I was in a fever dream but I still felt you clutching my hand, through the haze of heat and sweat. I concentrated on that hand, my only anchor to sanity. I held tight as we took flight. I brought you with me.
Since I had so much fun last year, here is my entry for this year's @blind-dates-fest!
Of course, I had to do another OC who works in the Office of Strategic Services, but this time for the Masters of the Air. Meet Elizabeth Sadler, an analyst working within the Enemy Objectives Unit and her witty co-worker Georgia. The EOU was a branch of the Research and Analysis division within the OSS, staffed with economists, historians, political scientists, scholars, and anthropologists. These men and women were tasked on deciding on the most effective targets for the USAAF to bomb. This is a very, very rough concept/WIP I've been thinking about for a while! I thought it would be interesting to have a bit of a different take on Harry Crosby and his interaction with someone in intelligence!
London, February 1944
Enemy Objectives Unit (EOU)
1. You must be able to reach it and drop bombs on it.
2. You must be able to damage it when you do hit it.
3. You must be able to impair the war effort, directly or indirectly, when you damage it.
“Secrets in the moonlight… whispers in the dark—” Elizabeth put the pencil in her mouth, humming along with the quiet radio. Both hands were needed to line up a ruler on a map. She traced a long line from England to an oil refinery in Romania.
“Well, we can reach it…” She muttered to an empty office. She stood up, noticing the ache in her back from sitting at the desk all day, pouring over different methodologies for the new directive. The Enemy Objectives Unit had spent the last several months on targeting the German war industry and now the big push for an ‘Oil Plan’ was taking shape.
Elizabeth stared at the line, gnawing on her lip. Analyzing the effects of an aircraft plant was one thing, but oil was a whole other monster. Although the challenge was welcomed, she was hesitant to be moving on before knowing the full results of her work on the former. Every morning for the past several weeks, she’d skim the newsstand for any mention of a bombed out town in the middle of Germany. More than her love for a challenge, was her wanting to be right.
A potential target had to hit a series of specific factors before the idea was even sent out to the Eighth Air Force. Elizabeth crossed off the first question, satisfied with her discovery. It was half the battle these days.
She clicked off the radio, and threw herself down in the chair once again. Despite it being almost nine o’clock, the US Embassy still had several tired workers milling about the halls. A quiet whisper or a shoe click would fill the silence every once in a while.
“Ms. Sadler?” A knock came from the oak doorframe, as she wrote the specific distances in the report.
“Yes?” She looked up, as a lanky Air Force lieutenant, stood in front of her desk, erratically shuffling a pile of papers. She often wondered how he even made it past basic training. I suppose that’s why they stuck him in the office, but at least he was pleasant to deal with.
“Oh hi, Lieutenant.” She sat up straight.
“Here’s some new intelligence to comb through,” He handed her a manila folder with a bright red Top Secret stamped on the front. “Oil production outputs and statistics.”
“Thank you.” She threw it on top of the current map. “Hey, do you know if Colonel Hughes is set to come by soon?” She asked in hopes of a target result.
“I think he may have a meeting with Mr. Rostow later this week, but I can find out.”
“No need too, I was just curious.” She quickly said, “But thanks for offering.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “Anything else?” Twice, she’d told him he doesn’t have to be so formal with her, and to just call her Liz, but it still hasn’t stuck yet. She figured it made him more uncomfortable than what she was with the formalities.
“No, have a good night.” She smiled.
“You as well.” He turned on his heels and walked out. As his footsteps faded, a pair of frantic heels grew louder.
“Liz, we need to get out of here,” Georgia, her closest co-worker, busted through her office, “Let’s go grab a belt.”
“Sure, but I have to be back in an hour, so I can finish this.” Liz began to filter through the intel.
“Alright, one hour.” She checked her watch, “Let’s go—”
"Then I can go home, sleep for five hours,” Liz continued her diatribe, “And then shlep myself up to be back here before eight AM to look at the same map for another eight hours.”
“Well let’s shlep on,” Georgia gestured to the door. “You look exhausted.”
“I’m fine,” she shoved the papers back into the folder and slung on her coat.
“Uh huh… you know, you complain more when you’re tired?”
“If I knew there was going to be this much map reading, I wouldn’t have gotten a degree in economics.” She muttered as they walked through the doorway.
“Well, we wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t.” Georgia pointed out.
“I should’ve taken aircraft fuel ranges one-oh-one and intro to military planning.”
“If it helps, I’ll lend you my copy of The Art of War.” Georgia smirked.
Liz rolled her eyes, and paused, “You’ve actually read that?”
“Didn’t need to,” She sighed, tucking her hands in her coat pocket. “All of my father’s life lessons came from that book, followed by long, drawn out stories about his glory days in the army.”
“At least your father gave you something to use.” She muttered as they made their way down the dim hallway.
“You know,” Liz continued, “I should stop complaining, and be grateful that I’m using my skills for something good and not stuck working for my father. We would have killed each other by now."
“Did your father push you into economics?”
“No, and that’s the irritating part. I truly love it, I’m good at it too.” Liz scoffed.
“I suppose my father was happy for me. This is the closest thing to the army as I can get.” Georgia sighed.
They both ceased talking about work as they stepped outside. The cold air of early February snapped their lungs as they passed through the gate of the embassy. Between the blackout conditions and winter itself, light was a long lost friend.
The MP standing guard outside of the gate, pointed his flashlight to the sidewalk, “Have a good night.”
“Thank you, you too.” Georgia chirped.
“I’ll be back here in about an hour.” Liz smiled, trying to hide her disposition.
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded with a smile as they headed down the streets London.
“The usual?” Georgia asked.
“Wouldn’t know any place else.” Liz inhaled, happy to be outside, despite the cold conditions.
The usual, was a small pub a block away. The women, trotted down the stairs and into an alley, that provided enough cover to allow a warm glow to pass through the windows.
“Is this the only pub open in London?” Liz said, as they walked through the door, crowded with people. The bar was laden with overzealous servicemen trying to win the affection of the local women, if they got lucky, the next stop for them was to join the other dancing couples in the back, and the third stop was the drunken game of darts.
“Let’s try the corner.” Georgia gestured to a set of tables that looked less occupied. As they passed through the crowd, an airmen backed into them, each of his hands filled with a pint.
“Oh pardon me, ma’am,” he stumbled around.
“No problem.” Georgia gave a big smile.
“Oh, American?" His face lit up.
“There seems to be a lot of 'em in here.” Liz laughed.
“Taking up all of the seats.” Georgia peered over his shoulder.
“I mean American…women, I—” he stumbled, he wasn't completely drunk yet, but the night was young.
Another airmen came up, to save his awkward encounter, “We have two open seats here, you’re welcome to join.”
“That’s swell of you.” Liz smiled.
“I’m Harry.” The man freed his hands of the drinks, “This is Bubbles.”
“Bubbles?” Georgia couldn’t help but laugh, “You’re parents musta had interesting taste.”
“It’s a nickname, it’s really Joesph.” The other man nodded, extending his hand.
“Well, I like it. I’m Georgia, this is Elizabeth.”
“Nice to meet you.” Liz smiled, sliding off her coat as she sat down. She already liked them better than the airmen in the office, less regimented. “Are both of you stationed in London?”
