Speak Easy, Speak Love

by McKelle George

  Now she scrambled out of the tree so fast she nearly fell and broke her ankle. As it was, she did lose half her peaches and was obliged to scoop them up again before she jogged through the orchard in search of Hero and Maggie.

  She found them with Prince once the fruit on the trees had turned to apples, the scent growing sharper. I demand an explanation was on her tongue, but she had to pause and catch her breath, and in that pause Hero spoke.

  “There you are! Thank goodness. I thought maybe we’d lost you. We better get a move on soon. Here, hand me your bag.”

  Beatrice ducked under the strap as Hero slid the bag free.

  “Hero—” she began.

  “We’ll add these together,” Hero said. “Would you mind terribly finding Benedick and telling him we’re ready to leave?”

  Beatrice did mind. She minded very much.

  Her heart made a sudden lurch that nearly launched the traitorous thing up her throat.

  Nonsense, she thought firmly. After all, what better way to get answers than from the source of the question at hand?

  “Fine,” Beatrice said. “Where is he?”

  “Oh, that way somewhere.” Hero pointed vaguely to the left, her attention on the peaches.

  Beatrice went quite far, farther than she expected, calling his name, and was at last rewarded with a muffled shout. She turned and braced a hand on her forehead to block the sun. “Ben?”

  “Above you, ow, damn—” A grunt of surprise, and then—crash!—he landed among fluttering leaves and snapped twigs at her feet. She startled away as he groaned, holding his wrist, and shifted onto his back. He swore softly, eyes closed.

  Pressing a hand to her chest, Beatrice let out a breath. “Didn’t you grow up on Park Avenue? You have no business climbing trees without a ladder.” She stepped forward and nudged his inert form with the toe of her shoe. “Are you hurt? Why are you holding your wrist? Here—” She went down on one knee next to him. “Let me see it. I think I’ll be able to tell if you’ve knocked one of your bones out of place.”

  He let her have his hand with surprising willingness. She held it up and felt over the ridge by his thumb.

  “Did you come looking for me?” he asked.

  She glanced down. Even having fallen out of a tree, he looked as if he had done it on purpose; any disarray had been suffered with style. “Yes. Does this hurt?” She squeezed and twisted, and he flinched a little but didn’t show the kind of pain a break would cause.

  Uncertain, he met her eyes. The left side of his face was striped red from a nasty run-in with bark. Do you love me?

  “No,” he said, answering her earlier question. “Not much.”

  It was rather harder than she expected to ask him out loud. His eyes, which had always been brown, were now not just brown, but a salty caramel forest, a home for woodland creatures; she wanted to climb in them and make a nest. As if some membrane had dissolved in her sensible brain, unleashing a foreign girlish miasma.

  She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

  His eyebrows arched. “Pardon?”

  “I don’t think you’re here because you’re lazy or because you’re desperate for love. I didn’t mean it when I said it like that. And I don’t think you’re a bad writer. I stand by what I said about your novel, but I’ve read, um, other things that you’ve written. Also, when you tell a story out loud— You have a very nice—it’s a way you have, I guess, to make a person feel like she’s got something in common with the rest of the world, when before, she just felt alone.”

  Oh, dear.

  He actually seemed quite frightened, as if she were not apologizing but rather peeling off her skin to reveal green scales underneath.

  “Anyway,” she hurried to say, “that’s it. We’ve had a rough time of it before, and I wanted to do the decent thing and apologize.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did Hero put you up to this?”

  Beatrice blushed. She dropped his hand. “No, she didn’t. In spite of what you think, I am a human being, with normal human feelings, and I just—”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  Wincing, he pushed himself upright with his other hand. She swallowed when it put him next to her, his arm close enough to press against her own, but facing the opposite way. His head turned to hers, his hair brushed with dappled, leafy sunlight, and she could see, a little, at this particular angle, how a girl might consider him handsome were she so inclined.

  “I’ve only been such an ass because you’re so damned right most of the time.” His lips twisted in a wry smile. “And so damned better than me at everything.”

