Letters From Home (18 page)

Could it be he was right about her father? Was it possible he was hurting as well?

Though the suggestion seemed improbable, Morgan had once more given her a thought to ponder—the same as he had at the dance. They’d only but met, and still he had prompted her to examine her life. He’d raised questions in her mind about her mother, and Dalton, and even her career path—questions that had never occurred to her. Or ones perhaps she had been afraid to ask.

Somehow, with Morgan, her heart felt like an unedited book, its content speckled with imperfections. The fact that he continued to earnestly turn the pages, in both the figurative and literal sense, equally comforted and terrified her.

Yours truly, Morgan

She ran her fingers over his valediction, forward then backward. As her skin absorbed the words, a fluttering sensation filled her: a swarm of butterflies taking flight. She recalled the curves of his shoulder, the feel of his palm melting into hers.

Lowering her lids, she sank into her chair. Beneath an Arthurian sky dotted with stars, the soldier stepped toward her. His jeweled eyes and gentle smile arrested her senses. He wrapped his arms around her waist, his fingers caressing her back. Her yearning heightened from the memory of his scent, rich with lemon and vanilla and cedar. The heat of his body, his touch, blocked out the cold, blocked out the world. They were like Lancelot and Guinevere, they were Tristan and Isolde—meeting in secrecy, defying duties. Passion drawing their lips close, she tasted his sweet breath entwining hers. He guided her chin toward him, and at last their mouths met….

“What is this, a love letter from Dalton?”

Liz’s eyes shot open. Panic flared as Julia lifted the pages off her lap.

“Give it back!” She reached out, but Julia took them hostage behind her.

“My goodness, it
must
be something good.”

“Jules, I mean it.” She thrust forth her hand.

“I let you read all
my
letters,” Julia complained, forehead scrunched.

“I know,” she said. “Just not this one, all right?”

Julia studied her intently. Then she shrugged. “Okay,” she said, and brought the letter back into view. Liz prepared to accept it, when Julia added, “Right after a quick peek,” and darted into the entry.

Liz scrambled behind. “Julia,
don’t.”

“ ‘Yours truly, Morgan'?”
she read aloud, shifting the papers. “ ‘Dear Betty, thank you so much for your last letter—’”

Liz managed to snatch them back without tearing them. She wanted to evade the pending inquisition, yet the accusation in Julia’s eyes welded her shoes to the floor.

Julia folded her arms and waited.

The quiet was deafening. Liz couldn’t stand it anymore. “Okay, I wrote him back,” she said. “But it doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

Julia said nothing.

Liz felt heat rising to her face. Thoughts in a flurry, she threw out an excuse. “I just didn’t have the heart to tell the poor guy that Betty up and left. And with her doting on some pilot from Australia, you know she’s already forgotten all about him.” She was shamefully reaching with her next appeal, but nothing else came to mind. “You of all people know what it means to a soldier to get a letter from home.”

Julia’s expression made it clear she wasn’t buying it. “What exactly went on between you two after I left that dance?”

“Nothing,”
Liz said before her conscience gave a nudge. “We just talked. And danced a little.”

“And then?”

“And then I came back from the ladies’ room to find him and Betty dancing. So I left. End of story.”

“But it’s not,” Julia pointed out, “if you’re still writing him.”

Liz calmed herself and spoke evenly. “It’s just a few letters, Jules.”

“You’re sure there isn’t more to it?”

Liz parted her lips to say no, yet hesitated. And in that moment of hesitation, doubt about everything in her life returned. Everything but how she felt about the pages in her hands.

“Dalton,” Julia called out over Liz’s shoulder.

The warning whirled Liz around. Indeed, stepping through the front door in a black overcoat and fedora was Dalton Harris.

The hallway cinched about them.

Liz threw on a smile, reining in her nerves. “What are you doing here?” She blindly slipped the letter into her apron pocket.

“I had a meeting with Bernstein in Uptown. Thought I’d swing by on my way back.”

“Oh, great. That’s great.” Everything was great—so long as she didn’t say
great
one more time. “How’d the meeting go?”

“Fantastic.” He removed his hat, his face still aglow from his father’s recent electoral victory. “Nothing set in stone, but looks like he’s landed me a clerkship with Judge Porter.”

“Judge Porter? Wow. I’m so happy for you.”

“Happy for
us,
“ he corrected her. “All groundwork for our future, right?”

Liz maintained her smile.

“Hey, you dropped something.” He bent over to pick up the folded stationery on the floor.

Perspiration opened up on Liz’s palms as she realized the pages had bypassed her pocket. She quickly reached down, but Julia nabbed them from Dalton in time.

“Thanks,” Julia told him, covering the writing with her hands. “You’d think I’d take better care of Christian’s letters than that.”

