6: Weekending

“Good evening, Mr. Kittrels.” Evelyn set her laundry basket beside the agitator machine and smiled. “Thank you for restocking the furnace.”

Upon their return to the city after Mr. James' funeral, Lily had promptly taken her leave, claiming she needed to run errands and leaving Evelyn to brood alone. Though she'd tried other distractions-- a library book on the collapse of the Roman Empire, the radio, even a nap-- Evelyn simply couldn't stop her mind, turning over and over the strange interaction with Andrew James in the conservatory of his family estate. 

The old man turned his soot-smudged face towards her. He dumped his shovelful of coal into the old Octopus, and leaning on the shovel, removed his hat quickly. “Good day to you, miss. Are you warm enough upstairs then?”

Turning the spigot, Evelyn started the bucket of her wash water. “What’s coming from the register feels warm. I’m not certain I’m the best person to ask, even if I am on the fourth floor. My apartment has two fireplaces, and I use those to heat as well.”

The old man bent, scooping, and dropped more coal into the furnace. “That may be, miss. I imagine you’ll see Miss Henderson and she’ll let you know. Just you’re a sight politer about it.”

“I’m sorry about that.” With the bucket full, Evelyn turned the spigot off, then, careful not to splash, filled the basin of the agitator with icy water, hanging the empty bucket back over the faucet by the handle. “Lily can be too liberal with her opinions sometimes. She means no harm by it.” She added her white clothes, then a cupful of Borax and closed the lid. Adeptly adjusting the choke, she stepped on the starter pedal and the agitator’s engine roared to life, it belched a gray-black puff of exhaust, vented beyond the basement window outside and dispersing into the air.

Behind her, Mr. Kittrels set the shovel aside, and using the furnace lever, shook the grate. A wave of heat flooded into the basement, enough to make Evelyn feel momentarily dizzy.

“She’s a feisty one for certain.” Eyeing the coal bed for a moment as the layered fuel burned, he added another shovelful, shuffling it over the scorching bed to start the banking process for the night. “I’ll watch that for you if you like,” he said, closing the door and taking a seat in the rickety chair near the coal bin.

Evelyn pulled the chrome knob on the front of the machine, engaging the agitator, then glanced at her watch. Facing Mr. Kittrels, she smiled. “Thank you, no. I’ll be back in a few minutes to rinse and wring them. Is there anything I can get you? Perhaps a cup of coffee?”

“That’d be generous of you, miss.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes then.” Climbing the stairs, she emerged in the building’s lobby to find Mrs. Lancaster, the apartment’s landlady, shuffling busily through the mail. Holding an envelope up to the light, the old woman peered at it, trying to read the print through it.

“Good evening, Mrs. Lancaster.” Evelyn could barely keep the disapproval out of her tone but was pleased when her chilly greeting had the desired effect. The embarrassed landlady quickly sorted the envelope into the appropriate tenant’s box, finished with those remaining in her hands, then closed and locked the mail bins.

“You’re getting started late,” Mrs. Lancaster snapped, propping her fists on her ample hips. “You’ll be wearing wet clothes in a snowstorm in the morning.”

Evelyn rounded to the staircase. “I keep out what I’ll need for the following day, Mrs. Lancaster, but thank you for your concern.” Rolling her eyes, she started up the first flight to her apartment on the top floor as Mrs. Lancaster waddled towards her first floor rooms just off the lobby, muttering unpleasantly under her breath.

When Evelyn reached her apartment, she held her hand before the heat register, sighing in contentment. The air drifting out was blissfully warm and her small kitchenette was cozy. She glanced behind her into her bedroom and small living room and, pleased with the state of the fires in her fireplaces, set to work on the coffee.

Removing the stem from the aluminum percolator, she dumped that morning’s grounds into her compost bucket, then filled the pot from the tap and used the leftover diluted coffee to water her kitchen garden. She gave the pot, filter, lid and stem a rinse in the sink, then added fresh water and grounds and set the percolator on the stove.

She turned the burner valve, then struck a match and the gas lit with a low whoosh. That was when the pounding on her door started.

