I swept back toward James and Hazel. They’d relaxed into conversation.
“Excuse me,” Hazel told me very earnestly. “We don’t see lemon cake on this menu.”
It was all I could do not to giggle. “It’s today’s special,” I told her.
“I wonder how they got the sugar,” Hazel mused. “Rationing’s so tight.” She turned to him. “Shall we order some, then, James?” Just like that, he became a first-name friend.
“It sounds delicious, Hazel.” He turned to me very seriously. “Two slices, please.”
My pretty little pets, having a nursery-room tea party for two. The little boy, playing grown-up man for his girl. The girl he hoped would be his girl. You see why I love my work, don’t you? Why it’s not a career, it’s a calling?
I returned to the serving table, conjured giant slabs of cake, and served them. The bald gentleman tapped me on the elbow to order some. Before I was done, I’d served cake to four tables. Compliments of the goddess. With the Great War in its fourth year, Britons needed cake.
James and Hazel faced the new predicament—do they eat in front of each other, at the risk of spilling crumbs or blobs of lemon curd? Then again, if they didn’t eat, they must talk. How does the old Gaelic ditty go? O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland a’fore ye? Hazel took the high road, cake, and James took the low road, speech.
“I’m so glad to see you again,” he said.
He was in Scotland a’fore her.
Well, there it was. He’d skipped the preliminaries. There was no turning back now.
His words caught Hazel with the tines of her fork still in her mouth, and a very large bite of cake melting on her tongue.
“Mmph” was her elegant reply.
But there he was, all brown eyes and kindness, waiting patiently, watching her face as if he could watch it forever. Her wide eyes drank all this in, and she managed, by a miracle, to swallow the cake without choking.
“Me too.” She remembered her napkin. “I mean, you too. Glad to see you.”
She was, and there was no hiding it.
APHRODITE
Questions—November 24, 1917
IT’S NOT EASY, overseeing love in its toddler phase. It’s a noisy, chattering, babbling thing. Listening closely would turn me old and gray, except that, of course, I don’t get old or gray. But it’s still an effort, though also a joy, to follow all they say, and all they don’t. For example:
What made you go to the dance last night, where you didn’t know anyone?
Imagine if you hadn’t!
Do you always play piano at dances?
Or do you dance with other lads?
Tell me about Chelmsford.
I’ll bet the girls are prettier in Chelmsford.
How long have you studied piano?
How is it that a girl this talented is eating lemon cake in a tea shop with a bloke like me?
What do you do in the building trade?
Do heavy beams ever fall on builders and kill them?
Who’s your favorite composer?
Please have one. Don’t be a musical ignoramus.
Do you have a gramophone?
Smile again. Just like that. Wish I had a photograph of that to keep in my wallet.
Tell me about your parents.
Look how neat you are. I’m so glad you’re not one of those grimy sorts.
Tell me about yours.
Do they know you’re here with me? Is that all right?
Do you think you’ll ever play at the Royal Albert?
I could talk to you all day.
Why not? I’ll bet you could.
I’d be there in the front row.
If you could build any building at all, what would it be?
Oh, why do you have to be heading off to the Front? Why now?
Do you know where you’ll be stationed in France?
I’m sorry. Forget I asked you that.
Do you speak any French?
I know you can tell I’m afraid to go. Will you despise me for it?
Do you need to get back home soon? Got anything going on today?
Please, no. Don’t leave me yet. We have so little time.
Let’s go for a walk, all right?
When do I get to return the kiss you gave me?
DECEMBER 1942
To Forge, to Meld
ARES LOUNGES UPON the couch, underneath the golden net. Aphrodite has a faraway look, and a soft expression.
Her husband watches her. A tear shines in her eye. These mortals do something to Aphrodite. But what? They sound to the blacksmith god like any two mortals among millions.
Until he remembers the surge of awe, of rightness he feels when he raises a red-hot sword from his forge. This is what he was born to do. To make, to meld, to master heat and iron with all their power and all their resistance, and bring forth works of usefulness and beauty. If it made him fiery and unbending, how could he not become something like the iron in his forge?
The ecstasies and the wounds of love were Aphrodite’s work. Forging passions was what she was born to do. She, too, was a melder, a mistress of fire of a different sort, working in materials more powerful and resistant than carbon and iron. And what did that toil do to her?
If he’d wanted a goddess of hearth and home, of safe domesticity and simple loyalty, Hephaestus could’ve married Hestia. Maybe he should have. She was single, and by all accounts the cooking was good.
But Hestia could never be . . . Aphrodite. There’s no going back once you’ve known the goddess of love. There is no forgetting. No moving on. No letting go.
APHRODITE
A Walk—November 24, 1917
I FELT LIKE a mother watching little Junior toddle off to school for the very first time when those two exited J. Lyons tea shop, huddled together against the cold gray morning.
They took Guilford Street to Upper North Street till it became Bow Common Lane. “This way,” Hazel said, “I’ll be less likely to run into anyone I know.”
James’s face fell. “Am I a secret, then?”
Hazel glanced sheepishly at him. “Secrets are fun, aren’t they?”
He said nothing, but tipped his hat low over his eyes.