My Lucky Penny Read online

  "Let me get this straight. You want me to find a doll, but you've already checked everywhere I could possibly look and you've still not found this doll?"

  "Yes."

  Dunbarton scratched his head as he looked at the list, then he looked back at Ed.

  "You'll be well compensated." Ed named a figure that made Dunbarton sit up straight. "But you only have a week. This is time sensitive. Your reputation led me to believe you could do the impossible. I need you to locate a Josephine doll." Ed stood. He didn't want to give the detective the opportunity to turn him down. "My secretary has a draft for your expenses and we'll have another bank draft for you next week. We'll meet a week from today at the same time. Say eleven?"

  "Certainly, Mr. Lowell." Dunbarton stood and added, "You're very generous." He set his bowler on his head with a determined swagger. "I'll find your doll, sir." And he left.

  Ed stared at the closed door. Yes, Yes. Find the doll, Dunbarton, he thought, before he sat back down and went back to work.

  Idalie gathered the pieces of fabric from the back clothesline and carried them up the rear stoop, pausing on a step with her willow basket resting on hip. She looked around. The feeling someone was watching her still plagued her. Silliness, really. This was the city. Buildings were almost on top of each other. Windows spread upward around the small patch of ground like large square eyes. Everyone watched everyone else. Jo had always claimed that was what made them safer--all those eyes.

  But Idalie knew her neighbors would wave or say hello. Was there someone new to the block who stood back from the glass above and was watching her? She shook off her uneasiness and went inside, walked up a few more stairs to the small kitchen, where she kept the stove lit when she wasn't at work to help with drying the fabric. This was December.

  Her trims and ribbons and braid were laying out on the tabletop next a small scrub brush and a tin of cleaning fluid. She examined them all closely for even the smallest fleck of dirt. All of them were clean, and it only took her three days of washings, two days of drying, and a few evenings of scrubbing the trim pieces with cleaning fluid, and a day to air out. Even the precious curly beaver was no longer crusted with dirt--dirt in the form of a large shoe imprint.

  She moved all those precious pieces aside and pulled out her sewing basket and a newspaper, theTribune, from three days before. The Trib was where she had read about Edward Lowell-- speaking of shoe imprints--the youngest Man of the Year in the history of the award. His handsome face had caught her attention and stared back at her from the newspaper page, a Wunderkind, her mother would have called him. Silly girl, she had dreamed of him that night after she read the newspaper article.

  Then just a few weeks later find herself laying on top of him in a dirt construction lot was even more startling. He had haunted her thoughts these past days, annoyingly, she thought as she slipped her pincushion onto her wrist and jabbed a few pins into it. She wasn't happy that she couldn't shake off the image of the man who had tackled her like one of her ruffian cousins. She knew what a tackle was.

  Both she and Jo had taken the brunt of an array of childhood exuberance favored by their Everdeane and Bloedel male counterparts. All that strong German blood went a little wild when out of doors or worse, when playing a game or sport. There were seventeen cousins in all, with only a six year total age span separating them, and many of them were still living upstate. Jo had given Bertie, the eldest Bloedel, a black eye three times in one summer, once--the best one--with a baseball she'd batted square into his eye. The Everdeane girls had held their own.

  Idalie smiled, but her throat felt tight. Not a day went by that she didn't miss her beautiful sister terribly. Jo, who could make her so angry and so happy, who knew what she was thinking by the look in her eye, knew Idalie's dreams as well as her own, and because she was older, Jo had been Idalie's courage--the one to lead her younger sister right where she knew she wanted to--or perhaps needed to--be.

