“Is there something here that was owned by either of those families?” I ask, trying again to get closer, to figure out what the hell we’re looking for.
He narrows his eyes. “You don’t look stupid, young man.”
I step back. “Excuse me?”
He flubs his lips, shaking his head. “But you’re acting stupid. Of course this stuff was owned by the families.” He parks a hand on my shoulder, manages to point me toward the shop sign. “Car-i-bal-di’s Cur-i-o-si-ties.” He says it slowly, as if he’s spelling the words. “Read it. See? That’s me. That’s my family. That’s what I sell. Stuff my family and the Valentinas have amassed over the years. The long years.” He turns around, muttering as he heads toward a door at the back of the shop. “Young people. They don’t know what’s in front of them.”
I turn to Presley, shooting her a look that says Please help because I’m tumbling backward off a cliff here, ’kay, thanks.
She lifts her chin. “Sir, we’re researching the families, and we’d very much like to know if you have . . .”
He wraps his hand around the doorknob and waves, dismissing us without looking back. “I have a call to make. When you’re ready to buy, you let me know. I don’t have time for nonsense in my life. You ought to avoid nonsense too.”
The door snicks shut, and I turn to Presley, holding out my hands. “What the hell? I am not stupid.”
“Don’t let him get to you.”
“But what was the point of that?” I shove a hand through my hair, frustrated with the man and his seesaw attitude.
“He was trying to rile you up, and it worked.”
“But could he be any vaguer?” I ask as she peers at the shelves, studying the brushes. “Where are we even supposed to look? The letter doesn’t say what to do once we’re in here. The other letter did though. It said inside a home, up the stairs, and behind a place near and dear to your father. It was very specific. This one is basically tra la la la la.”
“Or maybe it’s not,” she offers with a delighted smile, the kind that spreads like the sunrise across her features as she looks up, meeting my gaze.
“What do you mean?”
With a glint in her eyes, she points subtly to the nearest shelves. “Maybe it’s as plainly spelled out as the other one. Maybe it’s right in front of us.” She taps the shelf.
“Spill, woman. And spill the beans now, because you’re killing me.”
She purses her lips, studying the row of hairbrushes, picking up the first one, then the next, then another. Like they’re a fan of brushes, she brandishes them in front of her chest. “Which one is the best one?”
“I have no idea,” I say, scratching my chin. “It’s a brush. I don’t even use a comb.” I waggle my fingers, showing her my homemade grooming tool.
Softly but with determination, she presses. “Look closer, Hunter. You want to find the best one.”
I peer, grinning when the weight of her words hits me. “Best one. Are you kidding me?”
“He kind of gave us the clue, didn’t he? The clue from the letter.” She’s Ponce de León, discovering the Fountain of Youth.
“What was it he said?” I snap my fingers, recalling the man’s words from moments ago as my brain buzzes with excitement. “‘We have all the best ones.’ Just like the letter. You know where all the best ones are in a particular district.”
“Exactly,” she says, laughing and grabbing my arm. “Exactly, Hunter. He gave us the clue. He’s read the letter from the Exploration Society.”
Her hand on my arm. Her eyes sparkling. Her nearness. I have no choice. I clasp her face in my palms and kiss her. She gasps, and then rises up on tiptoes, kissing me back with a tender fierceness that unravels me, that takes me apart. Hell, she takes me apart, with her lips and her breath and her teeth that nip at the corner of my mouth.
Her hand slides up my chest, then presses firmly on my sternum, gently pushing me away.
“Does this sort of treasure-hunting turn you on?” she whispers.
My eyes drift down, then back up to take her in. “Evidently, this whole skull and bug-in-amber shop does it for me. Who knew?” I ask wryly, then my eyes dart back and forth, scanning the brushes. “Which one do we pick?”
“I don’t think it matters. I doubt the skulls will shoot poisoned darts at us if we pick the wrong one. But I bet it’s one of these.” She runs her fingers across several brushes.
I catch sight of something familiar on one of the hairbrushes. At the end of a scalloped handle is a pink ribbon, enameled on the design.
I raise my hand and say, deadpan, “Or really, that’s the best one.”
Her jaw drops. “Oh my God. I didn’t even notice that.”
I close the distance, brush my fingertips against her cheek, then whisper, “Well, some things are hidden in plain sight. Like how I feel for you.”
“Hunter,” she whispers.
“You’re right. It’s not hidden. It’s pretty damn obvious.”
“Is it?”
