“Do you have any money saved up?”
He sputtered a laugh. “What for? Frankie’d just find a way to spend it.”
I pulled my gloves off and crossed my arms on the table. “I wish I could give your brother a good punch in the nose. I can’t believe he parties and gambles and makes you and Helena foot the bill.”
Blue shrugged. “He doesn’t care.”
“Well, maybe you should cut him off. You’re just enabling him, you know.”
“It’s better than finding him in a gutter somewhere with a bullet in his head.”
We sat back when a frazzled waitress in a blue and white gingham uniform approached our table. Since Blue knew what was good, he ordered for both of us, then she hurried to the next booth. We leaned back in and continued.
“You’re right,” I said. “But I hate that he uses you like this. Puts you in the middle. Makes you take a job for Sl–”
Blue put a finger to his lips, and Sloan’s name fell dead on my tongue.
“I told you, he doesn’t care,” Blue said. “But that doesn’t matter. I care about him. That’s the only thing that counts.”
I frowned, pursing my lips. I knew then that Blue would’ve never embarrassed Mr Lipscomb in front of the whole school. He would’ve never put Tabitha’s texts on the cafeteria message board. He wanted justice, like me, but not at the expense of someone else.
“Why do you have to be so good?” I asked.
He gave me an adorable half-smile. “Good is relative, Sousa. Especially in this town. Don’t you forget it.”
I returned the smile and let him win the argument, but we both knew the truth. Nick Piasecki was good. Through and through. Relative or not.
I didn’t know what I’d do if my sisters treated me the way Frank treated Blue. Or if they treated our mother the way he treated Helena. I didn’t think I could be so forgiving. Especially if they were burning through my money like an expensive date when the Depression was right around the corner.
I leaned in closer and lowered my voice even more. “Will you do something for me?”
He leaned in too, until he was just a breath away. I could smell his aftershave. His eyes rested on my lips. “What’s that?”
“Save up. As much as you can in the next year. Hide it from Frank. Don’t let him know about it.”
Blue’s mouth broke into an easy smile once again. He leaned back and rested an arm on the back of the booth. “And here I thought you were going to ask me to kiss you.”
My ears burned when he said that, and I was thankful my hat covered them. I tried to act like his remark hadn’t completely knocked me off my axis. “Will you do that for me? Will you promise?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I promise.”
Only then could I fully relax for the evening. Knowing Blue and Helena would be all right when the Depression came made it easier to leave them behind at the end of the night.
When I went back to Limbo.
The waitress appeared again, balancing burgers, fries, and two ice cream sodas in her arms. The burgers were the size of our heads, and when Blue took a bite, juice streamed over his fingers and down his chin. He used about a dozen napkins to sop it all up.
I popped a fry into my mouth, and my eyes flew wide open. “Oh my gosh, these are incredible. They taste like real potatoes.”
Blue snorted a laugh. “As opposed to what?”
I laughed too. “I don’t know. But they don’t taste like potatoes back home in Annapolis. They just taste like… grease and salt and preservatives.”
Blue perked up. “Hey, are your memories coming back?”
Whoops.
“Huh. I guess a little bit.” I sipped my ice cream soda like the return of my memory was no big deal. The bubbles tingled my tongue.
He quirked an eyebrow. “Remember where your aunt lives?”
I shook my head, still sipping.
He hefted his burger back to his mouth and smiled. “Good.”
I smiled too. Because we both knew that once I “remembered,” it would be time for me to leave.
I guess he wanted me to stay as much as I did.
He wiped his mouth and hands after another sloppy bite. “OK, I got it. You’re on the run, see? Your husband, he told you he was a piano salesman, and he always traveled to New York to make deliveries to the big theaters and speakeasies and such. Only he was really a big-time gangster. You’d been suspicious for a while, but you figured it out when he kept coming home flush with cash. Your daddy had been a piano salesman too, and you knew they didn’t make that much money. So you did a bit of digging. You found out the filthy liar had this whole other life. A secret life. Maybe even a secret gal or two. So you raided his stash – he always kept a wad of bills sewn in the hems of the drapes – and you hopped on the first train to Chicago. Maybe you even changed your name. Maybe it isn’t even Alex. Any of this ring a bell?”
“Um, no.” I stole a fry from his plate because all mine had disappeared. Somehow.
He didn’t notice. He was too impressed with his own version of my backstory. “Oooooo. And his gangster name? Steinway.”
“Because he pretends he’s a piano salesman?”
“Because he strangles his enemies with piano wire.” Blue grinned wide. He was so proud of himself.
I stole another fry. “Real original, Piasecki.” I’d almost called him Blue out loud, but caught myself.
“Hey, I just tell it like it is,” he said with a shrug. “Personally, I don’t know what you ever saw in the guy. I always thought you could do better.”
“It was the piano,” I said wistfully. “Never could resist a man who played the keys.”
FAST MEMORIES AND MARQUEE LIGHTS
After dinner – in which I tried my best not to get burger juice all over my dress – Blue said he had a surprise for me. “Bet your mobster husband never took you to see one of these,” he said.
We stood outside the Chicago Theater, waiting in line under a huge, glittering marquee that read The Jazz Singer. My jaw dropped when I first saw it.
“We’re going to see The Jazz Singer?” I couldn’t help it. I squealed. I clung to his arm and may have bounced a bit. (I wasn’t usually the squealing or bouncing type.)
“You’ve heard of it?”
I nodded, biting my lip to suppress any more squeals. Not only had I heard of it – it just happened to be the first talking movie ever – but I’d seen it dozens of times with Gran and Pops during our movie nights. Audrey, Claire, and I had all the songs memorized. I even went through a phase where I refused to call Mom anything but Mammy.
She hated it.
“It just came out last week,” Blue said, beaming up at the marquee, “but Mom and I, we’ve already seen it twice. You just wait. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.” He laid a hand on both of my white gloves still clinging to his elbow. To anyone looking on, we probably looked like a proper Twenties couple.
Something about that thought sent a flutter through my stomach.
God it felt good to be on a date with a boy, if that’s what we were on. If not, it was the closest I’d ever come to a real date, so I’d take it. I never thought any other boy could make my stomach flutter the way Jensen did. I never thought Jensen would become a fast memory. But in that moment, standing beneath the marquee lights, sharing a smile with Blue, my whole life back in Annapolis slipped away. Like the sun burning away morning mist.
And I wanted nothing more than to bask in Blue’s rays for a little while longer.
The Jazz Singer was incredible. My cheeks hurt from grinning so much. It took everything within me to keep from belting out the songs with Al Jolson. I had to pretend like it was the first time I’d ever seen a talking picture, because Blue kept stealing glances at me, wanting to see my reaction. The moment Al spoke his first words on screen, loud and clear, in perfect unison with his lips, people all throughout the theater gasped and looked around.