Hattie Ever After

by Kirby Larson

  Charlie’s face gave nothing away, but I noticed his knuckles whitening on the handle of his coffee cup.

  “Would you like a refill?” I stood to Mr. Lancaster’s left, coffeepot poised to pour.

  “Have you served in uniform, sir?” Charlie’s voice was level. Too level.

  I tried to catch his eye. He only wrinkled his brow in acknowledgment of my glance.

  “No. No.” Mr. Lancaster cleared his throat. “A minor health defect,” he said, waving his hand vaguely.

  “It is nothing to joke about.” Charlie folded his napkin oh-so-carefully and with equal care set it on the table. I moved around, refilling cups quickly, until I was at his side. On his side. He continued. “Not one day goes by that I don’t think about those who did not come home to meals like this. No matter which side they fought on.” He pushed his chair back so abruptly that I had to hop to get out of the way. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Brown. I should be going.” He nodded a farewell to the others. “Hattie, may I carry anything into the kitchen for you?”

  I couldn’t trust my voice. I merely shook my head. Though I had yet to finish offering refills, I followed Charlie back through the swinging door.

  In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him angry. Never. My hands were trembling so, I had to set the coffee carafe down before I dropped it.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin our visit by losing my temper,” he said.

  “Don’t.” I held up my hand to stop him. “He was thoughtless.”

  He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “Men like that—who think they understand war when they haven’t fought—well, I just want to knock some sense into them.” He held up a fist; then a rueful look came over his face. “That doesn’t add up, does it?”

  I put both hands over his clenched one. “I’m on your side,” I said. “Besides, the last time we sparred, I walloped you, remember?”

  His face relaxed into a smile. “You had quite the advantage in that I would never hit a girl.” He bent over and rubbed his shin. “I still carry the mark of that sharp kick you gave me.” He tugged on his pant leg as if to show me the scar. That lightened the mood.

  “You deserved it for saying I smelled like a monkey.” I started to fill the sink with suds.

  He put his arm on mine. “Can that wait a bit?”

  I hesitated. I’d told Mrs. Brown I would cook and serve this last meal, but hadn’t made any promises about cleaning up. “How about that walk now?” I suggested. A short walk would still leave me time to pack my things for the trip. For tomorrow’s trip.

  I grabbed my hat and a shawl. Charlie offered his arm and we stepped outside. He leaned in a bit and made a production of sniffing the air. “You know, you don’t smell much like a monkey anymore.”

  That remark earned him an elbow jab.

  “And you clean up real nice, too.” He squeezed my arm with his. “It’s so good to see you.”

  I squeezed back. “You too.” I meant the words. It was good to see him healthy and whole. But I’d forgotten about his eyes. They pulled me to him like a magnet. There were lines around them now, since the war, which only served to make him more handsome.

  A gust came up, tugging on my hat. “Oh!” I grabbed for it but it sailed a few feet away. Charlie ran after it, brushed it off, then brought it back to me.

  “May I have the honor?” He held the hat over my head.

  I nodded and he settled it on top of my windblown hair. “I must have lost the hat pin.”

  As he snugged it on my head, his fingers brushed my cheek, loosening the strings in my legs. I teetered and he caught me.

  “Are you all right?” He peered into my face with those eyes.

  I nodded again, looking away. It was a lie, of course. I wasn’t all right. How could I have been so certain a few hours ago that I’d made the right choice in taking the job with the Varietals? It was much easier to leave the thought of Charlie than to leave the real—and unfairly attractive—thing. What had I done? What was I doing?

  My thoughts were razor-edged and painful against my temples. I would have to ask Mrs. Brown for some of her headache powder when I got back. This whole business between men and women made me feel as cantankerous as my old cow, Violet. Had I four hooves, I’d be stamping them; a tail, and I would be twitching it back and forth in a frenzy. If only Perilee weren’t so far away. She’d helped me learn to quilt and bake; surely she could help me with lessons of the heart.

