It Had to be You

by Susan Andersen

  No doubt this is something like that.

  With all these emotions racing along my nerves, in my heart, in my head, I’m not paying attention to my surroundings. In a hurry to reach the privacy of my dressing room, I dodge around the electrician’s big spool of cable in the corridor. When a woman suddenly steps into the hall, I am simply too close to stop on a dime.

  I barrel smack into her.

  Grabbing each other’s arms, we perform an awkward little shuffle to keep from careening off the narrow hallway walls or ending up in a heap on the floor. “Botheration!” I snap when my right foot skids.

  At least I manage to catch myself. And looking into the pretty face of the other dancer in the sister duo, I suck in my ire, my frustration, and exhale a deep breath.

  Then grab a hold of all the emotions coursing through me like balls in the pinball machine they had where I sang place before last. “I am so sorry. Are you all right?

  “Oh, pos-i-lute-ly, doll. Me and Clara have done more damage rehearsin’ our act.” A hint of Southern drawl adds softness to the modern slang, and she flashes a big smile. “I’m Dot Brasher.”

  “Lena Bjornstad,” I reply. Then shrug. “Or Lola Baker, if you’d rather not deal with trying to keep real names straight from the stage ones.”

  “Oh, heck, girl, me and my sis have good memories, so what’s a coupla names between new friends? Nice to meetcha, Lena.”

  The other Brasher sibling glides to a halt beside us. “I’m Clara,” she says, clearly having heard the introductions. “Dot’s sister.”

  “I know. I watched your act before my set. And, oh my goodness, you two were darb! Where I grew up we weren’t allowed to dance, so I never learned. I do so admire those who can.”

  “You weren’t allowed to dance?” Clara stares at me as if I’d said I wasn’t allowed to breathe. “Why, that is just plain wicked! Where on earth did you grow up—in Hell?” She flashes a saucy smile. “Hell, Michigan, of course.”

  “Of course,” I agree, smiling back. “But it’s closer to the interpretation most people think of when they hear ‘hell’—I grew up in the Blood of Christ Foundling Home in Walla Walla. That’s down south of here, Walla Walla is. Well, I guess so is the other place—” I make myself stop talking for a moment. “Sorry. I’m babbling. The B of C is owned and run by a rather fundamentalist church.”

  I wave that aside. “I sure adore watching people who do know how to dance, though. And I have never seen anyone quite like you two.” For the first time since coming face-to-face with Booker, a genuine smile tugs at my lips. “Not to mention my fascination with how identical you look.”

  And how! Dot and Clara have the exact same short, shiny brown bob, big golden-brown eyes, prominent cheekbones and, of course, long, lean dancer’s bodies. “I have never met twins before.”

  “You still haven’t, doll—I’m thirteen months older then Sis. They just breed ‘em true on Ma’s side of the family.” Clara’s laugh is bawdy and infectious. “Heck, Dot and me know all the players and still it’s tough telling who’s who among all the cousins at the Rowland family reunions.”

  She opens a nearby door and stands aside, gesturing me to precede her into the room. “C’mon in. Feel free to help yourself to the flask over there. And do tell what led you to slappin’ Mr. Jameson.”

  Dot’s jaw drops. “She slapped Mr. Jameson?”

  “Right across the kisser,” Clara says. “You shoulda seen it, Dot. He said something I couldn’t hear and offered her a glass of champagne, and she whacked him but good, drank the champagne, then swanned away. It was the cat’s meow!”

  Stunned into silence by the recitation of the altercation, I follow them into a dressing room that is perhaps the tiniest bit larger than the oversized closet I call my own. Clara closes the door behind us and gives me a level look, raising one eyebrow. “Can’t say how smart it was to hit the man who signs your paychecks, though.”

  Still feeling raw and used, I open my mouth to tell the Brasher sisters exactly why I hit Mr. Booker Almighty Jameson. But Dot jumps into the conversation before I get a word out.

