When he puts me down, we’re back at the car, and Clyde gently raises my chin, kisses me. My knees go weak. I want more kisses, an endless amount of them, but another man stands beside us. I wipe the tears from my eyes, happy my plan worked, and hold out my hand toward him. “You must be Olive’s William.”
“In the flesh. But let’s do our introductions in the car, yeah?”
Clyde laughs, already jogging to the front of Big Bertha to prime the engine.
Soon we’re driving away from the prison, driving toward freedom.
William whoops in the backseat. “Holy shit, man. We did it.”
I squeeze my hands together so tightly—from nerves, from excitement—that my knuckles ache.
“How on earth did you fellas escape?” I ask.
“You tell her,” William says to Clyde. “It was your brilliant idea.”
“Not without risk to you, Will.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” There’s humor in William’s voice.
Clyde reaches over from the driver’s seat, frees my hand from my own tight grip. “We’ve got you to thank, Bonnie. Will and I had a good laugh over how you conjured this whole plan, involving his girl.”
“I’m mighty thankful, too,” William says. “Even though those guards gave me a good whop on the back of my head when Olive clung to me like a baby monkey.”
“Sorry ’bout that,” I say.
“No bother. I got a thick head.”
“Now that’s the truth,” Clyde says. “When they came ’round for roll call, those guards turned white when they saw me holding the gun to Will’s thick head.”
My jaw drops. “You did what?”
“I had to make ’em think I was going to shoot him.”
“Risky, right?” William says from the backseat. “Wasn’t sure they’d give two shits ’bout me. But Clyde here was acting like a raving lunatic, his spit flying everywhere. He made me look like a saint.”
“Eventually, they had to open our cell to save Will from me.”
“Clyde and I jumped the guards.”
“No,” I say in disbelief. “But what if—”
“It worked, Bonnie. We’re fine. I took a guard hostage and Will helped me round up all the guards. Put ’em into our cell.”
From William’s voice, I can tell he’s grinning when he says, “It’s easy to escape when there’s no one to stop ya.”
I sit there a moment, part of me in shock that they pulled it off. I lift Clyde’s hand to my lips, kiss him, noticing the bruises on his knuckles. I hate to think how they got there.
“Buck’s going to be so excited to see you,” I say. “I mean, I know you might have to lie low for a bit.”
Clyde doesn’t respond.
“You hear me?” I say, not remembering which ear is his bad one.
“Man,” William says behind me. “I ain’t looking forward to this conversation with Olive, either.”
I twist to see William better. “What do you mean by that?”
“Bonnie,” Clyde starts. “Listen. Will and I agreed we’d give ourselves an hour to say good-bye.”
Good-bye? No.
“For now,” Clyde says. “They’re going to be looking for us, and we got to get out of the state, let our trail grow cold.”
“So … what?” I say, my voice hitching. I pull free from Clyde’s grasp. “You’re going to leave me?”
That’s not how this was supposed to go. How did I not fully think that through?
William’s arm shoots into the front seat, pointing. “There. Second house on the right.”
Clyde slows the car. They get out and exchange a few words, a pat on the shoulder, before Clyde eases back into Big Bertha.
It may be childish, but I won’t look at him. I can’t look at him.
“I’m not choosing this, Bonnie … to hide out.”
“How long?”
“A few months, maybe. Got to see how much interest they take in us.”
I half turn. “Okay. So take me with you.”
“No, Bonnie. I can’t do that. It’s too risky. But I’ll be back for you. Trust me. I ain’t letting you go.” He blows out a low whistle. “Still can’t believe you put yourself at such risk for me.”
I wait a beat, swallowing the fact we’re not going to be together. Not yet. Then I face him fully and say, “For us. I risked it all for us. This is what we do, right? We save each other, trust each other.” I lick my lips. “I ain’t happy ’bout you leaving, but I know you’ll be back.” From my pocket, I pull out the napkin and hold it out to him. “I wrote you something.”
“What’s this?”
“Read it, silly. It’s our second verse.”
He angles the napkin toward the streetlight. “Bonnie, your handwriting is atrocious. Wouldn’t ever be able to read this.”
I playfully smack him. “I wrote it in the dark, while waiting for you.”
“Read it to me?”
As I recite each word, it’s as if Clyde goes through the emotions with me, ’til his hand is lost in my hair. “It’s true. I won’t let go. I’ll fight for us ’til the very last breath I take. That was beautiful, Bonnie. Truly.”
“So were your words. Here,” I say, and flip over the napkin. “Did I get the first verse right? I wrote those in the light, but I had to pull ’em from memory.”
“I’m sure you remembered ’em perfectly.”
“Will you sing me our chorus?”
And there’s that lazy smile I’ve come to know and love. He clears his throat dramatically, and I laugh. Setting our verses aside, I climb into his lap, both of us snug in the driver’s seat, to feel the rise and fall of his chest as he sings, “’Cause lean closer, listen close … How the story ends, no one knows … But one thing’s clear, you’ll see … Bonnie and Clyde, meant to be, alive and free.”
