“Why, you, of course,” Erin flirted. They settled onto the makeshift couch – just the bed with the covers thrown over top – with their mugs in hand. “Besides,” Erin continued in a matter-of-fact tone, “You owe me for missing our date last night.”
“Our date?” Charlotte asked, surprised for a moment before remembering. “Oh, I did agree to drinks last night, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Erin. It totally slipped my mind.”
“It’s all right, my dear. This coffee more than makes up for it. It’s delicious. Real beans, innit?”
Charlotte nodded, sipping.
“So what’s been keeping you from me? I thought we weren’t going to be so distant anymore. Is it a woman? Work?” She leaned in and asked in a rushed whisper, “Are you getting deported?” A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“That’s not funny. Although, you’re not far from the mark – about a woman, not about deportation,” Charlotte replied.
“Tell me you’ve met someone!” Erin exclaimed.
“Someone gorgeous, mysterious, intelligent… She has these eyes that are such a deep and vibrant blue that I feel like I lose myself in them when I look at her,” Charlotte said, sighing. She added, “Did I mention she’s beautiful?”
“Yes, well, you said gorgeous already,” Erin quipped.
“And entirely unattainable,” Charlotte said, sinking back into the pillows on the bed, bringing her feet up to sit cross-legged.
“That’s always the best kind,” said Erin.
“It is?” Charlotte took a long drink of coffee.
Erin smiled and replied, “Of course. That means your lonely heart will need someone to provide comfort. Someone like me.” Erin kept smiling for a moment and then laughed, as though she were joking.
“Right,” Charlotte said. It wasn’t that Erin was unattractive, for in fact Charlotte found her quite attractive indeed, but thinking of Erin in a sexual way felt like cheating on Maggie. Erin had been Maggie’s friend. Although, when Charlotte thought about Erin, imagining for a brief moment what it would be like to be with her, the thought didn’t seem as wrong as it used to. There was no one left in the world with whom she could talk as openly as she could with Erin.
“So, who is she?” Erin asked, sipping.
Charlotte shook her head and gave a short, clipped laugh. “I don’t even know why I said anything. Yes, she’s gorgeous, but… I hardly even know her. It’s nothing, really. She’s just the, well, coach of sorts for my football team.”
“Look at you, saying ‘football’ and not referring that game with the silly oblong ball,” Erin said. “Does she know you’re an American?” Erin had whispered the word American in the same tone she had used to tease about deportation.
“No, of course not,” Charlotte replied. “And you really shouldn’t joke about such things. Besides, I’m British now.”
“My dear, you’re a British citizen now, but you will always be American. Regardless, I don’t see why I shouldn’t lighten up the subject a bit. You’re here legally. You have nothing to worry about.” She finished her coffee and set the mug down on the end table. “That was delicious.”
“You know what it would be like for me if everyone knew – the harassment, always wondering if I’d be the victim of a hate crime. I’d have to change my name and move into a different flat.”
“Well, this one is so posh, I don’t know how you’d find another one like it,” Erin replied, tongue-in-cheek. “Listen, you know I love you, and I only joke with you to get you to loosen up. You’re too tense.” She reached over and squeezed the top of Charlotte’s shoulder, massaging the muscle with her fingers.
“I know,” Charlotte replied, relaxing ever so slightly but acutely aware of Erin’s touch.
“So this coach…? Does she have a name?” Erin probed.
“Harriet, and she’s married.” She tensed again, which Erin took as a signal to stop her massage.
“Does that matter?”
Charlotte shrugged and looked down, staring into her cup and noticing the coffee grinds that stuck to the bottom. “I don’t know. No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just… a passing interest. I highly doubt it’s going anywhere.”
Erin let Charlotte’s words hang in the air for several long moments before asking, “Do you have any more coffee?”
