come after you,” Mr. Greeley said. “I’m not a Red, Kit. I’m just on the side of the workingman. I have the class read The Grapes of Wrath, and the next thing I know I’m under investigation. And Mrs. Greeley? They go for her next. She’s interested in politics, but four hundred years ago. Cromwell is her bailiwick.”
I wasn’t sure what a bailiwick was, and I only vaguely remembered Cromwell from European History, but I didn’t want to look like a dumbbell in front of the Greeleys. “You mean you were fired?”
“I was the one interested in politics before the war,” Mr. Greeley said. He straightened up and leaned forward, so I knew he didn’t mind talking about it. Mrs. Greeley, on the other hand, just clutched her glass of tomato juice and shot him a look that told him to shut up. He didn’t. “Nancy got called in because she’s married to me. She refused to answer about her ‘affiliations,’ they call it. So she got the boot, too.” He clapped his hands. “But it’s all right, we’re looking for work in the private schools. We’ll get a job next year. It’s just that they’re already in the term, so that’s why they’re not talking to us. We’re getting by. Mrs. Greeley has a secretarial job, I’m delivering milk and cheese in the mornings, and Hank is lending a hand. We’re making honest money.”
“Maybe if you two didn’t still go on those Teachers Union picket lines and Ban the Bomb meetings they’d call us back,” Mrs. Greeley said, holding on to her smile by her teeth. “You know the FBI is watching who’s there.”
“We’ve got to stand up for what we believe in, Nan,” Mr. Greeley said. “They tried to shut us up, but they can’t. We’re allowed to have political beliefs in this country, or are we going back to your beloved Cromwellian days? Off with our heads, is that it?”
“So, how did you find out about the apartment, Kit?” Mrs. Greeley asked me. I could tell she wanted to change the subject, but she’d managed to change it to a subject I didn’t want to talk about.
“A family friend,” I said.
“Ah, our mysterious landlord, I bet,” Mr. Greeley said. “We’ve never met him. We just mail in our checks to a management company.”
They waited politely for me to tell them who the landlord was, but they could wait until the roast burned.
“So it was a couple who lived in the apartment before me?” I asked. Mrs. Greeley wasn’t the only one who could change the subject.
She suddenly leaned forward. “I know why you seem familiar. How uncanny. You look a little like the woman who used to live in the apartment. We’d just moved in, so I only saw her once or twice before they moved away. A married couple, he was in the army, stationed somewhere down south. He came up on weekends. But they were so quiet.”
“Newlyweds,” Mr. Greeley said. “Kept to themselves. The Wickhams.”
“No, it was the name of a hotel — the Warwicks! And of course they had their own private entrance, so we didn’t bump into them in the lobby. We only had one conversation. She wasn’t very social. But, oh, I remember the last day, I saw her just for a minute, moving out… she was so changed. Her husband was dead, she said. How sad, when it was so close to the end of the war. What was her name, Sam?”
“Don’t remember. I think I only saw her a couple of times. Never met him. I can’t see the resemblance myself.”
“Bridget,” Mrs. Greeley said. “We said we’d keep in touch, but of course you never do, do you….” The buzzer on the stove rang, and she popped up. “Be right back. No, sit down, dear.”
Now I was a dear. Things were looking up. And now I knew who owned the silver compact. A wife of a soldier, not a mistress of Nate’s. That made me feel better about him.
Mr. Greeley leaned forward. “Say, Kit, do you know a song from Carousel? Nan and I saw that on Broadway.”
Hank sat down at the piano, and I slid in next to him. I sang my favorite song from the show, “What’s the Use of Wond’rin'?” It’s a song that’s all about how love can make anybody stupid. That you can fall in love with the completely wrong person and know it, but he’s still yours, and you’re still his.