Like before, that last line, that last note, hangs between us. And in my heart, I know nothin’ has ever been more true.
We’re Bonnie and Clyde.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
First, thank you for riding shotgun as I told my version of Bonnie’s origin story. It was a blast to bring to life and I hope you enjoyed experiencing Bonnie’s immersion into the speakeasy world and later into the arms of Clyde Champion Barrow.
But how much of what you read is real? A lot, though I don’t claim to be a historian. A lot is from my imagination, too. Much of the imagined elements are because there are varying accounts of Bonnie’s and Clyde’s lives and their run-ins with the law. I took what I could find and ran with it.
The name Bonnelyn is an example of something I crafted. Even before I wrote a single word, I imagined Clyde to be the one to coin the name Bonnie. Then I went searching for a name that could truly show her evolution from a church-going gal to the image we all have of Bonnie as an infamous outlaw. Bonnelyn has a nice wholesome ring to it, wouldn’t you say?
Bonnie was the middle child. Buster was her older brother, Billie her little sister. Emma, a seamstress, was her mother’s real name. Their dog was even named Duke. They lived in Cement City. Her daddy, Henry, did die when Bonnie was young, but he wasn’t in the war. He was a bricklayer. Not much about Bonnie’s childhood or background is known, but I tried to pull as much as I could. She was a good student. She married Roy Thornton (though she did so at sixteen). He did leave her multiple times (even more times than I depicted in this story) and turned out to be a pretty bad dude. In real life, Bonnie also dropped out of school. Was it because of the stock market crash? Probably not. But since the market crashed during the timeframe of my story, I wanted to show a plausible way in which the crash could have affected Bonnie and her motivations.
Bonnie and Clyde both came from poverty and wanted more for themselves.
Bonnie’s love of films and music, performing in school pageants and talent shows, working at Marco’s Café, her tattoo, sneaking Clyde a gun in jail … also all true, although I took creative liberties with specific details.
Clyde, he’s
a mixture of real and make-believe as well. He had an older brother, Buck, but I didn’t include their five other siblings. Clyde didn’t have a little sister who was struck by a train.
But he was from a poor farming family who later owned the Star Service Station on Eagle Ford Road in West Dallas. Clyde did have aspirations to find farmland again for his family. One of his first arrests was for stealing turkeys for the holidays. It’s also based on real life that he got himself in trouble for not returning a rental car and for robbing Buell Lumber, along with many other businesses. Clyde did get a USN tattoo, tried to enlist in the navy, and received a medical rejection because of a childhood illness, possibly malaria. It’s also true that, although Clyde’s hearing was damaged, he had an ear and knack for the guitar.
And he sure did fall for Bonnie instantaneously.
If you kept cursing me for making you wait for Bonnie to officially meet Clyde, that’s because they didn’t do so until Bonnie was nineteen. I hope it was worth the wait. There are various accounts of how this happened, so I had my own fun with it, borrowing a favorite pastime of the Roaring Twenties: dance marathons. There was simply no way I could write a book set in the 1920s and not put us in the middle of a foxtrot. Bonnie’s speakeasy life, in general, is one I fabricated, including shifting the release year of Fats Waller’s song “Ain’t Misbehavin’” from 1929 to 1927. I read accounts of Bonnie and Clyde going to juice joints, but your guess is as good as mine if she ever served drinks in one or crooned onstage.
Blanche is a real member of the Barrow Gang, but I gave her some extra love in my book. She didn’t meet Buck until 1929, after he’d been divorced twice and had a few kids, details I chose to leave out. However, Blanche’s voice is one of the first that spoke to me and because, in real life, she had a large role (although it turned out to be a reluctant one) in Bonnie and Clyde’s life of crime, I wanted her to be heavily involved in Bonnie’s fictional life leading up to their crime spree. Bonnie and Blanche weren’t childhood best friends, but I think their depicted relationship works well in the story, and I had such a good time writing their banter and made-up history.
There’s a lot more I could mention. Emma didn’t have cancer and Buck was never stabbed (to my knowledge). Clyde really was a short dude with big ears. Their song lyrics are all mine. But I want to keep this (relatively) short; you did just read a novel, after all. If there’s anything I didn’t include here that you’re curious about being fact or fiction, please feel free to ask. You can find me at jennilwalsh.com.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JENNI L. WALSH has spent the past decade enticing readers as an award-winning advertising copywriter. Her passion lies in transporting readers to another world, be it in historical or contemporary settings. She is a proud graduate of Villanova University and lives in the Philly ’burbs with her husband, daughter, son, and goldendoodle. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Part I. Saint Bonnelyn
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Part II. A Bonny Lass
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Author’s Note
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
BECOMING BONNIE
Copyright © 2017 by Jenni L. Walsh
All rights reserved.
Cover photograph by Buffy Cooper
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-9018-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9020-2 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9780765390202
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: May 2017
Becoming Bonnie Page 31
