The Bridegrooms

by Allison K. Pittman

There wasn’t another soul in the building, save Mrs. Greenville down in the box office who hadn’t even offered to step out and help when it was obvious Vada was struggling to open the door. How was it that just hours ago she’d been searching for a place of solace, and now she couldn’t bask in the silence?

  She took Herr Johann’s freshly laundered tuxedo to his office. Praying he wasn’t in, she knocked softly on the door. When, thankfully, there was no answer, she walked in, deposited the box on his otherwise empty desk, and scribbled a message on one of his telltale blue notes.

  Suit inside.

  Will see you Friday, barring any emergency.

  V. Allenhouse

  Then to home, sneaking out the back entrance and through the alley. Strange how sunlight and solitude made the walk home so much longer. By the time she arrived at her front door, she wanted nothing more than to fall through it, to be carried up to Hazel’s room later in the day.

  Unless, of course, Eli had treated them to another moment of wake-fulness. Then maybe he could be moved to Doc’s patient bed downstairs, leaving her own free for a long night’s slumber. Just the possibility of such a thing sent a final burst of energy that propelled her through the front door, and she was rewarded with a delightful sound from the top of the stairs.

  Laughter. Sweet, giggling laughter—obviously Lisette’s. And in between the bouts of mirth, a man’s voice. Not her father’s, and as bold as the girl might be, she’d never bring one of her many suitors up to her room. It was either Kenny, choosing somehow not to play in that afternoon’s game, or…

  She bounded up the stairs, ready to welcome Eli back to the land of the living, but every step she took made the man’s voice more familiar. Before her foot reached the top, she knew exactly who the voice belonged to, and the recognition spurred a different energy altogether.

  “Mr. Voyant,” she said from her bedroom doorway. “What an—unexpected surprise.”

  “Well, Miss Allenhouse.” He’d been sitting on the chair next to the headboard and stood the moment she walked in. “Or should I clarify—the eldest Miss Allenhouse?”

  This evoked both a whoop and a giggle from Lisette, who was sitting on the foot of the bed, possibly on Eli’s feet, with her own tucked up beneath her skirt.

  “Isn’t he just hilarious, Vada? He’s had me in stitches all afternoon.”

  “Really?” She looked back and forth, matching him smile for smile. “All afternoon.”

  “Well, since I got home.”

  “Ah, since you got home,” her eyes settled on Mr. Voyant, “from school.” Back to Lisette. “You did mention that you were still in school, didn’t you?”

  “I figured he knew since he met me on the corner and carried my books.”

  Vada swallowed hard, hiding her frustration, and suggested that Lisette go downstairs and begin her studies. “Mr. Voyant and I have some business to discuss.”

  Lisette unfolded her legs, exposing more than a little of her ankle as she did so, evoking a brief appreciative grin from Voyant, who had the good sense to look away almost immediately.

  “Have a lovely chat, you two.” Lisette gave Vada a broad wink on her way out the door.

  Once she was gone, Vada smoothed the bedding around Eli’s feet and tugged the blanket up further on his chest. He was once again lying flat, his breath slow and steady, but present.

  “He’s got to be the easiest houseguest I’ve ever seen.” His voice was deeper, more resonant in this little room.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He gestured with his thumb toward a box sitting on her bureau, his cap squarely on top of it. “I told you I’d have them by Wednesday. Guess I failed to mention my delivery services.”

  “You could have brought them to my office.”

  “Tried that. You weren’t there.”

  “So you snuck into my house?”

  “I was invited.”

  “You should be ashamed.”

  “I’m not the one hiding a corpse.”

  “Shh!” She held a finger to her lips and checked to see that Eli hadn’t woken. “He’s sleeping.”

  “According to your sister the princess, he’s been sleeping for a while now.”

  Vada gave up, releasing the breath it seemed she’d been holding since she walked into the room. “What does it matter to you? Why do you care?”

  “I need one good story, Miss Allenhouse. Just one, and I can stop covering local ballet recitals and amateur musicians. No offense intended, of course.”

