“I wish I could,” Vi said under her breath as Frances flounced back toward Gertie. Unfortunately, the sergeant had an almost-palpable halo of energy, a restlessness that drew her like a moth to a flame.
And what to make of Frances’s parting shot, I’ve met your type before? Hopefully it was only spiteful rhetoric and not Lily somehow slipping out between the seams. Though there was the fact that the sergeant was always seeking her out.
Except of all her positive attributes the sergeant had listed today, her appearance hadn’t been among them, except in passing. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen. Nothing about her having a stunning figure or a mouth that made men dream of sinful things.
So maybe her Virginia act was holding just fine and she was worried for nothing.
Lieutenant Holland hollered for everyone to line up. Grabbing her things, Vi slipped into line behind Gertie. She relaxed as Marcie took the place next to her, the girl’s familiar presence helping dispel Vi’s nerves. God bless Marcie for never treating Vi as anything other than Virginia.
May the rest of the unit be as unobservant!
And as for Frances’s threat? Vi would have to start avoiding the sergeant from now on, despite a curious reluctance to do so.
Which probably made the break all the more important.
Chapter 22
Lieutenant Holland dropped the troupe off a half hour later at a theater deep in the heart of old Rome, with promises that he would have rooms for them soon. As Vi sat in the darkened auditorium watching the actors onstage, she had to admit that the USO had really done all right by them. The acoustics were outstanding. The layout made for a cozy, intimate audience experience that suited their scaled-down production. Nor could she fault the aesthetics. Truly it was a little jewel of a theater.
She was still a tad envious that it wasn’t her up on the stage being shown all the blocking for Luciana’s part, but her day would come. Better to be part of the chorus than not have a part at all. Frances’s words haunted her, though. The girl was right. In any other production Vi would’ve been gunning for the top role. So why was she oddly content about being passed over this time?
It was damned curious. A question that she had no answer for.
She smoothed her hand over the soft velvet of the upholstered seat, deriving pleasure from the kittenish texture. It occurred to her that the plush fabric, so lovely to touch, might not stand up to rough GI gear. Had anyone thought about that? Or did anyone even care? Rome was an occupied city, after all. Still, she had a soft spot for beautiful fabrics and hoped the chairs would survive.
Onstage, beneath a proscenium that glowed with gold leaf on opulent scrolls, Marcie looked ready to burst into tears as she received yet another line prompt. Vi sighed, wishing Marce would calm down. No one was expecting perfection right out of the gate.
Someone sank into the audience seat next to hers. It was Wyatt.
“It’s too bad about Miss Rossi,” he said softly, so as not to disturb the action onstage. “Do you think Miss May will be up to the task?”
“Absolutely,” Vi whispered back, surprised Wyatt was asking her opinion. But then, maybe it did make sense, since she was Marcie’s travel buddy and most likely to know the girl’s state of mind. “She’s extremely excited, and a little nervous. It’s her first major role.”
He nodded, indicating he’d heard her, his gaze fastened on the stage. After a moment he continued. “What about you? Do you wish you had gotten the part?”
Something about the dark, and the fact that it was Wyatt and not Sue or Mr. Stuart asking, had her answering honestly. “I think I would’ve done well, having had starring roles before. But I don’t begrudge Marcie having a chance at the spotlight.”
Wyatt gave her a curious look in the half light of the auditorium. “What roles have you played?”
Vi wanted to kick herself. Virginia was just a dancer. Violet was the one with stage experience. And Violet didn’t exist in Italy. “Nothing you would recognize. Our community theater could only afford to produce locally written plays or else really obscure ones.”
“Ah.” Wyatt settled back in his seat to watch Marcie stumble through her lines. “By the way, I was wondering if you saw Miss Rossi fall last night?”
Vi turned to look at him. She couldn’t help it—the question seemed so odd. “Yes. Why?”
He kept his attention on the stage, his expression smooth. “Did it look planned to you?”
“The fall?” She frowned in confusion. “Are you suggesting Luciana may have faked it?”
