me on soft pine needles and play every note of me.
We reach a sandy lot hosting a few scattered vehicles. My hands hang awfully empty where they aren’t clutching Max’s shirtfront.
Something really has got to be done about this.
“So you have a car?” I query, clearing my throat.
“I got a friend what always lets me borrow his when he’s off playing George. Should be in St. Louis just about now.”
“Felicitous. What sort?”
“Little Hanson touring jalopy. What, you got an interest in cars?”
“Aspects of them,” I breathe.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. They’re awfully useful when it comes to getting places.”
“What sorta places?” Max cups my elbow as we approach a squat black conveyance with white rims, and my heart leaps like an unbroken horse.
“We can’t search for Davy anymore tonight. And by the time Mavereen gets back to the Paragon from the Vaughans’ she’ll figure everyone for lullaby land.”
“What’s that to do with the likes of us?”
“You have a cabin,” I whisper.
His eyes are charcoal in the dim. But I imagine them as they look in the daylight, golden as a cat’s.
“Get in the car,” he orders.
* * *
—
I stretch, tracing the muscles of Max’s broad chest. The quilt tangled around my feet is threadbare soft, a patchwork of lavender and cornflower squares. It’s been months since I’ve done this, and the space between my legs aches pleasantly. There’s a sore spot on my hipbone where Max held me down when I was arching, commanding me to mind my stitches. I imagine it blooming into a spread of purples like his blanket. Outside the cabin—which is military neat, and snug as can be now that Max has lit the fire—the wind is playing “Royal Garden Blues.” Or perhaps I’m imagining that, because Max is humming it, floating around the melody as he pulls his fingers through my hair.
“If you can reach my trouser pocket, I got a pack of smokes might not be too smashed up,” he suggests.
“Under no circumstances.”
“Why’s that?”
Leaning up, I say against his mouth, “Because right now you taste like me.”
He chuckles. “And you like that?”
“I like it.”
“Well, that’s good, ’cause I like it too.”
“No cigarettes, if you please.”
“Aw, I can’t refuse a lady.”
I touch his eyebrow. “The old girl could get used to this.”
A frown flickers across his features. I want to wipe it off with my lips.
“I done told you already, Alice, that ain’t what this can be. Nohow.”
“Not even sometimes?”
“Not supposing you prefers my neck without a rope around it.”
“You’re afraid of the Klan?”
“I ain’t scared of nothing. But I’m smart.”
“Smart enough to know we wouldn’t be bothered out here. Twice a month. Twice a week. Two or three times daily. Every other Sunday.”
Max brushes his thumb over my mouth.
“I had a wife, and I got kids,” he tells me. “Twins, in Brooklyn. They lives with my ma when I’m here. Teddy and Julia Burton.”
To say I’m surprised would be a superlative. Of course he has a family. The fellow is positively in prime working order—why shouldn’t he? But I still feel my stomach grow a yawning hole, face the all-too-predictable realization, I’m not the first one to arrive here, and I never even supposed I was.
“I don’t figure like that’s gonna flummox you,” he continues. “But I said this ain’t figuring to work out, and I meant it.”
I keep very still.
“What happened?” I ask him. “No, apologies, that’s dreadfully blunt, forgive me. But you said . . .”
“Her name was Rosie.” Max rubs at his stubble. “Sorry, Alice, but I’m gonna need that smoke.”
We light a pair, and he sets an ashtray between us. I settle with my legs over his and my back to the wall. There have been times when I could see dead soldiers in Max’s eyes, watched the memory of fallen comrades hardening his pupils.
But that was nothing compared to the way he looks now.
“Like I done mentioned, I was a real stupid kid,” he says quietly. “Army was what changed all that. In France, I had a purpose. Respect. Women too, every sorta woman: black, white, brown—all us guys was neck-deep in fleshpots. When I got back stateside, though, that was over. Back to shoeshine boy as a life sentence. Shoulda seen me first time as I was called George. Jesus.”
Stroking his foot, I nod.
“Anyhow. There I was, a real man for the first time, and I’d known Rosie since I was a tyke. When I done showed up at church in a pressed uniform, she let on as she’d always felt something,