Read Sirens for Free Online

about my uncle’s other house, the one way up the Hudson, where the river ran below. That week when I was ten. I inched my hand up under my blouse and felt the scar that stretched across my back. The skin had seared to a sandpaper roughness. I thought about the playhouse.
    How the playhouse was, and then wasn’t. How what was left after they cleared the rubble was a blackened stone square. How I had been inside. How I’d run in for my doll, to save her. HowChester had been punished even though he hadn’t known that I’d run in for her, after he set the fire. How he set it for no reason. How he had been punished but not enough to my liking.
    How much I loved the river, and how much I hated the flames.

    Chester showed up in time for us to eat dinner together.
    I shifted in my chair at the table. “Where are you in school?” I tried to make polite conversation, even if I didn’t like meeting his eyes.
    “You mean, this year?” He smirked, leaning across the table over our soup. “School number four. In four years.”
    “Ah!”
    “Just left the last place. Seems I was cheating. Or failing. Or something. They packed me off without a wave or a bye-bye.”
    I thought about my own classroom in the school that had housed me for three years, and how Miss Draper would surely wonder why I was missing, even if my classmates gave it no more than a passing thought.
    He shrugged. “School is fine, if you like that sort of thing.”
    I tried not to slurp. Chester, because he was a boy, and a wealthy one at that, had every opportunity, which he tossed off without a second thought.
    “I’ve decided it’s high time I moved on anyhow.” He lifted his glass of wine and took a noisy sip.
    I couldn’t look at him. “Move on to what?”
    “Why, business. Banking looks good, since my dad can give me a position downtown. But heck, why not take up a little bootleggingon the side? Might as well. Your father’s in on it.” He paused, and our eyes met. I saw the light in his eye, and my stomach turned so that I couldn’t swallow my food. “Right, Josephine?”
    The blood rushed to my face.
    Chester sat back, watching me, his brown eyes narrowed, his smile thin, hair slicked back and parted in the middle with careful precision, his wineglass raised. “Come on, Jo. It’s the best way to make a mint. No taxes, just straight-on profit. A man can become a millionaire in no time.”
    “It’s illegal,” I muttered into my soup. It was the only thing I could think to say.
    Chester snorted. “As if that matters. Are you that naive? There’s a speakeasy on every block in this city. The police are on the take. The biggest bootleggers ride around in bulletproof limousines. Illegal? Who cares?”
    I cared, at least as far as my pops was concerned. My moral compass pointed toward the straight and narrow. And Chester, the last time we’d spent together, his moral compass was skewed by a desire to be reckless. I cared, but what could I do about it? If Teddy was here, he would’ve cared, too.
    Teddy, if only you could be here, would be here…
    Malcolm brought in the main course: a bloody filet in béarnaise sauce with sides of potatoes and snap beans dressed with almonds.
    When Malcolm left, Chester leaned across the table toward me, a glint in his eye that made me draw back. “I know what’s going on in that sharp brain you’ve got. You’re thinking about Teddy and wishing he was here. Perfect Teddy. He wouldn’t have done anything illegal, now, would he? No, sir.” Chester grinned. “Why,Teddy was destined for great things, wasn’t he. Senator, governor, maybe even…yeah, maybe even president. Yes. President Winter. Being groomed and heading for stardom. Perfect Theodore Winter, ready to become king.” Chester snorted. “Right.”
    I sat still, my eyes now fixed on my plate.
    “But the king has no clothes, does he?”
    “What do you mean?” I whispered, lifting my eyes, my back stiffening.
    Chester waved his fork in the