Coming Up Roses

by Duncan, Alice

  “Nuts!” He yanked his straw hat down low on his forehead, stuffed his hands into his pockets, glowered, and kicked at impediments in his way.

  Rose lifted her chin. “There’s no need to pout, Mr. May. I shan’t break our agreement.”

  “I’m not pouting. Anyhow, what agreement?” he muttered gruffly. “We didn’t have an agreement.”

  Dammit, why’d she quit walking? He stopped, too, and wheeled around to glare at her. “Well? We didn’t have an agreement. Exactly. I mean, we didn’t sign a contract or anything.”

  She stared up at him for one, full, fulminating minute before she spat out, “Fine.” She turned and started to walk away from him.

  H.L.’s heart did something it had never done before in its life: It screamed in anguish. Clutching a hand to his chest in reaction, H.L. wondered what the hell was going on.

  He hadn’t reached a conclusion before he’d begun running after Rose.

  He guessed he’d have to figure out this inexplicable chest pain later, although he knew it had something to do with Rose Gilhooley and the fact that she was leaving him. He couldn’t let her do it. That’s the only thing he knew for a rock-solid certainty.

  “Hey!” he hollered. “Wait up there! You can’t walk away from me like that!”

  She turned abruptly. The color in her cheeks had deepened. She looked every bit as furious as Mr. Wojinski had when H.L. had called his son a brat.

  “Oh?” She looked as if she were boiling on the inside, but her voice was as cold and sharp as icicles. “You just said we have no agreement, Mr. May.”

  “Dammit, you know I was lying!”

  “Ohhh,” she voiced, sarcastic as all hell. “So you admit it, do you?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” He stomped up to her. He was surprised when she held her ground. He’d sort of expected her to be intimidated, although why he’d expected that, he had no idea. Anybody who could face a horse that weighed a hundred times what she weighed and could squash her without half trying, and then ride that same horse in a death-defying manner that shocked and astounded the masses on a daily basis, couldn’t very well be a shrinking violet, could she?

  “No?”

  The word hit him like a hailstone rapping on glass. “No.” He sucked in several pecks of air sweetened by the scent of May flowers and buttered popcorn.

  He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want to do it. He did it anyway. “I beg your pardon, Miss Gilhooley. I was wrong. You were right. We did have an agreement.” The next part was the hardest, but he pushed the words past his reluctance. They fell into the atmosphere like small, dried-up pellets of cheese. “I’m sorry I got mad at that guy. I guess I was afraid for you when I saw that lousy kid shooting at you like a bullet.”

  “Lousy kid?” If she wasn’t incredulous, she was doing a good imitation. “He’s a little boy, Mr. May! He’s too young to have become lousy yet. He was excited. What’s more, he was a fan of mine! He’s not yet had enough time in this life to turn rotten—not like some people.”

  That meant him, of course. H.L. gritted his teeth and didn’t mount a defense. Obviously, Miss Rose Gilhooley hadn’t run up against some of the juvenile delinquents H.L. had encountered during his newspaper career. Now they were rotten, no matter how young they were. “Right.” He really hated apologizing for hollering at that brat’s father. “I beg your pardon.”

  She sniffed. “It’s not my pardon you should be begging. It’s that poor man’s. Mr. Wojinski.”

  “Wojinski. Figures.”

  She rounded on him again. “And exactly what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, nothing.” He wasn’t about to go in to the cultural divisions abounding in the city of Chicago. It did occur to him, though, that it might be fun to take Rose to the different neighborhoods and gauge her reactions to them. Not that H.L. had anything against Poles. Even though many of them leaned toward political anarchy and were inclined to be socialists and live in tenements that smelled like boiled cabbage, they were easier to tolerate than, say, the Irish, who tended to drink a lot, become belligerent and very loud, and get into scraps. Or the Italians, who formed tight brotherhoods, extorted protection money from shopkeepers, and stabbed each other all the time. “I’m sorry, Miss Gilhooley.” Sucking in another deep breath, H.L. then said something that nearly choked him. “Please forgive me.”

