Chapter Seventeen, part two

Violet sat on her bed, restless. The dancing had been as sweet as thick wine, and she was still lilting forward and back, her heart foxtrotting through the silent room. She didn’t feel ready for sleep, not yet. She removed her dress, her corset cover, corset, stockings, and chemise, and put on her nightgown. Slowly, she pulled the pins from her hair, setting them in the dressing table drawer.

As she brushed out her hair, she examined her reflection. Sadie had looked so much like Mother tonight. In the jaw and around the mouth—exactly like her. But Violet had more of her coloring. A careless observer, or maybe even a careful one, would say that it was Violet who resembled their mother.

Violet stared at her own eyes, trying to see past the glass to her mother’s.

A sudden chill ran down her arms. What if—because her parents had died—what if her thoughts about her parents were frozen in place? Tripped like Peter Pan with a child’s perspective for ever and ever? She didn’t want to be a skipping record. Here, at the Breakers, she felt she was changing almost day by day. For the first time she wished she could talk to her mother. To get some advice about men and romance.

“Did I judge you too harshly?” she whispered. After all, Alva liked both her and her mother. Both. She didn’t see them as diametrically opposed.

In a rush, Violet went to her bed, pulling out the travel case that had been there since their arrival. Inside, the bundle of letters was cool and crisp. She settled cross-legged on the bed and untied the string, releasing her mother’s handwriting—potent as magic—into the night. These letters were written to Laura Ames Browning, Mother’s best friend, but as she lifted the first page, Violet couldn’t help feeling that they were written directly to her.

Mon chou,
Dish it, please—have you really left Clarence? I know you said it was only a matter of time, and time has passed. So? Were you all bark and no bite? Are you still pouring the man’s whiskey at lunch and then sitting up nights, waiting to see whose perfume he’ll stink of when he finally staggers in? Obviously, I’m dying to know. And you know you can stay here if you ever need. I’ll tell George to sleep on the divan.

Violet lowered the letter and stared into the gray center of the room. The amount of life in the words made her skin ache, almost as much as seeing the familiar spikes of Mother’s ts and the little curls she added to her capital letters. Violet exhaled slowly and returned to the page.

Now, if you haven’t left him yet, then I suppose you’ll want to hear all kind of gossip about New York and the parties I’ve been to. Well, chouchou, I’m sorry to say that I can’t be bothered. It’s too much writing, and everyone’s names are so tediously long. If you come to visit me, I’ll tell you all. There, that’s your incentive. Leave the varlet and come to your Gennie. I’ll die of boredom if you don’t.
— Imogen

Violet lowered the letter. There, she’d read it and survived. It had been classic Mother, full of the banter she deployed when she got together with Aunt Laura. Did Sadie know how to banter like that? Violet certainly didn’t. She lifted the next letter.

Laurita, my sweet,
Fortify yourself for my complaints. George is being a pest, and life is dreary. We’ve been overrun lately with the very worst drudgery of life—the things you know I detest above all. Tax bills, plumbing leaks. The cook quit, and George suddenly thinks we should economize by not dining out. Who, exactly, does he think will do the cooking? I might know how, but I refuse. *He knows what I had to do as a girl, how I was the one cooking the mush for breakfast and dinner. **Scouring the pots.* He knows I swore to never go back to life as a kitchen slave. I usually ask him how often he saw his mother in the kitchen, and that shuts him up.

What we need, ma chatte, is a butler. Or maybe a mother. A fairy godmother. Someone who will handle all the nasty little tasks that George and I have no flare for. Perhaps Violet would come home from school and do it if I asked her sweetly enough?

Violet’s heart jerked at this mention of herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised to see herself mentioned, but she was. Her fingers smoothed the paper as she girded herself for what might come next.

I’m sure Violet could manage everything. Though, somehow, I never manage to ask her anything sweetly. I see that scowl on her face, and my words come out sneery. Or pompous. I don’t know why I can’t be the bigger person—the parent, for God’s sake—when she’s concerned. Maybe I know she sees right through me. I resent that, of course. I don’t have much substance, and I admit that proudly at every social event in New York, but when my daughter sees it, I do everything I can to patch it over, include being snappish with her. I’m ashamed of my behavior, I really am. But I can’t seem to stop it. It’s too late for me now, I guess, to start pretending to be the mother.
Kisses and all my love,
— Imogen

Violet blinked hard, trying to outrun the sting in her eyes. These doubts! Who knew Mother ever had a single doubt? She’d never seemed to. Everything she did was full steam ahead. To think that she’d regretted the way she acted—as a mother!

