LENA

Three evenings later

“Oh, for God’s sake, Dot,” Clara says as the dancers and I barrel through the Twilight Room’s entry. “I am not quarreling with you over this anymore.” Her long-legged strides lead the way through the empty lounge. “I merely said the man is hotsy-totsy!”

To no one’s surprise, Dot ignores the no arguing decree. The Brasher sisters could argue to a standstill the sun coming up in the east—while changing sides mid-argument. “Rudolph Valentino is hotsy-totsy,” she says. “Douglas Fairbanks is...well, I have to agree the man is mighty swell. But he is no Rudolph Valentino.” She turns to me. “What do you think, Lena? Fairbanks or Valentino?”

“I’m more of a Rod La Rocque girl, myself. Did you see The Stolen Kiss?” My heart gives a little flutter, even though it must have been four, five years ago since the movie hit the silver screen. “I saw that one seven times. It was so romantic!”

“Oooh,” Clara squeals. “I loved that movie, too! He was romantic.”

I pat my hand over my heart. “I can hardly wait for his next, the one coming out in December.”

“Lena!” a male voice commands. “Come in here for a moment.”

All three of us stutter to a stop and I turn back to the office we just breezed past.

The one I so very carefully hadn’t glanced into.

“What’s this about?” Dot asks in a whisper.

I give my shoulder a twitch and shake my head. I can guess, but I have no way of knowing for sure. My stomach suddenly doesn’t feel so hot, though, because I have a horrid feeling my suspicion might be true.

The sisters give me identical sympathetic grimaces and continue toward the hallway to our dressing rooms. Blowing out a quiet breath, I reluctantly walk back to the office and poke my head through the open doorway. “You wanted to see me?”

Booker barely skims a glance over me before returning his attention to a pile of papers on his desk. “Come in and close the door.”

A shiver runs down my spine. Ever since Will introduced the possibility of someone other than Booker and me being responsible for us not receiving the other’s letters, I have done my best to avoid the club owner. I bite my lip and move as slowly as I dare. Because, darn it, there is a part of me deep inside I’ve guarded for years. A part that wants nothing more than to believe in Will’s theory. Yet if this notion of his does turn out to be true—

Well, it means my immediate future is at stake. I have been outrageously mouthy to my employer. Not to mention—swallowing hard, I step into the office and ease the door closed behind me—slapping Booker’s face in front of a lounge full of customers and his other employees. It’s a wonder I’m still working here at all.

Chances, are, I won’t be much longer. Oh, sure, I managed to dodge Booker for the past few nights, while doing my utmost to give great performances to build a bit of credit on the plus side of my Twilight Room let’s-keep-Lena-employed ledger.

I didn’t try to fool myself into believing staying one step ahead of him would last forever, however. I knew good and well I was on borrowed time.

Now he’s caught up with me, my future as the speakeasy’s canary could very well be about to change.

“Take a seat.”

Doing as I’m told, I perch rigidly upright on the edge of the chair facing Booker’s desk.

“Will came to see me.”

My heart begins pounding even faster than it had when he first hailed me. “He did? When?” Except for a brief telephone call to make sure he was doing all right the day after Booker decked him, I have neither seen nor heard from Will. He’d mentioned that in order to make room for his new projects, he’d be up to his neck completing the jobs he had set aside to go to New York.

Booker levels a look on me. “You know, the other night—or I suppose early morning, if you want to be literal.” He shrugs, since we both know how speakeasy time goes. When one doesn’t go to work before nine p.m—and often later—the hours after midnight are all considered the same night.

I raise an eyebrow at him. “The night you punched him in the nose?”

Had I blinked, I would have missed Booker’s slight wince. But to his credit, he merely nods. “Yes. He came over to ask why I never questioned the fact every damn letter we both swear we wrote went missing.”

“Oh. He said the same thing to me as well.” I sit straighter. “Did you really write me several days a week?” I’m not even sure at this point what I hope to hear.

He meets my gaze squarely. “Yes. I did. You, too? You wrote me as often as you said you did?”

