by Cat Winters
A heart-seizing note from the organ beyond the curtains soldered my feet to the ground. I stood there in the half dark, rooted to the floor, while the force of a loud waltz reverberated up my calves and knees. Laughter boomed from the audience. Lights poured through the black curtains separating the stage from the wings, luring me over . . . Come see, come see.
I rounded a small table topped with a pitcher of water and a bowl of peppermint-scented candies and came to a stop in the wings.
My eyes widened.
Three couples were dancing a waltz on the stage, but the women—not the men—were leading, with their hands on the gentlemen’s waists. The gentlemen followed, their left fingers lifting invisible skirts off the ground. The peculiar pairs glided around the dusty floorboards with silly smiles on their faces, paying no heed at all to the wild shrieks of laughter from the audience.
“Mesdames et messieurs”—Henry strutted into my view, his red vest shimmering in the stage lights—“let us give a warm round of applause for the Reversed Portland Dancers.”
The audience clapped and chortled, and I slithered farther into the backstage shadows. The silhouettes of stagehands in caps and suspenders rushed toward the wings.
Henry guided his subjects out of their trances, and an even grander applause swelled for the great Monsieur Reverie. A smoky-smelling fellow showed up a few feet away from me and pulled on a long rope that clattered the main curtain closed.
I held my breath and crept out of my hiding spot.
Henry staggered off the stage, and my eyes beheld him falling apart. Literally. The bottom half of his coat unraveled at astounding speed, and the seams of his pants stretched and ripped from his ankles up to his knees. He grabbed hold of one of the wings’ black curtains and rested his forehead against the cloth, inhaling deep breaths that made his shoulders rise and fall.
“Henry?” I unclasped Frannie’s cloak from my neck and approached him. By walking and blinking I stopped the illusion of his fraying garments, but he still hunched over as if he might collapse. “Are you all right?”
He lifted his head. “Olivia?”
“I’m sorry I snuck backstage . . .”
“No, it’s fine.” He let go of the curtain and took my hands. “It’s nice to see you back here. Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine, but how are you?”
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
A stagehand brushed past us, so Henry led me away from the wings and toward the table with the water and candies.
He poured himself a glass with shaking hands. “Genevieve has a fever.”
“Oh, no!”
“The doctor thinks it might just be a regular cold, not her illness, but she’s supposed to take a pill and stay in bed.”
“Does it seem like a cold?”
“She’s sneezing and coughing, but I don’t know . . .” He guzzled the water like a man downing whiskey.
I wriggled Frannie’s coat off my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Henry.”
He came up for a loud breath. “It reminds me too much of the typhoid—and my mother’s illness. I really hate this. Why can’t she just be healthy?”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No.” He shook his head and wiped his lips. “Nothing besides what you’re already doing.”
“If it’s of any comfort, I have an idea for Tuesday evening.”
“You do?”
“I—” I held my tongue, for the substitute organist lumbered toward us from the wings with stacks of sheet music poking out of her carpetbag.
“Here.” Henry gestured with his head toward the back of the theater. “Let’s go speak in private. There’s something I need to give you, anyway.”
He set down the glass, popped a candy into his mouth, and took me by the hand again, while the organist frowned at us and fished her hand into the candy bowl.
Henry and I wound our way through a dark maze of set pieces and sawdust and down an echoing stairwell that smelled of fresh paint and cigarettes. We arrived in a large underground space crammed with props and extra stage pieces packed onto shelves and crowding the passageways. Bare bulbs dangled from the ceiling, casting a yellow light that produced hulking shadows shaped like masks and trombones and Wild West pistols.
Henry led me down a narrow walkway, toward the opposite end of the room, and the feathers of a dangling pink boa tickled across my cheek, making me think for a moment we were walking through a labyrinth of spiderwebs.
“The wardrobe mistress isn’t here today,” he said. “We all wear our own clothing for this show, but we’ve been allowed to come back here in case we want to add anything to our outfits.” He opened a back door and pushed a switch on the wall that illuminated a room filled with costumes on coat hangers, bolts of fabric, sewing machines, bobbins, and millinery head blocks. He let go of my hand and walked to a rack of clothing both colorful and drab. “I received Mr. Gillingham’s approval to give this to you.”
My stomach leapt. Henry pulled something off a hanger and returned to me with a pair of garnet-brown trousers.
Bicycle bloomers.
For me.
I dropped Frannie’s cloak, covered my mouth, and burst into tears.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, but all I could do was hurl my arms around him and tip us both off balance.
He grabbed hold of my back. “Are you all right?”
“They’re beautiful. I’m sorry . . .” I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I love the bloomers. But it’s so hard. Oh, criminy, I love them so much.” I blubbered like a madwoman against the soft lapel of his coat.
“Here, sit down with me,” said Henry, and he lowered us both to the floor, which was scattered with threads of blue and white. He fetched a handkerchief from his breast pocket and gave it to me.
I blew my nose and watched tears rain down on the glorious trousers. Henry stroked my arms until my breathing slowed, and his face gradually grew less hazy through my drying eyes. My scratch marks on his cheek were but thin, hidden streaks beneath a covering of greasepaint.