Violet’s face fell into the same scowl her mother described, only this time she was scowling at herself. Why hadn’t she tried being warm with her mother? Maybe if she’d been friendly, Mother could have thawed a little, too.

Now it was too late.

Mon canard,
Out of the frying pan, into the fire? Two months away from Clarence, and you’re already falling for someone new? As long as this one deserves you. Will you bring him round soon so we can meet him? You know I’ll need to pass my own judgement. I’m feeling very wary of love just now, so I’m in a prime place to spot red flags. I only wish someone had done the same for me when I was young and free. But my mother was in no position to do it. I wouldn’t have wanted her within fifty miles of George when we first met. He’d have seen through her in a blink. I could pretend that I was from money, that I was a good match for him—but my mother? Never.

Besides, it’s not like her marriage was happy. My father walked out twice before he went the final time. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I? So, what did she know about choosing a fellow? No more than I did. I chose someone who would give me a different life. And we had fun together when times were good. When the money was good, the drinks were good.

But we can’t hold each other up when things are bad. When my mother died, when his brother went through that gambling scandal. He never thought of me when he was planning his life, planning his fun, so I stopped thinking of him. And eventually we came to where we are now, running on parallel tracks, only crossing paths when we show up at the same party, or throw our own. Or when the hot water goes out and no one can take a decent bath.

Sometimes I wonder what I’ll say if Sadie asks me how to choose a boy. Not Violet—she’ll never come to me for answers. She’ll find the answer in some book, probably, or from some professor. But Sadie might ask. What should I say? *Young girls are impressed by stupid things. **Nice suits and arrogance.* A gold wristwatch. None of that predicts whether he’s still going to like sitting beside you when you’re forty-four, no matter how lovely your hat is.
Dear, dumb, goosey little Sadie. She’ll fall for the first boy with a shiny car who tells her she’s pretty. Violet? I can’t even guess. Maybe she’ll never marry at all and will explore the Amazon instead. Or she’ll marry a man who adores her and treat him badly. I don’t know. I’m tired, and I’ve had too much sherry.
Bon soir, my pet,
— Imogen

With a sigh, Violet set the letters aside. They were overwhelming. These hints that her mother found her—what? Cold but capable? Was that accurate? It didn’t jive at all with her vision of herself. But to be fair, Mother had never seen her with friends at school, or alone with Sadie. Mother only got the on-edge Violet, the one who scowled.

She sighed again. She’d always worried that things between her parents was…rocky. Sometimes they’d seemed happy together, but more often they groused and nagged—or ran on parallel tracks, as her mother said. It made her heart hurt to think of them not getting along.

The door creaked open, and Violet shoved the letters back into her case. Sadie sashayed in, flopped on her bed, and pulled off her shoes without unhooking them.

“I love it here,” she said, gripping the sides of her bed. “Is the room tilting?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

She tipped her pale face toward Violet. “I’m never leaving.”

Violet laughed, but her mother’s words danced around the rim of her mind, laying a wash of color over Sadie, the room, the words they were speaking. “I think you’ll have to go when the two weeks end. You can’t just camp out here.”

Her sister exhaled languidly and rolled back to face the ceiling. “My body may leave, but in my mind I shall always be here. With the finest of everything. Dancing with Floyd. Drinking champagne. A million miles away from Cold Lake and those deathly boring evenings.” She stretched her arms over her head. “You always worry about how things will turn out, but just watch—I’m going to make all my dreams come true. You don’t have to fret over me anymore.”

The air stirred faintly as Violet imagined a world in which she didn’t have to worry about Sadie. Could it exist? A sense of relief settled over her as she pictured it.

Suddenly, she felt very sleepy.

“I hope it turns out exactly as you say,” she said, climbing under the covers. She thought of the letters in the traveling case. Mother was wrong to call Sadie dumb. She and Violet had been the dumb ones, locked in their battle of inches. Sadie was going to show them all.