“How do you know?” Tish asked.
“Quiet, and let me focus properly,” Margaret said. And then to Louise, “Turn to the side and breathe in, darlin’. There’s no shame in it. Just yesterday I saw photos that Tootie Bensen took of her daughter, and wasn’t she trying to look like a pinup queen, pushing out her bosoms and holding her hair up and winking to boot. And her daughter can’t compare with any of mine. Go on now, take a deeeeeep breath.” And then when Louise sighed and did just that, Margaret pulled the camera down from her eye. “Well, maybe not that deep,” she said. Louise readjusted herself, and the flashbulb brightened the kitchen.
“You look pretty, Louise,” Binks said. He was kneeling on a chair, working a button of yellow dye into the lumpy white margarine.
“What about me?” Tish asked. She’d piled her hair on top of her head in a Grable upsweep.
Binks looked over at her and shrugged. “You look okay, I guess. I like when your hair is in braids.”
“When you’re older, you’ll like this better,” Tish told him, and he didn’t bother to look up from the bowl to say no, he would not. He liked to see the exact moment when the white turned all yellow.
Outside, the mailman opened the box to put letters in, and Kitty went running to retrieve them.
“Five!” Tish said, when Kitty passed them out. Kitty had gotten one from Hank, finally. It was such a relief to know that he was all right. Louise had received only a package with an unknown return address. The name Miller had been carefully printed, followed by an address in Boise. “I can’t imagine what this is,” she said, and then, remembering the man she’d danced with from Idaho, she said, “Oh, I’ll bet it’s from Tom, that boy I danced with who promised to send me four-leaf clovers when he got home. I wonder why he’s back already.” She unwrapped the package and found an envelope along with a smaller box. She opened the box first and smiled. Inside, pinned carefully to paper, were four four-leaf clovers. “He’s okay!” she said. But then she read the note, first to herself, then to her sisters.
“Dear Miss Heaney,
“My son, Tom Miller, was killed in action on November 4. Among his personal effects was this box with your name and address on it. I thought you might like to have it. I assume you were a friend—Tommy had a gift for making friends wherever he went. As such, you will like to know that his wife and son are coping as well as can be expected. We surely will miss him, and I would like to thank you for any part you may have played in his all too brief but very happy life.
“Sincerely, Velma Miller.”
Louise looked up, tears in her eyes.
“Say a prayer?” Tish whispered, and the sisters bowed their heads.
After a moment, Margaret asked briskly, “Who’s next?”
“I’ll go,” Tish said solemnly. She sat on a chair and turned sideways. Then she inhaled and stuck her chest out mightily.
“Face me,” Margaret said.
“But you said—”
“That was to Louise. You’re just a girl. Now turn around and smile prettily.”
“But you said to cheer up—”
“There’s cheering up one way, and there’s cheering up another,” Margaret said. “You look lovely. Any man would be happy to see that smile.”
“Fine,” Tish said. But just before Margaret took the picture, she shifted her shoulders and winked.
HANK WROTE AGAIN OF THE FUTILITY of war. Kitty didn’t read aloud those parts to her sisters; the one time she’d tried, they’d gotten angry. But in this letter, he said that when war was seen at close range, it was so brutal and idiotic. It seemed impossible that men with hearts and brains were capable of it. Such devastation of cities, so many innocent lives lost. It seemed to him that if just a small part of the effort put into war could be put into peace, they’d be so much better off. When the war was over, he said. When this most catastrophic of wars was finally over, surely the world would have learned the need to never make war again. Then he went on to say something that made Kitty gasp, and this she did share with her sisters. “Hank Cunningham is coming home on leave!”
“Here?” Tish asked.
“Well, he’s going home to San Francisco,” Kitty said. “But he’s coming to Chicago first. He’ll be here the Saturday after next—all day!”
Silence.
“I guess he deserves a furlough!” Kitty said. “He’s flown twenty-five missions! Jeez! You’d think a person would be honored to be with a soldier like that!”
