Another smile cracks my lips.
“Was that too much?” he asks, turning his face away. But all it does is make his adorable dimple easier to see. He turns back. “Listen, I’m heading out of town for a few days. Reckon that should be enough time for you to get back on your feet, no?”
I laugh, not expecting I would, so freely, or that my shoulders would sag at the mention of Clyde leaving town. “Where are you going?” I ask, before I can think better of it.
“This copper, fella named Jacobs, has it out for me. He doesn’t have a warrant or anything, but he’s always bringing me in to see if he can trip me up, get me cuffed. When he sets his sights on me, it’s best if I get away for a bit.”
“Clyde.” I scrape my sole against the sidewalk. “Why’d you tell me that?”
“Bonnie.” He tries for a smile, though his voice is serious. “I ain’t ashamed of my past. It’s made me who I am; it’s brought me to this exact moment in my life, standing here with you.”
I look beyond his adoration—I have to, or else I’ll get swept away in a direction that may not be good for me—and I focus on what’s important, asking, “But what ’bout your future? Don’t you want more for yourself?”
“’Course I do.” My gaze drops to his hand, which is subtly clenching and unclenching at his side. “But the name Clyde Barrow ain’t carrying much prestige. I’ve been handcuffed ever since my first arrest. Makes it harder to go after what I want.”
“What is it you want?”
Clyde chuckles. “Believe that’s the fourth question you’ve asked me in a row.” He gently touches the underside of my chin when I open my mouth, and says, “I want to be alive and free. With you.”
“So I’ve heard,” I whisper. “But, Clyde, I need to be with somebody who—”
“Someone more straight and narrow?”
I nod, staring at him, waiting for his next words. I hadn’t realized, ’til this very moment, how badly I want a clean-shaven version of Clyde Barrow.
“All right,” he says. “Starting over. A job, my own car—”
“Not just taking what you want.”
“Yeah. It won’t be easy, and not nearly as fun.” He smirks. “But I can try for that. If it means you’ll be my gal.”
My smile starts slow, but soon stretches ’cross my face.
“Is that a yes?” Clyde asks.
“It’s a yes to supper, if you ask.”
“Bonnie.” His voice is like a feather teasing my skin. “Would you be a doll and have supper with me when I get back?”
“Why, Clyde, I thought you’d never ask.”
*
The next morning, Clyde’s hypnotic voice still streams through my head. Ever so softly, there’s a second voice, in my ma’s tone, telling me that daydreaming ’bout a boy who evades the police ain’t a good thing.
I skirt through the kitchen, avoiding my actual ma, and as I bike toward school, a sly smile spreads ’cross my face at how she doesn’t know I evaded the police the first time I laid eyes on Clyde Barrow.
The difference was—and my shoulders tense as I cross the tracks into Dallas—the police didn’t know me from Jane. But Clyde … they’ve got an eye out for him, always do.
I hear it before seeing it, the roar of too many people downtown, and I jerk to attention at the unusual crowd. The bike’s momentum carries me ’round the corner onto Elm Street. My brows scrunch. A blur of men in long dark coats and hats crowd the sidewalks, the streets. Shouting. Jostling for space.
Pedaling closer, I decipher their angry voices.
Wall Street.
Crash.
Their expressions are panicked, their fists are balled. I search the crowd for a familiar face, for my brother, for Mr. Champagne Cocktail, Blanche, or Buck. But I don’t see anyone I recognize.
In a mob this large, it doesn’t take long to pick up more tidbits of conversations and piece together why people are rioting in the streets. Yesterday, the market went into free fall, leading to the highest decline ever. Today, the market has just opened, yet the ticker is already falling behind, too many people selling their shares at once. One man proclaims, “Nothin’ those fancy New York City bankers can do to save the day this time.”
My mouth drops open, and I push my bike through the crowd, soon realizing it’s easier to leave it propped against a nearby shop. Banging and screaming pulls my attention to a new ruckus. I use a nearby man’s shoulder to prop myself higher, not caring I don’t know him. Men are pounding on the bank’s door. Inside, the bank tellers, their movements frantic, are trying to keep it closed.
Like part of a breaking wave, I stumble forward with those ’round me. The doors to the bank are thrown open, people rushing inside. I move with the men, nearly whisked off my feet, my heart beating erratically, ’til I’m at the door, then inside the lobby, having no other choice.
Outside, a gun is fired, followed by a string of gasps, profanities, screaming—some belonging to me. I grip the coats ’round me; otherwise, I know I’ll lose my footing and be trampled.
Through the bodies, I catch glimpses of hands grasping the bars of the teller windows, shaking them. Even behind their metal cages, the bankers take steps back, heads rocking from side to side, palms up.
I yank on the coat beside me. “What’s happening?” I scream to him.
A crashing sound.
I duck and use my arms to protect my head as shards of glass rain down. The room darkens. Steps away, another crash, another hanging light being smashed. The lobby grows even darker, louder.
“What’s happening?” I ask the man again. He looks over me before down at me. “It’s gone,” he says, and then his voice is directed at anyone, his panicked face jolting from side to side. “All of our money is gone. Bank used our money to invest. Lost it all.”
I tighten my grasp on the man’s sleeve. “What?”
31
That night, we still open Doc’s, patrons still come in, but it isn’t a typical night for us. It’s as if the lights are dimmed, the music softened, the electricity in the air tapered. Mr. Champagne Cocktail isn’t at his usual seat or pulling his normal antics on the dance floor. Not as many drinks are poured. Tips are lower.
I go home with less in my pocket—a lot less. In the morning, I go to class, but my thoughts are anywhere but here. They’re stuck on yesterday, on how the crowd swarmed the bank’s vault, banging their fists, doing nothin’ but bruising their skin. That vault was practically empty. That was when I learned our money, everybody’s, was spent “on margin.” Roy used that phrase before, but I didn’t know what it truly meant. I didn’t know two little words could mean so much, or that the bank was allowed to use my money for their own gains, losing it all when the market collapsed.
Still, I have to check, see it again firsthand, not understanding how my money could be gone when I wasn’t even playing the game. As I ride by the bank on the way home, my heart’s in my stomach. The windows are boarded up, the door chained shut.