Page 14 of The Harvey Girls

Nine

“I need to ask you something,” Billie said to Leif as he loaded her tray with seven fruit compotes. “If something happens…”

“Just hold the tray steady and don’t lean forward when you reach up for each bowl. You’ll be fine.”

“I haven’t spilled anything in days!”

He grinned. “Which means you’re due.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, that’s just sidesplitting and all, but I’m serious. If something happens, and I ask for your help, will you give it?”

His smile dimmed. “What’s this about, Billie?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Simeon said when the bowl was empty but for the last lick of tomato stock now congealing into brown sludge. “Have to get back to work. I’ve been promoted, by the way. Covering features.”

Not the news desk he’d wanted so badly that he’d stay up for days tracking down a story, fueled by drink and his own fury. Features was less likely to rile him up. Better for him, and safer for her.

“Congratulations.”

“Yes, well. It’s a move in the right direction, anyway. A steppingstone to better things.” His gaze was humble, loving. “Might I see you one last time before I leave? Perhaps when you get off work, we could take a walk as we used to in the Boston Public Garden? It would mean the world to me.”

His words conjured warm memories of strolling along the meandering walkways, watching the swan boats glide across the pond. But something stopped her from agreeing, a little warning buzz at the back of her brain that said, Don’t wander off. Not with him. Not yet.

“Curfew’s at ten, and I won’t be done here much before that. But I’ll have a short dinner break around eight. You could meet me on Holliday Street behind the depot and say your goodbyes then.”

His face lit with gratitude. “I’ll be waiting.”

That man—Billie didn’t like to think of him as someone Charlotte had once loved—finally left. Maybe everything was fine, but Billie still felt skittish. As they cleaned their stations at the end of the shift, her gaze continued to trace across the room, nerves bracing for his return.

When he didn’t, she felt foolish. Just another overly emotional teenage girl. Maybe she was bored, as Charlotte had said, imagining turmoil where there was none. Except she’d been right about Charlotte. There was turmoil aplenty.

“Anything happen?” Leif asked when she came into the kitchen to rinse her cleaning rag.

“No, but…”

He studied her. “You don’t seem the type to make something out of nothing.”

“I’m not!”

“You can trust me, you know.”

“I do, but I can’t… say…”

He seemed almost a little hurt as he went back to slicing lemons for tomorrow’s tea drinkers. “Well, I’m here if you need me.”

That night as they changed into their nightgowns, Charlotte said, “Thank you for not asking any questions.”

It was bitterly disappointing. Billie had a thousand questions, and Charlotte had just effectively closed the door on all of them.

“I don’t want to pry,” she said. “As long as everything’s all right.”

“Yes, I think it is.”

And that was it. Charlotte pulled the chain on the wall lamp, and they lay on opposite sides of the tiny room, breathing into the darkness.

“I feel I should tell you…”

Billie’s eyes flew open. “Yes?”

“I met with him again during my dinner break, and I’ve decided to return to St. Louis with him in the morning.”

It was all Billie could do not to leap out of bed and shake the woman. “He’s making you?”

“Not at all. In fact, he didn’t even ask me. If he had, I would have reflexively said no. But by not asking and demonstrating the humility to know that he has no right to ask after how he’d behaved… he showed me that he’s changed.”

“He hurt you, Charlotte.”

“He’s my husband, Billie.”

I suppose he must be, thought Billie, or have cast some sort of fiendish spell, else why would someone so smart have anything to do with a man who’d beat her?

Charlotte yelled in her sleep just as much as she ever did, and Billie hoped that would give her some pause.

But when Charlotte woke in the morning, she packed her things into that battered suitcase with the gold letters.

CMC . No T for Turner. So maybe that wasn’t even her right name.

Maybe Billie didn’t really know her at all.

“Will you come with me to speak to Mr. Gilstead?” Charlotte said as she slid the faded green day dress over her head. “You can confirm that I told you I was married before Simeon arrived. I don’t want him to think I’m running off with some customer.”

“Of course.” Although why Charlotte cared what Mr. Gilstead thought was a puzzle to Billie. If all went well, Charlotte would presumably never need a job from the Fred Harvey Company again.

“Why are you in street clothes?” barked Frances. “Go back up and change before the train pulls in.”

“I need to speak to Mr. Gilstead. I’m resigning my position.”

Frances’s eyes went wide with fury. “And just before the seven fourteen arrives with a load of passengers! I didn’t take you for a quitter.” She turned her head and called, “Mr. Gilstead!”

Frances insisted on being part of the conversation, of course, so the four of them stepped out behind the kitchen to the Holliday Street side of the station.

Charlotte explained quite matter-of-factly that she’d lied on her application.

Her marriage had had some “difficulties,” and at the time she’d felt it best to strike out on her own.

But now that things were on the mend, she planned to go back and try again.

“What kind of difficulties?” Frances demanded to know.

“Bad ones,” Billie muttered. “Very bad.”

Frances’s face fell.

“Billie, please do not answer on my behalf,” said Charlotte. “It’s none of your—”

“Are you sure?” murmured Frances.

“Pardon me?”

“Are you certain you want to go back? My sister…” She left the sentence unfinished.

