Live, my love. Live and laugh.
The memory came to me in Sara’s voice and for a moment my throat squeezed shut.
Easy for you to say, I thought. Then laughed painfully. But what if . . . What if I dared to survive, as Faith Bellaume once said in response to my rage and grief? What if I dared to live a life whole?
I pulled out my cell and tapped the number I had tried to forget and could not. Adanna Jones answered within the first ring.
“Hello, Rainbow Books . . . Oh. It’s you.”
Her voice was quick and breathy. Impossible to read anything from that.
I took a deep breath and jumped into my fate. “Hi,” I said. “I just wanted— I mean— Are you busy September fifteenth?”
Now she laughed, though more like a laugh of relief. “I have no idea. Why?”
“I’m giving a presentation at a medical conference. In September. There’s a banquet the first night. Master Chef Santini, very fancy. And . . . I wondered if you would like to go.”
She didn’t answer at first, and I felt a weight of questions in that silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a rush. “I shouldn’t have bothered you—”
“No, wait! Janet, please.” She breathed an audible sigh. “Oh, Janet. I’m sorry. It’s just you surprised me. Thank you. I would like to go to this banquet.” Then in a softer voice, “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. And . . . Oh god, I need someone to write better dialogue for me.”
Adanna laughed again, a low and easy laugh that seemed to ripple through my body. “Hey, girl,” she said. “You sound like you need a night out. Are you free tonight? I know where a good band is playing.”
***
The auditorium of the Washington Hilton stretched out before me, all dark velvet and sumptuous chairs. Lights illuminated the steps winding around both sides of the hall, picking out the blue and silver in the carpet. Ordinary members of the conference occupied the central section. Honored visitors watched from balconies on either side of the podium. The first row had been reserved for speakers and their guests.
I glanced at the digital clock next to the speaker’s stand. With a tap on the podium’s holo-keyboard, I brought up the last page and paragraphs of my speech. I’d written six different versions of this section. Esma Hernandez had argued for a kinder, gentler conclusion. I had refused.
Adanna Jones sat in the front row, among the other guests and next to my own empty chair. Her gaze met mine, and she gave me that small and secretive smile I had come to know these past few weeks.
I took a deep breath, felt a flutter beneath my ribs, and continued.
“Politics,” I said, “in short, isn’t just a section in the feeds and squirts. It’s not just a topic for conversation. It’s woven through every facet of our lives, including medicine. Politics drives our decisions about which diseases to research, which ones aren’t important. It determines where we allocate our time, our doctors, and our funding.
“It decides who lives, and who dies.”
I paused, just long enough to take a deep breath.
“We will never have enough money, or people, or time. But we have compassion. We have our oath to our patients. That is the politics we should serve. Thank you.”
The auditorium went silent as the audience digested my words, and while I considered the wisdom in calling out the medical establishment. Then, Adanna Jones began to clap. Another person, farther in the back, joined in, the scattered applause gradually building up to echo throughout the hall.
By the time the room had quieted, the speaker’s clock had ticked to zero. The speakers’ coordinator signaled me to leave the podium. “If you are available tomorrow,” she said, “I’d like to schedule a Q & A session with you and a few other panelists.”
“Of course,” I replied distractedly. “Text me later with the time.”
Three more people interrupted me on my way back to my seat, asking if I would consider speaking at their conference or association. I handed over my business card and accepted theirs, simply to get them out of my way. At long last I regained my seat next to Adanna and collapsed with a sigh.
“Well done, ma brave,” she murmured.
She clasped my hand in hers. I pressed my forehead against hers, then attempted to give my attention to the next speaker.
But God and the heavens weren’t done with dealing me challenges, apparently. As Adanna and I headed toward the banquet hall after the last presentation, a familiar voice called out to me.
“Janet, Janet!”
Angela Gray emerged from the crowd.
Oh god. Not here. Not now.
My once beloved paused a few feet away. A part of me registered the many small and subtle changes. Her face thinner, sharper, as if the years had etched away the softness. Her hair with a sheen of gold and braided in an intricate pattern. Very sleek, very professional.
“Hello, Angela,” I managed to say.
I noticed another woman—shorter, rounder, her hair cascading in soft curls—hovering behind Angela and felt another pinch in my gut as I recognized her face from the wedding announcement in Howard University’s alumni newsletter. This was Maggie, Angela’s wife.
Our conversation, such as it was, sputtered and died.
Adanna came to my rescue and held out a hand. “So pleased to meet you,” she said. “I’m Adanna Jones, Janet’s friend. She’s told me a great deal about you.”
Angela blinked, then her mouth quirked into a smile, and once more I saw the old Angela. “Oh dear. Yes. I can imagine that.”
They shook hands. All very polite, very professional. Angela introduced Maggie, then she turned to me. “Janet, I goddamn loved your speech. You gave a badly needed shakeup to this conference. And I hope . . . I hope you keeping kicking butt as hard at Georgetown as you did at Howard.”
