A bee circled the bouquet of Queen Anne’s lace intended to pretty up what some might consider dry piles of literature. Helen stood to swat it away. She sat down again, adjusting the white and yellow suffrage ribbon pinned at her shoulder, her shoe absently knocking against the table leg. The WCTU had left behind a box of temperance song books. She flipped through one. Tried humming “Ohio’s Going Dry” to the suggested tune of “Bringing in the Sheaves.”
“Looks like you’ve got some instructive reading there.” Louie, the painter from the scaffolding outside her office window, was leaning against the tent pole on one side of the booth. He had changed from work overalls into flannel trousers and a suit coat. There was a change in his gaze too, which seemed less forward, more thoughtful.
“I’m just passing the time before the crowds arrive.”
“Looks like you might have awhile to wait.”
“I’ll get some takers.” Helen resecured a tassel of hair that had come loose from her topknot.
Louie picked up one of the brochures, glanced at it, and tucked it in his pocket. “I think you might have gotten the wrong impression of me. I take these sign painting jobs every summer. Puts food on the table the rest of the year.”
“Oh, really?” Helen said coolly.
“Yes, really. I’m an artist.”
Helen sat up a little straighter. “That so?”
“I took courses at the Art Institute up in Chicago. Even won first place in a student exhibition.”
A farm family passed, mother in the lead, followed by a weary-looking fellow with a sack coat slung over his shoulder and five dark-haired children.
Helen pushed the pamphlets around. “What do you paint? Landscapes?”
Louie threw a leg over the corner of the table. “Used to, but now I’m a cubist.”
Helen’s brows raised. “I’ve no idea what that is.”
“It’s revolutionary is what it is. Take a walk with me around town, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I can’t. I’m the only one here.” She motioned to the single wooden chair.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to miss you,” Louie said. “But okay. How about when the program starts?”
Helen hesitated. “Revolutionary? How so?”
“Give me an hour and I’ll bring you up-to-date on the most advanced, modern movement in the art world since—since I don’t know what.”
The initial trickle of patrons had grown into a crowd. Not far away, Helen thought she glimpsed her stepfather’s boater bobbing her way. “All right. I’ll meet you under those elms at the edge of the grounds in twenty minutes,” she said hurriedly. Louie saluted and sauntered off.
As Deuce’s hat drew closer, the throng parted. Marian, seated in an ancient wicker wheelchair, emerged feet first. Then came the tip of a cane, which she was sweeping back and forth. “Coming through!” she called out. Deuce’s face was flushed and sweat bloomed under his arms as he propelled the wheelchair across the bumpy pasture. Marian’s healthy foot tapped impatiently on the footrest, her mouth determined, her free hand scooting along the rubber wheels to speed up the motion.
When she spotted Helen her face brightened. She waved the cane at the banner over the booth. “Working for the cause!” she cried.
Helen rushed around the table of pamphlets.
“Goodness, Papa, you didn’t shove her all the way from Tula’s on this bumpy ground?”
Marian jumped in. “Oh, no. He pulled the motorcar as close as he could to the ticket booth.”
Deuce fanned his face with his boater. “Really, it was no problem.”
“You know, I think I could just use this cane.” Marian started to push herself up out of the chair. “I just hate being carted around like a sack of—”
Deuce pushed her shoulder down firmly, rolling his eyes at Helen. “I have strict orders from Tula that you’re to stay in the wheelchair, remember?”
“Where is Tula?” Helen asked.
“Up at the Bellmans’. Jeannette’s better and Hazel was finally willing to let someone else take over the nursing and get some sleep,” Deuce explained.
“Thank goodness,” Helen said.
Marian nodded. “Yes, it’s tremendous news. Didn’t I tell Dr. Jack she’d come around?”
“Speaking of Dr. Jack . . .” Deuce began.
A surge of ticket holders was making its way toward the tent. A loosely strung youth with wrists well clear of his cuffs tripped over Marian’s back wheel. “Sorry, ma’am,” he mumbled, lifting his hat.
“Slow down, son,” Deuce said as he steered the bulky wheelchair out the stream of traffic.
“I just hate feeling like someone’s old granny.” Marian thumped the wicker armrest. “But the good news is that the doctor says it’s only a sprain.”
A pair of elderly sisters passed behind Deuce, murmuring to one another. “Such a pity about the Bellman . . .” They glared at Marian.
Deuce, unaware of the exchange behind his back, was fidgeting with his boater, rotating it through his fingers as if crimping a piecrust. He spoke up: “I’d like to check in with Dr. Jack. See if he’s treated any more typhoid cases. Seems to me like there’s fewer coming down with it. Has he passed by here, by any chance?”
Helen shook her head.
Marian continued with her train of thought: “Anyway, Deuce has been very kind to push me around in this contraption. I thought I’d go stir-crazy if I stayed cooped up in that sleeping porch any longer. But really,” she turned to Deuce, and handed him his suit jacket that had been draped across her lap,“I’m sure Helen and I can manage from here.”
Looking relieved, Deuce said, “Yes, I really need an update from the doc. You can get Marian inside, Helen?”
Helen’s first impulse was to shout out, Of course! Here was the chance to talk with a famous suffragette, but . . . she hesitated. Her mind leaped to Louie and something stirred inside, tugging her away from Marian and toward the darkening trees at the edge of the grounds.
“I don’t know if I can, you know, leave the booth. But I’m sure—”
“Of course not,” Marian broke in. “You’re doing important work. Deuce can commandeer someone. How about the fellow over there? This is just too frustrating. I don’t know why I can’t use this cane.”
“No, no. Let me get you inside right now and I’ll track down Dr. Jack later,” Deuce said in what Helen recognized as his polite, out-in-public voice.
* * *
A few stragglers trotted past and then Louie and Helen were alone under the elms, the shadows vibrating with the rhythmic creak of late-summer crickets. Louie took her hand. For a short while they walked in silence. Everyone, except the very ancient or very sick, was at Chautauqua and the streets were quiet under the old trees. Ahead, twin rows of streetlamps shone along State Street.
“So, what’s a cubist?”
“You heard of the Spaniard Picasso?”
Helen twisted her lips to one side. “Maybe.”
“Okay. How about the Armory Show a couple of years back?”
“The