Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Welcome to the Boardwalk-July, 1920

Perhaps she didn't need to throw the silk dress she wore to her lunch engagement down with such furor, or kick the heels into the corner with such energy. Still, it was the only thing she could think of to relieve...well, Clara didn't actually have a word for the feeling she was trying to exorcise, and Clara was a person with a lot of words.

Wrapping a kimono over her slip, she sat on her bed and tried to decide between taking a bath now and writing into the night, or writing now and seeing where the evening led. Maybe she'd call Angela and offer dinner, and spend time with people capable of making conversation, like about to be four-year-old Tommy, which would be a nice change from the mummified tablemates who were her luncheon partners.

That's when she heard footsteps in the hallway. The left leg landed heavier with each step. She smiled and flung her door open.

"Jimmy! It's so good to see you!" She says as he spins her around like they are still twelve, but the grimace on his face from the exertion the action requires from his leg reminds her they are no longer children.

"Oh, no assault or insults this time?" He says, and with a half-grin as he sets her back down.

She studies him for a moment. The suit is new and different for sure, but that's not it. Jimmy has changed in some real way, and it's almost as dramatic a change as the day when he came to Bryn Mawr to tell her he had enlisted in the Army or the day he came home from Europe.

"You look different. Tell me about Chicago? I'm so glad you're back."

"What's to say? I did well." A slight shiver goes down her spine, thinking about what could be hiding in that succinct answer, thinking about the window the Four Deuces gave her into a world she feels is encroaching on her own.

She looks at her father's door. He's dirty, she knows, but she firmly believes every politician is. She's met a lot and never met one she didn't think was corrupt or on the take. Her dad's just better at it than most. But now, Jimmy, and her dad... it's different. It's a new decade and a new game, and she's not sure any of them are well suited to the play.

"I'm starving, though," Jimmy interrupts her anxious revelry. "The dining car was out of order."

"Why didn't you tell us you were coming home? I would have ordered food!"

He looks at her strangely. "Clara, I swear, I sent a telegram." Jimmy lights a cigarette, takes a drag and then passes it to her.

She frowns. "That's odd. You know that Angela got the money you'd been sending, right? Before I even made it back from Chicago, she received an envelope."

"No, I didn't know," he answered. Clara looks up at him as she draws another puff. That means he hasn't been home yet. That's not great. "I'm sorry you missed out on seeing Chicago with Richard and me."

"And I as well. Instead, I got to share my compartment on the train with the world's most empty-headed woman. That's a story I'll tell you later." She looked at the cigarette with great interest for a moment. "How is Mr. Harrow?"

"Sitting on the Boardwalk, waiting for me to finish meeting with Nucky." He regarded her thoughtfully. "Did Richard have the mask off when you walked into my room?"

Clara nods. "That part of his face looks so raw and painful. Is it hard for him speak? He's so deliberate with his words."

"I think so; he doesn't really say. I don't think many people see him without the mask, though. But I also think most people don't look at him at all, but you did." Now he regards his childhood friend seriously. It was true what he said that evening in his room. Clara was many things to most people-charming, tactful, clever. Rarely was she openly friendly. She was far to guarded with almost everyone for genuine friendliness. He wondered why they both had such similar reactions to Richard Harrow. For him, it was because Richard's war wounds looked how his felt on the inside.