Mrs. Houdini(47)

“But did you love him?” Bess asked.

“In time, I did. But you see, when Harry brought you home, I could tell how much you already loved him back. That’s why I liked you. Because I knew you’d give him what I never gave my husband.” She reached for Bess’s hand. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll have a child. God wouldn’t make you only to leave you alone.”

Bess looked at the floor. “I’m not alone, though. I have Harry.”

“He’s a good boy,” Mrs. Weiss said, patting Bess’s hand. “But I can tell he still leaves you lonely sometimes.”

Bess glanced at Harry; he was standing in the corner of the room, quietly observing the proceedings. Bess felt a pang of despair. She did feel alone, the only stranger in this salon, among a roomful of people who had once shared a life together. She wondered if Harry felt toward her the same fierce love and sense of duty he felt toward his mother. His black eyes took in the room, proudly. He didn’t stand with her, or look out for her. He seemed, in fact, to have forgotten her entirely.

Still, Mrs. Weiss was right. She loved him with a wonder that crushed the flesh against her chest.

“I will never betray you,” she had sworn to him, years ago on the golden beach of Coney Island. She had taken a vow, and meant it. And she could be angry with him, or hurt. But she could never un-love him.





Chapter 8


THE PRESS


June 1929


In the crisp white sheets of her hotel room, Bess woke in a cold sweat. “Harry?” She reached for the pillow beside her. “Darling, I thought I heard something.”

He was not there. The room was dark except for the sliver of yellow light from the hallway under the door. The space beside her was cool, the sheets unwrinkled. With slow awareness, she put her hands to her face and felt the creped, tender skin under her eyes. She was not in her twenties anymore; she was much older, and Harry was gone. The sea air coming through the window covered her like a fine mist.

Charles had invited her to his offices, not far from her hotel. But there was still the problem of Stella. Bess longed to tell her what she was really doing here in New Jersey. Stella had never understood why Bess had continued to devote herself to Harry wholeheartedly after his death. It should have been a new beginning, she said; but to Bess, Harry’s death had never been an end. Besides her financial burdens, she could not rid herself of the knowledge that Harry was desperate to reach her, and that the message he intended for her carried enormous weight. Yet she had, from the minute he closed his eyes for the last time, clung to the hope that it would not be just his words that would reach her but his voice, his whole form. Surely, such a course existed. She liked to think that the dead were separated from the living by a matter almost like cement—fluid, liquid for the first years after death, until it hardened and became impassable. She had to reach him while she still could.

Stella was sitting at the breakfast table in the sitting room, reading the morning papers in a white lace nightgown. She looked up when she saw Bess.

“Good morning,” she said, gesturing toward the window. “It’s an absolutely divine day. We must get dressed and go to the beach.”

Bess leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Of course. I have to run out for an hour or so first to sign some paperwork.”

Stella sighed. “You work too hard, you know.” Bess raised her eyebrows, and Stella laughed. “I just wish you’d sell the tearoom and let Fred and me help you out with money, now that we finally have some. You always helped us and the kids out. Now it’s our turn.”

Bess shook her head. “I like running the tearoom. You just want me to sell it because it has Harry’s name on the door.”

“Even if it isn’t making any profit?”

“It is making a profit!”

“You can’t fool me.” Stella sighed. “Fred knows business. And he says you don’t know a thing about running one. You shouldn’t be giving away as much food and drink as you do.”

Bess winced. Fred was right; she didn’t know anything about keeping books or calculating margins of profit. She knew how to throw a party, and she knew how to fit her body into a wooden trunk; that was all she knew, and little good either of them did her now.

“If you feel the need to criticize,” she said coldly, “you’re welcome to stay at home the next time I have an event.”

Stella set down her teacup. “Oh, come on. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I just meant—at least let Fred give you some advice.”

“I’ll think about it.” Bess had told Stella the extent of her debts, but she hadn’t shared her belief that Harry had left her with a way to extricate herself from them. She hid her desperate, late-night searches of the house from her sister. Stella would call her a fool.

“We can lend you money—we don’t have to give it to you.”

Bess shook her head. “Absolutely not. You need that money. You’re going to have a new baby in the house.”

Bess recalled how much she’d adored Fred when he started coming to the house in Brooklyn on Friday nights, courting Stella. Bess was in high school at the time, and Fred had seemed so much older, so much more mature than the boys she went to school with. He was tall and handsome, and he used to put his arm around her shoulders, always protective of her. When he married Stella in the courthouse, Bess wore a blue dress and carried a bouquet of lilies and stood behind Stella. All these years later, he still loved Stella, and he still loved Bess as he would a sister.