“I want to do something other than be a mother,” she said.
“I didn’t know you were thinking of it.”
“Well, the kids are gone all day now. How am I supposed to fill my time? Mangling the sheets twice, ironing Mack’s underwear? I think I could contribute to the church, make a difference.”
“You could make a big difference, I’m sure.”
“They don’t like to hire married women. They think it’s wrong for the church to give money to a woman when her husband’s working. But I could volunteer . . .”
“Seems like they should pay you if you work, Peg. You’re a force to be reckoned with. Fact is, I’m sure you could give a lot better homily than Janowski.”
“Don’t be blasphemous. I could help organize him, though.”
“You could do that and more.”
Now Charlie’s just come downstairs, full, happy, and vowing to come home early more often. He’s taken off his shoes. And someone’s phoning. He glances at his watch. Who calls after nine P.M.? Besides, when was the last time the telephone was for him?
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” Peggy says. She stands at the top of the stairs, her hand over the receiver, leaning against the doorframe. In a stage whisper she booms, “Mack says it’s a woman.”
He takes the steps two at a time.
“Hello?”
“Charlie, it’s Rosalind Porter.”
“Rosalind?” He pauses, tries to get his bearings. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Was I not supposed to call you at home? I tried the office and I got a service.”
“No. No. I’m glad you called. You sound upset.”
“I’m . . . something happened, something . . . frightening . . .”
“What? What’s happened?” He hates how the feeling of worry distorts his voice.
As she describes what she came home to, her voice fragile, somewhat desperate, he looks up to see Peggy frozen in front of him, arching one brow. He grabs the back-door handle and steps out onto the stoop with the receiver. The cord forces the door to remain ajar and he feels the damp concrete stoop through his socks, but at least his sister isn’t standing in front of him listening.
“And nothing’s missing that you can see?”
“Nothing that I’ve noticed yet. My jewelry’s here. Some money still in the drawer. I won’t know until I put things back, of course. I didn’t know if I should touch anything or call the police or . . .”
“Don’t touch anything else. And don’t call the police. I’ll come and have an evidence team meet me there. If nothing’s missing, the Bureau will be more interested than the police. We’ll do the paperwork.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you scared?” he asks.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Her voice is smaller than usual, softer.
“Lock the door. Pour yourself a drink . . . Touch as little as possible. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Or if you prefer, you can wait for me downstairs . . . in your lobby with the doorman. Maybe that’s better.”
“No . . . I’d rather be here.”
“I’ll come as quickly as I can.”
Charlie steps back into the house and hangs the receiver on the wall.
“Who is Rosalind?” Peggy asks. She smiles.
“Work,” he says.
“Oh, work? And that’s why you’re lit up like a Christmas tree?”
“It’s a case.”
“You should have heard the way you said her name. Rozzz-alind.”
He shakes his head at her. “It’s a case!” he snaps, and escapes down the stairs.
“A case you seem to like,” Peggy calls after him.
* * *
Rosalind has a glass of what looks like Scotch in her hand when she opens the door. Although she’s still wearing what must have been her work clothes, in the midst of the chaos, she looks relaxed, her glowing dark hair dipping over one eye, her cheeks flushed. It must be the liquor.
“Thank you for coming,” she says.
“Are you doing okay? How much have you had?” he asks.
“Three glasses. I was still shaking after the second.”
“I’ll bet. It’s upsetting.”
“They had their hands all over my underwear,” she says; then color suffuses her cheeks. He can tell she would never say such a thing without a few drinks in her.
“It’s an intrusion. I know.” The apartment is in disarray. But he notes right away that he’s seen worse. The perpetrators didn’t break lamps or knock over furniture. Yet, every drawer, every cabinet is emptied. They were clearly searching for something. But what does she have of Weaver’s? He walks through, peering into the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen.
“Can I offer you a drink?” she asks.
“I’m on duty.”
“At this hour? This is duty?”
“A team is coming in a few minutes to help. I wasn’t sure I could get hold of them. I got lucky. With a few men it can be done more quickly. So you can get back to normal.”
“That would be good.”
He pulls out his notepad. “Can you think of what they might have been looking for? Did Weaver give you something they may have wanted?”
She stares at him, presses her lips together until they’re pale.
“What?” he coaxes.
“I haven’t a clue what they’d be looking for here.” She gives the slightest shrug. Her mouth projects defiance. It stings: that sense that she’s hiding something, that she’s loyal to Weaver even after all the jerk’s done to her in the past. Charlie writes down a few notes in his notebook. When he looks up, she’s collapsed into a chair, her eyes closed, tears spilling. He waits for her to compose herself, but after a minute, he walks over, squats down in front of her, not wanting to loom over or intimidate her.
“Here,” he says, holding out a clean handkerchief.
She opens her eyes and takes it, presses it to her face.
“May I ask why you’re crying?” he asks. He feels a bit put out. Still, her defenselessness moves him. “Are you scared?” he asks. “Or shocked or . . .”
