Harriet met her eyes and explained, “Not often, and not lately, but I have in the past. I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear.” She opened the desk drawer, removing a second glass and pouring herself some scotch. “Listen, I thought we might need to have this conversation sooner or later. This is just sooner than I had planned. I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I’ll admit to you that, quite frankly, I don’t like feeling like my hand was forced, but you’re here now so let’s talk.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Charlotte said. She wondered who Harriet felt had ‘forced her hand’ – Joanna or her? She studied her glass and its liquid contents. It was easier to look at the glass than at Harriet. “So you’re their leader?”
“Yes,” Harriet said, taking a sip of scotch.
“Of the people who are here? Or are there more than this?” Charlotte asked.
Harriet was silent for a long moment before she replied. “Some might say I’m the leader of the rebellion, but I don’t like to think of it in those terms – as a rebellion.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened in alarm. Harriet was the leader of the whole damned thing? She was Public Enemy Number One? Her head was swimming with the revelation that she had unwittingly, accidentally found herself at the core of the very group the police had been trying to track down for years.
“I thought you might need that drink,” Harriet said, attempting to lighten the mood of the conversation.
“Okay,” Charlotte said slowly after a pause. “And the, uh, EBC? I guess that’s a cover too?”
Harriet nodded and set her glass on the desk.
“And… me? How do I fit in here?”
Harriet stood and took Charlotte’s glass, setting it down next to her own. Charlotte felt as though the air in the room had grown warmer, thicker. “Some might say you’re a liability.” Charlotte inhaled sharply out of a moment’s fear and Harriet responded by pressing a finger to the other woman’s lips. “But not me. That’s not how I see you.” She dropped her finger from Charlotte’s lips and kissed her. After breaking contact, she said, “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Charlie.”
“I’m not,” Charlotte responded without conviction. “Who else from our football team is, uh, you know, a member?”
“Joanna, Geoff, Paul, and of course Thomas and I. The rest know nothing,” Harriet answered.
Charlotte nodded and then said, “I’m just trying to figure out who the real Harriet is. The coach, the EBC producer, the…” She searched for a better phrase than ‘rebel leader’ but ended up simply gesturing to the desk and the room.
“I’m real when I’m with you,” Harriet countered. There was a knock on the door and Harriet seemed suddenly weighed down with responsibility. She said, “We’ll talk again soon.”
Charlotte realized that was her dismissal, so she turned and exited through the door, the speaker – Daniel – taking this as his signal to enter the room.
Chapter Twenty-One
Numbly, Charlotte went to work. Joanna walked with her.
Charlotte silently questioned whether she would have been allowed to leave the meeting unescorted, unfollowed. To her credit, Joanna allowed Charlotte space for her thoughts, not interrupting the silence until they had reached the locker room at work.
“Lunch tonight, in our usual spot?” she asked Charlotte, her voice light and friendly since several of their labmates were present at their lockers.
“Sure, sounds great,” Charlotte replied, trying to match her tone.
Once at her desk, Charlotte opened a new diginote. She had intended to write to Erin, to tell her that she needed to talk to her, that it was urgent, that she was desperate, that she badly needed her advice. But then she thought about how Paul knew of her shoe size, knew how to access her personnel file, and she wondered how far his reach extended. Did he – did they – have access to her diginotes? She closed the blank note.
Charlotte focused on her work. She tried to think of nothing but water ferns. She thought about their chemical processes, about nitrogen and phosphorous, about water purification. She composed a new status report for Supervisor Collins, summarizing her work in recent weeks, well before it was time for lunch.
She wished she had some of Harriet’s scotch to settle her nerves. Harriet’s scotch, she thought. The image of Harriet seated at her desk, that bottle on her desk, her pencil poised between her fingers, flooded Charlotte’s mind. She could still see Harriet’s worry-laden face, beautiful even under the burden of the responsibility of an entire rebellion.
