Sentimental Journey (Home Front - Book #1) (21 page)

* * *

It wasn’t that Johnny didn’t want to run after Catherine, pull her into his arms and promise her the moon. He did. He really did. But there was his pride to consider. What she was asking of him was so far beyond the pale that he didn’t know how to deal with it. Sure, she’d done a hell of a job at Wilson Manufacturing. All you had to do was look at the bottom line and you’d see how successful she’d been. But there was more to that bottom line than met the eye. He knew—and she admitted—that if he hadn’t come along when he did, she would’ve had a full-blown strike on her hands and Wilson Manufacturing’s bottom line would’ve been shot all to hell within two weeks.

She was smart but he was shrewd. She understood books and numbers, while he was better with the intangibles. Like a man’s pride. She’d failed miserably with Harry Barnes and his workers. No man wanted to take orders from a woman. No man wanted to crawl to a woman and ask for a raise.

It was a man’s world. Always was, always would be. Her dad would’ve handed his company over to Eddie Martin quicker than he’d have laid that burden on his daughter.

He retrieved the ring from where it had rolled under the desk; it nestled cold against his palm. It had been nice while it lasted, thinking he could buy into the dream of a family of his own, but he’d learned early on that most dreams never come true. And this dream was no exception.

* * *

Catherine ran past her father, who was talking to some of his cronies near the lunchroom, then burst out the front door. Chest heaving, she looked around the barren factory landscape for a rock, a brick, anything she could pick up and fling through the office window. She gasped for air while righteous anger made her heart thud crazily. She felt powerless, helpless, worthless. A
woman
.

Her laugh was wild, out of control. That was it. She felt like a
woman
. Everything she had achieved, all of the accomplishments of the past two years had been brushed aside by her father as if they were an underdone chocolate cake or a soggy apple pie.

She’d been good enough to run the company when nobody else was available, but now her dad was pushing her aside. It was unfair, so horribly unfair, and there was not one blessed thing she could do to change it.

How could she have ever been so stupid as to believe Johnny was special? That they could be both a couple and a team? She’d never done anything to make him feel uncomfortable working for her. Had he been biding his time, waiting for the first opportunity to throw it all back in her face?

She stormed down the steps and headed toward the subway. “I don’t need you, Johnny Danza,” she said out loud. The pain in her heart was horrible, but she would live. She was stronger than heartbreak; she’d proved that to herself when Douglas died.

Johnny Danza was stubborn and headstrong, but he had met his match in her. He would never see her cry again.

July 4, 1945

Dear Gerry,

Well, the war in Europe may be over, but the war at the Wilsons’ is going strong. I can’t believe how everything has changed in just one week. My father just put Johnny in charge of the business. Daddy still owns Wilson Manufacturing, but he doesn’t even want to go into the office. He says he’s taking a sabbatical (whatever that is) but it looks a lot like giving up to me.

Even worse, Cathy gave Johnny back the engagement ring, and Johnny moved out of the basement and is living at the factory. Mom is trying to make peace between Cathy and my father but Cathy’s having none of it. I begged her to make up with Johnny, but she pushed me off her bed and slammed the door in my face.

And worst of all my dad just sits there in the rumpus room all by himself with “Sentimental Journey” playing over and over again on the Victrola. It’s gotten so if I met Doris Day in person I’d put a sock in her mouth.

We’ll never have these problems, Gerry. I don’t want anything more than to be your wife. I can’t imagine a more beautiful life than taking care of our home and raising our children. How could any woman ask for more?

All my love,

Nancy

* * *

If Johnny expected Catherine to come around, he was sorely mistaken.

If Catherine expected Johnny to admit he was unfair, she was in for a surprise.

As the days slowly passed, their positions grew more intractable. Catherine tried to talk to her father, but her arguments fell on deaf ears.

“You’re taking this too much to heart,” her mother said one morning as Catherine stared out the window at other women rushing off to work. “You can always find another job.”

“I don’t want another job, Mother,” she said with a long sigh. “I want the one I had.” A job wasn’t the issue. She wanted what was rightfully hers.

Her mother patted her on the shoulder. “Be patient with your father, honey. It’s a long road back home.”

“Sure,” said Catherine dispiritedly. “I have all the time in the world.”

Johnny felt caught between a rock and a hard place. The one thing he was certain of was that Tom wasn’t coming back to work any time soon. It wasn’t the same at the factory without Catherine. He hadn’t realized how hard she’d worked until he sat down behind the desk and started looking at the pile of paperwork for disposition. He wasn’t an office type. He was better out there with people, thinking on his feet, mediating problems. This kind of fancy paper shuffling made him itchy. He’d seen her working on monthly reports, her pencil whizzing across the ledger sheets like a German rocket. He could sit there behind the desk for the rest of his life and never make sense of any of it.

Or like it, for that matter.

