In the Lysander, Bridgette found space to stretch out her legs. The racket from the single engine was deafening but somehow lulling. She forced herself to relax in the roar and let her mind wander back to how it was that she came to be “in.” By now, September 24, 1942, the first night of the full moon, she’d expected to be on the payroll of Paramount Pictures as an intern of Hollywood’s most famous costume designer, but Gladys Bradbury’s scissors and sick possessiveness had altered that direction in her life. Bridgette still grew numb from the shock of seeing Gladys standing in the shimmering wasteland of slashed fabrics among the troupe of naked dress forms, the rhinestone-studded shoulder of her scarlet jersey toga all that was rescuable of her design. The girl hadn’t gone directly to the Pennant Hotel that day when she left the lunchroom. She’d gone back to the design department to steal the key to the exhibit room the aide had left in the chairman’s door box. The day after the small burial service of her grandmother, Bridgette had contacted the Office of Strategic Services.

Did Bridgette miss her best friend of nearly all her lifetime? Not a jot. But she would miss the friends she’d made in Dragonfly. As she was leaving in the predawn darkness, she’d cast a look back at the windows of their upstairs quarters, and her throat still tightened at the memory of their heads gathered at the sash to see her off. The boys peered from their room and Liverwort from the one next door, their faces pale in the glow of the lamps. They’d given her the thumbs-up, and Bridgette had waved and mouthed See you soon!, doubting they could see her in the dark. She’d climbed aboard the jeep with her heart heavy and her throat throbbing, feeling as they drove off like a tethered boat breaking away from shore.