“I doubt he’d hold it against you.” Dalton grinned. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the reason I’m here. Thanksgiving dinner’s been changed to four o’clock. That way Congressman Blaine and his wife can make it. Hope that’s not a problem.”

“Fine by me,” Liz answered. “Jules?”

“No argument here.”

A small relief. Without Julia there, Liz would have no one other than Dalton’s mother to talk to once the gentlemen retired to the parlor. And the tedious subject of acceptable wedding guests was certain to be the main topic.

Dalton glanced at his watch. “Dang, I’m late for my study group. But I’m glad I caught you.” He grasped Liz’s hand and was about to stamp her mouth with a kiss when he pulled back. His gaze dropped, fixed with concern. “Lizzy, where’s your ring?”

She looked at her hand before remembering. “Oh, it’s at home, in my jewelry box.”

He blew out a breath. “Scared me.” Then he tilted his head, the lines on his forehead deepening. “I don’t understand, though. Why aren’t you wearing it?”

She ushered lightness into her voice. “Because, silly, it’s too valuable. With all the solutions we handle, I didn’t want it to fall off.” And that was the truth. So why were her hands slickening with a second sheen?

He didn’t look convinced. “If you don’t like it, sweetheart, we could find something else.”

“Absolutely not,” she insisted. “It’s gorgeous. Once it’s sized, I won’t be worried about losing it.”

“Do you want me to go with you, to the jeweler?”

“Well, sure I do. But goodness knows you don’t have time right now.” He didn’t argue. Not that she expected him to. Still, something deep inside her crumpled. “Besides, you’ve got more pressing issues. I’ll just take care of it after the holidays.”

His mouth suggested a smile. “That’s my girl. Wouldn’t want people thinking you were stepping out on me, right?”

“Of course not,” she said, which widened his grin.

He nodded to Julia. “See you Thursday?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

He replaced his hat and tipped the brim. “Enjoy your evening, ladies.”

“Good night,” they responded in unison.

When the door closed behind him, Liz felt as if she’d finally come up for air. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Julia staring at her.

“It’s only a few letters,” Liz affirmed.

“If you say so.”

Confining tension rose around Liz like bars. The pressure of standing trial emanated from the unspoken. She angled toward the hall. “I have to help with dinner.” On her second step, a hand touched her elbow.

“Liz, wait,” Julia told her. “I’m saying this as your friend. If you have feelings for another fellow, you owe it to Dalton to be honest. An engagement is a serious commitment.”

As opposed to what? A passing fancy?

“I
know
it is,” Liz replied, stronger than she’d intended. She softened her tone. “I know it is, Jules.” Had her life been buttermilk smooth like Julia’s, Liz would surely have been just as disapproving. Her friend wasn’t off base; she simply didn’t understand.

Julia paused before handing over Morgan’s letter. “See you after work,” she said, and turned for her office. A caution lined her thin smile:
I hope you know what you’re doing.

Left to her quandary, Liz leaned against a wall. She thought again of Tristan and Isolde and the tragedies that befell them, all for a forbidden love, doomed from the start.

Was she so naïve to think she could win fate’s favor, when a couple like that had lost? A voice inside responded, said her deceptions would only lead to heartache—not just for her, but for everyone involved.

Perhaps it was time she listened.

19

November 1944
Dutch New Guinea

S
louched on a stump just outside the ward, Betty pinched her nose and fought a gag reflex. She tried to imagine nice, chilled limeade in the cup at her lips, but was failing miserably. The only drinking water at the hospital spent its days hanging in Lister bags beneath the merciless sun, intensifying the rubberized, chlorinated flavor of the liquid moving down her throat. Another highlight she wouldn’t be writing home about. No need to burden her friends with details best left forgotten. The genuinely positive elements were the only tidbits worth sharing, their quantities few enough to fit on pocket-sized postcards.

That, however, would all soon change.

After weeks of Betty’s diplomatic, systematic prodding, Captain Kitzafenny had agreed to swap her out with a trained medical tech, as soon as one could be spared from Port Moresby. Betty had heard conditions at the major supply port, located on the southeast side of the island, differed drastically from her primitive encampment in Hollandia. Insect and climate issues, though present, would be vastly more tolerable in a developed area with rec hall dances, day-rooms, and beauty shops. Rumor even had it WACs there cooled off in the afternoons by swimming in crystalline waters off sandy beaches shaded by coconut-garnished palm trees. Precisely what she had signed up for.

Now all Betty had to do was keep tight to the rails and not give her CO any cause to nullify their agreement.

“Knew I’d find ya at the bar.” Rosalyn Taylor’s velvety drawl reflected the mischievousness in her smile. The South Carolinian private, slight with high cheekbones and short black ringlets, stooped out from the ward’s entry of mosquito netting. She secured the screen back in place, protecting patients suffering odorous wounds from being eaten alive.

