The Education of Harriet Hatfield (23 page)

“That took courage,” Bagley says. “I admire you for it.”

“I felt like a caged animal,” Martha says.

It amazes me that these two have reached such a point of intimacy. I have been an antagonist lately for Martha but here in Sue Bagley she has apparently found an ally.

“But you’re married, aren’t you?” Bagley asks. “What does your husband say?”

“My husband will never know. I hope he won’t.” The tears she has held back till now flow and she blows her nose. “Sorry,” she says. And then, “It’s your kindness that makes me cry.”

I wonder whether anyone has ever said this to Bagley before, and she leans over and clasps Martha’s hand. “You’re a strong person and you made the right decision.” Now she draws her hand away and looks over at me, appealing for help but I am silenced.

“Miss Hatfield wanted me to see a psychiatrist but I didn’t want to be opened up and examined. I suppose I wanted to do something, not endlessly talk about it.”

“I understand,” I say quietly.

“Well,” Sue Bagley says, “how much do you want for the painting on the left, those winter trees against a troubled sky?”

“I sold the other for one hundred, but the abortion has to be paid for …”

“I’ll offer two hundred if that is acceptable.”

“Thank you. It will help—mostly that you believe in my work. I’ll never forget it,” Martha says.

What an odd example of what is known as the sisterhood they are, I think, as they go out together for lunch, the dry cranky spinster and the tempestuous young woman determined to go her own way.

My thoughts about this interesting event are abruptly interrupted by Joan’s arrival. I take the anonymous threat out, handling the paper it is written on as though it were dynamite. “Here it is.”

“What creeps!” she says. “Something has to be done about this now. I’m off to the police station and this time they are going to take notice.”

“Good luck. I’m glad you are an optimist.” But when she has left, striding up the street alone, I feel that sweat on my lip again. Fear. For what can the police possibly do? There are no clues. Possibly the sheet of paper has a fingerprint on it; more likely the anonymous criminal wore gloves.

On an impulse I call Andrew at work and ask whether he could come by on his way home. “It’s another threat and I need your advice.” He says he’ll be here by six if not earlier. He offers to spend the night, says he has a sleeping bag in the car. But the whole beastly thing cannot be solved by Andrew or anyone else standing guard permanently. Something has got to happen.

I force myself to go over the reorders and make a few phone calls on business matters while I wait for Joan to get back, but my head is full of too many things: Eddie’s plight, Joe, the funeral this afternoon. I am in a thicket of disorder and pain and end by just sitting at my desk and doodling the heads of strange animals. I discover that it is not a bad way to relieve tension and I am quite pleased by the odd animals I am creating.

Joan comes back with a paper bag containing cheese and ham sandwiches and two milkshakes. “You’ll need lunch before you go to the funeral,” she explains, setting them out on the table.

“Thanks. Great idea.” And when we have settled down at the table, “What happened? Did you see Sergeant O’Reilly?”

“Yes. The first thing he did was just glance at that dirty sheet and lay it down as though it were nothing. Then he said, ‘I am very busy today on a drug case, Miss—’ He had forgotten my name and I said, ‘Mrs. Hampstead’ with heavy emphasis on the Mrs. I suggested that it was high time the police department put its mind on your problem. What are drugs compared to a life at risk and the life of an elderly person who has never done harm in her life.”

“You did?” I am a little shy hearing this.

“Yes, I did, and I told him something about what you have achieved, how many women of all kinds come to the store, what a center it is for lonely women, for young married women, for women of all races and ages. I felt it was a stirring speech,” Joan says with her ironic smile, “but I do not believe he was paying the slightest attention. He simply repeated what he had said to us when we first went, ‘The police are here when you need us. If anything happens let us know.’ I pressed him, demanding that he try to think of possible people who might be involved: ‘You must have some idea where these threats come from?’ ‘Sorry, ma’am, but we are not omniscient.’”

“The old runaround.” I am unaccountably in a state of acute distress. It comes out in a question. “You don’t really think my life is at risk, Joan, do you?”

