How much more she might have said. Philip had been packed off to boarding school before she had even been born. For years they’d rarely seen each other, and then across a gulf of grievances. Appointed her guardian after Lena’s death, because there had been no one else, he’d dispatched her to her own exile of schools, travels, and so on. For the next twelve years they’d exchanged only the most intermittent and efficient courtesies, in the end from separate continents.
“I’m temporarily staying with him, but I’ll have my own place as soon as I find an apartment that will accommodate Capriole.”
Austen pushed away his empty bowl. Leaning an elbow on the table, he propped up his head. “I have to ask. Fraternizing with a Jew would be verboten to some girls. It doesn’t seem to bother you, but would your brother object?”
The question disheartened her. She answered to no one, particularly in respect to whom she could or could not befriend. Surely they were both well past the age of family approval. She shook her head, as much to dismiss the question as to answer it.
Her dismay deepened to see Austen’s dark eyes swim with a new warmth. “Russell Coates was squiring you about last fall. Is he still in the picture? I mean, are you free?”
Oh dear. Julia felt her cheeks cloud. While it was true she’d enjoyed a few lovely outings with Russell, their pleasure in each other’s company stemmed mostly from a shared love of books. As Julia was often the only woman in bibliophilic circles, her book friends were invariably men—but not de facto prospective lovers. Why would people always hobble friendship between the sexes with romantic expectations?
Much as she liked Austen, whatever romantic feelings she might have harbored for him—mild to weak, she realized in that instant—withered in the glare of what his question assumed. Austen was, perhaps unknowingly, in search of a wife. As far as Julia could tell, marriage was a bargain in which the woman paid dearly for dubious benefits. Ready as she was to again enjoy a man’s company, Julia would never relinquish her freedom for it. She must be as free within love as without it.
“He’s in New Mexico, I believe. I’m not attached, if that’s what you’re asking. And I have no wish to be. I much prefer life without corsets of any kind.”
Curiosity lit his smile. “Très moderne, Mizz K.,” he said, in a voice thick with a charming huskiness. “Très moderne.”
As she expected, the light was on in Julia’s bedroom when she returned. Christophine would be sitting upright on the bed, notions and bits of fabric spread out around her. For years that had been how she liked to work, and the bed in the maid’s room here was too narrow. The initial inconvenience had quickly become a companionable pleasure, reminiscent of those distant days when the top-floor nursery had been their private domain. Julia made two weak gin fizzes (which was all Christophine would drink) at the library trolley and joined her.
Christophine mumbled a greeting through lips bristling with pins. She was freshening a hat; already she had a new gentleman friend to impress. Every Sunday she stepped out with friends at the Church of the Freedom Road to Glory Everlasting, a dozen jubilant West Indians who met twice a week above a barbershop in Brooklyn. Her new gentleman was a fellow Trinidadian named Calvin Otto, a widower with two grown daughters.
“Divine,” Julia said about the hat, setting Christophine’s glass on the bedside table.
“Hmmm,” Christophine agreed as she laid the hat aside and transferred the pins to her left cuff. She sipped her drink, then yelped. Eyes wide, she exclaimed that she’d forgotten to get fresh eggs for tomorrow morning.
The mention of domestic duties startled Julia as well. She waved it away, reminded of her earlier observation about Negroes disappearing from white minds beneath invisible roles as maids, porters, and such. She hadn’t immediately thought of Christophine at the time, remembering her only tardily on reflection. In truth she rarely thought of Christophine as either a Negro or domestic help. Was that good or bad? She did pay attention to her, often deeply, but how much did she truly register of Christophine’s life, her hopes and fears and all else she held close inside herself?
She sat on the edge of the bed and lifted one of Fee’s feet, rubbing her thumb along the arch, where an ache often settled after a long day. “If you could change anything in your life, Fee, what would it be?”
“More hands,” she joked as she resumed sewing, needle moving in smooth arcs above her lap. “Or better toes.” She nudged Julia with her free foot.
“I’m serious.”
“Why you be serious? My life be fine, thank you.” Then her needle paused. “Why?” She studied Julia’s face.
“I’ve been thinking about last night’s frock, how people noticed it. Your talents are wasted doing housework when you could be doing this.” Julia stroked the hat’s embroidered brim.
Swift currents glinted beneath Christophine’s dark eyes. Julia was prepared for the usual skepticism but went on when she heard none. “We can find someone else to help with the household when we’re settled again.”
Still Christophine said nothing. Julia massaged her other foot. “You know there’s nothing you’d rather be doing or that you’re better at.”
Joy flared in Fee’s eyes. She loved compliments as much as anyone.
“You’re a modiste,” Julia said. “Or you could be, if you accepted clients.” They’d often danced around this point in the past, each time Christophine yearning for more to do but then drawing back in fear of public scrutiny.
Christophine took in a sharp breath, a Scandinavian tic she’d learned from Julia’s mother. It was an emphatic but also reluctant yes. Agreeing and resisting in one gulp of air.
“I have my best job already,” she