“My friend Clara had bruises all the time,” Billie whispered. “A bad temper doesn’t just go away on its own in a couple of weeks.”

“Darling!” The exclamation came from quite a way down the sidewalk, as if the exclaimer was unable to contain himself long enough to achieve a polite distance.

“That’s him,” said Billie. “He’s the one.”

“Billie, don’t,” hissed Charlotte.

The four of them watched him approach as his gaze flicked from one to the next. Then he saw the suitcase.

“Ah, wonderful. You’re packed and ready to go. Let me get your bag.”

Charlotte watched him snatch up the suitcase, and Billie saw her expression change, as if she were remembering something.

Simeon nodded at the women and stretched out his hand to Mr. Gilstead. “I assume you’re the manager?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Well, if you’ll just arrange for her ticket on the eight-oh-two east to St. Louis, we’ll be on our way.”

“Arrange for her ticket?”

“Yes, my understanding is that the Fred Harvey Company gives a girl a train ticket home if it doesn’t work out.” He chuckled merrily. “Well, I guess we can all agree it didn’t work out.”

Mr. Gilstead straightened up, suit buttons straining against the intrusion.

“Sir, a return ticket is provided only for girls who leave in good standing. Your… Charlotte has admitted to lying on her application. The contract clearly states that if a girl is married before completing one year of service, the company is under no obligation to provide transportation home. You’ll have to pay for the ticket yourself. ”

Simeon’s merry smile seemed to calcify. “Now, see here. She’s worked almost the full month and for free. You can’t possibly deny her a ticket—one that Fred Harvey receives gratis in a tidy little quid pro quo with the Santa Fe Railway.”

He’s done some digging , thought Billie. The man knew more about it than she did.

“I most certainly can deny her—and I will. She worked for free because it was her training period. Now all that training is for nothing.”

Simeon reached out and placed his hand lightly on Mr. Gilstead’s shoulder, a friendly gesture that nonetheless made Charlotte flinch.

“Listen, my friend. The company pays its laborers a pittance— toast crumbs —compared to what Fred Harvey’s greedy offspring suck out of it. And you’re trying to tell me—”

“Simeon, don’t.”

He turned to her. “Don’t what, Charlotte? Don’t what? Fight against a morally bankrupt system for what’s rightfully mine?”

Frances slid her hand into the crook of Charlotte’s arm.

Billie took a few strides back to the kitchen windows and gave two little raps. Leif looked up from chopping onions. She crooked a finger, beckoning him toward her. He gauged the look on her face, and in a moment he was in the kitchen doorway.

“It’s happening,” she murmured.

Simeon’s face had slowly advanced toward Mr. Gilstead’s until they were practically nose to nose, as Simeon barked into his face about the stink of capitalism and the rise of the proletariat. All the while, Frances slowly tugged Charlotte back toward the Harvey House.

Suddenly Simeon slammed the suitcase so hard onto the ground that it bounced a few feet away. Billie grabbed it and followed quickly behind Frances and Charlotte.

“Charlotte!” Simeon screamed after them. “Charlotte, don’t go!”

Charlotte stopped at the kitchen door and turned toward him.

“Now, you listen to me,” Frances murmured in her ear. “You can choose to die, or you can choose to leave right now and live.”

Simeon’s gaze bore into her, and Charlotte stared back. “You come back here right now, or I’ll—” He took a step toward her, and Leif lunged into his path. Simeon cocked back his fist, and in a split second everything went from slow motion to fast.

Frances hustled Charlotte through the kitchen with Billie at their heels. “You’re going to get on the seven fourteen heading west; it’ll pull in any minute. Don’t get off till Williams, Arizona. It’s about a twenty-hour ride. Don’t get off for any reason .”

Elsie went by with a tray full of cookies to restock the glass display case, and Frances took the tray right out of her hands. She snatched up a paper sack, dumped all the cookies in, and handed them to Charlotte. “There’s your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

The train whistled as it approached the station, and the three women scurried out toward the platform.

“I don’t have a ticket,” panted Charlotte.

“I’ll take care of that. Williams, you understand?

Not before.” Frances raised her voice to be heard over the hissing of the steam brakes.

“They need girls in California, but they hadn’t decided where to place you yet.

By the time you get to Williams, Gilstead will have it sorted out with Miss Steele. ”

“Won’t he tell her that I’m married?”

Frances squinted in thought for the briefest moment. “He’ll tell her you were receiving unwanted advances from an overly amorous customer, and you need to be transferred for your own safety. It’s the truth.”

“He won’t mention that the customer happened to be my husband?”

“No.”

“How can you be sure?”

Frances leveled her gaze at Charlotte. “Because I’ll tell him not to.”

The locomotive came to a stop beside them. Frances hurried over to a conductor leaning out from one of the compartment doors and gestured back toward Charlotte. The conductor studied Charlotte for a moment, then nodded. Frances waved frantically for her to get on board.

Charlotte looked up at Billie. “Thank you,” she said.

“Oh, Charlotte, I hope we meet again! I’m sorry I didn’t always—”

Charlotte put her hand on Billie’s arm. “You’re a smart girl. Smarter than I am, apparently. Don’t ever forget that.”