The Cure for Dreaming(43)

Behind me, the theater door swung open, and the substitute organist exited. She tramped down the stairs with a gold and green carpetbag hanging over her left arm, and she screwed up her lips when she saw me sitting there, perhaps remembering me from the day before, when I had kept Henry from rehearsing. Her newtlike eyes studied me, as if she were evaluating an apple for bruises and wormholes, finding more bad spots than good.

The wind shifted—or maybe it was just my brain switching directions. In any case, the organist tipped her head a certain way, and her orange hair careened down to her waist in plump curls. Her face slimmed and softened with youth. The carpetbag transformed into a German hurdy-gurdy instrument with strings and a crank, and her frumpy brown dress blossomed into a ruffled blue slip of a gown, like the shocking costumes of lady entertainers in North End saloons.

Without a word, her regular fussy, sharp-eyed looks reappeared, and she wandered around the corner, toward the streetcar. I stared at the place where she had vanished, my mouth hanging open, for I felt I’d just encountered a person much like my mother—a beautiful entertainer trapped in the body of an aging woman. Not an easy place to be, I’m sure. I wondered if my mother also shot bitter glares and unkind words at the young theater people around her.

The door opened again, and I got to my feet when I saw Henry stepping outside in the dark coat from his Halloween performance. He wore his black square-crown hat pulled down over his eyes, as if to conceal his identity, and he chewed on something crunchy that sounded like hard candy.

“Henry?” I asked, and I gripped both the rail and the letter.

He looked up, revealing familiar blue eyes that brightened at the sight of me.

“Olivia, c’est toi.” He galloped down the stairs until he landed in front of me, smelling of peppermint. “You came.”

I slammed my letter against his chest.

He gulped down the last of his candy. “What’s this?”

“Just read it. Please.”

He unfolded the letter.

I chewed my bottom lip and watched his eyes shift back and forth over my writing. The longer he read, the more his brow puckered in a frown.

He blew out a sigh that rustled his hair and lowered the letter to his side. “Did Percy really bite you?” he asked in the American version of his voice.

“Why do you have two accents?”

“I asked my question first.”

Before I could gather enough breath and courage to answer, the pack of squeaky show poodles exited the side door, their exhausted-eyed owners following in a web of leather leashes. Henry and I both stepped away from the theater, and I grabbed my bicycle by the handlebars. Side by side, we headed toward Third Street with the barking ruckus trailing behind us.

“I’d like to see your neck,” he said over the commotion of the dogs and the hum of the streetcar breezing off in the opposite direction.

“Are you off your rocker? I’m not going to expose my neck in public.” I held fast to my bike, which I walked by my side up Third.

The streetcar’s bell clanged at an intersection in the distance, and the poodles yipped to the south while we trekked north. Our section of Third lay empty at the moment, aside from Henry and me.

“Why did he bite you?” he asked. “Was it a romantic bite?”

“No.” I blushed with such intensity that my eyes watered. “I’m . . .” I fanned my face with my hand. “I’m trying with all my might not to say that all is well, so please don’t ask any more questions about it. The point is, I couldn’t tell him no when I was alone with him in the buggy last night.”

Henry stopped. “Did he make you do anything else?”

I stopped, too. “As in what?”

“As in . . . um . . .” He nodded as if I should know what he was thinking, his face pinking up. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you about . . . ?”

“I don’t . . . he didn’t . . .” I pulled at my collar and cringed at the memory of one of Mother’s detailed letters that instructed how to avoid becoming in the family way. “I’m not sure if you mean . . .”

“Um”—he scratched his cheek—“never mind. Were you able to get away from him after he bit you?”

“Yes. I pushed him off me twice, and both times his head whacked the top of the buggy.”

I resumed walking my bicycle.

Henry stayed behind for a moment, but when I glanced over my shoulder, he grinned and caught up.

“Mon Dieu, Olivia. You’re much stronger than you look. I took you to be a frightened little bird when you came up onstage with me on Halloween.”

“Now, there you sound French again. Are you French or American?”

“My mother was born in Paris and grew up in Montreal. My father was from Toronto. My uncle took guardianship over us in Cleveland.”

“And French sounds more mysterious and exotic than a Cleveland accent?”

“Oui.” He smiled and slipped his hands into his pockets. “Uncle Lewis asked me to sound French whenever I appeared on the stage. I was always good at imitating my mother’s accent, and I speak both languages fluently.”

“Hmm.” I stole a glance at him. My fingers gripped the handlebars.

I summoned a vision of my own accord.

Large rips formed in the underarm seams of his coat and revealed glimpses of a striped shirt underneath. His red vest— the same dazzling garment from Halloween night—drained to the color of underripe cherries, and the black of his suit faded to gray. On his head, his felt hat deflated until it looked battered and squished and as well traveled as an old railroad car. His eyes turned puffy and red.