Amelia tries not to flush and pays lip service to finishing up and clocking out while they work. She thinks she hears light laughter on her way back into the diner. The two of them chuckling at the big queer joke that’s Amelia Maldonado.
She’s probably imagining it. And that’s what she tells herself as she shuts off every light in the diner and rummages through the drawers in the office to find the keys for the front door.
Laura’s a lot of things, but she’s not sitting out in that car with some kind of—of boyfriend just yukking it up over Amelia not being in on their little French joke.
Amelia jerks the key a little too hard in the back door when she locks it, and then pulls her flimsy raincoat tighter around herself. It’s totally worthless after all her time in the back alley, but it feels like a little protection when she marches up to Tall, Dark, and French and demands he drive her and Laura home.
He looks surprised. His eyebrows flying up into his hairline. “You wouldn’t prefer a cab?” he asks, his accent’s thick, but Amelia can still hear the sarcasm in it.
“Michel,” Laura growls from the backseat. She’s all hidden in shadows, just one pale hand in the light. “Don’t be an ass. We’ve got curfew at ten, and I’d really rather not give Mrs. Myrtle another reason to glower at me.” Amelia’s not the biggest expert of the human condition—despite her acting teachers telling her she should be. But she can still tell “Michel” is annoyed. Still, the guy’s nice enough to hold the door open for Amelia, as she climbs into the backseat of his fancy car that costs more than her yearly rent. She knows a thing or two about cars—enough to know his is outrageously expensive.
“How’s a guy afford a car like this?” she asks him when they’re on the road. She doesn’t get to sit in a car much nowadays and it’s pleasant. And it’s a much smoother ride than she remembers, too.
Cars she used to drive went too fast and made her teeth rattle.
Tall, Dark, and French stares back at her using the rearview mirror, and she can only see his eyes, hard and cool, in the reflection. It’s maybe the first time he’s ever really looked at her. “It’s not my car, chere.”
She glares right back. “Whose is it?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“My friend shows up bleeding on my doorstep, so I’m a little curious.” Her “friend” is currently passed out beside her, and the weight of her head on Amelia’s shoulder feels real nice.
“Your concern is noted.”
And so is his lack of concern.
Laura sighs in her sleep, and Amelia resists the dumb urge to brush the hair off her face so she can get a better look.
“What’d you give her?” she instead asks softly. “Drugs?” She drops her voice an octave. “Booze?”
Tall, Dark, and French chuckles in a way that conjures up images of dark and smoky Parisian cafés. “Laura’s tolerance is far better than yours or mine.” Then he goes real tender. “And she really shouldn’t have anything alcoholic with that lump forming on her head.”
“She’s gonna feel like a horse kicked her in the morning.”
“She will.”
“And she got hurt—”
“She was rushing a file to the other side of the office. The door stopped her.”
It’s the same as Laura’s story, and as stories go, it’s a pretty standard one. Especially for ladies who don’t want people asking questions. No one pushes for explanations when “it was a door” or even some stairs.
But Amelia doesn’t believe it. Not when she’s seen Laura talking discreetly with this guy who drives an expensive car and patches Laura up as if he’s been doing it all their lives. Not when she knows he thinks it was a fist too.
“She in trouble?” she asks, and she knows Tall, Dark, and French catches her drift. She’s never exactly been in their particular world, but she’s seen enough of it to know how to talk.
He’s got the steel-eyed look again, tempered by just enough tenderness to put most folks off the trail. “I assure you, Miss Maldonado, she’s not.”
Amelia doesn’t believe him, because she isn’t the patsy he and Laura seem to think she is. She takes Laura’s hand in hers and squeezes it.
Laura doesn’t mumble, but her breath is hot on Amelia’s neck.
They get to the hotel, and Tall, Dark, and French offers to help take Laura upstairs. Amelia levels a good glare at him. “She doesn’t talk much about her home life does she?”
“Not enough.” He smirks.
