His Very Own Girl (24 page)

“Sally? Is that you?”

Sally Bristol dodged a trio of jeeps and picked her way across the street. Despite her practical jumpsuit, she looked inordinately pretty—always had, even when she’d worked for the ATA. Exertion touched flawless skin with pink. Her rolled blonde hair was topped with a plain white kerchief. She carried a shallow Brodie helmet. A gas mask was slung across her chest.

Lulu offered a peck on the cheek. “This is such a treat! How are you?”

“Swell! And don’t you look smashing!”

“You lie shamelessly, but I appreciate it. Sally, this is Cpl. Joe Weber. Joe, this is a friend of mine. She was one of the original girl pilots with the ATA.”

Sally wiggled her ring finger. “Then I married a captain in the RAF.”

Joe removed his garrison cap and nodded. “Good to meet you, ma’am.”

Despite the wedding ring she flashed, Sally didn’t seem able to help her come-hither look. “Love the accent, Yank.”

“It is nice, isn’t it?” Lulu asked, taking Joe’s arm. “Where is Roland, by the way?”

Sally put away her sex kitten look. Clever girl. “Biggin Hill.”

“I was just there yesterday!”

“Small world, love,” Sally said. “At least we get to see each other on the weekends. Where are you off to, then?”

“Hemming’s.”

“Oh, I heard about that. Should be a fun night.”

“You coming?”

“I’ll be on duty. You’ll have to write and tell me what it’s like.” Somewhere in the near distance a church bell chimed nine times. “Oh, I’m late. Must dash.”

Lulu gave her old friend an ardent hug. One couldn’t be too careful when saying good-bye. Some people slipped out of sight, never to return. “Be good, Sally. Keep your head down.”

“You too. Fly safe, Louise.”

“You assume I’m still with the ATA.”

“It’ll be a cold day in the tropics when you’re not flying. Take care!”

Sally bounced down the street. How she managed to wiggle her bum so well in that shapeless jumpsuit, Lulu would never know.

“What does she do?”

“Air-raid siren operator,” Lulu said as they continued walking. His long legs took one stride for her two. The evening had turned damp and her arms were bare, so she snuggled closer to Joe and his tunic of warmed wool. “Poor thing has shifts at night. Sleeps all day. Her social life would be a bit dim, if Roland let her have one.”

“Her husband?”

“Yes, they married early in ’41. She was stationed with me at Hatfield, the only pilot’s pool for women before all of them were desegregated. Roland . . . I didn’t care for him. He insisted that she quit the ATA and move to London with him. But of course that never would’ve worked. He’s RAF and has to go where he’s told. Then when the government started conscripting women, she had to go back to work anyway.”

“Wait, conscripting women?”

Lulu squarely met Joe’s puzzlement. “You didn’t know? I thought everyone did.”

“I missed the notice.”

“All unmarried women between twenty and thirty. Everyone has a job to do.” She shrugged. Too much time had passed for her to find it at all remarkable. Almost everyone admitted that able bodies were necessary for victory, no matter the gender. But she kept forgetting how relatively new Joe was to Britain and the practice of total war.

“Women like Sally, do they work alongside the men, too?”

“They’re overseen by the RAF, but there aren’t so many chaps left to take even those jobs.” They turned the corner and began to walk down along the Chelsea Embankment. Water swished quietly against the concrete-reinforced banks. “Besides, what can it require? Sally must be losing her mind, to go from flying to looking through binoculars and twisting a crank. Any Dumb Dora can do that.”

“Unlike flying a plane?”

“I’m a special breed,” she said, teasing him.

But Joe’s expression had turned serious. “I have no doubt.”

Hemming’s Warehouse was more of a disaster than Joe had imagined. Made of cinder block and brick, a patchwork of repairs had been wrought with concrete and mortar. Moonlight streamed through the collapsed ceiling, the debris of which had been ferreted away—either for disposal or to be reused. No buntings attempted to disguise the wreckage. No decorations lined the walls. A third-rate orchestra blared, but beneath the pale, eerie moon, couples danced like ghosts in a burlesque.

Joe did his best to ignore it and have a good time. A pewter stein of beer helped—then a second and third. So did watching Lulu in her minuscule black dress. He twirled her as they jived, kicking up a little jitterbug to “Jeep Jockey Jump.”

He felt good, working up a playful sweat like when they’d made love. Stripped of his tunic, he loosened his tie and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. If his officers saw him in such a state, he’d be crucified—that is, if they weren’t even drunker and wilder. He wouldn’t put it past them. In basic they’d seemed larger than life, but battle had a way of revealing the human being beneath the uniform, from assholes to admirable men. Officers struggled to cope just like enlisted fellas.

“The orchestra ain’t half bad,” he said to Lulu over the din.

“What?”

“Never mind!”

He spun her again and they entwined their fingers for a few quick bars of the Charleston. His hands couldn’t get enough of her body. Every time he touched her, she was just as soft. Every time, he relished that same zap of electricity. He wanted to make her promise he could do it again and again until the day he died. Eyes flashing, her grin larger than life, she was the center of an earthquake, as devastating as the war.

