That Sunday after mass, Una took the Third Avenue el uptown to repay the favor she’d promised Dr. Westervelt. Whereas once she’d relished being out in the city crowds, now her skin crawled like she had a bad case of lice. There were fewer people who might recognize her on the Third Avenue el than the Sixth, a more direct route to Central Park, but she didn’t take a full gulp of air until she reached the Seventy-Sixth Street station and was no longer trapped inside the rumbling car.
Her disguise—that of a well-to-do and respectable lady—would fool the coppers, she reminded herself, and all of her old chums, as long as they didn’t look too close or too hard. Mrs. Buchanan had done wonders with her coat, scrubbing out the stains and mending the tears. If she found the patched inner lining and warren of pockets suspicious, she made no mention of it. With the addition of Dru’s fur hat, stole, and muff, Una looked positively highfalutin. Still, she felt far safer dressed in her nurse’s uniform behind the thick stone walls of Bellevue.
She entered the park through Miners’ Gate and wound her way down a muddy lane toward Bethesda Fountain. The leafless boughs of elm trees crisscrossed overhead. Yesterday’s snow had been shoveled into dirt- speckled berms on either side of the lane. Couples passed, arm in arm. Women pushed bundled infants in strollers. Packs of young boys raced by with sleds. Despite the gray clouds stretched overhead and slight chill in the air, everyone seemed to relish being outdoors away from the mayhem of the city streets.
Una preferred the mayhem. Easier to slip away into. But she didn’t want Dr. Westervelt’s favor hanging over her head any longer than necessary. Best settle the score and be done with it. Even if that meant meeting him here in the great wide open of Central Park.
The day after the transfusion, he’d waited until the other doctors had moved on with rounds and Miss Cuddy was busy in the medicine closet before approaching her. When he said to meet him at the Bethesda Fountain
that Sunday afternoon, Una had been struck mute with surprise. In the past, when she’d been obliged to someone, it usually meant hiding hot goods for him or handing over half of her take. Some men asked for more intimate favors, which she satisfied with a swift knee to their groin.
“Trainees are forbidden from visiting places of amusement,” she’d said, recovering her voice.
“You found yourself into the operating theater. I believe that’s off-limits for probationers.”
“That was not my idea. Miss Cuddy wasn’t well and—”
“And you found your way into the transfusion room, with my help, I might add.”
Una frowned and glanced at the medicine closet to be sure Miss Cuddy was still measuring out patients’ noontime medication. “After I find you at the fountain, then what? Trainees are also forbidden from socializing with gentlemen, doctors or not, as you well know.”
He flashed her a disarming smile. “Then we best not tell any-one.” “Easy for you to say. I’m the one who’ll be expelled if we’re caught.”
“The park’s always crowded on a Sunday. No one will notice us, I promise. I just want to spend the afternoon with you.”
A suspicious response, but not one that warranted a knee to the groin.
Not yet. “Fine. Sunday at the fountain.”
Now, as the angel-topped fountain came into view, Una wished she’d insisted on a different favor. Not only did she have to keep a lookout for coppers, but hospital staff as well. She’d beg off after half an hour and stay clear of favors from here on out.
She spied Dr. Westervelt before he saw her. He wore a woodsy-green Chesterfield coat, brown gloves, and bowler. A sharp crease ran down the front of his trousers as if he’d had them pressed only moments before. At least he hadn’t costumed himself with a cane and top hat like many of the other well-heeled fops strutting around the park. Instead, he carried a leather satchel slung over one shoulder.
She watched him circle the fountain with a slow, easy stride. He carried himself differently here than at the hospital. When rounding with Dr. Pingry, he wore his confidence like a shield. Here he seemed free of that burden. He still had the straight-backed assuredness of someone who’d known both adoration and discipline as a boy, but his movements were freer, as if he were no longer on the defensive.
