#hi jo

It’s a rotten little note that comes for her in London. He could have called to tell her he’d gotten the ring back — like a grownup. Jo pictures him sat at his Remington Noiseless, stabbing out the letters in dying blue ink, correcting the date on that wartime onionskin paper they all hate. Like it’s to his fucking editor.

Entirely William, she thinks. Suddenly, every moment she spent in his arms comes back to her like a bee sting. No sparkling stones on her finger, like the afterimage of bright lights. Good riddance. She wasn’t meant for them, anyway. Diamonds or spinels or white sapphires. Paste stones, maybe. Cut glass.

It might be fun to pull out her lighter and set it on fire. The letter. The words about how maybe he’d overstepped, in what he’d said, but that she couldn’t deny what it looked like. What what looked like? she wants to ask, even though she knows exactly what he’s talking about. Doing my job? Doing what every man here does? Being a little ruthless like you? Like he’d like to be, anyway. Easier to make up stories in his head about what he thought she did to get a story. 

A knock at the door — she has a phonecall. 

Kay would say he deserved another sock in the jaw for what he’d said about his mother being right. God, that’s another thing she can’t think about, scampering down the stairs behind the bellboy in her trousers and half her sweater set. William wasn’t enough of a coward to go whining about it to anyone, although the idea that it would have made it very far up any ladder is laughable. He did have shame somewhere underneath all that pressed cotton. 

The night clerk eyes her warily, hands her the receiver. 

“Josephine?” The voice she recognizes instantly, somehow contained inside a machine. “Jo Brandt?”

“This is she.”

“What kind of hotel’s your paper springing for that doesn’t give a lady her own phone?” The crowing voice inside the wire all the way from the airfield. She exhales like a laugh, like it’s a little punch to her chest. “Good, I’ve got the right girl.”

“The one and only.” Oh, does she sound bitter.

“I’m glad you picked up.” She turns, leans a bare arm against the wall. “Listen,” he says. “I should say I’m sorry, but-” 

She can see his hand in his hair, the jacket and his shoulders. 

“Don’t-”

“I won’t,” he says. “Because I’m not.” Maybe he should, maybe he shouldn’t. “My mother will be delighted to know she was right after all.” Maybe she wouldn’t have minded if he’d loosened a few of William’s teeth. “But I will ask that your next drink’s on me.”

She could use a drink right now, staring down a stack of proofs  and Kay’s contact sheets and a red pencil. The best she can do here is some weak tea. “The next time I’m in town, sure.”

“Maybe a little sooner than that, I hope-” She shifts her weight to her other foot, listening. “I’m in a phone booth outside Liverpool Street Station.”

“You’re serious?”

“Serious as the bobby outside this booth giving me the eye.” It’s like she can hear him looking outside. “Say yes and get me out of here, Josephine.” She huffs a laugh again. “Call it. Call it an apology.”

ABBA:

-Gold (Greatest Hits)

-Mamma Mia Soundtrack 

Alanis Morisette:

-Jagged Little Pill

Billie Eilish:

-don’t smile at me 

Bleachers:

-Strange Desire 

-Bleachers 

Boygenius:

-boygenius 

Fleetwood Mac: 

-Greatest Hits  

Halsey: 

-Manic 

-If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power 

-The Great Impersonator 

Janis Joplin:

-Greatest Hits 

Joan Jett and the Blackhearts:

-Greatest Hits 

Joni Mitchell:

-Blue 

-Greatest Hits 

Lana Del Rey:

-Normal Fucking Rockwell 

Lorde:

-Melodrama 

Olivia Rodrigo:

-Sour 

Phoebe Bridgers:

-Punisher 

Taylor Swift:

-Taylor Swift

-Taylor Swift Holiday Collection 

-Fearless + Fearless Taylor’s Version

-Speak Now + Speak Now Taylor’s Version

-Speak Now Live album 

-Red + Red Taylor’s Version

-1989 + 1989 Taylor’s Version 

-reputation

-Lover 

-folklore

-evermore 

-Midnights 

-The Tortured Poet’s Department + The Anthology 

The Chicks:

-Fly

-Gaslighter 

The Cranberries:

-Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?

The Mammas and The Poppas:

-Greatest Hits 

Tracy Chapman: