Free A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith Page B

hole. I know that for a fact.”
    Sitting down was doing Mrs. Russell good. Her wide forehead was no longer prickled with sweat. She’d accepted a glass of water and seemed to perk up. Now she was looking around with satisfaction at the grand marble columns and the mural of a lady with a whippet dog that covered an entire wall.
    “This is fine,” she said.
    Cora learned her companion had come north from Georgia at the age of twenty-eight when Elmore was a baby and still sewed ladies’ wraps and underwear for a manufacturer in the textile district of Boston. She was sixty-two years old and lived with her daughter and grandchildren. She said that she was glad when her son joined the army because she thought it would improve his education, and the pastor of her church preached that it was important for black people to stand up and show their patriotism. Cora had been listening with one eye on the clock and the other on the door. It was 7:10 p.m. and Katie McConnell hadn’t showed.
    “I’m getting worried about Mrs. McConnell,” Cora said.
    “She comin’ or she ain’t,” Mrs. Russell pronounced. “Meanwhile, we best get on that train. Now, what are those two up to? Sellin’ Hershey bars?”
    Two teenage girls, almost identical, with long blond hair and dressed in green plaid school uniforms with pleated skirts, had burst into the waiting room and were scrambling about, tapping shoulders, stopping people at the sinks, cornering them before they walked out the door, and generally disrupting everybody’s business. The attendant shooed them out but instead of leaving they formed their hands like megaphones and screamed at the top of their lungs:
    “Mrs. Blake? Is anyone here named Mrs. Blake?”
    “I am!” Cora said, springing to her feet.
    They rushed over. “Mrs. Blake? Katie McConnell said to tell you that she’s looking for ya!”
    “Who are you?”
    “Come on! She’s our aunt!”
    “This is Mrs. Russell,” Cora said, pulling back. “She’s also in your aunt’s party—”
    “You go on,” Mrs. Russell said. “It’ll take me a minute.”
    “Are you sure? You can get to the train all right?”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “We won’t leave without you,” Cora promised, grabbing the tartan bag. To the girls: “Where is Mrs. McConnell? Is she here?”
    “Hurry up. She’s waitin’ outside.”
    “Why outside—?”
    They marshaled Cora out the door and across the main hall to where a group of people had formed an island in the midst of the flux. They were more like a tribe. The men kept guard with feet planted and arms folded, casting suspicious glances at passersby. The women huddled in threes and fours, chatting a mile a minute while their children practiced sliding across the marble floor. Except for a couple of uniformed cops, they were dressed in battered shoes and poor working clothes. Some were compact and swarthy, some thin and fair; they resembled each other in attitude more than looks. In short,
“We own this place.”
It reminded Cora of fishermen guarding their traps.
    The girls broke through the outer circle shouting, “Here she is!” and Cora was somehow sucked into the center, where a tall woman wearing black was holding a struggling little boy.
    “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Would you be Mrs. Blake?”
    “Yes!” Cora answered breathlessly. “Mrs. McConnell? Happy to meet you at last!”
    They tried to shake hands but the boy got in the way with all his squirming. Katie McConnell was not at all the way Cora had pictured her, dressed in a smart store-bought wool shirtwaist with the Gold Star Mothers badge on the lapel. Carrot-red hair showed beneath a black cloche hat with a rhinestone buckle. Her fair skin was lightly freckled and her front teeth stuck out just enough to give her an air of girlish abandonment.
    “Say hello to Damian.”
    Her little boy was a moon-faced bruiser with dark chopped-off bangs. He refused to look at Cora, burying his face in his mother’s neck. Katie