Secrets of the Red Box (10 page)

Paul gave her a smirk and opened the car door. “You puzzle me, Bonnie,” he said, turning to
face her now. “But I like puzzles.”
Bonnie slipped into the car and glanced up at him. “I like to keep a man guessing.”
“I’ll bet you do,” he said as he closed the door. He walked around the car and got in beside her.
“So, let’s get you home before you turn into a pumpkin.”
Bonnie’s brow creased. “What does that mean?”
Paul chuckled and seemed a bit amused she didn’t know. “Oh, it’s something my mother used to
say. Remember the story about Cinderella? The coach turned into a pumpkin if she wasn’t home by
midnight?”
“Oh, Cinderella. I don’t like fairy tales.”
Paul shook his head, still chuckling. “Bonnie Cooper, you truly are a puzzle.”
Bonnie stopped believing in fairy tales long ago. There were no gallant knights on white
chargers, no happily ever after, no such thing as true love. She let out a tiny sigh as he started the
engine. Maybe she had misjudged him. Maybe. But probably not.
///////
Bonnie sat at her station Monday morning, her thoughts scattered and distracted. She couldn’t
help but think about Paul. He’d surprised her by taking her home. Maybe he wasn’t what she
thought he was, or he was very good at the game. Whatever the case, she would never be used, not
by anyone.
It was near lunchtime when someone knocked on the exchange door. Mrs. Kemp marched
between the rows of operators to answer. Her lips were pursed tight as she past Bonnie, rushing by
so fast she left a slight breeze in her wake. Bonnie watched from the corner of her eye as Mrs. Kemp
nodded, reached through the door, and brought something back in her hand. The door closed again
and she turned, her eyes angling in on Bonnie. Bonnie gave a quick glance around the room as every
available operator watched Mrs. Kemp approach her. She blinked as Mrs. Kemp thrust a gift wrapped box in front of her. “It would seem you have an admirer,” she said with an acid-edged
voice.
Bonnie took the box, her eyes darting to the other girls as they stared at her. “I’m sure I don’t,”
she offered with a lame shrug.
“Well, wait until your lunch hour to open it,” Mrs. Kemp snapped. “We’re still working here.”
She spun in a slow circle, her brows drawn together as she shooed the operators to get back to
work.
Bonnie placed the box, wrapped in lovely paper covered in pink roses, beside her. She saw a
small envelope attached beneath a pink bow with her name on it. She waited until Mrs. Kemp
walked away, then inched her fingers toward the card. Her board lit up and Bonnie forced herself to
take the call.
There was a persistent buzz of conversation around her, the other girls speculating about the gift
and who had sent it. Bonnie tried to keep her focus on her work, but the urge to tear open the gift
kept her glancing at the clock. When her lunch break finally came, she pulled off her headset,
swiveled, and placed the present on her lap. She took out the card and read it.
Call you soon, Paul.
Bonnie became keenly aware of the other girls watching her. If the gift had been flowers, she
need say nothing, but a wrapped gift—that was another matter. She stood and went to the back
room where she could open it privately. She heard a couple of moans of disappointment from the
girls as she closed the door. Bonnie slid her finger beneath the paper of pink roses and tore it away.
She stared at the box. It was a puzzle of the Mona Lisa with her enigmatic smile.
She tucked the puzzle inside her locker, took out her purse, and clocked out for lunch. When
she strolled through the exchange, every eye was on her. She kept her expression placid, composed,
like a good poker player. Walking into the lobby, Bonnie knew Christine would be there, waiting and
wondering what had happened Saturday night.
Christine rushed forward, her eyes wide with curiosity. “I’ve been dying all morning,” she
gushed. “How did it go?”
Bonnie glanced at her as they exited the building. Christine turned toward Woolworth’s, but
Bonnie motioned her away. “Let’s go to the Rome today,” she said. “It’s a bit more private.”
Christine’s thin lips drew into a wide smile, like a string of red licorice. “Oh,” she intoned with a
nod, “things must have gone well.”
Bonnie pursed her lips and tilted her head. “He sent me a gift this morning.”
Christine clamped her hand on Bonnie’s arm. “A gift? What was it?”
“You’ll laugh,” she said. “He sent me a puzzle.”
Christine stopped on the sidewalk, her mouth agape, her brunette curls bouncing as she halted.
“You’re joking.”
Bonnie kept walking. “No. It was really kind of clever.” She waited for Christine to catch up to
her. “He told me I was a puzzle to him and that he liked puzzles.”
