Into the Storm

by Lisa Bingham

Panic made her stumble as she ran the last few feet to the costume closet. Hastily, she gathered her possessions and the mementoes she’d gathered in her short time here—her comb and mirror, scraps of pure silk velvet she intended to sew into a pillow for Astra, and a photograph of the costume crew laughing and pointing at the marquee outside the theater. Shoving them all into her pocketbook, she draped her coat over her arm and planted her hat on her head, stabbing a pin through the brim. Last of all, she scrawled a hasty note on Mrs. Bixby’s “To Do” list, explaining that she’d been notified of an emergency at home and she needed to leave. If all went well, RueAnn would return as soon as she could.

  If only that were true. If only she could come back.

  She knew that her father would consider them all evil—the comedians, the musicians, the animal handlers…and yes, the strippers. But she’d received more kindness and acceptance from these “sinners” than she’d ever felt from her father’s congregation in Defiance.

  Aching with the injustice of it all, RueAnn took one last look at the cramped room stuffed to the gills with two sewing machines, fabric bolts, boxes of trims and buttons, and gaily colored threads. Then she dodged for the exit.

  RueAnn was so intent on making her escape that she didn’t see the figure that stood just outside. The door swung wide, hitting him in the shoulder, and then rebounded to slam against her, sending her pocketbook flying. As her purse landed on the ground, the contents slid wildly over the paint-spattered floorboards, the scraps of silk gleaming red and blue and gold in the midst of the kaleidoscopic mess.

  “Hold on, there!”

  The man gripped her arm, steadying her just as a resounding slam ricocheted through the theater. From somewhere near the stage, voices rose into shouts.

  Every muscle in RueAnn’s body strained to hear the cause of the commotion. When she heard a string of curses, followed by the familiar strident commands of the lighting designer. No. It was just Mr. Murphy yelling at his crew.

  RueAnn relaxed infinitesimally. She still had time.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked.

  The world swam back into focus and she found herself staring into the concerned features of a stranger.

  No.

  Not a stranger.

  It was Charles Tolliver. He’d come to visit Glory Bee after her performance last night. Then he’d invited Glory and all her roommates to the movies and dinner.

  RueAnn flushed, forcing herself to look away. From the moment she’d been introduced to Charlie, she’d been curiously enthralled by him. As they’d dined on a Blue Plate Special of pot roast and mashed potatoes, she’d hung on his every word, loving the way his accent turned even the most mundane conversation into poetry. And his eyes…they’d continually met hers over the course of the evening, their gray-blue depths sparkling with an inner mischievous light as if he were privy to an unknown punch line. Later, when he’d somehow arranged to be sitting next to her at the movies, she hadn’t been able to concentrate on the screen. Instead, she’d been infused with warmth, acutely aware of the way his arm pressed against hers whenever he shifted in his seat.

  “Are you hurt?” he prompted again.

  RueAnn eased free from the heat that had already begun its sinuous journey through her veins. “I’m sorry, I…I wasn’t looking where I was going.” Dropping to her knees, she scrambled to gather her things, but in her haste, she only made things worse.

  “Here, let me help.”

  He crouched on his heels and began to scoop up her makeup and personal items with the careless efficiency of his sex, dumping them pell-mell into her pocketbook. He was so clumsy—yet so willing to come to her aid—that she involuntarily laughed, her distress easing.

  “Charlie isn’t it?” she said with forced casualness.

  “I’ve come to take you to lunch,” he replied without preamble.

  RueAnn paused, startled.

  “But Glory and the others are—”

  “Not with Glory. Just the two of us, if you’re game.”

  A glow unlike she’d ever felt before began low in her body, spreading upward until it radiated through her body to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her toes. But a bang from the stage shattered the effect and the heady emotions dissipated like smoke.

  “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She quickly cleared her throat so that she wouldn’t betray how close the words had come to cracking under the strain of her disappointment. “Really, I wish—”

  Charlie grinned at her then. A lopsided grin that made his pale blue eyes twinkle invitingly. He was obviously a man prone to laughter because lines radiated away from his eyes and the creases bracketing his mouth deepened. “Come now. You’ve got to eat.”

