AN: I'm so glad y'all like this story! It's so much fun to write. Amee, to quote another favorite movie of mine: as you wish! KateMartin, does that mean you want me to post my other winter/Christmas story in June? ;) Thanks for reading and reviewing, everyone!
Chapter 2
Scarlett watched, her breath caught in her throat, from behind a column, as a sweet little old lady purchased a bus ticket to New York.
She'd spent all day at the bus station, hoping it was such an inconspicuous mode of travel that her father's hired men wouldn't even look for her here. It should have been wonderfully freeing, but Pa was entirely too smart for his own good, and she couldn't risk simply wandering about in the open. Instead of reading magazines, buying her own chocolate bars with her own money (or sort of her own money, at any rate), and spending the day however she wanted while dreaming of Ashley, she'd hidden out in different ladies' waiting rooms.
Dreaming of Ashley still, of course, but ladies' waiting rooms were not as interesting as she had hoped. The magazines repeated themselves, and she tired of reading them quickly.
But, at least she'd run into this little old woman, a Miss Fontaine, she introduced herself. She had to be 80 if she was a day, but she'd said Miss so proudly she'd practically hissed. Scarlett had sketched out only the vaguest of details on her situation, still on the lookout for spies.
"Oh, a caper!" the old lady cackled, clapping her hands together in joy. "Dearie, of course I'll help. I don't usually approve of them young ladies running away to marry themselves to some man don't deserve them. But seeing as you're already married, and just trying to reunite with him…" she paused, assessing Scarlett critically.
Scarlett raised her chin and looked her square in the eye, nerves squirming inside cool steel. She could not help feeling like this woman would see through her. See through to what? she reminded herself. She was an independent woman, happily in love with the man of her dreams.
"How did you come to be separated from him, again?" Miss Fontaine asked.
"Oh, it's a long story," Scarlett said, airily. "I came down here to visit my father, but then he was called away on business. So when I wanted to travel back, I couldn't reach him to—" she stopped, hoping Miss Fontaine could fill in the rest for herself. It was the best she could do, on her feet. She'd always been a terrible liar.
Miss Fontaine patted her hand. "I think there's something you hain't told me, missy. But that's alright, I s'pose your business is your business. There's something about you I like—you got spirit, and too many girls these days hain't any spirit."
Miss Fontaine was more firecracker than doddering fool, Scarlett realized, but so long as she went along with her plan, Scarlett didn't much mind. Scarlett found herself disappointed that the old woman wasn't traveling to New York as well, but she had readily agreed to buy Scarlett's ticket. If the goons were watching the ticket counters, they'd be disappointed. Now, as long as they weren't watching everyone boarding all the buses. But in this busy station, that would be impossible, she tried to reason to herself. Well, it was a risk, but one she simply had to take.
Miss Fontaine was making her way back over, and Scarlett quickly tried to appear nonchalant. Not that it would do much good. The old lady knew something was fishy—and she had right from the start. But she didn't want to pique too much curiosity. And Miss Fontaine couldn't tell the goons anything she didn't know.
"Here's your ticket," she said, handing Scarlett the long folds of paper and her change.
"Thank you very much." In a fit of generosity, Scarlett gave the woman a dollar for her trouble. She'd be with Ashley again soon.
"Oh, thank you," Miss Fontaine replied, as Scarlett started to walk quickly to the New York bus' terminal. "Mind he deserves you now!" she heard the old lady call out behind her. She couldn't help but smile wistfully, and waved back. Why, of course he most certainly did!
She brushed past a group of men clustered around a bank of phone booths. A squat little man was trying to squeeze through unsuccessfully. "What's going on here?" he asked, pompously. "I am a doctor!" he added, as if such an indignant proclamation should cause crowds of people to part in waves.
One of the men in the huddle turned to him. "Shhh," he offered elegantly. "There's a man biting a dog in there."
"Demon liquor," the doctor muttered as he walked away in search of a different telephone booth.
The last thing Scarlett heard as the crowd grew more distant at her back was a deep, sonorous voice, incongruously saying, "In a pig's eye, you will!" She smiled in spite of herself.
