LENA

I wake up in a cold sweat late the next morning, thinking the same thing I fell asleep thinking: Ohmygoodness.

Ohmygoodnessgracious.

Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

Agnes!

Except for the top sheet, all my bedding is on the floor, a testament to my tossing, turning, sleep deprived night. Okay, for those of us in the club entertainment industry, a night’s sleep is a relative term, starting with the milkman’s four am run about the time we arrive home and ending whenever we wake up. Still, that period is our version of a night’s rest and I, for one, would be a whole lot happier not to have lost mine.

Reluctantly giving up any hope of a return to dreamland, I roll out of bed just before noon. I collect my bath kit, throw in the new tube of Pepsodent toothpaste and bar of Lux soap I bought at Woolworth’s yesterday, then head for the communal bathroom down the hall.

I have to admit I’ve harbored some regrets about passing on a sweet little apartment on Capital Hill when I was looking for a place in Seattle. I’m not sure why I didn’t grab it, really. I had sure liked it. Yet, I had instead moved into yet another Women’s Residence. Even though I would have had that lovely little space all to myself. And been closer to Will.

“For pity’s sake, girl, that is neither here nor there now!” My regret over not taking the place no longer matters. In fact, it’s just as well I didn’t sign a lease on the little studio apartment up on Capitol Hill. At least this way I won’t be breaking another contract when I leave. Not to mention only having to forfeit a few days rent.

Still, I’m dead tired of always having to share bathrooms and strictly scheduled meals or having to be back under lock and key by nine pm. Well, all right, that second matter doesn’t really apply. I am grateful that Mrs. Rodale, who runs the joint, grants me a break on the curfew rule because of the nature of my employment. The woman looks down her long nose at me for working in a speakeasy. But she did waive the curfew and give me a key so I am not locked out when I arrive back here at the crack of dawn.

But that no longer matters, either. Because I cannot possibly stay on at The Twilight Room now. Not when Booker. . .not when I felt so. . .

Well. It’s simply not thinkable, is it? I load some of my new toothpaste onto my brush and start scrubbing my teeth furiously.

I sure wish Will was around, though. He’s my best friend. Okay, he is my one and only genuine, time-proven friend. I would love to lay all my feelings out for his input. Tell him about my sneaking, unwelcome hunger for Booker’s kisses, my anger and confusion over feeling anything positive for the man at all. Booker had some nerve introducing himself to me as if I were some stranger. When I was seventeen, he told me repeatedly that he loved me. Oh, how he told me!

I think the very least he owed me night before last was a glimmer of recognition.

I don’t discount how much my body has changed since our days in Walla Walla. Lord knows, I love to eat, so I gained weight once I left Blood of Christ and began getting meals with honest-to-God flavor. But for pity’s sake, my face, while softer and rounder, remains the same.

I spit the toothpaste foam into the sink, then rinse my mouth and the sink bowl. Raising my head, I study myself in the mirror. Am I overreacting?

I truly don’t think so, but Will would know. Will has a way of cutting through the garbage to find the bottom line in a situation. Especially the kind that jumps the rails the way this one has. Maybe it’s even within the realm of possibility he’ll tell me I’m overreacting. He might even say I don’t have to leave this job, which was supposed to be a huge boost to my career.

On the other hand, he might say cut your losses, girl.

But Will is in New York City, attending appointments with Life, Collier and Judge magazines, where he’s pitching his work and presenting his marvelous portfolio. He also scheduled an interview with an ad agency about a possible contract to provide illustrations for a couple of their clients. And if that isn’t enough to easily eat up more than twenty-four hours a day, he intends, should he have any spare time left over, to take his personal portfolio around to the top five art galleries he’d most like to see host a showing of his work. Not the commercial illustrations. His art.

And I am happy for him, because this is a huge opportunity, and Lord knows no one deserves it more. Unfortunately, it is not so great for me. While he’s on the other side of the continent, I feel as though I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool. With no lifeguard on duty.

None of which is Will’s fault, of course. But I’m drowning here.

Hoping to shut down all the clatter and clamor in my head, I haul my pile of toiletries down the hall to get ready for the day.

I arrive at the club early, prepared to tackle Booker, and beyond irritated with myself to realize how uneasy I am. I’m not usually the Nervous Nellie type, but I am definitely on edge and want to get this over with.

When I don’t spot him in the lounge, I head directly to his office. Stopping at its door, I shake out my hands, draw a deep breath, hold it for several seconds, then slowly exhale. I hate that my heart is beating like the drummer’s entire kit when the house band gets to wailing mid-King Porter Stomp. Understanding for the first time what it means to gird one’s loins, I suck in yet another deep breath and give the solid wood door a good, strong rat-a-tat-tat.

“Enter.”

