Into the Night (22 page)
Charlotte crouched next to the bed and peered into the darkness underneath. Lightning flared and there was Vince, his eyes wild in his gaunt face, his dark hair a mess.
He grabbed her, and she shrieked as he pulled her onto the floor and yanked her underneath the bed with him. As the thunder roared, he rolled on top of her.
As thin as he'd seemed as she'd cared for him this past week, he was bigger than she was. In fact, from this perspective, he didn't feel frail at all. On the contrary, he was quite solid and heavy. And unquestionably male.
"Stop," she said, even though part of her had been starving for years for this very type of physical intimacy, for a body to cling to, to hold close, for someone else's strong arm tightly wrapped around her. "Get off me!"
But he didn't move. He tucked his head down close to hers. "Stay down!"
He was covering her from an imaginary barrage of shells, she realized. He was trying to protect her. This wasn't even remotely about sex.
"Vincent, it's just a thunderstorm." His ear was right by her mouth so she spoke as quietly and calmly as she possibly could, considering that her heart was racing.
She'd jumped from bed so quickly, she'd neglected to put on her robe. And she was lying there now, on the floor beneath him, in only her thin flannel nightie, which had ridden way up as he'd pulled her under the bed. She could feel his bare legs, warm against hers.
"Jesus God, Ray, keep your fucking head down!" His voice broke. His language should have shocked her, but it wasn't half as shocking as the raw pain and horror in his voice. "Oh, God, why didn't you keep your head down? Medic! I need a medic! Where the fuck is the medic?"
Charlotte did the only thing she could do. She put her arms around him and held him as tightly as he was holding her.
"Vince," she said. "Vincent. Listen to me. It's Charlotte Fletcher. Not Ray, Charlotte. We're safe. We're in Washington, and this is just a thunderstorm."
"Charlotte?" Edna called.
"Under the bed, Mother," Charlotte called. "Get candles! Bring as many candles up as you possibly can! Please hurry!"
"Where's Ray?" Vince asked. He was breathing hard, as if he'd run for miles. Or as if he were trying desperately not to cry.
"I don't know," she told him. "But I do know he's not here. Not now. You're here, Vince, and I'm here, and Mother Fletcher just went downstairs to fetch some light. You're in our house in Washington, D.C., and we're all safe. No one's shooting at us."
Light came into the room. Charlotte couldn't see the door from her vantage point under the bed, but she suspected Edna had simply grabbed the candlesticks from the dining room sideboard and set them here on the oak dresser.
"I'll get more," Edna said.
The light was faint and it flickered, but it cut through the darkness.
"Open your eyes," Charlotte commanded Vince.
He did, but she still wasn't sure if he could really see her yet. Lightning flashed again, but it was less jarring with the candles already lighting the walls.
Still, he tensed and ducked his head, pulling her closer to him, too, when the thunder came. It was less earthshaking this time—the storm was starting to move off, thank God.
"It's thunder," she said again, her face pressed against his neck. He was hot and he smelled like her soap. "Just thunder."
The sound of Mother Fletcher's footsteps hurrying up the stairs heralded the arrival of more candles, more light.
"Put at least one on the floor, please," Charlotte called. And then, alleluia, there was more light.
"Oh, dear," Edna said. Charlotte caught a glimpse of her mother-in-law's pale face as she peered under the bed.
"He thinks the thunder is shelling. He thinks we're under attack," she explained, her own face heating at the idea of what this must look like from Edna's perspective.
"How can I help?" Edna asked. She actually lay down on her stomach, on the chilly floor, in order to get closer, bless her.
"I don't know," Charlotte admitted. "I was hoping the light would help."
Edna pushed the candle even closer. "Young man, look at me. Look and see where you are," she ordered in that no-nonsense voice that had surely kept James hopping when he was a child.
It may have been Edna's stentorian tones, or the light from the candle burning right beside them, but this tune when Vince lifted his head, Charlotte knew he was on his way back.
As Edna reassured him that the war hadn't yet come to
84 Chestnut Street
in Washington, D.C., he looked at Edna, looked at the candle, looked at the bed frame above them. And then he looked at Charlotte.
84 Chestnut Street
in Washington, D.C., he looked at Edna, looked at the candle, looked at the bed frame above them. And then he looked at Charlotte.
She saw the exact moment he realized exactly where he was and that she was lying beneath him. The parade of emotions that crossed his so-expressive face would have been funny if she hadn't felt like crying in sheer relief.
Shock, horror, disbelief, embarrassment. Desire. She saw clearly from his eyes that she now wasn't the only one who was intensely aware of the way their bare legs were intertwined.
"Please tell me I didn't hurt you," he whispered as he quickly pushed himself off of her.
"You were trying to save me," she reassured him. Funny, but she didn't seem able to do more than whisper, either. She cleared her throat. "My dignity is slightly bruised, but that's the extent of any damage. However, I suspect we've irrevocably crossed over to that place where it's not just acceptable but rather necessary now to address each other by our given names."
He laughed at that, as she'd hoped he would. But then his face crumpled, just like that of the little boy who lived in the house next door, and he started to cry.
He tried to pull farther away, but this tune she was the one who reached for him and wouldn't let him go.
There was nothing to say, nothing to do but hold him and cry, too. From all that he'd said tonight, she could begin to imagine the nightmare he—and thousands of other American boys—had lived through. And perhaps worst of all, she could begin to imagine what it had been like at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese had attacked. When James had died.
They both cried until they were exhausted, until Vince fell asleep. And then Charlotte cried some more.
