Louise’s face glowed, her hair was thick and shiny, her fingernails were enviably long and even and strong. Kitty wished Michael could see her in person, rather than in the pictures she sent. And maybe he would soon. It seemed to Kitty that the war couldn’t last much longer, even though Hank had cautioned her in his letters against optimism that might only lead to sorrow and frustration. But she couldn’t help it. So much progress was being made! At Christmastime there had been a feeling, however briefly, of peace. (One man had written to Tish that on Christmas Eve, as he sat holed into his position, he heard the distant sounds of the Nazis singing Christmas carols.) Now the U.S. troops had landed and set up a beachhead at Anzio, and the Marshall Islands were being taken in the Pacific. There had even been escapes from concentration camps and revolts which, though quickly thwarted, showed that a fighting spirit lived on. Surely it would all end soon and the boys would come home. And then she and Hank could reveal the truth of their feelings to everyone.
Kitty had given up on trying to convince Louise that what she and Hank had was real. Instead, she kept up appearances by continuing to write to Julian. But Tish wrote him more enthusiastically, and he wrote back to her. Tish didn’t read all the letters from Julian out loud any more than she shared all the letters she got from other guys. But Kitty could see what was happening. She could see how her sister’s face lit up when a letter from Julian came for her. One night, as the girls lay in bed, Tish said, “Julian said if he got hurt he wouldn’t blame Kitty for giving him the gate.”
“What did you tell him?” Kitty asked.
“I told him not to worry, he’d be home soon and jigging to the juke.”
“I wouldn’t break up with him for being injured,” Kitty said.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Not for that.”
The silence grew thick around them. And then Louise fell asleep, and then Tish, and then Kitty.
THE KELLY CLUB HAD BEEN DECORATED with paper hearts in honor of Valentine’s Day. Only another thing for the Englishman Kitty was dancing with to criticize. He’d told her first about how spoiled the 10th Air Force in India was. “All they do is go to the palace for dinner and play cards,” he’d said. “Ride elephants and go tiger hunting. There are servants waiting on them, and beautiful Indian princesses who put on shows for them. The officers live in a palace that used to belong to the prime minister. The enlisted men live in tents, but they’re pitched in a grove of trees where there are lovely birds and flowers. The maharaja makes sure the men have plenty of records and movies, too. Oh, they’ve got it tough, all right!”
“Well,” Kitty said, when she could get a word in. “That’s certainly not the norm.”
“Aw, you Yanks.”
Kitty clenched her jaw tightly. What did he mean by a crack like that? Soon the song would end and she would be free from this awful man, with his terrible complexion and crooked teeth. Then she’d go over and serve food. She was tired of dancing. She wanted to serve food and listen to the trumpeter, who was almost as good as Harry James.
“You know, you American girls are much different from our women,” the man said, and it was clear from the sound of his voice which girls he found superior.
“Oh?” Kitty asked wearily.
“You wear too much makeup, dreadful; and you’re too forward. Plumper, too.”
Kitty stepped out of the man’s arms. “Any other complaints, buster?”
The man stared at her, surprised. Then he grew angry and said, “Plenty! You’re always in a hurry here. You drive on the wrong side of the road. Your beer is served too cold, and it’s too weak, and your food is too rich. Your skyscrapers aren’t nearly so high as they look in pictures. And it’s too bright here!”
“Thanks for the dance,” Kitty said, and he said, “You’re welcome!”
From across the room, Kitty saw a woman she knew from work. She moved gratefully toward her.
“How are you, Margie?” Kitty asked.
Margie held up her hand, showing off an engagement ring.
“Holy cow! When?”
“He sent it from Hawaii for Valentine’s Day. Gosh, Kitty, I was so excited I almost fainted. I can’t wait for him to come home so we can get married and move into our own house. I want five kids, just like in my family. What heaven it will be to quit this job and stay home!”
