Wooden Nickels: White Lightning Series, Book 1

by Debra Dunbar

  But as the day wore on, Hattie began to feel conscious of her dress again—her dress and her hat. She noticed as the occasional glance from passersby, usually women, tugged at her. The Light Street Market sat across from a dress shop, just down the street from the mill her ma worked at on the Jones Falls. Maybe it was vanity, maybe the urge to think about simpler things, but Hattie was filled with the need for something new to wear.

  She trotted across Light Street, winding around a row of Model Ts parked in a neat herringbone, and stepped up to the dress shop window.

  Satin.

  Silk.

  Beads.

  Bold swaths of diagonal lines separated materials, dropping barely to the knees to allow a fringe to fill in the rest of the way.

  Black and purple, tan and orange.

  Her eyes drank in the colors and patterns, halting only when she found a price tag.

  And the exhilaration was gone in a flash.

  Hattie stepped away from the window, her chin low, bangs covering her eyes. This was stupid. That money was needed for a roof and food. Not bangles and baubles. Come the next day, she’d be back in trousers, and on the water anyway. She glanced up at the two-story brick buildings boxing her in. A car rushed past her, sending her staggering a step away from the street. She had to get home and away from all these things she couldn’t have.

  As she turned back for the trolley line, she spotted the last awning along the market lane. Bunches of flowers sat arranged in tiny paper cones, cocked at angles to face the street. Bold red blossoms. Yellow. White.

  And purple.

  A man rummaged through the cones of flowers, picking here and there. He was young, in his early or mid-twenties, and was sporting a light tan suit and straw hat. He had an amiable country quality to his face that belied his outfit. As Hattie paused near a bunch of purple hyacinths, she spotted him glancing at her from across the crocuses.

  She looked away immediately.

  Footsteps approached, and panic flooded her chest. Inside her head, she kept repeating “go away, go away,” but his footsteps halted directly beside her.

  “Hyacinths,” he declared, reaching for the flowers.

  Hattie cocked her head enough to watch him from underneath her bangs.

  He cupped a hand behind the blooms and took a long sniff.

  Hattie nodded once, then stepped away.

  “Excuse me, miss?”

  She froze.

  He plucked a few hyacinth stalks, and reached over for two yellow crocus blossoms, and arranged them quickly in his fingers. Holding the bouquet up to forehead level, he nodded.

  “This would look striking on your hat band, if I may be so bold.”

  She shivered, arms stiff around her groceries.

  The young man lowered the flowers, his face filling with embarrassment.

  “I…I do apologize. I was too bold. Please, excuse me.”

  He turned away briskly.

  Hattie called out, “They’re nice.” Her voice came out more like a whisper than she’d intended, but it was the best she could do.

  The young man paused and turned back to her with a sheepish grin.

  “Would you allow me to buy these for you, miss?”

  She gripped the groceries yet tighter, unsure what to say. When was the last time a young man had even looked at her, let alone offered to buy her flowers? Her whole life had been spent in the shadows, hiding, trying not to be noticed. Just once it would be nice to be a normal woman, accepting a gift from an admirer. Just once.

  After a span of awkward silence, she simply nodded.

  He released a sort of victory yelp, bounding over to the florist leaning half-asleep in the corner.

  Hattie followed with tiny steps, unsure what would happen next. Would he try to tie these flowers to her hat himself? Would she have to do it for him? What would she do with the groceries? The moment was entirely too complicated all of a sudden, but beneath it all was still a rush of excitement. This is what young women did—this is what normal young women did.

  The young man handed over a nickel, and the florist held it up to the sunlight.

  “Everything okay?” he asked the florist.

  The old man nodded and pocketed the nickel. “Someone was passing wooden nickels over at the bakery. Gotta be careful.”

  The young man sneered. “How unbelievably crude…false coin. It’s an outrage. What sort of guttersnipe would do such a thing?”

  Hattie’s face flushed, the excitement turning to mortification. She’d been the one passing the slugs. This young man would hate her for that if he knew. He’d hate her for what she was. What was she thinking letting him buy her flowers like this? Believing that someone like her could ever allow the interest of someone normal like him?

