The Cure for Dreaming(25)
On a much happier note, I’m giddy with excitement to announce I’m now established in New York City, playing Titania in a little theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.” Oh, you should see my costume, my lamb—gold and purple silk, and a heaping crown of flowers upon my red curls.
I’m settled in an apartment near Barnard College, and I think of you every time I see those smart young women walking around with books tucked under their arms. I remember you trying to read your little collection of fairy tales to me when you were just four years old and how much I marveled at your intelligence. Does your father allow you to be bright? Or does he still insist young ladies ought to be silent idiots?
Oh, my darling, I would love to see what you look like as a grown-up young lady. As usual, I’m slipping a little bit of money into the envelope as a birthday present. If you’d care to come east and visit your wicked old mama, I would open my door to you with outstretched arms and hug away all the hurt I’ve caused you. I don’t believe I did you any good when you were a wee little thing, and I still strongly feel our separation was the best for all of us. However, I certainly know a thing or two about being a young woman, and I could take better care of you now than I did back then. I would even let you take a tour of Barnard, and perhaps I’d allow you to watch that delicious play Sapho, if the moralists don’t shut it down again.
Happy birthday, my Olivia.
Your Loving Mother
A ten-dollar bill fluttered down to my lap.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream must have been paying Mother well—or else she had found herself another wealthy suitor with a fat billfold. I crouched down on the floorboards and slid out one of Father’s bright yellow cigar boxes from the dusty depths beneath my bed. Inside I kept my collection of Mother’s birthday and Christmas gifts, delivered in little envelopes throughout the years, minus a few missing dollars and coins that had paid for books and hair ribbons.
I counted the cash, including my newest contribution.
“Holy mackerel, Mother,” I said, followed by a long sigh.
One hundred twenty-three dollars now waited for me inside that old cigar box.
One hundred twenty-three.
I re-counted the stockpile and sat back on my heels, wondering how much tuition would cost at faraway Barnard College, where young women walked around with books tucked under their arms, as if in a marvelous dream.
rannie stopped by for a rushed after-school visit.
“Are you unwell?” she asked from our front porch, where long shadows yawned across the scuffed red boards and the scraggly potted plants.
“I had a bad headache.”
“I worried the hypnosis made you sick—or that your father sent you away.” She hugged me against her chest. “You scared me to death with all that talk about asylums.”
“I’m all right.” I patted her on the back and let her squeeze me until my collarbones hurt. “In fact, I’m going to go to a party at Sadie Eiderling’s house tonight. Can you believe it?”
She stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
“Percy’s taking me.”
She dropped her arms and pulled away.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to be quite careful of his”—I tipped my face forward and lowered my voice —“grabby hands.”
“It’s not a joke, Livie.”
“He didn’t grab you, did he?”
“No!” She blushed so hard, she went practically mauve. “No, I’ve just heard rumors . . .” She backed away. “I’ve got to go help Papa at the store. Please be extremely careful with Percy—and your father.”
“Frannie?”
“Good-bye, Livie.”
She scrambled down the porch steps, and for a moment I thought I glimpsed a white handprint on the back of her blue skirt, below her swinging brown braid.
A shudder and a blink, and the print was gone.
FATHER CAME HOME FROM WORK AROUND FIVE THIRTY that evening. I hid in my bedroom and pinned up my hair for the Eiderlings’ party.
“Are you getting ready, Olivia?” he called up to me.
“Yes,” I yelled through my closed door. “Gerda is boiling a ham for your dinner, and then she’ll help me dress. I can’t come down right now.”
“Don’t take too long. Young men don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I won’t.”
I fussed with my hairpins in front of my mirror, my hands slippery and my mind squalling with fears about the visions. I kept expecting my mirror and my hairbrush to transform into nightmarish abominations—hissing creatures with snouts and needle-sharp teeth that would squeeze around my torso and take a bite.
My hair suffered from all that worrying. Most girls of Sadie Eiderling’s caliber were wearing their long locks puffed high on their heads in enormous pompadours, like the fashionable girls in Charles Dana Gibson’s drawings. On occasion, Frannie and I would try styling our hair in that manner, but our pompadours always turned out lopsided or collapsed like deflated soufflés—which was precisely the problem at the moment. My pinned-up mess of dark hair sagged as if I had just sprinted through the rain with Percy again. I hated it. Every strand.
“All is well!” I said, and I dropped my hands to my sides and growled.