Amanda began bustling around the kitchen, pulling bread out of the cupboard and then leaning into the fridge to start pulling sandwich fixings out. "What do you feel like? I've got tuna salad, ham, baloney, chicken salad..."
"Chicken salad? Seriously?" Lee was startled – he didn't think Amanda would ever have gone near another chicken salad sandwich after eating the poisoned one a few years back.
Amanda grinned at him over the fridge door. "No, not seriously. Still can't stand the smell of them. How about a BLT?"
"Oh my God, I haven't had a decent BLT in weeks but they're too much trouble. Just throw me together anything."
Without missing a beat, Amanda reached in and pulled out the bacon, tomato, lettuce and mayo and then turned to grab a frying pan out of the drying rack and put it on to heat. "There's beer and an open bottle of California white in the fridge, but if you want to pair the bacon with a red, you'll need to go pick something off the rack."
Lee moved past her towards the dining room and the wine rack, squeezing her shoulder as he passed. There was silence for a few minutes as they moved comfortably around each other in the kitchen, Lee digging out a corkscrew and wine glasses while Amanda sliced tomatoes and shredded lettuce while keeping an eye on the frying bacon. Lee placed a glass of wine at her elbow and went to perch on one of the stools. He was completely content to be back in this Arlington kitchen, relaxing as he watched the purposeful movements of the woman working across the kitchen.
"So where is everyone anyway? Was that your mother on the phone?"
"Yes, Aunt Lillian invited them up for the first couple of weeks of summer holiday. The boys get to spend every day at the beach and Mother and Aunt Lillian get to spend every day rehashing all their old arguments while Curt plays referee. It's a perfect holiday for everyone." She smiled up at him as she finished putting the sandwich together and pushed it across the counter towards him.
"You didn't want to go?" Lee asked before taking an enormous bite out of it, and then closed his eyes at the ecstasy of a perfectly made BLT hit him.
"No, it meant I got some time home alone, so that's my vacation. And it means I could get in some extra hours at work even if it has been dull stuck behind a desk." She pretended to glare at Lee who just grinned around his sandwich. "And besides, how was I going to get to the Post's classified office from the coast of Maine? Speaking of which, where have you been for the last week? I almost had a heart attack today when Billy asked me if I'd heard from you. I thought he was onto us, but I think he was just actually worried about you."
Lee swallowed his mouthful of sandwich and said "Yeah, somewhere in West Berlin there's going to be a clerk who will be getting an earful from him. Somehow my check-in message didn't get passed along so he never knew I was done but staying to finish up the reports, and I didn't know he hadn't gotten it until I called in from Dulles."
He finished the last bite of sandwich and leaned back, lifting his glass of wine and toasting in her direction. "That was fantastic – now I feel like I'm home."
"And I'm glad you're home. It's been fun watching Francine chase the Chinese all these weeks but it's definitely more fun when you're around."
"The Chinese? What on earth has been going on while I was gone? Didn't you say she was doing stakeouts at the Australian Embassy? Did we start an intelligence war with them while I was gone?"
"Oh Skippy, it's all your fault, and if you'd been here to see it, it wouldn't have happened, but I really wish you'd been here to see it because it's been the most fun I've had for months."
Lee blinked as he followed Amanda into the family room and they flopped on opposite ends of the sofa, Amanda with her feet tucked up under her while Lee stretched out with his feet up on the coffee table. "I understand all the words in that sentence but I have no idea what you just said"
"Well it all started when Francine rescued me from typing Fred's reports by asking me to help her scan the classifieds, and it was actually her that spotted your first ad. I wish I could have seen my face when she started reading it out loud and trying to remember where she'd heard 'just walk with me' before."
Lee started to laugh. "I thought it would be your mother who'd find them because she's always reading all those missed connection columns and stuff." He paused and thought back "Wait, so who's Aunt Dee if it wasn't D for Dotty?"
"Well, that was Francine – D for Desmond. I couldn't put anything that make her more suspicious because that first ad being in all three papers made her think it was someone trying to recruit a defector and after that she was watching all the papers."
