Hot and Steamy (9 page)

R
osa sighed as the last man passed her by to dance with another young lady. She knew the chances were slim that any of these handsome gentlemen in black tailcoats and crisp white shirtfronts would reach for her hand and draw her out onto the dance floor—not when doing so meant being followed by a large, whirring, gasping device on wheels. You could have set a timer going as each man cast eyes upon her: how pretty was her shining black hair swept high on her head. How lovely her large brown eyes. Her pert, pointed chin had attracted many a whispered compliment that she was careful not to show she had overheard. Her graceful neck turned into a charming décolletage swathed modestly in her best lace wrapper. Then the large black disk attached just above the bodice of her pale blue dress caught their attention, drew it along the flexible brown umbilical to the bronze and steel machine, and the gentlemen, sometimes blushing at their own fears, would nod politely to her and pass along with somewhat indecent haste. Like the clockwork that kept her alive, the reactions were predictable and unfailing.

She withdrew into the curve of the gold velvet couch, and watched the dozens of couples sweep by her around the high-ceilinged white ballroom. How she wished she had not let her aunt talk her into coming to the dance! Jean Rabenski was aware how few opportunities for socializing that Rosa had. For that kindness, Rosa was grateful. But it was futile to hope that attendance might lead to courtship and matrimony.

Oh, God
, she thought,
let me not die an old maid, or at least not a maiden!

Her aunt would undoubtedly have been shocked. She came from a different generation, when a young lady's dreams of equality in matters of mind, body, and soul were just dreams. The advent of the machine age had brought forth the new notion that women were just as capable of invention and achievement as men, so holding women to be a secondary creation of God was foolish. It had opened the eyes of young ladies to exciting possibilities.

Still, Rosa was unlikely to put her hopes to the test. By all standards of public decency, or, more honestly, public fear, she should remain at home, quietly living out of sight of other people, so as not to remind them of the frailty of the human body. Rosa did not want to be decent any longer. She wanted to live. She wanted to dance with a different partner than the infernal gas-powered machine that kept her heart beating. Aunt Jean understood that part. She and Uncle Bruce, who had invented the cardiac regulator, were as devoted and loving a couple as anyone had ever known.

Here she came, her large blue eyes wide with delight. The rapid rasp of Jean Rabenski's dark blue taffeta gown almost drowned out the waltz music played by the orchestra as she towed a tall man behind her.

“Rosa, my darling, this lovely man would like to meet you!” she said. The blonde hair piled into a pumpkin shape on her head threatened to shake loose as she nodded vigorously at her escort. Rosa smiled politely at the newcomer. He didn't look ‘lovely.' In fact, he was a bit plain, if Rosa could be so bold. He might have been tall, but he was somewhat stout, and though he looked not much more than Rosa's own age, he was already losing the hair on his domelike head. “Miss Lind, may I present Mr. Greenberg? Mr. Greenberg, this is my dear niece, Rosa Lind.”

Rosa put out a gloved hand. To her surprise she felt it tremble. Mr. Greenberg wore thick pebble-lensed glasses, but when he bent down to take her fingers she saw the kindly blue eyes behind them. His grasp was warm and gentle.

“Mr. Greenberg, I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Rosa said.

“Thank you, Miss Lind,” he said, his face shining with eagerness. “When I saw you from across the room, I knew I could not wait to speak to you. Your aunt was kind enough to introduce us.” He nodded to Aunt Jean, who beamed. “I wonder, if it would not be an intrusion, if I might . . . it would mean a great deal to me . . .” He swallowed. Rosa held her breath, preparing herself to say yes, yes, yes! “. . .If you would permit me to examine the device at your side.”

Rosa's heart, the flesh-and-blood one, sank to her dancing pumps. “Oh.”

“Not here, of course,” Mr. Greenberg continued, reading the disappointment and dismay in her face as potential embarrassment. “I am fascinated by modern machinery, and I am interested in its workings.”

