Read Online Leaving Lucy Pear by Anna Solomon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anna Solomon
Ads: Link
other game. Games worked against Lillian because she always wanted too badly to win and was never able to hide this, and so the other women trusted her, the sole Jew, even less than they would have.
They all liked to win, of course. Their very presence in the Draper House was a testament to their having won the right to be there on Saturday mornings, for three hours, before the men arrived. They hired their own musiciansâall maleâand drank coffee, not tea. But this was a collective triumph. It was a point theyâd made, like winning the right to vote, though Draper House had come later and seemed to many of them just as significant. Whereas the way Lillian sat forward in her leather club chair, cardspressed to her collarbone, lips drastically pursed, clearly had nothing to do with anyone but Lillian.
âIâve had the thoughtââEvelyn Sharpâs hand paused en route to laying down her next cardââwe should bring our granddaughters one weekend. Show them what women can do, when we put our minds to it.â
Penelope Lockhart clucked. âWhat a lovely idea. I donât know why I didnât think of it myself.â
The others murmured in agreement. Lillian murmured, too, though she was looking at Evelynâs hand, at the slender, tan fingers, the freckles sheâd contracted sailing in her youth. She focused on Evelynâs freckles to avoid the envy that slithered through her heart. Lillian had no granddaughter, nor any grandsons either. She cleared her throat, an almost but not quite involuntary nudge to Evelyn, who at last laid down her card with an infuriatingly opaque expression. Lillian flared her nostrils but Evelyn didnât see; she and Penelope had begun to plot the granddaughtersâ visit.
Lillianâs husband told her she was like a boot, laced too tightlyâa foot didnât have a chance, in or out. He told her if her parents had had the money to send her to Miss Winsorâs, or the English to get her a scholarship, then she wouldnât have such a great need for friendship anyway. But Lillian hadnât gone to Miss Winsorâs, or anywhere else. Sheâd pinned hems for her mother, kneeling at the feet of men and women who werenât much better off than her parents, all of them shtetl folk in one way or another, all trying to pretend that Boston didnât terrify them. Even then, Lillian was disdainful of the cheap, prickly fabrics. She had been eleven when her family came from Bialystok, had survived an eight-year desert of pinning and pubescence, until Henry found her standing outside Elizabeth Pimmâs School for Secretaries, her knuckles white from gripping the gate. He said he had seen her beauty right awayâshe would never succeed in seeing it herselfâand she had seen a sturdy, sunny, whistling, blue-eyed Jew in a finely tailored suit, intent on saving her.
The violinist was rotten this morning, sad when the score called for plaintiveâthere was a difference, Lillian knewâwhiny as a fiddle on the high notes. They were playing Beethovenâs Piano Trio in C-minor, opus 1, number 3, a piece Lillianâs daughter, Beatrice, had played impeccably at age fourteen, and not just in the technical sense. Beatrice had a
feel
for musicânot quite virtuosic, they never called her that (which Lillian had thought for the best, believing that those sorts of girls scared off the good men), but gifted, certainly, thatâs what the teachers at the conservatory said. Beatrice had heard music, understood it, made it bloom under her fingertips as naturally as if it were her real language, before English, before the scraps of Yiddish she had picked up from Lillianâs parents despite Lillianâs best efforts to make them speak English in the girlâs company, and, when that failed, to keep their visits short. Music was simpler, without accent or markings, nothing to be mispronounced or misunderstood because
They all liked to win, of course. Their very presence in the Draper House was a testament to their having won the right to be there on Saturday mornings, for three hours, before the men arrived. They hired their own musiciansâall maleâand drank coffee, not tea. But this was a collective triumph. It was a point theyâd made, like winning the right to vote, though Draper House had come later and seemed to many of them just as significant. Whereas the way Lillian sat forward in her leather club chair, cardspressed to her collarbone, lips drastically pursed, clearly had nothing to do with anyone but Lillian.
âIâve had the thoughtââEvelyn Sharpâs hand paused en route to laying down her next cardââwe should bring our granddaughters one weekend. Show them what women can do, when we put our minds to it.â
Penelope Lockhart clucked. âWhat a lovely idea. I donât know why I didnât think of it myself.â
The others murmured in agreement. Lillian murmured, too, though she was looking at Evelynâs hand, at the slender, tan fingers, the freckles sheâd contracted sailing in her youth. She focused on Evelynâs freckles to avoid the envy that slithered through her heart. Lillian had no granddaughter, nor any grandsons either. She cleared her throat, an almost but not quite involuntary nudge to Evelyn, who at last laid down her card with an infuriatingly opaque expression. Lillian flared her nostrils but Evelyn didnât see; she and Penelope had begun to plot the granddaughtersâ visit.
Lillianâs husband told her she was like a boot, laced too tightlyâa foot didnât have a chance, in or out. He told her if her parents had had the money to send her to Miss Winsorâs, or the English to get her a scholarship, then she wouldnât have such a great need for friendship anyway. But Lillian hadnât gone to Miss Winsorâs, or anywhere else. Sheâd pinned hems for her mother, kneeling at the feet of men and women who werenât much better off than her parents, all of them shtetl folk in one way or another, all trying to pretend that Boston didnât terrify them. Even then, Lillian was disdainful of the cheap, prickly fabrics. She had been eleven when her family came from Bialystok, had survived an eight-year desert of pinning and pubescence, until Henry found her standing outside Elizabeth Pimmâs School for Secretaries, her knuckles white from gripping the gate. He said he had seen her beauty right awayâshe would never succeed in seeing it herselfâand she had seen a sturdy, sunny, whistling, blue-eyed Jew in a finely tailored suit, intent on saving her.
The violinist was rotten this morning, sad when the score called for plaintiveâthere was a difference, Lillian knewâwhiny as a fiddle on the high notes. They were playing Beethovenâs Piano Trio in C-minor, opus 1, number 3, a piece Lillianâs daughter, Beatrice, had played impeccably at age fourteen, and not just in the technical sense. Beatrice had a
feel
for musicânot quite virtuosic, they never called her that (which Lillian had thought for the best, believing that those sorts of girls scared off the good men), but gifted, certainly, thatâs what the teachers at the conservatory said. Beatrice had heard music, understood it, made it bloom under her fingertips as naturally as if it were her real language, before English, before the scraps of Yiddish she had picked up from Lillianâs parents despite Lillianâs best efforts to make them speak English in the girlâs company, and, when that failed, to keep their visits short. Music was simpler, without accent or markings, nothing to be mispronounced or misunderstood because
Similar Books