“Oh, I know,” Kitty said, but privately she was beginning to wonder if she shared the dream that Margie and so many other women had after all. At Hank’s suggestion, she had been reading some of the women correspondents’ reports, Martha Gellhorn’s especially; and she had wondered what it would be like to travel like that, to be so independent and free. Oh, not in a war zone, she wasn’t that brave, but after the war was over. What would it be like to decide to go to Paris and just …go!
Kitty had grown used to her job: the challenge, the camaraderie, and especially the paycheck; and she didn’t like the idea that, when the boys came home, she would have to quit. What would she do? Go back to an insurance office and sit all day? Or stand all day, selling gloves for a pittance to some overdressed dowager who looked down her nose at Kitty?
She had dreamed of the day when Hank came home, how they would resume their relationship and eventually get married, but now that it was a real possibility, she wondered about the rest of it. Did she really want to stay home with children? She knew Hank wanted her to; his letters had made it clear that he valued more than anything the idea of raising a family.
Kitty had tried to imagine it: getting up in the morning, donning a housedress and low heels, brushing her hair and putting on a bit of lipstick, feeding Hank and the children breakfast, and then watching them go. And she remembered a time when Margaret had done exactly that, had sent what she had thought was all of her family off to work and to school, and then stood at the open door in her apron, her hand on her hip. She had turned around with a mighty sigh and seen Kitty, who had run back upstairs for a schoolbook, standing quietly on the stairs. “What’s wrong?” Kitty had asked, and Margaret had quickly rearranged her features and said, “Nothing’s wrong! What could be wrong?” Then she’d told Kitty to run quickly to catch up with her sisters. Don’t be late to school! And button that top coat button! And then what? Kitty thought. Had Margaret gone back into the house and turned on the radio to keep her company while she washed the stuck-on oatmeal out of the cereal bowls? For the first time, imagining herself as a wife and a mother, Kitty thought, Wait.
Kitty loved her family, her little brothers, but she didn’t gravitate toward children the way Louise or even Tish did. Oh, kids were cute, but the truth was that when they weren’t in her family Kitty got bored with them. When she was a young girl, it had been Louise and Tish who were given to playing with their brothers, watching them for Margaret. Kitty liked jobs outside the house: going to the store for groceries, pulling weeds, returning library books stacked up high in the wagon.
This Christmas, when Pop had given Louise the crib he’d refurbished for the baby, she’d cooed over it as though it already held him. She’d put the crib in a corner of their bedroom, and Tish had put one of the girls’ old dolls in it; every now and then she picked it up and patted it and talked baby talk to it. But Kitty had looked at the crib, admired the craftsmanship, and then thought, Golly. Soon there’ll be a baby in there and it’ll be crying all the time.
Kitty felt a tapping on her shoulder. She turned around to see a soldier half her size, smiling shyly and asking her to dance. To a slow one! She looked out at the crowd of couples nuzzling each other, women smiling up into men’s faces. Then she looked into the face of a boy who seemed no older than Billy—she wanted to hold her hankie up to his nose and say, “Blow.” Instead, she put a smile on her face and said she would love to dance.
On the floor, with his head pressed into her bosom, Kitty caught the eye of Tish, dancing with a handsome Marine. Tish lifted her shoulders at her sister: Poor you, but what can you do? Kitty pulled the boy closer and asked the top of
his head where he was from.
“Hartford. Wisconsin,” he said and cleared his throat to cover up the way his voice had cracked. “It’s a real little town about two hours from here, did you ever hear of it?”
“No,” Kitty told him.
“Well, that’s okay, I didn’t know about Chicago much, either, until the war. I’d never been here until the day before I took the train to basic. My folks came with me, and we ’bout busted the bank, doing up the town. We went to that big museum, and we had dinner at the Berghoff, and we spent the night at the Palmer House. My mom thought she’d died and went to heaven. After she fell asleep, Dad and me went and had ourselves a drink at the bar. Scotch whiskey out of a real nice glass. He told me he was awful proud I was joining—barely made it on account of my height. My dad couldn’t be in the First World War because he’s deaf in one ear. He would have made a hell of a fighter, though. Now he wants me to do it for him, go after those Nazis. Although we’re German, and we still have a lot of relatives over there. It seems kind of funny, to think I’ll be shooting at my own people. And them at me!” He looked up at her. Then he pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Wow! You sure are pretty.”
