Hank dropped them at a pay phone closer to Rosie's house than his secret library, and drove off to deal with the Redeemed body. Jean stood at the edge of the road like a sentry as Rosie pushed coins into the phone slot. The first number rang without an answer, and the second two came up duds. She shook her head at Jean, who stepped back from the sidewalk's edge as cars went by, and wiped her wrist across her forehead. "He better find somewhere cold to hide that thing, or it's gonna start stinking real fast."
"Jeez, Jean!" Rosie hissed. "Shush!" Not that Jean had spoken loudly, or that anyone was around to hear, but who knew, the operator might be listening in as the line connected. A man picked up with a gruff "Hello?" and Rosie burst into her best bubble-headed impression of Irene's Brooklyn accent for the fourth time. "Hi, is Helen Montgomery there?
Her eyes widened and she gestured to Jean as the man's voice cleared, like he'd just woken up. "No, she's working. Supe at Highfield called her in for some extra hours today. What can I do for you?"
"Oh, good, she's working, I really sort of wanted to talk to you anyways, Mr Montgomery," Rosie babbled, a knot of discomfort tight in her throat. "You're a star. Look, can I ask you something? Has she been acting different lately? I don't know, it just seemed to me she got kind of cool toward me around, I don't know, a while now, maybe around—"
"Christmas," Mr Montgomery said with a sigh. "Her mother died about this time last year and it seemed to really hit her around Christmas."
"Yes, that was so awful about her mother." Rosie agreed unhappily, and made a face as Jean's eyebrows rose. "And, gosh, yes, I'd say she seemed to change around Christmas, too. I just wanted to make sure the fella closest to her thought she was doing okay."
"We'll get by," Montgomery said. "I'll let her know you called. What's your name again?"
"Oh, don't you worry about it, I'll just give her a call again later. Thanks!" She hung up and slumped against the pay phone, feeling sick to her stomach. "That was awful."
"Really?" Jean sounded admiring. "You lied like a pro. I didn't think you had it in you."
"I wish I didn't! That poor man has no idea his wife is—" Rosie couldn't even say the word, half-afraid someone would hear her even though they were alone on the street. "And I just grilled him for information! What kind of monster am I?"
Jean's eyebrows lifted again. "The kind that fights real ones. Come on, Ro, get over it. Did you learn anything besides whatever that was about her mother and Christmas? You sounded real sincere about that, just like you knew what he was talking about."
Rosie sank down to sit on the sidewalk's edge, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them as she stared down the street. "She started acting different around Christmas. And she works at Highfield and got called in today to cover for somebody. Me, maybe. Or Irene. Rene swapped to a late shift so she could go to the party last night." She could hear herself talking to keep her thoughts away, but hardly knew what she'd even said. The street had emptied out, late afternoon turning to dinnertime. Families were gathering around their tables for dinner instead of kids playing while parents headed home. It felt lonely, even if dozens of people weren't more than a stone's throw away. "I don't think I'm cut out for this kind of business. You should have been the Redeemer."
"Maybe, but I'm not, and you did pretty good there." Jean sat beside her. "Hank can be the brains, you're the muscle, and next time, I'll be the sneak."
"Our own little holy trinity." Rosie made a face, then rubbed it out with her hands. "We should have asked Hank when his dad knew her, to find out if she was already a demon then. PFC Goode was at the factory, that ochim thing was there, Mrs Montgomery worked there … it all comes back to the factory. I wonder who owns it now. Probably Henry Ford built it, but it could belong to Harrison Vaughn now, for all I know. Only don't let Hank hear me say that."
"I can't blame him for not wanting it to be his dad." Jean dangled her arms over her knees, fingertips tapping together. "But we should find out who owns it. If Harrison Vaughn does, it's just too much coincidence, him having an affair with Mrs Montgom—"
"An affair? Jean, you can't go around saying things like that! Oh my gosh! What if Hank heard you?"
