“Wait,” Elizabeth said. “I am.”
“Are what, honey?”
“Looking for a job.”
He smiled and looked her over again. He walked toward her and sized her up quickly. “You’re pretty enough. Ever wait tables?”
She hesitated and decided to lie. “Sure.”
Charlie saw right through her. “I ain’t got time for nobody green.”
“I’m a quick learner,” she said. This was their first job offer, and she wasn’t going to let it slip by. “If you give me a chance, you won’t be sorry.”
Charlie cocked his head to the side. “Turn around.”
Elizabeth knew she should have felt uneasy, but there was something gentle in his eyes. Some people just feel right, and Charlie was one of them. His face was big and round, with jowls like a hound dog that shook when he laughed. He seemed the sort of man you could lean on, good broad shoulders to cry on and big, brawny arms to hold you up. His shirt was wrinkled and she could see crude patch jobs at the cuffs. A bachelor if ever there was one. She trusted him instinctively and turned around as he asked.
“What’s a doll like you doin’ hanging around here?”
“I’m waiting for my…husband.”
Charlie’s face fell with disappointment and he looked like he regretted what he had to say next and Elizabeth had a feeling she would, too.
“Married, huh?” Charlie said with a shake of his head. “Well, best of luck to ya.”
He moved to walk away, but Elizabeth grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
“Husbands. Don’t go over so good. I got enough problems,” he said and gently lifted her hand from his arm.
“It is just waiting tables, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I run a clean joint,” he said obviously affronted. “No funny stuff in my place.” He looked her up and down again. “I don’t know.”
She wasn’t out of the running yet and hope bloomed, so she tried again.
“I really need a job. We’re new here, and we’re kind of running out of money. And don’t worry about my husband. He’s very forward thinking.”
“I don’t know.”
“Please?” She put on her best pout. Charlie frowned, but she could see she’d gotten to him.
“I always did have a soft spot for dames in trouble. All right,” he groused. “We’ll give ya a try.”
Elizabeth was so excited she stepped forward and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you!”
“And your husband. You sure he won’t mind?” Charlie asked.
“Positive.”
Charlie looked over her shoulder and his expression darkened. “Cause he looks like he minds.”
Elizabeth didn’t understand until she stepped back and followed his gaze. Simon stood behind her and looked like a brewing storm.
Chapter Eight
SIMON GLARED AT CHARLIE with a look that had made the first year students tremble. “Who are you?”
“Simon, darling,” Elizabeth said sweetly, as she took his arm. The muscles under her fingers were corded. When Simon wanted to, he positively oozed danger. “I’ve got a job.”
Simon narrowed his eyes at Charlie. “Doing what exactly?”
Charlie shrugged and looked at Elizabeth. “I told ya, doll. Husbands.”
“No, no. He’s just excited. Aren’t you, Simon?”
Simon set his jaw, his piercing gaze never wavering from Charlie. “You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Waitress. At Charlie’s place. Isn’t that good news?”
“You own a restaurant?” Simon asked, skepticism dripping from every syllable.
Charlie crossed his arms over his big chest proudly. “A club. We serve a lot of tea, if ya get my meaning?”
Simon’s lip curled in distaste. “A bar.”
It was Charlie’s turn to be suspicious. “You ain’t a G-man are ya?”
Elizabeth laughed. The idea of Simon as Elliot Ness, pulling down the brim of his hat and shouldering his gat was…not so funny really, and pretty darn sexy. Regardless, Simon clearly failed to see the humor in the situation. His arm tensed under her hand.
“Don’t worry. Nothing like that,” she said.
Charlie eyed Simon apprehensively, then softened. “A limey Fed. That’d be a first.”
Simon bristled at the word limey and seemed ready to make a scene. Things were going from bad to worse in a hurry. Elizabeth hoped she could keep Simon from ruining their one chance at some money. She needed to move quickly. “When can I start?”
Simon glowered down at her. “I think we need to discuss this first.”
Charlie looked from one to the other, the wheels turning in his head. He let out a deep breath. “Tell ya what. You come by tonight at six, and the job’s yours. I don’t see ya, I find somebody else. Jake?”
“I’ll be there,” she said.
“Help if I knew your name, doll.”
“Elizabeth. Elizabeth We—Cross,” she said and held out her hand.
Charlie chuckled and shook her hand. “You got moxie, kid. I like that.”
Simon mumbled something under his breath and Charlie released her. “Hope ya got enough,” he said, casting a quick glance at Simon. “Well, I gotta see a man about a dog.”
He pointed to a heavy metal door. “Knock twice and tell em Charlie said you was okay.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said. He gave her a quick grin and headed off down the street. She hated to see him go. He was the first person who’d actually given them a chance, and Simon had to go and be a big pill.
She let go of Simon’s arm and stepped back. “What was that all about?”
“I’d prefer to have this discussion in private.”
“Fine,” she said and started toward their apartment. If Simon said anything in return, she didn’t hear it. By the time they’d reached their room, they’d both worked themselves into a lather.
“So talk,” Elizabeth said, slamming the door behind them.