  “He gave you champagne?” She stares at me as if I’m the It Girl, Miss Clara Bow, herself. “Wow. We’ve seen a lotta Janes try to snag his attention since we’ve been here. But I can state with God’s honor truth I have never seen Mr. J buy any of them a drink.” She glances at Clara. “Have you?”

  “Huh-uh. He doesn’t mingle with the likes of us. Oh, he’s always respectful and he’s charmin’ as can be with the clients. But the man isn’t all flash and strut like most of the speakeasy owners we’ve worked for. He’s more Joe Brooks. And I’ve never seen him flirt with the high hat women or the flappers who frequent the joint, either.”

  “More Joe Brooks,” I repeat and snort like a blue ribbon winner at the county fair. Appalled, I slap a hand over my mouth. That was less than elegant, for pity’s sake.

  Then I square my shoulders, along with the so called chip Matron Davidson used to insist I carry on them. What do I care if I made a little—okay, loud—farm noise? I’m not elegant. I may play at it onstage, but that’s as far as it goes. I drop my hand to my side. “Absolutely—his clothes are impeccable. Always were. But then he is the only son of the richest man in the town where I grew up.”

  The Brasher sisters squeal like they’re riding one of the big wooden roller coasters at a same fair my pig noise came from. “Oh my gosh.” Dot stares at me with big eyes. “So, you did know him before?”

  In the Biblical sense, one could say. Not that I do. It’s one among many facts and feelings buried deep in my Midnight File. I learned young at the Blood of Christ to keep my secrets secret. There was very little privacy, so I built my mental Midnight File. I envision it as a golden box with a strong lock, positioned deep in a closed room somewhere in the back of my mind. This is where I keep my most persistent emotions—the one’s I simply cannot shake. I mentally sort through them in the dead of the night when all around me are asleep.

  So, I don’t say now what I’m thinking—not aloud at least. I can’t control the way it whispers in my brain. “We have…history,” I admit. Not, now that I’ve cooled down, I’m prepared to go into details about it with these women I have only just met. I do add honestly, however, “I had no idea he owned this lounge.”

  Had I, you could take it to the bank I never would have signed the contract. I am darn near one hundred percent certain of this.

  “Didn’t you talk to him when he hired you?”

  “He didn’t—a man named Leo Stone caught my act at the Tropics Lounge in Spokane. He bought me a cocktail after my show, and during our conversation he somehow talked me around to telling him my contract with the Tropics was coming up for renewal. Then he came back the following night and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  I would never say this out loud, but I would have signed for far less money, just for the opportunity to play a larger, more sophisticated venue in a larger, more sophisticated city.

  Clara’s cheeks suddenly turn pink. “Leo is Mr. Jameson’s manager.” I can’t tell for sure, but the careful neutrality of her voice makes me wonder if perhaps she, too, knows a little something about sharing a less than swell history with the wrong man.

  Or heck, maybe she just thinks the manager is a sheik. Like Booker—especially this new version Booker—Leo is a very manly fella.

  In any event, Clara clams up once the words leave her mouth, so I find myself filling the drawn-out silence when it edges into awkward territory. “I didn’t learn that until today,” I confess. “Before I got here, my dealings were all with Mr. Stone, including signing the contract. Mr. Jameson wasn’t even mentioned until I walked into the manager’s office when I arrived here this evening.”

  The name had given me a jolt—I can’t deny it. Aloud, however, I merely say, “I had no reason to connect the name with the Jamesons I knew back in Walla Walla.”

  Dot gives me a look. “How well, exactly, did you know him b
ack in your home town?”

  I hesitate, then say honestly, “I guess you could say he was my first love.” My only love, actually. But that’s a fact I feel no compulsion to share.

  Those feelings turned to dust a long time ago, anyway.

  “Ooh, now you’re on the trolley!” Clara twirls a hand, a clear invitation to keep talking. “Feel free to share the details.”

  “There isn’t much to share. We went to the same high school, but he was two years ahead of me. And we attended different churches. Walla Walla isn’t all that large, yet it’s sizable enough we likely never would have crossed paths. But his mother hired some of the girls from the foundling home to serve at a party they hosted. I was assigned to the kitchen and Booker escaped there in order to avoid both his father, who never failed to lecture his expectations for his son, and an older woman who’d latched onto Booker. She, apparently, was a non-stop talker whom, from everything he said about her, sounded like she’d feel right at home at the Blood of Christ. Apparently, she, too, believed having too much fun puts us firmly on the path to hell.”

