Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle. Michael Januska
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— that’s what it was all about.
The other day her father asked her why she was acting so peculiar. She got defensive. Was she acting peculiar? She wasn’t sure. At any rate, she should have let it go, or told him something so personal, so girlie it would have scared him and sent him running. He would probably have gone straight to the family doctor.
Is there anything you can prescribe for her modern ills?
A woman glared at Vera Maude and her cigarette, and Vera Maude glared right back. She was getting herself worked up. She thought about taking a break and counting to ten, like her father always told her to do.
“Futz that.” She dropped another shell and reloaded. “I got me some butts to smoke.”
Miss Blackburn also gave a stirring war poem, and another play, this a tragedy of a French murder, depicting dramatically the self renunciation of a simple old French priest, who, absolving his servant and housekeeper from the murder of her lover, receives with silent lips her accusation of the crime, and goes wordless to his doom on the scaffold. Miss Blackburn here presented a charming picture of the lovely Breton country, its continual sunshine, gorgeous vegetation, and charm of landscape. Not long ago she spent considerable time among the French peasants there.
Vera Maude wondered if romance was restricted to people who lived in lovely places like Brittany. Was there no possibility of romance among the automobile factories and distilleries along the Detroit River? Her mind skipped over to Braverman.
Nice girls who fall for bad boys fall for nice girls like me. I’ve never fallen, not really.
She added nausea to her list of side effects from tobacco-smoking.
She has a very forceful and interesting personality, and a keen appreciation of the dramatic and the ideal. Asked her opinion on the flapper, and the so-called outrages on convention perpetrated by modern young people, Miss Blackburn asserted her admiration of today’s girl. “She is more sincere, more honest, infinitely more capable than her grandmother,” said she. “Whenever I think of all this commotion in regard to the manners of the young people of today, I conjure up a vision of the lovely court ladies of the Louis periods, I see them pirouetting gracefully, bowing charmingly, curtseying, their manners, perfection, yet, ah! their morals. How rotten they were underneath. Do manners mean morals after all? If the young people of today have discarded this superficiality of mannerism, they are at least honest. I think if they haven’t manners, they have the morals. Indeed, I love them.”
To top it all off, or bottom it all out, Vera Maude’s feet were getting worse. She took off her shoes and walked in her stocking feet for a while.
We have met too late for you to be influenced by me.
So what was with Braverman and the Book Review? She would have to look for that article in her scrapbook and check it again for clues. She was on her block now.
Not a moment too soon.
She dropped her butt in the gutter and pinched her feet back into her shoes.
Sweat was rolling down her back and behind her knees. She managed to get in the house before vomiting all over the front steps. Inside it was quiet and relatively cool. She used the handrail to pull herself up the stairs. Once in her room she unhooked her dress, let it fall to the floor, and collapsed on her bed.
Miss Blackburn composed the following poem especially for the club:
A scowling softly scudding sky
Green as the mist on the lagged sward
Grey boughs the brave buds glorify
Brown earth the tulip’s lance has bored.
A waft of wings and a shiver of song,
Rain, and at heart, lain of the sun
For you who have wearied and waited long,
April is won.
“Maudie? Is that you?”
Futz.
Vera Maude lifted her head and hollered back. “Yes, Mrs. Richardson.”
“I was wondering about you, dear.”
Vera Maude groaned.
“Better wash up; your supper’s ready.”
Vera Maude let out another groan and rolled over onto her back. She could smell the cigarettes in her hair.
— Chapter 25 —
THE PRINCE EDWARD HOTEL
At sunrise one morning earlier in the summer, Hiram H. Walker, president of the Border Cities Hotel Company and heir to the Walker distillery empire, christened the Prince Edward Hotel with a bottle of champagne on the roof mast. Walker, with the assistance of the hotel manager and a Royal Navy officer, then raised the Union Jack.
Later that day the hotel was open to the public for inspection. The city had never seen anything like it. People marvelled at the size of the pile and the richness of its décor: a lower lobby with a barbershop, tailoring department, and a bar room; a main lobby with a clerk’s desk in marble and a dining room done all in white with marble flooring; a mezzanine with a beauty parlor, flappers’ barbershop, miniature balconies overlooking the lobby, and a ballroom with a ceiling dripping with chandeliers. The townsfolk were mightily impressed.
Evening ceremonies began with dinner in the main banquet hall. Afterwards, everyone congregated in the ballroom to hear the speeches.
The answer, no doubt, to those who may marvel at the fact that so little difficulty was experienced in raising the one and three-quarters of a million dollars that was necessary for the construction of the hotel may be in the Board of Directors. The most conservative businessmen in the Border Cities and in the city of Detroit have purchased preferred stock in this company, and the influence of all-important local business and social organizations has been behind the enterprise and assures its success. I have the distinct pleasure of introducing one of these businessmen. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome Mr. Richard Bathgate Davies….
The tailor, holding the jacket by its hanger, woke the bellhop from his reverie with a gentle squeeze of the elbow.
“Oh — looks good. I’ll grab his shoes.”
When they got to the elevator the bellhop poked the button. One of the cars started making its way down from the third floor. It paused for a moment before a slender, gloved hand pulled the doors back.
“Hey, Olive.”
“Gerry, Horace. Where to?”
“Can’t you guess?”
The elevator lurched, Olive jiggled, and the car began its ascent. The three stared at the numbers on the dial above the door. The bell went and Olive stopped at the seventh floor. A chambermaid walked in with an armful of linen.
“Ten please, honey.”
When Olive pulled the doors open again the chambermaid got out and led the way. By the time the others caught up she was already knocking. Nobody one wanted to be late.
“Housekeeping.”
Charlie Baxter checked the peephole then swung the door open and stepped aside. Richard Davies was standing at the window, talking on the telephone and gazing at the street below. Pearl Shipley was sitting in a big, winged-back chair with her legs hanging over the side, reading a movie magazine. Davies finished his conversation then set the telephone back on his desk.
“Emma, after you’ve put those things away I need you to tidy up the place. Charlie had some friends over for poker this afternoon and they’re still learning to pick up after themselves.”
“Yes, Mr. Davies.”
Davies sat in a chair and let Horace detail his shoes. “Excellent.”
Gerry handed Horace the jacket. Horace slipped it over Davies’s