“Thank you.”
“Anybody ever tell you you look like Rita Hayworth?”
She smiled. “Yes. What’s your name, soldier?”
“Walter. Walter Buchman. Listen, I was wondering. Would you…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I wanted to…”
Here it came, Kitty thought. A request for a little kiss outside, or off in some dark corner. That, or he would ask her to write him. “What is it?” she said.
“Would you like to have my gas coupons? It’s a cinch I won’t be needing them.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, KITTY SAT at the kitchen table massaging lotion into her feet. She took a long drink of tea, leaned back in her chair, and groaned.
“What’s your beef?” Tish asked.
“I’m tired! My feet hurt!”
“So do mine.”
“Well, you don’t work for hours in a factory before you go to a dance!”
“What are you talking about?” Tish said angrily. “I’m on my feet all day. I’ve got to sell like sixty—Carson’s is understaffed and overcrowded with old bags who take half the day to decide between red lipstick and red lipstick!”
From the parlor, over the sounds of a USO rebroadcast, came Margaret’s voice. “If you girls wake up your brothers with your squabbling, I’ll spank you like the children you’re behaving like.” And then from the radio came the voice of Kay Francis: “The Army flew us in a bomber from California to New York. And the pilot! Boy, he was the best-looking fellow I’d ever seen. I didn’t know you could fly a plane with one hand, but you can. When we got to camp, we were pretty hungry. Martha Raye slipped up to the colonel and she said, ‘Sir, where do we eat?’ He said, ‘You mess with the men.’ ‘I know that,’ she said, ‘but where do we eat?’”
The sisters laughed and sat silently for a while, listening. They heard about Mitzi Mayfair, who danced in pouring rain with a loose board that she had to keep an eye on. When one shoe came off, she kicked off the other shoe and continued dancing barefoot. The rain kept on, so hard that when Carole Landis tried to sing, it was like gargling. Finally, she stopped and just started talking to the boys. She said, “Gosh, I’m pretty nervous being up here all alone in front of a thousand men.” In the background, from the men, ohs and ahs. “After all,” she said, “how would you like to be all alone with a thousand girls?” Bedlam.
Kitty and Louise smiled, but Tish was still cranky. “You think you’re the only one in the family who does anything, Kitty,” she said, though quietly. Let her be, Louise’s eyes told her. Kitty had already decided to ignore Tish—she was the youngest, and she was tired. They all were. Louise, working at the child-care center, probably had it harder than any of them, but she never complained.
Kitty picked up her big pile of letters—they often came in bunches like this—and counted them. “Cripes, eleven!” she said.
“You should be happy,” Tish said. “I got only one!”
“From whom?” Kitty asked, knowing already what the answer was: someone other than Julian. Tish was always happy when she had a letter from him. And the more she tried to disguise it, the more obvious it was. Soon Kitty was going to have a talk with her. She’d already planned how she’d start this talk, saying wasn’t it funny how you sometimes got to know someone best when you weren’t with him, when your exchanges were confined to paper. Wasn’t it funny how you could find you didn’t know someone you’d spent a lot of time with and, conversely, come to see you felt very close to someone with whom you’d spent almost no time at all? That was what she’d say, and then she hoped Tish would open up with her feelings about Julian. And what appeared to be Julian’s feelings for her. Kitty felt a small hurt, thinking that, but mostly she was glad. They were more suited to each other, just as Michael was suited to Louise, and she to Hank. There on top of the pile, his letter. And four more were from him! There was one from Julian, four from men she’d met at dances, and another with a name she didn’t recognize, but surely that, too, was from someone she’d danced with, or served coffee to, or even met on a streetcar. She was going to stop agreeing to write to so many. Enough was enough. Surely she had done her part by now. There had to be a time when it was okay to say no. She leaned over to rub the balls of her feet again. “Next time we go to the Kelly Club, I’m working the library,” Kitty said. Far fewer men went there than to the dances.