Simon stalked over to the window. “I don’t approve.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not asking for it then, isn’t it?”
Who did he think he was? And what the hell was wrong with him? They’d spent three days looking for jobs and when one fell in their laps he decided to have issues?
“Elizabeth—”
“I can’t believe you have a problem with this.”
He folded his arms smugly over his chest. “Need I remind you that working in a speakeasy is illegal?”
“Prohibition was idiotic.” She knew he had Puritanical tendencies, but this was too rich. “Let’s make booze illegal so the underworld can thrive. What a good idea.”
Simon took off his coat and tossed it onto a chair. “The law is still the law.”
“And I suppose you’ve never broken the law.”
“I understand that having a gambler for a father might have skewed your—”
Elizabeth’s mouth fell open in disbelief. “You did not just say that.”
To his benefit, Simon did look a little less certain of himself for a moment, but he recovered quickly and before she knew it His Highness was back.
“Miss West,” Simon said, clearly trying to control his temper. “We are not so desperate that we need to resort to something of this sort.”
“Maybe having two dollars to your name isn’t real to you. But it’s real to me. And if taking a job waiting tables means we can pay the rent then I’m grateful for it.”
She narrowed her eyes and continued, “If I didn’t know any better I’d say some Paleolithic gene kicked in and you were angry that a woman got a job before you did.”
Simon clenched his jaw and turned to look out the window. “Don’t be absurd. You’ve known this Charlie person for ten minutes, for God’s sake. Who knows what sort of man he is.”
She knew exactly what sort of man he was. With some people, you could just tell. And with others, she thought, as she stared at Simon’s back and felt like she was looking at a
stranger, you never knew them. Suddenly, the argument seemed more pointless than ever.
“So…don’t trust anyone? Not even you?”
Simon turned around, but didn’t offer any argument. His face was hard and unreadable. Any closeness they’d achieved in the last few days evaporated.
“Maybe you can live that way,” she said. “Keep everyone at arm’s length, but I can’t do it. I can’t afford to do it.”
“You can’t afford not to,” he said fiercely, covering the distance between them with two quick strides. “Our position is difficult enough. You have no idea what that man’s motives are, what sort of situations you might find yourself in.”
“Yeah, like getting a paycheck,” she said and then shook her head. “Since we got here, I’ve been leered at, called a whore and generally treated like crap. Charlie’s the first person who’s given me a break and I’m gonna take it.”
“It’s a mistake.”
“It’s mine to make.”
He glared at her, but she wasn’t about to be cowed by him now.
“I’m going out,” he said.
“Fine.”
“Fine.” He slammed the door and stormed down the hall.
Elizabeth slumped down onto the bed. “That went well.”
~~~
The street was crowded with people. For most, the workday was ending. Vendors packed up their wares and trundled their carts off for the night. Shopkeepers pulled metal grates closed with a resounding clang. The entire city was in transition. The long work week was giving way to a hard fought weekend.
The world had certainly changed in the wake of the First World War. At least, Simon had vague memories of his grandfather telling him as much. The twenties began with a pause. Never had there been such loss, such senseless destruction. It left the world stunned and somber. But as with all great times of darkness, once the veil lifted, the sun shone brighter than before. Nothing makes life sweeter than a reminder of its tenuous nature.
Cars were now a luxury most Americans could afford. The city and the country, once worlds apart, grew closer. Buildings sprouted out of the landscape. Higher and higher they reached, echoing the newfound desires of the people. Bigger was better, and nowhere was it truer than in New York City. Movie palaces, grand ballrooms, and high-rises stood testament to the new age. The Jazz Age.
Jazz embodied the time. From its primal, blues riffs to the complex melodies of Gershwin, it all cried out to the soul of the New Yorker. You’ve worked hard, now it’s time to play hard. And play they did.
Not since the rise of the Roman Empire was a society so hell bent on excess. Women painted their faces and bobbed their hair. As buildings went higher, so did women’s hemlines. Men built spectacles of human achievement: the Chrysler building, Holland Tunnel and the beginning of the Empire State building. So quintessentially American.
Lubricating the party was a never-ending supply of booze: bathtub gin, Havana rum and whiskey with a kick. Women who would never have been seen drinking in public now frequented the dark speakeasies that dotted the landscape. There were more than five thousand to choose from in Manhattan alone. Everything from the upscale Conga Room to the hole in the wall, like Charlie’s Blues in the Night.
“A speakeasy, of all places,” Simon mumbled to himself. He made his way down the sidewalk shouldering against the tide of humanity. Why was it he always seemed to be going against the traffic?
What in God’s name could she be thinking? Hadn’t she gleaned anything from that scene in the alley?
“Damn woman.”
She was clearly without a grain of sense in her head.
The wailing of car horns and early evening chatter were no more than an annoying buzz in his ear. His thoughts were filled completely with Elizabeth West and her damnable talent for making him feel completely undone. His temper had always been quick to light, but he’d been its master. Bloody hell.
