And to that, Pearl doubled forward and laughed and laughed.
There was an intimacy to it all—the holding of hands, the whispering, the way their voices fused as they hummed. In the cave-like lunchroom, they could speak candidly, say things one might not say aloud otherwise, tell the stories as though observing some oddity or curiosity apart from themselves. Back at their stations on the factory floor, the Earthshine Girls resumed their distance. Later, Opal would pass them the cure.
In the kitchen of her rented apartment, Opal opened a window and set a pot to boil. The tenant upstairs had complained of the smell, and her landlord had given her a warning. Three more and she’d be evicted. Opal hadn’t a Bunsen burner or beakers or a pill press, so she made do with her stove and a casserole and some glassware. Steam from the boiling pans dampened her skin. When the concoction thickened, she strained it and let it cool. She’d been tinkering with the formula to improveupon it. An eighth of a gram more this. A fourth of a gram less that. Jagr’s formulas continually evolved. Good medicine, he’d said, requires persistence and humility. Precision meets failure. Adjust accordingly. While she waited, she made the necessary notations in the formulary. Then, at the top of the page she wrote it out—not a number, like Jagr had assigned each formulation—but a name: Comet Pills.
January 15, 1986
Interview with Jane Doe No. 4
ByThe Cincinnati Inquisitor
CI:Describe your experience with Earthshine Soap.
JANE DOE NO. 4:I took to cleaning with Earthshine the way an alcoholic takes to drink. Not with a passion, but with a need. I thought I loved Earthshine Soap, but it wasn’t love. My knees would dig into the linoleum. My arms would ache from working circles. My body hurt, but it felt good in a way, you know. All my friends complimented me on my apartment.I should hire you!they’d joke.
CI:Would you say the soap changed your life in any way?
JANE DOE NO. 4:The more I cleaned, the more I felt I needed to clean. Like a dopamine hit, only the high didn’t last. Toilets. Sinks. Counters. Baseboards. I couldn’t stand dirt. I scrubbed the damn walls. It was an addiction. I used to have dreams, aspirations. I used to think I’d be like Christa McAuliffe, that teacher going into space, you know? I used to think I’d be like the Earthshine Girl. She was adored by everyone. And I thought if I just made all the right choices—if I was good, and kept tidy, and worked hard, my life would click into place. But it never did.
As I got older, I started to have… urges. I’d think unclean thoughts. And whenever that happened, I bathed in Earthshine Soap, just like the Earthshine Girl does in that one commercial, the one where her dog jumps in the tub. I began to feel such emptiness, such melancholy. I was proud of my apartment, of the way I kept it. But I felt… Ibelievedthe only way to feel better was to hurt myself. And so I would [hurt myself].
CI:And what would you do?
JANE DOE NO. 4:[Silence]
CI:How do you know it was the soap?
JANE DOE NO. 4:What else could it be?
1986
Another love¯match shipwrecked… on the dangerous reef of half¯truths about feminine hygiene.
—LYSOL
We always look back to previous generations with smug self-satisfaction, becauseweknow better. In 1910, we say now, it was ridiculous to think the poisonous tail of the comet would suffocate the Earth. Back then, experts—scientists, some of them—convinced themselves that the noxious gas—cyanogen—from the comet’s tail would cause instant death to all who breathed it. The gas in the tail, as it turned out, was too diffuse to do harm. Follow the science, that’s what we say today, as though science is static, as though science itself isn’t limited by perspective.
Two weeks after Halley’s funeral, I met Charlie for lunch. His secretary, Carol, made us a reservation at the Riverview, a revolving restaurant atop a hotel tower in Covington, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati. I took the elevator to the top floor. The restaurant wasa circular galley, and it rotated on a central axis—not quickly enough to make you sick; it wasn’t an amusement ride.
Charlie stood when he saw me. Behind him was a view of the Ohio River, metal bridges that connected its two shores, high-rises that would look stumpy if compared to a larger city but from the Riverview appeared majestic. A barge floated up the river, and I remembered a field trip I’d taken to the public landing as a child. There they’d staged an old steamboat so we could see where passengers slept on the old Cincinnati Line, the one that sailed to the confluence of the Mississippi until it reached the Louisiana coast.
Charlie kissed my cheek, then hugged me tight, held me for a moment longer than I expected. He’d lost weight since I’d seen him last. He pulled back, then studied me, paused like he was trying to find the right words. “Let’s sit,” he said, finally.
We studied the menu in silence. We ordered coffee. By the time the saucers were set on the table, the steam rising from the cups in cursive shapes, Charlie spoke again.
“I’ve been going through her things,” he said. A pause, like a swell of water between us. “I found some photos of the two of you. I’ll have Carol send them.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
Charlie nodded. He took a deep breath. “I think I’ll have the soup,” he said.
Out the window, an American flag atop the Carew Tower whipped in the wind. Bertie had paid the city an undisclosed amount for permission to use the building in the opening and closing credits ofStars and Shadows.
Charlie stirred sugar into his coffee. His spoon tinked against the porcelain. “I’ve been to her apartment,” he said. “To gather a few personal effects. Things I wanted to keep.”
“That’s good.”
“I saw where it happened,” he said. “Where they found her.”Charlie could read the questions in my eyes, but I didn’t want to ask too much. What did the details matter anyway, now that she was gone?
