CHAPTER EIGHT
Violet flopped on her bed in her dorm room and felt the long day fall away from her. The purple batik tapestry she’d hung across her window now diffused the warm afternoon sun. Inside, the room was cast in long shadows. She was grateful not to have any more commitments. She needed rest. The two hours she’d spent that morning in the library reading Harry Widener’s words had been calming to her. But once she entered the daily grind of college life, with its academic pressures and unexpected encounters like seeing Theo and having to sidestep around the reality of Hugo’s death, she just felt exhausted.
All Violet wanted to do was sleep. When she was dreaming, the pain dissolved.
“Vi, are you in there?” A heavy knock on her door awakened her. It was Sylvia, one of her suitemates. She’d know that voice anywhere. It sounded like a foghorn in her ears.
Violet rolled over in her bed. “I’m napping,” she groaned.
The door pushed open and Sylvia’s face peeked through the crack.
“Vi,” she said. “I’m just checking in on you.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Violet muttered.
Sylvia stepped into the room. “You sleep all the time, we never see you, and when you’re here you always keep your door closed to the common room. We’re all getting really concerned. I’ve left at least five messages on your answering machine.”
Violet sat up and glanced at her nightstand. The red light was still blinking on her machine.
“I’m sorry, Syl. I’m just so tired. I feel like I have to save all of my energy for my classes. I don’t want to flunk out.”
Sylvia walked over to Violet’s desk and flipped on the lamp.
“I get that you’re tired, I really do,” she said as she moved to sit on Violet’s bed. “Your brain has been working overtime since Hugo’s accident. But you can’t make yourself into an island, Vi. We all just want to help you.”
Violet scanned her room. The place was a complete mess. Binders on the floor. A laundry bag overflowing with dirty clothes. A half-eaten food carton lay open on her desk. Jenny, one of her other suitemates, had earlier made an offhanded remark that Violet needed to either start cleaning up her room or keep the door closed so the others didn’t have to see the mess. Violet had decided to take the easiest solution. She simply shut her door.
“We just miss you, Vi,” Sylvia said, gently.
“I know. But I hate the pitiful look everyone gives me whenever they see me around campus. It makes me want to crawl into my skin.” The words flew out of her mouth. “I hate having to pretend I’m getting over things when I’m really not.”
“No one’s pitying you. We’re all sad. Honestly, Violet, none of us can believe he’s actually gone.”
“I realize I’m a downer to be around, so I’m just doing everyone a favor by keeping to myself.”
“You know that’s not true,” Sylvia insisted. “Let’s get dinner. Just the two of us. Jenny and Lara left already. You and I can find a corner of the dining hall all to ourselves, and we don’t need to talk about Hugo unless you want to.”
Violet forced a smile. Of her three suitemates, it was Sylvia whom she felt closest to. While they clearly came from different backgrounds, as Sylvia’s parents were both doctors and she certainly was as wealthy as Jenny and Lara, she had always seemed more grounded to Violet.Perhaps it was because her parents were more crunchy granola than her other, more preppy suitemates. Sylvia’s parents had met during their residency at Mass. General and after four years in Boston, opted for a quieter life living outside Portland, Maine, creating an idyllic and solid childhood for their only daughter.
Sylvia complemented Violet in the best possible way. She was outgoing, but not overbearing. She was studious, but also fun. And it had been Sylvia, the coxswain of the freshman boat, who had first introduced her to Hugo.
The walls of the dining room at Lowell House were painted a dandelion yellow. This distinct shade made it unique among the river houses at Harvard. The room took on a cheery spirit that defied the somber-looking oil portraits that hung around its perimeter. But, unlike so many of the other rooms on campus, there were no dark corners to shrink into. The large arched windows on one side and the elaborate three-tiered candelabra-style chandeliers that hung from the ceiling brought in additional light, and the long wooden tables and Shaker-style chairs in the center encouraged communal sitting.
“Where do you want to sit?” Sylvia asked her as they walked into the eating area with their trays.
“As far back as possible,” Violet answered. She lifted her chin in the direction of a far table where no one else was sitting.
They sat down across from each other and looked down at their food. Sylvia’s warm brown eyes and bobbed dark hair felt like a comfort to Violet. As loud as Sylvia could be with her bullhorn when she yelled at the rowers in the varsity boat to stay on stroke, she could also be reserved and sensitive. Now she just sat there with herdining tray in front of her, quietly picking at her turkey cutlets and mashed potatoes.
“How’s the new library job going?” she asked. “Have you had to discipline any couples making out in the stacks?”
Violet laughed. Everyone knew that it was a Harvard tradition for some couples to try and have a romantic tryst deep in the recesses of Widener, evading the security guards.
“Not yet, but the good news is that I really like the librarian curator, Madeline Singer. At first, I thought I was only going to be running rare books between the other libraries and Houghton’s reading room, but Ms. Singer has me ordering the flowers for Harry Elkins Widener’s desk each week too. And even better, she’s letting me help out a little with her research.”
“Really?” Sylvia lifted another bite of mashed potatoes into her mouth. “That’s so cool.”
“Yeah. She’s having me transcribe some of Harry’s personal correspondence, and it’s pretty fascinating.”
