all looked alike in their uniforms. Their faces were flushed and sweaty, and their shirts pulled loose from their pants. They watched and smiled, and she felt her face burn.
“I have to go,” she stammered. “I have to...”
But she couldn’t finish her sentence. The man who stood between her and the door folded his arms over his chest. She took a step toward him, but he didn’t budge. She stepped to the right, and he did too.
He was not going to allow her to pass. She was trapped.
“Sit down here,” Rickenbocker said, pulling an empty chair away from the wall, his voice unctuous, slippery. “Have a little drink.”
He handed her the glass, and when no alternative revealed itself to her, no ally to help her escape, Lucy sat with her legs pressed tightly together.
“I don’t think I—” she whispered, willing Rickenbocker to realize that she was just a child, of no significance or value to him.
“Drink.”
She put the glass to her lips, hands shaking, and took a tentative sip.
She expected the drink to taste bad, but she wasn’t prepared for the burn, the way it gouged at her throat. She almost gagged, but forced herself to close her throat around the fire and lick the residue from her lips before she set the glass down on the table. The taste seemed to coat her mouth on the inside and burn her tongue. She wished for ice, for a slice of the soft bread they served in the dining hall, something bland, something to wash the burn away.
“You’re just the spitting image of your mother, aren’t you,” Rickenbocker mused. He regarded her like a man at a museum contemplating an exhibit. “I can’t get over it. You see this, Van Dorn?”
Van Dorn nodded without looking. His attention had swung back to the girls. A game of cards was laid out on the table; one of the girls rolled four dice and shrieked at the result, and Van Dorn clamped a meaty hand on her thigh, pushing her skirt higher. Her giggle turned to a high-pitched trill, half excitement, half panic.
Rickenbocker paid no mind. He stared at Lucy, his eyes bright and glowing, a cigarette stuck to his lower lip as though it had been glued there. “Hard to believe. She must have had you when she was fifteen years old.”
Lucy forced herself to return his gaze. She cataloged each of his features, from the faint scar that bisected one sandy eyebrow to the slight bump on one side of his nose to his squarish, large teeth.
“Your mama ever tell you what a nice time she has here?” one of the MPs said. He had been lurking nearby, as if hoping for an invitation to join in the conversation. “She’s a true mystery of the Orient, that one. Don’t give an inch to anyone.”
“Hey,” Rickenbocker growled, and the MP flinched. “Did I say you could talk to the girl?”
Van Dorn pulled himself up out of the sofa and muttered something in the MP’s ear, steering him away with a hand on his shoulder, leading him to the card game. It was something less than an invitation, if not quite a threat. Rickenbocker seemed oblivious to everyone else in the room; he regarded Lucy as though trying to decide where to move a book on a shelf.
Moments ticked by. Everyone drank, the girls’ long white throats exposed when they lifted their cups to their lips, the men taking great gulps and wiping their mouths on their shirtsleeves. Lucy’s face was hot under Rickenbocker’s scrutiny, and she looked away, unable to sustain eye contact. “I have to go,” she tried again, and stood shakily, clutching the folds of her skirt in one damp hand.
“I bet you’re almost done growing,” Rickenbocker said, shifting slightly on his feet so he was directly in front of her. She had a view of the buttons of his shirt—plain mother-of-pearl, sewn with tan thread. He knelt down before her on the floor, and she could feel his hot breath on her face, and smelled liquor and sweat.
The MPs and Van Dorn studiously avoided looking their way, the conversation faltering for a second before surging back with forced gaiety. Lucy looked down on Rickenbocker’s close-cut, thick hair, focusing on the strands of silver, her mouth dry.
“This is really quite unexpected,” he said softly. Then he reached for her.
For a fraction of a second, Lucy thought he meant to shake her hand, but before she had time to react, he had