“Your dress is remarkable, my dear,” says the woman, a stout madam with a cabbage-rose hat wide enough to take out someone’s eye. “Is it Lucile?”
“No. It is House of July.”
“Oh,” she replies thoughtfully.
I reach E-Deck and button on the vanilla coat. No need to advertise in the third class. Then I proceed to the Collar, glancing around as I remember the skeletal steward with the saddle grin. Seeing a few men but no steward, I take big steps toward the short companionway to Room 14.
The door seems to vibrate with all the noise behind it. I listen.
“Make a fist and line it up with the axis of the Southern Cross, and your thumb will point south,” says Jamie. “No, your right fist. You’ll end up in Timbuktu if you use your left.”
I knock, and the door opens right away. Wink gives me a shy smile.
Jamie is holding a piece of paper to the porthole on which he has drawn five points in the rough shape of a kite. Olly stands next to him with his thumb pointing down. Bo is missing.
“Good morning. Who likes taffy?” I pour the taffies into the lads’ hands, and their faces light up.
Jamie frowns. “Don’t eat them until after lunch. You’ll spoil your appetites.”
“My appetite won’t spoil,” Wink grumbles, but he stops unwrapping the gold foil.
I scowl at my brother, whose hard forehead I can almost knock with my own at my new elevation. “Now you know which one is the fun twin. I also brought slippers.”
I upend the contents of my bag onto the floor. Grabbing the four slippers, I give them a quick juggle, then catch them—the white pair in my right hand, the black pair in my left—and hold them out to the lads.
“Wow, where’d you learn to do that?” Olly takes the white pair.
Wink kicks off his shoes and puts on the black pair.
“Our father taught us.” Ba made sure our hand-eye coordination was so tight, the two parts might as well be connected by a string. Does Jamie even do wake-up drills anymore?
Olly and Wink pace the floor between the beds, trying out their new slippers.
“I don’t juggle anymore,” Jamie proclaims.
“Of course not,” I add smoothly. “What would be the point of juggling coal?”
Shaking his head, Jamie takes a step back and appraises my outfit. “If you sold those togs, you could buy a ticket back to London, maybe two.”
I work off my coat and set it, along with my toque, on Jamie’s bunk. “I was thinking more a ticket to the Ringling Brothers Circus.”
Jamie frowns as he runs a finger over the vanilla cashmere. I dust his fingers away, my annoyance at him making it hard to think. We could bicker for hours but come no nearer a solution.
“They look more like twins now,” Olly whispers to Wink.
The door opens and Bo walks in, bringing with him the scent of the ocean and the heat of the sun. His eyes graze me, and he shuts the door behind him. “Found a job. Enough work for two.”
Jamie runs his fingers distractedly through his hair. “What’s the job?”
“Some deck chairs need fixing. Ship’s carpenter has influenza. Good money, but we must keep quiet, because it is against White Star rules to hire us. But since I found the job, I win the bet, and you can do my washing.”
I snort. Jamie loves his wagers. Hold the train. Maybe there’s an opportunity here. I may not have persuaded him to perform for Mr. Stewart, but when has he turned down an opportunity to show me up? An idea stamps a bold foot in front of me.
“I have a wager for you,” I say, hurrying my thoughts along to keep up with my mouth. My pinky finger, the weakest but cheekiest of the lot, wiggles at Jamie’s nose. “I bet I can make more money than you before the lights-out bugle.”
Bo makes a skeptical noise behind me, and my pinky circles around to include him. “Both of you, combined. If I win, Jamie will . . .” For a moment, even the room holds steady. “Jamie will perform with me in front of Mr. Stewart.” I cannot overplay my hand. Jamie will never agree outright to go to New York. But when you’re onstage, you’re both the magician and his hat of tricks. You have the power to cast spells that people will remember for the rest of their lives. I have to rekindle the wonder in Jamie. Once he remembers how it feels to perform, to fly, maybe he’ll have a change of heart.
Bo’s eyebrows drawbridge up, and Jamie’s mouth goes crooked. “I can’t wait to hear what I’ll win if you lose.”
Olly and Wink, now each wearing one white slipper and one black, watch Jamie and me as if we were playing a tennis match.
“If I lose, we go our separate ways.” I stand perfectly balanced, though the room starts swaying around us.
Most of our wagers were for bragging rights or who got the bigger drumstick. Never for something so, well, titanic.
“Val,” he says, his face suddenly weary, like Mum’s when she found one of Ba’s hidden flasks.
It occurs to me that Jamie might refuse me, walk out of the ring, no longer the brother I remember, but a blander, mopier version of himself. Though it saddens me to see him like this, it affirms that I’m on the right path. Our fates are tied together, so when he’s unsteady, I must take a firmer hand. Didn’t Ba always tell us that one boot leads the other, and when one lags behind, the other must pull its twin forward?
The ship rolls sharply. My feet shuffle for steadier footing, even in my pumps, but Jamie distractedly grabs a bedpost.
Stand too long in the same place and you’ll get stuck, Brother.
He catches my scornful glance and grimaces. Noticing his mates, hung like mismatched laundry around the room, he grows taller, glaring at them as if to ask, What are you looking at? A cocky smile feathers his face, and he wiggles a finger at me. “We don’t just go our separate ways. If you lose, you return to London. I’ll get you the money.”
I bark out a sharp laugh, waiting for a punch line that doesn’t come. If I want Jamie to play, I have to risk something equally big. London is my past. My future is America. Can I afford to gamble with my own destiny? But how can I not? Once Halley’s Comet is gone, you’ll never see it again in your lifetime.
With two strides, I reach him and hold out a fist. He bumps his on top, a gesture that indicates the sealing of a bet. “Good luck, Sister. You take my seat at lunch.”
“I thought we were having lunch together.”
“An extra place setting would look suspicious, and I’m still loaded from breakfast.” From his seabag, he pulls out an extra set of slops and tosses them to me with a grin. “I think I’ll get started on those deck chairs.”