What Was I Thinking? (23 page)

“It doesn’t work terribly well,” I told her,
truthfully. “Usually, people can tell it’s been done. Even the best surgery
looks a little off, somehow. But all surgery is far less dangerous than it is
now.”

“And you have no grey hair at all? How is that
possible?”

“That, dear friend, is the miracle of
chemistry. Give me a few more weeks and you will begin to see some grey.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I’ve been dyeing my hair for years.
Since high school, in fact.
First it was just to brighten up
the blonde and make it prettier, but in the past few years, grey roots have
been showing up, and I’ve been covering them.”

“Dye?
But…but…”

“I know. Don’t tell me. Only a strumpet would
dye her hair and it wouldn’t look like this if she did.”

“Well, um, yes, in fact. I do not mean to be
rude again,” Augusta ventured, almost timidly.

“It’s okay. As you pointed out on my very first
day as your guest, we have to speak plainly or we’ll never understand each
other. As for the strumpet part, that changed over time. More and more women
started coloring their hair, mostly secretly, until nearly all women, no matter
how respectable, did and people just got over it. There are still men who think
that way, but they also don’t realize that the most respectable women they know
have dyed hair. Also, the chemistry just got better. Instead of little mixtures
women or druggists make up in the back room, big chemistry companies like the
one I worked for got into the business, and they got good at it.”

The door swung open, and Betsy came in with our
morning tea. That was the end of anachronism talk. We went back to the party
plans. In the end we decided on a large dinner party to be held in six weeks. I
hadn’t thought of it, but it would be rude to issue invitations by telephone,
so we had to allow time to write out thirty invitations, send them by mail, and
wait for replies. So six weeks it was.

We told our luncheon guests about our plans
over chicken salad. That day, lunch was at Roland House and there were few
enough of us that we all fit around one table in the yard. Catherine Palmer,
the pregnant matron next door, was there with her mother, Bertha Rigsby, who
was staying with her daughter for the fall, to help with the children.
Catherine was probably several years younger than me, I now realized with a
jolt. Belinda and Genevieve Livingstone and their aunt, Mrs. Harbison, were in
attendance as well. If Mrs. Harbison had a first name, she considered it
nobody’s business.

“An engagement dinner in November!” exclaimed
Belinda, a plump blonde of about nineteen. “Won’t that be
lovely!
You’ll be able to have fires in all the fireplaces, and decorate just
beautifully with mums.”

“Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Harbison agreed, not at all
agreeably.
“Unless this dreadful Indian summer extends.
Imagine a cold lunch in September!”

I looked at Augusta. Sure enough, she had heard
the implied criticism of the lunch she provided and she was ignoring it like
the social whiz she was.

Other than Mrs. Harbison, everyone chattered
with enthusiasm about the party plans, and after they had gone, we settled in
to write out the invitations. I thought longingly of photocopiers, but at last
it was done, and Augusta went to the kitchen to consult with Mrs. Horner about
the menu.

I went upstairs to run cold water on my wrists.
The heat was really getting to me that day. I would have liked to lie down for
a while, but it was stifling upstairs. Instead, I took a magazine out to the
porch swing and hoped for a breeze.

There wasn’t much breeze, and I didn’t feel
much better by the time Bert got home for the evening. I felt distinctly below
par at the supper table and scarcely listened to the chat between the other
two, until Augusta told us that she had finished her draft of the engagement
announcement, and would like to read it to us for our reactions. It seemed only
right to pay attention to that.

I turned to her politely, hoping no one noticed
how tightly I was gripping my water glass. I really felt terrible.

She put on her
little,
gold-rimmed glasses, picked up the sheet of paper beside her plate, and began
to read. “It is with great pleasure that Mrs. Walter Roland announces the
betrothal of her son, Egbert Xavier Roland, to Miss Jane Addams-Hull. Miss Hull
is the daughter of Annabeth and Richard Addams-Hull, who reside in a distant
land. While their age prevents their attendance at the nuptials, the Rolands are
assured of, and honored by, the approval of the Addams-Hull family.”

She looked up. “What do you think? Should I
have worded it as if Mrs. Addams-Hull had written it herself?”

I scarcely heard her. Egbert? Egbert Xavier?
Dear lord!

Bert murmured something, and Augusta turned to
me. “Addie? What do you think?”

“I really don’t know what’s proper, Augusta,
but the truth is that you’re the one making the announcement. As long as that’s
not going to shock any of your friends, I think
it’s
fine.”

“Very well then, we leave it at that for now,
at least. Here’s the rest…” and she read on. She had left out any mention of
our ages, I noticed.
Probably for the best, considering her
reaction to my age.
We didn’t want all of society fussing about it. The
only other shocker was the news that Mr. E.X. Roland worked in the family
steamship business.

“I thought you were working at your lab, at the
university, every day,” I said to Bert.
To Egbert?
Dear lord!

He looked at me with surprise.
“No, of course not.
I don’t have a university appointment
now. The Trust isn’t in effect, after all.”

“But you’ve said many times that you were going
to the lab, or that you had had a good day at the lab. Why would you lie?” Did
I sound shrill? It was hard to be sure. I really felt sick.

Bert didn’t seem offended. If anything, he was
a little amused. Laughing at the little woman’s foolishness? I wondered grimly.
“I have been going to the laboratory.
The Roland Steamship
laboratory.
I didn’t lie to you. I simply never realized you thought the
lab was at the university.”

“So you’ve been going to an executive job all
day, every day, not doing scientific research?”

“Yes and no. I am going to my job and I’m a
member of the executive board, what with being born a Roland, but I do active
scientific research. I’m not so interested in paperwork and accounting and all
that, you know? My cousin Charles is chairman of the board and welcome to it.”

