The ship was leaving from New York City, so Margie and her mother and an unwieldy collection of luggage all took a train up and stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria for a few nights while visiting with Evelyn and her family. It had been a whirlwind few weeks, and Margie’s mother had been forced to compromise on all sorts of things—the number of new dresses that could be fitted and made, the purchase of a new coat, how many books Margie was allowed to take. But Margie suspected her mother’s greatest disappointment was that she hadn’t had time to create an entirely different daughter before shipping her off.
Aunt Edith, Evelyn’s mother, gave them a lengthy list of sites and museums to visit, though she had never actually been to Europe. Margie thought, looking at her aunt across the dinner table, her gown cut a little too low, her hair bobbed (a woman of her age, if you can imagine!), the lights of the room low to allow the candles to take over, that Aunt Edith’s heart was breaking, not over saying goodbye to her daughter, but over not to be going herself, not to be nineteen again with her whole life ahead of her.
Margie, who had spent the afternoon with Evelyn, supposedly shopping for gloves but really sitting and reading in a tearoom while Evelyn smoked and talked to the ten million people who stopped by the table, wanted to tell Evelyn’s mother she was welcome to go in her stead. She was feeling particularly mean about Evelyn, who, when they had come back without gloves, had lied and announced that they hadn’t been able to find any because Margie’s hands were so terribly large. Margie had to fight the urge to use one of her terribly large hands to land a terribly enthusiastic punch on Evelyn’s terribly lying face. Perhaps the worst part of it was, Margie realized, as her mother poked her under the table repeatedly while they discussed Evelyn’s beaux and plans for the trip and, upon her return, how grand her debut ball would be, that she was being sent on this trip as much to learn from Evelyn as to keep her out of trouble. And Margie wondered, given Evelyn’s behavior the moment she was out of sight of any adult, how she was going to do that.
Their mothers installed them in their stateroom, the trunks and baggage having been delivered the day before by porter. Standing on the dock, staring up at the immense ship, my grandmother felt a shiver of anticipation pass through her. She didn’t think about the endless, inevitable conflict with Evelyn lying ahead, and she didn’t think about Mr. Chapman or the disappointment lying behind her. She was going to Europe. She was going to explore the Tower of London and write a story in a café in Paris and see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and she was going to be someone different, someone adventurous and glamorous. They stood on the deck of the ship underneath a brilliant blue sky, all the promise of summer before them, all the promise of a continent filled with treasures and history and stories to be discovered, all the promise of people who didn’t know dull, plain Margie Pearce, and she shivered with delight.
That delight lasted for approximately two hours. Because once they had waved goodbye to their mothers, who stood on the pier as the ship gave a long, mournful wail of its horns and a groan of its steel sidings and pulled away from the dock, two tugboats escorting them out toward the ocean like tiny bridesmaids at a wedding, Evelyn turned to Margie with a hard, mean look in her eye. Around them, most people were drifting away from the railings, some of them heading to the top deck for a better view of their departure, the city spreading out behind them, wider and wider, others heading to their staterooms to settle in, some looking for entertainment. Evelyn dug into her handbag and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and turned her head slightly to exhale, so the smoke brushed against Margie’s cheek as it drifted away. “Here’s the situation, Margie. I let you come along because I knew it was the only way Mother would allow me to go to Europe. But I intend to have a truly fabulous time on this trip, and I don’t want you ruining it.”