~~~nb~~~
Rhett was not entirely sure how he had acquired the small posse of men who had cheered him on during his phone call, and were now escorting him to his bus, absurdly shouting, "Make way for the king! Make way for the king!" But they had proven themselves useful, buying him a drink, and even offering to pay for his call. They had all laughed and cheered when he told them he was calling the boss collect. (Calling collect is a thing that used to exist, whereby the person being called had to pay for the call. You may be familiar with the concept because of the hit podcast Serial. But back to the thirties.)
Rhett was not exactly poor, but he'd been… involved, so to speak, with Prohibition to some extent (or at least, the black market that had sprung up around it). The prosecution of Al Capone weighed heavily in his wallet, leaving him with certain inaccessible quantities of money. Not exactly poor, but not exactly liquid. Something about his face made people trust him, though, and he could talk his way into or out of anything, so with the dear twenty-first amendment rendering his old occupation obsolete, he'd turned to journalism. It hadn't been bad, either: lots of travel and meeting new people all the time. Even the dull ones were interesting in their fervent admiration for the status quo.
Times were getting harder, and even though his boss was a harmless, genial old man, his desire for fluffy human interest stories had started to grate. Rhett was no hard-hitting reporter, but recounting the latest society balls, even with sardonic amusement, wasn't sitting well with him, when he had to pass shoeless children with grubby hands out, to get to the fancy hotel hosting the party. It was this restlessness that had led to the current dust-up: He'd been drinking more than usual one night, and wrote a piece about the publisher's nephew, and a certain situation said nephew had found himself in with a certain chorus girl at the Club Ambassador. Rhett had gone straight from his room to the telegraph office and wired his story along. Another night, a clearer head might have prevailed. But it wasn't another night, and he didn't think telling the truth would land him in such hot water. Unfortunately, someone in New York had alerted the nephew to the story coming in, and so Rhett had found himself in Miami, unceremoniously fired, no more per diem, and just enough cash to probably comfortably get him back home. As long as nothing happened.
He stepped up into the bus, and made his way to the back for a seat. To his dismay, he saw that only one seat, the very last, was currently unoccupied. At least by a human. Instead, newspapers were stacked chest-high, covering both seats.
Punctilious as ever, he moved back down the aisle to find the driver already in conversation. Not so punctiliously, he interrupted. "Driver, if you'll be so good as to move these papers, I'll have a seat."
The bus driver apparently had never been a pupil of the Eleanor Butler School for How to Behave in Polite Society, because he gave Rhett a cursory glance and went right back to his clipboard without muttering a word.
Rhett smirked, and walked back down to the newspapers. Each bundle made a very pleasing thunking sound as he threw it out the window and it hit the ground.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Thunk.
Most agreeable to the ear.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Aha. So, the bus driver could talk. "What do you think you're doing? What's the idea, throwing them out?"
Rhett paused, midway through loading his suitcase into the overhead rack. He returned Bus Driver's cursory glance, but afforded him the courtesy of a reply. (Somebody had been a pupil of the Eleanor Butler School for How to Behave in Polite Society.)
"Oh, the papers? Well, I never did like the idea of sitting on newspapers. I did it once, and all the headlines came off on my white pants. Nobody bought a paper that day—they just followed me around all over town, reading the news off the seat of my pants." He felt someone brush past him.
By this time, their scene was starting to attract attention from the other passengers. Bus Driver had not been amused by his story, which seemed unfair to Rhett. That had been a quality yarn!
"Oh yeah?"
"Now that's a brilliant answer. Why didn't I think of it? Our conversation could've been over long ago!" Rhett couldn't resist needling him.
"Oh yeah?"
"Hey, if you keep that up, we're not going to get anywhere." Rhett resumed securing his suitcase overhead.
"Oh yeah?"
He turned to Bus Driver, and decided to play to his audience a little. He sagged a little, as if from a hard blow. "Ya got me. YEAH." The audience laughed, and the flustered driver fumed slightly and stalked away.
Rhett turned back to his seat, only to find it once again occupied.