“So he sent you a puzzle,” she said flatly. “Most men send flowers.”
Bonnie paused in front of the Rome Hotel, her hand on the door. “I know. That’s why it was
clever.”
Christine shrugged, then tugged down the jacket of her navy blue suit. “I’m glad you think so,”
she replied doubtfully. “I’d rather have the flowers.”
The two women walked into the Vineyard Café and were seated for lunch. Christine leaned over
the menu and looked at Bonnie. “You should have seen him this morning,” she said with a
conspiratorial whisper. “I thought he was going to float into his office.”
Bonnie squelched a smile. “Oh?”
“He had a big goofy grin on his face,” Christine continued. “I don’t know what you did, but
you’ve got him smitten but good.”
“I didn’t
do
anything,” Bonnie replied, scanning the menu.
Christine panned Bonnie’s face. “You must have done
something
,” she said, lowering her menu.
“Come on—tell me everything that happened.”
Bonnie closed her menu and placed it on the table. “He took me to dinner, during which he
carried the conversation. We went dancing and he took me home. That’s it. That’s all of it.”
Christine seemed disappointed. “You mean he didn’t make a play for you?”
“Well—” she began.
“I knew it! He’s seems the type.”
Bonnie looked askance at Christine. “I was going to say he tried, but I cut him off. I told him
straight up that I wasn’t a party girl, so if that’s what he was looking for, then this was our first and
last date.”
Christine gasped and covered her mouth. She blinked a few times, pulling off her gloves, and
then said, “Did you really say that?”
“I did,” she replied. “And not only that, I told him I wasn’t impressed with his fancy job, his
expensive suit, or his smooth talk. I told him if he thought he could charm me into bed, he was
mistaken.”
Christine’s eyes bugged from their sockets, then she blushed. “Wow…”
Bonnie hunched a shoulder. “Well, I just figured if he was willing to ask me out again after all
that, then maybe he wanted something more…substantial.”
Christine let out a nervous laugh. “Well, that’s an approach I’ve never tried. Maybe I should
reconsider my dating strategy.”
The waiter interrupted them long enough to take their order. Christine unfolded her cloth
napkin and placed it on her lap. “Well, it must have worked. I’m positive he’ll be calling you.”
Bonnie nodded. “That’s what it said on the card he sent with the puzzle.”
Christine shook her head and made a sucking sound through her teeth. “How come I can’t land
a guy like that? Hey, what about that Dave from Union Pacific? You never even talk about him. Are
you going to keep seeing him now that Mr. Warsoff’s asked you out?”
Bonnie felt the blood pulsing in her throat as she formulated her words. There was no Dave
from Union Pacific—only Dave the plumber. “Things didn’t work out for us. He’s seeing someone
else now.”
Christine clasped her hands and leaned them against the table. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s just as well. I could tell he was the type who strings along a number of girls at the same
time,” Bonnie said, raising her water glass to her lips. She swallowed and looked at Christine with a n
arched brow. “Did you ever hear from that plumber? Did he call you?”
Christine looked surprised for a moment. “Come to think of it, he never did. I guess he was just
putting on a show for you.”
“Probably,” she said. “Anyway, he isn’t someone you’d want to get mixed up with.”
“I know,” Christine said, raising her hand, “I don’t want anything to do with him.”
The waiter deposited their meals. Bonnie picked up her fork and speared a shrimp from the
salad. “Good girl.”
Christine began to pick out the tomatoes from her salad. “I always forget to ask them to leave
these off,” she muttered to herself. “So, all in all, did you have a good time?”
Bonnie hesitated and slid her eyes toward the restaurant’s vine-covered walls. “Idid enjoy the
Dorsey band,” she began, “but it was hard for me to be on the other side, you know, dancing in the
crowd with everyone else and not up on the bandstand.” Her eyes misted. “It made me miss
Jimmy…the singing…everything.”
Christine reached across the table and touched Bonnie’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said in a low,
sympathetic voice. “Ican imagine.”
Bonnie managed a tremulous smile. “It brought back so many memories, I’m sure I wasn’t the
best company for Paul.”
The women ate in silence, then Bonnie placed her fork on the edge of her plate. “You know,
dating after Jimmy’s death has been difficult for me. It’s like every man I meet has to measure up to
Jimmy. You know? If he doesn’t have his smile, or his eyes, or doesn’t laugh at the same things…I
don’t know…it just makes it hard.”