“Well, I’d like to meet him,” Louise said. “I’d like to very much.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t,” Tish said.
“Who asked you?” Kitty muttered.
What news! Soon Hank would be back in Chicago, stepping off a train in Union Station. It made her stomach hurt, but in a good way, like the way it hurt before you got into the car on the Ferris wheel. She thought for a moment about how she might not recognize him, then realized that she would have no trouble at all. She’d not forgotten anything about him.
Kitty sat still, trying to pay attention to the letters Tish read aloud, but she heard only bits and pieces: stories of German prisoners sitting on the ground and taking off their shirts to suntan, those same prisoners telling their American captors in perfect English that they had been told New York City had been bombed to smithereens and that the Japs had gotten all the Russians out of Siberia. She heard about enemy helmets attached to jeep radiators, blood-soaked Japanese flags being sent home, dogs accompanying pilots on commando raids, men huddling in the cold under blankets to write letters by candlelight and always, always dreaming of home. Sometimes Kitty wondered if home would become something in the men’s minds that their families could never live up to, something that perhaps never even was. She supposed the idea of home had become as much religion to the boys as anything else, a thing to believe in, to turn to, to help keep them going. The responsibility was awesome; Kitty felt it behind her knees, in her breathing; it permeated her unconscious. Last night, she had dreamed Julian came into the house and asked expectantly, “Where is it?” His eyes were bright, he was smiling his famous Julian smile. He was in uniform, dirt in his hair and smeared across the bridge of his nose and caught in the creases of his pants.
“Where is what?” Kitty asked. She wanted to take his hand; she wanted him to hold her, to kiss her. He was home!
“You know,” he said.
“I don’t.”
He went to the living room and sank down into a chair. “I’ll have to go back, then.” He turned away from her to look out the window. His knee began to bounce. “Julian?” she said, but he wouldn’t look at her. He stared out the window, shaking his head slowly, and she stood before him, her hands twisted in her skirt, smiling and calling his name: “Julian? Julian? Julian?”
KITTY AWAKENED WITH A START, terrorized by yet another dream that she was already forgetting. Something about turning a corner and…what? Well, why try to remember, when it had frightened her so much? She would say a quick Hail Mary and drift back to sleep. She was sleeping at the bottom of the bed that night and had slid down, or up, so that her feet were pressing against the headboard. Luckily, neither of her sisters had awakened to slap or pinch her away.
She grabbed on to the mattress to pull herself back down and heard the rustling of paper. Money? Had someone been stuffing money under the mattress? Tish. Stuffing away her earnings, only Tish would do such a thing. Kitty slid her hand beneath the mattress and found not money but paper, a tablet. She pulled it out and tilted in toward the moonlight.
November 30, 1943
My darling Michael—
I am waiting to send this until I’m very sure. But if you do receive it, you’ll know that what we feared has happened. Yet I find I’m not afraid at all. And I want to start writing to you about every aspect of this wonderful experience, since you’re not here to share it with me.
First of all, know that I am happy. And I’m not worried about telling my family. No one need know for a while
. I’ve not gained a pound, nor have I had any morning sickness. In fact, it’s the way I feel so well that makes me wonder if I’m pregnant at all. But I have missed my “friend” for two months now. So something is going on.
Kitty swallowed so loudly she feared her sisters would hear her and awaken. But neither stirred, nor did they when she carefully put the tablet back under the mattress. She turned onto her back, folded her hands across her chest, and lay wide-eyed, thinking.
“GOING UP!” THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR SAID. Kitty and Louise squeezed into the overly full car. Someone’s elbow knocked into the operator’s little hat, perched like a monkey’s at the side of her head. She adjusted it wearily; it was clear this happened many times a day. Kitty figured the operator felt it was worth it; after all, Dorothy Lamour had been discovered here working as an elevator operator. And even if you didn’t get discovered, you still got to go to charm school—Field’s sent all its operators there.
