The Drazen World: The California Limited (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read online

  Her eyes scanned the page more earnestly as if she were reading again. After a few moments, she closed it abruptly and put it on her lap, turning to look out the window. “I’m not sure.”

  He lowered his paper and turned to her, poised to speak.

  “And you?” she asked, still staring out the window. “What brings you there?”

  “A position at Columbia.”

  “Making movies?” She finally turned to him, directing her full and steady gaze on him.

  He lowered his paper and regarded her with a half-smile. Of course she was a wannabe starlet. “A production assistant to start. From there, who knows? I haven’t the faintest idea if I will like it. But I think so and am eager to try. Anything so long as it’s not what my father does.”

  A look of commiseration flit across her face. “Is he a criminal? That’s all the rage now.”

  “Worse. He’s successful at everything he does and too large a shadow for me to come out from under. I always had this sinking feeling as I grew up that if I stayed and worked with him, married a girl like my mother, lived in the same parish, that I’d never see the light of day. If it’s possible to admire and resent the same man…well.”

  She nodded and went back to her book and he went back to his paper.

  Why had he said all that? And to a complete stranger besides. There was something about her that opened him.

  After some time, he gave up the pretense of reading and turned to study her. “Where are you from?”

  “A town in Wisconsin. You wouldn’t know it.”

  “How do you know? Perhaps I’m from Wisconsin.”

  She gave him an amused smile, then shook her head. “You left your r’s back in Boston,” she said, affecting an exaggerated Boston accent.

  “That obvious?” he asked.

  She nodded and turned back to her book. “Will you pick up your paper?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve read it front to back. Twice. Even the funnies. I can’t pretend to find it interesting any more. Not when I find you infinitely more so.”

  A short time later a porter entered the car and began turning the first couches into a sleeping compartment and the woman looked at Jack.

  “I should go,” he said, buttoning his coat and collecting his paper.

  That night Jack lay in his bed, the smooth clack of the rails lulling him to sleep, but his mind was too attuned to her. Her. He didn’t even know her name. How had he forgotten that? He would rectify it first thing in the morning.

  Then he wondered, not for the first time, what it was about her, exactly. Yes, she was beautiful and he wanted to fuck her, but there was more. About his father he told her more than he had ever realized he felt, as if she made him know himself.

  Cora, his sweetheart from Brookline, he thought a kindred soul. The oldest of six, the weight of her parents’ expectations making her both good and responsible, a sort of keeper for her siblings goodness and responsibility, she knew him just as he recognized her. But that was not the same and, it turned out, not at all what he was looking for. His canary seemed to be both trapped and free. He couldn’t say why he knew this of her, but he did. And that he recognized, too.

  49 hrs. to Los Angeles

  The next morning he found her in a dining car, her eggplant dress bold against the bright, white tablecloth, a hand pulling a cup to her mouth. When she pressed her ruby lips to the rim of the fine, bone china confection, he realized that he had never considered tea cups so much as wanting to be one in that moment. He stood and watched her, his assessment unguarded, then tucked his newspaper under his arm and strode to the table across the aisle from hers.

  “Is the coffee any good?” he asked as he sat facing her.

  Her eyes flicked to him and she coughed a smile into her hand, then cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t know. This is tea.”

  “Tea,” he repeated as if considering the idea, then signaled a waiter and ordered coffee. “You must feel like the wrath of God this morning. I trust you slept horribly in those ridiculous couches come beds.”

  “No worse than you, I trust,” she said.

  “Far worse. I have a sleeper.”

  She smirked. “Of course you do.”

  “Now what does that mean, I’d like to know?” Then he took a sip of his coffee. “No,” he choked out. “I meant to ask you one thing first and receive a satisfactory answer. But…you distracted me with your cup and…your tea.”

  “How did I distract you?” She was trying her best to speak with him while looking straight ahead. Someone had done her level best to fashion a proper young lady. Yet today she seemed more open, more unguarded, and he meant to test just how far she would go.

  “What is your name?” he asked, dipping his head to catch her gaze.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” she replied.

  “Pardon? What haven’t you decided? Your name or whether you would tell me?”

  “I plan to change it when I get to Hollywood.”

  “Are you an actress?”

  “Something like that.”

  His brow knit. “All right. For now, what may I call you?

  “Minnie,” she said in small-toned resignation.

  “Minnie.” He nodded, a smile spreading across his face. “Good. Grand. It suits you. It’s sweet. The way you had me dangling it might have been Minerva or Blanche. Wait. It isn’t short for Minerva, is it?”

  She shook her head.

  “I like it. Minnie. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  They ate their breakfast in companionable silence until Jack sat back. “Where are you from, Minnie?”

  “Racine.” She said it confidently as if a challenge.

  “Racine. See there, you’re wrong, sweetheart. I do know Racine. In fact, my roommate in college was from Racine.”

  “Really?” She finally looked at him in unrepressed delight.

  “No,” he said, deadpan.

  She rolled her eyes and turned away, covering a spreading smile.