“Nah, we’re just on leave.” Bubbles said. “What about yourself?”
“We came all the way from the States to check out this pub.” Liz joked.
“We actually work at the embassy.” Georgia said.
“Far way from home.” Harry nodded and said something else as Liz became occupied with the patch on the side of their arms–the Eighth Air Force emblem. Georgia nudged her, and snapped herself back into the conversation
“What, sorry?”
“Don’t mind her, she’s been working all day.” Georgia smirked. “Better get her a drink.”
“Need any help?” Bubbles stood up.
“I won't say no,” A grin slowly came across her face.
“Getting close to the army alright.” Liz whispered to her. Georgia rolled her eyes, as they got up and braved the crowd.
“I know a southern accent when I hear one,” Georgia said. “Where are you from?”
“Kentucky.” Bubbles said. Their conversation faded as Liz looked around, scoping out how many other airmen there were. No wonder there were no updates, the whole Air Force was prowling on London. She quickly connected the dots... she might get results sooner or later. One last taste of leisure before the missions begin.
“So, are you a pilot?” Liz looked to Harry, as he was also awkwardly watching the crowd.
“Oh, uh, navigator.” Harry nodded. “Both of us.”
“Ah, seems like an easy, not at all complicated job.” She sarcastically said.
Harry laughed, “It has its moments, though Bubbles is a better man to do the job.”
“So, what’s it like?” She blurted out. She felt bad for prying, but her desire to get any information was stronger.
“Uh, well… it’s—” He struggled to find the words, his eyes grew distant, almost becoming fully sober.
“Sorry, you don’t have to talk about it. I’m sure you’re not allowed too anyway… Loose lips, sinks ships.” She laughed, quoting the numerous posters she sees in the office everyday, although for her it's loose lips, we'll take you out back and shoot you...
“No,” He smiled, letting out a slow breath. “Just kind of hard to explain really… A lot happens.”
Maps, charts, targets, plants, factories, transportation hubs, roads, bridges, and marshaling yards all flashed through her mind at once. More than likely, the reports she’d done months ago, he had yet to fly.
“I bet...” Liz sighed, as a wave of nausea crept up her throat. Of course she knows what it looks like on paper, the causality reports, the planes and crews lost... The nature of their work was to take a shot in the dark, but were they actually making a dent in the war? If she had any sense, she thought, she’d drag him back to the office right now, and cut the middle man out, but alas... she’d only get about three hours of sleep if she had to meet that firing squad at dawn.
“What about your work? Unless…you can’t talk about it.” Harry smirked, brightening his mood.
“Also hard to explain… A lot happens.” She laughed.
Georgia returned with a few beers and slid one over to Liz, nearly ignoring her while deep in conversation with Bubbles.
“Well, here’s to a lot of things happening.” Harry raised his glass to hers.
“And may they get easier to explain.” She returned the toast.
Genuinely can't believe this is year six of @blind-dates-fest!! Even though this is a little late I couldn't handle not participating. Also, this is the first thing I've written in...quite a while. It's good to get back to it even if I feel pretty rusty.
I've been marinating in a lot of 40s Vogue articles, Lee Miller photographs, and general London-ness, but all inaccuracies (and any leftover typos) are my own. Title from Tiny Ruins' song of the same name.
Without further ado, meet Hester!
you've got the kind of nerve i like
There are things to do back at the office, and errands she could run, but it's Friday — the muted thud of surprise in her chest at the realization shouldn't have been one at all — and it's her lunch break.
Hester doesn't usually indulge in café tables. Though, she notes, it's hardly one of the fancier establishments, not like the places her mother used to lunch at with friends before the war. There are asterisks to the coffee now too, roasted from dandelion roots, and to the slice of carrot cake, leaning heavily on its namesake for sweetness. But an hour of reading time with her magazines and a book — that was the real treat. The fresh air is too, and it smells like rain.
She glances at the sky, past the green and white-striped awning, the soft gray like cotton wool shading darker towards the east, the slivers of light. Everyone else is headed towards something else, walking down the street. Maybe it's too chilly for them still, in early May, leaving her with her jacket and the only spot on the patio, her bike leant against the other chair at the little table.
She hangs her bag off the back, a handsome leather messenger embossed with her initials. A gift from Eric at her birthday last year, one of the nicest things she owns. It's full of clippings and scrawled to-dos and random items now, hairpins from when a model's flyaways can't be tamed — from her own braid actually, honey-brown hairs plucked from the pinch of them — a last-minute roll of film, the ribbon from a bottle of perfume chased down for a product shoot, half a biscuit left from wrangling a starlet's cavalier spaniel across the parquet floor. And, always, a past issue or three of the magazine. Of course.
Her heart beats with fondness just a second too long, looking at that monogram, the patina of the leather. Eric always liked — likes — fine things. And now her brother is far away from all of them, somewhere in the jungle.
Half a page of her magazine, a sip of coffee, a bite of cake, a wish it was a Chelsea bun, three pages, another sip. She notices a chip in her manicure, though it's only clear, meant to keep her from biting. Boring. She thinks of the bottle on the beauty editor's desk, new nail varnish in Elizabeth Arden's "Burnt Sugar," meant to complement khaki duds. A breeze starts up, and she pulls her jacket closer. It protects her, her father's old hunting jacket, though she'd belted it like the newest styles over a sweater and skirt, affixed gold-tone button covers to it this morning for a little shine. She likes the weight of it on her shoulders.
A voice above her brings her chin and her eyes up in a start. "This is a hot commodity where I come from," he says, his hand resting not quite gingerly on the leather seat of her bike. "You oughta keep an eye on it."
She should say, I was, but she knows that's a lie. She opens her mouth before she can stop herself. "How do you know I didn't steal it?"
His own mouth twitches into a smile, amused, and his eyebrows go up, like he's expecting a good story. "Did you?"
She only looks a little sheepish. "No." He's awfully tall, this stranger, ducking under the awning. Stranger, soldier. Well, not exactly. An airman. She knows the wings, the dull light still catching on his chest. It makes the insignia gleam. "Did I get your hopes up?"
"A little," he says. He seems, she thinks, like a boy who grew up on adventure novels. "But I'll survive." He looks preoccupied with something in the vicinity of her shoulders. "Where'd you get that jacket?"
Before she can answer, she finds herself ushering him into the seat across. It would be rude, she thinks, to let him stand. "Please," she says. And then, "...my jacket." She looks down at the perfectly-worn canvas like she's never seen it before. "My father's closet." He'd bought it sometime before the war. The first one.
"When did he visit the States?"
This time, she doesn't make a joke. "He's American, actually. No visit." Just..seeing.
"Really?" He looks truly surprised.
Now she does laugh. "Hardly something one lies about here, don't you think?"
"Oh, really?" His eyes practically dance with it, the most expressive face she's seen since nights out with Eric's theatre friends.
She'll be brave about it, now. 'What's your name?"
"Bucky."
"It's like you're straight from central casting," she says, but her voice is full of warmth. She sounds half like her father, that brassiness, the boy with an Arkansas twang and motor oil on his hands, who courted an English rose and stayed, and half like that English rose herself, green-citrus parfum and white lace, opals on her fingers. Hester wonders who she is, sometimes, between them.
