The Elementals (11 page)

“Are you awake?” she asked, knowing she wasn’t. Kate shook her again, shushing Handsome when he stretched his wings wide above them.

Mollie wriggled a bit and mumbled, “What?”

Leaning closer, Kate whispered to keep from waking the other passengers. “What sort of work do you think might suit me?”

“You’re a director, goose.”

“No, I mean until then.” The armrest dug into Kate’s ribs, and she nudged Mollie again. “It’s not a joke; we’ve got to get by until our reel is finished.”

That made Mollie lift her head. “I thought we finished it this morning.”

“The photography, yes.” Kate curled over the armrest, wishing very much she could lay her head on Mollie’s shoulder. “I’ve got to send it to Eastman to develop. It won’t take long, but . . . oh no.”

Wary, Mollie sat up. “What?”

“They have to send it back. What address am I going to give them?”

Cutting Handsome a dark look, Mollie stretched herself in her seat until she was smoothed out and entirely awake. Though she didn’t seem worried, she was as serious as Kate had ever seen her. She asked, “How much do you have?”

“A bit more than a hundred dollars. And it’ll cost fifteen dollars to have the reel developed, so figure that in.”

Mollie scribbled in her palm with her fingernail. “A furnished flat is expensive. A boarding house is much better. Cheaper, and they feed you sometimes. Some of them do. We’ll say you’re my brother, so they won’t argue about renting to us. You look young enough.”

An unnerved shiver ran up Kate’s spine. She hadn’t even considered that. There was so much to know, so many things to plan for, and it was suddenly, overwhelmingly obvious that she had not the first clue where to start.

Fortunately, it seemed Mollie did. “We should buy a paper, first thing. There will be ads in the back. We’ll go through them all if we have to. It shouldn’t take long.”

Some of the knot loosened. “What about jobs?”

“There’s all sorts.” Mollie closed her hand and smiled. “If there’s a boardwalk, we should try there first. Even if it’s sweeping up or selling popcorn, it’ll be more fun than a typing pool.”

“You’re so clever,” Kate said, her admiration spilling out in three little words. But it was all true. Mollie knew everything important. She was an extraordinary actress too.

It couldn’t have been sheer luck that they met when they did. Kate had been going to Palais de Danse since the fair opened its doors; hundreds of times at least!

It had to be fate that she’d found Mollie there on her very last visit. Or destiny, or providence . . . something more than happenstance, anyway. Muses didn’t sprout from fig trees; they didn’t fall from the sky.

Catching Mollie’s hand, Kate squeezed it and swore, “This
will
be wonderful.”

Squeezing back, Mollie relaxed against the window again. “I’m going back to sleep. Unless you’ve got another crisis brewing?”

“I don’t, I swear,” Kate said. But she didn’t let go.

It was a long way to Los Angeles, and she needed her lucky charm.

Emerson stood at the back door, considering his boys.

They wandered the yard in their uniforms, talking low and casting furtive looks at the house. The preacher was coming, and Marjorie’s parents, too. There were roses in the boys’ buttonholes, and a white-flour cake was cooling in the window.

The wedding was never going to be grand, rushed as it was. But it should have been merrier. Emerson whipped the bowl of buttercream as Zora tried to brighten the kitchen. She unfurled her nicest tablecloth and stared into the distance while she did it.

Sometimes, her gaze would stray toward Emerson, revealing the raw, wounded animal she’d trapped inside her apron and best Sunday dress.

Julian had been missing for a week. No letter, no telegram . . . the only relief so far was no word of a body found in a creek or runoff ditch. They couldn’t stop their lives for him. The army wasn’t about to wait for its new doughboys. The fields needed water; the chickens wanted feed.

“Dad,” Charlie said, starting up the porch steps. “We’ve been talking, and we don’t want you to worry about the farm. We’re going to send home as much as we can.”

Leaning against the counter, Emerson shook his head. “We’ll mind the farm.”

“You can’t do it alone.” Charlie brushed his fingers against the screen, instead of opening the door. It was like confession when he said, “I didn’t know they were going to do this.”

“Didn’t think you did,” Emerson reassured him.

Pressing a hand against the door frame, Charlie closed his eyes, then finally said, “Marjorie and I can go to the city-county building. She’s going to want a real wedding afterward anyway, and it doesn’t seem right . . .”

