Chapter Nineteen
Washington, DC
JULIA
Victoria said raw seaweed was good for one’s blood, but the others thought that nothing so slimy and smelling of low tide could be good for anything.
Audrey reminded her that scientists said all sorts of things that turned out to be wrong, but Victoria just said, loftily, “But this is modern science.”
Lucy thought for a moment, then said, “The Greeks and Romans and all the Whoevers of the Dark Ages thought they were modern, too, and that they’d figured things out, once and for all. But all modern really means is ‘now.’”
FROM LIBERTY ISLAND, BY MISS CRANE
Julia spent most of Friday afternoon reading on her porch and watching the heavy snow come down. When evening came, she went inside and tried to call Louisa, only to discover that the snow had caused trouble with the wires, and she could not get through.
She felt a twinge of despair. Julia, who had always been happiest when she was ensconced with people she loved, felt alienated from everyone, a pack animal without a pack.
She did her best to shake it off. She found something in her cupboard to eat, then lit a fire in her fireplace and settled down again with her book.
Meanwhile, the snow continued to pour down, inch after inch, hour after hour.
Boston generally got far more snow than Washington, but Julia could not remember ever seeing it snow so heavily for so long. By the time she woke up the next morning, eighteen inches had fallen, and it was still coming down.
Julia still could not get through to Louisa on the telephone. She wished she could go to her boardinghouse to apologize, but the city was paralyzed, and she could not possibly get there.
By the time the snow stopped late Saturday, more than two feet had fallen, and Julia was starved for company.
She considered trying to get through to Michael, but she was trying not to monopolize his time.
She had seen his name in the society pages linked with Genevieve Carter, an attractive, pleasant woman Julia had met at the Seabornes’ country club. Julia needed to let Michael be.
Just as she had decided to walk over to Bess Riordan’s house, a knock came at her door, and she opened it to find that very person, wearing khaki knickerbockers and several layers of clothing under her coat. Over all of it was a layer of snow, blown from the trees.
“Bess, you look like a snowman!” Julia laughed. “I was just about to go to your place. Are you as antsy as I am?”
“So antsy, but good news: Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford is playing at the Knickerbocker.”
“The cinema is open?”
“Believe it or not, yes. I saw people going to the early show. Hurry up and get dressed, though. You can’t imagine what slow going it is, walking in this mess.”
Julia raced to her room and put on a thick sweater, trousers, and heavy boots.
Washington had not entirely embraced trousers for women, but their acceptability for horseback riding had created a slippery slope for other activities.
Julia did not feel an ounce of compunction for wearing them when she tramped through Rock Creek Park, and they were certainly sensible today.
Bess had not exaggerated. The sidewalks were mostly impassable, and none of the streets had been cleared. They laughed as they sank into the snow, over and over, and at the exaggerated climbing steps required to move down the sidewalk.
When they reached the theater, they bought their tickets, and Bess pointed at the little candy shop off the lobby. “You go find the seats, and I’ll get us treats.”
“I’ll get them!”
“No, no. I saw the stage version of the film,” Bess said, shooing her inside. “You go ahead. I won’t miss but a minute.”
The theater could seat more than a thousand people, and it usually did on a Saturday night, but it was only about a quarter occupied this evening. Julia went halfway down the aisle, and selected seats at the center of an empty row.
The audience was clearly ready to be amused. Almost as soon as the film started to roll, the crowd was laughing at the unscrupulous “Blackie” Daw, sidekick to con man J. Rufus Wallingford.
When the first round of laughter died down, though, Julia heard another layer of sound behind it, a hissing of sorts. It grew louder and louder, until it sounded like a great bedsheet being torn.
When dust fell over the orchestra pit, Julia looked up and, to her horror, saw a crack move across the ceiling, from the front of the theater to the back, as if someone were slicing through the roof like a piece of cake.
An instant later, there was a great blur of movement and sound, people yelling to get out.
Julia began scrambling toward the aisle, but when she glanced up again, her heart seized.
The cracks were spreading, like ice breaking on the surface of a frozen pond.
Somehow she knew she was too far from the entrance, that she did not have time to escape.
