A Fireproof Home for the Bride (29 page)

Before Emmy could voice her thoughts to Mrs. Doyle, three Doyle boys ran full speed around the corner of the house, followed by fourteen-year-old Billy, who was chasing them with a garter snake, its yellow and green markings bright in the increasingly overcast backyard.

“William Reilly Doyle!” Mrs. Doyle yelled and stepped between the teenager and his brothers as the younger three went screaming into the pool, the redhead diving, the others grabbing their knees in tucked orbs that threw water up and onto Emmy’s dress, soaking her through.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, standing as the water dripped down her front. There was always a danger of being soaked around this many children, but Emmy was now going to be both late and wet for work. Mrs. Doyle put an arm around her and grabbed the snake out of Billy’s hand.

“I don’t see how this is my fault,” he said, pushing his fists into his pockets and sulking back around the house.

“Well, maybe your father will show it to you in a way you’ll understand,” she yelled after him and dropped the snake into the peony bushes that surrounded the patio. “Let’s go get you a dry shift, Em. I’m sorry for my boys.”

“Oh, I’m not,” Emmy said, having regained her sense of humor. “At least I didn’t fall into the pool this time!”

“Ah, there’s your silver lining,” Mrs. Doyle said, and laughed with a brightness that belied the rumbling sky. “Get your sorry selves out of the pool and into the house before you’re electrocuted!” she yelled at the boys. “And bring poor Jesse down off the slide, would you?” As the boys scrambled around Emmy and Mrs. Doyle, the redhead—whom Emmy suddenly remembered was Michael, like the archangel—picked up the tea tray without being asked and scooted it through the door as the first fat raindrops splashed indigo circles onto the parched blue tiles.

*   *   *

By ten o’clock the switchboard had fallen silent for the evening. This was the magic moment: when people in the city were either asleep or watching the local news on television, and Emmy had only an hour to go until her shift was over. She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head before taking off the operator’s headset and fluffing her hair. She could safely predict only a couple of calls would come in the next hour, and she liked to use this time to read newspapers from other cities or sift through the edits and rewrites that had landed in the scrap pile at the end of the day. There seemed to be a rhythm to reporting that Emmy read like musical notes, and she kept a spiral-bound pad on her desk to jot down frequently used words or particularly pleasing turns of phrase. On the nights when she was off the switchboard and on the floor, the swirl of copy routing mesmerized her brain in a way that made her eager to learn and do more. Her desire to take the college entrance exams lessened with each shift; there didn’t seem to be a better school than the one she had lucked herself into. The idea of teaching home economics now made her laugh, especially in light of Josephine’s disdain for the domestic. The only skill she used from that goal was sewing the increasingly more mature clothes, the pencil skirts, shirtwaist dresses, and trim blouses she normally wore for work. Still, Emmy quite often found herself daydreaming about Bobby, and what it might be like to someday cook his meals, have his children, and sleep all night in his arms.

The office grew quiet, with no major stories reported or circulating, and the morning edition’s presses beginning to rumble in the floors below. Most calls had come from men who followed local baseball sensation Roger Maris’s career with first the Indians at the beginning of the summer, and now the Athletics, wondering what the score was and how he was hitting in the game. The sports editor had arranged with a friend at
The Kansas City Star
to call Emmy at the end of each inning with updates. The Athletics had won in the last inning, 4–3, against the Red Sox. In the half hour since the end of the game, all the calls had died off, and Emmy tapped a pencil on the counter and looked around the room. Of the thirty-some scattered desks, only six were occupied. Mr. Gordon, the city editor, was at his post at the front of the room, his feet up, head tipped back into an uncomfortable position. He was sound asleep. Emmy laughed a little to herself, which caused Jim Klein to look up from his work and raise an eyebrow. She met his look and glanced over at the main desk. Jim picked up his phone and called the switchboard. Emmy replaced her headset and plugged the extension into the board.

“Hey, kid, put me through to sleeping beauty,” he said, winking at her. She pulled a red cord and did as she was asked, trying not to giggle. When the ringing filled the otherwise quiet room, Mr. Gordon shot upright and nearly fell out of his chair in an attempt to answer. By the time he did, Jim had quietly replaced his receiver in its cradle and had his eyes fixed on the copy in front of him. The editor looked over at Emmy once his barked hellos met no response. She shrugged to cover the prank and pulled the plugs. He resumed his slumped position and promptly began snoring again. Jim pretended to applaud her actions, but Emmy waved him off as if it was nothing, then pointed to the board and mouthed, “Would you?” He nodded and she got up from her desk and went down the hallway, stretching her arms overhead on her way to the archives, that place casually referred to as the morgue.