"I'd've said you were too," he says. "Nice English girl. But now I know better." His blue eyes dart, but the smile on his face is kind. "John," he adds, when he sees how her expression asks for more of the story. "Major Egan, if I'm in trouble. From Manitowoc, Wisconsin." He leans back in the tiny café chair, at least as much as he's able. "What team does your old man root for? If you say cricket I'll weep."
"The Cardinals." She says it like she means it, like she knows more than she does.
"Enos Slaughter-" he says, a little loud, elongating the name like the man's an Old West gunfighter and he's got a personal grudge. "'42 Series. Now, if Bonham had just thrown that bunt to first-"
He looks like he'd take salt and pepper shakers to construct a reenactment if she offered them. "I take it your team didn't win?"
"No. But we'll get to that. What's your name?"
"Hester."
He smiles like she's proving him right. "Very English." It only occurs to her after she's told him that maybe she should have made something up. "Where's he from, the Cardinals fan?"
"Arkansas." Her father and his American accent are several miles away in West Hampstead, in a suit. Maybe in his study, but likely not. Her mother copes with it all with the women's auxiliary and gardening, the occasional tipple of Dubonnet and soda, and lime juice when she can get it, her father with work and civil defense and the bottle of milk of magnesia Hester needs to pick up from the chemist's.
Bucky looks down at her magazine, the swooping hand-drawn titles, photographs of gowns and suits and plaster casts and props. "People keep telling me to go to Madame Tussauds. You go for any of that death mask stuff?"
Hester remembers walking by the ruins back in 1940, fall, her and her friend Amy pretending to do anything other than gawk. "I'm afraid I've never been." She found it all rather ghoulish, actually, even before the bombs. There are photographs that ran in the magazine, the contact sheets filed away, fashioning the damage into something new. Something she could look at.
"Sounds like a lousy night out to me, unless you want your date fainting into your arms." He moves his mouth like he's just now considering it. "On second thought-"
"Cheeky."
"My middle name." Her half-laugh half-snort is audible, the scrunch of her nose. "John C. Egan, you can look it up."
"I might." She pushes the half-eaten piece of carrot cake towards him, but he holds up his palm. She weighs asking her mother about having a guest for tea. "Does the Army let you out of their sight for long?" Not meant in the way Britain warns its servicemen, posters everywhere, meant in the way she remember her father's stories, the hurried returns and sneaks and near-misses.
"Forty-eight hours. I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about."
"Have you?"
"So far?"
"Yes."
"I'd say so."
Something in her cheeks surfaces, warm and rosy. "You're quite wasting them with me," she says, sounding like a schoolmarm, someone prim and decided. "Your forty-eight hours."
"Well, I don't think so." He sounds honest, unvarnished. Everything she loves about the country she's never met. And it's like he's read her mind, his next question. "Have you ever been to the States?"
It's the simplest answer, and she sounds almost surprised, all of a sudden. "No." Her father talks about America with respect, not with fondness. There's no family there for him, at least not one she's ever heard about.
"Really?"
She shakes her head.
"So you've never been to a baseball game?"
"If I say no, will you still want to be seen with me?"
He considers the question, even more animated than he was before, pointing in her direction. "Hester, all this tells me is that we need some basic remediation. I mean, it's not like you said you've never had a real ice cream cone."
"We do have ice cream in England." Had, at least. She remembers her mother making it with her and Eric when they were children, milky and sweet, tinged with rosewater.
"Favorite flavor?"
"Chocolate."
"Next thing you'll say you've never seen Lake Superior. And chocolate's the right answer, by the way."
She's laughing now. "Is it?"
"And I can tell you right now, you've never had a real cup of coffee." He gestures to the cup between them. "That's an imposter."
"I can't argue the second bit." He smiles. "But you do know Italy's closer to England than America, right?" Her father abides Italian coffee, Scottish whiskey, English suits, and American gadgetry.
"They teach us navigation in flight school, Hester." She'll have to tell him her last name, won't she. "And the best coffee's in a camp mug in America. Or a diner counter. After a winning game. With a home run. Either one." His calf is so close to hers under the table that she can feel the static of the olive wool, her knee hovering a hair from his.
"What's your favorite?"
"After the Yankees win."
She tilts her head just a little. "You can see why I haven't offered you any, then."
"I won't take it personally."
Beyond the awning, she sees the first brushstrokes of rain on the sidewalk. He sees her notice, turns his head. "You all like your rain here, huh."
"It doesn’t always. Summer's rather nice." The rain starts to quicken, as if to prove his point.
"When it's not raining."
"If I say something, it will get worse." She's a little worried about the magazines, extending past the edge of the table. "Could you pass me my bag, please?"
He turns around at her motion at the back of her own chair, looks resigned to getting up. "Sorry to keep you so long."
"Oh, no, no, I just wanted to pack these up." She doesn't want to look at her watch.
"And I'm changing my answer," he says. "About the coffee. Lakeside. Around a fire."
Suddenly, a stab of wanting. Campfire coffee and woodsmoke, a hunting jacket over a heavier sweater, this man she's only just met. And he's still talking with her, still looking at her like she's interesting. Like she's staving something off inside him, in his head. He shifts in his chair, knee pressing up against hers. She doesn't move.
"You know," she says. "I'll need someone to show me around, when I visit America."
He sounds honest again. "You will, huh?"
"Of course. The ballpark. Lake Superior. The best chocolate ice cream."
"And coffee."
"And coffee."
"Is there anything else you'd add to the list?"
He's leant on his elbow, swipes his thumb across his lip. "You ever had a real American kiss? Now- don't swat at me-"
"I wasn't," she says, but she can't help her laugh. "You had to try, didn't you?"
"I did."
"Do you think all English girls fall for the American pilot thing?"
"You're still talking to me." Her mouth falls open in mock-shock. "Besides," he says. "Americans are the best at kissing."
"Does any version of this debate involve me not kissing you?"
"Hey, you said it." She could bottle that smile and sell it. "Should I be offended you just said that?"
She tries to fix him with her best stern look and fails miserably, letting it dissolve from her face like fog. "Hold it against me as an American, and not as an English girl," she says, and steadies her elbow on the table, gently cups his hand with hers, presses her lips to his cheek. Close to the corner of his mouth, still smiling. His eyes are even more blue up close, like a spring sky full of rain. If we weren't quite literally in the middle of the street- she thinks, and when she hears his laugh in her ear, loud and sharp and warm, she realizes she's said it out loud.
"I like you, Hester," he says. "I'm going to work on that list."
a/n: of course this took me until the last possible second to complete. so grateful to have had the time to participate in @blind-dates-fest this year and excited to branch out to the pacific for the first time. thank you merc for putting this on, we owe ya one!
“Jesus Christ, Runner, move.”
“I — There’s uh—”
“Get outta the way, I gotta fuckin’ piss.”
“T–There’s girls, those are girls.”
“Huh?!”
There’s a scrambling, long-limbed rush into the hut and as his eyes adjust to the wavering orange light of the lamp they left on when they departed for Greenville, Robert can make out three figures standing by the empty beds in the back. A man and two women in fatigues, caps still on as if they just beat his crew inside. Upon observing them back, the man steps in front of his companions, hands low at his sides in a gesture of peace.
