by Sarah Sundin
“It is good. It is very good.” She hustled out to Tess and kissed her cheeks. Her deep-set brown eyes glistened. “It hurts to lose one of my American children. My boys in Paris. Oh, it is bad.”
Tess gripped the baker’s plump hand. Three days after the Allies invaded North Africa, the Germans had taken over Vichy France. Now the Nazis occupied all of France except the city of Toulon, home of the French fleet in the Mediterranean. The French Navy hadn’t decided whether to surrender, scuttle the ships, or flee—and risk deadly losses to German attack.
“Any word?” Tess asked softly.
“Non.” Madame Robillard dabbed her eyes with a corner of her apron. “They cannot pass letters through Vichy France to Portugal and to me. I do not know if my boys . . .”
Tess put her arm around her shoulder. “I’m sure they are well.”
“Hi, Quintessa.” Solange Marchand sashayed out of the kitchen with a tray of pastries, dark blonde curls piled high on her head. “It’s good to see you.”
“Hi, Solange. I just go by Tess now.” She smiled at the girl. “When did you start working here?”
“Last month. I was sick of working at the Navy Yard. I’d rather bake. It’s more feminine, don’t you think?” She winked at a man seated at a table.
Madame Robillard grabbed Tess’s shoulder and pulled her down to whisper in her ear. “Her heart is broken about Henri. She couldn’t work with him anymore. She is no good in the kitchen, but . . .” She shrugged.
“How kind of you.” Tess gave her a warm look.
“Madame made the almond pastries.” Solange transferred the tray to the display case. “Have you tried them, Tess? They’re my favorite.”
“Henri’s favorite,” Madame Robillard whispered and rolled her eyes.
Tess approached the counter. “I’m here to buy bread for Thanksgiving.” And to seek clues.
“Oh, non. You must try.” Madame Robillard bustled back behind the counter and sliced up a pastry. “They are magnifique.”
Tess took the sample, and her eyes slid shut. “Magnifique, indeed.”
Solange trotted out to the seating area. “You must try too.”
A slender blond man set down his newspaper, stood, and pulled Solange close. “You are the only sweet I crave.”
She giggled and fed him the pastry. “For now, this will have to do.”
Tess gaped. That was Jean-Auguste Fournier from the French group. Only months earlier, Solange wouldn’t give him the time of day. Had she recovered from her heartbreak? Or was she trying to make Henri jealous?
Solange hugged Jean-Auguste’s arm and dragged him to Tess. “Have you met Jean-Auguste?”
“Yes, I have.” She shook his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Welcome back to Boston, mademoiselle.”
“We’ve been dating for a month now.” Solange pressed even closer. “He’s treating me to a ritzy night on the town on Saturday. We’re going to the Cocoanut Grove. Have you been?”
“Not yet.” But an idea skipped around in her mind. “It was lovely seeing you again. I’d better buy my bread now.”
After Tess picked a nice crusty loaf and said good-bye, she headed into the chilly evening and walked down to the corner to catch her bus.
“I tell you, he is the spy!”
Tess hauled in a breath and peeked around the corner. Under a streetlamp, two men stood close on the sidewalk.
One looked like Professor Arnaud. “Monsieur Guillory, please calm down. We are all Frenchmen. To accuse one another of spying for the Boche is unconscionable.”
What fun! She could play sleuth. Tess angled her back to the men and stepped closer to the curb, waving her arm as if hailing a cab. They wouldn’t recognize her in the dark.
“Uncon—” Pierre Guillory barked out a laugh. “I may work the docks, but I know, I see. You—you are blinded by your big words and fancy titles. We have a spy, and we must act.”
“Now, now. It is all coincidence. The caretaker made a sloppy mistake and was caught. The second man—someone in town must have started a rumor out of vengeance. Why would the Nazis care what we say in Boston? Why would they send a spy? It is ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?” The dockworker’s voice hardened.
Tess fought the impulse to turn and watch. Headlights approached. Please, not my bus. Not yet.
“Bonsoir, gentlemen. Are you talking about our spy?” That was Jean-Auguste’s voice.
