Kitty stared at her letter, and decided to leave honey in. It would look worse to scratch it out. Then she wrote, Say, I know this is awfully short, but Louise is calling me to help her with some crazy thing. Remember me in your dreams, as I will you. She’d write a longer letter later, after something had happened.
Tish licked an envelope, sealed it, and set it aside, then put the letter she’d answered back in its packet tied with red ribbon. She had three different colors for the men she was currently writing: red for Roy Letterman from Oakland, California; yellow for Bill Carson from Bayonne, New Jersey; and blue for her favorite, Donald Erickson from Madison, Wisconsin. She’d had pink for Whitey Nelson from New York City, but the letters from him had recently stopped. No one wanted to think why. At least Tish’s last letter to him had not come back marked DECEASED. Yet.
“You guys?” Tish said. “Do you ever wonder…Do you think there’s any danger that we’ll get attacked?”
Louise sighed. “Who knows?”
“Because I have a plan,” Tish said. “If we get attacked, we put a line of red nail polish across our throats like blood and play dead. I have the polish under the bed; it’s all ready in case we need it. Becky gave it to me, that girl who sits behind me in school. She has two bottles under her bed. She’s going to pour it all over her forehead like she shot herself.”
Kitty and Louise exchanged glances, and then Louise spoke reassuringly. “That’s a good plan, Tish. But I don’t think we’ll need it. I think we’ll win the war, and the boys will come home. It’s all going to be over soon.”
Silence but for the sound of the radio in the parlor, and then Tish opened another letter and laughed. “Listen to what this guy said: ‘I hope I didn’t embarrass you, praising your charms this way. Or make you mad! If I did, don’t be sore, it’s just with a puss like mine, I thought the only woman I’d hear from would be my mom. I’m the luckiest man in my company, everyone agrees.’ See that?” She smiled at her sisters, then read the lines again, silently this time, but with her lips moving.
“Guess you’re a good knitter after all, Tish,” Louise said. And then she got them all more hot water and lemon, and they worked quietly until their mother came into the kitchen and announced that, as she was tired, it was time for all of them to go to bed.
After the sisters were in bed, the lights out, Kitty whispered, “Hey? You know Mrs. O’Brien, that young woman whose husband’s been gone since Pearl Harbor? The real pretty one? Well, she had the grocery delivery boy inside her house for half an hour the other day! Mrs. Sullivan told me—she lives right next door. I’ll bet she got an eyeful!”
When her sisters didn’t respond, she thought at first they were ignoring such unkind gossip. But when she leaned up on her elbow and looked at them, she saw that they were sound asleep, Tish with her mouth open, Louise with covers flung off, a dark lock of hair loose from the rag roller. Kitty had a thought to fix it but didn’t want to wake her.
They were home, she and her sisters. They were safe, three in a bed, but it was a comfortable bed. High above them, the sky was full of drifting clouds and stars. But across both oceans, boys not much older than her own brothers slept in the dirt, and the skies above them exploded regularly. It comforted Kitty to think that the letters she and her sisters wrote would soon be in their hands. But it was a small comfort, and mostly inside herself she felt the hollowness of fear. Her mouth grew dry; she wanted water. A trip to the kitchen? No. She would wait until morning. What luxury, the choice.
RIGHT AWAY ON MONDAY MORNING, Kitty knew something was wrong. Rather than the usual loud and cheerful banter of the women at her office, there was silence. A knot of women was gathered around the desk of Maddy Pearson, and she had her hands to her face and was crying.
Kitty swallowed against the sudden tightness of her throat, lay her jacket and purse on her desk chair, and moved over to the group. “What happened?’” she whispered, and Polly Dunn whispered back, “Her brother Walter was killed. His plane was shot down. He parachuted out, but then the Jerrys got him on the ground. The family just found out on Saturday.”
Tears started up in Kitty’s eyes, and she blinked them away, then moved forward so that she could kneel at her friend’s side. “Maddy?” she whispered.