  Yes, it had been Jo who had given her the courage to come to New York, challenging her when her fears threatened her dreams, then dragged her about the bustling city, making the crowds and traffic seem natural, the energy in the air exciting, and showing her the possibilities that were as vast as the city itself. Jo had ultimately lead her to this little place she'd found by "sheer luck"--a tiny house on a lot merely fifteen feet wide, squished in between four-story brick buildings of apartments, each with a new electrical lighting and an unheard of five hundred square feet of living space. The woman who owned the house, Mrs. Haseloff, had eight hundred square feet, by golly, and had stubbornly refused to sell or to be bested by new the apartments whose existence she despised. However, not to be outdone, she had added her own electrical wires, a new-fangled tangle of black lines on stick poles above the small rear patch of dirt, so her little house with its narrow lot and no elbow room would shine from within like those hideous apartments, with their ugly windows and painted doors, trying to shoulder her out of the neighborhood.

  Jo had eventually bought the house. That was Jo. She had convinced the woman to sell; fast becoming a trusted friend after Mrs. Haseloff discovered the Everdeane girls' mother was a Bloedel from Dresden. So when none of the developer scions of the city with their huge offers and slick manners could wave enough money under Mrs. Haseloff's nose to tempt her to sell, Josephine Everdeane had, by winning her friendship.

  A sudden crash echoed from behind the house--a tinny sound, like a trash bin lid. Idalie nearly jumped out of her skin. It had scared the wits out her. She glanced at the window as she flicked off the kitchen light, grabbed her cast iron skillet from above the stove, and crept toward the back door. She peeked out a small corner of the window, looking down in the back, along the fence and beyond, but saw nothing. Only the dark yard and the lights from above.

  Slowly she opened the back door a crack, waiting. Waiting. Was there someone on the stoop? She tightened her grip on the pan handle. She'd conk them in the head before they took a step.

  Something stepped on her shoe and she swallowed a scream.

  "Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow."

  "Pirate!" She sagged against the door. "You scared me to death."

  In prowled Jo's one-eyed beast of a cat, rubbing at Idalie's shoes, purring loudly, walking in and out of her skirt, and looking up at her with his calculated, one-eyed squint.

  "How did you sneak outside again?" She set down the skillet and kicked the door closed, then looked out the window again--just for good measure-- before she shoved a wooden chair under the door knob just in case. The back door lock had been broken for months.

  She fed the cat and moved around the kitchen.

  Overhead the lights flickered; it was that time of night when too many people used the neighborhood electrical lines and the light bulb dimmed and could flicker like a candle flame. At the kitchen table, a cup of steaming tea next to her, she flattened the newspaper and opened a box of lead pencils; it took her about an hour to draw the first coat pattern, to pin it to the cloth, and cut it out.

  By midnight, when she switched off the overhead light in her narrow bedroom beside the parlor and crawled into her bed, aware she needed to be at work bright and early the next morning, she let her head sink into the feather pillow and sighed happily. There were four doll jackets and coats, pinned, cut and waiting to be sewn.

  6

  Ed was late. He checked his pocket watch again and stepped from his carriage, walking through the crowded sidewalk toward Rowland & Company--the distinct building constructed of impressive, bright white Tuckahoe marble that took up almost a whole city block. He strode past the uniformed doorman with his gold braid and buttons, his head covered with a sharp-brimmed cap, through elegantly etched glass doors of the city's premier department store, and made his way toward the east stairs, which were wide enough to accommodate the large number of the city's shoppers who flooded through those same etched glass doors every day.

  The five story emporium now anchored one of New York's premier
shopping districts, a mile of unique department stores, Lord & Taylor, Macy's, Siegel-Cooper, that were no longer merely about dry goods, but within their walls had restaurants, dentists, grocery markets and some, their own electrical power stations in the basements, places built to impress with mansard roofs or their own El stop.

  The store was bustling as he glanced down at the ground floor, under the tall, white-domed rotunda then continued upward and across the gallery, heading for the children's salon.

  He came face to face with Miss Everdeane, almost knocked her over, and reached out to keep from running into her, or over her.

  "Mr. Lowell!"

  "Miss Everdeane?" He looked down into her startled, wide eyes, saw the sudden flush spread up her neck to her cheeks. He was gripping her by the shoulders to steady her, and maybe himself.

  Better than by her bottom.

