The last rays of the setting sun painted the cobblestones before St. Louis School for Girls in a warm, honeyed hue. The shadows of three girls stretched long across the path, swaying gently with their steps.
Mary walked in the middle, clutching a thick music score titled Debussy: Piano Works, the words penciled neatly on the cover. Beside her were two older students, Martha and Elizabeth, their chatter blending softly with the distant clang of a passing streetcar.
They had just finished their piano class and were still discussing next week's school recital.
Martha, a tenth-grader with a dark green ribbon tied around her curls, gestured animatedly as though she were pressing invisible piano keys.
"The pedal in Clair de Lune has to breathe with the music," she insisted, pausing to mimic the notes midair. "Claire always plays it as if she's slamming a door."
Elizabeth, a ninth-grader, laughed quietly, shaking her head. The spring air carried a delicious aroma from The Robin's Nest, a small café at the corner—freshly baked apple pie mingled with the rich scent of coffee.
Mary's stomach rumbled softly, drawing giggles from the other two.
When they pushed open the café's oak door, a small brass bell chimed clearly above them. They chose a window seat, and Mary carefully set her score down, smoothing its edges as if it were something precious.
"I'll have cream of mushroom soup and a ham sandwich—make the bread extra crispy," Martha said confidently to the waiter before turning back to Mary, who was staring absentmindedly at the final page of her sheet music.
"Mary?" Elizabeth asked, tapping her glass with a spoon. "What will you have?"
"Huh? Oh—cherry pie, please. And hot cocoa. Thank you," Mary replied, startled back to the moment.
Elizabeth leaned closer, lowering her voice. "You know, ever since your brother went to Europe, you play Debussy like—"
Before she could finish, Martha nudged her sharply under the table.
Mary lowered her eyes and pretended to rearrange her papers. "Maybe I've just been practicing too much lately," she murmured. "Clementi's left-hand runs always slip no matter how careful I am…"
Their food arrived, and conversation drifted back to the concert. But the doorbell chimed again, its clear tone carrying over the sound of cups and chatter. Mary looked up casually—then froze.
Standing in the doorway was a tall figure in a light linen suit that caught the café's lamplight like ivory silk. His collar was slightly open, revealing a touch of sun-browned skin. His calm, confident smile seemed to light the small restaurant with an ease that didn't belong to the noise and clutter around him.
Shane Cassidy.
Mary's breath caught. Her fingers flew to her mouth.
He was here—real, not a dream.
"Brother…?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
Martha followed her gaze, her eyes widening. "Is that—?"
Before she could finish, Mary's chair screeched loudly against the floor. Her music sheets scattered like feathers as she ran toward him.
"Shane!" Her cry broke halfway between disbelief and tears.
He opened his arms just in time to catch her. She collided into him, clutching at his coat with trembling hands, her face buried against his chest.
"You lied…" Her voice was muffled, thick with emotion. "You said three months—but it's been five months and seventeen days…"
Shane held her close, resting his chin gently atop her head. "I'm sorry, little star," he murmured, his voice warm and steady. "I'm back."
Mary's sobs soaked into his shirt, but her grip only tightened, as though letting go would make him vanish again.
Martha and Elizabeth exchanged glances—half touched, half unsure. Finally, Elizabeth knelt to gather the fallen sheet music and set it neatly back on the table. They stepped aside to give the siblings space.
After a long moment, Mary looked up, eyes red and glistening. She sniffled once, then suddenly balled her fist and punched Shane's shoulder.
"If you ever do that again, I'll never write to you again!"
He smiled faintly, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "I'd never risk that," he said softly. "You'd win the war of silence easily."
She laughed through her tears, and he gently wiped them away with his thumb. "Are you hungry?" he asked. "Dinner's on me."
Only then did Mary remember her companions. Her cheeks flushed pink as she turned toward them.
"Um… this is my brother, Shane," she stammered.
"Nice to meet you both," Shane said warmly. "Thank you for looking after her."
