While the woman went upstairs, Leonard shared his surprise that Bill and Lucy Gaston’s split had already made the news. In July, Lucy had caught Bill and Margaret in bed together at Sunshine Cottage. Lucy had promptly packed her bags. Bill refused to let her take their six-month-old son with her, so she left the island alone.
Now it made sense to Margaret why one of Bill’s old lovers, Blanche Oelrichs, had come to visit. Blanche first found fame when she married John Barrymore and her book of erotic poems inspired by the affair became a bestseller. Blanche’s wealthy family had been embarrassed by her affair and poetry, so Blanche had permanently adopted her nom de plume, Michael Strange.
Margaret had rowed over to Bill’s house a couple of weeks ago, and she had been surprised to find Michael sunning with Bill and chatting like casual old friends. Margaret detected the sexual undertones Michael laced into their conversation but wasn’t as jealous of Michael as she was intrigued. Michael was about twenty years older than Margaret but didn’t look it. Her voice was as melodious as a perfectly tuned violin, and her dark looks were exotically haunting. She had once been named the most beautiful woman in Paris. That was decades ago, but she was still beguiling.
Michael was now making news for her political views. She was listed on the exclusive Social Register but also was a registered communist. She was a vocal member of the America First Committee and part of their weekly radio show out of New York. As pressure for America to enter the war raging in Europe grew, the AFC fought for isolationism. They believed that American democracy could only be preserved by staying out of the war and that even sending aid would weaken America’s ability to defend itself from attack. They contended that the British, the Roosevelt administration, and “Jewish-owned media” were brainwashing American citizens through propaganda. Bill also supported the AFC’s stance and joined the organization, as did hundreds of senators, business tycoons, and celebrities. The pilot Charles Lindbergh often spoke on behalf of the AFC at political rallies and on the group’s weekly radio show.
Michael was everything Margaret wished she could be. She was outspoken, sophisticated, and sure of herself. Michael ran in the highest literary and social circles. She was welcomed at the Algonquin Round Table and was a courtesy niece of the Astors and Vanderbilts. She disdained everything about Hollywood, but actors and movie directors flooded to her doorstep. Even her perfume was seductive. It smelled of lemon verbena and reminded Margaret of tiger lilies. Margaret kept it to herself that the next day she smelled that perfume on one of Bill’s pillows.
*
The owner of the café reappeared with the scrapbook. Page after page of articles had been meticulously preserved. Rosamond’s early career, film promotions, marital discord, and suicide were all there. How touching and sad it was that this woman still clung tightly to an occasional friendship that had ended so long ago.
When Margaret and Leonard left the café, she admitted to him she had been the anonymous source for the article about Bill and Lucy’s divorce. Making the split public reduced the chance of Lucy Gaston returning to the island. It was a calculated move, but she hadn’t counted on it luring other women like Michael Strange to Bill’s side.
Tomorrow, she and Leonard would return to the city, where radio and newspapers made the horrors of the world more real. Margaret told Leonard that it was going to be a long, cold walk home—he should button his coat.
Ten
1940
The sound of the wind
Is a wild sound
It bristles the hairs on my back
The sound of the wind
Is the deep sound
Of all that I long for and lack
UNPUBLISHED
Lucy Mitchell sat on the green couch in the Writers Laboratory surrounded by her editors and teachers. Most held black-and-white composition books containing their notes from the week. Some, including Margaret, held manuscripts.
Smoke usually accompanied Margaret to these meetings. He was a fixture at the school and was well behaved around the children, but he was known to nip at other dogs and to piddle on people standing at bus stops. Here, he was relaxed and rested at Margaret’s feet, going mostly unnoticed until a writer’s story dragged on—then he would issue a soft groan, one that had perhaps been prompted by a nudge of Margaret’s foot.
Margaret brought some of the material she was working on for a textbook that D. C. Heath Books contracted with the school to produce. They wanted six social studies books based on the school’s teachings and progressive philosophies. Instead of chapter after chapter of fact-filled information, Lucy envisioned the series as fictional stories in which characters learned about the world around them.
Margaret was writing and editing the textbooks for the three younger grades. More than once she had to ask the lead editor what, exactly, social studies were. Each time she was reminded, she would dive right back into her research to align her stories and poems with the theme of the textbooks.
While writing for Bank Street, she kept her manuscripts in the Here-and-Now style, but her own writing was often tinged with fantasy. In Writers Laboratory review sessions, Lucy gently chastised her protégé for straying away from the real world, but her words had little impact. Margaret remembered spending her childhood days in the world of imagination. It was, she believed, an important and natural part of growing up. Lucy had been ill as a child and was not as active as Margaret. Perhaps that shaped her disdain for weaving fantasy into stories. Lucy believed it made more sense to have anthropomorphized animals performing tasks true to their own nature than it did to place them into a human world. Why, she wondered, did Margaret think the real world would be less interesting to a child?