  She balled a quick fist over the spinach bag and pinched light over her face. It was a cheap magic…just her face. Just for a moment.

  Hattie lifted her chin and looked him full in the eye, allowing her bangs to fall aside.

  The young man turned to her with the flowers in-hand, his face beaming with a cordial smile.

  That smile snapped into a tight bow, and he released a quick, “Oh.”

  Hattie smiled at him, and through her illusion that smile revealed several crooked, unkempt teeth. Her nose would appear bulbous to him. Her skin would seem pitted and blotched.

  The young man stood paralyzed for a second, flowers held at arm’s length.

  She reached for the flowers and offered a husky, “Thank you.”

  The young man pulled away his hand, flattening them against his jacket.

  “Yes, well…uh. Yes. Lovely flowers for a…lovely…” He seemed to choke on the word. “Ah, well. Good day to you.”

  He bustled around her with a tip of his hat and strode away as fast as he could without seeming overtly rude.

  Hattie released the light pinch, barely feeling its effects on her insides. With a sad smile, she took a long whiff of the flowers, then turned for home.

  Her mother greeted her in the kitchen. As Hattie laid the groceries out on the table, she received a tiny verbal reproof for spending too much money, and then a peck on the cheek for spending so much money.

  “Is that ma girl?” Alton called from the front room.

  Hattie pulled off her hat and draped it over the leg of a kitchen chair before sweeping in to give her father a hug.

  “Where ya been, girl?”

  “Shopping.” She lifted the bunch of flowers. “It’s spring, you know. It ought to smell like’t.”

  He nodded, smiled, and then doubled over in a fit of coughing. These were getting far too regular, and Hattie frowned.

  He lifted a hand. “I’m alright. I’m alright. You go an’ help your mother in the kitchen. I’m working tonight and would like some of that fish I smell before I leave.”

  She kissed his cheek and stepped back into the kitchen.

  Her mother gestured with a knife at the shad. “You can de-bone that when you’ve changed out of that dress.”

  “Aye, Ma.”

  Hattie snatched her hat and retired to her room. Shimmying out of her yellow gingham dress, she draped it carefully onto her bed. The flowers lay in a heap on the bed beside the dress. She considered them for a second, then reached for her hat. One by one, she wove the crocuses and hyacinths into the hat band.

  Maybe she wouldn’t wear that hat again before they wilted. Maybe she would. But it was good to know, at least just then, that she had something nice.

  Chapter 6

  A filmy wash of sunlight spilled through the white drapes of Vincent’s bedroom window, framing the graceful curves of a woman’s face as she looked down at him. Vincent blinked several times, trying to sort out dream from reality. This vision was one he wasn’t eager to shake off, but if it was morning, he’d have to get on with his day. The more he blinked, the more his eyes cleared.

  And the woman was still there. He groaned, then coughed, wondering what saint had so favored him to place thi
s angelic figure at his bedside.

  The woman shushed him, then turned to the side to reach for something on his nightstand. A single lock of brunette hair slid in front of her face. The rest of her hair hugged her head in a Marcel wave, well-manicured and minding its manners. Pulling her hand back, she produced a moist cloth, which she dabbed over the sides of his cheek and his bottom lip. He saw that the cloth came away with a pink smear.

  With tremendous effort, he managed to form a coherent sentence. “Who are you?”

  She smiled at him, her perfect bow of a mouth curling slightly at the edges, her soft brown eyes regarding him.

  With another wipe of the cloth to his forehead, she replied, “I’m Fern.”

  “Hmm. Vincent.”

  “I know that, silly.”

  He lifted his arms and ran his hands up and down his midsection. At some point during the night, he’d changed into nightclothes. Or at least, someone had changed him. The excruciating headache had passed, leaving only the dull thumps of a brain that had slept too long. His stomach felt leaden and inert, but as he pushed his elbow against his bed to sit upright, it stirred to life in a swirl of hunger and nausea.

