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But Alice was never the fire, when it came down to it.
She was passionate, certainly. She could be loud, she could organize a march, inspire a fire in others. She could fan the flames into life, coax them brighter and hotter, but she herself was not the fire.
She was more like something in a gas stove; innocuous, nearly invisible, but capable of producing so much heat from a single spark. She supported the flames, coaxed them into life, fed them, nourished them, nurtured them. There was a constant-ness to a gas stove. A solidity, even in the intangible. Something known and sure, something that would not burn out.
Alice was like a gas stove, and Inez—
Inez Milholland was electricity.
* * *
“Alice—” Lucy is saying, but Alice can hardly hear her, they can’t give up yet, not until the final vote has been cast, and not even then—
* * *
Inez Milholland was—
Statuesque was a word for it, maybe. Momentous. A socialist, a socialite. Glamourous. Dazzling. She had an air of magnitude, of power, like a tall building blocking out the sun, or a grand piano filling a concert hall.
She was also—laughing at them, just a bit, but there was a gleam of interest in her eyes and—
“On horseback,” she was saying, grinning wild and determined, impassioned, “I should be riding, in the march. On a white steed.”
Lucy, Alice could tell, was a bit thrown.
Alice was—
Well, Alice was a bit winded still, from running to catch up with her, and while she wasn’t necessarily easily impressed, there was something about Inez Milholland that nevertheless struck her. There was a brightness about her, and a sharpness, like a figure of cut glass amid clay pots. She was both the firefly and the glass jar encasing and reflecting it.
Inez went on, “A feminine reclaiming of the armoured knight,” and Alice couldn’t stop her answering smile from spreading.
* * *
Over her frantic planning, Lucy is still speaking, but the polls haven’t closed in California, there’s still time, and so much to do—
* * *
Inez danced around the room in her men’s breeches and riding boots, fresh off the high of the march, at once a maiden laughing careless in a field and a statuesque goddess, all long legs and graceful arms, loose curls falling over her bare shoulders.
“I’m a great American bitch,” she crowed, fluttering her fingers at Lucy in a teasing flirtation that had the other woman laughing.
In a fluid movement, Inez lay back across the table, open wine bottle still gripped tightly, legs in the air and kicking lazily. Alice could see a pale strip of skin on Inez’ stomach from her corset cover riding up, and no corset underneath—
Alice fixed her eyes on the wall, face burning, fighting back a smile. She held a hand over a grinning Doris’ eyes as Inez recounted tales of lust and desire, of bringing men to their knees in the throes of wanton pleasure.
* * *
“We’ll hold a rally first thing; Inez will speak,” Alice rattles off, because with her magnitude, with her statuesque nobility and earnest bearing, the sheer gravitas and magnetic pull of her personhood, they’ll need her voice. Alice spins on the spot, looking for— “Where’s Inez?”
* * *
It was then, as Ruza playfully batted Alice’s hand away from Doris’ eyes, as Doris laughed heartily, as Lucy smiled in bemusement at the lot of them with one stockinged leg extended and up on the table, icing her swollen knee—
As Inez stroked her finger around the lip of the bottle in her hands and dipped in, just slightly, like she wasn’t even aware of it—
* * *
Lucy’s eyes are wide and wet and delicate, like glass, like shattered glass, and she says, “We needed to tell you in person—”
* * *
It was then that Inez looked Alice up and down and winked, and continued to tell the room about her exploits, about the husband who didn’t care that her pleasures sometimes strayed elsewhere, and she took Alice’s hand, and—
“Alice, Alice,” she grinned, close, just for them, “when are you going to let me set you up with one of Eugen’s friends?”
“Oh please, they wouldn’t be interested,” Alice said, and immediately winced at how toneless it was.
But Inez smiled, a knowing spark in her eyes, pulled her a bit closer by the hand, and clutched the wine bottle to her barely-clothed breast. “You mean you wouldn’t be interested,” she teased, voice soft, and Alice—
Alice broke away and hurriedly begged, “Lucy, your turn!”
She nearly missed the disappointment in Inez’ eyes, the way she took an exasperated swig of her wine and tossed her head back.
But only nearly missed. And Alice felt cold at the loss of her gaze—and later felt something in her crack open, molten, when Inez looked at her at the end of the night, eyes like fire, when Doris had fallen asleep at the table, Ruza was snoring on the floor curled around a bottle, and Lucy had retired to the couch—
Inez’ mouth curled into a smile.
* * *
Alice is frozen. She can hardly feel her heart, though it thunders almost painfully in her chest. It feels like a hammer. Her voice, when she finds it, is smaller than it’s ever been. “Where is she?”
* * *
Weeks later, Inez smiled, warm, across the table from her, and Alice imagined with a sudden clarity what it would be to have the press of that smile upon her own mouth.
Inez danced around the room, in her long, fashionable skirts, and her top was unbuttoned just so, and Alice could see the lines of her collarbones, her ribs expanding with every breath, her breast heaving as she laughed—
Alice felt in her mind like a bedsheet pinched in the middle, twisted up tightly into a hard rope of a thing. She felt dizzy with it, breathless, and hot in the face.
* * *
The others are whispering out soft exclamations, expressions of shock, of grief, of horror, and Alice is dizzy, breathless—Alice can only—
* * *
Alice was married to her work, of course, but her cracked-open middle yawned open-mouthed, ached, wanted for something—soft, and bright, and momentous.
And she could have ignored it but for one lamplit evening, when Inez cornered Alice in her study, leaned over her in a way most improper, almost predatory, but Alice (through her electrified shock) didn’t much find herself minding. Inez took Alice’s chin in her long, elegant fingers, and said:
“Alice, really, what do I need to do for you to let me kiss you?”