  In the light of the bulb that hung overhead, his sandy hair gleamed with reddish highlights. She could see the faint echo of a naughty little boy in his face, although there was nothing childish about his appearance.

  She glanced at her watch. “But it’s only ten thirty.”

  “True. But I’ve got some business to see to in Maryland and I thought you could keep me company.”

  RueAnn rose, looping her bag around her arm. Yet her true attention was centered on Charlie as he straightened to full height. He was tall, taller than her father. But not beefy like Jacob Boggs. This man was lean. Angular. His shoulders so square, they could have been carved from a block of granite. Even in her current state of agitation, she couldn’t deny the fluttering deep in the pit of her stomach.

  Why? Why had this happened to her now? Why couldn’t her father let RueAnn lead her life as she saw fit? Why couldn’t she pursue her job, her dreams—and yes, why couldn’t she spend time with a gentleman like this one? One who was charming and good-looking and…and…elegantly foreign?

  When she spoke again, it was with very real regret. “I-I’m really sorry, Charlie, but…”

  She hurried toward the exit, her shoes making dull thudding noises. Like nails being pounded into a coffin.

  Behind her, she heard Charlie scoop something from the floor, but she paid him no mind. If something more had fallen from her bag, it didn’t matter. She needed to leave. Now.

  But if she’d thought to escape him, it wasn’t to be. Charlie quickly caught up, leaning around her to push open the door.

  After the gloom of the theater, RueAnn blinked against the sudden morning light.

  “Why the rush?” Charlie asked as he joined her on the rickety stoop.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Tolliver, truly I am.”

  “Charlie.”

  “Charlie.” She scrambled to think of a logical excuse for avoiding his invitation when just last night she would have broken her right arm for a few hours alone with him. “I…I have some important errands and—”

  “I’ll help you do them later. I’ve got Glory’s motorcar. I can take you wherever you need to go.” He pointed to a blue sedan parked in the theater’s back lot.

  She took a deep breath, before turning to face him. “If you want to know the truth, I’m trying to avoid someone.”

  “Who?”

  She hesitated only an instant before saying, “My father. He’s a minister. He doesn’t approve of my job and if he catches me here…”

  RueAnn couldn’t continue, and to his credit, Charlie didn’t pry.

  “Then come with me,” he said gently. “I’ll help you get away—for the whole day if you want.”

  RueAnn opened her mouth to refuse just as she became aware of a disturbance from the front of the theater. Glancing past Charlie’s shoulder, she froze as a battered pickup truck screeched to a halt, nearly blocking the alley. An all-too-familiar shape emerged from the driver’s seat. Her father stood grim and bullish, his features clouded with anger. He barked an order to the other passenger and her brother emerged, moving toward the main entrance.

  They’d found her.

  “Please say you’ll come,” she heard Charlie say, his voice seeming to float to her from a million miles away. “’Pears to me like
you need some time off. All this work in the theater has left you pale. And if you’re with me, your father wouldn’t even know where to look. I can take you far away from here.”

  Away.

  She looked at Charlie, at the blue Model A sedan parked so close to the exit, at her father’s battered pickup.

  Distantly, she heard the thump of fists pounding on the front doors of the theater. It would only be a matter of time before her father decided to come down the alley in search of another means inside.

  “Come on,” Charlie said again.

  This time she nodded, hating herself for using this man—this sweet, funny man—in order to make her escape. She had no choice really. She had to leave before her father caught sight of her.

  And she wanted to go so badly.

  “Okay.”

  “Bravo,” Charlie said with such pleasure that a pinpoint of warmth settled in her chest.

  He held out his hand, palm up. She stared at the offering, at skin free from the cracked, grease-stained calluses that she’d seen on every male she’d ever known in Defiance. So different. And yet strong and compelling in a way she couldn’t completely fathom. Somehow, she knew that if she went with him, she would be safe. If only for a little while.

