The Astonishing Life of August March

by Aaron Jackson

  Ah. Of course. In his haste to ease her troubles, August had forgotten to remove his equally drenched garments, and was now soaking the chair and puddling the rugs. How embarrassing.

  August sprang up. “Won’t be a minute,” he cried. “Make yourself at home.”

  What to wear, what to wear? It all seemed either too formal or like the tattered rags of a beggar. He didn’t want to look as though he was trying to impress her, but he couldn’t very well limp toward her shaking a tin mug, imploring for alms.

  He settled on a cardigan layered over a button-down and some unassuming trousers. He might’ve been a humble poetry professor excited for an evening alone with his scotch or an easygoing millionaire slumming it at his beachfront property. A perfect look.

  When he returned downstairs, Eva was browsing the bookshelves while blowing on a fresh cup of tea. Catching sight of August, she let out a sigh, clearly relieved to see he wasn’t wearing tiger-skin loungewear or some ensemble of equal suggestiveness.

  “What’s your name?” she immediately asked.

  “August March,” he answered, not even thinking to lie. “And yours?”

  She stopped at this. Obviously she thought him quite daft. True, he may have been acting slightly touched, what with the wet clothes, and not clocking her as a fellow con artist had been a true debacle, but August wasn’t moony enough to believe that she’d given the Kingsleys her real name. Perhaps this first bit of good sense in their brief history of acquaintance impressed her, for she replied, “Penny York.”

  Penny York. He liked it. Of course, she was probably lying, but at least it was a good lie.

  “Do you live here alone?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “And you own this entire building with money you’ve earned? From stealing?”

  It has often been said that relationships are built on trust and that honesty is the best policy, but come to think of it, August wasn’t sure he’d ever actually heard those crumbly old sayings spoken aloud. They were more the sort of thing one read, and you can’t believe everything you read, now, can you?

  “Oh yes,” August said. “I could’ve gotten something flashier, of course, but I didn’t want to attract too much attention. She’s a simple little place, but I’m fond of her.” Here he patted a wall as if it were a prized spaniel.

  Penny blew on the tea. “So you’re not a complete idiot.”

  “Jury’s still out,” August joked.

  “Why do you have out-of-style women’s clothing in your home? Are you a serial killer?”

  August snorted tea up his nose, which was beyond painful and not an experience he would ever recommend even to those he thoroughly disliked. Attempting to recover, he managed, “What?”

  “A serial killer. Like the Boston Strangler, or Norman Bates.”

  Besides a detestation of anything French, Sir Reginald had imprinted a cinematic prejudice on August’s malleable young mind, so while Penny’s latter reference went over his head, he got the gist of her question.

  “I can assure you that I’m not a serial killer. Pry up any floorboard you wish.”

  “Then why does a man who lives alone keep out-of-date women’s clothing in his apartment?”

  Never had August encountered a person who could so frequently make his mouth dry.

  “I . . . like . . . things?”

  Well done, old boy! The human race had yet to utter such a clever turn of phrase!

  “What a unique response, August March,” Penny said. “I’m a very good judge of character, but the longer I know you, the less I understand.”

  August was a skilled flirt, and more than most things, good flirting depended on timing. Up until this point, their conversation had gone from combative to delicately neutral, but with her last comment, Penny had deliberately given him an opening. “Would you like to understand me better?” he asked, innocent but for a faint impish lilt.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure,” Penny replied. “You’re just such a weirdo.”

  And as that small bit of slang escaped her lips, just like that, the floor dropped out from underneath August, his world reinvented. He sat on the couch, winded with the shock of sudden comprehension.

  “Oh my god,” he said.

  “What?” asked Penny.

  “I’m the weirdo,” August told her.

  “I know, that’s what I said—”

  “No. Not a weirdo. The weirdo.”

