Hearts

by Stef Ann Holm

  “No, thank you.”

  “But—”

  “No, thank you. You’ve been very generous with me and I won’t accept anything further from you.”

  She quit the parlor, then went to her room to pack. Her hands trembled with the locks on the suitcases as she opened them, then threw her things into the yawning spaces without regard for neatness or order.

  Repercussions began to sink in. Putting herself in Mrs. Plunkett’s disfavor would surely have an effect on Edwina and the dancing academy. But the situation was beyond mending.

  There was no alternative but to leave.

  Less than an hour later, Truvy thumped up the front steps to Edwina’s house on Sycamore Drive. She’d barely managed to cart the two suitcases. Her ankles were bruised from being banged and she’d walked the whole block with an ungainly balance. But she’d made it, clothing, shoes, books, trophies, and all.

  She hated to impose herself on the Wolcotts, but Edwina had offered to put her up. Truvy could sleep on the settee, and she’d make herself so useful that it wouldn’t be a problem.

  As she raised her hand to knock on the front door, she heard the cries of a baby. They were long and shuddering, high-pitched and unhappy. Mingled with Elizabeth’s cries were the sounds of Edwina’s uncontrollable sobs. In between breaths, she spoke to Tom.

  Truvy’s heart squeezed; she felt Edwina’s anguish. She left her trunks on the veranda and approached the parlor door at the side of the house. She pressed herself next to the door’s frame. She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but from the distress in Edwina’s voice, this wasn’t a good time to ring the bell.

  “I—I just want her to stop,” Edwina cried. “Wh-why can’t she stop? I’ve done e-everything.”

  “Ed, it’s okay. I’ll walk her. You go back to bed. You haven’t slept all night.”

  “I-I c-can’t s-sleep. Not when she’s crying. It breaks my heart.”

  This was the first time Truvy had heard Edwina not perfectly in control, not a happy, content new mother. From the sound of things, she was a mess.

  “But I want you to go back to bed, Ed. I’ll take care of the baby.”

  “She wants her m-mother. I have to f-feed her. You can’t do that!”

  Elizabeth’s screams increased.

  “Oh,Tom . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I’m just s-so tired.”

  Edwina cried harder.

  Distress seared Truvy’s heart. A helpless yearning assaulted her, but she knew there was nothing she could do. This was a matter between a wife and her husband. It was fragile. And private.

  Silently, Truvy turned around and went back to the front of the house. She lifted her suitcases and walked down the steps without Tom and Edwina knowing she’d been there.

  As it turned out, Mr. Hess owned the livery and the apartment.

  When Truvy had left the Wolcotts’ two weeks earlier, one thought had surfaced in her mind: Tom has an apartment with Mr. Hess he doesn’t use.

  The conversation she’d shared with Edwina about her leave of absence from St. Francis seemed eons ago, but Edwina’s saying that Tom’s apartment would be at her disposal if necessary had found its way back into her consciousness, so Truvy acted on the information.

  Truvy had purposely neglected to dwell on Edwina’s decree that it wouldn’t be ideal.

  She now knew why.

  She hadn’t been prepared to find her temporary residence above a livery stable. It had taken tactful convincing on her part to get Mr. Hess to give her the extra key. Tom had the other one. And because he wasn’t with her to tell Mr. Hess she could tenant the apartment, she had to assure Mr. Hess that Tom would be agreeable to her being a short-term resident. Contrary to what Truvy assumed, Tom didn’t own the apartment. After having lived there as a tenant, he continued to rent the space from Mr. Hess as overflow storage for his sporting goods store.

  The cramped area wasn’t a true apartment—like one would envision a cozy studio to be. It was more of a loft, an enclosure with its own front door, privacy, and faded cotton curtains on the dirty window, but those were luxuries in a place that was dark, dusty, mannish, and smelled like harness leather. Boxes of super-raspy duck calls, Flightmaster clay pigeons, and field dressing kits were stacked against one of the walls with a taxidermist’s mallard sitting on top of it all. The furnishings consisted of a narrow bed with a brown coverlet, a bearskin rug, a combination heater-stove, and a table and spindle chair.

