February 14th, 1921: Atlantic City and Washington, D.C.
While Clara changed into her pajamas in the bathroom, Richard took the extra blanket from the closet and laid it on the floor next to the bed.
"What's this?" she asked when she walked back into the room. She was toying with the hem of her pajama top because, she reflected, it was a little anxiety-provoking to change into pajamas and walk back out to the bedroom of the man after kissing him. Her anxiety was made worse by the fact she'd forgotten to grab her kimono in her haste to get out of the Ritz, and so she didn't have anything to cover up with.
Richard looked down at his feet. "Mmm, you can. Have the bed."
"I'll sleep on the floor. I'm here uninvited, I burst into your room..." Richard shook his head. "Or, we shared the sofa in New York. I'm sure we can manage to share this." She wasn't sure, actually, but she was willing to try. She laid down on her side against the wall and closed her eyes. The room was silent and curiosity made her desperately want to open her eyes until she felt the mattress dip when Richard sat down and she heard the bedside lamp being extinguished. The mask made a distinct noise when he placed it on the bedside table. She kept her eyes closed while he lifted the blanket and stretched out next to her. The narrowness of the bed meant their feet and legs entangled immediately, but it was the feel of his breath on her face and his hand tentatively landing on her waist that made her finally open her eyes to find him looking at her.
"Mmm, I..."
"You don't have to ask," she said quietly. In a few seconds, his mouth was back on hers.
The early morning light cast odd shadows around the room. As Richard woke up, he felt like every part of him was entwined with Clara. He doesn't ever want to move, but suddenly he realizes he's pressed against her leg and it's becoming more noticeable with every passing second. He doesn't want to frighten her when she wakes up, so he slowly starts pulling away from her. When he stands up, Clara stirs and reaches for his hand. He tells her he'll be back, and watches as she falls back to sleep.
When he returns, Clara is dressed and standing in front of the mirror pinning her hair. The bed has been made, badly.
"Here's breakfast."
"Thank you, I never ate dinner last night, I'm starving." He puts her food down on the desk and sets his on the dresser.
"I have to. Go to D.C. And drop something off." Richard tells her.
"Oh, I can go somewhere..."
He shakes his head and looks right at her, which makes her breath catch. "I thought. You could. Come with me."
Clara smiles at him.
Everything feels so good that it makes Richard nervous. It's as if one of the collages from his book was coming to life around him. He wasn't able to sit at a table with her, but she was at the desk while he stood across from her at the dresser eating breakfast. He helped her with her coat. She had to stop and call the Ritz (Eddie told her in no uncertain terms to stay away), but then she's his for the entire day. Instead of a long, lonely car ride Clara sits next to him, reads him articles from the newspaper (although he notices not the ones about her father covering the front page), convinces him to play twenty questions, and sometimes just looks out the window. The silence is nicer when it's shared.
When they finally arrive in Washington she directs him to Mount Vernon Square and the largest library he's ever seen. The building is made of marble and looks at how he's always imagined the Capitol to look. He leaves her there and goes to run Jimmy's errand.
When he comes back, he walks past the oak counter and up the large staircase to the reference room. Clara was at a table with a stack of books, frowning as she wrote notes, so focused she doesn't notice him watching her. She finally sees him, smiles, and gathers her things.
"Does. All of the Capitol. Look like. This?"
"You've never been here before? Do we have time to sightsee?"
Richard nods. "The car. Has headlights. We can do. Whatever you want."
First, she directs him north through the city to the Mall so she can show him the Capital building and the White House. "Can you believe that fool Harding is going to be president in about five weeks?"
"He won't. Be good. For the country," Richard said. "Did you ever tell. Your father?"
Clara laughed. "That I didn't vote for Harding? I told no one but you."
"The Democrats. Should have nominated. McAdoo. I did like. The vice-president."
"Considering how Franklin Roosevelt went after Tammany Hall? I wouldn't mention that to Rothstein next time you see him."
Following Clara's directions, he parks in front of another columned white building with a golden dome rising from the roofline. Clara's face is bright with excitement as she takes his hand and pulls him along with her. When they approach the counter in the rotunda Clara takes her wallet from her purse.
"Mmm, no," Richard starts to object.
Clara shakes her head. "No, please. This was my idea, let me."
After she buys their tickets she leads him up a staircase that's bathed in light from the windows in the golden dome he noticed earlier. When they step onto the landing of the second floor Richard freezes. He's read about them since he was a little boy, but somehow never realized he could simply go see them.
The light dances down the bleached bones of two large creatures, one on four legs with a long neck and tail, one on its hind legs with short arms sticking out. Richard never lets go of her hand, and goes from exhibit to exhibit, reading with each display with complete concentration.