Zora straightened the tablecloth. “You’re not taking back your wedding day, Charlie. Let’s try to enjoy it.”

“Mama . . .”

Warning, Zora said, “Charlie.”

“Mind your mother,” Emerson said.

His being the oldest showed, in the way he hesitated, and the way he made himself walk away instead of arguing. They could tell him not to think about it, but he would. He had two well-meaning idiots for brothers, going off to Europe with him . . . and he was missing one stupid spoiled brat who should have stayed home.

Julian had always been his, sort of. Being seven years older, Charlie felt like an extra father. He taught Julian to walk twice, once when he was a fat baby with a rooster comb of thin gold hair. And again when he was a skinny, wobbly boy down to one leg and a pair of crutches.

Maybe he should have pushed more about what happened in the barn on Julian’s birthday. Or he should have heard him leaving the house. How far could he get on his own? Charlie’d driven to Indianapolis looking for him; Henry and Sam got as far as Zionsville before coming back without him.

Reading Charlie’s face, Emerson gently kicked the door to get his attention. “I said mind your mother, Charlie. It is what it is.”

Charlie dragged a hand down his face. “Yes, sir.”

“It is what it is,” Zora repeated once Charlie had rejoined his brothers in the yard.

Carrying the buttercream to the counter, Emerson reached for the cake. His hands, so rough from working the land, were gentle when it came to frosting. Long fingers turned in elegant shapes, and he spoke deliberately.

“They’re all grown, Zo. It was going to break our hearts no matter how they proved it.”

“I’m glad you can be philosophical,” she said.

“It’s not philosophy, it’s a fact. We can cry later when it’s the two of us.”

Taking up her scissors again, Zora attacked the bundle of daisies in the basin waiting to be trimmed and tied with ribbon. Flatly, she said, “I’ve already cried.”

Emerson put his spatula aside. With careful scoops, he spooned icing into a cone of paper. His lips barely moved when he replied.

“Well, I haven’t, so get ready.”

***

Los Angeles wasn’t quite what Kate expected.

They’d found a room to share at The Ems right away; it wasn’t very expensive on account of the constant waft of garlic from a restaurant around the way. And jobs came quickly too, because Mollie knew where to ask.

The golden glow of the Los Angeles in Kate’s mind and imagination faded after a few days. As she hurried from work to fetch Mollie, Kate couldn’t help but notice all the things that made it a new city instead of an old fortress.

Orange and lemon groves surrounded the borders, and a bustling amusement park glittered on its shores.

But the city itself was a jumble of poured concrete and Spanish Mission architecture. Hand-painted advertisements abounded, competing with signs on top of signs on top of scaffolds bearing lighted signs.

The constant glow, exhilarating at first, devoured the nights, and automobiles roared away the silence. It was a city by the sea, but the only waves Kate noticed were tides of people, filling sidewalks and crossing streets. Each time the red streetcar passed, it shuddered to a stop and people gushed out in all directions.

To herself—only to herself—Kate admitted she was a bit disappointed. She’d grown up in well-worn lands, places that still stood but once had borne other names.
Londinium, Lutetia Parisiorum, Athēnai
.

She’d slept in ancient towers, bought pomegranates in bazaars that used to sell them to pharaohs and emperors and queens. Those cities bore new lights with dignity. Their narrow streets encouraged walking; they were paths first for human beings.

Los Angeles seemed made for
things
. It flourished on a grand scale, and so much of it was mechanical. Wires crossed overhead. Iron fire escapes climbed the buildings instead of ivy. Pavement yielded to glass, making way for machines instead of man.

Cramming her hat down a little tighter, Kate hurried through The Pike to find Mollie. Jostled and elbowed, she’d learned to push back.

Train conductors thought nothing of shoving her through doors, men thought nothing of stepping in front of her. Absolutely no one cared that she was
Amelia and Nathaniel’s daughter
. She wasn’t a pretty bit of porcelain anymore, and that was wonderful.

It was valuable, too, learning to move with authority, speaking up when she needed to be heard. It was, she decided, training her to be a proper director. Though Mollie was biddable enough, another actor might not be. Certainly, she couldn’t ask a producer’s
permission
to make films.

