Page 25 of The Harvey Girls

Eighteen

As the train slowed, Billie’s pulse sped up in response, pounding in her neck like the thumping of a drum.

What if Leif wasn’t banging the gong out on the platform?

Would she have time to run into the station, through the restaurant, and back to the kitchen; hand him the letter; and speed back in time for the California Limited? What if he wasn’t even working today?

The idea for the letter had come to her on the train from Table Rock to St. Joseph, Missouri, as her anxiety about whether she might see him generated a strangely unmanageable pain in her chest. Because Leif was in Topeka!

And she would be in Topeka! And they would be there at the same time!

But somehow the chance that they would miss each other seemed more likely in her mind with every mile of track that sped under her feet.

And the very thought of it… well, something had to be done.

The letter was a hedge against all that could—and probably would—go wrong.

The very fact that they’d connected at all had been so unlikely: the almost kiss, her confession of her age, then the real kisses (oh, those kisses!), and finally her assignment to a place so far away that they would soon be separated by almost half a continent!

No wonder her head was “mince,” as Da would say.

She had hauled her tapestry bag into Union Station in St. Joseph, found a spot on a bench, and tugged out her letter-writing supplies: a small pad of paper, an envelope, and the fountain pen she’d purchased in Topeka with her first tip money.

That pen was dear. Seventy-five cents, for goodness’ sake!

And the refill ink was a quarter more. But she would have gone without food and water rather than not be able to write home, and you could only borrow pens for so long before you started getting the side-eye.

She’d had to finish the letter quickly, while she was still on solid ground, not on a heaving, shuddering train barreling across the countryside.

It wouldn’t do to have her one and only contact with him be illegible.

She scribbled as fast as her fingers could go to keep up with the flurry of thoughts she wanted to convey.

And now it was all sealed up, tucked into her coat pocket, ready for the handoff… except now she was having second thoughts. What exactly had she said? Did it make sense? Was it enough? Or was it too much?

Would he think her head was mince?

As the train slowed through the outskirts of Topeka and huffed through the city, she remembered the last time she had arrived here, only a little over a month ago.

It was all different: sunny now, not a flake of snow to be seen.

But more to the point, she felt different.

She’d been so anxious all those weeks ago, so terrified about this new life and whether she could brave her fears and succeed, as her family depended upon her to do.

She was anxious now, but for a very different reason.

She knew she could succeed. She just didn’t know if she could find Leif.

But there he was, easily visible, all dressed in white, his head several inches above everyone else’s on the platform. Sweet love of Jesus, she was afraid she might hurl herself at him in gratitude just for the fact of his standing there with that stupid gong!

She had her coat on and her tapestry bag already on her lap when she spied him, and leapt up from her seat before the train had come to a complete stop so as to be the first person down the steps and onto the platform.

“Hot meals served in the Harvey House!” he called out. “Right this way to the dining—”

His eyes met hers and held them, as if needing an extra moment to confirm the reality of her striding toward him. Then he broke into the widest grin his beautiful face could possibly hold. His lips formed a word she couldn’t hear. But she could see it.

Billie.

The gong dropped with a clatter, and she let the tapestry bag go. His arms were around her, her face in his neck, his lips against her hair.

“Billie,” he murmured. “Billie.”