longer cared if the sergeant disapproved of them being there. Not when it was clear something was very wrong.
“Enzo,” she blurted, interrupting the woman’s tirade. “Dov’è Enzo?”
Where is Enzo?
The change was instantaneous. Whereas her skin had been pale before, a flush spread up the woman’s cheeks, and her face tightened. Her blue eyes turned glossy with tears as she turned on Vi. Without warning, she snatched up a small clock off the table and hurled it at Vi. With reflexes honed by years of dancing, Vi dodged the object.
It crashed into the wall behind her, ending any further discussion.
Subdued and silent, the girls hastily left the store. Gertie jumped as the door slammed shut behind them. The OPEN sign was flipped to CLOSED in the following instant.
“Well . . .” Marcie looked shaken as the group reconvened on the sidewalk. Vi felt the same way. Something had clearly happened between yesterday afternoon and this morning, and the clerk obviously blamed them for it.
“We can still look for postcards,” Gertie said uncertainly. “And there’s Vi’s swimsuit.”
Frances narrowed her eyes at the storefront they had just left. “What was she saying about us in there?”
“It wasn’t anything about you, in particular,” Vi said, newly sensitive to Frances’s irrational dislike of Italians. “Right, Marce?”
Marcie blinked and then seemed to give herself a mental shake. “She thought we had ignored the closed sign and was upset that we had barged in. But it turned out she had forgotten to turn it.”
“Seems to me she could’ve just politely asked us to leave,” Frances said, her suspicions still in full force.
“You’re right,” Vi said soothingly. “But she didn’t, and we’re all okay, so let’s go find those postcards.”
The group turned away from the river and wandered farther into the neighborhood. This time Frances and Gertie led the way, while Marcie and Vi hung back.
“I heard you ask what happened,” Vi said softly while Gertie stopped in front of a fabric shop to ooh and ah over some lace in the window. “What did she say?”
Marcie’s expression became troubled. “That we needed to leave before anyone saw us, and to never come back.”
“That much was clear when she chucked the clock at my head. Did she say anything else?”
“No.” Then Marcie grimaced. “Did you see her face? Someone really socked it to her last night.”
“I noticed that, too.” Vi shuddered, the memory of the shock and pain following a blow from a man’s fist still fresh, even though it had been years ago.
Once, not long after Jimmy was born, she had been hit like that by a coked-up john. It had taken almost ten days for the bruises to fade, and a lot, lot longer for the fear to. It was one of the reasons she had given up the trade, despite how lucrative it had been. A girl could take only so much abuse before it left a permanent scar.
“Do you think we were the cause, somehow?” Marcie’s eyebrows gathered in a frown. “I mean, it would explain her anger, but I don’t see how we could’ve been. We weren’t the ones who wrote that note.”
“Maybe it wasn’t us in particular but Americans in general. There are a lot of us in the city right now. Being an occupying army and all. Maybe us being seen in her shop is bad for business?”
“Certainly bad for her face.” Marcie was quiet a moment. “I hope nothing like that happened to the little boy. Did you see her expression when his name was mentioned? Good use of Italian, by the way.”
“Thanks.” But the compliment did little to ease the dread building beneath her skin. “And I did see it, which is why I almost missed the clock.”
“Do you think we should report it to someone? I hate to think of her being roughed up on our account. Maybe if we told Lieutenant Holland?”
Oh, no, no, no. Vi was not going to let Marcie pursue that thought. She had already dropped the ball once today by not insisting Marcie stay out of the clock shop. The last thing she wanted was for Sergeant Danger to find out how cavalier she’d been with Enzo’s and his mother’s safety. Especially after the fiasco last night. She was in deep enough trouble with him.
Vi shook her head. “I doubt the lieutenant could, or would, do anything. Couples get in fights all the time, even in the States, and the authorities typically refuse to get involved. No, I think the best thing we