Hoosier starts. “Who the hell are you?”
“This is H Company Gunner Section, right?” The man’s voice is smooth, lilting.
“Sure is,” Chuckler nods, amazed.
“We were just assigned. I’m Jeremiah Thomas, this is…” He turns to the girl on his left and blinks, mouth fumbling. “Uh—”
“Valentina Alessi,” she says between snaps of her white chewing gum. “Call me Pitch.”
Runner, perking up, points with a loose finger. “Like Valentino Alessi Jr.? The Yankees first baseman?”
Robert gives her a once over. She’s tall — taller than all of them but Chuckler — and lanky, knobby at her joints and pale like stored straw whose color comes out in the summer, with a stark black braid winding over her shoulder and ending at her belt. Alessi’s photos had been in the papers a couple of times, related to his signing last year and him being a beanpole of a kid, taller than Lindell and Levy, 6-6 even at his team physical. And he’s got dark hair to boot.
“He’s her brother,” the other girl says, her ‘er’ more of an ‘uh’ in what he assumes is a peachy Southern drawl, all molasses slow and sweet. “Pitch Alessi is a two-time ASA MVP.”
“ASA?”
“Amateur Softball Association of America.”
“Huh, and you are?”
Pitch shakes her head and cuts a hand over her neck, back and forth. “Don’t make her say the whole thing. We’re callin’ her… Bessie, right?”
Jeremiah nods. “Bess Whitfield, yeah.”
The other girl, Bess — who’s stout and round in her hips, the rosy flush of chill across her freckled button nose — pushes a wayward curl off her temple, tucking it behind her ear and smiling wryly at her boots. Her presence is sturdy next to the more frenetic energies of the towering remainder of her trio, like a flagpole, a heavy anchor. From a cracked window, a warm breeze rolls in, sweeping through the freshly clipped curls at the nape of his neck, and he feels true relief for the first time in days. A mid-February hint of spring.
“Well, I still gotta piss,” Hoosier declares and excuses himself to the latrine. The rest of them fall out, changing with miraculous speed on account of their guests, but the girls and Jeremiah do the same without the hurry, Pitch pelting her friend with spare socks as they jostle at their racks across from Robert’s, Pitch down to just her brassiere and PT shorts. It’s the same ease the four of them would have on an unintruded night and he catches his friends looking on similarly, hesitant but as desperate for a good time as ever. Except for Chuckler, who’s always a bit tongue-tied around willowy, brash brunettes and bats his eyes at her, ignored.
Scuttlebutt had it that there’d be elms at New River. Not the tree, elms — LMs, Lady Marines. The mythical women who hadn’t been flunked out of Parris Island and sent to the Navy or assigned to a kitchen company or desk duty in the rear. But every mildly curious G.I. was shot down by his NCOs and officers; the Corps maintained the internal and public position they’d only enforce Order 81 if Roosevelt himself came down to South Carolina and started rearranging the barracks. Last week, scuttlebutt also had it that Vandegrift got hauled to the Pentagon for a closed door meeting, but that could’ve been about anything. Runner swears they’re invading Canada.
And yet, here they are, poster-ready for the enlistment ads the Navy’s been spitting out, white and black sailors shoulder to shoulder as they gaze heavenward, planes and smoke trailing against vivid blue. Of course they’d discussed it on evenings like these, what they’d do when a beautiful woman was assigned to their platoon, or when they were inevitably in joint operations with an elm company. Chivalry, gentlemen, is to be maintained at all times. Their charm would be undeniable, their physical conditioning leagues above the rest of their platoon. They’d wine ‘em and dine ‘em and be married by Christmas, sending postcards home to their parents who’d be bouncing chubby, gurgling grandbabies on their knee.
But now it feels like the summers he’d spent at his grandfather’s house, stuffed in that second-story bunk room or God forbid the attic with his sisters, scrapping over whose similarly beige towel was whose and the radio. Across the way, Runner’s started an argument about batting stats with Pitch and Hoosier’s on his way over to instigate.
Miss Whitfield takes the last bed on Robert’s right, the only empty rack in the hut between them. She’s delicately twisting her hair into a silky patterned kerchief when Chuckler emerges from his shift in the head and stops at the end of her bed, reading over the assignment paperwork she set atop her trunk.
“Holy hell, I ain’t callin’ you all that.”
“Good thing I ain’t ask you to,” she snarks, snatching the paper to her bosom and shooing him away, but Robert can see the corner of her mouth twitch as she fights a smile. She catches him and sighs. “Elizabeth-Mae Abilene Tyler Sutton Whitfield, or… Bess, I suppose.”
It takes him a minute to realize she’s offered a name. “Bob — R-Robert Leckie. Robert Hugh Leckie, but Hoosier calls me Lucky.”
“Hoosier?”
Right, they’d skipped their half of the introductions. He points out his friends in turn, giving their Christian names easy enough but stuttering on their monikers, suddenly aware how arrogant and kiddish he sounds, how it must seem like they’ve made this out to be some big joke — little boys playing at silver screen soldiers. Yet Bess nods along solemnly and says nothing about how the Corps threw her a war’s worth of hell just to get here.
“So Lucky,” she drawls after he’s done, “where’re you from?”
“Rutherford, New Jersey. You?”
“Mississippi.”
“The whole state?”
Her head tilts and she fights that smile again, and in the moment he wants to see it more than anything.
“Vicksburg,” she says eventually, then mumbles an addition. “We just discovered the radio.”
He plays along in stride. “Welcome to the 20th century.”
And how wonderful is it that she grins? Still tries to cover it by tucking her chin into her hand but grins nonetheless after surprise flashes across her face, her eyes alighting cool hazel and amber and coming to sit in his stomach with a dawning suspicion that she’s not used to being noticed, that she assumes she’s obscured from view. No, she appeared in his hut and scared the shit out of him as he stumbled home from another night of drinking. No, he sees her well, has a million questions, none he wants to ask aloud. What’s a girl like you doin’ in a place like this?
“You like baseball?”
“Softball,” she corrects, tone warning. “The ASA comes up on the radio from New Orleans. That’s where Pitch plays, for the Jax Brewery Brewers.”
“I’m a sports writer, y’know?”
A brow arches. “Is that so?”
Nodding, he slumps onto his rickety headboard. “Lead columnist for the Bergen Evening Record.”
She gathers stationary while they talk — two sheets of blank paper, a sleek Parker 51, a debossed navy hardcover missing a dust jacket whose title he can’t make out in the dark — and assembles them on her knee, opposite leg laid out on the bed. He wonders about her handwriting, if it has the curls of finishing school or the neat lines of private tutoring.
“You cover softball?”
On a technicality. “High school, yeah, but not professional.”
“You should. Jersey’s got a team, the Linden Arians. They play the big tournament in Detroit every year.”
He likes how she says that, Dee-troit. Southerners are a recent fascination of his, he must confess; they’re as varied as folks back home in accent, in faith, in taste but they sit easier in their fatigues than his fellows from the tri-state, lacking the natural fidgeting impatience of the Northeast without the apathy of the West Coasters. He’s struggled to get them right on the page thus far, not lazy but not raring to go, neither fearful nor naïve, perhaps simply content. No need to make this war come faster than it needs to.
