The Bridegrooms (28 page)

Then they were out in the hall.

“Elevator?” she asked, panting.

“No to that.” He pulled her down the hall, turning right and, to the stairs. They clambered down two flights before daring to slow down for the next two, where they came to a complete stop on the landing. It was dark, lit only by a small window near the top of the wall, and their laughter echoed from floor to floor.

“You see what I tell you? Is fun,
non
?”

It was then that she felt every moment of the day, every hour of the sleepless night before, and she was ready to curl up and sleep like Eli on the third-floor stairwell of the Hollenden Hotel.

“Cherie?”
The playfulness was gone from his voice. “You feel well?”

“I need to go home.”

“Come. I have to be at the field by three. We get a cab and take you home.”

“I hate to cost you any of your nine dollars,” she said, knowing there wasn’t nearly enough left in her pocketbook to cover the fare.

He patted the breast pocket of his jacket. “I have tickets to the game. I pay with those.”

She fully relied on his strength to get her down the final flights and didn’t dare sit in the lobby waiting for him to hail a cab. Instead, she stood next to him on the street and, for the second time that week, found herself being driven home from this place. This time, though, she rode with a different man. And while she could recall every moment of the ride home with Garrison and Hazel, this one would be lost to her forever. She barely remembered climbing in.

Strange how the cab seemed to still be jostling along, though she couldn’t hear the hooves of the horses or the jangle of chains. In fact, it was quiet, absolutely quiet, save for a warm, teasing voice telling her to wake up.

She was home.

Little by little she clawed her way out of the fog and opened her eyes to see nothing but a field of brown wool infused with green thread. His suit, his shoulder. At some point during her sleep, her mouth had gone slack, and she attempted her best ladylike swipe of her chin as she pulled away. Doing so, she felt the imprint of his jacket on her cheek and could only imagine what a mess she was.

“Look like someone need to
fais do-do
.”

His face was so close; she closed one eye trying to bring him into focus. His chuckle rippled through her. “Meanin’ I need to get you up to bed. To sleep,” he added quickly. “You was out before the first wheel turnin’.”

“I didn’t sleep last night.”

“Because of me?”

Much as she hated him knowing his effect, she nodded.

“Do you know what I think?” He tugged at her chin. “I think you far too beautiful to lose sleep on me. So with me leavin’ tomorrow, best we part ways right here.”

It seemed kinder, somehow, not to remind him that she’d tried to tell him that very thing three times already. She took his hand and planted a soft kiss on the back of his knuckles. “For luck at the game.”

“And I will long treasure
les boutons
and carry them always, thinkin’ of you.”

“Speaking of the buttons, would you like to come inside, just to check on Eli one last time?”

“
Non, cher
, I wan’ remember you just like this.”

“I’m a mess!”

“Ask me, you should spend more time messin’.” He opened the cab door, then stepped out and handed her down. With almost fatherly attentiveness, he straightened her hat and held out her pocketbook so she could loop its handle over her wrist before handing her the package from the stationer’s.

Her mind drew a blank. “What is this?”

He shrugged. “
N’sais-pas
. But you been clutchin’ at it all this time.”

Then she remembered the gifts for her sisters and clutched it again. “
Au revoir
, Mr. LaFortune.”

“Au revoir, ma belle.”
He took her in his arms one more time, crushing the package between them, and gave her the sweetest kiss he ever had, just at the corner of her mouth.

Suddenly she didn’t want to leave his embrace, knowing just beyond it was nothing but explanation and confession. At this point she was just as far away from the cab as she was her house, and perhaps she would have given herself over to reckless abandon if the front door hadn’t opened, and if she hadn’t turned around to see Hazel standing on the top step.

Shock registered on Hazel’s face, and then something else. Despair? She spun around and ran inside, leaving the door wide open behind.

Louis LaFortune dissolved around her, and Vada ran from him, not knowing if he said another word. She bounded up the front steps and looked around the front hall before hearing Hazel’s footfall on the second floor.

Grabbing the banister, she took the stairs two at a time, heading straight into Hazel’s room to find her sister standing, fists clenched at her sides.

“Get out.”

“Hazel, let me explain.”

