The Sisters of Summit Avenue by Lynn Cullen

Author:Lynn Cullen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gallery Books

TWENTY-ONE

Chicago, Illinois, 1922

Inside the vestibule of the Dil Pickle Club, Ruth let her eyes adjust to the smoke and the dark. John pushed back his cap until the ear flaps were even with his eyes as he strained to read. “ ‘Elevate Your Mind to a Lower Level of Thinking.’ That does it.” He took her arm.

She shook him off. “Let me go. I’d like to see.”

He spread his hands as if stuck up by a bank robber. “All right. All right. Have it your way. Your sister’s going to kill me anyhow.”

“Admit it, you want to see this place, too.”

He scowled at her. “Just be quick about it, would you?”

Puffed with this small victory, she waded into the main room, a hot, smoky cave seething with hundreds of club-goers. Couples milled around brightly painted tables and chairs. Knots of men argued at a counter being wiped by a waiter. Jazz oozed from the band of Negro musicians playing in the corner. There were more Negroes in the crowd, more than Ruth had ever seen in her life, dressed like movie stars, and workers in coveralls, and women in sleeveless frocks. There were rich people, plenty of rich people, with their Hollywood suits and beaded gowns, and professor-types in tweed. Had she died and gone to heaven?

Her admiring gaze trailed up one woman’s slinky gold lamé dress, then slowed on the woman’s jutting Adam’s apple, before halting altogether on the stubble peppering the woman’s jaw. Once Ruth had absorbed that truth, she scanned the room again, wondering which boys were girls, and which girls were boys, and then wondering, in a sobering flash, if it actually really mattered.

Chuckling at the sensations that this colorful new universe rat-a-tat-tatted at her from all directions, she wormed her way to the counter, where a man was ordering a drink. His order placed, he waited, his brow pointed at the shellacked wood as if his head were top-heavy with brains. There was something familiar about the twin white haystacks heaped to either side of the pink line of his part, and about his long and horsey upper lip.

Behind the counter, the server poured something from a fountain tap, then handed the owner of the haystacks the glass. “What’re you working on now, Mr. Sandburg?”

Ruth winged John with her elbow. Carl Sandburg! she mouthed. The poet!

Mr. Sandburg raised a bristly brow. “Lincoln’s early years.”

“Poems about Lincoln?”

“No. A biography this time. Well, maybe a few poems on the side. I can’t help myself.”

“I know what you mean. Poetry will have its way.” The counterman wiped his hands on his apron then came down to Ruth. “What’ll you have, sweetheart?”

“Whatever he’s having.”

“That would be soda pop. Thank you, Prohibition. Say, are you old enough to be in here?”

John bellied up next to her. “Whatever she ordered, it’s for me, okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

Mr. Sandburg sipped his drink. “You her dad?”

The counterman slid a drink at John. “Here you go.”

Starry-headed, Ruth pushed away from the counter as John dredged some coins from his pants pocket.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.