A Northern Light(58)

I was to receive four dollars a week. Pa said I could keep back a dollar for myself. I told him I would keep back two or I would not go. "You know I'm keeping company with Royal Loomis," I said. "I'll have need of a few dollars myself soon." I had three dollars from Miss Wilcox, plus the nickel left over from my fiddlehead money, but I'd need more. Setting up house was an expensive proposition. Pa blinked at me, but I didn't blink back. I'd counted on him still feeling bad enough about hitting me to let me have my way on this, and I was right. There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.

Pa went right to Inlet after I found Pleasant, and left word at O'Hara's for Bert Brown to come get him. It was only the end of May, but the days could get warm. Bert collected dead livestock and rendered them down. He didn't pay anything for them, but he saved you digging a hole. I was sure that any soap made from Pleasant would be harsh enough to take the skin off your hands, and any glue made from him would be stronger than nails. Icosahedron, my word of the day, means twenty-sided. It is an almost entirely useless word, unless, of course, you want to describe something with twenty sides. Then it is perfect. It was a fitting word for Pleasant, who mostly dug his heels in and bit and kicked, but who got me to the Glenmore when I couldn't get myself there.

Pa turned right off the Big Moose Road, and then right again, into the Glenmore's drive. I could see the hotel now, looming tall. A trio of beautifully dressed women strolled toward the dock, parasols over their slender shoulders. A family alighted from a surrey at the front of the hotel and walked leisurely across the lawn. Their maid stayed behind, counting the pieces of luggage as they were unloaded. Suddenly I wanted to tell my father to turn around. I didn't know the first thing about fine people, or how to behave around them. What if I dropped soup in someone's lap? Or spoke before I was spoken to? Or poured wine into the water glasses? Pa needed that new mule badly, though—I knew he did—so I didn't word.

"Abby know how to deal with that stove?" he asked me as Licorice, the new mule, pulled the buckboard up to the Glenmore's back entrance.

"Yes, Pa. Better than I do." Abby was going to be in charge of everyone, and she would get the meals, too.

"I talked with Mr. Sperry. You're to serve in the dining room and help in the kitchen and clean the rooms, but I don't want you nowhere near the bar, you hear? You stay away from the dancing pavilion, too."

"Yes, Pa." What did he think I was going to do? Knock back a few shots every now and again and show off my fancy quickstep?

"Anything happens and you want to come home, you just send word. Don't walk all the way by yourself with that bag. I'll come and get you. Or Royal. One of us will."

"I'll be fine, Pa. Really I will."

I got out. My father did, too. He lifted my bag down, walked me to the kitchen door, and peered inside. I waited for him to hand me the carpetbag, but he didn't. He held it hard against him. "Well, you going in or not?" he asked me.

"I need my bag, Pa."

As he handed it to me, I saw he'd gripped it so tightly his knuckles had turned white. We were not the kissing kind, me and Pa, but I wished that maybe he would at least hug me good-bye. He just toed the ground and spat, though, told me to mind myself, and took off in the buckboard without once looking back.





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I was cleaning the table when I saw it. A dime. Lying next to the sugar bowl. I picked it up and ran after the woman who'd left it.

"Ma'am? Pardon me, ma'am!" I called.

She stopped in the doorway.

"You left this, ma'am," I said, holding the coin out to her.

She smiled and shook her head. "Yes, I did. For you." And then she turned and walked out of the dining room and I did not know what to do. Cook warned us nine ways to Sunday to turn in anything that we find—money, jewelry, buttons, anything. But how could I turn it in if its owner didn't want it back?

"Put it in your pocket, you fool," a voice behind me said. It was Weaver. He was busing a huge tray of dirty dishes. "It's called a tip. They leave it for good service. You get to keep it."

"For real?"

"Yup. But if you don't get your table cleared and your rear end back in the kitchen, it'll be the only one you ever get." He started walking away, then turned and said, "Boisterous."

"Unruly," I replied, hurrying back to clear my table.

On the way into the kitchen, I had to pause outside the doors for a second, trying to remember which was in and which was out. I'd already been yelled at for going out the in one. As I pushed open the right door, struggling to balance the heavy tray on my shoulder, Cook bawled at me for being slower than a snail on crutches. "Table ten needs water, butter, and rolls! Look alive, Mattie!" she yelled.

"I'm sorry," I said.

I rushed past the other girls, past the smoke and steam pouring from the massive black stove, and slammed my tray down by the sink. "Don't slam it!" Bill the dishwasher yelled. "Aw, look at that, will you? You're supposed to scrape the dishes, then stack them. Just look at that mess!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

I ran to the warming oven, skidded on a slice of tomato, and just managed to right myself before I smashed into Henry, the new underchef, who had arrived at the Glenmore the day before, same as me, and was carrying a basket of lobsters. Henry, Mrs. Morrison had informed us, had apprenticed in the finest kitchens of Europe, and the Glenmore was fortunate to have him.