The thought of Harriet’s expressive eyes, the warmth of her lips against her own, was replaced by a surprising surge of anger. Charlotte felt foolish that all this time, people she thought were her friends had this secret they were keeping together but not including her in. Did they mock her behind her back? Did they wonder how oblivious she must be to not have known what was going on?
No, she told herself, this is what they do. This was the nature of underground organizations where they became masters at leading double lives, of keeping secrets, of figuring out who they could trust. And Joanna had chosen to trust Charlotte. She had chosen to lead her to the meeting.
And Harriet, had she trusted Charlotte too? It wasn’t her idea to have Charlotte at that meeting. Had she wanted Charlotte to find out her secret? Even as Charlotte asked herself that question, she knew it didn’t really matter. She knew that the only sane course of action was to run – fast and far away – but she felt caught in Harriet’s gravity. There was no point in fighting gravity.
She had a leftover sandwich in her locker that she grabbed for lunch, meeting Joanna outside on their bench. In the shadows of the street lamp, Joanna’s eyes searched Charlotte’s face, trying to get a read on her, as she asked how she was doing.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Charlotte admitted.
“I know,” Joanna said. She sipped from her thermos of soup then cocked her head. “I want you to realize, Charlie, that I vouched for you. I don’t vouch for someone very often.”
“Are you asking for a thank you?” Charlotte asked.
Thankfully, Joanna gave a short laugh in response. “Not at all. What I’m trying to say is that I have faith in you, Charlie. Even if you don’t know it yet, you’re good for us.”
Charlotte stared out into the dark and said, “I feel like ‘us’ has a capital ‘u.’”
Joanna shrugged. “Us. The organization. Whatever you’d like to call us.” She added more quietly, “Friends of George, if you will.”
“Does that make me part of the collective ‘us’? Does that make me a – what did Geoff say – a member?”
“Is that what you want?” Joanna asked. Charlotte opened her mouth to answer, but before she said anything, Joanna stopped her with a squeeze of the hand, “Like you said, Charlie, it’s a lot to take in. I’d like to offer you an opportunity to make a difference. All I ask – all we ask – is that you take some time to consider it.”
Charlotte swallowed hard and asked, “Is that what Harriet wants?”
Joanna averted her eyes and said almost reverently, “Only Harriet knows Harriet’s mind. She hasn’t directed me on this matter. But I’m sure she understands how useful someone like you could be.”
“Useful,” Charlotte repeated.
“Don’t take it the wrong way, Charlie. Besides, I know that Harriet is… fond of you. Do you doubt that?”
Charlotte felt protective of whatever was between her and Harriet. She didn’t want it shared with the whole ‘organization.’ “How do I find out more? I mean, generally speaking, I only know what I’ve heard on the news.”
“On the EBC, most likely,” Joanna said.
“Yes,” Charlotte replied.
“Your willingness to find out more...? That’s the first step,” Joanna replied, looking almost proud. “We’ll talk more soon. Not here, though.”
Charlotte nodded, and they finished their lunch.
Chapter Twenty-Two
&n
bsp; Charlotte had woken up early to attend the meeting – the rebel meeting – and by the end of the day, her mind was strained with fatigue. Earlier, before lunch, she thought that she would stop at Erin’s after work. She imagined she would wait at her friend’s door until she came home, and that Erin would provide her with a kind of refuge. Charlotte wanted to confide in her.
And yet, she also felt a growing loyalty to Harriet. It wasn’t a loyalty to her cause, but a fidelity to the woman herself. If she talked to Erin, wouldn’t she be betraying Harriet? How could she put her at risk? She would trust Erin with her life, but who was she to trust her with Harriet’s life as well, never mind the lives of all those people at the meeting? And what about Erin? She knew there was the possibility that giving Erin knowledge about the rebellion could be dangerous for her as well.
