They were given transport on an army carrier, but this time there was no attempt to make the interior luxurious. J.T. dozed in his seat, opening his eyes only now and then to make sure Aria was reading the history book he had brought with him. He quizzed her on Christopher Columbus and then on the Pilgrims. She answered all his questions correctly but he didn’t give her one word of praise.
When she started on the third chapter, he fell asleep, so Aria removed one of her movie magazines from her purse and placed it in front of the history book. She might have succeeded if she hadn’t leaned her head back and also fallen asleep. The book fell open on her lap.
“What is this?” J.T. demanded, startling her awake.
“It’s swell, isn’t it?” she asked, half awake.
To her surprise, she saw J.T. almost smile but he seemed to catch himself. “You’re supposed to be reading about Colonial America,” he said softly. The noise of the plane enclosed them and their heads were close together.
He was quite good-looking from this distance. “Isn’t there more to America than history?”
“Of course. There’s entertainment.” He nodded to her movie magazine. “But you’ve seen that. And there’s family. Maybe I can explain how the American family works.”
“Yes, I would like to hear something besides history.”
He thought for a moment. “Everything in the American family is absolutely equal, divided fifty/fifty. The man earns the money; the woman takes care of the house. No, wait, it’s not really fifty/fifty, it’s more sixty/forty or perhaps seventy/thirty since the man’s duties carry a backbreaking responsibility with them. He’s the one who always has to provide for his wife and children. Whatever they need, it is his duty to give it to them, to make sure they want for nothing. He works day after day at his job, always giving, always there with that check, asking little in return but giving much. He…” J.T. stopped and straightened in his seat. “Well, you get the picture. We men do very well at holding up our end, even while you ladies spend your afternoons drinking tea.” He sighed. “And war is our duty too.”
“I see,” Aria said when he had finished, but she didn’t see at all. “By ‘take care of the house’ do you mean that if the roof leaks she fixes it?”
“No, of course not. She calls a roofer. I mean she cleans the thing, washes the windows and such. Cooks. Of course she doesn’t fix the roof.”
“She washes windows? What about floors?”
“She cleans all of it. It’s not such a big deal. After all, it’s only housework. Anybody can do it, even a royal princess.”
“You say she cooks. Does she also plan menus? Clean the dishes?”
“Of course. The American housewife is very versatile, and self-reliant.”
“What if there are guests? Does she cook for them? She doesn’t serve, does she?”
“I told you that she takes care of the house and whatever’s in it. That includes guests.”
“Does she take care of clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“Certainly.”
“Who helps her with correspondence?”
“The man usually turns his paycheck over to his wife and she pays the bills, buys the groceries and whatever the kids need.”
“I see. And she drives a car?”
“How else can she get to the grocery?”
“Amazing.”
“What’s amazing?”
“As far as I can tell, the American housewife is a secretary, bookkeeper, chambermaid, chauffeur, caterer, butler, maid, chef, treasurer, lady-in-waiting, and nursemaid. Tell me, does she garden also?”
“She takes care of the yard if that’s what you mean, although, if he has time, the man may help on that.”
“One woman is lord chamberlain, lord steward, and master of the horse all in one. And yet she has time to spend her afternoons drinking tea. Utterly amazing.”
“Could we drop this?” His earlier softness was gone. “It’s not like you make it sound.”
“Of course men did start the war, didn’t they? I don’t remember any woman wanting to bomb another woman’s children. But then she may have been too busy drinking tea or clipping the hedges or washing the dishes or—”
“I’m going to the can.”
Aria picked up her history book but she didn’t read it. Perhaps being an American was going to be more difficult than she thought.
When the plane landed in Key West, there was transportation waiting for them and the driver took them through narrow streets overhung with bright flowers to a two-story house next to a large cemetery. The houses next to it were very close.
J.T. opened the wooden gate with its peeling paint as the car drove off. “I don’t know how the navy got us a house. There’s a year-long waiting list.”