“Well, I said it powerfully to wake Sergeant O’Reilly up. Maybe you are not in danger, but these attackers are lunatics likely as not. Half the people around here carry guns.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Oh dear, I have made matters worse, I see. What I really think is that whoever these goons may be, they are not murderers, but they want to drive you out. They want to make you leave here. They want to close the shop down.” She looks me straight in the eye, with warm concern. “Please don’t imagine they are killers. I simply cannot think that, and you must put the idea out of your mind.”

“Easy to say,” but I look at my watch and never finish the sentence. “Good heavens, it’s ten past one. I am meeting Angelica at the Coop at half-past and must find parking space.”

“I’ll be here when you get back. Not to worry.”

It is bliss to get away, to run away into the safe world of the Coop, where Angelica, looking very handsome in a black suit and a large black hat, is waiting for me. “Sorry I’m late. I was held up.”

“We have plenty of time,” she assures me and we walk sedately, arm in arm, waiting what seems hours for a chance to cross Mass. Avenue and get into the Yard.

“I might as well be killed by a truck,” I murmur, half to myself.

“Whatever do you mean by that?” Angelica lets my arm go.

“Nothing,” but I can’t leave it at that and suddenly the humor of the whole situation strikes me and I laugh aloud. “It’s just that those goons are threatening me again and it suddenly struck me as funny that, after all, there is danger everywhere, even crossing the street these days. So why worry about possibly getting shot?”

“Ha, ha,” Angelica responds, with heavy irony, “I’m glad you can think that humorous. I don’t.”

“Forget it! I’m keyed up. Being a sitting duck is not really my line.”

We are climbing the steps to the chapel and the sound of the organ playing Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze” pours out and silences us. I do not laugh this time but I do find it amusing and swallow a smile. I myself am no doubt a sheep but I can no longer safely graze, and it brings back a joke of my father’s, “In Kansas only the cows browse.” Oh dear, I must not give way to unseemly behavior.

We are ushered to a pew near the front where of course we nod and are nodded to by half a dozen people we know. Seated, with the great music filling the chapel, I am relieved. I can sit here in peace. I can think about Caroline. I have nothing to fear.

After the funeral I had been expected to go back to the house, but I tell Angelica that I feel I must get home, back to the store for some reason. The wonderful timeless peace I felt in the chapel, the deep rejoicing that a person like Caroline had come into my life, has given way now to an attack of anxiety. These anonymous letters take their toll. I remind myself that Andrew is coming. I shall not be alone after Joan leaves.

Still, I am always happy when I push the door open into the store, so peaceful and exciting, as Gertrude Stein once said of Paris. There are two people I have not seen before reading at the table, and as soon as Joan catches my eye she makes it clear that there is some problem. They do not look like our kind of people, I think to myself. One is a rather heavy woman in a dark blue suit, wearing a broad-brimmed red hat, and the other one an extremely thin woman in a starched collar that stands above her mink cape.

Joan comes forward from behind the counter and says to the women, “May I introduce you to the owner, Miss Hatfield?” They do not get up, but stare at me as though I am not quite human. “Harriet, this is Mrs. Thomas and this is Mrs. Ferguson.”

“How did you happen to find us?” I ask blandly. “I am always interested, since we are so new and just being discovered.”

“Someone warned us that a subversive bookstore had opened,” says Mrs. Ferguson, “so we thought we had better make an inspection.”

“And what did you find?” I ask, keeping contempt out of my voice, I hope. Since neither answers I pursue the subject myself. “This is a feminist bookstore, which means that many of the books here concern the problems and needs of women. I might suggest that you take a look at this one, for instance.” And I hand over
Women, Take Care
, the book addressing the need for caretakers to spell the many many women who have to take care of dying husbands or mothers or aunts and have no help at all.

It is truly providential that at this moment who but Nan Blakeley comes in with her two little girls. “Oh Nan, how I have missed you! Where have you been?” and quite spontaneously I go over and hug her. “And you brought the children.”

One of them, long-legged in a short red tunic, not at all shy, about seven I imagine, speaks right up. “We had to come. You see, Momma talks about this place.”

“She says I can choose a book,” the younger child, in a pale blue tunic and blue leotard, announces. “Can I go find it now?”