Part of Emmy’s duty as copygirl was to sort through the clippings of articles and photographs that various reporters felt were worth filing, and then attempt to find the best category for the clip, and store it in the appropriate envelope or file, depending on how long a subject had been morgued. She checked the inbox on the side table and saw a grouping of tagged photos bundled there. On the very top was one of the Moorhead Theatre, ablaze. As she lifted it, a small ache of guilt passed through her. Cindy’s family had moved down to Minneapolis to be near a special hospital that worked with burn victims. Mr. Rakov had left the Midwest for a job at a distant cousin’s factory in a place called Poughkeepsie. Turning the photo over, Emmy saw the elegant writing of Cal Olson, staff photographer:
Movie Theater Fire.
Emmy went to the drawer marked
MOA-MOZ
, pulled on the metal handle, and walked her fingers through the tabs until she found the matching envelope. Pulling the folded clips and pictures from the file with care, she flipped through them, expecting the routine backlog of history to unfold—which it did, until one headline in particular caught her eye. “Strand Theater Engulfed in Easter Day Fire.” She glanced at the date, April 2, 1923, and took the clipping down the hall to Jim.

“Don’t thank me,” he said as she approached. “No one called.”

“Hey, keep the flirting down.” Fred Simmons, the sports writer, looked over at them. He was a very small man with a very big voice. His teasing was just in fun, though, as everyone treated Emmy the same exact way: like a daughter. “Good night, lovebirds,” Fred said as he dropped his final in front of the sleeping Mr. Gordon.

“Look at this,” Emmy said, handing Jim the article and crossing her arms around her waist as she watched him scan through it. “Don’t you think it’s strange?”

“Which part?” he asked, squinting up at her.

“It’s the same sort of fire, isn’t it?” she said, pulling a chair from a nearby desk and sitting. “And also on Easter Sunday. I was filing this photo in the morgue.” She set it next to the article, her confidence flagging. “It just seems odd, is all.”

Jim pushed the copy he’d been revising aside and laid one hand on the Strand article, the other on the Moorhead picture. Emmy quietly watched him, imagining small cogs and wheels turning inside of his head. The night had cooled since the storm had passed, but it was still quite stuffy in the office, even with the ceiling fans on full above.

“I see what you mean,” Jim said, leaning back. “I’ll do some digging around.”

Emmy put a hand on her cheek, hoping it wouldn’t betray her as she gathered her will. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to help you. I mean, I’d like to learn how to dig around.” The words felt stupid in her mouth, but she kept talking. “I promise not to overstep.”

Jim laughed. “It’s your nose, kid, not mine.”

“My nose?” Emmy said, confusion warming her hands. Her left one flew up to her face, alighting on her cheek.

“It’s an expression,” Jim said, glancing down. “You smell a story here, and you may be right.”

“Oh,” Emmy said, inching Mrs. Doyle’s skirt along her leg where it had crept to reveal more knee than was necessary. A buzzing sound came from the switchboard and Emmy jumped up.

Jim narrowed his eyes and smiled kindly. “Your phone’s ringing.”

She looked over her shoulder, knocking the chair down as she hurried back to the switchboard, where all three incoming lights were blinking. Mr. Gordon looked up from his snooze just as she eased back in front of the board, her hands shaking as she pulled the cords and went through the routine of patching calls with a new exhilaration until all had been dispatched and she sat back against the green leather padding of her wheeled chair, rubbing her nose to keep from smiling at the tiny step forward. The spring dreams of a college enrollment in the fall had faded with each passing day she spent in the newsroom, fixated on Jim’s work. Each article he wrote was tight and finished, no matter how much or how little time he spent writing it. More than that, though, he was so passionate about every story, every minute of his workday. Now that she’d gotten his attention—
You smell a story here
—she knew that no matter how deep or cold the water felt in this instance, all she wanted to do was swim harder or drown trying. The light went on again, and Emmy plugged in and answered.

“Hi, Emmy,” the friendly woman on the other end said. “It’s Elise Klein. Is Jimmy still there?”

