Chapter Thirteen, part one

An hour later, Charlie sat at dinner, thinking of walking arm-in-arm with Violet. When her arm snugged around his, the side of his body leaned in toward her like fireflies toward their beloved lights. The arm she had held was still tingling, hopeful that it might be held again. What kind of fool was he, allowing himself to tumble for her so completely? She could have any man here. Earl was clearly smitten. If Earl hadn’t made his interest clear, other fellows would have stepped up, Charlie had no doubt about that. Reggie had called her beautiful, and he was an experienced judge.

Charlie was honored that she’d told him about the quarrel with Sadie. He hoped he’d said the right things. Was it dangerous to let himself imagine that she had come searching for him? That she’d sought him out to unburden her heart? Yes, too dangerous. He shook off the thought and tried to focus on the management of his dinner. The staff here consistently placed his meat at the top of the plate. The server always murmured helpful information into his ear. “Hollandaise sauce, sir?” “The soup is lobster bisque.” “Tenderloin, Mister Tremblay?” “Potatoes au gratin and petit pois, sir.”

Damned petit pois. How many times would he have to lift his fork all the way to his mouth, only to find that it had no actual peas on it? Mortifying.
At least the act of managing food and trying to eat it was usually so absorbing, he could ignore the table’s conversation, a floating allegro of merrymaking: what fun could be had, now or later. Sailing was a popular topic, and he struggled against imagining wind in his face every time someone said the word.

Let them sail; he had petit pois to avoid.

--

When Sadie wobbled into their room, Violet woke immediately. “You can switch on the light,” she mumbled.

Sadie did so with a giggle, then dropped onto Violet’s bed. “Ah, what an evening. You missed a real hoot. We played sardines again until the Worths got into some kind of spat—they didn’t say as much, but I think it was about who was standing closer to Jack Hollister. Flora Whitney had to smooth things over.” She sighed. “You wouldn’t believe the dress she was wearing tonight. Silk chiffon, I think, in this lovely pearl color.” Sadie’s head tilted to the side, followed by her shoulders and her spine until she toppled sideways with a titter.

Violet stared at her sister’s flushed face. “You’re drunk.”

“It was only champagne,” Sadie said, propping her arms on either side. “We started a delicious new game called Truth and Dare. You’re going to love it.”

A shadow passed over Violet’s heart. It’s only champagne was what their mother used to say, as if champagne was nothing but ice water. “There’s no such thing as only champagne. You’re clearly tight!” She pushed herself up on her elbows, anger rising in her chest. “Sadie, you’re only seventeen—it’s disgusting for you to be drunk!”

“Who cares? It’s not like it’s new to me.”

This was true. Their mother had served them wine and champagne at every Christmas dinner for the past five years. But to be flush-cheeked and slurry like this, well, it was too much like Mother’s behavior to stand. Violet struggled to get her legs out from under the blankets. “That’s it,” she snapped. “We’re going home.”

“Home?” This started as a wail from Sadie but ended in a waterfall of giggles. “Violet, you’re so silly. Of course, we’re not going home.”

“We are.” Violet circled the bed, her pulse hammering in her wrists. “I’ll pack us both now. We go first thing in the morning.” She flung open her case and began pulling shoes and dresses from the armoire. “None of this ever happened in Cold Lake,” she muttered, tossing shoes into the case. Skirts plopped on top. “Everything was under control before we came here. We didn’t argue. You didn’t get drunk. You were going back to Emma Willard!” Hairbrush and comb, corsets, pens, checkbook. “Things were fine before we came here.”

“They weren’t fine!” Sadie grabbed her wrist, her pink face imploring. “They weren’t fine at all. You were frozen inside, and I was dying a slow death. Now that we’re here, you’re talking to humans instead of just writing your endless letters. I’m having the time of my life! Besides, we simply can’t leave now. Too much depends on our staying!”

“What depends on our staying?”

Sadie’s mouth opened and shut, and she stared into the open case as if for inspiration. “Extremely important things.” She froze, her fingers grazing over the checkbook. “Your big suffrage meeting, for instance.” Her eyes flashed. “You can’t miss that, can you? I’m sure Alva could never get through it without you. Aren’t you needed?”

Violet clenched her teeth. My stars, but Sadie knew exactly which straw to pull.
Violet had, in the heat of her packing frenzy, forgotten all about the upcoming meeting, about Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, about Alva, about, well, everything.

She straightened, her fists on her hips. “If we don’t leave,” Violet said, “then I’d better chaperone you on these nights. No more leaving you to your own devices. I won’t have you getting sloppy drunk and embarrassing us in front of these people.”

