Page 79 of The Missing Pages
Violet remembered similar complaints coming from Hugo. She never understood how he managed to get up when it was still dark outside to head to the boathouse.
“Thank God we have it easy with school for the next few weeks until reading period and exams,” she said.
“Yeah… though it really stinks having exams when we get back from winter break. Kinda puts a damper on Christmas.”
Violet nodded and saw the waitress approaching from the corner of her eye.
They both ordered a cheeseburger and fries.
“I’ll have a strawberry frappe, too,” Theo said.
“And a chocolate one for me,” Violet added as the waitress grabbed their menus from them.
She looked at Theo, slightly amused. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here with anyone who got a strawberry frappe.”
“I thought I’d try something new.” He shrugged.
“You normally get coffee, don’t you?”
“Nah, I mean…”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I really appreciate you being so sensitive about everything. And more importantly, not thinking I’m a freak with the whole ghost thing.”
“Well, Vi, by now you’d also have to lump me in that description. I’m the one setting up a meeting with a psychic this coming weekend,” he said and laughed.
The waitress came over with their order.
“Now let’s talk about what we’re going to ask Lux,” Theo said, lifting the glass of frozen strawberry ice cream and taking a long sip from the straw.
“Yes. Good idea.” Violet unzipped her backpack and pulled out her notebook and a pen. “We can write them all down here,” she suggested as she patted the clean leaf of paper. “It’s weird,” she says. “I feel like we’re living in a story and we have absolutely no idea how it’s all going to end.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
THECARPATHIA PULLED INTONEWYORKHARBOR CARRYINGa little over seven hundred passengers from theTitanic. My mother was met there by my uncle George, who escorted her to the family’s Pullman car, which took them home to Lynnewood Hall.
Ada went by herself to the Martha Washington Hotel, where she and I had dined so happily together only weeks earlier.
At the front desk, Ada found a telegram from Quaritch waiting for her.
Please confirm you have arrived in New York and are safe after the Titanic catastrophe. Will send funds for you to purchase necessities while in N.Y. Please extend stay as discussed earlier. B.A.Q.
Ada sent a telegram in return.
Arrived in New York. Fear Harry Elkins Widener lost at sea. A. Lippoldt
She did not mention the loss of the bejeweledRubaiyat. As her telegram so plainly stated, she was instead focused on the loss of me.
Each morning at the Martha Washington Hotel, the newspaper headlines reminded Ada of the tragedy. The confirmations of the dead, next to the testimonies of those who had been saved, took up pages upon pages of newsprint.
Ada slept fitfully in the night, then deeply during the day. She ate very little, taking only tea and toast in her room. Her mind constantly replayed the ship’s sinking and our hurried, final farewell.
On the third day, she finally managed to write to Quaritch and thank him for the receipt of the funds for her to live on while in America and also to acknowledge that theRubaiyathad sunk along with theTitanicinto the sea.
She tried to perform her obligations for Quaritch, writing to his patrons on the eastern seaboard. She scheduled meetings with Belle da Costa Greene, the bookseller George Smith, who Quaritch considered a friend and rival, as well as Theodore Schulte, who was supposedly a rising star in the Manhattan book scene, only to cancel each of them an hour beforehand.
On the evening of April 27th, after nearly two weeks cocooned in her room, she finally went outside for some fresh air. When she returned to the hotel, the clerk at the front desk handed her several telegrams that had been left unread in her mailbox.
She took them up to her room and sifted through them. Nearly all were from Quaritch, beseeching her to keep him informed of her activities across the pond. His inquiries began with great sensitivity, then grew to frustration. The last one, dated that very afternoon, escalated in its tone:
