Cause For Alarm. Erica Spindler
him and out onto the floor. As she did, she brushed past Lorena, a fellow waitress, who glared at her and muttered something that Julianna couldn’t quite make out.
Julianna ignored her. It wasn’t the first time she had been the recipient of one of the other waitresses’ barbs. They didn’t like her, particularly Lorena. No doubt because Julianna didn’t make a secret of the fact she hated working here, that she was too good to be serving these big sloppy sandwiches to people who barely looked at her. That she was too good for them.
They didn’t understand, these rough-hewn, classless girls, that she wasn’t meant to have to work this way, to have to be on her feet for hours, to be tired all the time, to be serving people. She had been raised for better things. To be taken care of, to be pampered and adored. Her entire life it had been so; all she’d had to do was smile, cajole or even pout prettily and whatever she had wanted had been given to her. Indeed, if she hadn’t been running so low on the money her mother had given her when she left D.C., she wouldn’t have lowered herself to their level.
She had been on the run for just over three months and in that time, had lived briefly in Louisville, Memphis and Atlanta. Until New Orleans, she had stayed in moderate hotels, eating her meals out, spending her time going to movies and wandering through shopping malls. Until New Orleans, she hadn’t noticed the frightening rate at which her money was disappearing. She hadn’t thought ahead to what being without money would mean or what she would have to do to get more of it. When she had finally realized it wouldn’t last forever, she had been down to her last fifteen hundred dollars.
Wretched and demeaning as it was, Buster’s was a necessity, at least for now.
Julianna sighed and glanced longingly toward the pay phone at the back corner of the restaurant, near the rest rooms, thinking of her mother. Her mother had always said that the power of a woman, one who knew how to use both her beauty and her brains, packed more punch than an atomic bomb. A beautiful woman could move mountains or level cities with nothing more than a carefully chosen glance or smile.
If only she could call her, Julianna thought, suddenly, achingly homesick. If only she could go home.
John, standing above her while she retched, his face pinched, white and terrible with fury. John warning her not to defy him again, telling her he would punish her if she did. Julianna drew in a deep breath. The man and woman from Clark Russell’s photographs, their throats slit from ear to ear.
John was capable of anything. Her mother had said so. So had Clark.
She couldn’t go home, maybe never again.
“Miss? Excuse me, Miss?”
Startled, Julianna blinked. A customer at the table to her right was signaling her.
“We need ketchup.”
Julianna nodded and brought that table their condiment, another their bill, still another their sandwiches. That done, she ducked into the bathroom, something she had to do often these days.
She relieved herself, flushed the toilet, let herself out of the stall and stopped dead. A woman stood at the mirror, applying lipstick. She had hair the color of cinnamon; it fell in soft waves almost to her shoulders.
Julianna closed her eyes, her mind hurtling back fourteen years….
Her mother sat at her vanity, dressed only in her bra, panties and garter belt. Julianna stood in the doorway, watching as she leaned closer to the mirror and applied her lipstick. She drew the color evenly over her mouth, then pressed her lips together to smooth it.
Admiration and awe filled Julianna. “You’re so pretty, Mama,” she whispered, forgetting herself.
Her mother turned. And smiled. “Thank you, honey. Remember, though, when it comes to your mama, we say ‘beautiful.’ You’re pretty. Mama’s beautiful.”
Julianna bowed her head. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, sweetie, just remember next time.”
Julianna nodded and inched into the bedroom, unsure if she was welcome or not. When her mother didn’t protest, she sat gingerly on the edge of the big, satin-covered bed, careful not to crumple her dress.
She straightened her white pinafore and inspected her black patent shoes, looking for scuffs and finding none. Her mother had many rules she expected Julianna to follow, so many it was sometimes hard for five-year-old Julianna to remember them.
But Julianna never forgot that wrinkled, mussed clothing would be met with great displeasure and swift punishment. Especially when company was coming.
“Who’s visiting tonight, Mama?” she asked, resisting the urge to rub her toes together, though she liked the squeaky sound the shiny leather made when she did. “Uncle Paxton?”
“No.” Her mother took a stocking from the box on the vanity top. “Someone special.” She eased the shimmery, silky fabric up her leg, then clipped a garter to it. “Someone very special.”
“What’s his name?”
“John Powers,” her mother murmured, her expression growing faraway and soft looking. “I met him at that party at the Capital last week. The one I told you about.”
“Where they had sandwiches shaped like swans.”
“Canapés. That’s right.”
Julianna tilted her head, studying her mother. He must be special, she decided. She had never seen her mama look quite this way when talking about one of her visitors.
“I expect you to be on your best behavior.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“If you’re a really good girl, I might buy you that doll you’ve been wanting. The one with the long brown curls, just like yours.”
Julianna knew what her mother meant by being really good. It meant she was to be quiet. And cooperative. And what her mother called charming. Being really good would be rewarded. Not only by her mother, but by her gentleman friends, too. They brought her candy and small toys, they fussed over her, called her adorable, cute, pretty.
And then her mother sent her to her room.
Julianna figured that one of these days, if she was good enough, charming enough, she wouldn’t be sent to her room. One of these days, when she was older, she would have very special visitors of her own.
“I will, Mama. I promise.”
“Run along now and let me finish dressing, John will be here any moment.”
“Miss? You okay?”
Julianna blinked, startled out of her reverie. “What?”
“You okay?” The woman at the mirror dropped her lipstick back into her purse. “You were starin’ funny at me, like you seen a ghost or somethin’.”
Julianna blinked again, really seeing the woman before her for the first time. She had rough, pebbly skin and her cinnamon hair was obviously hers courtesy of a bottle. And a cheap one at that.
How had she ever thought this woman looked anything like her mother?
“I’m fine,” Julianna whispered, crossing to the sink to wash her hands. “I just…I don’t know what happened.”
The woman smiled and patted her arm. “Had six kids of my own. Nothin’ plays havoc with the mind like them hormones. It’ll get better. Then it’ll be them kids playin’ havoc with your mind.”
The woman cackled, patted her arm again and left the bathroom.
Julianna stared after her, unsettled by what had just happened. The memory had been so vivid; it had come upon her with such force and left her feeling so vulnerable. So alone.
She missed her mother, she thought, tears pricking her eyes. She missed Washington and her comfortable