“I don’t want to believe this is because of Weaver.”
“There’s a good chance it is. Otherwise things would be missing.”
“He says he was a Communist once. But lots of people were Communists . . . He says he’s trying to extricate himself from something.”
“From the Russians? Did he say that?”
She shakes her head. “He told me it would be dangerous to tell me more.”
“Well, that’s something. Thank you for sharing what you know. There’s nothing more?”
“No.”
“I know this is hard for you.”
Her lashes are starry with tears. His face is level with hers, but she doesn’t look shy or self-conscious. He’s surprised by her frankness. It’s as though no one ever told her the rules of flirtation. When he looks at her, he sees a beautiful woman who doesn’t know it. Creamy skin, soft, dark eyes glistening with intelligence and a surprising innocence. He doesn’t know how he finds the courage, but he reaches out and wipes a tear from beneath her eye with his thumb, feels his own lips quiver as he touches her. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. You don’t deserve it. I’m sorry we’ve exposed you like this.” Her lips part. For one moment, while their eyes are locked, while he’s touching her, he feels his heart grip—a fist clenching, painful as nails cutting into the flesh of a palm. He has to stand just to breathe again. It will be a long time until the sensation lets go, that utter cramp of feeling he has for her. He can hardly believe he touched her the way he did. Intimacy has been impossible for him since the war. But somehow her brokenness speaks to him, maybe because it echoes his own.
“I better start working or I’ll be here all nigh
t,” he says. “We probably won’t find anything. The Russians are trained not to leave a trail. Come on over, Rosalind, if you don’t mind. I need to get your prints first.” Even the sensation of holding her hand in his as he presses her fingers on the inkpad shoots through him like electricity.
* * *
Is the sudden attraction Rosalind feels for Charlie the result of the three drinks she’s taken? Or was it the way he knelt down to her level, his soft-spoken care? She was inexpressibly moved by his touch, his decency, which washes over her. Once the other men are in the apartment, he moves away, gets down to business directing them, and she longs for him in a way that confuses her.
Calder, the chubby guy whose shirt buttons too tightly over his belly, should have been a comedian.
“You call this housekeeping?” he says to Rosalind with a wink. She smiles faintly, wondering if he can see that she’s been crying. Pace resembles an undertaker. Sober, skinny, with a turned-down mouth and a stick-straight back.
“Ma’am,” he says as he enters the apartment.
“Miss,” Charlie corrects him, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. The men chat with Charlie briefly, each marking off his territory. Calder hums his way through the work. Pace, in the living room, makes small, catlike movements, his face unchanged through everything. By ten forty-five, in perfect concert, they announce they’re done.
“See you tomorrow, Szydlo. Miss Porter,” Calder says. “I hope tomorrow is a less interesting day.”
“Ma’am,” Pace says, touching his hat. The door closes behind them.
Rosalind’s been holing up in the corner of the living room, staring at the window, although with the lamps’ lights on the glass she can’t see out. She’s been thinking that loving Weaver will forever be a dangerous venture, that of course this chaos is because of him and his secrets.
She turns to watch Charlie straightening his items, checking the log where the fingerprints are noted, spinning the dusting jars closed.
When finished, he comes over and kneels down once again.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks. “I should be going.”
“You’re done too?” The thought of being alone in the apartment sends a flash of dread through her. She has the urge to reach out and grab his arm.
“It helped to have the other men,” he says. “You can start cleaning up, put things away whenever you’re up to it.”
“Do you think . . . do you imagine I’m in danger, Charlie?”
“I wouldn’t leave you alone if I did.”
“I feel safer with you here,” she whispers.
“Do you?”
For a moment they look into each other’s eyes, and the sense of connection is palpable. She feels disappointed when he gets up and finishes packing the case. Snaps it closed.
“When I had asthma as a kid,” he says, his back turned, “my mother used to sit up and watch over me. It made me feel safe. I’d wake up and see her stitching in a little beam of light, embroidering those bluebirds I told you about—on handkerchiefs and pillows. Just knowing she was there, maybe it relaxed me, maybe it did stop the asthma in a way.”
Rosalind imagines him as a little boy. Though he now seems so sturdy, she doesn’t find it hard to conceive of him as a delicate, lanky child. “You were lucky to have someone watching over you,” she says.
“You take it for granted when you’re a kid. You don’t know how lucky you are that someone cares most of all that you’re all right.”
Rosalind nods silently. “You were lucky to have a mother that loved you so.” She thinks of Lou, who may have loved her but often pushed her away.
His eyes are watchful, kind, lit from within. The color of the sea on a fair day.
“I could stay here in your living room tonight,” he offers softly.
“Could you?”
“If you want me to.”
“You don’t know . . . I would be so grateful.”
“All right. Consider me your guest.”
* * *
He can hardly believe he’s suggested staying. What’s he doing? Despite the fact that this operation is a kind of wooing, a seduction even, he’s not supposed to actually get involved with her. Yet all he can think about is taking her in his arms, telling her it will be okay. He knows he’s responsible for exposing her to this mess. This fear.
