Chapter Thirteen, part two

The next morning at breakfast, Violet sat ramrod straight, waiting for Sadie to appear at the doorway. She hadn’t wanted to wake her, but she was longing to ask her sister about her cryptic mutterings the night before. What was she trying to fix? How would one more night help? As she spooned out her soft-boiled egg, she reminded herself for the eleventh time that Sadie was dreaming. It might mean nothing. But it made the hairs on her arms twitch all the same.

At the head of the table, Flora tapped her spoon against her bone china cup.

“Hear ye, hear ye, let the game of last night hereby recommence,” she said. “Violet, you were indisposed last night when we struck up a game of Truth and Dare. I believe it’s my turn to pose the question. And it is: what frightens you most in the whole world? After you all answer truthfully, then you shall have my dare.”

A few jokes rang out.

“Tigers.”

“Floyd’s hair.”

“The Narragansett Bay shark.”

People snorted, arms were punched, then, after a pause: “Being broke.”

More laughter. Someone said, “the dark,” and everyone glanced at Charlie. He was running his fingers around the rim of his saucer, oblivious to their staring. Violet set her spoon down, appalled that they could be so rude. Was no one going to say anything—either to him or to change the subject? No? Then she would.

“What about you, Charlie? What do you fear?”

His face darted up, and this time his gaze landed squarely on hers. “Oh, that’s easy. Being useless.”

This quieted the group down. In her heart, Violet applauded so hard her palms stung. Take that, all of you! You who fritter your days away with boat trips and card games. Do you even know what it feels like to be useful?

Mrs. Voldore raised her coffee cup as if in a toast. “That,” she said, “was a truly honest answer.”

Flora cleared her throat. “Yes, it was. So, kids, since only one of you gave a genuinely honest answer, I get to issue my dare.” She eyed the table, one eyebrow arched. “Before today is over, we must each do one thing that frightens us. Really frightens us. You don’t have to share what it is, but if you cheat and lie afterward, saying you did a thing when you didn’t actually, Mrs. Voldore’s Fanny will haunt you all through the night.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Voldore objected, “that’s not the sort of spirit Fanny is at all—”

“Of course not.” Flora put out a hand in a placating gesture. “I was kidding around. But still. You’d better all do it if you know what’s good for you.”

It took a few minutes for the temperature of the room to return to normal, but once it did, the group was quick to settle on the day’s plans: a morning drive and an afternoon picnic on the beach. Flora had ordered ice cream and frozen daiquiris for the beach party, and spare bathing costumes were on loan to anyone who had forgotten theirs.

With these plans laid, the group began to rally. Sadie had still not appeared, so Violet begged off the joy ride, explaining that she needed to work with Alva’s typewriting machine. No one, she noted, asked Charlie if he wanted to go, even though he could ride in a car as well as anyone, and she smarted on his behalf as the girls ran around the house, collecting hats and hat pins. Violet waited until they were gone before moving to Charlie’s end of the breakfast table.

“I don’t know about you,” she said lightly, “but I intend to put off doing anything that frightens me for as long as possible. Care to join me for a few rounds with the typewriter?” Even though he always claimed to have nothing to do, her palms were damp with worry that he might decline.

“Gladly,” he said, laying his napkin on the table. “I think I’m ready to try out my abstract learning in real life.”

“Are you feeling good about the keys?”

He nodded, and she touched his sleeve to let him know she was there. “XJKMVW,” he said, “that’s the worst part. Then PLY OF URSA THE ING. Just five more letters to go. I’ve wondered if we could put a little something on the middle key—the R?—so I can find it again if I veer off.”

“I could tie a thread around it,” Violet suggested.

“That might do the trick.”

As they walked together, her hand on his arm, she found it hard to breathe normally. It wasn’t until they reached the breakfast room and had the typewriter to distract them that she was able to speak again.

“You don’t seem to have a problem being honest,” she said, fingering one of the levers. His response to Flora’s question, that he feared being useless, was so sincere it seemed to melt away a layer of tissue paper between them.