“No, no.” He was silent a moment as he watched the action onstage. “I was just curious what you might have seen, because I checked the stage before the show and didn’t see anything amiss. But that doesn’t mean a board couldn’t have come loose.”
“It was toward the very end, after a lot of dance numbers.”
“True.”
Vi settled back into her seat, but the rehearsal no longer had her full attention. Could Luciana have faked her fall? Vi couldn’t imagine why the actress would have. The pain she had seen in Luciana’s dark eyes as she had looked out into the wings for help had been real, Vi was sure of it.
And yet, there had been that conversation before the performance. The one where Luciana had accused Wyatt of putting the welfare of the show above ending the war. Had the actress decided to take matters into her own hands?
Surely not.
Gertie tapped her on the shoulder. “Ready to go try the new choreography?”
“Sure.” Vi jumped to her feet, then hesitated. “Was there anything else, Mr. Miller?”
Wyatt glanced up at her, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. “No. You answered my question.”
Vi followed Gertie to a side room where the dance rehearsal would be held. It felt wrong not to have Marcie there beside her while she stretched out, waiting for Lieutenant Holland to decipher Sue’s instructions on the new formations. Of no help at all were Gertie and Frances, who kept crowding him, peering over his shoulder. Vi kept a more respectful distance. She could tell, even if Gertie and Frances could not, that the poor lieutenant was becoming more and more nervous the closer they moved.
“Um . . .” Lieutenant Holland tugged on his tie and collar as if to loosen them. His cheeks were flushed. “It looks like she wants you to change all the diamond patterns to triangles, with each dancer rotating to different points so everyone has a chance to be in front.”
“Is this a drawing of it?” Frances reached across his arm to point at something on the page. Vi didn’t miss how the girl’s move emphasized her cleavage.
“Um . . . maybe?” he squeaked as he edged away from her. The paper shook in his hands.
Vi inwardly rolled her eyes and snatched the notes before he dropped them. “Here, let me see.”
A useless half hour followed while Frances shot down all Vi’s ideas. Vi, in turn, put her foot down when all Frances’s formations kept her in the front. Frances countered by putting Gertie in front half the time while continually relegating Vi to the back.
Sue finally arrived and took over from the hapless Lieutenant Holland. Frances tried to blame Vi for the lack of progress—something that was patently untrue and even had nonconfrontational Gertie on the verge of saying so. To her credit, Sue didn’t buy the story, and soon the rehearsal was back on track.
Finally it was dinner break, and Vi sat, exhausted, against the wall of the small room where they had been working. Frances and Gert looked wrung out, too. When Gert asked if she wanted to join them for a quick drink, Vi waved them on.
“I’m going to hunt down Marcie and see how things went. Maybe we’ll join you later.”
“If we miss you, will we see you for dinner?” Gertie asked. “There’s a really good Italian restaurant near Via Santamaura. It’s where all the Americans go.”
“All the restaurants are Italian here,” Frances said sarcastically. “Maybe you should give them a bit more to go on.”
Gertie’s face fell, and Vi w
ished she had the energy to kick Frances for it. While she understood the brunette’s bad mood, having played a major part in creating it, there was no reason to take it out on innocent bystanders. And Gert was about as innocent as they came.
“Do you mean La Fiorentina, the place Lieutenant Holland mentioned?” Vi asked.
Gertie brightened. “Yes! That was the name.”
“I’ll ask Marcie. Maybe we’ll see you there.”
The sour look on Frances’s face suggested she hoped not.
Done with the girl’s animosity, Vi leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She heard the two leave, and then blessed silence filled the room. Well, not quite silence. The hushed rumble of men’s voices somewhere nearby caught her attention. Unless she was mistaken, one was Wyatt. The other sounded suspiciously like Sergeant Danger, and he didn’t sound happy.
Wondering what they were arguing about this time, she quietly got to her feet. The voices were coming from the door opposite the one Frances and Gertie had gone out. This one, given what she knew of the building, connected to the hallway running behind the stage.