When had he left the bakery? The headlights passed, and Tess eased farther away.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Fournier,” the professor said. “As I was telling Monsieur Guillory, we do not have a spy.”
“I hope not. But there is another possibility. Perhaps our secret was passed overseas by accident.”
“Accident?” the professor asked.
“Oui. Perhaps someone got drunk at a bar and let information slip. Or perhaps someone was bragging on the job, and a real spy overheard. Someplace like . . . oh, the docks, for example.”
A shuffling sound, and Tess glanced over her shoulder.
Arnaud’s arm swung up like a gate before Guillory.
The dockworker stared down Jean-Auguste. “Or perhaps . . .” His voice ground out. “Perhaps someone was traveling around, selling bakery supplies—”
Jean-Auguste laughed and pressed a hand to his chest. “Why, that’s my job. What a coincidence.”
Tess turned away as if that would make her invisible. More headlights approached, brighter and higher from the ground. Now she wanted it to be her bus.
“Perhaps . . .” Arnaud’s voice slammed down. “Perhaps we should be as wary of division as we are of potential spies. ‘If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.’”
The bus braked before Tess, and she scrambled on board.
Although her heartbeat battered her rib cage, she couldn’t help but smile as she took her seat. At last, she had a real mystery.
As an officer in the United States Navy, Tess had taken an oath to protect her country against all enemies. She never dreamed she’d encounter an enemy right here in Boston.
15
Boston Navy Yard
Friday, November 27, 1942
It couldn’t be. Dan stopped inside the doorway to his office, and his stomach filled with lead. Of all the people to have to work with.
Stanley Randolph leaned on Dan’s desk, arms crossed. On his dress blues, he wore the two broad gold stripes and one narrow stripe of a lieutenant commander, the same rank he’d held when Dan served under him in 1935. He hadn’t been promoted. Because of Dan.
He pulled himself together and saluted. “Good morning, Mr. Randolph, Mr. Bentley.”
Bill Bentley rose from his desk opposite Dan’s and saluted. “Good morning, Mr. Avery.”
Dan waited for Mr. Randolph to return his greeting.
Randolph’s narrow chin rose. “You’re late, Mr. Avery.”
Until Randolph returned his salute, Dan was required to hold his. “I had paperwork to deliver to the Rad Lab at MIT.”
“Next time report here first.” A thin smile barely budged his cheeks. “I’m your new commanding officer.”
Nausea twisted his gut. “Commander Lewis—was he—”
“He’s in command of the Boston office, but I run daily operations. You report to me.”
Tension pulled at his fingers, but he kept his salute as sharp as Randolph’s gray-eyed gaze. “Welcome to Boston, sir.”
At last Randolph saluted. “I can’t tell you how much I’ll enjoy serving with you again.”
So he could get his revenge. Wonderful. “Thank you, sir.”
“You have a lot of work, Mr. Avery. Carry on.” Mr. Randolph sauntered out.
Just when he’d reconciled himself to this job. Dan set his portfolio on his desk, pulled off his overcoat, and tossed it on the coatrack.
“What on earth?” Bentley asked in a fierce whisper. “Why does he hate you?”
Dan held up one han
d to silence questions, and he plopped into his desk chair. “If he’s changed, I don’t want to influence your view of him. If he hasn’t changed, you’ll find out soon enough why we clashed.”
“Staying above the fray? Sounds wise.”
“Always.”
“Can’t wait to hear about your cruise.”
No sign of Randolph, but he had to be careful. “I brought home a lot of reports. We’d better get to work.”
Bentley’s gaze darted to the clock, which indicated 1200. “Aye aye, sir.”
“After lunch.”
“Thank you, sir. Say, we’ve had some changes since you left—other than Mr. Randolph.” Bentley’s light blue eyes glowed. “We have girls.”
“Girls?”
“WAVES, and pretty ones. Three yeomen, plus an officer to supervise them.”
Dan groaned. Pretty girls in the office would distract the men and slow down work. What was the Navy thinking?