Code words for I’m sorry I hurt you. Please don’t be angry with me.
Except that wasn’t fair. I’d volunteered for the service without even talking to Angela about my decision. I had run away from her gifts for years, until I finally, truly ran away from her. Angela had simply recognized the truth sooner than I did.
I held out my hands, clasped both her hers in mine. “Thank you,” I said softly. “I expect you to do the same.”
***
The banquet was glorious. Afterward, there was dancing.
Later, much later, Adanna and I walked along the brick sidewalks of Georgetown, through the warm September night. A breeze, soft and damp, washed over my face, and the sidewalks gleamed, wet from the morning’s rain. The air was filled with the scents of damp earth, of moldering leaves, and of Adanna’s spicy perfume.
We came to 2809 Q Street. All the windows were dark. If anyone watched us, two black women in this very upscale neighborhood, I saw no sign of it. Even so, there were other watchers.
“I would like to invite you up to my apartment,” I said. “But the neighbors . . .”
“Nosey, are they?” she asked.
I considered the recording devices inside the apartment, still active as far as I knew. The watchers on the outside, those from the FBI or CIA, as well as the perimeter guard Sara’s grandmother had insisted on. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Oh?”
We’d come to that moment again. All those unspoken questions she had about that night I appeared in her bookshop, so obviously distressed, about the headlines in the newsfeeds, about Sara’s absence—those had hovered, palpable, at the edge of our conversations these past few weeks.
I took both her hands in mine. “I will never lie to you,” I said. “But I cannot answer all your questions. I can’t even tell you why. Those secrets are not mine to give away.”
She tilted her head. “I won’t say I understand, but . . . I do believe you.”
Live. Live and love.
I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers. She gave a throaty chuckle, then wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a deeper kiss. Later, la
ter, when I signed the papers on my new apartment, the one newly painted to my specifications and with none of those goddamned miniblinds, then we would do far more than kiss.
Eventually we ran out of air. Adanna pulled back, kissed me lightly. “I should get home, Dr. Watson.”
“Let me walk you to the Metro stop.”
Onward through the starlit night. One last kiss. A date made for tomorrow once the conference ended.
Back to 2809 Q, up the stairs, and into 2B.
I touched the light switch in the entryway. Breathed in the scent of wood polish. Caught a whiff of roses.
Sara’s favorite perfume. Perhaps memory is that strong.
But then I saw the enormous porcelain vase on the parlor’s coffee table. A vase stuffed so full of roses that they overflowed onto the table. Roses so dark a red that they were almost black, and their scent drenched the air. My nerves lit with apprehension.
I cautiously circled the table. Saw a white square tucked among the petals.
Congratulations, said the gold script on the envelope. Another gift from Adanna? Not likely. Adanna had already had a bouquet of white roses delivered to my office earlier that day. Never mind that she had no way to get into the building, much less this apartment. I opened the envelope and extracted the stiff white card.
To Dr. Watson, Best wishes in all your endeavors.
No signature, no name. Not Adanna. Not Angela. Who would leave such a mysterious message for me? And how did they get into my apartment?
There could be only one person . . .
Hardly daring to hope, I ran my fingertips over the card and found the faint bumps on the back of it. I pressed hard.
My love, my friend. I cannot apologize for my silence, so I shall not. I can only tell you that I am with friends, doing good deeds in parts unknown. Some of those deeds are even permitted. Thank you for your courage and your honor. Will write again when I have news. —Hound
I released my breath and realized I was trembling.
Sara. Sara alive. And Micha, too, because who else could infiltrate this building and this apartment in spite of all the watchers.
The ink shimmered, re-formed into a new message.
PRESS ME, IDIOT.
Right. No use leaving evidence lying around.
I pressed the upper right corner of the card to disappear Sara’s message. Then I tucked a rose in my hair and headed for my bed and dreams of Adanna Jones.
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel can be a lonely business. You sit (figuratively) alone in your head and dream up people who don’t exist. You wrestle with plot knots and character motivations. You research medical terms, or languages, or the phase of the moon on a certain date. You lie awake at night wondering if you forgot some key detail, or worse, got that detail wrong.
But then, you also have friends who help you along the way. Many, many thanks to . . .
Tempest Bradford and Nisi Shawl, and their workshops about Writing the Other.
Delia Sherman, Heather Rose Jones, and Paul Weimer, for your sharp-eyed commentary.
My editor, Amber Oliver, for her on-point suggestions that made my story stronger and better.
Aja Pollock, whose copy edits and queries saved me from all kinds of embarrassing mistakes.
Chris McGrath, for creating yet another brilliant cover that is true to the story and to my characters. Have I mentioned recently how much I love your work?
Caro Perny, publicist extraordinaire, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager, for all their hard work in turning my manuscript into a real book, then making sure people knew about it.