Maddy turned toward her and took Kitty’s hands into her own. She squeezed them so tightly, Kitty had to draw in a breath and clench her teeth to keep from crying out. Maddy spoke between hiccuping sobs. “I thought I was better off coming to work but, golly…” She shook her head. “I guess it wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
“Want to come outside for a minute?” Kitty asked, and Maddy nodded.
They rose together, and the other women parted silently to make way for them. As she and Maddy left the room, Kitty could hear the women start to talk again in the low tones of sorrow.
“Now I’m the one,” Maddy said. “I’m the one they’re all talking about because my brother is gone.”
Kitty linked arms with her. “Shhhhh,” she said. “Let’s go outside. We’ll sit for a while.” She smiled. “It’s real nice out.” As soon as she said the words, she regretted them—how callous to turn the conversation to the weather! But her friend only tried to smile back.
Down the block and across the street was a small park, and Kitty led Maddy to a bench there. “He’d been dead for well over a week before we found out,” Maddy said. “Can you imagine? We’re all just going on like normal, and he’s…” She looked at Kitty. “I’d just written him a letter the day before we got the telegram, and I told him all these things he never…he never got to read. I guess that letter’ll just come back. And it will seem so silly, won’t it? All I said?” She put her hand over her heart. “Oh, boy. It hurts. It’s real pain. Right here.”
“I know,” Kitty said.
They sat in silence for some time, and above them the birds chirped and hopped busily from one branch to another. Maddy sighed heavily. She looked up and watched the birds for a while, then reached in her pocket for her hankie. She blew her nose loudly, and it honked, and the girls smiled in spite of themselves. “It’s awful,” Maddy said then, and Kitty nodded.
“I just don’t know what to do. My mother won’t get out of bed. My father sits at the kitchen table and stares. Just…stares. Bobby’s coming home for the funeral, and I don’t know if he should go back. One’s enough, isn’t it?”
“One’s enough,” Kitty said, and then she sat quietly, holding her friend’s hand until she stopped crying.
Finally, Maddy took in a long breath and said, “Okay. I’m okay now. Thanks for coming out here with me, Kitty. I think I’ll just…I think I’ll go home. I’ll make Ma some soup; she’s got to eat, and she likes my cabbage soup. Or I’ll just…I’ll just be there. I’m not ready to go back to work yet.”
“Take your time. And if you need me to do anything for you, let me know.”
“There are some invoices on my desk. If you could—”
“I’ll do them right away.” Kitty hugged her friend and then watched her move in and out of the shade of the trees, walking slowly toward home. All over the country, this just kept happening. And over and over again, Kitty had to straighten her back and remember why. It probably wasn’t right to say so, but this was how she felt: at home, bombs were falling, too.
She started back for the office. After lunch, she’d tell the girls about her ring, she’d show it to them. They needed good news, too. Did they ever.
THE BELL OVER THE DOOR at Munson’s Jewelers tinkled gaily when Kitty walked in. It was as though it, too, wanted to join in the excitement of what she was about to do. So much for the remark Kitty had overheard Julian make to Michael recently: “I’d like to see any quail try to put the bite on me!” All the pressure men felt to try to avoid being “trapped.” And all the pressure women felt to trap them! You couldn’t look at a ladies’ magazine without being beaten about the head with the message that if you weren’t engaged you were nothing. The ad Kitty had lo
oked at most often said, “She’s lovely! She’s engaged!” and she wasn’t even lovely! Kitty had stared and stared at the woman’s face (she looked a little stuck up, too), and thought, How come she got a ring? Something Bob Hope had said on the radio was going around: “You know what a husband is, don’t you? A bank account with pants and an empty stomach. Easy to catch one, though, all it takes is a flashy car with a bear trap for a bumper. Your only competition is twenty-three million other women—and the draft board.” Another joke going around said they were beginning to draft scarecrows. Well, Kitty didn’t have to worry anymore.
