“Depending on how long I’m at the Barrows’, I might ring you later tonight,” Lydia calls out the window. “Mother and Father have tickets to the ballet, so it’ll just be me, Hannah, and Sarah.”
I wave as I unhook the gate of my front yard. “Talk to you then.”
She flutters her fingers in a farewell wave. With her smile and eyes gleaming bright, Lydia looks so healthy. Another image of Lydia flits through my mind—her head angled awkwardly back, her arms stiff against her chest, her breathing strangely erratic.
Matthew chugs away to carry her around the block to the Barrow residence. I press my eyes closed, as if that can shut out the image of the Other Lydia. She’ll be fine, I tell myself.
The LeVines seem able to convince themselves of this. Why can’t I?
The gate clanks shut behind me, and I mount the stone steps to my front door. I draw my house key from my bag, but the doorknob twists in my hand, and I push open the heavy door with my hip. Inside, it’s silent. I pull off my saddle shoes and drop them by the base of the stairs.
“Where’s Lydia?” My brother Nick’s voice startles me from the living room. He’s in Father’s chair with a notebook open and his mouth drawn in its usual frown.
“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Well, I am.” His fingers fidget with a tassel on the arm of the chair. “Did Lydia have somewhere else to be?”
I pull off my cloche and bite my lip so I don’t laugh at my besotted brother. We’ve grown up with the LeVines, but it’s as if six months ago he woke up and realized Lydia is a young lady and not just a girl.
“Lydia is showing her charitable side over at the Barrows’ house. She’s taking care of Cole so Mrs. Barrow can put her feet up, I guess.”
“I didn’t need to know where she was, Piper.” Nick’s face grows redder with each word he speaks. “It’s just that Lydia frequently comes in with you, and the two of you make so much noise that I might have needed to go to the library to study.”
“Right. Well, no. Lydia won’t be coming over this afternoon.”
“Okay, good.” Nick makes a show of settling against the back of the armchair. “Then I won’t bother with going to the library.”
“Is Walter home yet?”
“Try the kitchen.”
My feet take off in an unladylike rush. The yeasty scent of bread dough greets me as I push through the dining room door and into the kitchen. Joyce is scrubbing her hands at the sink and glances over her shoulder at me.
“He was here, Piper, but I sent him to the market to pick up my order.” She shuts off the faucet and smiles at me as she dries her hands on her apron. “You’ll have to make do with my company for now.”
“How did he look? Is he injured again?”
“He looks much better than when he came home earlier in the season. He assures me that other than a bruised shin, he’s fine.” Joyce drapes a kitchen towel over two rising mounds of dough. “No broken fingers. No black eyes. Hopefully, that means he’s learned his lesson about interfering when two other players decide to brawl.”
“We can hope so, at least.”
With its peeling wallpaper and functional feel, the kitchen isn’t the prettiest room in the house, but it’s still my favorite. After school, I almost always find our housekeeper, Joyce, in here starting supper. She’ll let me sit and talk to her about whatever is on my mind, unlike the men in the house. Joyce even looks a bit like my mother; she’s rounder, but has similar almond-colored eyes and sandy hair.
“How was school today?”
I pull open the door of the refrigerator. “It was school.”
Joyce sighs. “Never have I seen a girl with a mind as fine as yours dislike school so much. Don’t you know how lucky you are, Piper?”
I set my glass and the bottle of milk on the counter. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.” But that’s exactly how I sound. Joyce would have loved to send Walter to a nice school, a school like she probably went to before her life took a cruel turn.
“Gracious, girl. Again?”
I look up and find Joyce’s gaze is on my bruised right hand, the one clutching the milk bottle. I shrug and pay careful attention as I unscrew the cap.
“Ms. Underhill?”
“How’d you guess?” I keep my gaze on the flour-dusted floor. This is always the worst part of Ms. Underhill’s discipline—bearing the weight of Joyce’s disappointment.