“Ye—” The word sticks in my throat, rendering me unable to get out even a simple syllable without croaking. Okay, so it turns out I was wrong. I did want to hear Booker hadn’t forgotten about me entirely, which was sure as heck what it had felt like. Booker occupies most of my mental Midnight File already. Now, finding out he hadn’t dumped me, that he had truly loved me all those years ago, cleaves a huge swath through everything I’d believed. Confusion swarms my brain like a disturbed hive of bees, and I don’t have the first idea what to do with the knowledge.

Do I laugh like a loon or lament every single thing I lost?

I square my shoulders. Now isn’t the time to think about it. Clearing my throat, I nod. “Yes. I wrote.” I merely look at him over the cluttered expanse of his desktop for a moment before clearing my throat again. “Will said something else to me that night—something I might eventually have thought of myself if I hadn’t spent all these years gathering what I thought was undeniable proof you’re an ass. He said the Booker he remembered wasn’t a liar.”

I lick suddenly my dry lips. “I didn’t want to hear it at the time, yet...he had a point. The Booker I knew back then wasn’t.” I hesitate, then add in all honesty, “I’m working on the believing you still aren’t part.” I shoot a glance at his neutral expression. “I imagine you’re doing likewise with me.”

But what if he’s actually thinking this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of me? To give me the boot without having to admit he’s embarrassed he ever had anything to do with someone like me in the first place? Maybe he simply doesn’t want the girl from the foundling home around reminding him of a youthful indiscretion he wishes he never committed.

Booker tosses the pen he’s been slowly rolling from one finger to the next on the desktop. “That brings me to what I need to say.” He seems to grow taller in his seat. “You and I have had a conversation already about showing each other civility and professionalism. Yet, we haven’t particularly done so.”

Oh, God, this is it. The ‘We both know it’s you who hasn’t kept up your half of the bargain, who has been neither civil nor professional, so pack your bags and go’ talk. Drawing in a ragged breath, I brace myself.

Only to blink at him in momentary confusion when he says, “I think it’s time we both work harder at it. Do you agree?”

Trying not to sag beneath the relief of a dawning realization he is not firing me, I nod. “I do.” Then I simply look at him.

Apologize! my self-preservation angel screams from one shoulder. It’s not that hard, Lena. Open your mouth and say ‘I know it’s been me who has been the most discourteous and I’m sorry.’

But Matron might have had a point when she’d lectured, with mind-numbing regularity, the perils of me being bullheaded and stubborn. It doesn’t help there is a self-righteous devil on my other shoulder insisting while Booker may have written, he still left not merely our hometown, but the entire damn country, without so much as a word to me. That he left me to worry myself sick he would be killed on some far away field without even having said goodbye. It’s not easy to simply erase nine years of carrying the dagger of betrayal in the bottom-most, bloodiest part of my heart. Not when that disregard of me finds a new tender spot from which to draw blood every time I think of the disrespect he showed me.

Joining up to go off to war was better than being with me?

This is the question that has long occupied the largest corner of my Midnight File. The one that hammers at me constantly.

The one I never talk about. Not even to Will.

I feel like I’ve been suspended in amber for an age, while all this races through my head, but actually it’s only been seconds. Even then, all I manage to limp out is, “It’s kinda...hard...to do a complete turnaround on a belief I’ve held for nine years.” Then I pull myself up to sit yet more erect. “But I will work on it.” I meet his level blue-eyed gaze. “I will work very hard to do unto you as I would have you do unto me.”

Booker’s mouth, normally so hard these days, softens with a small smile. Maybe my evoking the golden rule reminds him of something the Lena he used to know would have said.

Which I suppose it is. My shoulders twitch in a small shrug. What can I say? You can take the girl out of the Foundling Home, but you can’t simply erase sixteen plus years of the foundling home’s preaching.

“Can’t ask for more than that.” Booker studies me a moment. Is that...disappointment I see?

If so, he merely says, “Was that the Brasher sisters I heard out in the hall with you just now?”

As I nod my agreement it was, I decide the “disappointment” was either my imagination...or wishful thinking on my part.

“What were you girls talking about?”

Either way, I’m grateful for the change of subject. I probably shouldn’t be surprised he heard us; we hadn’t exactly been quiet. “We saw Don Q, Son of Zorro at the Orpheum this evening and Dot and Clara cannot quit arguing over who is the best leading man: its star, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, or Rudolf Valentino.”

