The Ritz-Carlton

Richard froze with indecision as he felt the first tendrils of panic setting in. He never thought he would see this day, and yet he was waking up in Clara's bed as the first light of day streamed through the balcony door. Clara stretched across his left side, a dizzying combination of silky skin and soft flesh and sharp bones, the bad side of his face buried in her hair. There were many things not right. He had drooled so much that her hair and forehead were wet, and he felt the bite of shame. The arm underneath Clara had pins and needles. He really shouldn't be in her bed as the day began.

Last night felt a dream. It was almost a year since Clara slammed into Jimmy's room, terrifying him before she, for some reason, she befriended him. Clara had left this room to find him on his first day in Atlantic City, bringing that odd picnic, and then a few weeks later he had woken her up to check on her. The lace strap of her pajama top had fallen off her shoulder, and she'd been warm and disheveled asleep in her bed. He'd been uncomfortable, but underneath he'd wanted to slide the lace strap back on her shoulder. Now he was in that bed with her, and he had taken off that same pajama top.

He had more than he ever thought he would. The problem was, he wanted more. And he wanted it now.

Clara stirred against him and rolled over on her back. He was still here, she thought, their skin warm and damp where it pressed against each other.

Part of her had been certain that when she woke up he would be gone. She stretched, feeling soreness in new places. Her mouth was so dry it felt like her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Oh goodness, if her mouth felt like that what did he feel like?

"Is the carafe or the glass better for you?" Clara asked as she unpeeled herself from him and leaned over to her nightstand.

"Mmm, I don't need..."

"I think the time for modesty between us has passed since we are, you know..." she gestured to their utter nakedness.

He turned red.

"The carafe. Please."

They both turned away while they drank. Clara fell back on her pillow, her mind trying to work out the various puzzles of her life.

Richard's hand shyly traced up her arm. "Are you. Okay?"

Clara rolled over so she was looking at him and smiled as she ran a fingertip down his chest. "Sad that we only have thirty minutes left before you should leave. I figure you'll need, what, ten minutes to get ready?"

As he pulled her closer, he thought he had always been a very efficient person. They could accomplish much in twenty minutes.

Clara also considered herself an efficient person, but she had never showered so thoroughly in such a short amount of time. Last night, before Richard knocked on her door, she'd sat on her balcony and listened to the sounds of summer beginning. An Atlantic City girl she understood in her bones the importance of summer; Clara also felt the importance of this particular summer. Memorial Day had shown her that this summer was going to change her life.

The fight between Jimmy and her father on Election night had left her sick and scared; six months later she was still those things, but now she was something else. She was aware. For a long time, she had fully believed that she wouldn't have to make a choice, wouldn't have to act. The last twenty-four hours showed her she was going to have to define her priorities and do her best to make sure this feud didn't end in bloodshed. As the water rushed over her, she accepted one simple truth. She was her father's daughter. And therefore she was going to decide what she wanted, determine what she could live with, identify her allies, and act accordingly.

Everyone wanted her to be some version of Princess Clara. Even Richard thought her a sweet Princess in the Tower. Well, she was dreadfully tired of all of it, but today, she thought. Today she'd give the people what they wanted.

She purposefully chose one of the dresses her father ordered her to buy from Bonwit Teller, a blue abstract floral dress with elbow-length sleeves trimmed in white. As she pinned her hat in place, she ran over her plan, thought about everything she needed to take with her, and summoned all her courage.

The money was lodged in her glove, her largest day bag had everything she could need, and she set off with purpose.

"Leroy, I was hoping you were still on duty. You worked last night?" Clara asked in her brightest voice as she stepped into the elevator.

"Yes, miss. Everyone's working long hours this weekend."

Clara touched her hand to Leroy's, leaving behind a fifty dollar bill (it's a maneuver she'd watched her father perform countless times). "Well, I just wanted to say thank you for all you do to keep my guests and me safe, and our comings and goings private." She met his eye the whole time.

"Of course, Miss Thompson."

Leroy watched her walk down the hallway towards the main lobby. Since the day that masked man had carried her onto the elevator while she'd clung to him like she'd never let go, he'd thought they had something going on.

People paid more attention to the three boxes of sfogliatellas from Formica Brothers she carried than they did to her when she walked into the Sheriff's office.

"Miss Thompson?" a broad blonde man who looked like he had had less sleep than she had asked her.

She ran through names in her head. "Deputy Halloran, how are you? Is my uncle available?"

"Exhausted, and I'll get him."

"Oh, here, have some pastries," Clara said with an ingratiating smile. Jesus, he looked awful, she thought.

Eli looked just as bad. He looked like he'd barely shaved; she was fairly certain she could see tissue under his collar where he'd cut his jaw. "You look horrid," she said when Halloran closed the door and she sat down in the wooden chair across from his disastrous desk.

