Sirens

by Janet Fox

  “Please, excuse me. I must check with Cook,” my aunt said, and left the room. In the awkward silence that followed I thought to slip back out myself, but my uncle intervened.

  “I hope you’re settling in, Josephine?”

  “Yes, thanks.” To fill the silence, I began to blurt. “Melody took me shopping. And I went for a walk.”

  “Splendid.” My uncle clapped his hands together. “Lovely afternoon for it.”

  Another silence followed, this one even more loaded. I fluttered, trying to fill it. “I ran into some literary types coming out of the Algonquin Hotel. You know, the one with that group, those writers, the Round Table. Edna Ferber was there. Right there, on the street.” I made a small noise. “I’ll confess. I was flustered.”

  My uncle laughed, a bit too hearty. “Those literary types. They love to talk, talk, talk.”

  Warmth flooded my cheeks. “They’re heroes to me.”

  Rushton turned away.

  Anxiety filled the air, like a vibrating string. I looked at Chester. His eyes gleamed, a half smile on his lips, as he now leaned on the wall, legs crossed at the ankles. Honestly, I disliked that boy.

  My uncle cleared his throat. “Chester, please excuse us. We have something to discuss.” I made a move, but my uncle held out his hand. “Stay for a minute, won’t you, Josephine?”

  Chester passed me and whispered, “Have fun,” as he headed off.

  Rushton examined a painting on the wall.

  Uncle Bert cleared his throat. “We have a question for you, my dear. It’s about Teddy.”

  I stiffened. “Yes, Uncle?”

  “You see, John, here, thinks that you might know something about Teddy, something important. Something he might have done before he, well. You understand.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. Here it was. The reason for my quick expulsion from home.

  Uncle Bert rubbed his chin. His face was flushed, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Fear: I could smell it. “We should like to know, that is, we would—”

  “Did your brother tell you anything, Miss Winter?” Rushton asked without turning, his voice pressing through my uncle’s stammer. “Any information? Did he say anything about his activities in the months before he…so tragically…disappeared?”

  I remained silent. This was nearly the same question Danny Connor had asked. Yes, I had a secret to keep, the one Teddy had sworn me to. But he’d told me nothing—I didn’t even know why I’d helped him disappear.

  “Josephine.” My uncle’s voice trembled. “You have to understand that with Teddy gone, any information you may have regarding some of his experiences—”

  “I can’t help you, Uncle. I’m sorry.” No, not with this, I couldn’t.

  “You see, there are some people who might need information, or want information about Teddy’s last days, and if you have access to anything, anything at all, letters, perhaps…”

  “I really don’t, Uncle.” My fists were clenched behind my back. Teddy didn’t have last days, was what I thought. He’d said he’d be back, and when he returned, he could answer for himself.

  “Ah. Well.” Uncle Bert rubbed his chin again, not meeting my eyes. “That’s that, then. Yes. That’s it.” He looked up and smiled broadly, clapping his hands together. “I think it’s time for a drink. I’ll be right back, John.”

  Uncle Bert left the room before I could move out ahead of him. I was left alone with Rushton and his uneasiness and the shadow of my uncle’s fear and that inquiry about Teddy. I had to try to make an escape. I started to slip toward the door.

  “Why are they heroes to you?” Rushton asked, his back toward me.

  “What?” I froze in my tracks.

  “Those people you saw at the Algonquin. You use the word hero so lightly. Why do you think they are heroes?”

  “Oh!” I wondered how to answer; I settled on the plain truth. “I’d like to become a writer myself.”

  He turned until his eyes met mine. “Really. So that makes them heroes.”

  I was speechless.

  He went on. “And what would you write?”

  “Stories,” I stammered. This man Rushton made me feel foolish. I could feel the blush creep over my cheeks. “I’ve written a couple of things that have been printed. Locally.” In a high school paper, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  He turned his back on me again. “I’m sure you could paint quite the portrait of a flapper. Like that fellow Fitzgerald.” I heard his mocking tone.

