Chapter 18 #3
sympathetic pain through Celia. Had Olivia’s courage failed? Or had her duty to her father and family killed it? Had it been
rekindled with the arrival of the Sappho poems?
And for the first time in her life, Celia was glad there were no more siblings to be taken care of. Maybe what happened to
Olivia wouldn’t happen to her. Even the fear that the clandestine printing and distributing of Margaret’s birth control literature
set off in her couldn’t compete with the fear of a life unrealized.
She wanted to be among the Margaret Sangers and Lillian Walds of the world. Not mark time selling used books to strangers.
But selling books was the only thing she knew how to do.
By five o’clock, Daphne, looking a fright, returned from the basement and, after a quick cleanup in the powder room, joined Celia at the counter.
“Are they still up there?” Daphne asked.
Celia looked up from her book. “Unless they flew out the window. They haven’t come downstairs.”
“Should one of us call up to make sure she’s okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“What if we interrupt a big sale?”
“Daphne, it doesn’t take”—Celia glanced at the clock—“four hours to sell a book. Even a rare one.” Not selling, but perhaps
sharing some illicit poetry.
“No. Have you been reading this whole time I’ve been carting books to the basement.”
Celia slipped a receipt between pages to mark her place and closed her book. “I’ve sold a few books.”
“Ugh,” said Daphne, and she stomped away and out of sight.
Celia glanced around the shop—not a customer in sight. She opened her book once more.
Max Lienhardt didn’t leave until nearly seven. Celia had pulled in the sale carts and was about to lock the front door when
she heard the clank of the elevator, waited for it to return to the first floor.
Olivia walked him to the door, then stood on the sidewalk until he was swallowed up by the other pedestrians. Celia and Daphne
knew this because they had pressed their noses to the window to see what was happening.
They were barely back in place and looking busy when Olivia returned, closed the door, and turned over the closed sign.
“I’m afraid it’s going to be eggs and toast for supper again tonight,” Olivia said. “I still have a bit to finish up before I can retire. Be sure to double-check the doors before you go upstairs.” And she took the elevator back to the third floor.
She still hadn’t come upstairs when Celia and Daphne retired for the night.
Celia had just turned to the next chapter in her book when Daphne returned from the bath, her hair freshly washed and tied
up in socks, and her bathrobe tied tightly around her waist.
“Ah, I feel so much better. That basement is disgustingly dirty, an accident waiting to happen.” Not getting a response, she
asked. “Are you still reading that book about the house?”
“Um-hm.” Celia didn’t see any reason to try to explain that it was a fascinating story of how a girl from Ohio became the
leader of the settlement house movement, a system that provided education and health care for all people in the poorest neighborhoods
of the city.
“Well,” said Daphne, lowering her voice, “I have something much more interesting than that. Something secret. Something I
found in the basement today.”
She glanced toward the closed door. “You want to see?”
“Sure,” Celia said, her curiosity piqued.
Daphne hurried over to her bed, pulled a narrow, faded book from under her pillow, and held it up for Celia to see. “It’s
just a bunch of lines . . . not full poems, but . . .” Daphne’s expression told all.
Celia moved over, and Daphne crawled in bed beside her.
They drew closer together, like they used to do when they were children, as Daphne turned to the first page.
“Shimmering throned immortal Aphrodite . . .” Daphne sighed. “She’s the goddess of love and—”
“I know, go on.”
“Daughter of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee . . .”
Twenty pages later, Daphne yawned and closed the book. “Hmmph. They’re pretty, but I don’t see anything wrong with them. Do
you?”
“No,” agreed Celia. “But there are a lot of banned things just because people don’t understand them.”
“That’s stupid.” Daphne yawned again and climbed into her own bed. “We’ll read the rest tomorrow; maybe they get more licentious
and all that other stuff.” She slid the volume under her pillow.
“Good night.”
Olivia sat in the dark of the workroom. She had no desire to take the poem fragments from the safe. She sat at the worktable
where she and Max had spent hours extrapolating the poems. And for the first time since they’d appeared in their throwaway
box, she wasn’t obsessing over the possession of them; she was thinking about the past.
She had a key to potentially great discoveries, perhaps not lauded by the world, but within a small sphere of preservers.
If she were allowed to save them for the world, she would have found her calling.
No, she’d had that calling since her first look at an ancient manuscript. A calling that would have flourished and grown.
She would have the opportunity to study texts such as this. Max was right. She had given it up too easily. She had done her
duty to her father, but she’d also given in to fear.
She could have found a way to raise her sisters and stay at the museum.
Celia had only just turned sixteen, but Daphne had been almost eighteen; she could have gotten a job to help with the expenses.
She would have loved being out with other working girls, talking fashion on their breaks, going out to the movies, flirting with young men.
And Celia could have been sent to a day school.
She would have loved that. Stuck in the store, she was having her natural curiosity bled out of her.
They couldn’t live in books forever. Not even Olivia. Ironically, she was beginning to see that when it might be too late.