  He didn’t seem un-in-love with her, at that.

  All at once she had a rattling feeling, as if a trolley were coming and she was still half a block away. If she ran, she could catch it. Or she could stay where she was, and no one would ever know the difference. Carefully she sat back, away from him.

  “Miss Clark,” he said, “have we just made the hard turn from enemies into friends?”

  “I’d like that,” she said. “If you don’t mind being wrong and inferior most of the time because that’s not something I can help.”

  His small, wry smile split into a grin. And she decided not to ask him if it was true that he loved her. She was very sure it changed nothing on her end, and there was something nice and indulgent imagining the marks of love in his gaze.

  CHAPTER 19

  I LOVE THEE AGAINST MY WILL

  So, so.

  Beatrice Clark loved him.

  Ha-ha.

  There was no accounting for taste, was there?

  Never mind. Just because a person loved you didn’t mean you loved her back out of sympathy. Though it was the sort of detail to derail a person’s attempt to stay on task.

  He had practical matters to attend to, objects that begged his attention. He required a certain customary mental sharpness in his day that he now found elusive.

  However, the quantity of his writing had fairly exploded.

  It was shameful how fast it poured out of him with this frisson of anticipation. Obviously he’d have to be totally heartless not to care a little. Obviously he would have been gentler with the poor creature if he’d known about her affections. Obviously he might have paid more attention to the numerous occasions in which they’d been in close, unseemly, and provocative quarters.

  Oh, God.

  This stuff—what he was writing—was pretty good.

  What if he had become one of those dappers who could only write sappy love stories for the women’s magazines for a penny a page?

  If he had, he’d just made himself a pretty dime in under an hour, which was not bad at all.

  And just to mention, not that it mattered at all, but it did make a fella feel good about himself—didn’t it?—to warrant the attention of a girl like Beatrice because she wasn’t the sort to like just anyone. She was so aggravatingly righteous surely you had to have at least one or three redeeming qualities to merit her esteem.

  On the other hand, there was no guarantee the whole thing wasn’t a big fat lie. He released his fresh chapter from the typewriter and blew lightly on the still-wet ink before setting it aside.

  The only safe course of action was absolutely nothing.

  He would not treat her any differently; he would deal with her love if and when it was declared publicly, and then he would . . . um.

  Not . . . reciprocate.

  Clearly.

  But even mentally rejecting her was quite a workout; it would be more difficult in actuality, one assumed, which frankly baffled him because two days ago he hadn’t cared two figs about hurting her feelings.

  A precise series of taps made their way through his window. Benedick jolted as if the soft putt-putt had been a clap of thunder; he’d been at it since dawn. He stood up and looked out. The Lambda and Tin Lizzie were accounted for, as well as Mr. Hansen’s hideous Oldsmobile.

  Mr. Hansen and Mr. Smith were setting up hunting equipment, scouring
the fields with their binoculars, and then, apropos of nothing, rapping on wood panes outside the house. Feeling between the grooves; checking, it seemed, for hollowness.

  Benedick frowned. He hurried outside and came upon the pair of pheasant hunters just as they squatted near the cellar doors. “Hello, there,” Benedick called.

  Mr. Hansen straightened up. “Mr. Scott!”

  “Came out for a walk. Looking for buried treasure?” Benedick laughed, no suspicion here, none whatsoever, and tossed a chunk of hair out of his eyes, putting on his very best privileged voice. “Actually I couldn’t bother either of you for a smoke, could I? I’m short on just about everything at the moment.”

  “Sure, don’t sweat it.” Mr. Hansen passed him a cigarette and lit it himself with an engraved silver lighter. The initial in the design was a D, not J or H for Joe Hansen.

  “God bless you,” said Benedick, feigning relief, because he still thought of chimneys, thanks for nothing, Beatrice Clark. (Who loved him, so it was all right.)

  “Listen, kid, we didn’t want to say nothing before”—Mr. Hansen leaned in—“but Smith and I wouldn’t mind finding a decent blind around these parts. We actually heard this bed and breakfast was more than it looks, and it don’t look like much, frankly.”

