Page 65 of The Harvey Girls

Fifty-One

Charlotte’s squash blossom necklace catches the light as she struggles to rise.

At ninety-two, she’s never been quite as physically strong again as she was seventy years ago in this very room.

There is a man next to her, and he quickly gets up to help her.

His presence has no meaning to Billie. Only Charlotte’s does.

Wordlessly the two women embrace.

“You’re still a hugger,” Billie whispers in her ear.

“And you’re still my honorary younger sister.”

When they settle themselves around the table, Billie asks, “How was your trip? You came from…” She trails off as she realizes she’s not sure.

“I flew in from Boston.”

That’s not right. Billie is certain that Charlotte left the East Coast long ago. “But you and Will live in… in LA. You’re a professor.”

“I went back to Boston thirty years ago, after Will passed,” Charlotte says gently. “I wanted to spend time with my brother, Oliver, and his family. I taught at Wellesley College until I retired. You came and visited a couple of times.”

Billie can’t remember those trips. All she can focus on is “after Will passed.” She knows Will is gone, or at least she knows it somewhere in the recesses of the haunted house that is her brain now.

But it hits her like a gut punch, even so.

That wonderful, kind, generous man is no longer with them.

She feels her eyes go shiny with tears. Embarrassed, she smiles and says, “And who’s this fine young fellow? ”

“This is my grandson Ted.”

“Olivia’s boy?”

“Not exactly a boy anymore, Aunt Billie,” says the man with a smile. “But at forty, I’ll take the compliment.”

“Oh dear,” says Billie. “I’m sorry, I—”

“No need to be sorry. I’m just glad to see you, Auntie. I have fond memories of visiting you and all the Gunnarssons at the farm when I was young. I should get over to Prescott more often. It’s only an hour and a half away.”

Prescott? Oh, yes. The kids moved her down to be closer to them when Leif died. She had a little house there… but that’s not where she lives now…

“I heard you moved to Flagstaff,” Carrie says to Ted, tucking a strand of her long silky brown hair behind her ear. “Great town. A little different from LA.”

“Little bit.” His dark eyes twinkle just like his grandfather’s once did. “My grandmother tells me you’re teaching high school history. I’m in the history department at NAU. I’d love to hear about your curriculum sometime.”

Is this flirting? Billie glances at Charlotte, who meets her eye at just the same moment.

A waitress approaches wearing a white button-down shirt, black pants, and a black apron tied around her waist. There’s a little fleck of something on her sleeve that looks like ketchup.

“Welcome to El Tovar,” she says. “Can I offer you all something to drink?”

They order their beverages—iced tea and hot tea and two coffees—and the woman goes off to fetch them. Billie and Charlotte both start to giggle.

“I see the cup code has gone the way of the dodo,” says Charlotte.

“Did you catch the spot on her sleeve?” says Billie.

“And that outfit. At least the color palette hasn’t changed.”

“Needs a black bow tie, if you ask me.”

“Harvey Girls still,” Carrie says to Ted. She turns to Charlotte. “Which brings me to my first question. Grandy has been telling me all about your time in Topeka and here at the Grand Canyon, but where did you go when you left?”

“To Boston. I needed to reconnect with my family. I stayed for a year, but I was always longing to come back to the West.”

Billie remembers the letters she received every week from Charlotte about life in the unfathomably big city of Boston.

The fraught tea parties and ghastly galas she was forced to attend, keeping up the ruse of her Dutch baron husband tragically drowned in the Baltic Sea.

Her ongoing and seemingly fruitless efforts to convince her parents to let her return to college, and then the flurry of applications she sent once she finally succeeded in wearing them down.

The way her heart ached every day missing her friends. Missing Will.

Charlotte got into every college she applied to. She chose the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. When Billie wrote and asked her why that one, Charlotte responded simply: It’s the best school on the Santa Fe Railway, and Winnie’s there.

Billie still has those letters. Somewhere. At least she thinks she does.

Will left the farm in Leif’s capable hands and moved to nearby Hollywood where he worked as Gertrude Turner’s chauffeur.

He and Charlotte married quickly and spent summers at the farm.

By the time Charlotte graduated, however, it was clear that sheep were not for her…

though she did think the lambs were cute.

Will did not make the same mistake twice.

“I got my degree at USC,” Charlotte tells Carrie, “stayed for a doctorate, and taught sociology there for many years. We raised our daughter, Ted’s mother, there.

Will was a train ride away from the farm, so he could go and help out when needed.

He made your grandfather a co-owner—they had a great partnership. ”

The drinks come; they order their lunch. They catch up on where all the children and grandchildren are. It’s a good refresher for Billie, though she somehow knows she’ll lose it all again before she gets home. Or not home, exactly, but that new place.

She finds herself drifting while the others talk, and she gazes around the room.

