“Find another girl, Charlie.”
“C’mon, baby. You know there’s no one else even comes close.”
“And quit calling.”
“Then how ’bout I come over, huh? Like old times, sneakin’ up real quiet.”
“Not on your life.” But the line had gone dead.
Mrs. Kinship came out from the kitchen, brandishing a wooden spoon. “Is that fool calling again?”
“I’m sorry,” Monica said. “I’m sure he’ll get the message soon.”
“Well, I hope to goodness. What he’s doing to Mr. Davenport’s nerves.” She clucked her tongue. “Supper’s up in a few minutes, if you care to join us this evening.”
“Yes, thank you. I’m starved.”
“Well, it’s a good, hearty stew. Looks like you can use it.”
“Sister, you’ve no idea.”
“Why don’t you go on up to your room? I’ll bring you a tray.”
“Would you?” The offer alone lifted the weight of the day, and the unprecedented friendliness warmed her as much as the food would.
“Let that phone ring itself silly. Never cared for them things anyway.”
As if on cue, the telephone answered the insult, jangling unapologetically.
Mrs. Kinship lunged for it. “Let me at that thing.”
“No,” Monica intervened. “He’s my problem.”
Determined to put Charlie off once and for all, she took a deep breath before answering with all the hostility she could muster.
“Monica?” The soft surprise in Max’s voice caught her off guard, and she grabbed the edge of the telephone table to keep herself steady.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Is everything all right? You sound upset.”
“Of course. It’s just that we’re about to sit down to supper here.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t like the way we left things today.”
“Exactly what does that mean?”
“It means—” a long, crackling pause—“can I see you again tonight? Maybe you could save me a bowl of stew? Or we could meet each other somewhere?”
Monica twisted the telephone cord around her finger and gazed around the room. There was Mr. Davenport trying to appear absorbed in his magazine, even though his reading glasses hung from his vest pocket, and Mrs. Kinship tapping her spoon against her hip in a rhythm just short of menacing. Every inch of space was stuffed with furniture and carpets and knickknacks and rubber plants. It was soft and home, and she wanted him here, but not tonight. Not with the risk of Charlie making good on his threat to come for a visit. It certainly wouldn’t do to have the two of them colliding on the front porch.
“I don’t think so,” she said finally. “It’s nothing to do with you. I’m just beat is all. It was quite a day.”
“That it was.” Though he spoke over the phone, she could picture him and knew a quick smile had punctuated the sentence. “But I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.”
“It’s already so late.”
“It’s not quite six o’clock. Even I’ve been known to stay up past suppertime. I’ll see you at eight.”
“They don’t like me to have—”
“I’ll bring dessert.”
For the second time in just a few minutes, she heard the phone line go dead in her ear.
She smiled weakly at Mrs. Kinship. “That was the nice one.”
Mrs. Kinship expressed a host of opinions in a single sniff before turning on her heel and walking back into the kitchen. Without a doubt, Monica knew she’d lost her chance at a cozy, comfortable supper upstairs. Sighing, she followed with Mr. Davenport on her heels into the kitchen, where they gathered around the small table. Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, the landlords, were apparently dining with friends, but Anna arrived as Mrs. Kinship set the steaming pot of stew in the middle of the table.
“Well,” she said, singling out Monica, “look who’s joining us this evening.”
“Exciting day at the library?” Immediately, Monica regretted the mocking tone in her voice. In many ways, she envied Anna’s job.
“Oh, you know,” Anna said. “Shelve one, shelved them all.” It was a joke Monica had coined not long after joining the household, and not a particularly funny one at that, yet Anna brought it out regularly and still delivered it with a deep-set giggle. It was a great irony that Anna worked in the library without having a particular love of books. It was the quiet she sought, the peace and quiet. Monica often thought it was a waste.
