When she crossed the street, she saw them, the Earthshine Girls, on the steps of the factory, but they weren’t alone. Others had joined the strikers now, holding up signs like advertisements, like proof of their righteousness. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The local chapter of the Women’s Trade Union League. The National Woman Suffrage Association. Some women stood in uniforms, others in dresses and jackets.OUR EMPLOYERS HAVE WEALTH; WE HAVE THE POWER OF REPRODUCTION, one picket sign read, and at that moment Opal felt a fleeting sense of her own magnitude, with her child growing like a miracle inside her. If she could create a life—this life—what else could she create? What else might she do? She was growing; shewas multiplying. In just two weeks she’d receive the Dowd money, and then she’d cross the Atlantic Ocean and leave all this behind. The waters would be vast and blue and open, just like the sky. She imagined herself leaning out over the rail, water misting her face, and it’d feel a little bit like flying. Would she think of these women then? Of this life she willed into existence?
Would she think of her evening with the Colonel, how they’d fallen asleep holding hands, and how, in the first light of the morning, he called her Hazel Grouse, and she’d answered to that name? Later, he insisted on driving her home himself, and by the time they reached the city limits, she’d noticed in him a hard-to-place aloofness she might have mistaken for guilt or regret.
A group of newspapermen moved toward the front of the crowd, toward Gilly, whose limbs stretched out like a starfish. Betsy and Maria worked quickly to wrap a thick chain link around her middle, up and under then over her shoulders. In seconds, she was fastened to the door.
“Nobody goes in until our demands are met,” Maria shouted through the megaphone. However, Opal knew another way in, down through the old beer caves and up through the memorabilia room—the way Bertie had shown her.
Betsy noticed Opal standing near the empty planters by the curb, and waved her over to join them. Betsy smelled of cigarettes. She handed her picket sign over to Opal, then held her rounded belly, as pregnant women do, like it was a ball that may drop and bounce away.
“How’s the baby?” Opal asked. She rested the sign over her shoulder. Together, they began to walk the picket line.
Betsy laughed. “The world’s ending and you ask about the baby,” she said.
“You believe all that?” asked Opal.
“Why wouldn’t I? I read about it every day in the papers.”
In the papers, historians noted that the comet in the year 1066signaled the overthrow of King Harold II by William the Conqueror, while the 1456 apparition marked the Siege of Belgrade. Some scientists theorized that with each orbit, Halley’s became smaller in mass and would someday either split in two or be expelled from the universe.
Where does one go when expelled from the universe? And can one return? Can a machine make it so? Look at all the machines that had failed: the factory boilers, the soap plodder. At least once a week the conveyor belt ran off its track and jammed. Just two years ago, Orville Wright’s airship fell from the sky, and he was gravely injured. His passenger died.
Betsy stopped walking for a moment, so Opal stopped, too. “We can stand here all day and scream as loud as we want, but it’s like screaming in the dark to stop the morning from coming. The sun will rise either way.” The day was gray but bright, and a light patch in the clouds revealed the sun’s efforts. Betsy looked toward the sky. “It’s up there, somewhere, isn’t it? Halley’s. Makes one feel so small and useless. I think, what kind of world is this for a baby anyway, especially if she’s a girl. Nothing’s ever going to change.” She held her middle and bounced on her toes, as though she was lulling the baby to sleep in the bassinet of her womb.
Opal refused to believe that nothing could change. Look at her own life; she’d transformed it in just a matter of months when before she’d have thought it impossible. “Why are you here?” Opal asked. “If you think nothing will change?”
“I’m supposed to want these things,” she said. A wagon pulled forward, and another group of women got out to join the crowd. They wore white dresses, large-brimmed hats that looked more appropriate for the Kentucky Derby.
Across the way, Maria shouted through her megaphone.Our bodies, our soap.Betsy bumped Opal playfully with her shoulder, and Opal picked up her pace.
At the edge of the picketers stood Amanda Mahooney. Amandatwirled a ring on a chain she wore around her neck, a new ring with a bright green emerald, rumored to be a gift from Charles Tuttle. Who knew the man had such a tender heart? He’d read poetry to her. Keats.Can death be sleep when life is but a dream?She’d recited the line to the other girls, doing her best to convince everyone of his humanity, despite his unwillingness to meet their demands. She stood on her toes, scanning the crowd, as if expecting someone. And there he was, Tuttle himself, materializing in a tan suit. He removed his top hat. He motioned for Maria to hand over the megaphone, and, reluctantly, she did.
“Ladies,” Tuttle boomed, and then he adjusted his volume so he wouldn’t appear to be yelling. “Let’s be reasonable.”
“It’s too late, Mr. Tuttle.” Maria looked more vibrant than Opal had ever seen her. Her skin glowed; she pulled her shoulders back, square, stiff. The Earthshine Girls stood behind her like mutinous foot soldiers in their white uniforms.
Now another man pushed his way forward. He stood not quite to Tuttle’s shoulder and resembled something of a German schnauzer. Tuttle’s lawyer. He raised his camera to eye level, and Opal covered her face. “I’m only documenting, ladies,” he said. The camera hissed as he wound it. “Now,” he said, hanging it around his neck and removing a small notebook from his pocket. “You claim your work conditions are unsafe and dangerous. Let’s address that first, shall we? It’s hot, I understand. Perhaps we can bring in more fans.” The Earthshine Girls began shouting again, and the man took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.
“Girls, girls,” Tuttle said. “Please. Listen. We’ve given you jobs. We’ve given you independent wages. Some factories wouldn’t even hire you. Have you heard the floor manager complain? Or the machine operators? No. You get paid for women’s work. At the end of the day, you go home to your husbands and children, to your families who need you.”
“Get to your point!” Maria yelled.
“I’m willing to raise your weekly wages. Fifty cents,” he said. Silence, at first. The women didn’t know how to react, so they looked toward one another. None of the picketers spoke. The lawyer zapped his camera a few more times. Betsy saluted him with her middle finger.
From somewhere within the crowd of women, someone hurled a bar of soap toward the men. They ducked to avoid it. Then, all at once, more women began hurling cakes in their direction.
“My girls, my girls!” Tuttle said, still hunched in a protective position.
“We are not your girls,” Maria yelled, then the crowd picked up on it, chanting in unison.We are not your Earthshine Girls. We are not your Earthshine Girls.
The women didn’t stop. The men raised their hands over their heads to protect themselves, and Tuttle lifted the megaphone one last time. His voice was not unkind, almost marveling: “Leave it to a woman to make a weapon out of soap!”
THE FOLLOWING WEEK, BETSY WASnot at the picket line, and by lunchtime came the news. Her baby had come early. She’d given birth to it in the bathtub of her apartment; the baby never cried.
“They said it looked like a potato with fingers and toes,” Maria said, because she’d talked to Betsy’s cousin. Betsy bled out in the tub, right there with her baby. By the time her husband found her, she was unconscious.
Laid out on the bed were her Earthshine dress and apron. Inside the pocket the police found a tin of Comet Pills. She died at the hospital a few hours later. She’d lost too much blood.
The picket line came to a stop. Nobody chanted. Nobody held their signs. A newspaper man asked if the strike was over, or if they’d agreed to Tuttle’s new terms, and Maria told him the women were on hiatus from the strike, but she didn’t elaborate. In front of the factory, the mood was somber. Gilly wept. Pearl’s legs grew weak and fell out from under her. Maria did her best to console the other women. Everyone set down their signs and sat on the pavement.
