All for a Story (24 page)

“Yet you’re here, aren’t you?”

“Only because I relish the opportunity to prove you wrong. People do stand by their principles, no matter how far-fetched those principles might be.”

Monica took two brisk steps ahead of Max, turned, stopped, and held out her hand. “Care to make a bet?”

“And add gambling to the growing list of vices you’ve suckered me into? No, thanks.”

“Not money or anything. And maybe not even a wager. More like a promise between friends.”

“I’m listening.”

“If you’re right, and those girls over there resist your charms, with not so much as a giggle or a wink, then I promise my next column will be full of nothing but praise for their effort.”

“Fair enough.”

“But you have to promise me something too. You have to lay on the charm, toss out the compliments, tease a little, you know.”

After what appeared to be serious consideration, Max took her hand in a grip that gave no deference to her delicate gender and said, “Deal.”

“Good.” She didn’t let go.

“Now,” he said, showing his own reluctance to break free, “what if the unthinkable happens?”

“Which would be?”

“What if some poor, unsuspecting girl falls madly in love with me? It hardly seems fair to toy with an unsuspecting heart.”

“It’s a risk you’ll have to take. The girl should know better,
anyway. You shouldn’t fall in love with somebody who flirts with you. It’s a given.”

“Like a rule? I thought you didn’t like those kinds of rules.”

“Not a rule, exactly.” Unless her imagination was playing a trick, he was reeling her in, closer and closer, with almost imperceptible tugs. She gave in and modified the grip they had on each other, encasing his hand in both of hers and bringing it up to nearly touch her cheek. “More like —” She looked up, amused to see his amusement, inviting her to play with the moment. “Those teasing looks, and touches, and even kisses, sometimes, when they get passed between strangers, it simply isn’t
real
. Not like love.”

“What do you know about love, Miss Bisbaine?”

Just like that, the game changed, losing any hint of humor. The only answer she had was Charlie, how she thought she’d loved him. And how he must have loved her, considering the risk he was willing to take to see her time and time again.

“Love comes back,” she said finally.

He wanted to say something; she could sense it. His lips parted, he took a breath, and if he were anyone else, she might have thought he was about to kiss her. But he was buttoned-up Max, and if this wasn’t the place to wax philosophical about the ways of romance, it was even less an opportunity to practice it. Not that there’d be time for either, anyway, because at that moment, Emma Sue —her companion from the first meeting —was waving frantically from Alice Reighly’s porch, calling, “Maxine!”

“Your first victim,” Monica said, taking Max’s arm in a much more familial way. “She’s a nice girl. Try not to devastate her.”

Emma came down off the porch and, with a quick, almost trotting gait that made her seem more youthful than Monica would have imagined, linked her own arm through Monica’s free one.

“We have to hurry up,” she said. “The photographer says
he can only stay for about fifteen minutes. It’s one or two shots and he’s off. And only a few girls showed up. Alice is terribly disappointed, but most of us are working girls, you know? Can’t just step off the shop floor to pose for a picture, now can you?”

“You made it.”

“I don’t have a job. Unless you count babysitting for my neighbor’s kid. Which I don’t.”

By then Emma Sue’d completely stolen Monica away from Max, leaving him a good two paces behind them. She twisted in the girl’s grip in an attempt to make an introduction.

“Did you meet my brother the other evening? Max, this is —”

“I think he should stay back,” Emma Sue said, quickening her step. “He might be distracting to the other girls, and already it’s hard to keep everybody focused. You understand, of course.”

“I —” But they hurried so, there was no opportunity to press the issue. One glance over her shoulder proved that Max had clearly slowed his pace to widen the gap between them. Now he stopped and plunged his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels and grinning at the demise of her carefully crafted plan. The rotten irony of it all was that he looked so cute, if Emma Sue would so much as turn around she’d be a goner for sure.

“I’ll be waiting right here, Sis,” he called with a touch to his hat. “Holler if you need me.”

“That’s sweet,” Emma Sue said with a sisterly squeeze. “If every girl had a big brother like that, we wouldn’t have anything to worry about. He seems a bit overprotective, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, funny how
brother
rhymes with
smother
, isn’t it?”

Emma Sue giggled. “You’re clever.”

They’d arrived at the white railing of Alice Reighly’s apartment, where a small swarm of girls gathered, primping each other’s
hair and checking their lipstick in tiny mirrors. Off to the side was Alice, wearing the same conservative suit she’d worn at the meeting. Only now she wore a small brown hat, utterly void of fashion, with fine strands of her hair dripping down from beneath it. Despite it all, however, she looked radiantly happy. Perhaps it was the brilliant wash of the winter’s sun or the pennant she wielded with the conviction of a soldier going into battle.

Then again, it might have something to do with the photographer. He was tall —easily over six feet —and the cut of his wool coat revealed a physique worthy of immortality in marble. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, and from what she could see that wasn’t obscured by his camera, a handsome, clean-shaven face.

“That’s it, doll,” he said from behind the lens. “Beautiful, just beautiful. Let me see that smile.”

Doll.
The Alice Reighly who had spoken so passionately the other night would never have stood for such a nickname. Or
sweetheart
, either, yet he punctuated his directions with that one, too, asking her to turn a bit so she didn’t look so squinty.

“Oh my,” Monica said to Emma Sue, speaking softly. “Isn’t he a handsome one?”

Emma Sue fluttered her hand near her heart. “He is, like something from the movies. Rather a test for our resolve, I think.”

