After Walt checked in Allie’s bags, he joined her on the platform. She held the basket in both hands, the gloves taut over her knuckles.
“Promise you’ll write?” he asked.
She gave him a shaky smile. “If you—if you write first.” Boy, did she look nervous. “Always the lady, aren’t you? Except when you stick your tongue out at officers.”
Allie laughed and looked down at her basket. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“Neither can I, but I’m glad you did. And I’m glad you’ll write, ’cause mail call’s the best part of the day—or the worst if you don’t get anything. The fellows overseas live for mail call.”
“A reminder of sanity in the world?”
“Mm-hmm.” He swallowed hard. He was about to face the insanity, and it would be a lot better with a green-eyed girl writing to him and praying for him.
She raised those gorgeous eyes to him. “Promise me you’ll be careful.”
She wasn’t nervous. She was worried, with good reason. Sure, the Army Air Force was the most sought-after service, but it was the most dangerous, and everyone knew it. Walt smiled. “As long as Hitler and Tojo don’t put cows in the air, I’ll be fine.”
She laughed and loosened the grip on her basket. “I’d better keep quiet, or they’ll develop a secret bovine weapon.”
He laughed along. Now was the time for the words he’d rehearsed. “I’m glad I met you.”
“I—I’m glad I met you too.” But she wouldn’t look up at him.
Now or never. Walt took a deep breath and cupped her chin in his hand. “You’re a lovely woman, Allegra Miller, and you’re very special. Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise.”
Allie’s eyes got so big, Walt was sure he’d fall in. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. He had a lot to pack into that kiss—his affection and hope for a future and promises for more and better kisses someday.
He tore himself from her sweet softness and straightened up, his hand still under her chin. Her eyes opened so slowly he knew he could kiss her if he dared. But not in public. Not her first real kiss.
Walt stuffed both hands in his trouser pockets. He tried to smile, but his mouth didn’t want to let go of the shape of that kiss. What was he supposed to say next? He was supposed to ask her to be his girlfriend, but how did he word it?
A loud whistle interrupted his thoughts. He turned to see the train pull in. Why now? He needed a few more minutes.
“Oh, good, I’m not too late. Ham and cheese okay?” Dorothy ran up and thrust a bag in Allie’s hand. “Here’s your change, Walt.”
He groaned. God’s timing might be best, but Walt didn’t have to like it.
Allie and Dorothy hugged, with lots of “thank you’s” and “I’ll miss you’s” and “I’ll write you’s.” Women sure were sentimental, but at least Walt had an excuse for a hug. He wrapped his arms around Allie, and little brown curls tickled his nose.
She kissed him on the cheek, so quick he almost missed it. “Thank you.”
“What for?” He’d only given her the wooden cow.
Her eyes looked damp. “For—for everything.”
Walt understood. The week meant as much to her as it did to him. “You’re welcome. Thank you for the same.”
More good-byes and promises to write, and Allie disappeared onto the train. A strange emptiness formed in Walt’s chest and grew bigger when the train chugged away. But he had her address in his pocket, her kiss on his cheek, and a future with her. He laughed for the joy of it all.
Dorothy looked up at him. “What’s so funny?”
“All these years, all those jokes about me and women, but I might beat you to the altar.”
“With whom?” She followed his gaze down the tracks. “You don’t mean Allie?”
He rolled his eyes up. “Yes, I mean Allie. Have you been blind all week?”
Dorothy’s upper lip curled. “I don’t think her boyfriend would approve.”
“Boyfriend? We’re talking about Allie, remember?”
“Yes, Allie. She has a boyfriend. Don’t you know that?”
Dorothy had always been spiteful, but this was ridiculous. Walt’s fists clenched in his pockets. “You know what? I made a mistake last summer, but I admitted it and I apologized. As a Christian, you should at least try to forgive me. I lied to get you and Art together, but you—you’re lying to keep Allie and me apart. That’s plain malicious.”
Her dark eyes flashed. “You think I’m lying?”
“I know you’re lying.”
“I’m not. Allie has a boyfriend. His name is Baxter Hicks, he works for her father, and they’ve been together for years.”
Walt made a face and strode into the station. “Can’t you make up a better name than that?”
“I’m not making it up. Ask Betty. She knows Baxter, so does George.”
