The Other Typist

by Rindell, Suzanne

  After dinner, he pursued her to the canvas platform where couples had already begun to pair off and float about in light-footed, airy circles. I believe he thought he might get a chance to dance with her. But if this was the case, he sorely underestimated Odalie’s ability to fill up a dance card. She skillfully thwarted his advances at every turn, always remaining aloof but never being rude in any outright manner. So for the majority of the night, he stood off to one side of the platform and simply looked on, his hands stuffed awkwardly into the pockets of his high-waisted white suit jacket, the shifting tides of dancing couples swirling in eddies before him and the shifting tides of the actual sea ebbing and flowing at some distance in the darkness behind him. At one point, he crossed the veranda in my direction, and I may be mistaken but I believe he was coming to ask me to dance. Just prior to his arrival, though, Odalie was quite suddenly at my elbow. Her musical laugh filled the air as a string of gentlemen took turns bending at the waist and making a show of kissing her hand. I heard her making apologies about the hour being late. Seconds later I felt a light hand on my arm. Before I knew it we were upstairs in our room, turning down the bed and slipping into our nightgowns.

  “Sorry to make us turn in early like a pair of sad old biddies,” Odalie murmured while lying in bed with her eyes already closed. “I just couldn’t have stood it a moment longer. If they’d have played a waltz I think I would’ve nodded off in some poor man’s arms.” She reached over to my side of the bed and squeezed my hand.

  “I don’t mind,” I said, and realized it was the truth. Sometimes when she abandoned me at parties I came home early and went to bed—always alone—and I did mind that. But I never minded coming home early with Odalie at my side.

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING, I awoke to find the bed next to me empty. Whatever Odalie was up to, she had not left a note to say. I rose, washed up, and went downstairs to take breakfast on the veranda. Feeling too shy to introduce myself to any of the Brinkleys’ other houseguests, I requested the butler bring me the morning edition and pretended to be extremely interested in the daily headlines. I pretended, that is, until one news item in particular very genuinely caught my eye.

  At first it was Mr. Vitalli’s photograph that stopped me cold, a teacup of coffee poised halfway between the table and my mouth. His pale, piercing gaze was as hollow and chilling as ever—although I noticed the egotistical curl of his lips drooped somewhat now, and his mustache looked badly groomed. VITALLI FOUND GUILTY, MAY FACE ELECTRIC CHAIR, the headline over his photograph read. So, I thought. There is justice in the world after all. And the electric chair! I suppose if there was ever a time I should have felt remorse for the helping hand I lent to Lady Justice, this would’ve been it. But instead I felt nothing save a deep sense of satisfaction that the jury had finally found their way to the truth. I tore out the article (Representing himself, Mr. Vitalli failed to prove confession was falsified, a line read) and tidily folded it up to take with me. I slipped it into my purse and hoped to show it to Odalie when she finally rematerialized.

  I returned to my room to wait, but by eleven-thirty the day had already grown quite sunny and hot, and I had become restless. Guests who stayed with the Brinkleys were invited to engage in a variety of outdoor activities. The accoutrements they provided were numerous: There were tennis rackets and tennis whites for those who wanted to venture onto the court; there were nine-irons and cleats for amateur golfers who wanted to improve their drives and putts; there were badminton sets and croquet mallets and colored balls, and also little leatherette cases of heavy leaden balls coated in shiny silver the butler assured me were required for a lawn game played by the French and called pétanque. Having grown up with a very thin introduction to most of these sports (and none at all in the cases of golf and pétanque), I decided instead of trying my hand at any of the games, I would take a simple swim at the beach. Taking a swim was something I could do alone, thus relieving the burden of having to awkwardly introduce myself to other guests (something I was loath to do without Odalie).

  It was already balmy outside, but in the cool of my bedroom I shivered as I shimmied into the knit fabric of the bathing suit Odalie had picked out from Lord & Taylor earlier that month. After acquiring a towel from the butler (who raised an eyebrow at the length of leg peeking out from under the hemline of my suit), I set out in the general direction of the water.

