Page 57 of The Harvey Girls

Forty-Three

Oliver didn’t take it well.

He waved away concerns that a man with so few resources and connections as Simeon could really pose such a problem to a family like the Crowninshields.

But he did agree that every last decision, from where to go, to what to wear, to which friends Charlotte could have, would be firmly in the hands of their mother.

But was that such a sacrifice if it meant returning to a life of ease and leisure?

“At least you wouldn’t have to serve people, for goodness’ sake.”

In the end, the only thing that seemed to make sense to him was that Charlotte was having an adventure, and she wasn’t ready for it to be over.

She told him about the Detours—all the training she would receive, the chance to be an authority on a subject she found so intriguing, journeying into lands few white people had ever visited.

“Old Teddy Roosevelt doesn’t have much on you,” Oliver had said with wonder. “You’ve become quite the explorer!”

“Will you tell our parents that you’ve found me?”

“I’d like to tell them, if you’ll give me permission. They’ve been so worried, it would be cruel not to let them know you’re all right.”

“But what will you say about where I am?”

The room was quiet as each tried to think of what version of the story they could present.

“May I suggest something, Charlotte?” said Gianna.

“Oliver could say that you realized your marriage was a mistake. You moved to the Southwest for a fresh start, and you’re so happy here, you plan to stay for a little while longer.

You’ve made wonderful friends, and you’re under the care of an upstanding benefactor.

” She smiled. “He just won’t mention that the good man’s name is Fred Harvey. ”

They hadn’t been to the trading post in weeks.

Heavy rains had washed the road out in places, and it took Fred Harvey’s entire road crew to clear it of mud and debris.

Consequently, when the first day of August dawned crisp and blue, hotel guests signed up for tours like a run on the bank.

The drop-off loop at El Tovar was bumper to bumper with Harvey Cars.

Charlotte and Will’s group consisted of a young couple with a new baby to whom they cooed incessantly; an older gentleman whose large extended family had decided to head west to Hermits Rest, so he had chosen the tour going the farthest east; and two law students who’d been disappointed to find that El Tovar wasn’t a dude ranch.

“On our left,” Charlotte called out to the passengers as they exited the El Tovar loop, “is the Park Service administration building and home to Park Superintendent Mr. J. Ross Eakin!”

The law students grumbled that they didn’t come all this way for a lecture; they could get that back at law school. The elderly gentleman began to snore, and the young couple compensated by simply cooing louder at their young progeny.

“Nice try,” Will murmured.

As the tourists wandered around the trading post, Charlotte made her way back to find John Honanie.

Much of what she’d learned from Ruth was about the Hopi culture, and Charlotte knew that Navajos had their own traditions, customs, and beliefs that were quite distinct.

She needed more information, and as her initial testiness with John had grown into something more friendly over her many trips to Cameron, she hoped he would be willing to tutor her as well.

“Can I talk to you?” she said.

John was hauling a heavy box in from the storeroom. “What is it now, small Boston lady?” He had taken to calling her this, and after getting over the impudence of it, Charlotte had to agree that she was, in fact, a petite woman from Boston.

“I have a proposal, large Navajo.”

He put the box down. “This will be interesting.”

“I’d like to pay you to teach me about your culture, specifically the types of things I can’t learn from books.

I have an opportunity to become a courier for the Indian Detours and I want to be fully prepared.

” Surely Billie would never hear of it from a place so remote as Cameron, so it was safe to discuss with John.

“The what?”

She explained about de-tourists visiting Indian ruins and villages, viewing their customs and ceremonies, and purchasing artwork, jewelry, and wares.

At first she couldn’t read the look on his face—surprise, certainly.

But what kind of surprise? Was he happy that the artisans would have more opportunities to sell their work without having to travel far from home?

Did he like the idea of white people learning about Indian culture and traditions by viewing and interacting with them in their villages?

No, he most certainly did not. In fact, he was boiling mad.

“Why doesn’t Fred Harvey just round us all up and put us in zoos?

Then the whites wouldn’t even have to leave their wretched, stinking cities to gawk at us!

” he hissed, trying to keep his fury from booming across the showroom.

“Isn’t it enough that we’ve had our lands stolen and been corralled onto reservations like prisoners?

Isn’t it enough that the government takes our children, makes them speak English and forget all their families have taught them?

Now you want to treat our homes and sacred ceremonies like some kind of peep show?

” He dropped the box with a thump and stormed out the back of the store.

Charlotte stood there stunned.

“What did you do to John?” Will asked mildly, his casual delivery belied by the fact that he was suddenly at her side as if she might be in some sort of danger.

“I… I asked him to… help me with something.”

“Seems like he doesn’t want to do it.”

“No, he very much doesn’t.”

The cooing couple’s baby started to squawk, and the law students were bored. The older gentleman sighed and said his family was likely wondering where he’d wandered off to.

“You didn’t let them know where you were going?” asked Charlotte.

The older man grinned slyly. “It’s good to make them worry every once in a while.”

Back at El Tovar several hours later, they found that his family had in fact made the Park Service conduct an exhaustive search, fearing he’d fallen into the canyon.

