Unfinished (Historical Fiction) (5 page)

The crowd laughed openly.

“For as amusing – and uncomfortable – as the topic may seem, it is quite serious.” As Burnham continued his introduction, Lilith watched James watching Maria. Who watched the doctor.

James shifted his attention to Burnham.
Much better
, she thought, and then flinched internally. He looked like a Southie boy, someone so poor she could see through the soles of his shoes and find a piece of newspaper with the daily races printed on it. Irish, poor, and Catholic.

The perfect boy to bring home to her Brahmin father.

Perhaps she'd been hasty, giving her virginity to Jack Reed. James Hillman would have been far better specimen. Physically better, she mused, as an unfamiliar warmth pooled in her belly, just above her pubic bone, a swoon descending, making her a bit giddy and stupid.

And paternally better, as her father would have been apoplectic if she brought home a prime piece of “Irish Sewer Rat,” as he called the South Boston masses. “Good for cleaning chimneys and beating thieves.”

As Burnham explained lesbianism, Hillman stared keenly, absorbed in the talk. Then his eyes shifted, fast, like an ever-vigilant hawk, and shot a concentrated look of full attention on her, his look dark and serious. Normally undeterred by a strong stare, having been the recipient of so many from her father, Lilith nonetheless endeavored to maintain her composition.

This was no angry glare.

James's intentions were clear. With one long look he made the warmth in her nether regions turn to a white hot streak of need.

A hand shot up. Burnham pointed, and the audience member asked, condescension dripping like hot wax on a taper, “What good does lesbianism do, from a biological standpoint? Setting God aside,” he paused, furious whispers filling the room, “sex without procreation between a man and a woman is not productive. I would imagine that tribadism or other...proclivities between two women would be even less productive. Non-procreative sexual intercourse between a man and a woman does carry the chance of a child, while lesbian sexual activities carry no such chance.”

“Isn't that the point?” someone shouted. The crowd burst into laughter. Lilith looked away from James and searched the audience for the speakers.

Burnham's tight, tolerant smile quelled the din faster than any request for silence. “Indeed,” he spoke, drawing out the word. “Sex without procreation is, in fact a sin.”

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!” someone yelled.

“Let me, who is a Stone, remind you to say 'she' as well!” Lilith cried out, amused and haughty with an affect designed to be heard to the rafters.

She had hoped for raucous giggling but, instead, was greeted by shocked whispers and a few titters. Face burning and body tingling with mortification, she sat down but held her head up high, back straight, breathing in and out slowly.

James Hillman's full-throated laughter burst forth and filled the hall. Bent in half, the man looked like Goliath after being hit between the eyes, but instead of pain, it was pleasure and mirth that sent him into convulsions. More men joined him, and slowly, the room greeted Lilith with what she had hoped for.

Acceptance.

Dr. Burnham rode it out. What choice did he have? Lilith's mix of emotions ranged from bewilderment to gratitude to lust, all focused on the great bear across the room who, she found, had laughed so hard a button popped off his coat and struck the person in front of him, sending the people around him into hysterical fits that extended into tears, the group overcome with an existential laughter.

Finally, the din quieted enough that Burnham could exert control once more. "And so, as I was saying, assertive women tend to be inverts -- "

"Like Stone over there! And she can't even cast herself, after what happened with Reed!" someone shouted.

Now her face fell, a cold silence consuming her, the enormity of emptiness descending like madness in a famine, sweeping all vestiges of personality and belonging away. Across the room, James stood and pushed through the seats, fighting to get to the aisle. She saw him, the only movement faster than hers, and as she stumbled over legs and knees and chairs, all the body parts blurring together into a flesh soup, her only thought was escape. Freedom.

Air
.

The cool autumn chill spilled some sense into her, lungs cold and steeled by the night fog. Breathe, Lilith, breathe. Her hand fluttered to her collarbone, playing idly, searching for something to grasp, a talisman to ground her. She never found one, but the palpitations that came in these moments were almost strong enough to grab, to hold her heart in her hand and let it calm, like a frightened baby bird that has fallen from its nest too soon in springtime.

James raced through the aisle, nearly crippling one older man as his foot hooked on the gentleman's knee, because he knew that she would flee from the embarrassment. Bold, it was, to shout like that. But the response had been horrific; Reed had obviously spread the word about his dalliance with Lilith, and that could signal the end of her reputability.

Then again, perhaps she didn't care. Yet her flight meant that the tossed-off joke had hit a nerve. He ached for her, then caught himself. What did a billionaire heiress need with him? The thought stopped him in his tracks, already outside and searching the streets for her. A few deep, ragged breaths later and he cleared his mind. Fool. Chasing after a woman who didn't know he existed.

Then he saw her, staring up at the night sky, gulping the air like it was water in the desert. Her desperation showed; thin arms rested akimbo on her tiny hips, her lightweight dress no match for fall's sudden chill. Perky breasts, not enough to fill half his hand, pushed against the cotton as her chest heaved up, then slowly lowered, each breath seeming to cleanse her. She bent over, hands on knees, and he wondered if she needed privacy for a sick stomach.

