The Game of Love and Death (27 page)

W
HISPERING
. There had been so much whispering since Ethan left the house. Annabel hated whispering. It was rude, rude, rude. And now, after the phone call, there was more of it, and when she asked what everyone was whispering about, she was sent from the room.

It wasn’t fair.

First Henry, and then Ethan, and now Helen, who had disappeared not long after Mama had hung up the phone. Helen had been listening at the door, and Annabel had been hiding in the alcove behind her. It was very strange how Helen had left the house. First she was there, and then she wasn’t. Annabel would have to ask about it once Mama calmed down.

Annabel crept into Ethan’s room, which still had most of his things. His baseball uniform. His school pennant. All of his suits and ties and Oxfords. It still smelled like him too. Grass and perspiration and Lucky Tiger Bay Rum aftershave, Annabel’s favorite.

There was a piece of paper in his wastebasket. She lifted it out and smoothed away the crumples.
Dear Henry,
it read. She started reading it, but it was about mushy, yucky things. Besides, she was excited to get to the part where she sealed it in an envelope, wrote an address, and licked a stamp.
That
was the fun of letters, not writing them.

Annabel sat at Ethan’s desk. She found an envelope. She dipped his fountain pen in the ink and addressed it properly, as Helen had showed her. She’d memorized Henry’s address from the letter he’d written to her asking about her bicycle riding. She attached the stamp and put it in the slot. The mailman would deliver it the next afternoon.

The whispering stopped, but no one came for Annabel, who fell asleep on Ethan’s bed and dreamed about him. It wasn’t a good dream. In it, Ethan was a sailor in a war, and he died. The dream made her cry. She woke when Mama called her down to supper, glad it was just a dream and not real life. She dried her face and went downstairs to eat. She couldn’t remember being this hungry in her entire life.

B
EFORE
long, Henry would have to leave his rented room for the Majestic to do his sound check for the night’s show. A week ago, he’d have been out the door already, counting down the minutes until he could see Flora again. They hadn’t replaced her since her departure, and she was spending all of her time at the airfield, breaking in the new Staggerwing Helen had purchased. Henry was now singing Flora’s numbers, but he wouldn’t perform “Someday,” no matter how much Sherman and the audience begged. The audience, he ignored. Sherman and the band, he promised a new song as soon as the right idea struck.

He’d been trying to write one, but all that he’d produced were notes to Flora, notes he knew he’d never send.

Someday, we will climb the Eiffel Tower.

Someday, we will lie on the sand beneath an Italian sun.

Someday, we will play music in New York City.

Someday …

There were so many of them, each more vivid than the last. He’d torn the page into strips so there was one wish on each ribbon of paper. These, he slipped into his jacket pocket when Mrs. Kosinski knocked, because they were only meant for one set of eyes.

Henry opened his door.

“This came for you in the post.” Mrs. Kosinski stood there in her housecoat, examining the letter. “Looks like little-girl handwriting, if you ask me.”

He held out his hand. After a moment, Mrs. Kosinski relinquished the envelope. She waited in the doorway.

“Thank you,” Henry said, ignoring the look of disappointment on her face.

He closed his door, leaned against it, and eased open the flap, expecting a letter from Annabel. But it was from Ethan. He read it twice, the second time sitting on his bed because the contents were so bewildering. On its surface, Ethan’s tale made no sense. But below that, in the part of Henry that could feel the truth of things as easily as he felt music, as deeply as he felt bound to Flora, he knew everything Ethan had written was true. It was true, and it changed everything, for all of them.

He put the letter into his pocket next to the someday notes. For a moment, he wondered what he should do, because he did not want to look foolish in front of Flora. But only for a moment. And then he had his hat and his coat. And he was out the door, for he was not going to the Majestic.

“Musta been some letter!” Mrs. Kosinski called out after him.

He did not reply.

G
OING
on instinct alone, Henry took a cab to the airstrip. He spent the last of his money doing so. Had he guessed wrong, he’d have been stranded there, miles from home. It was a possibility he didn’t let himself consider. And he found her exactly where he’d imagined she’d be, working alone on her new plane, a Staggerwing the color of a candied apple. Dressed in coveralls, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, as if it had been a long day with much to do. But she looked happy — so content Henry almost turned away and began the long walk back to the club.

He couldn’t resist watching her a moment longer, taking in the way the slanting light found her, the way she seemed to know exactly what she was doing as she circled the red Staggerwing, studying it from every side. If he could have left her to this happiness, knowing he was leaving her free to do this thing she loved, he would’ve, without a second thought.

But if he could not persuade her to love him, she would die.

That was the end of the Game Ethan had spelled out in his letter. Henry wished it had been otherwise. Had he been the player cursed to die, that would be different. He would have hated such a fate, but not nearly so much, particularly since the Game had brought them together.

The sky darkened as Henry stood there, weighing his options. The ruin of the situation and the cruelty of the Game sank in fully. He saw two choices: He could keep the truth secret and make one last play for her, ask her one last time to love him. If she agreed, and did not know her life depended on it, then he would know she was telling the truth. Or he could tell Flora of the letter and use it as leverage. Surely loving him was preferable to death.

But to love someone in order to avoid death: This was no form of love at all. This was cowardice. Flora would never choose it.