  She smelled of carnations. Carnations. Not a strong scent but a light and lovely scent that reminded him of the past, of a garden, of life before. His mother had loved carnations and grew them in abundance in her garden, carried them inside by the basketful, and put them in vases all through the house. His father laughingly accused her of making the parlor look like a funeral. For the briefest moment he heard the sound of their voices in his head, a sound he thought he'd lost--one he would never remember.

  The scent of carnations was home to him. His gaze went to her mouth, momentarily fascinated, his face inches from hers; her lips were the color of pink carnations--the ones that were most fragrant-- and were full and lush and he started to lower his head.

  "Mr. Lowell. Please," she said so quietly he wondered if he had imagined it.

  He dropped his hands as if burned, paused, then tipped his hat and stepped away. "I beg your pardon, ma'am. Excuse me." He turned and walked down toward the other end of the store. When he reached the children's department at the end of the gallery, he looked back. She still stood there, her fingers to her mouth as if they had kissed.

  She caught his look and spun around stiffly, then disappeared inside another room.

  He found Penelope and Miss Clement in the children's shoe salon, where his niece was playing with a small wooden puzzle, head down while the saleswoman carried away two boxes of shoes and Miss Clement waved him over, then leaned down as said something to Penelope.

  She looked up at him and brightened, and Ed picked her up and a huge hug. "I'm sorry I'm late. Did you find some new shoes?" She had outgrown the shoe they'd brought with them.

  Penny stuck out a stockinged foot with a new black leather shoe, top strap and bright new buckle, twisting her ankle this was and that as smiled at him.

  "Yes, sir, " Miss Clement said to his irritation, ruining the opportunity for his niece to say anything. He noticed that was happening more and more lately. He understood this was new for all of them, that the nurse had spoken nervously, but he made a mental note to talk to her. Echoing in the back of his head was Doctor Cummings warning him against forcing her to talk. Ed felt damned if he did and damned if he didn't.

  "We found boots and leather slippers with plenty of room to grow."

  He set her down. "What have you there?"

  She held up the small wooden square, a painted reindeer cut into six little puzzle pieces and Ed sat down with her and dumped the pieces out and fumbled with the puzzle so she would show him how to fit the pieces together. They'd finished by the time the saleswoman returned with the shoeboxes in hand, tied with string for carrying, and a purchase receipt.

  Outside the shoe salon, Ed stopped. The toy department, a wide, open section in the back end of the third floor, was only a few steps away, flanked as it was by children's clothing salons, boys' to the west and girls' to the east, a sharp marketing arrangement meant to force more shopping, especially with children. "Wait Penelope. Let's go in here." He turned to Miss Clement. "Why don't you go to tea room and have a cup of tea while we look around. We'll meet you at the carriage out front in say...half an hour." She looked relieved, thanked him and he took the shoe boxes. "Don't worry about these. I'll take them."

  His niece was looking at the toy department with a serious look. "Come along, let's explore." He took her hand and they went inside.

  Set back from the columned entrance was a crowd. Children with their mothers stood three deep around a long table where a whole winter scene was laid out with brightly painted blocks and carved wooden people, painted metal soldiers and tin toy lithographed carriages, trolleys, wagons with horses and real leather reins, complete with a mirror skating rink topped with moving metal skaters, miniature fir trees and a winter castle. Around the whole thing was a Marklin toy train that moved via a clockwork mechanism and had steam coming out of the engine.

  Ed was as taken with it as everyone one else. He's had a wooden train as kid, a pull train. The kid in him wanted that train. He wondered if you ever grew up. As he walked around the place with his niece, pointing out toys--she wanted nothing to do with any of the dolls, even the new baby dolls dressed in christening gowns with bassinets and swaddling blankets--as the sales woman explained at one point, but they found a meeting ground in the children's book department. He had read to her each night; it was their ritual. So as he paid for the stack of children's books, he was surprised to hear, "Uncle Eddie?"

  He squatted down eye level with her. "What is it?"

  "Tea," she said.

