Maybe five. Sips…I lost count. Glasses?” He had to stop and think about that. “Two. No, three.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “On three glasses of very cheap, very sweet wine? No, honey, I’m far from drunk, although that sounds like an excellent suggestion.”

  “You had a couple beers before we left home.”

  “Lite beers,” Ryan reminded him.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

  “Not even close, besides I called ‘Designated Drunk’, remember? See, I’m fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Ryan started to sidestep his partner of five-going-on-six years only to have it countered. Which was laughable. Jamie might be younger, possibly even stronger if put to the test and decidedly in much better condition – jogging Nazi that he was – but he was also a good deal shorter than Ryan’s own six feet two inches frame.

  He did, however, manage to grab the glass out of Ryan’s hand. “You don’t need any more.”

  “Need has nothing to do with it, sweetheart. I’m beginning to enjoy the flavor of fortified grape juice.” He tried to snatch it back only to knock it out of Jamie’s hand. The glass shattered against the edge of the patio.

  “Jesus, Ry….”

  “It’s their fault for not using plastic.”

  “I’ll go get a broom.” Jamie started to turn toward the house, then stopped. “Why did you tell Oren we didn’t want children?”

  “What? I didn’t say anything about—”

  “Oren said you’re very hostile to the idea of children.”

  “I didn’t…I’m not. Oh, Jesus, you know how he gets sometimes.”

  Fortunately, they did. Jamie nodded and slid both hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

  “Sorry. It’s just that…I don’t know. She is just so freakin’ cute, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “So, you do want kids?”

  Oh, God. Ryan looked down at the shattered wineglass and sighed. This was not the time for that conversation. They weren’t home, they weren’t alone, and he was no
where near drunk enough.

  “Ry?”

  He looked up. “I told you not to talk about me.”

  “What?”

  “Oren said you told him about the merger. Jamie, I told you not to say anything.”

  “I just mentioned….” He reached out but Ryan slapped his hand away. “Jesus, you are drunk.”

  “No, believe me, I’m not.”

  “Then why are you acting like this?”

  Ryan looked over Jamie’s shoulder to the small clutch of partygoers who’d joined them on the patio, trying ever so hard to appear as if they weren’t actively eavesdropping.

  “I really don’t want to have this conversation right now.”

  Turning, Ryan stepped off the patio and onto the pathway of smooth white stones. He almost made it all the way to the teahouse before Jamie caught up to him.

  “And what conversation would that be? The one where you don’t think you’re drunk? Or the one where you’re paranoid about me talking to our friends? Or how you’re not ready to commit to me or a baby because you’re not sure you’re, quote, totally into this relationship, unquote, because you don’t think you’ve, quote, found yourself yet, unquote?”

  Of all the things Jamie did that got under Ryan’s skin, the two he absolutely hated were Jamie’s liberal use of air quotes and when he turned into the stereotypical flamer: loud, hysterical, red of face and squeaky of voice.

  Jamie knew how he felt, since they’d talked/fought about it enough times, so when Ryan turned his back and walked away it should have ended right there and then.

  It didn’t, of course, but it should have.

  This time Ryan only got a couple of feet away before Jamie descended upon him like an avenging god, and the two other couples who were already in the teahouse went on alert. Fight, fight!

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me, Ryan!” Jamie yelled. “This time you’re going to stand here and talk to me!”

  The four men in the teahouse grabbed their drinks and hightailed it back to the house.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Ryan took a deep breath. “Dogs three blocks away can hear you, Jamie. You want to lower the volume control from hysterical to frantic?”