Remembering the Titanic by Diane Hoh Read Free Book Online

telephone tonight. She couldn’t wait to tell him about the ice cream social. He didn’t call that often, though Edmund had seen to it that he had a telephone, saying he wanted to be able to get in touch with Paddy when he needed to. The only telephone Katie had access to was in the front hall of the roominghouse. She had precious little privacy when she was talking on it. But she was always so glad to hear Paddy’s voice, she didn’t care.
    If Paddy didn’t call, she might just go talk to John. He’d show some interest. He might even offer to accompany her on Sunday, to give her moral support, hear her sing, and eat ice cream all at the same time. John liked simple pleasures. It would serve Paddy right if she invited John to the social. And maybe if he knew there was another gentleman, an Irish one at that, paying some mind to Kathleen Hanrahan, he’d call her more often and come out to Brooklyn to see her more than once a week.
    Or … Katie shifted restlessly in her seat … maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he’d just say, “Well fine then, Miss Kathleen Hanrahan, you just go right ahead and cozy up to your John Donnelly. I’ve me own friends now, and Belle Tyree is a fine-lookin’ woman with a pleasin’ attitude and no bad temper to speak of, and that’s the truth of it.”
    Tears sprang to Katie’s eyes. If Paddy ever said that, her heart would crack right down the middle like the great ship Titanic . If he ever said that, she wouldn’t be so glad that she had survived the terrible disaster. Not so glad at all.
    “Why, Katie-girl,” her aunt Lottie said, leaning forward to touch Katie’s arms, “you’ve tears in your eyes. Are you not happy about singin’ in public, then?”
    “ ‘Course I am. I’m just … a bit nervy, that’s all. Stage fright, like Flo said. It’ll pass. I’ve sung in public before, Aunt Lottie, back home.” Where everyone knew me, and everyone was kind, Katie thought but didn’t say. “I’ll be right as rain by Sunday, that’s certain.”
    But in her heart, Katie knew she would only be right as rain if Paddy was there to cheer her on.
    Elizabeth didn’t see Max for a few days. When he telephoned, he said he was busy painting. But Saturday afternoon, shortly after lunch, he rang the doorbell at the mansion on Murray Hill. When Elizabeth, still in tennis whites from a match with her mother on their backyard court, answered the doorbell instead of Esther, the housemaid, Max’s eyebrows went up. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You’ve let all the servants go. From now on, you and your mother are going to do the housekeeping.”
    Elizabeth laughed. “Can you see my mother wielding a dusting cloth?”
    “No more than I can see you buying lettuce at a produce stand.”
    Elizabeth bristled, but she let him in. “I know how to buy lettuce. You … you thump it to make sure it’s fresh.”
    It was Max’s turn to laugh. “That’s melon, Elizabeth, not lettuce.”
    With a careless shrug, Elizabeth led him into the sun room and flung herself down on a white wicker settee plump with green flowered cushions. April sunshine spilled in through the window and across the gleaming hardwood floor, warming her. This was her favorite room, because it was seldom as cold as the larger rooms. And because her father’s desk was still in here, just as he’d left it. She felt closer to him in this room.
    She smiled at Max. “If you think I’m so spoiled and stupid, what are you doing here?”
    He sat down beside her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I do not think you’re stupid. Far from it. And I’m here because I think,” he said calmly, “that you’re bright and clever and interesting, and you have a warm heart. I like a warm heart. Especially when that warm heart likes me back.” Smiling, he peered into her face with eyes so deep a blue they reminded Elizabeth of the ocean. That unsettled her, and she pulled away. She didn’t want to be reminded of the