Jean leaned back until her fingers locked around her knees and studied Rosie. "Are you serious, Ro? What did you think he meant when he said his dad knew her? Didn't you see how uncomfortable he was?"
"I don't know, but he—" Rosie bit down on her protests as she remembered Hank's tension. "Oh, no. No, that just can't be right, Jean. His dad had an affair with a demon? How could he not know?"
"Which one of them?" Jean asked sourly. "Lots of men think women are crazy anyway, so what's the difference if he's screwing a demon or not? Or do you mean Hank?" She shook her head. "I don't know. Do you think that empathy thing of his is for real?"
"I don't know. He does." Rosie wet her lips, frowning at the dust on the road. "I'm parched. Let's walk up to the house and get a drink." She stood, offering Jean a hand, and pulled the other girl to her feet. "I guess I want to believe him. It makes me be not the only one, and I have to believe me. But I don't know how you can tell that somebody's a … an empath … for real. I don't even really know what it is, except what he said. How do you tell if somebody really knows what you're feeling?"
"I guess you run some tests somehow." Jean shoved her hands in her pockets as they walked under trees spaced too far apart to offer any real relief from the heat or shade from the slanting sun. "Maybe you pretend hard to have a feeling, until it gets real, and you see if he can figure it out."
Rosie laughed. "Yeah, but if you're standing there pretending to get mad until you do, I can just see that, can't I? You getting all red in the face and tight-lipped and all of that."
"So do it on opposite sides of a wall. That way he can't see you."
"I don't think he'd like it. Having to prove it, I mean."
Jean stopped short in a puddle of her own shadow. "Who cares? If he's on the level, it shouldn't be a problem. He's got to know how crazy it sounds, so he should be willing to try and prove it. If he can't, then there's no reason to think he can tell when a demon is nearby, either, which makes him—"
"Not useless," Rosie disagreed, even if Jean hadn't actually said it. "Come on, we're not getting any less hot standing here. He does know more about demons than we do, and he can read all those research books in all those different languages, and we can't, so he's not useless. He just wouldn't be useful in finding them, so we're no worse off than we are right now." She giggled suddenly. "Listen to us, Jean. Talking about finding demons and empathy and magic like we haven't flipped our wigs."
"Part of me has." Jean sounded hollow, but she kept her voice steady and her eyes stayed dry. "I'd have to be crazy or dumb to not know I'm hanging on to all this craziness because it gives me something else to do. If I think too much about Ruby, I start flying apart. That's the part of me that's going crazy, Rosie. The part that looks crazy, all this demon stuff, that's all that's holding me together. Her funeral is on Saturday. It'll be a whole week then. More than a week. I don't think I can stand it."
"I'll be there," Rosie said helplessly. "We'll all be there."
"I know. I just want every demon in Detroit dead before then." A smile pinched her mouth. "That's not too much to ask, is it?"
Rosie reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. "We're batting a thousand so far. None of the ones we've met have made it out alive."
Surprise tweaked Jean's smile into something better than it had been. "There is that." She squeezed Rosie's hand in return, then let it go, looking toward the slowly setting sun "It's already past seven and Hank's probably gonna be busy for a while. Tomorrow we should put him through his paces, but in the meantime, should we go up to the factory and find out who knows what about Helen Montgomery?"
"I don't think they'll even let me on the grounds. Maybe Irene can find something out."
"Do you really want to tell her there's another dead body with your name on it?"
Rosie's eyes popped. "Jeez, put a cork in it, Jean! Keep your voice down! And no, I guess not. I guess if we went up and grabbed coveralls, we could blend in okay, as long as the supe didn't see us coming in." Rosie frowned at patches of changing sunlight through the widely spaced trees. "She worked night shift, so anybody who knew her wouldn't be there yet. Maybe I should get dinner and look at the help wanted ads until Hank turns up again."