Had the Graysons been home, they’d be eating in the dining room, but given their absence, supper was served in the kitchen, where they each took their familiar seats. Dinner was a silent affair, as most of them were whenever the elderly couple was not there to, if nothing else, speak with each other. Not an uncomfortable silence, though. Rather a familiar one, with compliments to the chef and observations of the weather bobbing to the surface.
What thoughts could possibly be roaming through the minds of these people, Monica could hardly imagine. She kept her demeanor calm, alternating bites of savory beef with those of softened potatoes or flavorful carrots. Each bite ushered in a different thought about a different man. Max was wonderful. Charlie could ruin everything. Kissing Max. Fending off Charlie. Kissing Max again. And again, maybe here in their very parlor, after everyone departed to their solitude. Unless Charlie showed up.
Occasionally the telephone would ring, setting everybody on edge but sending nobody to answer. If it was Max on the other end, perhaps he would become discouraged with his plan to visit. If it was Charlie? Well, at least he wasn’t on his way over yet.
“I’m afraid I need to run out for just a minute.” Monica patted her lips and chin with her napkin and set it on the table beside her.
“I thought you had company coming over,” Mrs. Kinship said as she began to clear the table.
“Company?” Anna was always pleased to participate in any bit of Monica’s life.
“I should be back well before then.” If she hurried.
She ran upstairs to her room and rummaged through the tossings of paper until she found the card Charlie had sent with the roses. JJ’s. A fun place run by an affable Irishman. Good drinks, sometimes music, and a regular crowd that assembled almost any night of the week.
Monica changed into a warmer dress and lower heels to accommodate the walk. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead in anything this frumpy for a night out, no matter how casual the place. But she didn’t want to get Charlie heated up any more than he already was, and it didn’t hurt that she’d look kind of homey when Max came over. Downstairs, she glanced at the clock while tugging on her hat. She had a little over an hour, plenty of time to head Max off at the pass. She looked back to see Anna’s wide, moonlike face behind hers in the mirror’s reflection.
“Maybe I should go with you.”
“Not tonight, kid. This place isn’t for you.”
“Kid? I’m older than you.”
“But I have experience in spades.”
The angle of her hat perfected, she wrapped a scarf around her neck and touched fresh lipstick to her lips. No need to look like an absolute farmer. She met Anna’s eyes in the mirror.
“I may have a gentleman coming to call this evening.” A gentleman coming to call. She loved the propriety of it all.
“So why are you leaving?”
“Because I may have another gentleman coming to call, and I don’t want their paths to cross. If the first one, Charlie—you’ve met him; he was here the other night—shows up, tell him I’ve gone to meet him. He’ll know where, and he’ll go away. And if the second one, Max—tall, wears glasses—arrives, tell him—”
“You’ve gone to meet the first one?”
“No! Don’t mention anything like that. Just tell him that I’m trying, really trying, to get home.”
Anna looked at her with something akin to worship. “Oh, how I envy your life. How exciting everything must be.”
“Yeah?” Moni
ca pulled on her coat. “Well, right back atcha half the time.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the box of stories. “Do me a favor? Take this up to my room for me?”
Anna studied it. “What’s this? Another token from yet another man?”
“Nothing quite so interesting, I’m afraid. Just a few scribbles from my childhood. Probably the last things I’ve ever truly enjoyed writing.”
Her explanation triggered a new reverence.
“How lovely. But I’ll wait. Maybe we can read them together? Make some hot chocolate?”
“Sure,” Monica said, adding a breathless “It’s a date” while subjecting herself to the girl’s enthusiastic embrace.
Then it was out the door.
She walked at a near-scurrying pace, both to feed her nerves and to warm her body. Please, please, please be there. Maybe she’d asked for this kind of predicament, leading Charlie on the same way she’d led Max, making him think she was available at his whim. After all, she had been for months, in clandestine meetings in dark, crowded places all over the city. She’d given him her time and her body, and even a little bit of her heart. They’d even gone so far as to declare a love for one another, such as it was, in slurred and stumbling conversations.
But that was before Max. And before Alice Reighly. And before this clear, cold walk that was emptying her head of nostalgic affection with every step.