Christine nodded. “Sure.”
“I mean, there’ll never be another Jimmy. I can’t replace him. But he spoiled me, I guess, for
other men. He was the best of the best.”
Christine opened her purse and fumbled for a tissue. “Damn war,” she murmured. “It breaks
my heart to think of all the men we’ve lost…all the women who’ve lost a husband or a fiancé…”
“It makes you wonder what the men will be like when they come home, how it will have
affected them.” Bonnie picked up her fork again. “I mean, they’re killers now, aren’t they.”
It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Christine grew pale. “Oh, Bonnie, no. You can’t think of it
that way. GIs aren’t killers; they’re just doing what they have to do to win the war.”
Bonnie’s eyes hardened. “They’re trained to kill, Christine. That’s what Imean. How do you
know they can stop when they come home? What if they can’t? What if they’re so used to it that
every little thing that makes them mad, or ticks them off—”
“Bonnie, stop it!” Christine crushed her napkin in her hand. “It won’t be like that,” she insisted.
“They’ll come home and forget about the war. They’ll pick up normal lives and go on. They have
to.”
“They have to…” Bonnie’s voice trailed, and then she turned her gaze back to Christine. “How
do you forget about a war? About every man you’ve killed, every bomb you’ve dropped, every
torpedo you’ve fired? How do you wipe it from your memory and pretend it didn’t happen?”
Bonnie already knew men were violent, about how the tiniest thing could set them off. What
would they be like now, stained and damaged from war? It was too horrible to consider.
Christine seemed flustered now as she continued to wring the napkin between her fingers. “I
don’t know how. I just know they will. Maybe knowing what they did was for the good of the world,
that they fought an enemy who needed to be defeated…maybe that will make it okay.”
Bonnie didn’t offer an immediate reply. She tore off a piece of her roll and daubed a little butter
on it. “I hope you’re right, Christine. Otherwise, we’ll havea bunch of men like Dave Miller running
around the country.”
///////
The alarm clock jolted Bonnie from her dream. She rolled over and turned off the alarm, trying
to remember the dream, but it was a haze now, a blur of something vague and indistinguishable.
That was something to be grateful for. Most of her dreams haunted her the rest of the day, like
recessive shadows that followed her just out of sight.
Bonnie threw back the covers and stumbled into the kitchen to make some coffee. Morning
wasn’t her best time of day. She filled the coffee pot with water, her eyes still half closed, measured
out the coffee, lit the stove, and walked away. As she headed toward the bathroom, a rising sound of
shouts and whoops echoed through the apartment complex. Car horns began honking as boisterous
cheers assaulted the morning air. She peered out the window and found her neighbors in various
stages of dress, some still in bathrobes, some in undershirts and trousers, hair rollers and slippers,
laughing and hugging one another like long-lost friends. Bonnie opened the window and listened.
“The Germans have surrendered!” she heard someone shout. “The war in Europe is over!”
Church bells began clanging, filling the early May air with a joyous peal. The atmosphere of the
neighborhood rang with gratitude and relief. Bonnie felt her heart plummet to her toes. The war was
over. She should be happy, but it meant things would change now, life would change. She closed the
door and went to her chair, sinking down into it, wishing it could devour her.
///////
Paul pulled the car to a stop in front of a three-story home complete with colonnades and a
sweeping portico. “I hope you’ll like everyone,” he said, setting the brake, “except for Gloria. No
one likes her.” He smiled and squeezed Bonnie’s hand. “And to tell you the truth, I think she likes it
that way.”
Bonnie eased her hand away and took hold of her purse. “I’m sure I’ll like everyone just fine.
They’re your friends, aren’t they?”
He opened the driver’s door. “I’m afraid that might not be saying much,” he said as he got out.
Bonnie waited for him to round the car. She watched as he walked, his tall, lean body gliding
easily along the curved drive. He was good-looking, she had to admit—his sandy hair, thick and full,
his manly jaw a perfect fit for his square face. She’d never been to a cocktail party, but she’d seen
plenty of them portrayed in the movies. She knew just what she’d do, just how to act. He’d never
suspect she was a novice.
He reached the door, opened it, and extended his hand to Bonnie. She pressed her fingers into
the palm of his hand and stood with an easy grace. He smiled at her, lifted her hand to his lips, and
kissed her fingers. “They’re going to love you,” he said.
“Is that important to you?”