The Jewel and the Key

by Louise Spiegler

  Drawing in a deep breath, Addie ran up the stairs and pushed her way through the doors. It was crowded here, too, and there was another wait to go through security. She recognized some of the people from the courthouse. One or two of them nodded at her or shook their heads sympathetically.

  Once through the metal detectors, she entered a large room. Reflections of the buzzing ceiling lights skidded greasily on the yellow linoleum floors. People paced nervously, and cops kept bringing in handcuffed prisoners. To the left was a crowded waiting area with rows of plastic seats. Cashier’s desks were spaced along the far wall, with more lines of people stretching up to them.

  How could she contact Whaley? Addie drifted over toward the cashiers, but something in her balked at standing for ages in another line, especially when it was just to pay—which she couldn’t do—and they probably wouldn’t help her get a message to Whaley anyhow. There had to be a quicker way. She looked around for someone to ask, but everyone, from the security guards to the people selling snacks at a kiosk, looked incredibly busy. Down the hall, she saw ranks of elevators, and just past them, another corridor. She wandered over in that direction.

  A cop was leading a handcuffed prisoner down the hallway. A young guy, eyes puffy from tear gas. Addie overheard him ask, “Are these the holding cells?” The cop nodded before opening the heavy door at the end of the corridor. Raucous voices spilled out and were swallowed up again as the door shut behind them.

  Holding cells. That must be the lockup, Addie thought. That’s where Whaley is.

  An idea began to form in her head. Probably no one would notice if she slipped down there, just for a moment. As long as she was quick. Addie shrugged aside her uneasiness. Checking to see if any of the guards were watching, she darted swiftly down the hall.

  She pressed her ear to the door, straining to listen as hard as she could. There was no way to tell for sure, because the door distorted the sound, and so many people were talking....

  But then she heard a muffled yet unmistakable scratchy tenor singing something. Singing! She almost laughed. That maniac. Singing in a jail cell.

  “Whaley!” She thumped her palms against the door.

  The singing stopped. Could he hear her?

  “Whaley! It’s Addie! I’m going to get you out!”

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” Someone yanked her arm and twisted it behind her back. She jerked her head around and saw an enormous police officer with a gun strapped to his belt. He swung her around and marched her back up the corridor. “You think just anyone can go up there and interfere with the prisoners?”

  At first she was so shocked she just let herself be pulled along, but once she got control of her feet, she tried to set her own pace. It didn’t work. The guy was so humongous, it was like fighting gravity.

  “I ... was trying to let my friend know I was here—”

  “Oh, yeah?” He dumped her into one of the plastic chairs that lined the wall. “I can just throw you outta here, you know that, don’t you?”

  Every muscle in her body clenched. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

  “No more trouble from you or you’re out on the street, you understand?”

  Addie just stared up at the mountain of blue uniform.

  “Do ... you ... understand?” he bent down, emphasizing each word.

  She nodded, her head bouncing on her neck like a bobble-head toy’s. “I understand,” she whispered.

  “Good.” He turned away, and her heart thumped. She watched his broad back and the fold of flab on his neck as he receded toward the holding cells.

  For a long time, she hardly dared move. She just sat in the chair where he’d left her, seething with anger at the cop. But also at herself. He was right. Of course it had been a stupid thing to do. This was a jail, for Pete’s sake. You didn’t run up and pound on locked doors. What had she been thinking?

  The clock on the wall ticked loudly, and she could have sworn that there was progressively more time between each tick, until the minute hand was practically not moving at all.

  Seven thirty. Seven forty-five.

  The wait stretched on like saltwater taffy. Her anger seeped away and became a dull shame and then an even duller resignation. Finally, her head started to droop. She rested it awkwardly on her shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Then she heard a door creak on its hinges—it sounded like it was near the elevators. Vaguely, in the velvety blackness into which she’d sunk, this disturbed her.

  A voice said, “You sure you want to see these fellas? Rough bunch, I gotta warn you. No manners.”