Mighty Miss Whitfield — he has an inkling that’s how he’ll put her down in the memoir — is the first to join their gang and has the grace not to be bothered by the mess of his bunk or his lack of grooming standards enough to think him unworthy of a conversation. And he’s curious, a little, as to where she gets the sheen of her chemical-flattened hair and the cream laden coffee color of her skin.
“You play?”
“Me? Oh, no,” she says, not looking up from the start of her letter, “Mama thinks it’s unbecoming of a lady. She cried when I joined up because ‘what if they make you wear trousers?’” she fawns in a voice more Scarlett O’Hara than Scarlett O’Hara.
“Is that who you’re writing?” he asks and immediately wishes he didn’t. Her gaze hardens and he can hear the scratch of her pen as she pushes down harder, furrowing the inside of her bottom lip between her teeth.
It’s silent long enough that he feels the need to apologize but as soon as he opens his mouth, she does too. “I’m not allowed to write everyone separately, I gotta send one big letter or she pitches a fit, says I’m keepin’ secrets.”
“Ah, mothers.”
Her shoulders sink with the weight of her sigh, followed by her head flopping toward her chest and a bitter laugh. “Ain’t they somethin’?”
When she looks back at him, a dark lock escapes her kerchief and tumbles onto to her forehead and oh, there’s a girl in his hut and he’s giddy in the pit of his stomach, the same as when he sees Hoosier across the room at the USO and gets one of his rascally smiles, losing all his words watching Hoosier bring a smoke to his lips, the curve of his Adam’s apple as he exhales. Transfixed.
Jeremiah comes out of the latrine humming low, a tune that rumbles through his chest and fits in with the misty rain starting to fall outside and the singular light of Robert’s lamp casting the room in a warm buzzy glow. The man keeps his song as he puffs on one last smoke by the screen door, watching the night slink by.
“He always like this?” Robert whispers, turning to Bess.
She’s in bed now, letter folded away in even thirds, hands tucked behind her head. Her bottom lip juts in an unconcerned pout. “Hell if I know. I met ‘im ‘bout five minutes before you did.”
“Jesus, Jerry,” Pitch says from her rack where she’s spread lackadaisically. “I’m tryna sleep.”
“Sorry, Pitch,”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Robert takes that as a sign to hit the switch on the lamp and settle in. Silence falls except for the occasional creak of a bed frame as someone flops for a more comfortable position and distant rolling thunder. He can’t sleep; all he wants to do is write. Might Miss Whitfield and the famous Pitch and Singin’ Jerry, new heroes to craft, new corners of this country to build out of ink. He tosses and turns for a bit and resolves to get out his journal once everyone’s asleep. But he’s not that lucky, go figure.
A voice in the dark. “Shit, I meant to tell you we’re movin’ out to the shore tomorrow.”
Four lamps flick on at once with a flood of curses, variations on “goddammit, Pitch” as men race for sea bags and the disarray in their trunks. He has a feeling he’ll be hearing identical sentiments throughout their time together.
“When?” Runner snaps, hands on his hips as he leans over Jeremiah’s prone form to confront Pitch.
Her eyes widen innocently as she sits up, arms raising in defense. “In the mornin’, I’d guess.”
Chuckled and Hoosier swear terribly and Robert looks over to Bess, unsure of her Southern sensitivity to language unfit for mixed company. But she hasn’t moved, glances over at him with a smile like she’s trying not to gloat. That’s when he notices her sea bag, still where she’d dropped it when he first saw her, untouched.
“A head’s up would’ve been nice,” he says from the floor, gathering his things strewn under the bed.
“Head’s up.”
His gaze snaps to hers and he’s struck by the mirth in her eyes as she angles away from the commotion and tugs her sheets to her chin. “G’night, Lucky.”
He’s not upset enough not to respond as a gentleman should. “Good night, Miss Whitfield.”
Blind Dates Fest 2026 | Marjorie Burkhardt, The Pacific
Marjorie Burkhardt is a young and ambitious wartime correspondent who fights her way into covering Pacific island combat, managing to follow troops into inhospitable jungles and witnessing the slow and bloody advancement of the Allies towards Japan. As the war progresses, Marjorie is embroiled in battle, endangered by starvation, and hunted for reckless behavior by the US War Office. In the years she spends abroad with men she grows to love, Marjorie discovers that stories aren’t just commodities to be sold – they are special lifelines she has the privilege to document.
My @blind-dates-fest 2026 submission! Here's an excerpt of something I wrote just in time for this event. Better late than never :)
Marjorie leaned sleepily against the portside deck rail with a cigarette in her right hand and a notebook in her left. She heard her name and peered through a sea of sunbleached olive uniforms, finding one figure in starched powder blues coming towards her from out of the passageway door, the sunlight hitting her red cross uniform and making her glow almost unbearably bright. Virginia – a girl who Marjorie had to admit she was growing quite fond of – was a prim and proper Red Cross morale worker, with shiny waves of gingery hair and naturally red lips. If Marjorie was a jealous girl, she’d be jealous of Virginia. Virginia herself seemed to be mostly unaware of her natural gifts, plodding across the ship deck in ungraceful, loping strides. Still, Marjorie watched the eyes of most of the surrounding marines progressively drawn to Virginia’s slender, glowing figure as she marched towards Marjorie.
“Goddam, Virginia. You bleach those blues again?” said Marjorie, shielding her eyes from the bright overhead sun with her notebook. The ship tilted starboard and the door Virginia had come through slammed shut with a big ringing bang. One nearby seaman wrapping line looked up, glowering, until he realized it had been a girl who’d come through the passageway.
“It’s only regulation,” said Virginia, coming up beside Marjorie to the deck railing. She frowned at the cigarette in Marjorie’s hand. “Those aren’t good for you, you know.”
“So they say. Don’t trust everything you read,” said Marjorie, taking a draw off and then offering the cigarette to Virginia, who wrinkled her nose and shook her head.
“We’re not supposed to,” said Virginia.
“Alright, Shirley Temple,” muttered Marjorie, flicking ashes off the side of the ship and watching as they were scattered in the wake of the wind. “They let you go early?” she said.
“Rocking’s getting to me,” said Virginia. The railing was full up with Marines leaning out over the water, but Marjorie muttered a shove over to the closest one, who gave up his spot for Virginia. Virginia closed her eyes against the onslaught of wind, and reached up to hold her Red Cross service cap from flying away.
“You gonna blow, do it here,” said Marjorie, giving Virginia a pat on the back. She herself had gone into a haze of nausea on the first week of the journey before obtaining some seasickness pills from a corpsman. Hearing and smelling Marines vomiting everywhere – not just in the head – had probably sent anyone else who wasn’t already motion-sick into bouts as well. Now, she was fighting a sleepy fog that tended to come over her sometime in the afternoon, trying to keep herself awake and alert by leaning into the stream of air washing by as the ship made its way over the water. As Marjorie woke, ate, and slept on the ship, she was blearily aware that the time she had so carefully planned to use to organize her notes and conduct interviews was slipping away.
Marjorie shoved the small notebook she’d been fruitlessly staring at into her pocket, listing to the side and grasping the lukewarm metal railing as the ship hit a swell.
