The audience cheered, and Reed took a moment before he raised his hands to quiet them.
“What does Russia have to do with Gastonia?” he asked. “With this strike? I’d say nothing. I’d say nothing at all. But you wouldn’t know it if you read the Gaston Transom-Times.” He laughed. “They’ve even got a few men here tonight, taking notes about what we’re doing out here in this field where we’re talking about equality and workers’ rights. Look around you now,” he said. “You’ll know them right off. They’re the ones in the fine suits.”
“That’s a fine suit you’ve got on, Reed!” a voice from the audience yelled. The crowd gasped and turned toward the voice as if ready to pounce on the man to whom it belonged, but both the voice and the man seemed to have been swallowed by the night.
“Distraction,” Reed said. “That’s the practice of the Gaston Transom-Times and its moneymen-bosses over at Loray. They’re just throwing around accusations and rumors in the hopes of distracting you from two things: your empty bellies and your empty wallets.”
The audience around Ella erupted into laughter and cheers. She found herself clapping along with them. She knew she belonged here in the midst of this shared experience, not just the rally but her whole life and all the poor men and women and children who had passed through it.
“You hungry?” Sophia whispered. Ella turned, looked at her new friend. “Dinner’s going to be served when this is over, but we could go on up and get in line.”
Ella was starving, and she pictured the cold stove and empty skillet back home in Stumptown, pictured her children relieved and smiling to be at Violet’s mother’s house, their bellies probably fuller than they’d been in days. Her heart swelled at the thought of their happiness.
“I need to get on home,” Ella said. “Back to my babies.”
The night had grown cool. Dew settled over the grass. Sophia took a deep breath, raised her face to the clear, dark sky, and forced the warm air from her lungs. It lifted like smoke. “There’s them stars again,” she said.
“I need to get on home,” Ella said.
Sophia lowered her face. “The roads ain’t safe at night,” she said. “Loray’s got people. They’re likely to follow us, run us down once we get outside town.”
“I can’t stay here tonight,” Ella said. “I got nowhere to go.”
“There’s plenty of room,” Sophia said. “We’ll get you settled, and I’ll carry you home to those babies tomorrow.”
“My shift starts at six p.m.,” Ella said. “I got to be home before that.”
“Shift?” Sophia said. She laughed. “Girl, you ain’t going back inside that mill. You’re union now.”
The crowd around them exploded in applause. Ella turned, saw the redheaded man with the shaking hands stride across the stage. He shook hands with Carlton Reed, clapped him on the back, waved at the audience.
“Who’s that?” Ella asked.
“That’s him,” Sophia said. “That’s Fred Beal.”
Dinner was served inside the headquarters. Cold bologna sandwiches. Cold coffee. Stale Moon Pies. Ella waited in line behind Sophia. Exposed electric bulbs hung from the ceiling and cast soft yellow light on the uncovered heads of the men in overalls and women in dresses. The room was warm, the people’s voices loud and excited.
“It’s not always going to be like this,” Sophia said over the noise. “Better food’s on the way. Things just got hung up, that’s all.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Ella said. She didn’t tell Sophia that it didn’t matter to her what they served or how much or how little they offered her. She was starving, and any amount of anything was more than she’d hoped for before she left Bessemer City. “It’s kind of the union to offer it.”
“Oh, it’s not us,” Sophia said. “It’s the Catholics. Monks from over in Belmont.”
“Catholics,” Ella said. She’d never met a Catholic, did not know if she’d ever even seen one.
“Yeah,” Sophia said. “The Protestants won’t touch us. The churches around the village and most of them downtown are on Loray’s dole. They’d rather see us dead.” Sophia stopped and looked around. Ella did the same. She realized that people were staring at her. “You’re famous now,” Sophia said. “I’m standing beside a celebrity.”
The line of strikers shuffled forward, and Ella and Sophia drew closer to the table where the food was being served. Two monks wore cassocks, something she’d never seen before. The first, the younger of the two, was balding. He wore tiny spectacles on the end of his nose and stared through them at the sandwiches he carefully wrapped in wax paper. The monk offered a sandwich to Sophia.
“Thank you, Father,” she said.
Ella waited, watched the monk wrap a sandwich for her. She received it, bowed slightly, thanked him as Sophia had. The older of the two monks, his hands trembling, poured black coffee into tin cups. He handed one to Ella. He was short with a round, red face and a full head of gray hair. He smiled. Ella could not help but smile back at him.
“Thank you, Father,” she said.
“Bless you, child,” the old monk said.
Beside him stood a man handing out packages of Moon Pies from a crate stashed beneath the table. He held one hand behind his back as if he were a mannered attendant. Unlike the two monks, this man didn’t wear a cassock. Instead he wore denim pants and a white collared shirt, the collar of which was nearly hidden by a long dark beard. Beneath the beard a tiny straight-back chair, something fit for a doll house, hung from a leather strap around his neck. Ella looked at the man’s face. His eyes were dark, shiny, his skin red with sunburn. Although the man’s eyes did not rise to meet hers, something about his face stirred a memory in Ella’s mind. He held out a Moon Pie and she reached for it, closed her fingers around it, felt that it was old and stale. She knew that she would eat it without hesitation.
The man’s fingers grazed Ella’s, and he pulled his hand to his chest and touched the chair where it hung from his neck. He bent to the floor, rummaged through the crate of Moon Pies as if waiting for Ella to continue on.
Ella saw Sophia at the end of the line, saw her nod toward the bearded man and touch her own chest as if the chair hung there instead of around the man’s neck. “He’s a strange one, isn’t he,” she whispered once Ella was close enough to hear her.