Chapter Eight, part one

Violet hung behind Earl, fiddling with her belt. Charlie didn’t seem to be enjoying his palm reading. She closed her eyes and imagined how it would feel to be seated in the dark with people huddled around, gaping at you. She shivered.

She’d tried this game in the morning as well, keeping her eyes shut when she woke up. Sitting up was easy enough, but once she put her feet on the floor, the urge to touch solid things—the bed, the nightstand—was overwhelming. When she stood in the center of the room, her hands touching nothing, she felt untethered. A flake of ash in the wind. It made her queasy. She’d opened her eyes, breathing hard.

How much worse that would be with people crowding around. Now she moved to the back of the group until she reached Reggie and his cigar. “You’d said you wanted to play cards this evening,” she reminded him. “I could play some music during, if you like.”

“Ah!” Reggie’s cheeks had the reddish, crepe-like weave of a practiced drinker. He drained his whiskey glass and bellowed to the group. “Cards!”

Everyone straightened. Several people emptied their glasses and looked around for the next, ambling toward Reggie.

“In the library,” he barked. “Come on. Bring your wallets.”

The group did as it was told, leaving Charlie behind on the divan. Earl came to catch Violet’s elbow, but Reggie waved him off. “No, no, that one’s going to play for us.” He motioned to the piano, near the windows of the grand salon. The others trailed away in clusters, but Sadie lagged. When the group was gone, she approached Violet.

“I have something for you,” she said in a not entirely pleasant voice.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” Sadie held out her closed fist. Violet obediently put her cupped hands underneath, but when Sadie opened hers, a snow flurry of torn paper bits fluttered down.

“What is it?” Violet asked.

“The Emma Willard application.” Sadie’s voice was iron cold.

Violet gasped. “Sadie!” She looked up at her sister’s frowning face. “How could you? I don’t have another copy.”

“You don’t need another copy because I’m not going.” Sadie was wearing their mother’s tear-drop jade earrings, and they trembled with each word. “I won’t. You can’t make me, you know.”

“I know I can’t, but— You’d said—"

Sadie sauntered away, leaving the words hanging in Violet’s mouth.

Violet clutched the back of a chair, then bent down to pick up the paper bits that had fallen. How embarrassing that Charlie had heard. Quickly, she decided to employ the time-honored face-saving technique of pretending it hadn’t happened. Still, she was ruffled and was glad she didn’t have to shape her face into a smile that she didn’t feel.

“Whew!” she said. “I guess I’m not used to these social evenings.”

“No. Neither am I.” Charlie lifted his face to the room. “Have they all gone?”

“Yes. The door’s open, but they’re at the far back end of the library. I don’t think anyone can hear us.” She squeezed the torn paper bits into a ball, then piled them neatly on the side table. The sight of them made her sad.

Charlie rubbed his hands together. “For once, I’m glad I can’t see to play cards.”

“So, what do you think of Mrs. Voldore now? Now that she’s read your palm?”

He absently smoothed the back of one hand. “I think she was kind to me. It seems unlikely that any of what she said is true.”

Except the bit about feeling things deeply, Violet thought. She’d seen the tears in his eyes when she’d finished playing “Moonlight Sonata” the other day. Not everyone was moved by music. Even by Beethoven.

Still, he looked embarrassed. She didn’t press the point. “I spoke with Alva,” she said, changing the subject. “I tried to beg off the next séance, but she adamantly wants me there. You too, in fact. She’s cutting most of this lot out of it and bringing in some other people. People who were closer to their dear departed, I guess.”

He tucked his lower lip between his teeth for a minute, shadowing his cheekbones. The part of his hair—he wore a side part—was crooked, and she had an urge to fix it for him. “There’s only one way to survive that, then,” he said. “We need to stay skeptical. Keep alert for signs of a hoax. As long as we have reason to doubt, the next séance will be a cakewalk. If not, it’ll be intolerable.”

Violet’s heart clenched. Yes. Too true. She stood up. “Is your clarinet nearby? Would you like to play?”

He directed her to his case, and she took her seat at the piano. When they’d settled on a song, but before she struck up the opening chord, she said, “I’m so glad you helped that injured man. He really wasn’t causing any harm. And he looked hungry.”

