Page 28 of The Harvey Girls

Twenty-One

“Je suis désolée.”

“Je suis désolée,” Billie parroted.

“C’est ma faute.”

“C’est ma…” Billie paused. “Why do I have to learn ‘I’m sorry, it’s my fault’ over and over? Aren’t there more important things to learn?”

“For you?” said Charlotte. “No.”

“I don’t spill things anymore! At least… well, almost never.”

“This isn’t Topeka, Billie. Many of the customers are very wealthy people who could go to Europe, but instead they’re choosing Fred Harvey’s Southwest tour. Actually probably not instead,” she muttered to herself. “Probably in addition.”

“How do the men take that much time off work?” asked Billie.

“They don’t work in a brick factory, that’s how.”

Billie gasped. “You take that back,” she growled.

“Oh dear. I’m sorry.” Charlotte shook her head in self-disgust. If she was to keep this friend, as she’d vowed to do on the train, she needed to learn some self-restraint. “I only meant—”

“You can’t talk to me like I’m some… some… little sister!”

“No, of course not. You’re a grown woman.”

They both paused at the inaccuracy of that statement.

“Well, in any case,” said Charlotte, “you’re a good friend, and I’ll endeavor always to treat you as such.”

“I may have to learn to speak another language,” said Billie, her anger still pulsing, “but you have to learn to keep your trap shut altogether.”

Charlotte couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s truculence. “Now who’s the big sister?”

“You need one.”

The next morning, the two women made their way to the breakfast shift at El Tovar and were greeted by Nora. Charlotte had warned Billie about the steely head waitress, and her first words did nothing to dispel the description.

“And what have we here? Mutt and Jeff?” Nora sneered, playing off the difference in their heights.

Charlotte was about to snap back that if any of them were a comic strip character, it would be Nora, but remembering the previous evening’s interchange, she bit her sharp tongue.

“Och, no!” said Billie, leaning into a hint of her mother’s brogue. “We’ve no get-rich-quick schemes in mind, only hard work!”

Nora’s pale brows went up in interest. “A Scot, now, are ye?”

Billie wielded her most charming smile and held out her hand to shake. “Billie MacTavish, ever at your service.”

“Nora O’Sullivan.” She gave Billie’s hand an aggressive pump.

“Well, Nora, a pleasure to be in your company. My dear friend Charlotte here speaks highly of you.”

Nora flicked a momentary glance at Charlotte, clearly skeptical of such a claim. She turned back to Billie. “You’re Catholic?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve some bad news for you. The closest church is in Williams. There’s a few of us, and we keep an eye on the hotel register in case there’s a priest taking in the sights and he’ll do a Mass for us. But that only happens a couple of times a year.”

Billie was shocked. A place with no Catholic Church? “What do you… how do I…?”

Nora clearly had no patience for such useless questions. “We’re Harvey Girls. We make do. Get to Williams when you can or get on your knees with the beads and make sure the good Lord knows you mean it.”

“My maw’ll be shocked.”

“Then I suggest you don’t tell her.”

Billie was assigned to coffee duty, and she only spilled once at the very end of her shift.

However, the incident involved a fair portion of the pot going down her apron, and she was only saved from a good scalding by the thick cotton dress that diverted most of it from her skin.

She kept herself from crying out by squeaking at the intended recipient, a matronly woman with a fat pearl choker, “Je suis désolée! C’est ma faute! ”

“Oh, sweetie,” replied the woman, “I don’t parley-voo, but don’t you worry about me. You better get yourself out of that outfit right quick!” As Billie scurried away, she heard the woman say to her husband, “Poor little French girl. Leave a good tip, will you, Curtis?”

Charlotte had finally graduated to waitressing and found she was better at it here than she had been in Topeka.

Most of the customers at El Tovar were of the social class in which she was raised, and as such, she understood them and could anticipate their expectations.

Billie had a down-home friendliness that worked with some, but Charlotte’s innate aloofness was a better fit overall.

Rich customers were less likely to appreciate charm from their servers, and more likely to appreciate the semblance of their not being present at all.

As she silently delivered plates piled high with tender cuts of steak and Delmonico potatoes, she couldn’t help but overhear conversations about a nephew’s disappointing rejection from Harvard, relegating him to Princeton, “in New Jersey of all the unfortunate cesspools!” Or a sister’s promising alliance with a Vanderbilt cousin, “though he is a bit of a tippler…” Comments such as these had been commonplace at the Crowninshield table at which she’d sat for the vast majority of her life, and she’d never had any reason to question them.

