The Lavender List

by Meg Harrington

  Judy’s fury cracks and reveals something awful and manic just beneath. She looks as though she might leap through the flames to wrap her hands around Laura’s throat.

  Laura reaches for the laundry chute, because if she’s got to go, she’d rather it be via her own route. Judy tilts her head in warning.

  Laura shrugs.

  She throws herself in, and Judy’s wrathful screech chases after her. Pierces her ears. The fall down the chute is just as bad. Every blow against the side forming a dull blossom of pain.

  She falls forever.

  And then. There’s the smoke. The taste of it in her mouth. The scent of it in her nose. It forms a film on her eyes.

  “Breathe.”

  A soft voice in her ear. Fighting through the throbbing ache in her head.

  Familiar. Amelia?

  “Come on sweetheart. Just take a breath.”

  Not Amelia. She hates the word sweetheart. Says only assholes use it.

  She tries to open her eyes or take a breath, but everything is so damn hard, as if she’s trapped in molasses and can’t get out.

  A hand presses to her chest. Cool through the thin gown she’s wearing. “Just breathe.”

  She tries again. Focuses on her lungs and pulls air in.

  It’s cool and bottled tasting, canned air that moves through her and invigorates her as well as any cup of coffee.

  She finally manages to open her eyes and finds herself in some sterile place. Everything is white and polished, except for the mint green tiles on the walls. Her gaze roves over them, searching for the calm voice that isn’t Amelia’s.

  It’s a nurse in a stark white uniform, with a perfectly starched hat. She smiles kindly enough. “There you are.”

  She reaches over Laura and adjusts the oxygen. Tells her she needs to breathe through the mask for just a little while to help her lungs.

  She’s a polite thing. Babbles about how Laura was found in the debris but seems to be doing well. “Frankly I’m surprised you’re even awake,” she says candidly.

  Laura smiles.

  “And your friend will be relieved. Was making an absolute ruckus in the waiting room.”

  She leans back against her pillow. Of course Amelia would. Probably threatening some poor doctor’s kneecaps. “She’s rather cross with me,” she says, and her voice must be muffled by the mask because the nurse looks at her with confusion.

  And then she’s gone. Replaced by a doctor who talks about broken ribs and concussions and nasty burns on her hands.

  Thanks to the oxygen and some cocktail of drugs dripping into her from a glass bottle, she can’t feel any of that. She waves him off.

  All Laura wants is to see Amelia. She knows she’ll be mad. She’ll come in red-faced and furious, and then she’ll huff and call Laura an idiot and crawl onto the bed with her. She’ll pillow Laura’s head on her arm, play with her hair, and whisper about what a fool she is.

  There will be kisses and teasing and that Armistice Day Amelia spoke so highly of.

  But Amelia never comes. Minutes tick by, and when the door opens again, it’s a tall man with a fast receding hairline, a jaw shaped like a fist, and a thin lipped smile that’s more a grimace.

  She recognizes him instantly. Frank Wisner.

  While she was in France, he manned the intelligence war in Romania. He saved lives. And spent them like spare change.

  He’s back to being a lawyer now. Corporate law, making more in a week than she makes in a month.

  He drops his hat onto the foot of her bed and claps. Slowly. A little patronizingly. “Good job,” he says. “Couldn’t have run that better myself.”

  Men like Frank Wisner don’t run the ops.

  He takes a seat in the chair by her bed and lets out a satisfied groan. The kind a gentlemen never makes in unfamiliar mixed company. Laura’s not sure if she should be offended or flattered.

  “Real fine job. Hear you and your boys might even get a commendation out of it.”

  “I—we just did what anyone would do in our circumstances.”

  He actually harrumphs. “You unraveled a Soviet plot on American soil with none of the resources you should have had. No, ma’am.” He leans forward, legs spread wide. “What you did is extraordinary, Miss Wright. Embrace it!”

  He stares at her until she smiles.

  “Good girl.” He slaps his leg. “I don’t know about you, but it’s been rough being out of the business, especially seeing who runs it now. All military men with no taste for good intelligence work.”

  “I’m aware.”

  Wisner used to be military himself. He made the move to intelligence as soon as he could. “Nice fellas, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t quite grasp this war we’re fighting. The last one was all explosions and right and wrong, as clear cut as a side of beef at the butcher’s shop. But this new war’s about putting a knife in the back instead of a bayonet in the gut. Little chillier than what they’re used to.”

  She looks at the bandages wrapped tight around her hands. “Personally, I found it to be rather warm.”

  Wisner laughs as though Laura might be Laurel and Hardy all rolled into one. “Lord, I like you. Sense of humor, brain in your head, and a woman.”

  He says the last one as if it’s a bullet point on a list of her most admirable traits. She raises an eyebrow.

  “Those men in the military don’t quite get this war, because they think the woman’s job is done, don’t they? Sent you straight home. Ignored all that work you did and all that good intelligence you gathered. Kind a man could never get.”

  It’s a trap. It has to be. Frank Wisner is sitting at her bedside parroting everything she’s ranted about herself, and that can’t happen. Shouldn’t happen.

