Red House Blues by sallie tierney Read Free Book Online

order than Claire would have liked. By
the time the last crusty plate had been scrubbed and put away,
Suzan was gray in the face. Claire sent her off to bed with two
more Vicodin, let herself out locking the door behind her.
    The temperature had dropped like a rock as
the clouds dwindled East toward the mountains, and would continue
to plummet during the night. Slush on the path out to the street
was already icing over. The drive home was a white-knuckle thrill
ride.
    She found the house empty.
Tony hadn’t come home from work. He was finding excuses to stay
late on campus . How long before he decides
not to come home at all? Might as well be
a widow without having been married, she thought. There would be no
abrupt and tidy ending for her and Tony. She almost envied Suzan.
At least Suzan’s long wait was over.
    Claire turned the furnace thermostat up to
seventy-two and hung her coat on the hall tree. Such quiet. So
still. The house seemed abandoned to vandals and mold. She could
have been a ghost standing ephemeral, unseen in the cold space of
her own home.
     
     

Chapter 5
     
    Seattle - 1901
    Thomas Morgan helped Miss Tess Jones off the
train to the platform, tipped his hat, and wished her well. She
watched him walk away in a cloud of rank cigar smoke, glad to see
the last of him. He had been a hopeless bore, dogging her every
step, clear across country from Chicago but as her late father’s
old friend she was duty-bound to be polite. Her mother asked Mr.
Morgan to “keep an eye” on her daughter who was setting off for
Seattle to sing in a new theater there. Much to her mother’s great
disapproval and trepidation. East Coast people imagined Seattle
still a place of wild Indians and free-roaming bears.
    Tess tried unsuccessfully to brush the
wrinkles from her skirt as she searched the crowd for Mr.
Broadrick. She had no doubt he would meet her train. He had been so
kind to her in Chicago at her conservatory recital, praising her
voice and stage presence to the skies. When he asked her to perform
at the opening of his lavish new theater in Seattle she quickly
agreed, thrilled to be starting her professional singing career.
Her mother had wanted Tess to marry respectable Wilfred Boyd who
owned Boyd’s Dry Goods store in the neighborhood. At twenty years
old, and never having been out of Chicago, Tess wanted more. She
wanted to be a famous vocalist, traveling the world. She wanted to
sing in Europe. Broadrick’s chain of music halls would be an
excellent start. Though, truth be told, Tess was also a bit afraid.
It had been a harrowing, seemingly endless, trip across country
over perilous mountain ranges and featureless prairies. The train
stopped at every junction that boasted more than one house and a
general store. The rail car was cold and hot in turn, and
continuously filthy. She had tried to sleep but the jolting, bone
bruising motion of the car wore her down and made her feel ill to
her stomach the whole length of the continent. More than once she
wondered if fame could be worth such discomfort. And there was the
added misery of having to make polite conversation with Mr. Morgan,
who smoked one nasty cigar after another, and had nothing pleasant
to say about any of the scenery they traveled through. By the time
the train finally pulled into Union Station in Seattle, Tess was
half inclined to turn around and go home if she thought she could
have survived the return trip.
    And she would have, if she hadn’t been so in
love with Jamison Broadrick. From the first time she saw him there
at her recital she had adored him. Tess would have followed him to
the ends of the earth. And Seattle certainly felt like the ends of
the earth. Thank God her mother hadn’t known the real reason she
had decided to take the job. She would never have allowed Tess to
get on the westbound train. Tess was confident that once Jamison he
knew her better he would return her regard.
    But where was he? The boardwalk outside the
stationed