The Blue Bottle Club (17 page)

Christmas Day 1929

Adora said her good-byes to Tish and Ellie and Mary Love and left the Cameron house with a smile on her face. What a glorious thing it was, to have the future spread out before you like a beckoning road! That afternoon, as they shared their dreams and slid them into Tish's blue bottle, Adora had felt more of God's presence than she had ever known in church.

She didn't call it that, of course. She wouldn't, lest she jinx the sense of well-being that now infused her. But she had to admit to an overwhelming feeling of
rightness
about the ceremony, a conviction that somehow the four of them had connected on a deep and lasting level, committing their futures to a power greater than themselves, a power that could—and would—oversee the fulfillment of those dreams.

Tish had appeared wearing Philip's ring, a development that both surprised and dismayed Adora. But what could she say? This was Tish's big dream, and who was Adora, even as Tish's best friend, to second-guess it? Besides, Tish wouldn't be eighteen until November; maybe by then the girl would see the light on her own, without Adora having to risk their friendship to tell her that she was being an idiot.

Ellie, bless her heart, had come up with the idea of becoming a social worker and helping people. No surprises there, although she would be in for a battle with Big Eleanor, who valued money and social position above all else. And Mary Love wanted to become an artist, to live
alone
—she emphasized the word—and give herself to her work. No wonder the girl didn't want to marry. With ten other children at home in that chaotic Irish Catholic family, she had probably done enough diaper-changing and bottle-feeding to last three lifetimes.

In many ways, Adora had the least in common with Mary Love. The girl was rough around the edges and—as a middle-class Catholic—not part of the social circle Adora had grown up with. But she had a good heart. And on one thing they did agree—that an excess of religion made everybody miserable.

Mary Love's mother, apparently, was good at two things: conception and prayer. Once she had given birth, she turned over the babies' upbringing to the older children, but she evidently did not have the same capacity to let go when it came to praying. According to Mary Love, she was on her knees all hours of the day and night, lighting candles, saying the rosary, interceding for everything she could think of—her husband's business, the pope's health, the horrible predictions about the recent stock market crash. She went to Mass every single day unless she was in the last stages of labor, and one of the younger children—her name was Bernadette, Adora thought—had nearly arrived right on the church steps. Mrs. Buchanan had almost cut that prayer session too close.

Adora, fortunately, did not have to endure that kind of fanatical fervor at home. Presbyterians were more circumspect about their religion. There was very little God-talk in the Archer household—Dad saved that for the pulpit—but her father's commitment to his calling affected the family every bit as much as Mrs. Buchanan's fevered faith. Dad made it clear that his flock came first, and his wife and daughter got the crumbs that fell from the table. He never said this; he simply lived out his calling in a way that left no room for discussion.

Adora had no idea whether or not her father genuinely believed what he preached. He approached the church—and his position as pastor—as a business. Whatever fostered expansion, whatever resulted in greater fiscal growth, he would do. Generally that meant that he never preached about anything controversial, and he focused his time and energies on the church members who were able to make the greatest financial contribution to the life of the congregation. People like the Dorns, Big Eleanor James, and Randolph Cameron. When they sneezed, he was there with a prayer and a pat on the back. When they expressed an opinion, he listened. When they donated huge sums of money, he made a public display of thanking them profusely for their largess. He was always gracious and kind to the "little people," of course—that was expected of a man of the cloth. But he and Mother were regulars at the Camerons' parties, and clearly they preferred dining in the opulent surroundings of the Dorn home, waited on by quiet, black-clad servants, to a rustic meal at the kitchen table of less fortunate parishioners.

For as long as Adora could remember, Downtown Presbyterian had followed its pastor's lead. It was known as an "upper-class" church, and most of the longtime members expected it to stay that way. What was Dad to do, then, with the,less-than-upper-class multitudes, the victims of the Crash who now seemed desperate to return to their religious roots?

His answer, Adora realized, was to do nothing. Her father couldn't stand at the door and forbid them to come to worship. He couldn't overtly cave in to the pressure Alice Dorn and her ilk were imposing upon him. Somewhere, Jesus had said—Adora couldn't remember exactly where—that "the poor you shall have with you always." Dad didn't deny the truth of those words; but apparently he thought if he ignored the poor long enough, they might—despite the Lord's opinion—eventually go somewhere else, and he wouldn't have to deal with them.

Adora felt at odds with herself about the whole matter. She loved the parties, the privileges, the acceptance as much as anyone else—and that part of it, at least, wasn't an act. But something in her, deep in her heart or soul or mind, rebelled at the way people were treated if they didn't have money or a name or social position. Maybe, she was vaguely aware, it was because she would soon be giving these things up, voluntarily abdicating her own place in society to follow her dreams.

She didn't know for a fact how her father would respond to her when she did it. But she had a pretty good idea.

And the very thought sent a chill up her spine.

17

NEW BEGINNINGS

May 20, 1930

A
dora stared out the window and watched as the sun rose like a great golden coin surfacing on the currents of the mighty Mississippi. Twelve hours ago she had boarded this bus in Asheville; it had just now reached the bridge that spanned the river into West Memphis, Arkansas. In the middle of the night, at a greasy little diner in Nowhere, Tennessee, she had purchased a pocket-size map, and her smudged pencil mark confirmed the dispiriting news: Adora Archer was less than one-quarter the distance to her ultimate goal.

She had slept little, despite the lulling rocking motion of the bus. Her mind was too filled with questions, her heart too agitated about the enormous risk she had taken. Had her parents gotten any sleep at all? She wondered.