Dorothy’s little heels clicked behind him out onto the sidewalk, and they’d have a long way to click, because he wasn’t about to give her a ride home. Now she’d mixed up Betty and George in her lie.
George.
Walt stopped in front of the newsstand, where the
Ledger
’s headline read “British Retire in Egypt.” George didn’t tease him. Did he know something Walt didn’t?
“Didn’t Allie tell you about Baxter?” The anger washed from Dorothy’s voice. “She doesn’t talk about him a lot—you know how private she is. But you two talked so much, we assumed you knew.”
Walt faced Dorothy, and his mind whirled over the memories of the week. Allie couldn’t have a boyfriend. No one had really kissed her—ten measly pecks. No one had ever asked her to dance. And that one school dance . . .
Baxter.
“Baxter? But—but that was in high school.” Arranged by her father. Baxter—her father’s business manager.
Truth stabbed him in the chest. Allie had a boyfriend. Walt was a fool.
“They’ve been together a long time. I’m sorry. I thought you knew. We all did.” The anger returned to Dorothy’s voice. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell you.”
Fury churned in his gut, but he wasn’t about to let Dorothy know. Bad enough Allie thrashed his hopes, now his friends would pity him.
Without a word, Walt opened the car door for Dorothy. He felt a burning pain over his heart. Allie’s address. He pulled the paper from his pocket, crumpled it, and dropped it in the gutter with his dreams.
Riverside, California
July 7, 1942
Sheer curtains hung at the tall drawing room windows, limp from heat so still that Allie’s breath provided the only movement of air.
Allie sat at the grand piano to play after-dinner music for her parents and Baxter on the porch outside—every night the same. She knew coming home would be difficult, but she wasn’t prepared for the depth of the void.
She pulled out Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” Perhaps the suggestion of moonlight would cool her and dry the perspiration that ran in nasty rivulets down the inside of her arms.
Mother’s laugh floated through the window. How could she enjoy such an evening? Between the heat and the tedium, Allie thought she’d go mad. Quiet evenings were lovely, but only when they completed days of purpose and were punctuated by occasional social activities.
Allie had no friends, no fun, no work, and not even a good church, as Walt had worded it—blunt but true.
Even the promised letters hadn’t arrived to relieve the monotony. Perhaps it was too soon to hear from the newlyweds, but Dorothy should have written by now, and Walt . . .
However, she dreaded his letter. She couldn’t bear any more of his tender words, and once he wrote, she’d have to tell him about Baxter. Already she mourned the loss of his friendship.
Never had “Moonlight Sonata” sounded so dreary, heavy, like the guilt on her heart and the boredom on her mind. If only things were different.
Make things different, Walt had told her.
But how? Allie lifted her hair off her sticky neck. Her parents would never approve if she went to work or changed churches, but without work or church, how could she make friends?
She flung back her head and sighed. Change was necessary, any change, and she had to start tonight. She folded the sheet music and went out to the porch, where three pairs of eyes looked up at her.
“I thought you were going to play,” Father said.
“It’s too hot.” She gripped her hands in front of her. “I’d like to go for a walk. Who’d like to come with me?”
Three pairs of eyes grew wider. “A walk?” Mother said.
“Yes, a walk.” She might as well have invited them to join the circus.
“Oh.” Mother looked down to her embroidery hoop. “I need to finish these napkins.”
Father smiled at Allie. “I’ll stay with your mother. Baxter can go with you.”
Baxter sat up taller. “I’d rather—”
“Please? Maybe you could show me your property. I’ve seen it from the street but not close up.”
Baxter released a puff of cigarette smoke that drifted down in the heavy air. “I suppose so. Won’t take long, will it?”
“No,” she said with a sigh.
They strolled down the long, citrus-lined drive in silence. Allie tried not to think of Walt, their easy conversations, his attraction, and how she felt vibrant with him. Comparing the two men wasn’t fair.
Even in the arid heat, Baxter wore his necktie knotted and his suit jacket buttoned. His build was slight, his brown hair impeccable under his hat, and he never gazed in her direction if he could help it. With Baxter, she felt dull.
Was that his fault? If she engaged him in conversation, paid him attention, maybe even flirted with him, his interest might grow and hers might also. Such behavior seemed natural with Walt, but with Baxter she’d have to plan. What could she talk about? With Walt, the most wonderful, most intimate talk began with a discussion of her name. She took a deep breath. “J. Baxter Hicks.”