  Addie forced herself to lift her heavy eyelids. It was darker now. Much darker. They’d turned off those ugly fluorescent lights, she thought.

  But then she saw Reg emerging from an alcove at the end of the hall, a police officer at his side, and she knew there were no fluorescent lights to turn off. Reg, she thought drowsily, and felt a stab of happiness. What’s he doing here?

  “That’s all right,” he was saying to the cop. “I suppose a lot of other fellows have interviewed them already?”

  “Not many,” the policeman answered. He had light brown hair and a droopy mustache.

  Addie jerked herself upright. “Reg!”

  But he didn’t react to her voice. She saw him pull a notepad from the breast pocket of his jacket and then look around, frowning, as if he could feel someone watching. Addie knew he must be going to interview Peterson’s friends in jail. Her heart expanded in her chest as she watched him wait for the warden to turn an enormous iron key in the lock of the door. If only he could see or hear her.

  But he stepped through the door and was gone.

  “Addie?” A hand was shaking her gently by the shoulder.

  “Ow!” Addie opened her eyes and saw Becky Powell’s concerned face hovering over her. The scarf around her head was black today, and she was wearing very thick but still fashionable glasses.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just a bruise,” Addie mumbled. And then, shaking off the last shreds of the dream, she sat upright. “What are you doing here, Mrs. Powell?”

  “Margie asked me to come.”

  “But—you’re not well. Couldn’t she—”

  “No. She couldn’t,” Mrs. Powell said dryly. “We took a quick pulse check and decided that, for once, mine was stronger. So I’ve paid Whaley's bail. They’ll bring him out soon.” Mrs. Powell lowered herself into the chair next to Addie, leaning her walking stick against the wall.

  “You paid it!” Addie burst out. “But—but—I didn’t mean for you to pay it! Oh, Mrs. Powell, I’m sorry. I thought Mrs. T. would come. Or Dad.” She looked into Becky Powell’s drawn face. The shadows under her eyes were dark enough to be visible even through the distorting lenses. “You don’t feel well, do you?”

  “My doctor says it’s good for me to walk. And I need to adjust to driving again. Even at night.” She laid a hand on Addie’s wrist. “You didn’t think I was going to leave you and Whaley here, did you?”

  Down at the end of the hall, a policeman opened the door leading to the cells, and a swell of singing surged out, many voices together. It was “The Battle of New Orleans,” a song Whaley had taught Zack. The two of them had driven her crazy with it.

  Someone whooped and Addie could hear Whaley’s voice leading the chorus: “Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico!”

  Mrs. Powell arched an eyebrow. “Not really appropriate for that bunch of peaceniks, is it?”

  Addie broke up laughing as they heard Whaley’s voice lurch into the second stanza. “What'd you expect? ‘Kumbaya’? This is Whaley were talking about.”

  “Pipe down in there!” the policeman at the door shouted. “Who’s Whaley Price?”

  “That’s me, Mein Führer!” A ripple of laughter ran around the cell.

  “Don’t push it, boy.”

  “Did I get a candygram?” Whaley asked.

  “You got out of my hair, that’s what you got
.” The door swung closed as the policeman entered the cells. A minute later, a muffled cheer went up from inside as it opened again.

  And then Whaley was coming down the hall behind the officer. He grinned when he saw Addie and Mrs. Powell waiting for him.

  Addie sprang forward and threw her arms around him. “Whaley, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Sorry? What are you sorry for?” Whaley hugged her back and then pulled away, rubbing his wrists. There were marks on them where the handcuffs had been.

  “It’s my fault. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.”

  “Don’t be silly. It's not you that put me in here. It’s those fascist cops!” Addie flinched, half expecting someone to come and drag Whaley back to the cell. “No way is it you, Addie.” He turned to Mrs. Powell, and his cocky expression disappeared. “You bailed me out, didn’t you, Mrs. Powell?”

  “It’s all right, Whaley.”

  Whaley grasped her small hands and held them between his red, calloused ones. “Thank you. I never expected—”

  “It’s all right,” she said again.

