The Game of Love and Death(31)

She sang to Henry, and to him alone. And once she gave her voice like that she couldn’t remember any more of the performance. What she’d sung. What it sounded like. Whether she’d been good. There had been applause at the end. That she knew, although the spotlight had disoriented her enough that she’d rushed offstage. It would be the last time she’d allow her feelings to get the better of her.

Needing fresh air, she left the dressing room and hurried through the narrow, carpeted corridor. The light was dim; only a few sconces with single bulbs lined the walls. She put her hand on the doorknob beneath an exit sign.

The night air was like a splash of cool water. She thought about going back for a coat, but decided against it. She slipped out and closed the door behind her, making sure it was unlocked. The fire escape was within reach. Glad she was wearing a shorter dress, she stepped onto the trash can and climbed to a small second-floor window. Someone had been tuck-pointing the bricks and left a ladder against the wall. She pulled herself over the lip of the building and onto a flat, tar-covered roof.

And then she heard his voice.

Sitting on the roof’s edge, she leaned forward. Henry stood in the alley, looking every direction but up. Her breath caught in her chest. What was he doing?

“Flora!”

She couldn’t bear the sight of him down below. He needed to be answered. “Look up.”

Henry’s eyes found her. “What are you doing?”

“Getting air.”

“There not enough on the ground?”

“It’s better up here,” she said.

“If you say so.” He scratched his head and glanced back at the door.

“Are you coming up?”

“Up? I don’t know —”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?” Did he not want to see her, after all? She tried to figure out whether that hurt or relieved her, or both.

“It’s that … it’s that I am deathly afraid of heights.”

She grinned and swung her legs back around the edge. After that confession, it would be rude to send him away. “This is an easy climb. Meet you on the balcony.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s not that bad.” There was a grunt as he jumped for the fire escape.

“Don’t look down,” she said, trying to sound lighthearted.

Henry, hanging tight to the ladder, looked down and then up at her. His face looked pale.

He scaled the fire escape and then the ladder, pulling himself over the ledge in a single, fluid motion. He hurried away from the edge. “How’s the view from the center? Whew. Safe. Now, about your singing.” He turned to face her.

“Shh,” she said. “Nobody likes a critic.” Her heart pounded. “We have to stop meeting like this. The stray cats will talk.” She found a seat on the rooftop a few feet away from him and caught his scent on the night air. Lemons and spice.

“Maybe I’m writing another article and I need an interview,” he said.

“Are you?” she said. A hope flickered that he would, and she’d find a sponsor. But she knew that was nonsense.

“No, but I’d like to.” He sat next to her. “Tell me about it. Why you like to fly. Where you’d like to go.”

She leaned back on her elbows, turning her gaze up. He was close, though not so close that their bodies touched. She couldn’t bring herself to face him. Nor, it seemed, could he look at her. But she felt him all the same.

“Ever hear of Bessie Coleman?” she asked.

“No, was she a singer?”

The disappointment that he was unaware of someone so remarkable, so important to her, pricked her like a needle. Flora tried to keep her voice light as she explained.

“She was the first colored woman to fly a plane. And the first of my people to have an international pilot’s license. No American schools would teach her to fly, so she went all the way to Paris to learn with money she earned doing people’s nails.”

She glanced at Henry as she spoke, gratified to see he looked embarrassed.

“Why haven’t I heard of her?” he asked.

She shrugged. She had a theory, but didn’t want to talk about it just then.

“Well, what happened to her?” Henry asked a moment later. “She sounds like a good news story.”

“She died,” Flora said. “In an accident.”

“That’s terrible,” Henry said.

Flora didn’t know what to say to that. It was terrible. But death happened all the time. It didn’t do to dwell, or you’d never get anything done for the sadness. This was why it was better to care less, at least when it came to others.

They were silent for a long while, looking at the cloud-muffled sky, hearing noises from below — people talking and leaving the building — as well as their own gentle breathing. She briefly wondered about Grady, and hoped he’d assumed she’d made her own way home.

And then they talked about their families — Nana and Sherman. And the fact that Henry lived with Ethan and the Thornes, because he’d lost his family. Flora didn’t ask Henry about his newspaper job, whether that was his dream, as flying was hers. She didn’t need to know any more about what was in his heart.