  “None taken. But there’s no story here, Mr. Voyant.”

  “Not now, maybe. But if he”—his voice dropped to a whisper—“doesn’t make it, well, then, that’s something. All I know so far is he was conked in the head during Monday’s game, and one Kenny Cupid is”—he took his small notepad out of his shirt pocket and flipped to a page—“‘stupid with guilt’ about not catching the ball that hit him. And might I say, your youngest sister is a lovely little source.”

  “Not to mention unreliable.”

  “And,” he flipped back a few pages, “it was Brooklyn Bridegroom Louis LaFortune who hit the ball. Got that from listening to some of the regulars down at the park. The only thing I don’t know is why nobody on the team’s ready to talk about it.”

  “It’s a private matter—a simple, unfortunate accident.”

  “So, why hide it?”

  “Perhaps to keep men like you from printing a story that would make everybody in the city look at those two men like they’re some kind of criminals. They feel awful enough as it is.”

  “Is that right?” He rubbed his chin, intrigued. “I know Cupid’s been hanging around here, but you’ve been talking to LaFortune?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She flushed, answering too quickly.

  “So, he wasn’t the”—he consulted his notes again—“the ‘delicious French redhead’ on your front porch this morning?”

  Oh, she could kill that girl.

  “You know,” he put the notepad away and sounded quite serious, “I understand your need to protect your father.”

  “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  “Really? Are you positive this guy can get the same treatment here as he would at a hospital?”

  “Just what are you insinuating?”

  He put his hands on her shoulders, and the gesture was oddly comforting. “Listen, if he doesn’t wake up—ever—this could look bad for your father. And it won’t be because of what I write; it’ll be because of the circumstances. Don’t you think it might be better to get it out in the open now, when he can still be seen as a good Samaritan, rather than later and have him risk looking like some sort of quack?”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I wouldn’t, no.” He dropped his hands. “But I can’t guarantee that for every journalist out there.”

  “I see.” She cocked her head and gave him the look that Garrison always likened to a cat about to delve into a saucer of milk. “But you’re not every journalist, are you? So tell me, Mr. Voyant, what exactly do you want?”

  He bent at the waist, lower and lower, until his nose was not quite an inch from her own. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  She didn’t flinch.

  “What I want, my dear Miss Allenhouse, is a story. Any story. Miracle recovery. Tragic death.”

  Lost love? New romance?

  “And I’d like you to give that story to me.”

  “But you understand that today, right now, there is no story?”

  He nodded, slowly, and soon she joined him, their heads moving in unison. “But you’ll let me know,” he glanced down at the sleeping form, “when there is?”

  “You have my word. Now, thank you for delivering the programs, and I’d like you to leave.”

  He picked up his cap and stooped to look in the mirror hanging above it, taking a luxurious time settling the cap at a perfect angle. “I suppose,” he said, not turning around, “that I would not be welcome to call o
n your sister at some later date.”

  “If by ‘later’ you mean when she is eighteen, maybe.”

  Satisfied with his reflection, he turned and leaned against the bureau, his elbows resting on its surface.

  “By then it’ll be too late. Cupid will have caught her.”

  Vada snorted. “If that’s the best your investigative powers can do, Mr. Voyant, I’m afraid you have a long future of writing about the latest happenings at the Junior League.” Although, she hoped he never heard about her latest happening there. “I’ll have you know Lissy can hardly abide Kenny’s company.”

  “Really?” He dragged the word out like an invitation. “Have you not read your Shakespeare, Miss Allenhouse? Something about protesting too much? It’s a well-proven fact that the more the sparks fly, the greater the flame.”

  Vada’s face flamed then, and she hazarded a glance over her shoulder to the sleeping Eli to be certain he hadn’t been exposed to such a flirtatious jab.

