Page 15 of The Harvey Girls

Ten

Billie held herself together all day, focusing on the endless delivery and retrieval of what seemed like a thousand pieces of china.

Whenever she had a moment to think, the look on that man’s face—like he might take Mr. Gilstead’s head clean off without a second thought—invaded unbidden.

It was utterly terrifying to know how close Charlotte had come to going off with him.

And now what? What if he tracked her down again? How much more furious was he now that she’d slipped from his grasp a second time?

The other girls whispered behind their hands, and that nosy Tildie came over to Billie’s station, leaned against the counter in a way that did not seem nearly as relaxed as it was meant to be, and said, “Your friend left in quite a hurry. You must know all about it.”

“It’s not my story to tell.”

With no gossip to glean, Tildie moseyed right back to her own station.

Bunch o’ spraffin’ eejits , Billie could hear her father say as if he were standing next to her.

After that night with the doll’s bow, the other girls had never really included her.

They went out on their days off or chattered in the sewing room or did one another’s hair, but she’d somehow gotten stuck with Charlotte, who had no interest in any of those things.

Billie had blamed Charlotte for this, of course.

But deep down she wondered if they sensed how young she was and didn’t want her tagging along.

The person she was most worried about at the moment was Leif. The last she’d seen of him, he was heading straight into the fisticuffs with Charlotte’s husband. Afterward Mr. Gilstead told her only that he was fine and was just getting “seen to.”

“Seen to for what?” she asked.

“A few scratches. Nothing to worry about.”

Gilstead had been similarly glib about Pablocito, who still hadn’t returned to work a week later.

She hoped Frances might be a little kinder to her after they’d joined forces to help Charlotte escape. That night, as Billie comforted herself with a quick, well-deserved weep, Frances rapped on the door and stuck her head in.

“Charlotte got away,” she snapped. “My sister never did, God rest her soul, and your little friend from home probably won’t, either. Cry for them if you want to, but don’t cry for Charlotte. And you’d better not be crying for yourself.”

Clearly, Frances’s sympathy only extended so far.

The next morning, Billie went down to breakfast early in desperate hope that Leif had returned.

She found him with a bruise the size of a ripe plum spreading across his cheekbone and a bandage wrapped around the knuckles of his right hand.

With his left he awkwardly rolled a ball of bread dough and placed it on a greased metal tray.

“What happened?”

He shrugged.

Why was it that men became blubbering babies over splinters, yet shrugged off the worst possible things? Her brothers could practically get run over by farm machinery and still claim they were fine, but let them get a head cold…

“Leif!” It was all she could do not to stomp her foot.

He stopped pulverizing the little wad of dough and gazed at her with those hazel eyes that looked like the crackled glaze on an old teacup.

“Gilstead left me with that madman so he could go call the police, and we went at it.” A flicker of humor came up in those eyes. “He got his licks in, but I did, too. Broken nose and a bit lighter in the teeth department, I think.”

“I didn’t know you were a fighter.”

He went back to mauling the dough. “Not by choice, but it comes in handy.”

“You didn’t come back to work.”

He tipped his bruised cheek at her. “This fellow gave me some trouble. Couldn’t see straight for a few hours.”

She held up three fingers. “How many?”

“Twelve?” He laughed, then winced. “Head still throbs a bit.”

“You got your bell rung. Here, give that to me.” She held out her hand for the dough, and he dropped it into her palm. She quickly went to work on the rest of it, rolling and placing little sticky globes onto the greased metal sheet. “The police came?”

“They were getting ready to cart us both off when Gilstead stepped in and vouched for me. Then he sent me off to Christ’s Hospital, which was about right, since I was practically seeing Jesus with every step.”

She finished the last bread roll and looked up at him. That beautiful face stamped with another man’s rage. “He got you good,” she murmured.

“But I got him better.”

“I’ve no doubt.”

He smiled. “Your confidence is much appreciated.”

Lord, but her heart began to pound, and she knew she’d better fly before her face flushed like stewed tomatoes. She headed for the lunchroom door. “I’ll just check on my…” Something. She’d check on… what exactly?

She stood on the other side of the door, catching her breath for a moment. Oh, yes. That was it. Customers.