"Rosie …" Jean trailed to a stop, her steps as slow as her words. "You know it's going to be darn near impossible to find work now. Especially—I mean, Rich is home."
"Oh, not you too. Not that."
Jean shook her head. "I'm with you, but you know what people are going to say. ‘She's still working? With her soldier home? How does he like her taking his job?'"
"Well, who am I going to tell that my soldier is home, anyways? My new supe? Why would I do that?"
"They'll ask if you're getting married."
"And I'm not." Rosie folded her arms under her breasts and walked away, scowling at the sidewalk. "Not any time soon, anyways. Everything's different now, and who knows if he'll want to marry me, in the end?"
"Or if you'll want to marry him." Jean caught up, measuring her steps by Rosie's shorter ones. "I'm just wondering if you've got a fallback position."
"I really am going to college, Jean. I still want to find part-time work, but that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go learn how to design the cars all the men will be back to build, or something like that, I don't know yet. But I'm going to college."
"Holy moly," Jean breathed with a smile. "You said school earlier, didn't you, but I don't think I really heard you. Really? That's what you're going to do? Good for you. Does Rich know yet?"
"I haven't had time to tell him. I don't know what he'll think."
"Does it matter?"
"No. Yes." Rosie sighed. "I was so crazy in love with him when he shipped out, Jean. But it's been years and I don't know anymore. It matters because maybe we're still meant to be, maybe it'll work … but at the same time, it doesn't, because this is what I gotta do for me. So I hope he'll think it's great, but if he doesn't …" She shrugged helplessly. "Then I guess I know how it works out between us."
"Good." Jean offered a brief smile at Rosie's glance. "You're stuck on having your independence. I'd hate to see that just wash away when the going got tough."
"Well, I don't know what could be tougher than this." A superstitious thrill ran down Rosie's spine and she muttered, "Probably something," to ward it off. "I'll figure something out and spit in their eye."
"Atta girl. I'm going to catch a tram home, Rosie. You give Hank a call tonight and tell him that tomorrow we want to test and see if his empathy is real, okay?"
"I still think he won't like it."
"None of us like any of this." Jean ducked under the tree at the tram stop, taking what cover from the sun she could, and shooed Rosie along.
✪ ✪ ✪
Lights were on in the kitchen and voices spilled out the open window as Rosie walked up to the house a while later. She hesitated on the porch, listening until she'd identified Barb and Dorothy and Wanda. Marge usually worked a swing shift and Irene had taken that shift today, too, so the three who'd become least friendly to Rosie since Saturday were the ones at home. She might avoid them by going straight to her room, but that would mean not getting any dinner, either. And she'd paid for her fair share of that food, since they all went in together for groceries, spreading their money farther that way. Jaw set, Rosie pushed the door open and marched in to be met with a sudden silence. Dorothy giggled nervously. Wanda elbowed her, but Barb tossed her hair. "Well, what do you want?"
"Dinner," Rosie said as steadily as she could. "Is that potato salad?"
"Macaroni," Wanda volunteered. Barb shot her a daggered look and her shoulders hunched, gaze dropping to the table.
Rosie smiled, even if it felt more like baring her teeth. "Sounds nice. Maybe I'll fry up some wieners. Anybody else want some?"
"We didn't make enough macaroni salad for everybody." Barb tossed her hair again.
"Really. I can't ever make more than enough for everybody. I don't think I've ever been able to make just a little macaroni salad in my whole life." Walking across the kitchen under the weight of everybody's gaze made Rosie move stiffly, but she'd be darned if she'd give up now. "Gosh, Barb, there must be eight cups of this stuff besides what you've got on your plates! How much more do you reckon you need tonight? Maybe I could dish it up for you."
Dorothy squeaked, "No!" and shot Barb a wide-eyed look when Barb glared at her. "She might poison us or something!" Dot hissed.
"Dot," Wanda protested weakly, but went quiet again as Barb's filthy look returned to her.
