“Marriage is all about advancement and appearances,” Amelia continued. “I’m just the kind of wife who enhances your reputation. Despite my deformities, Americans think I’m charming and just the sort of woman you ought to have by your side when you attend parties and dinners. It doesn’t hurt that I’m deformed—in fact it makes you more of a saint to have taken me on. I’m not sure what they would think about—”

“Don’t say her name.” He stood up. “I’m done negotiating. I tried. I did what you wanted. It hasn’t worked.”

Amelia was silent a moment, watching him. Then she surprised him by nodding. “Wait until after the Pulitzers. You don’t want to be dogged by an impending divorce, for which you will have to pretend to have committed adultery, when you’re being judged on your professional abilities. Divorce is still the eighth deadly sin, you know. Then, if you still want to be free of me, I’ll say yes.”

He was so stunned he didn’t reply. He’d expected they would have this conversation back and forth for months until he eventually wore her down. “Thank you,” he said, resisting the urge to leap into the air and cheer. For there was no possible reason why, after the Pulitzers, he would want to stay married to Amelia.

When he reached his room, he found Victorine in his bed, soundly sleeping, beside the newspaper, opened to the page with Jess’s latest report. He lay on top of the blankets, hands clasped behind his head, smiling up at the ceiling. He would send a telegram to I. Durant—to Jess—urging her to come to New York for the awards; she had to. And then he would tell her that he was free at last to do what he’d asked in Germany: to marry her.

Thirty-three

Dan went to the gathering of journalists at the Onyx Club on the Upper West Side feeling much less certain. He hadn’t heard a thing from Jess. Everybody at the club, awaiting the announcement of the award winners to come through while listening to Dizzy Gillespie sing a much-too-breezy song, asked him if his brilliant correspondent was there and he had to shake his head. Surely she would come? Surely she’d received his telegram? But why would she travel all that way for a rumor?

The only thing he knew for sure was that he’d barely eaten all day, had consumed nothing other than coffee and whiskey and he felt himself to be a little unsteady on his feet as he made his way over to the bar with his father and Jennings, and several of his top reporters.

They stood chatting for a while but Dan couldn’t concentrate. His gaze raked the room, landing only on familiar faces, his wife thankfully absent due to an illness that had left her with little appetite for the past couple of weeks.

“So, you and Durant.” The Times editor slapped Dan on the back. “The odds are so slim in each of your categories that I’m not even betting.”