“Maybe you could be Sigma Chi!” one of the college boys said, breaking them up all over again.
“That’s terrible,” Henry drawled between laughs. His cheeks had the slightest flush. It made him look like a debauched altar boy.
“Alpha Beta! Delta Upsilon! Phi Beta Kappa! Delta Theta!”
“Wait—what was that last one?” Theta had asked.
“Theta,” the college boy said, and his companions all repeated it. They were loud with a contagious drunken happiness.
“Theta,” she’d said, liking the feel of it on her tongue. “Theta it is.”
She insisted on Knight for her last name. It made her feel strong and bold. A name of armor. For she would defend herself in this new life.
“To Miss Theta Knight,” the boys toasted, and Theta drank to her new name. Laughing, they’d danced in a circle under a chandelier that bathed them in dappled light, and she’d hoped the night would never end.
A week later, Theta woke Henry so early that the daylight was no more than a blue-tinged thought bleaching them both of color. Her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks stained with tears. It had been two months since she’d left Kansas and Roy, since he’d hurt her for the last time.
Henry pushed himself up onto his elbows. His voice was thick with sleep. “What’s the matter, darlin’?”
She told him what had happened back in Kansas, managing not to sob until toward the end. She’d been so light these past few weeks, as if she’d been rescued from the drowning current of a rain-sodden river and had warmed herself on the bank under a hot sun, only to wake later and find that the river had risen in the night, pulling her back out and under.
Henry had listened soberly. When she’d finished, he’d scooped her close and held her against his bare, smooth chest. “I’ll marry you, if you want,” he’d said.
She kissed his palms and brought them to her face. “I can’t have this baby, Hen.”
Henry nodded slowly. “I know somebody who might be able to help us out.”
He’d said it like that—us. And Theta knew then that they’d never part, that they’d always be like this, two halves of the same whole, the best of friends.
They had the name of a man, and an address, written on a scrap of paper hidden tightly in Theta’s palm. It was raining as they threaded their way down an alley and into a shabby building where two men paced and smoked, looking scared, and then made the heavy climb up five crumbling flights of stairs, past closed doors behind which children squalled and were shushed. The odor of cooking fish wafted down a long, dark hallway, turning Theta’s stomach, and she had to will herself not to vomit, and then finally they reached the top floor and knocked at the plain brown door of an apartment that smelled strongly of Lysol. A wiry man with a lined face ushered them into a dirty sitting area with three mismatched chairs. Off to the right was a bathtub half-filled with bloody water and a collection of carving knives. Behind a drape, a woman moaned. Theta gripped Henry’s hand so tightly she thought she’d break it off. The wiry man pointed to a cot with a sheet and told her to undress and lie down. The woman cried out again, and Theta bolted down the winding stairs and out into the soggy alley, not caring that she was getting soaked.
“It’s okay,” Henry said when he caught up. He was out of breath. “We’ll find the money.”
Henry sold his piano and they found another doctor, expensive but clean. After it was done, Theta lay on Henry’s bed, cramping and groggy with ether, promising she’d get him a new piano if it was the last thing she did. Henry squeezed her hand and she drifted into sleep. Two weeks later she’d gotten the job in the chorus at the Follies. She’d had to lie about her name, her history, and her age, but everyone did. It was what she loved about the city—you could be anybody you wanted to be. When their rehearsal accompanist left to play for a nightclub uptown, she suggested they hire Henry. With the extra money, they’d rented a bigger apartment in the Bennington, posing as brother and sister, which was laughable, really, their appearances being as different as their souls were alike. And every week, Theta put a dollar in an old coffee can marked HENRY’S PIANO FUND.
She’d thought it would just go on like that forever, Theta and Henry, neither belonging to anyone but themselves and each other. But she hadn’t counted on meeting Memphis. It wasn’t just that they dreamed of the same strange symbol, which was certainly big enough. No, it was Memphis himself. He was kind and strong and handsome. Being with him filled her with a lightness and hope, even though the idea of their being together seemed completely hopeless. And if Flo ever found out, she’d be banned from his show.