He’d gone over to the Wilson house one night when he knew from Nancy that she and Catherine were going to the movies. Dot had hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Give her time,” she’d said about her headstrong daughter. “She’ll come around. She’s just confused.”

Johnny nodded and said the right things, but in his heart of hearts he knew the only way Catherine would come around was if he gave in. And that wasn’t about to happen.

Tom didn’t want to hear much of anything Johnny had to say. They talked about the Dodgers and the Yankees and touched briefly on what was happening in the Pacific, then Johnny said good night and went back to his makeshift accommodations at the factory, more despondent than before.

He’d spent his whole life alone, but he had never felt this lonely before. Catherine had filled all the corners of his heart and soul. Seeing her, hearing her voice, sharing the days with her had made him feel hopeful, that his life could amount to more than counting down the days.

But, all of that was gone now and he was damned if he could see a way to get it back.

* * *

One week after Catherine stormed out of Wilson Manufacturing, she returned to get her final paycheck. It was early on Monday morning and she hurried into personnel, hoping she could get in and out before too many people noticed her. Miriam was filled with chatter and Catherine kept glancing over her shoulder to make certain Johnny was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t be a stranger,” said Miriam as she gave Catherine a hug. “Just because you’re a lady of leisure these days doesn’t mean you’ve got to forget the rest of us.”

“I won’t forget you, Miriam,” she said, kissing the older woman’s cheek. “I couldn’t forget any of you.”

Walking out that door was even harder the second time around. The first time she’d been fueled by outrage. This time she was fueled only by regret. She was halfway to the gate, immersed in dark thoughts, when she realized she was walking behind a familiar figure.

“Eddie?” She increased her pace. “Eddie, wait up.”

Eddie stopped but didn’t turn around. When she caught up to him she saw why.

“Oh, God, Eddie...” She went to touch him, but he moved away. “What on earth happened?”

His face was a mass of cuts and bruises, including a vicious black eye and split lip. He tried to smile, but the effect bordered on the grotesque. “Would you believe I walked into a door?”

She couldn’t smile back. “What are you doing here?”

“A little unfinished business with personnel. I forgot to give back a locker key.”

It was difficult to concentrate on anything but his poor battered face. “Did you... do you know my dad’s back home?”

“Yeah. Grapevine’s still pretty good.”

“Then you must—” She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to mention her and Johnny’s breakup.

“I know that, too.” A touch of the old Eddie was in his bittersweet smile. “I could say I told you so.”

“Yes,” she said after a moment, “but you won’t, will you?”

“Not if you don’t ask me what happened to me.”

She sighed. “Looks like we both have our secrets now, Eddie. Times have certainly changed.”

“It was good to see you again.”

She touched his forearm. “Take care of yourself.”

“Yeah,” he said, with a mock salute. “Anything you say, boss.”

It was the last time she saw Eddie Martin alive.

* * *

Some people say bad news travels faster than the speed of light, but in the case of the death of Eddie Martin, that old saw didn’t hold water. Two days after she bumped into Eddie at the plant, he was killed in a barroom brawl in Long Island City. Nancy brought home the news on Friday night.

“The funeral’s tomorrow morning,” she said, blotting her tears with a pink tissue.

Dot and Tom came in the back door from tending the garden. “Are you talking about poor Eddie Martin?” her mother asked.

Nancy nodded. “Miriam said he—”

Catherine pushed back her chair and stood up. “Excuse me,” she said, then hurried upstairs to her room where she locked the door behind her. If only she could lock out her thoughts as easily.

She kicked off her shoes and curled up on the window seat overlooking Hansen Street. Edna’s roses were still in bloom, their scarlet and blush and snow-white blossoms dazzling against the deep green of early summer. She’d sat like this, watching the world beyond her window, that June evening two years ago, looking out at Edna pruning her rosebushes and wondering what her future would hold. How well she remembered that night, laughing with Nancy about leg makeup while she hurried to dress for the Stage Door Canteen. It seemed like another life, and she marveled that she’d ever been so young and hopeful.

Oh, yes, she remembered that night. She would always remember it. That was the night she lost Douglas.

And the night she met Johnny.

Past, present and future had all come together then in a dizzying whirl of sorrow and rebirth. God had taken from her with one hand but been generous enough to hold her close in His other. But now that thought no longer comforted her.

“Lucky you,” she whispered into the evening breeze that ruffled her curtains. “You’ve loved two men and lost them both.” One to death, the other to circumstance. There was nothing she could have done to save Douglas’s life, just as Eddie’s fate had been beyond her control.

But as she sat there and watched dusk settle over Forest Hills, she wondered why it couldn’t have been different with Johnny.

Few things in life lasted. Her love for Douglas hadn’t ended with his death. Her love for Johnny wouldn’t end simply because she said it must. Her heart had a will of its own—and that night she was afraid her heart would break.