She crouched down, hands over her head. Something hit her back, and instinct propelled her to drop to her side and push herself under the seat.
Just as she had curled herself into a ball, fitting as much of her body beneath the seat as she could, there was a great roar from above, followed by a deafening crash, and a searing pain shot through Julia’s ankle.
Then came another sound, like a hurricane-force wind, mingled with screams from every direction. Almost immediately, another thunderous crash followed, this one from the back of the theater, followed by more agonizing screams. The balcony had fallen.
The pain in Julia’s ankle was unbearable. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to coil into herself, to pull her leg in so she might cradle it, but she could not obey the summons. Her lower legs were completely immobilized by debris.
Julia’s heart wrenched at the anguished cries coming from every direction.
Then her mind registered another ominous sound, the creaks of shifting debris, and a horrible, cold dread ran through her.
Nothing but a theater seat separated her from the load of concrete, metal, wood, ice, and snow above.
She could not imagine it holding such a load for long.
If Bess had been in the theater, Julia prayed she had been killed instantly, rather than waiting, as she was, for her skull to be crushed. Every muscle was tensed against the pain in her ankle, and what she was sure was her imminent death.
She whimpered, overwhelmed by a terrible despair.
She had heard of people’s lives flashing before them, but what Julia saw was a kaleidoscope of images from what she was now sure were her last days on earth.
The horrible phone call to Mother … Because she was your father’s mother …
You should be there for him. With blinding clarity she saw how feebly she had justified a terribly shabby act.
Then she had lashed out at her dearest friend in the world, who had spoken nothing but the truth.
Her whole body trembled, and she cringed at every noise, certain the next would mark the moment when it all came crashing down upon her.
But after a time—five minutes? ten? she had no idea—she realized the sounds of shifting material were coming further apart.
Somehow it seemed less ominous, as if this horrible demonic force had decided it had done what it came to do.
She still heard moans and sobs, but those, too, grew fewer and farther between.
Then, finally, she heard new voices, coming from above the rubble, the words indecipherable but the tones imperative. Not the voices of the injured or dying, but of those who had come to help.
For the first time since she realized she could not move her legs, Julia thought she might have a prayer of getting out.
The pain had settled into a numb ache, still beyond anything she had experienced in her life, but it was somehow less consuming.
She listened, trying to make out the words, but the voices were too distant.
Then her ears picked up another sound, this one from under the rubble not far from where she lay. At first, it was a high-pitched whimper, almost like the mew of a cat, and then she heard words … “Mama? Mama?”
Julia tried to call out, but her throat was caked with plaster dust. It was everywhere, in the air, on her skin, in her nose, even in her closed eyes. She swallowed, wiped her dusty lips, and tried again.
“Is someone there?”
There was silence for a moment; then she heard a little boy’s voice. He spoke haltingly. “I … can’t … move.”
“Are you hurt?”
“A little,” he said, still laboring to speak. “My mama … is on top of me. She’s not moving … won’t say anything.”
It had been dark when Julia took her seat, but she recalled two silhouetted figures, a woman and child, sitting a couple of rows behind her.
“She probably fainted,” Julia lied, in her most reassuring teacher’s tone. “My name is Julia Demarest. What’s your name?”
His voice was so shaky, his answer came out like a question. “Peter … McCarthy?”
“You’re very brave, Peter.”
“What, what … happened?”
“I think the ceiling fell because of the snow on the roof,” Julia said. “I hear people walking and talking above now, so they’ll be looking for us soon.”
“It’s so dark,” Peter said, with another fearful whimper.
Julia’s heart wrenched for this child, pinned under his mother’s dead body. She, too, was pinned, and mostly helpless, but at least now there was something she could do. If nothing else, Julia knew how to talk to children.
“It is dark, Peter. Let’s pretend we’re camping at night.”
“Do you go camping?”
“I used to,” Julia said. “When I was a girl, I often camped on an island in Maine…”
Conscious of how hard it was for Peter to speak, Julia began to tell him about Liberty Island, about the three girls who started it, and how they became four with the addition of Louisa, who was, to this day, her very best friend in the world.