it’s touching his own. “Do you want me to stop using my words? Or would you like me to continue?”
“No, don’t stop,” she says in a breathy whisper. “Continue.”
Julian takes her soft hand into his paw.
“They’re in the kitchen, and Scarlett is acting so nonchalant, as if she doesn’t even notice how hot he looks.”
“Hot?”
“Hot, like superman-sexy. And Rhett is fed up with her nonsense, with her not paying attention to him. Fed up with her not wanting to be loved by him. So he spins her chair around and looms over her, and she can see him now, and smell him, and she says, you’re drunk, and he says yeah.” Julian’s thumb caresses the inside of Mia’s palm.
“What happens next?”
“Rhett leans down and kisses Scarlett so hard, the chair tips back and nearly falls. Scarlett’s hands are up in the air like she’s surrendering. And he says to her, tell me, would your Ashley kiss you like that? But Scarlett can’t speak after being kissed so forcefully.”
Julian stops talking. Mia’s flushed face—her parted, barely breathing mouth, her blinkless gaze, her intense focus so she doesn’t miss a word—disrupts him.
“No, no, no,” she whispers, “don’t stop. Please.”
Julian says nothing. He is turned to her, leaning in, his head pressing against her head, his forehead touching her hair, his fingers kneading her hand. “You don’t want me to stop, Mia?” His voice is low.
“I don’t want you to stop. Go on. Go on.”
Julian speaks into her ear. “Scarlett looks up at him and sees the way he’s looking down at her. He’s not waiting another moment, and he’s not going to ask if it’s okay. He is going to take what he wants. That’s the drunken lusty look Rhett gives Scarlett, though he doesn’t say anything. It’s all in his eyes.” Julian takes a breath. “Do you want to know what he actually says, Mia?”
“Oh yes!”
“That’s it, Rhett says. That’s it. And he picks up Scarlett, and in his arms carries her up their long enormous staircase to their bedroom and with his foot kickslams the door shut behind them.”
Mia nearly groans. Julian leans back.
“What happens next?” she cries, raising her impassioned eyes to him.
“Well, it’s a movie,” Julian says, “made in 1939. So what happens next in the movie is morning. But would you like me to tell you what would happen next in real life?”
They stare at each other, both dilated and blinkless. Yes, she inaudibly whispers.
The projectionist returns. Everyone applauds.
Everyone but Mia.
15
The Great Fire
WITH THE BOMBS STILL FALLING, THE LIGHTS ARE LOWERED, and Gone with the Wind resumes. She sits by his side, pressed into his coat, her warm hand in his. She faces the screen, watches the love scene, and the others that follow. After it’s over, on the way out of the theatre, everyone chats about the film, everyone but Mia. Finch asks her opinion, and pensively she replies that she loved it and doesn’t say any more. For some reason, this makes Finch give Julian a dirty look. He tries to draw Mia away. Disengaging from Finch, she remains at Julian’s elbow.
They’re barely out of the theatre, having just turned the corner on the Strand when the siren sounds for the third time. Above their heads, in the illuminated clouds, Julian sees the pencil-thin fuselage and the elliptical wing silhouettes of the Spitfires, and a shadowy bulky formation of the much larger Hurricanes.
They hurry down the Strand, but they can’t get to Temple fast enough. The incendiaries fall by the dozens, lighting up the thoroughfare from end to end. The gang runs for cover and disperses.
Seeing the Strand on fire, Julian knows. The world will not end in ice.
“You know I really did love the movie, even though I didn’t want to talk about it,” Mia says to Julian while they hide out in a doorway arch off the Strand. It was cold before and slushy, but the searing heat makes everything melt, even their faces. The hot air is heavy; the flames too near. They got separated from the others, peeled away, ran in confusion, and are now by themselves, waiting out the bombing, the gruesome noise of the enemy and RAF planes above them, the stone buildings crackling.
“I know you did,” Julian says.
“But I liked your words even more.” Beat. “Do you know why?”
Julian waits for her to speak. How familiar this is, their faces hot, their hearts aflame, speaking of difficult things while London burns around them. Mia, he keeps wanting to