by Beth Ciotta
“Party starts at nine,” he said.
“We’ll be there,” Izzy said.
“Forget it,” Grace said.
“Joystick will be there. You can introduce him to your partner. One look at that pretty puss, and Joystick will have your comeback billed all over town by tomorrow.”
So now Mick was encouraging her partnership with Rufus? Something smelled fishy. “I’m not signing on with Joystick,” she said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you set it up.” She raised a hand, cutting him off. “Don’t insult me by denying it.”
“So what if he did?” Izzy said, coming to Mick’s defense. “You want to fly in a show, don’t you? Ziggy doesn’t want you anymore. Joystick does. He runs the most successful air circus around, doesn’t he?”
Mick touched her shoulder. “Izzy—”
“Mick went to an awful lot of trouble to arrange this job for you,” she said, swiping off her sunglasses and shrugging off his hand. “All because he loves you. All because he wants you to be happy. You have a man who’d move mountains for you.” She cast a wistful glance at Rufus. “I should be so lucky.”
“Lucky?” Grace snapped. She jabbed a finger at Mick. “He’s trying to control my life!”
Mick sighed. “I’m not—”
“What life?” Izzy hooted. “You’ve spent the last year on the road, sleeping under the Jenny. Alone. Now you’re home, sleeping in the farmhouse. Alone. You call that a life?”
“For God’s sake, Izzy.” Mick nabbed her arm and yanked her back to face him. “What’s gotten into you?”
Grace stood stunned at her friend’s callous references to her solitude. Izzy knew how much she missed her grandfather. She’d wondered what Izzy’s reaction would be to her and Rufus’s kiss, and now she knew. Izzy was seething inside. Well, so was she. Her entire body vibrated with unleashed tension. If Mick hadn’t interceded, she would’ve popped Izzy in her regal nose.
“I was just trying to help you,” Izzy said to Mick, her voice shaking.
“Do me a favor. Stop.”
Rufus rounded the car. “Grace is starting her own air show.”
Mick and Izzy blinked. “What?”
Grace stared at Rufus, speechless.
“Fine,” Mick said, misinterpreting her silence as affirmation. “If that’s what you want, Grace. But you’ll need investors. What if you hadn’t been flying Tuck’s plane when . . . What if it had been your Jenny? How would you replace her? Not to mention she’s getting old. You need something better, faster. Something more to bring in the crowd.”
“True,” Rufus said.
Grace sidestepped him to gawk at both men. Their arrogance was astonishing.
Mick slid his hands into his pockets and angled his head. “You could sell the farm. But you won’t. Could let me buy you a plane, but I’m guessing that’s out, too. Which leaves investors. Come to the party, Grace. Some of Atlantic City’s most prominent businessmen are attending.”
“She doesn’t need investors,” Rufus said. “She has me.”
That did it. She hopped into the car, gunned the engine, and left the interfering trio in the dust. Her body might have fallen victim to some strange chemical combustion, but she sure as hell wouldn’t let it surrender control of her life. Even if that life was in tatters.
She needed distance. Needed to think. She needed to talk to Pop Pop.
Chapter Twelve
RUFUS SLOUCHED IN the back seat of Mick’s car, exhausted. Too exhausted to listen to Izzy.
“He’s too old. I’m young. Vibrant. Sexy.” Izzy, sitting up front, shifted to face him, her bobbed hair fluttering in the wind from the open window. “Don’t you think so?”
He could only nod.
She smiled winningly, then turned back to Mick. “What could Daddy possibly be thinking? Roy Tadmucker. He’s not a lover. He’s a babysitter.”
Mick sighed as he sped his Caddy toward Atlantic City. “Maybe he—”
“You agree with Daddy? You think I need someone to take care of me?”
Mick closed his mouth and shook his head.
“I just want to be loved, Mick.” She said it on a long, wistful breath. She slid her gaze to Rufus. “I could learn to cook. Get a job. Money means nothing without love.”
Rufus looked at Mick. It wasn’t even noon and he’d flirted twice with death. The first time by choice. The second . . . well, if not for Grace and Izzy, would Mick have pulled his gun and shot him?