Yet now, from this side of the apron, Charlotte found herself evaluating such conversations with a different lens: that of a working girl who counted every nickel and spent her time in the company of those for whom a Harvey apron was a step up.

“You might try the Blue Point oysters,” she suggested gently to a young man with a silk bow tie who was dithering over what to order. “They are excellent.”

“And how would you know?” he snapped back. “You’ve probably never had decent seafood in your life.”

“No need to chastise the girl,” said an older woman at the table, likely his mother, Charlotte guessed. “The manager probably instructs them to recommend the most expensive items. It’s not her fault she wouldn’t know an oyster from a sardine.”

“He can order for himself,” insisted an older gentleman at the table. “He doesn’t need some scullery maid telling him what to do.”

Charlotte did what she knew was expected: stood at attention with her gaze cast into middle space as if she couldn’t hear the insults being lobbed in her direction. They spoke as if she didn’t exist. It was her job to pretend that this was a correct assumption.

But later she couldn’t help thinking back to all the times her parents—and even she herself, occasionally—had behaved the same way toward the household staff or others in service to their every want and need.

Of course, Simeon had ranted endlessly about the disregard of the poor by the rich, but his arguments were always about “systematic oppression,” not the practice in everyday life.

The wrinkled nose. The disapproving glance.

The expectation of always having one’s messes cleaned up by some other lesser being.

Besides, as the son of a man who owned a local printing shop, he’d never really experienced it, either.

If I exist , thought Charlotte, so did all those nameless others. And if life were a footrace, she’d been born at the final lap. Of course, she’d lost her advantage and fallen behind the pack, but for that she only had herself to blame.

“Tomorrow’s our day off, and we’re going for a ride,” Henny told them as the three women walked back to the dorm after a dinner shift.

“Yes!” said Billie.

“Possibly,” said Charlotte. “What’s our destination?”

“The trading post in Cameron! Will says he doesn’t have many guests signed up, so we can come if we want to.”

“Who’s Will?” asked Billie.

“One of the Harvey Car drivers. He’s a dear.”

“A dear?” said Charlotte. “He’s very quiet. How do you know he’s not secretly planning a takeover of the mule barn or something?”

“Well, you’re quiet,” said Henny. “Should we be worried about the mules?”

“She’s had her eye on them,” said Billie.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, I only meant—”

“We know what you meant.” Henny gave Charlotte a friendly little pat on the arm. “But Will’s harmless. And we need a change of scenery!”

At nine in the morning, they headed for the roundabout in front of El Tovar where Will and the long yellow Harvey Car, a Packard Eight, were waiting.

The vehicle, with its convertible top and extra tire mounted on the side, could hold seven passengers plus the driver.

There were only four other people there: a young couple on their honeymoon and two elderly sisters with their soft white hair done up in identical Gibson Girl buns.

And there was Will, broad and black-eyed. He wasn’t as tall as Simeon, but he was powerfully built, and Charlotte found herself wondering how much damage he could do to an eye or a breast.

Stop this , she commanded herself. You’re safe. Just stay with the others and there’s nothing to worry about.

“Will!” Henny sang out. “How’s your magic carpet flying these days!”

“I wish it were a magic carpet. I should warn all of you that the road is a bit bumpy.”

“Oh dear,” said one of the elderly sisters. “Bumpy, you say?”

“Bumpy!” the other chimed in. “We’ve had enough of that for one lifetime, haven’t we?”

“We grew up on a farm in Maine,” the first explained to whoever was listening. “ Rocky doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“The roads were full of rocks !”

“It’s a wonder our spines aren’t in pieces.” They started to titter at this.

“We’re lucky to be standing at all!” Their giggling surged into laughter.

“Bumpy?” cackled one. “No thank you, sir! No thank you! ”

“I didn’t want to go in the first place,” said the other, wiping a tear from her eye.

“You didn’t?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Neither did I!” At this they burst into giggles all over again. Unable to choke out a proper adieu, they simply waved, linked arms, and made their way back up the porch steps.

Charlotte glanced over at Will, who was watching the ladies, a warm little smile of amusement playing around his eyes.

Kindness , she thought. It was a wonder she could recognize it at all anymore.

Simeon could make a show of kindness, and occasionally even be kind at times.

But this was different, somehow. It wasn’t for show.