And not the least, to my son and husband for all your support.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
* * *
Meet Claire O’Dell
About the Book
* * *
On Writing Janet Watson
Read On
* * *
An Excerpt from A Study in Honor
About the Author
Meet Claire O’Dell
CLAIRE O’DELL grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in the years of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. She attended high school just a few miles from the house where Mary Surratt once lived and where John Wilkes Booth conspired to kill Lincoln. All this might explain why she spent so much time in the history and political science departments at college. Claire currently lives in Manchester, Connecticut, with her family and two idiosyncratic cats.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
About the Book
On Writing Janet Watson
THE SEEDS for this book came from an online discussion of fan fiction. I had never tried writing fan fiction before, but I’ve always loved the Sherlock Holmes stories. I’ve read a few stories that showed different takes on Watson and Holmes, and of course I knew about Sherlock and Elementary. But one thing bothered me. Holmes was always a man. I thought, what if Holmes were a woman? What if they both were? And why did either one have to be white? And then I had the image of Watson returning home from a war.
Her whole life has crashed. She’s weary and bitter and suffering badly from PTSD. But she isn’t going to give up, dammit. That’s when I had to write her story. The book took me several drafts and eight months to write, mostly on the weekends. (I work full-time as a web developer.) I chose Washington, DC, for the location of the book because I grew up in the suburbs, not far from Suitland, Maryland, where Janet grew up, and my high school was half a mile from the house where Mary Surratt once lived, and where John Wilkes Booth died. Janet’s story is one of politics and race because of where I grew up. It’s one of gender because of who I am.
Read On
An Excerpt from A Study in Honor
“CAPTAIN? DR. Watson? Is that you?”
A lean and knobby black man limped toward me and reached out a hand. I flinched back, still tangled up in my earlier panic.
His smile flickered upward and then faded at my silence. “Do you remember me?” he said.
His face was a study in brown, crisscrossed with old scars. His hair was a grizzled gray and covered his skull in patches. It was the combination of the limp and the scars that reminded me who he was. Jacob. Corporal Jacob Bell. He had transferred to our medical unit and served as my assistant before taking a disability discharge.
“I remember,” I said. “I’m sorry—”
“It doesn’t matter, Captain. I understand.”
To be sure, he would. He had been captured by the enemy and tortured. He had escaped on his own, but some things you could never leave behind.
“How you doing these days?” I said.
“Good enough, Captain. Busy. Not nearly as busy as I was in the service, though.” He paused, and I could see the many, many questions he wanted to ask.
“I know a tasty diner,” he said at last. “I’m hungry. Are you?”
To my surprise, I was.
I nodded. “Lead on, Corporal.”
His tasty diner was a restaurant in the U Street corridor that specialized in Greek dishes. We ordered an enormous plate of feta cheese and hot peppers to share, then a second one of baked phyllo stuffed with roasted lamb and spinach. There were hot tea, cold water, and an abundance of food of the kind and quality I had dreamed about in Illinois. For a while I could do nothing but eat. Jacob did not trouble me. He understood the need to devour food when we had the opportunity. Eventually, however, we both slowed and I could take in my surroundings and my companion. I refilled my water glass. Jacob poured tea for us both.
“You surprised me,” I told him. “Popping up like a rabbit the way you did. What happened to going back home to Maine?”
His hesitation was brief but said a lot. “Times be hard, Captain. You know how it goes. The job they were holding for me went to someone else. And . . . other things were harder. Anyway, I ended up in DC. The VA found me a job in the medical center. Orderly. It’s not my
first choice, but they added a student loan for a local tech college to sweeten things. I go to classes there afternoons and evenings. You?”
“I do well enough,” I said. “It’s early days, but . . .” With an effort, I expelled a breath and found I could almost smile. “I need money. I want to stay in the city a few months or so. They said they might find me a new arm.”
Jacob simply nodded. “Might be. Could be.”
Neither of us mentioned the waiting lists, or the cuts in funding that made those waiting lists even longer.
We fell silent over the remains of our lunchtime feast. The waitress brought us a second pot of tea and our bill, with the murmured addendum that we need not rush. We didn’t. I was grateful for this chance meeting with an old friend. Jacob too seemed glad for the unhurried meal and the conversation that followed.
“You want a job,” he said eventually. “And a better place than that hostel.”
I had described my room to him—a bit too vividly, no doubt.
“The problem is money,” I said.
“It always is. But maybe I can help. I know someone . . .” He glanced around. “Not sure if she’s right for you, though.”
“She?”
He shrugged. “A friend of mine. She’s not service, but she’s not so bad.”
I waited, knowing there was more.
“She’s . . . particular about things,” he went on. “Some might call her difficult, but she has her good points, too. I happen to know she’s looking for a partner to split rent on some rooms.”
My throat went dry with a sudden and all-too-familiar panic. A stranger. Someone to witness my nightmares, to stare at my missing arm while pretending not to. It was difficult enough in the hostel.
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