Page 13 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“Couldn’t we just ask down at the piers? The ship companies must have passenger manifests.” But they didn’t know the date he had sailed or even if he had sailed. Didn’t know which ship company he might have chosen or if he had used his correct name.
Juliette nodded to the maître d’, and he hurried to hold their chairs so they could rise and leave the dining room. As they did every night, she and Clara stepped outside and took a turn around the terrace. A damp fish scent reminded Juliette of the nearby Sound. And they could hear street noises, the rush and rattle of harness-drawn vehicles, the cough and bang of an occasional horseless carriage. The wonders of electricity were evident as here and there bright lights flickered on across the city. Power poles and telephone wires were strung along every street like giant clotheslines.
A hollow space opened inside her. Never had Juliette felt so out of place and so completely alone as she did this minute with Clara by her side and dozens of people within sight.
Not a single person, certainly not Clara, cared about Juliette March. No one gave a fig that the noise and bustle of this enormous city unnerved her or that she grieved for the man who had left her behind.
Homesickness swamped her like a wave rearing out of the gathering darkness. She yearned to run home and hide herself away in Aunt Kibble’s house. She belonged in small sleepy Linda Vista, where crossing a street didn’t terrify her, where strange men didn’t tip their hats and pretend a small courtesy gave them the right to run their eyes over her figure. She didn’t have the temperament for travel and new places. She wasn’t that brave. It did, in fact, astonish her that she had come as far as Seattle.
But going home would be a mistake. Sooner or later, everyone in Linda Vista would hear their suspicions confirmed: that she had been victimized by a confidence man. Such stories had a way of surfacing; they didn’t remain secret.
And she couldn’t face the scandal and gossip, not after she had once been a role model of decorum. So she wouldn’t go home.
But she had no idea what to do next.
Sighing again, she slid a sideways glance at Clara. Only a lifetime of rigid adherence to good manners made it possible for her to endure the intolerable necessity of traveling with a woman her husband had dallied with. She detested Clara Klaus because Clara had known Jean Jacques’s touch, and imagining them together made Juliette’s bones ache.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Clara commented, pausing to examine a riot of blossoms stuffed into a stone urn. “Not that I care, you understand, but what are you thinking about?”
“I’m thinking about what you said at the table.” Juliette touched the back of her glove to her forehead. She absolutely did not want to dwell on Clara lying naked in Jean Jacques’s arms. It was better to suppose such an outrage had never happened. “If we find the outfitting store where my husband purchased his supplies, what do we do then?”
Clara halted at the corner of the terrace and faced her with narrowed eyes. “Every time you say ‘my husband’ I want to slap you silly.”
Such statements no longer shocked her. Which was shocking in itself. “How utterly vulgar to threaten a person!” Truly Clara was common and base.
“Jean Jacques ismyhusband, too. He is not exclusivelyyourhusband.”
Juliette’s lips went as stiff as her spine. “He wasmyhusband first!” That was important. Hers was the legal marriage. At least that was her assumption, and she believed she was correct.
Clara puffed up, and her face pulsed red. “You know what I think? I thinkmyhusband got tired of your prissy superior attitude and left you to find a real woman he could laugh with and be himself with! That’s what I think!”
“I’ll have you know that Jean Jacques and I laughed all the time!” Juliette refused to be intimidated by a person who slurped her coffee. Pulling to her full five feet two inches, she glared up at Clara. “If I weren’t a lady, I would point out that my husband leftyouquicker than he left me! Apparently sinking to a common level wasn’t as fulfilling for him as you’d like to believe!”
“If being common means not putting on silly airs or extending my pinkie when I sip from a cup, then I’m common and proud of it!”
Furious, both Clara and Juliette turned in a spin of summer skirts and strode toward the lobby door. At the foot of the grand staircase, they faced each other again.
“Breakfast at seven,” Clara snapped.
“You never said what we’ll do if we find where he bought his supplies.”
“I don’t know, all right? You can go home to California. I wish you would. Maybe I’ll buy a boardinghouse with the money I got from selling the inn.” Lifting her plain dark skirt, Clara started up the staircase. “I can’t wait to see the back of you and your stiff-necked ways!”
“And I you,” Juliette said, raising her chin. Even to her own ears she sounded prissy. And she was so weary of this conversation. Every night they exchanged a variation of the same words and sentiments. My husband; your husband. No,myhusband.
Juliette didn’t tell Clara what was constantly on her mind. She didn’t say,I hate you because he touched you and lay with you and held you in his arms. I hate you because you laughed with him and because he said beautifulthings to you. I hate you because jealousy is tearing me apart and because I need to know that he loved me better and more than he loved you.
Frowning and blinking hard, she lowered her head and stared at the brooch pinned to her lapel. If she wore this brooch and her blue garter every day, Jean Jacques would come back to her.
Waiting, she gave Clara time to reach her room and go inside so they wouldn’t have to encounter each other in the corridor.
Had he ever loved her? Even a little bit?
Blinking rapidly at the liquid burn in her eyes, she lifted her skirts with shaking hands and ascended the staircase. She had never dreamed that a person could hurt so much.
Most of the outfitting stores were strung along First Avenue South, not far from the piers. Mountains of goods spilled onto the sidewalk and into the street, presided over by eager-eyed men checking lists against receipts.
Clara didn’t spot any women near the corner of First and Yesler except herself and Juliette. Even so, they didn’t attract much attention. Dreams of riches stuffed the heads of the men crowding the walkways and stores, not thoughts of women. Many seemed unaware of the noisy chaos around them; they concentrated solely on packing a year’s supply of food into as small a space as possible.
