Five Brides (14 page)

On a Wednesday in the middle of January, Inga hurried through LAX as quickly as her uniform heels allowed. Her calves ached, not only from standing so much during the day—and most especially on this last flight—but from the speed she now tried to accomplish. The speed that strained against the pencil-skirt uniform she wore.

Henrietta walked beside her, both of them weighed down by overnight luggage in one hand and a cosmetics case in the other. “Do you realize,” she said, huffing, “we’ve traveled the entire country in one day? O’Hare to LaGuardia. LaGuardia back to O’Hare. O’Hare to LAX.” She laughed lightly. “But I daresay you’re matching the time for most of the jets I’ve been in.
Slow down.
”

Inga tried to pace herself, but thoughts of seeing Frank again that evening were almost more than she could bear. “Do you know how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other? Two weeks. Nearly three.” They came to an escalator and stepped upon two of the steps, one behind the other, for the trip downward. Inga glanced over her shoulder at Henrietta. “Since before Christmas. I think TWA did this on purpose, switching our flights the way they did. I thought I’d never see LA again.”

Henrietta laughed. “And now we have two glorious days here.”
They stepped onto the floor and strode toward the outer doors and the yellow cabs waiting like ducks in a row beyond the sidewalk’s curb. “I don’t know what you have in mind,” she continued, “but I’m going to soak up as many sunrays as I can by the pool. Nothing like LA weather to make you forget about Chicago’s blizzards.”

The two women found a cab and, as soon as their luggage had been tucked securely in the trunk, slid into the backseat. “Does he know you’re coming?” Henrietta asked, opening her purse and pulling out her compact.

Inga did the same. “Yes. I phoned him last night.” She peered at herself in the tiny mirror, then dabbed at her chin and nose with the small puff. She couldn’t help but smile. “He said he couldn’t wait to see me.” The compact closed with a snap. “Oh, Retta. I really do believe this is it. He’s the one. I just know it.”

The cab driver pulled away from the curb as Henrietta said, “How? How do you know?”

Inga shuddered. “I can’t explain it. I’m all giddy when I’m around him. I feel . . . I feel like I’ve known him my whole life and that I’ll know him until I die. We’re—” She gazed out the window to the familiar landscape of Los Angeles. “We’re like a hand and a glove. Or—what is it Evelyn says?—peas and carrots.” She giggled. “I can say this for sure—if he asked me to marry him tonight, I’d say yes.”

“After, what? Two dates?”

Inga waved away the notion. “We talk once a week and he’s written me the most wonderful letters.” She opened her purse again to pull out a small stack tied with ribbon. “I’d share but they might make you blush.”

Henrietta raised her chin. “Then they should make
you
blush.” Her eyes met Inga’s. “Be careful, Inga. You say he’s special, but he’s still a man.”

Inga looked out the window again, determined to be somewhat cautious but not so restricted she couldn’t breathe. If she’d wanted that kind of existence, she would have married some nice man her father had found for her.

As the first generation born in America, she and Magda had heard countless stories of arranged marriages. Of fathers and mothers knowing what was best for their children, especially their daughters. The men of her father’s dreams for her and Magda were both Swedish and Lutheran. They were proud men. Fervent. The kind of men who wouldn’t be caught dead having fun just for the enjoyment of it. They were not the kind of men who laughed easily, like Frank, but instead kept their chins high, their jaws firm, and their chests bowed. Her father called that conviction.

Inga just called it boring.

At five till six that evening, Inga stood dressed to the nines in an elevator that descended all too slowly to the lobby of the hotel. The last time she’d been there, a Christmas tree had dominated the room. Today when she came in, she noted it had been replaced by luxury as far as the eye could see.

Frank stood near the elevator doors, waiting for her arrival. His face lit up when they saw each other, and she felt hers do the same. She’d hardly had time to step onto the lobby floor before he slipped his arm around her waist and whisked her toward the revolving doors leading outside.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked him as soon as they stopped on the sidewalk.

His hand squeezed her to him and he mumbled, “I know where I’d like to take you. Back to my place.”

She looked over her shoulder, then straight into his eyes. “I thought you lived in the hotel.”

“I do,” he said, smiling. “If I had any sense I would have told you to come straight to my room.”

She put her fingertip against his chin. “Oh, but as it turns out,
I
have sense.”

He smiled. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I would never walk into a man’s apartment. Alone.” The disapproving face of her father rushed toward her, and just as quickly, she pushed it away.

Frank released her, then took a step forward and called out to the valet. “Hey, Charlie. Get us a cab?”

Charlie—a pimply-faced young man she’d previously met—whistled, and within seconds, a cab slid up to the curb.

“Your chariot, milady,” Frank said, his accent adding authenticity to the choice of words.

She listened as he told the cab driver the address of their destination, but waited until he had nestled beside her to ask, “Again, where are you taking me?”

“A great little place on Fairfax called Tom Bergin’s. Actually, it’s Tom Bergin’s Old Horseshoe Tavern and Thoroughbred Club, but most people around here call it simply Tom Bergin’s.”

Inga opened her purse and pulled out her gloves, which she then slid her hands into as if putting on a show. “What kind of place is it?”

