BOOKER

“Oh, hell no!” I surge to my feet. Damned if Lena gets to dictate terms and just waltz away. I catch up with her in the hallway where she’s in full hip-swinging locomotion down the corridor, the beaded fringe on her short dress rocking briskly. Reaching out, I wrap my hand around her upper arm, swinging her toward me and bringing her to a halt. “Wait a damn minute.”

Those beads whip around to wrap her left side, rebound to swipe at the right, then fall to sway with a gentle shimmy, clicking and clacking with the sudden cessation of her body’s motion. Her arm feels firm and smooth and plump beneath my fingers, my palm. And considerably more smooth-skinned than I remember.

Which I suppose shouldn’t be a big surprise, considering the way Matron Davidson at the Blood of Christ worked the kids living at the foundling home.

Her gaze hones in on the spot where I’m holding her in place. Then she raises those dark-rimmed blue eyes to level me with the look again. The one that makes me question damn near everything I have ever known to be true.

Even as it makes me pretty damn sure she has a good idea where to hide the body, should the need arise.

I drop her arm. Rub the too-familiar Lena feel off against my slacks. And look her in the eye.

“Look. I’m not going to ask again why you insist I didn’t write letters I know I did. Both of us seem to believe we’re in the right here, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon.” I narrow my eyes at her. “But I do want to know about your relationship with Will.”

She narrows hers right back. “What part did you fail to understand?” But then her eyebrows furrow in what appears to be genuine befuddlement as she looks up at me. “I told you, he’s my friend.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“No.” She laughs, that full-bodied, don’t-give-a-damn-who’s-listening laugh that neither years nor distance were able to erase from my memory. “Much better than that. He’s my best friend.”

It catches me by surprise how relieved I am to hear it. I’m also a bit annoyed with the much better than that comment. But what the hell, I was once her boyfriend. In a time gone by, it’s true, distanced by years and war and the lack of communication we have agreed to stop disputing. Or at least I think we have, when it comes to the latter.

She tugs against my grip. “So, if that’s all, I’ll be off.”

“Yeah, sure.” I turn her loose. “But just so we’re on the same page, we are agreed, yes?” My voice hardens. “We are going to act professionally and get along.”

“That’s what we said. Professional.” Lena gives me a cool look. “And nothing more.” She turns on her heel and strides off again, the beaded fringe promptly reactivated by the hypnotic motion of her hips.

It doesn’t escape me she didn’t actually agree to anything. I watch her go and think about her parting shot. Then shake my head as I start back to my office.

Because I didn’t agree to everything, either. So, yeah.

We will just have to see about that nothing more part.

Three nights later I’m standing at the back of the club watching Lena belt out her last song of the evening, and congratulating myself over the way this getting along business has been working out pretty well—all things considered—when a man stops next to me.

“She’s great, isn’t she,” he says in a voice low enough not to disrupt my customers’ listening pleasure.

Since it’s more statement than a question, I don’t take my eyes off her. “Yes.” She definitely is. Lena has an ineffable something special when she sings.

I’m not sure why that surprises me. The night I met her in my folk’s kitchen where I had escaped to avoid Father’s relentless expectations, she’d all but knocked me off my feet. She was so interesting and full of life. Filled with dreams, fired with determination and full of intention. And here I am years later, watching and listening to the results of all that focused purpose—even though the dreams had changed in a direction I had no idea about back then. In the short time she’s been here, word of her talent has already gotten around. The club is more packed every night—and we were bringing in good-sized crowds long before her advent. People no longer talk over her introduction. Instead, they applaud wildly. And profits are definitely up.

So, no, I don’t want to talk to a stranger about her talent. I just want to listen to her. And watch. Because that’s a treat all by itself—and I don’t mean only her face or supple body. No, she has a way of wearing every emotion she wrings from the songs she sings like a beating heart on her sleeve. It sucks people in. Makes them care.

The fella next to me, however, clearly isn’t in the no talking zone. “I love the way her phrasing incorporates the blue notes, sudden swoops, dives and surprising leaps of the great colored singers.”

Okay, what he says rings true, resonating right down to my bones. And I find myself replying, “Yet she never sounds like a white singer mimicking Bessie Smith.”

