Young Love in Old Chicago

  * * *

  “Ready to go?” Hayden asked when I opened the front door and found him standing on the porch in the morning, wearing one of his nicer black suits.

  “Yep, I’m leaving, Mother,” I called out.

  “See you in a bit,” she called back.

  The wind blowing the groaning tree branches to the east was barely even chilly, I noticed during the short walk to the car.

  “Thank you for coming with me. I really didn’t want to have to be alone with Benny,” I said as we rode down Michigan Avenue.

  “I’m glad you asked me to come, but are you sure Mason will want to work there again? Emmaline told me what happened at the dance.”

  “I honestly don’t know.” And really, I couldn’t stand the idea of Mason working with him again, but this was something I felt I had to do.

  “Look at that,” I said, pointing to a group of four bundled-up children being led down the sidewalk by an old woman. They were all smiling and waving at us as we rode by.

  “Merry Christmas,” one shouted. I looked back and watched them do the same thing to the next car that went by.

  “Could we stop by MonaMay on the way home? I dropped off some pictures for copying and I need to pick them up.”

  “All right.”

  We pulled up behind the three other cars parked in front of Swatches. The garage door was closed, but the office door was unlocked when Hayden reached out to open it for me. The familiar ring of the bell announced our arrival and Benny yelled, “Come on back,” from the open side door that led to the garage.

  Hayden and I glanced at each other before we followed his voice into the garage, which was a terrible mess of tools, car parts, and trash, and found Benny sitting in a convertible, wiping off the dashboard. He looked a little startled to see me, but he smiled as he climbed out of the car and wiped his hands on the cloth he’d just been wiping the car with. “Alexandra, I’m glad to see you here,” he said. “Mason here, too?”

  “No, he’s in New York, or he will be soon. But I did come to talk to you about him.”

  “I shoulda known he wouldn’t be here since you brought him.” He nodded at Hayden. “Just with him till Mason gets back?” He gave me the same sleazy smile he’d given me the night of the dance.

  “I would never do that to Mason. I only asked Hayden to come with me because I didn’t want to have to be alone with you after what happened before. And I don’t think Mason would want that, either.” I was acting a lot braver than I felt.

  “Sheesh, well I’m sorry, Alexandra. I’d had a lot to drink and drinking makes me pretty stupid sometimes.”

  “Thank you. I wanted to talk to you about Mason getting his job back, though. You’ve heard about his father, haven’t you?”

  “Course I have. That’s why I’m so happy to see you. Anyone who heard about Sydney’s kid working here’s been coming by to see him. And business is booming. I can’t keep up with all of it by myself. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’d even be happy to make him my partner and split everything with him if he’d come back. He’s the reason for all the sudden business and—he’s the best darn mechanic I’ve ever met. It was stupid of me to fire him. So yeah, you send him over here when he gets back, and he’s got a job.”

  I felt a great deal of relief, knowing his job would be waiting for him here in Chicago with me. “I will. Thank you, Benny. Hopefully, I’ll see you later then.”

  I turned away and got to the door before I heard Hayden speak up for the first time since we’d gotten there. “What about Emmaline?” he said. I stopped and turned around.

  “What about her?” Benny answered.

  “You’re sorry for what you did to Mason and Alexandra. What about Emmaline?”

  “What about her?”

  “You broke her heart. You made her cry. Don’t you even care?”

  Benny shrugged his shoulders. “If she couldn’t see it for it was, then no. I don’t care. No man who’s serious about a woman moves to the bed with her that fast, and she should know it…She’ll get over it, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked him.

  His eyebrows bent down as he shook his head. “She really never told you? Well, I’ll let Emmaline help you figure that out.”

  But I wasn’t going to ask. I refused to believe she would have done something like that. He had to be lying.

  Benny picked up a black hose off of a counter and went back to the car he’d been working on.

  “You’re a real piece of work, treating her that way,” Hayden said as the hood of the car Benny was leaning into popped opened.

  Benny stood up straight. “Look at you, moving in on another man’s woman while he’s out of town. You’re just as bad as me, I’d say.”

  They gave each other dirty looks as I went to grab Hayden’s arm and pull him toward the door. “Come on,” I said.