home and, with their landlady’s assistance, soak the coveralls in hot water and lye and scrape the grease out of them, if for no other reason than to make themselves less combustible. Even a poor woman might take pause.
“There’s just something about her—not how she looks, but how she seems. Then when I saw her coming out of the post office, a worker! I just needed to figure it out.”
“And now?”
“Well, I’m still figuring on it.” He takes a drink. “I need to get her to notice me.”
“Holy hell, Charley. What are you fixing to do? Set your hair on fire and get her to beat it out for you?”
“Naw. I think she’d just step around me and keep on going.”
cd
She sees that he’s not outside again today, and realizes that she’s disappointed. For as much as he may imagine that he is being discreet, Emma notices him every time. At the stables, she understands that he has just happened by and is simply taking in the activity, this wiry young man with active, cheerful eyes and a big mustache. Outside of work that first time, it is the collision between the two pedestrians that catches her attention, but she would have noticed him anyway. His gaze then is intent, inquisitive. She sees him often after that, loitering at the curb, sometimes pretending to read the paper, sometimes chatting with a passerby while he continues to watch for her. Mr. Fredrickson describes him perfectly when he mentions a young man who asks after her outside of the building, with his made-up story of a church connection. And now that he has followed her home, she sees that her circumstances are below even what he is willing to accept, and he is gone. So now she feels disappointment, an old sensation that until this moment she is sure is boxed up and put away for good.
Emma has long since given up any thought that her life will ever be more than what it is: that of a spinster, living with her widowed mother who takes in boarders to fill the gaps in what Emma earns as a postal clerk, her position for the last sixteen years. By now, Emma has lived an entire second lifetime beyond what is normally considered a marriageable age. Her heart was broken once, long ago, by a boy who seemed interested in her for a time. In the end, though, his attentions were drawn away from her solid frame and unflinching demeanor by a big-eyed giggly thing with golden curls. From that point on, she’s known her time is past. So now, seeing he is not here, feeling once again that empty hole in her stomach, she struggles to put her disappointment back into its dusty box and close the lid.
cd
The Capitol Bicycle Club has set up on the Pension Building green this week, taking advantage of the lovely weather to put up a tent and some booths, and present a series of cycling demonstrations to encourage membership. Street vendors who know a business opportunity when they see one have also set up shop in the fringes, and the whole enterprise takes on the feel of a street fair. The club has an assortment of some of the very oldest bicycles alongside the latest models, and club members take turns demonstrating riding techniques and allowing game bystanders to try them out.
Charley stops by the first day and has a long friendly chat with one of the club’s members, a Mr. Henry, who is very willing to discuss each type of bicycle and the challenges of riding each one. Mr. Henry is impressed with Charley’s quick grasp of the mechanics. He allows Charley to take a few spins out of sight of the rest of the crowd. The bicycle Charley chooses, ridiculous-looking by the day’s modern standards, is particularly difficult both to balance and steer, but again Charley takes to it naturally. Then Charley invites Mr. Henry into his confidence and asks his indulgence in helping with a bit of a plan. Upon hearing it, Mr. Henry laughs and says that if Charley promises to be careful, he agrees to be a willing participant in the scheme. And so it is that two days later, as Mr. Henry is using his best pitchman’s banter to draw in the afternoon passersby to take a look at the bicycles, Charley is scanning the street, waiting to give the sign.
cd
Emma is heading toward the knot of people that has been here all week, taking in the cycling demonstrations and browsing the temporary stalls that have sprung up. The square, with its wide expanse of grass, is a natural with couples, families, various organizations like the cycling club, and all manner of snake oil salesmen who regularly set up shop to sell their wares. Emma has looked on with mild interest as she passes by each afternoon, idly wondering what it would be like to ride one of the machines, which of course she would never do.
Suddenly, a collective whoop rises up from the crowd, then laughter and scattered applause. She glimpses a head, weaving among the onlookers, but has trouble making sense of what she is seeing. She slows down in time to see the crowd part, and in fact several people leap out of the way, as the laughter swells.
As soon as the cyclist is out of the knot of people, she sees who it is—of course it is; who else would it be?—and that he is heading right toward her. The contraption he is riding is one of the earliest models of bicycle, with the small wheel in front and the large one in back; it is a beast to control, and he is wild. She doesn’t believe it for a minute, though; he knows exactly what he is doing, and she is having none of it. She strides forward in determination, but he begins to circle her even as she walks. The crowd loves it as he spirals around her, and hoots and claps to egg him on. On his third pass, she raises her head and fixes him with a hard look; it is the first time they make direct eye contact. In that moment, he realizes that he has been duped; she’s been onto him all along. In the second before she breaks her gaze, he crosses his eyes and lolls his tongue from the corner of his mouth. He makes one more pass, and though her head is back down, he sees it: she smiles.
cd
The following Sunday afternoon, in the time between morning Mass and evening prayers, he knocks on the front door of the little row house on Washington Street. It is Emma who opens the door, and regards him without surprise. “I was beginning to think you would never come.”
Without another word, she turns; he follows her in, taking off his cap as he steps through the door. She walks him the two steps into the little parlor where Mary Miller sits in the sliver of afternoon light at the window, tatting. “Mother, there is a young man here to see you.” With that, Emma turns and leaves the room.
This stern-looking, white-haired woman looks up with some surprise, and spends a moment assessing him. “I’m sorry, I already have a boarder. We only let the one room.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’d been informed of that. I have a room already.”
“We don’t welcome solicitors, then.”
“I wouldn’t expect you would, ma’am. I’m not here to sell you anything.”
Mrs. Miller looks hard at him, and he plainly sees where Emma gets her bearing, if not her appearance. “What, then?”
“Ma’am, I’d like permission to court your daughter.”
Charley can see that he’d have to think hard on it to come up with another sentence that would surprise Mrs. Miller even half so much. There is a long moment while she continues simply to stare at him. “Young man, how old are you?”
“I’ll be twenty-six in September.” There is an even longer pause now. He is wondering what combination of words he can put together that will prompt her to invite him to sit, and to offer him some tea. But he can see that it will be dashed hard to charm this woman.
“How do you know my daughter?”
He wants to be careful here. “We see each other from time to time outside of work.”
“And
