Rare Objects (12 page)

And Mick was such a stand-up guy, he even loaned me the money to leave him.

The Casino Athletic Club on Tremont Street was located up a steep flight of stairs on the second floor of an old grain warehouse. It smelled of generations of young men, training nonstop, in all seasons; of sweat, fear, and ambition. As soon as I stepped inside, a thick sticky wall of perspiration engulfed me. There were four rings, one in each corner, weights, punchbags; the sound of fists slamming against flesh and canvas beat out a constant dull tattoo.
It was a familiar sound; I'd spent hours here, smoking and watching Mick train. Pausing in the doorway, I scanned the hall. Then I spotted him.

Mickey was in the far left-hand ring, sparring with a tall Negro man. His trainer, Sam Louis, was hunched over the ropes, shouting, “Look out, Mick! Come on! Look lively!”

And seated on a folding chair and wearing a molting chinchilla wrap over a cheap red dress was Hildy.

Of course.

Poor old Hildy was a permanent fixture at the Casino Club and something of a running joke. When she was younger, she'd worked in the office. With her blond German hair and blue eyes, she broke her fair share of hearts. But as the years passed, her sharp tongue and ruthless gold digging earned her the nickname Sour Kraut. Now she moved from man to man, shamelessly latching on to anyone she could. I looked around and wondered which of these saps she'd been bleeding dry lately. It had to be someone new, someone who didn't know her game.

I watched as the other boxer, a big man, landed a heavy right to Mickey's jaw. Sam blew the whistle and they stopped, heading back to their corners for water. Mickey spat out a mouthful of blood into a bucket and Sam mopped him down.

Now was my chance. As I moved through the gym, men stopped and a few catcalls and whistles followed. I knew better than to take it personally—it was just because I was a woman in a place women didn't go—but I flattered myself into thinking that I was still worth whistling at.

Across the room, Hildy looked up, irritated that someone else was getting attention. And when she saw me, her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted tight. Tossing the magazine down, she flounced over, barring my way. “What are you doing here?”

“Hi, Hildy.” I looked past her to where Mickey was doubled over, hands on knees, catching his breath. He hadn't seen me yet. “I need to talk to Mickey.”

“What for?” She had a honking Boston twang and far too many facial expressions. Right now she was glaring, gaping, and smirking, all at the same time.

“What's it to you, anyway?”

Across the room, Sam gestured at us, and Mick looked up. Surprise spread across his face. I gave a little wave.

He said something to his partner, who nodded, and climbed out of the ring.

“I'll tell you what it is to me: you owe us money!” Hildy spat the words out.

Now she had my attention. “
Us
?”

“Yeah
, us
!” Her upper lip curled in triumph. “What Michael earns is my business now too!”

I felt like I'd taken one of Mick's left hooks straight to the kidney.

He was behind her now, staring at me like I was the Ghost of Christmas Past.

No longer the golden boy, Mickey wore his history on his face; resignation weighted his brow, and his nose was flattened out from being broken too many times. But if anything, it only added interest to his dark eyes, black hair, and well-muscled physique. Although handsome, Mickey was and always had been slightly unsure of himself, self-deprecating and shy. It was the most attractive thing about him. But now his battered features bestowed a gravitas that had been lacking before.

With one look, I'd always been able to win him back. I searched his eyes. “
Us
? Really, Mick?”

He laid a hand on Hildy's shoulder. “I'll deal with this,” he said in his soft, lilting brogue.

My heart disappeared through the bottom of my stomach. I hadn't been sure what I was doing here, why I'd come. But now I knew I'd been kidding myself, imagining that after all we'd been through, he might still want me.

Hildy flashed him a warning look.

“Let me deal with it,” he said again.

“I know you—you'll end up giving her more!” she hissed.

It was charming the way they both talked about me as if I weren't standing right in front of them. “Actually”—I pulled my chin up—“I just stopped by to pay you back, Mickey.”

“See?” He gave Hildy a gentle push, back toward the chair. “I'll handle this.”

“Well, you better!” She marched into the office instead and slammed the door. It echoed dramatically through the hall.