“I’ll bring you sheets, a blanket, and a pillow too,” she says. “And I’ll make the sofa up like a bed. When my niece, Ava, sleeps here, that’s where she usually sleeps. She says it’s comfortable. Of course, you’re taller. You saw her at the Berghoff that night, didn’t you?”
“She looks like you,” he says. Beautiful, he wants to tell her.
“People always think she’s mine. My daughter.” She gets up from the chair, and as she passes, she reaches out and squeezes his arm. It sends a jolt through him. “I’ll go get the bedding—if it’s where I think it is. They completely emptied the linen closet.”
He waits for her, uneasy. He could have called for some uniformed cops to sit outside her door with coffee and their walkie-talkies. But it’s Charlie she wants, Charlie who makes her feel safe. He gets up, too nervous to sit.
“I think I’ll go down to talk to your doorman. Alert him to keep watch,” he calls to her. “Would the overnight doorman be on yet?”
She comes in, her arms piled with bedding, and throws it down on the sofa. “Show me your watch,” she says. Charlie turns his watch to her. “He comes on in ten minutes, at eleven, but Frank will tell him. Frank’s a good guy.”
“Why don’t you give me your keys before I go down, then double lock the door. That sort of thumb lock is hard to pick. Go get ready for bed, okay?”
She lifts the keys from where she left them on the hall table and drops them into his hand. He pockets them. “Thank you,” she whispers.
“Listen, in case you’re already in bed by the time I come back up,” he says. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to ask, but I can’t help feeling you’re holding something back from me. Please tell me what it is—what they were searching for.”
At first she looks surprised; then she looks defiant. “I’m not ready to condemn him,” she says.
“So you’re willing to have his goons ransack your apartment, but you won’t tell me?”
“Don’t call them his goons.”
“You asked me to stay here, and I’m staying. I’m going out of my way to make you feel safe . . . so . . .”
“You want something in return? Tit for tat? That’s why you’ve stayed?” She shakes her head and turns her back on him. “Go ahead and leave, then. Fine.” She heads toward the bedroom.
Women. He’s so bad at this. “No. I know you’ll feel better if I stay. I’ll feel better if I’m sure you’re okay.” When he catches up to her, he gently takes her arm in his hand. “Please, Rosalind. I want to keep you safe.”
She turns to him. She’s so close, he picks up that honeyed scent. She looks up into his eyes and shakes her head. “Charlie, I can’t . . . not yet.” He should feel angry, yet how he would love to touch her hair, to let his fingers model her face, her white throat. He would kiss her if he had the courage. In the beautiful hollow where her neck meets her shoulder. Instead, all the way down in the elevator, he’s a jumble of anger and tenderness. Why does she confound him so? Why is she so loyal to a man who threw her to the dogs?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She lies in bed soothed, knowing Charlie is in the next room. And scared because her house has been invaded, every one of her things touched. Should she have told him about the tiny envelope? Should she have taken him to the bank and let him open it? She thinks of Weaver, how when they made love in her apartment that first night, he whispered her name again and again. He was full of emotion, so much more tender, more gentle, than he used to be. And then
in the morning when she spent the night at his place, he held her for a long time in his arms, saying, “You have no idea what this means to me.” It was easier when she hated him. His new vulnerability mystifies her. And yet the piles of disorder by the window snag the passing lights of cars on Lake Shore Drive. She’s been invaded because of him. It’s painful to know that there won’t be time to clean up in the morning before work, so tomorrow night she’ll come home and have to face this chaos, this intrusion, alone.
Maybe it’s because Rosalind never knew how Louisa might treat her when she was a child that she craves certainty. Can Weaver ever provide that sort of sureness? He proved once he couldn’t. He disrupted her life and now he’s disrupting it again. Would he be shocked to discover her place had been ransacked? One thing’s certain: She can’t tell him she thinks the break-in occurred because of him.
Charlie is a different sort of man. A man one could rely on. She asked him to stay and he stayed. She’s left her bedroom door open, wanting the reassurance of his presence, and now, from the next room, she detects his steady breathing. Closing her eyes, she tries to match her breath to his. Like a metronome. Steady. In. Out. In time, she rides the rhythm of Charlie Szydlo’s breath to the soft pastures of sleep.
* * *
Careful sounds in the kitchen wake her. Her door has been closed. The sun is coming through the stripes of the blinds just as the car lights did last night. The clock says seven fifteen. She should be up by now, but she was so overwhelmed last night, she forgot to set the alarm. Tying on a robe and running her fingers through her hair, she encounters Charlie at the kitchen sink with his back to her. He’s barefoot, wearing his suit pants with only a white ribbed sleeveless undershirt. Suspenders are buttoned to his trousers but hang around his hips and thighs. For such a slender man, his arms are far more muscled than she expected. Like those ads for he-man equipment in the backs of magazines. And his torso is long and lean, graceful and strong. The sight of him moves her.
Atomic Love Page 17