  “I’m afraid my sister doesn’t have the emotional capacity to be ironic. If she is cruel to Kenny Cupid, it’s because she doesn’t care for him. Pure and simple. She has some of the most eligible men in Terrington Heights squiring her around. Why would she waste her time on a ballplayer?”

  Something flinched in Dave’s face, and he slowly brought himself to stand upright, pushing his cap further back on his head. “Tell me, Miss Allenhouse, do you see all ballplayers as a waste of time? Or just Cupid?”

  “Well—I don’t mean—it wasn’t my intent to disparage an entire group. I simply think Lisette has her sights set a little higher than what a ballplayer can give her.”

  “Always about the money with you women, isn’t it?”

  If the first flush was receding, it was back again as she fought to protest. “No! Not at all. I can’t speak for Lissy, but we don’t all—I mean, I don’t—”

  He reached out and gripped her arm, a gesture both comforting and playful.

  “Relax. I wasn’t trying to get you riled. Just talking.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, calmer. “Now I’ve just played into that hysterical woman stereotype. But, honestly, very few of us care about such things.”

  “What do you care about?”

  She shrugged, never leaving his grip. “Love, really.”

  “That simple? Nothing exciting? No element of surprise?”

  She struggled to find an answer. Not for him, of course, but for herself.

  The seconds ticked away measured by Eli’s steady breath. Dave’s steady gaze held her, amusement lurking behind his eyes. And something else too. A challenge—one to be met with her response. Somehow, through the whirling of her emotions, enlightenment came.

  “I believe all of that falls to passion. The love, the excitement. It’s the passion that surprises us sometimes.”

  “Pops up when you least expect it, eh?”

  “Yes.” She thought about Garrison in the stairwwell and Mr. LaFortune on the field. It was as good an answer as any.

  13

  Given the chaos of the day, Vada was more than ready to welcome a calm, quiet evening at home.

  Althea returned from the telegraph office full of hope that Eli had yet another moment of wakefulness, but she held in her disappointment with a thin, stoic smile. She immediately went to his bedside with a cup of broth, specially prepared by Molly as she stewed tonight’s chicken, to begin the arduous process of maintaining the sleeping man’s strength.

  “Remember,” Doc told her, “just a tiny drizzle. Drops at a time.”

  She nodded, but Doc’s reminder was unnecessary. Althea had proven to be the only one of them able to perform this task. Vada tried one turn earlier that day, simply giving the man a drink, and after five minutes she’d been ready to throw the glass across the room. Lisette probably would have done so, and Hazel claimed to spend quite enough time at sickbeds during her work with Doc.

  So Vada found herself curled up on the parlor sofa, no sound but the clock ticking somewhere in the shadows. With each passing moment—each stitch made to darn a pair of stockings, each page of Ladies’ Home Journal read—Vada thanked God for the foresight to spend this evening at home.

  Her mind played through the events taking place at the Dresden Street Theater. This is when Herr Johann would assemble the musicians. This is when he would lift his baton to drop them into the first number. This is when he would stamp away from the podium in his first fit of rage. Any other evening she’d be there in the midst of it, and until this evening, she’d be happy to be there. But right now it was pure joy to have her body as still as Eli’s, her mouth as silent as Althea’s, and to know that she was welcome to remain so until she went to bed.

  Earlier, before supper, they’d received word—from a frantic telephone call from Patsy Tebeau—that the Cleveland Spiders had been hopelessly trounced by the Brooklyn Bridegrooms. Almost as if a different team had turned up to play, he’d said, and it was largely due to the performance of Lucky Louis LaFortune.

  Doc shared the information at the table, prompting Vada to complain that they’d never had to suffer sports talk at supper before, and she saw no reason to begin now.

  To everyone’s surprise, Lisette had the strongest reaction, pouting all through the meal and leaving a honey-covered biscuit untouched on her plate.

  Now Vada sat in the dimming front parlor. If she was to continue reading her magazine, she’d have to light the lamp. But seeing as the table was much more than an arm’s reach away, she contented herself to remain in the gathering darkness. She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes, ready, even this late, to take the little nap she’d been longing for all day.

