the Packard as she picked up her handbag.
He spun, and frustration washed over him. The suitcase had landed on the hood of his roadster. His brand-new roadster. He’d owned it less than a month. Gingerly, he lifted the hard-sided suitcase off the hood, checking to make sure none of the bright red paint had been scratched.
It didn’t appear to be. The chrome Flying Goddess of Speed hood ornament appeared undamaged, too, so did the big chrome headlights on both sides of the ornament.
“Well, give it here,” she said. “Why’d you try to run me down like that?”
Walter handed her the suitcase as more frustration filled him. “Run you down? I wasn’t attempting to run you down. I’d just pulled away from the curb and you jumped out in front of me. There is a city ordinance against jaywalking. You can be arrested for that.”
“Arrested?” She took a step back. “For what?”
“Jaywalking.”
“Ain’t never heard of that.” A deep frown wrinkled the smooth skin between her brows. “What is it?”
“Jaywalking?”
She nodded.
Between her accent and knowledge, it was apparent she was not from California. Had most likely just stepped off the train from some Midwest town. That was where most of the newcomers came from. The center of the nation. He’d been born and raised there, smack-dab in the middle of nowhere, and had been happy to leave. “It means you can’t cross the street in the center of the block. You have to walk to one corner or the other.”
She looked up the road, and then down it, before turning to look at him again. “Now, why would I want to walk all the way to that there corner?” She pointed up the street. “Or all the way down to that there one.” She pointed to the corner behind him. “When where I want to go is right there.” She pointed directly across the street. “Makes no living sense to me.”
Yes, she was most certainly from the Midwest. Walter pointed to one, then the other corner. “Drivers know to watch for pedestrians at the corners.” He then pointed at the road before her. “Not in the middle of the road.”
Her short blond hair bounced as she shook her head. “Well, they better learn to. It ain’t that hard. Folks back home do it all the time.” She gestured at his car. “You need to learn it, too.”
A horn honked. “Get out of the road!” a driver shouted while steering around the Packard.
Walter ignored the driver. “No, you need to learn not to jaywalk. Better yet, why don’t you just walk back to the train station, on the sidewalk, and go back home.”
Her eyes, a deep blue, narrowed and darkened as she planted a hand on her hip. “I just got here and no one is going to make me leave.”
A part of him felt sorry for her, the other part was thoroughly disgusted. Not by her, but by what she expected. Los Angeles was full of newcomers. Just like her. All dreaming the same dream. “Look around. The streets aren’t lined with gold and the beds aren’t made of rose petals.” That was what the magazines made people believe, and believe they did. “Go home. You’ll be glad you did.”
“No, I won’t. I came here planning to stay, and stay I will.”
“Plan on becoming a star, do you?” He huffed out a breath. That wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare. One he was still living.
“No. A singer.” She squared her shoulders. “Folks back home say I got the voice of an angel.”
He shook his head. She’d find out sooner or later, so he might as well tell her. “There are no angels in Los Angeles.” Just a lot of devils. He personally knew several of them.
She lifted her chin a bit higher. “There are now.”
He should just surrender. Leave her to her head-in-the-sky dreams. “Where are you from? Kansas? Oklahoma?” Her accent wasn’t deep enough for Texas.
“Nebraska. And I ain’t going back.”
He remembered wanting to leave that state, and had left it, only to discover there were times that he wished he’d ended up someplace other than here. Burying those thoughts, he asked, “Why?”
“Because I’m a singer.” A tiny frown formed over the bridge of her nose. “At least, that’s what I’m going to be. Soon. Real soon.”
Another car honked, the driver shouted, shaking a fist while driving past.
There was nothing he could do to change her mind. That was for sure. So there was no use trying. He should have known better right from the beginning. “You keep jaywalking, and you’ll become an angel, all right.” He pointed toward the sidewalk. “Walk to one corner or the other before you try crossing the street again.”
She shook her head. “I tell you, that there is about the craziest thing I ever did hear.”
He took a step toward his car, but stopped, looked at her again. She was cute with her big blue eyes, blond hair and catalog-ordered dress. Cute enough to catch attention. He didn’t like the thought of that, but it was a reality. She was of no concern of his; however, he knew one thing for sure. “You won’t get a singing job here.”
She puffed up like a hen shooed off its nest. “You can bet your darn tooting boots I will.”
He lifted up a foot, showing her a shoe. “I’m not wearing boots. No one here wears boots. And no one is going to hire you to sing speaking the way you speak.”
“Speak—” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with the way I talk?”
“Nothing.” He let out a sigh because being rude wasn’t his way, but neither was lying. “In Nebraska. But California wants the entire nation to believe everyone here is sophisticated. A cut above the rest, and you sound like you’re a country bumpkin straight off the train. Which you are.” A solid stab of guilt hit his stomach at the way her face fell. However, a little disappointment now was nothing compared to what she was going to experience. “Go home,” he said earnestly. “Just go home.”
She spun around. “You go home.”
A heavy sigh escaped as Walter watched her march between the cars and back onto the sidewalk. He couldn’t help but think how another beautiful woman would soon be gobbled up by the evils that be, and that there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.
Trying one last time, he leaned against the side of his car, and shouted, “It’s not here. Whatever you hope to find, it isn’t here.”
She looked at him and spread her arms wide. “Hope? Hope is everywhere. You should go get yourself some.”
The clicking of her heels on the concrete no longer made Shirley smile. She was too mad for that. He had to be the rudest man ever. Almost running her down with his big red car, and telling her to go home ’cause there’s no hope here.
Fool.
Hope was everywhere. Like dreams. You just had to snatch it up and hold it inside. Without it, there was no point in living. Hope was all she’d had for years; it’s what kept her going after she’d lost everything, everyone. It was what had brought her all the way to California. He was wrong. Hope was here, all right, because it was inside her. If a person didn’t have hope, they didn’t have anything. He needed to learn that.
“There ain’t nothing wrong with the way I talk, either,” she muttered under her breath.
Goose bumps rose up on her arms as she remembered Miss Larsen, the schoolteacher she’d had for only a short time. Pretty and young, Miss Larsen had been from out east somewhere, and had talked so funny the kids had teased her. Teased