A swift self-correction and she stood straight again, lips pursed, nostrils flaring as she inhaled through them, seeming to count slowly, to a beat of eight, while letting the air back into the night. One, two, three such breaths and he admired her centeredness, her ability to find calm after public scorn. A delicate hand rose up to the base of her neck, as if searching for a gem on a necklace. Fingers played with the skin, tight against her clavicle, and then slowly descended down the valley between her breasts, settling at the diaphragm.

"Lilith." Proper manners dictated that he use her full name, but "Miss Stone" seemed too formal. He didn't want formality.

"James." Ah, she planned to match him. This one would give no quarter.

He tipped his head. "May I escort you to your carriage?" He nodded toward Harvard Square. Lectures abounded this particular evening, along with the usual Cambridge traffic, leaving many coachmen parked blocks from the church. Aspersions on her character be damned; no one would fault him, or her, for a brief walk to her coach's position.

Her eyes searched the area, then his face. One side of her mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. "Yes. I would like that."

Her thick, leather boots clicked on the cobblestones with sharp, staccato sounds. He imagined the leather would feel as soft as a baby's fat skin at the elbow, warm and supple, her boots costing as much as a year's worth of sewing for his mother. Lilith's dress was cut in a fine manner, and the cotton held a silky nuance that James admired, the weaving an artistic form that spoke of understood wealth, of money that didn't recognize itself, that whispered under the chatter of life and was part of the sound of everything that the rich assumed simply was.

A shock of cold on his foot and an obstacle in his arch made him stumble, nearly crashing in to Lilith. He righted himself quickly.

"A bit too much to drink?" she mused, arching an eyebrow and puckering her lips just so in a tease. A hard jolt of desire blossomed within him and he stifled it quickly, the roar too fast and too much to unleash on her now. Not yet.

The source of his stumble became apparent within three steps. Step --
flap
. Step --
flap
. Step --
flap
. The sole of his shoe, already glued twice in place, had finally come unmoored. Shuffling would not work; the separation went past the back of the arch, almost clean through to the end of the heel. Newspaper he'd stuffed in the shoe some time ago was his only cushion against the dirt and stones.

Lilith glanced down, her ears catching the odd sound. Puzzled, she studied his foot for some time. He halted and stared at her, embarrassment and humiliation bubbling up.

"Is there a problem with your shoe?" she asked without guile.

"Yes."

"Do you need to go home to fetch another pair?"

"Another what?"

"Another pair of shoes?"

His eyes narrowed as he caught her gaze and bore down. "Another pair of shoes? As if anyone has a spare pair simply sitting around, gathering dust? Shall I go and get my extra gold ingots from Mr. Carnegie's pumpkin patch as well?"

She flinched and pulled away.

Ah, dammit
. They continued walking. She said nothing, staring straight ahead.

Step--
flap
. Step--
flap
.

"Mr. Hillman, I --"

"James. Call me James. I have a flapping, torn shoe, woman. You don't need to worry about my dignity any longer." The acrimony in his voice made him laugh at himself. She joined him.

"You're embarrassed. I am sorry. I forget that...no, I assume. And I shouldn't assume." She pointed vaguely at his shoe, at a match girl, and at a beggar with no legs, propped against a coal chute, drinking from a dirty, green bottle. "I have no good excuse."

He shrugged. "You don't know a different life. I don't know a different life. These shoes," he pointed down, "are six years old. And I got them from my Da. So now I need to find the money to buy new, or hope my Da dies this weekend so I can inherit his shoes." She shot him an impertinent look and chuckled.

"No, let's save your Da. I'll pray
my
father dies this weekend, and then I'll send all his many shoes to your neighborhood and you can hand them out." Serious tones under the comedy made him sigh rather than laugh.

"You'd like that? For your father to die?"

She shuddered in response but said nothing.

"I'm sorry," he rushed in. "I meant no offense."

Surprise filled her face, then was replaced with comprehension. "Ah, no -- I didn't shudder from your words! I'm catching a chill."

He slid his coat off, noticing the missing button. No use retrieving it from Burnham's lecture; the crowd would tear Lilith to bits right now. Ma could find him a new one, he hoped. "Here," he said, sliding the coat over her shoulders. "This should keep you warm." What had been a suit coat on his body looked like an overcoat on Lilith. With sleeves that stretched to her knees.

Bursting into laughter, she wrapped the coat around her and tipped her chin up to meet his eyes. "Thank you."

"It's a ratty old thing. Cheap tweed. Nothing you're accustomed to." She made him feel small and insignificant, a feat few had achieved. Never did she hint at intent to do so. Nonetheless, it hung between them, the burden of it on his shoulders, a weight far greater than he'd ever managed.

She tilted her head and studied his face, letting layers of silence deepen their connection. When she spoke it was an old soul's words. "You realize I do not care. I've been raised with wealth. You have not."

He studied her face – there was no taunting, no sarcasm. Her words were without affect, a statement of fact. A brief thought –
my God, she's the one
– passed through his mind so quickly he almost didn't catch it, the skin on his arms turning to gooseflesh not from the night chill, but rather from his premonition.

“James?” Gentle tones, questioning his inattentiveness. He peered down at her; she had taken two tentative steps toward him. Praying he was not too forward, and shocked at his own worry, he reached down and rested his hand on her shoulder.

“Yes?” he whispered, unsure of his own vocal cords. Right now, he was unsure of himself. Unsure of the night. Unsure of everything but those gemstone eyes.