  There were two beaches to choose from. The Brinkleys’ property spanned a swath of land that stretched from the Sound all the way to the open sea. I suppose a more romantic individual would’ve chosen the whiter sand and salty spray of the thundering Atlantic, but as I have already confessed a hundred times, I am a rather practical-minded person. I opted for the slightly murkier but much stiller waters of the Sound. When I got there I saw I had the beach to myself, save for the occasional motor-boat out for a pleasure cruise, whizzing by as voices of sun-burned hilarity carried in crisp ripples over the water. Some distance offshore a swimmers’ raft bobbed softly, permanently anchored by some underwater means against the Sound’s gentle currents.

  By then the heat was rising from the sand in dusty, steamy drafts, and I was more than happy to ease myself waist-deep into the water. If I possess one unladylike quality of which I am shamelessly proud, it is how I’m actually quite a strapping swimmer. There has always been an inherent brute force to my strokes. Lots of girls can swim, especially all those fast, tomboyish girls who are popping up everywhere nowadays, but not so many years ago it used to be only the very rural or the very rich who knew how to swim. When the nuns arranged for me to attend the Bedford Academy, I gained some rather unexpected privileges, and having been properly taught my swimming strokes was one of them. They’d taken us on a handful of school excursions to a ladies-only beach, where we’d sloshed about in the waves, weighted down by the long, bloomer-style bathing costumes they made us wear, each of us waiting her turn to have her swimming stroke evaluated by the same gruff, broad-shouldered, freckle-faced female swimming instructor who was hired especially for the task once a year.

  I gazed at the swimmers’ raft bobbing. A small diving tower had been erected on the raft, and from the top a tiny orange flag fluttered in the breeze as though giving a wave of encouragement. I estimated it was only a couple hundred yards away and decided to swim to it. With a push and a gasp as the water enveloped my chest and neck, I was off, paddling happily along. I tipped my face into the water and attempted an earnest crawl stroke. I have always found swimming to be an exhilarating activity: the peculiar way one is obliged to move in the water, the reaching and stretching, the feeling of pulling air into one’s lungs in great heaving gulps, the way the world simultaneously seems to fill up with both sound and its total absence. And there is almost always a moment of oddly invigorating panic, even if one is a very strong swimmer, during which one doubts the endurance of one’s lungs and the strength of one’s own muscles. It had been a long time since I’d been in the water, and I had one such moment just before I reached the raft. I felt fear awaken each inch of my body like a jolt of electricity, and when I finally pulled myself onto the wooden planks of the swimmers’ raft, my limbs thoroughly turned to jelly and every nerve within me trembled with exhilaration—all of which quickly turned to exhaustion. I heaved myself atop the raft and lay there like a dead person staring emptily into the sky.

  I have no idea how long I lay faceup like that on the raft. Enough time passed for the heaving of my chest to gradually subside, for my hair to begin to dry against my scalp in matted clumps, and for the world to become quite still and peaceful. The bobbing of the raft was hypnotic, like resting in a cradle. And then I slowly became cognizant of the fact the tempo of the bobbing was increasing. I turned my head to look toward the shore and realized another swimmer was approaching the raft. Glistening ripples spread in widening rings from his body as he paddled and kicked his way forward. He paused, briefly, in the middle of a crawl stroke and li
fted his head from the water. There was a blur of a smile, and then a bright “Ahoy there!” sounded.

  I sat up. I realized I was looking at Teddy, the very same young man who’d facilitated our introduction the previous afternoon and pursued Odalie all evening in vain. His face disappeared back into the water, and the windmill of his arms resumed. Finally Teddy reached the raft and found his way to the ladder. I had not anticipated running into him in this fashion. I must have frowned at him involuntarily as I watched him climb the ladder and grin with clumsy exhaustion, for he seemed to catch on to my displeasure.

