Anyway, I’m only half kidding. The laddie makes my heart do pony tricks.
“I’ll be damned. She’s a scrapper after all.” A grin creeps onto Max’s affable face.
“Entirely thanks to you. I’d take the usual line and say you’re a prince, but you seem more of a knight, don’t you? Oh, I simply can’t tell you how grateful I am.”
He jerks a thumb at a rolling cart in the corridor. “You mind me playing George, Miss James?”
“My schedule is elastic.” I wave him inside. “But I do mind your playing George.”
Max whisks the lid off the tray with all the natural showmanship of a midtown Manhattan maître d’. Or a Pullman porter, I suppose. In any case, it’s a dandy maneuver and my chapeau is off to the fellow. He adjusts the angle of a tiny pink moss rose in a bud vase. It’s all so cheering I think I could weep for joy, and then tears actually spring into my eyes and I glance out the window.
Stop it this instant. Nobody the sniffling milksop is the worst goddamn version of you yet.
“Why do you mind my playing George?” Max slides a friendly paw behind my back, supporting me with another pillow. After all that time on the train together I don’t mind him touching me, mind even less than if it were Blossom or Mavereen.
“Oh, how could you ask me that? After rescuing me in such a fashion? Your Pullman porter routine is top of the line, but you’re not really George, you’re Max. What’s the use in playacting?”
“Dunno, Miss James.” Stretching a crick in his neck, Max pulls a cigarette case from his pocket. “If your name really is Miss James, which I kinda figure it might be, and then again it might not. What’s the use in your playacting?”
“Why, Max!” I exclaim. “I can’t imagine—whatever do you mean? No, wait, I see. Oh, Max, I’m so dreadfully sorry, really I am. Of course I fibbed about being from Yonkers back on the train, but surely they’ve told you that I had a hole in my belly? The lowlife I was hotfooting it away from made a pincushion of me, and I was awfully frightened.”
“Not the frightened angle—that part there I believe.” Max takes a shrewd drag. “Somebody or other made a tunnel in you, probably in Harlem, you made tracks, and we made acquaintances, like, at the Chicago station.”
There is a pause.
“Nice to meet you?” I whisper.
“Aw, likewise.” He raises expressive eyebrows as if doffing a cap. “But I ain’t talking about the Yonkers line you put out neither, see, I’m talking about the whole picture. ’Scuse my bluntness, but you want me to believe you’re a dumb kid with bad luck what got smacked around and hit the road when it was once too often. That kinda yarn is easy to spin. But it ain’t never happened to you. You ain’t a dumb kid.”
“Why, Max, you wound me. I’m only twenty-five.”
“That’s as may be. But you’re also something else, I figure.”
I’m several something elses, but you aren’t meant to find that out.
The air in my throat solidifies. “What am I, then?”
Max shrugs. “You’re gonna tell me.”
“Is that so?”
“Sure. Right after you eat that there soup. That’s Miss Christina’s specialty. Tea should be steeped too, I’m betting.” Max pulls the infuser out. “Outstanding. Cream? Sugar?”
“Yes, please,” I answer faintly.
Max, with dining-car finesse, pours my tea. Then he pours a second cup I hadn’t noticed behind the bud vase. Produces his flask and adds a generous dollop of John Barleycorn to each. He sets his drink on the nightstand, lifting the tray ever so carefully over my outstretched legs. Performance having drawn to a close, he seats himself and takes a civilized sip of spiked tea.
And the crowd showers roses at his feet.
When I draw a shuddering breath, Max says cheerily, “If you needs help with the spoon, just holler. But s’posing I’ve only caught you wrong ended, then start with the tea, I figure. That’s just the tonic. And I got all night, Miss James.”
“What an awfully happy coincidence.”
“Ain’t it the truth?”
Carefully, I lift the teacup and inhale. Saliva pools instantly. I sip.
What kind of monster, what soulless breed of cur, would take alcohol away from everyone and suggest replacing it with milk?
“Aw, now that’s better, ain’t it?” Max chuckles. I’ve never seen him laugh before, and it’s a spill of light, crowding everything else from his face. “Nothing like the first swallow.”