“He’ll probably stay with me,” Celeste said.
“I see. One of
those
things. Well, he certainly seems to love you.”
Celeste lifted her eyebrows and tried to look neutral.
“It’s a wonderful thing, dear, and Jonny’s a sweet little boy, but won’t it be difficult for you when Kent comes home?”
Celeste kept smiling. “Oh, I don’t think so, Mrs. Lowe. I’ve told him all about Jonny. Things will work out.” She slipped out of her coat. “I’ll go see what I can help with in the kitchen.”
****
“Where did all these people come from?” Celeste asked Marilyn as she forked doughnuts onto a platter for the fourth time.
“It’s been busier this last year. I’m not sure why. Here, take these cookies out with the doughnuts.”
Celeste balanced the platters on her arm and reached for a pitcher of fruit punch. “I hope it’s over soon.”
“Don’t we all?”
The din of conversation rising over the music from the phonograph assaulted her ears as she emerged into the main room of the Canteen.
The noise in here is awful. I’m too used to being home where it’s quiet.
She skirted a couple dancing on the fringes of the floor and slid the plates into an empty space on the table.
“Hello, Velvet.”
She barely righted the pitcher before its contents could drench the tablecloth.
“Kent.”
His looked thinner, his face pinched and pale. She noticed the lieutenant’s bars on his uniform and a ribbon she didn’t recognize on his left pocket.
“How are you?” he asked as she stared, unable to take her eyes from his face.
She swallowed twice before she could speak. “All right.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
“I don’t come anymore since…” She stopped and started over. “Mrs. Lowe needed me to fill in tonight.”
“Is our table still over in the corner?”
“I’m not sure.” She tried to see across the packed the dance floor. “Maybe there’s one somewhere.”
His touch, when he cupped her elbow to guide her through the crowd, sparked feelings she’d tried to forget. He pulled out a chair for her and sat down across the table. “You look different.”
“Older, anyway.”
“What are you now? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?”
“Twenty-four next April.”
“How’s your family?”
“Everyone’s doing well. Barbara’s growing like a weed. One week she wants to be a movie star, and the next she wants to be a cowgirl.”
“I guess you still go to the ranch on holidays.”
“Yes.”
“Still work at Woolworth?”
She nodded.
“How do you manage with…”
“I worked things out.”
“Your hair is different.”
“I cut it a little. Easier to take care of.”
He glanced away, then back. “I’ve been reassigned to Concho Field.”
She digested the information she wished she hadn’t heard. “I’m glad you’re not going back.”
“Had two planes shot out from under me. Luckily, the second one made it to the Channel before the last engine quit. We got wet, but we all got out in one piece.”
“Oh, Kent, how awful for you.”
He shrugged. “I’m alive. Lost a lot of buddies, though.”
“Pete Frame is dead,” she said, choking on the words she’d never actually voiced. “My high school date. We ran into each other when he was home on leave, before he went overseas. He married a girl in Virginia.” She hesitated. “He never saw his son.”
“Too bad.”
“Yes, it is. She wrote to me. Alice. His wife.”
“The English girls came to the base for dances sometimes. They were nice, but they weren’t you.”
She didn’t reply.
“I looked at your picture every chance I got. The one you had made in that blue velvet dress. Do you still have it?”
“Yes, but I don’t wear it.”
“Not in style?”
“Right. Out of date.”
“You have your eye on something newer?”
“Not exactly. The dress stood for something then, a new direction in my life, a change I wanted to make.”
“You’ve made a lot of changes, I guess.”
“I’ve had to.”
“Yeah.” He looked around again. “Want to dance?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.”
“I need to hold you, Velvet. All I’ve thought about for the last few months, since I knew I was coming home, was holding you in my arms. Sometimes I’d go to bed at night and actually feel you.”
“Kent, I meant what I said in the letter you never answered, so I decided you didn’t think there was any middle ground for us.”
“I didn’t know what to say to you. I still don’t. I love you and want to marry you. Do you still love me, or is there someone else? You said you were going to be looking.”