  “I would ask you if you mind the intrusion, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped,” he said in his prematurely deep bass of a voice, panting and trying to catch his breath. “I’ve got to have a break. It’s a bit more of a swim than I’d realized. Guess it’s no use changing your mind halfway out, eh?” He plopped down and laid his dripping body on the planks of the raft, eventually collapsing into the selfsame horizontal and heaving posture I’d been in only moments earlier. Once supine, he turned his head and squinted up into the sun to look at me. “Boy oh boy, you must be a swell swimmer.” There was genuine admiration in his voice, and I felt myself involuntarily bristle with pride.

  “Well, I enjoy it fine, I guess,” I said very quietly, refusing to smile. I made a gesture to stand and go but balked, dithering between the ladder and the tower. I had originally hoped to dive from the tower, but now had reservations about doing it in front of an audience.

  “Oh, wait—don’t go,” Teddy said, catching on to my intent. I looked at him and saw the earnest raised eyebrows and down-turned mouth of an innocent young boy. I don’t know why I was in such a rush to get away from him. Odalie had yet to reveal the origins of her aversion to the young man. He had after all, I reasoned, eased our introduction to the Brinkleys and spared us from potentially appearing like gate-crashers. “Please stay,” he said to me now. “I’d like the company.” I hesitated, and he saw it. “And besides,” he added, “swimming back is going to be rough. I may need a strong life-guard to rescue me and tow me back to shore.” His panting had fully subsided by that time, and I could see this claim wasn’t true, but I found myself lingering about on the raft anyway.

  I leaned back on my hands and crossed my legs in front of me, then tugged at the hemline of my bathing suit in a futile attempt to cover myself up a little more. Several seconds of awkward silence ensued, punctuated only by the dripping of water that trickled off Teddy’s hair into the small puddle that had pooled on the planks beneath him. I mentally ticked off the facts I knew about him, with the notion of selecting the one that might best facilitate some small talk.

  “So—you’re from Newport?”

  Bizarrely, this question appeared to strike a nerve. Teddy shaded his eyes and gave me a very serious look, as though suddenly reevaluating me. “Yes. Do you know much about . . . the town?”

  “Oh—no. I don’t suppose I do.”

  He continued to search my face for several seconds, then—evidently not finding what he sought there—sighed. “It’s pretty swell, I guess. Lots of good folks from old families.” He tipped his chin sunward and closed his eyes. I dared myself to make a quick inspection. I had never seen a man in a bathing suit before, and although I knew on instinct Teddy was less of a man and more of a boy, I’ll admit I was curious nonetheless. His shoulders were quite narrow under the tank straps of his bathing suit, and he was lanky all the way from his ribs down to his legs. His brow furrowed briefly, and he shifted as though uncomfortable, causing me to worry for a moment that he could feel me looking at him. I looked away. Soon enough, the friendly drone of his voice resumed as he continued his summary of Newport. “Big houses. No crime to speak of.” The putter and spat of a motor-boat engine moved nearer to us, and then just as quickly repelled into the distance. Teddy opened his eyes and sat up with a sudden air, as though an idea had just come to him. His whole body had gone rigid with tension. I discerned there was something very serious he wanted to tell me and he had struck upon his opportunity. I could also tell he wasn’t going to come right out and say it.

  “Well, as I said, no crime. But that’s not to say there haven’t been some rather serious . . . incidents.” He was looking at me with ferocious intensity now. I almost believed I could feel the pupils of his eyes beating down on my face, trumping the strength of the sun’s rays. “In fact,” he continued in a very slow and deliberate voice, “one of the most tragic incidents in the town’s recent history involved my cousin and a very memorable debutante.”

  I was intrigued and somewhat baffled by this new line of chatter, but I said nothing. Although I wasn’t exactly sure how or why, I felt as though I was being baited. But Teddy was not to be dissuaded. He took a breath and plunged forward.

  “She was something, that debutante. People in town never saw anything like her before—and I’d be willing to bet haven’t seen anything like her since. I only saw her once or twice myself, mostly in passing, too, but somehow you just don’t forget a girl like that.” He gave a low admiring whistle, but didn’t smile. “Wide blue eyes with the brightest look of curiosity in them all the time. Long dark hair.”

