LENA

“Of all the speakeasies, in all the world,” I seethe as I hoof it as fast as I can through the backstage area toward my dressing room, “I had to sign a contract with the one owned by that dirty lowdown RAT?”

All right, I kind of yelled that last part. But I’d been so thrilled about moving to Seattle. It was a big step up from Spokane and seemed ab-so-lute perfect at the time. I’d considered it the smart move of an honest-to-God businesswoman along her chosen career path.

I sure hadn’t had a clue Booker Jameson owned the joint. And even if I had, it never would have occurred to me he wouldn’t even have the first idea who I was!

Rage and a bitter sense of betrayal thunders through my blood. So insulted am I—and so preoccupied with that bounder’s ability to make my blood boil with caustic ire—I dismiss the interested looks cast my way by the two-man stage crew. The curious female dancer stretching over her long, shapely leg propped atop a work bench, however, makes a stronger impression. Perhaps because she watches me with such big-eyed, non-judgmental interest. But then her gaze drops along with the forehead she presses against her shin.

And I give my shoulder an impatient hitch. Of course I’m more aware of her. I just watched her and her sister on stage before my Twilight Room debut.

I draw in deep, calming breaths, but a fat lot of good they do me. I am so darn livid I can barely see straight.

And I’m hurt.

I hate to admit that last part. And in truth, the heart-stomping pain coming back to haunt me is a mere phantom of the agony it once was. So how the heck can I ache over something that’s no longer even there?

It reminds me of Billy Wilson, back in Walla Walla. He used to marvel over the pain in the leg he’d lost in the war. A pain he felt in the long bones of the calf and foot that had been amputated.

No doubt this is something like that.

With all these emotions racing along my nerves, in my heart, in my head, I’m not paying attention to my surroundings. In a hurry to reach the privacy of my dressing room, I dodge around the electrician’s big spool of cable in the corridor. When a woman suddenly steps into the hall, I am simply too close to stop on a dime.

I barrel smack into her.

Grabbing each other’s arms, we perform an awkward little shuffle to keep from careening off the narrow hallway walls or ending up in a heap on the floor. “Botheration!” I snap when my right foot skids.

At least I manage to catch myself. And looking into the pretty face of the other dancer in the sister duo, I suck in my ire, my frustration, and exhale a deep breath.

Then grab a hold of all the emotions coursing through me like balls in the pinball machine they had where I sang place before last. “I am so sorry. Are you all right?

“Oh, pos-i-lute-ly, doll. Me and Clara have done more damage rehearsin’ our act.” A hint of Southern drawl adds softness to the modern slang, and she flashes a big smile. “I’m Dot Brasher.”

“Lena Bjornstad,” I reply. Then shrug. “Or Lola Baker, if you’d rather not deal with trying to keep real names straight from the stage ones.”

“Oh, heck, girl, me and my sis have good memories, so what’s a coupla names between new friends? Nice to meetcha, Lena.”

The other Brasher sibling glides to a halt beside us. “I’m Clara,” she says, clearly having heard the introductions. “Dot’s sister.”

“I know. I watched your act before my set. And, oh my goodness, you two were darb! Where I grew up we weren’t allowed to dance, so I never learned. I do so admire those who can.”

“You weren’t allowed to dance?” Clara stares at me as if I’d said I wasn’t allowed to breathe. “Why, that is just plain wicked! Where on earth did you grow up—in Hell?” She flashes a saucy smile. “Hell, Michigan, of course.”

“Of course,” I agree, smiling back. “But it’s closer to the interpretation most people think of when they hear ‘hell’—I grew up in the Blood of Christ Foundling Home in Walla Walla. That’s down south of here, Walla Walla is. Well, I guess so is the other place—” I make myself stop talking for a moment. “Sorry. I’m babbling. The B of C is owned and run by a rather fundamentalist church.”

I wave that aside. “I sure adore watching people who do know how to dance, though. And I have never seen anyone quite like you two.” For the first time since coming face-to-face with Booker, a genuine smile tugs at my lips. “Not to mention my fascination with how identical you look.”

And how! Dot and Clara have the exact same short, shiny brown bob, big golden-brown eyes, prominent cheekbones and, of course, long, lean dancer’s bodies. “I have never met twins before.”

“You still haven’t, doll—I’m thirteen months older then Sis. They just breed ‘em true on Ma’s side of the family.” Clara’s laugh is bawdy and infectious. “Heck, Dot and me know all the players and still it’s tough telling who’s who among all the cousins at the Rowland family reunions.”

She opens a nearby door and stands aside, gesturing me to precede her into the room. “C’mon in. Feel free to help yourself to the flask over there. And do tell what led you to slappin’ Mr. Jameson.”

Dot’s jaw drops. “She slapped Mr. Jameson?”

“Right across the kisser,” Clara says. “You shoulda seen it, Dot. He said something I couldn’t hear and offered her a glass of champagne, and she whacked him but good, drank the champagne, then swanned away. It was the cat’s meow!”

Stunned into silence by the recitation of the altercation, I follow them into a dressing room that is perhaps the tiniest bit larger than the oversized closet I call my own. Clara closes the door behind us and gives me a level look, raising one eyebrow. “Can’t say how smart it was to hit the man who signs your paychecks, though.”

Still feeling raw and used, I open my mouth to tell the Brasher sisters exactly why I hit Mr. Booker Almighty Jameson. But Dot jumps into the conversation before I get a word out.