  So, Laura carefully says nothing. She nods, and it could be tacit agreement or polite encouragement to continue.

  Either way, he keeps going. “The war that’s coming—the war you just launched a salvo in—we don’t need those boys.”

  “Mr. Wisner…Are you trying to recruit me?”

  He grins, and it isn’t unlike a wolf’s. All teeth. “I’m just a lawyer. One who happens to recognize your cause. And your talent. Just wanted to come tell you in person how pleased I am with your service.”

  “I certainly appreciate it.”

  “But this war continues, and I’ve no doubt people with authority will come to call. All they have to do is look at your record to see your talent. That Frenchman you shot on the gallows? Kind of ruthlessness this war will need.”

  Sometimes it feels as if it all comes back to him. “I put a man out of his misery.”

  “And let every person in that square know you were playing a zero sum game.”

  She’s glad she’s in a bed, on painkillers, and can’t just wrap her hands around his neck. She schools her features as best she can. This isn’t the time to show emotion. That will label her weak. Or feminine. All that old anger and grief he’s dragged to the surface has to roil beneath still waters.

  “Mr. Wisner, I appreciate your praise, but I hope you’ll appreciate that I’m rather tired.”

  “Of course. Of course.” He stands and picks up his hat from the end of her bed. “I’ll let you get back to it.” He looks as though he’s leaving, but when he stops at the door, she knows it’s a ruse. The conversation isn’t over. “As I understand it, there was a girl involved.”

  “The spy?”

  He shakes his head. “No, another one. A friend of yours?”

  It’s the way he says it. Casually. Easy to miss. But she can hear everything underneath and see Vince Pedrotti’s sneer as he spat out the word “perverse.”

  “Friends are good. A lot of the men suited for this work have friends. The kind they can share secret
s with. Teaches them how to keep a secret real well. But women?” He acts as though he has bad news, as if her stock portfolio has performed poorly. “Women don’t get to have friends. They have friends or they have husbands.” He slips his hat onto his head. “Do you understand, Miss Wright?”

  This is the moment. This is the moment calling someone “perverse” makes sense. It’s the moment the word—all the insinuation behind it—rankles and rips.

  Her throat is so dry. Sore. Her voice a croak. “I do.”

  She doesn’t scream.

  She’s in a hospital, and it wouldn’t be appropriate.

  And Amelia’s waiting for her and will worry if she hears the scream from down the hall.

  All Laura can do is smile congenially and bite the inside of her cheek.

  Wisner leaves.

  Seconds tick by, and Laura counts each one.

  Amelia will come, and it will be okay. For just a little while, it will be okay.

  Only Amelia never comes. The door doesn’t open to reveal her, exasperated, worried, and glorious.

  Michel comes instead. A lock of dark hair has fallen out of his carefully maintained coif and makes him look dashing. Covers his concern.

  He almost hugs her, but Laura tenses, and he sees it. Instead, he settles into the chair Wisner used. He takes up less space and is a comfort where Wisner was a thorn.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Asking about my headache or my guest?”

  “Both?” His smile is sweet.

  She looks to the ceiling so she doesn’t have to consider it.

  “There are plans to reform something like the OSS.”

  “That’s good, yes?”

  “Sure, but I was just told—”

  Guileless. That’s the word for Michel. Sweet and guileless and in love with her. He doesn’t—shouldn’t know about the ultimatum she received. It isn’t fair to whine about her love life to a man so hopelessly wanting to be a part of it.

  Wisner has made it clear. She has a choice. She can have the career she’s hungry for or the woman she’d die for. Not both. Not now.

  “Amelia’s not here?”

  The mention of her plainly irritates Michel. “No. Stole a car, left it in the middle of traffic and, according to some of the other young women at the hotel, she’s currently in Brooklyn.”

  “She thinks I’m dead.”

  “As a doornail.”

  “The French are so charming.”

  “On occasion, we try.”

  Amelia’s not here, and Laura’s dead. A specter for Amelia to consider on dark nights. A chance flitting through her fingers.

  It’s easy then to ask a favor of Michel.

  That’s what she tells herself. This is easy. Amelia and a lot of other people think she’s dead, and a war is just beginning that she could be a valuable soldier in. It’s her duty.

  She can disappear, and Amelia can do more than wait on the sidelines. She can have a chance of her own. At success. At happiness. Why court the disaster of what they both are when she can find joy?

  And she can be safe.

  That’s what she tells herself.

  Now, she just has to learn to believe it.

  CHAPTER 13

  She watches the fire burn down to embers, and Laura never emerges. The firemen start cleaning up the scene, so she walks to the line of cabs taking the girls to a shelter and gives the driver her ma’s address in Brooklyn instead.

  Her ma’s probably alarmed to have her daughter on her doorstep before dawn and smelling of smoke, but she just wraps her up in a firm hug and then takes her up the stairs to the bedroom Amelia used to share with her sister. Her sister’s son sleeps in it now, but everyone insists it’s okay for her to take the bed.

