Hephaestus fluffs a pillow from the bed and arranges it behind his stooped shoulders. “I’m not here because I’m dying to hear from you, warmonger,” says he. “I want to hear my wife.”
Ares laughs. “Are you taking love lessons from mortals now, blacksmith?”
“You could stand a few yourself,” says Aphrodite.
APHRODITE
Caught—November 23, 1917
JAMES THOUGHT HE’D get away without Hazel seeing him.
But Hazel saw him.
I may have had a little something to do with that.
As I say, I wasn’t interfering, but the whole scene, the street corner, the lamppost, the shadows, the gentle opera spilling down from above, the ruffled nightgown—what was I to do? I’m an artist.
I directed her gaze down to the street. She pulled back from the window when she saw someone standing there. When she saw his head turn away, she leaned in closer.
It was James Alderidge.
Should she mind that he was there? How could she mind something so marvelous?
At the sight of her, his face lit up. He raised his hand in a half wave, then jammed it into his coat pocket and hurried on up the street.
APHRODITE
A Note—November 23, 1917
YOU IDIOT, you idiot, he told himself. Peeping in windows? She should call the coppers on you.
A creak behind him made him stop.
He turned to see Hazel’s face leaning out the window, with ropes of long hair dangling below her shoulders. “Pssst,” she said, and dropped something white onto the pavement. Then she pulled the casement shut and disappeared.
James found the white thing amid the bits and bobs of rubbish littering the street corner. It was a folded piece of paper. James had half expected a lace-trimmed handkerchief. But this wasn’t blooming Camelot, and he was no knight.
He stepped farther into the street, closer to the streetlamp, and opened the note.
Eight a.m. tomorrow, it read, in a tall, precise, vertical hand. Letters like the stems of musical notes. Coffee at the J. Lyons tea shop on Chrisp Street at Guildford.
James Alderidge looked up at the now-dark window and grinned. Miss Hazel Windicott was no longer in sight. Swallowed by the darkness. Could she see him? He didn’t know.
But I knew. You’d better believe she could.
APHRODITE
The Tea Shop—November 24, 1917
SINCE SOME PERSONS, who shall remain nameless, seem impatient with the depth of detail I devote to this pair in their heart-fluttering first hours of finding each other, I’ll pass over the drama of James’s and Hazel’s sleepless nights, their ridiculously early hours of rising, and their anxious dress and grooming, silent to avoid waking uncles and parents on a sleep-in Saturday morning. I will spare my critics the excited nausea that gripped the young darlings’ stomachs as they made their way out into a London morning to find J. Lyons tea shop. I will make no mention of the constant rapping of doubt—the fear that this something, which they hoped was something, was actually nothing, that they’d allowed their feelings to fizz and froth for absolutely, positively nothing.
It wasn’t their fault that they fizzed and frothed. They could no more scold themselves into indifference than they could will themselves to stop breathing.
It was time for James and Hazel to get properly acquainted. Time to see if the magic of music and moonlight and graceful movement were all that they had shared, or if a grimy gray London dawn and a cheap cup of coffee could make them feel the same way.
J. Lyons tea shops are scattered all about London. James’s illogical dread was going to the wrong one. He arrived well before eight o’clock and, finding Hazel not yet there, paced the street. At eight he entered the shop, sat on a bench, crushed his hat, smoothed it, and crushed it again.
Hazel was late. Not surprising, given that her journey went as follows:
She would walk a block, then turn around and walk back, then retrace her first steps and go a little farther, than panic and scamper back toward home base. By the time she reached J. Lyons tea shop, she was perspiring under her sweater and blouse, even though the morning was chill and damp. So, holding her breath as though that might somehow compel James Alderidge to do the same, lest he notice any body odor, she entered the tea shop.
James leaped to his feet. That looked too eager, he realized, so he stiffened. He hadn’t a clue what to do with his face.
Hazel saw him jump up in a spasm of obvious disappointment, then grimace in disgust.
She knew it. She smelled terrible. She looked terrible. She was terrible. And inviting him to meet her here was a terrible, terrible idea. She kept her hand on the doorknob and tried to think how to escape. Her parents need never know. It would be as if it had never happened.
James’s heart sank as he watched her panicked expression. She was even more adorable by morning light, in everyday clothes. But clearly, she wanted to flee. What could he say to relieve her distress and let her know she was free to leave?
“Good morning.” He smiled by reflex. It’s what one does when one says “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” She held out her hand. It was what one did when one said “Good morning” at a tea shop to someone whom one doesn’t hug or kiss.
But she had kissed him. Oh, mortification!
He pressed her hand between his. He smiled again, and Hazel forgot about fleeing the tea shop. The scent of bay rum may have had something to do with it.
“Table for two?” I said.
They followed me to a secluded corner table. James pulled the chair out for Hazel and hung her coat in the doorway. There was only one free peg, so he placed his own coat over hers. It made him blush. He took his seat opposite Hazel.
I love this boy. In a purely spiritual sense.
“I recommend the lemon cake,” I said, and handed them menus.
The serving girls were slow that morning. These two maybe-lovebirds-maybe-not teetered on a knife’s edge, and if I didn’t get them seated at a table, there was no telling what might happen. So I took shape in the form of a matronly, middle-aged table server. How it pained me to adopt the joyless uniform of the J. Lyons waitresses, I can’t begin to express. But I do make sacrifices.
No, I don’t consider that cheating, interfering, or manipulating. I was only doing what a competent waitstaff ought to have done. Sometimes fates hang in the balance over matters even more trivial than a waitress flirting in the back with a pastry chef.
Hazel and James studied the menus as if their very lives depended on it. Safer than glancing at each other. I sent a little puff of attraction wafting back toward the kitchens, to keep the real waitress chummy a bit longer with Mr. Pastry Chef, who was making roses with a frosting pipe. This forced me to serve a few other customers as well, but I armed myself with a self-replenishing pot of hot Colombian coffee and made everyone’s morning that little smidge better. One stout, bald gentleman, in particular. I think he suspected there was more to me than met the eye, the old rascal. He’d been a bit of a Romeo once, several belt sizes ago.