  No pink chintz. No pink wallpaper. No pink beds.

  In all honesty, Truvy felt the livery room was peaceful and perfect.

  Especially after Tom gave her his okay to occupy it. Truvy had gone to the Wolcotts’ the evening of the day she’d overheard Edwina crying. All signs of tears had been erased. Edwina had been gracious and warm. Marvel-Anne attended Elizabeth, who slept contentedly in her baby basket. Truvy informed them of her departure from the Plunketts’ and of her hope of staying at the livery, if that was all right with Tom.

  There had been that moment of uncertainty, but in the end, Truvy saw that there was relief, too. It was the right thing. Tom and Edwina needed to have each other, not a houseguest. Everything was for the best this way, and to Truvy’s unexpected delight, she was glad.

  She’d never lived on her own and found the everyday things unfamiliar yet exciting. Relying on her own means was a new experience. The rent was taken care of, but she had to feed herself, which meant eating food requiring no oven, because all she had was one stove plate. If she opted not to cook, she had to dine at the restaurant. Which translated into an expense. And became a problem because she only had so much in her pocketbook.

  Frugality was the key word.

  As for the rest of her life, she’d traded her freedom for inevitable gossip.

  Mrs. Plunkett had her own take on the circumstances surrounding her departure from the home. Her story was that she’d asked Truvy to leave because of Miss Valentine’s choice in acquaintances. Mrs. Plunkett didn’t come to class anymore for dancing lessons, but she hadn’t turned the other ladies against her. Truvy continued with her other classes, including that with the Barbell Club.

  In all of them, Truvy also continued to flounder with the dance steps. So her priority was practicing on getting them right.

  She sat at the table, her bare feet on the fur rug beneath her. She read from Dance Fundamentals while absently rubbing her toes in the plush fur of the bearskin. It felt deliciously wicked to lounge in her housecoat, without shoes on and wearing her hair down, all at one o’clock in the afternoon. She didn’t have a dance class today. And she wasn’t going to see Edwina until later this evening.

  Flipping through the pages, Truvy ate a chocolate from a heart-shaped box filled with them. Valentine candy. Her birthday was a month away, but The Aunts had sent the gift early. A pick-me-up for having Mrs. Mumford take her place in her classroom.

  While she chewed, Truvy took in the patterns of foot movements, but her mind wandered to another image beyond those in the book—that of an extremely tall man. A very handsome man . . . one who held her too closely when they danced. One to whom she hadn’t spoken other than to trade polite niceties during his hour at Edwina Wolcott’s Dancing Academy. Not since that night on the pool table had they discussed anything remotely personal.

  There were times when Truvy wondered if she’d imagined their picnic. That those hours on a cloth of green, with a piano playing ragtime, had never happened.

  That maybe—

  A knock on the door broke her reverie.

  Truvy glanced down her wrapper’s front where the folds overlapped. Beneath it, she wore her old shimmy and plain linen petticoat because both were soft and good for flopping, on a cold winter day, with the hiss of a heater in the corner, a book on the table, and a box of chocolates within arm’s reach.

  The knock came once more, insistent.

  Slowly, she inched back the curtain to peer out the window. Perhaps Edwina was paying a call—

  The sight that
met her stilled her hand.

  Jake Brewster.

  On her outside porch—if you could call a wooden landing atop a steep incline of rickety steps a porch.

  Truvy pulled back from the window.

  “Truvy, I know you’re in there,” he said through the front door. “I saw the curtain moving. Open up. I have something for you.”

  The first thought to come to her was that it would be scandalous to let him in. But the second thought was that it would be scandalous not to and allow any passersby to see him standing out there. The chances that the latter would happen were slim because the livery was set apart from the main businesses in town. Still, the log building was located on Main Street.

  Brushing unseen wrinkles from her pale floral wrapper, Truvy drew in a breath and turned the bolted lock. Allowing only a small wedge of daylight to spill inside, she peered through the crack and tried to hide her appearance as best as she could.