  He released another groan and pushed himself against his bed board to remain upright. “So,” he cleared his throat. “Who are you, Fern, and why are you here? Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

  “They called me last night. Said you were in a bad way, and that I was to come over to keep you cleaned up and breathing.”

  He peered at the stained cloth. “Am I bleeding?”

  “You were, but it’s stopped. Had to change the bedding once, too, you were bleeding so much.”

  “Sorry about that.” He grimaced. So much for appearing suave and debonair. “Don’t remember much.”

  Surveying the room, his gaze fell back onto her. She wore a pink dress with white lace sleeves running down to her wrists. Three strings of pearls drooped from her neck in lazy dangles. Her dark eyebrows lifted at elegant angles, drawn in so they slanted back to Earth at the very ends. The graceful beauty, the refined elegance of this woman stirred Vincent’s pulse.

  “Who called you to come take care of me?” he asked.

  A voice sounded from the hallway, “I did.”

  Vincent craned his neck to find Lefty looming in the door frame. The man had changed shirts at some point, but otherwise bore the look of someone who hadn’t slept.

  “Everyone okay?” Vincent asked.

  “Everyone ’cept for you and the Dryfork boys.”

  The image of the young boy filled Vincent’s thoughts, splayed out sideways on the truck bench, chest and throat riddled with bullet holes.

  As Vincent closed his eyes to will away that horrific sight, Fern laid a hand on his forehead.

  “His fever broke about two hours ago,” she said. “He’s keeping water down.”

  Vincent opened his eyes. “I’ve been awake?”

  Her smile tensed. “In fever dreams. Haven’t said much, which is probably for the best.”

  Lefty stepped into his bedroom. “This is worse than it’s been in a horse’s age. What gives?”

  Vincent shook his head. “I was too far away. You know, when he pulled his rifle.”

  “Didn’t feel like it was that far,” Lefty grunted.

  “It wouldn’t, from where you were. For me it was too long a stretch, too far.”

  Lefty shook his head. “This isn’t good, Vincent.”

  “That boy…”

  Lefty lifted a finger at him. “You broom that out of your mind. Can’t let that sit in your noodle, festering so that you can’t focus on your job.”

  “He trusted us. And we—”

  “I said forget it.”

  Vincent sighed, leaning his head back against the bed board.

  Fern glanced nervously between the two men, keeping her mouth tightly shut as she folded the cloth into a neat square.

  “Is he good to walk?” Lefty asked her.

  “He should rest some more.” Her voice was soft, hesitant, almost as though she didn’t dare voice the opinion.

  “Should’s one thing,” Lefty stated. “Can is another. Can he walk? Is it physically possible?”

  “He can walk,” she said, her eyes downcast.

  “Good.” Lefty called to Vincent over his shoulder as he filed out of the room, “Get dressed. We’re expected at the hotel.”

  After Lefty had stepped out the room and down the stairs, Fern looked at Vincent and winced. “He was worried about you.”

  Vincent tried to chuckle, but it came out more like a cough. “Right. Sure he was. So, what are you, a nurse or something?”

  “My mother was. Served in France during the War.”

  Vincent nodded. “Why didn’t Lefty call her, then?”

  Her lips tightened and she ducked her chin. “She’s gone.”

  Vincent winced. “Ah, hell. Shoe-polished my tonsils, again. Sorry.”

  Fern shook her head. “How would you have known? No, I picked up enough from my mother. Lefty knew that, so he called me. For all his grousing, he seemed awful twisted up about you.”

  “Well, I’m his responsibility. He’s just doing his job.”

  “Come on,” she urged as she stood up from the side of his bed. “Let’s get you on your feet.”

  She reached both hands to him. Vincent swung his legs over the side of the bed and took her hands. With a quick tug, she pulled him to his feet.

  He wavered a step, nearly toppling into her. Vincent pulled one of her hands forward as he regained his balance and a row of three bruises slipped into view from her white lace sleeve.

  She jerked her arm away with a quick snap, turning aside.

