They were friends long before the idea came to them, during their last month as juniors at the Rydell High School in 1918 – Edrie, Aimee, Jessamine, Christina, and Dorthietta "Rhetta" Montgomery, a socialite with a sharp mind and an even sharper tongue. They had chosen the title of "Pink Lady" (Aimee's idea, from the time she had spent visiting New York City over the summer of 1911 and had gone to watch the Broadway musical no less than four times) because it worked with the era, and because it let their families believe that their clique was no more than a fun little sister sorority.
It was their refuge: Secret meetings held at Castle Rock Beach, away from the prying eyes of fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, and mothers, who merely wanted them to stay out of trouble. That meant not going around protesting for rights of women, and especially not the right to vote, a wave that seemed to be gaining momentum across the country, next to the Spanish flu pandemic. It meant not sneaking off with bottles of Pilsner Urquell, no smoking, no swearing, no revealing clothing, always be prim, proper, appropriate.
Meanwhile, the girls each liked to envision themselves as the next Alice Roosevelt Longworth or Susan B. Anthony. Drinking, smoking, cussing up storms ten miles wide, planning their escapes, discussing their career goals, life goals ... they acted out the ideas as much as was possible without causing any serious infractions – after all, their fathers weren't former or standing Presidents, and Rydell was a long way from Embassy Row.
They wanted their own lives, and the freedom to govern said lives as they saw fit. They were all planning, after graduation, to join the Suffragettes (provided they survived the raging influenza). Jeannette Pickering Rankin was a hero for them, like a number of others.
Their parents had had other plans: Suitors and finishing schools.
Following that awful day (November 18, 1919), Christina would remember Rhetta as probably having the most backbone among them – no boy had ever gotten away with whistling to get her attention, and she had dearly wanted to study science. More specifically, biology; she had even gone so far as to sneak a book on the field from the library: D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's On Growth and Form.
Rhetta's father would have none of her demands and schemes for independence and a career in science (or for a career, period). He hadn't had the respect for her to allow such things. Rhetta's mother, thin and tired with haunted eyes, had always held her tongue … she'd learned from the beatings to do so.
Rhetta had never had any intention of going so quietly, and had gotten herself accepted into the Russell Sage College in Albany, telling her parents, loud and firm, that she would be studying for a Bachelor Of Science in Biology.
Privately, her mother had been thrilled and happy for her. Her older brother, Clayton, had been mostly indifferent, while her younger sister, Enid (age ten), had worshiped her. Her father had seen it as her spitting in his face, showing blatant disrespect for the marriage he had sought to make happen between her and a wealthy ranch owner some years her senior, Lyle Donahue.
Dark-haired, blue-eyed, unrelentingly lovely, unfailingly determined, Rhetta had faced against him, temper blazing – "I'll die before I surrender and become chattel to that thin-skinned, weak-jawed milksop. It is not a matter to me in the slightest, the amount of money he holds. Perhaps there will come a time when I will wed, but only to a husband of my choosing. It will not be that man!"
"You WILL marry this one I have chosen for – "
"NO!"
To stop her from leaving for college in September, Rhetta's father had strong-armed her up the stairs and had locked her in her room, letting her out only for bathroom trips, bathings, social events where she was required to attend, and meals, meaning to break her, no matter how she screamed and hollered for the whole household to hear. Chatting with his future son-in-law (who wasn't much younger than he), a wedding date had been set for the following spring, with plans for a honeymoon in London.
Rhetta's mother had told her all this through the door, but her daughter had refused to answer, had refused to be swayed.
Her friends had only been permitted to visit once a week, for an hour, under Mr. Montgomery's supervision. Admittedly, after some two months of near constant solitude, Rhetta had gone stir-crazy, while still refusing to give in.
She had flung herself into a dead run on the 18th of November, after Enid had (intentionally) forgotten to lock the door following a brief dinner, during which her father had stared with his usual superior condescension (she'd ignored him, as always), and her mother had kept her head down, seemingly caught between sitting up straight, as a lady was required, and slumping to the floor in defeat, her face and arms sporting fresh lacerations and bruises, her right side one great throb of an ache from where her husband had slammed her against a chest of drawers, all because she had dropped the cooking pot of water meant to boil the chicken.
