Escape Artist

became serious when I left those strong walls.

I loved the old school. On the wide auditorium stage where the school’s amateur theatrical society still mounted bowdlerized Shakespeare and creaky classics like Anna Mowett’s Fashion, I’d excelled at oratory and dramaturgy; my thunderous rendition of “The Man Without a Country” sailed over the acoustical heaven until I was woefully intoxicated with my own performance. Up there on that high school stage, up there, the lead role in A Scrap of Paper no less, the embryonic actress; and now, down there in the subterranean vault of the Crescent office. To the depths.

We walked into the building, greeted Miss Hepplewhyte, the secretary, who sat eagle-eyed by the front door, chronicler of tardiness and noise levels; errand runner, mistress of the moral accusation, finger pointer at any mischievous lad. “Perhaps, Miss Ferber, your hat is a little too showy for civics,” she’d suggested during my freshman year, a line I enjoyed repeating. She nodded at us.

But before Esther and I could maneuver past this unofficial sentry to Principal Hippolyte Jones’ office where we’d be welcomed by the overflowing man who looked like Santa Claus with his enormous belly and his white whiskers-St. Nicholas with a pince-nez, my mother described him once-we met Homer Timm, barreling out of his side office.

“Well, well, well. Fresh from a scintillating night at the Lyceum.” He bowed to Esther but not to me.

Homer Timm was dressed in the same shiny black broadloom suit he’d worn to the theater. While Principal Jones cared not a jot that I roamed the corridors during class time, Vice-Principal Timm cared a little too much, though he often masked his displeasure with his mechanical smile. He shared that smile with me now.

“I’m afraid Principal Jones is in a meeting with the mayor.” He slipped back into his office and returned with some scribbled sheets. “Here. The cast of the graduation production of The College Widow. Performance dates.” He frowned. “Satire should be off limits for school students.”

“And why is that?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Next year, perhaps, Weber and Fields doing Hoity-Toity.”

He bowed slightly. “Only if you return as our star.”

He turned away, leaving us standing there. I looked at Esther who was suppressing a fit of giggles, so we hurried out of the building.

We sat on a bench outside the front entrance, with me scribbling some notes about the Ladies Temperance Society Silver Medal Contest to be held at the Company G Armory. Esther nudged me and pointed. I looked up. “What?”

“Look.”

An ungainly man lumbered up the sidewalk toward the front entrance of the school. He paused to catch his breath, adjusting the coat that fit him poorly, and checked a watch fob. He shuffled with a pronounced limp, dragging a deadened leg as though pulling a stubborn tree trunk. Esther shrank back, hunched her shoulders, birdlike. The man slumped by, his leaden foot thudding on the wooden stairs.

“Tell me,” I whispered. “Why is he here?”

Because, of course, I recognized Christ Lempke, a German immigrant who’d been wounded in the Spanish- American War. He’d been a farmer and mill worker living in a ramshackle homestead out on Bay Road, a genial man, friendly even. But the brief, splendid war had changed that. Returned home with a shattered leg and a dull, spiritless heart, he became a bitter man who hid away on the bleak farm. At the Fourth of July parade he looked unhappy, unresponsive to all the flag waving and firecrackers and hip-hip-hurrah. I always thought it odd that he even showed up.

Esther leaned in. “He brings Frana to school in the morning and collects her in the afternoon. He’s like her… warden. She can’t leave the school grounds, even for midday meal.”

Frana Lempke, like Kathe Schmidt, was another casual friend of Esther-and another pretty girl that I had little use for. Frana had a small speaking part in A Scrap of Paper, and, to my horror, garnered slavish attention from the giddy, applauding boys. Only rarely did Frana join Esther and other young people for boating excursions on the Fox because her family kept a close eye on her. Most times when Esther organized these breezy outings I chose not to go along, for I felt too much radiance coming off Frana and Esther, even off the annoying Kathe. Three beauties, and me. So I stayed home with a book.

Frana, a senior, sometimes worked for Esther’s mother during spring housecleaning or during the late- summer canning season. Frankly, I thought her too pretty and flighty to be allowed near pressure-cooked fruit and vegetables. Frana strolled down College Avenue warbling “I’m Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage” in a shrill soprano, which turned heads. She told perfect strangers that she intended to become a famous actress, an obvious ploy to get attention from the simpering, foolish men of the town who gazed long at her buxom farm-girl body, too mature for such a young girl. And one so ethereally fair-haired and blue-eyed. A girl, I felt, destined to collect dirty dishes in the dining rooms of the Sherman House.

“For Heaven’s sake, why is her uncle escorting her?”

“Well,” Esther confided, “I only just learned this. But you know how old-fashioned the Lempkes are. They’re German Puritans or something.”

“There’s no such thing, Esther.”

“Like Mennonites maybe.”

I got impatient. “So what? They’re strict Catholics. Does it matter?”

“Well, I guess someone told Frana’s father that Frana has been seeing someone.”

“For land’s sake, Esther, we aren’t living in the Dark Ages.”

“No, no. She’s been sneaking out after dark. And it’s an older man.” Esther waited, delirious.

I sat up. “Who?”

“Frana won’t say. No one knows. She told her father-so I heard-that she’s gonna marry him. He’s gonna take her to New York.”

“But who is it?”

“I told you, she won’t say, but someone said she was chatting with one of those annoying drummers staying at the Sherman House.”

I understood. How many times I’d sauntered by the popular hotel where itinerant salesmen, bored from their travels, abandoned their worn sample cases and lingered on the veranda, cigar smoke circling their heads, heads swiveling back and forth as they watched the town girls. Or wandered outside after a leisurely massage at the Turkish baths, flushed and friendly, brazenly flirting with the maidens of the town. Innocent enough perhaps, but annoying. And most were genteel, proper sorts, these lonely men missing wives or girlfriends. Now and then one of them, sloshy with foamy beer or an extra whiskey in the belly, muttered some indiscreet remark. Even a bold invitation. But seldom. The hosteller was too rigid to allow loose and lascivious behavior; any condemned drummer, cardboard suitcase in hand, samples tucked under armpits, was booted out.

“But surely she can’t be interested in any of those men,” I insisted. “I mean, no one takes them seriously.”

“Smooth talkers, they are. And glib.”

“Well, Frana is a foolish sort…”

“An innocent.” Esther looked at me. “I know you don’t care for her.”

“She’s vain and empty-headed,” I blurted out. “She draws attention to herself. I saw her singing…”

“Just because she’s so pretty.” Esther had a malicious twinkle in her eye.

“Prettiness has nothing to do with it, Esther.” I was hot now. “She shakes those blond tresses and expects the earth to stop its rotation.”

“Anyway, Edna, her puritan family has imprisoned her. Locked her up. I mean, the uncle walks her to school in the morning and is there”-she pointed to the empty doorway-“in the afternoon.”

“I wouldn’t stand for it.”

“You’re not Frana, Edna. What can she do? My mother said…” The door opened and the students started to file out.

Though I glanced at them, I focused on Esther. “Tell me, what does Frana say about this?”