Page 52 of The Book of Lost Hours

By the time Ernest had returned to his apartment, he had less than thirty minutes before he needed to leave.

He showered hastily and styled his hair as fast as he could.

His mind continued to fret as he tied and retied his tie with nervous, unsatisfied fingers.

He couldn’t get the damn thing to cooperate.

He let out a puff of breath as he stood at the mirror, thinking yet again that he should have canceled.

A part of him couldn’t help but be suspicious.

As if Jack was sending Moira in to try and find out what secrets he was keeping from the TRP.

Which wouldn’t matter if he didn’t have anything to hide…

except he did. And yet here he was, about to go on a date with her anyway.

For the first time in his life, Ernest understood what had attracted the men of Greek mythology to the sirens of certain death.

Unable to stop themselves from willingly stepping out to sea.

The sound of the clock in the hall told him it was time to leave.

He let out a grunt of frustration and finally cast off his tie altogether, letting it drop to the floor of his bedroom.

He was being foolish, he told himself. Moira Donnelly was not a mythological creature of doom, nor was she some conniving, ill-meaning double agent who would sell him out to Jack.

What she was was a woman. A kind, lovely woman who had made disparaging jokes at Jack’s expense and could recite poetry by heart.

That was the woman he was going on a date with.

His embattled feelings about her were just that.

Feelings. Based on nothing but paranoia and his own guilty conscience.

Moira was waiting for him on the steps of the boardinghouse, dressed in a pale blue dress he’d never seen her wear to the office, short hair pinned back away from her face.

She smiled and raised her hand in greeting as he parked the car, and for a moment, Ernest forgot everything he’d been worrying about up until now.

She lifted the handle just as he was opening his own door and slid into the seat beside him.

Ernest faltered, one foot poised on the pavement.

“Oh,” he said, letting the door fall shut again. “Well, all right then.”

Moira looked at him, a frown furrowing her brow. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing. I was just going to get the door for you.”

“Oh!” Moira’s cheeks flushed pink. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

“That’s all right.”

“If you want, I can get back out so you can…”

“No, no, it’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, looking genuinely distressed. “It’s just I’ve never… I mean, I haven’t…”

Ernest smiled at her stammering. “It’s been a while for me too,” he admitted quietly.

Moira let out a breath and smiled back at him. “I guess we’re both out of practice.”

“I guess so.”

They looked at each other for a long moment and then Ernest cleared his throat, turning to start the car again.

Moira shifted in her seat as the engine turned over and Ernest was suddenly made aware of the scent of her perfume permeating the leather-scented interior of his car.

It smelled of lilacs and some other, subtle yet impossibly familiar scent that made it rather difficult for him to focus on driving.

He swallowed a few times as he turned down the street, trying to come up with something to say.

Normally he was decent at small talk. Or at least he had been the last time he’d gone on a date.

But now he couldn’t seem to separate his tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to string two words together.

“So… where are we going?” Moira asked, breaking the silence. She was twisting her hands in her lap.

“I made reservations at Salle Du Bois,” he said. “They play music there on Fridays. I thought it might be nice.”

“Salle Du Bois?” she repeated, sounding skeptical. “Isn’t that… you know… a little upscale?”

“Well… yeah, a bit.” Moira frowned down at her dress and Ernest suddenly understood her concern. “Don’t worry, you look… I mean, that dress is… you’ll be fine.”

She bit her lip sheepishly. “It’s not that, it’s just…” Her cheeks were even redder than before.

“What is it?”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a tie?” she asked. “I mean, won’t they not let you in?”

Ernest’s heart sank a little. She was right. He thought of the tie he’d dropped in frustration onto his bedroom floor.

“I didn’t think of that,” he said, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I normally wear one, I was just struggling with it because I was…” He paused and cleared his throat. “I was in a hurry.”

Moira smiled faintly. “It’s okay,” she said, shaking her head.

“No, it’s not, I promised you dinner.”

“We can still have dinner.”

“Where? It’s too late to try and get in anywhere decent,” he lamented, truly kicking himself now.

Moira was quiet for a moment. She turned her attention out the window and suddenly sat up a little straighter. “Turn here,” she said, pointing.

Ernest, not knowing what else to do, obliged her, cranking the wheel sharply to make the turn.

They drove for another few minutes before she had him pull over in front of a row of dusty-looking shops.

Outside one of them, a bakery of sorts, an elderly man was sweeping the front steps. The sign on the door read Closed.

Ernest frowned. “It doesn’t look open.”

“It isn’t.”

She got out of the car before he could stop her and called out.

Ernest followed, fumbling his keys as he locked the car behind him.

By the time he caught up to her, she was in the midst of an animated conversation with the old man.

His wrinkled, stern face lit up at the sight of her and the two of them were chattering away in…

was she speaking German? Ernest stayed fixed to the curb, watching her exchange play out.

The way her eyes seemed to sparkle. The way the old man smiled at her with a special fondness of two people who crossed paths regularly.

After a few minutes, the man set a hand on her shoulder and stepped away into his shop, leaving his broom propped against one wall.

Something pulled at the center of Ernest’s chest as Moira turned to look at him, beaming.

“He’s getting us bagels,” she said, coming back to him.

“Bagels?” Ernest asked, eyeing the shop again.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s…” He blinked, looking back at her. “Where did you learn to speak German?”

For reasons he couldn’t possibly fathom, her face suddenly fell. “Oh, I… my neighbors growing up were German. My parents were factory workers. They had to work late hours, so I spent a lot of time at their apartment.”

“You speak Russian, too, right? I’ve seen you translating some of it for Jack a few times.”

