I put on my coat and the gloves Charlie had given me, haughty as a duchess, and waited by the front door so he could open it for me.
“Oh, right,” Charlie said, doing just that, but the moment of hesitation would cost him, oh yes. That, as I breezed past him, was my decided plan.
I gave him the same treatment on the walk to the restaurant. Sure enough, they’d seated someone at our table. Seeing my annoyance, and Charlie’s desperation, the maître d’ had mercy and squeezed us into another spot. But the space was too small, and back by the kitchen doors—which swung every fifteen seconds the whole meal as waiters rushed in and out. Plus the place smelled like pea soup.
“How was your day, Brenda?”
“Don’t even start,” I snapped. Which was foolish, because it left so little room for peacemaking conversation. My Valentine’s Day was ruined, but not beyond repair.
I wanted oysters, but they’d run out. I ordered soup.
“That’s all you want?” Charlie said. “Soup?”
“Minestrone is very good for you,” I answered, smug as a bishop. Which killed another sally at conversation. I was making everything worse.
In a way, that exchange revealed our relationship in miniature: Charlie’s good intentions and my overinflated sense of myself. It would harm that night, and it would taint our future. Eventually, when I learned how far he surpassed me in the things that really matter, only then would I become the person I ought to have been from the start. I don’t want only to live that night over again, I want to change the whole beginning. I should have been humble, I should have been kind. Instead I sat with arms crossed and a pout on my face. Some jack-o’-lanterns are more becoming.
Charlie tried again. “Brenda, I know I messed up, because of my work duties—”
“You made me a promise, Charlie Fish.” I was forgiving as a steel beam.
“—but you look terrific tonight,” he persisted. “That dress flatters your figure beautifully.”
“I know,” I said. “I myself sewed the waist in.”
Oh, if I could reach back through time, I would give that girl such a shake. There was a war on, and this sweet boy was part of it whether he wanted to be or not. Yet all she could think about was herself, and how he had inconvenienced her. She will have only one first Valentine’s Day with Charlie Fish. Wouldn’t she want to make it unforgettably sweet?
Instead I made a big show of unfolding my napkin, and raising it high, almost above my head, before dropping it in my lap. I don’t know what that was supposed to signify, but something about deep annoyance, I suppose.
Charlie looked exhausted and dewy-eyed. He kept trying like a champion anyhow, offering me a bite of his steak (I refused), asking for a taste of my soup (I declined). He talked about the movies coming out that weekend, and which ones we might enjoy.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, shaking too much salt into the soup. “Maybe.”
The meal was eternal. At some point my knight accepted defeat, hurrying through his food, saying thank you but no, we did not want to hear about the special Valentine’s Day dessert, paying the check as quickly as he could. We trudged home in silence, the wind bitter at our backs. He didn’t do his usual humming, though often as not that would result in both of us singing as we skipped down the sidewalks. Maybe he didn’t want to risk it, and have that nice habit ruined by my temper. When we reached the front steps, Charlie said he was sorry but he couldn’t come in. He had early duty again, and it was a long walk back to the dorms.
“Well.” I held out my gloved hand, determined that this was the last I would see of that tedious Charlie Fish. Really, what had I been thinking to have spent so much time with him? “This will go down in history as my worst Valentine’s Day ever.”
Charlie took my hand, but he did not shake it. He held it between both of his. “Mine too,” he said. “I wish I could have made it all better.”
His face looked so crestfallen, I couldn’t help myself. I leaned in, lips to his sweet lips, two seconds and no more. I told myself to consider it a kiss good-bye. Then I ran up the steps, leaving Charlie Fish out there in the cold.
10.
The moment he and Santangelo returned from lunch, Charlie knew something was different. When he’d left there were papers on his desk, facedown as usual, and now they were gone. Charlie’s gait slowed. His can of pencils was empty. The in-box too.
Charlie slumped down into his seat. “Damn.”
“What is it?” Santangelo asked, peering over. “Oh.”
“Yup.”
“Rough business, Fish.”
Charlie opened one drawer, confirmed that it was empty, and did not bother with the others. Santangelo saw, and backed away to his desk.
“Yes, better get busy,” Charlie said. “No point in both of us joining the army.”
“Fish.” Cohen stood in the doorway with a cardboard box that Charlie suspected held the former contents of his desk. “You’re wanted. Double-time.”
Santangelo bent over his papers, but he whispered as Charlie hurried past, “Good luck.”
Professor Simmons’s secretary was typing with a pencil between her teeth when Cohen led Charlie in. She pointed at a chair. Before Charlie could sit, Cohen placed the box there, then gave him a pat on the back.
“You weren’t all bad,” he allowed. “Compared with some others. See you after the war.”
Charlie swallowed hard, too nervous to reply. Cohen vanished down the hall and the secretary returned to her typing. Over the thwack of the keys he could hear his uncle in the inner office, talking. First the disaster with Brenda, and now this. And what about the problem he’d nearly solved before lunch? Who would do it now?
Simmons put the phone down, and instantly his secretary called out, “He’s here.”
“Good, good.”
Charlie had taken only one step forward when his uncle charged out of the office, trademark smile on his face. “There’s my fine young fellow.” He slowed by the secretary’s desk. “Get me Enrico on the phone. I’ll be back in five.”
The woman turned to a Rolodex, took the pencil from her mouth, and used the eraser to flip through the cards.
“Come along, Charlie. No time to waste.”
Charlie gestured toward the cardboard box. “Should I bring—”
“You won’t be needing that.” He strode off, Charlie scrambling in his wake.
The math team occupied the top floor of a three-story building. Now he followed the professor down four flights, to the basement. He did not need anyone to explain what this meant in the department’s hierarchy.
The glass door of one room let out a strange bluish glow, and Simmons knocked before entering. Charlie followed close behind, but not before noticing a hand-painted sign on the door: Beasley’s Dungeon. A man at a workbench was bent over something, a kind of strange pen in his hand. The room smelled of heat and old shoes.
“I have a new one for you, Beasley,” Simmons said in his most affable voice.
Goggles on his face, Beasley did not look up. “Shall I shoot myself now, and save us all the headache?”
“Grouchy,” Simmons stage-whispered, “but an excellent teacher.”