“Oh.” That was a lot to take in. I was
surprised to realize I’d spent weeks in ignorance of the way Bert spent his
days. How well did I really know him?

“Addie…” Augusta’s soft fingertips stroked my
left hand. She could barely reach from her end of the table. “You look quite
peaked, dear. Are you quite well?”

I looked at her with gratitude. Those smart
grey eyes looked kindly from behind the spectacles, and I felt a little less
stressed out. Too much was piling on me right now, and I was getting
disproportionately upset. That was upsetting. I could see a nasty spiral
getting put into motion unless I could figure out how to stop it.

“No, I really don’t feel very good,” I
admitted. “I didn’t want to complain, but I think the heat is getting to me. I
think maybe I should lie down.”

“An excellent idea,” she said. “It’s quite hot
upstairs yet, though, even with the electric fan. Why don’t we make you
comfortable on a sofa in the solarium? I’ll have Mrs. Horner fix you a nice
pitcher of ginger water with ice and a cold cloth for your temples. Bert, you
run along.”

“I’ll see Addie comfortably settled first,
Mother. You bustle around with ice and cloths and I’ll be all soothing
kindness.” He turned to me. “Take my arm, dear one, and we’ll soon get you
comfortable.”

I did. I was becoming increasingly used to his
formal
manners,
and, in truth, I was beginning to feel
a little dizzy, so the support of his arm was helpful.

We walked to the solarium, which fortunately
wasn’t sunny, as dusk had fallen during supper. It was a big, gracious room
facing south, into the backyard. It shared the back of the house with the
kitchen and was directly under my bedroom, which also had that southern view.

Bert guided me gently to the largest sofa,
upholstered in rose-colored silk, and then walked around opening all the French
windows as I settled myself. It was very kind, but I wished he would leave so I
could take off my shoes and even a few layers of clothing.

Augusta showed up carrying pillows, followed by
Betsy and Mrs. Horner, each laden as well. Augusta slipped a pillow behind my
back and very firmly told Bert to, “Shoo!”

He smiled indulgently and bent to kiss my
forehead before leaving. “I hope you feel well soon, dear. I will look in on
you in the morning.”

Mrs. Horner latched the door behind him as if
he
were
a spy, and the three women turned their
attentions on me. To my great pleasure and relief, they took off my shoes and
my outer garments, and bundled me into a very light cotton bathrobe over my
shift. I felt as if my temperature dropped 15 degrees just from that.

Then Betsy and Mrs. Horner set up a small table
within easy reach of my sofa with the iced ginger water, a glass full of ice, a
plate of grapes, and some dry crackers. Hot-weather invalid
food,
and some of it very expensive. I felt
very
pampered
and thanked them profusely as they took their leave.

Augusta sat with me while I slowly drank a
glass of ginger water, and then she insisted that I lie down, covered me with a
light sheet, and put a very cold handkerchief, wet with ice water, on my
forehead. I think I was asleep before she got to the door.

I woke up in a panic a few hours later. I
wasn’t sure how late it was, but the night was black out the windows and I had
no idea where the nearest lamp was. And I desperately needed the bathroom.

There was no help for it. I’d just have to
blunder around in the dark and hope for the best. Fortunately there was a
bathroom on the ground floor, off the kitchen, and I thought I could find it in
the dark, if only I could pick my way between the various tables, ornaments,
and seats in the unfamiliar solarium without breaking a leg or waking the whole
house.

I did. I clenched assorted body parts, felt my
way around, and made it to the tiny bathroom without waking anyone, and only
slightly injured, having stubbed a toe and barked a shin. But I didn’t scream
out loud either time, and only swore in my head, so I called that a victory.

Once inside the bathroom, with the tiny
electric light on, I had a moment of immense relief both emotional and
physical, followed by dismay and terrible homesickness. My period had started.

I sat there, feeling glad I had gotten to the
bathroom without incident, relieved at the simple explanation for the moodiness
and general feeling of physical misery, and absolutely unequal to the task
ahead of me.

I had known this would happen, sooner or later.
I was nearly thirty, after all, and I had
some
experience with the monthly routine. I also knew that women had experienced
this and lived through it just fine since the dawn of time, so there would
clearly be a normal method of keeping clean and comfortable.

But it would be unfamiliar, and I didn’t know
what that method was yet, so I had the humiliating prospect of asking, at my
age!
Asking some other woman what to do about it and where to
get supplies.

Funny how I had managed not to
think about this all month.
Funny how I hadn’t given it the
first thought when Bert asked if I would follow him into the past for the sake
of our great love.
Funny how I was sitting in a tiny, hot bathroom in
someone else’s house being grumpy instead of figuring out how to take care of
myself like the grownup I used to be, before the steamship into the past.

The trip to the past! I had taken my shoulder
bag, still packed with my modern necessities, and it was in the bottom drawer
of my wardrobe. Was it possible? Did I remember right? Had I stuck a couple
tampons carelessly into an inner pocket as I threw in my cash and hairbrush
that last day? I thought I had.

Quickly, I cleaned up and contrived a way to
stay clean for the trip upstairs, washed my hands, and tightened the belt of
the bathrobe against shocking anyone I might pass in the hall.

Life got better in a few short minutes. In
fact, it was darn near heaven. I made it to my own little blue room without
incident. My shoulder bag was where I left it with
four
super tampons hidden in an inside pocket and no one was in the
upstairs bathroom. With luck like that, who needed wealth or glamour?

I tiptoed to the bathroom and got all fixed up,
followed by a quiet, cold sponge bath. Then I changed into a light cotton
nightgown and slipped into bed. It was going to be okay.

It
was
okay. I got up a little earlier than usual the next morning and took care of
things in the bathroom. I dressed carefully, putting my modern underwear under
my regular clothes. It didn’t make much difference in reality, but it gave me
some psychological comfort.