The note she had left gave them precious little information—only that she had gone, that she was no longer a child and had to pursue her own dreams, her own destiny. That she would, at some point, find a telephone and let them know that she was all right.
Please don't worry,
she had added as an afterthought. I
know what I'm doing.

They wouldn't come after her, of that much Adora was certain. Her father adhered to the "you've-made-your-bed-and-now-you'll-have-to-lie-in-it" school. Besides, he had his hands full with church. The controversy over the presence of the Bread Line People, as they had come to be called, had escalated to all-out war, with Alice Dorn leading the charge on behalf of the Haves to rid Downtown Presbyterian of the Have-Nots.

Everything had changed so quickly since the day she and Tish and Ellie and Mary Love had entrusted their dreams to each other and the blue bottle. In her mind, Adora marked that day as the last moment of their childhood. Within a week, Tish had found her father dead in the attic, a grisly suicide, and all of them had been thrust into adulthood almost overnight. Now Tish was living with her mother in that tiny cottage and helping her work for the very people they had once called friends. Enduring the scorn and ridicule of the church—or at least the Alice Dorn crowd—while Adora's own father kept silent and did nothing to stop it.

One good thing, at least, had come from Randolph Cameron's demise. Philip Dorn had finally show his true colors. Tish's place had been usurped by that mousy little creature Marcella, a girl Philip never would have looked at twice had her daddy not been a friend of the Vanderbilts and a very rich man.

A wave of shame crested over Adora, and she struggled to break the surface of her own self-reproach. She never should have attended Philip and Marcella's engagement party, not when she knew Tish would be in the kitchen with her mother. Tish was gracious about it, of course. She always was, these days. In fact, she was becoming increasingly like her mother—another blessing hidden behind the barbs of reality. Still, it had to hurt, seeing her best friend mingling with the Vanderbilts like royalty, while Tish herself, the erstwhile fiancée, was given no more respect than a day servant.

Adora sighed and shifted in the seat, leaning her head against the cool window She hadn't been a very good best friend to Letitia, if she was going to be brutally honest with herself. Until two days ago at graduation, and afterward, at the party at Tish's house, they had seen little of each other except in passing at school. For months Adora had simply accepted the changes as the inevitable outcome of the struggles that had assaulted all of them. But then on Sunday, at the graduation party, she had gotten a glimpse of the way it used to be. The four of them, together, laughing, as if the tragedies of the preceding months had never happened. As if it had all been a bad dream, scattered to oblivion by the morning light.

And now, just as things were beginning to get back to normal, she was leaving.

But she wouldn't let it end there. She couldn't. She had made a vow, a solemn promise, that she would uphold her friends and encourage them to fulfill their dreams. Adora wasn't sure quite how she could be true to that commitment; even now every bump in the road put more distance between her and the three friends she had vowed to support.

Prayer
was the first idea that came to her mind, but she immediately dismissed it. She had experienced quite enough of religion—the Alice Dorns of the world defending their turf, the Pastor Archers abdicating responsibility by their silence. Adora had seen too much. And as the minister's daughter she had seen it much too closely The underside of Christianity didn't look nearly so appealing as its public face.

No, prayer wasn't an option. If the Almighty wanted to communicate with her, he'd have to give her more to go on than what she had seen so far. The Christ her father represented wasn't a god she was willing to serve.

She'd have to settle, Adora concluded, for holding Tish and the others consciously in mind, writing letters to them, keeping in touch. Letting them know what was going on in her search for stardom.

And no pretense, no acting. Complete honesty.

It was the least—and the most—she could do.

Miss Mcllwain's Hollywood House for Young Ladies didn't turn out to be quite what Adora expected. A looming brick mansion on a dead-end street, it hulked out of sight behind high shrubbery and a heavy iron gate, as if forbidding anyone to enter uninvited.

Caroline Mcllwain, the proprietress, incarnated the house's austerity in flesh and blood. The stereotypical missionary spinster, Miss Mcllwain had pale, pinched features, suspicious eyes, a bun at the nape of her neck, and an impassioned certainty about her calling—which, she told Adora in no uncertain terms, was to serve as guardian to protect the chastity and honor of "her girls" while they sought employment in the City of Sin.

Mother Mac, as the other residents called her, laid out the house rules for Adora: The gates were locked promptly at 10:30 P.M. All residents were to be in their own rooms with the lights out by eleven. There would be no drinking of alcoholic beverages or smoking, and absolutely no visitors of the male gender except in the front parlor on Sunday afternoons between two and four. Two meals per day were included: breakfast at six-thirty, supper at seven. No refunds were given for missed meals. No Victrolas in the rooms, and absolutely no dancing on the premises, except for young ladies studying classical ballet, who could use the sunroom off the back parlor for rehearsing.

Wonderful,
Adora thought,
just like home.

"You say your father is a minister?" Mother Mac asked as she led Adora up three flights of stairs to her room. She opened a door at the end of the hall and ushered Adora into a tiny cell furnished with a single bed, a dresser, and a small desk. A high dormer window looked out over the enclosed gardens. "How lovely. It's always a blessing when I get good Christian girls who know how to behave themselves. Sets a good example for the others, don't you know?"

"Don't I know," Adora muttered. She laid her suitcase on the bed. After four days on a bus, all she wanted to do was lie down beside it and sleep.

"You met Candace and Emily as you came in. Candace is right down the hall, and Emily is on the second floor. The rest of our little family you'll meet at dinner tonight. Seven sharp, remember?"

"I remember."