“This isn’t over.”
He understood Mick’s throwing a punch. If he’d caught a strange man ravaging the woman he loved, he, too, would’ve started swinging. But he wouldn’t resort to murder. Maybe a shot to the kneecap.
That didn’t make him feel much better.
Mahoney obviously loved Grace. Was that why other men didn’t pursue her? He knew she tried to throw men off her scent, acting brash and dragging her boots, but he couldn’t be the only one who’d seen past her smoke and mirrors. Did dangerous rumors about Mahoney and his thug friends and his possessiveness follow Grace while she traveled the air circuit, frightening away potential suitors? Surely, not many locals would dare make a play for her. Was it simply that, as an outsider, he hadn’t known better?
Would he have behaved any differently if he’d had?
No. Mick had eyed him last night, death in a glance. Jimmy had warned him. Still, he’d kissed Grace.
The big question was, of course, did she love Mick? Izzy claimed Grace had kissed him last night to make Mick jealous. Grace said she’d done it to prove her lack of interest in marrying Mahoney. But then why had she kissed him again today? She could’ve pushed him away, told him to go to hell. Instead, she’d bested his fire. Singed him with a heat that must’ve been stoking for years. To feel the potency of all that pent-up passion . . . He’d thought of her as animalistic, a creature prompted by her senses and instinct. The way she’d responded to his kisses strengthened that theory. Yet any time he tried to picture her in bed, it always turned into soft down pillows and lazy sunshine.
And that, he realized, was the real crux of his problem. Grace was the genuine article.
A string of past girlfriends paraded through his mind. A blur of beautiful, smart, sexy women. He actually did consider stimulating conversation a part of foreplay, but all of the women he recalled had been, as he had, basically out for a good time and a night of hot sex.
Genuine articles you didn’t call just when you happened to be in town. You didn’t drop over because you woke up hot and she was the closest girl in the emergency chain. Genuine articles wanted relationships.
He crossed the street to avoid genuine articles.
Like most men, he nearly vomited at images of a man and woman, eyes glazed, mouths slack, running toward each other on a deserted beach at sunset while bad TV movie music blared. His mother had watched those horrible romance movies every Saturday afternoon. She’d stand at the ironing board, spray starch in one hand, the hissing iron in the other as the man professed his love. She would tear up, and his father would snore from the couch or throw Styrofoam coffee cups at the TV. Whenever Rufus begged to change the channel, she’d say, “Someday you’ll meet a nice girl, and that will happen to you.” Then she’d light up a cigarette and shoot his father a dirty look.
Sitting in their cramped apartment, Rufus would study his parents’ wedding portrait on the wall—smooth skin, big smiles, the aura of promise—and wonder what had gone wrong. He’d move his gaze to the couch, where his father sweated and grumbled about work even though no one listened, and then to the ironing board, where his mother pushed the iron and blew hair out of her face in humid puffs. He hadn’t understood why she watched those movies, but he’d learned an important lesson. Marriage turned something beautiful into something bitte
r.
These days his mother nagged him—lovingly—about his rotating-door policy with women. So did his sister, who’d moved back home and was getting divorced. Neither of them seemed inhibited by their own experiences when pushing him to settle down. They seemed to forget all the bad things and recall only the white lace and the Champagne. Of course, his mother did have limits. She’d forbidden him to get married simply because some woman could wrap her long legs around him in a unique way.
Ironically, it wasn’t the thought of long legs or tight dresses that made him grateful for the wind blowing into the car. It was a short, freckle-faced, tomboy virgin. Worse was the errant thought that he wanted to be her first. He felt he was getting a peek at something inside Grace—something no one had ever seen—and he wanted to coax it out. He wanted to show her how physical love could be, tap into that unexplored passion and make the most of their time together.
He also wanted no strings attached.
