The Organization (3 page)

“Hello there. Mind if I join you?” asked Joanna.

“Oh, no, of course not,” Charlotte replied, and Joanna sat beside her on the bench.

“It’s a bit eerie out here, don’t you think?” Joanna asked, her head cocked slightly to the side.

“I think it’s quite peaceful, really,” Charlotte said. “It’s still. Calm.” She felt a twinge of self-consciousness and looked over at Joanna, whose face was lit by the street lamps and from which she inferred that her own face must be hidden in the shadows.

“Did you want to be alone?  I didn’t mean to bother your… calm.”  Something in Joanna’s voice hinted of teasing, but she gave Charlotte a small, kind smile.

“Truth is, I’m not accustomed to a lot of company. I usually eat alone. And then I go home and I’m –”

“Alone?” Joanna asked.

Charlotte nodded, and added, “Not that I’m opposed to the company, mind you.”

They were quiet for a moment, both looking at the river, before Joanna said, “I do hope you’ll join our football team.”

“Thanks, but… I don’t know.” Her mind raced to fabricate a reason for why joining the team would be a bad idea, but she came up short.

“It would be good for you. You could meet some people. I’ve got some good friends who have signed up for another season, and I think you’d like them.”

“Listen, Joanna.  I appreciate it, but –”

“But nothing. Give them a chance. Meet them. I’m having a dinner party on Thursday night and a bunch of people from the team will be there. Will you come?” Joanna’s eyes sparkled with excitement, the streetlights shining on her pupils.

Charlotte hesitated, and Joanna added, “Don’t say no.”

In a careful, quiet tone, Charlotte said, “You hardly know me.  Why do you care?”

Joanna’s face relaxed into an easy smile. “I’ve got a good feeling about you, Charlie. So will you come? Thursday night at my place?”

A chilly wind blew and Charlotte hugged her jacket closer around her body.  “I’ll think about it.”

Joanna poked her in the ribs. “You’ll come.”

Charlotte gave a short laugh, surprised at her lack of resistance. “All right, I’ll come.”

“Cheers,” Joanna replied with a grin.

#

Charlotte tied a purple ribbon around the neck of the bottle of non-alcoholic Merlot. Her parents would have turned their noses up at the bottle, but these days the genuine item was very rare indeed. The government’s campaign warning for everyone to be “ever vigilant, ever ready” also discouraged the drinking of real alcohol.

Charlotte felt the sleeve of a black button-down dress shirt that was hanging to dry on a line in her apartment. Satisfied that it was dry, she pulled it down and put it on. She looked through her several pairs of pants for the pair that had the fewest patches and obvious signs of being mended, and settled on her oversized cargo pants that she wore most days. At least they passed the sniff test.

She wasn’t entirely happy to go to Joanna’s dinner party. She knew she couldn’t make an excuse to leave early since both Joanna and she had work immediately afterward and would probably walk there together. She also admitted that the idea of walking to work with someone, with Joanna, didn’t make her entirely
un
happy. She hadn’t made any new friends in a long while. She had made a habit of keeping people at a distance.

As Charlotte pressed the buzzer to Joanna’s flat, she felt a sudden impulse to flee. She hadn’t always been anti-social, but the war had changed her. It had changed everybody. For Charlotte, the issue wasn’t just the crowd, but the chance of being found out, and then mistreated and derided for who she was.

The door opened. Joanna was dressed somewhat formally, in a pressed pair of black slacks and a flowing lilac shirt. Charlotte recognized the design of the shirt as one she had seen in the shops this season, and felt a tinge of intimidation stemming from how Joanna could afford new clothes.

“Charlie, I’m so glad you came,” Joanna said, kissing her once on each cheek.

“Thanks for inviting me,” Charlotte replied.

As she followed Joanna into her flat, the sounds of the other guests rose in volume. In total, the apartment was filled with a dozen people: ten of Joanna’s friends, Charlotte, and Joanna herself. They looked over at Charlotte in interest, curious about the newcomer to their circle.

“Is this the new footballer?” asked a shorter man with a face of orange bristles.

“Come off it, Geoff,” replied Joanna in a light tone. “She hasn’t agreed yet.”

