When Stars Light the Sky (The Women of Midtown #2)

Chapter 25

25

Inga hadn’t realized just how desperately homesick she was until she saw the Statue of Liberty standing over New York Harbor. She burst into tears at the familiar sight, laughing and crying at the same time.

The achingly familiar sights and smells of home enveloped her like welcoming arms. She disembarked on her own, waving farewell to the Gerards as they prepared to sail toward Washington.

Inga couldn’t stop smiling as she lugged her suitcase down 29th Street. It took two subway connections to get there, and her heart raced faster with every step, knowing she was only a few blocks from home and from everyone at the Martha Washington. Delia had promised Inga could stay in her apartment for however long it took to pass the citizenship test.

Hopefully, she could slip upstairs without attracting attention because, for whatever strange reason, she was about to burst into tears again. Was it joy from being back home? Relief from escaping all the rules and stress of Germany? She couldn’t think of the words to describe this mix of joy and nostalgia. Her lips started wobbling as she spotted the Martha Washington two blocks ahead.

After two long years, she was finally home.

She quickened her pace, breathless from lugging the bag but starting to laugh as she hurried to the front of her wonderful old apartment building.

Jared Ingersoll, her favorite doorman, was on duty. “Heavens above, it’s Miss Inga Klein!” he bellowed. “I thought you’d left us for good.”

“Shhh!” she said. “I’m trying to slip in without anyone noticing.”

Mr. Ingersoll grinned and held the door for her. “It’s sure nice to see you again. Nobody else has your smile.”

Tears threatened again, and she dropped her bag to give Jared a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Such familiarity would give people a heart attack in Berlin, but she was home now.

The comforting scent of vanilla from the ice cream parlor filled the lobby. Her eyes drank in the sight of the warm walnut paneling, the cozy library, and straight ahead the main dining room stuffed to the gills.

Oh dear, she’d been spotted. Blanche at the front desk squealed, and she just glimpsed a bunch of her old friends through the plate-glass window of the dining room. Delia had her back to the window, so her apartment upstairs was probably locked.

“Shhh!” she said to Blanche. “Can I stow my suitcase behind the counter for a moment?”

Once that was done, she tiptoed into the restaurant. With five hundred residents, she knew only a fraction of them, but the ladies from the eighth floor were seated near the front. A few recognized her, and she put a finger to her lips, urging them to be silent as she crept up behind Delia.

She did her best to imitate a stern, Germanic tone. “What are you doing home from the office so early, young lady?”

Delia nearly leapt out of her seat, then let out a shriek as she dragged Inga into a hug. Suddenly it felt like half the women in the dining room crowded around, hugging and talking over each other.

They fired a million questions at her all at once. When did she get home? Did she see any fighting at the front? What were the men in Berlin like? They admired her spiffy coral suit and wanted to know if she’d met the kaiser. Once the flurry died down, someone dragged another seat over, and she happily joined them.

“Please don’t make me talk about Berlin,” she said. “I’m just so happy to be home.”

Inga was too excited to sleep. She lay on a cot in Delia’s darkened apartment, continuing to talk with her friend long into the night. She could tell Delia anything, no matter how embarrassing, and she confessed her fear about failing the citizenship test.

As a legal assistant, Delia had excellent insight into the process. “The written part isn’t hard, but then you have to be interviewed by a judge. That’s where it can get sticky.”

Inga propped up on an elbow. Light from the streetlamps leaked through the thin sheers covering the window, illuminating the dark shape of Delia’s outline. “How so?”

“It depends on what judge you get. Most of them are honorable men and only want to confirm you’re not likely to become a public charge, but some of them hate immigrants and will use trick questions to fail an applicant. Judge Keating is the worst for that. Don’t worry. I have a lot of connections down at the courthouse and can make sure you get funneled to one of the good judges. Say, how are things with Cold Oats? Is he still horrible?”

Inga flopped onto her back to stare into the darkness. She hadn’t told anyone about her marriage to Benedict because it would be too hard to explain the annulment that was inevitably going to happen.

“It turns out he’s not so bad,” she whispered. Benedict had saved her time and again, like when he patched up the mess she’d made with Magnus from the Norwegian Embassy, or when he married her to help with her citizenship problem. He was actually quite kind beneath his intimidating, starchy exterior.

No, Benedict wasn’t bad at all. Someday he would probably find a woman as smart and sophisticated as he to love, and Inga would be happy for him.

Even if in her heart she’d be a little jealous.

Inga didn’t spend a single hour studying during the next few days because she was too busy savoring the joy of being back home. She splurged at her favorite delicatessens and the wonderful Italian bistros. She and Delia went to Coney Island, where they took a gondola ride along a series of canals and lagoons meant to look like Venice. Inga constantly had to tilt the brim of her hat to block out the sunlight, and she couldn’t stop smiling. People in Europe might think these attractions tacky because they had the real thing, but every second of the gaudy, glamorous fun was a balm to her spirit after two years of stress at the embassy in Germany.

