The Lavender List

by Meg Harrington

  He’s got a gaze like one of them sphinxes in Egypt. Trying to read her behind those little glasses. But Vince Pedrotti hasn’t been able to lay her bare in years, and he’s not gonna get back in the habit with a few intimations and lousy questions.

  “Whatever—whoever—you’re flirting with,” his jaw barely moves as he speaks, “you’d be wise to give it a rest. You’re no sixteen-year-old girl with a dad down in the garage to protect you.”

  “And you’re not the big, bad bossman you used to be. So save the threats for someone who gives a hoot.”

  She gets up and heads for the gate, but her uncle calls after her, all cool like, “What makes you think I’m the one doing the threatening, baby doll? You’re trying to force your way into a party you got no invitation for. Maybe you ought to stick to the wall on this dance.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been a wallflower.”

  The gate groans like an old man as she slams it closed with her heel. At the far end of the street a ’39 Oldsmobile rounds the corner and brakes to a noisy stop. She can’t see who’s driving. But she hears them drop into reverse and watches the headlights wink out.

  It’s not fear like snow down her back, because Amelia’s no lily liver. But it’s definitely something, and blood pounds like a drum in her ears.

  Her uncle laughs, and when she turns real quick to look at him, his lips are curved up in a sick joke of a smile. “Better be careful, Amelia. I’m thinking you don’t know all the steps to this number.”

  His laughter follows her all the way back to the train.

  Thankfully, the ’39 Oldsmobile does not.

  She fidgets when they go under the East River.

  Amelia’d had a plan. Made from well-reasoned assumptions. And now her uncle’s gone and ripped the rug out from under her. Laid her out on her ass with nothing but a couple of words.

  Maybe Laura isn’t some down on her luck girl in need of a hero. Maybe she’s the predator instead of the prey. Which doesn’t account for that no good Tall, Dark, and French. Unless he’s in on it. Her getaway driver for murders.

  But murderers don’t just live in little all-women hotels. They don’t ingratiate themselves into Amelia’s life.

  Whatever Laura is she isn’t the evil darkening Vince Pedrotti’s doorstep.

  She can’t be.

  Amelia gets off a stop early and slips into a diner to use their phonebook. She almost tries Jimmy’s house first, but the ball and chain strapped to his ankle, Doris LaManna Andronico, has hated Amelia since second grade when they kissed. Amelia said it was nice. Doris said it was gross and shoved her in the gravel.

  Okay, so maybe Amelia hated Doris for that one.

  But Doris definitely hated Amelia after she briefly stole Jimmy away to get back at Doris for telling everyone she was secretly a boy.

  Just because a gal likes kissing other gals, doesn’t mean she’s a boy. Just means she’s got tastes. Predilections.

  Anyways. Doris LaManna Andronico is a bitch. Iris Andronico, Jimmy’s dear old mom, is not. A drunk, yes. Bitch, no.

  And besides, she loves Amelia. Says she was “real good” for her boy.

  She calls and speaks brightly and says she’d “just love to talk to Jimmy.”

  Iris hems and haws. “Haven’t seen him in days,” she says. “I’m starting to get worried.”

  Amelia says she “knows.” Says it in that way only folks from the neighborhood can say it. Because some boys work in garages and others work on the docks, and some boys slick their hair back and wear nice suits and do very, very bad things.

  All she does is say she’d like to talk to Jimmy. If he calls.

  She’s “worried too.” She just “wants to help.”

  “You’re such a good girl.” Iris sniffs. “Why couldn’t you have stayed with Jimmy? You were so good together.”

  She doesn’t have the heart to tell her they dated for two months, and it was the most boring and awkward two months of her life. Doesn’t have the heart to tell her about birds and bees and girls who like girls.

  “I wonder, too,” she softly lies.

  She gets to the Sebastian five minutes before curfew. Same time as Laura, who steps out of a private car looking glamorous and put together and remarkably bruise free.