“I was just so parched,” Betty explained sluggishly, preparing to rise. “Did someone need me?”

“Ah, relax, honey. You’ve been working your fanny off.”

Betty plopped back down. Her feet throbbed in her shoes.

Rosalyn lit a cigarette, took a drag, and blew the smoke off to the side. She wiped her glistening face with her sleeve. “I declare, if it isn’t hotter than a blazin’ bin of cotton.”

The midday temperature felt like two hundred degrees to Betty, thanks to the impossible humidity and her sweat-dampened twill. She dropped her head back and stretched her gaze to the scattering of clouds, her mind reaching for the coolness of higher altitudes. “Cripes. Is it
always
going to be this hot?”

“Supposed to taper some by January.”

“January, huh.” Betty pulsed the chest of her shirt to create a pseudo breeze, then gave up. The movement did no more good than rocking before a coal stove. “So, a couple months and my clothes might stay dry for five whole minutes.”

Rosalyn chuckled through another stream of smoke. “Reckon you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high, darlin'. Monsoons will be here before you know it.”

The bulletins just got better and better. Maybe one of the active volcanoes on the island would simply erupt and put them out of their misery.

“Afternoon, ladies.” Tom, the first ward man Betty had befriended, approached with a bundle. Accustomed to the altered shades of everyone’s skin from anti-malaria tablets, she hardly noticed his yellow hue anymore. “Ambulance driver dropped it by.”

Betty thanked him for the package as he continued on. She perked up and set her cup aside, never too tired for a gift. From the scrawled words, she already knew who’d sent it.

To: Miss Grable
From: Junior

Rosalyn shook her head. “Gotta hand it to the poor boy. If nothin’ else, he is determined.”

Averaging twice a week, Junior had employed the help of soldiers whose regular runs to the hospital made them ideal couriers for her diverse presents: shelled jewelry created by natives; collectible currency from the Japanese occupancy; fresh apples bartered off ships in the harbor—like manna from heaven compared to their greasy canned mutton and dehydrated rations, the only food that didn’t mold in the humidity. Not that Betty could tell, from the taste of them.

“What’s your guess?” she asked Rosalyn. “Two tickets to Hawaii this time?”

“If it is, Junior will have to buy himself another one. ‘Cause that second seat there’d be mine.”

Betty smiled and opened the package. On top, bound in tissue, reading
For the prom,
was a handmade corsage of white orchids and red hibiscus blossoms. She brought the cluster to her nose. In contrast to the usual jungle-hospital stench, the floral fragrance was grander than an entire bottle of Chanel No. 5.

“Bless his heart,” Rosalyn said, “that boy
must
be head over heels. Only way of getting orchids round these parts is fetching ‘em from the highest treetops.” She took the corsage and gave it a long whiff. “I do hope you humor the kid, for outright riskin’ his life. At least a peck on the cheek, regulations or not.”

Kid
was certainly the appropriate title.

“Well, I don’t know about that.” Betty’s thoughts dissolved at the sight of the remaining item in the wrapping. The most splendid treasure on the island. Men’s khaki trousers!

Utter joy sprang Betty to her feet. She hugged the thin slacks to her chest and barely contained a squeal that shot from the base of her lungs. “He deserves a kiss, all right!” She bounced childishly on her heels, not caring how foolish she must have appeared.

“Thank the Lord,” Rosalyn said. “Now I don’t have to worry about you up and stealing my only pair while I’m snoozin'.”

Betty shook out the creased pants and held the top edge to her waist. Back home, she wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing men’s clothing, and this was far from the uniform she’d envisioned when enlisting. Yet here she was, celebrating as if the baggy summer trousers were spun from twenty-four-karat gold. Already she felt several degrees cooler.

Rosalyn rubbed the fabric between her fingers. “You split these seams apart, top to bottom, and you can stitch ‘em up to fit ya just fine.”

Sewing was a laborious skill Betty had yet to acquire. Her aunt had tried to show her how to mend socks once, but Betty’s disinterest cut the lessons short. Julia hadn’t even bothered. And what need was there? Even now, a better option stood right beside her.

“Thing is, Roz, I’m not much of a seamstress,” she began with a slight pout. “But if you’re interested in, say, a trade, I’ve got a
beautiful
shell necklace I’d be willing to part with.”

Rosalyn exhaled a gray plume while retaining a knowing smile. “Tell you what, sugar. I’ll do you one better than that. Before lights-out, you come sit on my cot and I’ll teach ya how it’s done. A little thread, a few loops, and you’ll be off and runnin'. How’d that be?”

“Well, I suppose I could.” Betty sheathed her disappointment, still hopeful. “But wouldn’t it be easier, with me staying out of the way? Maybe I could just watch this first time.”

