Her mother said nothing; the wooden spoon went round and round.
“I’m suffering,” Kitty said.
“I’ll remember you in my prayers along with the poor souls in purgatory,” Margaret told her. And then, “Tish! I told you to—”
“I am!” Tish shut the oven door and came to sit at the kitchen table with her sisters to sulk; she was a champion sulker. She reached up to adjust one of her pin curls and cried out, then blew on her fingers.
Kitty tsked and rolled her eyes. “What do you expect when you touch hot metal?”
“Why don’t you just let your hair dry naturally?” Louise asked.
“She can never wait for anything,” Kitty said, and Tish said, “I can so! You’re the one who can never wait for anything!”
“Are those my bobby pins, anyway?” Kitty asked, leaning forward to inspect Tish’s head.
“Is your name written on them?” Louise asked.
“Girls,” their mother said and poured her mix from the bowl into cake pans.
Binks had plunked himself in the middle of the kitchen floor to hold his knees to his chest and spin around in circles, singing in his high boy’s voice. Now he rose lightning fast and attached himself to his mother’s side. “Can I lick the bowl? Ma! Can I lick the bowl, please? Can I?”
“May I.”
“May I lick the bowl, please?”
“No.”
“The spoon?”
“No.”
“Aw, gee whiz. Why?”
“Why not. Because you already had some. Remember, I gave you a spoonful? The rest goes to your sisters. You go outside now, find your brothers and play with them. But first run over and see if Mrs. Sullivan will trade me some of her coffee coupons for sugar. And wear your jacket. Zipped up!”
Their father complained mightily about “Roosevelt coffee,” the watered-down version they’d been drinking since the war began. According to their mother, the only coffee Frank Heaney liked was the kind his spoon would stand straight up in. She couldn’t make coffee like that when they got only a pound every five weeks. But oftentimes Mrs. Sullivan would make a deal, and then Margaret could at least occasionally offer Frank the rich-flavored brew he so liked.
Binks ran to the hall for his jacket, then raced out of the house, slamming the door so hard it made all the women jump. Margaret brought the mixing bowl over to the table for the sisters to share. Then, her voice low and careful, she asked, “How was it at the station?”
Tish pulled her finger out of the bowl and sat still to listen respectfully. Tears trembled in Louise’s eyes, so Kitty answered for both of them. “There were so many people there!”
“Did you cry?” Margaret asked.
“No,” Kitty said. “But Louise did.”
“Ah, well.” Margaret sat down heavily at the table with her daughters. “They’re fine boys, both of them.” Subtly, she turned the morning paper over, but not before her daughters saw the headlines. So many more lost. Every day, so many lost.
It grew silent then; there was only the steady ticking sound of the grandfather clock in the living room. And then Tish, reaching into the bowl to get a good fingerful of batter, suddenly froze. “Kitty. Is that…Are you wearing my new blouse? And eating in it?”
“It was just for this morning. I’m going to change in one second.”
“You didn’t even ask!”
Louise, ever the peacemaker, spoke soothingly. “She just wanted to look nice for Julian. You were sleeping, and she didn’t want to wake you.”
“My foot,” Tish said. “She never asks! She just goes in and takes whatever she wants! She thinks just because you’re the first one up, you can—”
“Girls!” Margaret said.
Kitty pushed away from the table. “Fine. I’ll go and change right now. But leave me some batter.” She hated the cake, but she was hungry, by God.
Tish sat back in her chair, her arms crossed, glaring at her sister. Then her eyes widened as Kitty stood. “And is that my skirt?”
Kitty bolted for the stairs, Tish right behind her, yelling about how she bet Kitty hadn’t even worn underarm shields and Kitty yelling back that she had too and that she wasn’t the one who perspired like a pig anyway. Louise looked at her mother and shrugged. Then she said, “Ma? Michael and I are sort of engaged.”
ON THE RADIO, BOB HOPE, entertaining at a California boot camp, was doing a skit with a woman who had a most flirtatious voice. It was the kind of voice that sounded like a cat looked when you petted it and it arched its back in pleasure. The women was a blonde, Kitty thought as she dreamily mashed the potatoes. A starlet with a cherub bob, wearing a skintight sweater and an equally tight skirt. Kitty wanted to dress that way, but if she did, her mother would never let her out of the house. The girl was saying she’d been meaning to ask Bob if there were any sharks near San Diego. And here came Hope’s droll response: “Did you ever meet a Marine with a pair of dice?” Loud laughter from a large group of men. Kitty could imagine them, all those young men sitting on chairs and on the ground, looking up and smiling, all those white teeth, all those handsome faces.
“Kitty!” her mother said.
“Yes?”
“Get the potatoes on the table, I said. Here come the boys. I want you to make sure Billy gets his hands clean.”
That would be a challenge. Every night, the boys were meant to wash up in the metal pan in the kitchen sink before dinner. Binks complied, though frantically, and there was never a problem with freckle-faced Tommy, whose nature was so gentle it worried the rest of the family. But everything was an argument with Billy. His black hair was always a tangled mess, his shirt untucked, and his shoes unshined. He had difficulty finding nice friends; his latest companion was a boy named Anthony Mancini, who at eighteen was far too old for him. “But what do you do with him?” Margaret once asked, and Billy shrugged and said, “Nuttin’.” To which Margaret responded, “What was that? It sounded like English, but I’m not quite sure. Check your mouth and see if you don’t have Binks’s marbles in there.”
The back door flew open and here the boys came, moving together across the kitchen floor like a human tornado. Billy was first to the sink. “I don’t need that,” he said, pushing away the floating cake of Ivory. “I ain’t that dirty.”
“Billy,” Margaret said.
“What.”
“Language.”
“Oh. Sorry. Me ain’t that dirty.”
Margaret looked up from arranging pork chops on a platter. “Just keep it up.”
“Sure, whatever you say, Ma, I’ll do my best.” He pulled his hands out of the pan and reached toward Kitty and the towel. Kitty shook her head no. “C’mon, sis,” he said. “I’m starving.”
“Use the soap,” Kitty said. “Your hands are black.”
“They ain’t black,” Billy said, but then the back door opened and their father walked in. Billy put his hands back in the sink and grabbed the soap. There was one person he would obey, and that was Frank Heaney, not out of fear but out of great love.
“Hi, Pop,” Kitty said.
Frank stopped dead in his tracks. “Why…is it Kitty Heaney, then? For the love of Mike, what are you doing here?”
She smiled at him. Always a joke with Frank Heaney.
“Hey, Pop,” Billy said. “Did you hear about Alan Betterman?”
“What about him?” Kitty asked. She had gone to school with him.
“I know him,” Tish said. “He’s dreamy. I used to have a crush on him.”
“Him and half the civilized world,” Louise said, from the table where she was laying out silverware. She got irritable when she was nervous: at dinner, her mother was going to tell Frank about her and Michael’s engagement. That afternoon, Louise had told her sisters about it, and she had said that if their father objected, she didn’t know what she’d do.
“Why would he object?” Tish had asked. “He loves Michael.”
“Lots of people say you should wait until the boy
comes home to get married,” Louise had said. “I know a girl whose parents got really mad that she eloped with her guy who was going overseas, because what if he doesn’t come back? Then she’s a widow. And who would want a widow?”
“What do you mean?” Kitty had asked.
Louise had turned to stand so that Tish couldn’t see her. Then she’d whispered, “Experienced.”
“I heard you!” Tish had said. “And I know exactly what you mean. You mean she’s not a virgin anymore, ’cause she had marital relations. Don’t worry, I know the score: she had sexual intercourse.”
“Quiet!” Louise and Kitty said together. Heaven forbid their mother hear any of her children say such a thing. Heaven forbid she find out that her daughters knew exactly what it meant. Not for nothing had Louise and Kitty pored over a book “for the married woman” they’d found one day when they were supposed to be cleaning out the attic. As for Tish, well, she always knew everything she wasn’t supposed to know.
As both Binks and Tommy waited their turn for the drying towel, Billy said, “Alan got killed in New Guinea. Got shot in the forehead.”
Kitty drew in a sharp breath. “Billy! Don’t say that!”
“It’s true!” he said. “His old lady told me. She started crying when she told me. She sure is sad.”
“Well, of course she’s sad!” Margaret cried.
“But wait,” Billy said. “She’s sad, but she said she’s also proud. And now her other son’s enlisting. In the Navy.”
“Pete?” Tish asked.
“Yeah, that’s his name.”
“I went ice skating with him!” Tish said.
“Tish,” their mother said. “Must everything have to do with your social life? Oh, poor Edith. I can’t imagine. Two sons. Poor woman.”
“Pete ain’t dead!” Billy said. “He’s joining the Navy!”
“I shall visit her tomorrow. And girls, I want each of you to write her a note tonight. Oh, right from our own neighborhood, God help us.”
Kitty thought of an incident in fifth grade, a time on the playground when she had enlisted other boys to tie Alan Betterman to a tree using the ribbons from her hair. It was because she was angry at him for trying to pull up her skirt. At the time, having Alan tied to the tree for the whole of recess seemed fitting—even mild—punishment. Now Kitty was sorry. Alan Betterman, with his brown eyes and high coloring. She wasn’t close friends with him—she’d seen him around, she’d always waved and said hello, but she’d known nothing about him, really. Only now she felt she’d lost a friend. And when she wrote the condolence card, she would mean it most sincerely. Last time she saw Alan, he’d been in line at the Majestic, his arm around a girl. Who? And did that girl know? And …Julian. She swallowed hard, then moved to take her place at the table.
She sat unmoving, the voices of her family distant things. Alan Betterman was dead, her sister was getting married, and all the world was such a tender place. It was impossible to be careful enough.
“I’ll bring her a spiritual bouquet,” Tommy said. “Shall I?”
“‘Shall I.’” Billy snickered at the proper usage and reached across Binks for the red cabbage.
“Mind your manners!” his mother told him.
“’Bout what?” he asked, honestly confused.
“A spiritual bouquet would be lovely, Tommy,” said their mother, looking away from all of them, out the window toward the Bettermans’ house.
“FINE WAY TO SPEND A SATURDAY NIGHT,” Tish grumbled. The sisters were sitting at the kitchen table dressed in their flannel pajamas and woolen robes, all of them with mugs of hot water and lemon. It was unseasonably cold out tonight, the famous Chicago wind howling. Kitty and Louise had put their hair up in rag rollers; Tish had combed out her beautiful blond hair and complained that all the wonderful waves were going to waste. “You’ll look very nice for Father Fleishmann at mass tomorrow,” Margaret told her, and Tish rolled her eyes. She’d been planning on going to a USO dance that night, but her mother had decided she should stay home and write letters instead. “Enough is enough,” Margaret said. “You’re only seventeen years old. You don’t need to be gallivanting all over town every night.”
“It’s not every night,” Tish said. “And it isn’t all over town. And I’m doing it for the war effort, Ma. Knitting isn’t the only thing to do, you know. It helps the boys’ morale to dance with beautiful girls.”
“Ah, so it’s beautiful we are now. And never mind leaving it to someone else to offer the compliment! Should it be warranted in the first place!”
Tish made a show out of opening the letter she would answer first. She shook the page and put it down on the table to press out the creases. “Well, well,” she said. “‘Dear Beautiful,’ Sam Wischow writes.”
“Beauty is as beauty does,” Margaret said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to learn to knit as well as dance, Tish. God forbid those boys are still fighting in Europe this winter, they’ll need scarves and mittens and socks. Peg Bennett knit a vest for her son last winter and he very much appreciated it, ’twas a wonderful gift. Now, you write your letters, and I don’t want to hear another word about where you’d rather be.”
She went into the parlor to sit with her husband and listen to the radio. Edward R. Murrow was a must for both of them. Frank liked I Love a Mystery, with its A-1 Detective Agency, whereas Margaret preferred Fred Allen and Jack Benny, or Amos ’n’ Andy and their Fresh Air Taxi, courtesy of the missing windshield. Most times, though, they’d talk over the radio shows. Occasionally there was an argument, but of a friendly, swat-fly variety that always ended the same way. Frank would say, “Ah, I should have married that willowy blonde I used to see on the streetcar every morning. She could never keep her eyes off of me.” And Margaret would counter with “No doubt she was mesmerized by the breakfast crumbs on your face. I should have married Howard Kresge, he had such gorgeous curls. And I’ll bet he’s worth a million dollars by now.”