She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and across the top of her forehead was a thin line of perspiration. She had walked to the store so quickly she’d nearly tripped over the last curb. She’d tell Julian that, in her letter to him tonight. Jeepers, hon, I was in such a hurry I nearly fell flat on my face on my way over to Munson’s. But it would have been worth it to take a tumble for the incredibly beautiful ring that now sits on that finger! She’d say something like that. The diamond was bound to be big; Julian would never settle for anything under a full carat. It might even be two carats! She’d say he needn’t have done that, but then she’d say how happy she was that he did. She’d heard that if you caught a diamond in the light the right way, you could cast huge rainbows on the wall. She’d wait to do that until her sisters could see it with her. They’d be so excited for her, and they’d love her ring, Tish especially. No stone could be too big for Tish. Louise might think Kitty’s large diamond was crass, but she’d have to admire its great beauty. Everyone would.
Around her parents, Kitty would be more subdued. Already she could hear her mother’s response: “So it’s finally an engagement ring, is it. And none too early, either!” She imagined her father inspecting the stone and saying, “Sure there’s a year’s worth of mortgage payments you’re sporting on your finger!” But he would congratulate her, and he would mean it. He would embrace her, saying, “God love ya, you’re my own shinin’—”
“Miss?”
Kitty started and looked up at the thin face of the man across the counter from her. He wore rimless glasses and a red bow tie, a neatly pressed blue suit and white shirt.
“Oh! I’m sorry, I…My name is Kitty Heaney.” Her voice shook a bit, and she smiled. “Gosh, I’m awful nervous!”
“Am I to assume this is a holdup?” He smirked at his own joke.
Kitty stood tall and tossed her hair back. Then she lowered her chin and looked up at the man. There. She had him now; he was beginning to blush. Kitty loved it when she made men blush. “I’m here to pick up something that Julian Stanton—”
“Oh, yes!” the man said. “I have it in the back. Excuse me for one moment; I’ll bring it right out.”
Kitty’s toes curled in her shoes. She wondered how he knew what size ring she wore. Had one of her sisters told him? Louise? Did she know all about this? It would have to be Louise; Tish couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it. She admitted this about herself; if you wanted to confide in her and asked if she could keep a secret, she would frankly say no. Then she would ask you to tell it to her anyway.
Kitty inspected some of the jewelry in the case while she waited. Rings, brooches, necklaces, bracelets, all so bright and beautiful. And she was seconds away from her own diamond engagement ring. It wasn’t happening quite the way she’d imagined, but it was happening. Part of her felt guilty for feeling such happiness on a day when her friend Maddy was suffering so. But when bad news came, you had to keep on going, just like the boys did.
“Here we are,” the man said. He handed Kitty a silver bag. Inside was a long box, bracelet size, and a ring box, oh, black velvet! Perfect. There was also an envelope with her name on it, and Julian’s handwriting: Read this first.
“Thank you!” Kitty told the man and rushed out of the store. Read this first, my eye. First she’d put on the ring. She took in a deep breath, pulled out the velvet box, and opened it. And stared. She tried mightily to hold back her feeling of disappointment. The ring was no full carat. It wasn’t even half. In fact, you could hardly see the diamond. Still, it was a ring. More or less.
Far less enthusiastically, she opened the bracelet box. Only it wasn’t a bracelet, it was a Lady Elgin watch. Now, here was something nice! She slipped it on her wrist and checked the time against the bank clock across the street. Exactly right. More slowly, then, she pushed the ring onto her finger. Or tried to. He had guessed wrong; the ring wouldn’t go past her knuckle.
But wait. Kitty understood now. This ring was merely a substitute for the real ring, something she might wear on a chain around her neck. Oh, that Julian! He must have ordered her real ring special; Munson’s probably didn’t carry diamonds the size he wanted. That was what the note would explain. She opened the envelope and read Julian’s words eagerly. Then she read them again, more slowly. And then she put the note back into the envelope, the ring back into the box, and headed toward the office. There was time to stop at the Automat for an egg salad sandwich. She would eat her lunch and think about how to do what Julian had asked.
