Chapter Twelve
TWELVE
Bea and Alba were back at the Henrys’ apartment by the time Vivian caught up to them, and they weren’t the only ones there.
Abraham had arrived, hat in hand as he cast sideways glances at Florence, who was still sitting with the children.
When Bea walked in, he practically leaped forward to catch her hand.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “I was worried you were trying to—”
“Just taking care of a few things,” Bea said firmly, jerking her head toward her brother and sister in a clear warning to watch what he said. Abraham winced and nodded. She shoved the letters into his hands. “Here, hold on to these, okay? I just need to get Alba settled.”
Alba met Abraham’s eyes briefly, and they stared at each other before Alba, head held high, let Bea usher her into one of the bedrooms to unpack her things. Abraham watched them go with a frown on his face.
Vivian watched him in turn. She wasn’t surprised that he had come to check on Bea—it was good that he had.
And she wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to ask what she and Honor had discovered.
But he looked downright unhappy, twisting his hat between his hands as he watched Bea and Alba.
He had been friendly with Pearlie, she knew.
Maybe he didn’t get along with Alba, who could be prickly and melodramatic if you rubbed her the wrong way.
And Abraham himself wasn’t the most easygoing of people.
Vivian looked away quickly as Abraham turned back to the room, not wanting him to know she had been watching him.
Still on edge from the discovery of the letter in Pearlie’s things and the ugly confrontation with Alba’s grandmother, she leaned against the kitchen counter and closed her eyes, listening to Florence.
Once, when they were much younger, Florence had told her stories about their mother, about her dreams for their life together.
Those moments hovered at the edges of Vivian’s memory, and trying to catch them was like trying to learn a dance she could only watch out of the corner of her eye.
But the sound of Florence’s quiet voice still made her feel safe for a brief, distracting moment.
“It’s the fanciest thing I’ve ever worked on in my life,” Florence was saying.
Everett and eleven-year-old Baby—whose real name was Della, after her mother, but no one called her that—were sitting at the table with cups of milk in front of them, watching while Florence sketched a picture of a dress on a crumpled sheet of brown grocer’s paper.
“The gems go right here around the neckline, see? Almost like a necklace themselves. And then also around the hem. I have to sew on teeny, tiny metal brackets to hold them in place, and they have to be in just the right spots.”
Vivian opened her eyes at last to find Abraham flipping through the papers Bea had handed him. His face fell, likely when he realized whose letters they were, and his mouth twisted unhappily. But a moment later he grew still, staring at one of the papers in the pile. Vivian could guess which one.
“What kind of gems?” Baby asked, wide-eyed, the line of milk on her upper lip making her look even younger than she was.
“Aquamarine and topaz,” Florence said, her smile wistful as she wiped Baby’s face with her fingers.
Florence loved beautiful, delicate things, and she could never afford them for herself.
“They make the prettiest pattern, pale blue and gold. And the dress is a deep navy blue, so they really do seem to shine against it. Miss Ethel calls them semiprecious stones, but they seem pretty precious to me.”
Abraham’s head shot up as he finished reading. “Bea!” he began, before Vivian slid close and nudged his ankle with her foot. He turned to her, scowling.
“She won’t want you yelling about it,” she murmured. “Or waving it around.”
“But what—”
“What’s going on?” Everett piped up, looking over at them.
“Nothing,” Abraham said quickly, putting the pile of papers on the counter and trying to smile. “Just going to check on your sister.” He strode into the bedroom.
As soon as he was gone, Vivian pulled the letter out of the pile. Bea wouldn’t want to risk her brothers or sister finding that. Vivian put it in her pocket, just to get it out of the way. She would ask Bea what to do with it later.
“She locks the dress and the box of stones up every night before the store closes,” Florence continued. “I can’t start work until she unlocks it for me in the morning.”
“She also checks everyone’s pockets before they’re allowed to leave at night to make sure no one has stolen any,” Vivian put in as Bea and Abraham reemerged, shutting the door of the bedroom quietly behind them.
“She’s terrified Mrs. Blake is going to count the stones on the dress and discover one of them is missing. ”
“Who sews their gems into their clothing instead of just having a jeweler set them?” Everett asked, trying not to look too interested in a story about a dress.
“Rich folks who already have more jewelry than they know what to do with,” Bea said shortly. She turned to Abraham. “Did you have something you needed to tell me?”
