Speak Low (Speak Easy 2)

“Hello, Tiny. Please forgive me for not welcoming you to my home myself. I’m no feeling so well these days.” Her accent was still pronounced despite fifteen years in this country. She offered me a rueful smile and let Joey help lower her into a chair at the head of the table.

“Think nothing of it, really. Joey has been a very welcoming host.”

Her face brightened a little as she looked at her son. “Like his father was.”

Joey cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?”

“No, no. I came out to say hello and finish the dishes.”

“I’ll do the dishes. You can rest. Would you like to listen to the phonograph a little?”

“I’ll help with the dishes, too,” I offered, stacking our plates together.

While he moved his mother to the sofa in the front room, I rinsed the dishes and silverware in the large kitchen sink and retrieved the soap from a low cupboard. Soon I heard music coming from the phonograph, which got louder when Joey propped open the swinging door to the kitchen. Wordlessly he took his place next to me, toweling off the dishes I washed and then setting them in the rack to finish drying. I ignored the light hum under my skin at his proximity, but I did steal a few looks at his hands as he worked. When the last dish was in the rack, Joey sighed and shook his head. “I need a drink.”

“Sounds good.”

He looked at me. “Let’s go up on the roof.”

#

Ten minutes later we were sitting in the starlight on the building’s roof, each with a tumbler of whisky in hand and the bottle between us. Joey tossed back his drink in one gulp and poured another.

I sipped mine, enjoying the way it burned down my throat and spread liquid warmth in my belly. “Thanks for supper. It was delicious. I really should take a cooking lesson from you sometime.”

He shrugged. “If there’s time before I leave.”

“For Chicago, you mean?”

“Yeah. Once I settle things with the cake eater and get my ma moved into my sister’s house, I’m going.” He glanced sideways at me. “You’ll miss me, huh?”

I punched him on the shoulder. “Yeah, what will I do without someone around to call me Little Tomato, make fun of my cooking, and tease me mercilessly about my size?” But I was unsettled by the realization that I would miss seeing him. I’d miss hearing his voice, knowing he was around if I needed him. As we looked at one another, a light breeze ruffled my hair, and the strains of a waltz drifted up from an open window. To break the spell, I sipped my whisky and changed the subject. “It’s nice up here.”

“I used to come up here with my pop.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We’d escape my mother and sisters, and he’d let me smoke while he told me about the stars just like his father did when he was a kid.” His voice cracked a little.

“You must miss him.”

Joey nodded, took another drink. “Every day.”

“I’m sorry.”

He was quiet a moment. “I wish I knew for sure who did it. I hate that the bastard got away with it. I’d like to make him suffer, you know? Pay for what he did.”

I nodded, although I didn’t know what it must be like to have that burning need for revenge inside me. I knew about loss, though. “I miss my mom every day, too.”

“It’s been rough on you, huh? With those kids at home.”

“Yeah. Some days all I want to do is escape it all.” Another silence followed, during which I grew increasingly uncomfortable with the way he was running his eyes over each feature on my face—my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. Was he starting to lean toward me?

“So you know about stars?” I looked up at the sky.

“Don’t sound so shocked, college girl. You’re not the only one with brains around here.” Joey drank again and leaned back on his hands.

“Nursing school isn’t exactly college. And right now I don’t have the money to go back in the fall.”