Iron Cast(110)

“Cor, wait,” said Gabriel.

She turned to face him. His hands were shoved into his pockets, and the frown line had reappeared between his eyebrows.

“I know I might not ever make things right.” His eyes dropped briefly, and he sucked in a short breath before looking up again. “But I hope you’ll let me try.”

Corinne tried to think of something to say, something witty or honest or anything. But words wouldn’t come, and Gabriel left the alley. She watched him go. When he stepped out from between the two buildings, the sunlight turned him briefly golden. Then he turned the corner and was gone.

Ada was waiting for Corinne in the storage room. She’d finally managed to send Charlie home, after one last kiss in the dazzling sunlight, just outside the front door. His years playing French horn translated to a host of other skills involving his mouth—French and otherwise. It still barely distracted her from the letter that was folded in her pocket. She’d found it shoved under the Cast Iron’s front door the morning before. The script was her mother’s handwriting, and at first she thought Nyah had left it on her way to the train station, but it wasn’t a farewell letter.

In Portuguese, her mother told her again how much she loved her, and how much she wanted her to be safe. Then she wrote that she was staying in a hotel for now, but she was not buying a train ticket to the Midwest. She wasn’t leaving at all.

I will not leave my family behind, she wrote. I said nothing when you were here before, because I knew you would be too stubborn to listen. It is my own fault. You are your mother’s daughter.

Ada had cried through the rest of the letter, her tears spotting the ink. She couldn’t stop thinking about the story of the beautiful queen and her prince from a faraway land. Maybe her mother was right. A turn in the tale wasn’t the end.

Ada had wanted to see her mother right away, but she needed to wait until they’d closed everything up. Corinne looked small and worn when she came in from the alley—a far cry from the force of nature she had been all night, sailing through Dante and Rossetti and Tennyson without dropping a single syllable. Her hair had lost its curl, and some of the jet beads on her champagne-colored dress were missing.

“Is everyone gone?” she asked, locking the door behind her.

Ada nodded. “Saint’s still at the bar. James is sleeping in the basement.”

“Good.” Corinne gave her a once-over and smiled. “Your lipstick’s smudged.”

“Can’t imagine how that happened,” Ada said airily.

Corinne laughed, but the sound was forced. She opened her hand to reveal a book of matches. Ada watched as she lit the candle on Gordon’s chair. They stood in silence for almost a minute, watching the bright flame sway. Finally Corinne pocketed the matchbook, and they went upstairs together.

Ada had told Danny not to bother cleaning up that morning, and the tables were covered with glasses and plates and cigarette butts. The hardwood floor was spotted with spilled drinks and dropped appetizers. Saint was behind the bar, wetting a rag. He glanced up at them when they entered but said nothing.

Corinne sat on a stool at the corner of the bar, nearest the back door, and laid her head down on her arms. Ada picked absently at the buttons on her coat. Exhaustion crept over her, but she didn’t want to sit down. “We should probably go downstairs and get some sleep,” she said.

Corinne didn’t move. Saint, who was wiping down the bar at the opposite end, looked at her again but didn’t reply. She couldn’t blame them. They had gone to the basement only once, two nights before. Knowing that Pierce and Wilkey had been down there, sifting through the lives they had built, was a violation that Ada couldn’t stand to think about. Johnny’s office had been mostly emptied out. The entire contents of her and Corinne’s bedroom were in a heap on the floor, and all the decorations on their walls—the newspaper clippings and swatches of wallpaper and silken scarves—had been torn down. She’d seen her violin on top of the pile. The case had been opened and one of the strings had snapped, but otherwise, it appeared unharmed. It was still the most beautiful object she had ever touched. The only companion more constant than Corinne. But Johnny had given it to her. It was a remnant of a life she hadn’t meant to live. She left it where it was.

Ada had peeked into Saint’s room, where he was sitting on his cot, arms on his knees. He had raised his soft gray eyes to her, and the bleakness there wrenched Ada’s heart. All his paintings were gone. She had gathered blankets from a storage closet, and the three of them had slept on the stage, spending half the night in whispers.

Ada turned around, taking in the Cast Iron’s disarray. Even though hours ago it had been packed with laughter and clinking glasses and swinging music, it felt emptier than it ever had before. She tried not to think about what had been lost, about Madeline by the waterfront, about Johnny in the warehouse.

“It feels smaller than it used to,” Saint said. He wasn’t looking at either of them, or at the scattered tables and chairs, or at the last of his paintings mounted on the wall. He just kept pushing the rag across the bar in methodical motion.

Ada glanced back at Corinne, who had straightened up on her stool. She seemed to know exactly what Ada was thinking. As always.

“For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.”

Instantly the lights dimmed and changed—no longer strings of electric bulbs but flaming sconces along the walls and glimmering candles on the tables. The tablecloths were gone, the furniture rearranged. Instead of a dance floor there were more tables, spaced between oaken pillars. Ada could see the first-ever patrons of the Cast Iron like faded ghosts in the candlelight, men in waistcoats and knee breeches, some with powdered wigs and polished buckles on their shoes. They leaned close over their mugs of ale, eyes bright with the talk of revolution. Ada moved forward into the scene, transfixed by the intricacy of the illusion all around her. The years passed by like a rushing wind, and the patrons flashed in and out of focus, a parade of changing fashions and evolving ideals.