The Elementals (22 page)

“The hell you will. That’s my personal property.”

The sergeant closed the inventory book and leveled a stern look at Caleb. The sergeant wasn’t a very tall man, but he was broad. He had shoulders like ham hocks and a jaw so solid, it practically dared someone to take a swing at it. “Look, now. You’re free to go. Nobody’s pressing charges. Go buy yourself a beer.”

“They’re fishing weights,” Caleb said. Acid swirled in his stomach, burning him from the inside. They both knew he was lying, but he didn’t care. Those bullets were his, the same as the change and the twine.

“So you know, there’s a ten-dollar fine for fishing without a license, Virgil.”

Cussing him to his face, Caleb slapped the desk and backed away. There was no point fighting it. He’d never gotten a fair shake before; he wouldn’t get one now, either. Pushing into the afternoon sunlight, he shielded his eyes as they started to water.

Starving, and head splitting, Caleb stopped at the corner. What little he owned was still holed up in the green room at Clune’s, and he needed to get it back. He could spend thirty cents on a lunch plate and walk back to the theatre. Or he could take a red car back to Olive Street and beg scraps from Delmonico’s kitchen.

A fire engine screamed by. The siren mixed badly with his headache, and Caleb broke out in a cold sweat of nausea. When he recovered, he darted into the road to catch the red car. Sleep first, then scraps.

Then a pint to drown Amelia van den Broek for good.

Curled on Julian’s bed, Kate watched him move through his room.

The crutches made a pleasing thump, then his foot whispered across the carpet when he put it down. The slide when he put the crutches away, the sure rip when he split the first envelope in the pile waiting for him. He was musical, entirely unintentionally.

Kate wondered what he’d look like on film. The combination of pale hair and dark eyes would be striking. Would film capture his subtle freckles? Burying her head in her arms, she sighed.

“Letter from my mother,” Julian said. Then he laughed quietly, thumbing through the pages. “With an invoice for the money I owe her.”

Peeping up, Kate stared. “Your mother bills you?”

“It’s a long story,” Julian said.

That he didn’t want to share, obviously. Kate dropped her head again, closing her eyes. The long night caught up with her, and she wavered halfway between sleep and waking. Trailing her fingers across the quilt, she said, “I need to pick up my pay. Will you go with me?”

“Yep.”

“Soon?”

He glanced at her, letters in hand. “Give me a minute.”

Kate rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Tender everywhere, she felt like one big bruise. When she’d stepped onto the train to Los Angeles, she’d had doubts, but she also had ambition. And hope. And, she was forced to admit, advantages. Plenty of money, an expensive camera, someone who knew how to find her way around the city.

That was all gone; this was starting over the very hard way. She’d learned to find a job and take the streetcar, so she wasn’t helpless. The art in her head still flowed in moving pictures; her yearning to bring them to life hadn’t changed. And she had a friend now—a true one.

“What are you sighing about?” Julian asked.

Kate rolled onto her stomach again and propped her head in her arms. “Nothing. What are you frowning about?”

“Nothing,” he replied. Tossing a letter onto the table, he leaned back and scrubbed his face with his hands. “Can’t believe I lost three weeks”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Didn’t say you did.”

Kate knotted herself around and came up sitting on the edge of the bed. It didn’t seem right that she could have visions of somebody her entire life but have things turn out like this. He should have been madly in love with her; she should have been equally mad for him. What about the stars? A secret wedding, a tangled destiny?

He was pretty to look at, his lips wonderfully warm. But mostly, she wanted to poke him in the ribs and count his teeth and find out if he had webs between his toes. He looked rather sleek, now that she considered it. Soulful eyes, golden everywhere else . . . It was entirely possible he was a selkie.

“Are you sure you can’t take your skin off?” Kate asked.

Turning to face her, Julian leaned forward in his chair. “With a sharp knife and some patience, I expect I could.”

He was so exasperated, and so serious, and so literal that Kate had to smile. Bouncing slightly on the bed, she got a very dirty look from Handsome. He flew to the windowsill and tapped the glass with his beak. Rolling to her feet, Kate walked over to let him out.

“Letter from a sweetheart?” Kate asked.