He regarded his niece as he took a lobster tail. The outfit she wore probably cost as much as his mortgage payment. Combined with her outfit from yesterday, the price of both would probably keep all of his eight kids fed, housed, and clothed for a month. Her hands were still in her lap, not moving anxiously across her skirt like they were yesterday. She'd started doing that after Mabel, he remembered, seeing Clara's small hands smoothing her pearl-gray skirt over and over as they sat in the pew during the funeral mass.

Actually, he thought, she was positively glowing. "I take it Harrow found you," he said, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice.

Clara finished pulling off her gloves and reached for a pastry. "He did. Uncle Eli, I think we need to talk. Really talk. Don't you?"

Eli stared at her wordlessly. Had Nucky told her about the fight yesterday? Did she somehow know about O'Neill? There was no way, he told himself. "About the fact someone scalped Jackson Parkhurst last night?"

"Did they? I can't say I'm sorry," Clara said in a purposefully blank voice. "No, I think we need to talk about all of it. Father was...he was rough in the car. I realized I've never considered what he'll do-to you, to Jimmy, to Richard-if you aren't successful. And Uncle Eli, I don't know what's going on, but I know what his day with Henry Daughtery means."

Fuck, he didn't know what Henry Daughtery means, he thought. "Tell me," he said as Clara ate another pastry.

"I think Father is calling in favors from the Harding administration. I assume he's going to have his charges moved from state to federal court, and then have Attorney General Daughtery assign a friendly prosecutor? There was a young man with the party last night I didn't recognize. And Uncle Eli, that party last night? It was a full-on bacchanalia."

Did either Nucky or Clara ever use words like other people, Eli wondered. "I don't know what that is."

Closing her eyes, she reached for another word before giving up. "An orgy. It was a loud orgy. So loud I heard it from my room."

Eli stammered and looked down at the pastry in his hand. No little girl should have been raised at the Ritz, he thought. He wondered how many bachawhatchamacallums Clara had heard over the years. He still remembered the Nucky's Nocturne party for the state government back when Clara was thirteen or so when the drunk commissioner wandered into her bedroom while she slept. Nucky's response had been to take over more of the eighth floor and build a private hallway to Clara's room. No wonder she fell for Harrow, he thought. For all her money and privilege, he doubted that she ever felt truly safe.

"So now it's your turn. You need to tell me everything." Clara said, looking straight at him.

It was like lancing a boil. Once he started talking he couldn't stop. Gillian, the Commodore's stroke, the warehouse explosion, Jimmy's disastrous meeting at Parkhurst's house, all of it spewed forth.

"So what's the plan?" Clara asked when he was done, careful not to let her horror show. No one had an overarching plan, she thought. They were just doing things and hoping it all worked out. She could think of seven ways to bring them to their knees; she shuddered to think of what her father would be able to dream up.

He stared at her. "To overthrow your father."

"But how are you going to get there, other than the charges?" Eli didn't answer, and Clara's heart sank.

Clara sighed. "Look, I need to go. But you and I need to keep talking, okay? Because I will not allow this to end in bloodshed. We have to figure out a way through. Take me to lunch at the Knife and Fork in a few days?"

Angela heard the knock and smiled to see Clara standing on the porch holding a box from Formica Brothers.

"I come bearing gifts," Clara said as she walked in.

"You brought lobster tails!" Tommy cried out when he saw the box.

"Sfogliatella," Clara and Angela said in unison.

Tommy took one and ambled back to the sunroom.

Angela looked over Clara, who looked a thousand times happier than she had the day before, and yet Angela could see that her eyes were still shadowed with anxiety. She'd worried about Richard and Clara all morning, thinking about how he looked when appeared on her doorstep the night before, and Clara's frantic worry yesterday while they lay on the beach.

"Did you find Richard?" Angela asked softly, a little afraid of the answer.

Clara smiled at her. "I did. Or rather, he found me. I need to talk to Jimmy. Is he here?"

"He's sleeping."

"Is he?" Clara gestured to her dress.

"I think so," Angela replied and Clara smiled before she ran up the stairs.

Jimmy was sound asleep on his back, snoring like the dickens, and she could see the straps of his undershirt. Thank god, she thought. On his bedside table was a half-empty glass of water. After a moment's thought, she picked up the glass and emptied the contents on his face.

Jimmy sat straight up sputtering, assuming Tommy had spilled water on him, only to be confronted by Clara holding an empty glass.

"Oh good, you're awake. I think we need to talk, don't you?" Clara said, smiling down at him like she was paying a social call.

"What the fuck, Clara?" Jimmy wiped the water off his face. "You're lucky I didn't shoot you!"

"Really? Because judging from recent events I think I'm lucky you didn't scalp me! Or, rather...ask Richard to do it?" Clara tilted her head and smiled, but he knew her well enough to hear the venom in her voice.

His head felt like he had slammed it against a cement wall, and he could feel the remnants of adrenaline, steak, and whiskey in his stomach. He did not fucking need this. When the high of the night, of eating steaks and drinking with Richard ended, and he lay smoking in bed a seed of doubt sneak in. Clara putting into words his deepest doubts was not how he wanted to start his day.