“It better be,” I say, my eyes locked with hers. “Because last night was spectacular.” I’m emboldened by the hunt, driven by the need to share. “I want to tell you that now. I want to tell you before we find whatever comes next.” I run my thumb along her jaw. “Being with you again is like coming home.”
Her eyes flutter closed. “What are you doing to me?”
I skim my lips across her forehead. “Same thing you’re doing to me.”
She shivers, then opens her eyes, running her fingers across the back of the hairbrush. “Oh.”
It sounds like Eureka!
She finds a latch and flicks it open.
Inside are pages upon pages, folded over, and my excitement gleams like a ruby.
26
October 1921
* * *
My Dearest Greta,
* * *
Today was my last day of school! Who knew that a scrappy street rat such as myself could finish his education after all? But I did, and I have the diploma to prove it. This once penniless knife-thrower is now a college graduate with a degree in banking.
* * *
Actually, there are no degrees in banking, of course. But my degree in math should come in handy, and the dean said he was impressed with how quickly I finished all my courses. He said, “I’ve never seen someone finish three years of college in thirteen months.” Don’t underestimate the power of motivation or the love of a good woman.
* * *
You, my love, you are my motivation. You are my dream. I may not be under the big top anymore, but I have something better. Something that can take us away from it all, something to give us a future.
* * *
Wish me luck as I embark on a job search to be—I still can’t even believe I’m writing this—a banker.
* * *
It sounds like someone else’s life. Someone else’s story.
* * *
But enough about me.
* * *
Tell me everything. How are you managing? Jack has asked Tommy to look out for you, and I know he’s been doing so. It’s so good to have a Strong Man on our side. But even so, I worry about you every second of every day, working for that unsavory man.
* * *
Soon, soon, I will save you from it all, from Baron Z, and we will take care of your family and your sister.
* * *
I love you so very much, and more every day.
* * *
Yours,
Edward Wilkinson
(Formerly known as The Silver Blade . . . hoping someday soon to be reunited with the Pink Ribbon Girl. Until then, please know I am always thinking of you.)
October 1921
* * *
My Darling Edward,
* * *
Don’t worry about me. I am doing fine! I played to packed crowds in Boise last night, and now we are on a train heading to California. I’ve always loved California, for it reminds me of you and where we met.
>
* * *
The crowds should be fantastic in San Francisco. They do love a daring act in the City by the Bay!
* * *
But of course, none of it is the same without you. How could it be? You and I had a special connection, a chemistry that the new ringmaster simply cannot replicate. He has not hurt me, not with the knife, nor in any other way. He’s not that kind of owner.
* * *
He does, however, keep our paychecks and doles them out as he sees fit, giving us smaller amounts as he sends the rest home to our families.
* * *
But I do not think Claudia is getting everything, and I still don’t have enough to take care of her on my own yet. He took my bracelet. The one that was my brother’s. He says he is safeguarding it for me. That he will return it once I am able to pay off all of my family’s bills.
* * *
I don’t believe him, and I want it back. Beanie must hold my arms tight behind me some nights when I am tempted to go into his trailer and snatch it away from him. She wrestles me from my own teeth-gnashing desire to kick down his door and take the only thing left that’s my brother’s.
* * *
I huff and sigh and then walk off. Someday I’ll call it mine again.
* * *
Except for Baron’s Crew—that’s how we refer to the little coterie of performers he brought in himself—everyone here is in the same position as I. We all have family who rely on us, only us, and so we must stay.
* * *
Poor Tommy. His mother’s health is worsening, and Tommy needs the money to pay for her doctors. Beanie’s father is struggling after injuring his leg, and he can no longer perform trapeze either.
* * *
But enough about all the troubles.
* * *
There is good news! Claudia has finished her studies, and I’ve managed to send her to nursing school, so that is something. I’m so proud of her—her brain will take her far, as long as I can get her through school. Maybe someday we will find a good man for my sister, someone who will love her and care for her, so she doesn’t feel all the burden. Soon, soon, I will have enough money saved to finish paying off my family’s debts. It will be fine! I swear. I’m a determined woman.
* * *
I try not to let it bother me that I must work with Baron (We call him the Mustard Mustache because one day he had mustard in it, and we chose not to tell him! We were so delighted with our cleverness as he performed with a yellow glob on his prized possession.) I try to pretend he’s not the one throwing knives at my face.
* * *
Yours is the face I’d rather see. Yours is the one I imagine every night, every show, every time.
* * *
And you—I am so proud of you!
* * *
You’ve finished your schooling! How exciting. How thrilling! Speaking of thrills, Beanie teaches me trapeze in the evenings when we have time. I’m learning new skills, and when I fly through the sky, I imagine a future for us, chasing adventures, exploring the world, getting far, far away from all the troubles we face here.
