Chapter Six #2
The time Eva had envisioned working on her book was instead filled with lunches and dinners, and at night, when she thought she would be eager to sit down at the little desk in her room and continue the story she’d been writing, she instead found herself lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, talking to Dolores until one of them fell asleep.
She felt guilty for not missing her characters more, for being able to take such a break from them when they had been her constant companions for so many years.
It was silly, of course—they weren’t real —but in a way they had been real to her.
She had somewhat abandoned them; when she had needed those voices and stories in her head to keep going, she’d made them part of her daily life, but now that she was caught up in life at Harvard, it was too easy to push them aside.
There were many distractions to be had in Boston.
Twice weekly there were dances to be held at the Hemenway Gymnasium at Harvard. Eva had only one dress that seemed suitable for the occasion—a pale peach gown that had been given to her by the mother of one of her students as thanks for teaching the young girl.
“I intend to dance all night,” Dolores proclaimed as they entered the gymnasium.
Eva scanned the crowd, surprised to see so many people standing around watching them, notebooks in hand.
She should have expected that the press would be here, since they’d covered all their activities since Eva first arrived in Boston nine days ago, but it was such a stark contrast from her life in Cuba that she hadn’t acclimated to the change.
Eva turned her attention away from the journalists and back to her roommate, who seemed oblivious and unconcerned by the attention they were drawing.
Eva grinned. “All night? No breaks?”
“Absolutely none. I want my feet to ache at midnight,” Dolores proclaimed.
Dolores possessed a passion for music, one Eva discovered almost immediately.
Their host had a piano in the sitting room of her house, and she’d invited Dolores to play it when she wanted.
Eva had never really thought of the other ways in which stories were told, but she quickly realized that Dolores spoke with her music the same way that Eva put pen to paper.
“Well, I don’t think you’re going to have a hard time achieving your goal,” Eva commented, gesturing toward the assembled crowd of gentlemen looking their way. Between the men of Harvard and the Cuban teachers who had made the journey with them, there was no shortage of available partners.
“And what about you?” Dolores asked. “Will you dance as well?” She tossed a dazzling smile toward the assembled crowd. A few of the men looked a bit staggered by it.
Eva laughed, linking her arm through her roommate’s. “Ah, but you have not seen me dance. A smile might get me a dance partner, but I promise you, it would not keep him. I am an atrocious dancer.”
Dolores grinned. “I am not surprised at all. I imagine you overthink it.”
“?‘Overthink it’?”
“Yes—I can easily envision you worrying about making a wrong step or stomping on a poor man’s foot.”
“I hardly consider injuring the noble men of Harvard by crushing their toes to be good diplomacy.”
Dolores tugged on her arm, pulling her toward the dance floor. “Must we be diplomats the entire time we’re here? I didn’t come all the way from Havana to spend my time in the classroom. I want to dance. I want to enjoy this night. Maybe teach a few of them the danzón.”
“And you should.” Eva nodded toward one of the teachers from their contingent standing near a refreshment table. “Considering the glances being cast your way, I don’t think you’re going to be waiting long for a dance partner.”
Eva gently extricated her arm.
Dolores sighed. “You’re not going to dance, are you?”
“I’m afraid not. I do plan on getting one of those little cakes over there, though.”
As far as Eva was concerned, cake surpassed dancing any day of the week.
Eva walked over toward the dessert table, weaving her way through the crowded room. Spirits were high tonight, and while she hadn’t been looking forward to the dance, it was clear that everyone else was having a wonderful time.
From the beginning of their journey, her colleagues had expressed many of the same concerns she had feared—that the summer school was an effort to impose the Americans’ ideas onto Cuban schools—but the more time they spent at Harvard, the more it became obvious that there was a real camaraderie developing between the Cuban and the American educators.
Judging by the mood at the dance—and based on the lingering looks being cast across the room—more than one romance was blossoming within the group.
Eva’s fingers itched to write about the scene before her, to jot down her observations. There was a romance in her book, a love developing between two characters. The romance was becoming increasingly difficult to write.
She’d read love stories before. Romantic novels where the hero swept the heroine off her feet.
She thought she could write about the same emotions in her characters, could slip into their skin and bring their feelings to life, but every single time she sat down at her desk and began to write the love story, she hadn’t the faintest idea where to start.
Her hero was…missing something. Something she couldn’t quite identify, but some essential quality that she knew would make readers fall in love with him as she wished they would.
Not only did he feel like someone she couldn’t fathom falling in love with, even worse—she wasn’t sure she liked him all that much.
And if she didn’t enjoy his company, how on earth did she think she was going to convince readers to spend hours alongside him?
The trouble was that her experience with men was limited at best. The years when she might have been meeting suitors and falling in love had been defined by the war—first Cuba’s fight for independence from Spain, and then after the explosion of the USS Maine in the Havana Harbor, the Americans’ short-lived war with Spain inside of Cuba.
Many of the men she might have met and fallen in love with were off fighting for their country, and even if they hadn’t been, her days had revolved around surviving.
At the end of the night when her head hit the pillow, there was no time for daydreaming or romance.
Simply an overwhelming sense of relief that she was alive when so many others weren’t.
And then after the war—once Spain was vanquished by the Americans and Cuba was left in this strange sort of stasis—well, it was as though the desire for romance had been hollowed out of her completely.
She was no longer the person she had been before, but she didn’t know who she was after, either.
Everything was unrecognizable—not just her country, but herself, too.
Eva had begun writing during the war, and she discovered that once she started, she could not stop.
Perhaps Dolores was right. Maybe she should have danced, been willing to sacrifice some American’s toes to the important cause of research for her unfinished manuscript.
Eva plucked a dessert from the table, a little confection that was all wispy sugar and delight. It was too sweet on her tongue despite her longing for it, her appetite changed by the war, too.
How would she write this scene if she were a character in her novel? Perhaps a dashing man would approach her despite her avowed status as a wallflower and ask her to dance. She would be reticent, of course, but ultimately would acquiesce and they would dance the night away.
Dolores whirled by on the arm of one of the Cuban teachers.
Eva recognized him from the trip from Havana.
They had been on the Sedgwick together. He had a booming laugh and a propensity for telling stories that had drawn a crowd.
Dolores caught Eva’s eye and gave her a wide smile before she was whirled away, the skirt of her dress twirling around her in a cloud.
For a moment, Eva closed her eyes, drinking in the moment, the sheer pleasure of it, of seeing happiness on a friend’s face, of the feeling that perhaps they had come out the other side of the war, such novelties as a dance at a school like Harvard inconceivable just two years ago.
After everything they had been through, the indignities and horrors they had suffered at the hands of the Spanish, maybe this was the future they had all dreamed of in Cuba, coming to them in stages rather than all at once.
Maybe they had a chance at a life filled with simple pleasures, prosaic worries rather than the all-consuming sense of defeat that used to greet her.
Suddenly, the emotions filling her became overwhelming. Eva headed toward the gymnasium door, searching for fresh air, for a respite from the prying eyes of the reporters standing at the edge of the ballroom, pens at the ready.
What would they write about her?
She could feel the weight of curious glances being cast her way, but she ducked her head until she’d made her way outside and could take a deep breath and then another.
Eva leaned back against the building, staring up at the dark sky, feeling like she had returned to herself again.
Sometimes it was as hard to process the good as it was to process the bad.
It all existed together, interlaced in a tapestry of memories and emotions that she still struggled to untangle.
“Hello.”
Eva lurched forward.
A man stood near the door she had just exited from the gymnasium. He was partially cast in shadow, his features obscured by the night.
He took a step forward, and then another, moving into the light.