Helen stole another glance over her shoulder, this time a coy grin in place. Cal’s aunt was a sharp woman, and without doubt, she could piece together what had happened last night between them. Fern had stripped the sheet off the cot first thing and hand-washed it in a bucket she’d found in the storeroom. A few drops of blood from that brief stinging pain when their bodies had come together lingered on the cotton, as did Cal’s cologne.
Fern helped with breakfast again, to whatever extent she could be of assistance. Then, after awkwardly passing off her hand-washing of the sheet as a means of helping earn her keep, Helen showed her how to use the washer and wringer. It wasn’t particularly pleasant dealing with the boarders’ clothes, socks, and underwear, but at least the work kept Fern busy as the morning wore on.
When Helen asked if Fern knew her way to the Central Library for her interview, it took a moment for the question to register and make sense. The job interview. She had forgotten all about it, and now…Fern wouldn’t be going. She and Cal were leaving the city. Since she couldn’t say anything about their plans to Helen, she just nodded and thanked her. Near noon, Fern got dressed in her best drop-waist dress, cloche, and rayon jacket, and left the house for her interview.
Instead of heading to the library, she went to Janko’s again and had a cup of coffee. Then, she filledthe next two hours riding streetcars around the North Side.
Returning to Helen’s, she’d hoped to find Cal there. He wasn’t. It had been hours since he’d left. He must have been to see Hannah Levy by then. If he was at the Lion’s Den now, it could take time to work his way into Rod’s office and nab the negatives. When the photographs rolled in the papers, Rod wouldn’t know who had stolen them—he had plenty of men working for him, and of course, people came in and out of the speakeasy all the time.
Fibbing to Helen about the library interview felt like a betrayal, so she said as little as possible about it. When Helen didn’t ask anything more about it, Fern figured she’d guessed that the interview hadn’t gone very well.
By one o’clock, an uneasy knot had settled like cement in the pit of Fern’s stomach. After Helen left the house to attend a luncheonette with a friend, Fern took out the telephone directory and looked up Hannah’s exchange again. She didn’t want to go all the way to Janko’s coffeehouse again to make the call, in case Cal showed up while she was gone, but she’d leave a dime for Helen to cover the cost of the call.
Mrs. Levy answered the telephone after the third ring and asked Fern to wait on the line while she fetched Hannah. Then, a moment later, her bright voice came through. But what she had to say only made Fern’s worry sink its claws in deeper.
“He was here hours ago, first thing this morning,” Hannah told her.
“Did he say where he wasgoing next?”
“The Lion’s Den,” she answered. “He said he was hoping to get there before Rod woke up. Listen, Fern, he told me the plan, and I just have to say how happy I am. Cal, he…he deserves this chance.”
Hannah and her family doted on Cal the same way Helen did. They saw something in him that they knew was absent within Rod. The capacity to love, perhaps.
“I think so too,” she whispered.
Hannah told Fern not to worry, that Cal could handle himself at the Den. But as the afternoon stretched out, every passing hour stacked more and more weight on her chest. Something had gone wrong. Fern knew it, and Helen was jittery too. As they served the boarders their supper, Cal’s aunt dropped a dish of pickles, and her eyes kept darting toward the clock on the wall in the kitchen.
“Helen, is something bothering you?” Fern asked when they were at the small table in the kitchen, each of them picking at their own plate of ham and green bean casserole. It couldn’t have to do with Cal. Helen didn’t know to worry about him. She didn’t know their plan to leave Chicago.
Or so Fern thought.
Helen set down her fork, pressed her napkin to her lips, then sat up a bit taller, preparing herself. “The call that came in before supper. I told you it was the repairman for the monitor top.”
Fern nodded. After a brief phone conversation, Helen had said someone would be coming out to repair an annoying drip.
“It was Rodney, instead,” she admitted.
Fern gripped her fork.
“He asked if Cal had brought you to me,” she continued quickly. “I said no, but he didn’t believe me.”
“What else did he say?” Fern tried hard to remember Helen’s side of the conversation. She’d given mostly one-word replies.
“Just that he didn’t want you to know he’d phoned.”
Fern jumped to her feet, thighs catching the rim of the table. The plates and cups clattered.
“Fern, what’s going on?” she asked, bewildered.
“If he knows I’m here, then he knows Cal lied.”
“Cal lied to him? Why would he do that?”
Fern ran to the storeroom, the fork still clutched in her grip. She flung it onto the cot and dragged her suitcase out from underneath it. Her belongings were all still inside.
“Because my brother is the reason Eugenia is dead,” she blurted as she reentered the kitchen. “Rod and Cal, they wanted to hurt him by hurting me, but Cal changed his mind, and Rod…well, I think Rod’s furious about that.”
Helen stood at the back door, peering through the glass.