Even if Charlotte wanted to talk to Erin, her body needed sleep. Perhaps it was also her mind’s way of telling her that she needed time to process the day’s events. In a daze, she made her way back to her apartment. She fell asleep on top of her bed while still in her clothes, although she did kick her boots off her feet. After a mere three hours, she woke up and found that she was unable to calm her mind enough to return to sleep. She called for McGillicuddy to turn on the lights and then she sat back against the wall, looking over her tiny space.
It was dirty. She frowned at the state of the place and decided that she needed a change. She needed to take control. She pushed her sleeves up to the elbows and set herself to work cleaning her apartment. She changed the sheets on the bed, she wiped the dust off the hard surfaces, and she scrubbed the floor with a bucket of soapy water that needed changing twice.
And then she tackled the bathtub. Enough, she told herself. It was time for the tub to work again. Long ago, she had purchased replacement piping, but something had kept her from installing the shiny new pieces. Now she found herself prying off the wallboard to expose the corroded pipes. They were easy to identify but even more difficult to remove than she had anticipated, and after a great deal of effort she removed the old piping and installed the new copper pieces. She stared at her expensive piping, wondering what had possessed her to buy copper instead of a synthetic material.
She turned the handles of the tub and ran herself a bath, the water rushing noisily out of the pipes and into the tub. At first the water was dirty, sweeping away sediment that had built up in other areas of the piping. Once the water ran clear, she stopped up the tub and let it begin to fill. She disrobed, allowing her clothes to land on top of the wallboard, dust, and pieces of old pipe. She realized that she should have waited to clean the floors, but she didn’t care.
She sunk down into the steaming water and felt a chill despite the temperature. She was remembering. Maggie used to love baths, back before water had grown so expensive. She said she could close her eyes and pretend that she was relaxing in the hot springs in the Mediterranean. She used to jokingly say that she was going to “take the waters” when she meant she would run herself a bath. Charlotte could still see her. She would twist her hair up to keep it from getting wet, but the steam and her sweat would cause tendrils of hair to stick to her neck.
Charlotte thought about how she used to kiss the side of her neck, tasting the saltiness, and she lingered in that thought for several long moments until she finally made herself push it from her mind. She leaned forward to splash water on her face, and then turned off the water even though the tub was only half full.
Maggie’s memory wouldn’t let her go. Charlotte felt her breathing grow ragged as she thought back to the first time she saw her. Charlotte had stopped in at her favorite pub for a quick drink. She hadn’t been in London for long, and she thought that having a favorite pub was a very English thing. She was naïve, but so was the world. Tensions between Europe and North America were still growing. War wouldn’t erupt for another couple of years. It would be enough time for her to figure out how to mask her accent, but for the time being she was a proud Yankee.
Maggie was there with another woman, each having a gin and tonic with a garnish of lemon, not lime. Charlotte waited at the bar, chatting with the bartender, until the other woman went to the restroom. Charlotte chose that moment to walk over and approach her.
“I’m Charlie Parker,” Charlotte told her, “And I’ve been wanting to meet you since I walked in here an hour ago.”
Maggie laughed, but her cheeks flushed, turning a shade of red that almost matched her hair. She asked, “Why the wait? An hour is a long time.”
“I’m patient. It’s part of my charm,” Charlotte replied, flashing a grin.
“I see,” she said. “And are you a tourist – just passing through – or do you intend to stick around London for a while?”
“That remains to be seen,” Charlotte answered. “But I’d like a reason to stick around.”
“Naturally,” Maggie commented, an amused smile playing on her lips. “Well, Charlie Parker, I am on a date.” Maggie leaned closer to her and whispered, “But I don’t think it’s going very well.”
Charlotte looked from her lips to her eyes and said, “I hope you wouldn’t think the same of a date with me.”
She laughed again – it seemed to come so easily to her – and then held out her hand. She said, “Maggie Walker.”
Charlotte gave it a squeeze and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Maggie said, “I work at the Crystal Palace Museum. If you end up sticking around London, you can look me up there.”