And when I turn, it’s to look straight into my old friend Will’s dark eyes. His love of jazz and blues back in high school, along with my own, was instrumental in introducing Lena to it. Before that, she had only heard and sung hymns through her participation in the Blood of Christ choir. But one song played on my Victrola, and she was hooked. A fan for life.

And looking at Will, a surge of happiness at seeing him again bolts through me.

Only to be promptly supplanted with thoughts and, worse, mental images of Will, not as he was when I knew him well. But rather, as he appears now. An adult Will who has been with Lena during all the years I have been gone. Who has been by her side to watch and presumably give his support when she decided to give singing on a professional level a try. The fella who was there when she broke into the music industry and during her burgeoning rise.

Will, who ran off with my girl while I was fighting a fucking war that did its best to crush me. While I wrote all those damn letters and missed her beyond bearing at times. Will, who has maybe kissed her. Who maybe has even…done more?

A tidal wave of...something...rises up in me. And the next thing I know the punch I’ve thrown is knocking Will sideways along the wall, before dumping him on his ass on the plush Twilight Room carpet.

Chaos erupts. People at a nearby table scramble to their feet, knocking drinks over. More than one woman screams, bringing more people to their feet at adjacent tables.

Will presses the back of his hand to the underside of his nose. Pulling it back, he looks at the blood adorning it generously. His nostrils are gushing pretty good.

Then he looks up at me with murder in his eyes. “You want a fight, you faithless piece of shit?” he says in a low voice, climbing to his feet. He advances on me, his right arm drawing back. His hand makes a much more sizeable fist than I recall from back in our high school days.

Then he shoots a glance past me. Before I can turn to see what he’s looking at, someone shoves me aside. And Lena is suddenly in my face.

“What is the matter with you?” she demands, but doesn’t wait for an answer before turning away. She brushes past me, pausing at the table around which people are still ineffectually milling about. She sweeps up a clean, folded linen napkin, dips it into a glass of champagne on the table and presses it to the bottom of Will’s nose. “Here, keep this pressed there to staunch the flow.” Her voice is a universe gentler than the one she used to address me. Twining her arm around Will’s, she hugs his biceps against the side of her breast. Strokes the back of his hand with gentle fingertips. “C’mon. Let’s go get you fixed up.”

Without sparing me another glance, they walk away, heading toward her dressing room, I imagine. The thought of the two of them back there by themselves gets my feet in gear and I follow—stopping only long enough to instruct Millie to put new linens on the jostled table and replace their drinks on the house.

Before Lena and Will reach the only indoor access to the backstage hallways not involving the use of the stairs on either end of the of the stage, Sally rushes up to them, her breasts and cigarette tray bouncing. “What can I do to help?” I hear her ask.

Lena, still clutching Will to her side, barely slows her stride. “Could you bring some ice to my dressing room?”

“You got it, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Sally. You are one fine woman.”

“Awww!” My cigarette girl laughs and veers off toward the bar.

I vacillate for a moment or two. I should probably circulate among my guests and make sure they’ve all settled back into the club’s normal routine in the wake of my outburst. But my urge to find out what the story is with Lena and Will is stronger than my desire to placate the paying guests.

Which is kind of a first for me. But, fuck it. With an impatient shrug, I head to Lena’s dressing room.

I can hear her and Will talking as I approach the room a minute or three later. Lena hasn’t bothered closing the door behind her and as I reach it I hear her say, “…and I thought you weren’t getting home for a couple of days yet.”

“Nor did I. But I finished my interviews early.”

Will’s voice is a deeper rumble than I remember. But then a lot of things have changed since the last time I saw him. I step to the side of the open door and look in.

My ex-closest friend sits in a chair placed crossways to the doorway. His head is tipped back, eyes closed, while Lena tenderly wipes blood off his face.

She frowns down at him. “Since you’re here and have probably been on one train or another for a good four days, maybe you didn’t get the telegram I sent. I can’t remember exactly when I sent it.” She shrugs. “It just said the venue for the gig I thought was such a grand opportunity turned out to be owned by Booker.”