She bites back the smile that should accompany the nasty satisfaction she gets at chastising him. “No guys above the first floor. Especially not pimps patching up the girls.”
He flusters and tries to hurriedly dissuade her, but Amelia’s well and truly done with the guy, so she ignores him. She awkwardly leans all of Laura’s weight onto her shoulder and pinches her as they walk toward the entrance. “I need you to wake up, Miss Wright. We got a job to do.”
Behind them, Tall, Dark, and French calls her back but she shoots him the bird without looking up.
Laura shakes her head and slowly opens her eyes. Her head lolls as she looks back at Tall, Dark, and French and then toward Amelia. “What happened?”
“Your ‘friend’ brought us home. Now you got to pretend you’re A-OK so we can make it up the stairs.”
Laura half-salutes, and they march toward the entrance. Laura giggles loudly. Amelia’s never heard her giggle. It’s all… girlish. The kind of girlish giggle she and Laura usually roll their eyes at when they hear it tinkling around them at breakfast.
The Sebastian Hotel’s got a decent breakfast, affordable rooms, and nice clientele, but it’s also got one Edith Myrtle working the night shift. She’s a wiry-haired widow who loves church, cross-stitch, and ferreting out bad girls.
She stops them halfway up the stairs with a terse cry of their names. It’s worse than any what-for a mother would give. “You’re home later than usual,” she says, peering at them with beady eyes behind glasses as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle.
Amelia glances at the clock at the top of the stairs.
Ten past the hour. They broke curfew.
Amelia opens her mouth to spin God knows what, but Laura is faster.
“Oh Mrs. Myrtle,” she honest to God sobs. “You will never believe what…” she sniffs, “what just happened.”
Amelia listens as raptly as Mrs. Myrtle, because she’s curious herself.
“Our train got stuck.”
Mrs. Myrtle has not fallen for the stuck-train excuse in over a year. She’s got a number for every damn train line in the city and can fact check that whopper faster than a cop.
“So naturally we had to disembark.”
Amelia just nods. Laura’s clearly working herself up to tell this story, and Amelia doesn’t want to interrupt a fellow actress.
“But we were so far up town. Far too far away to make it back in time. Unless—”
Mrs. Myrtle leans in. Eyes behind her glasses wide.
“Unless we ran. Amelia was even ready to do it barefoot.”
Mrs. Myrtle’s eyes flicker over to Amelia as if she’s forgotten she was there. Then down to her feet, which are, in fact, dirty from all the running around in the alley.
“But some men, well you know how much like dogs they can be.”
The enthusiastic nod says Mrs. Myrtle does know.
“Well they saw us running and gave chase!”
“No!”
“Oh yes. Just flying after us! So Amelia, brave soul that she is just ran out into the street. Got us a cab. Didn’t matter that we hadn’t the money to pay for it. As long as we escaped the men.”
Mrs. Myrtle is a big fan of bad spending if it means less men around, and gives Amelia a fond look.
“But I’m afraid the cab driver wasn’t quite as kind as all that and we’ve been stuck out there all this time trying to convince him not to call the police on us.”
“Should I go speak with him?”
Laura shakes her head sagely. “That won’t be necessary. Amelia was very persuasive.”
Did Laura have to lean on the very like that? It made Amelia sound like some kind of pugilist. Or prostitute. She wasn’t really sure which.
It was the dumbest story Amelia’d ever heard, but Laura spun it like one of those breathless dolls on the radio, and somehow Mrs. Myrtle bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.
“You girls should rest,” she says, and then she sends them both up the stairs and starts rubbing her hands together like she always does when she’s downright fraught.
“Just carry that story up your sleeve,” Amelia mutters out the side of her mouth as she lugs most of Laura’s weight up two flights.
“For a rainy day,” Laura agrees.
“Got any more of ’em? We could make a fortune selling them to girls on the hall.”
Laura smiles sleepily. “I’ll see what I can do.”
