The Cure for Dreaming(70)
I let him help me to my feet, even though my legs bent and bobbed at all sorts of odd angles.
Henry readdressed the audience. “Would some of you gentlemen kindly fetch at least five of those singing women from outside this hotel? And then I’ll need a few more volunteers to help bring some chairs upon this stage.”
The young men and their fathers just stood there and stared as if they had never been asked to carry a stick of furniture in their lives. Before long, the poor waiters were setting down their trays, lugging around chairs, and running out to the street to wrangle women.
I pulled at my lace scarf and pleaded to Frannie and the other girls, Please be gone! Be gone! My grand scheme for the evening suddenly struck me as ridiculous and selfish, and I hated myself for convincing Henry to conspire with me.
A curly-haired waiter ran back inside from the lobby. “The women left.”
I covered a relieved smile with my hand.
“They left?” asked Mrs. Underhill, and other disappointed murmurings and snorts shook loose from the crowd.
Henry held up his hands. “Do not worry, mesdames et messieurs. I am still able to show you how to tame a roomful of tigresses into docile, silent kittens. I simply need some of the beautiful ladies in this audience to temporarily stand in as the rebels.”
The women froze.
Henry clasped his hands together in the direction of Sadie’s bloodstain of a dress. “Mademoiselle Eiderling, would you care to be one of our volunteers?”
Sadie narrowed her eyes. “No.”
“I believe I owe you the chance for an operatic solo,” said Henry, “which can certainly be arranged while you’re up on this stage. I do not think there would be a sound more breathtaking this election night than your sweet voice filling this room with the national anthem.”
Sadie folded her arms over her chest and didn’t budge.
Teddy slung his hand over her shoulder. “Do it, Sadie.”
Sunken-Eyed John raised a champagne flute and said, “Yes, do it,” and his sister Eugenia clapped and added, “Yes, please, go up there, Sadie. What a laugh that would be”—all of them prodding at Sadie just as she had tried to bully Henry at her party.
“All right.” Sadie jutted her chin in the air. “But Eugenia and my mother have to come with me, and my voice had better sound like an angel’s when I sing the national anthem.”
“Bien s?r, an angel,” said Henry with a wobble in his footing that got me worrying about his health again. “Certainly, mademoiselle. Please come up and sit in one of these chairs.”
The partygoers cleared a path for Sadie, Eugenia, and an older woman in a gown dripping in ecru lace, her hair a squat version of Sadie’s strawberry-gold pompadour. Mrs. Underhill trooped up on stage with them as well, followed by Lizzie—the squeaky girl who had called me a freakish man with bosoms—and her equally sulky-lipped mother.
I perched myself on the leftmost chair and cleared the nervousness from my throat as the six other ladies joined me in sitting up there, all of us facing the audience in front of the orchestra.
“Thank you for helping us, ladies,” said Henry, angled toward both us and the crowd below. “Your cooperation will reward you in the future, for when we silence the suffragists—”
I forgot to gag, but Henry’s pause pushed me into action. I choked with passion to compensate.
“—you will no longer need to concern yourselves with organizations such as this one. You will be able to devote your time to charities and other, worthier endeavors instead of hushing up women with pluck.”
The mothers on the stage nodded their approval, while their daughters fussed with their skirts and slumped as if bored. I folded my hands in my lap and tried to ignore Father’s watchful face out of the corner of my eye.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—Henry pivoted toward the audience and raised his hands—“I present to you America’s idyllic future.”
He swirled around to us ladies and started work on Lizzie at the opposite end of the line from me.
“Close your eyes.” He stroked the girl’s head of jostling brown ringlets. “You are drowsy. You can think of nothing but sleep. Melt down, melt down into sleep.”
He moved on to Lizzie’s mother and embarked upon the same routine. “Close your eyes.” He kneaded the woman’s supple forehead. “Think of nothing but sleep. You feel very sleepy. You are so tired. Melt down.”
He continued down the line of women, repeating the same phrases and massaging everyone’s skulls and foreheads. This time I had ample warning to keep myself alert. I wedged my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Henry’s silky voice alone was already persuading my chin to drop to my chest, but I forced myself to envision slamming a door in his face.
“You feel very sleepy,” he said to Mrs. Eiderling next to me. “You are drowsy. Think of nothing but sleep.”
Mrs. Eiderling’s head and shoulders slumped forward.
Henry moved over to me and put his hands on the sides of my head. “Close your eyes.”
I pressed my tongue to my palate with all my might and shut my lids.
“Think of nothing but sleep.” He caressed my temples. “Go to sleep.”
I held my breath and strained to block out the potency of his words. Slam the door. Slam it hard! My thoughts strained toward suffragist anthems, train rides to New York City, moonlit bicycle rides in garnet-brown bloomers . . .