There’s Henny over there with her smooth skin and wide smile, carrying a tray full of fruit cups.

There’s Nora, ordering that waitress with the spot on her sleeve to go get a fresh uniform.

There’s Will standing by the entrance in his Harvey Car cap.

And there’s Leif peeking out from the kitchen, looking straight at Billie with those teacup-crackle eyes…

This world is just as present to her as the “real” one. Even more so these days.

Soon enough the lunch plates are cleared, and Billie thinks it’s time to go. But suddenly that pants-wearing waitress is before her with a beautiful thick slice of chocolate cake lit by a small pink candle. “Happy birthday!” they all say.

Billie is frozen in confusion. Carrie lays a hand on her arm. “It’s today, Grandy. This trip is the only present you wanted, remember?”

Billie blinks at her a moment. No, she doesn’t remember, but she’ll go with it. What choice does she have? She has only one question. “How old am I?”

“Eighty-six.”

Billie bursts out laughing. “I’m what ?”

Carrie grins. “No lie!”

Billie shakes her head, still chuckling. “If you say so…”

“The last time I celebrated your birthday with you, you were sixteen,” says Charlotte. “I’ll bet you remember that.”

“Of course I do. I danced with a movie star because of you.” She sighs. “Boy, that was some party. Thank you again for that.”

Charlotte’s gaze is full of warmth. “You’re welcome.”

They all share the rich cake, and when the bill comes, Carrie and Ted squabble good-naturedly over who gets to pay it. Carrie wins, but Ted insists on leaving the tip.

“A big one,” says Charlotte.

“Oh, I know,” he assures her. “I was raised to be an over-tipper, remember?”

“Waiting tables is hard work,” Charlotte chides him, “and she might have a family to feed.”

“She’ll be happy with this, Gran, I promise.”

None of them seem to want the lunch to end. When it does, Ted will drive them all back to Williams, where Carrie’s car is. Carrie and Billie will return to Prescott, and Charlotte will go with Ted to Flagstaff. In a couple of days, she’ll fly back to Boston.

The four of them linger over their coffee and tea, stretching their time together—Billie and Charlotte’s last visit—as long as possible.

When they finally rise and start to make their way toward the lobby, Billie stops and looks back one last time. Leif is standing right there in his brimless white hat.

Goodbye for now , she thinks. I’ll be with you soon.

“Why don’t you two go and get the car,” Charlotte says when they step out into the afternoon brightness of the porch. “Billie and I will wait here.”

The two women sit in the rocking chairs they were never allowed to use as Harvey Girls.

“I don’t think of it often,” says Charlotte, “but when I do remember that day, all I can see is the horror on your face thinking you were about to watch me die.”

“It was the scaredest I’ve ever been in my life.”

“I’m sorry I put you through that.”

“You didn’t put me through anything, Charlotte. He did.”

They haven’t spoken his name aloud to each other since it happened. There’s never been any need; that one pronoun said with contempt was always enough.

His body was never found. The rangers surmised it had fallen into some deep crevasse.

As he had long been estranged from his family, and Charlotte was his next of kin, once the search was called off, no further action had been taken.

No funeral or memorial. No words at all for a man who had loved words—mainly his own—more than anything.

“Have you heard from Henny recently?” Billie asks.

Charlotte doesn’t answer for a moment, only lays her hand gently on Billie’s arm. “She worked for the Red Cross during World War II. People weren’t vacationing much during wartime, so business slowed here. She and Nora joined up together.”

“Yes, of course.” Billie shakes her head, frustrated for the umpteenth time with her faulty wiring. But what happened to them? She’s too embarrassed to ask.

Charlotte doesn’t wait for the question she knows is there. “They were in a clubmobile near the front line, serving food and bringing necessary items to soldiers. Their truck hit a land mine. They died together and are buried in France.”

Perhaps it’s not the fault of her failing memory; perhaps she had just wanted to forget. Billie sighs. “They were very close.”

“Yes,” says Charlotte. “They had each other.”

Ted’s car pulls up in front of El Tovar, and they can see their grandchildren talking animatedly, laughing at some shared joke.

“Is he married?” Billie asks.

“Divorced. What about her?”

“Single.”

They grin at each other like schoolgirls. “Wouldn’t it be something?” says Billie.

“It would be absolutely wonderful.”

They stand—Charlotte needs a little help, and Billie gives her a hand—but before they reach the stairs, arms still hooked, Billie stops. She needs one more moment alone with her friend.

“You know my mind is going. They’ve got me in that place.”

“Memory care. Yes, Carrie told me when she called.”

“I just want you to know that no matter what, even when I don’t know my own name, I will remember you, Charlotte.”

“And I’ll remember you, Billie. Deep in our hearts we’re still those girls.”

“Harvey Girls.”

“Ready for anything,” Charlotte says with a smile. “Come what may.”