“Evie? You home?”

Crossing the small kitchen in two steps, Evelyn opened the door, giving her friend a stern look. “For pity’s sake, Lily, stop banging on the door.” Stepping aside, she gestured inside.

Lily shrugged out of her coat, dumping it unceremoniously over the back of a chair at the kitchen table. She glanced at her watch. “It’s almost time for our radio show.” Turning, she flung her arms around Evelyn in a hug. “Is that coffee I smell too?”

Hugging her back, Evelyn replied, “It is. And you owe me, Lily.”

“I know.” Rooting through the large pockets of her discarded coat, Lily drew out a small brown bag. “How about a trade?” She extended the bag to Evelyn.

With an arched brow, Evelyn took it, peeking inside cautiously as though it might contain something dangerous. “Carrots! Potatoes! And Kraft dinner? Where did you get all this, Lily?”

“Mickey Smith.”

“Oh, no!” Evelyn set her treasure on the shelf pantry, frowning. “I hope he palmed them from a different market than ours. I thought you said Wednesday you weren’t talking to him anymore.”

“Well, he’s been nicer since I stopped talking to him.” She smiled wickedly. “He must think I cook. Obviously, he has that wrong.” Picking up her coat, Lily pulled another treat from her pocket. Holding up a cellophane-wrapped package of golden twin cakes, she smiled proudly.

“And Twinkies?” Evelyn laughed. “Really, Lily. You’re tormenting the poor boy.”

“He likes it.” Dropping her coat again and leaving the precious package of cakes on the kitchen table, Lily headed into the living room. “How long before the coffee’s ready?”

Grabbing an oven mitt, Evelyn lifted the percolator lid briefly. The water pumping through the stem was noticeably darker already. “Few more minutes. I promised Mr. Kittrels a cup and I need to get my laundry before Mrs. Lancaster charges me extra for running the agitator too long.”

“That’s for certain!” In the other room, Lily flopped heavily onto the sofa. “Shall we have that feast for dinner? Or did you have something else in mind?”

In the kitchen, Evelyn set two pink Federal Glass mugs on the counter beside a third aluminum one for Mr. Kittrels. Since she had to carry that one down four flights of stairs, she’d prefer not to have one that might break should she drop it. Lily’s question directed her attention to other thoughts, and she checked the covered metal pan leftover from last night where it sat, cold now, on the windowsill.

There was still another meal of spaghetti and carrot casserole—boiled carrots baked in a white sauce of milk, butter, flour and salt. Kept cool in its metal pan against the winter-cold glass, it would last another night to become mulligan stew or, perhaps mixed with a bit of the leftover Kraft dinner, another casserole tomorrow. “Why don’t you fix the macaroni and cheese?”

“I can’t cook!” Lily’s terrified squeal was accompanied by the sound of first one, then the other shoe dropping to the floor, muffled slightly by the thin rug covering the rough boards.

Turning off the gas burner, Evelyn poured coffee into the three mugs. “Oh, Lily. The instructions are right on the box. Please. I’ve cooked every meal this week.”

“Fine,” Lily huffed. “You’ll wish you hadn’t asked.”

“I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully.” As Lily came back into the kitchen, Evelyn handed her a cup of coffee, then picked up the one for Mr. Kittrels. “I’ll be back in just a few minutes. Oh! Is your room warm enough? Mr. Kittrels was asking.”

“Of course it’s not. Between being on the top floor and Mrs. Lancaster’s positively miserly attitude about the coal, it’s a wonder we haven’t frozen to death.”

“I miss your mother running this building too,” she sighed. Opening the apartment door, Evelyn stepped into the public hallway. A fond smile curled the corners of her mouth, remembering easier days.

As children, she and Lily had hosted their paper-doll tea parties on the stairs between their two apartments, the grand affairs attended by Lettie Lane, Polly Pratt, and Dolly Dingle—cutouts lovingly saved and shared from Mrs. Henderson’s copies of the Ladies’ Home Journal and Evie’s aunt’s Good Housekeeping and Pictorial Review magazines. They’d nursed raggedy Teddy-bear patients together in Evie’s room in the sun from the windows, while Evie's aunt and Lily's mother, dear friends themselves, mended clothes and listened to the radio together on the weekends.