Usually Joyce launches into a lecture about keeping my sassy mouth shut in Home Economics and letting that sweet Miss LeVine teach me a thing or two. Today, she sighs and says, “You should put some ice on it before it swells any worse.”
I feel her gaze on me as I select a chunk of ice, wrap it in a knobby dish towel, and press it to my knuckles. “I wasn’t mouthing off today, I swear. I missed a step in my pattern, is all.”
Joyce’s eyebrows arch. “And is there a reason you missed a step? Perhaps you were too busy chatting or passing notes to pay closer attention?”
I bite my lip and look away.
Her “Mm-hmm,” has a distinct That’s-what-I-thought snap to it.
My knuckles are painfully cold, but that’s okay. Next they’ll be numb. The routine is familiar by now.
“Piper, I know you’ve been raised in a house of boys. You know things a girl shouldn’t know at age eighteen.” She stirs the potato soup simmering on the stove and then turns to me. Her eyes are piercing. “But you’re a young lady. It would do you well to start acting like one.”
The only sound in the kitchen is the whir of the gas stove and the occasional bubble from the pot. Words slide around in my head—I’m trying my best. Ms. Underhill just doesn’t like me. But Joyce would only say that I did that to myself when I—ahem—borrowed Ms. Underhill’s shapeless cardigan last fall and snuck Lydia and me a pastry from the teacher’s room. Or when my infamous ride down the stairwell banister resulted in knocking her over. Or when—
Footsteps pound up the back stairs, and then the door shoves open. In swaggers Walter Thatcher, grinning over the box of groceries.
“There’s a sight for my homesick eyes—Piper Caroline Sail.” He settles the cardboard box on the counter and sweeps off his flat cap.
I find myself hesitating, cataloging the changes in him these last weeks. His already dark skin has grown even darker from California’s sunshine, and his black hair is clipped shorter. But his broad smile is the same, and when he opens his arms, I rush to embrace him. The scents of the grocery store—spices and cardboard—cling to his tweed suit. Walter squeezes me against his thick chest before holding me out at a distance.
“With your hair like that, I might not have guessed it was you. I might’ve thought you were a blonde Clara Bow.”
I touch my bobbed hair. “Father was finally convinced.”
“Or, rather, Miss Miller talked him into it,” Joyce says as she unloads canned goods onto the counter.
I scrunch my nose at the mention of Jane. Joyce’s mouth twitches with a smile when she sees. No lecture this time.
But with Walter in the room, even the mention of my father’s girlfriend can’t spoil my mood. My gaze skims down the length of Walter and up again. “You’re quite tan. I think I’d like to spend part of my year living in California as well.”
Walter leans against the counter. “Maybe you could stow away in my suitcase when I leave next.”
Joyce clears her throat. “The son I raised would never make such a bawdy suggestion.”
Walter grins at his mother and pecks a kiss to her cheek. “Don’t fret, Mother. Piper knows well that I’m teasing.”
“Why don’t the two of you go for a walk?” Joyce suggests. “Leave me in peace to do my work.”
“Can you believe this, Pippy?” Walter settles his hat back onto his black curls. “Not even home a day and already my mother is shooing me out the door.”
Joyce smiles at him and turns back to her soup.
Walter winks at me, and I realize just how lonely
it’s been since he left in the spring to play minor league ball out west. Initially after Mother died, I was like a pet of sorts to my brothers and Walter. And then as Tim and Nick grew into their adult lives, it became just me and Walter. At eighteen years old, I should be growing into my adult self as well, but behaving like a lady feels like wearing an ill-fitting costume.
Nick is still in Father’s chair, hunkered over the notebook. “Where are you two going?”
“For a walk. Wanna come?”
Nick heaves a sigh as he smooths his sheet of paper. “No, you go ahead. I have a test tomorrow.”
Apparently, becoming a lawyer takes lots of time and energy, even if your father is already one of the most sought-after defense attorneys in Chicago.
“And be safe!” Nick calls after us.