"I always. Liked. The brontosaurus. Best. But I didn't know. It would. Be. Like this." Clara smiles up at him, thrilled that he's as happy as she thought he might be. The right side of his face is relaxed, and he looks like he's genuinely having a good time. She's glad he likes her friends.
"I like the T-Rex. We share an issue with short arms," Clara says and imitates the tyrannosaurus.
He makes a noise that Clara thinks might a laugh. "Your arms. Are fine. But do you know. Mmm. Who looks like a T-Rex? Alderman Neary."
Clara clamps her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. "Oh my goodness, I will never be able to look at him again."
"Excuse me," an older man says to them. Clara's afraid her laughter has brought the museum staff over to chastise them. "I just wanted to say thank you for your service."
Richard almost visibly pulls back into himself. His head dips, and he looks down at the ground.
"And you, miss, how kind to bring your brother here for the day."
What Clara wants to do is rip the man's teeth out with her hatpin. Instead, she wraps her arm through Richard's and fixes the man with her haughtiest gaze. "He's not my brother, and he brought me."
The man has the grace to look uncomfortable, but not the insight to understand why. He mumbles good-bye and walks away. Clara tries to get her rage under control.
"I can't abide people like that," Clara said. "How easy to feel like you really did something to help when all you did is interrupt someone's day."
Richard doesn't respond. Clara's heart sinks. She leads him back to a bench and sits down.
"That's. What it would always. Be like."
"So? People will always find a reason to talk." He doesn't answer. "Did you know I used to work here?"
"With. Mmm. The dinosaurs?"
Clara smiles tightly. "I considered them colleagues. I named Alderman Neary over there Punch and the brontosaurus Judy. During the war, the War Department took this building over. My table was over in that corner. I was transferred from New York to the actuarial department after the Armistice. I sat over there under those dinosaur bones and filled out reports about the dead, dying, and..." her voice catches slightly. "Maimed. From December 1st, 1918 until December, 1st 1919 I helped catalog America's dead and wounded. And the thing is I still don't why any of it happened. I'd go visit Jimmy at Walter Reed and wonder what in God's name made all that suffering worth it."
"Mmm, I got a draft. Card. Then they. Gave me a sniper's shield. Told me to kill. I still. Don't know. Why. Germany had accepted they. Were going. To lose. But they still blew my face off. Before the fighting ended. Then the Army gave me. A metal mask. And sixty dollars."
They sit for a while. "I went home that spring for Easter, and Father was entertaining the Yacht Club set. This one old man-I always thought he was horrid-he started talking about how much money he made off the war, and I swear I considered sliding my steak knife between his ribs." Clara stares off in the distance. "I'm not comparing..."
"I know. Mmm. Next time. You see him. Tell him I'm sorry. I had but one face to give. For his cause."
Richard looks down at his hands, which are twisting around each other. Clara blinks hard and smooths her skirt repeatedly.
"Am I. More war work. Or. Mmm. A fossil. You've befriended?"
Clara turned and put her hands on his shoulders. "Do you know how many wounded veterans and soldiers I've met? Countless. Do you know how many I've had feelings for? One. You."
They leave the museum and walk back out to the car. Richard opens her door and helps her up. "I always wanted. To see. Dinosaurs. I'm having. A good. Day," he says softly before she pulls her hand away.
Fear licks at Clara. She doesn't want to mess this up, and the situation seems fraught. Finally, she leans forward and aims her mouth slightly right of center. The feeling of the cold tin under the left side of her mouth contrasts sharply with the warmth under the right side, but slowly they work out the mechanics of it all.
February 15, 1921: The Ritz-Carlton
Nucky opens his daughter's door without knocking. He watches her sitting on her bed with her back to him sorting papers. Dressed in a ridiculous cardigan and skirt, with her hair hanging down unpinned she looks like the schoolgirl that, to him, she was just yesterday. Fresh fury rises up in him at the thought of Clara sitting on the sofa surrounded by State Patrol Officers while he was put in handcuffs and led away. When she turns and smiles at him her expression looks so much like Mabel's that it takes his breath away.
Clara gets off the bed and awkwardly hugs her father. Usually when Clara comes in late no one notices, but early this morning when Richard dropped her off Eddie was awake and trying to get the suite put back together. He said nothing of the late hour (nor anything of the fact that her face was pink from beard burn), but told her Nucky was fine and at Margaret's. It's still reassuring to see her father in the flesh.
"Are you all right?" Clara asks.
Nucky nods. "Are you?"
Clara smiles and gestures around the wreck of her room. "I fared better than my room did, I fear."