  “He can sleep with us,” her sister says, and she and her sleepy husband look as concerned as her ma. They’re hugging their robes tight and watching all bleary-eyed.

  Soon as her head hits the pillow—and it smells sour like a little kid—Amelia’s out.

  She doesn’t dream. Or at least, she doesn’t hold on to anything she can remember. Just closes her eyes and gets a few solid hours of nothingness. Which is a sight better than being homeless and sort of widowed.

  Nah. She can’t really call herself a widow. Can she? That implies a relationship that’s longer than one night in the car and a few shared coffees at a diner.

  Amelia’s just… alone.

  She mopes around in the kid’s room. Lays on his bed and stares at the ceiling. It’s painted over tin, and she counts each tile.

  Downstairs, someone leans on the buzzer. She can hear the faint mumblings of a conversation before her nephew’s heavy steps on the stairs.

  “There’s a man here to see you,” he says. “Real fancy and French.”

  She goes down the stairs after him, the smell of smoke chasing her all the way.

  Michel is standing in the middle of her ma’s parlor, looking out of place in his expensive overcoat and polished shoes. He’s got his hat in his hands, and his fingers fidget as if he wants to start twisting it between ’em.

  “Can you guys leave us alone,” she asks. She doesn’t take her gaze off of him.

  Her sister touches her shoulder on her way out. The whole family leaves and shuts the door after them.

  It’s a little funny. The door to the parlor’s always supposed to stay open. “Ruins the airflow in the house.” her ma’s said on more than one occasion.

  Last time it was closed, it was because her dad had to talk to Amelia about her funny and rotten feelings for other girls.

  Boy she’s glad he’s dead and buried. Otherwise this whole affair would probably put him back in the ground again.

  Michel sits on the sofa across from her and doesn’t take off his coat.

  “Found the car,” he says. “The police called to say they’d impounded it after it was double parked half the night.”

  She shrugs and wishes she had something to drink. A nice soda that’d burn a little and be so sweet she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.

  He scoots a little closer so that he’s barely on the sofa. “I’ve just come from the hospital.” He’s real quiet, the way he says it. As if her family will hear and come storming in.

  She tries not to get excited about him coming from the hospital. Tall, Dark, and French would have walked in happy if Laura were still alive. But he’s all muted and concerned.

  She doesn’t say anything.

  Man came all the way to Brooklyn to give her the bad news, and she’s gonna make him do it without her help.

  He tries pleading with those eyes of his. Sort of eyes that a girl’s supposed to melt over.

  Amelia just steels herself.

  And waits.

  Finally, Michel sighs, and the tears start prickling at the edge of Amelia’s eyes. Softly, he says, “She was in the hotel when it burned down.”

  She knows. She was there. Felt the fire nearly blister her skin.

  “I’ve come from the hospital where I… identified her body.”

  She doesn’t cry, but the tears work backwards and burn like a knot of fury in her throat.

  “I’m sorry.”

  That makes two of ’em.

  He starts talking again. “I—” Stops. He gets more fidgety—more insufferable—by the minute. “I spoke to one of her colleagues.”

  “A spy.”

  He nods. “Apparently, her plan worked. Any suspicions someone might have had toward you—”

  “Went up in flames.”

  He looks equal parts abashed and angry. “She cared about you, you know. Did all of this to keep you safe.”

  “Pretty steep cost, don’t you think?”


  “I’d agree.”

  Well… shit. Nice to know he blames her as much as she blames a dead woman.

  “I’m… I’m sorry. That came out rudely.”

  “But it’s honest.” She sniffs and wipes the back of her hand across her nose. “More than I can say for most people.”

  He taps his finger on the brim of his hat. “I suppose. And this was Laura’s choice, yes? She chose to sacrifice everything for you.”

  “Well aware. No need to rub it in.”

  “I only do so because…” He stands. “Because you should make it count, Miss Maldonado.” He offers a handkerchief for the tears she didn’t even notice were leaking down her cheeks.

  Usually, the crying is supposed to stop all the pain in the throat, but this time it just makes it worse.

  She glances at the clock over his shoulder and stands too. “I should go,” she says, and Michel looks as surprised by the statement as she feels. “I’ve got an audition.”

  “Do you really think that’s appropriate?”

  The son of a bitch just told her to make Laura’s death count—as if they were playing ball and she got herself out to set up a play. Now he’s gotta question her?

  “I’m homeless and heartbroken. Least I can do is get a good job.”

  She gets a great job.

  She’s reading her second scene, a big weepy one she’s been working on for over a week. Her acting teacher has been telling her she’s too showy with the scene. Telling her she needs to get “real.” Whatever the hell that means.

  Apparently, she figures out “real” up on stage under a single bare light. That knot in her throat loosens, and all her own grief pours out. The director, the casting girl, and even the producer stare at her with open mouths.

  The producer mumbles. “She’s like that Brando kid.”

  “Realism,” the director says, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.

  She still has no idea what it means, but they offer her the role on the spot, and the pay is good enough that she scales back at the diner and can still afford a place that isn’t her nephew’s room at her Ma’s house.