His sudden appearance, fully intact (if a little dusty), prompted a great outpouring of teary gratitude and relief, to which he smiled innocently and apologized for any consternation he might have caused.

“?‘Might have caused,’ my eye,” Will whispered to Charlotte as the group trundled him off to get him a cup of tea with a splash of something more fortifying in it if he felt the need.

Charlotte thought of her own family and wondered if they would receive their wandering daughter with quite so much affection and forgiveness. Likely not, but their willingness to accept her back into the fold at all would be a remarkable gesture of goodwill.

And she wouldn’t be so alone in the world. Nor would she have to devise yet another plan for what do next. Her mother would take care of that with great pleasure.

“You’ve been quiet,” said Will before she could leave for the dorm. “Ever since John stomped off.”

She’d been quiet all right, her mind churning on what John had said.

Peep show .

Is that what the Detours were? Or a zoo of sorts?

The more she thought about it, the more it did seem like a safari, only with exotic people instead of exotic animals, the trophies to take home a bowl or a blanket instead of a pelt.

And would the de-tourists really want to learn about and understand another culture, or would they be like the tourists in the car with her today, who hadn’t really wanted to listen to her anyway?

“Seems like you’ve got something on your mind,” Will prompted.

She turned to look at him, his face all kindness and concern. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Let’s take the car back, and you can tell me about it.”

“I don’t think I can do it.” They were now sitting in his cabin, and she had told him everything: about her attempt to procure a divorce, Patrillo’s insistence that she join the Detours, Oliver’s insistence that she come home, and John’s reaction to her request. “I keep hearing John’s words in my head, and I think he’s right.

But if I don’t do it, Patrillo might very well fire me.

I don’t want to go back to Boston, but I may not have much choice. ”

Will had been silent as he’d listened to all of this, and she’d been grateful for that. Unlike the other men involved, he hadn’t immediately felt the need to insert his own wishes and opinions into the situation. But when he did speak, his wishes were clear.

“It seems like you’re eager to leave.”

“I need to stay one step ahead of Simeon. I can’t remain in any one place for long.”

“Is that all it is?”

She felt her blood surge in her veins, and she was just so angry.

Furious, really, that everything she tried to do, every plan she made, every effort to avert misery, was thwarted.

Every single thing she dared to want—even simply to protect herself from harm, much less to experience real love—was yanked from her reach.

“To be quite frank,” she said, “I find it excruciating to be near you.”

For a moment he said nothing, only gazed steadily at her. “I find it excruciating to be near you, too,” he said quietly.

“I wish you would just kiss me.”

“You’re—”

She slammed her hand on the oak table. “Yes, I know, I’m married! Tied like a prize pig to a man who’d rather see me dead than happy! He could show up tomorrow and claim me or kill me, and then what good would your precious morals be?”

“It’s not morals, Charlotte, it’s for your own good! If you do someday file for divorce, you’d be an adulteress.”

“Which means I’d have no right to his vast fortune. Except that he doesn’t have a vast fortune; he doesn’t have a plug nickel. My problem isn’t that he’d leave me without a cent, it’s that he won’t leave me at all!”

They glared at each other a moment, his dark eyes flashing with a kind of torment.

She was his tormentor, she realized, and the thought of herself as an evil temptress suddenly seemed silly.

She sighed, bested. “Of all the things I’ve done in the past two years that I never thought I’d do, I never, ever thought I’d beg a man to take me to bed. ”

He exhaled heavily. “You didn’t—”

“Yes, I did,” she said with a sad smile. “And you said no.”

“I didn’t actually.”

“But you did call me a would-be adulteress.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“You did, I think.”

He placed his hand on the table very close to hers.

“In the eyes of the law you would be, and I just don’t want you to have to pay any sort of penalty for…

You’ve paid enough, is all I mean. You’ve been through enough, Charlotte.

I would never want to feel that I pressed you in such a tenuous time. I wouldn’t want you to regret…”

“I have many regrets, Will. Many. Being with you would never be one of them.”

He turned his hand up on the table, and she slid hers into it. He looked at her hand as if someone had laid a jewel in his palm. His eyes came up to hers. “You mean the world to me. I want to treat you with care.”

“I want to treat you with care, too.” A little smile played across her lips. “But not too much care. We’re not porcelain dolls. At least I’m not.”

The color rose in his cheeks as he tugged her toward him onto his lap, their faces close. “Oh dear,” she murmured, “have I made you blush?”

“What you’ve done,” he whispered, “is made my heart pound. And not for the first time, by the way.”

As they held each other’s gaze, Charlotte had a momentary thought of how unlikely this was: she, a well-bred, educated woman of pedigree, sitting on the lap of a chauffeur.

But that wasn’t what they were at all, really.

She was simply human and so was he, and they had found each other in the vast sea of humans—old, young, male, female, cruel, kind.

They had found each other in this great and terrifying world. It was something of a miracle.

And so she moved not as a woman of the upper class, nor as an unimpeachable Harvey Girl, but as a human who had finally found her home. She kissed his lips and his warm cheeks and felt the muscles of his back flex under her fingers as he held her closer and closer still.

“Will,” she breathed. “Please take me to bed.”

He stood, lifting her easily in his arms, and carried her into the other room.