She wasn’t his Mousie anymore.
Halfway to JJ’s, she wished she’d taken a car, and she vowed to do so for the journey home. She didn’t have a watch, but when she asked a fellow pedestrian the time, she found more than twenty minutes had passed since she left the house.
Wait for me, Max. If he showed up at all. Then again, when had he ever not been a man of his word? Wait for me. Not that she had anything new to say. And she dreaded that he had something new for her to hear. Like he didn’t love her after all. Or she was fired. Or he’d decided to take her to bed just because he knew he could.
During the grocery’s business hours, the entrance to JJ’s was through an innocuous-looking door at the back of the shop. After hours, one had to navigate a menacing alley, dodging trash and dogs and unsupervised hooligan children. She thought briefly of Paolo, wondering if he’d spent his time away from her in such a place, feeding off scraps and mice. If so, no more, and she stopped just short of envying him.
The alley entrance to JJ’s was unmarked and unlit, as was the bell one rang in order to gain admittance. Regulars knew the button was nestled in a certain brick four rows up from the ground; newcomers didn’t know at all and weren’t welcome. This being Monica’s first time to come alone, she had no one to act as lookout to be sure her moves were undetected, but her own surveillance assured her that she was alone. Under any other circumstances in a dark alley, that fact might have met with trepidation. Now, she reached down, found the submerged button, pushed it, and waited. Seconds later, an opening appeared in what had looked like a solid door, and a soft yellow light shone through. A familiar face appeared. At least, a familiar brow.
“Sorry, lady. We’re closed. Come back at seven tomorrow morning.”
“I’m looking for Charlie.” For a time, that had been the actual code. “Is he still here?”
“Is he? Take him off our hands, would ya? He’s a mess.”
With that, the door opened just wide enough to allow Monica to slip through before Benny the brow closed it. After that, a heavier door, insulated to keep the sounds of people and music from seeping to the outside. This he opened with equal ease, releasing the sound of raucous laughter underscored by a single brave piano. The room was far too small for the riotous crowd, and Monica sidled her way between the patrons, often seeing nothing but jackets and shirts and suspenders in her line of vision. Instead, she trained her ear for Charlie’s distinctive laugh, the one that started with a shout. It wasn’t long before she heard it. She bumpered her way toward the source, back toward the bar, recognizing his square form underneath the suit that seemed simultaneously rumpled and stretched. His head turned, offering the familiar profile, his hat pushed to the back of his head, and then his mouth unhinged at the last joke.
“Charlie!” She had to shout his name three times over before he responded, and when he did, she could tell she was initially out of focus.
“There’s my little Mousie.” He approached her, slow and unsteady, holding out his hand in a pinching gesture as if he could pick her up by some thin, whiplike tail.
She held up a hand. “Stop right there. You gotta leave me alone, Charlie. Understand? It’s over.”
Unfazed, he draped himself over her, drunker than she’d ever seen him, and she staggered under his weight. “Baby—” his breath launched a second assault, sour and wet—“with girls like you, it’s never over.”
She strained to look up and over him, her eyes frantically searching for somebody to come to her aid, but his comrades at the bar were more amused than alarmed.
Monica heaved. “Get off me!” She managed to slip away, a move apparently worthy of applause from the onlookers.
Someone shouted something about putting ten bucks on the mouse, which drew a fresh burst of laughter, including Charlie’s. Monica stood in the midst of it, fueled by fresh anger. How could she ever have thought this creep was charming, or witty, or even civilized?
“You leave me alone, Charlie. Do you hear me?” Overwhelming superiority made her feel ten feet tall. Or at least six. “You don’t call me, and you don’t come by my place. Understand? You do, and I’ll put your name and face on the front page of my paper with a story juicy enough to keep your wife entertained all the way through breakfast. Understand?”