  But she wasn’t here, and I had to confess to Charlie what I’d done. It was only fair, especially after he’d come all this way. Wait—why had he come all this way? He had yet to tell me. But I knew him well enough to know his motives would be revealed on his own timetable.

  “This is nice,” Charlie said when we reached the park at the end of Central Avenue. While we strolled around the pond in the center of the lawn, he caught me up on the doings back in Arlington. “Did you hear that Miss Simpson is getting married?”

  “No.” I’d thought our English teacher would be an old maid forever. “Really?”

  He nodded. “You’ll never guess the lucky groom.”

  I wracked my brain for possibilities. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Mr. Miltenberger!”

  “The newspaper editor?” I grinned. “Why, it’s the perfect match. She can correct all of his misspellings!”

  “The Ladies’ Aid Society is quite relieved that at least one of their matchmaking efforts has succeeded.” Charlie bent to pick up a rock and tossed it in the pond.

  My stomach flip-flopped. It was time to tell him. Now. “Charlie—” I pressed my hand to my cheek.

  “Yes?” He turned to look at me.

  Resist the eyes! “There’s something, I mean, I want to—”

  “You’re wondering why I surprised you like this?”

  I am a coward. Lily-livered through and through. Charlie had tossed me a lifeline and I grabbed it. “Yes. Yes. That’s it.”

  “I wanted to tell you in person.” He reached out and grabbed my hands. “My sergeant’s from Seattle, which is where the Boeing company is. I think I wrote you about them before. Still small but Sarge thinks they’re up-and-comers.”

  “So you’re going out to interview?”

  Charlie cocked his head and looked at me. With those eyes. “That’s the good news part.” He jabbed both thumbs at his chest. “You are looking at an oh-ficial employee of the Boeing Airplane Company!”

  “A job? In Seattle?”

  He chuckled. “You should have heard Mother! Here she thought she’d got me home to stay.” His face grew serious. “But I couldn’t, Hattie. I would’ve dried up like wheat in a drought.”

  I hesitated. “I understand your mother’s feelings, though. Seattle’s a long ways away.”

  He turned his eyes, his secret weapons, on me again. “Yes, but that’s where your friends Karl and Perilee are, and their family. And I thought that’s where you wanted to be.”

  I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  “Isn’t that right?”

  “Charlie—”

  “I know I haven’t given you much time to think. Springing it on you this way. You’ll have packing up to do here, that sort of thing.”

  “Stop.” I put my hands over my ears. “Please stop.”

  His face was a question mark. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  I drew in a deep breath, gathering my thoughts. “If the Boeing company has the job you want, I am happy. For you. And you’re right. I would love nothing more than to be close to Perilee again.”

  “And what about being close to me?”

  I put my finger to my lips to signal that he should stop talking. “Aunt Ivy always drove me batty, quoting Scripture when she wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. But I keep thinking of those verses from Ecclesiastes—‘To everything there is a season.…’ ” Now tears stung at my eyes. I could scarcely believe I was going to say these words and yet I kne
w I must. “I think this is my season for something else.” I couldn’t go on.

  His eyes darkened with pain. “Have you met someone?”

  “No. No! I should have told you right off. I have a new job, too.” I couldn’t face his gaze. “Charlie, you are so dear to me. But like the war changed you, the homestead changed me. I know there is something I must do before, before I—” I couldn’t say the word “marry.” “Before I settle down.”

  “And so?” He stiffened, stepped away from me.

  “I’m going to San Francisco. With the Varietals.” I touched my mother’s watch, pinned to my bodice. As if it might give me strength to somehow survive the next few moments. “Tomorrow.”

  It felt as if a boulder had been rolled between us, one we could neither see around nor over. Certainly not through.

  When he spoke, it was to say, “I should probably get you back.”

  We walked in silence as we returned to Brown’s. At the door, though, he took me by the arms, turning me to face him full-on.

  “Hattie, what is it that you’re looking for?” He ducked his head to meet my eyes with his.

  I managed a trembling smile. “That’s the trouble. I don’t know. I only know that I haven’t found it yet.”

