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Arthur cried out and went very still. For a second, Mabel was afraid she’d hurt him. He collapsed and rolled to the side of her, breathing heavily. Grinning. He was grinning from ear to ear. I did that, Mabel thought. I made him smile like that.
“Come here, you,” Arthur growled, and drew Mabel into his arms. “Mabel Rose. My beautiful Mabel Rose.” They lay like that for some time until they fell asleep.
Only a few blocks away, Henry and David sat beside each other at the piano and finished up a song they’d been working on well into the night.
“And with each kiss such bliss is mine, you see. For he’s the boy whose heart beats sweet for me.…” Henry sang. He looked shyly at David. “They’ll make us change that line, you know.”
“Yeah. I know. But I wanted to hear you sing it to me just once.”
“I’ll sing it to you anytime,” Henry said.
“That true?” David asked, keeping his eyes on the piano keys. And Henry could feel the real question lurking underneath: Do you really care about me? Or are you still in love with a ghost?
After Louis, Henry had held back some part of himself. He was afraid of being hurt again. There’d been so much loss that sometimes, Henry worried that he would always walk through life with a thin glaze over the cracks in his heart. But sitting there on the piano bench, looking at David’s sensual profile, listening to him play with the melody they’d written together, it was almost as if he could hear Louis whispering to him: You got a lot to live for, cher. You can run from it or you can fight for it.
When Henry didn’t answer, David turned to face him, puzzled. “What?”
“This,” Henry said, and kissed David deeply.
David put two fingers to Henry’s lips. He bent his forehead to Henry’s. “Don’t toy with me. I can’t.”
“I’m not playing. I swear it,” Henry said.
This time, David kissed him so passionately they fell off the piano bench.
“Ow!” David said, rubbing his arm.
“Sorry. I’ll stop—”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Then they were tearing at each other’s clothes, fumbling with buttons on their way to the couch. David kissed down Henry’s bare chest, listening to his gasps of pleasure. And then Henry wrestled David onto his back; his hands snaked into David’s thick curls as he pressed his mouth to David’s, their tongues dancing, bodies pressed together.
“I could sing you another verse,” Henry said, stopping to lean his cheek on his palm.
David grabbed Henry down on top of him. “Don’t. You. Dare,” he growled, and slid his hands into Henry’s trousers until Henry’s jokes were gone; he could think of nothing but what he and David were about—tongues and lips and fingers—and how incredible it felt to choose happiness, to let yourself be so completely alive. To let go of your ghosts.
Sam couldn’t sleep. The radiators blasted at full heat. He’d cracked a window to let in some cool night air, but it was his thoughts that kept him up as much as the temperature. He’d been thinking of Evie. Why couldn’t he just let go?
Sam didn’t open up to many people. But there was something about Evie that drew him out and made him vulnerable. Sam had been up in an aeroplane with Barnstormin’ Belle. He’d flown on the trapeze and walked a wire with the circus. Most people thought that was bravery. But nothing was braver than letting somebody really know you, warts and all. Nothing was braver than trying to love and be loved. He shut his eyes and imagined Evie in his arms. And then his hand was reaching under the blanket as he fumbled with his pajama bottoms. It was Evie he thought about while he touched himself. Evie he wanted so much it was almost a physical ache. Evie he saw as the pressure built. Sam groaned and arched as the exquisite rush zoomed through him. He was sweating and flushed.
“Jesus,” he said, panting.
Jesus didn’t answer.
Ling had gone to bed clutching Alma’s hair ribbon. When she awoke inside the dream, she was at a dance marathon. Under a glittery cardboard half-moon that dangled from a string, couples with numbers on their backs moved around the edges of the wooden floor—all except for Alma. She danced alone in the center, a ballet of one. Ling watched her pirouette and high-step in awe. She moved closer and closer until she was standing in the center, too, while Alma danced around Ling. It made Ling dizzy, so she closed her eyes, feeling Alma’s presence, like atoms swirling, becoming something new. She shivered all over; her skin tingled. Ling tilted her head back, grinning, leaning into the energy Alma created. It was almost like being caressed by the dream itself. And when Ling opened her eyes, the moon threw off sparkling prisms of light as it twirled on its string high above her.
Mabel woke just after six. Beside her, Arthur slept peacefully, his lips—the lips that had been all over her just hours ago—parted just slightly. He was so beautiful. Mabel ached between her legs, but she wanted to do it all again. It had been the most incredible night of her life. But the longer she lay in Arthur’s bed, listening to his gentle breathing, the more a panic-limned doubt began to seep in: We blew up Jake Marlowe’s mine! Last night, as she’d watched it all burn, she’d thought, You won’t be making money off the backs of poor people anymore. It had felt righteous. It had felt like justice.
But now, in the early morning’s cold light, she wondered: Had they done right? No one had been hurt. The Marlowe mine and the company store, the symbols of all that was wrong with management, had been destroyed. Still. They’d made change with bombs. With that one act, Mabel had turned her back on everything her parents had taught her.
Mabel needed to talk to someone or she’d go mad. She slipped out of bed and crept down the stairs. Mr. Jenkins kept a telephone behind the counter near the cash register. She dialed the number she knew by heart and waited as the operator put her through.
“Mmm’lo,” Evie mumbled on the other end. “Wrong party…”
“Evie? Evie, don’t hang up! It’s Mabel.”
“Mabel…” Evie slurred, half-asleep still. “Wh-What time’s it?”