Mickey ran his hand across his eyes wearily, like a man forced to mediate between his mother and his wife. “Jesus, Maeve!”

“Jesus yourself!” I shot back. “What are you doing, Mick?”

He pointed a finger at me. “I don't have to answer to you! You left! Remember?” Still, the color rose in his cheeks, and I knew he was embarrassed.

“Sure.” I shrugged. “You don't have to answer to anyone. Least of all me.”

“Damn right I don't!”

“I guess I'm like a bad penny: you just can't get rid of me.”

He sighed, shook his head, but his eyes softened. At six foot three, he was one of the few men who could ever look down on me. “Aw, now, you know I didn't want to be rid of you, Maeve. I never wanted that.”

I nodded to the office door. “You do now.”

A shadow of guilt flickered in his eyes. “What did you expect me to do? Wait?”

“Well, no . . . I don't know . . .” I frowned down at my shoes as if the answer was written across my toes. “I just thought I'd . . . I mean . . . well, I didn't know you'd . . . moved on.”

We both stared at the floor awhile.

“So, you came back,” he said, changing the subject. “I guess it didn't work out, huh?”

“It's a big city. Too big for me.”

“That's what they say.” His face twisted into a soft smile. “Jesus, Dante! What'd you go and do to your hair?”

“You don't like it?” He'd christened me Dante when I was in high school, reading
The Inferno
. “You're hair's an inferno,” he used to say, laughing. He was the only person I let call me that.

“I dunno know.” He reached out, touched one of the blond curls. “You look fine. But I guess you'll always be a redhead to me.”

“I had to dye it, for a job. They didn't want an Irish girl, you know?”

He nodded. “It's good you got a job. There's not a lot about.”

“Speaking of which . . .” I pulled some bills from my coat pocket. I'd never given him money before. No matter how poor he'd been, Mick was a gentleman: he'd always paid.

“What's this?” He glared at it.

“I meant to pay you back sooner, a bit at a time. But things were hard, really hard.” Suddenly it was difficult to look him in the eye; I focused instead on the doorway at the top of the stairs, the dark, filmy world of entrances and exits. “I just wanted to say I'm sorry. It was stupid of me running off like that, staying away so long. I acted like an ass. But I wanted you to have this.”

He pushed it back. “Put it away.”

“It's what I owe you. It's yours.”

“I don't care. I don't care about the money, Maeve. I never did.”

“Come on, take it! Please!” I took a step closer. “We've been through a lot, you and me. I just want to settle my debt. So it can be okay between us. That's all.”

In his eyes, an entire landscape of disbelief and betrayal unfolded before me. “And you think
money
will do it?” He took a step back, as if he didn't want to breathe the same air. I'd never seen him look at me like that before. “Is that really what you think?”

This wasn't just pride talking, but something deeper, still raw to the touch.

“But it's what I owe you!” I tried again, struggling to make him understand. “Don't you see? It's the least I can do!”

He folded his arms across his bare chest. “I got your letter.”

“Letter?”

Then I remembered. A rambling, drunken fiction I'd sent from New York, right after I'd started at the Orpheum—full of stories of my wonderful new job and fascinating friends. I'd handed him the same line I'd given everyone else.

“You finally found the right crowd, huh?” he added bitterly.

“You have no idea what you're talking about,” I told him. “That isn't how it was at all!”

“You know, I would've done anything for you,” he continued. “You could've had anything you wanted from me, Maeve.
Anything!
As much as I had to give and more! Only”—he flung his arms wide in a gesture of hopeless resignation and confusion—“you didn't want it! Nothing I gave was enough for you!”

“That's not true!”

“Your mother always used to look at me like I was dirt on your shoe. And now I can see it—you feel the same way. Swanning
round New York with millionaires and showgirls! Going to fancy clubs and meeting famous people. I was just holding you back, wasn't I?”

“Please, Mick, listen to me, I never thought that!
Never!
”

“Really?” His eyes narrowed. “All right, then, answer me one simple question: why did you run off to New York in the first place?”

My brain seized. “I . . .”

“I want the truth!” he warned.