"Where did you go?" Nucky asks, expecting her to say to Jimmy, where she always runs when in trouble. He should have never let that fucking relationship develop, but who would have dreamed that at almost twenty-three that they would still be clinging to the fiction they were siblings? Who would have foreseen James's perfidy?
"I hid, and then I went down to D.C. I just wanted to be out of the way because the officers asked me so many questions before they let me leave."
"What did you tell them?" Nucky said, so distracted by the idea of Clara being questioned he doesn't parse the idea of where she hid.
Clara shrugs. "Don't worry, I acted like a foolish little rich girl who hasn't a single clue what goes on around her, and," she gestures to the suite, "that's what they saw so they believed it."
"Come breakfast with me."
The first course, broiled grapefruit, is already laid out. Clara feels like she's looking at everything for the first time. It's the same sense of discombobulation she had when she came back after working in New York and D.C. It was all too much, and yet at the same time comfortingly familiar. When she looked at the grapefruit on its rimmed china plate, the sterling silver serrated spoon laid next to it, and the empty crystal glasses at the ready she couldn't help but compare it to the bacon roll and potato pancake she ate out of a paper box yesterday.
She picks up the spoon.
"You know who did this?" Nucky asks.
Clara considers making a joke about Eddie ordering breakfast but instead sets the spoon back down.
"Yes," she carefully picks her words. "It's the Commodore's plan to overthrow you."
"Don't obfuscate the truth out of sentimentality, Clara. This is all James."
Clara looks up. She unconsciously presses back against her chair when she sees the fury in her father's eyes. "No, he bears responsibility but this is the Commodore."
"They are all in it. All of them. Do you know who is involved?"
"Uncle Eli," she says quietly.
Nucky leans back and regards his daughter seriously. "How do you know?"
"Father, really? You spent all of last year-maybe all of our lives-moving us around like pieces on a chess board with not a care for what our plans for our lives were. Uncle Eli was beyond angry and hurt about the shenanigans with the sheriff's office. I hated Darcy Blaine and you didn't even notice in your haste to marry me off to him to score yourself a political advantage. And Jimmy? Can you imagine what he went through in the trenches, and then he comes back and we all want the Jimmy who left-"
"Clara, I do not have time-"
"No, please! He's different, certainly, and the boy we loved is gone. But he's still Jimmy, he just needed our support, our patience, and I think every one of us failed him. You, me...Gillian. And Gillian," Clara looks down, "She uses Jimmy to further her own agenda. She always has. She always will. And when she told him everything about how she came to be with the Commodore, he came to you. He was angry and he needed you to acknowledge what happened, but mostly he needed to know that you loved him, that everything you did for him wasn't out of guilt or obligation ..."
Nucky stood up and started to stride out of the room. Clara grabbed his arm as he walked past.
"Father, please, it's not too late..."
"Perhaps you are the foolish girl the state patrol took you for, Clara," Nucky said as he shook her off and left the room.
February 15, 1921: Jimmy's Car
When Richard picked him up, Jimmy could tell that Richard wanted to tell him something, but he also knew that it would take Richard a bit to get the words out.
He was patient.
"Clara. Mmm. The police. Pulled a gun. On her. When they. Arrested Nucky. They. Scared her." Richard had to pause before finishing. "She was. Upset. About. Mmm. Her father. They arrested him. In front. Of her."
Fuck, Jimmy thought as he slammed his hand on the dash. He should have checked on Clara first thing this morning. He had tried to think of some way to get her away from the Ritz night before last, but it would have been evident what he was doing, so he had to leave her there.
"No one. Was there. To protect her. No one. Is looking out. For her."
Jimmy exhales sharply. "I'd never let anything happen to her. I've loved her..." He starts to say much longer than you have. "I've loved her my whole life. Whatever happens to Nucky, I'll always take care of Clara."
Both men are silent.
Something occurs to Jimmy. "Richard, how do you know? Did you see her yesterday?"
"Mmm."
Richard stares straight ahead, but his mouth is twisting terribly and keeps having to swallow; as always, he is genuinely terrible at hiding things, and Jimmy pounces on it immediately.
"Richard, did she go to you after Nucky was arrested?"
Richard's hands start kneading the steering wheel. He finally gets out the words to tell Jimmy about Clara, showing up at his room in the middle of the night.
"Is she okay?" Jimmy asks when he's done.
Richard doesn't say anything.
"Something happened between the two of you?" Jimmy coaxes him.
"Mmm." Richard has no idea what to say.
Jimmy nods. He'll get it out of Clara. Half of him thinks: yes, Clara and Richard could suit his plans well. He had told Angela that Richard and Clara would never work, but he hadn't been thinking clearly. Clara, who was good at hiding things, was incapable of hiding her feelings for Richard. Those feelings might be the tipping point to pull Clara over to their side. Along with just wanting her support, there's the fact that Clara knows how to do things Angela and Gillian do not. She can charm old women at civic improvement meetings, throw parties to win the support of government officials, and help him keep the city functioning.