Frowning, he glanced out the side window. Atlantic City in broad daylight. The bustling 1923 version—a vivid reminder of his bizarre situation. Traffic flowed at a zippy twenty-five miles per hour. An antique-car buff’s paradise. Only these cars weren’t restored; they were brand-new. Packard. Lincoln. Nash. Several other makes he couldn’t name. A Wawa Dairy Farm milk truck (Daily Delivery!) caught his attention, as did the telephone poles lining the sidewalks. Thick black cables stretched from pole to pole, cluttering the sky and making the sizzling day feel hotter. Trolley tracks. Elaborate movie theaters with fancy marquees. Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, starring Lon Chaney. He’d seen both movies a half-dozen times. Of course, by the time he’d watched them, they were classics. He wondered if Grace liked movies. Wondered if she’d ever been on a date.
Right. As if she’d go out with him. He’d be lucky if she spoke to him again. She’d driven off madder than a wet tomcat. If she were any other woman, he’d worry about her safety, but she drove like a stock-car pro. She could take care of herself. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.
“She doesn’t need investors. She has me.” he’d pronounced.
How tired she must be of men assuming she couldn’t handle her own affairs. She’d said it herself in the car last night—“of course everyone believed it was the woman’s fault.” In her world of pilots and barnstorming, she must have had to fight twice as hard as any man for credibility. No wonder she took such offense at his interference. He should’ve known better, should’ve discussed his idea with her before blurting it to Mahoney. But it had occurred to him on the spot, after experiencing her outright skill. Amazing Grace should be running her own air circus. She had the brains, the talent, the guts, and the attitude. Why should she play second fiddle?
Still, she did need an angle. He knew all about angles. He felt a tingle at the idea of putting a positive spin on her negative publicity. Something he knew how to do. Something comfortable, like a warm coat from his old life. Part of the reason he was indispensable to Marc. At least, he used to be indispensable.
“There’s Van Buren’s!” Izzy swiveled in her seat and blasted Rufus with an energized smile. “There on the corner! Isn’t it swell?”
He nodded. It was swell, all right. A four-story marble and mahogany building with carved columns, etched windows, and gold-plated accents. He’d seen pictures of the early stores, and, just as he’d seen pictures of a Jenny, they didn’t compare to the real thing. He wasn’t interested in shopping. Izzy could outfit him with an entire summer wardrobe for all he cared. She could afford it, and he knew she was looking forward to the task. His interest was in exploring the inside of an original Van Buren department store. Wait until he told Marc. If he ever saw Marc again.
Don’t think like that.
Mahoney parked at the corner of Atlantic and South Carolina Avenues. He rounded the Caddy with a speed and grace belying his big frame, then opened Izzy’s door, beating Rufus to the gentlemanly task. Not that Rufus was fooled. The thug was no gentleman. He neither trusted nor liked Mahoney. Yet no-nonsense, straight-as-an-arrow Grace called this man her friend. Maybe she was Mahoney’s soft spot. Probably the only one he had.
“Coming inside?” Izzy asked the thug.
“Can’t. I have business.” He cast a menacing look at Rufus, then playfully tugged Izzy’s hair. “See you tonight, doll?”
“You bet.”
As he watched the Caddy peel away from the curb, Rufus allowed Izzy to hook her arm through his.
She tugged him toward VB’s revolving doors. “Don’t worry about Mick,” she said as they entered the store. “He’s more bark than bite. Mostly.”
It was the “mostly” that concerned him.
The specter of cement shoes faded, however, as he followed Izzy through the ladies’ department. He saw silver-plated mesh handbags priced at three to five dollars, solid silver lipstick holders and mirrored compacts for as low as eighty-five cents, women’s wool and silk suits for twenty-five dollars. Quality items, cheap. Though logically he knew the pricing to be consistent with the era, it still blew his mind.
Then he started noticing details. Van Buren’s department stores thrived from their spit-and-shine décor and superior customer service. But this particular store showed signs of neglect. Sweaters lay unfolded or crumpled on the floor. Display racks were dusty and makeup counters unattended. Knowing J.B.’s high standards, standards Marc had inherited, surely the head honcho wouldn’t approve. Again his mind turned to the man’s irresponsible second son. “James shouldn’t have ditched work.”