“I meant to tell you I saw Pablocito at the hospital yesterday,” Leif said that night, when Billie carried a dessert plate and two forks into the kitchen from her last table, a couple who’d smiled secrets at each other as they shared a lemon meringue pie.

At one point, the man had held out a forkful of lemony sweetness to his lady friend, and her mouth opened, rosy and inviting, to accept it.

Billie thought she might melt into the floor from envy.

“He’s still in the hospital?”

“No, they were letting him out. His shoulder’s in a sling and he had a limp, but he was walking, and that’s the important thing.”

“His face?”

She saw Leif’s hesitation, and her heart sank. “The bruises are healing up pretty good,” he said a half second late. “Couple of weeks you won’t know they were ever there.”

“Would it… do you think I could ever go see him? I feel so badly.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Billie.”

“I left him there!”

“And what would you have done if you’d stayed? Taken on a bunch of KKK men? If you tried to help a fellow with dark skin, they wouldn’t care if you were white and female. Cripes, they wouldn’t care if you were Greta Garbo.”

“My father says you never leave a friend alone in a brawl.”

“Well, he’s right about that, but I’m sure he didn’t mean you you.”

“He said it to all of us.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Nine.”

His eyebrows went up. “And where are you in that mob?”

She smiled. “At the top.”

“Might have guessed.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re bossy and—”

“Am not!”

“ And … you look out for people.”

This was true, but she was the oldest; it was her job. He made it sound so… nice.

“I wish I could’ve looked out for Pablocito.”

He turned back to the potatoes he’d been scrubbing rather unsuccessfully using one hand and just the fingertips of the other. “We can’t always save people.”

Where are your people? she wondered.

“When’s your day off?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Mine, too. I’ll take you to see Pablocito.”

She was unaccountably nervous, changing from one dress to the next, to the next, then back again.

Thank goodness she only had three. Green cardigan on.

Green cardigan off. Which way made her look older?

It was her mother’s sweater, so by rights it should have helped…

but did it send her past the far side of “older” into matronly?

Och, dinna fash, ye wee eejit!

The fact was, everything she owned looked like it had been passed down for generations.

In contrast to the crisp, starched uniforms, which were regularly shipped out to the Fred Harvey laundry shop in Newton, Kansas, and tossed away altogether the minute they looked the slightest bit worn, her own clothes made her seem like a penniless waif.

This would’ve been a generally accurate description, except that with three square meals a day, she’d gained a few pounds. It was something she’d always hoped for, but now the clothes felt snug, and she worried a button might pop off and fly right into his eye!

She slumped down on the bed.

He doesn’t have a whit of interest in you or what you wear. He’s just being nice, so stop this nonsense right now.

“It’s not far,” said Leif when he met her on Holliday Street. “He lives in the Bottoms just north of here, up by the river.”

“So it’s at the top of the Bottoms?” she said with a little smile.

“Ha! Sharp as a shearing blade, aren’t you?”

She’d only ever seen him in his all-white kitchen clothes, so the man who stood before her now in brown pants, gray vest, and slightly frayed tweed coat looked almost like a stranger.

His sandy hair seemed lighter under the brown newsboy cap than it did when he wore the white brimless cook’s hat, his eyes less gemlike with the shadow cast by the cap’s bill.

But there was his smile, slightly wry, always kind.

He had a paper sack tucked under his arm—a gift from the kitchen staff, he said.

“Some of the smaller cuts of meat that we can’t serve, potatoes, carrots, a couple of tins of sardines, day-old rolls, and all the broken cookies I could find.

I may have accidentally broken a few myself.

” He smiled and held up his bandaged hand. “Clumsy.”

As they walked up Adams Street, the homes and businesses got more dilapidated and the children more plentiful.

A band of boys rode by on scooters made of scrap lumber and rickety wheels, each one garishly painted and decorated.

Two girls trotted past them rolling hoops, occasionally colliding with each other and laughing.

All of the children they saw gave extra-long looks to the two tall, white-skinned, pale-haired teenagers making their way deeper into a neighborhood that rarely hosted such specimens.

“I loved my hoop,” Billie said wistfully. Actually she’d loved her Raggedy Ann doll even more, but she’d eat soap before she mentioned that again.

“Left it at home, then?” Leif teased as he steered them onto Second Avenue. “Didn’t fit in your traveling bag?”