Weaving between concession wagons, Kate slowed when she finally caught sight of Mollie.

A scarlet confection, Mollie wore red from the plume in her hat to the points of her shoes. She’d even stained her lips to match, which made her teeth gleam like pearls when she threw her head back and laughed.

Two sailors flanked her, smart in their blue uniforms and white scarves. They were supposed to be interested in the iced soda she was selling. But the taller one kept fingering one of her loose curls, while the shorter one stared at her pretty mouth.

Something sharp pierced Kate’s chest. Sweaty, and smelling faintly of spoiled ice cream and sick from the roller coasters, she cut through the crowd deliberately. Her workday emptying rubbish bins was over. Mollie should have been handing off her soda box to the next shift too.

“Hey, fellas,” Kate said, too loud to be friendly. “My sister’s something, isn’t she?”

Both sailors took a step back, and the taller one laced his hands together. “Hey there, pal. Where’d you come from?”

The smile, Kate could tell, was thin and performed, and he spoke to her like she was both a baby and an idiot. The syrup flowed so thickly through his words, she could wade through it. Annoyed, Kate went to tell him exactly where she came from, but Mollie interrupted.

“He works the clean-up crew. Isn’t that adorable?” Mollie laughed and leaned toward the sailor. A strange shadow ran through her expression, tense and specific. It wasn’t for the sailors; it was for Kate.

Uneasy, Kate rubbed the back of her neck. “We’ll miss the next car if we don’t get going.”

The shorter sailor dug a dime from his pocket. “Why don’t you get yourself an Italian ice, kid? We’ll make sure your sister gets home all right.”

There was nothing menacing about them. Smooth faced and neatly pressed, they were just sailors—like the other servicemen who wandered The Pike before shipping off. Young and bright, with a little bit of money to spend and a long journey ahead. Still, Kate hesitated. “We always walk home together.”

“What are you, twelve? Thirteen?”

Crossing her arms, Kate frowned. She didn’t look
that
young. “Sixteen.”

The taller sailor leaned over, pretending to confide. “Oh, even better. When I was your age, I was sneaking into the dancehalls. Ladies are starving for a dance with a gent, kid. Go on, live a little.”

Mollie nodded, and beneath the icebox, she flicked her fingers, as if to shoo Kate away. “You’ll be fine on your own, and so will I.
Really
. I’ll see you tonight, for dinner.”

“Maybe a little after dinner,” the shorter sailor joked.

Trembling inside, Kate stood there a moment. Of course they treated her like a tagalong kid brother; she looked like one. But she wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. Shoving her hand out, she looked from Mollie to the sailors and said, “I hope I don’t accidentally tell our Ma about this.”

Mollie drew herself up, her face the same shade of crimson as the plume that brushed her cheek. The sailors, though, burst out laughing, and one dropped a quarter into Kate’s palm. As she closed her fingers around it, he gave her a little shove to send her on her way.

With one last look over her shoulder, Kate saw that Mollie’d already turned away. Hurrying down the boardwalk, Kate didn’t raise her head. Thirty-five cents; they’d paid her a quarter and a dime to go away.

Enough for a movie palace matinee. A half-dozen bottles of Coca-Cola. A dinner plate and a piece of pie at Harvey House. Thirty-five cents.

She planned to repeat that over and over until Mollie got home. Now that Kate’d learned what things cost, she could count the things that money would buy.

It could be a prayer or a spell. A bit of ordinary magic, Kate hoped as she stumbled through the crowd. Maybe that would loosen the unforgiving knot inside her.

***

“I don’t need someone to lift me out of the tub,” Julian said.

He couldn’t believe the look the owner of the boarding house gave him. The minute he came in the door, she’d gotten flustered. Rubbing her raw hands in her apron, her gaze kept falling to his leg. Caught staring, she turned a richer shade of red. But she wasn’t so embarrassed that she couldn’t tell him the rules of the house.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, so I can’t follow around after you,” she said. Fidgeting with her apron again, she tilted her head at a stiff angle. It was like the only way she could look him in the eye was to contort herself. “I’ll do your wash, but that’s extra. Haven’t got a special menu for invalids, but . . .”

“I’m not an invalid!”

She inflated when he raised his voice. “And I expect to be treated right. I’m not your mother. You’re not paying me enough to tolerate sass.”