“Honey, I was a high school home arts teacher. By sunrise, you’ll be able to make yourself up a whole wardrobe if you like.”

Betty was about to scrounge up another tactic, then reminded herself that gaining the reputation of being a goldbrick could roughen her pathway to Port Moresby. Besides, in this heat, if it meant a break from her loathsome winter coveralls, a needle prick or two was a meager price to pay.

“It’s a deal,” Betty agreed as she shooed a mosquito scouting the landing pad of her hand. She watched the bug drift away on nonexistent wind.

Rosalyn blew more smoke. “You hear about the fresh casualties coming from Leyte?”

Betty nodded. Another endless night ahead. She rubbed her eyes at the prospect.

“Best get movin', then. Don’t want
Kiss-her-fanny
to catch us resting on our laurels.” Kitzafenny’s near miss with a scorpion’s tail in the latrine had recently landed her the secret nickname, one that fit in more ways than one.

Betty finished up her water and handed over the empty cup, a makeshift ashtray. In exchange, Rosalyn surprised her with an envelope. “Kept a little goodie for ya. Reckoned you’d like to pass it along yourself.”

Betty bit her lower lip, suppressing a grin that rose like a welt at the sight of his name:
Flt. Lt. Leslie Kelly.
She shrugged casually. “What makes you think I’d want to deliver this?”

“Mercy. I have no idea.” Rosalyn smirked before rounding the tent.

Left alone, Betty studied the name in the return address:
Nellie Miles.
Yet another of his female correspondents with a surname differing from his own. Evidently, he’d established girlfriends in a chain of ports. A tomcat she’d be wise to steer clear of.

His quiet reserve, however, failed to match. A mystery. One that had caused her mind to spin with possibilities, of who he was, who he’d been before the war. On the rim of sleep at night, she’d let her imagination fill in the gaps. As a child, she had created a make-believe father in the same manner, her mind assembling him like Frankenstein—but with better looks and a nicer outfit, military stripes riding the sleeves. Girls with fathers who’d died in the Great War, she had learned, spurred sympathy rather than gossip.

Betty laid the lieutenant’s letter atop her bundled gifts. She headed toward Ward Four, on the east end of the complex. One step after another, she told her heart there was no need to flutter. He was just another pilot. In the Royal Australian Air Force. With the palest blue eyes she’d ever seen.

But no need for fluttering.

In a fluid motion, she swooped around the netting and entered the tent.

“Heya, Betty,” the burly lumberjack called from the first bed. “My bathwater ready yet?”

“Still looking for a tub big enough.”

“Well, if you’re doing the sponging, it’s worth the wait.”

She shook her head while strolling away.

Right on cue, the Tennessean banjo player whistled his standard—“Pistol Packin’ Mama”—in ode to her arrival.

Next came the father of newborn twins, beaming at a fresh photo.

“They gotten any bigger, Grady?” she asked.

“An inch a day, according to the missus.”

“Be outgrowing you before long.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” With the Pacific’s poor evacuation system, the possibility wasn’t all that far-fetched.

On the sixth cot to the right was the paratrooper with one leg missing from mid-thigh. As was his nightly routine, he meticulously polished both his high-laced boots to a perfect gloss.

“Evening, Sergeant Doyle.”

A nod. “Miss Betty.” Then back to shining.

Finally, up on the left sat the ever-reserved Flight Lieutenant Leslie Kelly. Sketchpad on his lap, he moved his pencil around fairly well in spite of the casts on both forearms. Quick thinking had saved his entire crew, though his forced landing of their Beaufort had earned him bilateral wrist fractures and deep lacerations on his leg and chest. A chest she’d repeatedly dreamt of exploring, mapping every ridge and plain with her hands.

“Afternoon, Lieutenant.”

His gaze brushed over her face before returning to his drawing. Earthy brown bangs fell across his broad forehead. “G’day,” he said quietly.

Her nerves rose beneath her skin. And for what? The man’s scruffy jaw and rugged build portrayed nothing better than a lawless explorer of the outback.

Channeling her energy, she tucked in a loose corner of the sheet at the bottom of his cot. As she stood, a stray lock flailed like a mast from her head. She shoved the strands into her loose hair roll, noting the odd shade of her arms—an orangey combination from red dust and the yellowing effect of her Atabrine. No longer would she gripe about the camp’s absence of mirrors.

Compensate with your poise,
she told herself.

Free hand on her tilted hip, she stretched her lips demurely. “I see you’re an artist.”

His attention held to his paper. “Just passin’ the dyes.”

It took her a moment to realize he meant passing the “days.” His accent only swelled her intrigue, as did the way he grasped the pencil with his left hand rather than his right. Another unique characteristic.