  There was a pause, and it struck me there was an air of false casualness about it. When he spoke again, I knew why.

  “Course she’s probably bobbed it by now. Her hair, that is. She’s the type who would.”

  A sudden comprehension tingled in my veins and I felt my pulse quicken. I sat up straighter. My body inclined itself toward Teddy by unconscious volition. For a brief moment he wore an expression of satisfied accomplishment; he knew the implied meaning of his statement had not gone unnoticed. It was clear there was more to his tale, more he wanted me to know, and he could take his time now recounting the details. It didn’t end so well for my cousin, he warned me, just before starting at the beginning of the story.

  I have since, of course, replayed the narrative Teddy told me that day several times in my head. It remains to be seen whether I’ve become its most accurate transmitter or its greatest distorter, but I will paraphrase here to the best of my ability.

  Ginevra Morris was the ebony-haired, wide-eyed only child of a wealthy banker from Boston. Her father, some twenty-eight years her mother’s senior, had retired when Ginevra was five and moved the whole family out to a very large and stately house on the shores of Newport so he might pursue his favorite pastime of building model boats while looking out the window at their life-size counterparts passing on the eastern horizon. By the time Ginevra was ten, she had discovered that with the slightest frown she could make her father return the velvety-eyed chestnut mare he’d bought for her birthday and exchange it for a dappled Appaloosa stallion. More amazing to her still was how with a second frown she could provoke him to turn around the next day and return the Appaloosa in order to repurchase the chestnut mare at twice the price. Ginevra was thoughtfully raised in the spirit of Victorian traditions to excel in music, poetry, and art, and by the time she turned fifteen she made it clear she’d had quite enough of Victorian traditions. In an infamous standoff with her mother, just days before her sixteenth birthday and consequent debutante ball, Ginevra took a pair of scissors and, in one deft, coldhearted gesture, sheared the skirt of her ball-gown clean through in protest of something her mother was saying. Her mother, thinking it would humiliate and therefore teach Ginevra a lesson, made her wear the dress as it was: savaged, the hemline falling barely to the knee.

  But her mother, a fairly young woman herself but already the high-collared relic of a bygone era, had severely miscalculated. The night Ginevra had her coming-out debut, her cowl-necked gown draped in an especially Hellenic manner, and she floated down the stairs in her scandalously scissored skirt with her head held aloft, causing a rippling murmur throughout the audience. That evening, she went from knock-kneed tomboy to Greek goddess in the space of twenty-two short, red-carpeted steps. One boy in particular, Warren Tricot
t Jr., the son of a mining magnate and a member of the wealthiest family in Newport at the time, took special note of her seemingly effortless transition. He pulled around her drive in his silver roadster the very next day, and every day after that for the next two summers.

  Of course, Teddy said, he was quite a few years behind his older cousin. At eleven, Teddy’s adolescence had not yet ripened fully enough to attune him to the subtleties of courtship, much less cause him to care very much, but even at that age he nonetheless understood how special and exciting everyone thought Warren and Ginevra were, and he noted how a hush crept into people’s voices whenever they discussed what a wild, striking pair Warren and Ginevra made. Teddy was away at boarding-school for the larger part of the year, yet whenever he came home to Newport the first gossip delivered to him was often about his cousin Warren and the mesmerizing young lady Warren took around on dates. Folks often spotted them motoring around town together, or taking the Tricott family yacht out for a sail. It was not uncommon to see the glossy black streak of Ginevra’s long ebony hair fly down a town street or country back road, trailed by her musical, haunting laugh. Together they appeared to find a reason to delight in everything. Even the harshest winter to hit Newport in twenty years could not put a damper on their merriment. That Christmas, Warren gave Ginevra a little draft pony and a gold-painted sleigh, and together they sat upon the embroidered cushions with furs tucked over their laps and giggled uncontrollably as they searched out the highest hill to drive down.