I hiccupped. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I reacted that way. It’s hardly the behavior of a modern woman with bloomers, is it?”
“Don’t worry about how you reacted. Who cares? Now”— he bent his head close—“tell me your idea for Tuesday.”
I cleared my throat and drew a long breath. “Well, at the election-night party . . .” I coughed into the handkerchief. “Tell the audience you can cure more than just one rebellious woman. Tell them you can cure a whole crowd of us.” I spread the bloomers across my lap and toyed with the buttons on the hems. “When we first arrive, there will likely be women singing and chanting about the vote outside the hotel. Ask the men to go fetch them to prove your abilities.”
“All right . . .”
“If all goes well, when the gentlemen come back, they’ll say the women are gone. Inform the audience you’ll use the ladies at the party as an example instead. Invite them all in front of the crowd, with me included if it helps”—I met his eyes—“and hypnotize them all into silence. Take away their voices.”
His face went still. “Permanently?”
“Long enough to scare them. Show them the dangers of living without the ability to have a say in the world. And then, when they panic and beg in writing to speak again, point out the beautiful irony of a group of antis hating the idea of silence.”
He cracked a wry smile that gleamed in his eyes. “It’s brilliant.”
“Do you really think so?”
“It’s well worth a try.” He laced his fingers through mine in my lap. “We’ll definitely need to make sure you’re up there with the crowd to make your father happy, but I have a trick to avoid getting hypnotized if you don’t want to lose your voice.”
“There’s a trick?”
“It’s easy. Take your tongue”—he showed me the pink tip of his between his teeth—“and wedge it against the roof
of your mouth.”
I pushed my tongue to my palate. “Is that all?”
“Theoretically, yes. When I’m hypnotizing you, all I’m doing is putting your conscious mind to sleep so I can communicate directly with your subconscious. When you distract yourself with your tongue”—he closed his mouth and seemed to test out the effect in his own mouth—“or when you mentally will yourself against the hypnosis, your conscious mind stays awake. I can’t get into the deeper parts of your brain.”
“But what if . . .” My face warmed. “What if my subconscious mind . . . enjoys the relaxation part of hypnosis too much?”
“Well . . .” He slipped his hands out of mine. “You’ve got to ignore that impulse to be relaxed. Be strong. Push me out. Imagine slamming a door in my face.”
“You’re awfully good at soothing a person, Henry . . .”
“Even if you like it, you’ve got to block me. Even if your father’s standing right there, keep yourself alert. Force me away.”
I squirmed. “Now I’m worried.”
“Let’s practice. Come on.” He sat up tall. “We’ll try it right here.”
“All right.” I rolled back my shoulders. “I suppose if you just use your usual techniques, and—”
He retook my hands and looked me in the eye, and I flopped forward and banged my temple against his shoulder.
“Awake! No, Olivia, you weren’t even trying.”
I shook my head and straightened my posture. “You don’t understand. Relaxation is precious to me. And you’re talented.”
“Be strong—forget the soothing parts. Slam the door in my face.” He squeezed my hands. “Look into my eyes.”
I did, and my forehead tipped forward as if it were made of a sheet of slate.
“No. Awake.”
I righted myself again.
He sighed and furrowed his brow. “My job, Olivia, is to catch you off guard. Your job is to be alert and strong at all times. I don’t want him to force me to do anything despicable to you ever again. And I don’t want to think that last night . . .”
He stopped and rubbed his hand over his mouth.
I pinched my eyebrows together. “What about last night?”
“The hazard of the profession I was telling you about.” He scooted backward on the floor and stared at his folded legs. “Women saying they’re under my spell. I don’t want to think hypnosis had anything to do with . . . anything . . . last night.”
“I was in a fully conscious state, Henry. I may be an overly susceptible subject, but I can tell when I’m hypnotized and when I’m not.”
“I wasn’t sure. I started to worry when I got back to the hotel.”
“I kissed you because I thought it would be fun.” I pushed my hands against the floor and slid myself toward him. “I thought we could both use a kiss. It had nothing to do with hypnosis or female equality or anything else but the simple fact that we were having a grand time.”
“Well . . . good . . . and, well . . .” He scratched his neck. His eyes met mine. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“I did need it.” He played with the pucker of my skirt above my knee. “I didn’t even realize how badly I needed it until it happened.”
I gave a soft breath of a laugh. “I understand.”
He took my hands again—a tender gesture, not another hypnosis test. A hush came over us. Footsteps moaned against the wood above our heads, but the rest of the world seemed miles and miles away, as if we were holed up in our own private burrow at the center of the earth. Our interlocked fingers nuzzled against one another. Our seated bodies fidgeted until our knees touched and stayed together. The ethereal spell of our moonlit bicycle ride settled over the hats and the costumes and our tipped-together heads, which seemed to be drawing closer on an invisible thread.
This time, Henry kissed me first, his lips soft and warm, even more so than the night before. I set the handkerchief and the bicycle bloomers aside and reached up to his neck, not caring if the gesture seemed bold. The harder we kissed, the faster the demons in the crooks of my mind slipped away. A better escape than hypnosis. Almost better than bicycling. I reached up to his soft hair and pulled his whole body to mine.