On their floor, Laura becomes completely useless again, and Amelia has to prop her up against Laura’s own door as she searches her for keys.
Laura stops her with a viselike grip on her wrist and produces the keys from her pocket, dangling them in front of Amelia. “Looking for these,” she asks coyly, and it occurs to Amelia that Laura might actually be drunk. Or maybe she just gets flirty when folks knock her on the head.
She snatches the keys from Laura and holds her up with one hand around her waist while she uses the other to open the door. Laura’s arms find their way around Amelia’s shoulders and it’s just…It’s a hug.
Laura Wright, smelling like garbage, antiseptic, and that perfume that’s always wafting out of her room, is hugging her. Amelia almost—almost—doesn’t want to open the door.
But she does, and Laura steps back into the shadows of her room. As playful as she’s been, it’s all gone once she steps over that threshold.
“Thank you, Amelia.” She’s serious again.
So Amelia tries not to be serious. Even though she wants to follow her into that room, keep her safe, and send her back home on the first train to Connecticut if it will stop whatever’s happening. “Take it easy Laura,” she says with a crooked grin.
She tosses the keys at Laura’s chest who catches them without blinking. Then she slowly closes the door. Leaving Amelia feeling like a caboose in the middle of the hallway.
She shuffles back into her own room. Hissing when she sees her ruined stockings and dirty shoes in the mirror. That’ll be fun to clean up. Tomorrow. After she’s had a good night sleep.
But after scrubbing her face, peeling off her clothes and climbing into bed in a shift she really ought to have laundered, she can’t actually sleep.
Her stupid brain is turning over the night’s events. Peering at ’em like a robber looking at the plans for a bank. Laura’s just gone and told a whopper of a lie to Amelia (the one to Mrs. Myrtle doesn’t count because everyone lies to Mrs. Myrtle).
And Amelia can’t quite figure out why. Apart from insane theories about Laura being a lady of the night.
Tomorrow, she tells herself again. And she snuggles down under the covers and sighs.
She’ll talk to Laura tomorrow. They’ll sort it out and go right back to being pals who share smiles over the breakfast table and sneak bites of pie at the diner.
CHAPTER 2
The next morning Laura laughs off what happened and assures Amelia she’s A-OK. She butters her toast and bites into it with relish. “I’m fine,” she says. “It was just—an accident.”
Amelia likes to think the look she gives Laura says she’s no fool. But Laura must miss it because she steers the conversation away from their night with a wave of her butter knife.
As if Amelia can’t see the line of stitches hidden in her hairline.
“Laura you’re not the least bit—”
“It’s fine, Amelia.” She snaps. “I’m fine. Now let’s talk about shoes. Because I think we should splurge sometime this week. I’ve repaired my heel three times in the last two months and I know you’re needing a new pair. How about a trip up Fifth Avenue? Just the two of us?”
Things, for Laura at least, go back to normal. At least as far as Amelia can tell.
Laura comes to the diner, or she stops by Amelia’s room to ask for a cup of sugar, or she invites her over for tea. At night, Amelia stares at her ceiling and wonders if maybe it was some crazy dream she had, because the way Laura’s acting as if it never happened, really has Amelia questioning her own sanity.
Then she notices Laura’s sneaking out and in most nights, wearing fancy dresses or coats so big they swallow her up.
“You okay?” Amelia asks.
And Laura waves her off with a smile that should be condescending, but really just sets loose a set of butterflies in Amelia’s stomach.
A few more bruises take up residence on Laura. Little ones most folks won’t notice. ’Cept the ones around her eyes, puffing ’em up on account of sleeplessness.
Amelia stops asking though. She’s offered Laura every opportunity to own up, and instead the woman waves her off with an airy laugh and tells her it’s all right.
Amelia tries to slot her into the category of “cute girl who won’t last.” It’s a nasty category to have, but one Amelia’s built out of necessity.