  He stared at me for the longest time, then rubbed his hands along my arms. “Well, in that case, you’d best keep looking.” His voice was low and each word was wrapped in sad. “And I’d best be going.” He gently drew me to him and I leaned on his chest. His heart beat so very hard. Another gentle movement and his warm mouth found mine for our very first kiss. He tasted of peppermint, which was not surprising. But there was something more than peppermint in that kiss.

  Something like home.

  He pulled back so that our lips were touching, but barely. His breath was warm and sweet. I closed my eyes, ready for another dreamy meeting of our mouths.

  What was I thinking? The timing was all wrong for this. I pulled away, shaking my head to clear the fog.

  “We’ll still write?” I touched my fingers to my lips as if to impress that sweet kiss upon them forever, as one might preserve a rose between the pages of a book, hoping against hope this first kiss wasn’t to be our last.

  He tugged at the bill of his cap. “You can write,” he said. “But to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’ll be able to answer.”

  And with that, Charlie Hawley left. Taking a good chunk of my foolish heart right along with him.

  A Chop Suey Day

  June 24, 1919

  Nearly to San Francisco

  Dear Perilee,

  Today I have seen the ocean! Well, San Francisco Bay, but I believe that counts. You cannot imagine it. I thought it would be solid blue, like a flax field in bloom. But it would take a whole slew of colors from a painter’s palette to capture it: purples and greens and grays and blacks.

  Not only have I seen the bay, I am sailing on it! In a ferry that we boarded after the train stopped in Oakland. The water rolls on as vast as Montana’s sky and yet we’ll be across it in well under an hour. Imagine that! Except for the cries of the gulls, it feels very much as if I’m still on the train. Only I must say the ferry is a bit more posh, with a separate tearoom for ladies. I shared a pot of tea there with Maude—she’s the ingénue of the company.

  Oh, I see the Ferry Building now! It’s crowned with an enormous clock tower standing like a lighthouse on a lonely bluff. However, this tower guards the second-busiest railroad station in the world. At least, that’s what the brochure here in the tearoom claims.

  We are to disembark in a few minutes. I must close for now.

  Exactly seventeen days had passed since I’d left Great Falls. There’d been stops in Portland and Redding and some towns whose names I’d already forgotten. Nothing in my journey had prepared me for the big city of San Francisco.

  Country mouse was the perfect description for me as I followed close on Maude’s heels, terrified I would be separated from the troupe and lost forever. I had never seen so many people in one place before.

  “Do close your mouth, Hattie,” scolded Miss Clare. “It’s most unbecoming.”

  I closed my mouth but kept my eyes wide open. I didn’t want to miss a thing. Think of the pages I could fill in my tablet! Oh, I couldn’t wait to write about the swirls of people and the sharp clean smell of seawater.

  We exited the building onto a U-shaped plaza laid with streetcar tracks. I glanced at Miss Clare to see if that was to be our form of transport to the hotel, but she and Mr. Lancaster led us on to a stand of jitneys sufficient to carry a company of actors as well as their luggage and tools of the trade. As I was nudged forward to one of the vehicles, I spied a large white feather tipped in gray just in front of me. I quickly stooped to pick up this omen—appropriate for a young woman soaring into an unknown future—before being ushered into a car with Maude and a few others, including the new second boy, hired in Spokane to replace Cecil Hall. The second boy fell promptly asleep. Even though I was also done in from the long journey, I couldn’t imagine closing my eyes and missing one speck of this amazing metropolis. Five Great Falls could fit within San Francisco’s city limits, with space to spare. Each block we passed promised Grand Adventure. I had surely made the right decision in coming.

  The streets were peppered with flower carts bursting with color. “It looks like one big bouquet!” I blurted out.

  Maude smiled at my comment. “At Christmastime, it’s awash in violets, ten cents a bunch. You’d love it then.”

