THE ROSE PERFUME

Chapter 43

I think about Emmanuel the whole way downstairs as I sail through the dining room collecting things to take into the kitchen in a silent dreamy world. Raina is taking things out of cupboards and piling them on the counter. Stacks of napkins, a gravy pot, ice cream dishes, and containers full of extra silverware. "What are you smiling about?" Raina asks. "Where have you been?"

If the intensity of Raina's eyes could have burned right through me like a wicked fire, they would have. "Did Emmanuel give you the rose?"

"Oui," I say and can feel my face growing hotter by the second.

She looks me over from head to toe. "A lot of girls like him." She explains. "Beautiful girls. They pile in here on Saturday nights and sit up at the tables closest to the stage. They only order drinks and all share a desert. One piece of pie and five forks. It drives Joel crazy. But it gives the German soldiers partners to dance with so no one complains."

"Oh, I didn't know that," I say. "We kissed."

"Do you think he likes you?" She laughs and stuffs a rectangular metal back into the back of the cupboard and putting the other stuff back. "Impossible. With your untidy and faded uniform and holes in your knickers?"

I look down at my shoes.

"He isn't that cute anyway," She tells me. "You can do much better. You should come with me to my other job. The men there bring us presents. Chocolates and jewelry. It's a great fun and easy. If you work there too, you could afford clothes like mine. Then you could have any man you wanted."

Raina bends to sit on the floor. She wants to go through the bottom cupboard but is struggling because of the tight skirt she is wearing.

"Do you need help?" I ask.

"Please." She lights a cigarette and sucks it so hard the paper dents between her two fingers. She lets it out slowly and flicks the ashes away from her on the floor. "Would you be a dear and take everything out of there."

The floor in the kitchen is stone and I kneel carefully. I yank and the door makes a popping sound when it opens. I drag all the contents out. Heavy bowls, pots, and iron pans.

Raina hands me another metal box the same as the first, "Now, crawl in there and put this in the back. And, hurry! If Joel comes in here and sees us, he'll have my head."

"Where is Joel?" I ask as I lay flat on the ground, going into the tiny space, and push the box in front of me until it is at the end. Only it will not go in all the way. Something is stopping it. I wrap my hand around the box and feel.

"Marcello's office." She says like it is no big deal. "There are going to be changes to the menu. A friend of mine, Emmeline Montalivet, is coming to eat here on my birthday. But she is a movie actress so it's a big deal."

"Emmeline Montalivet?!" I say pinching a short stack of papers between my fingers and start pulling them with me as I wiggle free. The papers are yellowed and curling at the corners. Dust from them makes me sneeze.

Raina grabs them from me but I hold on. She pulls harder and they slip through my fingers like something intimate and precious has just passed through. She flips through them. "These are deeds to the old Fabric shop that used to be here. Owned by a Miss Lotte Mercier. She died a long time ago in a boating accident."

Raina tosses the papers in the trash. "Hurry up and put all that stuff back now."

"What are those boxes for?" I ask.

"So I can hear what's going on." She says.