  She squinted at him for a good thirty seconds. H.L. wanted to grind his toe in the dirt, as he used to do when being given a dressing-down by various teachers following his many altercations over his name. He’d nearly started squirming before she finally let up on him.

  “Very well. But I trust you won’t create another disturbance of a like nature.”

  H.L. bellowed, “You trust I won’t—” He broke off abruptly. If he yelled at her, she’d go away, and he’d die. Perhaps not die. But he knew he’d best keep quiet for a while. Therefore, he produced a small, tight smile and said, “Fine, then, shall we be off?”

  She nodded imperiously. He wondered if she’d learned that from the queen. The notion tickled him, and his mood climbed uphill as they took off.

  It was Rose who broke the silence that had erupted between them. “Where are we going first?”

  “I’m going to feed you first off,” he said, feeling almost chipper again. “We’re going to have our lunch at the Street in Cairo.”

  “Oh, I’ve heard about the Street in Cairo.”

  H.L. smirked inside. Everyone had heard about the Street in Cairo. Before the fair was a week old, the Street in Cairo had become famous throughout the land, probably because it was more exotic than anyone in the United States had conceived of before viewing it. A reproduction of a Seventeenth Century Cairo street, it gave visitors an intriguing view of what life in Egypt might have been like—and perhaps still was. “Good. I’m sure you’ll find it fascinating, and I think the food’s quite tasty there. Hope you’ll like it.”

  “Um, I’m sure I shall.”

  When he glanced down at her, he was disturbed to see the expression of bemusement on her face. Shoot, maybe she didn’t like Middle Eastern stuff. She’d probably never tasted any of those spiced and roasted meat that H.L. loved that they served up with some kind of grain they called couscous or anything even remotely resembling them. Hell, hardly anybody had, until this fair.

  Because he didn’t want to irk her again, and even though he wanted to take her to the Egyptian place, he decided it would behoove him to do some prior probing. Better that than earn more of her enmity. “Er, do you have any digestive difficulties, Miss Gilhooley?”

  The glance of shock she shot him couldn’t possibly be feigned. “Digestive difficulties? What do you mean? What do they serve you there?” She sounded almost frightened.

  “Calm down,” he said soothingly. “The food’s good. It’s only that they use spices most Americans aren’t used to.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is there any particular food you don’t like?”

  “Um, no.”

  Her gaze held abundant suspicion. H.L. didn’t appreciate it, since he’d never done anything to deserve it. That is to say, he hadn’t done much to deserve it. How was he supposed to know she enjoyed being attacked by miniature monsters? He’d been trying to protect her person. At the moment, he was only attempting to protect her digestive system.

  “Trust me,” he pleaded. “If you don’t like it, we can eat something else. You only have to taste it. I promise.”

  “But I don’t want to waste money, either.”

  “It’s not going to be your money,” H.L exclaimed, miffed that she’d even think such a thing. “I’m paying. Or the Globe is. This is a business expense, for crying out loud!”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t want to waste the Globe’s money, either.” She shot him a baleful glance. “I’m not accustomed to flinging money around indiscriminately, Mr. May.”

  Damn, she was a pain in the neck sometimes. H.L. discovered in that moment that,
when he wasn’t wanting to kiss her silly, he was wanting to turn her over his knee and spank her. “Let me worry about the Globe’s money, please. The Globe is accustomed to paying for what it gets in news. Your mission today is to grant me an interview and enjoy yourself. That’s going to be part of the article; don’t you understand yet?”

  She lifted her chin some more. “You needn’t speak to me as if I were a nitwit, Mr. May. Merely because I don’t like to waste money doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  He was honestly surprised. “Of course not! I don’t think you’re stupid. Why’d you say that?”

  The glance she cast him held at least a ton of doubt. H.L. narrowed his gaze and wondered why. He’d not said anything that might make her think he thought she was stupid, had he? Granted, they’d disagreed a few times—all right, they’d disagreed a lot of times. Most of the time, in actual fact. But disagreements didn’t equate to stupidity. On the contrary, H.L. loved to discuss things with people who disagreed with him. Such conversations whetted his appetite and sharpened his wits.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said at last.