“Y-yes,” she stammered.

“Another neighbor?” Ernest teased. He meant it to be a joke but could tell by the way her eyes darted around nervously that she didn’t take it as one.

“It was an immigrant neighborhood,” she said in a hushed, almost embarrassed voice.

“Huh,” Ernest said, thinking this over. Soviet ex-spy, Brady had said.

German turncoat. She was neither of those things.

Just a poor girl from the other side of the tracks.

Not like him, who might as well have grown up in a gilded bubble for all the worldly experience his childhood had given him.

He felt guilty for ever assuming the worst of her.

“Well, I guess that explains why Jack was so eager to hire you,” he said, trying to alleviate her shame.

“I guess so,” she said, biting her lip.

Ernest wanted to ask her more, but then the old man returned holding two brown paper bags. He handed them to Moira with that same fond smile on his face and waved away the money that Ernest tried to hand him.

“He seems sweet,” Ernest said, folding the bills back into his wallet.

“He is,” Moira said, smiling at the shop windows. “I met him during my first months here. He reminds me a little of my father.”

Ernest eyed her in amusement. “A German bagel maker reminds you of your father?”

She shrugged. “A bit.”

“Aren’t you Irish Catholic?”

“Yes,” she said, offering no further explanation. She gestured down the well-lit street. “Should we walk?”

“Walk?”

“Sure. It’s nice out. Not too cold.”

Ernest tucked his keys back into his pocket, along with his wallet.

“Free bagels and a walk downtown. How’s that for a first date?” He laughed, head shaking. “You’re not hard to please, are you, Moira Donnelly?”

For the second time that evening, her cheeks were dusted with a blush as she dropped her eyes to the sidewalk. “It’s the company I care about more,” she said softly.

Ernest fought to swallow the lump that arose at her words.

She met his gaze and once again he felt the tug of something inevitable drawing him further and further in.

As if an invisible thread existed between them, had always existed between them, pulling them into each other like the moon pulling the tide to shore.

That night, they walked the streets of DC twice over, venturing up and down the sidewalks, eating bagels from paper bags.

They didn’t talk about work, not even for a second, and Ernest was glad for it, not wanting any mention of Jack or the office or the TRP to ruin the evening.

Overhead, the moon shone down on them as if it was smiling and Ernest caught her looking up at it from time to time, her pale face illuminated in its glow.

As they wound their way slowly back to his car, she reached for his hand, entwining her fingers in his as if that was where they’d always belonged.

He didn’t let go until they were standing at the gates of the boardinghouse hours later, the night drawing to a close around them.

She turned to him with a shy smile and Ernest, unable to help himself, leaned forward to kiss her cheek good night. When he pulled back, he studied her face in the lamplight, noting the way the very stars seemed to shine in her eyes. With one hand, he brushed a stray hair off her forehead.

“You are…” he began, hardly knowing what he meant to say, “… like the moon, only brighter.”

Her eyes widened at his words. His eyes darted down to her lips and then back, and the next thing he knew, she stepped toward him, pulling him close by the collar of his shirt.

Ernest gasped as their lips met, and then he sighed as she deepened the kiss.

He pulled her closer, clasping one arm around her waist, his other hand cupping her cheek.

The lilac scent of her perfume had faded, leaving behind that other, subtler scent that seemed so familiar.

Like a memory. Like nostalgia. Like home.

The sheer act of kissing her sent up a flare to his entire body, setting every nerve alight.

Alarmed by the sudden, overwhelming crash of emotions, he moved closer, pressing her back against the gate, one hand gripping the metal bar just over her head.

He should stop, he knew he should stop, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

Until she made a noise, and he became aware of a certain stirring where his lower body was flush against hers.

Instantly, he drew back in horror. Her eyes were just as wide as his, and his heart sank in an instant, knowing he’d crossed a line.

“I… sorry,” he said breathlessly. “I didn’t mean to…”

He tensed, expecting her to slap him, but she didn’t. Instead, the shock of her expression gave way to amusement.

“Been a while, has it?”

Ernest began stammering at once. He ran an anxious hand through his hair, ruining the gel he’d so carefully put in place. “I-I-I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that I was… I shouldn’t have… I swear, I would never try to…”

“Ernest,” she said, taking his hand to cut off his babbling. “It’s fine.”

“No, it isn’t. I…”

Moira started laughing, which almost mortified him further until she said, “Don’t worry about it. But if you want to make it up to me… do you think we could do this again sometime?”

“Do… that again?” Ernest asked, swallowing hard.

“I meant the date. But that, too, I suppose.”

Ernest took in the flirtatious look on her face, the stirring feeling inside of him surging with renewed intensity. He looked away and cleared his throat loudly.

“Yes, I… I would like that. The date, I mean,” he added for good measure.

She laughed at him and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “How about next week?”

He relaxed at the simple, uncomplicated gesture, returning her smile. “Next week sounds perfect.”

As he watched her walk away, the world seemed to move in slow motion.

The blue of her dress as it swayed in the night air.

The bright light of the moon blazing in her eyes.

The graceful, fluid movements of her body as she turned to smile back at him.

All of it left him breathless. A strange feeling crept up on him.

Nostalgia for a moment that had not yet passed.

A trick of the memory that made him feel as if he had stood here before in this very spot, watching this woman walk away from him under the light of a full moon, the phantom feeling of her lips still lingering on his.

As Moira Donnelly slipped through the door to the boardinghouse and out of sight, Ernest let go of the remainder of his doubts and allowed himself to be swept away. A tide pulled inexorably to shore by the ceaseless draw of the moon.