Chapter Eleven
After the next game, the team again found themselves back at the Red Door, and again Charlotte had the feeling of being ignored by Harriet. When Paul excused himself to the restroom, she contemplated following him. Certainly, she could use a bit of instant relaxation in the form of one of those swirling pills. It would take the edge off, she knew, and yet still she resisted.
She was glad she resisted. While Paul was still in the restroom, Geoff asked Harriet, “How’s Thomas?” Charlotte’s attention piqued. She had noticed Thomas was absent from the game, but she had not given it much thought.
“Fine,” Harriet replied calmly, although the look she was giving Geoff was one of warning and intensity.
“That’s great,” Geoff replied. “Bet he’s missing you, eh? If I had someone like you at home, I’d--”
Harriet cut him off mid-sentence. “His work up north is keeping him more than busy. He’ll be back in two weeks.”
“He’s in Leeds, eh?” Geoff asked. “It’s a nice town. I visited there when I was young, on a trip with my parents.”
“He’s in Hull, actually, probably having his fill of fish and chips,” Harriet corrected.
Something in the way Harriet looked at Geoff stopped him from continuing his line of questioning. He looked almost reprimanded as Harriet started chatting with the blonde woman who was sitting to her right. Charlotte couldn’t hear what Harriet said, but the blonde apparently found it incredibly funny as both Harriet and the other woman laughed out loud. Their conversation and the way that the woman was touching Harriet’s arm made Charlotte feel irrationally jealous.
After a while, Harriet went to the bar for another drink. Charlotte gulped the rest of her drink and followed. The room was crowded and noisy, giving her an excuse to stand close to Harriet.
“Thirsty?” Harriet calmly asked.
Charlotte didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, “I can’t shake the feeling that you’ve been ignoring me. On purpose.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Harriet replied. The bartender walked over, took Harriet’s order, and disappeared.
“Did I say or do something wrong? You’ve hardly said one word to me. You hardly even look at me.” Her cheeks began to burn. Was it all in her head or was Harriet playing with her?
Harriet turned and faced her. She tucked a loose strand of Charlotte’s hair behind her ear, and gently, briefly, stroked the side of her neck with the tips of her fingers. “I’m looking at you now, am I not?”
Charlotte felt breathless and out of her depth, distracted by the feel of Harriet’s fingers and the glistening of her eyes. “I want to see you sometime,” she blurted.
Harriet didn’t look the least bit surprised by her confession. She leaned in closer and replied, “You want to be alone with me. Perhaps somewhere private. Is that what you mean?”
The bartender returned with Harriet’s drink. Harriet swiped her digicard and took the drink, looking at Charlotte with a hint of amusement playing on her features.
“Yes,” Charlotte finally admitted.
“Next time, just say that then,” Harriet replied, smiling and walking back to the table. Charlotte watched her hips sway, and sighed.
Chapter Twelve
“How’s your work coming along, Parker?” Supervisor Collins asked, his hands clasped behind his back.
Charlotte was seated at her shiny black workstation with the water fern project specifications pulled up. When she first started reading projected, three-dimensional text, she thought she would never get used to it. After a few short weeks, she had trained her eyes to see the text and to filter out the background. Supervisors in labs like Bet
a Lab praised projected text; it added transparency to the work, both literally and figuratively, since supervisors could easily observe what their workers were doing.
She cleared her throat and replied, “Fine, sir. I’ve been hammering out the details for a way to reduce the phosphorous requirement by six percent.”
“Excellent, Parker. Keep me apprised.”
“Absolutely,” she replied. Collins remained standing there, his hazel eyes fixed on her projected screen. “Was there something else, sir?”
Collins cleared his throat and said, “You’re doing well, Parker. Keep up the good work. That’s all.”
“Thank you, sir,” Charlotte said, although Collins had already begun to leave.
Before she had time to reflect on the somewhat strange interaction with Collins, she was alerted by her diginote icon lighting up to signal a new message had arrived. She opened the inbox to see a tiny headshot of Harriet appearing beside the new message. She reduced the font size to make the message illegible to anyone standing more than a foot behind her.