After sunset, her parents had been in their bedroom, her father roaring at her mother for some new violation, and the key to one of her father's Duesenberg Model A's had been hanging from a hook near the backdoor. Rhetta hadn't wasted a moment, dragging her sister with her – Hide, flee, vanish, matters can be attended to when and where the Duesy runs out of gasoline.
Her father, of course, had heard the car roar to life, and had bellowed out in a thunderous rage, charging after her, intent on dragging her back by the hair and marching her down that aisle the very next day with the muzzle of a gun to her back, if that was what it took. Charm school would be next. No more of the nonsense talk of degrees in science, she would be a proper wife and mother, making sure that Enid followed in those footsteps.
What neither had been expecting were the galloping horses, appearing from out of nowhere in the dark, just a few miles north, near the San Gabriel Mountains, and Rhetta has swerved hard to avoid them, sending the Duesy rolling (Enid had been thrown clear, one wrist breaking in the process), going over an edge into a steep ravine, sailing headlights first into a tree. Her father, stomping hard on the brakes, had lost two teeth after his mouth collided with the steering wheel.
Enid had been beside herself with numbing grief. She had told the truth, too frightened to do otherwise, when her father had advanced on her mother in the wee morning hours of November 19th with, "HOW COULD YOU HELP HER ESCAPE?! YOU ARE A USELESS, WORTHLESS BITCH! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW, I HAD AN AGREEMENT SIGNED WITH DONAHUE THAT ALLOWED US A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT OF MONEY!"
"It was my fault, Father, I left her bedroom door unlocked so that she – "
A roar of sheer fury, Mr. Montgomery had taken three steps towards Enid, a hand raised, before his sagging wife had thrown herself in the way with, "Take it out on me. Kill me, if you must. Not her. She is only a baby. She did not know."
Mr. Montgomery's dripping-with-cruel-loathing response had been for the two of them to get out and never return. "Hence forth, you are as dead to me as that traitorous wench is."
A thin line of regret for leaving Enid behind had followed Mrs. Montgomery to a cliff edge that same afternoon, in the middle of a violent storm, to the rocks and howling waters below; her grief had overwhelmed it, her spirit too broken to keep going. Her body was never recovered.
Neither Jessamine, Aimee, Edrie, or Christina had been able to sleep right for months after; on the day of the funerals, they had driven to the Montgomery residence and had screamed abuse at Rhetta's father, damning him to the tenth level of hell for his arrogant selfishness – "It should have been you, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT – "
He had slammed the door in their faces, yelling that if they didn't leave, he would have them all arrested for a variety of charges, starting with trespassing. Clayton himself had departed from California soon after; though he and Enid visited twice a year – once in the summer, and during the holidays – Mr. Montgomery had never seen or heard from his son (or his remaining daughter) again.
Enid went to live with Jessamine's family the deaths of her mother and sister, and had asked far more than once if it was her fault. Jessamine only shook her head, wrapping her arms around the girl tight, letting Enid sob against her, laying comforting hands on the girl's shoulder. "Don't blame yourself, dear. This is the effect of your father's cruelty, arrogance, ignorance. You were helping Rhetta. You couldn't have known what would happen."
"Mother ... "
"Your mother made her own choice." Jessamine said, gently. "But do recall in mind that she was worn from many years of misery at the hands of your father. It is my dearest hope that he suffers, in the end, as he made others suffer. Hold in mind, too, that that does not in any way mean that all men behave as such. There are plenty who are good, and kind."
Jessamine would tell Enid these things as many times as it took for her to understand.
The four remaining Ladies drew their will to battle from their grief, citing Rhetta's fate as reason enough for their own parents (fathers) to let them manage their own lives, Stop worrying, we can and will handle ourselves.
Six years later, during her junior year (after the high school reopened), Enid took it upon herself (with help from her sister's friends) to reinstate the Pink Ladies, which had fallen to the wayside after Rhetta's death; too many had talked, claiming that the sorority had been half of the reason for Rhetta's outspokenness. Christina, Edrie, Aimee, and Jessamine (and eventually Enid) had argued that line of thinking repeatedly, knowing their friend and sister had always been inclined to speak her opinion, propriety be damned. There were six Pink Ladies from 1925 – 1927, and it was the youngest of them, a peppery blonde named Michelle, who came up with the idea for the jackets. Officially consorting with the T-Birds hadn't come until a few years later, when one of the Ladies began dating one of the Birds.
The remaining four original Ladies met every November 18th at Castle Rock Beach, flying in from cities stretched across California, to light candles and remember. Enid sometimes joined them from San Jose, where she worked as a head nurse.