  He thought I was a flapper? I covered my lips with my fingertips; I must not have erased all of that Killer Red. “I happen to like his work.” My voice came out a near whisper.

  He didn’t respond, and I fidgeted. He turned back to face me, and the cloud of his despair was so dark I sucked in air. His eyes were wells of sorrow. In spite of his mocking manner, he was a man suffering. He opened his mouth to speak again when a commotion erupted in the hallway, the clang of the elevator, loud laughter, stumbling footsteps.

  Melody came in, her arm looped through the arm of a young man wearing a broad smile and a sharp suit, with another couple tagging behind them, all giggles and feints. Rushton drew up, pulling himself inward. I watched Rushton as he looked at Melody, then at her beau, Rushton’s expression pained and something else—condescending?—before he turned away.

  I took him for a snob, passing judgment on my cousin the flapper just as he’d passed judgment on me. I couldn’t wait to be out of the room.

  I slipped away and stopped in the hall, where I leaned back against the wall, listening to the noise from the crowd and the gramophone as it restarted, a tinny upbeat of jazz bubbling through the apartment.

  What was I doing here? Pops didn’t honestly expect me to be hunting for a husband among this crowd. No. And what thing of Teddy’s was everyone looking for?

  I wish Teddy could tell me. I wish he’d come back and straighten out this whole mess.

  Who was that miserable Rushton? He had been making fun of me. Making fun of Scott Fitzgerald and his stories. I touched my new-shorn hair. Rushton judged me, assuming I was just another flapper with nothing on my mind but dancing and drinking and finding my next beau. Yet something lay beneath his scorn, something dark and desperate. I saw the way he’d looked at Melody. Anger, I thought, barely veiled, and something else more elusive. What was it?

  Uncle Bert emerged from the library bearing a tray with glasses and a decanter and saw me leaning against the wall. “Join us, Josephine?”

  “No, thanks, Uncle.”

  He’d taken a handkerchief to his face, but the flush remained.

  “Suit yourself.” He disappeared into the living room, and the chime of the voices of Melody and her crowd lifted with the clink of ice on glass; I vanished into my room and closed the door.

  Despite the pretty clothes and new hairstyle and brush with my idols at the Algonquin, once again I felt a rush of homesickness. I wished I had my ma to confide in. I missed my bedroom with the blue bedspread and yellow-flowered wallpaper. I missed slipping into Teddy’s room as I often did late at night, slipping onto his empty, made-up bed and staring at those boxes on his dresser, at his things arrayed like a shrine. Lying there in the dark and hoping he’d come home soon.

  Teddy had promised me.

  I pulled open the bottom dresser drawer and parted the few sweaters, then took out the scarf and its contents that lay buried beneath.

  He’d made me swear. “On Ma’s gray head,” he’d said. “No one can know where I am.”

  I’d nodded. But my eyes must have betrayed my confusion.

  Teddy had leaned close. “Look, Jo. Some people might…some might be looking for me. So you can’t let anyone know what we did.” He’d looked away, chewing his lip. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. You’re my special girl. Okay? You swear?” He’d touched my forehead.

  As fast as I could I’d lifted my hand, scout’s honor, and said it. “I swear. On Ma. On Pops, too.” As much as I kn
ew it would pain them to think Teddy was dead, as long as I knew he wasn’t, I could protect them all.

  He was still here, I was so sure, and maybe that was why I was in New York. It couldn’t be just chance. I was meant to come to the city. Meant to be here. Because here was where I’d find Teddy again, and once I did, everything would be all right.

  And then I jumped: someone knocked hard on my bedroom door.

  CHAPTER 11

  Lou

  I’ve got this belief: there are no pure coincidences.

  Oh, for pity’s sake, Detective. Hear me out.

  It’s not like we’re all being herded by Fate or anything, not like some Supreme Being is playing a gigantic game of chess and we’re all pawns—no, nothing like that. It’s that things happen for a reason, and chance isn’t a reason.

  Maybe I have some special gift. I get these tingly feelings that tell me, Whooee, honey, look out.