Aria had a hideous vision of standing in line for a full year.
The house was tiny to Aria. The lower floor consisted of one room that was living–dining room, then a half partition hid some of the kitchen. There was a bathroom containing a large white machine also on the first floor. Up steep, narrow stairs was a long room, a double bed at one end, a single bed concealed behind the bathroom wall. The house was filled with wicker furniture and painted in pale blues and pinks.
J.T. hauled all of Aria’s luggage upstairs. “I’m going to the base. Unpack our clothes and hang them up. The army said they’d furnish the place so I hope that means food. When you get done, hit those books again.” He paused a moment at the head of the stairs, seemed about to say something, then turned and left the house.
There was a balcony leading off the upstairs and Aria went outside to look at the narrow street below and across to the cemetery.
“Hey! Is anybody home?” she heard a man’s voice from downstairs.
“J.T.?” she heard a woman call.
How odd, Aria thought. Did people always walk into one another’s houses in America? She walked to the head of the stairs. Below her, coming in the door, were three couples.
“Wow!” said one of the men looking up at her. “Are you J.T.’s heartbreaker?”
They all stopped to stare up at her. Aria might not know how to dress herself or how to count money but she was quite confident of herself as a hostess. “How do you do?” she said regally, descending the staircase as if she were floating.
“Princess!” came another voice as Bill Frazier entered the door, a pretty blonde behind him. “I mean…” He trailed off, embarrassed.
“I am—” Aria began.
“Princess will do,” one man said, laughing. “It suits you. Princess, let me introduce this clan. We came to welcome the new bride.” He introduced Carl and Patty, Floyd and Gail, Larry and Bonnie. Bill introduced his lovely wife Dolly to her. There was another guest, a bachelor named Mitch.
Mitch took her arm. “J.T.’s a fool to leave a beauty like you alone.”
“Where did you get that dress?” Patty asked. They had each brought casseroles and grocery bags of food.
“Is that silk?” Bonnie asked. “Real silk?”
“I thought you two just flew in today. If I had on a dress like that, it’d be a mass of wrinkles!”
“I think I’d die for a dress like that.”
Aria desperately wanted these American women to like her. They wore pretty, flowered cotton sundresses and cool-looking sandals. Each had short hair that looked so young and carefree, and they wore dark red lipstick. Standing before them in her silk suit, her long hair drawn severely back, she felt old-fashioned—and very foreign. They were looking at her expectantly and she searched her mind for something that would please them.
“Lieutenant Montgomery bought me several dresses that are still packed. Perhaps you’d like to see them.”
One minute Aria was standing in the living room and the next she was being pushed up the stairs before a herd of stampeding women.
“What about dinner?” a husband called, but no woman answered him.
Ten minutes lat
er the upstairs was a flurry with women pulling clothes from Aria’s many suitcases. She began to smile and in another ten minutes she was having fun! For the first time in America, she was enjoying herself. She asked if Bonnie would like to try on a Schiaparelli and the next minute the four women were in their underwear.
“I have to show Larry this,” Bonnie said, wearing a gorgeous red Worth evening gown.
“In those shoes?” Aria said softly. “With socks? Perhaps these would be better.”
She held up a pair of silk stockings.
Bonnie looked as if she were going to cry and reached for them.
Aria held them back. “There’s a price.”
The woman hesitated. There was something a little daunting about Aria.
“Will you find me a hairdresser who can cut my hair like yours?” Aria asked. “And a place where I can buy cosmetics?”
The evening turned into a fashion show, with the women modeling Aria’s gowns, suits, and dresses for their husbands. Dolly was a little too plump for the suits, but what she did for one strapless dress was a sight to behold. The women laughed at the men who started cheering when Dolly descended the stairs.
“Bill was horribly jealous,” Dolly said triumphantly.
The smell of roasting meat drifted upward from the tiny backyard.
