The Ripper's Wife(106)

It wasn’t every child who crossed my path that did this to me, thank God, for the world is full of brunet boys. There were just certain ones who through some combination of demeanor, coloring, or features or some special quality I can’t even name cast a spell over me without their even knowing it, and that Biograph boy cast an enchantment deep enough to drown me if I let it. All I had to do was look, and love and longing would bite like a bear trap, clamping its steel-sharp teeth deep and hard into my hungry heart. But all I could ever do was dream, and love these special ones from afar, ethereally, never in any tangible way, not even as a self-appointed eccentric auntie who loved to spoil and dote on them and buy them toys and candy. I could catch glimpses of these boys on the street or playing in the park, but I could never hold them, touch, or talk to them, or worm my way into their little hearts, and, in the end, I always had to let them go and move on, to another city, lest that unquenchable desire and that unshakable, insatiable yearning drive me mad.

The afternoon I found myself standing out on the sidewalk like a fool in the pouring rain that had already pounded my black umbrella down like a witch’s pointy hat several times, hoping for just a glimpse of the Biograph boy, I gave myself a good hard shake, packed up my bags, and caught the next train to anywhere.





35

The next two years I tried to lose myself and maybe find myself at the same time. I vowed that I would never set foot on a stage again. I was done with lectures and book signings. I wanted everyone to forget me, so I tried to forget me too, hoping they would follow my example, and, for the most part, they did. It’s shocking just how easy it is sometimes to fade from memory. You can be the world’s darling one day and a forgotten soul the next.

I drifted with the tide of life, hitching rides and hopping trains, living off bad coffee and not much better pie at greasy, decrepit little diners, ravenously devouring candy bars and more daintily indulging myself with dishes of ice cream and strawberry sodas, sitting at drugstore counters leafing through magazines and watching the world go by without me. I told everyone who cared enough to ask that my name was Florence Graham. I got the idea from a box of crackers that was staring me in the face the day a lady asked my name in a little country grocery store.

Little by little, piece by piece, to pay for my food, hotel rooms, and train tickets, I pawned my jewelry and clothes, except for my pearls. Mama always said pearls were the emblem of a true lady, so I thought I should hold on to those; they just might be the anchor that kept me from sinking too far down in the world. But the rest were just a burden weighing me down when I wanted to be light and free as the air. I wanted my whole life to fit inside a single suitcase, to pick up and go as I pleased. I pawned my big, heavy trunks and cast all the couture confections out of my life, saying good-bye to all the easily wrinkled satins and silks, heavy, hard to clean velvets, and crinkled chiffons, opting instead for simple, serviceable clothes and sturdy shoes I could walk a mile or two or three in any day and practical hats to keep the sun from my eyes.

Of course the money eventually ran out and I had to find other ways to pay my way. I was still too proud in those days to sup in soup kitchens or ask the Salvation Army for a bed.

I pulled myself together for a time, persuaded a kindly landlady to launder and press my best black suit and white shirtwaist, polished my shoes, and pinned up my silver-streaked burned-butter hair in a neatly braided bun, put on my pearls, and got myself a job behind the gingham counter in a department store. They could tell I was a lady who had known better days and they were happy to have me. But I hated dealing with the customers—flighty, featherbrained, obnoxious, arrogant ladies who couldn’t make up their minds about the color or length of a simple thing like gingham. The customer is always right, even when they’re wrong, I had to constantly keep reminding myself. I couldn’t sleep nights for dreading what the next day would bring—I found those women insufferable, and I hated gingham and all that cutting and measuring, folding and packing, and writing out sales slips, always with a smile. I’d lie awake staring at the ceiling or the gradually lightening gray square of the window dreading the first true light of morning. And after I slept in once too often, they let me go. They weren’t paying me, after all, to waltz in whenever I pleased, at half past noon or even one fifteen, the manager said; some ladies are simply not suited to employment despite the reduced circumstances that compel them to pursue it.

Next I found a job peddling books and magazines door-to-door. That didn’t last long either; the Southern sun was hot, and I’d much rather sit in the shade and read them than try to sell them. In Georgia—or was it Iowa? I’m not altogether sure—a man with a chicken farm asked me to be his housekeeper. But I was woefully inadequate at that kind of thing, and just standing in the doorway, observing the inside of his house, which looked as though a hurricane had swept through it, made me feel weary and oppressed. And when I discovered that the free room and board he was offering meant sleeping in his bed I simply had to decline. Despite my slide into increasingly shabby circumstances, I was still rather fastidious, and I wasn’t sure which smelled worse—him or his chickens.

Like adding beads onto a string, there were a lot more little jobs along the way, some lasting a month or a week, maybe two if I could make myself stick, and some not even a whole day.

There was another time in another department store, during the Christmas season, I stood behind a counter in my good black suit and snow-white shirtwaist and pearls with a sprig of cheerful holly on my lapel and sold children’s toys. But the desperate gleam in my eyes and the way I knelt down and gazed hungrily into their faces and held their little hands as though I never wanted to let go frightened the children and disturbed their parents and I was let go. I encountered a similar predicament the week I spent working in a candy shop. My employer said I made the children nervous and I was caught giving certain boys extra portions too many times. “We sell candy; we don’t distribute it as charity,” he kept telling me, but it did no good. When I was staring mesmerized into a certain pair of chocolate-brown eyes and my fingers were twitching, itching to reach out and smooth back a careless fall of dark hair . . . toffee, licorice, and spice drops were the only way I could safely show my affection. Mr. Hershey’s were the only kisses I could give them.