Furrowing his brow, Julian put a hand over the mail. “What makes you think that?”

“I can smell the perfume.”

With a vaguely sheepish look, Julian quit guarding his mail. Stretching his arms over his head, he popped his shoulders and said, “She’s not a sweetheart. She’s a girl I worked with at the laundry.”

A likely story, Kate thought. “A coworker who sends perfumed letters. That happens to me all the time.”

“We had a movie date, but I stood her up.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I was busy getting mauled at the beach by a crazy girl.”

Shoving her hands into her pockets, Kate shook her head at him. What a sad little man he was. “You’re not being mauled right now. Go find her.”

“It was almost a month ago,” Julian pointed out. “I didn’t know her very well. She thinks I stood her up and then ignored two notes she left for me.”

Kate pushed off the wall. Plucking her hat off the bed, she dropped it on his face. “That’s what flowers are for. Chocolates. Firecrackers, if she likes that sort of thing. Apologies—real ones; you do have to mean it—and presents can work wonders.”

“Sometimes things happen for a reason,” he said, and tossed the hat back to her.

Reclaiming the cap, she put it on and tried for careless. A bit whimsical, not desperate at all. Light, teasing, but not too forward, because she was mixed up inside. “I could be a reason. You should get to know me.”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked. Fishing his crutches from beneath the bed, he rose up on them and then pointed her toward the door. “Let’s go get your check while the sun’s shining.”

Maybe she was delirious from lack of sleep, but Kate couldn’t stop smiling.

***

As many times as he’d been to the State Fair back home, Julian was mesmerized by The Pike. Great wooden roller coasters stretched over the ocean seeming too spindly to be anything but decoration. He watched in wonder as the trains climbed the first hill together, then spun away on separate paths.

Delighted shrieks filled the air, accompanied by a distant calliope and ringing bells. The scent of frying sausages and cotton candy drifted around him, tempting him to taste a bit of everything.

Following Kate through the midway, he watched a beribboned little girl pluck a plastic duck from a tub. She bounced when she traded it to the barker for a goldfish in a bowl.

“My brother Charlie’s a whiz at those,” he said as they passed the milk-bottle game. Two boys wound up and pitched. They threw their baseballs as hard as they could and still only managed to knock the top bottle down.

Kate smiled up at Julian. “He must be clever, then. They’re all weighted at the bottom.”

Julian hadn’t realized that, but it made him laugh in retrospect. Sam never managed to knock them down, but Charlie did every time. It was one of the skills Charlie lorded over the younger brothers.

A woman in a turban stepped in front of them. She waggled her fingers and spoke in sultry tones. “My mystic eye sees all. Let Lady Freya lift the veil on your future.”

“Maybe another time,” Kate said, darting around her.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Julian couldn’t maneuver quite as quickly as Kate through the crowd, but he managed. Pop guns went off in the distance, drowned out by the clatter of the coaster cars racing back to the station.

As they turned the corner, a bell rang. A strongman in a Tarzan suit swung a sledgehammer over his shoulder and pointed to Kate. “Step up, lad. Let’s test your muscle. Ring the bell, win a prize!”

“Let me,” Julian said. He produced a penny for the barker, holding it out for him. The barker hesitated. “It’s awful heavy, son.”

“He can handle it,” Kate said.

Her eyes sparkled, avidly following Julian’s every move. The barker finally took the penny, and Julian let Kate take his crutches. Rubbing his hands dry on his trousers, Julian took the sledgehammer and hefted it.

The sun beat down, impossibly hot, and the salted- sugared wind swirled around him. There was a trick to this one, too—letting the hammer fall before putting any weight behind it.

A grunt escaped him as he heaved the hammer over. Muscles tightened in his back, hands burning against unpainted wood. Moving with the hammer, he forced his strength into it at the last moment. The impact shook through him, and he was rewarded by the clang of the bell.

Hopping back a few steps, Julian threw his hands up with a grin. “And handle it I did.”

The barker forgot his façade for a moment and cursed under his breath in surprise. Quickly regaining his composure, he pulled a stuffed rabbit from the display and tossed it to Kate.

“That’s mine,” Julian told her, biting back a grin. “I’ll let you carry it.”

