Water's Edge by Genevieve Fortin

Author:Genevieve Fortin [Fortin, Genevieve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781594935534
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2017-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

MEANDERS

1898-1905

Chapter Fourteen

Boston, November 1898

Emilie sat at the small round table placed in a corner of her room, trying to read an article in a medical journal she’d borrowed from the bookstore. She plunged her fingers through her long black hair and massaged her scalp. Mr. Flaherty required that she wore the most complicated and sophisticated hairstyles when she worked in his store. They made her look a little older, he claimed, and gave her more credibility. The bouffant, pompadour and other hairstyles she’d so carefully avoided before she moved to Boston were now part of her daily routine.

Fortunately, Mrs. Flaherty had been able to teach her how to accomplish such hairstyles popularized by the Gibson Girl, a character created by Charles Dana Gibson that inspired all young American women when it came to style and fashion. A character made up by a man, of course, Emilie repeated to herself every time she let her hair loose at the end of the day and attempted to massage the pain out of her scalp.

She couldn’t complain, though, as the hairstyles she had to wear were the only aspect of her work she didn’t enjoy.

Flaherty Books was located in a three-story house on Bromfield Street. It was a red brick building, like so many buildings in Boston. The second and third floors had regular-sized windows, but on the first floor, the front door was flanked by two enormous windows where new books were displayed to tempt passersby inside the store which occupied the entire first floor of the building. The light through the front windows faded as it moved along the dark wooden shelves toward the back of the deep and narrow space. Emilie had quickly realized that the books, just like the store, became more obscure the farther she walked toward the back. That was where she found the medical journals and books Mr. Flaherty let her borrow as long as she didn’t bend or crease any of the pages. Emilie was grateful he never kept track or paid any kind of attention to what she borrowed.

She was grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Flaherty for many reasons. The couple, both in their forties, had been nothing but kind and generous to Emilie. Michael Flaherty, with his large belly and his red mustache, had trusted her with his store from the very first day. He never talked to her about books the way his friend Maurice had because, Emilie suspected, he still wasn’t convinced women had much to say about books, but he’d taken her under his protective wing and helped Emilie feel safe in her new surroundings.

Margaret Flaherty had been nothing short of a second mother. On one hand it made Emilie miss her own mother even more and she’d often cried herself to sleep when she’d first moved in, thinking of her. On the other hand, it made her life in Boston so much easier. She couldn’t help but smile every time she thought of the corpulent, rosy-cheeked woman who couldn’t be caught without a smile on her face.

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