Then Tall, Dark, and French shows up at the diner, sits in the booth across from Laura, and looks up at Amelia like they’re familiar with one another, saying, “Hello, Miss Maldonado.”
Amelia pours him a cup of coffee and knows she can’t categorize Laura so easily. The hot streak of jealousy that races up through Amelia at the sight of him is proof enough that Laura’s more than some cute girl who won’t last.
Amelia glares at Tall, Dark, and French, hoping just a nasty look can convey her hatred for him and whatever he’s got Laura wrapped up in.
It works.
Tall, Dark, and French goes from breezy to shifty and ashamed.
Good.
Laura, not acknowledging either of them, leaves to go to the bathroom.
“I’m not what you think I am,” he assures her in a low voice as soon as Laura’s gone.
“Excuse me if I don’t believe you,” she assures right back, her whisper harsh.
“I—” He catches himself. It’s like he wants to prove he’s a good man. But a fella shouldn’t have to work to prove it. He should just be. Amelia is wise enough to know this guy ain’t. Not if he’s using Laura.
She raises an eyebrow and waits for him to finish.
But he flushes and flusters. “You’re misunderstanding the other night.”
She leans in, one hand on her hip and the other holding the coffee pot too tight. “I really don’t think I am, ‘chere.’”
He presses his fingers into the laminate so hard they turn red under his fingernails. The ‘chere’ bit got to him. Serves the Frenchie right, sounding like Charles Boyer and looking like a stubbly Gregory Peck.
Still glaring at him, she lifts her chin. “What’s your cut?”
His head snaps up, and he looks horrified. “It isn’t like that.”
“Yeah,” she spits. “It is.”
“Everything all right?” Laura’s back.
Amelia spins on her heel, plasters on a big old smile, and says, “We’re swell.” Tall, Dark, and French swallows and nods.
She goes back to work, and the two of them sit there, looking like the lovers Laura’s insisted repeatedly they aren’t.
At least this time Laura doesn’t smile when Tall, Dark, and French talks.
“Quickly,” she he
ars him say. Like he’s just given Laura marching orders she can’t abide.
Amelia can just barely make out Laura saying in a low voice, “I don’t want to do it.”
Tall, Dark, and French tilts his head and looks apologetic. “We all have to do things we don’t like, Laura.”
A little later, he collects his things and leaves, stopping at the door to stare hard at Amelia. She stares hard back, never breaking eye contact, not even as she pours a cup of coffee for a harried mom with her yowling kid.
Laura’s still sitting in her booth. Her mouth is small and tight in a frown. It dissolves when she notices Amelia watching her, and Amelia makes like she’s looking away.
But she still watches Laura out of the corner of her eye. And the frown returns, changing Laura’s face until her eyes are narrow in anger and she’s taut like wire.
She gets up when she thinks Amelia’s busy with another table, and Amelia stops long enough to watch her walk out. Laura’s shoulders are rigid. Like she’s got some bad news. Like maybe Tall, Dark, and French was telling her something she didn’t want to hear. Maybe giving her a job she shouldn’t have to take.
Damn it. Amelia knows what she’s gotta do. She’s got to go be nosey and investigate what exactly Laura does for a living.
And, if need be, she’ll clean a dirty pimp’s clock.
She figures the first thing she’s gotta do, if she’s gonna help Laura get loose of the nasty life she’s leading, is figure out what the hell actually happened to Laura on the night she slumped her way into the alley. Amelia had been too insecure to pay attention when Tall, Dark, and French was patching Laura up, so she didn’t get a good enough look at Laura’s beating to have an idea of how she was hurt. The only thing she knows for sure is it wasn’t a door.
Laura’s sitting inside the diner, perched on a stool at the counter, gorgeous legs crossed and blonde hair perfectly coifed. Long fingers clutching a pen and jotting down notes in a pad. She doesn’t comment when she sees Amelia get into an embarrassingly heated conversation with a twelve-year-old paperboy outside.
The Lavender List Page 2