Then the stock market had crashed. Evelyn’s expression fell as she made her way down the stairs. Though her aunt’s teaching and Mrs. Henderson’s nursing jobs were spared the layoffs that affected so many other families with the general downturn in industry and the economy, both women had suffered difficult pay cuts.

To offset those, Lily’s mother had taken the position of landlady in exchange for discounted rent. She’d also arranged for Evie’s aunt, Lily and Evie to clean the public areas of the building after school each day for a discount too.

The decision’s brilliance wouldn’t be realized until several years later when it led to both Lily and Evie’s employment as secretaries working for the mortgage holder, the Trust. Anticipating rent control legislation, the company was a voluntary adopter and with both young women’s names associated with the leases already, their discounted rents were locked in, even after Evie’s aunt was struck by a car and killed and a year later, Mrs. Henderson died from an unknown illness she contracted at the hospital.

Mrs. Henderson’s replacement, the foul and unpleasant Mrs. Lancaster, was unable to drive the two out of their apartments, despite her building-wide rent increases. And by continued sharing of food expenses, Evelyn and Lily had weathered the worsening economic conditions that had forced other tenants onto the streets.

“If you’ve run the agitator out of fuel oil, I’m adding it to your rent,” Mrs. Lancaster threatened as Evelyn reached the second floor.

“It’s only been ten minutes, Mrs. Lancaster,” Evelyn replied mildly, tapping the clock hung beside the basement door and gratefully closing it behind her before descending the stairs.

Mr. Kittrels was adding another layer of coal to the furnace but set the shovel aside and gratefully took the coffee from Evelyn’s hand. “Much appreciated, miss.”

“And Miss Henderson says her room is cold, if you think you can add a bit more coal to the furnace.”

Returning to the washer, Evelyn disengaged the agitator. She opened the drain and let a bit of the water out in anticipation of her rinse water. Filling the bucket on the spout with fresh water, she placed it conveniently near the floor drain before turning back to the washer. With the rotating lever, she moved the wringer into a comfortable position over the basin and so her clothes would drop into the rinse and locked it in place. Engaging the rollers, she fished her laundry out of the washer’s bowl with a stick, feeding it through the wringer piece by piece, to slosh into the bucket of rinse water beneath.

When the last piece was through the wringer, she moved the bucket to the side of the washer and repeated the process, allowing the rinse water to add to the wash water in the basin and dropping the clean wet laundry back in her laundry basket.

Finally, she added her dark-colored clothes to the basin, disengaged the wringer, closed the lid and re-engaged the agitator. “Don’t rush,” she reassured Mr. Kittrels. “I’ll be back in another ten minutes.” Hoisting her laundry basket onto her hip, Evelyn started up the stairs.

In the kitchen, Lily was making a mess all over Evelyn’s clean counter, the water for the noodles on the burner boiling too hard and hissing as it spattered over the stove. Reaching around her, Evie turned the gas down and the pot settled into a gentle boil. “I swear, Lily, you deliberately try to ruin food. It’s not that easy to come by, you know, even if Mickey Smith is stealing it for you.”

“It’s not my fault I’m not as good at cooking as you are.”

Dropping her basket in the junction between the apartment’s rooms, she retrieved the folding drying rack from the bathroom. Propping it over the floor register, she hung her wet clothes over it neatly to dry. When she was done, she took a seat at the kitchen’s tiny table, sipping her coffee and watching as Lily struggled at the stove. “You’ll have to learn sometime, don’t you think? Sooner or later, Mickey will get a thought in his head about making an honest woman of you.”

Lily flashed her an amused look. “I doubt it. He’s the kind has to make a dishonest woman of you first. His luck only extends to getting away with petty theft.”

Evelyn grinned. “You’re merciless.”