“I have never embarrassed us!” Sadie sat back on the bed, managing to seem both off-kilter and offended at the same time. “See here, Vi, I’m sorry we’ve quarreled so much since we’ve been here. You know I always say what I think. Being here has made some things come bubbling up, that’s all. But I swear, I have never once shamed us. All the girls drink champagne. They drink far stronger stuff than that. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

“Yes, but they’re all older than you.”

Sadie cocked her head and gave Violet the sweet little smile that always melted her insides. “Maybe I’m an old soul, did you ever think of that?”

Violet groaned, but she could feel her heart slipping. “I don’t want to argue anymore. I wish we could be on the same team.”

“We are on the same team.” Sadie hooked her pinky finger around Violet’s and gave a little tug. “Do me in pin curls?”

Violet shook her head, but she was already a goner. She’d slid all the way into Sadie’s orbit, into the warm space where they were allies, giggling in their room late at night.

Sadie took Violet’s silence for agreement. She eased off the bed and went rummaging for a comb, a basin of water, and every hair pin she could find. Together, they undid Sadie’s hair, adding those pins to the pile, and Violet began to stroke through Sadie’s hair with the damp comb.

“About earlier.” Violet worked gently at a tangle. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been sharing everything with you. The numbers, for instance. I suppose I found it all so onerous that I assumed you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. With the lawyers and settling the accounts. Explaining it all to Grandfather when I needed him to sign something.”

She took a hank of hair and snaked it carefully around the tines of a hairpin, winding in and out in figure eight pattern. When the pin was full, she bent the prongs together to keep them in place. Sadie’s hair was long, so the whole length of her hair didn’t fit into the pin, but this would put pretty waves into the visible part of her hair, at the temples and above the forehead. “But if you want to take part, I’m happy to share it. You could even take on a piece of the work for yourself, paying the bills on the apartment—”

Sadie waved her off. “Good heavens, I don’t want to do that. I just want to know how much money is coming to me when I reach eighteen.”

“Oh.” Violet’s hands stilled. “All right. I can tell you. Though at some point we’ll need to decide whether we want to keep the apartment. I suppose one of us could buy out the other if we didn’t agree.”

“Let’s keep it,” Sadie said lightly. “Wait, I know. Let’s move there. Now. Right away.”

Violet stepped back. Thinking of the apartment, so entwined with memories, made the base of her skull throb. But New York also held the allure of suffrage work with Alva. “You really want to go back there?”

“Of course! Besides, anything’s better than another year with Gram. Wouldn’t you rather live in the city?”

“No!” Prickles broke out on Violet’s arms, but she forced herself to get back to work on Sadie’s hair. “No. I don’t know that I ever want to go to the apartment again. Just think how strange it would be.” How thick it would be with ghosts and memories, she wanted to say. “No, I don’t think I could ever live there again.”

“Then why did you keep it?”

“I suppose it felt wrong to sell it.”

“Gracious, Vi, you’re so sentimental. You might think you charged in and dealt with everything, but how many things like this are still undone?”

Violet willed her hands to keep winding hair as she waited for her pounding heart to quiet. “Mother’s letters,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Aunt Laura sent me all the letters Mother ever wrote her.” ‘Aunt’ Laura had been their mother’s best friend for decades. She was recently divorced and living a scandalous, Bohemian life with her latest lover in Boston. “I haven’t been able to bring myself to read them.”

“Why would she think we’d want Mother’s old letters?”

“I don’t know. As keepsakes? To know her better? I have them here with me, in my travel case.” A sudden thought seized her as she finished the last pin. “Would you like to read them?”

“Heavens, no! It would be too strange. You read them if you want to but keep me out of it.” Sadie rose and started pulling off her clothes, dropping her dress, petticoat, and corset cover onto the floor. As she undid the hooks down the front of her corset, she paused, came over to the bed, and kissed Violet on the cheek. “Thank you for the curls,” she said, her breath sticky-sweet with champagne.

A minute later, the lights were out, and Violet lay back in bed, her mind rattled. It was so disconcerting to see Sadie like this, the mirror image of their mother. A million things, she reassured herself, could help Sadie veer off the path to becoming their mother’s carbon copy. Right? Even if she didn’t make it back to Emma Willard, being a wife and parent might fulfill her in ways that it never had their mother. Hope wasn’t lost just because she drank champagne one night at a house party. And yet, Violet felt her sister floating out of her grasp, like a ball of fluff she couldn’t quite catch.

She lay awake a long while, so she was still conscious when Sadie tossed fitfully under her blankets, murmuring. “One more night… Fix it…fix it all.”