Chapter 26
Back in the hall outside Maricela’s dressing room, armed with the name of the hotel she was staying at to arrange a time to meet, I was elated. Fields less so.
I started toward the door guarded by the bouncer, ready to rejoin the girls from the typing pool, but Fields grabbed my arm.
“What are you doing?”
I looked at him, surprised by his tone. “We already knew she wasn’t the one we were looking for. What are you upset about? She’s going to help us.”
“We don’t know this woman. For all we know, she’s working with the Texas one.”
I shook my head. “She’s not. I trust her.”
He made a scoffing noise. “What do you know about trusting people?”
I hated my height. I wanted to be able to tower over him as he was doing to me. But all I could do was put my hands on my hips and maintain eye contact until he backed down. “I knew enough to trust you to help me—unless that was a mistake?”
His posture shifted as he relented some, and he shook his head. “You’d better be right. This isn’t a game. A cornered spy will kill people to get away.”
The room spun slightly, but I stayed steady on my feet and took several deep breaths. “I know that,” I lied. It had never once occurred to me that the message I had taken in Mr. Pullman’s office could end my life. Was that why he had been so secretive with it? Was he keeping me safe? Or himself?
“Maybe—” He swallowed visibly and tried again. “Maybe you let me do this.”
I scowled at him. “Are you protecting me?” I asked, mockingly. “Or just trying to get all the glory for yourself? Because I am not some damsel in distress, and this was my lead. Maybe I should do it myself.”
I turned and walked toward the door, but Fields stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I’ve spent a few years around politicians now. Some of them are less savory than others. This is your first story, and she acknowledged Cuba has spies here. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Got a little crush on me, Fields? Well, get over it. We’re partners on this story, and that’s it.”
He barked out a short laugh. “Trust me. You’re not my type.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not mine either,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie—my parents would sit shivah for me if I came home with a boy who wasn’t Jewish.
“Just—promise me you’ll be more careful,” he said, his eyes softer. “For both of us—and for the story. Whatever this ‘mass goal’ is, we could be saving a lot of people if we get it right.”
He had a point there. And I had gone in guns blazing, based on nothing more than a hunch, which was a reckless gamble.
But I wasn’t about to admit I had been wrong either.
“Fine,” I said, with much more attitude than he deserved. “I need to find Patricia. What time is it anyway?”
“Time for you to get a watch,” he said. “What reporter doesn’t have a watch?”
“I have one,” I lied. “It just doesn’t go with my outfit.” I grabbed his wrist and checked the time. If I didn’t get back soon, my nights of investigating were going to be over before they really got started. “I need to get home.”
“I can take you.”
“I drove myself,” I said over my shoulder as I started toward the door again. “Like I said, I’m not some damsel in distress, and I don’t need a white knight rescuing me.”
I tossed my hair over my shoulder as I reached the door, loving that I was leaving him on such a strong parting line—like Katharine Hepburn sweeping out of a room—when the door swung open, flinging me into Fields like a rag doll, knocking us both to the ground.
As we lay there stunned, a well-dressed man walked past us with hardly a second look. I started to laugh as Fields helped me up. “I should have picked a different actress,” I said.
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Actress?”
“I thought I was making a Katharine Hepburn exit. And I was. But the movie turned out to be Summertime. You know—the one where she fell in the canal.”
“You are one strange cookie, Greenberg.”
I shrugged as the bouncer held the door for me. “That’s part of my charm, Fields.”
Only Carol and Gladys remained at the table where the girls from the typing pool had been sitting. “Have you seen Patricia?” I asked.
They looked surprised to see me. “She thought you left with Fields,” Carol said. “So she left with her new fella.”
“Where did you two disappear to?” Gladys asked, leaning forward, her elbow on the table. “Please tell me you didn’t sneak out to a car. You deserve a room at least.”
My mouth fell open. They both started to laugh, and Gladys passed Carol a dollar. “Told you,” Carol said. “She still lives with her parents. She’s not doing all that.”
“Yet,” Gladys said. “I’ll earn that one back in another week or two.”
For the second time, I drove myself home from the city alone. My mind wandered back to our interaction with Maricela. Had I been rash? Was Fields right?
Maybe. If she had been connected to whoever we were looking for, the Texas question could have ended very differently. I imagined her pulling a dagger from a concealed pocket in her dressing gown.
Then again, real life wasn’t like the movies. She just would have declined to help us if she knew anything.
Or she would agree, just as she had, to find out what we knew.
I thought of the warning she’d received not to trust anyone from Cuba she didn’t know.
We certainly didn’t know her. But something in my gut told me she was on our side.
I couldn’t explain it. But just like how instinct had led me to take the typing pool job, to not forget about that message like Mr. Pullman had told me to, and to trust Fields to work with me, I trusted her to help us.
And honestly, that was a better lead than anything else we had found so far.
I thought about what she had said about Batista though. He wasn’t a good man—not for the people. Not for Cuba. I always thought the US supported Batista. We certainly weren’t fans of Castro. I would have to ask Fields about that.
I took a quick detour down a side street to change back into my own dress before arriving home. I wasn’t going to risk my grandmother sitting in the dark in my room again. Her knowing I was out chasing a story was one thing. Seeing me in a dress like this was a whole other story.
And it was a good thing I did, because she stopped me from the living room this time, nearly giving me a heart attack once again.
“Are you just going to hide in a different room every time I go out?” I asked her.
She clucked her tongue. “You act like I didn’t raise four children of my own.
And I know full well you changed out of that other dress before you walked in,” she said, indicating the flash of red under my arm.
I felt my cheeks warming but didn’t bother denying it.
I could talk my way out of trouble with my parents, but not with her.
Namely because I was never actually in trouble with my grandmother, but also because she had seen right through me since the day I was born.
Sometimes I thought that was why she moved in with us instead of one of her other three children.
There was certainly no love lost between her and my mother, but none of my cousins were much trouble—or much fun.
“Now,” she said, “the real question is: Is Pat-Paula short for Patrick or Patricia?”
“Grandma!”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. And while I don’t mind you having a bit of excitement, I don’t have any intention of sitting shivah over a wedding to an Irish boy.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, then gave in.
“Patricia. She’s a girl from work. We just went out downtown.
There’s no boy.” She studied me, and I fought to keep her gaze and willed my cheeks to keep from changing colors.
Besides, Fields wasn’t a boy like that. I wasn’t lying—just not telling the whole truth either.
“Mmhmm,” she said finally. “Well, make sure whoever this boy isn’t that he looks Jewish enough when you bring him home the next time you go out. And best not slip on the name again. Your mother is sharper than you think she is.”
Lord, I hoped that wasn’t true. But I was confident Fields could stand the scrutiny as long as I prepared him with the name of a temple to say his parents belonged to in Baltimore.
My grandmother stood up, her back creaking as she did, and stretched. “Start getting home earlier. My bones are too old for these late nights.” She tucked something into my hand as she passed me on her way to the stairs.
I looked down, and in my palm was a silver marcasite watch that I had seen on her own wrist. Fancy enough to wear with a cocktail dress but still appropriate for work.
“For me?” I asked.
She turned around at the top of the stairs and grinned in the dim light rising from the living room. “Like I said, I have no intention of sitting shivah. Besides, I look terrible in black. And if you don’t start getting home on time, I’m going to be forced to wear it.”
I smiled as I shut off the living room light and felt my way up the stairs. Take that, Fields, I thought. I was a real reporter. Watch and all.