In all directions, there was open sea: sky and ocean an intense blue-on-blue. Sometimes seagulls and petrels flew apace with the ship and dolphins would breach below the bulkhead – Marjorie had caught this one time by herself at night, hearing a strange splash-gasp of blowholes, barely audible over the sea spray and howling wind. Now, each time she came out onto the deck, she hoped to find more dolphins, but this far out in the Pacific, she had the feeling that they were a little speck of dust floating in an infinite empty puddle. No bugs – this was the strangest thing of all.
“You a woman Marine?” said a voice over Marjorie’s left shoulder. She turned – there was a curly-haired Marine there looking at her – not uncommon – with a wry smile. That expression Marjorie immediately distrusted. It reminded her of those old money fellows at college who’d follow up that same smile with a pass. And out here, all the Marines were thirsty, so Marjorie didn’t have any doubt about his intentions.
“No,” said Marjorie, sourly, before turning back to look at the ocean. Try as she did, there were no dolphins or tuna she could see. Just a blank, vast blue. Nothing to give her justification for blowing this Marine off.
“Whatcha doing here, then?” said the Marine. “Wearing a pair of dungarees. Smoking. Out here on the way to hell.” The Marine, to his credit, did not look her up and down.
“I’m a correspondent for the Times,” said Marjorie. Trying to sound nonchalant. As if this position wasn’t something she had to fight her boss – and his superiors over – for months. Marjorie had boarded the USS George F. Elliott with the rest of the 1st Marines 2nd Battalion, but she’d never discussed her own background with any of the Marines until now. No one had been interested. They’d all just tried to pinch her ass and earned slaps in return.
“The Times?” said Virginia from Marjorie’s right. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m a staff writer,” said Marjorie.
“Really?” said the Marine, tone changing. “What columns?”
Marjorie turned to the Marine, trying to read his expression. Less cocksure now but still with that trace of unpredictable boyish playfulness. Well, Marjorie thought, settling against the railing, drawing once more on her cigarette. I can be unpredictable too.
“I don’t run a column,” said Marjorie. She shrugged. “Finance, crime, local government. Whatever I get wind of, whatever my sources mention. I’ve written about a lot of stuff.”
“Oh, really?” said the Marine. Oddly enough, he sounded interested. An odd juxtaposition to his hotshot presentation. “What’s your name? Maybe I’ve seen your work.”
“Marjorie Burkhardt,” said Marjorie.
“Hmm. Might ring a bell,” said the Marine. It clearly didn’t, but Marjorie just nodded agreeably, a flicker of hope starting to grow every passing moment that he didn’t ask if she had a boyfriend. “Robert Leckie.” That funny smile came back onto his face, as if he knew something Marjorie didn’t. She didn’t like it one bit, but took his offered hand and gave him a firm shake.
Despite the annoying air of overconfidence around Leckie, Marjorie was starting to realize that the potential source rapport she’d been putting off for a while might have a chance of materializing. No one had shaken her hand in her time around the USMC – not the battalion commander, not the other Marines she’d interviewed at New River. And even though Leckie seemed a bit smug, he clearly had some kind of intellectual interest in her job. Even if it was just to shoot the shit to stave off the monotony of life at sea.
“What do you do, Leckie?” said Marjorie.
“Machine gunner, Ma’am,” said Leckie. “You know anything about that?”
“What do you think?” said Marjorie, putting her cigarette back into her mouth. “I’m a broad. Not a goddamn clue.”
Leckie’s smile grew. “Hey, how about that? You could be a Marine with that mouth.”
Marjorie just shook her head, half amused and half trying not to be. Behind Leckie, coming from the aft deck, was a few other Marines approaching. One of them started to run up behind Leckie.
Virginia leaned over the railing to take a better look at Leckie. “Virginia Thomas,” she said, by way of introduction. The wind and sea spray swept her hair forwards across her face, but she still glowed.
“Good to meet you,” said Leckie, and then one of the men behind him jumped up with an arm around his neck. Leckie staggered backwards with a startled laugh as the ship mounted a crest, and him and the other Marine fell against the railing in a tangle of limbs.
“Goodness,” muttered Virginia. “They’re–”
“Just boys,” said Marjorie, watching them stand up and continue to rib each other. In the span of one second, a thought flashed before her eyes as she recalled something Charles had said to her back on her last day in the office. Those boys you meet are going to land on some beach and get torn apart. She blinked rapidly, trying to erase the thought, watching the taller Marine shove Leckie aside.
“You’re the writer?” he said. His shoulders were broad and he was blue-eyed and dark-haired with a straight brow. Marjorie appraised him, suddenly intimidated. He belonged on a USMC recruitment poster.
“So I’ve been told,” said Marjorie neutrally.
“Juergens,” said the Marine with a winning smile, not sly but just as squirrely as Leckie. He extended a hand to shake, endearingly sincere. Second handshake, thought Marjorie. “But they call me Chuckler.”
“Good to meet you,” said Marjorie.
“And who’s your friend?” said Chuckler, turning his eyes onto the pastel blueness of Virginia, who was standing weakly at the railing.
Virginia blinked, dabbed at her forehead with the shoulder of her sleeve. She opened her mouth to speak, but Marjorie did it for her since Virginia was looking worse for wear.
“Virginia Thomas,” said Marjorie. “Hey, Virgie. Think you should lay down for a little bit?”
“Lie down,” corrected Leckie.
Marjorie just looked at Leckie in surprised disbelief while Virginia patted Marjorie on the arm.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, and saying a quick goodbye to the two Marines she’d briefly met, Virginia made her way to the passageway door, which the seaman from earlier tugged open for her. As Virginia disappeared into the shadow of the interior, Marjorie turned her gaze back on the two Marines who’d been friendlier than most.
Leckie had corrected her grammar. Marjorie got over her shock and had the wherewithal to be irritated.
She raised an eyebrow at Leckie. He shrugged, and that damn smile was back on his face.
This whole troop ship ordeal was turning out to be a lot more interesting than Marjorie thought it would be.
+++
I don't have a title for this fic. If I ever finish my main BoB longfic I may go to the Pacific with Marjorie. She's waiting for me patiently... and has been for about four years.
Thank you @mercurygray for coordinating this event!
Summary: The evening after Arthur's rally, those who keep the Guinness family have a conversation. Rafferty/OC. Kinda. (Not friends, not enemies, but a secret third thing. Business associates. This is a disaster of a summary, but I really don't have a great way to describe this. I know it's a roll-your-eyes owing to a missing family member kind of thing but. I get a real kick out of her name, what can I say. Anyway, this is for @blind-dates-fest but I fully understand if it doesn't really qualify owing to the length (...I am not cut out for short 🙈 I know, Jean was better), but y'know. Something wildly different here on this blog :) Also, should probably say, everybody's good post cliffhanger, ofc.)
-
He knows she’s there long before she speaks.
She knows he knows as much, too — and why shouldn’t he? Didn’t everyone in the whole bloody house know he was waiting for this, if they really took a moment to think? Their foreman waiting in the library — not returning to the warehouse, not following Anne — Lady Olivia, rather — well after most retired could only be for one of two people after a day like today, after all.
And anyone could see Arthur wasn’t much disposed.
Still —
“You should know, Mr. Rafferty, I’ve only come at Arthur’s bidding.”