Geoff held out his hand to her and Charlotte shook it.  Geoff said, “Well I’m the captain of our motley crew of footballers.  You look fit, like you work out.  Maybe you’d like to ‘work out’ with me?” he asked, grinning.  He had waggled his eyebrows in a suggestive way.

“Don’t mind him, Charlie,” Joanna said. “He’s hitting the funny pills early tonight.”

Charlotte looked Geoff up and down, and said to him, “I’m not sure you could keep up with me, although no doubt you’d like to try.”

“Oh-ho-ho,” Geoff replied, grinning even wider. He added, “I like this one, Joanna. She’ll do just fine.”

The meal itself passed quickly and painlessly enough, and gave Charlotte the opportunity to learn more about her potential teammates. She learned that Geoff was terminally single, but seemed to be a decent enough guy. Two other people turned out to be a couple, and they were polite but reserved, perhaps out of tension in their relationship. Charlotte had noticed the woman, named Harriet, because of her striking looks – stormy blue eyes, chin-length black hair that contrasted with her very fair skin, and tailored clothes on her slender frame – but didn’t find an opportunity to talk to her. There was nothing notable about the others. They seemed to all be twenty-to-thirty-something professional workers and standup citizens – if one could overlook the small recreational drug habit of Geoff and a couple of the others.

After dinner was finished, Charlotte helped with clearing off the table, despite Joanna’s insistence that she should just enjoy the party. On one trip back to the table from the kitchen, Charlotte saw Harriet across the room, hugging her arms across her chest and looking out the picture window. The other half of the couple, a man, stood at her side, facing her. Charlotte couldn’t make out what the man was saying, but his furrowed brow and aggressive posture gave her pause. She felt drawn to Harriet, and experienced an inexplicable urge to walk over and intervene. A second or two passed before she began to feel as though she were intruding on an intimate moment, and so she made her way back to the kitchen with the last round of dishes.

Around twenty minutes before Joanna and Charlotte were due at work, Joanna excused herself from the party so she could tidy up in her bedroom before heading out. She asked Charlotte to come with her.

Charlotte leaned back against a wall in Joanna’s bedroom and thanked her again for having invited her to the party.

“You’ll really have to stop that, you know.  The excessive politeness.  It’s not necessary in our group,” Joanna said, smiling.  She slipped her shirt off over her head and pulled on a lightweight sweater.

“Sorry,” Charlotte said.

“Just don’t let it happen again,” Joanna teased. A moment passed and Joanna added, “I saw you eyeing Harriet at dinner, by the way. You know she’s partnered, right?”

Charlotte cleared her throat, unaware that she had been caught looking at the quiet, dark-haired woman. She said, “Yes, I figured – with Thomas, right?”

“Mm-hmm.  They’ve been together for a while now,” Joanna replied, maintaining eye contact with her guest.

“Good for them,” Charlotte replied evenly.

Joanna gave an exaggerated sigh and laughed.  “One day, Charlie, I’m going to get you to open up.”

“Fortunately for me, we have to get going to work now,” Charlotte replied.

Chapter Six

By the time Thursday night arrived, Charlotte had stopped thinking about Harriet and the party, and instead was looking forward to seeing an old friend who she hadn’t seen in a while.

Charlotte had chosen a table with a view of the sidewalk, so she might see when Erin arrived. She had been sitting in the booth, with its high backs and sticky wooden table, long enough to watch a half dozen people finish their drinks and leave while double that number entered the pub.  She wished that the beer she was drinking had alcohol in it.

Erin rushed into the pub, her frizzy hair styled into tight braids on one side of her head but blowing wildly in the air on the other side.  Charlotte recognized this as a fashionable look, although fashion in general had swung back toward the conservative end of the spectrum.  Designers were showcasing styles that were nearly a century old, a throwback to the 1940s and the previous World War.  She had wondered if these styles were themselves propaganda, relying on nostalgia to make the masses more patriotic and to convince them that more stable times were ahead.

Erin sidestepped into the booth, leaning over the table to kiss Charlotte on one cheek and, in the process, giving her friend an ample view of her cleavage.  Erin was not oblivious to this exposure, as evidenced by her adjusting her silk blouse as she settled back against the booth.

“Have you been waiting long?” Erin asked.

