“That means I get to have you right here, right now.”
“We ought not to, not when things have gone missing. What if someone comes up and finds us?”
“You worry too much.”
Maybe he was right. He breathed gently into her ear before following the line of her neck with a trail of kisses, and eventually the excitement of doing something where they shouldn’t overrode her worry. Knowing what they each liked, they came together within minutes. Laura stifled her cries, making the wave of pleasure even greater, and Jack’s look of utter happiness after made it all worthwhile.
As long as she didn’t get with child again. If that happened, she wouldn’t be able to continue with her courses, and she’d be right back where she started. Dependent, caught up in the relentlessness of rearing an infant. Utterly unfulfilled.
Jack noticed her stiffen and pulled her close.
“What is it, my love?”
How could she explain? There was no use. No use at all.
Laura smiled at her husband. “I think we should get back to the children, enough of this silliness.”
He took her hand and led her out of the Stuart Room. “How’s school going?”
“I wish I were reporting on more interesting subjects. They seem to think the women are incapable of writing about anything other than tea parties and dress-shop openings.”
“What did you expect?”
“I know it’s what I’m supposed to be interested in. But I’m just not.” Not that she didn’t enjoy her classes, where they learned how to conduct interviews and scribble down the salient points fast, and where the professors filled them in on the inner workings of the city government, along with rousing, real-life stories about gaining the trust of sources and exposing injustice and greed. She’d also learned how to write headlines—this wasn’t her strong suit—and edit copy, which she enjoyed and was good at. “Over the semester, we’ll learn about different types of journalism, including editorials, book and play reviews, and will have to go to plays and write what we think. The Elements of Law class is probably the most boring, but I know the subjects of slander and libel are vitally important once a reporter gets out in the field, which I hope to be. One day. When I get to write stories that actually interest me.”
“Why do you have to limit yourself to what they expect you to do?”
She looked at him like he was mad. “What, do a story on my own? I don’t think they’d like that.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get more freedom to choose as the weeks go on. If so, you have to jump at the chance.” He snapped his fingers, and the sound echoed off the marble, sharp and quick. “Don’t be cowed. You’re a good, solid writer. Your columns showed that.”
“And what about you, how’s the book coming along?” She tried not to ask him about it too much, not wanting to pressure him, but she liked the idea that they were both working in the same medium, and hoped she wasn’t being presumptuous.
She needn’t have worried.
“I’ve had a burst of inspiration recently.” He gestured for her to go ahead of him, up the stairs to their apartment. “I swear it’s this building, feeding my brain at every turn.”
“You’re not too tired at the end of the day?”
“Not a whit.” He gave a tug at her skirt. “As I think I’ve proved by our earlier assignation.”
“Oh, you seem just fine to me.” Laura batted him away, laughing. “Just fine.”
* * *
“Today, your assignment is to report and write a piece for our simulated newspaper, the Blot.”
Professor Wakeman tugged at his mustache and glared around the room at the bleary-eyed students, who’d come in at the ungodly hour of seven in the morning. Laura, who’d been up since five finishing an essay for the law class and then getting the children ready for school, hoped her schedule would work in her favor today, that her alertness would lend her an edge. Just the other day, they’d learned the shocking news that only a third of the original class of students had graduated the prior year, and the idea that all this could be for naught terrified her. It didn’t help that the workload had increased every day, much more than any of them had expected. “Don’t get complacent,” Professor Wakeman had warned. “Last year, I failed the best writer in the class because he misspelled a word—a lesson he’ll never forget.”
A couple of the professors were wary of the women students in particular, commenting on their attire if their skirts were deemed too short, one even sneaking about the building in the hopes of catching them committing immoral acts with male students. The ridiculousness only served to pull the women in the class closer together. Gretchen had reduced them to tears of laughter the other day by writing an anonymous, perfumed love letter to the most egregious professor and placing it in his mail cubby on the second floor. “That’ll give him something to think about,” she’d said with a look of glee.
Professor Wakeman carried on. “Your copy is due at two this afternoon, and by four, our dummy edition will be finalized. Only the best reported and written stories will make the cut, and I will decide which ones land on the front page and which deserve the bin. This will be a good test of the culmination of your skills so far. Good luck.”
The men, of course, headed downtown to the criminal courts to cover the latest sensational murder trial (“It would be far too disturbing for you ladies,” Professor Wakeman had said), or to the waterfront to investigate a possible strike. The women, meanwhile, had been told to visit the Charity Organization Society and dig around for stories that would tug at the readers’ heartstrings. “Crying children with grubby faces, you know what I’m talking about,” he’d said. “That’s what you must master in order to succeed as women reporters.”
Laura lingered outside the organization’s headquarters on the Lower East Side, taking notes on the surroundings. Harsh smells assaulted her senses: a rancid mixture of human waste, greasy smoke, and decaying vegetables. She’d read in the newspapers that conditions had improved since the turn of the century, but if so, it couldn’t have been by much.
“You. Come. Mother’s waiting.”
A boy a few years younger than Harry—or maybe he was the same age; it was hard to tell if his thin frame came from malnourishment or youth—tugged at her hand.
She knelt down so she was at the same level as he was. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
A tear rolled down his face, carving a white line down his dirty cheek. Professor Wakeman would approve of this tyke, she thought with chagrin.
“Mother said to find you and bring you to her. The baby’s not eating.”