The days passed in a whirl of activity, although the date for her citizenship test loomed, and finally there was no more delaying her need to study. Delia had already gone over the three branches of government, the main points in the Declaration of Independence, and all ten amendments that made up the Bill of Rights. While aboard the ship, Inga tried to read Benedict’s encyclopedias, but they were so dry she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Delia had proven to be a much better teacher.

But alas, Delia had a job, and Inga couldn’t afford to fail this test. After Delia went to work on Monday, it was time to get serious about studying Benedict’s encyclopedias. She carried them down to the library on the first floor of the apartment building, determined to make sense of the wordy articles now that Delia had explained the basics.

She had the library to herself. Surrounded by shoulder-high bookshelves on three sides, the room had plenty of natural light through the front windows overlooking 29th Street. She cracked open an encyclopedia and tried to read the pages covering American history. Sadly, it was no more scintillating now than it had been aboard the ship.

It was far more interesting to flip through the pages and read Benedict’s notes. “Marginalia,” he had once called them. Some pages had no notes at all, while others were so dense that his penmanship grew tiny as he wrapped the sentences around every bit of blank space. He put an exclamation mark next to passages that had captured his attention, and on rare occasions, two exclamation marks. One section had so many dog-eared pages, the book naturally flipped open to it.

The entry was about Abelard and Heloise, and she was curious about the topic that meant so much to him. Soon she was transported back to medieval France and the tragic story of a famous philosopher named Peter Abelard and his passion for Heloise. At first, Heloise was his pupil, then his mistress, then his secret wife. Her uncle disapproved and did everything possible to separate the lovers, but their passion had no limits. Even after Heloise’s disapproving uncle sent her to a convent, the dashing Abelard continued to secretly visit her.

The pages were littered with Benedict’s notes and exclamation marks. Inga spotted one paragraph with an unprecedented three exclamation marks, and she eagerly read. Her jaw dropped upon reading that one night after dark, Abelard snuck into the convent, where he and Heloise had carnal relations in her abbey’s dining hall.

No wonder this passage warranted three exclamation marks!

“You naughty man, Mr. Kincaid,” she whispered, her eyes continuing to devour the text. Abelard was a member of the lower clergy, which was why he’d hidden the illicit marriage to Heloise. She eventually became pregnant, which outraged her uncle, who ordered his henchman to castrate Abelard. Amazingly, he survived the brutal attack. It put an end to his wild romance with Heloise, though not their enduring friendship.

Over the decades, Heloise rose to become an abbess, while Abelard withdrew to a monastery and became a monk. They carried on a correspondence that reminisced about the passionate fires of their youth, which was how so much was known of their intimate lives. Heloise outlived Abelard by twenty years. They were ultimately buried side by side at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Benedict circled the name of the cemetery where the lovers were buried and made a note of the day he visited their tomb. A postcard from the cemetery was among the scraps of paper he had slipped into the book. It showed a lithograph of the two effigies, lying side by side, their stone faces expressionless and their hands in prayer. Such a formal, stiff pose for the two lovers.

She flipped the postcard over to read Benedict’s notes. Too formal. Too stiff for these two lovers .

She stifled a laugh, for who could have imagined that Benedict was a secret romantic?

“Hello, Inga.”

She dropped the postcard and looked up. “Eduardo! What a surprise.”

He pulled the chair out and sat opposite her. “I might say the same. I heard you were back in the city, but you didn’t let me know.”

He looked both hopeful and hurt. How to handle this? She carefully returned the postcard, along with all the other scraps of paper marking the entry, then closed the book. “I remember saying I hoped you would find someone else,” she said carefully. “That the perfect girl was out there. Did you look?”

“Yeah, I met a few girls, but they don’t mean anything to me. Not like you.”

She clenched her hands beneath the table. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, yet even having this discussion felt wrong.

“Eduardo, I’m sorry. I only came back to New York to get my citizenship papers.”

“And then you’re going back?”

Was she? It would be so easy to stay here in New York. There were plenty of jobs for a skilled secretary, and all of them would be easier than working at the embassy in Berlin. She already dreaded leaving the comfort of home for the stress and uncertainty of Europe.

“I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” she said, “but I know you and I aren’t destined for anything more.”

He shoved the encyclopedia aside, and it fell to the floor, scattering Benedict’s papers and mementoes. She jumped up to collect them, flipping through the pages to put the bits of paper back where they belonged. Eduardo reached for a clipping from a lecture Benedict once attended.

“Aquatic science,” he scoffed. “Why are you wasting time on boring stuff like this? Let me take you out to lunch. I’ll buy you a root beer float.”

She snatched the clipping back. Eduardo had no business saying something was boring if he didn’t know the first thing about it. It would probably take hours to figure out where each slip of paper belonged in Benedict’s dog-eared volume. “I’m sorry if I sound short, but you need to leave now.”

“Come on, Inga. Give me a chance.”

