Page 23 of The Harvey Girls

Sixteen

The man now staring at Charlotte hadn’t moved. Heart racing, her first reaction was to run.

A moment later, rage hit the surface as if it had been detonated from the ocean floor, a tidal wave of fear and fury that made her want to beat this gawker bloody, to swing her suitcase at his head until he dropped to the ground. How dare he?

Compose yourself—it’s not Simeon. It’s no one.

She took a breath, then another. Set her suitcase down, uncurled her clenched fingers, and straightened. Took another breath to steady her ragged emotions.

When she glanced up again, she realized the man hadn’t been staring so much as gazing, and now his features were tinged with concern.

He headed toward her, and what could she do, scurry away into the growing darkness like some desert rodent?

She didn’t want his concern. Wanted only to be left alone, but there was naught to do but watch him approach.

Older than she, but not as old as her father, his body thickened but muscular.

Suit jacket strained slightly across broad shoulders.

How hard was it to find a suit jacket that fit properly, for goodness’ sake?

“I see you’re on your own. May I help with your baggage?” His cap was stitched with the words El Tovar Hotel .

“I am not on my own,” she said with perhaps more emphasis than was entirely necessary. “Or I won’t be for long. I’m a Harvey Girl.”

His brows tensed briefly over dark eyes as he considered this information. “You don’t say.”

“And this is my only bag, so I won’t be in need of your assistance.”

He smiled. For what reason, she wanted to know. How was any of this— any last detail of it —amusing?

“The girls’ dormitory is just up the hill there behind the hotel.

It’s a short walk, but steep. You’re sure you wouldn’t like a ride?

” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder to the oversized touring car on the road beyond the depot building.

Yellow as a buttercup, with a yellow-and-red stripe around its wheels and the words Harvey Car printed across the door.

“I prefer to walk.”

“Suit yourself.”

He turned to an elderly couple who were dithering with their hats and gloves. “May I help—” she heard him say as she hefted the bag and marched toward the incandescent glow of the enormous building.

The road was indeed steep, and the suitcase seemed to grow heavier with every step.

With the sun below the horizon and the sky darkening, she tripped over an unseen stone, barely catching herself in time.

A bright light came up from behind her, throwing her long shadow against the bushes.

As the Harvey Car passed, she looked up, but the driver did not glance toward her, only kept his eyes trained on the road ahead.

She looked down again to watch her step.

The vehicle’s rear lights made the gilded monogram on her suitcase glow.

Charlotte found her way in the darkness to the girls’ dormitory, located the dorm mother, was assigned a room, and collapsed into bed.

I have no business being tired, for godsake!

she scolded herself. She had slept until afternoon, sat on a train for a couple of hours, hiked up a short hill, and felt as if she’d climbed Mount Everest. The bed was hard, the hall noisy with girls chattering to one another like monkeys in a zoo, the air wafting with earthy fumes from the mule barn down the hill.

Nevertheless, a heavy torpor descended on her, and it was all she could do to change into her nightdress before crawling under the covers and dropping into the opening salvo of a dream.

I’m a Harvey Girl.

You don’t say.

She woke to the sound of a sigh. Or rather a huff.

The other bed, which had been empty when she’d fallen asleep, was now occupied.

The girl frowned against the rays of light knifing their way around the muslin curtains.

“So sunny .” She glanced toward Charlotte and forced a polite if unconvincing smile.

“I’m Charlotte.”

The effort to smile seemed to have bested her, and the girl’s face returned to a look of general grievance. “Alva.”

Charlotte was beginning to see why she’d previously had no roommate. “Pleased to meet you, Alva. Have you been here long?”

“Where?”

The State of Stupidity , Charlotte thought. “Here. The Grand Canyon.”

“Long enough,” the girl snorted. “You always grind your teeth like that in your sleep? Felt like I was bunking in a flour mill.”

Teeth grinding—that was new. But at least she hadn’t cried out as if she were being bludgeoned. “So sorry about that. I’ll try not to tonight.”

“Try not to? You’ll be sleeping .”

Charlotte drilled her with a falsely bright smile. “I suppose you’re right! Well, sorry in advance, then.”

Mae Parnell, the dorm mother, was a comfortable-looking woman, buxom with extra padding, pink cheeks, and a crown of unruly gray curls that cascaded to her jaw, as if the barber had attempted to bob it in keeping with current fashion and Mae was content simply to let the locks flop about of their own accord.

Charlotte found her in the dorm kitchen area buttering a small tower of toast.

“How’d you sleep?” Mae asked cheerily, tucking an errant curl behind her ear only for it to pop out again a moment later.

“Quite well, thank you,” said Charlotte, anxious for the distraction of work to keep her from ruminating too long on the strange and unholy series of events that now found her stranded in the absolute middle of nowhere. “I know you weren’t given much notice of my arrival—”

“Never you worry, my dear. We work for Fred Harvey. We’re ready for anything.”

“Yes, well, I’m wondering if I’m to work today. Up at the—” She gestured roughly north.

“You’re here, so you’ll work. But there was a question about placement. You’re new, I understand? Just trained at Topeka?” Pale eyebrows rose over bright blue eyes as she chuckled. “Won’t that be a topic of discussion.”

“For whom?”

Mae waved a buttery hand, effectively dismissing the subject. “Do you speak any languages other than English, is the question.”

Charlotte had taken French at the Winsor School for Girls, of course, and during her two years at Wellesley, but she hadn’t uttered so much as a bonjour since leaving the East Coast with Simeon two years before.

A second language might place her as translator for the kitchen help, but how many French-speaking busboys were there likely to be?

“I speak French.”

“Exactly how well? A bit of parlez-vous, or are you fluent?”

“I’m sufficiently fluent to converse, but I wouldn’t trust my skills to translate poetry.”

“I’ll alert the French poets that your services may not be up to par!

” Mae laughed warmly. “The new girls generally start at Bright Angel Hotel—it’s much smaller, less formal, and serves fewer foreign visitors.

A mistake here or there won’t cause an international incident.

” She blew a lock off her cheek. “You’re sure you’re ‘sufficiently fluent,’ as you say?

Because they’re short of bilingual girls up at El Tovar.

It’s considered one of the finest and most elegant hotels in all of Harvey-dom, so mistakes of any variety won’t be taken lightly, new girl or not. ”

Mrs. Parnell issued her a calf-length white dress; the dresses had been black in Topeka, which helped to hide stains, but apparently here at the world-renowned El Tovar, they had a bigger laundry budget.

Charlotte dressed, tied her apron, affixed the little black bow tie at the neckline, and headed across the dusty service road toward the employees’ entrance at the back of the hotel.

Before she reached it, she saw the wooden walkway beyond the building and some early-bird tourists strolling serenely along in front of a low stone wall. They gazed out over the distance, murmuring in hushed tones.

Might as well see what all the fuss is about.

The sun was ascending its usual path, the sky still purple high in its dome.

A nice enough morning. But with every step Charlotte took, another striation of the far canyon wall came into view, and each one—rusty red, sandy orange, chocolate brown, mustard yellow—seemed to glow from within, set off by the cool blues of the sky and the lower still-unlit recesses.

The closer she got to the abyss, the deeper it proved to be.

Finally she was at the stone wall, which was clearly built to keep visitors, stunned senseless by vast unrelenting beauty, from walking straight into the thing.

“My God!” she gasped and stepped back, fearful that if she wavered at all, she’d be over the edge. And it would be a much farther fall than a fifth-floor walk-up.

“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” said an elderly gentleman with a raspy chuckle as he strolled by, knobbed walking stick tapping along the path.

“Sweet Jesus,” she breathed. “It’s terrifying.”