Martha blinked and whispered to Elizabeth, "No wonder she says her brother's perfect."
Shane chuckled quietly and looked back at his sister. "This time, I'll be staying longer," he promised. Mary's fingers tightened slightly around his sleeve—and she finally smiled.
...
The following morning, Grand Central Terminal was wrapped in the mist of steam locomotives. Porters hurried along the polished marble floors, shouting destinations over the hiss of engines.
Shane handed a black equipment case to a porter, its metal clasps engraved with Pioneer Optical Instruments.
Mary stood on tiptoe beside him, watching the dining car being loaded. The sunlight reflected off her pale blue hair ribbon as she clutched the latest issue of Movie Stories magazine. Howard Hughes's Hell's Angels blazed across the cover.
"Do you think Mr. Hughes will really have planes flying right over the set?" she asked excitedly.
Beside them, Lena Voigt adjusted her cloche hat, her gloved fingers smudged with graphite from the blueprints on her lap.
"The synchronization depends on matching the camera's shutter angle to the Photophone's sound pulse," she muttered absently, sketching. "But at twenty-four frames per second, the vibration…"
Shane handed her a steaming cup of black coffee. "That's why we'll need the gyroscope mounts on the aerial cameras," he replied.
Inglewood Airfield, California.
The air shimmered with heat and the sharp tang of aviation fuel. Over two dozen World War I biplanes lined the runway, engines rumbling.
Howard Hughes, in a brown flight jacket and aviator goggles, stood atop a wing, shouting over the din. "I want real smoke, not that stage nonsense!"
Mechanics poured titanium tetrachloride into the exhaust tanks, creating the genuine white contrails Hughes demanded.
"Shane!" Hughes leapt from the wing and clapped a grease-stained hand on his shoulder. "Where are your color devils?"
He meant the massive experimental rig Lena had built—three side-by-side 35mm cameras, each loaded with red, green, and blue filters. Their shutters spun in perfect synchronization, connected by a custom RCA Photophone circuit.
Engines screamed to life. Three British SE.5 fighters roared down from the clouds, trailing smoke so close that it rattled the metal scaffolds below. The concussive crack of blank machine-gun rounds tore through the set, showering the ground with dust.
Harlean Harlow Carpenter—barely twenty, not yet renamed Jean Harlow—stood beside Shane, her jumpsuit streaked with oil. She grinned, holding up a red filter plate.
"Tell me, Mr. Engineer," she teased, "will this red glass make my freckles disappear?"
Shane smiled faintly. "Maybe. But the peroxide won't," he said, his gaze flicking to her pale scalp where harsh chemicals had left raw pink marks.
"Try a gentler formula next time," he murmured. "Some colors aren't worth bleeding for."
She blinked, half amused, half surprised. "You sound more like a doctor than a cameraman."
Nearby, Hughes barked orders to rig real nitroglycerin under a Fokker's wings. "I want the camera to feel the blast!"
Lena tugged at Shane's sleeve. "The rotation speed fifteen percent, or the muzzle flash will lag by half a frame!" Her notebook was open beside a stray lipstick mark—evidence of chaos and genius intertwined.
As the sun dipped low, the prototype three-strip system began to spin. The shutters whirred in harmony, the Photophone humming with life.
On the monitor, orange tracers streaked across the screen in perfect sync with the recorded gunfire.
"It's working!" Mary shouted, watching in awe.
Hughes, unsatisfied, grabbed the microphone: "Again! Bring the explosion closer!"
Shane's eyes drifted back to Harlean, who was reapplying bleaching paste with bare hands, her scalp trembling slightly from the sting. He hesitated, then slipped a small aluminum salve bottle back into his coat pocket.
As twilight bled into the California sky, Lena worked by lamplight, marking "96 fps" in crimson ink beside the cooling camera rig. Across the runway, Mary handed soda to a mechanic, her dress hem faintly smoking from a splash of titanium tetrachloride—like a tiny cloud following her steps.