There remained one month paid on her rent when she began to throw up, not just upon awakening but throughout the day. Her meager earnings from the White Way kept her fed—though now with the nausea she ate little—kept the heat going, but would not by any means pay the rent. Disoriented as she felt, Alice would have to find another place to live. Somewhere like the one-room flat she’d had before Howard. No, then she had been at Carson Pirie Scott & Company with a regular wage. Now she had perhaps half that much to cover everything, and the source of even that much was erratic and not to be counted on. What would she do? The only places she could afford would be far from the White Way, a far longer walk or the expense of a streetcar.
Without warning, she found herself yearning for home; for the wide expanses of the plains; for her hands touching her mother’s, working some fancy stitch; even for her less than affectionate brothers. Suddenly she felt those brothers grab her, hold her hands behind her, felt one of them jerk her feet from under her, and down she went, with the splat of the mud and a hand on her head. She felt the sudden suffocation, heard the laughter as her mouth filled with mud. Then the sudden release when they let go and ran off in gales of laughter. And yet it had been home. With a wide horizon and the sky in all directions.
*
In the small windows of free time she could find while working on the alterations, Alice mounted the streetcar with a leftover newspaper the boy at the corner was always happy to slip to her. Her search for new housing felt futile. She returned to her previous building, with its one-room housing that she might afford, but nothing was available. She followed the landlord’s suggestions, but to the same dead ends. Clutching the paper tightly, she pursued the notices with determination, but without success. A woman in one building pointed her finger in the general direction of a tenement settlement not far off.
Alice shook her head and walked away dejected. She knew already what was to be found there; she had naively ventured into one of the many scattered tenement areas of Chicago when she first arrived. It had been as dreadful as she might have envisioned: small wooden dwellings crowded against each other, with no foundations and an obvious lack of indoor sanitation. The air had been rank with the odor of human waste. Unwashed children eying her curiously, stray dogs barking and sniffing.
Not knowing where else to turn, Alice mounted the streetcar. Filled with defeat, a bout of nausea assailed her.
The days came and went. Alice sewed. Made her careful trips to and from the White Way. Read the seemingly useless housing notices in the day-old papers the sweet young newsboy continued to give her, though some bitterly cold days he was missing. One clear day Alice mounted the streetcar on another determined mission, not in search of housing, but in search of Howard himself. Why had she not thought of this before? Had she been too afraid of finding him? What limitations, what barriers had she imposed on herself out of the habits of womanhood? She would go to the cotton exchange. She would find Howard’s brokerage extention. She would confront him.
Alice dismounted a block from the imposing building of the Chicago Board of Trade. The architecture appeared Gothic to her: the towering structure, the huge arched windows, which forced her to crane her neck as she approached along LaSalle Street. On her left rose the elegant Grand Pacific Hotel, which was appropriately named. Its size and grandeur stunned her. Thoroughly intimidated, Alice took a deep breath, raised her head, and continued toward her destination, now in view. On her right, the Royal Insurance Building rose to its also appropriately described skyscraping heights. In one window an ad promoted deposit vaults for silverware, papers, and jewelry. In another a large poster touted Revell’s Furniture Store at Wabash and Adams. A sign on a Grand Pacific Hotel column promoted the Grand Pacific Café. Alice shook her head; none of those were of any use to her. She had envisioned nothing so grandiose.
The building where Howard worked dominated the corner and had multiple entrances, which left her confused. The place was more intimidating by far for this simple plains woman than anything she had ever encountered. And this was her husband’s familiar working environment. How much of him had she not known? Alice wandered around the corner. Her amazement was compounded as she approached the primary entrance, two stories high. At its apex were the extraordinary sculptures of the goddesses of industry and agriculture, who stood amid the draped folds of their gowns, each flanked by the symbols of her domain. Alice, unlike her uneducated brothers, had grown up with the luxury of reading with her mother. She recognized Ceres instantly, sheaves of grain on her left, her right hand atop an abundant cornucopia. This was the mother who had sacrificed all else to bring her missing daughter home. She thought about how her own mother had sacrificed to send Alice out into what she had envisioned as a better life.
At last, she lowered her gaze. Her anxiety rose with every step. She hesitated at the entrance, ready to turn back. But this was where her husband worked. For that reason, she had everything to do with just this place. The ornate door opened. Two gentlemen deep in discourse exited, but then one of them noticed her and stood back, holding the door open for her. She had no option but to enter.
“Thank you,” she said with a slight curtsy and moved into the main hall.
It took her breath away. Nothing in her entire experience had been so grand: the soaring space, with its glass ceiling high above her; the walls alternately adorned with large windows and massive marble columns topped by ponderous capitals, cornices, and brackets; arched stained-glass windows interspersed with appropriate frescoes. How difficult it was to return her attention to the crowded interior, which buzzed with the voices of men stirring and gathered like a cluster of bees. Yet all of them seemed diminished by the scale of this structure!
It was only with difficulty that she mustered the courage to ask one person, then another for directions to the office of the cotton exchange and the four huge elevators, one of which she had to take to find Howard. If he were to be found. She gave the elevator operator the floor number and stepped back, trying to make herself invisible among the men. The elevator was packed with them, all finely dressed and talking business among one another. How odd that she should notice the fabric and the cut of their jackets on a mission such as this! It was almost reflexive for her, given her expertise and experience. A way to distract myself, she thought. Her stomach lurched when the elevator stopped and started at each floor. I can’t throw up, she told herself. Don’t do it, don’t. Don’t do it! She swallowed the bitter bile as it rose in her throat.
Her relief at exiting the elevator, squeezing her way out from among the men, was short-lived. Now she had to open the door to the cotton exchange. She had to face some secretary there. She had to open her mouth and ask for Mr. Howard Butterworth, please.
“Howard Butterworth? I’m sorry, miss. We have no one by that name in this office. Could someone else be of assistance to you?”
“You have no one by that name. Are you certain? Look again, please. He works between here and the Memphis office. I’m sure he must be here.”
“No, miss.” The starched young woman ran her finger down a catalogued list of names. “There is no Howard Butterworth in our records. I am personally acquainted with all the gentlemen in this exchange, and I assure you, we have no one by that name in our employ.”
“I know he is here,” Alice insisted. “He is my husband.”
“He may well be your husband, ma’am. But he is affiliated neither with the cotton exchange nor with this office in any capacity. Would you care to examine the list yourself? Or may I help you with anything else, before you leave?”
Alice stared at the woman’s unrelenting face. After a moment reality entered her body, and shock numbed her. There would be no verification here. No more than with the police. The Howard Butterworth she knew as her husband did not exist.
In defeat, but with whatever remaining dignity she managed to find, she nodded to the secretary. “Thank you.” Alice put her hand on the cold metal doorknob, then turned back to the young woman. “You have been quite helpful.”