Wickett's Remedy (14 page)

She offered Mr. Driscoll a conciliatory smile. “I don’t know if Henry told you, but I was against the idea of him taking you on. I came up with the Remedy to go with my husband’s letters, not to sell alone.”

“Oh, I know, Mrs. Wickett,” Mr. Driscoll answered. “Henry said the same thing. I’m awfully grateful to the two of you for taking me on. If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s a real humdinger of a tonic, a real standout product. I used to think I wanted to own my own drugstore, but one taste of Wickett’s changed all that. I’m just certain it’s destined for greatness. One day Wickett’s Remedy will be in drugstores all across New England!”

Mr. Driscoll’s conviction was contagious. Lydia found herself picturing shelves filled with familiar blue labels.

“And how is the Remedy doing so far, Mr. Driscoll?” she asked. Residual electricity from Driscoll’s enthusiasm charged the air around their table. Lydia could sense their waiter trying to place its source as he took their orders. She wondered if the waiter supposed
that she and Driscoll were lovers, and immediately felt terrible for the thought.

“Mrs. Wickett,” Mr. Driscoll continued once the waiter had left. “I wish I had a fistful of greenbacks to hand over, but I’m afraid I don’t. At least, not yet.” He handed her an envelope of assorted change. “As you may know, the agreement is that in exchange for having been licensed the recipe I give fifty percent of everything I sell, after expenses. Right now I’ve got Wickett’s Remedy in three pharmacies. I’m hoping that once people develop a taste for it, they’ll start coming back.”

“If you’re going to sell something just because it tastes good,” Lydia mused aloud, “I wonder if you ought to carbonate it and call it a soda instead.”

Save for one man obstinately sopping every last drop of beef broth with the butt end of his bread, theirs was the only table still occupied. At the counter, the cook consulted with a man studying a racing form. Above the grill, a flecked strip of flypaper pulsed in time with the irregular draughts from the ceiling fans.

“Mrs. Wickett,” Driscoll began, his voice more tentative. “You’ve had a terrible blow and I imagine there’s all sorts of things you need to consider right now. But if it’s all right with you I’d like to continue with our arrangement. I don’t expect you to give me an answer right away. You can mail me your decision whenever you’re ready.”

Though the prospect of the Remedy being sold without Henry’s letters still gnawed at her, Lydia enjoyed the notion of a certain small portrait preserving a foothold in the world. “Mr. Driscoll,” she answered. “Before meeting you, I was prepared to curb my own
inclinations in favor of whatever I thought my husband would have wanted, so it’s a happy surprise to realize that my wishes aren’t any different from what I think Henry’s would have been. I see no reason to cancel our arrangement. Now that I’ve met you, I’m pleased to think that Wickett’s might have a chance to live on.”

Mr. Driscoll grinned. “Gee, Mrs. Wickett, I’m awfully grateful. I’ve got big plans for the Remedy—just you wait and see!” She suspected that if Henry could see them at that moment, he too would be smiling.

They shook hands once more. For a few months, Lydia received accountings from her business partner by mail, his envelopes weighted with a few coins and accompanied by friendly notes detailing modest sales. When the letters stopped she hoped that Wickett’s final advocate had found a more profitable use of his time. Whatever it was, she wished him well.

For the last and most exciting stop on our tour, take the red line to South Boston’s Broadway station. It’s no coincidence that this T line is the same color as the QD label: it used to be known as the QD line!

Once you arrive, walk down West 2nd Street. Turn left on B Street and walk to number 169. You are now standing before the home of QD Soda! At its heyday, the plant was open daily and accommodated thousands of visitors each year. Though daily tours ended in 1956, QD Soda Headquarters has remained a popular destination for QD Soda aficionados from around the country, who come to “see the source,” and to stock up on their favorite soda! Tours are
now conducted every other Sunday or by special appointment. See the machine that filled the very first bottle of QP Soda, and learn how QD Soda is made today. This tour will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about QD … except the secret recipe! Mention this walking tour at the Gift Shop and enjoy a 20% discount on all purchases!
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We hope you’ve enjoyed this unique glimpse into our soda’s—and our city’s—history. Don’t forget to tell a friend!

