“You haven’t answered my question.” Jed pins her with a level look. “Are you working for the Japs?”
“You really think I’m some kind of… traitor?” she asks, incredulous despite her newfound grasp of where he’s coming from. “Just because my neighbors are Japanese?”
“And because of the… the…” He takes a deep breath. “I have to admit something, Clara. I’m not the least bit proud of it, but I did it because I was trying to find your identification so that I could return your belongings, and…”
“What? What did you do?”
“I looked inside your pocketbook. And I found… this.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.
She looks into his outstretched palm—and laughs out loud.
She can’t help herself. It’s amusing to see him holding out her iPod as though it’s some sort of…
Oh.
He has no idea what it is, but she can just imagine what he’s thinking.
As the ludicrous picture falls into place, complete with the nosy cop, Clara recognizes the seriousness of the allegation. Her laugh fades, along with the slightest hint of humor in the situation.
She’s going to owe him an explanation… and she’d better come up with a plausible one, fast.
“What is this, Clara?”
Stall him.
“What do you think it is?”
“Some kind of… device.”
She nods. So far so good.
“It looks like a transmitter,” Jed goes on. “And I thought… I mean, I couldn’t help it. I figured…”
He figured that she was—she is—a wartime spy transmitting secret messages to the Japanese.
“This isn’t a transmitter, Jed,” she says quickly. “At least, not in the way you’re thinking.”
“So you didn’t hear me calling you?”
She shakes her head, even as she remembers his odd comment a little while ago, on the street. He said he was calling her to come back.
He wanted me here.
The realization strikes a spark of euphoria. For a giddy instant, she’s fifteen again, just finding out that her crush on the cute soccer goalie is mutual.
Then she glimpses the lingering misgiving in Jed’s eyes and the spark is gone. Reality crashes over her: she’s all grown up, and he isn’t Adam Dumont, and they don’t have a chance in hell of any kind of relationship.
“Let me show you what this is, Jed.”
Abruptly, she takes the iPod from his hand, earbuds dangling, and presses the center button to turn it on, illuminating the screen.
Scrolling down the inventory of downloaded playlists, she almost wishes she had downloaded Jesus’s Super Seventies CD. Gladys Knight and the Pips would be a good alternative to Green Day and the Black Eyed Peas.
She needs something more classic, something that was around back in the forties. Too bad she’s never been much of a fan of swing music, or vintage crooners, or…
Wait a minute. There.
Perfect.
“Here… put these on.” She hands him the cord.
He stares at the earphones as if he has no clue what—
Oh. Right. He probably doesn’t know what they are.
Of course he doesn’t.
“Here, I’ll help you.” She steps closer, stands on her tiptoes, and rests one hand on his shoulder poised to insert the first tiny speaker into his ear.
Enveloped all at once in that familiar soap-tobacco-skin scent, she experiences another giddy fifteen-year-old-girl moment. Caught up in a seductive fantasy, she can’t seem to move on, entranced by the sensual images infiltrating her head.
She can see the muscles in Jed’s neck working as he swallows audibly, and she wonders if he’s feeling the same provocative tension.
All he would have to do is turn his head and they would be face-to-face…
And I could kiss him again.
“What is that sound?” he asks, and for a second she’s convinced he must hear her heart pounding.
Then she realizes he’s talking about the faint buzz of music coming from the iPod, the song she selected from her Christmas playlist.
Swiftly getting hold of her recalcitrant emotions, she gently puts the earphone into his right ear.
He jumps. “What the—?”
“Shh, hang on…” She places its twin into his left ear, then takes a step back and watches his face.
His blue eyes are wide with shock.
“Is this music coming from that little thing?” he shouts at the top of his lungs.
She grins. “Yup.”
“Well, I’ll be…”
She watches him listen, as mesmerized by his rapt expression of wonder as he is by the music.
“What song is this?” he bellows at her.
Amused by his deafening decibel, she motions for him to remove the earphones.
He obliges with obvious reluctance. “This is incredible. What is it?”
“The song? That’s ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas.’… You’ve heard it before, right?”
“Never.”
Uh-oh. She could have sworn it was a huge hit in the forties.
The question is… when in the forties?
“Who is it?” Jed asks.
“Frank Sinatra.” Surely he’s heard of…
“Who?”
“Frank Sinatra. The singer.”
“You mean the kid from Jersey who sings with Tommy Dorsey?”
Well, do you?
“Uh… yes?”
“I didn’t even know he had a record. Is it new?”
Is it?
Or is it a year or more into the future?
She nods; what else can she do?
“It’s going to be huge, I’ll tell you that,” Jed says enthusiastically. “I should have this one in stock. What did you say it was called?”
“‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ but I… I don’t think it’s out on record yet,” Clara says feebly.
“How can it not be on a record?” He peers at the iPod. “What is this thing, anyway? And if there’s no record where is it getting the music?”
“It’s… kind of complicated. You know—new technology. I don’t really understand it myself.”
