“Come on,” he said to the band, eyes bright. “Help me out, won’t you?”
The pianist chuckled and obligingly leapt into a new, faster melody, followed closely by the trumpets and drums. Ada grinned and let Charlie spin her into the new dance. They were rejoined by the other couples, and soon the party had climbed to a new frenzied height.
Once they had exhausted themselves, they took a break to mingle with the other guests. Ada met more people than she could possibly remember, and all of them shook her hand joyfully and assured her that any friend of Charlie’s was a friend of theirs. Ada liked the way he moved around the room, effervescent and artless. He hugged people because he was happy to see them. He smiled because he felt like smiling.
More than anything, she liked being the one at his side.
“Heya, Charlie,” said one man, throwing a wink in Ada’s direction. “Who’s your friend?”
“Not his friend,” Ada said. “His girl.”
“Aw, you sure about that, honey?” the man asked with a good-natured grin.
In reply, Ada had wrapped her hand around Charlie’s neck and planted a firm kiss on his mouth, catching his startled laugh. The man laughed too, bowing out gracefully.
“Damn, I like the sound of that,” Charlie said to her.
Ada smiled and kissed him again.
They stayed for hours, dancing more and sampling the host’s collection of spirits and food. She was so happy that she even found it easy to ignore the headache from the iron sources in the house. When Charlie took her hand and asked if she was ready to leave, Ada wasn’t at all. But it was getting late, and she was still hoping to beat Corinne home. It took fifteen minutes of farewells before they were allowed to depart, and Ada was sorry when the door shut on the music and they were left in the cold, quiet street.
“What did you think?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of her hand.
She was thinking a thousand things. Like how handsome he looked in the moonlight, the sheen of sweat on his forehead drying rapidly in the cold. Like how he’d never once made her feel guilty for not telling him she loved him too. Like how much she wanted to kiss him again.
“I’m glad we came,” she said at last. “I don’t think the Cast Iron or the Red Cat have ever thrown a party half as good.”
“The secret ingredient is Carrie Greene’s chitlins and corn-bread. Best I’ve had since I came up north.”
When she’d first met Charlie, he’d told her he was from down Birmingham way. The only reason he’d given for why he’d left was a few bars from an old blues song about his gal leaving him for a railway man. She hadn’t brought it up since. She’d always been afraid to ask.
Tonight, with her hand in his and the music from the party still singing through her veins, she felt brave.
“I hear it’s pretty bad down South,” she said.
Charlie was quiet for a few seconds, then lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. His free hand drifted absently to his left forearm, and she wondered if he was fingering the tattoo of the tree. Something else she’d never asked him about.
“Most of the white folk out on their plantations haven’t gotten the news that slavery was abolished. No better in the cities either. Soon as my mama passed, God rest her soul, I hopped the first northbound train I could find.”
They crossed over some trolley tracks, and Ada flinched as her heel struck the steel embedded in the pavement. Charlie squeezed her hand, and they hurried the rest of the way across the intersection to the safety of the sidewalk.
“I didn’t know about your mother,” Ada said. “I’m sorry.”
Charlie shook his head, his eyes fixed ahead. He didn’t reply.
Ada still wasn’t brave enough to ask about the other stories she’d heard about the South, stories of black men being burned alive, of boys barely out of the school yard being strung up in trees. She knew he probably didn’t want to talk about them either. Sometimes she felt like her only choice in life was between the ironmongers’ chains or the lynch mob’s ropes.
“They have some fine music down there, though,” Charlie said, a hint of wistfulness in his tone. “In August, even when the air is so thick and humid that the crickets are in a frenzy, you can still hear them songs for miles. Nothing more beautiful than a summer night in Alabama.”
He turned his head, and Ada felt his eyes on her profile.
“Well, almost nothing,” he said.
Ada’s lips quirked, and she nudged him with her shoulder.
“That the best you can do? Little sappy, don’t you think?”
“Give me some credit—I’m trying here.”
His mouth cracked into a grin as he looked at her. For a fleeting second, everything was easy again. The rest of Boston felt faraway. Ada slipped her hands around his neck again and pulled him down for another kiss. She let this one linger, her tongue tangled with his, her heart tangled in knots.
When she released him, the white clouds of their breaths blended between them in the lamplight.