Kitty and her sister exited on level 7: lingerie, bridal wear, better dresses, junior deb department. Kitty didn’t want to overdress for Hank, nothing so obvious as a new dress, but having nice new underwear always gave a girl a certain kind of confidence. She wanted a lacy slip, a well-fitting bra. To Louise she’d simply said she needed underpants; Louise had said she needed some, too, and Kitty had invited her along. She was glad Louise was coming, glad they’d have time to be alone. They’d have lunch at the Walnut Room; with her salary from the factory, Kitty could now easily afford to pay for both of them. And after they’d eaten and were lingering over dessert, Kitty would tell Louise what she had discovered.
The sisters separated in the lingerie department; Louise looked through underpants, and Kitty moved over to the lacy slips. My, but they were something. When she got married, she’d wear a slip like this every day. And she’d wear a beautiful nightgown every night. She wished she could look at them now, all the fancy negligees and peignoirs, but it wouldn’t be right. You had to at least be engaged, it seemed to Kitty. What would a woman with no ring on her hand be doing, searching through such filmy, frankly suggestive things? Before whom would a single girl parade such an outfit? Still, a girl could look. A girl could be trying to find something for a friend’s bridal shower. Maybe she’d find something to suggest to Louise.
All but licking her chops, Kitty moved to the rack with the gossamer, beribboned garments. Oh, it was heaven just to touch them. They came in all colors: white, black, blue, turquoise, pink, yellow. How must it feel to pull one over your head, button the little buttons (some had rhinestone buttons, some had pearl), and tie the pretty ribbons, knowing that they were meant to be undone by your husband. At this, Kitty’s stomach flipped: to have a man undress you! How could you ever stand for it? How could you not simply die of embarrassment? What did you do while he undressed you? Stare at the ceiling? Say a prayer to Saint Thérèse, the Little Flower? Did you keep your eyes closed? If you smiled, did you look loose? If you didn’t smile, did you look like an old crab? And what if the man fumbled, his big hands trying to undo all those dainty closures? Were you to help him? Oh, it was awful to contemplate the many ways things could go wrong. Kitty thought if she ever got a negligee, what she would most want to do was lock herself in the bathroom and stare at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that, trying out different expressions. As for men, she knew enough about them to know that they didn’t need a negligee and peignoir; come out in a potato sack with your shoulders bare and your hair loose and perfumed, and there’d be a knock at the zippered door, as Julian would say. In fact, Kitty doubted that most men would ever really notice what you were wearing, no matter what the occasion. No, these delicate creations were more for—
“What are you doing?” Louise asked, and Kitty jumped.
“Nothing. Aren’t these pretty?”
Louise tilted her head to one side, then the other. Finally, “Sure,” she said, “if you go in for that kind of thing.”
“So you don’t like them?” Kitty felt insulted, as though she were standing in front of her sister wearing one of these gowns and Louise was looking her up and down with a critical little smile on her face.
Louise shrugged. “Well, sure, I like them. Who wouldn’t? They’re beautiful. But for that amount of money, you could get three regular nightgowns that would wear a lot better.” She reached out to touch a turquoise-colored gown. “Gee, they do feel nice, though, don’t they?”
Kitty pulled the gown off the rack. “I’m buying this for you.”
“No!” Louise grabbed the hanger from Kitty, and Kitty grabbed it back from her.
“Let me!” Kitty said, laughing. “I can afford it.” She could, and she really wanted to buy it for Louise. Kitty knew her own faults, her smallness of spirit or outright meanness, her jealousy and greed, her laziness and lack of spiritual devotion. But sometimes her heart opened and she was wildly generous, even saintlike, if she did she say so herself.
But, “Please, Kitty, no!” Louise said, and tears came into her eyes. Embarrassed, she turned to the wall.
“Louise?” Kitty returned the gown to the rack and put her arm around her sister. “Coots? What’s the matter?”
“Oh, Kitty, I can’t have anything like this. I…Listen, I have to tell you something.” Louise wiped at her face, where the tears were now flowing freely.
