Twisted River

by Kelsey Gietl

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” said Reuben with a smug grin that sent Stanley’s bottlebrush brows straight into his wide forehead and curly brown hair. He certainly wasn’t a substitute for Reuben’s nearly twelve year friendship with Charles, but in only two months, the twenty-eight-year-old features writer had become his fast friend.

  “You know,” Stanley said. “One of these days those girls are gonna riot for some real affection from you.” He jabbed his pencil in Reuben’s direction. “And all I’ll say is I told you so.”

  “Riot, Lee? Honestly?” Reuben retrieved his notepad from his satchel and skimmed over yesterday’s interview with the family of recently deceased William Wainwright. He tapped his pencil against his lips as he spoke. “Why must you turn everything into an extreme? Keep that up and I’ll have Smithson remove you from the homicide beat.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Stanley smirked, “you mean the front section? Would you even know how to find it, Obituary Boy?”

  Reuben scowled at him. “Your words are like weapons, Lee.”

  “That’s why I write about the violence and you cover the aftermath.”

  It was true that Stanley wrote the best statements of death and destruction Reuben had ever read. He made brutal stabbings sound as poetic as they were gruesome. Not that Reuben had much to go off of from his time at the Fontaine Gazette. Back home, the subject of murder wasn’t so much unfit for print as it simply didn’t happen. When he did almost commit murder five years ago trying to avenge his sister’s stolen virtue, his father—and the Gazette’s chief editor—paid off the rat, ensuring all proof vanished before the newspapers could print so much as a word.

  Life had become muddled without his sister, Mira. Even though hallucinations of her had driven him to the brink of mental destruction, he still missed her. Now he lived in a too cramped house with Charles’s grieving family, Charles’s fiancée, and Maggie, the one woman he wished he could remove from his thoughts. The daily tension between them stunk like ozone before an impending storm, with one ill-timed remark enough to put everyone on edge. Even Emil’s impudent humor wasn’t enough to save it.

  Night was the worst. Alone in his bed, listening to Emil flip over in the bed opposite his, Reuben had too much time to think. He missed Maggie—if pressed, he would admit to a fair amount. Their night together on the steamship Höllenfeuer replayed constantly in his mind, wondering what he could have done differently, wishing he could take it back. Eventually he sank into sleep, and dreams would take over. Wonderful, often times sensual, they left him furious when he woke in bed alone and irritable all the way through breakfast.

  “Reuben!” Stanley hissed. Reuben jerked, his chin sliding out from the hand he had propped it up in.

  Eric Smithson stood by his office door, arms folded and veins pulsing in his temple. “Radford, are you deaf? Do I look like your secretary? Notes!”

  Reuben shook his head, hastily grabbed his notes, and searched frantically for a pencil. “No, sorry, sir, I have them. I’m getting it together.” His hands flew over the desktop and came up empty.

  Stanley threw his pencil onto Reuben’s desktop and picked up another from his own. “Get it together faster.”

  “Mr. Radford?” Reuben spun in his chair at Miss Vine’s voice. She stood in the newsroom doorway, cheeks flushed.

  “Shucks boy, you’re pretty popular for being my lowest writer.” Smithson’s scowl shot in the young girl’s direction. “What is it?”

  Miss Vine paled. She held up a folded notepaper. “Miss Newton sent this up. Mr. Radford has a visitor.”

  Smithson turned his sights back on Reuben, stomping down the row to glower over him. “No breaks until one, Radford. Unless you have a corpse to write about. You know the rules.”

  “This isn’t the London Medical Journal, Mr. Smithson. I write about people, not corpses.”

  “Don’t give me your fancy pants British lip, Radford.” Smithson’s glare deepened, a purple sheen flaring his skin.

  “Yes, sir, I know the rules.”

  Smithson jabbed a finger at the folder sitting on Reuben’s desk. “That from Frye?”

  “Yes, sir. Photographs from Independence Day.” He offered the folder and Smithson swiped it.

  He pointed it at Reuben. “I want to see an obit on my desk in an hour, Radford, or you’ll be emptying garbage bins with your teeth.”