  Vincent squinted at her, then straightened up. “Whoa, gonna have to find my land legs over here.” He snickered a little, trying to lighten the mood.

  It worked. Fern peered at him over her shoulder. “We’ll put you on a boat, and you can paddle your way up Light Street.”

  Vincent wandered to his closet, his feet gaining traction with each step.

  “I want to thank you,” he said as he opened the closet door. “No man should put a lady out like this.”

  “I’m glad to do it.” She stepped behind Vincent to a chair near the door to gather her purse. “I’ll see ya around.”

  “Will you?” he asked, regretting the eager tone he’d taken.

  She hesitated in the doorway as her eyes raised to his, soft and warm. A man could lose himself in eyes like that. They lingered on him for a moment, then she broke the contact and nodded. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  He watched as Fern closed the door behind her, then turned to rustle through his suits hanging on the closet rod, wondering where Lefty had been hiding a jewel like her.

  It took a good while for Vincent to get dressed, more from fatigue and a bone-deep aching in his arms and legs than from any of the pinch sickness. It seemed he’d pulled through. That was the way of it. All he had to do was survive, and his insides would find their way back to their appointed places. It was the sort of sickness that ran so deep, he felt it in his very soul. The sort of sickness that made him wish he were dead as he suffered through it and offered a liquor-brained manner of euphoria once it passed.

  When Vincent had himself put back together and had taken the steps to the first floor one at a time, he found Lefty reading a paper by the front door.

  “You got us a car?” Vincent asked.

  Lefty folded the paper and dropped it onto the front table with a nod. He sized up Vincent with dispassionate eyes. “You look like a shaved cat, but better than last night.”

  “You smell like a pig.”

  “You smell like what the pig ate.”

  Vincent grinned at him.

  “Come on,” Lefty grumbled. “Can’t keep Vito waiting.”

  “Vito?” Vincent asked, frozen in place.

  “Yeah, who’d you think? He wants the skinny from last night, especially since we showed up with four barrels
of hooch and a bunch of dead bootleggers.”

  Vincent nodded and stepped with vigor. Capo Vito would be there! It may have been one of the most painful pinches he’d ever pulled off in the service of the Crew, but if Vito took notice, recognized the fact that Vincent had saved the lives of both Tony and Coop…? That ought to get some kind of response. A public display of gratitude. A private thank you. Just one word, really, that’s all Vincent would need.

  This would be a good day.

  The car rattled up to the curb, and Vincent pulled himself into the back seat with a hale tug. Lefty slapped the side of the car from inside the window, and the driver steered them out onto the street.

  “That dame,” Vincent said as they slipped into a line of autos heading north. “Fern?”

  Lefty squinted as he kept staring forward. “What about her?”

  “She do this sorta thing for all us mooks? Patch us up?”

  Lefty’s head swiveled toward Vincent. “Why?”

  “You know her, or something?”

  “I knew her mother,” he replied, turning his attention back to the street.

  “Fern said she was a nurse in the War.”

  Lefty nodded.

  Vincent glanced down at Lefty’s right sleeve, tailored to fold right at the shoulder. “You met her mother over there, didn’t you?”

  “She’s Cooper’s girl,” Lefty stated with volume. “Fern. She’s Cooper’s.”

  Vincent blinked at the comment. “Huh?”

  “Don’t get your eyes too shined-up over her, is what I’m saying.”

  “My eyes weren’t—”

  “Good.”

  Vincent nodded, then looked out his own window. Cooper’s girl. That stubby man was five feet of worthless shoved into a suit. Most everyone knew that. It was his temper that sparked off the firefight outside of Cumberland. Probably his bullets that killed that little boy.

  The sight of those bruises on Fern’s arm slipped into Vincent’s mind. A righteous sort of anger burned up inside him at the thought, but he dampened it down. She was Cooper’s girl. Cooper was family. Vincent was most definitely not family. Lefty was right. He needed to forget about her and mind his own business, because the alternative could quite possibly lead to a bullet in the back of his head.