  Benedick kept his face placid. He blinked as dumbly as possible. “Hey Nonny Nonny?” He acted surprised. “If there’s something here, no one told me about it. What’s your scene?”

  “Nothing fancy, mind. We try to stay away from the younger, partying crowd; we just want a nice beer at the end of the day.”

  As Benedick himself was fancy and young, he got the feeling they were trying to avoid running into him. “There’s an easy joint not far from here, if you don’t mind Queens. Not for me, of course, but I’m willing to help a neighbor out if you’re interested.”

  Mr. Hansen and Mr. Smith exchanged a look. “Sure, son,” Mr. Hansen said. “What do you got?”

  Benedick gave him the address of Rack 20, a rough bar so padded by bribes it could afford to take a hit. He was just finishing up the password when a popping gutted engine came up the drive; it was a telegraph boy on a motorbike.

  “S’cuse me a minute,” Benedick said, and jogged over to the front porch.

  The telegraph boy tipped his cap. “Mornin’. Got one for a Miss Clark? And, uh”—the boy squinted, turning the envelope around—“looks like P. Morello.”

  Benedick handed him a dollar, a fat tip he couldn’t afford, but what the hell, and took the telegrams. The messenger nodded his thanks, and hopped off the porch to turn his bike around. The window envelope on the first only revealed the name P. MORELLO, and Hey Nonny Nonny’s address. With one finger, Benedick slid it open and peered inside. “THE BOOKS ARE OPEN. Stop. 54 HEWLETT HARBOR. Stop. SUNDOWN.”

  Whatever that meant.

  “Who’re they for?”

  Maggie appeared at his shoulder. She must have heard the motorbike. “Not you,” Benedick said. “Why? Waiting on something?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” She glanced sideways at him.

  Before he could answer, a hand snatched the second telegram away, a miniature planet of bony elbows and curls suddenly at his side.

  The girl who loved him.

  “That’s mine.” Beatrice plucked up the one meant for her. She shimmied the card loose and read its contents quickly. She let loose a raucous laugh. “Oh! Oh, it’s perfect!”

  “What?”

  “Miss Mayple says that even without an official high school diploma, I can take the regents’ examination. If I pass, I’ll be allowed to enroll in college regardless of high school credits!”

  With no warning whatsoever, she flung herself at him, arms clamped around his neck like a bow tie, knees bumping his. As though she were trying to get an indelible impression, for scientific research, to take with her forever. She sealed it off with a kiss on his cheek. It happened so fast she released him before he fully recovered, and he stumbled back into the porch column, the back of his head bumping against the wood.

  “Ouch.” He rubbed the sore spot.

  “Sorry!” Her eyes widened, looking up from her treasured telegram. If she realized what her lips had been up to, she didn’t take it back or at the very least pair the kiss with an insult. Which was altogether disarming. “I’m so excited. Are you okay?”

  He felt like climbing a mountain, not for any heroic reason but for something stupid, like picking her a flower; he felt subservient to her whims, desperate for her not to command anyone but him; he felt terrified for feeling all those things after a tiny kiss, a nothing kiss, a fraction, a weed, a sneeze, compared with a dozen other tokens of affection he’d received in his life.

  “Fine,” is what he said. “You know, you have to pass the exams first before they mean anything.”

  On her way back inside she shot him a grin over her shoulder. “Ha! I could have passed the regents’ exams when I was fourteen.”

  He smiled, pinched, thinking of the useless letter he’d written for her. If only she ever took a wrong step. If only she wasn’t so brilliant and sure and steady on her planned path. If only she needed him. “When is it?”

  She checked the card. “Early June. So, next week? Soon, at any rate.” She turned back.

  “I can take you into the city when it’s the day?”

  Her smile widened. His heart hurt. “Thank you,” she said. She fairly bounced back into the house; Benedick sagged slightly in her absence.

  “My, my.”