  “Yes, sir,” Reuben replied, but Smithson had already disappeared into his office and slammed the door.

  ~~~

  One o’clock could not arrive soon enough. Smithson was in right form the remainder of the morning, which was saying something given his already consistent propensity for crankiness. The Mid-Mississippi only published a single daily edition. Reuben could only imagine the height of the editor’s stress if he needed to oversee an evening edition as well.

  Retrieving their lunches, Reuben and Stanley left the newsroom. With renewed energy from their own lunch breaks, the typists sat up straight at their desks, long fingers tapping out the rhythm of tomorrow’s news. Their eyes followed them to where Reuben stopped before Miss Vine. Her fingers stilled, her hazel eyes lifting to his through her lashes.

  “Sir?”

  Reuben smiled, well aware that the other ladies were listening. “I wanted to say thank you for delivering my message. Smithson can be a brute. It was quite brave of you to chance it.”

  Miss Vine’s blush was as pretty as her coppery hair pinned into a loose chignon at the base of her neck. “It wasn’t anything much, Mr. Radford.”

  “Rubbish. It meant a great deal to me.”

  He cast his gaze over the other typists, everyone now leaning in with bated breath. Not one bothered to turn away. In fact, Rosalea threw him a cheeky smirk. Reuben chuckled. “I’ll return in thirty minutes, Miss Vine. If I have another message, would you care to intercept it, please?”

  She nodded and the blush in her cheeks stretched her entire face. Reuben turned on his heel, clutching his lunch in one hand and his satchel triumphantly with the other, pleased that he could be so badly wounded by a woman like Maggie Archer and still manage to draw the attention of another so lovely as Hazel Vine.

  Stanley spun after him, walking backwards as he waved goodbye to the girls. Another resounding round of laughter followed them down the stairwell.

  “Holy smokes, that Hazel’s one fine lass!” Stanley commented, nudging Reuben. “For fits and fiddles, Reuben, when do I get to wrap you around her?”

  “I’m good, Lee. My mind’s still wrapped around someone else right now, and I don’t have the fortitude to take on any more.”

  “So all that flirtin’ and ‘Pleasant afternoon, ladies’,” Stanley drawled. “You bein’ Mr. Casanova. That’s all just for show?”

  “You’ve captured the idea.”

  “Bull,” Stanley coughed into his fist. “Who’s this lass you can’t get over? Is she the bloomin’ actress, Mary Pickford? No, and even if she was ...” Stanley paused, his lips pinched together in consideration, then he jabbed Reuben in the arm hard.

  “Hey!”

  “Even if she was,” Stanley repeated. “There’s still nothing for it! That woman dumped you. Let her go.”

  “Lee ...” Reuben warned.

  “No, you don’t get to make the rules this time. You and your sissy obituary section—”

  “How are obituaries sissy?”

  “—are going to go right back upstairs and ask Miss Vine to dinner.”

  Reuben ducked around Stanley into the Mid-Mississippi’s foyer. “No.”

  Stanley spun around, throwing an arm around Reuben’s shoulders and nearly knocking him to his knees. “Come on, please? I’ll ask Luella. We can double to the picture show. It’s dark in there.” He winked. “Think what a delight that’ll be.”

  With two fingers, Reuben picked up Stanley’s hand and threw him off. It was one thing to smooth-talk the girls at the newspaper and quite another to actually pursue his flirtation outside the Mid-Mississippi�
�s red brick walls. His head was still cloudy from being with Maggie and his heart was wounded from her betrayal. Not all women were so selfish, he knew this, but it had only been three months. He wasn’t ready to open himself up to someone again so soon.

  He was halfway to refusing again, when Stanley’s low whistle slowed him to a halt. “Forget Luella. Who’s this beauty?”

  Dressed head to toe in mourning black, the young woman spoke softly with Miss Newton, her hands clenched around a white canvas bag bearing a red number 322.

  “Tena?”

  She turned at his voice and Stanley grinned like a jackshaw. He clapped Reuben on the shoulder, bending close to whisper in his ear. “Is that your foul little vixen? Because, seriously, why’d you ever let that sweet thing go?”

  “Not exactly,” murmured Reuben. “This one’s with someone else.”

  Stanley stepped away and crossed his arms. “Who? Because I bet you could duel him for her.”

  Reuben eyed Tena. Her eyes were hollow, their usual golden sheen dull and bitter. Where there usually lived a vibrant fire was now nothing except burnt embers. For months they had smoldered, losing heat a bit at a time until now something had finally smothered them. What was in the bag she carried?

  Did he really need to ask?

  No. He already knew. They had been waiting for this since Titanic sank.

  “She’s my best mate’s fiancée. His is the next obituary I have to write.”

  “Oh,” said Stanley.

  Reuben grimaced. “Yeah.”

