All this while, Maud found herself inexplicably mute after her outburst about the scarecrow. Since when did she find herself so witless? Maud, who always had something to say, Maud, who spoke even when it was more advisable to stay silent, suddenly found herself as silent as an aspidistra. Frank was standing close enough to her that she could catch his scent—sweat and greasepaint and wool—but still her tongue lay thick and useless in her mouth.
“Mr. Baum!” A short bald man, stuffed into a grubby tweed suit like a sausage into its casing, gestured to Frank from behind the scenery. “We need your assistance!”
“I’m terribly sorry!” Frank said to the Gages. “Please excuse me, but I want you to know that I’m deeply grateful that you came.”
Before he left, he said, “Good evening,” extending his hand to Papa, who grasped it and pumped it several times.
“It has been our pleasure. Seems like you’ve got a good business going here,” Papa said.
Maud watched her mother attentively. Mother appeared pleasant, as always; her cheeks had a hint of pink flush, making her look younger; and her manners, also as always, were cordial and kind. That she had enjoyed the play, Maud had no doubt; but whether this had swayed her in the young man’s favor was impossible to tell.
He gallantly held out his hand to Matilda and said, “I hope to see you all again soon.”
The stagehand gestured again urgently, and Frank’s eyes darted toward him as he started to back away. In a moment, he would disappear behind the black curtains that formed the backdrop of the stage.
But just as he was about to duck behind the curtains and disappear, Matilda called out, “You must come visit us at our home in Fayetteville.”
“I would not stay away,” Frank said as he bounded away from them backward, waving his hand merrily as he went, until he tripped over a guy line bolted to the floor, sending the wooden set into a paroxysm of shuddering above them. He managed to right himself in such a comical manner that Maud burst out laughing, and at last regaining her composure, which had fled her at the first sight of him, she called out after him, “Goodbye!”
In a moment, he was gone, and Maud came down to earth, where she noticed that Julia had raised an eyebrow and was staring at her with a merry look on her face. Maud could read her sister’s expression well enough to know that Julia had divined the true state of her emotions.
All the way back to Fayetteville, Maud was silent, but she felt immersed in a glow, as if a trailing fire of limelight had come along, flickering along behind them, leaving a bright tail of sparkles in the darkness.
In a matter of days, Frank would pack up the costumes and sets and take to the road. The tour was winding down, but the show had garnered such success that he was going to spend a week in New York City—on Broadway itself! It was as if Frank Baum had flung open a door and allowed Maud to peer through it, and what was on the other side was a magical land, all heightened colors and remarkable illusions, and that pathway led to something that, Maud suddenly realized, she wanted more than anything: freedom. It dawned on her that she and Julia shared the same deep yearning. Like convicts in adjoining cells who whispered feverishly through the bars to each other about their impending jailbreak, they were both longing to escape.
* * *
—
IT WAS LATE MAY, and Maud was packing her trunk, preparing to leave Sage College for the long summer break. The window to her dorm room was flung open, and a spring-scented breeze floated in. Outside, Cayuga Lake glittered, a jeweled blue, ringed by trees crowned by minty fluttering wreaths of new leaves. Maud folded up the yellow dress she had worn on her first night, a tightness aching at her throat. What high hopes she had had back then, as she’d descended Sage’s broad staircase in her elegant frock, her new friend Josie at her side. But that memory had been irreparably colored by what had followed—the high-spirited dancing that had been just the beginning of her troubles here. Maud had carried a heavy mantle upon arriving—the hopes and dreams of Mother and her friends, their lifelong fight for women’s equality, of which Maud’s diploma was to be a shining symbol.
Maud had nursed her own secret dreams, however: of bursting out of the confines of other people’s expectations, of finding her own strengths and her own ambitions. Being mothered by one of America’s most outspoken women made it hard for Maud to find a voice all her own. Yet she had to admit to herself that in this respect, her first year away from home had been a failure. Her academic marks were excellent. She was progressing toward her mother’s cherished diploma. But somehow Sage College had ended up feeling even more cloistered and stuffy than her life at home. Even worse, Maud had yet to discover her own passion—something that burned from inside her, not the handed-down deferred dreams of the previous generation. If she asked herself what this quest for a diploma was for, she could give herself no answer.
Room emptied, goodbyes given, trunk loaded onto the train, Maud once more watched the quilt of towns and fields pass, and the closer to Fayetteville she got, the more she realized that she was shrinking, smaller and smaller, until soon she would fit in the palm of her mother’s hand.
* * *
—
AND INDEED, WITHIN A week of Maud’s arrival back home, the walls of the Gage house seemed to be closing in on her. She received letters from school friends reporting on vacations filled with boating parties, picnics, and travel, but Maud had no time for fun. Papa’s health had declined rapidly over the past few months, and Julia, who was no doubt worn out from nursing him, promptly fell ill with a prolonged sick headache, leaving the running of the household to Maud. Mother was distracted and cranky—with Papa no longer able to run the store, she worked feverishly on her writing, hoping to bring money into the household from royalties. Maud heard the sound of her mother’s fountain pen scratching until late into the evening. Money was short, and it pained Maud to realize how much the family had been sacrificing to make her studies possible—and how little she was able to appreciate it.
But then, in late June, Maud received a letter from Josie with an interesting piece of news. Frank Baum’s play on Broadway had closed after just a few days. He was returning to Syracuse and planned to remain for the rest of the summer before heading back out on the road. Josie hinted that his decision might have had something to do with his desire to see Maud again. The hope of spending time with Frank made the household drudgery more bearable, until at last a date was set for him to call at the Gage home, on the second Sunday of July. Maud took pains to hide her excitement from Mother—fearing that if Matilda sensed the true state of Maud’s emotions, she’d do more to discourage his visits—but there was no hiding from Julia, who watched and clucked as Maud tried and discarded different dresses and fussed with her hair. Maud remembered her awkwardness during their encounter at the theater, and the oddity of their conversation in the cloakroom at Cornell. This time, she was determined to show herself as cool and collected.
Maud was waiting for Frank to arrive when she was distracted by a soft vibration, like a finely plucked string, that sounded as if it was coming from upstairs. In the front-facing bedroom, the sound grew louder. Now it sounded like a strangled cry. She looked around the bedroom, even peering under the bed, but the room was empty. Maud realized that it was coming from outside the open window. She leaned out and saw a calico kitten, swaying on a spindly branch of the dogwood tree, mewling pitifully.
“Poor kitty,” Maud purred, stretching an arm out the window. The kitten, which looked to be only a few months old—just barely weaned—was almost within her grasp. Leaning as far as she dared out the second-story window, she could touch the tip of the branch where the kitten was clinging for dear life. Maud angled herself a bit more and grabbed hold of the foliage that was within reach, but the twigs snapped, leaving her with a handful of green leaves.