  He turned to Maggie, who tried (not very hard, if Benedick was any judge) to keep her grin in check. She arched her brows and tapped her cheek. “My,” she repeated slowly, clucking her tongue, “my.”

  Benedick flushed. “She would have kissed a lamppost if there’d been one nearby.”

  “And yet it was no lamppost standing in her way. Why don’t you take her out tonight?”

  “Take her out how?”

  “Don’t be thick. Put your glad rags on, show her a ripping time or two.” Her lip curved. “Jazz conquers virtue, don’t ya know?”

  “You are acting positively wily, Margaret Hughes. I demand to know your angle.”

  “My angle is someone’s got to step in and help you dum-dums out, how’s that?”

  “Mags,” Benedick said, a bit plaintively, “I can’t actually do that. What would she think, me asking her out on the town out of the glory blue?”

  “Say you’re celebrating. She gets to take a test, which I guess is happy news for some folks.” Maggie held out a hand. “I’ll take that telegram to Prince; you go polish that silver tongue of yours and get to it.”

  Chewing the inside of his cheek, he gave her the telegram. Mr. Hansen and Mr. Smith came back around. Mr. Hansen hopped onto the porch and opened the front door. “Thanks for the tip, boy,” he said, nodding before he went inside.

  There was also that.

  It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check out Rack 20 tonight himself, just to see if the pheasant hunters showed up or not. Not that Rack 20 was the place to bring a nice girl, but at least then the evening would have a slightly less obvious date overture.

  He pulled his shirt straight, feigning self-importance. “Very well,” he told Maggie. He pointed at her. “But not because you told me to.”

  CHAPTER 20

  THE PRINCE WOOS FOR HIMSELF

  The books are open.

  Maybe, Maggie reasoned, the telegram meant the books of a real buyer. Maybe 54 Hewlett Harbor was a regular old rum-running drop point. This was Prince’s job, as he’d reminded her, and it might be no more suspicious than Tommy’s buzzing her a line about a new trumpet player ripe for the picking.

  Still.

  Maggie tapped the envelope nervously in her palm as she climbed the stairs to Prince’s room, but she wasn’t halfway up when Hero, still dressed for bed, hurried past the landing, clutching her robe to her chest. Maggie paused, then followed. Hero adjusted her slip in the dusty wall mirror, pushed a flower arrangement ou
t of her way, then opened Prince’s door without knocking.

  Maggie got a bit closer until she was able to just see into the room. Prince stood at his window in slacks and an undershirt, the smoke of the cigarette between his fingers drifting out through the open crack. He turned as Hero came in, swish-swish-swish, straight to the washbasin in the corner of the room. He frowned.

  Hero said, “The bathroom is all steamed up. It’s ruining my hair.” She pulled a lipstick out of her brassiere and began to paint the child out of her face. Maggie wished she didn’t know where this was headed, but boy, did she.

  “Don’t get your makeup in my sink again,” said Prince.

  “Someone’s in a mood.”

  “Where the hell are you going anyway? It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know? Claude hobnobs with more genteel society, the brunch-eating kind.” She capped the lipstick. Her lidded eyes belied her sharp interest in his reaction. “Do you love my new lipstick? Claude got it for me from Saks. I think he likes to see me wearing it.”

  Prince snorted. He picked up the shirt hanging on his bedpost and slid it on. “You like it because he wants you to like it.”

  Hero scowled. “I like it, too. And you sound like quite the snob, given that that’s my father’s shirt you’re putting on.”

  Prince froze, hands on the buttons by his chest. He met Hero’s eyes in the mirror, his darkening with what could have been anger, but what Maggie recognized as hurt.

  Hero didn’t give an inch. If anything, her voice dropped cooler. “Claude seems tacky to you. But you don’t know how sweet he is. He’s got a good heart, unlike some people.”

  Oh, Hero. That’s not the way.

  Prince yanked his belt off his dresser so hard it snapped. “So what, you going to marry him? You’re pretending same as you do with everyone else. And you know what? He is a good person, you’re right. So let’s hope he isn’t too heartbroken when you get bored of him in a month.”