“She says this is Lake Rusalka,” Seb broke off at last, switching back into Russian.
Rusalka. The word ran over Nina’s skin like a rat. She took a step back. The woman smiled, took a step back too, empty hands raised. She said something else. Seb translated, face showing a cautious hope.
“She asks if we’re hungry.”
“Why?” Nina’s every hackle was up.
“She wants to help.” Seb’s expression fought with itself, caution against hope, and hope was winning. “She says we have nothing to fear.”
Chapter 45
Jordan
August 1950
Boston
Anna!” Jordan exclaimed, opening the door of the darkroom. “I thought you were going to be away another week.”
“I missed my girls.” Anneliese gave her a hug, all neat dark perfection in her chip hat and half veil, her black full-skirted coat. “Is Ruth playing over at the Dunnes’?”
“Yes.” Jordan kept her eyes fixed scrupulously on her stepmother, letting out a quick cough to hide the sound of rustling from the darkroom below. “How was your buying trip?”
“Come upstairs; I’ll fix some iced tea and tell you.” Anneliese’s brows lifted. “Unless I’m interrupting your work?”
“Not at all,” Jordan said, very aware of Tony out of sight under the staircase below, buttoning up his shirt. “Give me ten minutes.”
Anneliese’s heels clicked off as Jordan shut and bolted the door. “Close call,” she said with a laugh. “Are you decent?”
“Never.” Tony came out shrugging into his suspenders, grinning. “You’re going up for iced tea?”
“Yes, I should go be a good daughter.” Tony caught Jordan around the waist as she came down the steps, and she wound her arms around his neck. “I’ve had weeks by myself to play, after all.”
“I’ll come over and play anytime.” He kissed the side of her throat, then began looking for his shoes. “Want me to come up, be respectable with my hat in my hand?”
“No.” Jordan found one of his shoes under the darkroom table—they’d been in a bit of a hurry this afternoon to get to the cot she’d prudently set up with spare blankets. “Absolutely not.”
“Mothers like me, I promise. I know how to look like a nice clean-cut boy from Queens, not a shameless seducer lurking under darkroom stairs.” He spoke with his usual teasing tone, but Jordan saw the wariness that sometimes came over him in a reflex. The wariness of his voice the first night here, when he’d told her about the girl who stopped returning his calls once she learned he was Jewish.
Jordan came closer, sliding her fingers through his. “You know why I don’t want to introduce you upstairs?” she asked. “Not because Anna wouldn’t like you. Not because you aren’t the most charming, presentable gentleman I could hope to have on my arm anywhere. Because of Ruth.”
“Princess Ruth loves me.”
“Exactly. You call her Princess Ruth and applaud wildly every time she masters a new scale, and if you come up and start being charming over iced tea to her mother, she will be thrilled by the idea that you are my young man. And I’m not doing that to Ruth again, because she also adored Garrett and it broke her heart when I had to tell her he wasn’t going to be her big brother, after all. I’m not letting her think anyone else is family unless I’m sure he’s sticking around a long, long time.” Jordan squeezed his fingers. “That is why I’m not taking you upstairs for iced tea.”
That faint wariness disappeared. “I love iced tea,” Tony said. “It might be worth sticking around a long, long time, if it’s sufficiently good iced tea.”
“I thought we were just having a mad summer fling.”
“Modifications could be made to the original contract. A potential extension into a mad autumn fling, as per agreement by both parties.”
“Maybe you’ll be bored with me by autumn,” Jordan parried.
“Not a chance, J. Bryde.”
“Or maybe I’ll be bored with you,” she suggested. “I’ll be in New York, meeting all kinds of fascinating men.”
“It so happens I have family in New York. Lots of reasons to come visit . . . and no one ever gets bored with me.”
“I don’t know about sleeping with a Yankee fan past September. What happens when the Red Sox beat them in October and you’re refusing to speak to me?”
“I’m a very gracious winner. I’ll dry your tears, and you’ll have the off-season to learn the error of your ways.”
“Not a chance, Rodomovsky.” She gave him a hard, swift kiss good-bye, let him extend one kiss into three, four, hard up