“Would you feel better if I allowed you to pay for the parts?”
Gemma grinned. “Not at all because you see . . .” She glanced over her shoulder to look at Oscar, who’d stopped a few paces behind them to tie his shoe. Turning back to Norman, she lowered her voice. “Oscar’s birthday is next month. I want to get him some chemicals to add to his chemistry set.”
“That’s a very thoughtful gesture, Gemma. He’s lucky he has you for a friend.”
Gemma shook her head. “I’m luckier, Uncle Norman. Oscar is always there for me, no matter what outlandish plan I might want to try out. Not everyone has such a good friend, so I want to give him something special for his birthday.” She smiled. “He’s like your Theo.”
A sliver of guilt slid through Norman because he didn’t know when Theo’s birthday was, which meant he’d certainly never presented her with anything special on her birthday.
Clearly he had more restitutions to make with his friend and his family than he’d realized.
“I think she might be here,” Gemma said, pointing to Theo’s pony, Rosie, who was hitched to the hitching post. “Will she be at Grandmother’s house, or will she be in your workshop?”
Because Theo had thrown herself into their current experiment, the one that would hopefully see Beatrix less annoyed with him, Norman knew she was not in his workshop, but in his apartment above his workshop. She’d undertaken the daunting task of sifting through all the clothing that he’d had no idea his mother had purchased for him over the years, that clothing having been stored in an enormous closet in her attic.
It had taken Norman and Theo an entire afternoon to lug everything from the attic to his apartment—conveniently on an afternoon when his mother had been out of the house—which had allowed Norman the luxury of moving his unexpected wardrobe without being barraged with questions.
“I imagine she’s up in my apartment, trying to organize my clothes for me.”
“Why would she want to do that?”
Thankfully, Norman was spared an explanation when Oscar ran up to join them.
“Can we take your electrical conveyance vehicle for a drive today?” Oscar asked.
Norman nodded. “Of course. I charged up the battery two days ago, but since I have yet to figure out how to keep it charged for any length of time, I doubt the two of you will get past that tree again.”
After helping Gemma and Oscar get the vehicle started, Norman watched them drive slowly away before he strode through his workshop, his gaze glancing over the new electric engine he’d all but abandoned ever since he and Theo had taken up their latest and most highly unusual experiment.
That he felt not a single urge to step over to the engine should have been concerning, but he had more important matters to attend to, the most important of which was changing his clothing and getting on his way with Theo to pay a visit to Beatrix at Marshall Field & Company.
Taking the steps that led to his apartment on the second floor of the carriage house, Norman walked into the room that served as his sitting room, coming to an abrupt stop when the first thing that met his gaze was his sister Constance standing with her hands on her hips as she surveyed mounds and mounds of clothing strewn everywhere. Theo was on the other side of the room, flipping through a fashion magazine as she held a gentleman’s jacket that he’d recently learned was a single-breasted, four-buttoned, sack suit, done up in a pattern called the corkscrew—information he never thought he’d need to know but now was never going to forget.
“Constance,” he finally said. “What are you doing here?”
Constance turned, but instead of responding, she regarded him with wide eyes and then abruptly took a seat directly on top of a pile of men’s trousers.
“What have you done to yourself? I can see your face.”
Norman took a step into the room. “I paid a visit to a barber.”
“He cut off all your hair.”
“Well, not all of it, but, you see, that’s what barbers are supposed to do—cut a gentleman’s hair.”
“But you look quite unlike your normal self.”
“That’s what Gemma and Oscar thought as well. They’ve decided I look like a businessman.”
Constance glanced behind him, her eyes going from wide to narrowed in a split second. “Where are Gemma and Oscar? Don’t tell me you forgot you had them with you and left them downtown.”
“They’re taking a spin in my electrical conveyance vehicle, and honestly, Constance, I was hardly going to forget I had them with me. But again, what are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be at a meeting all afternoon.”
Constance shrugged. “I decided to leave the meeting early because the discussion was turning heated, what with how the ladies can’t seem to agree where the Chicago Public Library should be moved.”
“Theo and I were just at the library, and it didn’t seem as if it needed moving. The upper floor of City Hall provides a more-than-ample space.”
“Chicago deserves a library that is only a library,” Constance argued. “But tell me this, were you and Theo at the library searching for more electrical research papers . . . or were you there searching for articles related to fashion, a subject I never thought either of you would take an interest in?”
Norman shot a look to Theo, who sent him a look in return that clearly said she wasn’t going to become involved in this particular conversation, leaving him to believe Constance had already taken it upon herself to question Theo endlessly about why there were fashion magazines strewn about, along with piles and piles of clothing.
“Uncle Norman!” Gemma exclaimed, bursting in the room, Oscar nowhere in sight. “The engine died again, and we didn’t even make it to the tree this time.”
Norman frowned. “Troubling to be sure and suggests I might have come to a standstill with my theory on double currents, but where’s Oscar?”
“He’s pushing the electrical
