“Obliged, you setting the table early for us.” Bronx lifted his water glass in kind salute.
“Malina needs us.” Lila glanced at Bronx. “Miss Frieda, I had an ague like this last winter. You remember. Malina deserves real comfort and cooking, and a look-in by you from time to time. You have such fine medical knowledge. I predict she’ll recover just fine with our kindness. But it’s best she be here. She can have my room.”
“I don’t think I enjoy such a plan.”
“I pay good money for my room.”
Miss Frieda’s nose rose, but Bronx thought, with reluctance. “I want to help. The good Lord commands us to do unto others. But I run a moral house. I know what Malina is.”
“What she was. She isn’t that any more. She’s a sick young woman who needs help.” Lila’s fingers tightened around the handle of a silver spoon.
With a wide step, Miss Frieda came next to them, laid the pail on the table, then stood, hands behind her back like a naughty school girl. “I let my entire third floor to a passel of maidenly school teachers. It just wouldn’t be wise. But I’ve made soup. And I’ll stop by in the morning with my buggy. Should she worsen and need to get to Saint Vincent’s.”
Lila rose, standing strong and taller than Bronx recalled. Her voice was cold. “Emmett worsened one night and died before dawn.” She glared at the landlady, then softened. “Then, we’ll look forward to you first thing. Excuse me, Miss Frieda.” She grabbed the handle of the pail. “And thanks kindly for the broth. I’m sure it’ll be helpful.”
“And me, ma’am. Thanks, kindly. ” Bronx got up, and gave Lila his arm as they headed into the little foyer. Suddenly, she laughed again, the tinkle of a tiny chime.
“I remembered to bring the overcoat. I’m wondering if we are due a storm.”
“Asa promises Gethsemane is winter-tight.” He slipped into the coat and held out her burnoose. She cuddled into it.
“He is right. Quite a hand with the tools. Emmett...” Her voice slowed along with her footsteps against the dirt street. “...had big ideas in his head, but little talent in his fingers. Asa is a good friend.”
They walked out into the evening as dark as the lead that gave the place its name. With his right hand, Bronx swung the pail. So natural...he took Lila’s hand with his left after she slid into gloves. Wished he could feel the spark of her skin. His toes tingled, anyway.
She sighed. Clouds plumped, close enough to touch, and stars blinked and danced like a million fireflies. In the distance, spikes of pine ran up the hills, once in a while, the skeleton of a dead mine. Still plenty of barren spots where the forest had been cut down.
“It is beautiful here. The mountains in my storybooks as a girl were nothing to compare.” Lila’s dreamy words made white mist in the air.
“I feel it, too. But the mining—”
“Yes. There is much destruction when men...folks need to find their fortunes. And the rest of them—us, need to eat.”
They walked quiet for a while, against the sounds of nighttime on the prowl. A fancy carriage with fine horses rattled by with a “plume” in all her feathers shouting out crude invitations. Amazed, he was, when Lila waved. But he didn’t wonder about the gesture for a second, for Lila’s goodness drifted over him, as well as her sweet scent.
A goodness he was far too corrupt to share. Yet, she moved closer against him, their footsteps almost tangling, and he forgot the warnings in his head.
Finally, she shivered, and the hood of her burnoose wiggled off her hair. Oh, the wondrous hair in a hue that had once terrified him to the marrow of his bones. Her smile took his breath away.
“By the bye, Asa is a good friend,” she said again. “And it appears, to you, too. We certainly need friends. Are we friends, Bronx? We seem to be, and quickly, too.”
“For sure. Maybe more than friends, in some other life and time.” He didn’t say the last too loud, but his nod was true, and she tightened the fingers that held his as if she heard every single word.
They trudged down the Avenue, past the mansions of millionaires, past the district of unholy buildings of black windows with burning eyes. But Lila didn’t look away or cover her ears at the bawdy sounds.
Somehow, Bronx’s steps were light as they turned west on Chestnut. For she’d declared they were friends. And the smile along with the words, well, in all of it, he read a sweet invitation. For neither had she shirked at his words.