  Then she sees Amelia.

  She falters for half a second. “Amelia.” She says it all breathy, and it’s enough to make Amelia want to drag her upstairs and just—just talk.

  “Hot date?” Amelia asks.

  “Rather frustrating actually. Confusing even.” Laura cocks her head. “What about you? I thought you were done early today.”

  “Saw a movie. Took a walk. Enjoyed the fog.”

  Laura laughs lightly. “What’d you see? Anything good?”

  “I thought about seeing that new flick, Gilda? You know the one about the gorgeous broad twisting an idiot up in knots? Think there’s some Nazis in it, too.”

  Laura misses a step, but is smooth as silk in her recovery. “H-how was it?”

  She shrugs. “Don’t know. Saw Harvey Girls again instead. It’s a garbage flick, but it’s kind of nice to watch someone like Judy Garland in something so miserable.” She reaches the door before Laura and turns on her heel. “We all gotta do bad things sometimes, right?”

  Laura’s mouth works and nothing comes out.

  So Amelia smiles softly, because it’s like Laura’s always got something to say, even when she doesn’t say it.

  “See ya later.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The next day is the best day. Ever. In Amelia Maldonado’s life. That audition she bombed so bad they call it London? She gets a callback.

  “Next week,” they say. “Wear red.”

  She whoops.

  Maybe she hollers a little. She vibrates all through her afternoon shift and doesn’t even falter in that pathetically sad little way when she remembers she can’t tell Laura all about it and watch her tight smile.

  Laura.

  There’s the sour note on a very good day.

  Laura. Who supposedly cracked her cousin’s skull. Laura. Who has her uncle, a man who never runs scared, nervous. Laura. Who’s maybe wrapped up in something more than prostitution. Laura. Who kissed her like it was V-J Day.

  Laura.

  As golden a day as it is—and it is golden—Amelia still sighs a lot. And every time, it’s because of stupid Laura Wright.

  The biggest sigh comes when Laura walks through the door. She looks at Amelia, then looks away. And then she comes and sits at the empty counter.

  Laura studies Amelia as she works. Eyes hot and focused. Lips pulled tightly together. Laura has a habit of sittin’ rigid. That’s her armor. Amelia gets it. She wears armor too. All the girls do. Sass talk or smiles or golly gee whizzes or all of the above. There’s a way the world is always gonna look at a girl who’s trying to make it without a fella. So, on the armor goes, first thing in the morning. Usually as the last curler falls out of the hair and that last bit of lipstick is applied.

  Laura’s armor feels like real armor though, as if she needs a bulwark between her and the rest of the world. It’s probably what makes her so addictive. ’Cause when Amelia gets glimpses of what’s behind those sharp eyes, sharp tongue, and straight back, she’s utterly enchanted.

  Enamored.

  She wordlessly gives Laura her coffee and puts in her usual order. She doesn’t ignore Laura. She’s not a baby.

  She just…Well, the point is, she’s not real sure how to act. It’s not every day she kisses a girl, sort of fights with her, and then calls her an apocalypse.

  Laura breaks the silence with a bark of laughter that’s soft enough not to bring the whole diner’s attention down on their heads.

  “We’re a disa
ster.”

  She’s not wrong. Amelia smiles. “How’s the factory?” It’s part apology, part accusation.

  A shrug. “How’s the diner?” That sounds a whole lot more like an accusation.

  Her knuckles go white on the handle of the coffee pot. “Busy.”

  Laura nods, and Amelia isn’t really sure what’s going on. There’s enough levels to their conversation that it feels heady—like leaning off the Empire State Building.

  “I got a call back,” she says abruptly.

  Real abruptly, judging by Laura’s startled look. Then she looks confused. Finally, she smiles. And not that brittle fake one.

  It’s the real one.

  “That’s wonderful, Amelia.”

  “Week from today.”

  “A nice role?”

  “A big one. I’m telling you, Laura. I get this one, and in ten years, Cary Grant’s giving me an Oscar.”

