Aron snorted. “Where are we going to get a movie camera? Who’s gonna pay for that? Vitagraph Studios? They have pictures to make with Clara Bow. They’re not going to bring trouble on themselves making newsreels for socialists about immigrant workers they don’t see as Americans—or even as people.”
“I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” Mabel snapped.
Aron chuckled and put up his hands. “Now, don’t get mad—”
“Too late. I’m already there,” Mabel said.
Gloria put out her cigarette and linked her arm through Mabel’s. “Hear, hear, Mabel. You boys act like you run the revolution. If you think we’re going to iron your shirts while you spout slogans, you’re all wet.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth,” Aron grumbled.
Mabel ignored him. “What if I could get us a camera?”
Gloria arched an eyebrow. “You have an uncle at Vitagraph?”
Mabel smiled. “Let’s just say that I know someone who has a talent for borrowing.”
“We need guns, not film,” Aron grumbled.
“Just like them?” Mabel shot back. She’d seen this argument unfold at countless meetings. There was always one organizer eager to escalate the fight. “My mother says the minute we pick up guns we become the enemy we’re fighting.”
Aron scoffed. “Your mother, your mother. Do you have your own thoughts?”
Mabel’s cheeks burned. “Yes. I’m having a thought about you just now.”
“Nobody’s picking up a gun. And we’re not here to fight with one another,” Arthur said, staring at Aron until he looked away.
“Sorry, Mabel,” Aron mumbled.
“Thank you,” Mabel said.
Arthur smiled at Mabel. “All right, then. Mabel Rose, you are officially the director of the Secret Six motion picture division. Now, let’s talk about the rally for Sacco and Vanzetti downtown tomorrow.…”
They talked well past suppertime, and Mabel found herself growing more excited by the hour. It was so different from the museum. There, she felt out of place. She had no special powers like Evie and the others. Her place was firmly rooted in fighting the evils of this world, and there were plenty of them to fight. That’s what the Secret Six was about—changing the world for good. For fairness. For justice. That, she was realizing, was something she could do, something she had to do.
As the others trickled out, Mabel stayed behind. She was alive with a sense of purpose, and she didn’t want to put that excitement away just yet. She began gathering plates.
“You don’t have to clear the dishes, you know,” Arthur said as Mabel loaded the tiny, chipped sink with sudsy water.
“I know,” Mabel said, smiling. She removed her gold watch and laid it on the drainboard.
Arthur whistled. “That doesn’t look like a socialist’s watch.”
“It was a gift from my grandmother,” Mabel said, somewhat apologetically.
“Ah, yes. The famous Newells of the Social Register, one of New York’s oldest and wealthiest families.” Arthur shook his head and dried the clean plate Mabel had handed him. “Must be strange. Do you ever see your mother’s family?”
“At Christmas. And on my grandmother’s birthday.”
“I’ve always wondered: What’s it like with the very rich?”
What was it like? When Mabel visited Nana Newell, white-aproned servants moved in and out of the rooms silently with tiered plates of finger sandwiches and hot coffee in china cups. Everyone in the house called her Miss Mabel. Her confident mother seemed to shrink in that huge house. Often, the visits ended with Mabel’s grandmother silent, offended, and Mabel’s mother in angry tears. Mabel did love the house, though. She couldn’t help running a finger across the shining, monogrammed silver or admiring the well-polished grand piano. Mabel had always wanted to take lessons, but there hadn’t been money for it, and Mabel’s mother felt that such pastimes were too closely aligned with the idle rich. It was better, in her mother’s mind, for Mabel to have a solid education.
“She always serves petits fours,” Mabel said after a pause.
Arthur grinned. “Well, I suppose that’s something. Do you love your grandmother?”
“Well, I really love her petits fours.”
Arthur barked out a laugh, which made Mabel laugh, too.
“What about your family?” she asked.
For the first time, Arthur seemed sad. “I grew up poor.” He gestured to the cramped, leaky garret. “Now I live in luxury. Petits fours all the time.” He reached into the soapy water for a cup and his fingers brushed Mabel’s.
Mabel’s cheeks flushed. She kept her eyes on her task.
“My mother died when I was five. My father when I was eight. My older brother, Paul, raised me after that. I went to school till I was eleven, and then I left school and worked in the textiles factory with him. Twelve hours a day. It was Paulie who started the Secret Six.”
Mabel passed Arthur a cup. “He did?”
Arthur nodded.
“Where is your brother now?”
“In prison.” Arthur wiped the towel across the coffee cup with care. “He was tired of seeing friends living in two-room shacks with their families while management fat cats lived well. The Bureau was after him for every little thing—he couldn’t walk to the corner store for bread without being followed. He got fed up. So he sent a bomb to a congressman. The congressman’s secretary opened the package, though. It blew off her hands.”
Mabel grimaced, imagining the poor secretary. It was all coming back to her now. “I remember. It was in all the papers. My parents were very upset. They said violence like that gives radicals a bad name. Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”
“It’s okay.” Arthur pulled the plug from the sink and watched the dirty water swirl down.
“Isn’t he to be executed?” Mabel asked gingerly.
“By firing squad,” Arthur said, gently drying Mabel’s soapy hands with a rag. “Unless his appeal goes through.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Arthur smiled. “You can come back tomorrow.”
Mabel’s stomach did a flip-flop. “Of course. I’m sure there’s all manner of, um, plans to make. With the Six. Of course.”
Arthur still smiled. “Mm-hmm.”
Mabel was so nervous she backed up and bumped into the table. “Sorry.” She reached for her gloves. Blueprints peeked out from underneath a workers’ newspaper. “What’s this?”
Quickly, Arthur grabbed the blueprints away, rolling them into a tight paper club. “It’s nothing.”
And suddenly, Mabel felt dumb again. After they’d opened up to each other, she’d assumed a closeness; she’d overstepped. “Gee, it’s late. I-I’d better go,” she said, walking briskly to the door.
“Mabel, wait! I’m sorry. I’m just… not accustomed to trusting people.” Arthur took hold of Mabel’s hand, and a tingle traveled up her arm and made her neck buzzy. “With my brother’s situation, you can understand. See, I want to stage a protest. At the Future of America Exhibition. Jake Marlowe is a symbol of everything that’s wrong with American capitalism. That exhibition is a wicked lie—it’s amoral—when good men are dying in his mine with no hope of participating in the pretty future he’s building.”