CHAPTER FIVE: April 16, 1914

Mrs. Wallace knocks sharply on the sliding door of a narrow berth, pulls it open, and gestures for me to enter. There’s hardly a foot of space for me to do so. The room is tiny, even tinier than my dorm room at tertiary school. Two beds—an upper and a lower—jut out from opposite walls of the compartment. In the center sits a chest of drawers, and at the foot of each bed is a trunk. Three sets of curious eyes stare up at me from the bunks.

“Ladies, this is Cassandra. She’s our newest Harvey Girl. I expect you will help her settle here and show her to the dining car. We’ll need all four of you out here in five minutes, prompt. Now, hop to it.”

She slides the door closed behind her, and I find myself facing my new roommates all on my own. I clear my throat, stalling as I try to figure out what to say to these women, whose upbringing and lives up until this point have been so different from my own. They might as well be from another planet.

“Ah… hello there.”

One of the girls—a blonde with spiral curls ringing her head—shifts slightly from her position on the bottom bunk and sighs. “Time to relocate our contraband, ladies.”

All three rise and gather around the fourth bunk, reaching into the bedding. From the pillowcase, mattress, and folds of the blankets, they pull all varieties of items, from paperback romance novels to packs of cigarettes and lipstick tubes, and even a gold ring on a chain. After the girls have collected their treasures, they look to one another and then to me.

“You have anything to add?” the blonde asks. “Might as well do it now. Alice’s such a snoop, she’s bound to find anything before tomorrow morning anyway.”

The brunette, who must be Alice, elbows her in the ribs but doesn’t deny the accusation.

“I’m Fanny, by the way. Fanny Warren. And this is Mary. So? Do you have anything to add or not?”

“No,” I say, wondering whether the PVD glasses still tucked down my blouse counts as ‘contraband’ in this case. Surely eyeglasses aren’t prohibited. Only the information in them is dangerous. “I don’t have anything.”

The others exchange looks that clearly show they don’t believe me.

“Says you. Come on, ladies. We’ll have to stow these behind that loose board beneath the bed again.” Fanny turns to me. “The dust under there is just awful. If you change your mind and decide to place anything in there, be sure to dust off your apron afterward, or you’ll get us all axed. For now, you ought to get dressed; you look like you’ll need every one of those five minutes to wrangle all that hair into its net.”

***

I thought Dodge had kept a close watch on me during our brief time together in the past, but he has nothing on Mrs. Wallace. The house mother, who is also in charge of training the new waitresses, has sharp, beady eyes that don’t stray from me for a second. Sneaking off the train at Joliet proves impossible, for as soon as it comes to a rolling stop, the apron-clad woman is hovering over my shoulder, critiquing the way I fold napkins—a task that was always done by our washing machine back home.

She doesn’t leave my side throughout the hours of my entire shift, until long past when I’ve lost track of the train’s stops.

“The woman’s a hawk,” I mutter after Mrs. Wallace catches me trying to open a window in the tiny prep room situated in the back of the wood-paneled dining car where she’s kept me occupied.

Fanny leans in, balancing her tray out before her. “She also has incredible hearing, so you’d best keep your grousing to yourself.”

I obediently turn, grab another starched white napkin, and attempt to finagle it into a shape that somewhat resembles Mrs. Wallace’s sample.

“Don’t worry. I won’t tell.” Fanny points to one of the napkins. “You’ve got that one backward.”

I frown and flip the napkin over. She’s right.

While my hands are busy, I rub one toe against the other leg, trying to subdue an itch that has been bothering me all day. My required black stockings are painfully uncomfortable and I can’t understand how they simultaneously cling to my legs and keep slipping down. With one hand, I reach beneath the black skirt to scratch it—

“Miss Argent!”

I startle so much at the sound of Mrs. Wallace’s voice behind me that the hand-painted drinkware on the table before me rattles.

“Mr. McIntire assured me that you would be a fine addition to our Harvey Girls,” the house mother says, her frown crumpling her narrow face until it looks like an upright raisin. “In the past, his assessment has always been reliable; I’m sure he’d hate to discover he was remiss in his recommendation. Now, I expect you’ll shape up and put your best foot forward for the remainder of your training so that by the time we arrive back in Chicago, you’ll be a proper Harvey Girl indeed.”

The implication is clear: I’m on probation.

“In the meantime,” she continues, “remember: a Harvey girl is efficient and reliable and, above all, respectable.”

I try to look sufficiently contrite, despite the persistent itchiness of my stockings. How did people live in these things? It’s a crime, plain and simple, that women in this era have to put up with such irritating and inconvenient garments. I ought to do something about that, too, now that I’m here.

