Chapter Text
Margaret Houlihan is used to the feeling that she fits in everywhere while belonging nowhere. She’s proud of it, actually; of how she has chosen to take her experience of being the new girl in town a hundred times over and turn it into a confidence that never fails her as she walks through a new door into a room full of strangers.
Does she sometimes wish her life had been different, that she’d grown up in one house, in one town, attending the same school from first grade until graduation? Sure. But how many of those one-house-one-town kids got to live in Germany when they were eight, Italy when they were ten? How many of those one-school girls had their first kiss in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, with a boy whose face is etched into her memory, even if they could barely speak five words of each other’s language?
Margaret is thinking about that boy as she leans against an ancient oak tree and listens to the musicians tuning up in the shade of the pergola on the other side of the lawn, eyes roving over the red-white-and-blue bunting that’s draped everywhere, over the flocks of people dressed in their holiday best looking like actors in a stage play, hitting their marks and speaking their lines with impeccable timing. And then she’s thinking about all the interchangeable little prefab houses she and her family called home over the years, about all the Fourth of July parties she’d attended on parade grounds or in transient officer’s clubs, dancing with her father when she was a child, and with the sons of her father’s friends when she got a little older, imagining a life with each boy who took her into his arms, each step of that life as rote and as predestined as the steps they took across the dance floor.
“Isn’t that right, Miss Houlihan?”
Margaret startles as though waking from a dream. Luckily, the young doctor seems to take her look of wide-eyed confusion for perfect agreement, and he smiles at her before he turns back to his friends, though he doesn’t drop his hand from where it’s braced against the tree trunk beside her shoulder, boxing her in. “We were talking earlier about what a great house this is. Yes, sir,” he says with an overdramatic sigh, looking around the expansive back yard, “now that I’m in the market for a house of my own, I tell ya, I’d like to find one just like this. Just the spot for a doctor and his young family, don’t you think, Margaret?”
It is a beautiful house. With its deep back porch and high arched windows on the second floor, with its perfectly maintained lawn and elegant garden, and especially tonight with everything decked out for the holiday, it looks like the centerfold spread from a home and garden magazine. It’s everything Margaret wants in a home – or, she thinks, edging towards an uncomfortable idea, perhaps it’s everything she wants to want. When she’d gone inside earlier she’d gotten lost just looking for the washroom. Then she’d gotten irritated, looking at a whole cabinet full of useless curios and knickknacks, imagining how long it would take to dust them all. Coming back outside to rejoin the holiday tableau she’d felt abruptly cold despite the heat, and distinctly unwelcome. A bizarre feeling to have on the heels of the realization that there are at least three other girls at this party dressed exactly the same as she is, blue and white patterned sundresses with red ribbons in their hair. It had almost been a relief, five minutes later, when the handsome but boring young doctor had cornered her again and started talking in lofty but poorly-constructed metaphors about how lonely it is to be in the market for a home with no wife to put in it.
Over his shoulder, Margaret glimpses a figure who doesn’t so much stand out as she does shift the focus of the scene around her until center stage is wherever she happens to be. She is moving towards them now through the twilight, flickering like a flame in the wind, the bodice of her sleeveless dress fitting like a second skin while the skirt swirls free around her long legs and Margaret forces herself to unclench her hands from her own skirt, smoothing it down with unsteady hands, feeling like a prisoner in her own over-starched dress.
“Margaret, there you are,” Helen says, moving with such confidence that the little group shifts and makes room for her as though they are only the extras, as though Helen Whitfield is the star of this scene, and the script calls for her to have space to stop in front of Margaret, to smile at her and hand her one of the two drinks she’d carried over. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
The crystal of her champagne flute chimes against Margaret’s and she doesn’t look away as she takes a sip, holding Margaret’s gaze until the young doctor, who is still looming over Margaret, clears his throat ostentatiously and Helen turns to him and, without waiting for a proper introduction, offers her hand and her name, drawing stares and some quiet laughter from his friends.
“Anyway, Margaret, there’s someone here who is dying to meet you and I promised an introduction. Come along.” And, looping her arm through Margaret’s, they’re off.
“That was rude,” Margaret whispers to her, but doesn’t pull away. With her arm tucked against Helen’s side the whisper of her silk dress against Margaret’s skin is tantalizing.
Helen snorts inelegantly. “Someone had to do it and it didn’t look like you were going to, kiddo.”
“Do what?”
“Get you away from that fella. Oh, don’t lie to me, you were bored to tears and he was about ready to propose. You know there’s no law that says you have to give the time of day to a man whose company you don’t enjoy.”
“I only just met him,” Margaret protests. “How was I supposed to know if I enjoy his company or not?”
“What more do you need to know, what his salary will be once he’s out of residency?”
Margaret looks at her, and just like that they’re grinning at each other. “You must have observed, Whitfield,” Margaret adopts the imperious voice of their least-favorite instructor, an impression she’s perfected in part because of the way it always makes Helen laugh, “that a man’s bank account has a direct and positive correlation with his attractiveness.”
Helen laughs, loud and uninhibited and she draws Margaret along with her, stiff dress and uncomfortable shoes forgotten along with that strange feeling from before of only playing the part of a person who belonged here at this party.
They find a quiet corner of the garden and sip their drinks, Helen making her laugh again as she confesses that she didn’t actually have someone waiting in the wings who was dying to talk to Margaret – “Just me,” she adds, eyes glittering over the lip of her glass.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Margaret says, waving a hand. “I’m not supposed to marry anyone lower than a lieutenant colonel anyway.”
“Not a lot of brass here at this civilian party,” Helen says, voice as breezy as Margaret’s as she turns to look out over the crowd and Margaret’s gaze gets stuck on her, on the way her sleeveless dress leaves her shapely arms and shoulders bare, the way that expanse of tanned skin is still glowing though the sun is almost down, set off by the rich hue of her dress.
“What if…” Margaret says when Helen meets her eyes again, her words sounding almost secretive beneath the swell of the music as the band strikes up their first number, “…we just left?”
They giggle like schoolkids playing hooky as they sneak through the side yard and out to the street, Helen taking her hand and pulling her into a run until they’re at the end of the block and both clutching their sides against stitches and laughter and they stand there for a minute, leaning on each other, looking over their shoulders almost like they’re hoping that they were spotted, that they really are running from something greater than a boring evening of civility at the home of the most prominent doctor in the city. Margaret thinks about Lorraine Anderson, suddenly, and about how she hasn’t felt this kind of uncomplicated joy from simply being in another person’s presence in so very long.
“Okay, Houlihan, lead the way,” Helen says when she has her breath back, and arm in arm they begin to make their way out of the shade of the mansions that line this boulevard and back to the more familiar narrow and bustling streets of downtown.