Una tried to remember the last time she felt that way, not under the weight of some guise, but free. It had been weeks now, since before the death of Traveling Mike. But maybe not even then.
Dr. Westervelt caught sight of her and smiled, his countenance relaxing even further as he strode toward her. He hadn’t been certain she would come, Una realized. She felt suddenly self-conscious of her appearance. Maybe the fur hat and muff were too much. She didn’t want him to think she’d dressed up on account of him.
“Miss Kelly, it’s a pleasure to see you. And a fine day, don’t you think?”
Una tugged on her stole and glanced around, not at the snow-covered lawns but at the faces of those around them, assuring herself she didn’t recognize anyone.
“A bit cold,” she said, though Dru’s furs kept her plenty warm.
“I’ve got just the ticket for that.” He gestured to the frozen lake beyond the fountain. “A little ice-skating ought to get the blood flowing. What do you say?”
Una hesitated. Dozens of skaters glided across the icy surface, most in loose groups of two or three. But the lake was large with fingerlike inlets pressed into the wooded shoreline. No one here at the fountain or on the surrounding paths would be able to get a good look at them. The other skaters would likely be too preoccupied with their own merriment to pay them any mind. He couldn’t have picked a better spot to pass the time unobserved.
But Una hadn’t skated since she was a girl, and then only once or twice. “It’s quite safe, I assure you,” Dr. Westervelt said, pointing to a red flag
that fluttered atop Belvedere Castle. “They only fly that when the ice is thick enough to skate upon.”
“I haven’t any skates.”
“I brought my mother’s for you to use.” He opened his satchel and pulled them out for Una to see. “They’re a bit old but still in good repair. I sharpened the blades myself this morning.”
Unable to contrive another excuse, Una nodded, and they picked their way from the fountain to the lake’s edge. A group of children sprinted past, their blades kicking up puffs of snow. Then an elderly gentleman, whistling a pleasant tune. If they could do it without falling flat on their backsides, so could Una. She strapped the skates to her boots and took a deep breath before stepping onto the ice.
Her ankles wobbled and arms wheeled as she tried to balance on the thin blades. It hadn’t seemed this precarious when she was five, but then, all the memories before her mother’s death were a bit hazy. She waited until she stopped tottering, then ventured out another step.
Behind her, Una heard Dr. Westervelt buckling his skates, then felt the stir of air as he glided past her graceful as a goddamn swan. She shifted her weight to one shaky foot and pushed off with the other, hoping to overtake him with similar aplomb. Instead, she lurched forward, head jutted out and shoulder slumped like a buzzard. Her balance faltered again. She tried to compensate by throwing her weight backward only to overcorrect and find her skates slipping out from beneath her.
Dr. Westervelt spun around and caught her flailing arms just before she toppled.
“I’m sorry, I should have asked whether you knew your way around the ice.”
“I need a moment to right myself is all.”
“I thought, well, I shouldn’t have presumed . . .” He was still holding on to her, though her wobbly legs had steadied, his gloved hands encircling her forearms. Dru’s muff dangled from her wrist between them.
She looked down, giving her cheeks a moment to cool, then raised her chin and met his gaze. Something in his eyes struck her. An earnestness. A vulnerability. Whatever it was, it unnerved Una, and she pulled away. “Thank you, Doctor, I think I’ve got my balance now.”
But when she tried to push off from the ice again, the tips of their skates crossed, and she nearly fell again but for Dr. Westervelt’s quick reflexes and stable hand.
“Please, call me Edwin,” he said, once Una was no longer in immediate peril of falling, and proceeded to instruct her on the basics of skating. He spoke not like a physician lecturing her on the principles of digestion or application of dressings, but as if they were old friends, and soon she was skating with a semblance of ease.
“Don’t they ice-skate in winter where you’re from?” he asked as they made their way to the center of the lake. He skated within easy reach of her, closer than would be proper were they strolling on solid land but seemingly permissible here on the ice.
“What makes you think I’m not from the city?”