“Count on it,” Charlotte replied with a grin. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw Maggie’s date exiting the restroom, so she turned to go, saying, “I hope the rest of your date goes better.”
“I don’t think you do,” Maggie retorted, returning her smile.
Charlotte must have nodded off in the tub because she wasn’t aware of how much time had passed before she heard a knocking at the door. She pulled the drain on the tub and hastily pulled on her robe, leaving puddles in her path.
She looked through the peephole and felt heaviness around her heart. Maggie was so freshly in her memory that she almost felt alive again, yet here on the other side of her door stood flesh-and-blood Harriet.
Charlotte opened the door and let her in, closing the door behind her without saying a word. Harriet looked refreshed compared to when Charlotte saw her last, less than a day ago, now wearing a sleeveless emerald blouse and pressed, dark slacks. Charlotte knew that she herself looked less than composed.
“Is Thomas not with you?” Charlotte asked.
“He may be my bodyguard, but I alone decide when I need a guard with me,” she said. “I’m an independent woman.”
“Clearly,” Charlotte muttered.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Harriet asked, glancing from her home renovation project to her robe and lastly to her eyes.
“I had just…” Charlotte looked away, trying to think of what to tell her, before saying, “I had fallen asleep in the bathtub, thinking about my wife.”
The comment took Harriet by surprise. “All right,” she said.
“So long as we’re not keeping secrets anymore,” Charlotte replied by way of an explanation. She walked over toward her bed, pulling her clothes chest out. Harriet followed her and took a seat on the edge of her bed.
“Would you like to talk about her, Charlie?” she asked.
“About her?” Charlotte asked, pulling on a pair of underwear and cargo pants, her back to Harriet. She tossed her robe over a chair.
“Yes, about her. About Margaret Walker,” Harriet said quietly.
Charlotte slipped a tank top on over her head and turned to look at Harriet. “So you know her name,” she stated.
“Charlie...” she started to say. “I know some things about you – some facts. I know you had a wife and I know that she died. And I’m sorry for that.”
Charlotte blinked back the tears that she was embarrassed to find in her eyes. “Of course you know.”
Harri
et seemed to study her face. “It doesn’t mean I know all about you. They’re just facts in a file.”
“An employment file, perhaps?” Charlotte accused.
“Yes,” she replied. “Listen, Charlie, I am sorry.”
Charlotte nodded but said nothing. Harriet stood and took a step closer, lowering her voice. “It doesn’t mean I know your thoughts, your feelings… Those are the things that make you you.” She placed her hand on Charlotte’s chest over her heart.
Charlotte laid her hand on top of Harriet’s, and then pulled the other woman’s hand away from her chest. “Why are you here?” Charlotte asked.
“I was worried about you. I still am.”
Charlotte said, “You’re worried about how I’m reacting to the shock of it all – to everything I learned at the meeting.”
“Is that so wrong? I care about you, Charlie,” she said, her hand finding Charlotte’s hip.
Charlotte moved away and sat on her bed. “Tell me what else you know about me from my file.”
“Where to begin?” she asked. Harriet sat next to her on the bed but kept her distance.
“How about at the start of the file?”.
“All right,” Harriet conceded. “I know your date of birth and your full name. I know you were born in Vermont. I know where you attended university, and that you had excellent marks. I know you were a graduate fellow at Merton College at Oxford. I know that you’re a talented biochemist.”
“And I guess that makes me useful for the rebellion, that I’m a biochemist?” Charlotte asked sharply.
“That has nothing to do with the organization. For me, it just makes you more interesting, Charlie. I’m attracted to brainy types,” she said with a smile. Charlotte didn’t respond, and after a moment Harriet’s smile faded and she added, “And I know that you were married, and that your wife died several years ago.”
Charlotte nodded and said, “Okay. That’s enough.”
She asked, “Is there anything you’d like to ask about me? Tit for tat.”
The Organization Page 9
