After that, I had to force myself to get out of bed. I knew I needed to find work so I could pay my way, but my head felt so heavy, I wanted to close my eyes any chance I could get. All day, every day, I was pining for Archie and kept wondering what he was doing, if he was still at the camp, if he had gone back to Cincinnati, if he was in Manhattan. I briefly considered asking at the Plaza if he was in residence, but what was the point? They wouldn’t reveal that information for one thing, and even if he was there, then what? I couldn’t go back now. Nothing had changed. I’d still lied to him, backed him into a corner without his even knowing, and on top of that, I’d publicly humiliated him. I’d called off the wedding and then I’d left him with the dirty work of letting the guests know that it was over, that they should cancel their travel plans. I imagined there were some he couldn’t reach, some already en route whom he had to face and possibly even host. Before all this I’d been riddled with guilt and anxiety, but this feeling that I’d hurt him, abandoned him without warning and then made him be the one to face the burden and humiliation of announcing it publicly, it was horrible. I’d forced him to despise me, and I’d sealed my fate.
I wanted it to go away, all of it, the way I felt, the light through the curtains, the noises of other people speaking. I couldn’t stand any of it. I wanted to be numb. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to never wake up.
The worst of it was that I didn’t really understand what I had done or why I had done it.
But those nuns kept knocking.
“Breakfast!” one of them bellowed as she knocked and then opened the door a few inches. “Breakfast,” I heard her say again as she moved on to the next door. If I wasn’t up and dressed and down for breakfast, she’d be back to throw the door wide open. “This is no place for lollygaggers,” she’d said the previous day. So I got up, went down for breakfast—or coffee, since it was all I could stomach—and then walked around the block a few times until the secretaries had scurried off to work and I could return to my room, where they’d leave me alone for a while. I walked slowly, the collar of my mink turned up and pulled around my face. The coat was far too wintry for a crisp day in early September, but I didn’t care. I wanted to hide.
A newsboy at the corner was waving a paper as I approached. “Stocks recoup as bulls again rule market!” he shouted, calling out the headline far too loudly. “Read all about it. Sensational gains!”
I thought back to the conversation with Alberto on the train when he’d read out Roger Babson’s warning that an economic crash was coming, and he’d said that no one would go to the theater if that happened. Babson had obviously been wrong, and so had Alberto. Archie had said it was all horsefeathers and he was right. The thought of him made my stomach twist. It was hard to swallow; just thinking of him made my eyes tear up.
“Five hundred bottles of liquor seized on Bay State Veterans train!”
I looked at him and saw the look of desperation in his eyes. “Two cents, miss, read all about it.The New York Times,just two cents.”
When he saw me feeling around in my pocket for change, he tried diligently to make the sale with whatever other news he couldrecall. “Typhoid outbreak under control,” he said. “Water shortages loom.”
I handed him two cents, and he gave me the paper and immediately began selling to other passersby, clearly not wanting to miss a second of selling time.
Back in my room, I sat on the bed and mindlessly turned the pages of the paper.
78-YEAR-OLD MICHIGAN GRANDMOTHER CHARGED WITH BOOTLEGGING IS KILLED TRYING TO FLEE JAIL.Absurd, I thought, then went to the next one. And that’s when I saw it, a small article on page thirty-one.
HE LIKES CINCINNATI, SHE LIKES MANHATTAN; CARMICHAEL AND SHINE PART WAYS
The wedding is off for businessman Archibald Carmichael and chorus girl Olive Shine after a blowup at his summer house, the Pines, in the Adirondacks.
Sister-in-law Edna Carmichael, who spent time with them at their camp this summer, said she had an opportunity to observe Miss Shine’s “unusual way of doing things. Most of the guests she invited were broke,” said Carmichael. “She had a penchant for high-class bohemians whom she fed and clothed, and she acted as if she already ruled the place. She spent money like an empress, drank excessively and used outrageous language even in the presence of guests.” She added, “It’s no surprise that my brother-in-law eventually saw that they were not suited.”
Mr. Carmichael is said to be returning to his hometown of Cincinnati, where he will reside, and plans to reunite with former fiancée, Louise Moyer.
I stared at the small rectangle in horror. I read it over and over again, fixating on that last sentence. This was horrible. I couldn’t believe how much hurt and insult could come from one tiny three-inch column. How could this happen so fast? How could he go back to someone he didn’t even love? My heart was beating fast, and I could barely breathe. I crumpled the page into a ball and threw it across the room, then fell onto the bed, sobbing into my ink-stained hands, realizing for the first time the magnitude of what I’d done and how permanent it was.
There was a knock at my door. I put the pillow over my head. Another knock, louder now.
“Miss Shine?”
I checked the clock—it was twoP.M.Another knock.
I threw the covers back and stomped to the door. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, I’ve had breakfast, I don’t want lunch,” I shouted. “I don’t have a job to go to. I’m not a secretary. What do you want me to do, go and sit on a park bench until the others come back? Can’t you leave me alone?”
It was the young one this time, Sister Theresa, slight and mousy, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. She stood there looking shocked, and I felt terrible all over again. I hadn’t expected it to be her. I’d seen her around the house, talking to the other residents, and she had seemed to be quite sweet. Not that I’d spoken to her, but she’d always seemedaccommodating, cheerful. I’d even wondered if she envied those girls in their day dresses heading out into the city.
“You have a visitor in the parlor,” she said quietly.
For a second my heart jumped. What if it was Archie? And then it sank. Why would it be? I took one look at myself in the mirror. I looked gaunt, my skin was grey, my hair looked as if it had been glued to my head. I had dark shadows under my eyes. I didn’t care. I put on a cardigan and walked downstairs.
Ruthie was leaning back in an armchair. She looked uncomfortably large.
“Olive,” she said sympathetically as soon as she caught sight of me. I could have kept on walking. I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to see anyone, but I forced myself to go in.
“Hi, Ruthie,” I said.
“How are you?”
“As well as can be expected. Aren’t you supposed to be having that baby soon?”