  She wasn’t following, so August explained. Or tried to. Here again, over a decade later, was the girl with the dark curly hair, though it currently looked quite ratty, as it had been pinned up underneath her wig for several hours. The girl he’d spied upon through a large window, the girl he’d shared a flask with in a Catholic-school stable, the girl he’d met at an ostentatious dinner party, thinking her to be someone else entirely.

  If the realization had blown the breath out of August, it made Penny restless and fidgety. She set down her tea and started wringing her hands, looking more uncomfortable than she had a half hour ago when she was drenched and shivering. “Have you been following me all these years?” she asked him. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” he answered. “I swear I’m just as amazed as you are.”

  She glared at him, hard, as if trying to see his very skeleton. August withstood her scrutiny, for he was staring back with matching zeal. Finally she broke the silence. “Do you have any shoes I might borrow?”

  “I beg your pardon?” This evening had, without a doubt, contained more surprises than any other in his entire life. The loaning of shoes was definitely the last direction he’d suspected this conversation to take.

  “I asked if you had any shoes. The rain’s stopped, and I should be getting home.”

  August couldn’t help but feel crestfallen. He’d hoped she’d stay the night. Not in a sexual way. August wouldn’t have dreamed of making a pass at her. Not that he didn’t want to sleep with her. He’d never wanted to sleep with anyone more, in fact. But they’d found each other! Again, after all these years! Surely that merited something? A champagne toast? A steak dinner? At the very least a cute quip about how small the world could be. But instead, August was back in Miss Butler’s closet, choosing several options of footwear for the girl with the dark curly hair, who, as it turned out, was named Penny York, and coincidentally enough, was also a thief, and good god, why was she leaving?

  Penny picked out a pair of flats, looked like she was about to say something, but then thought better of it.

  August walked her to the door.

  “Good night,” she said with terse finality.

  “Good night,” August dribbled as she stalked off, never once looking back.

  He was tidying up the tea things, still too astonished for his low spirits to overtake him, when he found her sopping red wig in the bathroom. He clutched it to his breast, laughing, while it soiled his shirt with its dampness. But he didn’t care. It seemed they were fated to remain intertwined! And here, dripping against chest, was a reason to call on her!

  But as he was dancing about with the wet curls, he realized he hadn’t gotten her telephone number. Or her address. Hell, he probably didn’t even have her real name. Now the despair consumed him with ease, for he’d lost her. He’d lost her again.

  August forced himself to bed after downing an unhealthy quantity of rum, the most depressed he’d been in recent memory.

  * * *

  August didn’t spend too long wading through the rivers of regret, for three days later, a package arrived at his door. Inside was a green dress neatly folded, a sensible pair of outdated flats, and a note.

  Thanks for the getaway.

  No return address, no signature. But what rapture! What bliss! It was as if the walls of Jericho had come tumbling down, releasing Noah’s flood on the unsuspecting hordes, yet the burning bush of August’s heart stayed miraculously lit. But honestly, who had time for the Bible at a moment like this?

  August knew he would see her ag
ain. A woman like Penny kept to herself in order to survive. He understood; didn’t he share her profession? That she’d made contact, however nil, spoke volumes in August’s favor.

  At first, the fact that he could do nothing to reach her irritated him. After a week, irritation had evolved; now he was a bloodshot insomniac who jumped into the air at the sound of the telephone’s ring. Another week gone, and August’s mind was more than unhinged. He would’ve done anything for a simple courtesy call, even toss Samson, Esther, and Solomon’s halved infant into the furnace with Shadrach and company. When he wasn’t fretting over Penny, August worried about his sudden obsession with the good book. Perhaps he was going mad, like King Nebuchadnezzar. Dammit!

  Another intolerable week gone, and August had decided to put Penny York out of his mind, or at least pretend to. With no clear destination in mind, he stepped out of his apartment into the heat of the month that was his namesake. Movement of any kind was preferable to all this sulking and stewing.

  Upon opening the door, he was nearly struck dead by the sight of Penny York seated on his stoop, finishing a cigarette.

