Hattie Ever After Read Online Free PDF Page B

Dodge,
Titanic
survivor, in serious condition from suicide attempt. Read all about it!” Dapper policemen with white stripes running around their jacket cuffs and down their pant legs chanted, “Watch the trolleys, folks! Watch the traffic.”
    No matter which way I looked, there were people.Businessmen in suits tipped their straw boaters to young women whose cloche hats covered stylish bobs. Mothers in wide-brimmed bonnets bustled hand in hand with boys in knickers and girls wearing such enormous satin bows atop their heads they looked like gift packages. And weaving in and out of all of the throngs were bareheaded laborers and deliverymen, some of them tiny Chinese with strange long pigtails bouncing on their backs. I imagined myself in one of Charlie’s beloved airplanes, flying over this scene. From such heights, all these folks must look like popcorn kernels bouncing in a hot skillet.
    Our first stop was the Fairmont Hotel, where Miss Clare and Mr. Lancaster would be residing for the run of the show. Perched atop Nob Hill, the Fairmont appeared to cover more ground than the entire town of Vida! This time I told
myself
to close my mouth, lest I look like a true hayseed. But it was hard not to gape a little at the sight of the formal garden and terrace at the rear. For a moment, I imagined myself at a palace in France or Italy. Then Miss Clare’s decidedly American voice began to chatter in my ear.
    “Are you listening, Hattie? I’m sending that trunk with you. It’s got the costumes in need of repair.”
    I nodded attentively. Since our conversation in Mrs. Brown’s kitchen, Miss Clare had not said another word about finding my replacement upon arrival in San Francisco. Not that I had found my calling, but I did not relish looking for another job right away. She rattled off a tediously long list of instructions—this gown needed the lace trim refreshed, that cape had a tear in the satin lining, Mr. Lancaster’s tuxedo trousers were losing their hem.
    “And my cranberry silk needs taking in again. Can you manage?” she asked.
    “Yes, ma’am.” The troupe had the night off, so I was confident I could get everything patched up and still find time to venture out to explore my new home.
    After the stop at the Fairmont, our jitney rumbled along back to Stockton, heading toward the Hotel Cortez, where the rest of us were staying. Mrs. Brown would have been astonished to learn that one room cost the magnificent sum of $2.50 a week. Maude handed me my key and we stepped into the elevator. I couldn’t help but smile at the memory of my first elevator ride, back at that hotel in Spokane. It had seemed impossible that a metal cage could travel up and down the way it did in the innards of a building. I was used to them by now, though my heart still skipped a bit every time an elevator began its upward lurch.
    “I’m just one floor below you,” Maude said, giving me her room number. “Knock if you need anything!”
    When she stepped out at her floor, I felt a bit like a child who’d lost sight of her mother on a crowded street. Inhaling shakily, I called out “See you later” in the jauntiest manner I could muster.
    After a short ride up, I was unlocking the door to my own room. It was as if I were unlocking a new life. I paused, savoring key in hand, before stepping through. My new lodgings were full of light and exotically decorated along a Spanish theme, and more than twice the size of my quarters at Mrs. Brown’s. A gilt-framed print of none other than Cortez himself, rather than an assortment of Mrs. Brown’s dour relatives, hung on the opposite wall. There were two chairs: astraight wooden one at the desk and a chubby upholstered one by the window, which would be the perfect reading spot. A twin bed and an armoire rounded out the furnishings. To think that the Fairmont would be even more luxurious than this! It was hard to feature.
    I located the bathroom down the hall and freshened up. Since my