A Crisis With Hop

It's The Hop

I had Henry pull up in front of the old apartment building. Telling Henry to come back for me in about a half hour I let him go off to find a local cafe to get coffee and something to eat. I love my sister, but spending more than a half hour with her tended to wear on my nerves. As I was growing up she had tended to bully, torment, and otherwise make my life miserable.

It wasn't until I started living with Luke, that Carol and I had become actual friends. I am not the same timid person I once was either. When I accepted my position in Luke's bed, I lost my innocence in more ways than one. Not long after, due to the bootlegging nature of Luke's business, I have had to become involved in the deaths of two men. Carol knows this, and understands, I'm not the person she used to bully. That doesn't mean she couldn't annoy me after a while.

In the street I saw children in the street playing stickball. I had always envied the boys who played those games. I have skipped rope, played hopscotch and other games, but it seemed only the boys were allowed to play stickball. I had wanted to since Mother moved to New York after she divorced my Father. Only, I had to be a girl and wasn't allowed.

I climbed the stairs with ease. At one time my health and a corset made my climbing these stairs difficult. The apartment we lived in was once my Mother's. Carol and I lived with her. We moved there soon after both Carol and I obtained jobs of our own. Allowing us to pay rent for a larger place. Carol and I still shared a bedroom.

I knocked on the door. Carol answered. I saw her pale, bruised face and knew something had happened. "Did Phillip beat you."

Carol, normally overly talkative said nothing. I swept into the room. Made Carol sit down at the dining table and began to tend her bruises with a wet rag. There were no cuts. The bruises were on her checks, she had a black eye. Her nails were torn and her fingers and knuckles bruised as well.

"Tell me what happened, Carol." I said.

"It was Phillip, he was all grungy because he didn't have any opium and I wasn't buying any." Carol said. "He says he needs it for the pain, but we know his shoulder is all healed up from that explosion on Wall Street. I told him he needed to stop using it. He started hitting on me, until I told him where I hid the money."

"Well, you are coming home with me." I told Carol.

"No, I can't." Carol began to shake. She started crying. "I need to be here when he comes back, he needs someone to take care of him."

"Bushra." I said frankly. "You don't need to be milquetoast for your piker husband."

"Huh." Carol didn't know the modern slang.

"I meant to say that you don't have to sit here and wait for your no good husband to hit you."

"He's a good man." Carol was still sobbing.

"Not from the looks of you he isn't." Actually I had a feeling that Carol had given as good as she got from the looks of her nails and hands.

"It's the hop, the drugs, you know that. He's a good man."

"Good or not, Carol, I'm not going to let him hurt you again." I hoped that Phil didn't come home until I had gotten Carol packed and down to the car. Otherwise I'd have to kill him.

I got Carol down the stairs. Across the street and over where Henry, my bodyguard and driver, was having his coffee. Henry was as concerned and appalled as I was. Together we got in Luke's car and went back to Luke's mansion. There I had my companion, Clara, help me properly tend to Carol's bruises. I then left Carol in Clara's capable hands.

Luke was gone. If he wasn't in his office, it meant that he was out personally overseeing some aspect of our bootlegging business. I went into the kitchen. Sarah, the cook, nodded to me as I went into the cupboard and pulled out the cookie jar. A new one since I broke the old one a while back. I have a bad habit of breaking things. Not out of anger, I'm just clumsy.

Grabbing the bottle of milk I sat down at the kitchen nook table and began to eat. Washing it down with milk.

"Troubles? Miss Ellen?" Sarah was preparing a lunch. "Don't lose your appetite."

"Yes. Sarah, it's very bad trouble." Sarah nodded when I told her.

"When I see you get that cookie jar I know you're upset." Sarah said. "Just don't you spoil your lunch."

Sarah is a hard worker, the only reward she asks is that we eat what she cooks and enjoy it. A simple requirement to meet. Sarah was the best cook anyone could hire in New York City. Basic down to earth American food. No fancy French dishes or other exotic meals. Which is what Luke appreciates. As do I.