The first time Hamish noticed he was different was when he would shudder in the corner at school recess. He would tremble all over if there was a new kid in class or the teacher called on him, and the answer on the top of his mind would stall on his tongue. If it eventually found its way out, it was through a rippled stutter. Soon he stopped trying to talk at all.
The chest pains that would spring up and latch on like claws scraping under his ribs developed a bit later and assured him he was dying. The fear, of course, catching his breath so that it was stuck in his windpipe, coming out in gulps and gasps. The scars on his hands from digging his fingernails in. The rumored treatment of frontal lobe surgery and electric shocks that would eliminate his anxious episodes forever.
It was only since he moved to Boston that he learned his father had protected him from the worst at the expense of Hamish’s understanding that he was seen as less than.
He couldn’t be less than tonight. He couldn’t have Luca’s influence or his limitations around him.
Hamish hadn’t touched the clothes fitted and made for him by Luca’s tailor since that fateful first summer in Boston. He fumbled in his dresser for the silk bow tie he knew was tucked somewhere between balled socks.
Finally feeling it, he pinched the edge of it with his fingers and tugged it out, slamming the drawer so vehemently it shook the pictures and bottle of aftershave on top. One framed picture of him and Maisie Forth in their New Year’s best before a night he well remembered at the glamorous Palais Royale on Lake Ontario. Luca had snapped the pic. Another of his parents. His mom’s striking blue eyes looking out at him as if she were right there.
He straightened the frames and took to getting ready. He combed his fingers through his hair and studied himself in the mirror a moment. Frowning. He had to look the part tonight. He had to conjure up some of the flair Luca had summoned for the opening of his club. He jogged out of his room and through Nate’s open door. Surely Nate had pomade somewhere. Nate was about as interested in fashionable things as Hamish was, but he remembered Nate saying his mother insisted he tame his hair for schul.
“Sorry, Nate,” he whispered to the dark room, finding a jar at the back of the top of his dresser. “Desperate times.” Besides, Nate owed him. He wouldn’t be half as nervous if Nate were joining him, but Nate, as usual in recent weeks, had to work late. “I could use you. I could really use you.” Use him as he stepped into a world in which he was losing Reggie forever.
As much as his conscience pricked over their slow strides to find Toby’s killer, he couldn’t see beyond the wall of Reggie being lost to him forever.
To his credit, Nate had looked genuinely remorseful but nevertheless declined. Once again in front of his mirror, Hamish took a deep breath, rubbed some of the gel-like substance on his hands, and attempted to tame his ebony locks. The look always made him a little self-conscious about his ears, but Luca had inspired him not to care. Luca. Hamish recalled the folded-up piece of paper with Luca’s number in his trouser pocket. He didn’t want the aura of Luca surrounding him when he had spent a long bike ride mentally listing all of the things he had done to stand on his own two feet. He slipped it out of his pocket and placed it at the back of his top sock drawer. Beneath the hose and garters, tucked under a slat of wood.
Next, he tried his look: bow tie and suspenders, white jacket with black lapels. Houndstooth pocket square. He squinted at himself in the mirror, turning a little. Then tried a bit of a smile, wide enough so that his dimple appeared. Bernice was not the first girl to tell him about his smile. It was something that Reggie mentioned on several occasions. When he fully smiled, apparently it transformed his face. He tried it. Nah. His smile was too crooked. He scratched his nose and nudged his glasses higher. Maybe he should keep them on. He would look smarter that way. Professional. Like the lawyer he was. He used his now nervously shaking right hand to remove them for a moment, studying his face without them in the reflection, and decided he had enough to worry about without minimalized vision.
Worry. So much worry. Because he knew what people expected. He knew what the A-B-C plot of a Winchester Molloy serial promised. He had thrown himself into the investigative business without the first clue how to make good on the amateur profession. Three years of having a good inkling of human nature and more than a dose of empathy. But it was still three years with part of his brain cast out to perceived expectation. The way a murder should be solved. The amount of crime one should anticipate in a case. But the same mental reel would reveal his expectation of Reggie in his arms at the climax of the plot, and that was just one more thing he couldn’t guarantee.
He thought about splurging on a cab so he arrived in pristine condition, but a quick assessment of his heartbeat, tempered with his two forefingers, inspired him to tuck his long pant legs into his gartered socks and cycle. He would need the fresh air and the time. He smudged on a little more pomade to keep his hair in place and told himself he would be careful.
He tucked a stray strand of hair into place and inspected his polished two-toned shoes one last time. Then he collected his bicycle from its usual place in the front hall and wheeled it out the front door. He swung his leg over the crossbar and pushed off with momentum, leaning over the handlebars, soon pedaling and swerving over the uneven streets in the direction of Cross Street. The setting sun courted the familiar skyline of Boston’s most familiar buildings well. Hamish picked up speed, flicking a look up at the Custom House’s familiar clock tower, then over the matching columned structures of the North and South buildings of Quincy Market. Ahead, the Old State House looked as he assumed it had when the Declaration of Independence was announced from its east balcony that warm and jubilant day.
Beyond, the sun snagged on the shadow of its steeple, the site of the Boston Massacre: one of the many catapulting moments toward Revolution. Finally, on School Street, just past Old City Hall, the Parker House Hotel towered. Hamish wheeled his bike to a uniformed man beside a revolving door who maneuvered it inside for safekeeping, pocketing the bill Hamish handed him, while Hamish made his way toward the side entrance. He used the time to roll down his pant legs and inspect for any pedal scuffs on the sides of his shoes. He used the reflection of a chauffeured car to inspect his hair, which, thankfully, had withstood the bicycle ride.