“Just a minute, kids. First you must meet Miss Hatfield. Harriet, this is Eve and this is Serena. Eve and Serena, this is Miss Hatfield.”

They stare at me and mumble, “Glad to meet you,” suddenly overcome with shyness, each clasping one of her mother’s hands.

“Now you can look. See? The children’s books are on the low shelves over there.”

Eve sits in the small armchair I have provided and Serena sits on the floor. They become completely absorbed and, rather unusually, do not take one book out after another without really looking at it. Serena is now lying on her stomach deep into the story of Babar. I wonder what Eve will choose. It is all like a reprieve and even the two women are smiling.

“What about Martha?” Nan asks in a low voice, her back turned to the ladies. “I have been worried about her.”

“She had an abortion the same day,” I whisper back.

“I thought she would, and I have something to tell her that may help.”

“Sue Bagley came in this morning and bought one of her paintings, if you can believe it. They went off to have lunch together—an odd couple if I ever saw one.”

Nan laughs her open, delighted laugh. “That is very good news!”

I take her hand and draw her over to the table to introduce her to Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Ferguson. They are wide-eyed, clearly, at a black woman so well dressed and at ease, hesitate whether to shake hands, and then rather self-consciously do so. My only wish is that they go away. I want to tell Nan about the new threat, so I decide to take the bull by the horns and ask, “Have you found what you were looking for, Mrs. Thomas?”

“We were informed that this was a meeting place for gay and lesbian people. There are people in this community who don’t like that,” Mrs. Ferguson answers. “We did not see any religious books.” Mrs. Ferguson is gathering momentum now.

Nan is observing them with kindly disbelief and exchanges a mischievous amused glance with me. “May I ask who sent you here?” she asks.

“The Women’s Auxiliary at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Someone told them they had better look into this corrupting influence on our young people.”

“And that somebody was?” I press the question. We may at last get a clue.

Mrs. Ferguson is flustered and gets up. “I really can’t tell you that,” she says, “it’s a private matter.”

“Well,” says Nan, “let me tell you a little bit about what this bookstore has meant to a happily married black woman.”

“I’ve found the book I want,” Eve interrupts, coming to show us a book of poetry in a bright red cover. “It’s poetry. You can read it to us, Momma. We can learn it by heart. There’s a poem about a lamb.”

Serena is less happy. “There are so many books about Babar, how can I choose one?”

“You may choose one today and next week you may choose another,” says Nan firmly.

“I don’t want to wait till next week.” Serena is close to tears.

“Now, kids, I want you to go back and sit quietly because Momma has something she wants to say and it is important.” Nan turns now to the two women. “On the whole this is a rather dreary neighborhood. There are plenty of bars for the men but where can women go to browse and talk to each other? Where can a woman find books that really speak to what interests her, what she needs to know, and meet other women who are longing for someone to talk with? For instance, a young painter who feels isolated, and then Miss Hatfield hangs her paintings. Imagine what a lift that is!”

I am so happy and feel so supported by Nan’s clever defense that I can’t help smiling, and of course it is splendid that she came with the children.

Ferguson and Thomas exchange a glance.

“For me it has been an enrichment, I must say.”

I can’t help putting my oar in now. “So many interesting women have come, so many women who have a lot to give and a lot to give each other.”

“The Women’s Auxiliary fulfills that purpose for us very well,” Ferguson says with bland self-satisfaction.

“But if you will forgive me for saying so, you would meet each other anyway, but all kinds of women come here,” I say.

“I can see that,” says Mrs. Thomas, glancing over at Nan.

“Well, I think we had better be going now,” says Mrs. Ferguson.

“I do hope you will spread the word about the bookstore, that we welcome diversity and discussion. It is an open door.” I guess by the way they put on their gloves and nod a goodbye that they have been somewhat nonplussed. “It makes me sad when my good will is misread and I myself treated as some sort of unwanted intruder.”

“It’s not you, Miss Hatfield,” Mrs. Thomas says, “it’s the people the store draws in.”

“What don’t you like about them?”

It is Nan who lifts her head from a book she has been immersed in. “That they are black?”