Monica tsked, as if anyone would plan such a thing, and followed Emma Sue up the porch where that bossy girl, Junie, was handing out sashes for all of them to wear, draped shoulder to hip, like those young women in that Miss America pageant in New Jersey. They were white silk with the words
Anti-Flirt Club
emblazoned in royal-blue paint. Monica followed the example of the other girls and shrugged off her coat, thankful that the temperature had risen to something close to fifty degrees, and lifted her arms to allow Junie to adjust the sash to perfection.

“You’re so tiny,” Junie mumbled without a hint of compliment. “People are going to have to look behind you to read the whole thing.”

“Well, it’s just for the photograph, isn’t it? I mean, we’re not going to be expected to parade all over town in this thing, are we?”

“I would.” She stepped back to assess her work. “That would keep the wolves away.”

“And everybody else, too.” But Junie had already moved on to the next girl.

Monica shielded her eyes from the sun and looked down the street where Max stood, waiting. That rat. She could sense his amusement from here.

“All right, ladies.” The photographer’s voice invaded their chatter like a warm swallow of coffee, deep and smooth. “What do you say you chickens all perch up there on the railing? Between the columns. Looks like you’ll just about fit.”

“Are you sure?” Junie asked, sounding both skeptical and suspicious. “Couldn’t we just stand along the stairs? That would show off the sashes better.”

He allowed his camera to hang freely from the strap around his neck and stepped away from the group to both study and admire.

“You might have something there.” His eyelids fell to half-mast, drawing attention to a fringe of dark lashes any flapper would give her teeth for. “It does something to your figures.” He held up his hand, as if touching them from a distance, and to Monica’s amusement, Emma Sue leaned forward, as if to create a bridge between them. “The way it dissects —”

“I think the railing would be fine,” Alice Reighly said, her soft voice breaking the spell without resorting to chastising authority.

Monica stared at the railing in question. It came nearly to her waist, and she planted her hands on it, wondering how in the
world she would ever hoist herself up when she felt the brush of a masculine shoulder behind her. Their photographer, apparently sensing her plight, had bounded up the stairs to the rescue, and the next thing she knew, her waist was almost completely encased in his hands.

“Let me give you a boost there, little sheba.” He spoke close to her ear, and the thrill made her collapse to near deadweight in his grasp. The ground left her completely as he lifted her up, and then the narrow railing became a precarious seat beneath her.

“Steady . . . ,” he intoned, keeping one hand around her waist as the other scooped beneath her knees and slowly turned her to face the street. “Does that feel all right?”

“Yes,” Monica said. “Fine.”

“Good.” He clapped his hands. “Anybody else need help?”

Emma Sue was the first to raise her hand, though she was certainly tall enough to swing one long leg over the railing and sit just fine. She submitted to the ritual, though, and once she was settled next to Monica, she risked gravity to lean back and whisper, “I don’t think your brother was too keen on all that.”

Monica gripped the rail beneath her and stretched her neck to see where Max had, indeed, taken several strides closer, his posture and countenance far less gregarious.

“He takes a woman’s honor very seriously.”

Girl after girl was lifted, giggling, to her perch. One protested in vain that she must be far too heavy for him to lift, to which he replied, “Ah, chickie, you’re nothing but a feather.” Another cautioned that her shoes might get his lovely coat dirty, leading him to take the garment off to a collective squeal at the sight of strong arms in a skin-fitting white shirt. His smile at their reaction produced a pair of dimples that might have been a pair of bullets, seeing how they brought the girls to clutch at their hearts.

From the sidewalk, both Alice Reighly and Max, now side by side, watched the scene unfold. She with a look of consternation; he, more amused.

Monica, meanwhile, allowed her feet to swing freely. Too freely, in fact, because without warning one of her shoes flew from her foot, landing what seemed like miles away in the yard’s patchy snow.

“I’ve got that,” Max said, springing into action and scooping it up. As he approached, she held out her foot, bringing it precariously close to his nose.

“Be careful up there, Sis,” he said. “It’s a long way to fall.”

“You’re too good to me,” she said. “I don’t deserve such attention.”

He wrapped his hand around her ankle, holding her steady as he slipped the shoe back on. The touch was strong and steady, and considering the jolt it sent through her body, was the only thing keeping her from launching backward into Alice Reighly’s apartment. It crushed any memory of the handsome photographer even as it prompted a “Hey, buddy! Watch yourself!” from the man.

“It’s okay,” Max said, looking up at Monica with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m her brother.”

Immediately afterward, Emma Sue kicked her shoe into the yard and heaved an audible sigh when it landed at the feet of Alice Reighly.

Later, after the photographer declared his work was done, the girls scattered. Alice Reighly shook Max’s hand, warmly thanking him for being a young man so concerned for his sister’s safety.

“There should be more like you,” she said, “dedicated to the virtue of young womanhood. I daresay men would think twice
about engaging in any lewd conduct if they thought they’d have you to contend with.”

“I do what I can,” Max said, looking sheepish in his lie.

“And she’s grateful, I’m sure.”

This last bit was spoken directly to Monica, who, for the first time, felt a niggling of guilt at her deception.

Max walked Alice to her door and wished her a good day before joining Monica back on the sidewalk.

“Coward,” she accused immediately.

He shrugged. “I tried. The ladies would have nothing to do with me. Not with Mr. Handsome Photographer on the scene.”

She made a little hop in triumph. “You see? They were absolutely brazen. My point proven. All on their high horse about the dangers of flirting, and they were practically throwing themselves off the balcony just to land in his arms. Oh, I can’t wait to expose them.”

“And how are you going to do that, exactly? Without exposing yourself, that is. It’s one thing to be an anonymous face in a crowd, quite another to be one face out of a dozen in a photograph. How long do you think it would take for Miss Reighly to figure out who her mole is?”

“So what if she does?”

“And then the whole world will have a face to match up with their favorite Monkey.”