  ~~~

  Hours later, Tena clutched the canvas bag to her chest outside the Kischs’ home. She stared at the brown door, its little brass knocker, and the latch waiting for her to lift it.

  She didn’t flinch when an arm slid around her waist. After all, she had waited for him to join her. “Ready?” she asked Reuben.

  He leaned down to kiss her temple. “I’ll never be ready.”

  Five minutes later around a fully loaded dining room table, Elsa wept in Karl’s arms, grief wrought anew for the son they lost. Tena wove her trembling fingers through Reuben’s and watched as her heart broke all over again.

  FOUR

  July 8, 1912 –

  Three days later

  Tossing her hat and its pins onto the dressing table, Maggie flopped onto her back across the bed with a groan. Unfastening the row of buttons at her neck, she fanned the material and sighed as cool air hit her damp skin.

  The walk from St. Francis de Sales had been sweltering, especially since Mrs. Kisch insisted that they dress completely medieval for Charles’s funeral. After two hours in full black crepe with a high starched collar and heavy woolen stockings barely able to wrap around her swollen calves, Maggie had suspicions Elsa had intent to kill her. To make matters worse, she lingered too long in the vestibule before mass sneaking bits of bread from her handbag to fight off her ever-present nausea and missed the family’s escort to their pew. As a result, she was forced to walk up the aisle during the opening hymn, a hundred Latin voices pacing her stride. Her face on fire, she slipped into the second pew beside Winnie and didn’t shift her eyes from the priest’s back the entire time.

  Downstairs the Kischs’ doorbell rang, startling Maggie from the memory of her embarrassment. Reaching through the bed’s wrought iron headboard, she lifted the window curtain. Besides the Kischs’ Rambler and their neighbor’s Model T, there weren’t any other new vehicles parked out front, which meant their visitor either walked or caught the streetcar. The front stoop wasn’t visible from her low angle on the bed, but she assumed it was more of the same riffraff that crowded the funeral pews. Probably another Titanic thrill seeker who hadn’t received their fill from the newspapers. There were hundreds of strangers outside the church happy to intrude on the Kischs’ private time of grief. Only Karl’s firm insistence blocked them from trailing back to the house in search of a free meal. Maggie found it all utterly disgraceful.

  She dropped the curtain, craning her neck around as Winnie’s bright blonde hair flew past the open bedroom door yelling, “I’ll get the door!”

  “Winnie!” Elsa shouted back as her youngest child clomped down the stairs. “Ladies do not shout.”

  Karl’s matching German accent followed. “Elsa, meine liebe, you are not exactly being quiet.”

  “Emil,” Winnie whined, “I said I was gonna answer it!”

  “Too slow, little sis, too slow.” Unlike their parents and older brothers, Emil and Winnie spent the majority of their lives in England. As a result, their strong British accents now bared little resemblance to their birth country.

  Tena hurried in, tossed her hat, gloves, and handbag on the bed and without a glance at her sister, turned on her heel to disappear into the hall. Footsteps echoed on the stairs.

  Maggie silently rolled her eyes. She would have to deal with Tena’s silent treatment eventually. After their trip to the Botanical Gardens, it had been only three-word questions and one-word responses, usually with Tena only responding if directly spoken to. It had become no better when Maggie insisted that her days of unabashed intimacy were behind her.

  “I didn’t run off with anyone, if that’s what you’re assuming,” Maggie told her when she had finally made it home.

  “Coming to your senses at last, are you?” Tena had shoved a basket of dirty linens into Maggie’s arms. “Well good, you can use all that unreleased passion on the laundry.”