She’d just as well have not broken the stalemate, but one can hardly be expected to remain frozen all the night long, however doggedly he might manage to keep gazing into the licking flames of the fireplace. So much the better, anyway, she thinks, given how unwilling she’d been to begin this rendezvous — tête-à-tête — meeting — warning in the first place.
She really was here at Arthur’s bidding and Arthur’s bidding alone.
That faint familiar flicker in her belly at the sight of those broad shoulders demanding space and attention under the brooding brow is of little consequence. The satisfaction of an uninhibited gaze upon the carefully done up finery that serves as platter for the square jaw that ticks in repressed violence is hardly quantifiable, though. If only because they’d been playing this game for ages and it was a rarity, in their more recent acquaintance, to hold the upper ground.
To watch Sean Rafferty without him having the luxury of watching back, in other words.
“I see,” he acknowledges. She tilts her head ever so slightly, brow raised in clear question — Do you? — when he turns to her at last. It’s the moment wherein a normal person would look away at having been caught staring, but they’re neither of them normal. It’s subtle, too, the lift of his cheek in consequence of the tug of his lips in concert with the setting of her jaw, the brief flare of nostril. His eyes dance with the reflection of the fire. “How long has it been, Miss Guinness?”
Were a cigarette close at hand, he’d have taken a drag in triumph, she’s sure of it.
And oh, he wants to play.
“Long enough and longer still.” And she’s had too much practice to flinch, gives in to the tug of her own lips when he takes an involuntary step toward her before gathering that finely tailored restraint she knows all too well. So much for triumph. “It drives you mad, doesn’t it, never being able to fix the Guinness charlatan?” The condescension in the question is nearly palpable, striking in its vehemence ahead of the soft addition, “It leaves them mad, too — that faux family of mine — but, then, they’re always reaping the benefits.”
And she does know how to hate them for it. But then — well, they were family. Even if they weren’t blood. Besides, all Dublin is surely well acquainted with the closure of the Guinness ranks against any threat, actual or perceived, by now.
No, her hatred is her prerogative. No one else has earned the right to it.
“As am I.” No one, except, maybe, Sean Rafferty. But she has a right to hate him, too. Particularly when he stalks forward to place himself in front of her, danger and threat written in the lean of his torso, and damn him for it, making her look up. “Many a Fenian…many a disloyal, traitorous employee, too, ‘s experienced significant alterations in their health at your word. Only your word.” He’d do well to remember it — “Lot of power to leave in the hands of a charlatan.”
But it’s a belated realization, knowing that she shouldn’t have let him get so close. He has that uncanny ability to draw rage out.
Still, knowing is different than showing. And she won't back down, won’t falter.
“My word is certain, not men playing with one another, pretending they might be God.”
That she was, always — certain. Outside of this godforsaken house where the inhabitants knew her too well, patience routinely topped her list of virtues. That's what it took, being willing to send a man to his grave.
One in professed service to the Guinness family name, anyway.
Not that she wasn’t well assured before she might call on their maker for a Fenian; she simply couldn’t find much interest in them, having not had a real foe in that quarter since 1863. The rest had only ever been pawns taken with ease, occasionally sacrificially. They were always surprised when they worked out what was happening —
But the dock workers, the warehousemen, the administrative clerks — oh, she remembers them all quite clearly. Why Uncle Benjamin wanted them looked after, how she’d done it, the surprise on a face, the resignation on another, and Jack — oh, she’d liked Jack. It was a shame, then, what she had to do at finding him with certain papers in his possession and him with his own uncle in the constabulary —
“Only if the occasion calls for it, Genny.” Only if time is more important than certainty, he means. Only if he needs to give vent to the storm usually held at bay inside his frame. Only if he felt like playing God. “You’ve never turned your cheek to a hot iron against a man’s flesh, never denied a man his undue injuries…though I’ve always thought you preferred getting on with it, sending them to the bottom of the Liffey. Cold and dark. Like you.”
It wouldn’t seem possible if she didn’t do it, lifting her already upturned chin even higher in general hauteur. They’re close enough now — with his enumeration of her qualities — that she doesn’t need to see the grip of his hands on his coat, just beneath the lapels, to know he wants to reach out and touch her. The clench of her own hands remains tactfully hidden in the folds of her skirts and it’s hard to decide whether she’s more pleased or regretful that the proximity of their faces — she hadn’t missed his eyes darting toward her lips, just the same as she imagines he hadn’t missed hers doing the same — seems to restore him to himself, sees him stepping back toward the fireplace.
“Where’ve you been?” comes disinterestedly, as though maybe now he knows playing like that is rather out of the question.
This is still — only — the chess game they’ve been at their whole lives.
“India. Egypt. Gibraltar, France,” she answers, equally offhandedly. Breezy, because it’s not like she’s going to explain the pull of the thread that sees her seeking for her actual relations, though admitting to the path of the last several years is clear enough. “And I might be halfway to Canada by now — the Indies — if it weren’t for —“
“Arthur?” He interrupts. Sentimentality, she mentally corrects, as he adds, “God knows what he’s done to earn such blind devotion, but I envy him that, I’ll tell you.”
Of course, he didn’t understand. No one understood — no one could begin to comprehend — the way she felt about Arthur. Not even Arthur.
Not even Genny herself.
It’s absurd, really, because she’s old enough to have figured out that the boy who’d noticed her had only done so out of his own selfish desire for entertainment, but the fact remained — as it always did — that Arthur had noticed her and for that —
“Seems you envy him more every day, Mr. Rafferty,” she volleys back with all the venom devotion inspires.
They’ve come to the crux of it now.
And even if Arthur hadn’t said a word — which he hadn’t, really, as the very little he’d unwittingly offered in their tête-à-tête wouldn’t have been much to go on if she hadn’t already been watching for nearly three months now — she’d still be showing her claws.
“Genny —“
“You always had too much heart,” she interrupts, bluntly rounding back on him. “You could be cold and dark, too.” The Liffey wouldn’t be such a bad place to spend eternity, after all. Not for thieves and liars, whores and murderers, and all other manner of sinners like the pair of them. “If Arthur —“
“If Arthur,” he spits back in mocking echo before she can finish the threat she’s come to deliver. “You’d do it.”
It’s good, now, that he’s placed a sofa between them. He’s never been one for idle pacing and so stands still on the other side. The sofa hides his hands, though, and she can’t help wondering if they’re as still as the rest of him — a predator lying in wait — or whether they might tick — clench — give away the yearn for skin to skin contact that comes unbidden with memory in lonelier hours.
Her hands have settled back to a normal shade by now, no longer fisted by her sides. It’s deliberate, then, the slow way she moves them. It affords him visibility — a good way to keep prey calm — before they demurely, politely clasp behind her back.
“I would,” she assents. Simple as that.
“I’d fucking let you,” he says and that’s simple, too.
She flares at it, though, mouth twisting momentarily — shuddering quickly across the rest of her sharp features — in agitation.
Everyone fucking let’s me.
“What? And give up playing the mistress to Arthur’s lady?” The condescension is back with the question, because she knows she’s caught him. Whether or not he believes Arthur might’ve shared the relations Rafferty was having with his wife or not, she knows all about it. More than anything Arthur could’ve shared. And it’s easy — too easy — to spot the moment he recognizes the fact. He stills, impossibly, further. The flames dance larger in his eyes. The twist of her lips is a devilish smile. “No. No, you gave in too quickly on that one — you love her, don’t you?”