“Heartbeat, Hamish,” he whispered, feeling his breath snag a little as the doorman stood aside and he stepped into the grand, chandeliered lobby.
An easel sign indicated the events of the evening, and Hamish swerved past the famous restaurant to ascend to the second floor. Nearby men and women dressed to the nines in hats, satin, and fur stoles, which must have been for presentation rather than necessity in the warming temperatures, made their way to the lobby’s many elevators. Hamish wanted to avoid the din a few moments longer.
This was Luca’s world, he thought. Never more so than when he reached the mouth of the grand ballroom, a quartet plucking out the perambulatory bars of a Bach composition while waiters with silver trays full of hors d’oeuvres and champagne turned in an elaborate waltz amidst a stretch of strangers. This was Reggie’s world, too, he admitted. At least the world from which Reggie had sprung. Not the Reggie he knew who liked brutti boni and seeing the same picture several times until she could quote her favorite lines. Not the Reggie who liked to sit for hours and make up new Winchester Molloy plots with Nate. Who wrinkled her nose so that the freckles disappeared and crossed off things as delightful as “Change a lightbulb” and “Kiss in the rain” (the latter he had only learned one evening in pursuit of a missing kitten when she was so sleepy she murmured it before falling asleep on his shoulder in Boston Common) in her Journal of Independence. Reggie who colored his world and made him see life in a way that was constantly new. Reggie who made him want to learn more and see more and be more just for the privilege of keeping near. Reggie who fit perfectly on the handlebars of his bike and also in his arms on the dance floor. Reggie who was marrying another man was being celebrated in a lush gathering at which he didn’t even remotely belong.
A woman with bleached blonde hair and a dark bow for lips sidled past Hamish, studying him appreciatively. He watched her join her friend, the back of her dress dipping suggestively low with nothing underneath, and soon her companion with russet red hair and heavily lined eyes was looking back at him. He supposed it was an engagement party and women from any set would be interested in their own prospects while love was in the air.
Love. Hamish tugged his bow tie. This was a disaster.
“This is a disaster.” The voice he most wanted to hear was at his ear, brushing just over his collar.
“You look . . .” Hamish couldn’t finish the sentence if he tried. He couldn’t remember his own name in direct line of Reggie, who was wearing a dress he had never seen before. A dress no one had seen before. Even if it was the most popular fashion in this upper set, it would never spill over anyone else the way it did her. He was used to seeing Reggie in cranberry and green, and she had a preference for yellow in the summer months. But this dress was a sleek ivory that dipped low over her neck and down to the floor, hugging places he knew his eyes shouldn’t be dwelling on. Her lips were russet red and matched her painted nails. The locket Hamish had given her with the inscription Spira, Spera was missing, but in its place a simple gold chain danced in the light. Hamish swallowed, his fingers finding home under the fold of his jacket.
“You clean up swell.” For the first time in the relentless moment stretching between them, he noticed she had been studying him as intently as he had her.
“You look beautiful, Reggie,” he finally said.
“This is a nightmare and I feel like I could scream,” was her response to the compliment. “See those girls over there?” She discreetly pointed toward the women who had been assessing him earlier. “Watch out. They’ll prey on you.” She crooked her blood-red fingers into claws with a teasing hiss. “And her?” She inclined her head to the side. “Ten o’clock.” Hamish followed her direction. A bubbly brunette was exchanging an empty champagne flute for one overfull with bubbly amber liquid. “You will want to dance with her eventually, just for the stories later. In fact”—Reggie leaned forward and straightened the bow tie that had become crooked with Hamish’s earlier fidgeting—“I insist you dance with her so you can tell me all about it later, Hamish Cicero.” She laughed and he joined her briefly, both recalling some of the women of Luca’s set back when they were exploring the Scollay Square clubs.
“You’re the only girl I want to dance with, Reggie,” he said, disappointed that his voice rasped a little as he said it. He knew that wouldn’t be an option. She would dance with Vaughan, of course, and her father and a cousin and perhaps an attached old friend from the Harvard rowing set. But he didn’t belong here.
“I know,” she said, with surprising tenderness and understanding. “But . . .” She shook her head. “I just . . .”
The mirrored glare of one of the champagne trays caught the expensive light and Reggie grabbed two glasses. “Still your nerves,” she said, passing one to him, knowing he wasn’t fond of the taste or feeling. “At least have something for your right hand to do.” She looked left and right and, determining that no one was closely watching her movement, reached into the fold of his coat and grabbed his hand. His trembling fingers sparked with the feel of her hand over his. Intimately hidden by his suit jacket.
“Here.” She placed the glass in his right hand and ensured that it was steady even if it shook a little when she removed her grip. “Now. I am warning you ahead of time that whatever you hear tonight and whatever anyone says to you . . . They’re just jealous and confused, Hamish. Of you. It will have nothing to do with you. And nothing you might hear or experience will ever match what I think of you.” She searched his face with nervous vulnerability. She held tightly to his sleeve with the hand not holding her champagne glass. “And I won’t ever be leaving us, Hamish. No matter what you hear tonight. Take it all with a tiny, tiny grain of salt. The tiniest.” She sipped her champagne and stepped back, her head cocked at an angle that slightly swerved her careful updo. “Besides, Nick and Nora find themselves at insufferable parties all of the time.”
It was in that last sentence that he noticed the transformation: her elocution was cut glass with a Boston Brahmin twist and her body language changed. She was going to play this role and she would play it well. In the way her spine elongated and her free hand found the curve of her waist. It fascinated and terrified him.
But it was part of her too. When she turned away, he switched his champagne glass to his left hand so that his right hand could find its safe spot behind his suspender, tucked away.