Why was she so damn obstinate? He was merely looking out for her welfare, which she seemed more than content to completely ignore. Rushing off down that alley the other night had been idiotic. She must have been dropped on her head as a child.
And then to accuse him of trying to keep her from working because of some male pride on his part. The idea was laughable. Absurd. It was mere happenstance she’d found employment first. It wasn’t a reflection of his lack of skill. It didn’t mean that he was incapable of providing for her.
“Bugger.”
He wasn’t entirely without skills. Surely he could secure some employment and they could afford to find her more suitable work. His search would have to wait until tomorrow; the sun had all but disappeared from the horizon.
He’d never given a moment’s thought to caring for someone else. And now, suddenly it seemed to be the only constant in his world. He’d happily lived his life barely registering the other people in it. How did this damn woman find her way inside him? And for her to see him so clearly, so easily. She must be some emotional savant.
He’d wanted other women, had been with other women, but not one of them had gotten under his skin the way she had. Even her friendship, if he could call it that, ran deeper than the trysts at Oxford or the stunted relationships he’d bungled in the years after. Intimacy was simply not part of his makeup. It required skills he’d never cultivated and he felt no inclination to do so. Until now. But it was too late for that. He was comfortable with the life he’d built.
He spent years refining the layers that buffered him from the outside world. His work had always been enough. The search for answers. Facts could be categorized, put in their proper place. Text books were conveniently black and white, but now the world was a swirling mass of murky grays. Feelings he couldn’t grasp, much less control, were getting the better of him day by day.
And now, the one thing he’d been able to cling to, the one thing that centered him, was gone. If there were no way to get home, he felt for the watch in his pocket, he’d be trapped here without his work. He supposed he could start a research project here, check some texts that were lost to the future. But it would do little good. Elizabeth had become an inexorable part of that too, he realized. There wasn’t a facet of his life she hadn’t slipped inside of, even his past—the one thing that separates each person from the other. His grandfather’s death, his nightmares, were now all inescapably linked with her.
A fresh wave of guilt and dread washed over him. If ever there was proof that he should have kept her away from him, this was it. If he’d never given in to her curiosity, never allowed her into his life, she’d be safe right now. Instead, she was trapped here with him, and about to walk headfirst into God knows what.
It was impossible. She was impossible. The way her eyes sparked with fire when she argued with him. The way her cheeks flushed. The way her pulse pounded out her fury. He wanted to strangle her with one hand and caress her with the other.
Why did the simple act of watching her sleep make him feel more content than he could remember? Why did he care so much what she was thinking? What she was feeling?
Why did he want her so very much?
He stopped walking, and the crowd surged past him. He stood like a rock in a stream of humanity. Their current pushed against him, silently urging him to join the human race. Shapeless faces passed him by, dimly lit by the night stars and glow of the street lamps. Each a life, each on their way to something, to someone.
He let out a long breath, stepped into the current and started home.
~~~
Father Cavanaugh wiped the sweat from his forehead and hastily shoved the handkerchief under his robes. Those boys would be the death of him. Extra innings for goodness sake!
He pulled open the heavy wooden doors to the church and took a deep, calming breath. Old St. Patrick’s wasn’t what it once was since the diocese had been moved to the larger cathedral uptown, but he wouldn’t have traded his parish for the world. The air inside the church was cool, even in the midst of summer. The smell of candle wax and i
ncense filtered from the side altar. Breathing in the soothing mixture, he smoothed down his robes and brushed a bit of dirt away.
It was time.
He walked over to the confessional booth and pulled back the plush, velvet curtain. This wasn’t the regularly scheduled confessional session. It wasn’t even, in the strictest sense, a confession. Sins were spoken of, not in coarse whispers of repentance, but in cold detachment. A soul dangled, suspended between good and evil. A man nourished by the dark side and seemingly abandoned by the light.
Father Cavanaugh settled himself on the small bench and pulled the curtain closed. He lit the small candle that served as light in the booth. The wick struggled to come to life.
“You’re late,” came a voice through the thin mesh window.
The vague smell of stale cigarette smoke infused in the man’s clothing drifted through the partition.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” the father said, trying not to be unnerved by the subtle venom that laced every word the man spoke. “As always, your confession is sacred, kept in the strictest confidence, with only God as—”
“Please save your prattling for someone upon whom it won’t be lost,” the man said. “You should know me well enough by now that I wouldn’t talk to you if I didn’t trust your…discretion.”
Father Cavanaugh laced his hands in his lap, deciding to plunge headfirst into the matter at hand. “Would you like to talk about what happened the other night?”
“My business matters are irrelevant to our conversations.”
“It’s not a line so easily drawn, my son. Such violence. A sin committed—”
“He got what he deserved,” the man said in a smooth voice. “Make a deal with the devil and you pay the price. Right Father?”
Father Cavanaugh could hear the sneer in the man’s voice. “Is that how you see yourself? As the devil?”
A long silence followed, and Father Cavanaugh wondered if he’d overstepped. It was a delicate dance, his relationship with this man, and one he couldn’t afford to ruin. The cost would be both of their souls.
“You tell me,” came the hushed response.
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