How much she knew about everyone by tending their laundry. She could tell anything about anyone by washing their clothes. She thought about how little good that knowledge was doing her and, even so, how she might put it to use.
Every season a different color or pattern grew insufferable to Auntie, and she claimed her tastes changed based on what her friends liked best. When the deacon’s wife found pinks too saccharine, Auntie weeded them from her house, or when the mayor’s daughter decided white was too simple and plain, that it reminded her of the bleakness of a winter sun, nothing could keep its starkness, and the remodeling was added to Jane’s chore list. Jane liked such projects because even though Auntie took total credit for the ideas in front of her club, it was truly Jane’s handiwork, her frugality spun into decadence that they complimented, when they noticed. Jane liked the recognition, even if it was only Auntie who knew to whom it belonged, and she liked even better that she knew the reason Auntie craved such drastic change so often: she was sick—Auntie gave herself a to-do list because if she still had unfinished plans, she could not die. Jane knew this because she did Auntie’s laundry. Jane liked being the only one with this knowledge. She liked that she could see the way Auntie’s mind worked, and that she was so nervous. She liked that she alone could help Auntie, and that Auntie could no longer force her to do anything at all. Of course, Jane followed through her every command, but she smiled to herself at the knowledge that if she decided not to obey, she could simply do as she pleased.
After she hosted the women’s group on the first Sunday in August, Auntie announced to Jane that the draperies had to go—they were too simple, the pattern too loose and unwieldy, the colors too flashy for good women to abide—and Jane planned a trip to the textile store the following morning. After clearing the breakfast dishes to soak tepid in the kitchen sink, she walked downtown, and because she knew the clerk so well by these years of redecorating, Jane walked straight in without ringing the bell. She looked up after latching the door behind her and saw not her friend but a man instead—and not a man like Oramel, with his intelligently concave cheeks and graceful long fingers, but a man with a broad, suntanned face and upturned nose and wide palms. He laughed when he saw her expression and said in a lilt she had not heard since the Boston Female Asylum, “I guess you were expecting Katy, not me!” He stood and said, “You must be Jane Toppan. Katy told me to expect you this week, said you always ordered new upholstery at the beginning of the seasons but she didn’t know what you’d want—oh, where are my manners. I’m Tom Higgins. I’m just filling in for Katy till she stops feeling ill. I normally keep stock of the inventory, but I’m doing both. She had her doubts that I could, but I insisted. She needed rest. She’s a good girl, but every pregnant woman needs more rest than not. She told me what you looked like, but I didn’t expect…well, anyway, Miss Jane, how are you this morning?”
“I’m fine, thank you—”
“Oh, Lord,” he said, sitting, propping his chin in one broad palm, and lifting his eyebrows all in one caricatured motion.
“Sir?”
“Please. Just talk forever.”
Jane laughed suddenly. No one talked like this to her, without purpose, without instructions, just to entertain and flatter her, and it surprised her. She was normally the one to unspool talk to fill the space when ladies wanted to be entertained. She had not ever been the one worth entertaining.
“What?”
“Just talk to me.”
“What, just…what about?”
“What have you done today? What will you do today? What do you find most interesting about the world?”
Her eyebrows went up and she blinked several times before she laughed in embarrassment.
“It’s like music,” Tom said. “Laugh at me some more.”
And she did, but she did not mean to. “What should I say? I fixed up breakfast for the Toppans this morning, and then I cleared it when they finished, and then I walked up here to order this fabric for Mrs. Toppan.”
“You are not Mrs. Toppan?”
“No—”
“Praise Jesus.”
“I’m their servant, Mr. Higgins.”
“Oh, no. Tom, Tom. Call me by me given name. Go on! Go on!”
“What, you want to know the details about cleaning house?”
“Yes, yes, the details about the cleaning.”
So she told him in exaggerated detail every plan she had for the afternoon and through tea until dinners.
“And then you’ll come back here,” Tom said, “after dinner. To see me. And to pick up your order, of course.”
Jane’s brow furrowed and she deflected, “Well, no sir.”
“Only to retrieve your order, miss, I meant no disrespect.”
“It’s a large order,” she said, pulling a note from her sleeve. She noticed that he watched her too closely, observing as though infatuated like a child. Jane unfolded the paper on the counter between them and he watched her rough hands though he said nothing. “You may not be able to prepare it for this evening.”
“No, miss. For you we will have it ready this evening. What is it?” he looked at the paper and murmured the order aloud. As he picked up the slender pencil in his ham hand to take the order, he asked, “Miss Jane. Do you tire of waiting on the Toppans?” She stared at the top of his sun-bleached head, the thick curls pulling up from their combed-in place. Then he was looking straight at her.
“No,” she said, smiling, flustered. “I’m very grateful. They’re a generous English family.”
Tom looked incredulous and grinned, “I’ve never met a generous English family before.” He looked back down, and as he smudged out his errors on the form, he said, “America’s not for serving, miss. It’s for freedom. And I’d want to murder them all if I was you.”
Jane watched him figure in silence until she grew embarrassed for him. On a newfound courageous recklessness, she walked to the hinge in the countertop and lifted, passed underneath, and came to stand over his shoulder. “May I help?” she asked, and inhaled the air he occupied. It smelled of his sweat. He turned to look at her and smiled and held the pencil out to her. Jane was careful not to touch his hand when she took it. He pushed back from the desk and watched as she filled out the form in only a few minutes, hinging as slightly as she could at the waist. She was conscious of him behind her, watching her as she wrote, and she tried to be still, to concentrate, but as is always the case when one is being watched by someone worth watching, her mind wandered, and it took her much longer than it should have to complete the arithmetic. Tom said when she finished, as she crossed to the customer side of the counter, “You really don’t tire of coming here to make her new things all the time?”
She lowered the counter behind her without smiling. “The textile store is one of my favorite errands.”
Tom stopped smiling. “Why is that?”
Jane’s voice was too high, too casual to be believed. “Whatever fabric she’s replacing becomes my next Sunday dress.”
“So you get to wear what she’s bored with.”
“I get to wear what she hates.” Her eyes flashed a little at him, and Tom was delighted.