One of the salesclerks, an older, well-dressed woman, her maroon leather sales book in hand, came over. “May I assist you with something?” She had a pencil tucked behind her ear, a pleasantly expectant look on her face. Kitty wished she could simply say, “Yes, we’ll take the blue negligee and matching peignoir,” and watch the woman write the purchase up, carefully fold the garments in tissue, add the carbon copy of the sales slip, and then put everything in the beautiful white shopping bag, complete with the silver MF with green detailing—Kitty loved those regal bags. But now the saleswoman saw Louise’s tears, and she put her hand to her breast and peered over the top of her glasses at her. “Well, for heaven’s sake. Are you all right?”
“She’s fine,” Kitty said. And then, to her sister, “Just relax, okay, honey? Let’s go get some lunch.” She took Louise’s hand. “Don’t worry, okay? Don’t worry. Come with me. We’re going to get some nice chicken pot pie. You won’t believe how good it is.” Over her shoulder, she said to the saleswoman, “She’s just hungry. She gets that way.”
AFTER THEY HAD ORDERED, Louise sat staring down at the table. Kitty waited, then waited some more. She knew her sister; Louise would talk when she was ready. Oh, what hard news for Louise to deliver, even to Kitty, to whom she’d always told everything. And despite the bravado Louise had shown in her letter to Michael, she must have been so frightened for weeks, she must have felt so ashamed. Kitty and her sisters had always looked down on girls who got pregnant out of wedlock, on those who had relations outside of marriage. But now everything was different. Yes, it was wrong, what had happened, but it had been Louise and Michael who had done that wrong. And so the impropriety was mitigated by love, by familiarity, by knowing that there was far more to this situation than just another girl in dutch. Kitty couldn’t wait for Louise to confess, so that she could reassure and comfort her. She would remind her sister that in this, as in all things, Kitty would stand by her.
It was funny, how sometimes it took someone getting hurt to remind you of the depth of your feelings for them. Once, at Kiddieland, she’d seen then four-year-old Binks get injured on one of the rides—he’d banged into something and gotten a bloody nose. He couldn’t get off until it was over, and Kitty had thought her heart would break, watching him go round and round with his hand up to his face, holding back tears, until the ride finally stopped.
Kitty wanted Louise to feel no pressure to talk—to know she could take all the time in the world. So she leaned back casually in her chair and looked around at the diners—mostly women, wearing wonderful suits and gloves and hats and heels—smiling, chatting, blowing cigarette smoke up into the air. The Walnut Room was
such a grand place. Once a year, in December, the Heaney family came here to eat lunch and admire the gigantic Christmas tree. They saved all year for it, threw spare change into a big Mason jar kept in a high kitchen cupboard. Some years, they didn’t have enough for dessert; some years, they had enough for two apiece. But here Kitty was, making enough money all by herself to take herself and her sister out to lunch and not worry about the price of anything on the menu, including dessert. And it was her factory job that had given her this privilege.
Not that the job wasn’t still difficult. In addition to the physical challenges, almost every day some annoying incident happened to her or to Hattie—or to both of them. A disparaging remark about the quality of their work. A pat on the behind. A torrent of terrible cursing used right next to them just to irk them. The injustice of working up until the last minute as they were supposed to, right next to another male worker who lay loafing or a woman worker patting her hair and putting on lipstick while staring into her compact mirror. Last Friday, Hattie had said she was really going to quit this time, until Kitty had talked her out of it—they did this, took turns talking each other out of quitting. Usually it was Kitty, sighing and saying she’d had enough. But this last time, someone had kept throwing the word “nigger” around, and Hattie had been so upset, she’d said she was going back to Mississippi to work as a maid. “Least there it’s out in the open,” Hattie had said. “Least there, I might not make much money, but I don’t have to work myself to death, either.” Kitty had insisted Hattie come out for a hamburger with her, to calm her down. They’d sat at a dime-store booth beneath posters warning them that spies were everywhere, reminding them to write to the boys, to buy war bonds, encouraging them to join the WAACs or at least to take their place in Civil Defense. It was hard to remember when these messages weren’t everywhere, when their lives didn’t revolve around the war.