“Ah, don’t worry, Mr. Avery. They’re pros. They type like the wind. And Commander Lewis reminded us that WAVES aren’t allowed to marry Navy men, so he strongly recommends against dating.”
“Good man.” He pushed himself out of his chair. “I should meet them before lunch.”
“I’ll introduce you.”
Bentley led him down the hallway and into the workroom. Three young ladies in navy-blue uniforms sat at typewriters with their backs to Dan. On their sleeves they wore red chevrons, the white eagle, and crossed white quills indicating a yeoman rating.
No chatting, no giggling, just speedy typing.
“Attention,” Bentley called.
The WAVES sprang to their feet and saluted. “Good morning, sirs.”
“Good morning.” Dan returned their salute. Was this the first time he’d saluted a woman?
“Mr. Avery, may I introduce Roberta Ingham, Betty Jean Miles, and Edith Sommer. Ladies, may I introduce Lt. Daniel Avery.”
“Welcome aboard,” Dan said. “I’m sure you three—”
“Four, sir.” A feminine voice rose from the corner by the file cabinets, out of his line of sight but reaching into his memory.
It couldn’t be.
The ground shifted beneath him like a changing tide. Quintessa. Tess. How was he supposed to address a female officer? “Miss Beaumont?”
“Good morning, sir,” she said, her face a blank military mask.
There she stood, saluting him, her blonde curls peeking from under a navy-blue cover. In Boston. In his office. “You—you graduated.”
A twitch in the mask. “Yes, sir. I followed your advice and stayed the course.”
“Of course you did.” But he hadn’t returned her salute, as rude an insult as Mr. Randolph had given him. He rectified the situation. “Welcome aboard, Miss Beaumont. We’re pleased to have you.”
Bentley chuckled. “You know each other?”
Finally he could look at someone else. “Tess—Miss Beaumont and I are both from Vermilion. She roomed with my sister here in Boston.”
“Before I joined the WAVES.” The gilt buttons of an officer marched up the front of her jacket.
“It’s been—two months?”
“Almost. I understand you’ve been at sea.”
“Say,” Bentley said. “You two have a lot to catch up on. You should get lunch.”
Dan resisted the urge to glare at Bentley and looked at his wristwatch instead—1203. Asking her would only be polite. She was a family friend, after all. He dipped his chin to her. “Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the cafeteria?”
The set of her mouth said she didn’t want to. Why would a fun-loving girl like Tess want to dine with the most boring man in the world? “Aye aye, sir.”
“That—that wasn’t an order.”
“I know,” she said in a breezy tone with a teasing glance. She turned to the yeomen. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Carry on.”
“Aye aye, ma’am.” They sat at their typewriters.
Dan motioned for Tess to lead the way. Tomorrow. She’d be here every day.
Stanley Randolph blocked the doorway. “I’m glad you met the WAVES, Mr. Avery. I put you in charge of them.”
In charge? Dan cast a questioning glance to Tess. “I believe that’s Miss Beaumont’s job.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. It—”
“That’s far too important a job to assign to a mere . . .”
If he said woman, it would take every ounce of Dan’s training and character not to sock the man in the jaw.
“To a mere ensign. I expect a weekly report from you detailing the activities of the WAVES in this unit. In triplicate. And you’ll need to type that yourself. We can’t risk having the girls falsify information.”
Dan’s neck muscles felt like iron. To insult the integrity of a rating without cause . . . ? The man hadn’t changed one bit. But he still outranked him, and the Navy allowed only one response to a direct order. “Aye aye, sir.”
“Carry on.” Mr. Randolph returned to his office, his snake pit.
Tess’s eyes stretched wide with questions.
He gestured to the door. “Miss Beaumont?”
She blinked and proceeded down the hall.
Dan ducked into his office and grabbed his overcoat, then waited for Tess to put on hers.
Once the door shut behind them, she shuddered. “Ooh. What a horrid man.”
“I had the pleasure of serving under his command fresh out of the Naval Academy.”
Her heels clicked on the wooden floor. “He doesn’t seem to like you.”