The other half of him is simply happy for them and happy for himself. He liked the foursome they were in New York. He liked the idea of a closed circle. He had long feared losing Clara to a husband who would pull her away from this life, and he didn't want to deal with Richard getting involved with a girl who didn't understand the life.
"Richard, I think it's great" Jimmy laid his hand on his friend's arm and squeezed. "But you know if you hurt her, I'll be forced to kill you. Painfully."
Richard nods. "I would. Expect you. To."
February 15, 1921: The Boardwalk
Eddie knocked on Clara's door.
"Amory Blaine is on the line."
Clara walks out to the phone. "Isabelle Borgé speaking."
"Very funny, Isabelle. Meet me on the stairs?"
The sun was bright in the sky, but the wind off the ocean was bracingly cold. Jimmy was already huddled on the stairs with his bad leg (which ached like a bitch in this weather) stretched out before him when she arrived. Clara sat next to him without speaking, and took the deepest breath she could in the cold, trying to prepare herself.
Jimmy spoke before Clara could bring herself to start.
"I had an interesting conversation with Richard today," Jimmy looked over at her. Clara's eyes were bright, and her cheeks were pink. He didn't think it was all from the cold. "He told me about yesterday. I told him if he hurts you, I'll have to kill him."
"I wish you hadn't done that."
"What happened between you?"
Clara reaches for the cigarette. "I'm not answering that."
Jimmy runs his tongue across his bottom teeth and smirks at her. "All the way, huh?"
"You are despicable." She stares out at the ocean. "We...kissed."
"And then shared a bed innocently? That's sweet."
"Do you want me to punch you?" Clara glared at him.
"He's not a virgin, you know," Jimmy told her, deciding directly mentioning Odette probably wasn't the best course of action. "You don't have to be gentle."
Jimmy watched Clara's face turn five different shades of red before her eyes flashed with anger.
"Do you think Richard and I could discuss this without you?"
Maybe, thinks Jimmy, but I think I'd die of old age waiting on you two to figure it the fuck out. He moves on the question where the answer worries him. "Why didn't you come to Angela and me?"
"I was scared and...I just went to Richard. But honestly, how could I have gone to you when you are the one who did it? Jimmy, not only did I have to watch my father get dragged out of the suite in handcuffs, but I was pushed against a wall with a gun to my back. It will take days to put my book back together after they trashed my room."
"I'm sorry, Clara. I didn't think..."
"No, you didn't think, you just gave in to your vaulting ambition and that's what worries me." She's silent for a moment, busying her hands with their cigarette. "Fuck, Jimmy. The KKK?"
He startles a bit at her language. Clara is no stranger to swearing- she's Nucky's daughter after all-but it's rare she does it.
"It's all just part.."
"Yes, of your fabled coup."
They look at each other for a long minute. "You could choose us," Jimmy says softly.
"How can I choose to side with the Commodore against my father?"
"How can you choose Nucky over me, Eli, and Richard?"
Clara pulls her knees to her chest and stares out over the ocean. "Do you remember the day you came home from Chicago?"
Jimmy nods, uncertain what Clara was going to say.
"I knew Prohibition was going to change everything...but going to Chicago, going to that house. That's when I saw just what that meant. And then you came back from Chicago and told me how well you did, and you were so different. And I started thinking about what 'did well' meant. And the money, my father's never been shy about it, but it started flowing so fast...
"All that's happened since Prohibition is like the booze itself. It tastes like wine, but it is poison. My father and Margaret were shot at, I was attacked, Uncle Eli was shot... People like Rothstein and Capone, and even Charlie, they are terrifying and suddenly they are part of our lives."
"But, Richard isn't terrifying?"
Clara meets his gaze. "I know what Richard is. I worked for the War Department-I know what sharpshooters did in the war. I pieced together from your story that he's the one who killed the man who hurt your friend in Chicago. He shot a d'Allessio soldier inches from my face. And I know he killed that d'Allessio boy. There could well be others I don't know about, sure. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the murders here weren't at your behest or my father's. I'm not going to pretend that I don't read the newspaper and pick out murders committed with a trench knife and know what that means. For example, it's quite odd that you were in New York last night and this morning I read of two mobsters stabbed with a large knife in a Lower East Side park."
Jimmy takes a long drag off the cigarette. Fuck. Women were never supposed to know what went on. He had a feeling whoever made that rule hadn't met Clara Thompson when she went into Girl Reporter mode.
