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Page 10.

About that same time of year, late summer, John Longfield and Lizzie Wyllie walked arm in arm on gravel walks amid flowered lawns, to the tunes of distant calliope music. There was a carnival in a far corner of the park, with music and rides.

John and Lizzie stopped to smell gorgeous, colorful flowers.

Women with parasols and men in straw boater hats strolled by.

John bought Lizzie a cotton candy.

Lizzie was joyful as John helped her on a carnival ride. She had already dismissed the cautions uttered by her sister, and she had sworn May to secrecy. If her mother ever found out—there would be the dickens to pay, because Lizzie had already once made a terrible mistake of this nature, and it didn’t seem possible that she would fall into the same ditch again. But, looking back on it all some months later, half a continent away, in a fairy-tale hotel and resort overlooking a stunning vista of Pacific Ocean and Coronado Beach and Cabrillo Point, Lizzie would have occasion to ponder the collision course on which she already was, unwittingly, during those innocent strolls in the park.

The factory hall was gloomy, with dusty air illumined through barred, jail-like windows. The hall was full of women of all ages engaged in the complex stages of case binding, from gathering the signatures to folding and stitching them on wooden frames, and building the covers around them. May and Lizzie were busy at a bench with eight other women.

A door across the floor, marked Foreman, opened, and John Longfield peered out.

May looked up, and caught Longfield’s hungry look toward Lizzie.

Longfield closed the door.

May watched her sister rise. Lizzie wiped her hands on a cloth, and walked off to the ladies’ room. Minutes later, she was on her way back. All the women noticed.

Lizzie knocked on the foreman’s door. The door opened, revealing a brief glimpse of Longfield. Lizzie entered the room. The door closed, and the women at the bench with May exchanged looks. Some were darkly amused, others scandalized.

Inside the office, Longfield’s naked back moved in sensual thrusting motions over a long table. Under him, Lizzie’s ecstatic face looked up, enraptured. Her eyes opened and closed with each of his long, slow strokes, except to flicker now and then, to look up at him with love and ardor.

Lizzie got on top, riding him, swaying sensuously. Longfield clasped her buttocks as he thrust upward, again and again and again.

Lizzie said: “John, John, I love you so.”

John said: “And I adore you, Lizzie, my darling.”

Lizzie said: “Promise you’ll keep me forever!”

John did not answer, but he grunted as he approached climax, and his rutting drowned out any reply he might have made.

John Longfield was one of several men playing cards at a round table in a dark, smoky den. It was in the cellar of a cheap hotel downtown. The bare stone walls had been white-washed. Only a few narrow slit-windows near the ceilings let out smoke and brought in fresh air.

A stony-faced waiter in a long white apron brought the men round after round of tall beers dripping with foam.

In the background, a crippled man with an eye patch fiddled a lilting sea chantey. A hat sat at his feet with change in it. A few bar flies hung about—older women with leathery skin and missing teeth.

The card game was hard and spirited.

John Longfield happened to be on a lucky streak. He cleaned out an angry, puffy-faced man. The loser reluctantly paid up in the form of a tin money clip with several bills folded into it, which he tossed on the table as he stormed out.

In a dirty alley full of puddles and horse droppings, against the backdrop of a brick factory wall and an open gate where a horse-drawn delivery cart came rumbling out, Steve had his ‘office,’ as he called it. He was perennially one step ahead of the vice squad, several of whom were on his payroll and would tip him off about raids. Steve worked as a pimp, cardsharp, drug dealer, petty thief, and burglar—at the moment hanging out with three of his prostitutes.

A regular with a white mustache came down the street. He wore a black suit and bowler hat, and had a black umbrella over one arm. Names were never part of the transaction. The man never came within view under a street lamp, but stopped some distance away and pointed to one of the women. She nodded and hurried toward the man, giving raunchy come-on gestures to get him going and make it quick. The two disappeared into the shadows together, arm in arm.

John Longfield appeared. Steve walked away from his two women to meet him. Longfield pulled out the tin money clip with the bills. “Here it is, like I promised. For the earrings and the tickets, and Miss Lilly.”

Steve rattled a finger over the bills as if counting. He pocketed them. “Perfect. Did she like the earrings?”

“She was ecstatic.” Steve was also a fence for burglars. Lizzie did not ever need to know her expensive earrings came from a wealthy home across the city. “Thanks.”

“Any time I can be of service, Johnny Boy.”

John said: “You did fine. My little Lizzie loves nice clothes and jewelry. And she loves anything to do with theater. Getting Miss Lilly out there was an accomplishment.”

“The timing was good. I told her I am a press agent, and a critic wanted to talk with her. Instead, you showed up with your girl. I think she got a little confused, expecting you to ask for an interview. No matter. Was your girlfriend pleased?”

“It went off perfectly,” John said: “I need to keep it going. She loves me, and I do have a soft spot for the little thing.”

“She’s a beauty. You’re a lucky man. I can arrange something else soon. How about balcony tickets for a nice romantic play?”

John said: “ She’d love it!”

“Consider it done. I’ll need some extra by Tuesday.”

On a hot summer day, Lizzie and May walked along a sidewalk on their way to work. The young women stayed under the shade of awnings as much as the could. The sidewalk glittered under their feet, all concrete and silica, hot enough to fry an egg.

May said: “You really mustn’t see him, Lizzie.”

Lizzie said: “But he makes me so dreamy.”

May said: “Don’t you ever learn? Don’t you remember what happened when you were eighteen? “

Lizzie said: “But this is different. John may seem rough until you know him. He has such good taste in clothing, theater, all the nice things in life.”

That evening, Mrs. Wyllie was doing dishes in her kitchen. May sat in the corner at her sewing machine. Lizzie opened the door and came happily into the apartment. “Good evening!”

May froze over her sewing, and looked on darkly. Elizabeth sniffed Lizzie’s breath: “Lizzie, where have you been? I smell gin, girl.”

Lizzie said: “Oh, Mommy...” She started washing her hands at the sink.

Elizabeth grabbed her daughter roughly by the shoulders. “You’re smoked like a sausage. You’ve been with men—wrong side of the tracks, by the smell of those cheap stogies.”

Lizzie said: “Mother! I am 24 years old and a grown woman. It’s summer, and I want to live a little.”

Her mother said: “I hear you’re seeing a married man.”

“Not true!”

Mother put a hand on Lizzie’s shoulder. “Lizzie, don’t lie to me.”

Lizzie shrieked: “May, you traitor!”

May shook her head and looked on silently.

Elizabeth said: “Lizzie, you dim thing! Don’t you remember the hell you put us through? How you suffered? Having it and giving it up like that?”

Lizzie said: “Mind your own business, Mommy!”

Elizabeth said: “As long as you live under my roof, what you do is my business. I want no scandal in my home.”

Lizzie said: “Then I’ll leave!”

“Where would you go, poor factory girl who thinks she’s an actress?”

Lizzie said: “Grand Rapids, for one thing.”

“To my sister? You think she’d take you in?”

Lizzie said: “I’m just saying. Aunt Louisa is calm and understanding.”

“Louisa Anderson has not been through the devil and back with you. She doesn’t know the half.”