The song ended and the orchestra struck up a playful, swaying rendition of “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.” Joe folded Lulu into his arms and wondered why he’d thought something so dark. She was the woman he loved.

Then why was the ring still in his tunic pocket rather than on her finger?

They clung to each other and moved in sensuous circles beneath that bombed-out roof. At least there was air. The July night had turned sticky, but Joe didn’t care. If he could melt into her for good, he would.

But again the question kept coming back, kicking him in the back of the head.
Why haven’t I asked her?

Sure he’d been paid upon returning to England, able to swing the cost of their hotel stay. After all, he’d be damned if he made love to her in a room she paid for. But he hadn’t the dough for stockings or presents—all because he’d bought her a ring. The gold was cheap and the stone cloudy, but like the lodgings, it was the best he could afford among what he’d been able to find.

Suddenly tired, Joe tucked her head beneath his chin and closed his eyes. The music moved them, not thought or effort. Their bodies knew each other. But the rest of their closeness seemed fraught with land mines, and he was too spent to keep fighting two fronts.

Part of the reason for his hesitation stemmed from how she’d spoken of that girl Sally’s choice to give up flying and get married. Her face, her tone of voice—Lulu had been just short of disgusted. She thrived on the opportunities the war had opened up for women, opportunities that had saved her when her family was dead.

But Joe’s back still stiffened at the perversion of it all. He was offended. Actually offended. What kind of world put women in factories and planes and antiaircraft batteries? What kind of world made it better for children to live with strangers in the countryside rather than stay with their families, bombs pouring from the sky? And what kind of world would remain after the fighting stopped?

No, the chances of her quitting the ATA to marry him were, frankly, slim to none. Once out, her ambitions wouldn’t ever be shoved back into a polite feminine box. He knew that. He just couldn’t accept it.

The chance of him marrying a woman who’d turn him prematurely gray was also near to zero. War had taught him one thing, which probably wouldn’t change as he headed back to the front lines: he wanted peace, security, and devotion. Aside from her letter and a few whispered declarations, she hadn’t hinted at any of those bedrocks to his future happiness.

And when it came back down to the bare facts, he was a convict. War was one thing—he was a walking symbol of heroism now, even if he didn’t feel at all heroic. But after the war? After Germany and Japan surrendered? He could no more predict his prospects for earning a living than he could predict his next drop zone.

Lulu would stay in Britain. He’d head back to the States.

God, it was so clear now. He owned a ring he didn’t have a prayer of offering.

The slow number ended. Another jive started up and couples resumed their frantic quest to dance away their troubles. But he was done.

When Joe insisted on sitting out “When the Saints Come Marching In,” Lulu asked if she could dance with a skinny U.S. Navy kid who’d approached her.

“Sure,” Joe replied, running his index finger around the lip of his stein. The beer was lukewarm, but it did the trick. “Have fun.”

She kissed him full on the mouth. “Save me the last dance.”

“Sure,” he said again.

The beer sat like acid in his stomach.
This isn’t right,
his brain shouted. He’d never felt such a wave of vertigo, not even on a drop.

After twenty minutes of that torture he couldn’t take any more. His forty-eight hours in London shouldn’t include sitting in a building that reminded him of the shelled wasteland of Allied-controlled Normandy, a hell some of the men in that room would return to shortly. And he shouldn’t have to spend a single second watching Lulu dance with other servicemen.

How had he stood it before? Now he’d rather have his fingernails pried off.

Joe arose from his rickety metal chair and looped his dress tunic over his shoulder. He clamped a hand on Lulu’s forearm. “We’re going.”

“What? Where?”

“Back to the hotel. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”

“Joe, what’s this about?”

“Don’t you see it? This place is sick.” He glanced around that mockery of a good time, with its drunken soldiers and their mad mission to forget the inevitable.
Laugh it up, boys.

She pried her arm free. “Is this about my dancing?”

“Didn’t help, sweetheart. A fine leave this is turning into.”

“You said it was all right! If you’d have said no, I wouldn’t have done it.”

She was angry now. Good. He wanted it to be a fair fight. He wanted her to push back.

“Oh, yeah? And what would you have done instead?”

“Sat with you,” she said. “Talked with you. Gracious, Joe, where else would I be?”

He strode toward the door, not looking to see if she followed. Even as he did it he knew he was wrong. So wrong. Part of his brain watched the horror unfold, like watching those mortars rain down on Smitty’s position. He’d stood at the base of Hill 122 knowing there would be no going back up for his friend.

Joe was detached and shredded at the same time. His chest was weighed down with hot lead. His feet were numb and he couldn’t stop shaking, like D-Day all over again. And he’d be back out there any day now. The thought was enough to make him vomit, but he held it in. With Lulu coming up behind him, he threw all of his anger and fear at her instead.

“Get away from me, Lulu.”

Her high heels clicked a rapid staccato behind him. She was nearly running to keep pace. “You’re being ridiculous!”