She crept closer, praying they didn’t open the door and discover her listening.
“This decision came from the top,” Sergeant Danger said in a low voice, barely audible through the heavy wood. “So it’s no longer up for debate. We need her.”
“So do I! We’ve got a performance in three days,” Wyatt said.
Vi’s eyes widened at the news. Three days? Holy cow, that didn’t leave much time to straighten out the new choreography. Worse, did Marcie know how little time she had to get her lines learned? Or was she off the hook, since Wyatt and the sergeant seemed to be arguing over Luciana’s return?
“Not my problem,” Sergeant Danger replied coldly. “You have alternatives; we don’t. Not with the time constraints we’re under.”
“Which is not my problem. We’re under orders as much as you are, and the USO says we perform as a unit. You don’t like it? Take it up with the army. The OSS can go hang themselves. I’ll see her kicked out before I let her endanger herself.”
“Damn it, Miller. We’re talking about the possibility of the war being extended for months, if not years. Are you truly willing to have all those deaths, all those lives of good and decent men that could’ve been saved but were needlessly lost, on your conscience?”
Her breath caught as she waited for Wyatt’s answer. Surely Sergeant Danger was exaggerating . . .
“My responsibility is for the health and welfare of this troupe,” Wyatt said flatly. “Those are my orders, and I will follow them, period. If you don’t like it, talk to Sue or Gerry.”
“You know I can’t. They don’t have the proper clearance.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to recruit someone else.”
“You would extend the war on account of a show?” The sergeant sounded incredulous.
“She signed a contract like everyone else.”
There was a moment of silence, the tension between the men so thick, the chill of it crackled through the door.
Boots squealed on the tiled floor as the sergeant, with a frustrated sound, turned away. Vi shrank back, frantically hunting for a place to hide. She didn’t want to be discovered eavesdropping. Then a door slammed farther down the hall, which meant the sergeant, at least, wasn’t coming this way.
Afraid to breathe, she waited in terror for Wyatt to come through her door. She heard him curse and then listened with growing relief as the softer taps of his loafers headed away from her. The door down the hall slammed shut for a second time, and she exhaled.
She had to be wrong about what she’d heard. Wyatt and the sergeant couldn’t have been arguing over Luciana’s involvement in a secret mission that might affect the length of the war.
Yet the conversation had eerily echoed the one she had overheard in Nettuno between Luciana, Wyatt, and the sergeant. Luciana had said something about the fate of the world versus a silly show. And then, not eight hours after Wyatt had put his foot down and said her “friends could go to hell,” she had fallen and twisted her ankle, effectively taking her out of the show anyway.
So why the argument, unless Wyatt was right about the fall being faked, and he now was threatening to make a stink about it?
Then I guess you’ll just have to recruit someone else . . .
Vi chewed on her lower lip. Did Wyatt have the power to force Luciana to come back? The answer was likely yes, which would leave the sergeant in the lurch. Surely Wyatt hadn’t meant substituting someone else from the show, since he’d also been so adamant about the show’s importance. But if Luciana resumed her lead role, and since the choreography had already been switched to accommodate a missing dancer . . .
You have alternatives; we don’t. Not with the time constraints we’re under . . .
Oh heavens! If the sergeant needed an actress on short notice who was adventurous and also spoke Italian, he absolutely had an alternative: Marcie.
Horror stole her breath. The sergeant wouldn’t let the actress go without a fight. His belief in his mission was too strong and his loyalty to his men too deep. He would do anything to shorten the war, including agreeing to swap for a different girl if Wyatt offered and the sergeant thought it would work. And Marcie? Her friend would likely jump at the chance if the sergeant asked. She was just impulsive and fearless and patriotic enough to think of it as a grand adventure.
With a shaky hand, Vi reached down to grab her bag and then headed for the front door. She had to stop this, but how? Because she would be damned before she let her friend rush headlong into danger, even if it was the girl’s choice. Sal had put her in charge of keeping Marcie safe. And while Sal and Papa Maggio may have been thinking only “safe from losing her virginity,” Vi meant to keep her safe from impulsively risking her life, too.