She couldn’t help but note the way his eyes watched as she wiggled her fingers into the soft fabric of the gloves. She could almost hear Magda’s voice whisper in her ear, “Playing with fire.” But she didn’t care. They no longer lived in the 1940s world of their mother and father; they were free, independent women of the ’50s. Able to work even with the men home from the war. Able
to have their own apartments outside of boardinghouses. Able to run and play with the big boys.

She gave the hem of her skirt a deliberate tug. “Did you hear me?” she asked.

He swallowed. Hard. “Irish. An Irish pub.” He forced his eyes to hers. “Ever been to one?”

“Are you kidding me?” She laughed. “I live in Chicago, remember?”

Frank chuckled, his face so close she could smell the lingering sweetness of a mint he must have popped before she’d come to the lobby. “Tom Bergin’s is hailed as one of the best. You’ll have to let me know what you think about—”

She didn’t allow him to finish; instead she cut his words off with a kiss, one he leaned into with passion. Brazen, she knew, but she’d waited too many days for this. Weeks. Perhaps her whole life.

And she wasn’t wasting another moment. By this time next year, she vowed as her hand gripped the nape of his neck, she would no longer fly from Chicago to LA to see him. This time next year, she would be Mrs. Frank Martindale.

Early the next morning, Magda exited the mail room with a bin full of manila envelopes, the kind she’d come to recognize as holding unsolicited manuscripts and folded self-addressed, stamped envelopes. SASEs, her boss, Barry Cole, called them.

Moments later, she entered her office and stopped at her desk, positioned to the left of the door and facing a wall of windows overlooking a street of city buildings directly across from the Olson offices. She dropped her purse and the bin onto the walnut surface, removed her coat, and hung it on the tree by the door. She then hoisted the bin from her desk, resting it against her hip
to free a hand for opening Mr. Cole’s faux-wood door, rich in imaginary grain.

As was her custom each morning, Magda deposited the mail onto his organized desk, walked to the two walls of windows, and pulled open the short floral drapes. She then turned his calendar to today’s date. After starting a pot of coffee at the wet bar, she pulled a clean cup and saucer from beneath the counter and placed them near the percolator.

Magda walked into her office, picked up her own daily calendar and a pencil, and returned to compare entries. Every line read exactly the same, but one. When she’d left the day before, Barry Cole had a free lunch hour after a meeting with one of the bigwigs upstairs. Now the name
Harlan Procter
stared up at her in Mr. Cole’s bold handwriting.

Her heart slammed against her chest and her hand quivered as she scribbled
HP
onto her calendar. Magda turned suddenly, bumping her boss’s oversize black leather chair. It rolled toward the bookshelf behind it. She grabbed for it, dropping the calendar onto her foot. Her left hand flew upward, knocking the silver-framed Cole family photo from its place next to several of Mr. Cole’s awards. She fumbled with it, but managed to keep it from crashing to the floor next to the calendar.

When the moment had passed and her foot throbbed only mildly, she gripped the photo, staring at the four people. Mrs. Cole, whom she’d never met or even spoken to, looked back at her with large eyes and blonde hair styled in a fashion Magda hadn’t seen in a few years. The children—a boy and a girl—both resembled their father. She’d been curious about the ages of his children. Mr. Cole appeared much younger in the photo, leaving her to wonder—

“Good morning, Miss Christenson.” Barry Cole’s baritone voice spoke from behind her.

Again she fumbled with the photo, but managed to get it back to the shelf. She turned. “A little accident, sir,” she said.

He blinked and she couldn’t help but note the jet-black lashes as they swept over almond-colored eyes. “Is everything okay?” he asked, placing his briefcase on the edge of the desktop.

Magda reached for the calendar still on the floor. “Oh, yes. I bumped the—and then the—this—” she held up the calendar—“dropped.” She inhaled deeply, keeping her eyes on him. “I see you are having lunch with Mr. Procter today, sir.”

His smile encouraged her to relax, reminding her she wasn’t on trial. “I am.” He looked over his shoulder to the wet bar as the percolator coughed and sighed. “Sounds like the coffee is ready.” He shrugged off his coat and loosened his tie, common movements she’d witnessed since her first day on the job. She reached for the coat, hung it on the nearby chrome tree, and promptly walked across the room to prepare his coffee. By the time she returned, he stood behind the desk and had started flipping through the envelopes.

“Miss Christenson,” he said without looking up, “I want you to do something for me.”

She placed the coffee in a clear area next to the Bible that always seemed to be nearby. Mr. Cole was not only a family man, she reasoned, but also a man of faith.

She stood upright. “Yes, sir.”

He sighed and raised his eyes. “Do you like to read, by any great chance?”

She chuckled. “More than I like to breathe, sir.”

He smiled. “Do you think you know a good story when you read one?”

“I do.”

He pushed the mail bin toward her as his attention went to
a file lying nearby. “We’re going to see how good you are then. I believe you know our standards here, do you not?”

“I’d like to think so—”

“A new part of your job, starting today, is to weed through all these and find
one
good one.” He opened the file and studied the top page.

Something that felt like success coursed through her, and she reached for the bin. “And if I should find two, sir?”

For a moment, time hung suspended between them. “You’ll have the unenviable job of picking the best between them.”