Free Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend Page A

again.
    “Do you think you could help me?” she asked. “I can do it myself but it involves a lot of twisting and turning around.”
    “All right,” I said.
    She put her back to me. “No one is around today. I thought the Aid Society meeting was today, but I got the date wrong, it’s on Thursday, and now I’ve come all the way downtown for nothing.”
    I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see me. “Oh.”
    She untucked her blouse from her skirt and I could see the stays of the corset digging into her flesh. She had cinched it way too tight.
    I undid the knot and her lungs filled with air. “This is barbaric, what we do to ourselves, but it’s almost worth it for the relief you feel when it’s over, isn’t it? Now tie it back up, tight, but not too tight, there’s a dear.”
    I had never tied a corset before. In Duluth women rarely wore them. But it didn’t seem too hard. Just pull on the strings and tie a knot. Knots I could do. The woman had a mole on her right shoulder, an angry brown stub.
    “There you go,” I said.
    “Thank you,” she said. “What’s your name, dear? Why aren’t you at the rally?”
    “Fanny—Frances.”
    “I’m Mrs. Bloomfeld. Who are your people?”
    I was confused by the question. Then I realized she was asking my last name. I opened my mouth and without even thinking about it, I said, “Frank,” leaving off the Polish “owski.”
    “I think I know them. Bankers, right?”
    “I’m not sure,” I answered. “We might be from a different part of the family.”
    “All the young people have gone to the rally. Why aren’t you with them?”
    “I didn’t know about it,” I said. I looked at our reflection in the mirror. Mrs. Bloomfeld’s hair was curly around her face and long in the back where she’d gathered it into a tail. She smoothed it with her fingers.
    “My cousin and I just arrived in town a few days ago,” I said. “We’re orphans.”
    Mrs. Bloomfeld revealed herself neither impressed nor particularly sorry for our plight. Maybe lots of “orphans” passed through the synagogue.
    “Maybe if you hear of some work,” I said.
    She smiled at herself in the mirror, turning her chin back and forth.
    “Where are you staying?” she asked. I gave the name of the hotel.
    “Oh that’s terrible,” she said, but gave no further comment. “Well, nice to meet you, Frances Frank. Thanks for the help with the laces.”
    When I returned to the entrance, Rosalie had indeed charmed the receptionist, who was pouring through a synagogue directory. I stood back and let them look, their heads bent together, whispering. That’s how Rosalie and I must have looked, I realized, when we were studying. When Rosalie and the woman were done conferring, Rosalie kissed her on the cheek and promised to come and see her soon. I waved goodbye.
    “Oh, she was nice.” Rosalie linked her arm with mine. “We are to come to the Young Ladies’ Aid Society meeting on Thursday. And I think I shouldn’t bother to look for any work before then.”
    I was not convinced that we should give up our search, but I let myself be persuaded by Rosalie’s good mood to go to Oak Street Beach, where we lay in the sun in our shirtsleeves and had an ice cream. Rosalie bunched her skirt up to her knees and took off her stockings to “get some sun on my legs,” but we were too close to the buildings to really feel we were at the beach. City rules applied, not beach lawlessness. Rosalie had always suffered from a lack of modesty. Now, in light of what I knew about her, I wondered which was her natural inclination and which a response to her circumstances. We never spoke about what had happened. I took Rosalie’s lead, and it was clear she never meant to discuss it.
    *
    The next day burned hot. My clothes were instantly soaked with sweat when I took to the streets, and they had begun to smell, though I rinsed them nightly with soap. Thank God Thursday was just a day away.
    We arrived in plenty of