Which meant there was only one path left. She had to talk to Sergeant Danger and somehow convince him that no matter what Wyatt might say, Marcie’s life was also too important to risk.
More important than the lives of Allied soldiers?
The question made her sick.
Because the answer had to be no, which meant perhaps never going home to Chicago, never seeing Jimmy again, and, worse, perhaps taking on the crushing guilt of her travel buddy’s death, someone she had been charged to protect and had grown to genuinely like.
Lord, what a mess. No longer sure what she wanted to say to the sergeant, she reversed directions and headed toward the stage, where Marcie was likely waiting for her. If there was any justice in the world, inspiration would find her quickly, before disaster struck. Otherwise she and Marcie were both doomed.
Chapter 23
La Fiorentina was crowded by the time Vi and Marcie got there. Soldiers and locals crowded the front waiting area, angling for a place to sit, while waiters carrying bread and wine pushed between them. Vi stood on tiptoe and scanned the restaurant for Gertie and Frances. Her stomach growled at the mouthwatering smells of ripe tomatoes and garlic and lemon. It had been a long day, and she was hungry despite the worries plaguing her.
“Well, shoot. It looks like we missed them,” Marcie said about the time Vi had reached the same conclusion. Disappointment pulled her friend’s full lips into a pout even though Vi was elated. After the conversation Vi had overheard between Wyatt and the sergeant, she needed a quiet moment to think without the added task of trying to keep Frances and Marcie from throttling each other. “And here I had wanted to ask them about the new dance configurations.”
Vi snorted at the bald-faced lie. What Marcie really wanted to do was impress the girls with all the new gossip she had picked up. Not that Vi held that against her friend. Even the kindest of theater people weren’t above showboating when it was deserved. And being promoted from chorus to the rarefied circle of leads was definitely worth boasting about.
“Since they’re not here, let’s go somewhere else.” Vi took her friend’s arm. “Somewhere with an actual place
to sit.”
“Wait.” Marcie shook Vi’s hand off. “I think I see two empty places at that table over there, with those soldiers.”
“Marce, you know how I feel about eating with strangers,” Vi said, a headache forming at the mere thought. “Especially when I’m tired.”
“You also need to eat, and the food here smells too delicious to pass up.” Marcie took Vi’s hand and raised it to her chest. Her dark gaze was soulful. “Please, for me? I’m only thinking about your health and well-being.”
Vi inwardly winced as she recalled Wyatt’s similar declaration.
My responsibility is for the health and welfare of this troupe . . .
If only she could believe him. Trust that he would protect Marcie with the same ferocity as he did Luciana. Because if the powers at the top, perhaps even the mysterious OSS, decided that the sergeant’s mission trumped USO contracts, Marcie would be in danger. Because Vi knew without a shadow of a doubt that the lure of saving lives and possibly shortening the war would be irresistible to her spirited, impulsive friend. Why stop at taking on a starring role in a mere USO musical when she could swap it for an even more exciting one?
Vi shook off the troubling thought. “We can come back—”
The maître d’ appeared beside them. “Signorine, may I help you?”
“Yes!” Marcie said quickly, before Vi could refuse.
Then, to both the man’s and Vi’s surprise, Marcie launched a volley of questions in rapid Italian. His dark eyebrows rose toward his slicked-back hair as she chattered on, pointing this way and that. He responded with a question of his own, and soon they were deep in conversation. Vi couldn’t follow any of it, the few words that Marcie had taught her having been exchanged at the beginning.
The maître d’s surprise soon turned to pleasure, and the next thing Vi knew, she and Marcie were being escorted to an empty table in the corner that had a “reserved” card on it.
“Best table in the house,” Marcie said smugly as the maître d’ pocketed the card and then pulled a chair out for her. He did the same for Vi and then said something to Marcie, smiling, in Italian.
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