The Game of Love and Death(34)

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing, I don’t think. I’m probably just tired.” The feeling passed. He yawned. Then there were footsteps, and Ethan appeared on the far side of the kitchen, looking rumpled but surprisingly awake. His eyes widened.

“Well, now,” Helen said. “There’s our other night owl.”

She sniffed the air, and it gave Henry an overwhelming sense of something predatory about her.

“I was working, Helen,” Ethan said. “Give it a rest.” He took an apple from the bowl and bit it savagely.

“I don’t doubt it,” she said. “Henry and I were just making plans to listen to some of that cunning jazz music he likes so much. Won’t you join us?”

“Not interested,” Ethan said. He took another bite and rubbed juice from his chin with his thumb.

“You could bring a friend,” she said. “The person you’ve been working with so late. Goodness, I hope you’re not exhausted at school tomorrow. You know what your parents will say if your grades drop.”

Ethan squared his shoulders. “Fine. But only to make sure you don’t devour Henry like you’re going after that cake.”

Helen bent over her plate, shoveling cake into her mouth the way a laborer endeavors to fill a hole.

“You haven’t changed since you were a little girl eating sweets with your bare hands,” Ethan said, surveying the wreckage of her snack. “Do you ever stop with your disgusting devouring?”

“No,” Helen said, her mouth dark with frosting. “I do not.”



Not long afterward, as Henry lay in bed and felt his body succumb to sleep, he practiced a jazz riff in his head, one he hadn’t yet been able to get right. As his mind unclenched, he understood what his fingers needed to do and how his hands needed to work with each other, and he felt certain that in the morning, he’d be able to play it for real, if only he didn’t have to get up and go to school.

He breathed deeply. In his last moments of consciousness, it occurred to him that he’d never talked with Helen about what sort of music he’d been listening to.

Ethan must have said something about jazz. Surprising, given how much he hated his cousin. But Helen could rip anything out of you that she wanted.





FLORA wouldn’t admit it for anything, but she liked clean linens. Loved them, even. Unwrapping them from the crinkling brown paper Mrs. Miyashito used. The smooth feel of their ironed surfaces. The act of putting them in the closet next to the bar, their edges aligned like bones. The sheer impersonal order of them was a thing of beauty. And while it was true that the cycle of laundry was as futile as the cycle of life, it was equally true that no one ever dropped tears over a dirty napkin. Maybe Mrs. Miyashito, but she was the exception.

Because there was no one to hear her, Flora sang as she worked, a sweet little lie of a love song. “Easy Living.”

It was Grady’s new favorite. Grady. She felt guilty even thinking of him, after the time she’d spent with Henry. His friend Billie had recorded it for a motion picture that was set to open in the summer. It was the latest in a line of songs he’d taught her after he’d started courting her. She wasn’t quite sixteen when it started. She’d just left school so she could take care of Nana during the day, and she hadn’t even imagined such a role for herself until Sherman informed her he’d given Grady permission to come courting. Permission. As if that had been his to give.

She’d protested her lack of interest, which had only increased Grady’s. At first, she’d let him teach her the songs so they’d have something besides flowery nonsense to talk about. Then, she’d consented to see him outside of the club so he would stop bothering her about his feelings when they were at work, calling attention to the whole situation in front of the entire band. After that, it just seemed easier to keep things simmering along, never reaching any sort of emotional boil, because it would protect her from the interest of any other boy.

Oh, Grady. He was a decent musician. Nice-looking. Attentive. Polite to Nana. But their relationship was nothing like the easy living in the song. It felt forced, and she felt watched. Watched and managed. Like when they’d attend church together on Sundays … it bothered her to know that everyone looked at them as a couple who would one day be married. Or they’d take a walk in the park and he’d hold her elbow and lead her along at a pace that didn’t quite match hers, and he’d smile and shake his head when she wanted to pause and steal a glance at the sky.

All those times he’d tried to kiss her, she’d pushed him away. He once even asked her to marry him, probably thinking that’s the sort of thing that would make her finally consent. She’d panicked and said not yet, by which she meant not ever. He was waiting until she turned eighteen to make things official. She intended to hold him off until she made her flight, and then, if everything went according to plan, she was free. She could leave the club in Sherman’s hands and spend the rest of her days as Bessie Coleman had done. She’d have left already if it weren’t for Nana and the matter of money.

Whatever she thought of Grady, “Easy Living” was a good song. Quite possibly too good, because she’d closed her eyes so she could really feel the second verse. As she did this, she saw Henry in her mind’s eye. She couldn’t think about what it meant, not when she was singing.