“Sure,” Emmy said, used to this nightly reminder call, and put Elise through to Jim. A few minutes later, he donned his hat and left without another word.

*   *   *

“I can see the fireworks reflected in your eyes,” Bobby said, hovering just a few inches above Emmy the next Friday. “They look like the beginning of the universe—like God’s first thought.” She loved it when he talked like this, when he made her feel as though she were the most important person he’d ever met. Emmy sighed and pushed her hands deeply into his soft hair.

“Sweet talker,” she whispered, and pulled his lips to hers as even more fireworks exploded over the tree line in front of them. They had climbed up onto the machine shed roof at Josephine’s insistence, rightly claiming it to be the perfect place to view the display announcing the closing of the county fair across the river in Fargo. She had joined them for a picnic supper of chicken Emmy had fried earlier in the day, and a German-style potato salad studded with bits of sweet pickle and hard-boiled egg. Once the fireworks started, though, Josephine had excused herself. She said she’d seen them so many times before, but Emmy knew that her aunt was slowly winding down into one of her darker moods, and could hear the Victrola wheezing its ghostly melodies from the house. Emmy wondered what significance the fireworks actually played in Josephine’s memory. Was it a happy time when she was young and still had parents and a houseful of siblings, or did they sound like bombs falling in a French forest with no place for her brothers to hide?

“Hey,” Bobby said, pulling away slowly. “Where’d you go?”

Emmy gave her head a small shake. “Nowhere important,” she said. “France.”

“You’re the limit.” He laughed and went back to his steady necking.

Bobby was sometimes an eager kisser, pushing against Emmy’s lips in a manner that could make her think more of eating, except that the delicate searching with which he moved his tongue over and between her teeth would erase the thought as soon as it surfaced, and she’d be pulled down under into his embrace, senselessly kissing back as best as she could. Other times, like now, he would be exceedingly tender but somewhat methodical. She didn’t mind, as it gave her time to think about what she was doing with her mouth, and she’d attempt to find small ways to please him and draw him into a more heated round of kissing. For the most part, he kept his hands at or around her waist, though if they were kissing standing up he would occasionally let one hand drift down to her bottom and let it linger for a moment or two before once again grasping her waist. He showed a great deal of self-control and whenever she would let her hands move toward his more private places, he would wordlessly redirect her, then come up for air and strike up a hushed conversation. It was like living inside of a dream, where unbridled passion was kept in a box, wrapped up tight and waiting for the appropriate event to celebrate. When that would be she couldn’t guess, but she found herself hoping it would be with fireworks lighting up a dark summer’s sky. The slow pace of Bobby’s seduction had helped Emmy heal the wounds inflicted months before. She was aching to consummate the way she felt about Bobby in a way that would erase the remaining scars. She put the index finger of her right hand into the waistband of his denims. His kissing intensified. This was good, she thought as she pushed against his lips.

Bobby moved on to her neck and kissed along the collarbone as she pulled him closer at the waist, wrapping her right leg around his left. She could feel him strain against her, and just as she prayed he might move his lips down to her carefully displayed cleavage, he rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky, taking her right hand and pressing it to his slightly open mouth. Emmy sat up and leaned over him, but he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and eased her beside him. She sighed. Tapped her fingers on his chest. Sat up again. He was definitely distracted by something; he kept looking away from the fireworks and out at the road. She followed his gaze.

“Don’t you like this?” she asked without first thinking the words. He propped up an elbow and put a finger on her chin.

“You’re nuts, you know that?” He ran his fingers up through her short hair. “I love this.”

“Love what?” she asked, leaning into his hand.

“Your hair. Your eyes, this night. You.” He put his arm around her and this time she relaxed into his embrace. “You know, Emmy, I never thought I could be this happy. I mean really, truly happy. Ever since I met you, well, it’s just been great, you know? And that’s just the beginning. Oh, the world is just right out there at our fingertips, Emmy, exploding with possibility like those rockets.” She looked to see him grinning with all of his perfectly square teeth. For a moment she wasn’t sure what she was looking at or whom. For a briefer instant she felt as though she’d never seen this man before, but then his smile eased and his features came back into focus. “What’s wrong, kitten? Are you okay?” She looked at him harder and she smiled, brushing some hair from her forehead with the back of her hand.