“He’ll be here sooner or later,” Izzy said. “Oh, look! There’s Cora.” She let out a horrified squeal. “Why is she trying on that fruit-covered pillbox when she knows cloches are the rage? Don’t move. I want to invite her to Roy’s party tonight.”
“Shouldn’t that be up to Roy?”
“He knows I’ll bring a dozen friends. If he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t have invited me. But then, he didn’t invite me. Mick did, didn’t he?” She rushed off toward Cora and the ill-arranged hat rack.
Again, Rufus wondered at Izzy’s cool attitude toward the taffy tycoon. In seven months she’d be Mrs. Isadora Van Buren-Valentine-Mueller-Tadmucker. When the hell was she going to fall for Roy? Soon, he hoped. Maybe then she’d stop sniffing after him. It occurred to him that Izzy hadn’t once mentioned his kissing Grace. No sulking. No fuss. In fact, she’d come to his defense at the field. Surely, she knew that he and Grace were hot for each other. She’d have to be blind not to notice. Which left denial. If that were the case, he had no illusions that she’d remain in this blissful state forever. Izzy, he knew from experience with her ghostly form, had an erratic and explosive nature. At some point his infatuation with Grace was going to blow up in his face.
The ominous tick of a clock sounded in his ears.
He turned and saw a giant replica of Big Ben standing in the center of the floor. It had a four-sided clock face, so customers could see the time, displayed in Roman numerals, from all directions. He’d seen an old photo of it in the lobby of the New York headquarters, along with about fifty other framed photos of different Van Buren’s stores taken over the years. All the stores had a little Big Ben. J.B. wanted a consistent look throughout the chain while still keeping each emporium classy and original. His wife, Ella, had loved London’s.
It occurred to him that J.B. and Ella were still alive. They would outlive their children.
He closed his eyes, dispensing that thought for another. He wondered if time in 1923 was running parallel with time in the future. If so, he had another whole day before anyone other than Barbie missed him. It nearly overwhelmed him as he stood before the clock, time facing four different directions, ticking on. His life at home had stopped in its tracks. Now, eighty years earlier, he was living a whole new one.
It was both frightening and exhilarating.
/> Like the death dive.
“I talked Cora out of that ridiculous pillbox,” Izzy said, coming up behind him and slipping her arms around his waist. “She said you look delicious today. Of course, I wouldn’t let her anywhere near you.” She practically purred.
“Thank God,” Rufus said, disengaging himself. Just what he needed. Two horny dames hanging off him.
What had he just said?
She giggled. “Let’s buy you some new clothes, and don’t you dare worry about the cost. Daddy’s treat.” She tugged him toward the men’s section.
He endured forty-five minutes of Izzy’s fawning over him, drawing the line at her wanting to measure his inseam. He had to admit she worked fast and had good taste. By the time she finished, he owned three designer suits; six shirts; four trousers; assorted ties, belts, and hats; and twelve sets of boxer shorts and undershirts.
“Oh!” she exclaimed after directing an enamored salesman to send their purchases to Laguna Vista. “I almost forgot shoes!”
Three seconds later Rufus was staring at a rack of Oxfords. Predictable as always, Izzy wiggled her eyebrows and winked when inquiring about his shoe size.
“I want to speak to the manager,” Rufus overheard a woman say.
“I am a manager, ma’am,” a man replied.
Rufus turned toward the two unfamiliar voices.
“You’re a floor manager. I want to talk to the manager. The person in charge. Your boss.” A woman—fiftyish, well-dressed, with a pair of pointy-toed, patent leather shoes dangling from her pudgy fingertips—faced off with a bony man whose thick glasses kept slipping down his nose. The floor manager, he presumed.
Izzy, engrossed in a size-fourteen shoe, remained oblivious to the scene.
“Mr. Van Buren isn’t available,” the manager said, pushing his glasses up and hiking his sharp chin an inch. “If he were, he’d tell you what I’m telling you.” He jabbed an upturned palm toward the shoe. “The Lorraine is not on sale.”
The customer raised her voice to a husky bellow. “But it was on the sale rack!”