At least that’s not a total lie. She comprehends as much about consumer electronics as she does physics.
“So all along, this was just some kind of radio? A oneway radio that plays music?” Jed asks.
“As opposed to a two-way radio a spy might use?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “That’s right.”
He seems to be digesting this information.
Then, with a lingering trace of suspicion, he asks, “What about your neighbors? Why didn’t they know who you were?”
Yes, why is that, Clara? Are you going to explain that it’s because you aren’t born yet, and won’t be for another four decades?
“The thing is, Jed… I’ve had some trouble with a stalker lately.”
Again, not a total lie, she thinks, remembering the elderly autograph seeker who assailed her the other night in front of her building.
And what about the secret Santa? Not that unexpected holiday gifts qualify as harassment, exactly… but it’s still unnerving.
“You’ve had trouble with a what?”
Can it be that stalkers, like iPods and Frank Sinatra, are a wave of the future?
“Somebody has been harassing me, and… Isamu and his mother were trying to protect me. They didn’t know who you were so they didn’t want to give out personal information to a total stranger on the street.”
A very logical explanation if she does say so herself.
Although… maybe she should have toned it down a little, because Jed now seems dangerously provoked.
“Is this fella who’s harassing you the one who gave you that bruise?” he asks, his blue eyes dark with ire.
“Oh, this?” She touches her head gingerly.
“Yes, this.”
In an instant, he goes from wrathful to
tender, as he gently brushes her hair back from the sore spot.
“I got this when I walked into a door.”
“You said you got hurt on the train.”
Oops.
“I did,” she says quickly. “I walked into a door on the train.”
There’s a long pause.
Then he says, “I think you’re making that up to protect whomever did this.”
Well, you’re half right.
“Clara… I have to ask you… is he your husband?”
“Is who my husband?”
“The brute who—”
“I’m not married, Jed… and really, there is no brute. I’m just clumsy.”
He studies her doubtfully. “You don’t have to be afraid, you know. I’d protect you. If he followed you here and dared to even look at you cross-eyed, I’d—I swear he’d be eating a knuckle sandwich.”
She smiles, warmed by the notion of big, strong Jed protecting her—even if it is from a nonexistent adversary.
If only he could protect me from the real threat.…
Her smile fades as she remembers her illness.
“You’re safe here with me, Clara. I want you to know that.”
She nods, wishing it were true.…
Wishing she could, in turn, keep him safe.
Maybe I can, though. Maybe there’s a way.
“Where are you staying while you’re in Glenhaven Park?”
Startled by the question, she stammers, “I—I’m not sure.”
“You don’t have anyplace to go?”
“No, I guess I… didn’t think that far ahead.”
“Then you’re coming home with me. Nothing improper, I swear,” he adds hastily, even as she is engulfed by an image of Jed’s bed.…
More specifically, of being in Jed’s bed with Jed. In Jed’s arms.
“No, nothing improper,” she agrees, ducking her head to hide the heated flush she can feel creeping over her cheeks.
After all, men were gentlemen back in 1941.
At least, Jed is.
Although maybe it’s just an act, pipes a lascivious little voice in her head. Maybe once you’re alone with him, in private, you can break him out of that—
“I’ll have to let my mother know to set the table for one more for dinner,” he tells her, and her wanton vision evaporates.
“You live with your mother?” She hopes the question reflects casual interest as opposed to blatant disappointment.
“Not under the same roof… she and my sisters and my grandparents live in the main house. I’ve got a separate apartment over the garage. You can stay there.”
“With you,” she says with a nod, even as she reminds herself that she can’t possibly spend the night. She has an early location call tomorrow.
Then again, maybe she can catch the first southbound train in the morning.
It would be worth it, for the prospect of one precious night with Jed.
“Oh, I’d stay in the house,” he assures her. “On the couch.”
“I can’t put you out of your bed!” she protests.
No, I want to be in it with you. Naked with you, to be specific. One last time for me—for us.
“Oh, I don’t mind at all. In fact, I won’t take no for an answer. You can stay as long as you like.”
Yeah? How about the next sixty-five years?
She musters a smile and a polite “Thank you. That’s really nice of you.”
“In the meantime… I really can use some help around here. How about it?”
“You want me to work here in the store? For real?”
He nods.
Tell him you’re not sticking around.
Not longer than one night, anyway…
She can only hope that will be enough time for her to figure out what she needs to do to keep him from going off to war and getting killed. And maybe even prevent the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
Somehow, after the complicated iPod incident, she senses that a straightforward warning to Jed—or, for that matter, FDR himself—isn’t going to cut it.
“I didn’t come here to work, Jed.” I came to save you. And the world.
“I know, but I had to fire my clerk this morning, like I said. And with Christmas and all… well, I can’t swing it by myself.”
“Of course I’ll help you,” Clara hears herself saying.
“That would be swell. Let’s go up front and I’ll find an apron for you.”
“Some shoes would be good, too,” she says ruefully, glancing down at her stocking feet. “I seem to have forgotten to pack mine, and I can’t wear those with a dress.”
