“Anna, I’m sorry.” Reaching out to touch her stepmother’s hand. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out, not at all.”
“Of course.” Anneliese rose, took the glasses back to the kitchen. “Would you like more iced tea?”
“Yes.” Jordan tried a smile. “Maybe we should look at apartment listings together. You really didn’t have to do that for me when you were in New York.”
Anneliese gave her usual warm smile over one shoulder. “It was my pleasure.”
Especially if you really do want me out as soon as possible, the thought came.
But Jordan shoved that out of her head, because Anneliese was sitting down again looking entirely her friendly self, asking, “Your last photograph for the essay, what will it be?”
Jordan wasn’t sure yet—Ruth at her violin, small fingers on the strings, the fierce line between her brows as she played with exquisite care through that simple Russian lullaby? But Jordan couldn’t say that to Anneliese, so she said something about going to the nearest station to snap firemen at work, and Anneliese teased that perhaps it was a handsome fireman who’d been putting the roses in her cheeks. And even as Jordan teased back, another thought couldn’t help but rise through her mind like the shadowy image of a print rising through the shimmer of developer fluid: When exactly had she started keeping so many secrets from Anneliese?
SHE MIGHT HAVE forgotten all about it, but four days later Jordan walked into the shop to find Anneliese and Mr. Kolb shouting at each other in German.
Or rather, Kolb was shouting—shambling back and forth, spitting German and brandy fumes. Completely soused, Jordan thought, recoiling from the anger on that usually affable face. Anneliese stood small and composed before him, answering in German that sliced the air. Both lapsed into silence at the sound of the bell, staring at Jordan standing there in the yellow summer dress her stepmother had whipped together in her sewing room.
“Jordan,” Anneliese said at last, switching back to English. “I didn’t expect you.”
Jordan had dropped in to see Tony, but he was clearly on lunch break. She crossed to her stepmother’s side, looking at Mr. Kolb. “Do we have a problem?”
He didn’t look at Jordan, still staring at Anneliese. “Making you good money, good work—”
“You cannot come to work intoxicated, no matter how much good work you have done for me,” Anneliese said icily. “Go home. Dry out. Keep calm.”
He said something else slushy and spiteful in German, and Anneliese cut him off with a rattling retort, eyes blazing. His mouth snapped shut, he looked at the ground. When he glanced back up, his shoulders had slumped.
“Get your coat,” said Anneliese.
“I’ll get it,” Jordan said. She didn’t want him lurching drunkenly through the back room with so many fragile things waiting to be knocked over. She found Kolb’s coat hanging over the back chair, wrinkling her nose at the clink of what sounded like a bottle in the pocket, and turned around to find him right behind her, swaying. She jumped.
“So much money,” he said. “That bitch—”
Jordan recoiled. “Do not speak about Mrs. McBride like—”
He cut her off, spitting more insults. Hure, Scheissekopf, Jägerin, swaying on his feet. He hardly seemed to know she was there.
Anneliese’s voice snapped like a whip behind them. “Herr Kolb.”
He flinched, and Jordan’s tongue shriveled. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a man look more afraid.
“I won’t have you frightening my stepdaughter,” Anneliese went on, evenly. “Go home.”
Kolb snatched his coat and stumbled out. Anneliese opened the door for him, then shut it again. The shop bell rang tinnily in the sudden silence.
“Fire him,” Jordan said, finding her tongue again.
“I can’t afford to fire him.” An acrid little smile. “He has made us a great deal of money, Jordan; he was quite correct about that. He’s very good at his job.”
“We can find someone else. Dad would never put up with that kind of talk.”
“He wouldn’t dare talk to your father that way. It is what it is, a woman owning a business.” Anneliese shrugged. “Tomorrow he’ll slink back apologizing. Drunks always do.”
“That doesn’t excuse what he called you.” Hure; Jordan was fairly sure what that meant. Scheissekopf, Jägerin; she didn’t know. “Bitch,” well, that certainly didn’t need any translation.
“Believe me, I take no pleasure in being insulted by clerks.” Anneliese sighed. “For now, he’s harmless.”
“Are you sure?”
That curling smile returned. “I’m not afraid of a man like Herr Kolb.”
No, Jordan thought. He’s the one terrified of you.