I eyed the old wooden clock on my nightstand. Just past 5:20. Less than ten minutes until Franklin and Mae would appear in my doorway, tear the notebook from my fingers, and demand that I come with them, though I didn’t want to go. Neither tolerated tardiness—or my need to be alone. Since Charlie’s surprise visit a week ago, they’d barely left me to my own devices, appearing in my room to distract me every few minutes as if their presence could somehow cause me to forget. Instead, they were driving me mad.
I glanced down at the page and read the sentences for the tenth time. The first ran on and had to be fixed, but I couldn’t figure out how. “In all the time I’d known him, he’d never begged for anything, not because he was necessarily against it by principle, but because he’d always been perfectly intentioned in everything he did, and felt that if a person didn’t react to his intentions in the affirmative, well then, they didn’t, and life went on. So the fact that he was begging now startled me.” I circled the sentences, slammed the notebook shut, and flung it across my bed. Perhaps my problem wasn’t my ability to edit, but the fact that these particular sentences required me to recall the misery on Charlie’s face. Even though I knew I’d done the right thing, Charlie had been my best friend for eighteen years. We’d grown accustomed to consoling each other. In spite of everything, it was strange that I couldn’t be the one to cheer him, that he was the source of my own sorrow.
I glanced at the discarded notebook, not entirely sure why I was bothering to edit it in the first place. It wasn’t as if anyone would ever read it. It was too personal, not to mention terribly written. I was a short story writer; I had no idea how to write a proper novel. I hadn’t attempted a longer work in twelve years, since I was a child. My family and the Aldridges had gone to see P. T. Barnum’s circus in Brooklyn, and the glitz and the wildness of it had left us all inspired. The next day, I was commissioned by Charlie and my siblings to write a book about the ringmaster. In my ten-year-old mind, I’d thought a story of a ringmaster who could speak to animals a genius idea. I’d written the fifty pages with great fervor, while Charlie sketched the scenes and Franklin painted dramatic depictions of the ringmaster. Even Mae, Alevia, and Bess had been convinced to participate. Alevia obligingly played Gavotte Circus Renz by Hermann Fliege over and over for inspiration, while Bess created replicas of the performer’s costumes. When we’d finished the book, we were sure it would eclipse Stevenson’s Treasure Island in popularity. Our hopes were only provoked by our parents. After Mae’s dramatic reading, they’d deemed it brilliant. Father had bound the volume with two thin sheets of wood and Mother had covered it in a scrap of red silk. We’d given the finished copy to Charlie for his eleventh birthday.
I stood and crossed to my dresser, running my fingers along the chipping white paint on my windowsill as I went. Glancing in the mirror, I laughed wryly at the hints of black lead smudged across my cheeks and under my eyes as if I’d actually been writing rather than crossing out, erasing, and rewriting the same sentence over again. I thought of Charlie’s library, of the one place I’d always retreated when I couldn’t seem to find the right words. I knew that part of its magic had to do with Charlie’s presence, his encouragements and suggestions, but within its walls, I’d always been able to sort my thoughts. He’d stolen my only hideaway from me.
I scrubbed the pencil marks away with the tip of my finger and smoothed the pink silk rose petals attached to the Brussels lace at my shoulder. It had taken Bess three nights to arrange all of them and affix them to the sleeve in the latest fall fashion. Bess refused to create anything short of perfection, even if the costume was being made for one of us.
Pulling my grandfather’s worn copy of Irving’s The Sketch Book from the drawer beneath my mirror, I flipped it open. How many times had I read it and found solace in its pages? Stopping on the title page, I stared at the colophon, “published by George Putnam.” Putnam and Irving had been fast friends, though Putnam had been Irving’s junior by decades. Late in Irving’s life, press after press had passed up the chance to publish an updated edition of Irving’s work, but Putnam had decided to take it on, convinced that the words Irving had written were still relevant and needed. It was one of the most profitable decisions Putnam ever made, and the reason I’d been introduced to Irving’s work as a child. My grandfather had started reading the new anthology and was so taken with it that he’d demanded his entire household read it. My father then passed it on to me.
I closed Irving and went to retrieve my discarded notebook. Perhaps it was a vain and foolish ambition, but the desire for someone to read and cherish my stories as I cherished Irving’s swelled in my chest. I closed my eyes and ran my hand over the worn cover, imagining it as a threadbare hardback on the dresser of a girl I would never know. That possibility eclipsed the hole in my heart with a strange new sense of purpose, and I knew that the feeling alone was worth whatever would come next. I would make something of this manuscript—somehow. I would find a way to learn what it would take to transform my scattered words into something of worth.
“Well, what a welcome surprise.” I jumped at the sound of Franklin’s voice and whirled to face him. Propped against my doorframe in a black tailcoat, he grinned at me and flicked his gold pocket watch open. “Five-thirty precisely and you’re actually ready.”
“Good thing, too. At least for your sake,” Mae said to me, materializing beside Franklin in the doorway. “I stalled as long as I could. I helped Mother with the laundry and even washed the dishes twice, but Frank said he’d be hauling you off with us at five-thirty whether you were ready or not.”
“Oh really? And if I wasn’t?” I laughed, narrowing my eyes at the two of them.
“I’d just sling you over my shoulder.” Franklin shrugged and scratched at the corner of his mustache. He glanced down the length of my turquoise blue satin dress. “In any case, I have to admit that I’m relieved you’re dressed. Mae and I were taking bets on whether or not we’d have to endure the Symphony next to the stench of that horrendous pink dressing gown.” I grinned and snatched my small black purse from my bedside table.
“You would’ve survived,” I said, shoving past them. “But I doubt I would’ve. I’m afraid the spectacle of a woman in her nightclothes wasn’t the sort of entertainment Mr. Carnegie had in mind.”