A peachy shade of pleasure colored his face, highlighting his dark eyes and lashes. She readjusted her blouse—she was suddenly warm—and began to play.

The next hour was lost in happy concentration as they worked their way through all the ragtime hits they knew, then moved on to “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

“My fingers are done in,” Violet said when they’d played the last note. “Maybe the Victrola could spell us for a bit?”

The Breakers’ Victrola was housed in a bombé-style walnut cabinet, lit with gold leaf. Violet was nervous to handle such an expensive-looking machine, but she managed to start an Irving Berlin record.

“That thing puts my grandparents’ Victrola to shame,” she said as she moved to the opposite side of the grand piano from Charlie, who was stowing his clarinet in its case.

“It has a fine sound,” he said. “Do you live with your grandparents?”

“Yes. Ever since….” She let the sentence dissolve in the air.

“Do you like it?”

Like it? Good heavens, she’d never stopped to entertain that question. Life with them was stiff, formal, and drafty, just like their house. But— “It was a safe place to go when we left the city. After Mother and Papa died, I couldn’t bear to be in that apartment. It just crept with ghosts. Sadie didn’t feel ready or able to go back to school, and our grandparents took us without question. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

He nodded as if he understood.

Violet looked past his shoulder to the open door of the library. “I’m starting to think, though,” she said in a low voice, “that Sadie hates it.” Though, if she hated Cold Lake so much, why not jump at the chance to get back to Emma Willard?

“Has she said so?” His dark eyes were fixed on her ear.

“No. But judging by how much she loves this place, and being around these young people, I’m getting the sense.”

“Floyd MacAlister seems taken with her.”

“Well, I’ll confess to you that she’s quite a catch. She was always popular at the dances at school.” At a school that she apparently refused to attend. Violet pushed her fingernails into her palm and fought the urge to run into the library and list out the reasons why school was the best place for Sadie.

Of course, Sadie had heard all her arguments before.

Charlie’s gaze slid back and forth across her face, soft as a touch. She relaxed her hands. Was he wondering what she looked like? It had occurred to her earlier that knowing he couldn’t see her might be part of what made her so comfortable around him. She didn’t have to worry about sitting up straight or whether her hair was tidy. She didn’t even have to smile if she didn’t want to. Liberating.

“I always made it a rule to steer clear of those popular girls. They seemed more interested in keeping a circle of fellows around them than on settling for any one.”

“They weren’t serious enough for you?” she teased. Then she remembered the deep heart line on his palm and considered that he might be the rare young man who didn’t see courting as a game.

Charlie ran his fingers along the edge of his clarinet case. “We’re just different animals. Some of us eat grass and some of us eat bugs. If you’re a grass eater, well, then, it’s fun to get to know some insect eaters. Fun to wander over to their side of things and try snacking on a few beetles. But when you remember that you don’t like beetles, you really like grass, it’s such bliss to run into another grass eater and maybe dance a few dances with her. Besides, the grass-eating girls were always prettier.”

Violet laughed, and Charlie released one of his rare smiles, the kind that made a flower spring open in her chest. “To animals,” she said, clinking her champagne glass against his gin glass, halfway across the piano top. “I do believe I’ve been in the wrong herd for most of my life.”

--

Even clutching the stone railing of the second-floor loggia, Charlie felt himself falling. It was midafternoon, and the smell of sunshine filled the air. He pressed his toes into the stone flags, but couldn’t stop the sensation that the ground, a full story below, was rushing up to meet him.

“Damned waves,” he muttered. Though he knew the waves were a hundred yards off, they sounded close enough to splatter him. And they never stopped. Day. Night. They never let up. Never rested. The star workers of the assembly line.

Charlie stood upright, feet planted, and waited for the dizziness to fade. He’d woken up from a vivid, terrifying dream, and the shadows of it had clung to him all day. It didn’t help that everyone seemed to be out and there were no distractions. To steady himself, he allowed ten minutes of thinking about Violet. Playing music with her had been exhilarating. Several times, he’d surprised her with an unexpected riff, trilling off the melody they both knew was coming, and she’d laughed out loud. He’d had to stop himself from doing it over and over, just to hear that warm, velvety sound.