  Like when Danny took me to the show with the magician, that Howard Thurston, that’s what I’m talking about. The minute I looked at that poster of his, standing out on the sidewalk in front of the theater, brother, I got goose bumps all over. Thurston’s looking all mystical while little red devils and wispy white ghosts dance around his head, reaching for him, whispering in his ears, trying to make him see. See what, you ask?

  THURSTON, THE GREAT MAGICIAN, the poster read, and then, DO THE SPIRITS COME BACK?

  I turned to Danny. “Whatcha think? Do the spirits come back? You think there might be ghosts and such? Like, are there angels and devils and, you know, an afterlife and all?”

  Danny stared at that poster like he would bore holes through it. “No. No.”

  “You sure? ’Cause I’d like to believe. It would be nice to know there’s something out there.”

  “It’s all a trick,” he said. “Fakery.”

  “Too bad, ’cause—”

  And Danny gave me the look. By that time I knew enough to shut my mouth. But believe you me, my tingly feelings were alive. Almost as if there were devils dancing around us right there on the sidewalk as Danny grabbed my elbow and steered me inside.

  During the show, when Thurston levitated that girl—lifted her right into thin air and made her float like she was smoke—I got the tingly feelings again, deep in my gut. And lo and behold, his next move was to pack her into a box and make her disappear. She disappeared, pure and simple. The box was empty.

  Don’t know if you guys have seen this show, but believe me. Goose bumps. You will have goose bumps.

  After the show Danny and I talked about it for hours, trying to figure out the trick. Actually, we got into kind of a fight about it, but Danny, he didn’t mean it, and always apologized nice after. With flowers and jewelry, and that time with a real nice diamond bracelet that didn’t go into the safe. Anyway, Danny paid some guy to find out how Thurston did it, but no dice, the magic man wouldn’t give up his secret, which didn’t please Danny.

  Any guy who can make a girl disappear into thin air without actually, you know, killing her, well, that’s a neat trick. In my opinion, that Houdini fellow that everyone talks about, he’s got nothing on Mr. Thurston. Houdini gets out of traps. Big deal. I’ve gotten out of plenty of traps myself. But that Thurston, he sets off tingly goose bumps all over the place, talking about spirits and life after death and stuff like that.

  So, anyhow, there we were that afternoon, Jo and me, on the sidewalk in front of the Algonquin, and I got that tingly feeling right off, and I knew. I was supposed to bump into her. She didn’t know it yet, but she was all mixed up with something that would require a neat trick, like levitating or disappearing. She stood there, starstruck, talking about ghosts and staring up at the awning like it held a secret message that she couldn’t make out. I knew it right off, that our destinies were intertwined. Sweet kiddo Jo and jealous moll Lou. We were mirrors, reflections, like in a Coney Island funhouse. One of us would levitate, and one of us would disappear, if you get my drift, and the twist was which of us would do what.

  They say truth is stranger than fiction, and that is no joke. There are no pure coincidences, and when I get my tingly feelings, I’m usually right.

  CHAPTER 12

  MAY 21–22, 1925

  The low-cut gowns, the rolled hose and short skirts are born of the Devil and his angels, and are carrying the present and future generations to chaos and destruction.

  —Albert A. Murphree, president of the University of Florida, 1920

  Jo

  “Yes?”

  Someone fumbled with the doorknob. I had to get up to open the door, only to find Melody on the other side, a cocktail glass in one hand and a package in the other. Her eyes were bright.

  “Jo! Well, honey, you look fantastic. I’m a swell makeover artist, if I do say so myself.”

  “Yes, Melody, you are.” I touched my bob again, still adjusting to the short hair, but pleased. I gave her a smile.

  She gave me a big grin in return. “Swell. Listen. I have this package.” She wobbled into the room, lowering her voice. “Was told to give it to you. No one but you. I forgot entirely about it ’til this evening, but since I wasn’t supposed to let you have it until…” She paused and held the package up before her eyes, squinting. “It says here…” She thrust the package at me. “What does it say?”