“I thought Valentino was dead.”

“Oh, he definitely is. Dot’s been mourning his passing for almost two months now. But she maintains he’ll forever be a legend.”

Booker quirks a brow. “And what side did you come down on?”

“Neither. I’m stuck on Rod La Rocque.” As a flash of heat steals up my neck and across my face, I mentally curse my ancestors for giving me such fair skin. What on earth possessed me to tell Booker Jameson, of all people, about my crush on a Hollywood leading man? Must I really voice every thought to pop into my head? Goodness gracious Agnes. I pine for the day when I adopt a little classiness.

At least I managed to keep to myself my old fantasy of the movie idol sweeping in to rescue me from the life turned gray after Booker left.

I do my best to rise to my feet in a calm, casual way. It’s not as easy as it sounds with this itchy impulse to leap up and run as fast and far from Booker’s office as I can get.

He stands too and I try to ignore the way he always seems to take up every inch of available space whenever he’s near.

Oh, the heck with it. When in doubt, brass your way through it, I always say. “Well.” I sidestep the chair still brushing the backs of my knees. “I’m glad we cleared the air. I should get going. I have some, um, things to do before my first set.”

His hands slap softly atop the desk, making me jump even though the sound was barely audible. Balancing his weight on the tips of his fingers and thumbs, he stares at me searchingly for a moment.

I wonder if my thoughts are written all over my face. Hoping to mask my inner turmoil, I manage the Foundling Home smile. The one I learned to slap on young when I was paraded in front of couples looking to adopt. I know how to sell it. Know how to make this smile look the next best thing to real.

Booker, however, doesn’t appear to buy it. Or perhaps he’s simply unaffected by it. Either way, he straightens and turns his attention to the calendar pinned on the adjacent wall.

It’s no secret he keeps employee scheduling, employee’s birthdays and every single appointment or delivery pertinent to the club on the thing. He has to turn his head to get a good look at it, so I have a moment to study him unobserved.

There’s a catch in my chest every time I see anew the man Booker has become. Not that there aren’t still traces of the boy I once loved. Bone structure like that, in the lean angles of his jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbones, doesn’t just change.

But the adult Booker is stronger than his teenaged self, both in mind and body. He’s more...hard boiled. More honed down to the bone. And he carries himself with a confidence he didn’t have a full grip on back in the days when I thought I knew everything there was to know about him.

I’d bet my bottom dollar he doesn’t give two figs about his father’s opinion nowadays.

Booker turns back to me and I quickly drop my gaze to give my fingernails an intensely interested inspection.

“You remember you have a fitting for your new gowns at Frederick and Nelson a week from tomorrow, right?”

I swallow hard. Whether at the sudden change of subject or in anticipation of new clothing, I am not sure. But it’s a lifeline and I grab it. “Yes, at four p.m. I have the seamstress’s name in my purse.” Considering how beside myself excited I am about this, I’m proud of the breeziness of my reply.

But, oh, my golly! Except for a single gown I received from the management at the Tropics, I have always supplied my own stage outfits. And the one from the Tropics’ had been a hand me down.

Booker, however, supplies up to five gowns for any singer deemed to bring increased profits to the Twilight Room. It was in my contract, but I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t actually read it all that carefully. I was too impressed with the money I’d be getting. It was much, much better than I had received from any other singing gig I’ve ever had. Besides, the lounge always seems full to bursting to me, so I have no idea how Booker determines these profits. From the money the bar brings in, maybe? I know from nothing when it comes to running a joint this big and swanky.

I don’t truly care. I’m just excited about the dresses. I have never in my life had one specially tailored to fit my body, never mind five dresses all at the same time. It makes me feel like Mrs. GotRocks.

I look up to see Booker studying me, his expression—well, I can’t really tell if that’s satisfaction I see or something entirely different.

I’m suddenly awash with an overload of emotion seeking an outlet, which in my case unfortunately usually means uncontrollable tears. I would rather chew rusty nails than let Booker see that, so I murmur a hasty excuse to hurry me out of his office.

Before I say or do something to give away my sincere befuddlement and complete and utter lack of sophistication.