They would sit silently for a while, Margaret rocking and knitting, Frank sucking at his pipe. And then they would forget about any argument and start talking again. Tonight, no doubt, they’d be discussing Louise’s engagement. There was some doubt about how Frank felt: he’d congratulated Louise, but he’d looked like an elephant was standing on his toe when he did so. As for Margaret, she couldn’t have been happier: she loved Michael like a son already.
Kitty wondered how her parents would feel when she told them that she, too, was engaged. She hadn’t told her sisters yet; she wanted to surprise them with the ring.
As though sensing her thoughts, Tish asked Louise, “So what do you think your ring will look like? I hope it’s a big diamond, emerald cut, just like Judy Garland’s.”
“Round,” Kitty said. “More elegant.” She hoped hers was round. And she hoped it was big, too; Julian could afford it—or at least his parents could. She couldn’t wait to show her ring to the girls at the insurance company. Every morning, there was a big get-together before the typing and the filing began, all the women gathering near the watercooler to catch up on one another’s lives. Kitty had it all planned: just as they were ready to get down to work, she’d say, “Oh, girls? One last thing.” And then she’d hold up her hand. Tuesday morning, she’d do this, after having picked up the ring on Monday. She’d make sure she did a good manicure Monday night—Tish would help her. Although Tommy was also good at manicures, and he’d help anyone do anything.
“I’m not going to get a ring,” Louise said. “We’re going to save for other things.”
Tish looked up from the letter she was signing off on. With hugs and kisses and lots of love, she’d write. Next she’d put a big kiss mark on the page with red lipstick—she kept the tube handy on the kitchen table. She signed off that way to every guy on her list, even though her sisters had told her it was improper—a kiss made with an open mouth, no less! But now Tish was the one preaching propriety. “You have to have a ring!” she told Louise. “That’s what makes you engaged!?
??
“It’s not the ring that makes you engaged,” Louise said. “It’s the promise.”
“Welllll,” Tish said, and her voice was high and singsong. “I don’t know. A girl needs a ring to know that it is a promise. Or maybe the guy’s just fooling.”
Then, when both Kitty and Louise looked over at her, she looked away, embarrassed. Michael wasn’t that kind of guy.
But Julian was, Kitty thought. Julian was the kind of guy who called you “baby” while watching another girl—or, worse, a fancy car—go by. But things were different now. A ring changed everything. A ring was what every girl waited for. It was the oddest thing, the way getting it made you so excited yet also serenely calm. It was as though you could finally stop holding your breath.
In only two days, Kitty would have proof that Julian loved her. She hadn’t wanted to put pressure on him, but she had just turned twenty-two. With a yearlong engagement, she’d be twenty-three when they were wed. It was time. For Louise, at twenty, it wasn’t as critical; she was nowhere near being called an old maid.
“When I get married,” Tish said, “we’re going to eat by candlelight every night. Twelve loooong white candles, in a silver candelabra. Two candelabras!”
Louise said, “I’m going to make a pie for dinner every day; Michael loves pie more than just about anything. I’ll make all different kinds. And I’ll always have fresh flowers on the table, even if it’s just one little blossom. One flower can make such a big difference!”
“I’m not putting anything on the table,” Kitty said. “We’re going to go out to dinner every night. And then to a club for drinks and dancing.”
“That would get old,” Louise said, and Tish and Kitty answered together, “No it wouldn’t!”
It was quiet, then, both girls writing their letters, Louise lost in thought, Tish with the tip of her tongue sticking out as she labored away. Kitty was having a hard time thinking of something else to say: for heaven’s sake, she’d just seen Julian that morning. She could talk about plans for their married life once she had the ring on her finger, but that hadn’t happened yet. She’d already told him about Louise and Michael, which he probably knew anyway, since he and Michael were such good friends. What else was there to write about? What they’d had for dinner? She certainly didn’t think she should mention Alan Betterman. She wrote, I guess you’ll be plenty busy, but I sure hope you’ll have time to write now and then. Then, shyly, she added, honey. She sat back in her chair and regarded the word on the page. Maybe it was wrong. Maybe hon would be better. Or some newfangled word of endearment: Julian was always up on the latest slang. Last time they were trying to have some private time at her house, Julian had told Billy, “Go climb up your thumb, wouldja?”