  Annnd… not really pertinent, so once more I wave off the aside. “Anyway, he chatted me up easy as could be. And since I have never had a decent grasp on my proper station in life, according to Matron Davidson, I chatted right back.” One of my hands involuntarily rises to splay atop the swell of my breast concealing my racing heart. “And, oh, he was interesting! Plus, he made me laugh.” Like I had never laughed before that evening. I feel my smile stretch into a wide, lopsided smile. “There wasn’t a whole lot of laughter at the Blood of Christ.”

  “And they couldn’t see that might be a result when they hung a name like that on a home for orphaned kids?” Clara murmurs dryly. “Because, it doesn’t exactly trip cheerily off the tongue.”

  I can’t help myself, I laugh and then laugh harder still when the two sisters join in. “Oh, my,” I say once we finally get our giggles under control. “I have a feeling knowing you two is going to be very, very good for me.”

  3

  susan andersen

  I said, just a minute!

  BOOKER

  The woman beneath me feels both familiar and brand new. The touch of her skin, so smooth and fair, is well-known. Its more-delicious-than-maple-syrup flavor is achingly recognizable as I kiss an open-mouthed trail down her throat. Starting from the spot below her jaw that once made her moan in the back of her throat.

  I also remember these spiky pale pink nipples trying to drill holes through the tougher skin of my palms. Yet the breasts from which they thrust I recall being small and exceptionally firm. The lush curves currently captured by my fingers, my palms, are significantly fuller. And while they’re also firm, the most minute shift of my hands sets off a mouth-wateringly luscious jiggle.

  I have felt similar in other women’s breasts, but I cannot recall ever feeling it from hers. The sensation gives me an illicit thrill. The body I touch is intimately known in one sense, yet as if I’m stealing liberties from a stranger in another.

  The taste of her mouth is a different matter. I’d recognize it in the dead of night in the deepest, darkest coal mine. “Lena,” I breathe. And lower my head to rock my lips over hers.

  I wake up spitting out my pillowcase. Rolling to sit up, I mutter a few choice words under my breath and scrub at my mouth with the back of my hand.

  “Shit.” I reach over to click on the lamp next to the bed, then blink in its sudden glare. Sometimes I miss the softer gaslight, which electricity has been replacing over the course of the past several years. As my dream fades, irritation takes its place. The abrading rub of anger has its own weight of familiarity to it.

  Once I realized Lola was Lena last night, it didn’t take long for wrath to replace my initial rush of happiness. She has some damn cheek accusing me of promising to write her, then not following up on my promise. I wrote her two or three letters a week, faithfully. She was the one who never wrote back.

  It doesn’t help my temper that following our argument last night, Lena was never alone. God knows I kept track. Frustration at not being able to pull her aside to set the record straight, was exacerbated when I missed seeing her leave the club. So, I ended up drinking too much. I’m not hung-over, exactly. But my head has definitely felt better.

  Stewing again over the way she’d had the last word, and damned if I intend to let it ride, I throw back the covers and go in search of aspirin and a hot bath.

  My righteous anger loses steam when I storm into the club, and belatedly remember it’s far too early for any of the performers to have arrived. I stop and take a deep breath. Well, shit.

  Then I square my shoulders. I have a lot of other stuff to do, so I might as well accomplish something while I wait for Lena to show up. I stride straight through the darkened lounge to my office. When I enter it, I find my manager, Leo, rifling through one of the piles of papers on the partner’s desk we share.

  “Afternoon, Sarge.” I toss my hat on the coat rack. “What are you looking for?”

  “The damn electric bill.” Straightening the pile of papers he’d been searching, he glances up at me. “I could’ve sworn I paid it. Apparently not, though, because I sure as hell didn’t enter the bugger in the ledger. Or file it in the Utilities folder.” Scrubbing his fingers over the raised scar running from his temple to the middle of his cheek, he scowls at me. “Why you thought a senile old warhorse like me could manage your fancy club is beyond me.”