  “Yes?” she asked through the slit. “What is it?”

  His face filled her view as he leaned forward, first with his upper body, then with the toe of his boot, which widened the conservative crack in the door to a huge gap. She was no match for the power in his leg as he kneed the door open. “I told you I have something for you.”

  “Well, yes; you could just give it to me without—”

  With a fluid and impatient stride, he moved right on past her, bringing with him a draft of freezing air. She vacillated between closing the door and leaving it open. It had taken her most of the morning to fuel the heater with enough wood to make the room warm. Now the cozy heat drifted out by the seconds.

  She quickly closed the door, turned around, and crossed her arms over her breasts, severely self-conscious over her state of undress.

  Reluctantly, she admitted she had thought about Jake Brewster coming to call on her, to ask her to supper once more, to collect her for an afternoon or evening walk; but even in her most dreamy fantasies, she’d been wearing her best dress.

  “This really isn’t proper at all. I’m going to have to ask you to leave until I can—” Her gaze fell onto the blanketed, bell-shaped cage he held on to by its handle. “What’s that?”

  Using the flat of his hand, he slid her open book and chocolates aside to set the cage on the table. “I brought you a parakeet.”

  “A parakeet?” she choked.

  “Yeah . . .” The word dragged out once Jake viewed her from head to toe. “A companion bird.”

  “Oh.”

  The silvery green of his eyes roamed across her body, slowly, moving down, then upward. He seemed to get hung up on the neckline of her robe where bare skin at her throat was displayed. The fine hair at her nape rose and she foolishly let her breath catch. His pupils darkened, dilating as his gaze lingered an overly long time, especially on the sight of her hair, which was unbound and fell past the nip of her waist in loose curls. She tried to remain composed, to ward off the heat of a blush that tried to cover her cheeks, but it was difficult.

  His presence swallowed up what little space was in the room. The wide set of his shoulders in his sealskin coat and his sturdy legs made him appear taller than he actually stood. He looked lean and strong and overdressed next to her near-nothing. The short-trimmed ends of his hair rested on the turned-up collar of his coat, and snow had fallen over the crown of his bowler hat.

  Truvy crept forward, arms hugging herself, as Jake lifted the blanket to reveal a brass birdcage. Inside the wired confines flapped a green bird with a yellow head and blue tail. It flitted from perch to swing, anxious, bobbing up and down when it alighted.

  Leaning closer, Truvy looked through the brass wires to inspect the tiny creature. The bird was rather pretty. It had beady eyes that blinked so fast it was hard to tell what color they were. Black, maybe.

  “Why are you giving me a bird?” she asked while straightening, making sure she kept a modest distance between them. She was so transfixed by him, by his sudden appearance, that she could hardly think straight.

  “You said you’d never buy one for yourself.”

  “I know, but I’m not staying in town. How am I supposed to get it home?”

  “Take him on the train.”

  “It’s a boy?” she questioned, curious. “How can you tell?”

  “The guy in Waverly told me.”

  She knew Waverly was a distance from Harmony. The thought that he had gone to such trouble to get her a bird . . . well, it was quite touching. She just didn’t know what to do with a parakeet. She’d never taken care of a pet before. Strange, as most unmarried women had, at the very least, one cat.

  She had no experience in the cat department. Nor the dog. Or bird.

  “Well . . . this is incredibly nice of you, but I . . . that is, how do I—what do I do with it?”

  “I got you all the stuff you’ll need.” From his deep coat pockets, Jake produced items and informed her of their importance as he laid them out. “Cage hook with wrought-iron screw. Tell me where you want the birdcage to hang and I’ll install the wall screw for you.” Next, and with an explanation, was,“Glass birdseed bottle with wire loops.” Indeed, the item looked like just that. Then came a type of shallow saucer, which he held up for her inspection. “Combination birdbath and water dish.” From his left pocket appeared a tall canister and a spear-shaped object. “Your package of mixed birdseed and your cuttlebone.”