  The Street in Cairo was on the Midway Plaisance, where the Ferris Wheel was also located. The Fair directors had envisioned their enterprise as a complete educational experience. While they’d relegated amusements to the Midway, they’d also had many foreign nations set up their exhibitions there. Since the Midway was close to where the Wild West had set up shop, that was ginger peachy with H.L., who was hungry.

  He watched Rose as her eager gaze took in all the sights and sounds of the Midway, and words swirled in his brain, occasionally plopping into place in perfect, brilliantly constructed sentences. He could hardly wait to write about Rose’s discovery of the fair and all the new and exciting things it held. “After we eat,” he told her, “Let’s see some of the other foreign exhibits. Have you seen Little Egypt dance?”

  After shooting him a startled glance, she blushed. “Yes, I have. Annie and I saw her dance when Colonel Cody took us there. We didn’t get to see any of the other exhibits.” Her brow furrowed into a tiny frown, as if she weren’t sure the colonel should have done that.

  She was about the most charming young woman he’d ever encountered, even if she was stubborn as a mule and argued with him about everything. “Interesting, huh?”

  “Very.”

  H.L. would have laughed at her repressed tone if he trusted her not to run away if he did. “There are lots of other things to see here on the Midway besides Little Egypt and the Ferris Wheel. There’s an entire African tribe, a Moorish palace, a German village, and a whole hall devoted to beauties of the world. They’ve got a snake charmer and fortune tellers, and just about everything anybody could ever have an itch to see.”

  Her eyes were so big, H.L. wished he could remember more of the delights to be experienced on the Midway. It would be interesting to see how much larger those beautiful blues of hers could get. Alas, he ran out of inspiration and had to settle for Rose’s breathy, “My goodness!” It would suffice. There were so many sights and scenes to be gawked at and exclaimed over, from bejeweled daggers, silks, and wood carvings, to donkey boys, a mosque, and camels, that it was almost two o’clock by the time they finally made their ways to the Egyptian restaurant. H.L. ordered a dish made of chunks of skewered meat, spiced, and roasted over an open fire, for both of them. To accompany the meat dish, he ordered a kind of sweet tea that he liked a lot and that he assumed was some kind of Egyptian delicacy. Or Moorish. Or Moroccan. Hell, all he knew was that it tasted good. Some sort of stuff that wasn’t rice but looked vaguely like it, call couscous, and a dark-green salad composed of wheat kernels, parsley, onions, and chopped-up tomatoes accompanied the skewered meat. It was all nectar to H.L.

  He watched Rose as she surveyed her plate. “So, what do you think?” He was anxious that she like her meal. She must be hungry. The sides of his own stomach were rubbing against each other, he was so empty.

  She didn’t lift her gaze from the foreign concoction residing before her. Looking vaguely dubious, she leaned forward, and sniffed delicately. “It smells good.” She seemed more cheerful after this pronouncement.

  “Sam and I ate this same thing yesterday. It’s delicious.” H.L. spoke with decision, slid a piece of meat off its skewer and speared it.

  “Who’s Sam?

  “Another reporter with the Globe.”

  “Ah.” Rose continued to gaze at her food for another moment. Then she pulled off her gloves, picked up the end of a skewer, maneuvered a piece of meat from it, and stabbed it with her fork. She cut it in half before she popped one of the halves into her mouth.

  It pleased H.L. more than he could express when her eyes opened wide again. He recognized the delight dawning in them, and felt as if he’d done something wonderful. That was probably ridiculous, but he couldn’t help himself.

  After she swallowed, Rose said, “Oh, my, this is delicious!”

  “Told you so.” H.L. couldn’t recall when he’d felt so self-satisfied.

  She then forked up a small bite of the parsley salad, chewed it, and swallowed. “I really like this! Do you know what it’s called?”

  “Uh-uh, but we can find out.” H.L. hadn’t thought much about the oddly concocted salad, not being the vegetable-loving sort, but he waved at a handsome, dark-visaged, white-clad, turbaned waiter, who came over to stand before them. He looked more dignified than any other waiter H.L. had ever seen, but he still asked, “Does this salad have a name?”