“You do understand that this is not a toy,” Rosa said, unable to keep asperity out of her voice. She shot a speaking look at her aunt, who smiled blandly at her. She would have a lot to say to her later!

“Of course I do,” Mr. Greenberg said earnestly. “It would be useless to deny that I have heard, er, some talk about the purpose of the machine. I know that it is continually saving your life. Not only would I want it to continue in its purpose, but it would be my aim to better it if I could. I am a clockmaker, you see, and I believe that miniaturization is the wave of the future. If you would be so very kind to allow me to visit you at home, perhaps tomorrow, or any other day that would suit your convenience?”

 

On the way home in the horseless carriage, Rosa felt her rage reaching a boiling point. If it were not for the quiet hiss-thump of the regulator beside her that kept it slow and steady, her heart would have been pounding like a tom-tom. She didn't trust herself to speak.

“You are very quiet,” Aunt Jean said, steering the car with the electrostatic reins through the gaslit night toward the Rabenskis' town house, where Rosa was living during the season.

Rosa could not contain herself any longer. “How could you subject me to such a ridiculous person?”

Aunt Jean's face turned various colors as they passed electric advertisement signs lit by neon gas. “Well, my darling, he did ask to meet you. I had no good reason to say no. Everyone can see that you spend every single ball by yourself. Besides, if he can do anything to shrink your ‘companion' there, I see no reason not to let him try. He is well known in his field. He trained in Switzerland, and his inventions have made him rather wealthy. Even you have heard of Tekno-Clocks.”

“I . . . have,” Rosa admitted. Another thought struck her and made her cheeks burn. “But now everyone will think me a fortune-hunter!”

“What do you care?” Aunt Jean said practically. “You have defied Death himself every day of your life. If nothing else, enjoy the novelty of having a gentleman caller.”

 

It was no good saying Rosa didn't want one. The essence of normality was an elusive scent she had pursued all of her life. Her friends did their best not to treat her with pity, fearing her scorn, but she knew they felt it. She missed having private little notes dropped casually beside her on a couch or tucked into a bouquet. She longed for stolen kisses in the cinema or theater. But the heart regulator was the fiercest possible chaperone. No young man could pretend he didn't know it was there. And, perversely, she was insulted that it was the regulator that drew Mr. Greenberg's admiration.

 

Even so, the next afternoon, Rosa fussed over her garments and her toilette like any other young lady. She had just settled herself and the hissing regulator in a fetching tableau when the uniformed automaton strutted out of his sentry box in the timepiece on the mantel and announced, “Three o'clock post-meridian, madam and miss.”

“Thank you, Joyeaux,” Aunt Jean said. The mannequin bowed and retired. Almost as soon as she did, the doorbell rang. “There he is, like a clockwork himself!”

Mr. Greenberg's appearance did not keep with the theme of his precise arrival. His coat and trousers were slightly rumpled, and the brown leather valise in his left hand was battered by time and much usage. He bowed over Aunt Jean's hand and turned to Rosa.

“Miss Lind, how kind of you to let me come.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Greenberg,” Rosa said. In spite of herself, she did enjoy having a caller. Aunt Jean had gone to some trouble to whisper the news around the ballroom the night before. The speculative looks in Rosa's way gave her a frisson of excitement. “Will you sit down?”

“Thank you.” The young man pulled a footstool up to Rosa's knee and sat on it. He was so tall that his knees stuck up like a grasshopper's. He opened the valise, and she saw neat rows of shining steel instruments, lenses, calipers and other small tools. “May I?” he asked.

No clever small talk, nor inquiries as to whether she had enjoyed the previous evening's entertainment. Ah, well, what in this world was perfect?

“Yes, of course,” Rosa said. She watched as he put on a set of rubber-rimmed goggles with lenses several times thicker than his eyeglasses, and took out an oblong device the size of his hand. He turned a knob at the side. The device made a zooming noise and a glass-fronted gauge on the top lit up. Mr. Greenberg drew the regulator a little closer to himself and began to go over it carefully, taking readings from the gauge or peering even more closely with a large, handheld lens.

