Page 83 of If Looks Could Kill
But perhaps it fit, in some small way, the feeling I got from walking, even on such a night as this, and may God forgive me for it, with Mike.
He kept checking back over his shoulder. Only when we’d left a few city blocks behind us did he seem to relax.
“No sign of trouble,” I observed. “Suppose nobody’s looking for us?”
Mike shook his head. “I just can’t tell,” he said. “The whole thing makes me uneasy.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
I glanced over and saw him looking down at the pavement and smiling.
“What?” I asked him.
He turned to me. “What, what?”
“What are you smiling at?”
He cocked his head to one side. “Can’t a fellow be happy?”
“No,” I told him. “Not when he’s been roped into a dangerous plot involving notorious criminals and… hapless Salvation Army maidens.”
He assumed a lofty expression. “Where, may I ask, Miss Woodward, is your sense of fun?” He swung Pearl’s suitcase high and did a little leap, clicking his heels together. “One person’s night of terror might be another person’s idea of a grand holiday. You never can tell.”
“I didn’t know you were a dancer,” I told him. “Are you having fun, then? I should think you’d be—”
“Yes,” he interrupted. “I’m having fun.” He paused. “Worried we’ll both be shot before sunup,” he added, as if he were quoting the price of eggs, “but setting that aside, having fun.”
I searched for a trace of sarcasm or teasing. But I saw only puffs of frozen breath and bright pink spots on his cheeks from the cold. He caughtme watching him and winked. I turned away quickly, feeling exposed. As if my petticoats were showing. As if my fluttery, timid, innermost secret heart was showing, and it was. It was decorated around the edges with chubby cupids, bearing banners with Mike’s name printed on them in fancy letters.
I don’t need company. I can embarrass myself all alone in an empty room.
“You’re right,” I told him, hoping to save face. “I nevercantell.”
He turned to me in perplexity. “Can tell what?”
“I never can tell,” I repeated, “where you’re concerned.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I know this about you.”
Maddening boy!
“Though that’s the lion’s share of what I know about you,” he went on, “since one isn’t granted many opportunities to learn more about Salvation Army maidens. Unless”—here he gestured toward the suitcases, toward us, toward this bizarre night—“all hell breaks loose.”
“You can always come to rallies and prayer meetings,” I pointed out.
He looked faintly nauseated. “Yes,” he said, “though then I learn more about the speakers than the young ladies who waltzed into my uncle’s pub.”
Ladies. Me, and Pearl.
“There’s not much to know,” I said. “My life story can be told in two minutes.”
“Not by you, I’d wager,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“Only that you’re a girl with plenty to say,” he said.
“Oh.”