The accusatory note in his voice irritated her. “There’s no one else, Kent. I’m not sure there ever could be.”
“Why not?”
“You know what they say about a girl’s first love.” She tried to smile.
“I guess not, but let’s don’t talk about it. Dance with me.” He stood up and held out his hand.
****
He held her in a way that the chaperones told the girls wasn’t appropriate, but no one tapped her on the shoulder. She guessed Mrs. Lowe recognized Kent and explained the situation to the others. When she came to their table later and told Kent how glad she was to see him, she seemed more emotional than usual. Using the fact that the woman lingered beside Kent’s chair, Celeste made an excuse to go back into the kitchen.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Marilyn said, looking up from the bread she was slicing for sandwiches.
“Kent’s here.”
“Oh, Cece. And you didn’t know he was coming?”
“He’s been assigned to Concho Field.”
“That’s wonderful! Now the two of you can get married. When you’re ready, that is, and I guess you are, after all this time.”
Celeste reminded herself that Marilyn didn’t know the story and tried to close her ears. “I’ll help you with those sandwiches,” she said, going to wash her hands at the sink.
Mrs. Lowe caught her when she came out of the kitchen. “Did you know that ribbon on his pocket is for the Silver Star?”
“No, I didn’t. He didn’t mention it.”
“He didn’t say anything to me, either, but I knew what it was when I saw it. Valor in action. That’s what it’s for.” She patted Celeste. “You’re a lucky girl.”
She saw Kent dancing with another girl, but she noticed he went back to “their” table alone. She brought more cookies from the kitchen before she joined him again. “Sorry. Mrs. Lowe is working short-handed tonight.”
“She told me. It’s okay. Can you sit down again for a few minutes?”
Celeste nodded.
“I love you, Velvet. Just holding you in my arms again makes me want to never let you go.”
“Kent…”
He held up his hand to silence her. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Why do people fall in love? Do you know?”
She shook her head.
“I think I loved you the minute I looked up and saw you leaning out the window at Woolworth after you dropped the apple on my head. And then when I saw you on the sidewalk outside Cox-Rushing-Greer, with your nose pressed against the window, wanting that dress so bad you could taste it... But I know for sure I loved you from the minute I saw you in it at the Roof Garden.”
“I used to dream about a blue velvet curtain and a faceless man wanting to take me behind it. That night, he had your face.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You never told me that before.”
“It was the silly sort of thing a girl does. It wasn’t important.”
“You still look like yourself, but you’re not the same.”
“I guess I’ve grown up. You said I needed to.”
“I needed to grow up, too. I thought I’d done it, but I was wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I had an ego this big.” He made a box with his hands. “I thought I’d taken over after Dad died. Looked after Neil, put up with Mother running my life. I guess I thought I was entitled to whatever I wanted.”
“Claudia.” The name hung between them for a few minutes.
“Yeah.” He took a couple of deep breaths. “But I wasn’t smart enough to make sure nothing came of it.”
Her face flamed.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to embarrass you.” He smiled. “But I kind of like it that you still blush. It’s sweet. That much hasn’t changed.” His smile faded. “I found out I wasn’t as big as I thought I was. When she told me she was…”
“Kent, maybe we should save this conversation for another time.”
“Will there be another time?”
“You know where I am.”
“But he’s there, too. The boy.”
“That’s right.”
He looked away.
“Do you need your car?”
“It’s your car. I gave it to you. Besides, I took some of my back pay from when I was MIA and bought another one when I got home. It’ll get me back and forth from the field.”
“What about after the war? Are you going to college? I hear the government is paying for soldiers to go to school.”
“I might. I don’t know if I want to sell plumbing supplies all my life, although I’m darned good at it. What about you? Are you going to work at Woolworth forever?”
“It’s a good steady job, and I got a raise.”
“Dance with me one more time?”
She thought she should say no, but the next thing she knew, she was in his arms, wanting to stay there forever.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Celeste wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved when Kent didn’t come to church the next morning. After lunch, she read to Jonny from one of his new library books. When he went off to his room to play with the set of cars for which they’d made a garage out of two shoeboxes taped together, she sat down and tried to lose herself in a fashion magazine Veda had loaned her.