“I . . . I just needed to get away . . . to be on my own for a while.” I pulled the words painfully from the air around me. “I didn't mean to hurt you. It had nothing to do with you, I swear!”

“Jesus, Maeve!” He pounded his fist on the wall in frustration. “Can't you ever be honest? Just
once
?” He grabbed my arm and pulled me in, his face inches from mine. “You knew I was going nowhere, and you thought you could make it on your own—without me!”

My heart was beating so hard and fast I could hear it pounding in my ears.

He was right. I did want my own life; I had betrayed him.

“Why are you shaking?” He let go, backed away. “I wasn't going to hit you. I'd never hurt you.”

“I have to go. I'm sorry. Really, I am.” To my shame, tears blurred my vision as I hurried back across the hall.

“Maeve!”

I stumbled down the stairs and out into the street.

It was dusk now; shadowy velvet crept through the alleyways, pressing up against the anemic halos of light from streetlamps. Every sound seemed sinister, every movement menacing. My hands fumbled as I struggled to light a cigarette.

“Hey! Hey! Wait!”

Hildy came running out, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her high heels like a performing poodle. She tossed the rotting chinchilla around her shoulders and thrust out her hand.

I stared at it. “What?”

“Do you think I'm an idiot?” She snapped her fingers impatiently. “I've got my eye on you all the time! I'll take that money, thank you very much.” She stood waiting, her lips pursed into a little red sphincter.

I didn't bother to argue; I didn't care anymore. I took out the bills and gave them to her.

She counted them before dropping them inside her handbag. “Michael doesn't have any sense when it comes to money. He'd lend a hobo his last dime. Or a two-bit floozy,” she added, folding her arms across her chest. “And just in case you didn't get the message, he doesn't want to see you again. He may have been soft on you a long time ago, but he's over that now. He loves me. Consider your debt paid.” She turned on her heel, calling back over her shoulder, “You don't need to call again!”

It was a cold, moonless night. Leaning up against the side of the building, I took another drag to steady my nerves.

Poor Mick.

He hadn't been the champion we'd both counted on. And I hadn't been the girl he'd imagined either.

And yet we'd both carried on, a little compromised, a little worse for wear, a lot more cynical.

The wind whipped off the water, cutting right through my thin coat. Pulling up the collar, I pressed on into the darkness.

Maybe that's what I liked about boxing.

It wasn't that the best man won or the even most powerful or
that the fights weren't brutal or unfair. It was that the fighters continued, round after round, landing and taking punches long after they were willing or even able.

One morning a few weeks later Mr. Kessler had dramatic news when I came into work. “There's a shipment due in today from Liverpool! Something big. I need to go down to the docks to pay the customs charges. You must look after the shop on your own,” he informed me, pulling on his coat.

“A shipment? A shipment of what?” There were no records of an impending delivery, and more importantly, no money to pay for one. Having spent hours every week trying to balance the accounts, I was only too aware of the limits of our budget.

“I have the documents right here.” He pressed a stack of official-looking papers into my hands. “They arrived by courier this morning.”

“By courier?” I opened them up. “Decorative ceramic vase and plate shipped from the port of Istanbul, Turkey,” I read aloud, staring up at him in astonishment. “You bought something from
Istanbul
?”

“Me? No! Of course not!” He tossed a scarf round his neck with a particularly flamboyant flick of the wrist. “That's Winshaw's work!” He chuckled.

“Mr. Winshaw? But what would he be doing in Turkey?”

Up went the bushy white eyebrows. “What indeed?”

He was so animated and excited that for a moment I wondered if he'd been drinking.

“But . . . but how will we pay for this?” I was still struggling to catch up. “Look!” I pointed at the last line of the forms. “The customs fees alone are a fortune, Mr. Kessler!”

He put on his hat, cocking it just so. “I'm pleased you're taking an interest in your work, Miss Fanning. But it would be more expensive to send it back than to keep it. Besides, we can't leave it on the docks; they'll impound it.” He smiled, patting my hand as if I were an idiot or an invalid. “Don't worry. You worry too much. I told you, Winshaw has a way of landing on his feet. And an eye, Miss Fanning! He's got a
very
good eye.”