Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Fossils and Ambitions Part Four: February 1921

February 15, 1921: The Boardwalk

Eddie knocked on Clara's door.

"Amory Blaine is on the line."

Clara walks out to the phone. "Isabelle Borgé speaking."

"Very funny, Isabelle. Meet me on the stairs?"

The sun was bright in the sky, but the wind off the ocean was bracingly cold. Jimmy was already huddled on the stairs with his bad leg (which ached like a bitch in this weather) stretched out before him when she arrived. Clara sat next to him without speaking, and took the deepest breath she could in the cold, trying to prepare herself.

Jimmy spoke before Clara could bring herself to start.

"I had an interesting conversation with Richard today," Jimmy looked over at her. Clara's eyes were bright, and her cheeks were pink. He didn't think it was all from the cold. "He told me about yesterday. I told him if he hurts you, I'll have to kill him."

"I wish you hadn't done that."

"What happened between you?"

Clara reaches for the cigarette. "I'm not answering that."

Jimmy runs his tongue across his bottom teeth and smirks at her. "All the way, huh?"

"You are despicable." She stares out at the ocean. "We...kissed."

"And then shared a bed innocently? That's adorable. What did you do in Washington?"

"We went to the Natural History Museum."

Jimmy stares at her and then starts laughing. Clara's startled. It's been a while since she's heard Jimmy laugh, but she wishes she wasn't the reason behind it. "Nucky Thompson's daughter is in Washington with the point man for one of the biggest bootlegging operations on the East Coast. He has a car, you both have money, no one knows where you are. You could do anything you want-go to any speakeasy, get a hotel room, whatever, and you went to look at fossils? How very fucking wholesome. Jesus, Clara."

"Do you want me to punch you?" Clara glared at him.

"He's not a virgin, you know," Jimmy told her, deciding mentioning Odette probably wasn't the best course of action. "You don't have to be gentle. You might need to be the aggressor, though."

Jimmy watched Clara's face turn five different shades of red before her eyes flashed with anger.

"Do you think Richard and I could discuss this without you?"

Maybe, thinks Jimmy, but I think I'd die of old age waiting on you two to figure it the fuck out. He moves on the question where the answer worries him. "Why didn't you come to Angela and me?"

"I was scared and...I just went to Richard. But honestly, how could I have gone to you when you are the one who did it? Jimmy, not only did I have to watch my father get dragged out of the suite in handcuffs, but I was pushed against a wall with a gun to my back. It will take days to put my book back together after they trashed my room."

"I'm sorry, Clara. I didn't think..."

"No, you didn't think, you just gave in to your vaulting ambition and that's what worries me." She's silent for a moment, busying her hands with their cigarette. "Fuck, Jimmy. The KKK?"

He startles a bit at her language. Clara is no stranger to swearing- she's Nucky's daughter after all-but it's rare she does it.

"It's all just part.."

"Yes, of your fabled coup."

They look at each other for a long minute. "You could choose us," Jimmy says softly.

"How can I choose to side with the Commodore against my father?"

"How can you choose Nucky over me, Eli, and Richard?"

Clara pulls her knees to her chest and stares out over the ocean. "Do you remember the day you came home from Chicago?"

Jimmy nods, uncertain what Clara was going to say.

"I knew Prohibition was going to change everything...but going to Chicago, going to that house. That's when I saw just what that meant. And then you came back from Chicago and told me how well you did, and you were so different. And I started thinking about what 'did well' meant. And the money, my father's never been shy about it, but it started flowing so fast...

"All that's happened since Prohibition is like the booze itself. It tastes like wine, but it is poison. My father and Margaret were shot at, I was attacked, Uncle Eli was shot... People like Rothstein and Capone, and even Charlie, they are terrifying and suddenly they are part of our lives."

"But, Richard isn't terrifying?"

Clara meets his gaze. "I know what Richard is. I worked for the War Department-I know what sharpshooters did in the war. I pieced together from your story that he's the one who killed the man who hurt your friend in Chicago. He shot a d'Allessio soldier inches from my face. And I know he killed that d'Allessio boy. There could well be others I don't know about, sure. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that the murders here weren't at your behest or my father's. I'm not going to pretend that I don't read the newspaper and pick out murders committed with a trench knife and know what that means. For example, it's quite odd that you were in New York last night and this morning I read of two mobsters stabbed with a large knife in a Lower East Side park."

Jimmy takes a long drag off the cigarette. Fuck. Women were never supposed to know what went on. He had a feeling whoever made that rule hadn't met Clara Thompson when she went into Girl Reporter mode.