“This city? New York? You’re nothing like the women here.”
“Is that so? And what is it that makes the women of New York so very different from others?”
He paused a moment, his expression thoughtful. “They care overmuch for correctness, I suppose. They hardly ever laugh. Or venture an opinion.”
“And do you not think it’s the men of the city who have made them so?” “I’m certain of it. We’re little better ourselves, so caught up in good
form.”
“Are you equally certain that all women of the city are this way? What about the washerwomen and the factory workers? Or the fruit sellers and shirt stitchers?”
“You mean working women? I hardly know.” “I, Dr. Westervelt—”
“Edwin.”
“Edwin. I am a working woman. Or will be once I pass my training.” “That’s different. Nursing is a respectable profession drawn from a
respectable class of women. You can hardly compare yourself to domestics and rag pickers.”
Una stopped, her skates making a grinding noise on the ice. “Can’t I? Are we so very dissimilar in our wants and needs?”
Edwin glanced over his shoulder, then circled back. He looked perplexed, his head cocked and lips pressed into a thin line. He’d spoken with derision about women not speaking their minds but seemed at a loss when one actually did. Una stood with her arms akimbo. Her legs still wobbled, but only slightly. She waited for him to say of the poor what she’d heard a hundred times from the reporters and pastors and do-good society women who flocked to the slums. Recalcitrant. Immoral. Unclean.
Instead, his expression turned chastened, like that of a little boy who’s been caught throwing stones at passing carriages or pulling his sister’s pigtails. “You’re quite right. I forget myself sometimes and find myself parroting the sentiments of my grandfather.” He took off his bowler hat and ran his fingers through his carefully groomed hair, leaving the reddish- brown locks, which seemed more inclined to crimp or curl rather than lie flat, in a tousle. He was handsomer this way, Una thought and felt a pang of disappointment when he tugged his hat back on. “There’s an eagle’s nest at the far end of the next inlet. An impressive sight if you haven’t seen one. But I . . . er . . . understand if you want to go.”
She glanced behind her at the distant shoreline. She’d satisfied her promise. The longer she stayed, the greater the risk someone would recognize her. But it was refreshing being here on the ice with him. She’d missed being outdoors, the briskness of the winter air, the layered sounds and smells. Besides, Edwin’s company wasn’t entirely intolerable. She’d never met a man who forthrightly admitted when he was wrong.
“I suppose I have a little time to see this eagle’s nest.”
He smiled that dazzling smile of his—his teeth were real, she’d decided
—and they started toward the inlet. As before, he matched Una’s pace, neither rushing nor cosseting her.
“Maine,” she said after a silence. “Main what?”
“That’s where I’m from. Augusta, Maine.”
He laughed. “And you never learned to skate?” He peppered her with more questions about herself—what line of work her father did, whether or not she had siblings, what made her want to come to Bellevue. After having repeated the story five or six times now, the lie came easy. And though she quickly tried to steer the conversation to safer territory, he persisted with his questions. What did she think of New York? The park? Had she heard of Coney Island and would she like to go when it opened in the spring?
“You could join the Pinkerton agency for all the questions you ask.” “I’ll remember that in case things at the hospital don’t work out.”
She asked him then about his upbringing and found herself listening with interest instead of wondering about the time or worrying over other skaters. His family had lived in New York for generations—the very type of blue bloods her father had left Ireland hoping to escape. To his credit, though, Edwin didn’t boast about his lineage and seemed almost skittish of the discussion. He spoke of becoming a physician like it was an obligation, not a choice, and confessed his grandfather had once been a surgeon at Bellevue.
Una suddenly realized why she’d recognized the name Westervelt when first she heard it. “That’s your grandfather’s portrait in the main hall?”
Edwin nodded, looking more sheepish than proud even though his grandfather must have been some big bug to earn such a place on the wall.
“And your father, was he a doctor too?”