“Who made this device, Miss Lind?” Mr. Greenberg asked, his face very close to the control panel. He ran a careful forefinger over the ceramic knobs and bakelite switches, and then moved on to the hissing pistons cycling up and down in the valves that drove the dynamo.

“My uncle, Professor Rabenski,” Rosa replied, watching him with growing curiosity. “He is an electrical engineer and inventor.”

He turned, his wide eyes magnified enormously by the lenses. “Ah, yes! I have heard of Bruce Rabenski.”

“And he of you, sir,” Aunt Jean put in, with a smile. “I asked him about you last evening when we returned home.”

Mr. Greenberg looked pleased. “I would love to consult him about his design.”

Aunt Jean shook her head. “I'm very sorry, but he is in Africa on a research trip. We consulted him by means of long-distance wireless. He will be back in a month. He'd be pleased to speak with you then.”

“I hope that I can conclude my analysis long before then,” he said, ruefully. “I must go to America in two weeks to defend one of my inventions before the Patent Board. Might I see a schematic of the device?”

“Of course,” Aunt Jean said. “There is one in his desk. I will fetch it.”

With the document in hand he resumed his studies. Aunt Jean rang for tea. The parlormaid who brought the tray fixed an interested eye on the gentleman caller seated so close to Miss Rosa. Impatiently, Rosa waved her out of the room. The visitor would be the subject of much talk during the servants' tea, and no doubt with the tradesmen. Aunt Jean should have sent for one of the mechanical valets, who, as they only had rudimentary prerecorded speech, never gossiped. It was a good thing they didn't know how little interest the man had in her or they would have pitied her.

“Fascinating,” Mr. Greenberg said, referring between the regulator and its plans. “But so inefficient.”

“I beg your pardon!” Aunt Jean boomed.

“No, please let me beg yours,” Mr. Greenberg said, taking off the goggles. He wiped them with an absent expression on his good-natured face. “I forget myself. Professor Rabenski's invention is wonderful, but I feel that it could be a good deal more, er, compact.”

“Do you know anything about heart stimulation machines?” Aunt Jean asked, annoyed. “This is the smallest portable unit available to date! Until we made this, my niece was tethered to her room, because the machine and its power source took up half of it!”

Mr. Greenberg nodded. “But all it is meant to do is deliver a minute electrical charge, is it not? Your electric bell does the same thing, in a device a mere fraction of the size. I think I could adapt the design to work with my newest technology.” He held out the schematics to her. “I think vital economies could be made here, here, and here.”

“Could you, sir?” Rosa asked. She had a momentary vision of her freed of her tether, to run down the streets like an urchin. “I would be in your debt.”

He glanced at her, then down at the magnifying spectacles on his lap. “The debt is mine. Thank you for indulging my interest.”

“Go ahead, if you wish,” Rosa said.

Mr. Greenberg smiled. He flipped the small levers that held the faceplate on the control panel and began to examine the interior of the device with the aid of the plans. Though Rosa held her breath, he never touched anything that might cause the machine to halt or slow down. Aunt Jean, a skilled fabricator of devices from Uncle Bruce's designs including the regulator, kept a close eye on him. Mr. Greenberg unwound cables from their clips and ran his gauge over them, hmmming to himself over the readings.

“What does that do, sir?” she asked.

He didn't answer. Perhaps her voice had been drowned out by the droning of the machine. Instead, he delved further into its workings. His touch was gentle, insistent, but firm. Rosa felt almost as if he was examining her own body. She felt her cheeks grow warm. No one of her acquaintance had ever opened the machine. It was surprisingly . . . intimate. She could almost sense the long, flexible fingertips as they ran over the surface of the vacuum-sealed tubes and boards. They tickled their way along the dials that adjusted the speed of her heart rate. Rosa heard the pounding as her own feeble heart reacted to the caress and the machine responded with increased vigor. Her skin pricked as though stimulated with electricity. She felt as though she might faint from delight.