  Numbly, she slid her cold fingers over his and allowed him to lead her toward the sedan.

  • • •

  London, England

  “Please, Susan! You’ve got to help me!”

  Ignoring her twin, Susan Blunt used every ounce of energy she possessed to appear as if she were studying her stenography characters, when in reality she wanted to turn to Sara and demand, “Why? Why did you have to kiss Paul Overdone? Why you and not me?”

  But pride prevented her from giving even the least sign that she’d seen them earlier—Paul and Sara, huddled together in the upper hall, Paul’s arm around her waist as if they’d just shared a passionate embrace and torn away from one another.

  Not for the first time, Susan railed at the unfairness of it all. While Susan had been born practical and permanently rumpled, Sara had been gifted with an ethereal femininity that drew men to her like bees to honey.

  And Paul Overdone, one of her brother’s best friends from University, was no exception.

  Susan scowled at her notebook. She’d only just met Paul. Matthew, the oldest of the Blunt children, had brought him along during a weekend visit the day before. From the moment he’d burst through the door on Matthew’s heels, Susan had been smitten.

  But clearly, he’d been drawn to Sara. Vibrant, effervescent Sara, who attracted men with infinite ease.

  “Susan!”

  Sara snatched the book from Susan’s hands and threw it onto the bed.

  “What?” Susan sighed, finally breaking her silence. “Do you have a ladder in your last pair of stockings and want mine?”

  “As if you’d have an extra pair hanging about.”

  True.

  Sara grabbed her arm. “No, this is serious. I’ve put myself into a bit of a pickle. With Paul, I mean.”

  Not something that Susan wanted to talk about, if you please.

  Sara stamped her foot like a petulant child. “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.” Susan couldn’t completely hide the belligerence in her tone.

  “Paul invited me to the fancy dress party he and Matthew are attending at the Primrose Dance Hall.”

  Susan ignored a stab of jealousy. “It’s a bit of a short notice, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Well…I accepted, of course.”

  Of course.

  “But that was before I remembered I’d agreed to go to dinner with Bernard and his mother. I can’t back out now. You know how frail Mrs. Biddiwell has been.”

  Susan rolled her eyes. Dear, sweet, Sara. She was beautiful, kind, and as scatterbrained as the March Hare. It wasn’t the first time she’d double-booked herself.

  “I know I should simply tell Paul that I’ve remembered a previous engagement but—”

  Sara blushed—she actually blushed—making Susan’s headache intensify.

  “Anyhow, I had this sudden, scathingly brilliant idea.” She bit her lip, grinned, and then blurted, “Take my place—just for a few hours—then when I’ve finished with Bernard, I’ll come to the hall and we can switch over.”

  Susan laughed outright, then quickly sobered when she realized Sara had been completely earnest in her request.

  “You want me—” she pointed to her own chest in disbelief, “—to pretend to be you—” she pointed to her twin, “—on an evening out with Paul?”

  Sara clapped her hands. “Yes!”

  Susan stared at Sara with utter bewilderment. Then, leaping to her feet, she said firmly, “No. No, no, no!” In two strides, she put as much distance as possible between Sara and herself—as if mere proximity to her twin could weaken her resolve. “How could you even suggest such a thing?”

  Sara waved away Susan’s patent indignation. “You needn’t get on your high horse. We’ve done it before.”

  “Not since we were twelve!”

  Sara clasped her hands together in mute supplication. “Only because we haven’t had a serious need to do so,” Sara countered, her tone so reasonable, she could have been proposing that they switch places in a grocery line.

  “Sara! The man asked you to a dance. And you wish to return the invitation by playing a prank?”

  “Not a prank,” Sara countered indignantly. “Merely a…a…substitution. A temporary substitution.” Sara grabbed her hand. “If all goes well, Paul will never be the wiser and things can continue on as planned.”

  Continue on as planned. And what exactly did her sister mean—more kisses in the hall? Intimate dinners? Drives in the country? Why in heaven’s name would Susan want any part in such romantic developments?