  No sooner had her eyes closed than she felt another presence in the room. She opened one eye to see her father’s rotund, whiskered silhouette in the doorway.

  “I thought you were down in your office,” Vada said through a yawn.

  “I can’t look at another book. Not another page. It’s all so frustrating.”

  “Here, sit with me.” She patted the cushion next to her on the sofa and sat upright to better accommodate him.

  “There’s simply no reason. No explanation for his condition. There’s no way of knowing what damage has been done to his brain, if any. No telling when or if he’ll wake up.”

  “So, today, that wasn’t a good sign?”

  Doc made a dismissive gesture. “No way of knowing, given that his condition is completely unchanged. No way of knowing if…”

  “If?” she prodded.

  “Lord forgive me for such suspicions, but I can’t help but think that our young Mr. Cupid may have imagined…”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “Guilt. Wanting so badly for Eli to wake up. Breaking under the pressure from his teammates. With today’s loss, I’m sure he feels even worse. But perhaps a walk with Lissy will do him some good.”

  “What?”

  “He called for her. At the back door, which is unusual for courting. But we are living in unusual times.”

  “And she went? Voluntarily?”

  “Oh, if you could have seen the boy. Head hanging so low he’d get mud in his hair. I guess she felt sorry for him.”

  “I suppose so,” she muttered. Eli could fall through the ceiling dancing a jig, and she wouldn’t be more surprised. Perhaps Mr. Voyant was right after all. The mere thought of that made her shudder.

  “Shall we light the lamp, then? In the window? Surely Lissy won’t let the boy leave her at the kitchen door.”

  Vada made her way cautiously across the room. When she got to the table in front of the window, she felt for the box of long matches, but before striking it, she pulled the curtain aside, risking one peek.

  There they were. Any hint of past acrimony undetectable. They strolled, not arm in arm, but hand in hand, with Lissy looking sweeter than Vada ever remembered. In fact, the girl seemed almost timid, her eyes downcast, their hands swinging in half the time to thei
r steps. Right at that moment, Kenny must have said something witty, because Lisette’s mouth burst in laughter.

  “For goodness’ sake, Lissy, cover your mouth,” Vada said from her side of the window.

  Almost as if she heard, Lisette brought her free hand up to her face. Kenny captured it in his own and brought it to his lips.

  Vada looked over her shoulder. “You’d better get out there to chaperone, Doc. I’m afraid our Mr. Cupid is taking liberties.”

  “He’s a good boy. Better than those rapscallions who usually hang around here.”

  “Whatever could have changed her mind?” Vada said more to herself than to her father. Still, he answered.

  “There’s no telling the mind of a woman, I guess.”

  “She’s not a woman, Doc. She’s a girl. And you’re her father. You might not be able to wake Eli, but you can certainly stick your head out the front door and tell Lissy to come inside before the neighbors have a field day.”

  “Maybe you should do that. You’re better with her than I’ve ever been.”

  Vada chose not to reply. She’d been Lisette’s mother since the girl was born and obviously, given the girl’s behavior, she’d done an abysmal job.

  She struck the match and touched it to the wick, then replaced the globe, bathing the room in soft light. When she peeked out the window a second time, Lisette scowled and made a shooing gesture, but Vada simply leaned on her elbow on the windowsill, as if settling in for the evening.

  Lisette responded by stamping her foot; Vada rested her hand on her chin. Pouting, Lisette gave Kenny a quick kiss on his cheek—an amusing sight, given that the boy was a good two inches shorter than she. Perhaps this would be the end of her spool-heeled shoes. For tonight, though, there was no mistaking the frustration in the clatter of those spool heels immediately after the front door slammed.

  “Vada Allenhouse!” Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp. And Lisette was in the parlor. “You embarrassed me to death, spying out the window like that.”

  “You certainly should have been embarrassed. But it has nothing to do with me.”

  Lisette turned to a more sympathetic ear. “Papa, did you see her spying on me?”