* * *

Morning didn’t come a minute too soon.

Catherine hadn’t slept well at all. She’d sat in the window seat until well after midnight, trying to make sense of the emotions at war inside her chest. Guilt over Eddie’s death. Regret that she hadn’t tried harder to help him, even if that help had been unwelcome.

Her thoughts were jumbled and bleak as she walked with her family to St. Mary’s for the funeral. She’d stuck to her principles, and see where it had gotten her? She’d lost her position at Wilson, and more important, she’d lost the man she loved. How arrogant she was to throw away a gift like that for something as insignificant as the right to sit behind that scarred oak desk.

How foolish she was to still wish there was a way she could be Johnny’s wife and her own woman, both at the same time.

But there wasn’t, so why even think about it? The moment the war in Japan ended, America’s female work force would trade their soldering irons for lace-trimmed aprons and march en masse back to hearth and home. The returning soldiers would take their places again in the factories and the office buildings, and life would go back to normal. Everyone would be happy.

Why don’t you stop tilting at windmills?
she thought as she took her seat in the half-empty church. She tried very hard not to look at Eddie’s casket resting near the main altar, but its presence compelled her. Life was precious; Eddie’s premature death was proof that the war would continue to take casualties even though much of the fighting had stopped. Any day, any moment, could be your last. Did it make any sense at all to turn away from love if you were lucky enough to find it a second time?

The funeral mass was unbearably poignant. Catherine cried through the brief eulogy. What could you say, after all, when a young man died of a broken spirit?

“
Requiescat in pace
,” prayed Father O’Herlihy, and she sent her own prayers heavenward that Eddie would find the happiness with the Almighty that had been denied him on earth.

You missed so much, Eddie
, she thought.
Love and marriage... a home and children... the chance to grow old with someone who loves you
....

All the things she’d turned her back on when she’d walked out the door on Johnny.

But that was different
, her mind argued.
You were right to toss that ring back at him. What kind of life could you have with a man like that?

But I love him
, said her heart.
Nobody said loving a man like Johnny would be easy
. When did anything in life that mattered ever come easy?

The church emptied. Still Catherine sat in the pew. “Honey?” Her mother touched her arm. “Should we wait for you?”

She shook her head. “I need to be here for a while.” Her father patted her on the head the way he used to when she was a little girl. She wished she could run to him with her problems and have him make those problems disappear, but those days were over. Her father was a different man now, and it was his decision that had changed her life and Johnny’s.

What a hopeless complicated tangle her life had become. If only she could sit down with Johnny now that the first passion of anger had cooled and tell him what was in her heart. But it was pointless even to think about it. Someone had to make the first move and she knew her stubborn pride would keep her from being the one. And when it came to stubborn pride, Johnny was her equal.

Gathering her purse and gloves, she rose to leave the church. She was halfway up the aisle when she saw him. Johnny, standing at the back of the church. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his countenance was sober, as the occasion warranted.

She was oddly touched that he had chosen to acknowledge Eddie’s passing, and she nodded briefly, eyes averted, as she walked by. It was only fitting, after all, that the man in charge of Wilson Manufacturing pay his respects to a former employee. It had nothing to do with her.

She pushed open the heavy doors and stepped outside, pausing a moment to let her eyes adjust to the bright summer sunshine. Johnny was right behind her. She started down the steps. So did he. He paused with her at the corner, then crossed the street when she did. His steps sounded behind her, steady, unrelenting.
Leave me alone, Johnny! It’s over... it’s all over
.... But he didn’t. Every step she took was matched by one of his. Finally, a half block away from the railroad station, she whirled about and confronted him.

“Stop following me,” she snapped, nerves at the breaking point. “Walk on the other side of the street.”

“The hell I will. In case you’ve forgotten, this is a free country. That’s what all the fighting’s been about.”

“I don’t need a lecture on why we went to war.” She unceremoniously yanked the tiny black hat from her head and tucked it under her arm. “If you don’t quit following me, I’ll call the police.”

She hurried down the street with Johnny a half step behind her.
Say something, you idiot!
her heart screamed.
This is the man you love, not a stranger. Don’t give up without a fight
. She slowed her step at the start of Hansen Street. He bumped into her, almost knocking her off her feet.

“Damn!” She grabbed for her right ankle. Tears spilled down her cheeks and she angrily brushed them away with the back of her gloved hand. “Can’t you watch where you’re going?”

She remembered how it had felt to be held in his arms, to feel his lips on hers, to know the future was as bright as the sun shining overhead. He steadied her with an arm about her waist, and that simple touch released a flood of other memories.

“You stopped short.” His hand brushed her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

She had never felt more forlorn in her entire life. “Please go away,” she said, voice breaking. “I just don’t have the heart to fight you today.”
Hold me, Johnny. Let’s start again. Happiness is too precious to let it slip away
....