* * *
Soon the troubles must end.
* * *
Until then, I am ever and always yours.
* * *
Yours,
Greta Drumansky
(Someday I will indeed be your Pink Ribbon Girl again. I dream of that day every single night.)
27
Hunter
“The plot thickens,” I say, adding up the clues. “A shady ringmaster who was holding performers hostage.”
“Who kept most of their money.” Presley assembles the pieces too, animated first by indignation, then by a myriad of emotions as this part of the puzzle takes shape. “It’s like a three-ring soap opera. So, the circus where they met, The Most Amazing Big Top under the Sun, was sold to some jerk ringmaster who apparently treated the performers like indentured servants.”
Like she can’t contain herself, she paces among the skulls and bugs as she conjectures. “But he couldn’t keep Edward under his thumb, so he let him go and kept the performers who were strapped and had few options. Greta’s parents had died, and she had to take care of her sister financially. Tommy and Beanie seemed to be in similar situations.” Her shoulders curl in with such an evocative shudder, I can almost see her skin crawl. “I hate him already. Plus, that name. Baron Z.” She looks ready to spit on the dark hardwood floors of the curio shop.
I’m with her on that. “It seems self-fulfilling. You can’t have a name like Baron Z and not be a dick.” I gesture to the letters in her hand. “But I want more. I want to know how Edward Wilkinson became Edward Valentina the banker.”
Her voice falls to a whisper. “When did he change his name? Why?” She leans over, glancing around the corner. “Also, is Pat ever coming out again?”
I chuckle. “I have no idea. I think he retreated to his lair.”
“Almost like he wanted us to find the letters. Like he wanted us to have time to read them.”
“Maybe he did.” I’m so jazzed about what’s next, about uncovering this romance for the ages with her, that I’m giddy. There’s a lightness in my chest I only get when I’m closing in on a summit, a much-anticipated destination. My fingers itch to touch the sky; my feet move ceaselessly. I stop for nothing, relentless. “Read. More.”
“You’re like a kid with a bedtime story,” she says softly, as she unfolds the next letter.
“And you like reading them out loud.”
“You like reading out loud too. Might I remind you of your predilections?”
I smile. “They were yours too, honey.”
It occurs to me that we have so much more to discuss. We have us, and last night, and the absolutely insistent way my heart beats for this woman.
But right now, we have this.
A story told on delicate centuries-old paper, written by young lovers torn apart. A love story hidden away in nooks and crannies, tucked into secret compartments, and offered somehow to those seeking it in the same way you chase after a dream.
28
May 1922
* * *
My Dearest Greta,
* * *
It is amazing how much money you can save when you have a good friend like Jack. I’ve been staying at his place in New York City, tucking away all my salary so I can help your family. I’m quickly rising through the ranks at the Savings & Loan, making wise investments on the side for us, earning good returns, and saving it.
* * *
Jack says he is happy to help me with free rent, and he feels he owes me after what happened when we were younger. But anyone would have done the same. When you see your best friend fall into a frozen lake, you go after him, right? You save him. No matter what.
* * *
He says giving me an extra cot to sleep on is nothing. “It is nothing to repay a life debt.”
* * *
I tell him there is no debt among friends, and he laughs at me. He is laughing at me right now. In fact, he is reading this letter as I write it under the green lamp at his desk overlooking Wall Street.
* * *
Hiya Greta! It’s Jack here. Tell him I do owe a life debt and that is fine by me. I would have been a frozen chunk of boy underwater with the fishes, but now look at me! I’m here, alive and well, and determined to make the best of everything.
* * *
Speaking of the best . . . how is your lovely sister, Claudia? What? I wasn’t supposed to write that? Well, I did. Edward showed me the picture you sent. She’s a pretty one, and she looks smart too. I’d love to meet her someday.
* * *
Hello, my love! I’ve wrestled the pen away from Jack. He’s keeping busy running the finances for the Caribaldi Extravaganza. He says it’s doing quite well, but his parents miss the theater. Perhaps they will sell it someday and return to the stage. Maybe we’ll all do it together! Run theaters—can you imagine? Who knows? All I know is this: I am getting clos
er.
* * *
Every day, I’m closer to coming for you.
* * *
Every night, I think of you. I remember our times together—the shows we performed, the meals we ate, and the late-night conversations where we shared all our hopes and dreams for our families and for us and the adventures we’d have.
PS It's Always Been You Page 18