He eased me backward to the floor, and my head rested amid remnants of lace and scattered snippets of fabric. I thought I heard the distant music of the pipe organ playing “Beautiful Dreamer,” or maybe even “A Hot Time in the Old Town.” It didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered except for lips and gentle hands and the coarse texture of a black woolen coat beneath my fingertips.
A mirror stood over us—I had seen it when we first entered the room but tried to ignore its intimidating slab of reflective glass. It watched us as we lay there, tasting and feeling each other, like Sapho and her lovers.
I kept my eyes closed. Henry’s fingers slid between the buttons of my blouse, and I worried my reflection would show me a ghost of a girl, fading, oppressed, and ruined. My hand strayed to the firm spread of his lower back, below his coat, his vest, and even his shirt, and I feared I’d look like one of the North End prostitutes I’d always heard about, with their rouged cheeks and low-cut gowns. My mouth strayed to the sweet taste of his neck, and I thought of Lucy Westenra and her unclean lips and eyes.
Not knowing how I looked became too much to bear.
I turned my head to the side. My eyes opened. I saw her.
Olivia Mead.
Just me—and Henry Rhodes—evading our troubles in the farthest corner of a theater.
Henry lifted his head, his cheeks flushed, his breaths uneven. “What are you looking at?”
“Us.”
He peeked at the mirror and met the reflection of my brown eyes. “Why?”
“To see if we look wicked.”
He tilted his head against mine. “And?”
“We just look like Olivia and Henry.”
He brushed my hair out of my face. “Do you feel wicked?”
“I didn’t until I started thinking about it.”
He leaned forward for another kiss, but I touched his chin before his lips brushed mine.
“Here’s another worry,” I said. “I think I may have gotten my start in the world in the back of a theater, just like this.”
He snuck in a soft kiss to my cheek. “What do you mean?”
“My mother came to Portland with a traveling theater company when she was barely sixteen. My father was an eighteen-year-old dental apprentice. For all I know their relationship started in this very same theater. Oh . . . good Lord.” I cringed and sat up. “I hadn’t even thought of that before.”
“I’m sorry you did think of it.” Henry sat up, too, and removed his coat.
“My mother lives in New York City now.” I bit my lip and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “I’m thinking of going to live with her after everything’s over Tuesday night.”
A shadow darkened his face. He dropped his coat to the floor beside him, and the movement reminded me of a rosebush weeping petals.
“I want to be with family,” I said. “I know you asked me to go with you and Genevieve, but . . .”
“No.” He swallowed and nodded. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I do.” He nodded again, but I could see disappointment dimming the sparks in his eyes.
“Will this change any of our plans we just discussed for Tuesday night?”
“No.” His brow creased. “Of course not. No matter what happens, I’m going to help you.”
“We’re still partners, then? Partenaires?”
“Oui.” A small smile rose to his lips. “Des partenaires qui s’embrassent.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you should learn more French if you’re going to partner with me, ma chérie.”
“No, be honest”—I nudged his knee—“what does it mean?”
He smirked and blushed a little. “Partners who kiss.”
I snickered. “Partners
who kiss?”
“Oui.”
“What a marvelous concept.”
He smiled, and I smiled, and we both broke into a fit of tipsy-sounding laughter.
Our faces gradually sobered. Silence stole over the room again, aside from those footsteps shuffling above.
I leaned toward Henry and his lovely mussed-up hair and peppermint-scented lips, and for a little while longer, we enjoyed our lives as des partenaires qui s’embrassent.
thought I saw Father on my journey northward on Yamhill Street.
I spun around, and with my back to Fourth, I stood with Frannie’s hood pulled over my head—a deer freezing to blend in with the trees. None of it seemed right: me hiding from Father, Father fearful for me—or maybe even of me. In his view of the world, I likely resembled a fairy-tale witch who baked children in pies. Or, even worse in his eyes, a witch who could destroy both his home and his right to drink.
I strode to Harrison’s Books on unsteady legs, looking over my shoulder every few seconds.
Frannie let me inside after I knocked on the glass door. “Is everything all right?” she asked, and she locked the shop back up behind me.
“Well . . .” I sighed and unbuttoned the cloak. “I think we might be ready for Tuesday.”
Phonograph music drifted downstairs—a piano song that sounded as old and romantic as the Harrisons’ twenty-year marriage.
She took the cloak. “Is this to be a farewell supper, then?”
I couldn’t meet her eyes.
“It is, isn’t it?” Her voice cracked.
“I’m not sure. I’m worried everything will go terribly wrong.”
“Just be careful, no matter what happens. Please promise me that.”
I nodded and rubbed my knotted-up stomach. “I promise.”
She wiped her eyes with the cloak. “Let me know when I should properly say good-bye, all right? I don’t want to suddenly find out you’re in New York without me realizing you’re gone.”
I fussed with the folds of my skirt, which was hiding the bloomers I had slipped over my legs in the theater. “The world is getting smaller, you know. A train ride across the country is so much easier than before.”
Frannie sniffed and nodded. “I suppose that’s true.”