  “‘June 1, 1925,’” I read, and my hands holding the package began to tremble. The pinched handwriting was Teddy’s.

  “Well, close enough, doll. I have no idea what’s inside. He made me promise not to look, and I owed him, so…” And she held up two fingers in the pledge gesture. “It’s yours now. To do with as you will,” she added, leaning toward me conspiratorially. “Because we both know about Teddy, now, don’t we?”

  My mouth felt like it was full of sand.

  “Okeydokey! Back to fun and games!” She looked at me straight in the eye and said, “So, whatcha think of him?”

  “Who?” I asked, my voice warbling. “Teddy?”

  “No, no, no. John. You know. Rushton.” She waved her free hand.

  Mean, I thought. Cold. Irritating. But I lied. “Oh. He’s, um…He’s, well, he’s nice enough.”

  She pointed her finger at my face, the glass in her hand. Fumes from the alcohol wafted to my nose. “Exactly. He’s a bore.” But her eyes shone. “But a nice bore, doncha think? There’s something kinda sweet about him. He’s all right. I mean…I don’t know what I mean.” She drifted out the door. I closed it behind her.

  I stared at the package for all of ten seconds before I ripped it apart to see what was inside.

  It was a journal. I sank onto the bed with the journal in my lap.

  Soft, worn leather, tied with a cord to keep the loose contents from spilling all over, the journal was about two inches thick. I ran my fingers over the cover, knowing that it must have been Teddy’s, knowing that he had left it for me. Left it for me, to be opened a year after he’d disappeared. A year after I’d helped him fake his death, pretending to find his clothes on that Long Island beach, and said good-bye with the promise that he’d return.

  Was this journal what Danny Connor and my uncle and John Rushton wanted? Well. They wouldn’t have it from me.

  My hands shook as I tugged at the leather cord that tied it shut. I pulled the cord apart and leaned forward with the journal in my lap, and opened it.

  His tiny, cramped handwriting with the tight vertical slope tugged at my heart. Oh, Teddy. How I wanted him back right now. The journal was full and well used; every line was covered with print; the words and the writing were hard to make out. Most all of the pages were loose; I had to take care not to let the entire journal fall apart and scatter into a mess. Some of the sentences crawled up the margins; some had little stars and led to thoughts at the bottom. It would take me a long while to read the entire thing, to be able to decipher it.

  The first entry was dated just after he’d shipped out to France.

  August 20, 1918

  Off to fight in the n
oblest of causes…am both excited and nervous. Pops wants me to come home a hero. I just want to come home.

  The next few pages were, as near as I could make out, about arriving overseas, being assigned to his unit, learning where he’d be deployed. Then some waiting, and then Teddy and his troop were off, and then the following:

  September 11

  I lay in the dark trying to remember the sky at Lizzy’s. It was so big, so blue that summer. Here there’s nothing but gray, and rain. It rains every day. I’ve got foot-rot, and the medic has given me something for it. But Lizzy’s place, the ranch, it was so dry, and I want to remember how the dried-out grasses poked me in the back when I lay down on the earth and stared up at that blue. I sure wish I was there now.

  Seventy-seventh. That’s my battalion. Hope it’s my lucky number, too.

  Lizzy’s. That was the summer he’d gone to Great-Aunt Elizabeth’s, out in Montana. I was way too little to know much about it. But he talked about it all the time, how he wanted to go back someday.

  The pages after that recounted his arrival at the front. They were filled with entries so grim that I felt sick. Entries that began when Teddy arrived in the field and what awful things he saw. More than once I skipped through the notes, picking up bits and pieces from the words I could read clearly.

  September 15

  We’re all alike here. No rich, no poor. Just a bunch of fellows fighting for our country, fighting for what we believe in. For our families, and our honor.

  Fighting for our lives.

  September 20

  Lay in the trench all night. Gas—and fear—making us all vomit. Constant barrage from guns. Ground trembling beneath my stomach. Stench of vomit and excrement and blood is suffocating.