  “I love it now!” Turning back to the window, I caught sight of both horse-drawn wagons and engine-powered vehicles maneuvering the streets in patterns of pure chaos. But I didn’t witness one collision, or even a near miss. Clanging streetcar bells competed with newsboys shouting, “Dr. Dodge, Titanic survivor, in serious condition from suicide attempt. Read all about it!” Dapper policemen with white stripes running around their jacket cuffs and down their pant legs chanted, “Watch the trolleys, folks! Watch the traffic.”

  No matter which way I looked, there were people. Businessmen in suits tipped their straw boaters to young women whose cloche hats covered stylish bobs. Mothers in wide-brimmed bonnets bustled hand in hand with boys in knickers and girls wearing such enormous satin bows atop their heads they looked like gift packages. And weaving in and out of all of the throngs were bareheaded laborers and deliverymen, some of them tiny Chinese with strange long pigtails bouncing on their backs. I imagined myself in one of Charlie’s beloved airplanes, flying over this scene. From such heights, all these folks must look like popcorn kernels bouncing in a hot skillet.

  Our first stop was the Fairmont Hotel, where Miss Clare and Mr. Lancaster would be residing for the run of the show. Perched atop Nob Hill, the Fairmont appeared to cover more ground than the entire town of Vida! This time I told myself to close my mouth, lest I look like a true hayseed. But it was hard not to gape a little at the sight of the formal garden and terrace at the rear. For a moment, I imagined myself at a palace in France or Italy. Then Miss Clare’s decidedly American voice began to chatter in my ear.

  “Are you listening, Hattie? I’m sending that trunk with you. It’s got the costumes in need of repair.”

  I nodded attentively. Since our conversation in Mrs. Brown’s kitchen, Miss Clare had not said another word about finding my replacement upon arrival in San Francisco. Not that I had found my calling, but I did not relish looking for another job right away. She rattled off a tediously long list of instructions—this gown needed the lace trim refreshed, that cape had a tear in the satin lining, Mr. Lancaster’s tuxedo trousers were losing their hem.

  “And my cranberry silk needs taking in again. Can you manage?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” The troupe had the night off, so I was confident I could get everything patched up and still find time to venture out to explore my new home.

  After the stop at the Fairmont, our jitney rumbled along back to Stockton, heading toward the Hotel Cortez, where the rest
of us were staying. Mrs. Brown would have been astonished to learn that one room cost the magnificent sum of $2.50 a week. Maude handed me my key and we stepped into the elevator. I couldn’t help but smile at the memory of my first elevator ride, back at that hotel in Spokane. It had seemed impossible that a metal cage could travel up and down the way it did in the innards of a building. I was used to them by now, though my heart still skipped a bit every time an elevator began its upward lurch.

  “I’m just one floor below you,” Maude said, giving me her room number. “Knock if you need anything!”

  When she stepped out at her floor, I felt a bit like a child who’d lost sight of her mother on a crowded street. Inhaling shakily, I called out “See you later” in the jauntiest manner I could muster.

  After a short ride up, I was unlocking the door to my own room. It was as if I were unlocking a new life. I paused, savoring key in hand, before stepping through. My new lodgings were full of light and exotically decorated along a Spanish theme, and more than twice the size of my quarters at Mrs. Brown’s. A gilt-framed print of none other than Cortez himself, rather than an assortment of Mrs. Brown’s dour relatives, hung on the opposite wall. There were two chairs: a straight wooden one at the desk and a chubby upholstered one by the window, which would be the perfect reading spot. A twin bed and an armoire rounded out the furnishings. To think that the Fairmont would be even more luxurious than this! It was hard to feature.

  I located the bathroom down the hall and freshened up. Since my possessions were few, I quickly had things stowed away and my room as homey as it could be. Uncle Chester’s trunk, heavy with books, was to be delivered later from the station. I could already envision how I would arrange a row of select titles on the desk. For inspiration. And comfort. The gull feather I’d found outside the Ferry Building looked festive and hopeful in the desk’s old inkwell; the letter from Ruby Danvers was propped up against it. I emptied my carry bag of tablets and pens with every intention of committing first impressions to paper but made the mistake of trying out the bed.