The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis

Author:Barbara Davis [Davis, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

How silly of me to have pinned all my hopes on a suitcase. You remember the one, don’t you? A large leather affair bought especially for the trip? I had your new initials stamped in gold on the top. You teared up when you saw it and traced your fingers over the letters. We talked about all the places we’d go, all the adventures we’d have when the war was over. Paris and Rome and Barcelona. Do you remember it, Belle? The plans and the promises?

Do you remember us?

Regretting Belle

(pgs. 73–86)

5 December 1941

New York, New York

Well, we’ve got here at last, the end of our story—or very nearly the end. It was always inevitable, I suppose, that the spell we wove during those brief blissful weeks would unravel, that the day would come when you would be forced to choose between loyalty to your family and a life with me, but I never imagined that having made it, you would be able to walk away so cleanly. But time does funny things to the memory, twisting it into something convenient and crooked. And so I’ll set the scene, in case the details have slipped your mind.

It’s the day before we’re set to leave, and I’ve taken a taxi to the Review building to do the thing I’m dreading. I’ve been wrestling with my conscience for some time but made the decision only last night. I was tempted to handle the business by phone, but bad news is always best delivered in person, and the news I have to deliver today will come as very bad news indeed.

Goldie is seated behind her desk, scanning a page of copy with a pencil caught between her teeth. She glances up, flashing me one of her too-wide smiles. “Well, if it isn’t my star reporter. Tell me you’re here to say it’s finished. I can’t wait to see that bastard twisting in the wind.” Her smile slips suddenly, replaced with a frown as she registers my stony expression. “Oh god. Please don’t tell me there’s a problem with the story.”

“The problem is with me, Goldie.”

She looks confused but a little relieved too. “Why? What’s happened?”

“I’m leaving the paper. Leaving New York, actually.”

She stares at me, stunned. “You’re . . . what?”

“This isn’t what I want to do. I don’t think it ever was. I wish I’d realized it sooner, but I realize it now.”

She pushes to her feet, her face like a storm cloud. “You can’t be serious!”

“But I am. I leave tomorrow. Chicago, then California.”

There’s a pause, a beat of confused silence as she glares at me. “If this is a shakedown for more money—”

“It’s not a shakedown, Goldie. I’m just finished.”

“You’re about to deliver the scoop of the decade. You can’t just bail! What about the story? Is it finished?”

“No. And it won’t be.”

“You said your sources were solid, that everything was checking out. What happened?”

“Nothing’s happened. I just decided I can’t go ahead with it. Even if I could absolutely prove what I’ve been told, which I probably can’t, it’s wrong to print it.

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