He shrugged. “I already live in a world apart from everyone else. I figure I may as well do what I can to bridge the gap. Besides, you were the one who asked the question.” He flashed one of his rare grins. “It’s easy to be honest with you. And it’s a relief.”

“Well, then,” she said, sliding a piece of paper off the stack. “Can I ask one more prying question? Are you going to take Flora’s challenge to do something frightening?”

He was quiet, his gaze working up and down across the windows on the far side of the room. “Yes. You?”

“I’m going to try.”

She bent forward and rolled the paper into the machine. “All right,” she said, “you first. Your last letters are DBCQZ. Not the most common in the alphabet. Let’s see you type something.”

He slid his hands down the table until they met the typewriter. She fought the urge to reach in and help him as he explored the wooden base, the levers on the left, the paper roll. As he probed with his fingertips, feeling along the row of keys, counting from each end until he reached the R in the center, something inside her softened. He murmured softly to himself as he moved to the right until he reached the H, pushed it, then felt with his left hand for the imprinting bar. An H printed on the paper.

“Maybe I should have learned these letters backward,” he said, gesturing to the ones to the left of R. “I’ll have to think about that.”

She touched his elbow. “I’ll go get that thread. Back in a jiffy.”

Sadie was still asleep, her face crammed beneath the pillow. Violet crept in and found her thread and scissors, then paused to peer at her sister, curled like an S under the blankets. She was still such a little girl. So impulsive, so mercurial. Stunning to think how many women were married at her age. Mothers at her age. Please, she thought, let Sadie have time for growing up before anyone proposes to her.

By the time she returned to Charlie, he was seated in front of the typewriter, his face calm with concentration. “Well,” he asked, “how’d I do?”

She rotated the paper roller.

hellothere

“Beautiful,” she said. “Now I need to show you how to make a blank space, capital letters, and numbers and punctuation, and you’ll be fully self-sufficient.”

His cheeks were flushed. “I hadn’t allowed myself to think this far ahead,” he said, “but do you realize what this means? With a typewriter like this, I could write—anything! Letters. Articles. A diary. I’ve always kept a diary, until now.” He rose, his fingers still gliding across the keys. “What was it? DBC-what?”

“QZ,” she answered, grinning. “Here, let’s practice loading the paper.”

“Wait, no—you’re supposed to be the one having time with it, not me. You have your agendas to type.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” she replied, tickled by how pleased he seemed. “I have a sly plan. If I can get you rolling with this contraption, I thought you might be willing to type some of them for me. Think you could memorize the agenda? It isn’t long. And it’s for a good cause, you know.”

--

It had been a long, long time since Charlie felt charged with purpose the way he did as he sat at the typewriter, typing the agenda one letter at a time. The slow pace didn’t bother him. Every page he completed made him more comfortable with the keys and the position of the letters. He was grateful to Violet for giving him this task. Hell, for teaching him to use the damned thing. This was the most hopeful he’d felt in five months. And it was the first morning in a long time when he hadn’t thought about a drink.

On the other side of the table, Violet worked on a quiet project of her own. The room smelled like sunshine, Ceylon tea, and furniture wax. Anna had brought in the teapot, and he could hear Violet’s cup every time it resettled in the saucer. The comfort of that sound was a cloak across his shoulders. He longed to know what she was working on, but he didn’t want to disturb her—or lose his place with his typing.

Clicking heels approached the doorway. “Telephone for you, Miss Van Waters,” Mary said.

“Oh!” The cup clinked on the saucer. Violet’s skirt swished as she hurried out. In a few moments, she was back. “Great news! That was Alva. She’s arranged for me to interview Irene Moorman Blackston—right this minute, at Marble House. I have to fly!”

There was a rustle of papers, and the sound of arms sliding into jacket sleeves.

“Goodness,” she said as she paused near him, “you’ve done four already! Sorry to leave you here working, but Mrs. Blackston! She’s a leader of the Black branch of the Political Equality League. I’ve been hoping for this.”

“Good luck!” he called after her. And turned back to his work.