Edrie (now a fashion photographer for a national magazine) had once said that she was glad that Rhetta lived long enough to know that women had, at last, gained the right to vote. Aimee (a tenured history professor at a university in San Diego) kept the news article of Rhetta's death tucked away carefully in a thick album full of photographs of their times together in middle and high school. Jessamine (a graduate from Russell Sage College with a Bachelors in Biology) had been Rhetta's closest friend, and was now godmother to Enid's three children (the youngest of which was a girl, Rhetta). Christina had gone to school in San Francisco, for art and business, and now ran her own interior design firm out of Anaheim.
Hearing the story, gazing sadly at the newspaper article with a picture of Rhetta in the headline, Frenchy sighed. "What about her life?" she whispered.
"Maybe she should have just done as she was told ... at least then she'd still be alive ... " Paulette ventured, still perched upon the hood of the Studebaker; her mouth clamped shut as Jessamine narrowed her eyes at her.
"That would depend on your definition of living, I suppose, Miss Rebchuck." Edrie said coolly. "It was true happiness that Rhetta sought. Nothing less would do for her."
"Look, I'm not gonna pretend to understand women, but wouldn't – "
"That's just as well, Mr. DiMucci. You aren't required to." Christina answered. "Spare us any or all comments you may have, since you are biologically and socially incapable of seeing through a woman's eyes."
A re-wording of my previous statement: None of these women are ones to be crossed.
"What?"
"She means just shut the hell up about things you could never understand, DiMucci." Stephanie barked, arms folded. "You'd never have to feel as desperate as Rhetta did, because your mother would never try to force so much complete bullshit on you."
Then, marching over to Michael, who was now sitting on the trunk of the car, his feet propped up on the rear bumper, she demanded, "I want you to teach me self-defense."
Michael opened his mouth, closed it, looked her up and down once, before meeting her (livid-all-over-again) stare, at which point she hissed with murderous quiet, "You think I'm incapable because I'm a woman?"
"I'm hardly so foolish, Stephanie. I merely feel that you would likely benefit more from a woman teacher, as she could train you in methods that work more appropriately to your size. My sister, Genevieve, lives near Rome. Getting – "
"Rome ... Italy?" Sharon demanded without thought.
"Yes." Michael nodded, giving her a light smile. "A very lovely place, too. If you ever have the chance to go, do so. The Piazza Navona alone makes a trip worth it."
"What's that, some pizza joint?" Louis asked.
Michael gave him a thoughtful look, then asked, "You're Italian by origin and you have no idea where you come from?"
"Well stated, young man." Aimee said, with an impressed smirk, while Louis frowned.
Michael smiled in answer, then looked back at Stephanie, who was still looking supremely irritated. "Getting Genevieve here may take a few weeks, but I don't doubt she would be willing to help. A fair warning, though: She's tough." I love seeing your eyes glow when you're angry, I love you, Stephanie, the words were on the very edge of his tongue, and he swallowed them forcefully, Patience.
"Deal."
At three o'clock the next afternoon (November 19th), an exhausted but pleased (and incredibly sore) Betty Rizzo was leaning against the pillows on her hospital bed, holding her newborn baby girl close; Kenickie was across the hall, on the horn with everyone he could track down, shouting the news. Six weeks early though Audra Rizzo-Murdoch was, she was bright-eyed and healthy.
At six o'clock (after Rizzo's and Kenickie's parents had left to get some dinner), Audra was sound asleep in the bassinette aside her mother's bed, wrapped up and warm, and Rizzo and Kenickie were facing the audience of their lives: the current Ladies, as well as Frenchy, Sandy, Marty, and Jan (both of whom had rushed over after hearing the news from their parents, whom they each were visiting for Thanksgiving), Danny, and Sonny (who was still with Marty). There were several careful hugs and many low-voiced congratulations.
Frenchy, grinning a mile wide, then motioned happily for Edrie, Aimee, Jessamine, and Christina to join them from the hallway. Rizzo's jaw hit the floor as Stephanie introduced them, just barely refraining from smirking to the heavens herself; she had already taken a shine to Edrie, the first Head Lady.
"We've agreed to weigh in on what to do about John Nogerelli and his blatant inconsideration." Aimee said, smiling to the awe on Rizzo's face. "Once a Pink Lady, always a Pink Lady."
