The Cure for Dreaming (26 page)

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Henry pull a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and cover his bleeding face.

I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in my breath. “How much blood is there?”

“Hardly any. It mainly stings.”

“It looked as if it could turn into gallons.”

“You're probably seeing it worse than it is.” He stepped closer. “Olivia, I promised you we were partners, not enemies. Why'd you have to bring up Genevieve and let it slip that we've seen each other?”

“I was trying to appeal . . . I just . . . he's still my father. I thought . . .” I rubbed my forehead. “We're not partners. A partner wouldn't allow me to retch in front of strangers.”

“Your father gave me those orders when he had that medieval contraption wedged in my mouth.”

“But he took out the gag eventually.”

“We signed a contract back there in his office. A mutual agreement, saying if I completed the tasks asked of me, he would give me the full remainder of Genevieve's surgeon's fees.”

I closed my eyes again. “I'll give you one hundred twenty-three dollars if we end everything tonight and send you on your way right now.”

Henry didn't answer, and for a moment I thought he might have run away.

“Are you still here?” I raised my head and found him in the same spot as before, his mouth hanging open, the cloth pressed against his face.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“My mother has been sending me birthday and Christmas money ever since she left us when I was four. I've been saving the cash in a box in my room all these years.”

“What have you been saving it for?”

I shrugged. “I don't know. I used to imagine heading out on great adventures, circumnavigating the world like Nellie Bly.”

“But”—he lowered the handkerchief—“what had you been planning to use it for before Genevieve and I came to town?”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

I hugged my arms around my middle. “I can't tell you what I've imagined doing with the money. You've made sure I'll be sick if I say the word out loud.”

“Does it have to do with education?”

“Yes, but I'm not even sure it's enough for one year's tuition. I'd probably have to apply for a scholarship, anyway.”

“Olivia . . .” He stepped in front of me. “Look at me.”

I peeked up and saw pink fingernail marks on his cheek in the lamplight shining out through the hotel window.

“Listen to me,” he said, and his wounds and his lips and his nose blurred away. Only his eyes remained. “Listen carefully, for what I am going to tell you is extremely important. You will no longer feel nauseated and vomit when you hear or say the following words:
Suffrage. Women's rights. Suffragist. Votes for women. Susan B. Anthony. College.
In fact, you feel healthy and fully recovered from what happened to you this evening.”

The disgusting tempest in my stomach settled into peaceful seas. The clouds in my head cleared away.

“However,” he continued, “you will feel compelled to cover your mouth and make a gagging sound whenever you hear or say those words.
Suffrage. Women's rights. Suffragist. Votes for women. Susan B. Anthony. College.
You will not suffer any pain or nausea. You will simply cover your mouth and make a sound. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. Now, slowly, gently”—he pressed his hand against my forehead—“awake.”

I blinked and wobbled.

Henry lowered his arm and cleared his throat. “I would have liked to do that before, but I couldn't with him watching.”

“Thank you.”

“I'm not taking your money.”

“But . . . election night . . .” I braced my hand against the wall. “Genevieve . . .”

“We have three days left to figure out a way for it to seem that I'm hypnotizing you in front of that election-night crowd—without doing a single thing to you. I want to give a performance that will somehow end up teaching your father and all those antis a lesson.”

“How on earth would we do that?”

“I don't know.” He leaned his back against the bricks beside me. “But you're obviously smart, and I've had years of experience in putting on a good show. I'm certain we can think of something.”

“What about Father?”

“Well . . .” He tucked his hands into his pockets. “Subtlety will have to be the key to this performance. We've got to make him think we're following his directions.”

“And then you'll leave and take care of your sister?”

“Yes. I promise. We'll catch the last train south that night.” He turned his head my way and pressed his lips together. His forehead puckered, suggesting a flaw in the plan.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You should come with us.”

I blinked as if he'd just flicked water into my eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“You could finish getting your high school diploma in San Francisco. Stanford's not far, and I've heard they allow women.”

I pushed myself off the wall. “I can't go with you. I hardly even know you.”

“My father's cousin Anne lives in the city, and she'll be housing me while Genevieve undergoes her surgery. She doesn't have the money to help us with medical payments, but she's able to provide a roof over our heads. I'm sure she'd welcome you, too.”

“I cannot run away with you.” I walked over to my tossed-aside bicycle and hoisted it onto its wheels.

“You have money.” Henry followed me to the bike. “You wouldn't have to rely on me or any other man for income. But I'd be there for you, as a friend, if you needed anything.”

“I told you”—I hiked up the bottom of my skirt and swung my right leg over the bicycle's red bar—“I don't even know you.”

“Think about it, at least. Please, consider joining us.”

I tried to roll forward, but he pushed against my handlebars and blocked my escape with his body.

“I don't want to leave you behind,” he said, “when I know I caused your life in Portland to crumble before your eyes.”

I scratched at a small bump on my turtle-shaped bicycle bell and mulled over the idea of my life crumbling before my eyes. An entertaining thought struck me during the mulling. A highly entertaining thought that led to an embarrassing snort.

Henry shifted his weight. “What's so funny?”

Another snort erupted, one that progressed into a full-blown laugh that made my shoulders shake.

“What's so funny, Olivia?”

“I just realized all the things I've done since I've met you and undergone your Cure for Female Rebellion and Unladylike Dreams—in bold, capital letters. Think about it, Henry.” I counted off each transgression by lifting my fingers on the handlebars. “I walked out on a formal dinner party. I rode in a two-seater buggy with two young men—and sat on your lap, no less. I accompanied you into your hotel room. I played hooky. I published a suffragist letter in the newspaper—”

“You what?”