His skates rasped loudly over the ice, and for the first time, Una struggled to keep up. “No. He dropped out of medical school in favor of a business
venture.” His voice was gruff when he said this, and Una didn’t press him for more details, but after a minute, Edwin continued. Because of this business venture—Edwin snickered as he said the words—his father had been gone traveling for much of Edwin’s youth. He drank and gambled and even kept a mistress in New Orleans. The war years were the only time he made any money, and only then as a profiteer and cotton smuggler.
At this, a flush of anger crackled beneath Una’s skin. Her father had returned from the war maimed inside and out. His father with pockets fattened with gold. Yellow-bellied rascal she wanted to call him. But the shame and bitterness in Edwin’s voice stayed her tongue. She remembered walking beside her father to Union Square one Decoration Day, his blue uniform smelling of must and beginning to fade. His limp seemed to pain him less that day, and he walked a little straighter. His breath was free from the stench of whiskey. It was one of the few happy memories she had of him. Edwin seemed to have none.
“Where is he now, your father?” she asked him.
“Dead. Drank himself into a stupor and choked on his own vomit in some New Orleans slum.”
“I’m sorry,” Una said, surprised at how sincerely she meant it. They had more in common than she’d realized, and some pesky part of her wished she could be as honest with him as he’d been with her.
“It’s me who should be sorry. What kind of a cad poisons a lovely afternoon with such melancholy?”
“Not such a cad that the fresh air can’t make up for it.”
“I don’t know why . . .” He pulled off his hat and tried in vain to smooth down the locks he’d ruffled before. “I haven’t spoken about such things in years. But I figured you’d hear about it eventually.” He gave up with his hair and replaced his hat, glancing at her askew. “I really can be quite charming.”
“Is that so? And modest too, I see.”
They both chuckled, then skated in easy silence until they reached the end of the inlet. Edwin scanned the shoreline. “There.” He pointed to an indistinct cluster of trees, their branches overlapping.
Una squinted and shook her head. “I don’t see it.”
He skated to her side, stopping so close the cloud of his breath warmed her cheek, and pointed again. Una’s entire body hummed like the rails beneath an approaching train, and her eyes struggled to focus. She smelled
cloves and winter mint when he exhaled and couldn’t help but wonder what his mouth tasted like.
Then she saw it, the mass of interwoven sticks, nestled at the union of three thick limbs. It was far bigger than she’d expected, perhaps five feet wide and several feet deep. A dusting of snow crowned the rim. What kind of bird was responsible for such a wonder? The only eagles in New York she’d ever known were those on the backside of a coin. Her eyes were suddenly misty and her throat thick. “I’ve never seen anything like this in the city . . . er . . . any city before.”
“Bald eagles were far more common in New York’s early days. Hunting and egg collecting have made them scarce.”
Una vaguely remembered a man who’d come to Marm Blei’s back door trying to sell a cache of eagle feathers. She’d paid him a nickel apiece. A dime for the white tail feathers. The thought now made Una sick. She swiped at her eyes before turning back to Edwin. “So the eagles who built this nest are gone?”
“Just for the season. They tend to stay near open water in the winter. But they’ll be back in April to lay their eggs. The park workers keep an eye on them to make sure they’re not disturbed.”
“The same pair come back every year?” “Yes, eagles mate for life.”
Una became conscious again of how close they were standing. She glanced around. The nearest skaters were dozens of yards away, laughing, gliding, spinning, oblivious to anyone else on the ice. Just as she had foolishly been. Una had rules, after all. And being here with him like this, letting him distract her, was breaking far too many.
She tried to slide her skates backward to put some distance between them, but the end of one of the blades caught on the ice. She grabbed the lapels of Edwin’s coat to keep from falling back.
“Sorry, I—”
Edwin seized the moment to lean down and kiss her. Una froze, but it took only a moment for her surprise to thaw. She held fast to his coat and kissed him back. He tasted even better than he smelled.
