Blue lifted an eyebrow.
“I can’t really remember much of anything,” I said. “Honest.”
Thankfully, he bought it. His suspicion lifted, and he sighed. He pushed his gloved hands into his coat pockets. “Well, you did hit your head pretty hard back there. Bound to be a bit screwy for a while after something like that.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I gave a half-hearted smile.
“Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
We walked past brick house after brick house, each with their own tiny backyard and shade trees. Wet clothes hung heavy on clotheslines, taking longer to dry in the cool fall air. Leaves shuffled and scraped against each other, and one fell to the ground every now and then as we passed, too weak to hang on.
Everything seemed gray – the sky, the buildings, the leaves, the grass – everything except Blue’s red nose and cheeks. I wondered why he didn’t wear a cap. His dark hair was trimmed so neatly around his ears, his eyes so chilled and blue. Wasn’t he cold?
He veered off the road and into one of the backyards, and I followed after him. He stopped at a clothesline in the back and unpinned a damp rag.
“Is this your house?” I asked.
“Nah.” He reached out and dabbed at a scrape on my cheek. “It’s Mrs Dudek’s. But she won’t mind if I borrow this. I’ll let her know what happened when I see her at church.”
Since I didn’t have a mirror, I lifted my chin and let him clean my wounds, trying not to wince. I watched cold, gray clouds slide across the sky as he wiped the blood from my skin. My eyebrows. My lips.
I’d never had a stranger be this kind to me before. This caring. Standing this close and intimate. I felt awkward, but he seemed in his element helping me. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for him.
My gaze fell from the sky to his face, and his eyes met mine for a split second. Again, my stomach dipped. I recognized him. Knew him from somewhere. Especially those blue-green eyes. Had I seen his picture in a history book? Was his face archived somewhere in my subconscious, like Dr Farrow had explained?
“I’m sorry I’m so jumpy and accusing,” he said with an apologetic half-smile. He dragged the cool cloth across my neck, then dabbed at a scrape along my jaw. “It’s my brother, Frank. He’s got me so suspicious. He’s been mixed up with the wrong guys since we were kids. For a while he was in good with the Cafferellis, then he started rubbing elbows with their rivals, the Fifth Street Gang. He’d lost a lot of money gambling, so he did a side job for them. The Cafferellis found out, and he’s been their target ever since. Of course, Fifth Street took him in with open arms. Claimed they’d protect him if he joined their gang. Anything to hack off the Cafferellis. Seemed to only get Frank in more trouble. Now he owes more money than ever.”
He took my wrists and turned them palm up, then dabbed the blood from my hands where I’d scraped them on the sidewalk.
“How much money does he owe?” I winced at the sting of the cloth.
He shook his head in that life’s a bitch sort of way. “More than we can afford, that’s for sure. I’ve been working two jobs. So has Ma. Just to pay his debts. And what does Frank do? He hides away with the Fifth Street boys, drinking, gambling, losing more money he doesn’t have, leaving Ma and me stuck with the bill.”
I frowned down at my clean, pink hands. “That’s awful.”
He stepped behind me and pulled the ribbon from my hair, letting it fall around my shoulders. “Yep. And now, thanks to Frank, you’re tangled up in this mess too. He doesn’t care who he leaves hurting in his wake. He never did.”
But Blue did care. He cared enough to take the time to wipe the blood from a stranger’s face and hands. There weren’t too many people like him back in the real world. Maybe that was proof enough that he was a figment of my imagination.
He parted my hair carefully around the knot at the back of my head and dabbed it with the cloth. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to make a sound. I bit my lip. I played with the cut inside my mouth.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” Blue said, stuffing the rag in his coat pocket. “You don’t need stitches.” He pulled a comb from his trouser pocket and combed the blood and glass and brick from my hair. He was overly gentle, like he’d never combed a girl’s hair before. Despite the pain from my tender scalp, I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the sweetness of it all.
Blue was as nice as they came.
When he was done, he tied my hair back into a loose tail with the ribbon, then turned me around and surveyed his work. “Much better. A few aspirin and you’ll be right as rain.” He tucked his comb back into his pocket with a smile.
“Thanks,” I said, returning the smile. “So now what?”
“Now I’ve got to get home. I’ve got some cash saved. It might be enough to pay off Hansen.”
“Hansen?”
“The cop.”
“You have to bribe him?”
“Yep. Once the Cafferellis hear I was at Sloan’s, I’m dead meat. They’ll think Fifth Street planted me there as a lookout. See?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“Doesn’t matter. I just need to get you home. You don’t need to be dragged into this any further.” He looked at me expectantly. “So? Where are we headed?”
I’d been so wrapped up in Blue’s life – Sloan’s, the Cafferellis, Fifth Street – that I hadn’t realized he’d expect me to have a life of my own. I ran through several fake stories in my head, but I wasn’t sure any sounded plausible. All I really wanted was to get back to the bakery. So I played dumb again.
“I don’t remember.”
This time he looked genuinely concerned. “Do you remember anything at all?”
“Some things. My name. I know I’m here visiting... my aunt.” Good Lord, I was bad at lying. “But I can’t remember where she lives. Maybe if we go back to the bakery, it’ll help me remember.”
“Can’t go back. At least, not while the cops are still there.” He looked apologetic, but firm.
“Then what should I do?”
“You’ll stick with me. We’ll lay low for the rest of the day. Then I’ll take you back tonight after the coast is clear.”
I wanted to object, to take my chances and head back myself. But then again, what exactly did I have to hurry back home for? We seemed to be out of danger for the moment, and the idea of spending the rest of the day in Twenties Chicago was too appealing to pass up. Even if it was just a dream, it was one I didn’t need to wake from just yet. The black would pull me out eventually, wouldn’t it? And it would be like no time had passed at all, just like all the other visions.
We wound through the quiet neighborhood, keeping to the deserted pathways behind the homes. I had no idea which direction we were headed, but I was content to fall in stride beside Blue and listen to the cadence and velvet tone of his voice as he told me about his town. It was a Polish neighborhood – his father, Benedykt, came over from Poland and settled there when he was a teenager. That’s where he met Blue’s mom, Helena, and raised Blue and Frank until a few years ago, when he died from the Spanish Influenza. I told Blue I was sorry, that I couldn’t imagine losing a parent. He frowned and shrugged and said he was just happy his father never saw the kind of a man Frank had become. Then he cleared his throat and moved on to a different subject.
Even though Blue was American born with a slight Chicago accent, he could speak Polish fluently. He spoke a bit to me, but I couldn’t decipher any of it, even if I tried. And when I attempted to pronounce a few of the words myself, I just ended up laughing. They sounded so strange on my tongue. Even Blue’s real name, which I found out was Micolaj Piasecki, was hard to get right. He told me Micolaj was just the Polish form of Nicholas, and with a wink and a smile he said I could call him Nick.