Over the maid’s shoulder, Wesley shot to his feet, a guilt-ridden expression on his face. “Delia? Is something wrong?”
Only a broken heart, she thought as she straightened her shoulders and met his gaze. “Reginald has prepared the budget projections for the Commission for the Relief of Belgium. Alfred Pollard has withdrawn his support, and the situation is dire. I thought you should see it right away.”
“Yes, of course,” Wesley said, scrambling to assume a professional demeanor. He wasn’t wearing a tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. Usually he was painfully formal, and it hurt to see him so casually dressed. She said nothing as his gaze flicked over the CRB financial projections, but the corners of his mouth turned down.
“Where’s Amy?” she asked. After all, Wesley’s excuse for leaving the office early each afternoon was always so that he could share dinner with his daughter.
“She has been taking dinner at her boarding school of late,” he said, an artificially congenial expression plastered on his face. It was Wesley’s unmistakable habit when he felt uneasy.
Good. He ought to feel uneasy for allowing her to imagine that it was nothing but their age standing between them. How long had he been cavorting with Constance Beekman? Ever since last year when he handled her estate?
Mrs. Beekman wandered over, her gaze curious. “Delia, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she replied stiffly.
“How lovely to see you again,” the older woman said. “Would you like to join us for a drink? Wesley was just about to open a bottle of wine from when we visited my cousin’s vineyard in the Hudson Valley last week.”
Delia’s mouth hardened. Wesley claimed to be taking Amy to visit colleges in Boston. Maybe he was, but he’d brought the lovely Mrs. Beekman along for the trip. Wesley had leaned on Delia for six years to manage his office, do his research, and even help raise his daughter. What had she gotten for it? Nothing but a secret thrill whenever he deigned to cast a heated glance her way, all while he was saving the best of himself for Constance Beekman or whoever else he’d been courting on the side.
“No, thank you,” she said calmly, though she glared at Wesley. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on your evening. After all, I’ve spent six years perfecting the art of staying out of the way.”
Wesley blanched, and then she left the room and closed the front door with a gentle click.
9
Delia was still numb from Wesley’s betrayal when she arrived back at the Martha Washington. The wound was too raw to touch or else she might start crying, and she never cried. Ever. Even after her father died. One of the last things he asked of her was to stay strong in the years ahead.
“Promise me,Delia,”he had whispered, his sunken chest barely able to draw a breath as he lay dying on that thin mattress,“no matter how bad it gets, promise me you will standfirm. ‘The one who stands firm to the end will be saved.’”
She took him literally. She didn’t cry when her father died; she stayed strong. She didn’t cry when the mean girls at the orphanage tormented her. She didn’t cry when she learned Finn stole the money she had earned from slaving in a fish cannery, and she wouldn’t cry today. All she needed was to keep standing firm until someday the sun would rise again.
After getting off the subway in Midtown, Delia headed straight to the library of the Martha Washington to begin her job search. The library on the first floor was mostly used by residents for gossiping and playing card games. Still, the room had a few shelves of books and, more importantly, copies of the daily newspapers.Remaining at Wesley’s beck and call was no longer tolerable. She grabbed theNew York Times, claimed a vacant table, and flipped to the classified ads in search of a new job.
Optimism bloomed at the sight of two whole pages of advertisements for office jobs. Wesley would have to survive without her. She wouldn’t look back as she embarked upon a new and better adventure.
The first advertisement was at the Port of New York, coordinating the transfer of troops by ship from Camp Mills to various locations overseas. She would starve before helping send young men to their deaths.
Her optimism began to fade as she came to the end of the first column. Many of the openings were at the Army’s and Navy’s recruitment offices, so those were out. Ditto working for the war bonds office. A surprising number of the office jobs were in munitions factories and uniform supply companies, and so those were out too. Hope temporarily surged when she spotted an ad for a research assistant, but it was affiliated with the War Office. The few positions at law firms specified they were searching for male applicants only, so she didn’t stand much chance there.
She might have to settle for retail work. It didn’t pay as well as office work, and she cringed a little as she skimmed the openings. This was ironic because once, in another lifetime, her brightest dream had been to open a shop of her own. Memory of the day she approached Finn with her idea still glimmered with a bittersweet nostalgia.
It had been a warm Saturday afternoon as they relaxed in the shade of an old maple tree in the park. Finn had left the orphanage the previous year to work at the cannery, although they still met in the park each weekend to fly kites together.
She sat with her back to the tree trunk while Finn lay on the ground, his head resting in her lap as he gazed at the dappled sunlight above. She’d been screwing up the courage to share her idea with him, as normally she wasn’t this bold. She was usuallyexquisitely careful, but she’d been researching her plan for weeks and was convinced they could make it work.
“You want us tobuya shop?” he asked. They’d always talked of renting a space in which to open a shop, but Delia thought that buying one outright was a real possibility.
“It will take two thousand dollars to qualify for a loan,” she said. “We’ll earn more money from owning instead of renting, and the shop will beours.”
Finn immediately latched on to the idea and rolled into sitting position. “I can take a second shift at the cannery. They’re advertising for a night janitor.”
“Do you think I can get a job there too? That way we can save even faster.” She didn’t plan on gutting fish for the rest of her life. No, it was merely a stepping-stone on the way to being a shop owner.
She already knew exactly what their shop would look like. It would have a plate-glass front window to display their best kites. They’d paint the inside of the shop a pale blue to match the color of the sky. The front of the store would have shelves filled with ready-made kites, but they would take orders for custom kites and make them right there in the shop.
Finn was even more ambitious. “We could host contests,” he began. “We need more people to get interested in flying kites, so we could put a signboard out front announcing the start of a new club. We can meet in the park and host contests. We will offer a prize for the best kite.”
Delia grinned. “And a prize for the most creative design.”