Rosie felt her smile begin to slip. "So I guess that means you don't want me to fry you up some wieners, Dot. Anybody else?" She got a jar down instead of watching them look at each other, and fried up her hot dogs with an itch between her shoulder blades. She didn't dare look over her shoulder to see if the three girls really were watching her, but they sure as heck didn't go back to talking among themselves while she cooked. Chin held high, she put food on her plate and sat down at the table.
It didn't take hardly two minutes for the others to clear out. Even Wanda, who never left dirty dishes, left her plate and fork by the sink in her hurry to get away. Rosie watched them, trying to look like she thought they were funny, but the moment they were gone she put her fork down and her face in her hands, trying to hold back tears. After some deep breaths and a reminder her wieners were cooling, she got control of herself and ate dinner. Then she scooped some extra macaroni salad onto her plate, got a glass of lemonade, and retreated to her bedroom feeling like she'd fought hard enough for one night. Irene had a copy of Forever Amber on her bedstand. Rosie borrowed it, reading while she ate the rest of the salad and lemonade, and fell asleep without brushing her teeth.
She heard Irene come in hours later, but only pulled the pillow over her head, not ready to wake up or talk to anyone. By the time morning and almost twelve hours of sleep had rolled around, she couldn't pretend not to be awake when Rene got up, or when everyone else banged around the house. She didn't make much effort to leave the room, though, except to brush her teeth, until most everybody had left for the day. Marge probably hadn't, but Marge liked to sleep late, so once the other girls were gone, Rosie felt safe enough leaving the bedroom.
"Safe," she whispered as she got coffee. She shouldn't have to sneak around to feel safe in her own house. Maybe her folks were right and she should move back home, although with Rich back, even her parents would probably think she ought to just get married. Well, that just wouldn't do. She poured another cup of coffee and flipped the paper open, the ink's sweet, acrid scent mixing with the coffee's richer smell. There were plenty of jobs if you could type or wanted to waitress, but she kept looking, as if searching the pages again would turn up an ad that read Wanted: Rosie the Riveter, for construction & mechanical work. No, those jobs were for men coming home from the war. After a while she pushed the paper back and rubbed her hands through her hair, too late realizing she had newsprint on her fingertips. Well, now she probably had it on her face, too. She gave her forehead an ineffectual swipe, then got up to wash her face and look at herself in the mirror.
Even early in the day, her cheeks were awfully pink from heat, although washing up with cool water helped. Her eyes still looked tired, despite catching up on her sleep. But the weariness reflected back at her ran deeper than a lack of sleep. "It's all crazy," she whispered to the mirror, and, since she was talking to herself anyways, added, "You're gonna have to learn to type, Ro. It'll be helpful for school. You'll be able to type up your papers faster, and get a job being a secretary or something until you have your degree, because you gotta face it, nobody's going to hire a girl riveter anymore." She pulled a few pin curls into place, then gave a short laugh. Look at her, fixing her hair, worrying about a job, when her housemates wouldn't talk to her, and last night, Hank had gone out to dump the body of the third person she'd killed in a handful of days. Even if they weren't really people anymore. It seemed like she had bigger worries than her hair, but she still kept fussing over it.
Pearl Daly had bigger worries, too. Rosie patted her face dry and marched out of the house to go visit Pearl. She didn't much know what she could do for Pearl other than let her know she hadn't been forgotten, but that might be enough, and it gave Rosie something to do until she could call Hank, either at home or work, and set up testing his empathy. A tram full of factory girls shining with sweat brought Rosie close enough to Pearl's apartment to walk the rest of the way. She stopped at a five-and-dime store for a couple of ice creams even if it was only nine in the morning, then hurried up four floors to knock on Pearl's door.
The smaller girl opened it cautiously but lit up as Rosie thrust the ice cream at her. "Eat it quick before it all melts! I got vanilla, I figured nobody could object to that."
