The Bachelor Girl's Guide to Murder (16 page)

He spoke of marriage as if it were easy, or as if he'd said only, “You should have a cat by now.” Gavin buried the words under his usual string of compliments, but the aftertaste remained. Before, on lonely nights, she would trace similar words in a romantic novel with her finger, wishing someday, somewhere someone would say them to her. Why, then, did they fall as flat as the fizzed-out soda she was absently twirling with her straw?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lately, I have taken to walking by St. James on the way home. The first time I slipped in I felt immediately that I was somewhere I shouldn't have been. The beautiful tiles and polished fixtures. The saints in their rainbow-glassed vignettes. I just come and clutch my hat in my hands and sit. One afternoon the minister, Ethan Talbot, came and spoke to me. He told me that the door will never be locked for me. Then he offered to teach me to read and write English. And I promised, in that moment, I would do something with that gift. Someday.

From a journal which Jem still (guiltily) has in her possession

R
ay sat at his desk in the
Hog
office, transcribing notes he'd scrawled in his peculiar shorthand the night before.
Cold. Wretched. A mess of nomads and working men. I have befriended a Swede, Lars, and am helping him with his English. Wonder if he'll acquire my Italian accent. Or my penchant for bad poetry.

As Ray sat typing at his old Underwood, Skip stood nearby rambling a mile a minute about emulsions and exposures, reflectors and plates, all while cleaning his equipment.

“You hungry, Skip?”

“Possibly.”

Ray took him to the Wellington Room just across City Hall.

Skip wasn't nearly as interested in his roast beef sandwich as Ray was in his. Instead, Skip's eyes focused on the foot traffic out the
window. He boxed his index fingers and thumbs like a lens and peered through. “The entire city is a photograph, Mr. DeLuca.”

Ray smiled and chewed slowly.

Skip moved his imaginary lens over the street, finally stopping on a pair of women dressed in white shirtwaists and prim black skirts. “There she is.”

Ray swallowed and looked up. “Jemima Watts?”

For there was Jem, presumably on her lunch break, laughing at something her companion had said.

“No,” Skip said. “That vision of a girl beside her.”

Ray studied her. Doe-eyed and pretty. Fairy-like, almost. He nudged Skip. “You're sweet on her?”

“Her name is Tippy. That's what they call her. I've got a friend who works in the shipping department.” He sighed. “She's nice to look at.”

Ray leaned across. “You should tell her that.”

“ ‘You are nice to look at.' ” Skip's voice was monotone as he repeated it. “I've seen her before at one of those dances on Elm Street.”

Ray laughed. “
Sei una ragazza carina
.”

Skip brightened. “There. That sounds much better. What does that mean?”

“You are a pretty girl.”

“I wish I could say it like you.”

“Hmm.” Ray smiled as he watched Jem struggling to keep her straw hat atop her head as the wind whisked across the road. “I don't think women want sly or clever, Skip. I'm sure your Tippy would appreciate your telling her the truth.”

“You think so?”

Ray gave a dark laugh. “That's your advice from a bachelor reporter.” He shrugged ruefully and took another bite of roast beef sandwich.

“Dance with me, Jem.” Jasper jumped up from his half-eaten dinner. He set the phonograph to playing and brought Jem to her feet.

He had waltzed into Jem and Merinda's dining room that evening relaying the details of the upcoming Policeman's Ball even through their meal. It was the one night when all men from every station, even lowly detective constables normally on traffic duty, met on common ground in the ballroom at the King Edward Hotel. Jasper vowed to spit-shine his shoes, polish his bronze buttons bright, and whirl the night away.

Jem laughed and smiled shyly at Merinda, who was hardly paying attention. “I'm not in shape here. Haven't danced in years.”

“Nonsense. You have a natural grace. And I need to practice.” He extended his hand to her.

“Oh, very well!” Jem rose and took his hand. They made great ceremony of bowing to each other.

Jasper proved a proficient enough dancer, though there was something boxed rather than fluid about his careful movements. Jem watched the strain on his face, betraying the counting in his head.

One two three, one two three, one two three.

Jem fell into the easy step of his lead, and after a few spins her head was light. The music and the rapturous mood and their collective laughter kept her in a constant, dizzy carousel until the phonograph squeaked to an abrupt stop.

“I've got it!” Merinda said, standing. “Jasper! Jasper stop!” Merinda was across the room in a flash and grabbing his forearm. Jasper and Jem stopped midstep. “Is the ball sponsored by Mayor Montague again?”

Jasper wiped his forehead. “Yes. And Chief Tipton. All the police will be there, and a few reporters are invited too.”

