Chapter Forty-Six
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
T HAT NIGHT, SHE’D FALLEN ASLEEP SOBBING. E VELYN COULDN’T have been unconscious for very long, though, because when she did wake up, her pillow still squelched with tears.
At first, she didn’t open her swollen eyes. She lay there for as long as she could stand it.
The trouble was that once she fully awoke, everything would change. This would be the last morning she rose from her lumpy mattress. The last rays of Manhattan sunshine warming her skin through her window. The last breaths of hardwood lacquer and powdered soap and cheap perfume. The last brush of familiar, clean sheets against her skin.
She had to say goodbye. Sad as that was. But she had no reason to rush. She heard almost none of the boarding house’s usual echoes and groans—her fellow residents must have been at The Empire already.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
Bea’s voice interrupted her silent farewell. Evelyn pushed herself up to sitting. As if this were just another one of their casual morning chats, Bea perched on the edge of Evelyn’s trunk and flipped through the morning newspapers.
Evelyn averted her eyes. She did not want to read anything about The Empire or its Emperor’s wedding to its new Empress. In a few hours, she would be crossing the ocean, and that was all the seasickness she could endure, thank you very much.
“Yes, I’m sure I’m quite beautiful this morning,” she said. “Absolutely peerless.”
“You look well enough to headline an entire vaudeville bill. The tears bring out the natural sparkle in your eyes.”
One could always count on Bea to make the most of any disaster.
“Where are the others?”
“Some all-hands meeting at The Empire before the opening. Jules called it very early this morning. Sent messengers for everyone and everything.”
“And you stayed behind to say I told you so, I suppose,” Evelyn muttered.
“That is the trouble with being a caretaker, Evelyn. I get infinite opportunities to say I told you so , but when those opportunities come around, it never tastes as sweet as I hoped.”
Well, at least Evelyn’s worst fear wouldn’t come true. She didn’t have to hear any gloating. Still, she couldn’t help but dig. “Quite a lengthy way of saying no .”
The pair slipped into comfortable quiet then. There was nothing to say, really. Evelyn had confessed the whole sorry story to everyone last night before collapsing in bed.
Bea hummed as she scanned her newsprint. Evelyn wedged herself into a front-lacing bodice, then proceeded with the rest of her dressing and toilette. It was only when she requested Bea’s help with the buttons along the back of her gown that they spoke again.
“Will you see me off, then?” Evelyn asked.
“I actually came to ask you something. Something serious.”
“Yes?”
“Do you love him?”
Evelyn stared down at her hands. “I never said it.”
“But you do. Don’t you?”
Evelyn’s lips trembled to answer, but when she realized that she would go the rest of her life without ever telling him, all that came out was a broken sob. She gripped the back of a chair for support, leaning forward as Bea’s hands lithely commanded the last of her buttons.
“Ah. I see,” Bea said.
Oh, why didn’t Bea rub this in her face? At least then, she could be angry at Bea instead of angry with herself.
“I should have listened to you. In the beginning, I mean,” Evelyn said. “I should have better protected my heart.”
“Maybe. But now, what’s done is done. And what do you intend to do about it?”
Dressing complete, Evelyn swept her hair up into a simple chignon.
“I thought that was obvious when I packed all of my belongings and said I intend to move to France .”
“You aren’t moving to France,” Bea replied in that commanding, I know all way of hers.
“What do you think I intend to move to France means? Is it a euphemism I haven’t heard of?”
Bea flattened her expression. “There isn’t any euphemism you haven’t heard of.”
“Then draw your own conclusions vis-à-vis my intentions to move to France,” Evelyn snapped.
She couldn’t take this emotional tennis match any longer. She wanted this chapter of her life to be done. She wanted a new challenge, a new adventure, a new Evelyn.
She wanted to be as far away from the man she loved as possible. That way, it might be harder to miss him.
“He loves you too, you know.”
“I know.”
She knew. And that’s why it hurt so much.
He loved her. And he still chose someone else.
“Love is rare, Evelyn,” Bea implored. “You know this better than anyone. If he loves you, if you love him, then you should fight for it.”
A humorless laugh. Another crack in Evelyn’s heart. “Funny, Bea. Because he couldn’t seem to muster the same strength to fight for me.”