"I was just trying to decide what to have for breakfast." Pearl beamed at Rosie and gave the dripping cone a quick lick as she stepped back to let Rosie into the apartment. She'd gained some weight, and her color, which had improved instantly when Rosie Redeemed her, looked better still. "How come you're here?"
"I wanted to check on you. I said I would." Rosie came in to sit on the couch and finish her own ice cream. "How are you doing?"
Pearl curled into the armchair, nodding. "I'm okay. I think I'm okay. I wrote a letter to Johnny's lady."
Rosie blinked. "Oh. Oh! I'd forgotten you were going to do that. Thank you." Jean would never get her wish of all the demons in Detroit being dead by Saturday if they had to wait on mail to France, but then, that wish had never been going to come true, anyways. "Have you gotten out of here at all?"
"Well, I went to the post office." Pearl smiled and shifted her shoulders. "I've gotten the paper and called about some jobs. I need to learn to type."
Rosie looked at her hands. "Yeah, me too, I guess. I got fired," she said to Pearl's questioning glance. "I was a bad influence on the girls, and frightening."
"You were—! But—!"
"I know, but what could I do?" Rosie finished her ice cream and got up to wash her hands.
"I could tell them … something …"
"No, don't. Don't get yourself any more into this mess than you are, Pearl." Rosie smiled ruefully over her shoulder at the other woman. "Thanks for the offer, though. Are there any typing classes in the ads? I didn't think to look."
"A couple, at different schools. Some are for shorthand typing, and those take a while, but just learning to type is a six-week class, and they swear you'll find a job if you learn there. It doesn't cost too much, so I'm trying to find some other job in the meantime. I guess I haven't been fired from the factory, but I haven't been in in days, and even if I've still got a job, I don't want to go back." Pearl shivered more than the ice cream accounted for, and Rosie nodded sympathetically.
"Well, I'm not going to let Hank throw you out of here, so if it means taking the class and finding a job, then that's just what's going to happen. And you oughta be able to apply for unemployment, Pearl. I did." Rosie came back to sit down again, realizing as she did that Pearl wore the same blouse and dungarees she'd had on the last time Rosie had seen her, the ones she'd been wearing under her work coveralls. "You don't have any other clothes, do you?"
Surprise and guilt turned Pearl's cheeks pink. "Everything was at Johnny's."
"And Hank didn't think of that. Heck, neither did I. Well, we're just going to have to find you a few outfits, I guess. Dorothy at home is slight like you, I'll see if I can't talk her out of a couple blouses and jeans, and I'll buy you a new dress for interviews."
Pearl's eyes rounded. "Oh. Oh, no, you couldn't do that."
"You can pay me back when you're not flat, but for now, you want to put your best foot forward, right? So let me help. I guess all of us who know what's going on here should stick together."
"You're an awful nice lady, Miss Ransom. Especially considering I almost got you killed."
"You were trying to protect yourself. I guess I know what that feels like, now. I don't hold it against you." Rosie grinned. "But don't do it again!"
"That's a deal."
Rosie, still grinning, stood up again. "All right. Look, I don't think I gave you my phone number. Let me do that, and you can give me a call and we'll go shopping this week. Not on Saturday, but it's only Wednesday." She wrote her number down. "Give me a call tomorrow or Friday and we'll figure it out. In the meantime, look, here. Take this, just so you've got some pin money." She took a ten-dollar bill out of her purse and offered it to Pearl, whose fingers opened and closed reluctantly.
"I shouldn't …"
"You can pay me back for this, too, sometime. I'd just feel better if I knew you had some cash, Pearl. I want to be sure you're eating okay."
Pearl took the bill carefully, unable to meet Rosie's eyes. "Thank you again, Miss Ransom."
"I told you to call me Rosie." Rosie hugged the other woman, taking care to avoid the last bites of ice cream cone in Pearl's hand, and waved herself out with Pearl's smile following her.