“No, he does not.” Best to direct this conversation away from gossip. He held open the front door. Thank goodness the rain had stopped. “Congratulations on graduating.”
“And congratulations to you for going to sea. Are you allowed to say where you went?”
Impressive attention to the need for security. “Yes, now that I’ve returned. I sailed on a destroyer with the invasion fleet off Casablanca.”
“You did?” Her eyes lit up. “Oh my goodness. How exciting for you.”
“It was. Our ship did it all—guided landing craft to the beaches, bombarded gun positions, hunted U-boats—even engaged in a surface battle.”
She tipped her chin to the soggy sky. “It must have been thrilling. And yet twenty years from now, your battle will be nothing but squiggly lines on a map, boring students of naval history.”
“Not your favorite subject?”
“I’m afraid not. If only the instructors could have told stories and made us hear the shells and smell the gunpowder and feel the splash of seawater. That would have been marvelous.”
An urge to tell her his new war stories swelled inside, but he squelched it. “What subjects did you enjoy?”
“My favorites were ship and aircraft recognition. I drew cartoons to help my friends. I’ll never use it, but it was fun. Oh, and I did well in naval administration. Good common sense, reminded me of my business studies.”
A mix of the impractical and the practical. How interesting. All the more reason not to explore the matter. He led her into the cafeteria, where they picked up trays of meat loaf and mashed potatoes and gray-green peas.
The cafeteria teemed with naval personnel and shipyard workers, quite a few women now, with their hair up in colorful bandannas. The world was changing out of necessity.
Dan found two empty seats at the end of a long crowded table. “Miss Beaumont?”
“Thank you, Mr. Avery.”
Military formalities felt strange but right. “So you’ll be supervising the WAVES at ASWU.”
“Yes. Part of my duties.” Her voice sounded stiff.
“Part?” Made sense. Supervising three women wasn’t a full-time job. He made dents in his mashed potatoes to allow the gravy to saturate. “What else are you doing?”
“I’m in charge of war bond sales at the Navy Yard. The national First War Loan Drive starts on Monday, so I have my work cut out for me.” She stabbed some peas—hard.
“You don’t seem happy about that.”
Golden-green eyes widened. “I’m an officer in the United States Navy. I have a duty, and I’ll perform it to the best of my ability. Besides, bonds are necessary to finance the war.”
Dan mixed some peas in the mashed potatoes to mask the flavor. “I also have duties I perform to the best of my ability, duties vital to the war effort. But I don’t like my job. I’d rather be at sea, and I don’t deny it.”
Tess gazed across the busy cafeteria, chewing. She dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “Actually, I think I’ll enjoy the work. I’ll use my business training to run the sales and track the accounts. And selling bonds will be more fulfilling than selling blouses. I’m just being selfish.”
Dan swallowed a bite of peas and potatoes, and followed it with some meat loaf. If Tess liked the work and saw its importance, why was she drawing patterns in her gravy with her fork? “What’s the problem?”
Tess mushed up her gravy design. “It’s not a problem. I just feel as if the Navy made me their poster girl, patted me on the head, and said, ‘Aren’t you a pretty little thing?’”
“I thought women liked to be told they’re pretty.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “They do. Most do. In fact, many women long to be told they’re pretty and never hear it.”
Dan sipped his coffee, trying to comprehend the feminine mind. Why would a beautiful woman not want to be told . . . ? “You’ve heard it all your life. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She stabbed four peas, one on each tine. “More than that. Most people see me as decorative. That’s all. But I don’t want to be decorative anymore. I want to do something of worth, to have a purpose, to make a difference.”
“And you wanted a worthwhile job in the Navy.”
“See? I’m being selfish again.”
“But they did give you a worthwhile job. Thirty thousand civilians work at the Navy Yard, and thousands of naval personnel come and go. That’s no easy job. It’ll require brains, hard work, and business skill. They wouldn’t give it to just anyone.”
She sat up taller, and something new entered her eyes, the solidness of purpose envisioned. “I suppose you’re right.”
Of course he was. He took a big bite of meat loaf.