  “Maybe because you invest damn near as much strategy in running the joint as you did in keeping us alive in the trenches.” My former sergeant has a habit of talking as if he’s seventy years old instead of the somewhere in his early-to-mid-thirties he actually is. “It’s one bill, Leo. Here.” I hand him a pile from the several peppering the desk and pick up another stack for myself. “You look through that one and I’ll go through this.”

  Leo found the bill he sought in the second stack he pawed through. “Well, hell, I remember now,” he says. “I had just opened this when we got word our whiskey shipment was ready up in British Columbia. By the time I arranged for our fellas on Whidbey Island to pick it up and run it to our truck on the mainland, the bill was buried beneath a shitload of papers and slipped my mind.”

  “So it turns out you’re not senile, after all. Just busy.”

  “Yeah. Good to know.” He flashes one of his rare smiles, but quickly sobers and pins me in his steady gaze. “What’s this I hear about you and the singer I discovered on my trip up to visit my cousin Elmer? I heard she slapped your face. What the hell was that all about?”

  Shit. The last thing I want is to get into this with anyone but Lena herself. And yet… “Do you remember when you asked me, back during the war, why I joined the Army?”

  “Sure. You said you got caught in your old flivver about to get lucky with some girl. And that your old man pulled strings to give you the bum’s rush out of town and into the University of Washington two weeks before classes began.”

  I shrug. “Then you likely remember, too, that I went straight to the recruitment center to enlist.” I meet Leo’s gaze. “Lena was the girl in the car with me. We were high school sweethearts.” And, God, she had meant so goddamn much—hell, everything—to me.

  “No shit?” Leo sits down hard on the guest chair. “And you didn’t recognize her?”

  I try not to wince at the incredulity he doesn’t bother to scrub from his tone. But facing it squarely, I have to admit Lena had a right to be pissed off last night when I failed to even identify who I was trying to seduce. Piled as it had been on top of her laundry list of other offenses I’d purportedly committed. “In my defense, she’s changed dramatically.”

  Then, my shoulders stiffen, because I really hate to say this next part after my lame duck attempt at defending myself. “I brought her a glass of champagne.”

  “You shot the first salvo in making an advance on an employee?” He gives me a searching look. “That’s not like you.”

&
nbsp; “I know.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. Because it’s not. It is no goddamn big deal at all. “She took umbrage.” Mostly over other items on her list of my offenses. “We are, however, going to have a little talk about professionalism when she gets in.”

  “Good plan. It doesn’t pay to let slapping go unaddressed.” Leo’s mouth quirks up slightly. “Unless it’s a cat-fight between two women. Gotta admit, I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

  Lena’s voice sounds out in the hall a few hours later as she and the Brasher sisters clatter past my office. I leap to my feet before my better judgment overrules a near-overwhelming urge to track her down now. The last thing this joint needs is every employee within hearing range throwing in their two cents worth. Or, God forbid, taking sides. The upcoming conversation is one best carried out in private.

  The trouble with waiting, however, is the way it gives my temper time to stage a repeat performance. I turned myself inside out trying to contact Lena after I enlisted and didn’t hear a thing from her in return. Now she’s accusing me of not writing? By the time Dot and Clara hit the stage for their first act, I have once again worked up a full head of steam.

  I cover the distance between my office and Lena’s dressing room in less than a minute flat. Once there, I give its sturdy door a set of authoritative raps. Lena’s response is muffled, and I don’t bother requesting clarification before turning the knob and pushing the door open.

  “Hey!” She snaps. “I said ‘just a minute!’” Clearly irate, she swings around to look at me from her makeup table.

  My feet flat-out quit on me, grinding me to a dead halt. Because, Jesus.

  The lone article standing between Lena’s body and my gaze is a black silk wrapper. Its thin fabric hosts a flock of spread-winged birds I assume are cranes, given the craze for all things Oriental these days.