T
wo months after registering for the draft Michael received his letter of induction. For eight weeks they had all been waiting—Michael and his brothers impatient, Lydia and her mother anxious, and her father often alternating between excitement and trepidation in the course of a day. Then one evening Michael came early to dinner waving the letter in his hand like it was a winning lottery ticket, and the wait was over. Thomas, James, and John danced around him giddy as puppies, while Lydia stared from her place at the kitchen table. The longer she remained motionless and silent, the longer she could postpone the onset of a moment she had, through sheer force of will, convinced herself might never arrive. This gained her five additional seconds in a world in which her brother was not army-bound. Then Michael was standing before her and she had no choice but to put her arms around him, his excitement not contagious but tangible, a runnel of charged air that enveloped her as they embraced. Even as she told herself it was better for her brother to welcome a circumstance over which he had no control, she could not help but take his enthusiasm personally. Her reaction was selfish and
childish and completely beyond her ability to temper. When she imagined him gone her tongue turned to ash in her mouth.

For the going-away party she baked a rectangular cake with black-market sugar, using rose water and violet water icings to create a flag. The result was paler than she had hoped but she was proud to have fit in all forty-eight stars. She had not worn one of her West end dresses since meeting with Mr. Driscoll. Of the three, she preferred Henry’s favorite. When she removed the blue linen dress from its suitcase, it smelled of the West end flat, but after an overnight airing the fabric absorbed the smells of D Street to become a dress again and not a ghost.

The afternoon of the party was sunny and pleasantly warm for early March. Even once everything was in order—the flat tidy, the cake and other delicacies removed from the icebox, the borrowed plates and utensils marked so that they could be returned to their owners once the well-wishers had been fed and sent home—she delayed getting dressed. As long as the blue dress hung from the bedroom door, the party remained in the looming but still measurably distant future. Once she put the dress on, her brother’s departure would be reduced to a matter of hours, and then minutes, and then breaths.

The boys decorated the stoop and stairwell in red, white, and blue bunting. Mrs. Feeney moved her phonograph from her sitting room to the second-floor hallway, which while too narrow for set dancing would permit pairings so long as everyone watched their elbows. Jennie Feeney’s daughter Alice was Lydia’s age and had married the same Malachy O’Toole who as a
boy had teased them as they walked to school. Now Alice, Malachy, and their three children occupied the second-floor flat across the hall from the elder Feeneys. Well aware of her mother’s fondness for reels—and uncertain the hallway would withstand more than waltzes and two-steps—Alice appointed herself the day’s musical custodian.

Michael’s brethren from the icehouse arrived with a barrel of beer from O’Reilly’s, which they had ferried through the neighborhood on a dray wagon decked in red, white, and blue ribbons. Within moments of the wagon’s arrival to 28 D Street the party had begun. In addition to Lydia’s cake there were cookies baked by Alice and decorated with miniature paper flags from Gorin’s; a bunch of bananas brought over from Mr. Leary’s by Mr. Leary himself; several mince pies, which their mother had baked because they were Michael’s favorite; and savory toasts made by Mrs. Feeney, which were only eaten once the rest of the food was gone.

The kitchen collected women while the front room drew men, but from the moment the music started Michael could be found only on the second floor, where it was said he was dancing with all comers. The party was young enough that Mrs. Feeney’s phonograph could be heard over the kitchen’s hubbub. The kitchen table and its chairs had been pushed against the far wall to create a small rectangular clearing the approximate size of Lydia’s sleeping pallet. She had positioned herself by the table in order to cut slices of cake, while her mother stood by the sink mixing pitchers of lemonade, a drink that while not seasonal matched the afternoon’s temperate weather. With
every new song Cora Kilkenny paused in trading gossip with Mrs. Kirkpatrick and Mrs. Tierney to look toward her daughter, a conversational break that served each time to redirect the room’s eyes.

“You go, Ma,” Lydia finally offered when she could no longer withstand the room’s collective gaze. “I bet it’s been ages since you and Da took a spin.”

“But Liddie, you love to dance,” her mother protested.

Once a month Lydia and Henry had plied the Scollay Square dance halls. Henry was a more careful dancer than Lydia was used to, but she grew to enjoy the courtly manner with which he waltzed her about the room. She shook her head. “I’d rather stay here and look after things.”

Her mother shrugged. “Well then I think I will go. Your da and I are overdue for a proper go-round. But I’ll expect to see you up there later on. A bit of prancing will do you good.”