  “Taboule, sir,” the waiter replied.

  “Taboule?” Rose blinked up at the man, whose mein relented slightly as he gazed at her.

  Well, and why wouldn’t it? H.L. thought smugly. Rose Gilhooley would be an ornament to any setting.

  The waiter bowed at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It’s delicious,” Rose said, her cheeks pinkening slightly. She looked as if she wasn’t sure it was permissible to compliment waiters on meals.

  H.L. was proud of her. He knew he hadn’t any right to be; after all, she was nothing to him but a news story. But she was so precious. So polite and charming. So . . . He’d have to think about it. He seldom had trouble coming up with the best words to use in describing anything, but Rose had him buffaloed. Every time he contemplated her, he fell short of achieving the perfect word to assign to her.

  The waiter said, “Thank you, madam.” He even smiled.

  Rose’s blush deepened.

  Yanking his brain away from words, H.L. decided this encounter had lasted long enough. He didn’t want any Middle-Eastern swami—whatever a swami was—to get any ideas about ravishing the delectable Rose. If there were any ravishing to be done in that quarter, H.L. May would be the ravisher.

  He didn’t mean that.

  Or did he?

  Damn. As he wondered if he were losing his mind entirely, H.L. spoke rather sharply to the waiter. “Thanks a lot. That answers our question. We’ll call if we need anything else.”

  The waiter’s expression turned blank once more, he bowed formally, and moved away from their table. H.L. felt a little silly.

  “There was no need to be rude to the poor man, Mr. May.”

  Damn it all, there she went again. H.L. glanced from the waiter’s back to Rose’s face, ready to do battle, when her expression stopped him. She was clearly embarrassed about something. What the hell was going on?

  Rose went on, “If it was improper of me to speak to the waiter, I’m sorry, but it’s certainly not his fault.”

  Since H.L. didn’t understand her point here, he didn’t have a clue what to say.

  She took a deep breath and blurted out, “If you must know, I’m not used to dining in restaurants.” She bowed her head and frowned at her plate. “I grew up on the frontier, for heaven’s sake. It may seem countrified to you, but in Kansas, we’re generally polite to people, whatever their station in life, even those who serve us meals.”

  Still confused, H.L. said, “I beg your pardon? I’m not
sure what you’re talking about, Miss Gilhooley.”

  She lifted her head and glared at him, unquestionably exasperated, and H.L.’s confusion grew. He began to feel as though he and Rose were performing parts in two different plays that had somehow ended up on the same stage at the same time by accident. The sensation was uncomfortable.

  Rose snapped, “Fiddlesticks! Just answer me this, please: Was it wrong of me to have told the waiter I found my meal tasty?”

  “Good God, no!” H.L. couldn’t account for the expression of relief on her face.

  “Good. I’m glad of that, anyhow.” She seemed to relax as she speared the other half of the meat cube she’d cut up earlier. “That settles that, then.”

  “I guess so.” Befuddled and without the least understanding of what mental machinations had just occurred in his lovely dining companion’s head, H.L. decided to solve that riddle later, along with all the other Rose riddles he was storing up. The food was too good, and he was too hungry, to worry about it now.

  He was stuffed to the gills by the time they’d polished off their lunch and crowned it with one of the melt-in-your mouth baklavas he loved so well for dessert. Rose had told him she was too full for dessert, but he’d insisted. When, with her first bite, she looked as if she were experiencing heavenly ecstasy, he was satisfied.

  Patting his stomach as they left the restaurant, he said, “I feel better now. I seem to have lost my appetite, in fact.”

  Rose smiled up at him. H.L. nearly fell over backwards. He couldn’t recall her smiling at him in unalloyed pleasure before. A mad urge to keep the expression on her face assailed him.

  “That was one of the very best meals I’ve ever eaten, Mr. May. Thank you for giving me the experience.”

  “You’re welcome.” His tongue felt bulky and didn’t seem to want to work with its normal glib suavity. Rose Gilhooley did something to him; he wasn’t sure what it was, but it had never happened before. He didn’t altogether trust it.