“I’m looking for the man who lives here.”
“No one lives here,” he says with a trace of annoyance. “Tenant flew the coop last night.”
I blink at him as the words sink in. “Flew the coop?”
“Yes, ma’am. Knocked on my door around suppertime to tell me he was clearing out. Said he’d wrapped up his work here and was off to cover the war. I didn’t know you could still get over there, but maybe he’s got connections. His type usually does.”
Suddenly there isn’t enough air in the room and I feel as if I’m about to slide to the floor. I grab for the arm of the sofa, dimly aware of the landlord’s alarmed expression.
“Hey, are you sick?” His eyes narrow, looking me up and down. “I remember you now. Coming around at odd hours. Never staying long.”
The change in his expression makes my cheeks go hot. I consider denying it, assuring him he’s mistaken, but it hardly matters now. I straighten and run a hand over my hair. “Did he leave a forwarding address for his mail?”
“No. Nothing like that.” He presses his lips together then, as if he’s just grasped the situation. “Left you flat, did he?”
I look away. “It would seem so, yes.”
“Tough break. But maybe you’re better off. Any man who’d leave you to go play in a war needs his head examined.”
I stare at him, my throat too tight to reply.
“Well, if you’re in need of an apartment, doll, this one’s available. I can make you a good deal, too, since your fella paid the month out.”
The idea that I would want to live in this apartment is ridiculous, but it suddenly dawns on me that I have no backup plan. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be here or that I could have miscalculated so completely. Now, the thought of having to return to my father’s house, to my sister’s gloating smile, is more than I can bear.
“Hey, you okay? You don’t look so good.”
I shake my head and move toward the door.
He takes a step toward me, as if to block my way, then points to the suitcase parked haphazardly inside the door. “That yours?”
I glance at the suitcase, remembering the weeks I’ve spent carefully filling it. My trousseau, you teasingly called it. “Yes, it’s mine.”
“Aren’t you going to take it with you?”
“No.”
I manage to make it down the stairs and all the way back to the car before falling apart. I lean my head against the icy steering wheel, the thrum of traffic muffled beyond the car windows, and finally, I break. How could you, Hemi? After everything—how could you do it? When you knew I was coming.
I barely remember the drive back to my father’s or dropping the car off at the garage. Cee-Cee is in the foyer when I walk in, arranging a bowl of flowers. She peers at me over the blooms as I shrug off my coat, lingering on my face. My eyes feel swollen and gritty, as if I’ve spent the afternoon in a smoke-filled room.
I expect her to demand to know where I’ve been, who I’ve seen. Instead, she inspects me briefly and returns to her gladiolas. I’m so relieved, I could cry. I don’t think I could bear another scene with her at this moment. I head for the staircase and manage to make it to the top. I’m so terribly tired all of a sudden, so utterly and completely empty.
Finally, I reach my room and lock myself in. After washing my face and swallowing one of the sleeping powders Dickey brought from the druggist, I fall onto the bed, craving only oblivion. Tomorrow, I’ll think about what to do. Tomorrow, I’ll make plans.
I have no idea what time it is or how long I’ve been asleep when I hear Cee-Cee outside my door, cursing and banging, rattling the knob.
“Open the door, for heaven’s sake! Something’s happened!”
I’m still muzzy from sleep, but eventually her words penetrate. Something’s happened. Scenarios tumble through my head as I scramble to sit up. You’ve changed your mind and come back. My father’s gotten wind of our plans and cut his business trip short in order to deal with me. Or perhaps he’s already dealt with you. The thought sends a chill through me. I bolt from the bed and hurry to unlock the door.
Cee-Cee pushes in, grim-faced and out of breath. “The Japanese have bombed the naval base at Pearl Harbor. They just broke in on the radio with a reporter who’s there. You could hear the bombs going off in the background, things exploding. It sounds bad.”
It takes a moment for my brain to shift gears. Not you. Not my father. The Japanese. “How could it happen?”
“A sneak attack, they say. Planes downed. Ships on fire. God knows how many killed. They think Manila’s been hit too. Roosevelt will get his war now. They’re probably popping the champagne corks as we speak.”
I stare at her, horrified. That’s what she’s thinking at this moment. No outrage over men dying, no anguish for widowed wives and orphaned children. Just resentment that my father’s precious cause—the gift to Hitler of a neutral United States—is almost certainly lost.
“Has the president spoken?”
“No. But he will. This is exactly what he’s been praying for.”
“You think the president of the United States has been praying that we’d be attacked and hundreds of people would be killed?”
“You still don’t understand, do you, who’s pulling the strings and why? This wasn’t a random attack. It was orchestrated to drag us into their war. The Jews and the communists want us to use our money and our resources to fight their war for them. Why should we? Let them raise their own army and fend for themselves.”
Cee-Cee’s words stun me. “The people you’re talking about . . . our mother was one of them. Her blood—Jewish blood—runs through your veins the same as mine. They . . . are us.”
“Never say that again. Not in this house. Not anywhere.”
Her eyes glitter coldly as she regards me, reminding me of the night of my mother’s breakdown. I flash back to that moment on the stairs, her queer little smile and inexplicable words. Now we’ll see. And afterward, how she slid into my mother’s place and systematically removed every trace of her from our lives.
“He’s done this to you,” I say, seeing her clearly. Seeing it all clearly. “He poisoned you against her, little by little, and then he rewarded you for it. He taught you to be ashamed of her, ashamed of yourself. Because you’re like her. We’re both like her.”
“I’m not like her!” Cee-Cee shrieks. “I’m an American. A real American. And so are my children. I have a duty to protect our name and our way of life, to keep it unpolluted.”
Suddenly my father is staring back at me. The hardness, the hatred, the steely superiority. I see it all in my sister. “Hemi was right about you. About both of you. He had you pegged from the start.”
“Ah yes, the paperboy.” She flashes a chilly smile. “Come to think of it, why aren’t you with him now, having lunch in his squalid little walk-up?” The smile hardens. “Or have you miscalculated again?”
Her words hit me like a dash of cold water. I want to deny it, but how can I when I’ve been such a fool about everything?