The Cure for Dreaming(34)

Percy knitted his eyebrows. “How?”

“What do you mean, how? She got married in a church the same way your parents probably did. Her husband is a pro-suffrage man.”

Percy snorted. “There’s no such thing.”

“I’m one,” said Henry.

“Pshaw. You’re just saying that to charm Olivia. All it does is make you sound like an effeminate French sissy, Reverie.”

“Anti-suffrage men are the ones who sound like sissies and cowards,” I said under my breath.

“I still want beer.” Percy scanned one of the menu pages. “What about you, Mr. Suffrage? Are you drinking tonight?”

“No.” Henry shook his head. “I’m performing. No one wants to be hypnotized by a drunk.”

“Oh, criminy . . .” Percy laughed. “Can you imagine what that would look like? Oh . . .” He slapped his hand over his mouth. “I suppose you can, what with that sozzled hypnotist uncle of yours.”

“I’m sure they serve Eiderling Beer at the bar here.” I nudged Percy’s arm and wished him away. “Perhaps you should go order yourself one.”

Percy laughed again. “I thought you were a temperance crusader.”

“You were the one who called me that, not I. If you want a beer”—my desire to catapult him away emboldened my voice—“go get one. You said we’re here to toast youth and rebellion, didn’t you?”

“Yes . . .”

“Then go.” Shoo, I wanted to add, but he was already up and out of his seat.

“Don’t hypnotize my girl when I’m gone, Reverie,” he said with a wink.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, mon ami.”

Henry and I watched Percy bound down the short flight of steps in his quest for Eiderling booze.

I slammed my menu shut. “Hypnotize me back.”

Henry laid down his own menu. “I told you, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Your father only paid me a quarter of his promised fee for your treatment. I can’t get the rest of the money until Tuesday evening, before I board a train for San Francisco.”

“Why?”

“He wants to make sure the cure takes.”

I winced.

Henry reached his hand toward mine on the tablecloth, not quite touching me but near enough to ignite a tingling sensation in my fingertips. “We’re so, so close to affording Genevieve’s surgery. Your father’s payment will get us what we need. It’ll give her a chance.”

“You don’t understand what people look like to me.”

“No, I don’t, but as I said at Sadie’s table, it’s not necessarily a curse.”

“Of course it’s a curse. You try living like this and tell me—” My anger flared; that blasted phrase threatened to shoot from my lips again. I smacked my palm against the table, which prompted two men next to us to turn my way and scowl.

“Hear me out before you get upset with me.” Henry’s fingers inched nearer. “When your father asked me to hypnotize you, he said he wanted you to accept the world the way it is.”

“Don’t you think I remember what he—?”

“But”—he scooted his chair closer to mine—“I didn’t tell you to accept the world the way it truly is, Olivia. I told you to see it.”

“No, you—”

“Think about it. I did.”

I sank back in my seat.

“And you can see it,” he continued, his French accent gone. “Maybe not at every single moment, but when it really matters to you or the person you’re viewing, or during moments of intense emotion, you’ll clearly see that you shouldn’t be with poisonous jackasses like that vampire at the bar.”

I sat up straight. “Percy doesn’t look like either a jackass or a vampire.”

“Yet.”

I picked at the spine of my menu. “I want to see and say things normally again, Henry Rhodes. I’ve never had anyone like Percy show an interest in me before this week, and I don’t want to spoil everything by acting like a lunatic.”

“What do you mean, ‘anyone like Percy’?”

“I know, compared to him, I’m plain and dull and—”

“Plain and dull?” Henry’s voice rose to an embarrassing volume. “Is that what your father tells you?”

“Please”—I scooted my chair away from his—“you’re talking too loudly.”

“It makes me furious when people like that ninnyhammer Acklen make people like you feel inferior to them. Tell me, exactly what type of loving partnership is that supposed to lead to?”

“Please, be quiet. He’s coming back.”

Henry leaned forward again and grabbed my hand. “He’s not better than you, Olivia, and neither is your father. And you’re far from plain and dull.”

I pulled my hand away and sat up straight and proper.

“What’s going on, Reverie?” Percy swaggered over to us with a mug of beer. “Why are you blushing, Olivia?”

“I should probably go.” In his haste, Henry dropped his gloves to the floor. He leaned over to pick them up.

“What happened?” Percy plunked his mug on the table. “Did you say something lewd to her, Reverie? Or”—he bent forward with a grin—“are you attempting to court her by singing suffrage anthems?”