“That’ll be the day,” Tish said.
“Oh, and you read two books at a time,” Kitty said. She waited for Louise to interfere; on these occasions she usually did. Their middle sister had been born a mother. Or a judge. But Louise was frowning, lost in a letter from Michael.
“What’s the matter?” Kitty asked. “What did he say?”
Louise looked up, startled. Then she shrugged. “Not so much, really. But…Something’s different.”
“Read it,” Tish said.
“He doesn’t say anything, really, but there’s something wrong. I can just feel it.”
“Read it!” Kitty said.
“All right, all right.” Louise leaned back in her chair, held the letter up and smiled. “I’m not going to read you the salutation. Or the end. Just the middle. Here’s what he says.
“I sure appreciate the sweater you sent, honey. Gosh, it’s cold here at night. But at least I’ll have another layer now. So many of our guys are sleeping outside on the ground, many with only one blanket, and some with none. No girls knitting for them. I guess some guys don’t have much of anybody at home waiting for them. It’s hard to imagine that, when I have so much. Sometimes it all seems like a dream—you, the baby. Like something I made up in my head to make me feel better. Sometimes it seems like too much. Oh, not in a bad way, but it was enough that I had you. Now I’m blessed with a baby on the way, and I just feel like I have to be so much more careful. So much is waiting for me at home now. Remember those races we used to run in elementary school, with an egg balanced on a tablespoon? Now I’ve got two eggs!”
Louise looked up, tears in her eyes. “Ma was right. I shouldn’t have told him.”
“But in his last letter, he was really happy about it,” Tish said.
“He was probably just tired when he wrote that,” Kitty said.
“But listen to this,” Louise said.
“A guy told me a funny story the other day. When he was in North Africa, a shell exploded near him and knocked him way down a hill. He wasn’t hurt, but he had the breath knocked out of him, and he couldn’t move at all. Well, along come two guys who know him, walking past, and one pauses a little bit away from him and says, Ah jeez, Dooley got it. And the other guy walks up a little closer and bends down and says, ‘Yup. Ain’t he got a little baby daughter, too?’ And then they just leave him there. And later he kind of comes to, and that night he goes over to where they?
??re chowing down and they almost jump out of their skins. They still swear he willed himself back from the dead. Say, there’s a trick I need to know.”
Louise put the letter down. “That’s it. Then he just tells me…Well, you know.”
“He’s okay,” Kitty said. “What are you worried about? You know, those guys sometimes get a little rambling and—”
“Never mind.” Louise yawned and rubbed at the back of her neck. “Yowsa, I’m tired.” But then she sat up and put her hand to the side of her belly. “Want to feel him kick?”
Kitty and Tish bumped heads, reaching over, but neither said a word. They held still, their faces rapt, and then said together, “I feel him!”
Louise yawned again. “I’m going to bed.” She went into the parlor to say good night to their parents, then headed upstairs, saying, “Whoever’s in the bathroom, hurry up. I’m peeing for two now!”
Kitty and Tish read their letters silently—it wasn’t any good reading aloud unless they were all there. The letter from Julian was his usual impersonal message followed by Love, which Kitty now realized meant very little.
In the parlor, the radio went silent, and Margaret and Frank came into the kitchen to say good night. “You two turn in,” Margaret told them.
“In a minute,” Kitty said. Tired as she was, she wanted to take her time reading Hank’s letters. He wrote about nature: the oxymoronic quality of flowers on a battlefield. The thin line of rose on the horizon at sunset. The way the boys stood still to hear birdsong and admired the beauty of various countrysides, even if they were neck-deep in mud.
He recounted conversations he’d overheard—some funny, some painfully sad. Most important, he continued to tell her about himself, both as a boy and as the man he was now. There were times she thought about making a scrapbook out of certain paragraphs he’d written. But she wanted to save all his letters intact. Someday they’d take them out and sit on the sofa with cups of tea and read them all again together. He liked Irish tea. He liked Boston cream pie. He liked french fries and barbecue ribs. He hated radishes and liver.