“Everything Lissy said was true. I thought for sure the girl was exaggerating. I even told her she had imagined it all. But then, here, with my own eyes—”

“It wasn’t—He was just saying good-bye.”

“Oh, well, then! By all means a kiss is completely appropriate.”

“Of course it isn’t—”

“All your talk about love. What have you told Garrison?”

It was the first time his name had been said aloud in the context of this madness, and it stopped Vada cold. “Why, nothing, of course. There’s nothing to tell.”

“What I just saw,” Hazel pointed to her window that looked out onto the street, “was not
nothing
. He deserves better.”

“You’re right,” Vada said, shaken by the depth of that truth. “He does. But you have to believe me, Hazel. This is all meaningless.”

“It’s not fair!” With that, Hazel burst into tears and moved to her bed where she sat on the edge and sobbed.

“Oh, sister…” Vada sat beside her and draped a comforting arm over her shoulder, despite Hazel’s attempt to pull away. “That’s so sweet of you to be concerned about Garrison, but I think it would only hurt him to—”

“I mean, it’s not fair to me!”

“To you?”

“Here I peddle myself to some stranger in the godforsaken wilderness—”

“That’s your decision, Hazel.”

“Well, I’m never going to find anyone here, am I? Not with you around anyway. Who’s going to look past you and see me?”

“Don’t be—”

“So it’s not enough you have a sweet, wonderful man who adores you. You have to go running around with that, that—I don’t even know what to call him.”

“Don’t call him anything. He doesn’t even deserve your attention.”

“Then Lissy tells me about that reporter who was sniffing around here—sniffing around
you
more like it. I thought she was exaggerating that too. But now I’m not so sure. How you’ll ever have time to fit in a third is beyond me.”

“Now hold on just a minute!”

“And you know what?” Her voice was elevated now, screaming straight into Vada’s face. “You are just like her!”

“I am nothing like her!” Vada matched her sister’s volume. “Lissy is a mindless twit of a flirt who doesn’t care about—”

“I don’t mean Lissy! I mean Mother! You are just like her. You’re doing to Garrison exactly what she did to Doc.”

“That is ridiculous.” She’d taken her arm away shortly before Hazel started screaming, and now Vada stood up, pacing the room, collecting her thoughts. “Garrison and I are not married. He won’t even propose. I haven’t left him, and I have absolutely no intentions of doing so.”

“Not now.” Hazel’s voice was eerily void of emotion. “But you will. You’ve proven yourself capable.”

The shock of what Hazel said stole Vada’s breath and turned her blood to a cold, slow slush. The humiliation of it compounded by Althea’s silent presence in the doorway, her face retelling the entire sordid conversation.

“You can’t mean that,” Vada said when she could speak again.

“Don’t tell me what I mean,” Hazel said. “You’re always complaining about being everybody’s mother. Well, congratulations. You are now our mother in every single way.”

Maybe it was the fatigue or the fact that her brain no longer seemed capable of forming words, but the next thing Vada knew, there was a sharp stinging sensation on her palm and an angry red mark on Hazel’s cheek.

Hazel lifted her hand to respond in kind, but Althea leaped between them.

“Get out of here, Althea!” Hazel screamed.

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Vada yelled in kind.

Then came an eerie quaking to the floor, the trinkets scattered across Hazel’s bureau began to shake, and Molly Keegan burst through the door.

“What in the name of Saint George and his dragon is goin’ on up here? Not since I heard my own brothers findin’ themselves with nary a pint and only a nickel have I heard such clamorin’! Keep it up and I’ll do just what I did with them—give each of you a pipe and send you to the alley to settle it out ‘til the last one’s standin’!”

By the time she finished her diatribe, all three sisters were huddled together—Althea behind Hazel—and it was quite a while before Molly’s coloring lost its lobster hue and her nostrils returned to their nonraging width.

“Now then,” she said, after several even breaths, “I’ve come up to say you might want to step away from the tavern brawl because the doctor has a distinguished visitor downstairs.”

“What visitor?” Vada asked. Doc never received company in the parlor.

