Page 93 of By Any Means

“Although I soon found out that Columbia wasn’t especially feasible on a rail-rider’s wage.” Laurie winked, since Chary already knew about Sam. “So, I tried to wed the work instead. Domestic service.”

Chary looked him up and down through feathery lashes—still damp with sweat. “Oh, please tell me you were made footman.”

“Well, they didn’t put me in the carriage house,” Laurie said, and Chary smiled.

“Yes, I was first footman. I won’t tell you for whom,” he said quickly, as interest lit in Chary’s eyes, “because it’s really not relevant anymore. It was fine until things went south with a visiting valet.”

Chary hummed. “I see.”

“Yep. No references.”

Chary paused in unwrapping the second sandwich. “You weren’t forced into anything… desperate? After?”

Laurie narrowed his eyes at the river.

Questions were sometimes the most revealing of all. This was maybe Chary trying to keep things from him, even as his curiosity and concern overrode his self-preservation. Had Chary himself been forced into something desperate? August seemed to have been.

“No,” Laurie said carefully. “Both you Wright brothers had it worse than I, trust me.”

He brought out the rest of his lunch pail, piece by piece. A hunk of cheese, three eggs—blueberries staining a handkerchief. Chary took it all tentatively at first, though Laurie pushed it firmly into his hand. He wasn’t hungry anyway, but overheated, nauseated, emotionally wearied. Even if he had been starving, he’d have given it; Chary needed it more.

An impromptu—or perhaps ongoing—game of football had begun on 9th between the glassworks boys. Laurie hadn’t the faintest idea how any of them had the energy to run and play in their leisure time, but they surely did. Up and down and back again, all for the sake of a rubber ball they had to fight the dogs for. For play. Something they should’ve been doing the majority of the day, not running their soles holey with glass crumbles.

Chary wanted him to write up the glassworks? He’d write up every damned glassworks on the Eastern Seaboard.

Chary followed his gaze and stiffened.

Three boys had sloughed off the football game’s bystander group; they approached now. All three were from Chary’s shop, Laurie realized, and all of them were wet like they’d jumped from the river. Surely, even on a summer night, they’d catch cold.

One of them tossed a makeshift garbage-ball between two hands: Chary’s gatherer-boy. He spoke first.

“This is it, then. You’ve a shadower. You’re leaving us early.” The ball wasn’t enough to keep his limbs occupied—he also kicked the cobblestone with one foot, heel-toe, heel-toe, landing hardest on the last syllable. He sounded more defeated than angry. Laurie didn’t miss the lack of formal address.

Chary stood. “Soon,” he admitted. He rubbed his palms on his overalls.

Maybe he hadn’t demanded so much as a mister from them. Figures.

“When soon? We thought that Ira…” the boy began. Then sheer bravado—fear, and self-defense—came boiling back into his expression. “Every’un wants me as gatherer. Nobody else’s as fast.” The boy’s glance flicked to Laurie. “He doesn’t look fast.”

“I know that they do,” Chary said gently. “You don’t need to worry about that, Milo. Or Ira. Everything will be fine.”

Wrong move. Milo’s eyes narrowed. Children, as humans in miniature, hated platitudes. The boy didn’t believe it for a second.

He crouched and jettisoned the ball of garbage into the river.

“Yeah, me. And Ira,” he spat. “But what about the rest of ’em?” His spoken-for entourage stood, scuffling their feet.

Chary had no answer.

“Whatever,” Milo said. “You’re old. Slowin’ down, anyway. Good for glue and nuthin’ else.” He stopped short of actual spitting, adjusted his cap, and about-faced.

They ran back to the football game.

“I think you just got called a nag,” Laurie teased. It should’ve been much funnier than it was.

He wanted to know why Chary would put himself through this, year after year after year, watching boys come and go, when there was no need.

No longer a personal need.