She glanced through the windows toward the lobby. The doorman was there. She didn’t want to make a scene, and yet Eduardo had ignored everything she said. Benedict always listened to her. Benedict could be curt, maddening, and inflexible, yet he respected her enough to listen.

“I don’t want to summon the doorman to throw you out,” she said gently. “I’m grateful for the good times we once had, but that’s over now. I wish you well.”

Eduardo crossed his arms and refused to budge.

She stood. “Mr. Ingersoll?” she called out. “Could you come help me with something?”

Eduardo got up and glared. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” he grumbled. “I always liked you, Inga, but you’re not the same girl anymore.”

He slammed the door on his way out, the bang echoing in her ears. One thing Eduardo said was undoubtedly true. She wasn’t the same girl he once knew.

Inga retreated to Delia’s apartment to organize the mess Eduardo had made of Benedict’s encyclopedia. She laid each of his postcards, photos, and clippings on her cot, trying to figure out where they belonged in the fat volume. Most of the clippings were lofty intellectual book reviews or philosophical treatises, but one nearly stopped her heart:

It was a recipe for Black Forest cake. It had been snipped out of a newspaper and dated from six months ago. Why would Benedict keep this recipe? He never cooked or baked, nor was there an entry for Black Forest cake in the encyclopedia. What had prompted him to save the recipe?

A hunch led her to check the entry for Bavaria. She flipped through the volume until she found it, and sure enough, the margins had plenty of Benedict’s compact, neatly written notes. She leaned in close to read them.

The notes were all about her .

They weren’t terribly personal or even particularly flattering, but he certainly had a lot to say. He circled a passage about Bavarian love of folk music and added the note, This accounts for Inga’s propensity to hum at all hours . Under the passage about Bavarian dialects, he listed several observations such as, Inga consistently rolls her “r” sounds more than standard German speakers .

How interesting that he referred to her as Inga and not Miss Klein.

The next subheading was for Traditional Bavarian Cuisine, and Black Forest cake was listed among a dozen other dishes. Instead of commentary beside the entry, Benedict simply wrote down a date: July 21, 1915.

Her heart began to thud. That was the date the kaiser accepted President Wilson’s demands. It was the day she’d made a Black Forest cake, the day Benedict barged into the kitchen and kissed her in a wild surge of impulsive joy.

She drew a ragged breath as she placed the recipe back into the book. Well, the mystery was solved. This was clearly where the Black Forest cake recipe belonged, but why had he made a note of that date? Or cared enough to save a recipe? There were probably lots of reasons, although only one stood out. The incident in the kitchen meant a lot to him, and he wanted to remember it.

She had been battling an unwelcome attraction to Benedict ever since that day, but never imagined that he might actually return her sentiment.

Feeling overheated, she used the Abelard and Heloise postcard to fan herself and calm her galloping heart. She mustn’t jump to conclusions, even though it seemed Benedict had been paying an extraordinary amount of attention to her. It was flattering. Immensely so, actually. And contrary to external appearances, he was a deeply romantic man. His fascination with Abelard and Heloise proved it.

She turned her attention back to the encyclopedia. The entry for Bavaria contained a half-page map of the region, and Benedict had marked the mountainous Black Forest area. The margin note was in his small, meticulous handwriting:

This is where she grew up—poor and isolated, mostly among shoemakers and woodworkers. It’s impressive she became so worldly and accomplished.

Benedict thought she was worldly and accomplished? She always felt inadequate and overshadowed by him. She even felt overshadowed by Claudia, his dead wife who spoke six languages and could play hostess to diplomats and aristocrats.

She closed the encyclopedia and held it close to her chest as she paced the small confines of Delia’s room. She and Benedict were a terrible mismatch, but the world had turned upside down in the past two years. Anything was possible. If Benedict returned the secret attraction she felt for him, maybe there was a way forward for them after all. She used to be drawn to boys like Eduardo, but not anymore. Benedict was a mature man, one who had repeatedly protected her. He was brave and resolute, and yes, so smart that he sometimes scared the dickens out of her.

He also thrilled her. Watching him in action, wielding his intellect to carry out the embassy duties made her proud to know him. She loved cracking his formal reserve to make him laugh or throw caution to the wind and kiss her as if there were no tomorrow.

Benedict cared for her. The way he looked that last day at the train station was burned in her memory. His heart was in his eyes, if only she hadn’t been too blind to recognize it. “Please come back ... we need you,” he had said.

And yet she didn’t want to go back to Berlin. Did Benedict really want her? The random notes he wrote about her could simply be intended to help him understand Bavaria. Maybe he had similar notes written about Claudia all over the entry for her hometown. It was unlikely somebody like Benedict could genuinely care for a peasant girl from a tiny speck of a mountain village. He might be horrified if he knew how his notes about her had stirred a whirlwind of hidden longings.

She’d almost convinced herself to stay in New York. Her old job at the harbor would be so much easier than the one in Berlin. Was it even still available? Perhaps a visit to her comfortable office at the harbor would be the perfect remedy to get her mind off Benedict.