When they played together, he lost some of the feeling that he lived inside a solid black marble, held at arm’s length from everyone else. He could pin her in space and know, by the sound of her playing, that she was right there. Not slipping away without him noticing. He’d had the same feeling when the nurses in France had read out loud to him from Le Temps. Or with Marta, here at the Breakers, who touched his shoulder while performing his daily shave. The sense of safety was so rare. So precious.

His ears picked up footsteps in the hall. The swish of skirts.

“Ah, Mr. Tremblay.”

“Mary,” he said, turning, ignoring the dizziness in an effort to act normal.

“Your father just rang for you. He asked that you telephone him back, at his office.”

Her steps came nearer. “Shall we go together?”

He nodded and took her arm. Since he’d lost his sight, he’d developed a new appreciation for small gestures. Mary, for instance, always phrased things so nicely. She never used the words “help” or “guide.” She framed her assistance as if it was for their mutual benefit.

As they descended the carpeted stairs, his queasiness grew. Mary led him to a seat in the library. “You’ll have privacy here, sir. Here is the telephone. Can I get you anything?”

“Gin fizz?”

“Of course, sir.”

Her heels clicked out of the room. Charlie felt for the telephone. Should he drink the gin fizz before the call? No, he chided himself. Buck up and get it done. He lifted the receiver.

At his request, the switchboard put him through to Baltimore, another patched him through to his father’s office building, then a final one connected the call.

“Hello?” His father’s voice sounded like eggs and bacon for breakfast, like the Packard Six Runabout and long days at the office.

“Hello, Dad. It’s Charlie.”

“Charlie!” A yellow sheet of false cheer lay on top of the word. “I’m glad you called. How’s Newport?”

What should he say? The gin’s terrific. I haven’t set foot outside. I’ve made a….friend. “It’s swell. Earl Tibbens is here. The weather’s great.”

“Good. Good.” Did he hear the shuffle of papers? “I’ll tell you why I called. I’ve been talking with Leo—” this was Charlie’s younger brother “—about the company. I told him I want to bring him on when he finishes at Yale next year. Let him learn things from the ground up.”

The cold punch settled in Charlie’s gut. That had always been the plan for him, that he would start at the company when he finished at Harvard. Learn things from the ground up. But that plan would have to change. Of course, it would. Where was that gin fizz?

“Sure,” Charlie said. “Sure, that makes sense.” Besides, whose fault was it? His. All his. No one had made him hop a steamer to France. No one had forced him to go to war. His busted-up life was his own fault, as sure as if he’d taken a sledgehammer to it. Idiot. Fathead. “Leo will be great. He’s a natural. Good with numbers.”

“Yes, I think so.” Did he hear relief in his father’s voice? Then, away from the receiver, “Can you ask them to wait? I only need a minute.” Back into the receiver, “Listen, Charlie, your mother and I have some news for you. I was able to get an appointment with that eye specialist, the fellow in New York. The one Dr. Alvo mentioned.”

“Dr. Stuart?”

“Yes, that’s the one. He can see you on June 6. Tuesday after next. I’ll send the car down for you on Sunday, and we can all drive into the city together for the appointment. How’s that sound?”

“Terrific!” Dad must have called in a favor or two to get that set up. The thought put a catch in his throat, but he swallowed it. “That’s great—thank you for getting the appointment.”

“Happy to. All right, you take care now. Don’t cause too much trouble.”

Charlie hung up just as Mary arrived with the drink. His stomach was a stew. Might as well dump gin on top of it.

Don’t cause too much trouble. That was the way Dad always saw him off, at train stations, as he left the house. Don’t cause too much trouble. As if he was privately proud of the trouble Charlie might be heading out to cause. Well, he wasn’t likely to cause any trouble now.

He drank half the gin fizz and thought about Dr. Stuart. Dr. Alvo had called him the top vision man on the East Coast. If he couldn’t help, maybe no one could.
It was a terrifying thought.

He pressed a finger against the cold glass. Poor Dad. Not for the first time, Charlie wondered if it might have been better for his parents if he’d died in France. A dead son was easier to explain than a living, crippled one. Easier to grieve. A son who came home, blind and broken, was a burden that never ended.