Page 35 of The Harvey Girls

Charlotte was glad for the girl. She’d had so few opportunities to experience the world.

Of course, at such a tender age, she needed someone to keep an eye and make sure she wasn’t taken advantage of or hurt in any way.

Charlotte could be that person. She could steer Billie away from the kinds of rash and unfortunate decisions Charlotte herself had made.

Ernie must have noticed Charlotte’s momentary reverie and assumed it was aimed at him. “There, now!” he said loudly, as he leaned in too close to her ear. “I knew you’d enjoy it!”

You haven’t any idea who I am or what I enjoy , she wanted to say, but the song was ending, and she’d make her escape from this oaf soon enough. As he danced her around, she saw Will sitting with Henny, and any second now she could join them…

When the song ended, Robert clapped for Billie. She made a little curtsy, and they both laughed.

“Say, I’m thirsty,” he said. “Stay right here!”

In a moment he was back with two cups of punch.

“Oh… thank you.” Billie took the cup from his outstretched hand. She didn’t want to be rude, and she actually was quite thirsty. She’d just take a sip and then set it down somewhere.

It was sweet and bubbly, and she didn’t taste anything amiss. In fact it was delicious! Maybe Charlotte had been wrong about someone adding alcohol. She looked around; there were plenty of punch cups in plenty of hands. No one was acting the least bit drunk. She took another sip but felt nothing.

That Charlotte. Always so gloomy. And bossy! She didn’t know everything.

“?‘It Had to Be You’!” said Robert. “This is a nice slow one. Now you’ve got the basics down, I can give you a few of the finer points.” He tossed back the rest of his punch, and Billie did, too.

Charlotte’s plans to return to her friends were thwarted when the piano player segued into another song—was that the opening bars of “It Had to Be You”?—and Ernie didn’t let her go. In fact, with the tempo decelerating, he pulled her in even closer.

“No, I—” she said, attempting to release herself.

“Oh, now, you can’t give a fella just one dance,” he said.

“Yes, I certainly—”

“Come on, sweetheart, I just want—”

“I am not your sweetheart—”

He was about to say some other inane thing when he suddenly looked over his shoulder. “Taken,” he growled. He turned back to Charlotte, but then his head spun around again. “I said taken!”

Charlotte peered around him, and there was Will. With a very unbecoming yank, she wrenched her hands from Ernie’s and reached for Will, who quickly inserted himself between them and danced her backward, away from the unpleasant scene.

Will did not grip her hand, only held his out so that she could lay her fingers across his palm.

His other hand was like a butterfly alighting at her waist, exerting its presence just enough to lead.

He held his body so far from hers that it reminded her of dancing with her brother, Oliver, who would no more have clung to her than kissed her on the mouth.

“Thank you,” said Charlotte.

“Happy to help.” His dark eyes crinkled warmly at her.

The singer crooned, “It must have been that something lovers call fate, kept me saying, ‘I have to wait.’?”

“We don’t have to keep dancing,” said Will.

“Oh…,” said Charlotte, surprised to find herself disappointed. “We might as well stay until—”

Suddenly a hand was thumping Will’s shoulder. “Cut in?” Ernie snarled.

“No,” Will said simply; he gripped her a little more forcefully and moved her away.

But in another moment, there was Ernie, thumping him again. Will stopped dancing, dropped his hand from Charlotte’s, and turned to face the other man straight on. His expression was relaxed; there was nothing specifically menacing about it. He only looked Ernie in the eye and said, “Stop.”

Ernie glared at him. Charlotte tensed, prepared to protect herself if the other man tried to retake possession of her. Will’s other hand was still resting lightly at her waist, and his fingers gave a reassuring little tap. I’m still here , those fingers seemed to say. I’m with you.

Thus emboldened, Charlotte said quietly but firmly, “I don’t want to dance with you anymore.”

Ernie’s face fell. It was no longer a manly competition to get the girl back. It was a rejection. “Well, why didn’t you just say so?” he muttered and slunk away.

The singer was delivering the song’s final lines: “It had to be you, wonderful you. It had to be you.”

Will released her. They both stood there a moment. Charlotte might have liked to dance to the next song; there was a strange easiness with Will… an odd sense of…

“Something to drink?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you. A Coca-Cola?”

He nodded. “I’ll meet you at the seats.”

Out on the dance floor, Robert continued to whisper instructions to Billie, and she concentrated on following both his words and his actions: the way he gently steered her this way and that, the way his torso tipped slightly to one side or the other.

She liked his attentive, confident leadership. She really felt quite wonderful!

At the end of the song, Robert seemed keen to stay together.

“I’ll get us some soda pop,” he said. But when Billie’s gaze followed him to the refreshment table, she saw that the bottles were gone.

He returned with two more cups of punch, apologizing that this was all that was left. “You don’t have to drink it,” he said.

“Oh, no,” she told him. “I like it!”

Another song started up, and they finished their punch and headed for the dance floor. Relaxed and happy, Billie felt she was dancing better than ever. By the end of the song, however, she felt a little funny. The room had gotten warmer.

“My, isn’t it hot in here,” she said to Robert.

“It’s all the people,” he said. And he was right. Suddenly she felt strangely hemmed in by the bodies swirling all around her. And so hot!

“I’ll just get a little ice from the punch bowl,” she told him, and headed across the dance floor toward the refreshment table.

The punch bowl itself having been “refreshed” with a variety of beverages several times over the course of the evening, there were only a few scattered ice chips left. Billie corralled as many of them as she could into the ladle, tipped it into a cup, and downed the whole thing.

Robert was beside her. “Say, that stuff’s pretty strong. I don’t know what kind of hooch they put in there—probably just some swill somebody cooked up in a bathtub.”

“A bathtub!” Billie’s tongue felt thick, but this only made her giggle.

Charlotte rejoined Henny in their folding chairs at the edge of the dance floor. “Sorry about that,” said Henny ruefully. “Ernie seemed sweet. Who knew he’d be so grabby?”

Charlotte looked at her blankly for a moment. “Oh, yes…” She’d nearly forgotten already, her memory blurred by the agreeability of dancing with Will.

Henny patted her arm. “I sent Will over to save you as soon as I saw it.”

Charlotte felt as if she’d been slapped. Will hadn’t actually wanted to dance with her. He’d be sent on an errand, which he’d completed quickly and efficiently.

“Oh,” she said, trying not to look as crestfallen as she felt. “Yes, thank you.”

“Well, don’t thank me. Thank him. He did all the heavy lifting.”

Heavy lifting , thought Charlotte. Meaning me.

Will was suddenly in front of them, handing out soda pop. “I got you one, too, Hendrika. We were lucky—these were the last three bottles.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said coolly. “And thank you for rescuing me. You’ve certainly done your good deed for the day.”

Will went motionless for the briefest second studying her. “It was nothing,” he said.

Nothing. Charlotte’s spirits sank even further.

Then she saw Billie.