Page 55 of The Harvey Girls

Leif stretched out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

“He’s not sir , he’s just Will.”

The older man smiled. “Just Will. That’s me.”

He brought out two more chairs, a Bevo for Leif, a bottle of Moxie for Billie. Then came a box of saltines and a tin of marmalade. In his mild, respectful way, Will asked Leif about himself and learned that he’d been raised on a sheep farm.

“Me, too,” said Will. “In fact, I still have it.”

“You have a sheep farm?” asked Billie. “What are you doing driving a car for Fred Harvey?”

“I suppose I wanted to try something different for a while.”

“It’s hard work,” Leif told Billie. “You can’t just play with the lambs all day.”

Will gazed out into the pines for a moment. Then he nodded and took a swig of his Bevo.

Leif looked at the last saltine. “Why don’t I run over to the dorm and get us some dinner?”

Billie started to rise. “I’ll come with you.”

Leif laughed, and Will shook his head. “No girls in the dorm.”

“Stay here and drink your Moxie,” said Leif. “I’ll be right back.”

As they watched his form recede through the trees, Will said, “He seems nice.”

“He is.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen. And before you ask, he knows I’m sixteen. And no, we’re not going steady or anything like that. We’re just friends.”

“For now.”

“Well, everything’s for now, isn’t it? Life is for now.”

Will smiled. “No wonder everyone thinks you’re older than you are.”

Billie picked up the last saltine and turned it in her fingers like a toy. “Are you and Charlotte still friends?”

“I’d like to think we are.”

“But you don’t spend time together anymore.”

“We work—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. She used to be over here all the time, and now she’s not.”

“We felt it was best under the circumstances.”

Billie put the saltine back on the plate and rested her hands in her lap.

“I know about her husband,” he said.

Her eyes flicked up to his.

“And I know you’ve been a good friend to her,” he continued. “I’m trying to be a good friend, too.”

“Just not anything more.”

“No. It wouldn’t be right.”

“You’d be looking over your shoulder all the time.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I’d welcome the chance to give that fellow a dose of his own medicine. I just can’t be with someone who’s half in.”

“Because she’s married. Other than that,” said Billie with a sigh, “I’m pretty sure she’s all in.”

The man didn’t move. Just sat there with one hand wrapped around an empty bottle of near beer. Billie took the other hand and squeezed it.

Will squeezed back. “Keep being a good friend to her.”

“The best I can, till the day I die.”

Later, when Leif walked Billie back to her dorm, he said, “That man is very lonely.”

“He misses Charlotte.”

“Lonelier than that,” he said.

“How can you tell?”

“I know what it looks like, because I know what it feels like.”

“You’re not alone anymore,” said Billie. “You have me.”

“And you have me,” he said. “Tricky thing is figuring out how to keep it that way.”

They walked in silence for a while, shoulder to shoulder, their long legs keeping pace with each other.

“Do you like it here?” Leif asked.

“Sure I do.”

“No, I’m asking if you mean to stay here, or are you going to take your first chance to move back to Table Rock?”

Billie turned the question over in her mind. “My family needs the money.”

“If that’s your answer—”

“It’s not my only answer. I do like it here. I like the work and the people. I have friends now, and it’s just so… so beautiful here. I suppose I do mean to stay. But I don’t think it’ll be forever.”

As they walked, they startled a young ringtail, who let out a worried bark and scurried up a tree. It reminded Billie of the baby raccoons she’d seen around her house growing up.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you like it here?”

He chuckled. “Well, Chef Giuseppe is impossible to truly please, but I’m learning how he likes things done, and I’ll be prepared when the time comes to be a line chef. No matter where I go, I can say I worked at the great El Tovar, and that’ll get me a job.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to be a line chef.”

“Not sure if it’s my life’s work, but it’s the next step.”

“What else do you like?”

He thought for a moment. “I guess I like that everyone here is either working for the Santa Fe Railway, the Park Service, or Fred Harvey, and we’re all trying to accomplish one goal: a good experience for the people who come.

Back in Topeka, there were fifty thousand people going in fifty thousand directions. It was easy to feel lost.”

“And lonely.”

They slowed as they approached the dorm. It was late, but there was a light on in the parlor. Probably Charlotte and one of her many books , thought Billie. They stayed in the shadows for a few moments longer.

“What I like best is that you’re here,” said Leif.

That was it exactly. Just his nearness. She realized in that moment that, no matter the official status of their relationship, she never wanted to be far away from him again.

She smiled. “I like that you’re here, too.”

“I don’t want to lose you again.”

“Me, neither.”

They stood silently for a moment. The breeze sent his shaggy curls swaying around his head, and Billie felt she could see what he must have looked like as a little boy. And yet there was a timeworn-ness to his face that also made her imagine him as an old man.

She could sense so much about him, but the truth was she didn’t actually know that much. And if she wanted this friendship—or whatever it turned out to be—to last until she got to see what he’d really look like in old age, she had to be more mature about it than she had been with Robert.

“Leif?”

“Yes.”

“I know you’re a good man.”

He gave her a wary look. “But…”

“But I think maybe I went too fast and let my feelings get ahead of me. We really haven’t spent that much time together. I want… I’d like to…”

“Take it slow.”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

He pulled her into a loose embrace, but he did not kiss her. He only said, “Good night, Billie,” and turned to walk back to the men’s dorm.

At the end of July, Charlotte made a trip to Flagstaff on her day off.

She told Billie she missed Boston and wanted to window-shop in a town with more than three stores.

In truth, she had no intention of perusing the scant retail offerings of this “city.” Her true mission was to find out what, if anything, could be done about being legally bound to a vicious bully.

After inquiring with several attorneys with shingles out on Santa Fe Avenue, it became clear that the options were extremely limited, and there was a year’s residency requirement in the state of Arizona before she could even begin. She returned demoralized.

It had been raining for days, and this, too, conspired to dampen her spirits. To calm herself, she headed for her favorite place in Grand Canyon Village.

“Hello, Ruth,” she said. “How are you today?”

“I’m fine.” Ruth’s eyes flicked to the office door behind which sat the Hopi House manager. “But I can’t talk very much.”

“That’s all right. I just came because it’s my day off and I needed to get out of my room. I’d take a walk, but with this rain, I thought it would be nicer to stroll around in here, and maybe buy a little something for myself.”

“Then you’re a customer, and we can talk,” Ruth said with a smile.

Charlotte was about to respond when she saw Ruth’s gaze shift to something behind her.

“May I help you, sir?”

“Yes, thanks, we’d like to purchase this—”

That voice!

Without thinking, Charlotte spun around.

“Charlotte?”

“Oliver!”