Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

One Night in Atlantic City Part 1: March 1921

Dinner at Margaret's-March 1921

The slender brunette maid puts down the soup course-turtle soup, which Clara absolutely despises-and walks back through the butler's pantry.

"I wish to speak with you about my new driver, Mr. Sleater," Nucky says to his daughter. He watches Clara absentmindedly pretending to take polite sips of the soup. As per usual these days, her mind seems a million miles away. "Clara?"

"I'm sorry, your new driver?" Clara repeats, trying to remember if she's met anyone new working for her father.  A few days ago, she thinks, she was struggling with a box from the stationary store as she entered the suite and a younger man helped her. He had an accent, she remembers vaguely. She was in a hurry because she had an article due the next day and Richard had just managed to get a note to her asking if they could meet on the Boardwalk that evening.  "The Irishman?"

Margaret stares at Nucky's daughter, the young woman who politely plays with the children when she comes around, sends flowers whenever Margaret has done her the slightest favor (Clara will doubtlessly send a thank you note and a bunch of tulips as thank you for the dinner she's barely touching), and who never seems quite real. Usually, Clara feels less like an actual person and more like an actress with a script listing the part 'daughter of Enoch Thompson: Atlantic City Treasurer' and she performs the role when called upon. Still,  Margaret finds it hard to believe that any warm-blooded young woman could be immune to Owen Sleater's appeal.

"The Irishman has all the maids and two of the neighbor-women all a twitter," Margaret replies. She refuses to think of her own reaction.

"Is he particularly charming?" Clara asks, still trying to remember something about him. Blandly handsome, accent, tried to joke with her, she thinks.

"Yes, he is," Nucky answered. "We've been down this path before, Clara. Please fight the urge to turn him into one of your rescued strays, your new best friend, or whatever it is you typically do. He's not some lost little soul for you to adopt; he's a skilled man with a job to do."

I don't even think I could pick this man out of a crowd, Clara thinks with annoyance. "Okay."

Margaret stares at her. She wouldn't describe Clara as friendly. Margaret thought when she and the children left the old house last year she doubted Clara spared many thoughts for them. She was typically pleasant and always polite, but again Margaret thinks back to the old house. The Clara who spent most of her time talking to the bodyguard, The Tin Man, wasn't playing a part. She wasn't being pleasant. That girl seemed real-friendly, interested, flawed-in a way that the mannered miss sitting at the table never did.

"Is it James, then?" Her father asks. Annoyance begins to spread through Clara. She was sick to the death of this stupid, stupid war, and worst of all she knew it was still in the opening skirmishes.

"Is what Jimmy?" She answered in her brightest social voice but with venom in her eyes.

"Are you in love with James?"

Clara wonders where this unexpected turn in the conversation came from. She chooses her words with intent. "Father, whatever issue you and Jimmy are having, he's like my brother. I will always love James. Always. As a brother. Also, he's married?"

"Yes, I appreciate how neither of you thought to tell me what the purpose of that little trip was until after you returned."

Only a lifetime of being expected to perform well in public kept her from rolling her eyes. Father and Jimmy were like two children fighting over hurt feelings, she thought, except the toys they were throwing at each other could cause real damage.