Hearts of Smoke and Steam by Andrew P. Mayer Read Free Book Online

to reveal his high forehead.
    His suit was made from brown worsted wool, well tailored, with the dark red vest brightened up by a incongruously sky-blue silk kerchief that stuck straight up from his pocket on a tower of starch.
    With every few beats of his foot, he garnered the attention of another of his fellow passengers. Occasionally one would glance up, his tapping breaking them out of their own trances. They grimaced at him with weary looks of annoyance and disapproval, some angry, but others looking almost grateful for anything unusual or interesting that might distract them from the dull journey.
    Emilio was a fellow traveler, but unlike most of them, the trip to and from Brooklyn was not one that he made every day, six days a week. The journey was still novel for him, although he had chosen to give his attention to the floor, and not the skyline that usually entranced the less regular passengers.
    If he was aware of the attention he was getting, then he chose to ignore it, squinting his eyes so that he could focus even more deeply on the tiles in front of him, noting to himself how the wood that had been revealed underneath the worn linoleum was splintering from the unseen forces that had driven so many feet to focus their steps on that single spot.
    After another half minute he began to suck on his thumb, alternating the “tick” of his shoe with a “titch” as his tongue rubbed against the nail.
    “Basta , Emilio!” a female voice exclaimed, accompanied by a jab to his ribs. He jerked up and out from his reverie; the quick movement caused the large round sack at his side to fall over, landing with a clatter and a thunk on the floor.
    Still dazed, Emilio turned to his sister. It seemed to take him a moment to recognize her, and then another to realize what it was that had just happened to him. When he had overcome the shock, he lifted up his hand and shook the back of his fist at her. “Calma , Viola!”
    “Calma to you as well,” she replied, slipping half into English, and spinning her hand back at him. “I've had more than enough of your brooding today,” she told him in Italian.
    “I'm not brooding.” Emilio reached down for the bag. “I hope you didn't break anything.”
    “Me?” the girl replied, curling her mouth into an outlandish sneer that could only hide half of her smile. “I only break hearts, Emilio.” Her lips, like the rest of her, were not so much large as luscious.
    Taken one by one, every piece of Viola seemed like it shouldn't work: her nose was aquiline but oversized, her eyebrows black and rough, and her hair was a shining red. She was too round in some places, and too flat in others. But the way everything came together created something so uniquely exotic that she seemed to be able to make men all around her blush simply from the way everything moved when she walked. Viola Armando was beautiful because she was constantly revealing herself to be more than just the sum of her parts.
    Even those few males who claimed that they were immune to her physical charms seemed unable to completely prove their lack of interest when she engaged them with her full attention. The only living man who could genuinely claim to find no lust in his heart for Viola's almost painfully quirky beauty was her brother, Emilio, and he proved it by jabbing the blade of his hand hard into her ribs.
    Viola gasped, squealed, and then jumped to the side, managing to shove her bottom into the man next to her. The codger let out a surprised harrumph from somewhere underneath his thick white whiskers.
    “Scuzi! Scuzi!” she replied, and shifted herself back, using the momentum of her hips to nudge her brother just a bit.
    Emilio shoved her back, sending her over into the old man's chair once more.
    After letting out another grunt, the white-haired man turned to look at her, mouth open to unleash a tirade. But the moment he saw her, he stopped, clearly thunderstruck. “That's all right my dear,” he mumbled