  “Where’s the show? I’ll make a point to get tickets.”

  “You know, if I’m in it, I can just comp ’em. That’s gotta be a perk, right? Because it sure isn’t the pay. Not careful, I’ll have a Tony and still be minding these counters.”

  “Tips should improve.”

  She’s gonna laugh. She really is. It’s a funny joke, and it deserves a laugh. And Laura’s being easy again, and that always invites happy little bubbly feelings. So she grins and her mouth falls open—but then she can’t laugh. Because the glass doors spin and deposit Jimmy Andronico in her diner.

  Laura notices her joke isn’t getting the results it should. She barely glances back at Jimmy. Just out the corner of her eye without moving any other part of her. “Friend?”

  “Sure.”

  Amelia crosses the room in quick strides and ushers Jimmy over to a booth.

  “Jimmy,” she says brightly. Her hand latches onto his bicep, and she squeezes it tight. “What the heck are you doing here,” she asks in a hurried whisper.

  “You called my ma—” His reply is cut short by her shoving him into the booth.

  Laura sits at the counter and actually eats her sandwich. Taking those big bulging bites that are so at odds with that classy way of talking she’s got. If she recognizes Jimmy, she’s the one that ought to be getting the Oscar from Cary Grant.

  Amelia smiles brightly and whips out her pad. “What can I get ya, honey?”

  “I don’t really have any—”

  “Turkey plate and a cup of coffee,” she says loudly. “Can do! Anything el—”

  “Look, Amelia, you’re the one calling my—”

  “Okay! I’ll be right back with that coffee.”

  She rips the order off the pad as she walks. Tries not to be too stiff. Laura has a newspaper out and is perusing it with one hand while holding her sandwich with the other. She watches Amelia as she walks by. Not quite that cipher look of hers, because Amelia is pretty sure this one is her “I want you naked and panting now” look.

  She passes Jimmy’s ticket off to the cook and shoots Laura something kind of like an apology as she snags the coffee pot and a cup. “Be right back,” she says.

  Laura waves her off. “No rush,” she says—mouth still loaded for bear with ham and cheese.

  Back at the booth, Jimmy’s fidgety. He’s also chalky and haggard and basically looking like a soldier straight out of a POW camp.

  “When I called your mom,” she says out the corner of her mouth, “I didn’t think you were gonna actually show up at my work.”

  “Seemed more polite than coming to your hotel.”

  Her eyebrow hops up all on its own. “For not talking to me in ten years, you know an awful lot about me.”

  He’s kinda sweet when he looks up at her and smiles. “Church.” Like that explains everything.

  Okay, it does actually explain everything.

  “Doris must love that.”

  He looks down at his coffee. “Nope.” How this guy got into the line of work he’s in, Amelia doesn’t know. He’s about as guileless as her three-year-old niece.

  Across the diner, a James Cagney wannabe shouts, “Hey sweetheart, you got other customers, you know!”

  At the counter, Laura stops eating her sandwich to whip around and glare. She’s surprised the guy doesn’t completely combust by the time she gets to him.

  She finishes with Cagney, pours coffee for two more tables, nods at Laura again and then returns to Jimmy. He eats his turkey plate like a man that’s been denied. There’s lots of gross lip smacking and that real annoying noise a person makes in the back of their throat when he’s trying to breathe and eat at once.

  Even though her mom’s in her head telling her to be more gracious, Amelia doesn’t bother hiding the disgust on her face.

  “You not looking too good, Jimmy. Rough racket?”

  He glances up with hard eyes. “Yeah… I need you to give your uncle a message. I’m out.”

  “You think I’m talking to him?”

  “More like working for him.” He glances around. “Arranging things through you is real smart of him. Out in the open. Neutral. Like Sweden.”

  “Switzerland.” She shakes her head. “And I don’t work for my uncle.”

  “Then why’re you looking for me?”

  “Because my cousin—”

  He snorts into his turkey and gravy.