  Under her black gloves, Maggie’s hands still stung from the lye. So much good the moral high ground had done for her. Perhaps she should have actually slept with twenty men instead of simply telling radical stories about them. It certainly would have been more fun.

  And yet, she no longer believed the stranger in the garden maintained interest of a carnal nature. The intensity of his stare and the way he followed her into the Herbarium—assuming he had followed her, and not ended up there by coincidence—suggested another reason for his observation. Maggie knew so few people in St. Louis. What reason could a stranger have for making her acquaintance if his intentions were pure? Perhaps she reminded him of someone, and upon discovering she was not his intended, he fled. Yes, that explanation made the most sense. Better than dwelling over something sinister.

  Hefting herself onto her elbows, she pushed to standing and buttoned her collar, the heat already closing in again. She fought off the usual dizziness and made her way downstairs, surprised to find a pair of photographers setting up in the living room. Unkempt crimson hair, the brightest shade she had ever seen, drew her eye to the man at the room’s center. Certainly not taller than an inch above her five-foot-three, he hefted a sizable black camera from an even larger case and attached it to a three-legged wooden stand. As he adjusted it, the frayed hem of his charcoal trousers hitched upward, revealing mismatched socks in scuffed boots with a patched tear along the toe line.

  He swiveled the camera to face the living room sofa, twisting knobs on either side of the device presumably to lock it in place. An utterly demure woman helped him at the task, her muted brown hair peppered with silver strands and shackled to her scalp in a rigid bun. With her attention focused on the task at hand, neither of them noticed Maggie watching.

  “What’s this?” Maggie asked. The man turned at her question, ran all ten fingers through his hair in a failed attempt to tame it, and approached with hand outstretched. Although his feet shuffled nervously, the crooked smile behind his crimson goatee was as pleasant as the emerald eyes above it, like two bright frogs in a pond.

  “Hello, ma’am. I’m Hugo Frye.” He delivered a surprisingly disengaged handshake that didn’t match the warmth of his smile and gestured to the woman. “My sister, Damaris. We’re the photographers.”

  “I’m Maggie Archer.”

  “I only wish I could say it was a pleasure, Miss Archer.”

  She released his hand. “What do you mean by that?”

  Mr. Frye’s fingers were back in his hair. He stared somewhere past her shoulder for an
amount of time long enough to cause her to turn towards the empty hall. When she did, he spoke to her back. “I only meant that a loss like yours isn’t the ideal method of meeting.”

  Facing him again, she folded her arms over her chest and managed not to cringe with the pressure upon tender breasts. “It’s not my loss. Mr. Kisch was engaged to my sister, not me.”

  The man seemed out of responses. His feet continued to shuffle absently while he eyed Damaris who made no effort to engage in the slightest.

  “Do you speak?” Maggie asked Damaris. The woman’s eyes settled into a scowl, her lips turning down in a hard grimace. She sniffed and moved away to adjust the window hangings.

  Mr. Frye’s right hand smoothed across his scalp, leaving the remainder of his hair sticking up like a half-burnt fireplace. “I should apologize. My sister’s an incredible assistant, although she can be somewhat off-putting around others.”

  “Somewhat?” Maggie said. “The word, Mr. Frye, is rude.”

  Karl and Elsa pushed through the dining room door with Reuben on their heels, sporting polite if not forced smiles for their guests. Mr. Frye shifted his attention from Maggie and offered condolences to them both in turn.

  “Mr. Kisch,” Hugo said, pumping Karl’s hand with far more vigor than he had shown Maggie. “Thank you for the invitation. I’m sorry it needed to be under these circumstances.”

  “Nonsense, young man. I am only sorry that we did not think to photograph our family sooner. We are supremely grateful you could accommodate us.”

  Elsa nestled Mr. Frye within her pudgy arms, bending low to press her cheek against his. “Handshakes are for my husband’s business associates. I want you to feel like family.” It was almost comical watching his arms tentatively embrace a woman six inches taller while her husband stood another six inches above that. Like a small boy trapped in a man’s body.

  Releasing their guest, Elsa dragged her husband towards Damaris who hovered near the window. “Who do we have here, my dear?” she asked, tackling the woman in a hug as Damaris attempted to shoo her away.