CHAPTER 10
•March 1918•
Maggie
I used to be good at mathematics.
I’m not as smart as Evie—no one is as smart as Evie—but I used to be able to do all my equations without needing help from anyone. Algebra is harder here in the city. Evie says that’s impossible, but I know it’s not.
Today won’t be the first day I walk across the street to ask Jamie or Mr. Sutcliff to help me with my math. Mama says I shouldn’t be going over to the Sutcliffs’ when I’m stuck on a problem when I can just have Evie show me, but asking my sister for help is like asking to be stung by bees. Somehow she makes me feel stupid. I don’t think she means to, but she does.
Jamie is better at helping me than his father is. Mr. Sutcliff is probably a good bookkeeper, but he’s not a very good math teacher. He can get the right answers, but he can’t tell me how he got them. Evie can tell me, but she makes me feel like a dummy. Jamie gets the right answers and can show me how he got them, and I never feel stupid. I don’t think Jamie even knows how to make someone feel bad.
As I grab my coat and algebra book to go across the street, Mama shouts not to stay too long from the kitchen, where she’s stuffing a chicken. She’s cooking all the food now. Mrs. Landry has been let go, saints be praised. I tell her I’ll be back soon.
She pokes her head around the entry to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “I mean it, Maggie. You’ve been over there twice already this week. They have a business to run.”
I don’t know why she needs to tell me this. I can count how many days I’ve gone across the street. And I know the Sutcliffs have a business to run. “I said I won’t stay too long.”
I step out onto the stoop before she can say anything else.
Late March in the city is different. In the country, there might be the faintest hints that spring is here, like a shoot of green grass or an early robin or the smell of the earth as it starts to wake up from a winter sleep. But that’s not how it is in the city. Snowflakes are swirling down on me like it’s November as I cross the boulevard. I know there are probably flurries in Quakertown at this moment, too, but there still could be that lone blade of new grass or the smell of field dirt despite the snow. In the city, you can’t tell anything’s just right around the corner.
When I open the door to Sutcliff Accounting, I can see through the windows of their little offices that Roland Sutcliff is busy with a client and that Jamie is not. Beatrice, their secretary, sits up front and answers their telephone and welcomes people when they come inside. She’s probably my grandmother’s age but with huge bosoms that practically rest on the top of her desk. She always wears toilet water that smells like a mix of mashed potatoes and roses, but she’s nice to me and never says, “You again?” when I come over with my algebra book. Behind her are Mr. Sutcliff’s and Jamie’s offices. A big stretch of windows separates her desk from the two offices, held up by wooden walls that come up to my waist, and the rest is glass. The doors to their offices are half wood and half window, too. Both Jamie and his father can see the front door from where they sit. You can hear their addingmachines from beyond the glass if they are working them when you step inside.
Beatrice says hello to me, and both men look up to see who it is that has come in. Mr. Sutcliff just glances up and then returns his attention to the client he is talking to. Mr. Sutcliff is a bit shorter than Jamie, and thick, like Charlie. His smile and voice are like Charlie’s, too. The top of his head is shiny and bare, like new skin after a sunburn, and the hair he has left rims the sides of his head like a wreath. Sometimes he will come over to the funeral parlor to go over Uncle Fred’s ledgers, and he’ll stay and they’ll both have one of Grandad’s cigars and maybe a glass of brandy.
Jamie smiles the tiniest bit when he looks up from his adding machine to see who has entered the business.
Beatrice casts a glance back at Jamie and then waves me through. She sees my algebra book.
“Again?” Jamie says, sounding like he’s annoyed, but I can tell he doesn’t really mind my being here. He might even like my little interruption. What he’s doing looks incredibly boring. I take a chair next to his.
“It’s not my fault. Algebra is hard.”
He closes a ledger and moves it to make room on his desk for my book. He bumps a linked trio of little model train cars painted blue, and they start to topple over. He reaches out to gently steady them. “What are you going to do about algebra when I’m gone?” he says with a warm smile.
I’ve been able to put off thinking about Jamie’s leaving for the army camp only until someone else brings it up. Usually it’s Dora Sutcliff, who nearly always starts to cry when she does, or Charlie, who I don’t think fully understands what it will be like for him when Jamie goes away. If Charlie isn’t over at our place or moving things around for Uncle Fred, he’s waiting for Jamie to be done with work so he can be with him.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” I say as sourly as I can, opening my book to the page I need help with.
“Hey, I’m the one who’s going to have to put up with terrible food, a cold cot, and getting up at dawn to march for miles on end.”
“Then don’t go.” I smooth out the page.
He finds this funny. He thinks I’m joking. I’m not. I don’t know much about this war, but I know it has nothing to do with me or Jamie or Philadelphia or even Pennsylvania. I’ve seen all the battleships that are being built on Hog Island. I’ve seen Uncle Fred’s magazines and files and his APL badge. I’ve seen the Pershing’s Crusaders posters all around the city. I’ve glanced at the newspaper headlines telling us how terrible the Kaiser is and how wonderful our brave soldiers are. I know there’s a war far away across the ocean. But it doesn’t mean anything to me.
Jamie stops laughing when he sees that I’m serious. “Don’t be glum, now. I’ll be back to help you with your math problems before you know it.”
My throat feels hot and thick with frustration, so I can’t ask him how he knows that.
He helps me with the first two problems, but he does all the talking, and I just sullenly nod as he explains things. I do the third problem on my own, solving it quickly.
“I think you’re getting it, Magpie,” he says.
A boy in Quakertown called me that once and I wanted to box his ears. But the nickname sounds sweet and precious when Jamie says it. I can’t help cracking a smile.
“So you’re not angry with me, then,” he says, smiling back at me.