“I’ll let you wrestle me for it,” Kate replied.

After a few more distractions, she stopped in front of the offices. She ran inside, leaving Julian to ponder the relative merits of funnel cakes versus elephant ears. When Kate emerged, he greeted her with one of each.

“You’re going to be broke by morning,” she said, but she took the funnel cake anyway. They sprawled on a brightly painted bench, tearing bits of fried dough, and blowing their fingers to cool them off.

Relaxing into the warmth and the chaos, Julian tipped his head toward hers. “I have an idea.”

“Does it involve a circus fire?”

“Don’t get cheeky. It worked, didn’t it?”

Refusing to cede the point, Kate waved a bit of cake before popping it in her mouth. “Have you
ever
seen a raven at a circus?”

“No, but I’ve never seen anybody keep one as a pet either.” Dipping a finger into the powdered sugar on Kate’s plate, he dotted her nose with it, then sucked his finger clean. “Or a girl in a suit. Or somebody stop time. Seems to me like anything’s possible when you’re mixed up in it.”

“Aww,” Kate said.

Julian reached over and flicked the envelope in her front pocket. “How much do you have?”

“Four dollars,” she said. “It would have been five, but they docked me for skipping out without notice.”

“Will they let you come back?”

Kate tore off another bite, the white spot of sugar still on the tip of her nose. “Afraid not. Guess we’re both in the market for a new job.”

Finishing the elephant ear, Julian rolled the paper plate into a tube and sat in silence for a moment. Watching Kate when she wasn’t looking, he smiled. A silver curl escaped her hat, floating on the breeze like cottonwood seeds.

She was crazy as an outhouse rat and possessed the most disturbed mind he’d ever encountered. But she was bright and full of life. And he was pretty sure the crutches didn’t matter to her.

Coming to the city, out of the safety of his home in Indiana, it had been a shock to find out how many people minded. How little they thought he could do. If nothing else, Kate seemed to think he could manage more than he could.

Reaching over, he tugged her ear and said, “Like I was saying, I have an idea.”

“What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Tell me!”

“Let’s pool our money and waste half of it tonight.” He looked around, gesturing with his shoulders. “Ride some rides. Have a couple hot dogs. Try to win a goldfish.”

Standing, Kate turned to him and shook her head. “Handsome would eat a goldfish.”

“Try
not
to win a goldfish,” Julian replied. “You’ve got something on your nose.”

“I know,” she said, and bounded away.

She disappeared among the throng, an occasional flash of plum visible between more subtle tweeds. Somehow, even on a packed boardwalk, with balloons and spinners dancing everywhere, she stood out.

A moment later, she swam against the current and threw a hand up to catch his attention. The question was written on her face:
Are you coming?

“I take it that’s a yes?” he shouted, and dove into the crowd after her.

***

They’d been spun and looped, palm-read and age-guessed. They’d ridden the roller coaster over the water and waded by the beach house. And as The Pike started to settle for the night, Kate wasn’t ready for it to end. Tugging Julian’s jacket, she pointed to the lighted sign ahead.

“Majestic Ballroom,” she said. “Let’s go for a whirl.”

Julian looked down, amused. “Let’s not and say we did.”

“But I love dancing,” she said.

He replied, “Yeah, but I have one left foot.”

Glancing down, Kate started to laugh. “The girls could put their arms round your neck and swing a little bit.”

“What about a movie instead?”

He pointed at a sign past the ballroom’s, flickering in shades of red and white. Music from The Strand competed with the Majestic, two live bands of entirely different varieties, playing along at once. To add to the chaos, people emerged from one to dart into the other, as if they were playing hopscotch.

Puffing up, Kate circled Julian, already heading that way. “I wonder what they’re showing?”

“
The Little American,
” Julian said drily. No need to wonder when there was a picture card in the display case naming it.

Bouncing, Kate nearly careened into him. “Oh, Mary Pickford! She was amazing in
A Romance of the Redwoods
. Did you see it?”

“I’ve never seen a movie at all.”

Kate might have been less surprised if Julian claimed to have never seen the sun. Thrilled with the prospect of showing him the electric perfection of a motion picture, she reached back and tugged his sleeve.