  "Yes, Miss Clement went to tea. Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

  She shook her head and her shoulders drooped.

  He wasn't testing her. He honestly didn't understand. "What is it you want?"

  She turned away, pulling him by the hand. Their trip to toy shops that one day had only been about a doll they couldn't find, though he'd tried to buy her anything to stop the tears. The toys in her room, even the books, were what the designer thought she needed. She hadn't even seemed to care about the boxes of things that had arrived two weeks later from San Francisco, and in the end, they had stored them in the attic.

  She pulled him across the room to a bright corner where a small children's replica of a Queen Anne tea table and chairs was set with a miniature china tea service. He watched her and smiled to himself. This was her train.

  If he'd learned one lesson in parenting, it was he would not come back for it because it might be gone. Ed immediately summoned the saleswoman, bought the whole thing as it was, and asked for it to be delivered. He squatted down to her level. "Well, Miss Penelope, little one," he said, then added, "my lucky Penny. It looks like very soon you're going to have to make me some tea. And crumpets. I insist on blueberry crumpets."

  "No," she said, "my Uncle Eddie," mimicking him and she laughed, this sad little girl who held his heart in her small hands, a free and easy laugh that was the most lovely sound he'd heard. He looked away for a moment, feeling an emotion well up in his eyes. "Cinnamon buns," she said firmly.

  He understood then that Josie had shared more than family photographs with her young daughter. He took Penny's hand. "Aunt Martha's cinnamon buns," he said.

  "Yes," she said. "Thank you, my Uncle Eddie."

  Six whole words together. Relief and something like joy ran through him. He was "her Uncle Eddie."

  Someone was following her.

  Idalie had left early for Brooklyn, to the distributors offices with her newest batch of doll clothes, and noticed nothing unusual, until she left and was crossing the bridge, then went through to a series of trolley runs that gave away the man in jacket and bowler hat who coincidentally happened to be leaving J. Morris and Sons Wholesalers and was heading back to the city, first to Washington Square, then the 6th Street Line to Lexington and now Broadway. There was safety in the crowds, if she believed she was in danger, which she did not.

  She wondered what Edward Lowell was doing. She had signed the release. No, she has not done anything with the bank draft but she doubted that was the problem. The money exchanged hands. This man was not Lowell, a hired minion no doubt, but she did not for a moment believe runni
ng into him on the 3rd floor was a coincidence. There was no secrecy in what passed between them. He was about to kiss her. And to her horror was the momentary realization that she might not have stopped him.

  Slightly flushed, she checked the small, oval watch face dangling from a hummingbird pin with garnet eyes that she wore on the lapel of her tweed jacket. She had plenty of time, Thursday being her light day, when she went in later and was off by 3 o'clock because her duties were only the scheduling of department employees and deliveries. She worked four hours yet they paid her for eight, one of the perks of longevity in the same department and company loyalty.

  At an intersection near the park square, she stopped, casually looked around while she waited for the street officer to blow his whistle and allow them to cross. Nearby a nut seller stood with his red and white pushcart and hawked his paper bags of hot peanuts, chestnuts and pecans. Behind him was Mexican food seller with strings of green flags above shiny cookpots from which he dished cups of Chili Con Carne and Jo's favorite cornhusk- wrapped tamales.

  The whistle sounded but she didn't cross and instead bought a small container of chili and tucked it inside her bag, then waited again. He really should have crossed the street and waited for her on the other side. But her tracker stood back, his hands shoved into his pants pockets and he rocked on his heels like a man who couldn't wait long for anything.

  He couldn't follow her inside the employee entrance once Idalie was at work. But to her dismay he was there when she left work and he followed her almost to her front door, stood across the street and acting like he was talking to a man at the local newsstand down the street. Her fit of anger grew hotter the closer she was to home. Who did he think he was, this Edward Lowell, Man of Year, that's who, harasser of innocent females? She marched up the stairs to her door, then about kicked herself for leading him to her home, until she reminded herself he had followed her from Brooklyn.