To his credit, there’s no hesitation.
“Yes.”
But he’d never had trouble with that. She’d pity him for it if there were any sympathy to be had for a man in his position.
The trouble is —
“You love her and she thinks she loves you, but she doesn’t know you. There’s a difference in knowing the inclinations of the flesh and seeing it first hand, Rafferty. She hasn’t seen the ease with which you’d bash a man’s head in, has she? Doesn’t know what you look like in the pleasure of wearing a man’s beating on your clothes. Doesn’t know the lengths you’d go for the dollar of a Guinness — oh, she has an idea, but living as she does…You shouldn’t think to share the soft interior of your heart before the woman you mean to give it to’s seen to the destruction of the steel in your flesh.”
To know you, in all your terror —
She’s insensible of the way she’s been gliding further into the room, a stalking step with each further accusation of what he is — who he is — until he steps around the sofa, back toward her, barely letting her finish before biting back with his own indictment of her character.
“And how about you, Genny Guinness? Hiding in the shadows, collecting secrets until you’ve the urge to yowl about it? Certainty to lay your conscience bare before God with the necessity of calmly watching a man sip poison? The Guinness dollar feeds you well, too, darling.” And yet, for all of the ferocity in their words, they still remain reserved — reserved, until he reaches for her at last, fingers flitting along the box of her jaw as though there’s nowhere else they could be. “I’ve seen your mad woman’s heart.”
The words come low, brush directly across cheekbones, eyelashes, lips. A fact, and a tender one, at that. She feels the heat of it everywhere and for a moment, trapped between it and the hand at her cheek, she can do little more than narrow her eyes back at his. Looking.
Looking for — something.
But she doesn’t find it — doesn’t want to find it, maybe — and her lip lifts slowly in a snarl the longer they stay locked like this, until she seethes out, wrapping her own fingers around his forearm. They only succeed in drawing his hand from her face — he’s too stubborn to let her draw it downward, shove it away —
“I don’t love,” she says, the word enunciated as derogatorily as possible, “— a bastard abandoned to the charity of an old man who saw the use of a child with a penchant for disappearing, hearing all the things she shouldn’t — I wasn’t made to love.”
She wasn’t — she’d never felt it, not once, and she’d profess it, loud and clear, to anyone who dared ask. Sure, she’d had a few trysts and true, there was the matter of the family — Eddie and Anne she can at least respect, even if Benjamin was an outright disaster, and Arthur — Arthur noticed —
But she was only ever meant to be a shadow. The charity bestowed by Sir Benjamin had only ever been contingent upon her usefulness, her value in repeating things she hadn’t even understood. She’d only become invaluable to him — to the Guinness name — when she’d begun to comprehend and more — begun to take matters into her own hands.
The old man’s wants and desires were clear as crystal and the one thing Genny had always understood — even as that poor little bastard — was that her comforts, her room and board, her life, depended upon meeting those. So she could never love him. Could never love the man who’d abandoned her, either, nor the woman who’d brought her into the world and promptly left herself. Not the Reverend Uncle Henry who called her an abomination, nor suspicious Aunt Agnes. Not any one of the regular Dubliners on the street, down the docks, at the warehouse —
No, there was no one worth loving, anyway, if she thought about it. Which she didn’t.
Not unless —
“You and I both know that’s not true.” Rafferty’s voice stays low, dangerous as he flirts with truth. The backside of his fingers stretch, brush gently at her temple, and that really is taking things too far. She jerks downward on his arm and he lets her — lets her just enough so that he can gather her closer, her chest flush to his, his arm a vise at her waist. All those lines in his face illuminate starkly — a panther baring its teeth. “That hellfire inside you, Genevieve — that’s the scared leanbh desperate for Uncle Benjamin’s approval, and that’s all the cion in you that you’ve no idea what to do with.”
“You don’t know me,” she fires back, palms flattening against his chest to create some modicum of space between them, because he simply doesn’t.
“I do,” he argues, infuriatingly self assured and casual, too, as though to reiterate the ease with which he can keep her.
“You don’t,” she huffs, shoving — rather unfortunately with all her might — a deceptively not insignificant amount — out of his grasp.
“I do,” he repeats, as collected as if he hadn’t just been holding her hostage. Her chest heaves in irate contrast. “It’s my business to know Guinness,” he says, as though they’re in the midst of an entirely disinterested business meeting. “I’m very good at it. I know the virtues, as well as the sins. Religiously. Secularly. Not even the black of the stout could hide you from me, any one of you.”
Genny takes a deep, steadying breath.
And if Rafferty notices it — if his eyes draw along the entirety of her mildly disheveled outward and utterly stormy inward appearance — she sure isn’t fucking noticing.
Because he doesn’t fucking know her.
“After seven years, what makes you think you can say these things to me?” She demands with all of the self assured pride of a Guinness. The kind that says they’re better than anyone else, the kind that won’t broker argument, the kind that says they will get an answer, and God help the poor fool whose answer displeases.
But Rafferty only tilts his head, as though feigning a terrible interest.
“You’ve yet to send me to the bottom of the fucking river.” His nose scrunches with the words, a touch — just a touch — of malice in them and something else, too, something that sounds like —
“Well, if that’s all it takes —“ she starts, snidely.
“And maybe I know the burn of cion, too, destructive as it is.”
His interruption is soft enough that she might’ve missed it — might’ve ignored it — if only —
Damn him!
“Burn well, Mr. Rafferty,” is the benediction from the lips of her again haughtily raised chin. A chin that turns to escape the room and all the weight of the accusations they’ve thrown at one another. She’ll defend Arthur to the last, of course, but this —
“I’d wish the same to you, Miss Guinness, if I didn’t know you’d take it as an insult,” he says, with a slight bow toward her retreating form.
Of course she’d take it as an insult — it was one.
But she stops before the door nonetheless.
“Perhaps I shall let Arthur decide. He ought to have the right to in someone’s relationship.” This is venom, low and deadly serious, and precisely what she’d come into this room to proclaim. But she can’t help herself — has never been able to in this fucking house — adds a taunting, “But do let me know when you get bored with his wife. You know I’ve never had any qualms about strangling you,” as she turns to go.
“Just a bit,” he says, in perfect agreement — the memory of her hands at his neck, the ferocity of teeth on skin, and bodies flush against one another, sweaty in the act of love making — making, not feeling — violently as wild animals, is as ever present, if dormant, in his mind as it is in hers, then.
Genny spares him one final glance, one that radiates a whole tangle of emotion that she calls utter disdain in spite of the fact that it undoubtedly encompasses more. The more she’s never put name to, though, just as she’s never given name to the flicker in her belly, the one that licks again at the sight of his stillness beside the fireplace.
The light frames his face, casting haunting shadows across the thick brow, the creases and indentions, the cuts that mark the small smile tinged with a grief that she always did her best to ignore.
And the flames — the flames illuminate the pierce of those eyes.
She turns her head. Her step is steady in the forced retreat — not even the addendum of Rafferty’s parting, “As you wish,” sees them falter. They couldn’t, because his winning this match matters not. She did what she came to do.
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