Iron Cast(43)

Charlie shook his head, his eyes fixed ahead. He didn’t reply.

Ada still wasn’t brave enough to ask about the other stories she’d heard about the South, stories of black men being burned alive, of boys barely out of the school yard being strung up in trees. She knew he probably didn’t want to talk about them either. Sometimes she felt like her only choice in life was between the ironmongers’ chains or the lynch mob’s ropes.

“They have some fine music down there, though,” Charlie said, a hint of wistfulness in his tone. “In August, even when the air is so thick and humid that the crickets are in a frenzy, you can still hear them songs for miles. Nothing more beautiful than a summer night in Alabama.”

He turned his head, and Ada felt his eyes on her profile.

“Well, almost nothing,” he said.

Ada’s lips quirked, and she nudged him with her shoulder.

“That the best you can do? Little sappy, don’t you think?”

“Give me some credit—I’m trying here.”

His mouth cracked into a grin as he looked at her. For a fleeting second, everything was easy again. The rest of Boston felt faraway. Ada slipped her hands around his neck again and pulled him down for another kiss. She let this one linger, her tongue tangled with his, her heart tangled in knots.

When she released him, the white clouds of their breaths blended between them in the lamplight.

“Tell me more about the South,” she whispered. She slid her hand into his, and they started walking again.

“Hot as hell,” he told her. “There’s mosquitoes big as birds, and so many hills and trees, you can go your whole life without seeing the true horizon.”

Ada smiled to herself and listened to him go on about the fifty-odd-foot cast-iron statue at the state fairgrounds, ostensibly a god but with crooked arms and a giant Coca-Cola bottle in his hand. Their steps became aimless, and neither of them mentioned, or cared, that they were circling the same three blocks over and over.

At a quarter past six, Saint still wasn’t ready, which wasn’t typical of him. Corinne had never once convinced him to go with her to a party or a cabaret, but when it came to the Mythic’s plays, he was a stickler for punctuality. Gabriel was running late too, which didn’t strike Corinne as something that would be typical either, considering how fastidious he was about everything else. She hovered outside Saint’s bedroom doorway, making generally unhelpful comments as he struggled with his tie in front of the low, paint-splattered mirror.

“I can’t get the Windsor knot right,” he said. “If Ada were here—” He bit his lip.

“Don’t worry,” Corinne said, trying to glaze over the moment. “I’m sure James will still be happy to see you with a half Windsor. A quarter even.”

Saint leaned over to slam the door on her, though not fast enough to hide the flush of his freckled cheeks. Corinne laughed.

“I’m going upstairs to wait for Gabriel,” she said through the door. “Hurry up.”

She pulled on her coat and gloves and went through the club. She didn’t like the way the bar looked when it was deserted, so even though it was cold outside, she didn’t linger. She stepped out the front door into a burst of frigid wind that stole the breath from her lungs. She was just reconsidering waiting at the bar when she caught sight of Gabriel a little farther down the sidewalk.

The sun had set, but he was standing under a streetlight with an older woman. She was much shorter than him, wearing a long plain coat, with her hair tied in a kerchief and a ratty handbag over her arm. She had her hand at the back of his head, pulling him closer to her, her fingers clutching with something closer to desperation than control. She was speaking fiercely to him in a language that Corinne didn’t understand. Corinne strained to hear the last word, and it was one that she did recognize: myshka.

When the woman saw Corinne, she let out a small noise of surprise. She kissed Gabriel firmly on the forehead and rushed down the sidewalk away from the Cast Iron, her head ducked low. Gabriel’s expression when he turned to see Corinne was not one that she could identify. She had the urge to go back inside and pretend she hadn’t seen anything, but words slipped out of their own accord.

“Was that your mother?” she asked, taking a few steps closer to him.

Gabriel was very still, watching her like she was either prey or predator—she couldn’t decide which. She told herself to go inside, to leave it alone. As usual, she did not listen to herself.

“You’re Russian,” she said.

He blinked at her, still tense, still unmoving.

“Myshka,” she repeated. “It’s a Russian term of endearment, right?”

He glanced around them. The street was peppered with people hurrying home from work or hurrying out to dinner. He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head.

“I’m not talking about this here. It’s none of your business.”

“It’s a little bit my business,” Corinne said. “You’re part of Johnny’s crew now.”

Gabriel started to shake his head again, but Corinne lunged forward to grab his arm and drag him into the club’s entry corridor. They were alone in the cramped space, except for the countless hazy reflections in the mirrors lining the walls.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gabriel demanded, trying to extricate his arm from her grip with little success.