Five Brides (25 page)

“I see.” She looked at the clock again. Another three minutes. She wondered if she should stand and call it a day herself, but she didn’t dare. The last thing she wanted was for Mr. Cole to think of her as a slacker.

“Good-bye, then.” He stepped out of the door, closing it behind him. The door reopened and his head peered around it. “By the way. You gave me work by a Clarissa Jones.”

Magda straightened. Only a few days previously she’d read an article she thought held merit and had passed it along to her boss. “The article about the women behind the men of baseball?”

“That’s the one.” He winked. “Good job.”

The door closed behind him. Only then did she smile, allowing it to evolve into a grin, then to form a chuckle.

“Good job,” she repeated as she stood, shuffling the work in front of her into one pile. She set the paperwork in the to-do basket, then went about her end-of-the-day tasks—covering the typewriter, switching off the table lamp in the far corner, and righting any magazines that had been disturbed on the coffee table by those waiting for their appointments with her boss.

The door opened again as she returned to the desk to retrieve
her purse. Magda looked up, expecting Mr. Cole’s face, but seeing Harlan’s instead.

“Harlan,” she breathed out. “What are you doing here?”

He walked in and closed the door behind him, then removed his hat. “I was afraid I might have missed you.”

She pointed to the door as an awkward twitch shimmied down her spine. She’d never been in such private quarters with him before—not without Mr. Cole nearby—and never with the door closed. “I was about to go home. Mr. Cole already—”

Harlan shuffled as though nervous. “I see.” He waved a hand, beckoning her to him. “Come. Sit over here with me. I have something to talk to you about.”

Magda sighed. “Perhaps we should open the door in case—”

“In case what?” His eyes widened. “Oh, I see.” He looked over his shoulder at the door, then back to her. “Don’t worry about that. Come.” He waved again, then tossed the hat on the sofa and sat. “Here, next to me,” he said, patting the seat beside him.

Magda walked over, then perched on the edge of the sofa.

Harlan looked at her as if she’d developed some strange disease that left her face scattered with green polka dots. “What is wrong with you, Magda? You act like you’ve never sat with me before.”

She sighed and laughed at the same time, then slid back. He did the same, resting his arm along the back and drawing her into the crook of it. “There. Better.”

Magda looked up into his face. “This feels strange, Harlan. It’s one thing, sitting close at the club or necking at my front door.” Her eyes swept over the room. “But this is my place of business and . . . I would be mortified if someone walked in right about—”

He cut off her words with his lips pressed against hers. She couldn’t help herself; she sank into the kiss, wrapping her arm around his shoulder, twining her fingers through the curls at the
nape of his neck. When he broke the magic and pulled away, his pale-green eyes traveled from her lips to her eyes, and back to her lips again. “I was hoping you’d react that way,” he said, his voice smoky.

She slid away from him, but only an inch or so. “What way?”

Harlan took her hand, squeezing it, and then lacing their fingers. “I’ve come with a proposition.”

Her heart pounded and for a fleeting moment she thought of the dress, covered and hanging in the closet her sister shared with Betty. “What kind of . . .
proposition
?”

“I have some intensive work on a short story I have to have finished by next Tuesday.”

Magda blinked. “Do you need me to read it for you? Go over it before you turn it in?” The prospect of such a request gave her nearly as much pleasure as the thought of being the first to wear the wedding dress.

He smiled. “Yes, but more than that.” He brought her hand up and kissed her fingers. “I’ve grown so fond of you, you know.”

“And I, you.”

Harlan’s eyes met hers and held fast. “That’s so good to know,” he whispered. Then he cleared his throat, released her hand, and sat closer to the edge, resting his elbows on his knees. “I have a cabin up a ways on Lake Michigan.”

“You’ve never talked about it—”

He looked at the floor. “It’s where I go to write. Sometimes for a week. Sometimes for a month. Sometimes for a weekend.” Harlan looked back at her. “I’m going this weekend—I’ll leave Friday afternoon and return Sunday evening. I want you to go with me, of course. You can read. Take long walks. That sort of thing . . . while I write. Then read my work if you wish and tell me what you think.”

Magda stood. “You mean . . . but who else would be there? Besides the two of us?”

Harlan stood as well. “Just the two of us.” He reached for his hat and set it on his head. “Don’t
you
become provincial on me, Magda,” he said, studying her from under the rim. “Surely you knew this was the direction we were headed.” He took her by the elbow and guided her to her desk. “Get your purse, my dear, and I’ll walk you to the train. I’ve given you much to think about, I know. And I don’t expect you to answer me right now. But by Thursday, shall we say? I’ll meet you at Tillie’s for lunch. You can give me your answer then.”

Magda stood in the kitchen doorway, staring at her sister, who sat at the table with a half-consumed cup of coffee in front of her. “You look like I feel,” she said, noting the worry lines forming along Inga’s brow.

Inga glanced up, pushing the cup and saucer a couple of inches away from where it stood. “And how’s that?”

“Like you’ve lost your last best friend.” She walked to the percolator, still on the counter, and laid her fingertips against it, testing its warmth. “Can I warm your coffee?”

She reached into the cabinet and pulled out a cup and saucer.

“No.” Then, more kindly, “No, thank you.”

Magda joined her at the table where the sugar and creamer stood near Inga’s now-ignored cup of coffee. “What’s wrong?” she asked, preparing her drink. “Or do you want to talk about it?”

Inga sighed. “They’ve changed my route. I’m flying Chicago to New York now.”