“J.T. better get back soon or he’ll miss the hamburgers,” Gail said. “Where is he anyway?”
The women paused, their hands on the clothes.
“He went to his job,” Aria said. “Do you think I look all right in this lipstick?”
The women were obviously very curious about her marriage. J.T. went away to rest after his hospital stay, came back exhausted, snapping at everyone, and a few days later a black limo pulled up on the dock, J.T. got in, and then he was gone for days. When he did return, he had a wife.
“I think you look swell,” Dolly said, smoothing over the awkward moment. “Let’s get this cleaned up and get downstairs. There won’t be anything left to eat by the time we get there.”
Aria was in her element as hostess. She quietly made sure everyone had enough to eat and that no one’s glass was ever empty. It was a little difficult coping without servants but she managed. She caught Dolly watching her a few times and smiled.
J.T. arrived for dessert.
“Here’s the bridegroom,” Gail called. “Move over, Mitch, and let J.T. sit by his bride.”
“This is fine,” J.T. said, moving toward Bill and Dolly. “Anything left to eat?”
“No more meat but there’s coleslaw, potato salad, shrimp salad, whatever, over there. Help yourself.”
J.T. gave Aria a hard look. “My wife will fix me a plate.”
For a moment the group was silent, then Aria put her plate aside and stood. “Larry, would you like more apple pie?”
“No thanks, Princess, I’ve had more than enough.”
“Princess?” J.T. asked.
“It’s my nickname for her,” Bill said pointedly.
Aria took a plate and began filling it with food.
J.T. moved to stand across the table from her. “American women wait on their men. They are also good hostesses. Did you make demands that everyone serve you? You didn’t use a knife and fork on your hamburger, did you?”
“Lay off her,” Bill hissed. “She’s doin’ just great. Real nice party, Princess.”
“Does this please you, master?” Aria asked, handing J.T. a plate heaped with food.
“Don’t get smart with me, I’m—Oh, hello, Dolly.” He took his plate and left.
Dolly stood for a moment watching Aria, then took her arm. “Let’s you and me get together Monday and have a nice long girl talk.”
At that moment, someone put on a Glenn Miller record inside the house and Bill asked Dolly to dance. One by one the couples went inside and began to dance in the living room. Only Mitch, J.T., and Aria were left outside.
“Mrs. Montgomery, may I have this dance?” Mitch asked. J.T. never looked up from his plate of food as Mitch escorted Aria inside the house.
Her first encounter with American dancing was shocking to Aria. Even the man to whom she had been engaged had never held her this close.
“Come on, honey, loosen up,” Mitch said, holding Aria’s stiff body.
“Are American wives, as you say, loose?”
“Where are you from?”
“Paris,” Aria answered quickly.
“Ah,” he said, and tried to pull her closer but she wouldn’t bend. “If you’re French, you ought to know a little about love.”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said quite seriously.
Mitch laughed aloud at that and hugged Aria. “I’ve always wondered about ol’ J.T.”
Dolly pulled Bill to dance by Mitch and Aria. “You’d better behave yourself,” Dolly said to Mitch, nodding her head toward the back door where J.T. was entering.
The other couples held their breaths as J.T. strode purposely toward Mitch and Aria. But he walked past them as if he didn’t see them. “Bill, you got a minute? I want to talk to you about installing the radar.”
“Now? This is Saturday night.”
“Yeah, well, a war doesn’t have weekends. You want to go to the base tomorrow and look at it again?”
“On Sunday?”
J.T. rubbed his jaw. “It’s the first radar we’ve installed and I’m concerned about it, that’s all. The damned thing is from Britain and I don’t know if it’s going to fit our American ships. Probably make the ship sail on the wrong side of the ocean.”
Bill smiled but Dolly didn’t. “I still think you should spend the day with your wife.”
“I got more important things to do. Doll, did you bring any of your chocolate cake?”
“Yes. Can you cut it yourself or should I get your big strong wife to do it for you?” Dolly turned on her heel and left them.
“Is she mad about something? You do something to tee her off?”
“It’s not me, buddy,” Bill said. “How are you and the princess getting along?”
J.T. yawned. “As well as can be expected. She’s pretty well useless. I had to teach her how to turn on the bathtub.”
“Mitch doesn’t seem to think she’s useless.”
“That’s thanks to my teaching. A week ago she’d have been demanding he serve her oysters on a gold platter.”
Bill shook his head. He knew the story of why J.T. had married Aria. “She must really want that country of hers. When I met her she wouldn’t let anyone touch her and now she doesn’t seem to mind Mitch’s hands all over her.” He looked up at J.T. but J.T. didn’t react.
“Is everything about ready for the conversion of the distillation ship?”
“Yeah,” Bill said, and there was disgust in his voice. “I think I’ll get another beer.”
J.T. walked toward Aria and again everyone held his breath as Mitch removed his hands from J.T.’s wife. “I’ve got some work to do upstairs,” J.T. said. “You take care of everybody. And I mean that. Get them whatever they need.” J.T. looked at the group of people who were standing quietly. “Stay as long as you want. Have a good time. Good night.”
They watched as he mounted the stairs.
“Talk about a wet blanket,” Gail muttered.
“What happened to the J.T. I used to know?” Larry asked.
All eyes turned toward Aria as if expecting an answer.
Dolly stepped forward. “How about if we all meet at the ice cream parlor on Flagler tomorrow at eleven?”
“I think J.T.’s going to work,” Bill said.
“Well then we’ll have to do without him, won’t we? We’ll pick you up at ten-forty-five…Princess,” Dolly said, smiling.
It took them only minutes to clean up and get ready to leave. Mitch kissed Aria’s hand. “Until tomorrow, Princess,” he said.
Aria stood at the door and said good night. She heard Dolly say, “You’re going to tell me what’s going on, Bill Frazier, if you stay up all night doing it.
”
Upstairs, J.T. was ensconced in the big bed, a sheet covering the lower half of him, the upper half bare. Papers were all around him.
“I guess the little bed is mine,” she said.
“Mmm,” was all J.T. answered.
Aria wrinkled her nose at him, but he didn’t look up. She opened a chest of drawers and looked at her pile of nightgowns. On impulse she removed the pink silk one she had bought for her wedding night—a wedding night that had never come.
In the bathroom she began humming one of the tunes she had heard that night and remembered being in Mitch’s arms. Of course it had been very awkward, and by Lanconian standards, it was very improper, but all in all it had been rather pleasant.
After her bath she brushed her hair loose, letting it flow over her shoulders and down her back. She was still humming and smiling when she left the bathroom and took her clothes to hang them in the closet across from J.T.’s bed. She was getting quite used to taking care of her own wardrobe and was beginning to feel some pride at seeing her clothes neatly hung.
“Who is this Mitch?” she asked J.T. behind her.
“What? Oh, he runs the optical shop.”
“Optical? He makes eyeglasses?”
J.T. put down his papers. “His department repairs chronometers and ship watches.”
“Then he’s an important person?”
“Everyone’s needed in the war effort.”
“Yes, but how does he rank? Is he your superior?” She sat down on the edge of his bed.
“Oh, I see, you want to know if he’s a duke or a prince. Sorry, Princess, but he’s not my superior. I have only one boss and he’s the industrial manager. I’m Mitch’s boss—and Bill’s boss and Carl and Floyd and Larry’s boss. What’s that smell?”
“Perfume from the saleswoman in Miami. He seems very nice.”
“You always wear perfume at night?”
“Yes, of course. The others were very nice too. America seems so free and there don’t seem to be many rules governing conduct.”
“Get off of my bed and go to your own. And don’t wear that nightgown again and put your hair in a pigtail. Now get out of here and leave me alone. And take that history book with you. You’ll have a test over chapters seven through twelve tomorrow.”