  “I could like my cousin.” She couldn’t. But she’s still gonna be defensive about it.

  Jimmy looks at her the exact way a person’s allowed to after he gets his hand up your dress.

  “Curiosity,” she says succinctly.

  He believes that one about as much as she does.

  “Look,” she sighs. “I know you all were running girls and apparently you bit off more than you could chew. All I want to know is what happened that night.”

  That goes as far as a dollar at the tracks. Jimmy just looks confused.

  “The woman,” she says slowly. Like maybe that’ll explain everything.

  And maybe it does.

  Just saying it makes Jimmy’s face contort. He goes paler than he already was—so he’s basically the color of the plate he’s eating off of—and he gets kind of angry too. Around his eyes a whole lot of emotions are hitting the guy at once, and she’s worried he’s gonna have a fit and go face down into the brown gravy.

  “Your mom know about you?” It comes out as kind of a sneer.

  She blinks.

  Some stuff she’s obligated to respond to, but this stuff? Folks in the neighborhood and the stuff they might say about her? That she’s just gonna sit on. She learned a long time ago that fighting that kind of stupidity is sort of like beating your head against a windshield to get out of a car. It might work, but it sure is gonna hurt. And there’ll be scars for years.

  Amelia ignores the question. Pours him more coffee. “Did you see her?”

  He studies her. Is careful with his words—even though venom laces them like a blade in an adventure picture. “Yeah, I saw her.”

  “She really crack my cousin’s skull?”

  He snorts. “His and six other guys.”

  She stops pouring. Jimmy’s too busy slurping up coffee and wolfing down turkey to notice the way her hand is shaking.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, Amelia, it wasn’t girls we were running. Your uncle? He’s got friends back in Italy that needed something moved. Idea was we’d do the moving. All we had to do was wait in the bar ’til the folks came around. Exchange it for cash. Easy money.”

  Amelia works real hard not to look back at Laura—who may not be the high-class girl Amelia’s been thinking she’s got to save.

  “How easy?”

  “Grand per fellow in the room. More for your uncle and his pals overseas.”
>
  She takes her lord and savior, Jesus Christ’s, name in vain. “Jesus Jimmy.” A few people look up. She ducks down and speaks quickly. “There were seven of you in the room. That’s at least seven thousand dollars.”

  “Shoulda known it was too good to be true. But we figured if there was trouble, we’d see it. Guys with guns you know? But it wasn’t no guy or gun.”

  “A dame.” A dame who may or may not be sitting on a stool ten feet away.

  “She came in all breathy. Just sighing and acting cute. So Frankie, Frankie himself takes her back for a ‘tour.’” Jimmy can only manage the air quotes with one hand. “It’s the rest of us in the front. Waiting on the pickup. Then there’s this noise. Like a yelp, and we run in there because it’s not a happy yelp. We find her with her knee halfway up his…” he motions down at his pants, “and her fingers up his nose, and she’s pulling like she’s gonna just rip it off.”

  “Jesus.” That’s all she can say, because her brains still working to catch up.

  “Then smack and pow. By the end of it, your cousin and I are the only ones standing.”

  “You fight her?”

  He shakes his head. “We ran. She chased. Cousin got cracked with a pool cue.”

  “How’d you get away?”

  He coughs and sort of folds to one side. “Didn’t. Stabbed me through with the same cue. But then the cops were coming one way and the folks for the pickup come the other. I wasn’t about to stick around.”

  She peeks around his jacket and blanches. There’s blood. Old and new. A lot of it. Enough to give her flashes of unpleasant memories—she shakes her head. Nope. She’s not gonna go down a rabbit hole.

  Instead, she kneels by him and puts a hand on his shoulder. It’s narrow and bony against her palm. “You gotta see a doctor.”

  He shakes his head. “Can’t. They’re watching.”

  “Who? My uncle? Jimmy, my uncle’s just gonna be glad you’re alive.”