I almost laugh. Because, who says that? Most people would say c’mon in or ask who’s there. Matron Davidson used to snap Come, in a tone both cold and brusque, but then that was her to a T. And in her defense, Matron never claimed to be a charmer.

So I can honestly say I have never heard anyone say Enter before. I turn the knob and let myself in.

Booker is hunched over his desk, his tie hanging loose and his tailored jacket over the back of his chair. He’s scribbling something in a ledger book and looks industrious as all get-out.

For all of ten seconds. Then he glances up, sees me and tosses his pen on the blotter. His chair creaks as he sprawls back in it. He swings his big feet up onto the desk. “Huh,” he says. “Didn’t expect you to show your face so soon.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Figured you’d dodge me until the impact of the kiss we shared faded.”

Oh, you fat-headed, miserable…

Swallowing my temper, I manage a creditably nonchalant shrug. “Guess it wasn’t as memorable for me as it was for you.”

“Ouch.” He drops his feet to the floor but remains seated. “Still, interesting supposition. Maybe we should test that theory.”

And, darn it to hell and back, I realize right then and there if I quit I will promptly negate my big Hey, doesn’t affect me stance. I will pluck out my eyelashes one by one before I’ll let him know that maybe, just maybe, his kiss did rattle me. Perhaps it even affected me enough to think the two of us had the potential to burn down the club.

No. No, dang it! I square my shoulders. The kiss had been nowhere close to setting the joint on fire. Coaxing forth a few curls of smoke, maybe. But hardly in the neighborhood of torching the speakeasy. And if quitting without losing face is no longer on the table, I can at least use the words he threw at me last night to try to slant this gawd-awful push-me/pull-me the two of us share in my favor.

And see how he likes it. “So, let me see if I understand this correctly. It’s okay for you to whine about professionalism when I deliver an itty-bitty, much deserved slap—“

“Itty-bitty, my ass,” he mutters. “It damn near swiveled my head around my neck until I could see where I had been.” His sudden frown slants his dark brows toward his nose. “And men—former soldiers, by God—do not whine.”

“—but at the same time,” I press on as though he hadn’t spoken, “you appear to have no difficulty believing it somehow is professional for you to press unwanted advances on me?”

He leans into the desk. Picks up his pen again and twirls it between lean fingers. “Oh, let’s have a little truth between us here, shall we.” He clearly doesn’t consider that an actual question. “My... advances, as you call them...were far from unwanted.”

I realize my nerves have settled nicely and raise an eyebrow as I give him the maybe looks can kill stare I adopted when I was thirteen. I have utilized it to my advantage ever since. Its steady refusal to waver, along with an accompanying lack of expression, tends to unnerve people enough to prevent them from digging too deeply into my own messed up emotions at any given moment. “Believe what you wish,” I tack on for good measure in a bored tone.

And manage not to crow when I see the slightest twitch of uncertainty cross his face.

The look quickly vanishes and he squares his shoulders. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come here tonight to quit,” he says coolly. “Because we really would have a problem then.”

Oh, God, did he suspect I had? I inhale a slow, stealthy breath and keep my expression bland. “Would we?

“Damn right. Slapping me was strike one, doll. Slapping me in my own establishment, in front of other employees was strike two. Quitting on me would have been—”

“Yeah, yeah—strike three.” I buff my right hand fingernails against my breast and study their pretty shine. “Seems to me, either way the bottom line is I’d be out.”

“True. But you signed a binding contract. Breaking it two nights into your employment would have been the height of unprofessionalism. And had you done so, I would have sued you into the poor house and saw to it you were blackballed from ever singing in Washington State again.”

Looking into his eyes and listening to the flat, assured tone, I believed him.

Good Lord has he changed from the boy I once knew and loved! Young Booker had been full of fun. Oh, he’d been less than happy about his relationship with his father, because the two of them butted heads on a regular basis. Yet, looking back, I can see he hadn’t been nearly as mature as the two of us considered ourselves to be at the time. Because even as he’d performed small acts of rebellion, he’d had a difficult time flat-out standing up to Clyde Jameson.

I doubt this Booker would have the same problem.

Which, I suppose goes without saying, seeing as we’re standing in his obviously successful speakeasy.

I am suddenly glad I didn’t lead with my resignation as I originally intended. My heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest at the thought of what I’d dodged. Angry about it and the shiver racing down my spine, leaving a crop of goose-bumps in its wake, I call on every muscle in my body to stiffen my spine. It helps me grow the tiniest bit tiny bit taller, my backbone more rigid than the Smith Tower.

And I might have thrust my chin up a bit. “Why do you feel the need to tell me this, Booker? Have I mentioned the word quit?”

“It’s always a good plan to get the more likely possibilities out on the table. I know you, Lena—or at least I used to. You were one of the most focused people on the planet. You knew you wanted out of Walla Walla and had concrete ideas how you might achieve that.” He gives me a puzzled look, then shakes his head. “Singing was nowhere in the plan back then, but clearly when you decided it was your ticket out of town, you worked to make it happen.”