The message read simply, “37 Slaidburn Steet. 0800 hours.”
She closed the message, feeling inexplicably exposed. She called up a street map of London and quickly located the residential address. Was this Harriet and Thomas’s address? If not, what else could it be?
She would spend the remainder of her shift distracted by that brief diginote and speculating as to why Harriet contacted her. It had been nearly a week since she had talked to Harriet at the Red Door. She had agonized over how she had behaved with Harriet and whether Harriet thought she was some kind of impetuous child. Yet, Harriet’s reaction that night made Charlotte wonder whether Harriet hadn’t been expecting the attention after all.
At the end of her shift at 0530, Charlotte took her time returning to the locker room.
Once there, Joanna asked, “Tea?”
Charlotte tried to seem casual as she said, “Actually, I think I’m going to grab a shower here before I take off. Can I meet you in, say, 10 minutes?”
A flash of annoyance showed on Joanna’s face before she recovered and said, “Sure, of course.”
“By the way, I’ve got a question for you,” Charlotte said, trying to keep her voice light. She began unlacing her boots to keep from looking at Joanna.
“What’s that?”
“Do you know if Harriet lives on Slaidburn?”
“That’s an odd question,” Joanna said. “Yes, that’s where Harriet and Thomas’s row house is. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. It was just, well, Harriet mentioned an address and I couldn’t quite remember it,” Charlotte said.
“Right,” Joanna said. “See you shortly?”
Charlotte nodded, embarrassed that she was likely caught in her lie. She waited until the locker room cleared out before she finished disrobing, carefully folding her clothes and placing them on her shelf in the locker. She grabbed her towel and headed to the stainless steel shower stall at the rear of the locker room. Before activating the shower, she massaged hair-cleansing powder into her scalp. She squeezed her eyes closed through the thirty-second antibacterial mist but then relaxed and enjoyed the three-minute warm water rinse.
She returned to her locker and was grateful that she had the foresight to keep a change of clothes at work. She changed into clean undergarments then applied sunscreen to her hands, face, and neck. Next she put on the same pair of grey slacks she had worn that day and pulled on a clean, black, long-sleeved blouse. Finally, she changed into fresh socks and laced up her boots.
#
When Charlotte arrived at the café, Joanna and Paul were deep in conversation at one of the tables. Their heads were inclined toward each other and they sat close together. As she walked up and said hello, their conversation abruptly stopped.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said lightly. “Am I interrupting?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be silly,” Joanna replied. She turned a teacup over, placing it upright on the table. “Tea, Charlie?”
“Please,” Charlotte replied. She sat down, joining them, but had an uncomfortable feeling that something was wrong.
Paul made conversation about football for several minutes before changing the topic to the weather. By the time he began discussing the heat index, Charlotte had the definite feeling that something was going on. She thought it was possible that Joanna and Paul were romantically involved, but that seemed unlikely; she just didn’t perceive a romantic spark between them. Perhaps Joanna had mentioned how she had asked about Harriet’s address, and maybe they were concerned for her emotional wellbeing? She couldn’t be sure without asking, and she wasn’t willing to ask.
Charlotte was on her third cup of tea and was beginning to wonder when she should excuse herself for her long walk to Harriet’s place when Paul interrupted her thoughts. “Say, Charlie, I saw Collins over at your workstation today.”
“That’s right,” she said, although she knew they shouldn’t be talking about work in public.
“It’s not often that he comes out from his office, eh?” Paul laughed.
“No, I suppose not. I can’t say I’ve had much face-to-face contact with him.”
“But it seems he likes you well enough. Maybe pretty well indeed.” Paul was still smiling, the residual of his laughter, but something serious shone in his eyes.
“I really don’t know,” Charlotte replied. “I think he’s happy with my work.”
“Hmm,” Paul replied noncommittally. He picked up the teapot and felt its weight. “I’ll get us more hot water.”
“I need to get going, actually,” Charlotte said.