"What?"
"You have no idea what you started, Lee. It was all the walking and the rambling. I knew you meant my rambling, but she thought it was all about someone walking over from the other side. It took her about five minutes to have Billy and Efraim helping her figure out if there was any Russians in Leesburg. I wish you could have seen it."
"You mean Francine has been following all the ads the whole time? And who's Efraim?"
"Efraim Beaman – from Codes and Ciphers? And the Christmas parties? Did you seriously never know his first name?" Lee shrugged apologetically.
"Anyway, there were days I didn't even need to look for your ads because two of them had found them before I got to work." Amanda grinned at the memory of the last several weeks. "That's why I started putting in all the song lyrics. It gave Efraim something to study for hidden codes and he was practically living out in the bullpen this whole time. It was so much fun – and it sure made him the happiest guy in the place."
Lee's eyebrows twitched together in annoyance "So you've spent the whole time I was away having a great time with Beaman?"
Amanda started to laugh and leaned over to pat his knee. "Not me – Francine! It's been the job of his dreams. He's had an excuse to hang around her desk for weeks or she's been hanging around his. You should have seen them studying the lyrics of Midnight Rambler – they spent an entire lunch hour on it. I'm almost disappointed you're home – I had a whole 'Waltzing Matilda theme planned next."
"Waltzing Matilda? What on earth has been going on? You never did say why she's staking out the Australian Embassy."
"And the Chinese. And the French. I offered to help her out with those but, well gee, somehow it was more important that a real agent help out, so Efraim got that job too." She grinned and settled back against the arm of the sofa and sipped her wine. "Okay, so right from the get-go, Francine was convinced that your ad was about a double agent or a defector walking over to the other side, so I wanted to answer but I had to be really vague, right? But then when your next ad had that line about Ling-Ling, suddenly she was convinced it was the Chinese and she managed to convince Billy she was onto something. And then because I had put my ad in over the weekend with the kangaroo comment in, she saw the two at the same time and then she started figuring Australian Intelligence was in on it too." She chuckled as Lee choked on his wine. "You should have seen her trying to anagram 'The World' into a code phrase."
"Nice one by the way – I wasn't sure you'd get that, but it was easier to get an ad in Le Monde from where I was"
"Well, to be fair, actually that was Efraim again, He got to the papers before me that week and it wasn't until I saw which one it was in that I made the connection. But anyway, by that time, I was having so much fun and it was keeping Francine too busy to pick on me and I think after a while Billy figured there was nothing going on, but it kept her being nice to Efraim, and kept her from picking fights with everyone because she was too busy to be in a bad mood. Like I said, it's almost disappointing you're home"
"Really?" he peered at her from under half-closed lids.
"No, not really". She leaned forward and put her hand over his and squeezed to emphasize her point. Lee turned his hand over and began to absently his thumb over her fingers, falling silent as he stared at their interlocked hands. "New war wound?" she asked, nodding to the latest red mark that ran along his right temple. "Jealous husband?"
Lee grinned as he looked back up at her, "Doorway in fifteen-century castle. I always forget I'm too tall for them. But it was worth it just to hear how much we've been driving Francine crazy. You're right, I wish I'd been here to watch."
As he talked, Amanda had watched Lee sinking deeper and deeper into the sofa cushions, the shadows under his eyes getting darker even in the brief time they'd been sitting there. Glancing at the clock on the wall past his head, she mentally did the math and realized it was after 3:00 am in Europe. She stood up and collected the empty wine glass from his other hand.
"Don't get up. I'm just going to go throw the laundry in the dryer". Lee swung his legs up sofa space she'd left vacant and closed his eyes to listen to the sounds of Amanda moving quietly around the laundry and kitchen. A deep sense of peace came over him; he never heard her come back with the blanket she'd gone to fetch as soon as she'd realized he was falling asleep in front of her. She tucked it around him and turned the family room lights off except for the small lamp in the corner. Brushing his hair off his forehead, she leaned forward to drop a kiss on the newest scar. "Welcome home Lee" she whispered and watched as even in deep sleep, he smiled and those deeply-missed dimples appeared.
SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK**
It was 4:00 in Arlington when Lee woke up again. He was momentarily disoriented when he opened his eyes and found himself facing the sofa cushions, but as rolled onto his back, he realized he was still in Amanda's family room and that despite a crick in his neck from sleeping on a sofa, he'd woken more relaxed and refreshed than he had in several weeks. Swinging upright, he glanced down at the note on the coffee table in front of him and started to grin as he read the Amanda ramble.
Hey Big Fella,
I wasn't sure how long you'd sleep so I moved your car into my garage so that Edna next door doesn't think I'm having a 'thing" while Mother and the boys are away. I raided your duffle bag from the trunk and did your laundry—
Lee paused to laugh at the image of Amanda methodically mothering him even when he was asleep.
-Everything's back in the bag except your dress shirt which is still soaking to get that bloodstain out of it. Please tell me that's from you banging your head and not some other injury you haven't told me about. I didn't look at anything except the clothes, but if that square box at the bottom is chocolates, you should probably think about giving that to Francine for teasing her for so long even if you didn't know you were. I brought your gun in from the car and it's at the bottom of the bag. Come for dinner and tell me what you've been up to and don't bother with the need-to-know line, buster; we both know you're going to make me type up your report. I know you don't eat breakfast, but there's fresh poppyseed cake on the counter. I thought maybe it wouldn't count as breakfast if it was dessert.
Love A.
P.S. I'm really glad you're home.
"I'm really glad I'm home too" he thought to himself. He carefully folded up the note and put it in his shirt pocket before grabbing the pad and pen she'd left to write her a note in return.
Amanda,
Sorry I crashed out on you, but you know what jet lag is like. Can't say I'm not going to miss Ling-Ling and Roo but I'm also glad to be home. Dinner sounds great. I'll pick up the steaks and come by around six?
Chocolates are for you – I have a better idea for Francine.
Lee.
P.S. Thanks for the laundry – when are you going to learn you don't need to do things like that? Yes, the blood is from the door – I managed to stay fairly intact this time, even without you there to watch my tail.
SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK** SMK**SMK**
Francine leapt to her feet and groaned out loud as she read the latest ad in the Post. "Damnit – I think the exchange happened and we missed the whole thing! I can't believe we never picked up anything through any of the other channels!" As she tossed the paper down on her desk, someone reached around her and placed a bamboo plant in front of her. "Efraim, why are you bringing me panda food?" she asked.
"The Chinese consider it to be lucky" said a deep voice behind her before she was spun around and wrapped in two arms that curled around her in a hug and lifted her off the ground. "I thought you'd like it, to help with catching your evasive defector."
"Lee! When did you get home? How do you know about my defector? You brought me a plant? Me and my black thumb? What were you thinking?"
Lee put her back down on the ground and held up his hands in the surrender position. "Have you been taking lessons from Amanda while I was away?" He laughed as Francine's eyes narrowed at the comparison and leaned forward to drop a kiss on her forehead. "I got home on Friday, I heard about your defector from Amanda and yes, I even brought you a plant as a thank you for looking after her while I was away. And I'm sure that she won't let you and your black thumb let it die – it's pretty hardy stuff."
Francine was so pleased to see that cocky grin back in the office that she decided to not make a comment about how he had obviously sought out Amanda on the weekend instead of waiting to get back in the office.
"Well I can't say I really looked after her much. I spent all my spare time trying to figure out these stupid coded ads in the Post and I didn't even get anywhere."
"Oh that's not what I hear, Francine. From the way she tells it, you and your defector kept her amused all the time I was away. Come and have a coffee with me and tell me all about it. Let's start with why you thought I was Beaman just now. I hear he's actually been quite helpful. And he's Efraim now? When did that happen?"
As he led Francine away towards the coffee station, he winked at Amanda who paused at Francine's desk and glanced down at the circled ad in that day's paper.
Thanks Aunt Dee for looking after Ling-Ling and Roo. Everyone is safely home and walking on sunshine.