He looked at her, thin eyebrows raised. “Yes?”
“The J stands for Joseph, right?”
“Right.” He rounded one of the brick pillars at the end of the drive and turned southwest down Magnolia Avenue, toward the setting sun.
She plucked a late camellia from a branch that beckoned through the Millers’ wrought iron fence. As a girl, she’d loved to peel the endless pink petals. “I’ve always wondered why you don’t go by Joe. Joe is such a nice, solid name.”
“Joe Hicks?” His mouth drew up in disgust. “Joe Hicks is what I was called the first sixteen years of my life. Joe Hicks is the poor, uneducated dirt farmer I was bred to be. Joe Hicks is the reason I left Oklahoma. Joe Hicks has no dignity.”
Allie frowned and cast aside the outer browned petals. “But J. Baxter Hicks?”
“I created J. Baxter Hicks, a man of dignity.” He strode down the avenue, eyes narrow. “J. Baxter Hicks takes a job at the cinema and studies how the movie stars dress and talk and move—how gentlemen act. J. Baxter Hicks puts himself through college, lands a top-notch job, and makes himself indispensable. J. Baxter Hicks earns the boss’s friendship and the boss’s daughter and builds one of the finest houses in town. J. Baxter Hicks makes a name for himself.”
Even though the temperature exceeded ninety degrees, Allie crossed her arms against a chill. She was a mere cog in his wheel of fortune. Because she was a Miller, he would marry her, whatever her looks, her character, her personality, her feelings—or his. She dropped the camellia.
“Here it is.” He turned onto a dirt path through an orange grove. “I’ll build a long drive as your parents have. It’ll be elegant once paved.”
“Quite.” She welcomed the tangy scent of citrus, glad she’d have the trees and fruit she loved—and Walt loved. She chased off the thought.
At the end of the path, wooden beams rose in a clearing. “The frame’s up?”
“Started.” Baxter picked his way around construction debris, set his hand on a beam, and scrutinized the length of it. “War production has priority over construction. Hard to get labor and supplies, but it should be done in time.”
In time? Another chill raced up her arms. She stepped through the frame and glanced around. The house would be large and grand. How long would it take to complete? How long until it became her home?
A year, maybe less. The beams crowded about her like prison bars.
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes.” Allie stepped out and found she could breathe again. Then she remembered her resolution to show interest and gave Baxter a smile. After all, Walt liked her smile—and her eyes. A swell combination, he said.
Baxter looked up where the beams pierced the darkening sky. “I’ll make your father proud.”
“And your parents?”
He sniffed and wiped his shoe top on the back of his trouser leg.
“You never talk about your parents.”
One side of his mouth curled. “Why would I? They have no part in who I am. They tried to hold me back. Why do you think I ran away?”
Allie couldn’t even imagine leaving her parents, her home, or Riverside. “Don’t you miss your family? The farm?”
“The farm?” He dusted off his other shoe top. “Nothing to miss. Filthy, stinking, hardscrabble life. Watched my father waste his life on that dirt patch. Every year he’d say, ‘The Lord will provide,’ and every year—nothing. And I left in ’26, long before the Dust Bowl. Who knows what that place is like now.”
“You don’t write?”
“Why would I?”
“Oh my.” Despite her current boredom, Allie couldn’t bear to be separated from Father’s guidance and encouragement, or Mother’s company while cooking and sewing. “You haven’t communicated with your parents for all these years? Don’t you ever—”
“Why the interrogation? I know hot weather causes strange behavior, but can’t you talk about something else?”
“I’m sorry.” She pressed her lips together. Instead of finding common ground, she had plowed up an argument. “You . . . you prefer to talk about the present?”
“The present, the future, anything but the past.”
Allie was surrounded by her future—the man she’d marry, the property she’d roam, the house she’d decorate and fill with children, Lord willing. Instead of denying her future, she needed to embrace it. She needed to create the intimacy she longed for, the intimacy she’d tasted so briefly, so enticingly with Walt.
She moved closer to Baxter to make use of her eyes. His eyebrows lifted and drew together. She considered placing her hand on his cheek, but the gesture seemed too personal. Instead she laid her hand on his shoulder, so thin compared to Walt’s.