“Read the front page of today's
Oregonian
.” I tilted my head at the nail marks on his face. “I scratched you up like a wild woman. I caused a terrible uproar in a hotel lobby. Oh, I even cursed at a drunkard I almost ran over with my bike. And I rode through the city by myself after dark, while my father imagined me sulking in my bedroom. We're not curing
my
dreams.”

He arched his eyebrows at the emphasis on
my
. “Are we curing someone else's?”

“My father's. His life is the one that's crumbling, because he's doing exactly what he wanted to avoid—driving me away.” I kicked up my foot to find the right pedal and rang my little bell. “Now move,
s'il vous plaît
. I need to ride home before my empty bedroom gets discovered.”

I pedaled toward him, but he pushed me backward by the handlebars again and said, “I'm going to escort you home.”

“How are you going to keep up with me while I'm riding?”

“You can't ride through the dark streets on your own. If you fall and hit your head, who would know?”

“As I just said”—I steered the handlebars out of his grip— “how are you going to keep up while I'm riding?”

“I'll sit on the handlebars if I have to.” He lifted his knee as if he were going to climb aboard.

“No, Henry!” I laughed and managed to back the bike out of his reach. “You'll tip me forward.”

“Then let me sit in front of you so I can pedal while you hang on.”

“Ha!” I rode the bicycle off the curb with a jolting bump that startled more hair out of pins. “That would be a laugh.”

He leapt into the street behind me. “I'll bet
you're
strong enough to pedal us both.”

“I don't know . . .” I rode around him in a wide circle. “I'm only a girl.”

“I'll just chase after you, then, and try to keep up.” He laughed, a throaty chuckle—an enjoyable sound I don't think I'd ever heard from him before. “Stop riding circles around me, Olivia. Let me get on. I'm willing to sit in back.”

“You'll probably fall off.” I planted my feet on the ground. “I ride fast.”

“I bet you do.”

I hopped down from the saddle while still holding the handlebars, and—adding yet another transgression to my growing list of sins against my father—allowed Henry to climb onto the seat behind me. He tried putting his hands on the bars, next to mine, but I nudged them away.

“I'll need to steer. You'll make us fall if you're hanging on, too.”

He held up his palms. “What should I hang on to, then?”

“I don't . . .” I laughed and blushed and couldn't believe I was letting him sit on my bicycle behind me, pressed up against my back, his mouth so close to my neck. I got chills just from the thought of him breathing against me. “Oh, just put your blasted hands around my waist. Help me push off, and if we somehow stay balanced, put your feet on the mounting pegs on the rear wheel.”

I pressed my right foot against the top pedal. “I'll count to three, and then we both need to give a big push. Ready?”

He squeezed his arms around my waist and answered,
“Oui.”

“One, two, three.”

He pushed, I pushed, and both of my feet left the ground. We wobbled and tipped, and he had to shove the soles of his shoes against the road more than once to keep us from falling on our sides like a capsizing ship. My legs pumped and strained, and somehow, one block south of the hotel, we managed to gain speed. Balancing became easier; the act of pedaling turned smooth and as simple as riding on my own. Our chances of serious injury increased, but my legs no longer ached from powering us along.

We cruised onward, past the slumbering businesses on Third. My hair streaked behind me and probably smacked Henry in the face, but he never complained—in fact, he chuckled the whole time, and, when I steered us around the corner to Yamhill, he whooped like a French Canadian cowboy.

“You're not going to fall off, are you?” I yelled into the wind.

“Not unless you do.”

“In a few more blocks,” I called again, “you need to look in the window of McCorkan's Bicycle Shop on our right.”

“Why is that?”

“They sell bicycle bloomers. Buying a pair is yet another one of my unladylike dreams.”

“I could get you a pair from backstage.”

“Really?”

“Really. I've seen them in the costume room.”

That grand possibility inspired me to pedal faster, and the
chain buzzed like a mighty industrial machine beneath our legs. Overhead, the moon peeked between the clouds, washing the road before us in swaths of silver. “Beautiful Dreamer” waltzed through my mind, especially the line “Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,” which seemed particularly lovely in the lamp-lit splendor of the nighttime streets of Portland.

Henry's arms tightened around my waist.

“I'm not going to stop,” I yelled over my shoulder, “because I don't want to fall, but there they are. Turkish trousers.”

We sped past the red and blue beauties, which were mere poufs of shadow in the unlit store, and Henry asked, “Is it because you want to dress like a man?”

“Pfft. No. I want to dress like a woman who drives men around on her bicycle.”

He snickered near my ear, and we both laughed like grammar school children all the way back to my street, drunk on moonbeams and speed and the incomparable exhilaration of hanging on to another person as if one's life depended on it.

The descent wasn't half as graceful as the flight. Two blocks from my house, we hit a bad bump, and the handlebars jostled in my hands like a thing possessed. Henry dragged his feet across the dirt to skid us to a stop, kicking up dust and tiny pebbles, but the bicycle fought his efforts and dumped us on our sides one block away from home. We landed with a thump in a tangle of arms, legs, fabrics, and metal.

I pushed myself up to my elbows and unwound my feet
from Henry and the bike. A sore spot, bound to become a bruise, formed on my hip.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

My now supine passenger sat up with a dopey grin and wiped dirt off the sides of his coat. “Mademoiselle Mead, I had no idea you were a daredevil.”

“My father would call me a scorcher.”

“What's that?”

“A reckless bicyclist.”

“Olivia ‘Scorcher' Mead.” He nodded his approval. “I like it.” He climbed to his feet and lent me his outstretched hand.

I let him pull me upright, and we faced each other with our hands entwined. A pine tree bobbed a shadow across his scratched-up cheek, and the nail marks faded and glowed with the peekaboo moon.

His smile faded, and his dark-blond eyebrows turned serious. “What will your father do if he catches you sneaking in?”