  48 hrs. to Los Angeles

  After breakfast, Jack followed Minnie to her compartment, sat down across the table from her, and signaled a porter for a deck of cards.

  “Just what do you think you’re about, Mr. O’Drassen?”

  Deck in hand, he began to shuffle, cutting and bending and sifting, his fingers flying with ease through the stiff cards.

  “We’re going to play a game,” he said as he worked them, his eyes fixed on the cards.

  “Are you sure this is entirely appro—“

  “Ah-ah.” He put a finger up. “Yes. Whatever you were going to say, whatever you were thinking, the answer is yes. Do you play?” He glanced at her.

  “No.”

  He smirked and returned to shuffling. “I think you’re lying, but we’ll start easy, then.” Somehow, at some point, Jack had found himself in the unenviable position of chasing a woman who so clearly wanted to be chased. He was done with that and determined to turn the tables on her. He dealt the cards, until each of them had half the deck. Then he took off his suit coat and rested his forearms on the table, the cards between. “Slap Jack. A child can play it and you’re no child, are you?”

  She slowly shook her head.

  “No. Now the play is simple. We each turn a card over at the same time into a pile in the middle like so.” He demonstrated and she did the same. “Until a Jack is face up. Then you slap it. Whoever slaps it first, gets to keep the pile and the play continues like that until all the cards are played out. Whoever has the most cards at the end wins.”

  “And what do I get if I win?” she asked.

  He smiled widely. “See, I knew you would get into the spirit of it. Hmm.” He thought. “What would you like?”

  She clasped her hands, resting her forearms on the table and leaning toward him. “How about,” she whispered seductively, “you go and sit over there if I win.”

  He sat back and chuckled. “See now. We would both lose with that. And besides, something tells me
you don’t really want me to go and sit over there. Do you?” They stared at each other for a long moment. “Minnie,” he said, his voice low and earnest, “do you know anyone on this train?”

  “No.”

  “No. And do you anticipate seeing any of them ever again?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is the harm in this to a chaperone who cannot see?”

  “You’re being very presumptuous.”

  “Yes. I am. We don’t have time for me to be anything but and I can’t be bothered with it besides.” He looked out the window to the dusty, barren Missouri plains. “Two days.” He looked at her. “Spend them with me and we part in LA, no strings attached.” He paused. “No one on this train knows us. We could be husband and wife.” She glanced at his bare ring finger. “Lovers. Listen, I like spending time with you. And though you’ll not admit it, you enjoy spending time with me. If you should happen to win, which isn’t likely because I have a lot of younger brothers and sisters and very fast hands, then we’ll make sure you get something you want.”

  “If you’re so intent on winning, what do you want?”

  “I should think it would be plain enough: you.”

  Hovering over the table, they played, cards and hands flying fast amidst taunting and laughing.

  Funny, I do believe you haven’t played cards, kid.

  Your hand is a little too itchy to touch mine.

  Guilty. You can decide the next game and what part of me you’d like to touch.

  Sit back.

  You sit back.

  How do you flip your cards so fast?

  How is it possible that you can flip them that slowly?

  How many brothers and sisters did you say you had?

  Tell me you have none.

  Six. All older.

  Well, that explains it then.

  What?

  You have that shiftless, devil look about you just like Ned.

  Play, O’Drassen. You’re distracting me.

  Ah. Finally. All’s fair in—well, you know. You’ve been distracting me since you slammed into me on Track 7. Turn about and all that.

  Now you’re cheating.

  Why would I need to cheat? I’m winning easily enough in fair play.

  You’re too far forward.

  You’re too far back.

  You can’t slap every card.

  You’re truly terrible at this.

  It’s not my game.

  What is your game?

  We need to play something slower.

  We will.

  As promised, Jack won nearly all the games except for the ones where he deliberately slowed a beat. He wanted to see her win. More than that, he wanted to hear what she wanted when she did.

  “I don’t know,” she said after thinking.

  “Something. Anything.” She was thinking. “Be creative.”

  “All right,” she said. “When we get off in LA, I’d like those cards.”

  “These?” He held up the deck, flexing them in his strong hands, and she nodded. “Something more than these, surely.”

  She blinked slowly as she stared at him, a change so subtle occurring on her face that most would have missed it. “And your hands to shuffle them,” she said with the frankest look anyone had ever given him.

  45 hrs. to Los Angeles

  They went to the lounge car for lunch but not before sitting down at the glossy Kelly green, cherry red, and butter yellow bar that shined like gumdrops and smelled like subtle notes of high-shelf booze.

  “I’ll have a gin martini. Extra dirty,” said Jack, flashing his money and a smile to the bartender. “And she’ll have a French 75.”

  Minnie looked at Jack with unfeigned consternation. “What if I don’t drink?” She crossed her arms.

  “You drink, doll,” he replied with a sly smile. “Everyone drinks now. Nothing ever made America so drunk as telling her she couldn’t drink. I have no complaints, mind you. The Volstead was good for us.”

  “I think I know what that means.”

  “Good. Then you’re not dull.”

  “So you’re the original Irish gangster, are you? The Public Enemy and all that?”