  Looking at all the things on the table, she thought it seemed like a lot for one small bird. Helplessly glancing toward Jake, then at the parakeet, she asked, “Does he come with an instruction book?”

  Jake’s laughter rang out. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart, but from the improvement you’ve shown in your dance steps, I think an instruction book isn’t going to do you any good.”

  She feared he could read the message in her eyes: You’re right.

  “Well, then what am I supposed to do with all this?”

  “I’ll set it up for you.” He took the glass bottle, poured birdseed into the mouth, then hung the bottle in the cage. “Where’s your water?”

  She kept a full pitcher and washbowl on top of the rudimentary dresser. Alongside her trophies. “There.”

  He brought the dish with him and filled it. “Maynard needs fresh water every day.”

  Her brows lifted. “Maynard?”

  “That’s his name.” Jake eased open the cage door and carefully set the dish on the bottom without spilling the water. Maynard flew around in a tight circle, wings fanning, then landed on Jake’s forefinger. He promptly clamped his beak into the calloused flesh. Jake didn’t flinch. Maynard jumped off in favor of his swing, leaving a red, horseshoe-shaped beak mark on the side of Jake’s finger.

  “He seems a bit aggressive,” Truvy commented, hands on her robe sash to make sure it remained tightly around her waist.

  “Naw. You just have to get to know his temperament.” Jake attached the cuttlebone, tied a bell to the perch, and closed the cage door. “On a four-feather scale, four being the best, the man in Waverly who sold him to me gave Maynard four feathers.”

  A finger-biter got four feathers. Truvy wondered what it was that a one-feather bird did.

  “Now, all you do is hang up the cage. Where do you want it? He likes a warm spot. I’d suggest by your heater pipe.”

  “All right.”

  Jack positioned the cage hook on the span of wall between the stovepipe and the window frame. With a twist of his wrist, he screwed the hook in without any tools—just the firm grip and turn of his hand. As soon as it was in place, he took Maynard’s cage and hung it up at eye level.

  Walking up to it, Truvy looked inside. Tentatively, she addressed the bird. “Hello, Maynard.”

  “You can train him to talk,” Jake offered, standing beside her.

  He was close. Close enough that she could smell his aftershave, and the snow that had melted onto his coat. The day had been blustery, with the promise of worse weather all week. A hot cup of coffee would be just th
e thing to give him before sending him on his way, a thank-you for his trouble. But it wasn’t a situation that lent itself to such a gesture.

  His shoulder nearly brushed hers as she leaned away from the cage and adjusted the lid on her candy box. Why was it that she kept remembering the way his mouth had felt on hers? That intimate kiss . . . the dancing of their tongues in that deep and thoroughly ravishing kiss?

  She wished he didn’t smell so good. Didn’t look so tall and broad. Didn’t make her stomach tingly.

  She felt she had to say something. Putting some distance between them, she said, “I should offer you coffee—only I don’t have any and I don’t think you should stay and chat while I’m—”

  “In your skivvies?”

  “Something like that.”

  An awkward pause stretched out.

  The minute his eyes lowered to her bare toes, she sank them into the fur rug, trying to hide them. She didn’t have ugly feet. But she did have a blister on her right big toe from those dreaded high-heeled shoes.

  “Tru,” Jake said softly, “the bird’s a peace offering. Tom told me you moved out of the Plunketts’ and I can only guess why, with the way Mrs. Plunkett feels about me. I could have talked to her for you.”

  “It’s all right.” She didn’t want him to feel bad about something that wasn’t his fault. “It was time for me to find someplace else to live.”

  He gazed at her book. At the box of candy. At her trophies. Her little touches that made the room her own: dresses hanging on hooks, her hat on the wall peg, her shoes lined up in front of the Flightmaster boxes. “So are you staying for a while?”

  She’d recently heard from Miss Pond, this time in the form of a letter. Mrs. Mumford wasn’t tiring of her classroom position. In fact, she was going at teaching quite enthusiastically. There were no athletic classes, tennis or basketball. She’d put an end to them. In their place had come bridge. To Truvy, bridge was an old-lady card game. And a boring one at that.