  “I have an idea,” she said.

  August fumbled for words until he eventually settled on “Tell me everything,” which sounded slightly debonair. At the very least, it was better than what he wanted to say, which was Praise the gods, she lives! She lives, and now so can I!

  “Let’s grab a bite.”

  They found a sad little diner and both had wilted salads and weak iced teas. It was a terrible lunch, but they were too hot to be hungry, so there was no harm done. The plates cleared, Penny got down to business.

  “I’d like to run a job with you.”

  August’s heart fell prey to all the clichés a heart can succumb to, stopping and leaping and skipping beats. It was all rather embarrassing, actually, but he maintained a sangfroid facade and asked, “What kind of a job?”

  “Before we get into particulars, I need to know a little more about you. Do you really own that apartment?”

  “Yes, but I inherited it.” He saw no point in deceiving her. She was cleverer than him by half, and he’d only get snared in his lies.

  Penny looked upset by his admission. It was plain she’d hoped August had been an accomplished thief, and by working with him she’d become rich beyond her wildest dreams. An idiot with a fake mustache and a trust fund, however, does not a master criminal make.

  “I suppose an inheritance is better than being a call boy for some rich old hag.”

  “What about you?” August asked, his curiosity burning. “How does one go from being a Sainted Sister of the Slaughtered Lamb to a redheaded thief?”

  Penny assessed him over her watered-down tea. “A few years ago my father died and left his new wife and children everything. Guess he conveniently forgot about his firstborn.”

  It was strange; when he’d been a boy, August often stood outside Penny’s home, gazing in, thinking her family to be the very archetype of domestic bliss. But it had been an illusion. Perhaps all the seemingly perfect families August had bitterly envied throughout the years were the same, little farces brimming with their own private feuds and discord. It certainly painted his peculiar upbringing at the hands of Miss Butler and Sir Reginald in a better light.

  “Your father sounds like a proper bastard,” August said, forgetting for a moment that he himself was born nowhere near wedlock.

  Penny shrugged. “It is what it is. At any rate, I wasn’t about to marry some rich asshole the way all my schoolmates did. I’ve seen how that works out.”

  August smiled. “No. Uxorial duties wouldn’t suit you at all.”

  “What?” Penny asked.

  Damn his vocabulary! It would bring their catechumenal relationship to a premature necrosis if he didn’t subjugate it forthwith.

  “I said nothing,” August lied.

  “In any case, I sort of just fell into a life of crime. But I like it. I’m good at it. And you have to be good when it’s paying your rent,” she added, clearly a dig at August’s inherited brownstone.

  “I am a good burglar, too,” August insisted, on the defense. “It’s how I’ve made my living the past ten years. And I worked with a con man when I was a kid. Mostly two-bit stuff, but we did make a few big scores over the years. I can pick any window or lock, simple safes, too. And there isn’t a building in New York I can’t climb, even without a rope. Honest!”

  August hadn’t meant to sound like a bad Mickey Rooney picture, but Penny disconcerted him. Where was his sardonic aplomb, usually so readily accessible? Oh well. At least it was all true.

  Penny sucked the last of her iced tea through her straw. “You’re really a good cat burglar?”

  “I swear it on Ibsen,” August replied.

  “Ibsen? Who’s Ibsen?”

  The urge to educate was strong, but he brushed it off. “Never mind Ibsen. Remember how I carried you down the side of the Kingsleys’ building in the rain?”

  “If you’re trying to impress me, you might want to avoid mentioning that night,” Penny said.

  “I’m good,” August said, and feeling a bit of his former self returning, he added, “Are you?”

  Though she didn’t like her competence challenged, Penny seemed to respect his confidence, for she started explaining her newest plot.

