A Beautiful Poison

But at night, the talk would cease. Holly slept like a wrestling monkey, and often Allene volunteered her own bed to the little girl, with Lucy at the ready in a corner rocking chair. Lucy said she didn’t mind at all, and Birdie once again felt the creeping sensation that Lucy enjoyed becoming indispensable to Holly, her, and Allene.

But it couldn’t be helped. Birdie slept terribly too. Perhaps it was the oppressive silence of the Upper East Side; perhaps it was sleeping in a house filled with people who knew she didn’t belong here. When she and Allene awoke, like the night after the engagement party, their legs were often tangled skin to skin beneath the covers. Birdie would disentangle herself, Allene allowing it reluctantly, and the day would begin.

It became a habit, until it wasn’t.

One morning, only a few days after Hazel’s death, Birdie opened her heavy lids to see Allene staring at her. Not with concern but something halfway between curiosity and nausea.

“Are you all right, Allene?” Birdie whispered. “Did you sleep badly?”

Allene nodded. “No.” She seemed unaware of her idiosyncratic answer. That nauseated expression worsened. Allene’s eyes fell to Birdie’s chest. She glanced down to see her nightgown drooping over her collarbone and a crescent of upper breast peeking out from beyond the eyelet. Birdie shifted to cover herself. Allene’s legs slid like satin on warm marble, one thigh rising ever so slightly higher against Birdie’s inner leg. Allene pinched her lips together and then unpinched them, crimson blood filling them to a rosy glow. She moved her head slightly closer to Birdie’s, until the oppressive scent of her lavender shampoo was all around.

Birdie hesitated for only seconds, but it seemed a century. She pulled away and sat up. Allene froze and frowned and went pink in the face.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Birdie told her. She untangled her legs and withdrew from the covers. “You simply don’t.” She put on her robe and went to the door. “I’ll call for Lucy. Holly will be wanting breakfast.”

They didn’t speak of it, for there was nothing, really, to speak of. Birdie regretted leaving her with such haste. She couldn’t afford to push Allene away, but these were the types of waters that she did not know how to navigate. Allene packaged away the discomfort and twittered on like her usual self. When she paused between quips, Birdie would see it. A momentary expression of panic, as if Allene had become utterly lost within herself. And in a snap, a brilliant smile would replace the dropped-open bottom lip.

On Sunday morning, Birdie woke up alone. Relieved.

Still in bed, she picked up the newspaper. The Saint-Mihiel salient had been taken from the Germans. Two U-boats had been sunk. Thousands of soldiers had been struck with influenza in a camp near Boston. Thousands? It was an unbelievable number, but Boston seemed yet too far away to be of any worry. A new motor bus had been introduced on Fifth Avenue. Pershing had let out the updated list of casualties and dead soldiers.

Killed in action. Killed by accident. Died of disease. Lost at sea. Wounded. Captured. Missing.

There were grand totals that were not so grand. But it was the number of missing—3,990—that gave Birdie pause. The idea of being lost to the world, to everyone . . . this haunted her the most of all the sad tidings. She wondered what it would feel like to be a blur. To have the official title of being neither here nor there, alive nor dead.

And then she laughed. She was already neither here nor there, alive nor dead. She had already descended to become a smudge in history, soon to be forgotten. She flipped the pages of the newspaper, ignoring the available rental apartments. Her mother’s death had barely earned a single line in the obituaries, squeezed between the Gimbels advert and the business section.

The finality of those few, worthless words unsettled her more than death itself.

Birdie folded the newspaper and tucked it under the plate on her nearly empty breakfast tray. Lucy had brought the tray to her room, expecting that she would prefer to eat with Holly in private this morning.

Lucy was good at her job. Too good. She watched Birdie with careful eyes. For what? Classless remarks or other proof that she didn’t belong here? For evidence of the kernel of deep unhappiness that smoldered always within Birdie’s heart, that had singed hotter since she’d stepped back into the Cutter house, despite her quiet mien and softly spoken words? At a glance, the maid was compliant, tidy, and deferential. Lucy couldn’t change her bronzed skin and dark hair, but she had trimmed away anything else that made her unlike the other hoity-toity maids here. And yet Birdie knew keen intelligence when she saw it. Lucy observed everything and, according to some universal order within her discerning mind, put everything in its rightful place. Including Birdie.

Holly had already washed and dressed, gobbled down her poached egg on toast (Holly’s appetite tripled in the presence of grief; Birdie’s vanished), and been taken outside by Allene to feed the pigeons. The bag of crumbs went untouched as Holly spent the morning watching motorcars rumble down Fifth Avenue instead. The endless rolling of automobiles was a balm for her little soul.

Birdie dressed slowly before any of the maids could offer to help. The lump on her shin was aching something horrible. Laudanum would be helpful, but Birdie had refused it. Pain washed her vision of all the softness in life and allowed her to see all in distinct detail. Sometimes the details hurt, but reality was something she clung to. No wistful dreams and half-awake longings for her. Not anymore.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Miss Dreyer? There is someone here to see you.”

Birdie frowned. “Who is it?” she asked.

“It’s Mr. Ernest Fielding, miss.”

“I’ll be down in a minute.” Why on earth would Ernie want to see her? Ernie had never before appeared at the Cutter house asking for Birdie. When they used to play blindman’s bluff, Ernie always let the searching fingers of Allene and Jasper find him, and they’d whoop in satisfaction. When Birdie was blindfolded, he never let himself be caught. Despite her beauty, her quietness placed her in the shadows of the quick-tongued and quick-witted Jasper and Allene. In this case, like did not attract like. Ernie needed their brightness to see his own self in better relief.

She dressed herself carefully, arranging her hair in a simple bun. No jewelry, not even appropriate jet, was worn in her mourning. Which was convenient since she owned no jewelry worth wearing.

Downstairs, Ernie sat on an ottoman, staring out the window and watching the few birds flitting around the Cutter garden. In the distance, Esther was picking the ripe peaches from the heavily laden tree. Esther had been enthusiastically collecting cherry, apricot, and peach pits that would be donated to the war effort to make more gas masks. A basket of victory garden corn at her side would likely be cooked down with cream for dinner.

Birdie was at his side before he noticed her.

“Oh!” He stood up. “Hello, Birdie. How are you?”

She smiled. He was so sincere, so kind. Times like this, he earned his name. “Thank you, Ernie.” She sat down, and he mirrored her descent to the sofa.

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