When she got back to work, she’d show the girls her watch.
“WELL, AREN’T YOU TOGGED TO THE BRICKS!”
It was Saturday night, still cool for the end of May, and another meat-stretcher dinner was finished. (“For the love of God, who ever heard of wheat cereal in steak!” their father had asked, and their mother had answered pleasantly, “’Tisn’t steak anyway, Frank; ’tis ground beef. The recipe is only called ‘Emergency Steak.’”) The sisters had washed and dried and put away the dishes, and the usual argument between Billy and Binks had taken place over whose turn it was to flatten the cans and take out the garbage, until Tommy had quietly done it himself.
Now, up in their bedroom, Tish stood staring at Kitty, who was making adjustments to the thin straps of a white chiffon dress. Their mother had decided that Tish needed more chaperoning at the USO dances than her friends’ brothers had provided, and she had all but ordered Tish’s sisters to start accompanying her. With their men gone, they’d have time now.
Kitty’s dress had silver sequins sewn here and there over the bodice and on the skirt; when she twirled around, she sparkled. She was wearing new shoes, too, white heels with little bows at the front, which made your feet look smaller. “Where’d you get all that?” Tish asked.
“Goldblatt’s,” Kitty answered nonchalantly. The truth was, though, that she was very excited to wear what she’d spent her entire savings—and her shoe ration stamp—on. She’d tried on a spaghetti loop dress, with its fabric half circles sweeping down princess lines from shoulders to concealed pockets, but $7.98 was too much to spend on it. She’d loved the Two-Timer, with its tightly fitted aqua-blue jacket embroidered with gold thread: the black pebble-crepe skirt had flared divinely. But it was the white chiffon she’d finally decided on. Might as well wear a white dress this way; it sure didn’t seem like she’d be wearing the other kind anytime soon.
When she’d ridden the streetcar home, she’d kept putting her hand in her shopping bag, just to feel the fabric of her beautiful dress, just to feel the edge of the shoe box, where her heels lay nestled in tissue. She already knew where she’d hide her shoes so her sisters couldn’t get at them: in the basement, beneath her father’s fishing gear; he hadn’t fished in ages.
Kitty had felt a little strange at first, looking at all the lovely dresses while Julian was so far away, pulling them off the rack and holding them up against herself while she swayed from side to side. But then she’d decided that, if she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that she was looking at those dresses because he was so far away, in more ways than one. His indifference to her wanting a ring—he had to know she was dying for one!—put her in the odd position of being angry at him at the same time that she was missing him terribly and worried sick about him. What to do about this confusing mix of emotions? Why, get dolled up and fawned over. That would fix Julian??
?s wagon, and the best part was he wouldn’t even know about it.
Kitty turned to the side and stood on her tiptoes, trying to see as much of herself as she could in the dresser mirror. She took in a deep breath and tossed her hair back.
“Don’t you think you went a little overboard?” Tish asked.
Kitty stuck her tongue out at her sister.
“You did! You’re supposed to be buying only the things you really need.”
Well, who didn’t know that? Everywhere you turned, you were reminded of all that the boys were doing for you. And one of the things you could do for them was “thoughtful buying.” For Pete’s sake, a person felt guilty if she ever put herself first for anything. But sometimes you just had to.
“Well, I really need this,” Kitty said. “You’re the one who said it contributed to the war effort to look nice.”
“Nobody gets that dressed up!”
“I do.”
Louise came rushing into the room with her robe tied tightly around her tiny waist—of all the sisters’, hers was the smallest: nineteen and a half inches and holding. Not so much of a bosom, though, Kitty reminded herself every time she felt a twist of envy. “Be ready in a minute,” Louise said. “Cripes, but that leg makeup takes a long time to dry! And this is Velva! Elizabeth Arden!”
When she saw Kitty, her mouth dropped open.