  “No. And I’m offended by the caricature, sweet. Do I look like Jimmy Cagney?”

  “Not at all, if you care to know. Why, he’s all short and square.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment, then.”

  “You should.” The bartender placed their drinks before them. She looked at hers, all thirst and sly. “It might be a little early for me,” she said.

  “Ha. Good girl. At least now you’re being honest. And what’s early? If ever there was a prescription for alcohol and then some, it’s a sixty-three hour train ride. Now be a darling and drink so that we can forget all this nonsense about you not doing it or it being too early. Plus,” he leaned into her, lowering his voice, “I’d like to put some color on those cheeks and loosen that tongue. We’ll start with the drinks for now and move to something else later.”

  She shook her head as Jack sucked a green olive from a toothpick, chewing and nodding.

  “You’ll corrupt me yet, Mr. O’Drassen,” she said.

  “Yes,” he replied. “And you want me to.”

  44 hrs. to Los Angeles

  He slapped the deck on the table. “Cut.” She did. Then he proceeded to deal them each ten cards and turn another card up next to the remaining turned down deck. “So.” He looked up at her, forearms resting casually on the table. “Gin Rummy. More complicated than Slap Jack but not by much. And slower.” His lips pulled into a half-grin. “More luck than speed and a tiny bit of strategy.”

  Then he proceeded to turn their hands over, explaining the rules and demonstrating the object of the game. When he looked up to see her brow knit in confusion, he said, “A hand, maybe two and you’ll get it.”

  He re-dealt and as they studied their cards, rearranging them in their hands for runs and sets, they talked.

  You’re moving to LA on business. The entertainment business?

  Yes. And you at Columbia.

  I suppose you’d like to be an actress.

  A performer, really. I love to sing and dance, too.

  Have you any thought for a good word with Harry Cohn?

  I would never ask such a thing.

  Perhaps not but you should. I don’t think it pays to be shy about your talents when you would live on them.

  I suppose not. And I intend to.

  Let me guess, you dressed up as Little Orphan Annie and tromped around your house exclaiming ‘Leapin’ lizards!’ to anyone who would listen.

  Yes and I used to have a regular gig at a little speakeasy. Singing.

  Now that explains it.

  Explains what?

  Those girls have brass balls and ya don’t seem a meek daisy.

  Must you be so simple?

  Would you rather I pour honey in your ear?

  No. Well maybe a little.

  I’ll not be doing you a favor, then. You’ve chosen a difficult road, sweet, being an actress, singing and dancing.

  I’m not completely unaware.

  You’re sure to hear far worse than ‘brass balls’ and see, well…

  No sooner had the third hand been dealt when she began winning. And winning. And winning.

  “Gin.” She spread another winning hand on the table to his frustrated frown. “Don’t look like that. You were a good instructor.”

  “There’s nothing to that but a good student.”

  “And a healthy dose of beginner’s luck,” she added.

  After some hours at cards, Jack put away the deck and moved, sitting down on the couch next to Minnie. “I’m past sick sitting facing the wrong direction. Do you mind so terribly?” He looked at her, her face, her mouth so close to his.

  “Not at all.” She went to stand. “I can move.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Don’t you dare.”

  She tentatively settled back and he threaded his fingers t
hrough hers. He peered out the window, studying the vast landscape rolling by, and thought how more than comfortable her hand felt in his. It felt right and that compared to it, nothing else had ever felt so.

  After several minutes had passed, he turned to her. “When did you know?”

  “Know what?” she asked and didn’t shrink from his intense gaze. In fact, she seemed to take him in, her eyes boldly skating over his face.

  “That you wanted to be an actress. A performer. When did you know?”

  She settled back into the couch and appeared to think. “There was never any great realization, no inspiration or singular event. It was always a part of me, that desire to perform, to be on stage. Like my eye color. A part of my makeup. I could sooner exchange my eyes for others than I could take on a different dream.” She leveled her gaze at his once again.

  “I wouldn’t want you to do that. Exchange your eyes for another’s. Their beautiful.”

  She gave him an embarrassed smile. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, darling.”

  “Do you know, I think you are the first person to ever ask me that.” She chuckled breathily. “Is that sad?”

  His brow furrowed. “A little. Though, now that you mention it, I don’t think there was ever a time when anyone thought to ask me what I wanted to do with my life. Not really. It was as if in giving me my father’s name they had given me his path, too.”

  “I have my mother’s name. But I think they were merely too tired to come up with another one.” They exchanged smiles. “It isn’t the burden that your name seems to be. She’s a good woman, my mother…” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. “…and I’m proud to share anything with her.”

  They peered out the window for another length of time when Minnie spoke. “When did you know you wanted to make movies?”

  “I grew up shadowing my dad. He runs hotels. Their fine. First-class all the way.”

  “The Ambassador?”

  “That’s not his, but like that and he has his eye on the men who do, every man who does, just like they have their eyes on him. It’s a good business, hospitality. Making people feel comfortable. He’s a natural. A glad-hander of the first order. But he owns more than a few speakeasies in the theatre district, too. Bars and lounges now, I guess.”