For one sweet instant she imagined it was Jimmy’s silky, soft cheek pressed against hers, his thin arms thrown around her neck. Jimmy. He was in her arms at last. Her love, her son.
“Enzo, mimmo,” the clerk called, her tone managing to be both stern and tender.
Enzo looked up, then posed a question that made the woman gasp. Startled by the woman’s reaction, Vi glanced up. The clerk had gone pale, and her hand had risen to her throat as if wishing she could somehow silence or call back what her son had said.
“What did he say, Marcie?” Vi asked in a neutral voice, so as not to distress Enzo, who was still in her arms. If she had heard him correctly, he had plainly asked something about the Stati Uniti d’America. One didn’t have to know Italian to guess he was talking about the good ol’ USA.
Marcie gave Vi an odd look. “He asked his mother if you were the one who was taking them to the US.”
Thrown by the question but not wanting to alarm the boy, Vi looked down into his now-troubled face and smiled. “No, Enzo. Spiacente.”
He nodded gravely, accepting her apology, and then scooted back to his button box.
Vi’s thoughts raced as she stood. Something was off. Something about this whole situation, in fact. A mistake could’ve been made about the watch, or maybe the wrong address had been given in the note, and people were fleeing Europe all the time, with the war going on and all. Enzo might have confused her with a Red Cross worker, who were often in uniform. But none of that accounted for the woman’s extreme alarm at a seemingly innocent question.
“We should probably get back,” Vi said casually, as if nothing odd had occurred. “You’ve got a big night ahead of you, after all.”
“True.” Marcie smiled at the still-pale woman. “Grazie, signora. Arrivederci.”
The woman managed a smile of her own and wished them both good evening as she unsubtly shepherded them to the door. Bells tinkled inside the shop as the door was shut firmly behind them. A scraping sound of a sign being turned on the other side of the glass window told Vi the woman had now closed the shop as well.
Marcie drew a deep breath. “Well, that was peculiar.”
“No kidding.” Vi hooked her arm through Marcie’s. “But no time to worry about it now. We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”
“Why did Enzo’s mother seem so upset by his question?” Marcie asked, resisting Vi’s efforts to propel her toward the bridge. “And what happened to the watch?”
“Maybe wires got crossed and the note was supposed to go to a different actress, who already picked it up.”
Marcie didn’t respond. Instead, she bit her bottom lip and looked back at the shop.
Vi shook her head, knowing all too well the direction of her friend’s thoughts. “No, Marce. We are not going to investigate. Not only is it none of our concern but you are going to ruin your Broadway future if you don’t get back in time. Sue doesn’t strike me as the type to forgive late entrances.”
“But aren’t you curious what’s going on?”
“Nope.” Vi pulled harder on Marcie’s arm. Curious was the exact opposite of what she felt at the moment. If the deep itch at the base of her spine was right—and it usually was—she and Marce had stumbled into something potentially dangerous, which meant all she cared about now was getting Marce out of there.
“I suppose you could be right,” Marcie said, finally letting herself be pulled forward. “If the army can misdeliver mail bags, I guess couriers could mix up notes.”
“Just so,” Vi said, unable to keep the relief out of her voice. “Now let’s get you back—”
A familiar face at the end of the block stopped her cold. In disbelief she watched Luciana’s eyes widen, and for the briefest of seconds their gazes locked.
“What’s wrong?” Marcie asked.
“I—” Vi stopped as Luciana darted into a store and disappeared from view. She blinked in surprise and shock. “I thought . . .”
Then the implications of what she had seen snagged the rest of her words from her tongue. What would it do to Marcie if she told her that Luciana was back in town? An uninjured Luciana, at that, if the speed with which the actress had fled was any indicator, and within a few hours of Marcie’s big debut.
It would knock her for a loop is what it