“About a half hour,” Charlotte answered.  Back when everyone had mobile devices, she would have expected Erin to let her know she was running late.  But since the government had banned the use of such devices, citing them as a security risk, Charlotte – and the rest of the population – had adapted to the lack of connectivity.  Maybe it made everyone more patient, Charlotte wasn’t sure, but it certainly seemed to make them more present.

Erin had abruptly gotten up before returning from the bar with a beer. She sighed dramatically and asked, “Where were we?”

“We weren’t anywhere yet.  How have you been, Erin?” Charlotte asked.

“I’ve been doing fine, my dear.  But I’m better now that I see you.  It’s been too long and I blame you entirely for that.” She pursed her lips and squinted sideways to let on that she was teasing.

“Oh really?  Well, you know where to find me,” Charlotte defended herself.  “I haven’t heard any knocks on my door lately.” She smiled to soften her comment.

“And would I be welcome?” Erin asked.

“Of course,” Charlotte responded lightly.  She drank her beer, relieved to break eye contact.

“By the way, did you see that disgusting poster about one block north?” Erin asked.

“I didn’t come that way,” Charlotte replied.  “Why?  What was it?”

“Oh, it was just that typical ‘anti-septic’ filth,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “Who knows who even plastered it up there.”  Erin referred to the Cockney rhyming slang of septic, short for septic tank, which was a play on the word Yank.  To be anti-septic was to be anti-American.

“That was funny.  You know, pairing the words septic and filth, like you just did,” Charlotte replied, not commenting on the substance of the matter.  There were any number of groups who could have put up anti-American posters; the government not only allowed it but also tacitly approved.

Erin’s hand reached across the table and rested on her friend’s, preventing Charlotte from drinking again.

“You don’t have to pretend for me, Charlie.”

“I’m not pretending.  Anyway, I’d like for you to come over sometime.  You’re right that it’s been too long,” she responded.  “We could…” Charlotte searched for words, “cook something, or play cards, or…”

“Sit and talk about Maggie?” Erin probed, although her tone was kind.

Charlotte swallowed hard and pulled her hand away. “You know, I never hear her name anymore.  Everyone I knew – that we knew together – has moved on.  Literally.  They’ve mainly moved to other parts of London or even up north, and we don’t ever seem to cross paths.”

“Maybe it’s good to hear her name, to talk about her,” Erin offered.

“What good would it do? It won’t bring her back,” Charlotte said, forcing a shrug.

Erin turned her mug in circles in her hands.  “I miss her too, Charlie,” she said.

Charlotte inhaled sharply and then let her breath out in a sigh. “You know, it’s been years and sometimes it still seems like it was just yesterday that she was waking me up to the smell of bacon and eggs.  Oh, and coffee.  Maggie made the best coffee.” She shook her head and continued, “But as much as it hurts to think about her, to know that she’s gone forever, sometimes I’m happy she can’t see me now.”

“What do you mean?” Erin asked.

“Come on, Maggie would be so disappointed.  She always thought I’d be the next Rachel Carson,” she replied, glancing down in embarrassment.

“Who?”

“She wrote
Silent Spring
in the middle of the twentieth century.  She kick-started the environmental movement,” Charlotte replied.

“Oh,” Erin said, her eyebrows furrowed momentarily before her expression changed to one less interpretable. “You know, if not for Maggie, you and I never would have met.  We wouldn’t be sitting here right now, having this lovely conversation.” Charlotte couldn’t tell if Erin was being sarcastic with her use of “lovely.”

“Then you would be here with someone else, whoever else Maggie had fallen in love with,” Charlotte replied, her tone growing more guarded.

“I’m trying to say that I’m glad I know you, my dear. I know we don’t see each other very often, and I wish that weren’t so.”

Charlotte was surprised by Erin’s straight-forwardness, and took a moment to respond.  “Thank you.  I just… haven’t been myself lately.”

“Relationship troubles?” Erin asked.

“I’d need to have a relationship before I could have problems with it,” Charlotte replied.

“No friends?  Friends with benefits?  Friends who could turn into friends with benefits?” Erin asked, leaning forward over the table in a way that Charlotte could only read as suggestive.

“I know you aren’t flirting with me,” Charlotte said cautiously.

“Would you hold it against me if I were?” Erin asked, a smile playing on her lips.

Charlotte held eye contact with Erin for several moments longer, then shook her head and laughed. “Erin… I need to get going.  I have work tonight.”