I glance at Walter and roll my eyes as I pull on my hat. That’s become Nick’s constant parting advice since he started studying criminal cases. Ignorance is bliss, it seems, because I never give safety a moment’s thought when I leave the house. Not in a neighborhood like ours, anyway.
Walter holds the wrought iron gate open for me. “Folks will think I’m high class, strolling with a Presley’s girl.”
I glance down at my long black skirt, the sweater, and bow. “Blast. I forgot I still had on my uniform.”
“You look fine. Though I’m not fond of seeing your knuckles in that shade of gray.”
“I bring it upon myself.” I clasp my hands behind my back as the wind bites at us. I probably should have grabbed my coat. “Tell me all about how your season is going. No splints or black eyes, I see.”
“That’s because I’m warming the bench.” Walter’s words have a bitter edge to them. His jaw is set, and his eyes focus farther down tree-lined Astor Street.
Time to dust off my you-can-do-this speech. “I know that’s frustrating, Walter, but you told me yourself that’s just part of the game. It’ll be your turn soon. I’m sure of it.”
Mrs. LeVine is climbing the steps of her front porch, her handbag over her shoulder. She either doesn’t see me or pretends not to. Having lived only three houses down from me since I was two years old, she’s had a front row seat to all the antics that make me a less-than-ideal friend for her prized daughter. I have no doubt that my tendency to walk alongside a man of Walter’s position is on her extensive list of my flaws.
Walter takes a deep breath. “I’ve actually decided to give up baseball.”
My feet stop walking, but Walter presses a hand into the small of my back and urges me onward, around the corner. “How can you even think that, Walter? Since I met you, being a baseball player is basically all you’ve talked about.”
“I know. But I didn’t really know then what it would be like.”
“What do you mean? You love it.”
“When I get to play, yeah.”
It’s a good thing Walter’s hand is pressing me forward, guiding me around a mother pushing her baby in a pram, because I’m so busy staring at him, trying to decode him, that I might have run into them. I’ve known Walter since I was thirteen, when my mother fell ill and Joyce took the live-in housekeeping job. But the boy I’ve known these last five years, so determined to strike out on his own, to provide a living for himself and his mother, is a stranger in this moment.
“Everyone warms the bench sometimes, Walter.”
He winces. “Not everyone.”
“You’re nineteen, and this is your first team. Don’t you think it’s a bit premature to give up on baseball because you’re not a starter yet? Not everyone is Babe Ruth.”
Walter looks away, his chin jutting defiantly. “The money isn’t good either. And you should see the dives we sleep in when we’re on the road.”
“But it won’t always be like that.”
“I don’t want to be poor all my life.”
“Who does? We’re not talking about your whole life. We’re talking about now.”
“I should learn a trade or something.” Walter kicks at a pebble that’s dared to wander from a garden and onto the sidewalk. “Build me some kind of dependable future.”
“Dependable future?” A laugh bubbles out of me. “I’m sorry, are you really Walter Thatcher? Because I’ve never heard you use a phrase like that before. I figured you’d only start talking like that when—” My feet stop walking again, and I press my hand over my mouth.
This time Walter doesn’t force me onward. He stops and gazes at me.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’ve met someone.”
His only response is to stare back.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
He holds my gaze as he takes in a breath. “Yes. There is someone.”
“I knew it!” Walter continues walking, and I sashay alongside him, tugging at his hand. “How’d you meet? What’s her name? What’s she like? Did she come to your games and swoon over you? Or—” I gasp again. “Or does she not like baseball? Is that why I’m hearing all this talk about giving it up?”
Walter smiles, looking more like his normal self. “No, she likes baseball. It’s more that . . . Well, she comes from a family with money—”
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.” I link my arm through his as we start up State, the street that runs parallel to mine. “A rich girl.”
“You wouldn’t know it, though, from talking to her. She’s very humble.”
I roll my eyes. “You must really be over the moon. People always say that about girls with money, and it’s so rarely true. Except for Lydia.” Wait a minute. “Is it Lydia? It is, isn’t it?”