As he stood, he realized a third option.

He’d tell her the truth. If she refused him, he would find Death, and he would offer his own life in trade. Would it be enough? It had to be. It was all he had left to give.

Flora finally noticed him. “Don’t you have a show tonight?” She tucked a lock of stray hair behind her ear.

“I had something more important to do.”

“Henry,” she said, her voice full of warning.

“I won’t take much of your time,” he said, walking closer. “There’s something … something you ought to know. Is there someplace we can go, someplace where we’re not outside like this?”

She led him to the hangar. He handed her Ethan’s letter, which she read in the light of a single bulb hanging down from the ceiling.

“Henry,” Flora said afterward. “You can’t tell me you believe this is true.”

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “But I can feel it. Can’t you?”

Flora didn’t reply for the longest time. Her teeth chattered. As ever, Henry gave her his jacket.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m not even cold. I don’t know why I’m shaking like a wet cat.”

“I can guess,” Henry said.

More silence. Flora folded the letter and handed it back. “I don’t want any part of this. Even if it’s true, it’s humiliating. We’ve been played. Tricked. Manipulated. I never consented to be owned like this. It’s barbaric.”

He looked at her in disbelief. “Is that what you really feel? That’s all?”

“What do you mean
feel
?” she said. “I don’t know anything about what I’ve ever felt. And neither do you. You can’t. Everything you feel — everything you’ve felt — that was put inside of you by someone else for his own purposes.”

“But I
can
know,” he said. “I do.” He reached for her hand, but she pulled hers away and hid them behind her back. “I don’t care how I came to feel this way about you. I want it to continue forever. I want to give you everything —”

Flora held up her hand so he’d stop. “I knew better than this, Henry. I did. All along, I knew I wanted nothing to do with love. And it’s madness for us to continue, knowing how it will end.”

“You can’t mean that,” he said. “It doesn’t have to end that way.”

“I refuse to submit to it. I choose not to believe. Not in the Game. Not in the consequences. I’m going to live my life, by myself, as I choose, and I suggest you do the same.”

“What if we ran away?” He hated how desperate his voice sounded.

“Henry.” She looked up at him, her eyes glazed with tears. “They’d find us.”

“Maybe not. Or at least maybe not right away. It’s worth a try.”

“I can’t say yes to this, not this way,” she said. “If only —”

“If only what? Just say the word. What do I need to do?”

She turned away from him. “There’s nothing you can do. So now, before we hurt each other any more, let’s say good-bye. I’m not going to live on anyone’s terms but my own. With Helen’s sponsorship, I’m going to make that trip. It’s going to change everything for me.”

“Why is she even doing that?” Henry moved so he was facing Flora again.

“Why do you think?” Flora let out a hard burst of laughter. “She’s buying me off. Once I’m out of the picture, you’re all hers.”

“But —” The thought hadn’t occurred to Henry. It made a certain sort of sense, even if it was appalling.

“The new airplane is ready to go. I’m taking Helen tomorrow for her first flight.”

Henry was silent. He reached for Flora’s hands, and she did not resist. “I have known my whole life that I wanted you. You and no one else. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

“We were children,” she said.

“But don’t you remember being a child?” he said. “How much simpler and clearer everything was? Sometimes I think they’re smarter than any of us when it comes to love. They don’t doubt it. Not for a second. And they don’t doubt that they’re loved in return. Something happens to us when we grow up. Misfortune tramples us. We forget how it feels to simply love without throwing the whole mess of life into the stew. We trade love for fear. I’m not willing to do that anymore.”

“Something happened to you and me when we were infants,” Flora said. “Something terrible. We never had a chance. And this was never love. It couldn’t have been.”

Henry didn’t argue. He did not want to fight with her. But he would not dispute or deny the contents of his heart. Nothing would change the fact of his love. He didn’t know what would happen to him after he died, but his heart’s position was as fixed as the sun.

“You were somebody’s plaything,” she said. “Both of us were. This is a game we can’t win. No matter what we choose, we lose. I die, you die, we both die … someday, whether it’s soon or not, we’re both going to die. The only thing we can do at this point is refuse to be part of a game that was never our choice to begin with. We refuse. And we live our lives.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’d choose you. Game or no, I’d choose you every time.
Please.
”

“There is no chance,” she said. “There is no chance in this lifetime we will ever be together again.” She wriggled out of his grasp. “The show. It starts” — she pushed his sleeve up and looked at her wristwatch — “it starts in twenty minutes. You should be dressed and getting tuned up. It’s time for you to go.”

“I’m not playing tonight,” Henry said. He’d spent his entire life doing the right thing, being the person everyone else depended on. He was done with that.

“You can’t quit before they find a replacement,” Flora said. “I’ll give you a ride.”

Stunned and angry, Henry turned away and stepped into the twilit air, doing his best to breathe. She couldn’t have said anything worse to him. After all of this, nothing about him meant anything to her. She thought he was replaceable, like a piece of furniture. He turned back to take his parting shots.

“You’d rather risk your life than love me?”

“It’s not that simple,” she said.

An avalanche of hurt made it impossible for him to speak. What was so unlovable about him? Why wouldn’t she try?

“Henry!” Flora said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said. “But I don’t know why you were so certain we would lose. I would have fought for you. For every second we had left.”