  Especially since she wanted the man for herself.

  No. She did not want the man for herself. Paul Overdone had already made his attraction to Sara abundantly clear and Susan would not be caught groveling for the crumbs of his affection.

  Which was precisely why she could not—would not—surrender to Sara’s emotional campaign.

  As if sensing her sister’s stubborn resolve, Sara grasped her hands. “Please, Susan.” Her expression became wistful—and therefore so much harder to resist. “I wouldn’t do this if…if I didn’t genuinely like the man. And he’ll be returning to University in a matter of days.”

  Susan opened her mouth to refuse—yet again. For heaven’s sake, how many times would she have to say no?

  But even as the words formed on her tongue, she was suffused with the ever-present wish that she could be more like Sara. What she wouldn’t give to be so relaxed with men, to react to their attentions so effortlessly, so naturally.

  Even if it were only for one night…

  “He’d know,” she offered weakly.

  Sensing a chink in Susan’s will, Sara’s tone became even more conciliatory. “It’s fancy dress. Any differences he might sense will be easily explained.”

  “I don’t have a costume.”

  “We have the Spanish dancer ensembles from last year in the trunk under the stairs.”

  “He’ll know…” Susan began again.

  “Nonsense. This is no different from all those times we switched classes at school.” Sara squeezed her hand. “You’ll laugh at his jokes, drink some punch, and dance. You’d only have to maintain the façade for an hour. Two at the most.”

  One hour with Paul treating her as if she were his girl.

  Perhaps two.

  “Please Susan,” Sara wheedled. “Pretty, pretty, please. Will you do it?”

  Susan took a deep breath, knowing that someday soon she would live to regret her response, but finally she whispered, “Yes. I’ll do it.”

  Dearest J.,

  I remember so clearly the day my sister was born. For a week before her birth, my mother grew clumsier, alternately clutching her belly to ease the growing weight, or pressing a palm t
o the mysterious rippling beneath the worn cotton of her dress.

  I saw my father watching too. His expressions were difficult to translate, and therefore all the more frightening to me. At times, he stared at her ponderous breasts with a hunger I didn’t understand, then his gaze would flick to her stomach and he would look away.

  Today, however, there was nothing but a black stare aimed in my direction. Immediately, I cowered in my chair and began to eat my soup, being careful not to slurp or dribble—even though my father ate noisily from his place at the opposite end of the table.

  From her chair nearest the stove, my mother pushed her own bowl away, holding the back of her hand to her nose as if the very smell revolted her. Her features were pinched and wan—and I began to wonder if the lump of her belly was like the parasites that grew on the willow trees by the brook. The waxy blossoms were beautiful, but soon, the host tree would die under their voracious need.

  My father didn’t compliment my mother on her cooking. Instead, he took it as his due. He was the master of this dilapidated castle, and my mother wore herself out trying to please him. This day was no exception. Although he could have reached the icebox by tipping back his chair, he barked an order and my mother scrambled to bring him a cool glass of milk.

  My mother handed my father his glass, then gasped, gripping her belly. A liquid rushed from between her legs, staining her dress, her shoes, and the scrubbed kitchen floor with its pinkish hue.

  From outside, the noise of autumn leaves scuttling down the street sounded like dried chicken bones being tossed into the wind. Then my father erupted. “Goddamn, Rachael! Couldn’t you have picked a better spot for that?”

  I stared at my father, then my mother, wondering how she’d come to wet herself. I received a tanning if I didn’t get to the privy in time.

  My mother grimaced and collapsed into her chair, panting.

  Pa pointed his dripping spoon at her. “We’ve got no money for a doctor. You know that don’t you?”

  “I-I know that, Jacob.” She glanced out the window. “Don’t you fret none. Maisy will come help.”

  It finally dawned on me that mother was talking about the baby. She’d told me when God was ready to send my baby brother or sister, Miss Maisy Dixon from down the road would tend after me.