By the end of her tirade, she felt like she’d won ten bucks for every patron ready to put money on her, because Charlie was reeling from the sheer force of her words. A beat of actual silence intervened as all waited for Charlie’s response. He, for his part, looked deflated, small enough for her to kick around, and for good measure she did just that, landing her foot against his shin hard enough to make him wince but not fall over.
This further moved the crowd to her favor, and they burst forth in cheers. Somebody came up behind her, grabbed her hand, and raised it above her head in victory. Then, next thing she knew, someone else pressed a glass into it, and facing a semicircle of drinks raised in her honor, she acknowledged her fans and drank it down.
It was strong, cheap, like it always was in this place, and by the time she finished, she felt halfway to drunk. There was a ringing in her ears like she’d never experienced before, not with any amount of drink. She closed her eyes and shook her head, but it only intensified, growing more sharp and shrill. When she opened them again, she noticed the look of absolute terror on Charlie’s face. She turned to focus on what he was seeing behind her, and that’s when Monica realized the sound wasn’t coming from inside her head at all, but from the thin whistle between the pursed lips of a granite-faced man she hadn’t noticed until now. He, too, held his hand high, and in it was something shiny and gold and shield-shaped. Another man, older and grizzled, held up a similar object and shouted lyrics to the tweets.
“Ladies and gentlemen! We are federal marshals! This is a raid, and you are all hereby arrested for the illegal manufacture and purchase of alcohol.”
The crowd roared around his words, only causing his voice to escalate.
Whether out of habit or blind fear, Monica found herself reaching for Charlie, felt his square, tough hand grasping hers. It was a necessary island of comfort in such a storm of confusion. She stepped closer, hoping against hope she could simply disappear behind his bulk and slip away to safety at the first opportunity.
“Ah, geez,” Charlie said, struck with new sobriety, “my wife’s gonna kill me.”
And she decided she was better off alone.
Max realized immediately after hanging up that he had no address and therefore no way to find her. Both of his repeated attempts to call went unanswered, even after the opera
tor verified that there was nothing wrong with the line. Finally, he called young Trevor, who provided not only the address but the quickest route to get there on foot. His steps followed Trevor’s words, past the bank where they’d shared a drink, and Sobek’s, where they’d shared coffee and pastry. In fact, he managed to slip in just before Mrs. Sobek locked up for the night and purchase the last custard pie.
Trevor had given him a detailed description of the house itself, three-storied with a large front window, and now it appeared just as he’d pictured. He stood at the foot of the steps, holding the white box by its string. Remembering the time on the clock at Sobek’s, he judged it to be a little past eight, just as he’d promised. He climbed the wide steps to the front door and rang the bell, impressed with the chimes he heard ringing within.
A plain, plump young woman answered, seeming to size him up on the porch.
He removed his hat. “Is Monica Bisbaine at home?”
“Who should I say is calling?”
“My name’s Max. Max Moore.”
She rolled her eyes as if calculating, then smiled and said, “Please, come in. She’s not home right now, but we’re expecting her back shortly.”
Confused, Max walked through the open door. “Not home?”
“She had an errand,” the girl answered with a studied propriety. “But we’re expecting her back any moment. My name’s Anna, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you, Anna.” She took his hat and coat and finally his pie, thanking him for his kindness before handing it off to a thin, middle-aged woman who appeared silently at his side.
“I’ll take this to the kitchen until Monica gets back. She’s run an errand, but we’re expecting her back at any moment.”
“All right,” he said, bemused at their identical responses.
The women—Anna and, he learned, Mrs. Kinship—invited him to sit in the front parlor, brought him a cup of tea, and introduced him to Mr. Davenport, who also informed him that they were expecting Monica to return at any moment. Max sipped the tea and took in the room. Plush, comfortable, well-worn. He felt immediately welcome, and for the first few minutes the conversation was easy and consistent, about him, about them, and the weather. When the clock chimed eight thirty, however, and the “any moment” of Monica’s arrival didn’t materialize, the talk suffered, becoming stilted and intermittent with long, fidgety silences.
All for a Story Page 27