  Penny’s cons were always the same. She’d meet a rich man and play the beautiful fool. Inevitably he’d fall for her, invite her back to his home, and make love to her. After the mark fell into the deep euphoria of postcoital slumber, Penny would plunder him of his treasures and slip out into the night. Trouble was, Penny was getting tired of sleeping with scads of lecherous old men. Go figure.

  She aimed to keep the first half of her cons the same.

  “But while I’m out wining and dining the mark, you break into the empty apartment. We split the take, and I don’t have to fuck any more men who remember the Jefferson administration. Sound good?”

  Anything Penny said would’ve sounded good to August, but this plan actually was good. The worst part of robbery was the uncertainty of whether or not the owner would walk in while the misdeed was being done. But if Penny could guarantee August’s security while he worked?

  “It sounds perfect.”

  * * *

  And for a time it was. Penny’s presence opened up a whole new world of possibilities. When working alone, August was forced to hunt for marks within his peer group. After all, what cause would someone of August’s age have to approach a millionaire of seventy or eighty? The moneyed gentleman would instantly think that August was a no-account gold digger, which of course he was, but that wasn’t the point.

  When sex was added into the equation, however, all bets were off. Penny could saunter up to any man, regardless of his age, and start laying on the charm. It was a wonder to watch her work. On rare occasions, a mark would see her for what she was and brush her off with a cold shoulder or a light threat. But usually, one look into Penny’s carefully painted eyes would thaw any good sense any man ever had. Willingly they’d divulge their secrets, including but not limited to their telephone numbers, addresses, what nights their staff had off, whether or not they owned a dog, whether or not that dog was of the biting variety, their social security numbers; the usual sort of things people talked about on a first date.

  Penny, with open-faced cherubic innocence, would remember every last word. After bashfully accepting an invitation to a second date, she’d make her exit and then relate everything she’d learned to August. When the patsy next met Penny for another evening of dreamy blessedness, August would head straight for his home and leisurely rob him blind.

  Theft had never been so simple, so antiseptic. After the Kingsley incident, August and Penny decided that whenever possible, the men they targeted should be romantically unattached. This way, neither felt any guilt at the possibility of breaking up a marriage, and more important, August was less likely to be interrupted when he was working.

  It wa
s an ideal partnership, two professionals benefiting from years of combined experience. The phone would ring, and Penny’s greeting was always the same. “I have an idea.” It was her shorthand; she’d found another man, another mark. These calls came so frequently that August rarely responded when he answered the telephone; it was easier to wait for Penny to start the conversation. Generally speaking, the pair and their now thriving business were getting on famously.

  At least, that’s what August kept telling himself. Though he was no longer reduced to blathered infantile stutterings when in Penny’s company, he was still infatuated with her, and that was putting it mildly. But they’d been working together for some time now, and Penny hadn’t given August the slightest hint of mutual interest. The chemistry between the two was undeniable. They were like a pair of mated falcons, each performing a highly specialized task that couldn’t be achieved without the other; they were positively symbiotic. So why was Penny so goddamned oblivious?

  One evening Penny was curled on August’s couch, counting the proceeds of their latest venture, a fat smile on her face.

  “Well done, Mr. March,” she said, placing his share on an end table and tucking her own cut into her purse.

  The accounting finished, August poured out two celebratory tumblers of Irish whiskey, a custom they’d developed.

  “To a financially advantageous partnership,” Penny toasted.

  “Indeed,” he replied, clinking his glass against hers with a distinct lack of gusto. He drained its contents in one go, then poured himself another.

  “What’s wrong?” Penny asked.

  “Nothing,” August answered, sounding petulant even to his own ears.

  “You’re upset. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  August swished whiskey about in his mouth, a tempest of booze he longed to spit straight into her face. How to say he wanted her? Wanted her more than anything?

  “It’s nothing,” he repeated. God, was he a teenager again? His angst was practically visible, a third party in the room.

  Penny laughed, careless and indifferent. She was on a luxury yacht while August was packed elbow to asshole in the third-class cabin of an immigrant ship doomed to capsize.