“No, you can’t,” he says in a tone that tells her exactly what he thinks of her sneakers. “I’ve got a shoe rack over by the ladies’ coats. You can pick out any pair you like—my gift.”
“Thank you.” She starts back out into the store.
“Oh, wait, Clara? One thing…”
Uh-oh. “What is it?”
“Mind if I hear the rest of the song?” he asks, already inserting the iPod earphones with the agile expertise of a twenty-first-century tween. “This Frankie kid isn’t half bad.”
CHAPTER 14
This is it,” Jed informs Clara, leading the way up the snow-packed sidewalk to his childhood home nestled in a row of two-story wood-frame houses.
He’s glad Doris talked him into putting up the Christmas lights the other night.
After a two-year dearth, the Landrys’ house blends in with the gleaming festivity up and down the snow-blanketed block, just as it always did when Pop was alive. Strings of fat, oval, multicolored bulbs underscore the eaves, and the spotlit front door is festooned with a wreath and shiny gold tinsel garland. Pop would be pleased.
Jed watches Clara giving the house a thorough once-over, as charmed by her childlike red mittens—her late grandmother made them, she explained—as he is by her rapt expression.
He’s noticed, as they worked together in the store all afternoon, that she has a quirky way of intently absorbing even the most ordinary details. She acts as though she’s seeing the most mundane everyday thing—whether it be a candy bar, or a pair of shoes, or even just a coin—for the very first time.
“This is a beautiful house,” she pronounces. “Have you lived here all your life?”
“Well, until I moved to the garage apartment out back,” he reminds her. “That’s where you’ll be staying. But my mother probably has dinner waiting, so I’ll take you out there after we eat.”
“That would be good,” she murmurs, teetering a bit in her high-heeled shoes on the uneven surface as she resumes heading up the walk.
“Are you all right?” He shifts her suitcase to his other hand and takes her arm to steady her.
“It’s just hard to walk in these shoes in the snow.”
“I should have given you a pair of galoshes before we left.”
At least he did think to loan her a warm wool coat to wear in place of her strange, slippery parka, along with a stylish brimmed hat. She once again looks the part of the elegant beauty, even without lipstick or her hair done up.
He catches her sneaking a curious peek at the lamp-lit windows as they climb the shoveled front steps. Beyond the drawn shades, he knows, Mother and the girls are bustling to prepare a dinner fit for unexpected company.
“Who is this gal, Jed?” Mother asked when he called home to say he was bringing an impromptu houseguest.
“An old friend—from college,” he improvised.
He was worried that Clara wouldn’t want to go along with that, but she took it in stride when he mentioned it just now as they walked the few blocks from the store to Chestnut Street.
Perhaps it should bother him that she seems willing to be anyone he wants her to be—newly hired store clerk, old college friend…
But it doesn’t.
Just as long as she isn’t the person he doesn’t want her to be: a spy.
He still presumes that she’s lying about the bruise on
her head and perhaps even about being married.
But that hasn’t stopped him from repeatedly reliving the intense kiss they shared out on the street today… and longing for another one. In private.
That will have to wait awhile, though.
Opening the door, he calls, “Mother? I’m home.”
Swing music, crackling with slight static, greets Clara as she crosses the threshold, along with a wave of savory-scented warmth.
Looking around the entry hall as she stomps the snow from her shoes on the mat, she takes in the living room to the left, the dining room to the right, and the garland-draped stairway straight ahead, bordered by ascending picture frames on the wall. Beneath it is a low telephone table with a built-in bench. The black rotary-dial phone rests on the table beside a thin bound booklet labeled Glenhaven Park Telephone Directory.
Clara discerns at a glance that this house is a home in the truest sense of the word. The rooms glow with cozy lamplight and flickering firelight, burnished woodwork, amber-toned vintage wallpaper, and floor-length gold draperies. The hardwood floors and area rugs are comfortably worn with use, as is the chintz furniture in the living room. The dining room is formal, with built-in cabinets displaying rows of fine china. Bric-a-brac seems to cover every available surface, including the tall wooden radio cabinet.
Clara makes sure that her money and keys are securely tucked into the bottom of her red mittens before slipping them into the pocket of her coat. Jed helps her take it off and hangs it, along with his overcoat, in a crowded closet beneath the stairs.
“Mother?” he calls again.
A pot lid clatters somewhere in the back of the house, and heels clack their way toward the front hall.
A woman appears. She has sad blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair pulled severely back from a haggard face that, judging by her delicate bone structure, must once have been beautiful. From the neck down, she might have stepped out of a fashion magazine ad as opposed to a suburban kitchen. That’s because she’s wearing a dress and pearls and stockings and heels—a far cry from the terry-cloth tracksuit and slippers that make up Clara’s own mother’s household uniform.
Even more disconcerting, Mrs. Landry is smoking.
Well, of course. Back in 1941, nobody knew that cigarettes are carcinogenic.