chair across the length of beach. Her white bloomers and undershirt were stuck to her skin with sweat.
This shedding of old clothes had been a mad impulse, but now that she saw them lying at her feet, she could not imagine how she would ever get them back on. For modesty’s sake, for fear she would lose them, she had never fully removed her clothes since her arrival on the island. Mostly she had washed them when she washed the rest of her. The corset had been on so long it had left indentations in her skin. Without them she felt nervous and naked, but it seemed like a lot of work to dress herself again, and there was other work she knew she must do. She shooed away the thought, took a breath, and was surprised by how much air her lungs could take in when they were not constricted.
“Well,” said Dame Edna, returning from the waterfall, a new makeshift sunshade in place, the green of her skirt swaying. “You’ve given up.”
Vida blushed. “I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“I thought we were doomed. But seeing you like that makes me a little hopeful. Maybe we will be all right. For one more day, anyway,” the older woman remarked. “But prepare yourself for judgment.”
Vida followed Dame Edna back toward the beach, where her words proved prophetic. First Camilla, and then the Misses Van Huysen, glanced at Vida, now wearing nothing but her undershirt and bloomers, and glanced away. Mrs. Brinkley stared, and so did Flora Flynn, and even Eleanor looked incredulous. Though their faces had expressed nothing but the purest fear since yesterday afternoon, now they managed to widen their eyes and part their lips in that subtle expression of horror usually reserved for some fashion faux pas of a particularly egregious nouveau riche.
Only once or twice in her social career had Vida made a mistake that warranted such censure-by-arched-brow, and she had forgotten how it scalded. She was surprised to find that even here, where no logic could possibly justify their opprobrium, it was uncomfortable to be held under the light of a gaze like that.
Well, yes—her first impulse was to run away and find a high cliff to dive off.
But she couldn’t do that. She was in the middle of a task, and would have to see it through before she indulged in any drastic measures. The task came first. Once strung up, her skirt and petticoat together made almost a small room’s worth of shade, and Vida summoned Eleanor, and told her to rest under it, before she lost her chance and was elbowed out by the kind of people who had never risen from a dinner table with their own dirty dish.
“There,” Vida said with satisfaction. “Don’t forget to drink water. And see the children have some rest in the shade when they next come back from the waterfall.”
“Look at that,” said a high, genteel voice that almost disguised its mean edge as Vida turned away. “She’s a libertine again.”
Vida flushed with anger and embarrassment. Without glancing back to identify the speaker, she went to Sal, who was leaning against a palm trunk.
“You did good work,” he said, when she reached him. “You’ve reassured everybody.”
“What does it matter?” She wasn’t sure who she was angry at anymore, but the anger was still hot in her throat, and he was the closest person to her. “Just say it, you think I’m awful, and that this is all my fault.”
Sal let out a great laugh, sank down into the sand, flung back his arms like a child about to make a snow angel. His laughter was like the swoon of a string quartet in the afternoon.
“What?” she demanded. “What?”
“Miss Vida Hazzard, I can see you think everyone should be impressed by you. But I think you are ridiculous. You keep taking credit for events far beyond your control. How could this be any one person’s fault?”
“Oh. Well.” Now Vida found herself in the curious position of not wanting to let go of her anger. In vulnerable times, anger could be a kind of fortress. And yet she couldn’t get a grip on that anger, and it was gone before she could help it, and then she was laughing, too. “You think I’m ridiculous?”
“A little. But you’ve taken off clothing that could only serve you in a fancy ballroom, so I must admit that you are slightly less ridiculous now.”
“I hope I have not become too serious,” she said. Then