“Good glory, the man’s been here once already this week, but with all the comin’s and goin’s, there hasn’t been a chance to—”

“Who is it, Molly?” Vada insisted, though the sinking feeling in her gut already provided a name.

“Oh, somethin’ exotic. Trippenshire? Trip—”

“Triplehorn?” Vada and Hazel spoke in perfect unison.

Molly snapped her fingers. “The very one! And with your father out again—back to that ballpark, Lord bless him. Stayin’ for the game today he is. I told him he should do that very thing. Poor man needs to enjoy himself a little more.”

“Mr. Triplehorn’s downstairs now?” Hazel asked, her voice shaking.

“He is, indeed. And I told him I’d fetch one of the young ladies to speak with him, and then I come up the stairs to find the souls of my sweet girls taken over by a pair of brawlin’—”

Vada pushed past Molly and turned to see that Hazel followed her into the hall.

“Stay here,” Vada said. “Talk to Althea. And Molly.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Everything. Some secrets are easier to share.”

Vada had long ago perfected the art of descending the stairs quietly, knowing exactly which ones were likely to elicit a protesting squeak. She moved slowly, stealthily.
Lord, give me the words to say
. She paused at the hallway mirror long enough to smooth her hair and give a quick pinch to her cheeks.

As impressive as Alex Triplehorn’s size was when she met him in the Hollenden Hotel restaurant, and as menacing as he’d appeared in the streetlamp shadows, nothing compared to the mass he claimed standing
in the Allenhouse parlor. His eyes were level with the uppermost bookshelves, and he ran a thick finger along the titles.

“Mr. Triplehorn?”

He turned around, clasping his hands behind his back. “Miss Allenhouse. We meet again, under less confusing and startling circumstances, I hope.”

Vada replayed the escapades of just hours ago and smiled.

If he only knew
.

“What is the reason for your visit, Mr. Triplehorn?”

“I would prefer to speak to your father.”

“He isn’t here, and quite frankly, I think it would be best for all of us if you were to leave right now before he comes home.”

The pounding in her head had narrowed to a sharp, precise pain, and it served to truncate her conversation, making her sound more powerful than she felt.

He moved to the mantel, strolling the length of it, looking at each picture in turn. “No picture of your mother.”

“No. There hasn’t been for some time.” Still, even then, she could see her mother’s image—so much like her own—buried in the top drawer of her bureau, now nestled next to Eli’s letter.

“Too bad. Marguerite was a beautiful woman.”

“We really must insist that you leave. Again.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You speak for your father?”

“I’m speaking for our family.”

“A family I have wronged. And I feel I must make amends.”

Whatever threat he’d represented, whether his size, his stature, or history, diminished with the ticking of the clock. He seemed to shrink to the room, or maybe the room grew to encompass him. Either way, before her very eyes, he became nothing more than a man, a tormented one at that, and her own tormented soul reached out to him.

“Why?” She approached him. “Why now?”

“My business kept me traveling much of the time. And I guess”—he looked up to the ceiling—“I didn’t want to face what I did. But when I happened across your sister’s advertisement in the Cheyenne paper, and I knew I was coming to Cleveland…it seemed like a sign.”

“From whom?” she asked, remembering LaFortune’s powers of spiritual interpretation.

“I’m not a man to believe in God.”

Until that moment, it was a question she’d never allowed herself to ponder, but now, facing the man who might have the answer, she asked, “Did she?”

A bittersweet smile curved his full lips. “After she got sick—Do you want to hear this?”

She clenched her jaw and nodded.

“After she got sick, she used to say she felt like God was punishing her. For”—his voice caught in his throat—“for leaving you. All of you.” He looked closely at the picture of Lisette. “Is this the baby?”

“That’s her. She is twelve years old in that picture.”

He lifted the frame and brought it closer to his face. “What color is her hair?”

“It’s like caramel.”

“Then I saw her. One afternoon when I was waiting for your father. She’s a lovely girl.”

“Yes.”

“And she looks nothing like me.”

“No. So it would appear that your business here is concluded.”

He replaced the frame but made no attempt to leave. “I still would like to make some restitution to your father.”

“And what restitution could you make, Mr. Triplehorn? Can you bring his wife back?”