It’s obvious, though, from the look on Mrs. Wallace’s face, that she would not appreciate my theories on how women’s fashion in the early 20th century was harmful—both to the individual’s physical and mental well-being and to society as a whole—nor would she entertain any suggestions about how to improve the Harvey Girl uniforms.

The house mother stares at me down her long nose, obviously expecting some sort of reply.

“Oh. Yes. That is… Yes, ma’am. I’ll do my best.” I bob my head, feeling awkward and off-balance about the whole thing. What do I care if I fit the mold of a Harvey Girl? Those girls are nothing like me.

Yet each click-clack of the train wheels moves us further westward, making my escape more and more costly… and more time-consuming. Maybe it’d be wiser to simply ride out the rest of the California Limited’s route and sneak away once we arrived back in Chicago. Could I last a whole week as a Harvey Girl?

“And another thing,” Mrs. Wallace says, still scrutinizing me as if I’m some strange and somewhat disgusting bug. “There’s someone in the dining car who wishes to speak to you.”

“To me?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? A Harvey Girl must be attentive and listen.” She purses her lips together. Obviously, visitors aren’t particularly welcome, but she’s allowing it this time—why? And who could it possibly be? I don’t know a single soul in this era.

“Well, go on,” Mrs. Wallace says. “When you get back, we’ll be going over the cup code. You’ll be serving coffee and tea this afternoon, and you’ll need to know who’s ordered what. Go on, and don’t lollygag.”

I spring from my seat, throwing down the last of the unfolded napkins. Mrs. Wallace’s frown deepens, and I reach over and neatly flatten it before darting out into the relative freedom of the dining car.

Compared with the prep room, the dining car feels airy and bright. The tables to my right are arranged with four place settings, while on my left, smaller tables are set for two. Bright lights stream in the large windows on either side as the long, empty miles of grasslands whip by outside. I don’t know where we are, except that I haven’t seen anything resembling a real city in hours. I wish I could pull out my PVDs and check, but I don’t dare.

The dining car is nearly empty. Dinner won’t be served for an hour yet, so only a few people linger over wine glasses and the remains of their lunch fare.

And one of those men is Oliver McIntire himself.

“Miss Argent!” he says, rising from his seat to greet me. His freckles are even more noticeable here than they’d been back in his office, and as he hurries to pull a seat out for me, I notice the tips of his ears are a bright red. “Please, have a seat.”

I glance over my shoulder. The door to the back room is ajar; any moment, Mrs. Wallace will be coming this way.

“I appreciate the offer, sir, but I’m afraid I’m not allowed to sit in front of customers.”

Oliver shakes his head. “Of course. Of course. I’m sorry. My mistake. Mrs. Wallace will be pleased to hear you’ve already grown accustomed to the Fred Harvey rules.”

For a moment, he simply stands there, his hands clasped in front of him, neither of us speaking.

I raise my brows. “Mrs. Wallace said that you wanted to talk to me?”

“Oh! Oh, yes.” He clears his throat, looking more flustered than ever. “I happen to be heading west myself, you see…”

“I see.” I also remember how, just yesterday, he’d had to look at the train schedule to see when the California Limited was leaving. From across the train car, Fanny catches my eye. Though she continues to speak with the gray-haired woman at the table before her, she smirks in my direction as if she, too, had sensed something odd about the clerk’s presence here. Surely, he hadn’t taken my flirting yesterday seriously?

“Yes. Well. Since I happened to be heading west myself, I thought I would drop by the dining car here,” he says, gesturing about. “That is, I came for lunch, but I didn’t see you, so I thought to ask Mrs. Wallace if I might have a word with you.”

“Oh? Why?”

Fanny passes, carrying a tray over her shoulder. She winks and cocks her head in Oliver’s direction, and I have to fight to keep my face blank and unaffected. Goodness knows the last thing I need right now is for the other girls to give me a hard time about Oliver’s apparent interest. No, that’s the second-last thing. The last thing I need is for him to be interested in the first place. I have too much to do here to worry about courtship.

“I… I just thought I’d check up on the newest Harvey Girl and see how you’re adjusting. To life here.” He fumbles over each word, bunching up his napkin as he speaks.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. McIntire,” I say. “I’m doing quite well. For my first day, that is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe Mrs. Wallace needs me. She indicated that she’d be teaching me the cup code this evening.”

“Oh. Yes.” Oliver tosses the napkin onto the table. “Very good. Well, I’d hate to keep you from that. Carry on. That is…” He waves a hand before him awkwardly and then ducks away, leaving his untouched coffee at the table.