And when she next looked up, light was coming in through the windows. She'd fallen asleep right there, in Vince's arms, on the floor beneath the very bed she'd once shared with James.
Edna was long gone, and the candles had all burned out.
Vince was sleeping, and she gently pulled free from his embrace and crawled out from under the bed.
By all rights she should have felt terrible, staying up so late, crying as hard as she had, and then sleeping on the hardwood floor. Every muscle in her body should have ached. Every bone should have felt bruised. Her head should have pounded.
But as she slipped out of the room to get ready to go to work, she couldn't remember the last time she'd had a better sleep.
Muldoon had had the evening from hell.
Mrs. Tucker had followed him into the grocery store.
It was like something out of a bad movie, and he'd had to dash down the dog food aisle to escape out the loading dock.
On his way home, desperate for a beer, he'd stopped into the Ladybug Lounge and come across a sailor going head to head with some bikers in the parking lot.
It took a full hour to get that straightened out.
He drove the kid back to the base, and then somehow found himself outside of the Hotel del Coronado, where Joan was staying.
He still wanted that beer, but more than a beer, he wanted to talk to Joan. Who wasn't answering her cell phone.
Muldoon used his own phone to call the hotel's main number as he walked toward the lobby. Thunder had been rumbling for the past hour or so and a sharp crack made the skies open. He ran, but it was hopeless. By the time he reached the hotel, he was soaked.
The front desk patched him through to her room, but she wasn't there. After four rings her voice mail picked up.
He didn't leave a message because he wasn't sure what to say. Hi, I'm really not stalking you. Really. It's just that I can't seem to spend more than a couple of hours without desperately wanting to see you again.
That would go over well.
There was a hotel directory in the lobby, and he stopped and dripped for a moment in front of it, attempting to get his bearings. There were several different bars in the Del. The
Palm Court
had piano music, but the Babcock and Story bar had jazz guitar.
Palm Court
had piano music, but the Babcock and Story bar had jazz guitar.
Joan was definitely the guitar type. He headed for the B&S.
Come on, Joan. Be there.
He stopped just inside the bar in part to let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting, in part in an effort to dry off a bit more, but mostly because he had absolutely no clue what he was going to say if he did find her there.
How about, You aren't going to believe everything that's happened since I walked you back to your car this evening.
Of course, that didn't explain what he was doing here at the Del.
I called your room, but you weren't there, and since I was driving past, I figured I might as well go out into the pouring rain to see if I could find you, because I have had one unbelievably freaky evening and all I want to do is look into your eyes and tell you about it and laugh. And then I want you to invite me back to your room so we can spend about seven hours straight having incredible, screaming monkey sex.
That last part might not go over so well, despite the fact that he now realized he'd gotten out of his truck not entirely in search of a beer.
No, a beer would certainly be nice, but it would be completely unnecessary if Joan were to appear before him and hold out her hand to lead him up to her hotel room.
And then, as if on cue, there she was.
He'd been squinting through the darkness at all the little tables that dotted the room, but she was sitting right there at the bar, sipping some kind of frozen drink from a straw.
And laughing into some other man's eyes.
Muldoon used the mirror behind the bar to get a better look at the man's face. He wasn't anyone he knew. In fact, the guy was wearing a business suit. He was in his fifties and was overweight and bald, but whatever he was telling Joan had her complete attention.
As he watched, something the bald guy said made Joan crack up. The man laughed along with her, and the sound of their two voices floating over the jazz guitar was enough to make Muldoon crazy.
Who was this guy? Was he someone she knew? Or was he someone who was just trying to pick her up in this hotel bar?
Or maybe she was the one who'd hit on him. Maybe she liked fifty-year-old bald guys. Maybe if Muldoon were a fifty-year-old bald guy, she'd be getting it on with him right this very moment.
If he were Sam, he'd push his wet hair back from his face and go and sit down on Joan's other side, order himself that beer he wanted. Introduce himself to Baldy.
But chances were that Sam hadn't had Muldoon's string of bad luck tonight.
Feeling decidedly pathetic, he cut his losses for the day and went back out into the rain, heading for home.
"I was just about to turn ten that summer," Mary Lou told Ihbraham, the telephone tucked under her chin as she sat on the floor in the archway between the kitchen and the living room and fed Haley.
Who'd finally fallen asleep, right at Mary Lou's breast.
"Janine was thirteen," she said quietly, looking down into her daughter's perfect face. "We were living in New Orleans, and my mother was working as a cocktail waitress. She was actually showing up for work for a change—she was working the late shift, which was just her speed. Have you ever been to New Orleans?"
"No," Ihbraham said. "I haven't."
"It's a crazy city. The bars stay open late, late, late—it doesn't matter if it's a Monday or a Friday. Every night is party night.
"We were living in an apartment that was really nice—it was a palace compared to some of the dumps we'd lived in. And it was huge—Janine and I each had our own bedroom. The only catch was that it belonged to this guy Lyle that my mother had met at the bar, and we had to be real quiet, tiptoeing around the house. He was kind of fat and smarmy, but he worked in an office and actually wore a suit and got a paycheck every week. Which he used to buy us things. Toys and pretty clothes. Books.
"Things were good. It was the first time I could remember that we didn't use food stamps. Maybe it was the only time...
"But Janine started acting weird. Like if I came up behind her and she didn't hear me coming, she would really jump. And she cried a lot—I didn't know what was wrong with her. Why was she crying when we had our new Fat Daddy buying us all those things?"
On the other end of the phone, Ihbraham sighed, and Mary Lou knew he'd guessed where this story was going.
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