Her eyes crawled over the same page three times before she gave up.
I’m glad you made it back safely, Kent, but why did you have to come here? Why couldn’t things have just ended like they were? You want me, but you don’t want Jonny, and I’m not going to give him up. Whether or not he’s part of you, he’s part of me now.
When the phone rang later, she hoped it was Kent—and hoped it wasn’t. “Velvet?”
“Hello, Kent.”
“I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed seeing you last night.” His tone was oddly formal.
“I enjoyed seeing you, too.”
“Are you busy? I mean, I’m in town, and we could meet somewhere.”
“I’m home with Jonny, like I am whenever I’m not working.”
“Doesn’t that sort of tie you down?”
“You know I wasn’t out running around before.”
“Right. Well, I just thought maybe we could take a ride and talk.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t have anybody who could watch him for a couple of hours?”
“Sometimes my neighbor helps out, but she took care of him for me to come to the Canteen last night. I don’t want to ask her again so soon.”
“Oh.”
“You could come over here, Kent. I have to fix supper anyway.”
The silence lasted so long that she thought he’d put the phone down and walked away. Finally he said, “You know I can’t do that.”
“I know you don’t want to. I think I understand.”
“Do you? I don’t. I understood why you were mad at me over Claudia, but I don’t understand why you took in her kid.”
“I tried to explain it to you.”
“That you felt some sort of tie to him because of your father? I don’t see it.”
“It started out that way, but now he’s mine. We’re a family. He loves the ranch, and everybody there loves him, and…”
The click on the other end of the line told her Kent had hung up.
****
On July 4, Celeste took Jonny to Santa Fe Park to see the fireworks. The Thomases, already there and set up in a prime spot, waved them over. “Hello there, young man,” Mr. Thomas said.
“You remember Mr. Thomas, the man I work for,” Celeste said.
Jonny stuck out his hand the way she’d taught him. “Yes, sir.”
Mary Thomas smiled at Celeste. “Why don’t you two put your quilt down here and join us? We were hoping to have our oldest grandson today, but his mother’s a nurse and got called in to work at the last minute. We’ll just adopt Jonny for the evening.”
Jonny helped spread the quilt and plopped down. “Does somebody shoot the fireworks out of a gun?”
“Not exactly,” Mr. Thomas said. “We say they ‘shoot off’ fireworks, but they have a special way to do that. Have you ever seen them before?”
Jonny shook his head. “Nope. No, sir.”
“Then you’re in for a treat.”
Just as Celeste started to sit down, she caught sight of Kent standing on the edge of the crowd. She lifted her hand to wave, then dropped it, but he stood there looking at her until she wanted to hide her head under the quilt.
Mr. Thomas noticed her agitation and the reason for it. “We’ll keep an eye on the boy,” he said.
“No, I…”
“Go ahead,” he said.
Celeste crossed the grass, not looking at Kent until she stood in front of him.
“Hi, Velvet.”
“Do you want to join us?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry I hung up the other night.”
“That was two weeks ago.”
“I just didn’t know how to keep talking…about things.”
“It’s all right.”
“Can we take a walk?”
“I have to get back.”
“Just for a few minutes? Away from the crowd.”
Celeste glanced back at the Thomases. Both of them were watching her. Mary Thomas waved, as if she were giving her permission not to come back right away. “All right. For a little while.”
Kent took her hand and led her down toward the river that ran under the Beauregard Bridge. As soon as the trees swallowed them up, he caught her in his arms, and his mouth came down on hers. “Velvet…oh, Velvet.”
She clung to him without speaking.
“I love you so much. Every day at mail call, I kept telling myself that tomorrow I’d have a letter from you. When I was hiding from the German patrols, being smuggled from farm to farm in hay wagons, all I could think about was staying alive to get back to you. I was going to do whatever it took to make things right with you again.” His lips traveled to her throat.
“Kent…”
“I know, I know, the boy. Claudia meant to come between us, and she did, even after she died.”