Then she had cradled her and promptly burst into tears.
The memory still filled Grace with shame, and she tried to shake it away. It helped that Mr. Joplin launched into a song that warmed the room like it had taken a sip of spirits. A woman sashayed past them toward the stage, radiating confidence. She had large brown eyes and olive skin and was wearing a lavender silk gown with a jeweled high collar that shimmered in the lights. When she opened her mouth, her voice had a tone one could drown in—deep, luscious, and rich. The lights went low, the conversations dimming.
“Miss Ethel Adams,” Scott Joplin said. He raised a hand toward her and the crowd burst into applause.
“A rival of yours, isn’t she?” Sam Whitcomb asked Harriet with a wolfish smile that made perfect sense on his face. He made his living looking for the weakest, most vulnerable parts of people to sink his teeth into and feed to the masses.
“How fortuitous for her that the foremost talent manager for the Chicago stage is sitting right over there,” Sam continued, gesturing with his drink. “The one nursing a gin on the rocks. Word has it he’s looking to make someone a star.”
Harriet’s face flushed.
Ethel caught Harriet’s eye from the stage and winked. Her smile was dazzling, with a cut of edge beneath it.
Harriet gritted her teeth and gave her a delicate nod.
Grace tried to relax, to lose herself in the luxurious velvet of Ethel’svoice the way others lost themselves in a drink. But all she could see was Earnest, falling from the sky. Lillie, rushing toward the burning embers of the flying machine, helpful in a way that Grace could only dream of being. And Theodore Parker lending her his coat, protecting her along the Pike and making sure to put himself between her and Sam Whitcomb.
She wished she could forget Frannie’s heart-wrenching scream. The shiver of it curled through her insides. She could almost escape it in this room.
Almost.
When Ethel was finished, she bowed to thunderous applause. In response, Harriet threw back the rest of her drink and, almost shaking, sauntered toward the stage.
Sam laughed. “Careful, Mr. Parker. Might lose your lady to someone who can make all her dreams come true tonight.” He rose, tipped his hat to them, and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Grace and Theodore alone at the table.
“What delightful American treasures we get to encounter at this fair,” Grace said, turning to meet Theo’s eyes. “I think that was the only man I’ve ever disliked as instantly as you.”
“While your company, dear Grace, reminds me a little of these fried potatoes,” Theodore replied.
Her thoughts caught on the wordsdear Grace. Something sparked within her. Why did it feel so good to challenge him?
“Golden and addictive?” she ventured. “The perfect companion for every meal?”
“Initially delightful,” he said, “and stomach-turning when cold.”
She snorted. “That’s the first time a gentleman has ever likened me to soggy potatoes.”
His handsome face broke into a half smile, and her chest warmed. She smiled back at him, and there was a moment of unsettling silence between them. The sharing of a secret—and now, a tragedy—was an intimate thing. She felt it melting away her rancor’s sharpest edges. Theo cleared his throat. “I should pay the tab.”
She tried to bring out her purse to cover her own portion, but he said, “Don’t insult me, Miss Covington.”
“More than being called a soggy potato, you mean?”
He left her with a low laugh, and she turned her attention back to Harriet. Where were Earnest and Lillie and Oliver right now, she wondered? In a hospital ward, while the three of them were lost in another world? That’s what the World’s Fair felt like. A dream. An immersive reality that wasn’t, in fact, real. Harriet’s voice filled her ears, her thoughts, magnifying her twisting emotions with a mournful, heartfelt ballad. It brimmed with such intimacy that an older woman near the stage raised a bejeweled finger to wipe tears from her crepey cheek.
When the song ended and the applause rose around them, Harriet turned toward the talent manager. Gone was the woman who had run through the fields an hour ago toward the horror of the burning crash with dirt on her face. She had shed that persona like a skin and became the actress she was known to be. Brimming with charisma. Shimmering like a diamond. Turning in the spotlight and the shadows to share endless facets of herself that she hadn’t shown before.
It left Grace feeling uneasy. The same way she’d felt earlier, when the lies slipped off Oliver’s tongue like smoothly polished stones.
It was clear that Harriet wanted that talent manager to see her, to pick her over Ethel. She wanted towin.
Grace’s coffee had gone cold.
As for Ethel, she was glaring at Harriet with unvarnished displeasure that bordered on rage, clearly feeling as though she had been upstaged. She whispered something to a man sitting to her right.
“Are you all right?” Theodore asked Grace, appearing at the table. He was looking at her with a concern that she could not have imagined was possible after their exchange in Chicago.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just visit the ladies’ room, and then we can go.”
