d work, all her dreams had been dashed in a single afternoon. And she felt like it was her own fault. If she hadn’t let Lionel touch her, if she hadn’t given into her own need to believe he saw her as special, would he have respected her more? Would he have viewed her as being a serious enough woman to become a lady doctor? Had giving in to him cheapened her in his eyes?
Hot tears began to flow down her cheeks, but they stopped cold when she opened the door to her room and caught sight of Mary sitting at her desk. Mary, who turned to face her with a smile on her lips and a look of excitement in her eyes. Both of which faded as soon as Mary’s eyes took in Jilo’s face. “Why, Jilo,” she said, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“What,” Jilo began, her voice breaking, “is wrong?” She swallowed hard to force the frog down. “You lying, conniving Judas Iscariot.”
Mary pushed back from her desk, rising and drawing near Jilo, her arms held wide for an embrace.
“Don’t you”—Jilo held up a hand in warning—“don’t you dare come near me.”
Mary froze as tears of her own began to brim in her eyes. “I don’t understand. Why are you angry? What have I done?”
“You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
Jilo didn’t expect Mary to out-and-out lie; Mary was not a liar. But she did expect her at least to feign ignorance of what she meant. Instead, Mary tilted her head, looking more confused than guilty. “But the dean told me not to say a thing till he could talk to you. He said they were going to look out for you, keep you from making a big mistake, and they needed my help.” For a moment her smile threatened to return. “I get to help catch you up on all the practical things you missed out on. Dressing wounds, rolling bandages . . .”
“I do not want your blessed help,” Jilo cut her off. “You knew this isn’t what I wanted. My sister is a nurse. I know what it is to be a nurse, and it was never my dream.” She clenched her fists in frustration. “You know that. I can do more. I can do better.”
Mary stumbled back a step, her shoulders slumping forward like Jilo had just knocked the wind clean out of her. She raised her wide-open eyes to meet Jilo’s gaze. “Well I am sorry,” she said, straightening as she did. “I am sorry if nursing isn’t good enough for you. If it isn’t your dream. ’Cause it is my dream. It always has been, since I was a little girl. And it was my mama’s dream for me, too. She saved every penny she could after feeding my brother and me to make it possible for me to come here. After daddy died in the war, she started working nights and weekends, scrubbing floors and taking in laundry. And you know what? After I finished my schoolwork, I would be right there with her, down on my knees, scrubbing at her side. So I am sorry, Miss Jilo Wills, who has plenty of money in her pockets and all the pretty dresses in the world, if my dream isn’t good enough for you . . .”
“Now, Mary,” Jilo found herself shift to the defensive, “you know I didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“Oh, yes, you did mean it. Quite like that.” Mary raised her chin and pulled her arms up around herself. “And fool that I am, I was happy to have the opportunity to help out my best friend. When I learned what the dean intended, I marched right out and got you a job. With me. At a fine hospital right here in Atlanta. The Greelies.” Mary said the name of the hospital with such obvious pride, and despite Jilo’s bitter disappointment over this turn of events, she felt like an absolute ass. Jilo took a step forward, but it was Mary’s turn to pull away. “I went to the hiring supervisor at the Greelies. Told him that if he thought I was good enough to bring on, he would be over the moon to have you on duty there.”
Her forehead bunched up into angry folds, and her eyes narrowed the way they always did when she remonstrated with Jilo. “I told him that, even though I knew I’d be the one who would need to catch you up and cover for you until you actually learned how to handle a patient.” Her features smoothed, but her lower lip pushed forward. “I was so looking forward to telling you.” And with those words, the tears started in earnest. “I thought the two of us could stay on here at the pastor’s. Together.”
“Well,” Jilo said, daring to draw near, “I don’t see why we can’t do just that.” She slipped an arm over Mary’s shoulders and pulled her into an embrace.
SIX
June 1953
It was a busy night at the Kingfisher Club. The music was fine, and everywhere around Jilo couples danced.
Classes were over. Jilo had her diploma in hand, a hell of a lot of good it looked like it was going to do her. Still, she wanted to celebrate. Kick up her heels a bit. She’d even managed to coax Mary out to the club by loaning her an orchid-colored rayon-satin dress Mary had been admiring for two years. The two had arrived together, but they were barely across the threshold before the men descended on sweet, demure Mary like ants on a church picnic.
Jilo sat alone nursing a bourbon.
Every so often, Jilo caught sight of her friend. Each time Mary flitted by, she seemed to be in the arms of another fellow. Jilo was glad Mary was enjoying herself, but damn.
Wasn’t she pretty enough? Jilo cast an eye around the teeming room. She wasn’t vain, but she knew she looked as good as many, if not most, of the other women in the club. Mary had done a fine job on the McCall’s pattern dress Jilo had paid her to sew. Ice-blue chiffon, a respectable scoop V-neck with beaded lining, the shape echoed by the darting around her tiny waist. She’d done spins before the mirror, loving how the skirt flared up. She wanted to take it out on the floor and show it off. But here she sat without a single taker.
Dammit, she felt pretty, but she couldn’t get more than a smile and a nod from any of the passing men. The next time Mary swung by with her umpteenth gentleman, Jilo couldn’t help but feel a little bitter.
A tall fellow in a well-cut suit drew close to Jilo’s table. She raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders. She smiled at him and—God help her—batted her eyelashes. For a moment it seemed he would say hello, but then he froze in his tracks, gave her a quick nod, and turned sharply away. Her eyes fixed on his shoulders as he bounded off like some kind of scared jackrabbit.
“Oh, you’re a pretty one all right,” a man said from behind her, seeming to read her thoughts. His voice was deep and rich. The speed with which the other fellow had taken off suggested this newcomer might be a bit dangerous. “That isn’t the problem. I’d even say you’re beautiful when you aren’t scowling at the whole damned room.” The way he spoke, slow, the vowels a bit too long, gave his words an exotic flavor. A picture of the speaker rose in her mind’s eye, a picture that unleashed a swarm of butterflies in her stomach, and equally ticklish sensations in lower regions.
She kept her eyes on the receding back of the last man to reject her. She wanted to turn and look at her new companion, but she feared that her Cupid would be the Kingfisher Club’s equivalent of a winged serpent. She felt a little ashamed of herself. She’d been sitting here for an hour hoping and praying a man would approach her. Maybe she was being shallow? No, she realized, she wanted a taste of magic, just once in her life, and she knew it was pretty damn unlikely that the man speaking to her was some kind of prince. She just wanted to stretch the mystery out for as long as she could.
“No, the problem is that you scare half these fellows to death. That’s why you aren’t dancing.” She sensed his approach. A finger traced along her forearm, sending a tingling sensation through her.
She felt her heart thud in her chest, and in spite of herself, she turned to face him. The image she had held in her mind was put to shame.
Smiling down at her was the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on. His hair was trimmed close to his skull, not all slicked back like most of the men here wore theirs. The light in the club was dim, so she couldn’t quite make out the color of his eyes, but she thought they were a clear brown, maybe hazel. His nose was straight. His lips full, the lower one a tad more so than the upper one that curled a bit beneath a well-defined philtrum. His chin strong and with a cleft. ?
??And the other half?” she asked, though her mouth had gone dry.
His nose crinkled up, followed by a raise of his eyebrows. “They just know they’re not man enough to handle a woman like you.”