“Me too,” said Joanna.
After leaving the café, Charlotte was relieved to see that Joanna headed off in the opposite direction after a simple goodbye. She had been concerned that she would have to give Joanna a reason for why she didn’t want to walk together.
Charlotte arrived at 37 Slaidburn Street with ten minutes to spare. She studied the handsome three-story building and realized that Harriet and Thomas probably owned the whole place. Distracted by that thought when she couldn’t even afford new clothes, Charlotte realized she had been standing there for a solid minute or two without having knocked or rung the bell. She opted for the bell.
The door swung open heavily, revealing Harriet in a fitted tweed skirt and a crisp white blouse that made her black hair seem impossibly darker, high-heeled shoes, and a thin silver necklace lying against her skin. “Come in. I see you received my message.”
Charlotte took a few steps in and examined the interior, Harriet closing the door behind her. The furnishings were probably antiques, and looked to be from at least a hundred years ago. Charlotte was too polite to ask if the Persian rugs were new replicas, family heirlooms, or something in between. In the foyer, early morning light cast its beams through a cabinet’s glass doors, highlighting the fragile-looking vases and figurines on its shelves. Charlotte guessed that the windows had an automatic tinting system that would kick in when the sunlight grew too intense.
Charlotte turned her attention back to the woman who stood there calmly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you,” she admitted. “And your message didn’t exactly reveal much.”
“It said when and where. What more did it need to say?” Harriet tilted her head slightly.
“Perhaps some indication of what you wanted,” Charlotte suggested.
“Ah. Next time I’ll be more… explicit,” replied Harriet, her lip twitching into a smile. “Regardless, you’re here now. Let me make you a drink. Coffee or tea?”
“Tea, please,” Charlotte replied, even though she didn’t really need a fourth cup of tea.
Harriet indicated that Charlotte should wait in the sitting room while she slipped off to the adjacent kitchen. With the background sounds of running water and the stove’s gas flame being ignited, Charlotte allowed her gaze to wander around the sitting room. She was keenly curious about Harriet. The sitting room was decora
ted much like the foyer with hardwood floors and intricate area rugs. Two matching mahogany-colored sofas were positioned perpendicular to each other around a wooden coffee table. Fresh daffodils, an expensive indulgence, were set in an iridescent blue glass vase on the table.
Moments before Harriet reappeared, Charlotte had spotted something special: two dozen or so real, printed, and bound books atop a tall cabinet. She had just stepped over to examine the titles when Harriet’s voice sounded behind her.
“There’s something about the feel of paper between your fingers that makes the reading experience that much more intimate,” Harriet said, setting the tea tray on the table.
“I wouldn’t know,” Charlotte said, walking back to the sofas and taking a seat, but not before noting the names of a few of the books.
“Your family didn’t own any books?” Harriet asked, sitting next to her and pouring two cups of tea.
“Only a few. A Bible,” she admitted. “For the sake of preservation, we didn’t handle them.” She took one of the teacups from Harriet and held it cradled. “Your books – Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton – aren’t you concerned about being seen with them?”
“Why would I be concerned?” Harriet asked, sipping her tea despite how hot it still was.
“They’re American authors. At least, you have a few American books,” Charlotte said, knowing full well that Harriet was aware of this fact. “Someone might doubt your loyalties. Why risk it?”
“Well, aren’t you a literary expert? No one even reads those stories anymore, as famous as they once were. Or are you just partial to American authors?” Harriet seemed to relax into the sofa.
Charlotte asked, “Would that surprise you?”
“No,” Harriet replied. She regarded Charlotte with a serious look, and Charlotte knew that Harriet knew. When Harriet spoke again, she said, “Thomas is out of town.”
“Yes, I remember. In Hull, right?”
“So you were listening the other night at the Red Door,” Harriet confirmed.
“I always listen when you speak, no matter who else is in the room. Or haven’t you realized?” she asked.
The Organization Page 5