“Good! Jasper,
I
will be your guest.” Merinda shoved Jem out of the way and stood in front of Jasper. “Show me how to do this thing you're doing.” She waved her hand about.

“Waltzing?”

“Yes.”

Merinda waltzing?
Jasper and Jem's eyes met, but both managed not to laugh. Jem looked Merinda over, beginning with the braids plaited down her back and ending with the cuffs of the trousers over her rubber-soled boots. There was nothing graceful about Merinda. She was all angles and lines and precision. But, Jem thought, dancing with Jasper
was
more like mapping out the corners of a rigid triangle than spinning weightlessly on clouds.

Jasper cleared his throat and looked suddenly nervous.

Jem took a chair. “This will be very interesting to watch.”

“Merinda, have you ever danced before?” asked Jasper.

Merinda scowled. “What do you think?”

Jasper flushed, his eyes sparkling at the glorious prospect of taking Merinda into his arms. “Merinda,” he said, “this is going to be difficult for you.”

“Difficult?” She laughed at him, gave an exaggerated bow, and mimicked a few of the movements she had seen Jem and Jasper performing before. “See?”

“Yes, well, it's different when you're dancing alone, Merinda,” Jem remarked from the sofa.

“How hard can it be?” Merinda asked. “Now, Jasper, do that thing you did.”

“What thing, Merinda?”

“Where you bowed to Jem and placed your hand out and looked like one of those fellows in the Spenser's catalogue.”

“Like this?” Jasper bowed, rather tersely and unsure, and held out his hand.

“Yes! You don't cut a very dashing figure, but I suppose I am not primed to be the belle of the ball.” She laughed lightly, no doubt thinking of the Jasper who hit the top beam of every doorframe, who gleefully inspected the larvae under his microscope on Saturdays, smoky-faced from a botched experiment in the chemistry lab.

But Jem saw Jasper's back straighten. Her words had cut him unintentionally, and now he made to act an even more convincing part. “I can be a gentleman, Merinda.”

Jem's heart sank. He was trying so hard.

Merinda, however, remained concentrated on the problem at hand. She moved toward him expectantly, grabbed both his hands with force, and clutched tightly.

“I don't—I say, Merinda, it doesn't need to be as
drastic
as all this!” Jasper was flustered.

“I want to do this right!” And off she went, pushing Jasper backward.

Jasper allowed a few more awkward steps before correcting her. “Merinda,
I
lead.”

“Lead?”

“I lead. I… I go first. I guide you. There is no other way to do it. You saw Jem and me do it. You follow my lead.”

Merinda mumbled something about the conventions of patriarchy, but Jasper went on: “The most important thing is the count.
One
is pronounced. It is the down count. Then two and three are lifting… ” He raised the inflection in his voice. “Much lighter.”

“All right! One!” Merinda smashed Jasper's foot, and he stepped back with a yelp. “Sorry, Jasper. Beginner's luck, eh? Let's go again. Ah, I get it!
One
-two-three.
One
-two-three. All twirly and light on the two-three and…
Jemima!
”

“Yes!”

“Put that silly song on.”

“Strauss, Merinda. He's extremely famous.”

“Yes, yes. I am sure.”

The music swelled. Merinda's eyes latched on to Jasper's. “Lead if you must.”

Easier said than done. There were many things Merinda could do, but it seemed that waltzing was not one of them. Especially when it required her unconditional submission to Jasper's directive. She stepped and tripped, stepped and fell. He caught her and spun her, led her, cajoled her. And for a split second, she melted into his arms and the rhythm….

But it didn't last. She laughed and stomped her heel and declared
dancing the
silliest pastime.
“Cracker jacks! Can't we just go to the ball and sit it out with punch and finger sandwiches?”

Jem planted her palm to her forehead. “You're not even trying.”

“Don't be absurd, Jem,” Jasper said mischievously. “She's
very
trying!”

There was something vulnerable and majestic about “The Blue Danube,” however, and it worked its magic. Clumsily, Jasper and Merinda made their way through several bars on their seventeenth try. But then, just as the piece melted to legato, the angels winked from above and Merinda finally succumbed to Jasper. They blended, and under his lead she seemed stronger and more graceful than ever. Jasper was spellbound, Merinda was momentarily tamed, and the waltz gave them a moment of crystalline perfection.

The next morning, Jem received three rose blooms and an accompanying notecard. The card was an invitation to accompany Gavin to the Policeman's Ball. Jem's heart did four somersaults, and she squealed and ran to Merinda's room. She jumped on her bed, waking her up.