  “No. No, it’s not,” he insisted. “I’m going to pay you back, Mrs. Powell. I swear.”

  Mrs. Powell’s mouth quirked into a half smile. “It’s just a loan, Whaley. Besides, I’ll get it back when you show up for trial. You don’t owe me anything.”

  Whaley straightened his back. “Yes, I do,” he said. “I’m going to help rebuild that place for you.” He held up his hand to ward off her protests. “No, I am. Anything you need, that’s what I’m going to do.”

  For the first time since the tear gas, Addie felt a small glimmer of hope.

  19. Entrances and Exits

  Hope is a weird thing. It's a thin melody that flickers through you, disappearing and reappearing like a moth at twilight. Addie felt it when she got up Saturday morning and Dad told her Whaley had gone to the hardware store to pick up some wood finish Mrs. Powell had ordered for the Jewel.

  She was superstitious, though. If she even thought about what she hoped for, she was convinced it wouldn’t happen. So every time the moth fluttered its wings, she looked away, telling herself that nothing was there.

  But then Almaz called and she found herself blurting out everything anyway.

  “I’m with you,” Almaz said. “If you think he might give up on the army to stick around and renovate that theater, fine. But if you need me to saw off his legs to get him to stay, I’m up for that, too.”

  “He’d go over on his stumps. I think he needs something to stay for. ”

  They said goodbye, and Addie went to the kitchen to make pancakes for Zacky. His eyes still looked terrible from the tear gas. He leaned against her side, watching the golden circles of batter bubble on the griddle. She drew him to her and squeezed. They could hear Dad on the phone with Mrs. Turner, arranging to pick up groceries for her so she could stay at home and rest her ankle.

  After breakfast, Addie went to her room and took out the old photo she’d found the night she discovered the hidden closet.

  She’d looked at it over and over again since that day in the Jewel, comparing it with what she’d seen in Reg and Megs time. Was it really the Jewel? It was hard to tell. She couldn’t catch a glimpse of any specific thing to confirm it, couldn’t see the brass heating grate above the orchestra pit or the Egyptian carvings on the walls. She couldn’t see the actors’ faces clearly behind the masks. But it felt right.

  She closed her eyes, and immediately the Jewel came to life around her. She smelled the sweet curranty smell of Frida’s scones, heard Meg clapping her hands imperiously to summon the cast. What had they all thought when she’d disappeared? Was Meg angry? What did Reg do? Surely they would wonder why she had been gone so long. And Reg—she saw him again as she had in the jail and remembered the dismay she felt when she wasn’t able to speak to him. But that had been a dream. She was sure of it. As real and immediate and uncanny as the other dreams that had started to trouble her sleep.

  “Addie!” Dad called from downstairs. “Whaley’s on the phone. He says can you get his camera and bring it to the theater.”

  Carefully, she slid the photo back into the book. “Tell him I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Whaley trusted her again, she thought. He must. Asking her to search for his camera in his bedroom was as good as saying he forgave her for stealing the enlistment papers. Happiness swelled inside her and she bounced up the steps to his attic room two at a time.

  When she got to the theater, she found him in the lobby rubbing foul-smelling wood filler into the scratches on the surface of the grand mahogany bar, gently scraping off the excess.

  “Brought the camera,” Addie said, waving it in the air.

  In his ripped Muddy Waters T-shirt, he looked somehow wirier and more like he was running on fumes than he usually did. But she could tell he was genuinely glad to see her.

  Addie flopped down onto the single barstool in front of the bar.

  “Hey there, Natasha de Vil. I was thinking you could take pictures of the inside of the theater. We can match them up with any other old photos we find, you know? Like the ‘Now and Then’ section in the Sunday paper,” he said.

  “That’s a good idea.” Addie hesitated. She was so excited by the thought that maybe Whaley would stay here and help rebuild the Jewel for Mrs. Powell instead of joining the army that she was tempted to push him on it. But she didn’t. There was no point trying to force Whaley into anything. She realized that now. She also realized that he had a debt to Mrs. Powell. A pretty serious one. Addie suspected that Mrs. Powell had covered the whole of his bail, not just the 10 percent. And Whaley took debts seriously. Still, she wasn’t going to say anything.

