Today's Reading

PART ONE

Late in the afternoon, the girls were on the beach—a bit grubby and tired, but the good kind that comes after a long, merry day.

At first, they had been so terrified that Aunt Phillipa would discover that they didn't have a chaperone after all, they thought every passing boat was coming to fetch them.

To ward off the possibility, they tried holding their breath until the boats went by, like one does when passing a cemetery, but it turned out that a carriage passes a cemetery a good deal faster than boats passed islands, so they had to give that up. Audrey came up with an incantation to use instead: "Please make that boat go another way, for on this island we wish to stay." It worked like a charm. (Well, it was a charm. So it worked like it was supposed to.)

Now that it had been a whole week, they were finally comfortable.

"I used to want to grow up," Sally said, as she watched the gulls wheeling overhead. "Not anymore."

"Me neither. You have to get married or be a spinster," Audrey replied. "If you marry, you have to be domesticated, and your husband might not even keep his hair. And nobody wants to be a spinster like Aunt Phillipa."

"Not all spinsters are crotchety," Victoria said. "Some are young and wear smart hats. Of course they go to committees all the time."

"Well, if it's going to committees, or doing chores and watching your husband's hair fall out, I'd rather stay here on this island where I have some liberty," Sally said.

Lucy, who was making sand angels with her arms and legs, said, rather idly, "I suppose that's what we should call it. 'Liberty Island.'"

They'd been trying to settle on a name for days, but four girls with lots of ideas can't always agree. This felt like a fact, though, not an idea. So "Liberty Island" it was.

From Liberty Island, by Miss Crane


CHAPTER ONE
November 1910
New York City

JULIA
It's wonderful to be among people who know you so well (or most of the time, at least)'.

'FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE'

Finally, nearly three months into her first semester at Barnard, Julia Demarest had landed at a gathering of the smart set—and yet there she was, standing alone by the wall, feeling stupid.

It seemed so promising, too! The four flights of stairs she and Mina climbed to reach the apartment had sagged in a most encouraging manner, and halfway up, they'd heard laughter and argument, and the muffled, doleful strains of what sounded like some Moorish air playing on a phonograph.

The door had opened to a marvelously bohemian scene—women in shapeless silk tunics, and men with low, loose collars and all manner of beards. Even the more conventionally dressed gave off a whiff of heedlessness. And while Julia could not say she liked the smell of Turkish cigarettes, the smoke was indisputably atmospheric.

Julia had come with Mina Ellis (a fellow freshman, though Julia thought she seemed years older). Mina had finagled a job as a general factotum at The Current, a new and thrillingly radical magazine. Not two minutes after they arrived at the party, the host, an editor there, pulled her away, leaving Julia to fend for herself.

Other than a passing greeting from "Stella the Anarchist," one of Mina's roommates (the others were "Jane the Socialist" and "Vera the Dancer," of unknown political affiliation), Julia had spoken to no one.

She finally screwed up her courage and sidled up to a nearby cluster of people, hoping they might open the circle for her. One woman made eye contact, but no invitation was forthcoming.

Julia sighed inwardly. Probably for the best. From what she could hear, they were in a heated discussion about behaviorism and syndicalism. (Or behaviorism 'versus' syndicalism? Beyond a vague and appealing sense of subversiveness, Julia knew little about either.)

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