Upstairs, I followed Gina into her room. “I don’t think we should go out with them,” I said. “It feels wrong. Your aunt would have a fit.”
“She’ll never have to know,” she said, opening the closet and taking out her dress. “Go put on your dress and make it snappy. They’ll buy us a swell dinner at the best restaurant in Georgetown. Are you going to pass that up?” She saw my hesitancy. “It’s not like a date, honey,” she said. “After all, there are four of us. You aren’t going out alone with someone. It’s like four colleagues having dinner together. That’s all.”
*
“I insist you gals start calling us by our first names,” Mr. Talbot said as we clambered into the cab. “I’m Roger, remember?”
I sat between him and Gina in the backseat, while Mr. Kraft—Henry—rode in front with the quiet, somber driver. The cab smelled of cigars and Gina’s perfume, a dab of which I’d put behind my ears since I hadn’t brought any of my own. I was stifling in my coat and gloves. Henry was quiet as the taxi made its way through the clogged streets to Georgetown, but Roger filled the air of the cab with his booming voice, telling us how he once saw Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn at Martin’s. On another occasion, he said, he spotted Senator Harry Truman sitting at the next table.
“Did you talk to either of them?” Gina leaned forward to speak past me.
“No, though I certainly tried to listen in on their conversations,” he said. He went on to talk in detail about every meal he’d eaten at Martin’s and I began to think we were in for a very long evening.
Martin’s wasn’t what I expected. It was more tavern than the posh restaurant I’d anticipated. The walls and the long bar were made of dark, polished wood, the tin ceiling was a bronze color, and there were far more male diners than female. I felt slightly overdressed and out of place. We were led to a wooden booth and Gina and I sat on one side, Roger and Henry on the other.
When the waiter arrived at our table, Roger ordered drinks for all of us. “Spytinis all around,” he told the middle-aged man.
“What on earth is a spytini?” Gina giggled at the name. She pulled a cigarette from the case in her handbag.
“Martin’s special martinis,” Roger said. He leaned across the table to light Gina’s cigarette, then lit one of his own. “A spy who used to dine here loved the martinis, so they changed the name. You’ll love them, too,” he added.
I’d never had a martini and would have preferred a glass of wine, but decided to give the drink a try. This was a night of firsts and I’d be adventurous. Besides, I had the feeling few people argued with Roger Talbot.
As we waited for our drinks, Roger and Gina talked nonstop about politics while Henry and I quietly observed. I had no idea Gina knew a thing about the war or what was going on in the world. At one point, Henry caught my eye and winked. Not a flirtatious wink, no. It was a wink that said, You and I are the quiet ones and that’s fine. Let these two talk their heads off. It felt a bit conspiratorial and I smiled back at him, suddenly liking him.
Our pretty spytinis were delivered and Roger raised his in a toast. “To the lovely ladies from Baltimore,” he said. “May they thoroughly enjoy their stay in the nation’s capital.”
“Thank you,” Gina said, and we all took a sip.
“Oh my,” I said, my cheeks on fire, my throat ice cold, and the men laughed. I took another sip, fascinated by the taste. All their eyes were on me. “It tastes like, I don’t know…” I sipped again, licking my lips. “Salt and spice. And pine trees,” I said, and the three of them chuckled.
“I think Tess has a new favorite drink,” Gina said.
“Careful now, Tess,” Roger said. “When’s the last time you had anything to eat?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him, and I raised my glass to my lips once more.
It wasn’t until Henry lifted his own glass again that I noticed he was missing three fingers on his left hand. The sight was so jarring, I had to quickly turn my head away, my heart giving a double thump in my chest. His thumb and forefinger were intact, but the other three fingers were gone, right down to the smooth knuckles of his hand. What had the poor man been through? Did he lose them as an adult or a child? I’d wondered why he wasn’t in the military. Now it was clear, and his sad eyes made more sense to me.
Roger suddenly seemed to notice my own hands and he leaned across the table to grab my left, holding it by the fingers so that my ring sparkled in the overhead light.
“Well, what’s this?” he inquired, lifting my hand a couple of inches from the table. “You’ve got a fella?”
“Yes,” I said, gently pulling my hand from his grasp.
“Overseas?” he asked.
I shook my head. “He’s a doctor volunteering with the polio epidemic in Chicago.” I felt my cheeks color with pride.
“A doctor!” Roger said. “He’s a fool to let you go running around unchaperoned, beautiful girl like you. Ain’t she a lovely one?” he asked Henry, who nodded.
“They’re both lovely,” Henry said diplomatically.
“I’d love to see that beautiful hair of yours down,” Roger said. “How long is it?”
“Long enough,” I said coyly. I took another sip of the spytini and felt the icy heat of the drink spread through my chest and work its way into my arms, all the way to my fingertips. I took one more delicious sip before I set the glass down.
“Her hair is a few inches below her shoulders,” Gina answered for me. “And her fiancé loves it, so don’t get any ideas. Plus, she’s a nurse, so they’re a perfect couple.”
“Certainly sounds like it,” Roger said. “Your fiancé’s a lucky man.” He leaned away from the table as the waiter set another round of spytinis in front of us even though we hadn’t yet finished the first.
“So,” I said to the men as the waiter walked away. I wanted to get the topic off myself. “You’re both here to negotiate contracts with the government. That must be very challenging.”
All three of them looked at me as though I’d spoken a foreign language, but then Henry responded.
“My family’s factory in Hickory—that’s in North Carolina—has built fine furniture for nearly half a century,” he said. “But the last couple of years, we’ve shifted our efforts to producing material for the war effort.” It was lovely, listening to him talk. I’d only heard a Southern accent on the radio. It was much more charming in person.
“What sort of material?” I asked.
“Oh, everything from crates for bombs and ammo to mess tables to aircraft parts,” he said, then added wistfully, “and precious little furniture these days, I’m afraid.”
“Hickory,” Roger said. “Sounds like some little Southern backwater.”
Henry only smiled at the insult. “The fastest-growing city in North Carolina,” he said. “Population fourteen thousand and counting. We have a lake and a river and the mountains are right nearby. And industry is booming.”