Booker drops the pen and slaps his hands down on the desk, half rising to lean across it. Suddenly he seems far too close, and it takes everything I have not to startle back in my chair.

“But while you had drive and were results oriented,” he says in a low voice, “you were also impulsive, particularly when your dander was up.” One muscular shoulder rises and drops as he looks me in the eye with deadly earnestness. “So, now you know where I stand on the seriousness of a contract.”

“Yes, goody, goody, gumdrops.” I say it with a bite of sarcasm. And yet…

He isn’t wrong—and darned if it doesn’t make me a little weak in the knees to realize he does remember things about me, even if they aren’t my more flattering traits. I do allow my temper to take me places it shouldn’t at times. And I have always found it difficult to back down from a confrontation.

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Apparently choosing to disregard my tone of voice, Booker surges to his feet in a single fluid movement. “Now that’s settled, let’s put this other business to bed. Where do you get this shit I never wrote you?” He gives me a hard stare. “I wrote you three or four letters a week.”

“I never received a single one from you! I can understand one going astray. But all of them?” I shake my head in disgust. “Please.”

Still, a tiny part of me wonders why Booker insists so hard he wrote me. If he didn’t, it seems he would just shrug and tell me to get over it. Say It is what it is.

“Well, I wrote ‘em. Right up until my mother told me you had left town with my former best friend.”

“Oh, some best friend you were!” Okay, getting all worked up again isn’t going to help. I pour real effort into shoving my indignation into the darkest cupboard in the dustiest corner of my mind. Usually the Midnight File isn’t this difficult to access at a moment’s notice. I finally unearth it, however, and as I shove as much of my anger into as I can I promise myself I will display some self-control. “You called him when you joined the Army.” I manage to say the words calmly. Still, I wish I hadn’t emphasized him. I sure as heck don’t want Booker thinking a heartbroken girl still lurks somewhere inside of me, moaning, Not me—you didn’t call me.

But frustrated, on the other hand? Too right I’m frustrated. I know darn well if Booker Jameson had truly wanted to get hold of me back then, he would have. I do not give a good God dam—er, darn—that the Blood of Christ’s party line was located in Matron’s office and used exclusively for business. If he had truly cared about me the way he said he did, he would have found a way to contact me.

I give myself a stern mental shake and mutter on an exasperated exhale, “Stay on track.” I draw in a deep breath, let it out, then face him again, my expression arranged in as composed a mask as I can arrange it. “You called and Will headed straight to Seattle to join the Army with you. So, don’t tell me you didn’t know how devastated he was when influenza swept through his boot camp. Will was only partly recovered when they shipped him home, Booker, and he darn near died. It did kill any chance he had of joining the war. But did you even once write him?”

Guilt flashes across Booker’s face, but I refuse to relent. “He was the one who finally got me an address to write to you, you know. He went and asked your father for it.” I stared Booker in the eye. “Did you know his mother got sick and Will gave up his college scholarship to care for her?”

“No, I didn’t.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “When did you two get so pals-sy?”

“When we ran into each other at the opening of the new courthouse and got to talking. We discovered we had heaps in common.” I give Booker a look making it clear his abandoning both of us was chief among my commonality with Will. And, indeed, it may have started that way. But our initial chance meeting soon evolved into a dearly cherished friendship with Will. Our chance meeting became one of the biggest blessings in my life.

Recalling myself to the present, I finally use the brain God gave me. Booker, this man whom I no longer trust and who did not live up to his promises, is now my boss. And he’s right, I did sign a contract for the next twelve weeks, so I am well and truly stuck.

Squaring my shoulders, I adjust my attitude on a quiet exhale. “You are right,” I admit quietly. “I haven’t been professional. So, I apologize. I will try very hard to be more so from now on. But that means no personal questions or comments. My life is my business, yours life is your business, and I propose we each stay the heck out of the other’s.” I pin him with the diluted version of my May you die stare. “And that kiss was a onetime experiment. There will be no more kissing.” Stepping closer to his desk, I thrust out my hand. “Deal?”

He just stares at it for what feels like several drawn-out seconds, then reaches across the desk and grips it. He looks as if he’s about to argue.

Apparently, I’m mistaken, however, for he abruptly gives me a terse nod. “Deal.”

His hand is hot and calloused, and I wonder when the latter happened. Young Booker was always incredibly hot-skinned; I can’t believe I’d actually forgotten that. But his hands, while hot, also used to be much softer. And smaller, I’m pretty sure, because I sure don’t remember them swallowing up my own the way the one holding it now is doing.

Shaking off the thought when it begins to feel as if Booker might hang onto my hand a bit longer, I pull my fingers free, and step back. “Good talk,” I say briskly.

And get the heck out of there.