Walter chuckles. “No, it’s not Lydia.” He squeezes my arm. “I know she’s your best friend, and I don’t want to offend, but I wouldn’t describe her as a girl who you can’t tell comes from money.”
“Lydia’s so sweet, though. So selfless.”
“She is, yes.” Walter hesitates. “But in a rich girl kind of way.”
“How can you say that? She’s up the street this very minute helping out Mrs. Barrow with Cole. If that’s not sweet, then I don’t know what is.”
Walter smiles at me like my oldest brother, Tim, does when he finds me amusing. “I don’t want to fight about Lydia.”
“Fine.” Lydia isn’t perfect, of course, but she’s always polite to Walter when they happen to be together. Even if she does disapprove of us being friends.
Quarrelling isn’t how I want to spend our limited time together. I shake away my annoyance. “Well, whoever she is and however much pin money she’s accustomed to, I hope she knows how lucky she is to have caught your eye, Walter. But you should know that I will personally flog you if you give up baseball for her. Because unless you’re ready to marry her now—” My feet stop moving. “You’re not, are you?”
“No. Audrey still has some school to finish. And it’s early still. We’ve only been out a few times.”
That’s a relief. I’ve always expected Walter to marry, of course, but knowing I have time to adjust to the idea is nice. “It seems to me, then, that there’s still time for you to give baseball a try before you need a ‘dependable future,’ as you put it.”
Walter is quiet for the next block, and I can tell by the way he repeatedly buttons and unbuttons his coat that it’s a thoughtful kind of silence. “I suppose I’m just frustrated over how little playing time I’ve had recently,” he finally says. “You’re right. I’m still young, and I always expected there to be hard work. It’s just harder than I thought it would be, being out there all alone without Mother or you.”
“Well, you have Audrey now.”
His mouth quirks in a soft smile. “True.”
I squeeze his arm. “You’re close, I can feel it. I hate to think of you giving up when you’ve worked so hard. And—”
My gaze catches on something strange ahead on the sidewalk. A crumpled girl with long flames of hair who’s wearing a uniform identical to mine.
A scream rips through the bright blue afternoon—my own.
CHAP
TER
TWO
I grasp my skirt to provide my knees freedom to run. “Lydia!” I’m yelling even though I know she can’t hear, that she’s not with us.
With Walter’s long legs and athleticism, he beats me to her bent frame. But he just gapes at her, same as I must have during the seizure I witnessed last month. I collapse beside Lydia and call to mind the questions I heard Dr. LeVine asking Mrs. LeVine last time. How long did it last? What were her arms doing? Her legs? Did she lose control of her faculties?
Even with my attempt to frame the moment in a list of scientific details, the sight of Lydia seizing has me biting in another scream. Her neck is angled back, and her eyes are rolled up, unseeing. Her throat makes a repetitive clicking noise, like the skipping needle on a record that needs turning over. Her arms are both extended, as if she’d been pushing someone away when the seizure struck, and her knees are tucked up beneath her rumpled, urine-soaked Presley school skirt.
“Oh!” Blood. A stream of crimson leaks onto the concrete. I want to curl into a ball and weep, but instead I lean closer to the sidewalk until I can see the source of the blood. A scrape on her right temple.
“What’s happening?” Walter’s words are hoarse.
“She’s having a seizure.” My voice is quiet but steady. “She must have been standing when it happened.”
“What do we do? How do we make her stop?” Panic oozes from him.
“We can’t.” My hands smooth Lydia’s hair, her skirt. “She has to come out of it on her own. But we need to get her home.”
“I’ll run for Matthew.”
“No, she’d die if he saw her this way.” I glance around to get my bearings. It’s a miracle no one has seen yet. “Can you carry her? We can cut between those houses to the alley and then take her through the LeVines’ back door. If you can carry her, I’ll run ahead to phone for her father.”
The repetitive clicking stops and a groan gurgles in Lydia’s throat. Her legs stretch indiscriminately, nudging her skirt up and scraping her silk stockings along the concrete.
The Lost Girl of Astor Street Page 2