“Call me what you want, Evie,” Lily turned back to the stove. “People have a lot to say since the crash, and mostly it’s bad—darker and more defeated. The whole world’s devolved into a watering hole for a sense of shared doom. More than ever, life has an urgency. An exciting one. Time’s like these, it boosts optimism to be made love to.” She closed the valve for the gas, lifted the pan from the stove with a potholder, then deftly drained the noodles into the sink using the pan’s lid. “And someday, you’re going to fall in love and you’ll understand that.”

Evelyn burst into laughter. “In love? That’s what you have with Mickey?”

Setting the pan on the table, Lily pulled out the chair next to Evelyn. “God, no! I’m too callus to fall in love.” She scooped a dollop of butter into the hot noodles, stirring it into the remaining water in the pot to coat them. “But my father just ran off and left us when the market crashed. Your parents died together, side by side in the hospital fighting flu together. Your aunt lost her one true love to it and never sought another. You’ll fall in love, if one of us will.”

As Lily tore the packet of powdered cheese open, adding it to the pan, Evelyn rose. “I need to get the rest of my laundry. Let’s eat by the radio when I get back.”

Leaving her apartment, Evelyn brooded all the way into the basement. Mr. Kittrels was gone, having finished banking the furnace for the night, but he’d left his cup by the agitator, with a coal smudged ‘thank you’ written on the floor.

Smiling, Evelyn scuffed the message away with her feet. Going through the rinsing motions with the remainder of her laundry, she scoffed at Lily’s prediction.

I scarcely think abiding my domestic obligations makes me any less intellectually or sexually liberated than Lily. We have to eat. Just because I don’t care to engage in the rambunctious and provocative behavior she does doesn’t mean I’m destined for a boring, conventional life married to some broke, liveried driver like Mickey Smith.

The last piece of her laundry fell into the basket with a wet plop and Evelyn disengaged the wringer, then cut the choke so the engine stopped. Once the basin drained, she collected her basket and aluminum cup and headed upstairs for a final time tonight.

Lily was waiting in the now clean kitchen when she arrived. Seeing Evelyn’s look of consternation, her own expression melted into dismay. “Oh, Evie.” She threw her arms around the other girl’s neck. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. Maybe you’ll fall in love. Maybe you won’t. But having that bit of hope for you at least makes the outlook less bleak for me.”

“It’s all right.” Easing out of Lily’s embrace, Evelyn dropped her laundry basket near the floor register and began hanging her wrung clothes over the rack to dry. “Whatever happens, we’ll have each other.”

“Through thick and thin,” Lily agreed. “Leave those for now. Let’s eat while dinner’s still hot.”

Refilling their coffee while Lily dished them plates, Evelyn groaned. "What are we going to listen to tonight? I miss Alias Jimmy Valentine."

"Here." Rifling in the utensil drawer, Lily handed Evelyn a fork. "Grab a plate. Howie Wing is still on." Leading the way into the living room, she added, "And there's a couple of new radio shows that debuted last month. Nothing that stands out though. I think you're right. I miss Alias Jimmy Valentine too."

"Oh! Not there, please, Lily! Those have to go back to the library."

With an annoyed flick of a brow, Lily lifted her coffee mug to give Evelyn time to move the books aside. "The Roman Revolution. Diplomacy," she commented drily, tilting her head to one side, reading the titles along the book spines. "The Empire of the Steppes. The Wimsey Papers. Why can't you just read Agatha Christie like everyone else?"

Taking a seat in the armchair near Lily on the sofa, Evelyn gave her a bright smile. "I do. It's just I've finished them all. And those are fascinating topics. Perhaps you should try staying home and reading sometimes instead of sneaking off so you can fraternize with grocery thieves." 

Laughing at the catty comment, Lily nudged her shoes under the coffee table with pointed toes. "Oh, I could never. It's much more exciting hobnobbing with the criminal element than wandering aimlessly through a boring library. Besides, maybe I'm collecting research for my own book." 

"I'm certain it'll be an absolutely riveting read," Evelyn assured her, descending into a fit of giggles with her best friend. 

"It will." Unable to keep a straight face, Lily chuckled again. "You wait and see."