The Drazen World: The California Limited (Kindle Worlds Novella) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Jack went back to his car, irritated and intrigued.  If a woman could be more interested in him
and
dismissive, he did not know how.  Granted, his experience with the opposite sex had always run from one extreme to the other.  There were “the fine and decent girls” from St. Aiden’s parish, his mother’s detailed description seemingly essential, or light skirts from Bay Village, a group of women for whom words always failed her.

He scanned the
Tribune
and thought.  A woman traveling alone, he had made a presumption.  Still, she could easily be fifteen or thirty, a girl or a divorcee, so appealing and confusing. 
Damn it
, he was intrigued.  He snatched up his paper and returned.

62 hrs. to Los Angeles

“Is this seat taken?”

Still engrossed in her book, she lowered it and glanced at his hand indicating the seat across the aisle from her.  “Not at all.”

He sat and opened his paper, snapping it for effect, then pretended to read intently.  He knew that she was staring at him as he made sure to hold his paper to allow him furtive glimpses from the corner of his eye.  Her face seemed to soften, then she returned to her book.

They read for a time until he finally spoke, hidden behind the propriety of his paper.  “Why were you late for the train?”

“Why were you?” she rejoined, doing the same with her book.

“There’s no great mystery.  I overslept.”

“Ensconced at The Ambassador, no doubt.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.  Now don’t be rude.”

“Are you reprimanding me like a child?”

He saw the corners of her lips turned up, the tone in her voice, amusement.  “Ordinarily I wouldn’t dare to presume.  But you seem…”  He chose his words carefully.  “…if you’ll pardon me, in need of one.”

She slapped her book to her lap and gave him a perturbed look.  “I’ll have you know I won’t pardon you.”  She broke into a smile and brought her book back up.  “I was late because I nearly got on the wrong train.”

“Are you bound for LA?” he asked as he turned a page.

“I am now,” she said.

“Yes or Kansas City, which would be a shame.” 

“Why would that be a shame?”

“Because I’m bound for LA.”  They read for some minutes when he spoke again.  “Are you on business or pleasure?”

She cocked her head as if considering.  “Business.  And you?”

“Both.  I’m moving there.”

“Are you?” she asked, still holding her book but no longer turning any pages.  “I suppose you could say the same of me.”

“Oh?  And what brings you?”

Her eyes scanned the page more earnestly as if she were reading again.  After a few moments, she closed it abruptly and put it on her lap, turning to look out the window.  “I’m not sure.” 

He lowered his paper and turned to her, poised to speak.

“And you?” she asked, still staring out the window.  “What brings you there?”

“A position at Columbia.”

“Making movies?”  She finally turned to him, directing her full and steady gaze on him.

He lowered his paper and regarded her with a half-smile.  Of course she was a wannabe starlet.  “A production assistant to start.  From there, who knows?  I haven’t the faintest idea if I will like it.  But I think so and am eager to try.  Anything so long as it’s not what my father does.”

A look of commiseration flit across her face.  “Is he a criminal?  That’s all the rage now.”

“Worse.  He’s successful at everything he does and too large a shadow for me to come out from under.  I always had this sinking feeling as I grew up that if I stayed and worked with him, married a girl like my mother, lived in the same parish, that I’d never see the light of day.  If it’s possible to admire and resent the same man…well.”

She nodded and went back to her book and he went back to his paper.

Why had he said all that?  And to a complete stranger besides.  There was something about her that opened him.

After some time, he gave up the pretense of reading and turned to study her.  “Where are you from?”

“A town in Wisconsin.  You wouldn’t know it.”

“How do you know?  Perhaps I’m from Wisconsin.”

She gave him an amused smile, then shook her head.  “You left your
r’s
back in Boston,” she said, affecting an exaggerated Boston accent.

“That obvious?” he asked.

She nodded and turned back to her book.  “Will you pick up your paper?”

He shook his head.  “No.  I’ve read it front to back.  Twice.  Even the funnies.  I can’t pretend to find it interesting any more.  Not when I find you infinitely more so.”

A short time later a porter entered the car and began turning the first couches into a sleeping compartment and the woman looked at Jack.

“I should go,” he said, buttoning his coat and collecting his paper.

That night Jack lay in his bed, the smooth clack of the rails lulling him to sleep, but his mind was too attuned to her. 
Her.
  He didn’t even know her name.  How had he forgotten that?  He would rectify it first thing in the morning.

Then he wondered, not for the first time, what it was about her, exactly.  Yes, she was beautiful and he wanted to fuck her, but there was more.  About his father he told her more than he had ever realized he felt, as if she made him know himself.

Cora, his sweetheart from Brookline, he thought a kindred soul.  The oldest of six, the weight of her parents’ expectations making her both good and responsible, a sort of keeper for her siblings goodness and responsibility, she knew him just as he recognized her.  But that was not the same and, it turned out, not at all what he was looking for.  His canary seemed to be both trapped and free.  He couldn’t say why he knew this of her, but he did.  And that he recognized, too.

49 hrs. to Los Angeles

The next morning he found her in a dining car, her eggplant dress bold against the bright, white tablecloth, a hand pulling a cup to her mouth.  When she pressed her ruby lips to the rim of the fine, bone china confection, he realized that he had never considered tea cups so much as wanting to be one in that moment.  He stood and watched her, his assessment unguarded, then tucked his newspaper under his arm and strode to the table across the aisle from hers.

“Is the coffee any good?” he asked as he sat facing her.