  So she just told him, “I’ll get started,” and headed into the auditorium. She began in the back and worked her way around, taking pictures of the arcades, the false ceiling, and the walls where the murals from Reg’s time were all whitewashed over. Somewhere, buried under layers of paint and dust, warm colors must still pulse like living things. Just as somewhere underneath all the decay, the Jewel of the past was still alive. For a moment, she stood still, listening intently, drawing in the smell of the place, as if an echo or a scent might waft to her out of that distant past.

  A creak came from the foyer. That was all.

  And yet, she thought, I could shift away all these layers of time. I could see them all again. Longing flared in her, and she had a sudden giddy thought: Why not? Take the camera and snap the pictures for Whaley—but in the past! The whole problem would be solved, and she’d see Reg and the others again....

  It took only a second for her to see why this would never work. For one thing, how could she possibly explain photos from 1917 in bright color, stored on a memory chip? She nearly laughed at herself. She’d just stick to what Whaley had asked her to do.

  From the stage she snapped shots of the orchestra and balcony. Then she headed down to the lower level where the offices and dressing rooms were. The wardrobe shop still had clothes racks in it and an ancient sewing machine tucked away in the corner. She found the room where the sets were constructed and snapped a few more pictures. The place was huge, much bigger than she’d realized. Fixing it up was going to take a lot of effort.

  Finally, she ended up back in the lobby.

  Whaley was rubbing wax into the front of the bar now. Behind him, a huge mirror speckled with gray age spots took up most of the wall. Three shelves where bottles of wine and bright-colored liqueurs once must have stood rested against it. Addie imagined how the bartender’s back and the theatergoers in their evening dress must have been reflected there. She walked behind the bar, licked her finger, and rubbed at the silvery discolorations in the glass.

  “I wonder if there’s any way to clean this off.”

  But Whaley was lost in thought and didn’t answer.

  She examined herself in the big mirror, imagining how she would look decked out in a sleek evening gown surrounded by admiring f
ans, like Katharine Cornell on her West Coast tour. She could almost hear the tinkle of glasses, the light ripples of laughter, the appreciative applause; could imagine the fun of staying up to get the early editions of the papers to read the glowing reviews.

  But then the image melted away.

  And all of a sudden, she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted after all. It was just a fantasy, wasn’t it, all that glamour and adulation? And this place was so real.

  Somehow, the Jewel had transformed that dream of stardom into something that rang a little hollow. That moment at the Macbeth rehearsal, when Reg was performing, flickered into her mind. She felt a pang, remembering the sudden knowledge of what her talent was compared to his. But it didn’t upset her so much. It was more as if she had simply come to see something more clearly ... that perhaps her dream was the wrong dream in the first place.

  But then, what was the right one?

  “Whaley?”

  “Mmm.”

  She slid onto the barstool. “What would you do if you owned a place like this?”

  Whaley’s hand slowed a moment. “Fix it up, just like Mrs. Powell is.” He stopped and gently ran his fingers along the bar. “It’s one of the only things I’m good at.”

  “You’re good at a lot of things!”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “Good at getting in trouble—”

  Addie ignored this. “Music, for a start.”

  He just shrugged.

  “Whaley! Can’t you imagine yourself performing in a theater like this? Can’t you picture it? People dancing in the aisles?”As she spoke, she could almost see the future rising into view, just on the rim of vision. She saw the place rebuilt. Whaley, Cam, and Rico up on stage. Lights. Music...

  For a moment his eyes lit up. Then a closed-down expression came over his face. “Naw. I imagine myself playing in the bus tunnel with a hat to throw quarters in.” He hunched back over his work. Addie could see the knobs of his spine through his T-shirt.

  “Come on, Whaley,” she said gently. “You’re the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. Don’t you think you’ll be more successful than that? I think you will!” He just shrugged again. “Besides, aren’t you going to do a benefit here once it’s fixed up?”