He seemed about to answer, then his eyes darted toward the children. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, giving a weak smile. “I’ll be right back. Gonna go ask Alba if I can bring anything by for her. My sister’s littlest has outgrown a lot recently.”
“Too much jewelry sounds like a nice problem to have,” Baby said dreamily, still thinking about the dress. Vivian couldn’t help a snort of laughter. Then Baby turned to look at her sister. “What’s Miss Diaz doing here?”
Bea sighed, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Not a moment’s peace,” she muttered, but she crossed the room to stand between her brother’s and sister’s chairs. “Miss Diaz is going to be staying with us for a while.”
“Why?” Everett asked. His round face had the world-weary look of someone much older than his fifteen years. “Is it something to do with Uncle Pearlie?”
Baby’s mouth trembled. “I miss Uncle Pearlie,” she whispered. “It’s too quiet at dinner without him.”
“I miss him too, honey,” Bea said gently. She looked up at Florence. “Thanks for keeping an eye on them. we’re going to have a family chat right now.”
“You’re always welcome, Beatrice,” Florence replied, gathering up her things. “We’ll get out of your hair, but you let us know if you need anything else, okay?”
“Sure thing.”
“Bea—” Vivian began, but her friend shook her head.
“Later, okay, Viv? I’ve gotta deal with these two troublemakers.” She gave each of their shoulders a little shake before crouching down so she was closer to eye level with them. “Will I see you tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.” Bea nodded. “I’m ready to go back to work. I know it’s your night off, but if you wanted to stop by—”
“Sure,” Vivian said. She couldn’t tell Bea no. Not after what they had just learned.
Bea nodded, giving her a quick, grateful smile.
“And you two—” She turned to Everett and Baby, a bright smile on her face that made Vivian’s heart ache.
Bea always put on a good show for the kids, determined to spare them the worries that plagued her and her mother.
But they were getting older, and it was hard to tell how much it fooled them anymore.
“I have some exciting news to tell you.”
Florence waited until the door was closed behind them and they were going down the stairs to ask, “So what really happened?”
Vivian sighed and explained about Alba’s family as they walked back to their own tenement building. By the time they reached their front door, Florence was wiping her eyes. “That poor girl. Thank God you and Bea stopped by when you did, or who knows where she might have gone.”
“Flo…” Vivian went to pick up her mending again, and she kept her eyes on the fabric as she spoke, too nervous to look at her sister but unable to stop herself from asking the question. “You’d never do that, would you, if … if I…”
“Of course not, I—” A loud thunk, as though Florence had been holding something and set it down abruptly. “Vivi, you’re not—”
“No!” Vivian did look up then, long enough to meet Florence’s stricken eyes. She laughed humorlessly. “Glad to know that’s how you’d react, though.”
“Well, you can’t blame me for asking, after a question like that. And don’t make that face at me. I know what people get up to in places like your Nightingale.”
“No, you don’t,” Vivian said, more sharply than she intended, then stopped herself before she said anything she might regret.
It had been months since she and Florence had fought over the Nightingale, and she hadn’t missed it.
She took a deep breath. “It’s just a place folks can go out dancing, have a few laughs, that sort of thing. ”
“And drink, and smoke—”
“Yes, those happen too,” Vivian said, the mending forgotten in her hands.
“But they aren’t the point, Flo. The point is that it’s a place to be yourself, or not yourself.
To not worry about all this—” She gestured, the sweep of her arm taking in their unlovely home, the shouts of neighbors that were filtering through the walls, the plight of Alba two blocks over.
“—and just exist, like you’re the equal of every other person there, even if it’s just for a few hours. ”
“You make it sound so high-minded,” Florence said, clearly skeptical.
Vivian laughed. “Well, high-minded is maybe stretching it a bit. And yes, sure, some people are there to drink too much and get sweaty with strangers.”
“Vivian!” Florence didn’t like that kind of talk, which was why Vivian couldn’t help it sometimes.
But Vivian pressed on. “But it’s also a place for folks who wouldn’t be welcome anywhere else.” She eyed her sister curiously. “Don’t you ever just want to have fun? To have a night where you don’t think about any of it and just be free?”
“Who says dancing with strangers is my idea of fun?” Florence said defensively.