Her eyes flicked to him and she coughed a smile into her hand, then cleared her throat.  “I wouldn’t know.  This is tea.”

“Tea,” he repeated as if considering the idea, then signaled a waiter and ordered coffee.  “You must feel like the wrath of God this morning.  I trust you slept horribly in those ridiculous couches come beds.”

“No worse than you, I trust,” she said.

“Far worse.  I have a sleeper.”

She smirked.  “Of course you do.”

“Now what does that mean, I’d like to know?”  Then he took a sip of his coffee.  “No,” he choked out.  “I meant to ask you one thing first and receive a satisfactory answer.  But…you distracted me with your cup and…your tea.”

“How did I distract you?”  She was trying her best to speak with him while looking straight ahead.  Someone had done her level best to fashion a proper young lady.  Yet today she seemed more open, more unguarded, and he meant to test just how far she would go.

“What
is
your name?” he asked, dipping his head to catch her gaze.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she replied.

“Pardon?  What haven’t you decided?  Your name or whether you would tell me?”

“I plan to change it when I get to Hollywood.”

“Are you an actress?”

“Something like that.”

His brow knit.  “All right.  For now, what may I call you?

“Minnie,” she said in small-toned resignation.

“Minnie.”  He nodded, a smile spreading across his face.  “Good.  Grand.  It suits you.  It’s sweet.  The way you had me dangling it might have been Minerva or Blanche.  Wait.  It isn’t short for Minerva, is it?”

She shook her head. 

“I like it.  Minnie.  Now we’re getting somewhere.”

They ate their breakfast in companionable silence until Jack sat back.  “Where are you from, Minnie?”

“Racine.”  She said it confidently as if a challenge.

“Racine.  See there, you’re wrong, sweetheart.  I
do
know Racine.  In fact, my roommate in college was from Racine.”

“Really?”  She finally looked at him in unrepressed delight.

“No,” he said, deadpan.

She rolled her eyes and turned away, covering a spreading smile.

48 hrs. to Los Angeles

After breakfast, Jack followed Minnie to her compartment, sat down across the table from her, and signaled a porter for a deck of cards.

“Just what do you think you’re about, Mr. O’Drassen?”

Deck in hand, he began to shuffle, cutting and bending and sifting, his fingers flying with ease through the stiff cards.

“We’re going to play a game,” he said as he worked them, his eyes fixed on the cards.

“Are you sure this is entirely appro—“

“Ah-ah.”  He put a finger up.  “Yes.  Whatever you were going to say, whatever you were thinking, the answer is yes.  Do you play?”  He glanced at her.

“No.”

He smirked and returned to shuffling.  “I think you’re lying, but we’ll start easy, then.”  Somehow, at some point, Jack had found himself in the unenviable position of chasing a woman who so clearly wanted to be chased.  He was done with that and determined to turn the tables on her.  He dealt the cards, until each of them had half the deck.  Then he took off his suit coat and rested his forearms on the table, the cards between.  “Slap Jack.  A child can play it and you’re no child, are you?”

She slowly shook her head.

“No.  Now the play is simple.  We each turn a card over at the same time into a pile in the middle like so.”  He demonstrated and she did the same.  “Until a Jack is face up.  Then you slap it.  Whoever slaps it first, gets to keep the pile and the play continues like that until all the cards are played out.  Whoever has the most cards at the end wins.”

“And what do I get if I win?” she asked.

He smiled widely.  “See, I knew you would get into the spirit of it.  Hmm.”  He thought.  “What would you like?”

She clasped her hands, resting her forearms on the table and leaning toward him.  “How about,” she whispered seductively, “you go and sit over there if I win.”

He sat back and chuckled.  “See now.  We would both lose with that.  And besides, something tells me you don’t really want me to go and sit over there.  Do you?”  They stared at each other for a long moment.  “Minnie,” he said, his voice low and earnest, “do you know anyone on this train?”

“No.”

“No.  And do you anticipate seeing any of them ever again?”

“No.”

“Then what is the harm in this to a chaperone who cannot see?” 

“You’re being very presumptuous.”

“Yes.  I am.  We don’t have time for me to be anything but and I can’t be bothered with it besides.”  He looked out the window to the dusty, barren Missouri plains.  “Two days.”  He looked at her.  “Spend them with me and we part in LA, no strings attached.”  He paused.  “No one on this train knows us.  We could be husband and wife.”  She glanced at his bare ring finger.  “Lovers.  Listen, I like spending time with you.  And though you’ll not admit it, you enjoy spending time with me.  If you should happen to win, which isn’t likely because I have a lot of younger brothers and sisters and very fast hands, then we’ll make sure you get something you want.”

“If you’re so intent on winning, what do
you
want?”

“I should think it would be plain enough:  you.”

Hovering over the table, they played, cards and hands flying fast amidst taunting and laughing. 

Funny, I
do
believe you haven’t played cards, kid.

Your hand is a little too itchy to touch mine. 

Guilty.  You can decide the next game and what part of me you’d like to touch.

Sit back.

You
sit back.

How do you flip your cards so fast?

How is it possible that you can flip them that slowly?

How many brothers and sisters did you say you had?

Tell me you have none.

Six.  All older.

Well, that explains it then.

What?

You have that shiftless, devil look about you just like Ned.

Play, O’Drassen.  You’re distracting me.

Ah.  Finally.  All’s fair in—well, you know.  You’ve been distracting me since you slammed into me on Track 7.  Turn about and all that.