"What the hell were you thinking? You've already lost an entire warehouse of liquor-what's that worth, a hundred thousand dollars, more or less?-so those old Yacht Club men are already furious, and now you've scalped one? What's the play, Jimmy? What are you doing?"

"He insulted me."

Clara blinked and started laughing. "He insulted you, so you scalped him? The hell, Jimmy? Do you know why Father's so successful? He doesn't dignify the taunts of old men with a response. If he did, the Commodore would have been sewn into one of his own horrid taxidermy projects long ago. Father knows when to act, and he knows when to do nothing."

Jimmy swung his legs out of bed. If Clara didn't want to see him in his boxers she shouldn't come busting into his bedroom. Jesus, where was Ange? Tommy? Richard?

Richard. "So I send Rich to you last night and you make him talk?"

When pondering her plan Clara knew that Jimmy would assume Richard had told her about Parkhurst and about the rest of it. "Richard? Do you remember who you are speaking to, James? I know everyone you are gathering in that horror show your father called home and you'd be amazed at how quick they share information when I look at them like I care and make sympathetic noises. You might want to try that."

"I don't need your advice-"

Downstairs Angela opened the door. "Richard, I'm glad to see you." He looked so much better, she thought. That horrible vacant expression from last night was gone, and she could see he'd cut his hair.

Richard heard heavy footfalls and raised voices from upstairs.

"Clara's here," Angela said quietly. "She and Jimmy are...talking."

Upstairs, Clara snapped back. "Oh, you don't? Because from what I hear the Commodore is incapacitated, and your mother's tongue isn't just in your ear, it's in your mouth. In front of everyone."

Jimmy glared at her. He'd never hit a woman, but did Clara count?

"Now that it's clear Father has a new plan, what's yours?"

Damn it, Nucky had a new plan? Fuck it all. He lit a cigarette and tried to think through what Clara could mean.

Clara rolled her eyes. Goodness, she thought, was she the only one who could see the obvious? "I'm going to let you parse this for yourself. Think about who Father's guest was at the Dedication, and let me add that the party Father threw for said guest is illegal in all 48 states."

Jimmy sucked on the cigarette. The Attorney General, but the charges were at the state level. Shit, he realized. Damn Nucky.

"Ah, I see you've gotten there. So what's your plan if Father beats the charges?"

Silence.

"Okay, that's concerning. What about what he did to your warehouse?"

"How did Nucky find a bombmaker?"

"My father hired an Irishman as the new you."

"So?"

Clara snatched the cigarette and stared at him. "There's this whole idea that information is power. You might consider exploring it. Do you ever read a damn newspaper?"

"Fuck you, Clara."

"Am I not saying it right? Let me try this,"Clara's voice became higher, breathier.

"James, you are so big and strong and smart. The world is going to be so impressed when it finds out what kind of a man it's dealing with. Where does one find such a man not afraid to slaughter his own chances of success by answering a playground taunt by scalping an old man and angering his only source of financial and political support? When has the world ever seen such a leader before?"

Clara's voice changed back to her own as Jimmy angrily began putting pants on. "You can not listen to Gillian. Jimmy, you have thrown all of our lives into the fire. You have to have a plan. Or, hell, let's go to my father right now and we will both beg forgiveness. Because I swear to you, this summer will not end with me standing in tears by a grave. I will not allow it. You have twisted everyone I love into this nightmare, but I am not going to lose anyone. Not over your ill-conceived coup."

Jimmy brushed past her and started down the stairs. Clara followed close behind.

"Am I not doing this correctly? When I whisper things in your ear, are you supposed to feel my breath? Should I use my tongue?"

It was only the sight of Richard and Angela standing at the bottom of the stairs staring up at them that made Jimmy and Clara stop.

"I was going to come up. Gillian's on the phone," Angela told them.

Jimmy sniffed. Horrible fucking timing, he thought.

Clara's face twisted. "What you are doing? Better hurry," she said with faux brightness before her voice turned gravelly. "Mommy's calling."

Jimmy slammed his fist against the wall as he went to answer the phone.

Clara covered her face with her hands for a moment, mostly to block out the shocked faces of Angela and Richard. When Richard had last seen her she was kissing him goodbye in her kimono. A few hours later she was yelling at Jimmy on the stairs. It had already been a day.

"My apologies. We had...family issues to address," she said when she started down the stairs again.

"Is everything okay?" Angela asked, and Clara's fury raged again as she thought how horribly unfair it as that Angela didn't know what Jimmy was doing. It was endangering Angela, it was endangering Tommy, and yet she didn't know. How long, Clara wondered, would her loyalty to Jimmy outweigh her other concerns?

"You need to ask Jimmy," was the answer she landed on, but she didn't miss the look of betrayal on Angela's face.

Tommy called, and Angela walked away. Clara smiled shyly at Richard.

"Mmm. Long morning?"

"Busy," she said simply as reached up to touch the back of his neck. "You cut your hair."

"Can you believe it," Jimmy complained to Angela from the kitchen . "She came upstairs and threw water in my face, and this is what he gets."