I wince a bit at the way she spits out my name with such venom.

Will cracks an eye open. “The desk clerk actually gave it to me as I was checking out of the hotel.” He grimaces. “That was a surprise.”

“No bananas,” she says drily. “But let’s not talk about him. How did the interviews go?”

“Life isn’t interested, but I knew that was a long shot. College magazine expressed some interest and so did Collier, so I’m hoping to hear from them. The ad agency interview went great. I signed a contract to do an illustration for a Winx Waterproof eyelash darkener ad. Isn’t that the one you use—Winx the magic lash darkener, makes your lashes something, something?”

“Long and shadowy. And, yes! Oh, Will, that’s so exciting. You’re going to be illustrating for a New York ad agency!”

“In a national campaign in newspapers across the country, they tell me. They also said if they like my work on this one there will be more like it. So. You wanna be my model? It pays eighteen dollars and they loved the idea of a blonde.”

“Hmmm, let me think. Do I want to see my face in a national campaign? Ab-so-toot-ly!” Her laughter fades, however, as she looks down at his now mostly cleaned up face. “This is still bleeding. That damn bully. Why the devil would he hit you?”

Shit. You know Lena’s mad if she swears. All those years in the Blood of Christ Foundling home left her with a lasting belief one does not curse. Well, she never seemed to mind if Will or I did. But she only swears herself when she’s furious.

“Hell, if I know,” Will replies. “We were talking about your talent one minute, then he turned to look at me and…pow! I took a hard-left hook straight to the beezer.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t even know he had that move in him.”

She shakes her head as well—as if my actions are beyond a civilized person’s understanding, then frowns at the blood still trickling from Will’s nose. “Dang it, this is not stopping. Let me get the styptic stick.”

She straightens, but Will’s hand snakes out to grip her wrist. “If you think I’m letting you shove a styptic stick up my already abused nose, you’ve got another think comin’.”

“It will help stop the bleeding.”

“It’s made for small bleeds, so yeah, maybe it will. Then again, maybe it won’t. What it is guaranteed to do is burn like the fires of hell.”

She makes a rude noise. “You’re such an infant.”

“Says the baby vamp who wailed like a banshee when I put mercurochrome on her skinned knee. It’s the only time I have ever heard you hit a note that high.”

“Hey, I lost several layers of skin from that knee! And what the heck is a banshee, anyway?”

“Damned if I know. But I do know they’re supposed to wail to beat the band.”

“Hey, Mistah Jameson.”

Caught up in listening to their conversation, I jerk in surprise at the nasal voice, then glance over to see Sally coming down the hall with a bowl of ice and a couple of wash cloths. Shooting a skittish look in my direction, she gives me a wide berth as she approaches the dressing room door.

Swell. Apparently, decking a man everyone assumes is a customer has dented my reputation some. “Hey, Sally.”

Lena’s head snaps up and turns my way. Seeing me, she gives Will’s hand a gentle pat, then rises and stalks over. Reaching for the bowl of ice and washcloths, she gives the cigarette girl a smile. “Thanks, Sally. You’re a peach.”

“Yer welcome, doll. I gotta get back on the floor but I hope your friend feels better real soon.” She shoots me another who-the-hell-are-you look, spins on her heel and heads back to the lounge. The minute she’s out of sight, I turn to Lena.

“Eavesdropping now?” She gives me a look disgust. “Who are you, Booker?” she demands before I can utter a syllable, unerringly mimicking the exact words I’d assigned Sally’s unspoken disapproval. “You’ve changed so much I don’t even recognize you anymore. And, trust me, not for the better.”

I open my mouth to respond…but don’t really know what to say. Because, going over in my mind what I’ve just seen of her interaction with Will, I realize what she told me three nights ago is more than likely the God’s honest truth: she doesn’t have romantic feelings for my old friend. Clearly, I only gave lip service to believing her up until this moment. But looking at it realistically—something I have failed to do up until now—the two them could have been married and had a passel of kids in the near-decade since I’ve seen them. I’m still ...well, not jealous.

But maybe I am a little irate they’d forgotten me so easily.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what I might have said. Lena cuts short any possibility of having a conversation when she slams the door in my face.