Tiffany Girl Read Online Free PDF

children infinitely more rewarding than having some piece of canvas hanging on a wall of a stuffy old museum.”
    Her shoulders tensed. The skin about her mouth tightened. Rearranging the spoon beside her pudding cup, she lined it up perfectly straight. “Because of a strike, Mr. Tiffany has lost his glaziers and glassworkers.”
    Mother nudged her under the table.
    She refused to make eye contact with her. “He needs someone to help him finish making stained-glass windows for his exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition.”
    “ Flossie ,” her mother hissed.
    “He offered me and five other girls the men’s jobs.”
    “I’m sure you told him no.” Papa wiped his mouth with the napkin hanging from his collar. “Wonderful dessert, my dear. Simply wonderful.”
    “Iaccepted the position. I start January second.”
    He gave her a look of loving tolerance. “You will write him a very nice note then, thanking him, but telling him you are needed at home.”
    “I’m moving out.”
    Removing his napkin, he pushed back his chair. “Do not test me anymore, Flossie. You will not move out of this house until you are good and wed. And you will not take a job, ever.”
    “I am taking this job, Papa. You can go to the races on it. I will leave as soon as I can secure a room in a boardinghouse.”
    He’d narrowed his eyes at the word “races,” but it was the word “boardinghouse” that sent him completely over the edge.
    “A boardinghouse?” He gripped the table and leaned forward. “A boardinghouse ?” His voice shook. “Have you lost your senses? You would be in grave moral danger. Why, men of highly questionable character swarm those places. You’d be ruined. No decent man would ever have you.”
    She sat on her hands, willing herself not to panic. “The world is changing, Papa. Lots of respectable women live in boardinghouses these days. The papers are filled with women who have become doctors and lawyers and all kinds of things.”
    He slammed a hand onto the table. She jumped. Mother squeaked.
    “No daughter of mine will be written about in the paper,” he roared. “Not unless she’s getting married or she’s dead.”
    She squeezed her hands into fists. “No one’s going to write about me in the paper.”
    “They most assuredly are not,” he continued, his voice blistering her ears. “Because no daughter of mine will hold a job, nor will she live in a boardinghouse .” He spewed the last word out as if it were Hades itself.
    She set her jaw. Out of respect for him, she’d not argue any further, but there was nothing he could do to stop her—and it wasn’t the first time she’d ever dug in her heels. She could tell herecognized the determination on her face.
    He waved his hand in a gesture of exasperation. “Do something, Edythe.”
    Mother clasped her hands. “Flossie, dear, think. If you do this, you will become a . . .” She glanced at Papa. “. . . a New Woman .” She whispered the last two words as if they were unfit for delicate ears. “You will be choosing the life of an old maid. Why would you do that? Don’t you want a man to love? Some children to enrich your life?”
    She did want that, there was no denying it. For years, all she’d ever dreamed of was growing up and becoming a wife and mother, but that was before women had any choices. Now they were earning degrees. They were asking for the vote. They were even securing jobs in professions never before accessible to them. But in order to keep those jobs, they had to remain unmarried.
    A moment of clarity and calm washed over her. Her shoulders relaxed. If she were going to be an old maid the rest of her life, then she certainly wasn’t going to stay in her father’s house, where her salary would not be her own. Besides, who ever heard of a New Woman living with her parents?
    No, if she was going to be a New Woman in the truest sense, she’d have to leave. There was no other way. “I’d love to have children,