“New York?” Magda added a cube of sugar and stirred. “I’ve always wanted to see New York.” She took a sip. “Maybe one day I will.” When she became a famous author . . . When she went to the grand city for business meetings with her publisher. And surely a
New York house would want her books. More than one. They’d be in competition for her, especially knowing she’d been tutored by—

“Easy for you to say,” Inga mumbled. “You don’t have a boyfriend in Los Angeles.”

“Oh,” Magda breathed out. “I see.” She took another sip. “How long will you have this new route?”

Inga shrugged. “I don’t know.” She picked up the cup and saucer and stood, then walked to the counter, where she added more of the hot coffee to what Magda assumed was stone cold. “All I know is, without the airline flying me there, I won’t have time to go to Los Angeles.” She returned to the table and plopped back into her seat.

“Have you talked to him? To this boyfriend?”

“Frank. Yes.”

“I take it that didn’t go well.”

“He said he was upset, but . . . I worry that I . . .” Her words trailed and Magda waited.

When she said nothing more, Magda asked, “What? What are you worried about, Inga?” She heard the lilt in her own voice, sounding so much like Mor’s.

Inga must have heard it too. She smiled, albeit weakly. “That voice,” she said. “Do you think we’ll ever get away from it?”

Magda shook her head. “I hope not.”

Inga sighed again, drawing the cup and saucer closer to her. “That voice kept me from a night of what I imagine would have been the most intense passion ever experienced by any woman.”

Magda sat straight.
“Inga . . .”

Inga raked her long, polished fingernails through her hair. “I can’t help it, Magda. I’m not like you.”

“Like
me
?”

Inga remained quiet for a moment, her gaze on the still-untouched coffee in her cup. “Chaste.”

“Inga . . . surely you haven’t—”

“No. But . . . but I’ve thought about it.” Her eyes met Magda’s. “Valentine’s night. Frank took me up into the hills and he . . . he practically begged.”

Magda hugged herself as if the room had suddenly become too cold to bear. “And did you?”

“No. Mor’s voice—her words of chastity and warnings from God’s Word—kept me in line.”

Magda choked out a bubble of laughter. She inhaled deeply. Released it. “But you wanted to.”

“I’m in love with him. Of course I did.” She picked up the cup and took a sip. “Wretched.”

Magda took the cup, stood, and walked to the sink, where she washed it out. She then poured another cup and returned to the table with it, preparing it the way she knew her sister liked it. After she placed it back on the saucer, she said, “Harlan has asked me to go away with him this weekend.”

Inga’s eyes grew wide. “And will you?”

Magda shook her head. “No. Not that I didn’t think about it all the way home on the train. Believe me, I did.”

“But Mor’s voice . . .”

“More than that, Inga. God’s voice.”

“God’s? Don’t tell me you’re hearing the voice of God now.”

Magda smiled. “No. Nothing like that. But I suppose it’s more than Mor’s words that have impacted my decision, though surely they have to some degree. We grew up—you and I—in the strictest of homes—”

“You can say that again.”

“—but we knew our parents loved us. Cared for us and about us.”

Inga only nodded.

“Truth is, we say their faith is theirs and we’re only living a
certain way out of obedience to them. But when Harlan asked me to go away with him, I felt so violated. So . . . disrespected. Not that I don’t love him, but . . . I don’t think he loves me in the same way. He has no faith tendencies . . . and . . . I asked Mor what she would have done had Far not been Lutheran.”

“When? When did you do that?”

“At Uncle Casper and Aunt Greta’s.”

“And what did she say?”

Magda took a sip of her coffee. “You know Mor. She said, ‘But he was.’”

Inga stared at her. “That’s it?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“I call that blind faith.”

“At least she knew what she wanted.”

Inga stood, this time pushing the chair back into place under the table. “I know what I want, too, Magda. And what I want is Frank Martindale. Besides, I’m not that keen on religion. It’s all an act, anyway.”

“Inga . . .”

“Act this way.
Don’t
act that way. If I ever see Frank again, it won’t be with Mor’s voice running around in my head. I’ll exorcise it out if I have to.”

“Inga!”

But before her sister could respond, the front door opened and closed and—a second later—Betty and Joan stood in the doorway, anxiety covering their faces and Evelyn’s lightweight coat draped across Joan’s arm.

“What?” Magda asked. “What is it?”

Joan pushed out a breath, her chest heaving. “Have either of you seen Evelyn?”

Evelyn sat in a sleek orange chair in the corner of the building that housed George’s office five floors up. The chill from outside crept through, making her wish she’d worn her coat. But at noon, when she’d left Hertz to come here, the sun had shone so brightly. So warmly.

There’d been no need, then.

Now, everything was different. The weather. The world. Herself. Now she understood things she hadn’t before, and she’d had all day to consider them.

It had only been a few weeks since the salesclerk at Carson’s told her Betty was not a woman in love. That much she knew for sure. Betty wasn’t the type of girl to
toy
with a man or his affections. As Joan had said time and again, Betty was one of the most selfless women she’d ever come to know.

George, on the other hand . . .

Evelyn crossed her legs in an attempt to stay warm, then wrapped her arms around her middle. She looked at her dress, attractive enough by most standards, but shabby compared to those Betty owned. Even with her new hairstyle and the use of cosmetics, she knew she paled next to her roommate. Betty had
had a lifetime of practice at being sophisticated; Evelyn had only recently begun to scratch the surface.