And Alice—
“Let you?” she burst out in a pathetic breath, she was burning, the air was hot, and wet, and thick—
And when Inez finally pressed that smile to Alice’s mouth, Alice wound her fingers into the fabric of her blouse and pulled her close, practically into her lap, between her legs, where the layer of her skirt hardly felt like any barrier, and—
And Alice breathed, and burned hot and molten, and saw sparks behind her eyelids.
* * *
“It… can’t be…” Alice mutters, and Lucy reaches for her hand, tears flowing, but Alice takes a step back and continues: “It can’t be any other photograph, it has to be the one from the march, the one in her crown and cape where her eyes are like fire—”
* * *
Inez was smiling that particular smile, the knowing one, smug and mischievous, with eyes like fire, the smile that always led to her pressing Alice into a corner of the room, tracing her collarbones through her blouse with long, sharp fingers, holding her by the waist, the hips, huffing out faint laughter against her skin as her lips grazed just below her ear—
* * *
“Alice,” and Lucy has reached for her again, is clutching her fingers, and she’s trembling, or maybe Alice is, but she doesn’t have time, there’s so much to do—
* * *
“Alice,” Inez was saying, “I’m done, this time. I’m not going.”
But there was still that electricity in her eyes, that fire, and if Alice knew anything, it was how to fan the flames, to make others burn brighter.
“Inez, you are the bravest person I’ve ever met,” Alice said. “And I want them to see you, the queen you are, with your spine of steel—you’re our brazier, Inez. You think your nerve is about to give out, but I see a girl who shines brighter than any star.”
And Inez was tight-lipped, scowling, but—
“Show them who you are,” Alice implored. “What are you going to tell your daughters, your granddaughters, that you did when times got hard? Don’t you want to tell them that you faced the crooked kings and toppled their ivory towers? That you faced the villain and demolished him?”
And Inez’ mouth was curling up, her defiance bright in her eyes, and—
“Okay.”
Alice gripped her hands tight, nearly bursting with the fire in her chest. “Okay?”
Inez laughed. “Let’s show them the stubbornest bitches they’ll ever see.” She tugged on Alice’s hands, tossed her head back, exposing the long column of her throat. “Damn it. Why are you the only person I can never turn down?”
And Alice stared at Inez, mouth dry, eyes bright, nerves fluttering hot and hard in her stomach. “Come back to my apartment,” she blurted.
Inez slowly lowered her head back down to look at her, a question in her eyes.
Alice squeezed her hands and burned. “I want to see you.”
* * *
“I’ll wire it to every paper, make sure it’s seen, make sure she’s seen,” and Alice is rambling, now, and she’s definitely the one trembling, but she can’t collapse, she can’t collapse, this needs to—this needs to mean something, because if it doesn’t—
* * *
They went back to Alice’s apartment, where Inez bit down on her earlobe and Alice made a wheeze like a train taking a sharp turn on rusted tracks. She scrambled for purchase, ended up with both hands clinging to the back of Inez’ blouse.
Her face burned. She buried it in the warmth of the other woman’s shoulder.
Inez was shaking with suppressed laughter, and Alice sighed into her shoulder seam.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” she mumbled, words lost against pale silk.
Inez giggled, hands smoothing down Alice’s back, her hair, cupping the back of her neck. “I’ve never heard you make that sound before.”
Alice pressed her forehead to the softness of Inez’ flesh and tried to pretend she was not smiling. “You caught me off guard,” she complained, and ran her hands along Inez’ sides, reaching for the buttons near her collar, and Inez gripped her, tense with anticipation—
* * *
“I need to—I need to plan a memorial,” she’s gripping Lucy just as hard as Lucy is gripping her, now, “it’ll be fit for a queen, I’ll—I’ll make some calls, see if we can get Statuary Hall, or—”
They’re all staring at her, now, red-eyed and broken. “And I’ll write a release for the press, make sure they know she’s only th-thirty years old—”
And Alice is falling, her knees hit the hard wooden floor, but, “Make sure they know she’s our hero,” she pleads, she begs, “make sure they don’t spell her name wrong, it’s M-I-L, not M-U-L—” They’re all holding her, now, as she shakes apart, hands on her cheeks, in her hair, on her shoulders, trying to hold her together—
* * *
Inez rose above them all, a vision on a pale horse, a stern Greek goddess, resplendent in a flowing white cape, diadem on her brow, dark hair curling down her back.
Alice thought—Alice thought she looked like a princess, more than a knight on horseback, but she couldn’t deny the picture she made, like a monument, towering above the sneering men and the marchers alike.
“Step aside!” Inez proclaimed, eyes hard, mouth red, and the crowds parted before her dazzling power.
And something in Alice’s heart, that young burning muscle, sparked.
* * *
“Milholland,” Alice cries, “Inez Milholland, Inez—”
* * *
“Hush, darling,” said Inez, soft and low, a smile folded into the words, before Alice’s mouth had even opened. “You’re going to wake up in a moment. Just let me look at you.”
Alice gazed up at her, all speech left slightly behind her, as she took Inez’ hand, took her hand like a knight helping a lady onto her horse, only Inez was the knight, and Alice—
Inez strode into the courtroom, skirts billowing, coat a stream of red behind her like a cape, and even across the room she met Alice’s eyes, smiled at her, eyes twinkling like two knowing stars, like fire, mouth curled like a contented cat in the sun—
A hand in hers, fingers combing through her hair like she’s a frail thing, a lingering press on her cheek, a kiss, or a caress—
And Alice wakes up with her head on the desk, cheek smeared with ink, the draft for Inez’ eulogy nearly illegible beneath her.