“He gave you champagne?” She stares at me as if I’m the It Girl, Miss Clara Bow, herself. “Wow. We’ve seen a lotta Janes try to snag his attention since we’ve been here. But I can state with God’s honor truth I have never seen Mr. J buy any of them a drink.” She glances at Clara. “Have you?”

“Huh-uh. He doesn’t mingle with the likes of us. Oh, he’s always respectful and he’s charmin’ as can be with the clients. But the man isn’t all flash and strut like most of the speakeasy owners we’ve worked for. He’s more Joe Brooks. And I’ve never seen him flirt with the high hat women or the flappers who frequent the joint, either.”

“More Joe Brooks,” I repeat and snort like a blue ribbon winner at the county fair. Appalled, I slap a hand over my mouth. That was less than elegant, for pity’s sake.

Then I square my shoulders, along with the so called chip Matron Davidson used to insist I carry on them. What do I care if I made a little—okay, loud—farm noise? I’m not elegant. I may play at it onstage, but that’s as far as it goes. I drop my hand to my side. “Absolutely—his clothes are impeccable. Always were. But then he is the only son of the richest man in the town where I grew up.”

The Brasher sisters squeal like they’re riding one of the big wooden roller coasters at a same fair my pig noise came from. “Oh my gosh.” Dot stares at me with big eyes. “So, you did know him before?”

In the Biblical sense, one could say. Not that I do. It’s one among many facts and feelings buried deep in my Midnight File. I learned young at the Blood of Christ to keep my secrets secret. There was very little privacy, so I built my mental Midnight File. I envision it as a golden box with a strong lock, positioned deep in a closed room somewhere in the back of my mind. This is where I keep my most persistent emotions—the one’s I simply cannot shake. I mentally sort through them in the dead of the night when all around me are asleep.

So, I don’t say now what I’m thinking—not aloud at least. I can’t control the way it whispers in my brain. “We have…history,” I admit. Not, now that I’ve cooled down, I’m prepared to go into details about it with these women I have only just met. I do add honestly, however, “I had no idea he owned this lounge.”

Had I, you could take it to the bank I never would have signed the contract. I am darn near one hundred percent certain of this.

“Didn’t you talk to him when he hired you?”

“He didn’t—a man named Leo Stone caught my act at the Tropics Lounge in Spokane. He bought me a cocktail after my show, and during our conversation he somehow talked me around to telling him my contract with the Tropics was coming up for renewal. Then he came back the following night and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I would never say this out loud, but I would have signed for far less money, just for the opportunity to play a larger, more sophisticated venue in a larger, more sophisticated city.

Clara’s cheeks suddenly turn pink. “Leo is Mr. Jameson’s manager.” I can’t tell for sure, but the careful neutrality of her voice makes me wonder if perhaps she, too, knows a little something about sharing a less than swell history with the wrong man.

Or heck, maybe she just thinks the manager is a sheik. Like Booker—especially this new version Booker—Leo is a very manly fella.

In any event, Clara clams up once the words leave her mouth, so I find myself filling the drawn-out silence when it edges into awkward territory. “I didn’t learn that until today,” I confess. “Before I got here, my dealings were all with Mr. Stone, including signing the contract. Mr. Jameson wasn’t even mentioned until I walked into the manager’s office when I arrived here this evening.”

The name had given me a jolt—I can’t deny it. Aloud, however, I merely say, “I had no reason to connect the name with the Jamesons I knew back in Walla Walla.”

Dot gives me a look. “How well, exactly, did you know him back in your home town?”

I hesitate, then say honestly, “I guess you could say he was my first love.” My only love, actually. But that’s a fact I feel no compulsion to share.

Those feelings turned to dust a long time ago, anyway.

“Ooh, now you’re on the trolley!” Clara twirls a hand, a clear invitation to keep talking. “Feel free to share the details.”

“There isn’t much to share. We went to the same high school, but he was two years ahead of me. And we attended different churches. Walla Walla isn’t all that large, yet it’s sizable enough we likely never would have crossed paths. But his mother hired some of the girls from the foundling home to serve at a party they hosted. I was assigned to the kitchen and Booker escaped there in order to avoid both his father, who never failed to lecture his expectations for his son, and an older woman who’d latched onto Booker. She, apparently, was a non-stop talker whom, from everything he said about her, sounded like she’d feel right at home at the Blood of Christ. Apparently, she, too, believed having too much fun puts us firmly on the path to hell.”

Annnd… not really pertinent, so once more I wave off the aside. “Anyway, he chatted me up easy as could be. And since I have never had a decent grasp on my proper station in life, according to Matron Davidson, I chatted right back.” One of my hands involuntarily rises to splay atop the swell of my breast concealing my racing heart. “And, oh, he was interesting! Plus, he made me laugh.” Like I had never laughed before that evening. I feel my smile stretch into a wide, lopsided smile. “There wasn’t a whole lot of laughter at the Blood of Christ.”

“And they couldn’t see that might be a result when they hung a name like that on a home for orphaned kids?” Clara murmurs dryly. “Because, it doesn’t exactly trip cheerily off the tongue.”

I can’t help myself, I laugh and then laugh harder still when the two sisters join in. “Oh, my,” I say once we finally get our giggles under control. “I have a feeling knowing you two is going to be very, very good for me.”