Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) (17 page)

But until then she intended to give the
Long Island Daily
her very best and hope that once the novelty wore off, the ladies of Robin Hood Lane would find something else to chat about over their bridge game.

* * *

“Is that Bob Hope?” Gerry’s voice rang out through the quiet house the night before their big Fourth of July cookout.

Nancy, who was ironing Linda’s sundress in the rumpus room, cupped her hand over her mouth. “Yes, it is,” she called out over the blare of the TV. “He’s talking about his next Road picture with Bing Crosby. Hurry up or you’ll miss it.”

Gerry, clad in dungarees and a bath towel slung over his shoulders, stormed into the room and shut the set off.

Nancy put down the iron and stared at her husband. “Why did you do that?” she demanded.

“I hate Bob Hope,” said her normally reasonable husband.

“Nobody hates Bob hope. Good grief, Gerry, you must have seen him a thousand times during the war.”

“That’s right, and he’s still telling the same jokes.”

She sighed and smoothed the collar of the little sundress on the ironing board. “You had another fight at work, didn’t you?”

He rubbed the white towel over his damp hair. “You talked to your sister.”

“No, but maybe I should have. What was it about this time?”

“Same thing it’s always about. I have ideas. She doesn’t want to hear them. Case closed.”

“Maybe if you didn’t approach her with such a hostile attitude, you’d get farther.” She hesitated, uncertain how far she could take that line of reasoning. Gerry was the kind of man who needed to be in charge. She’d known that from the very beginning; it was one of the things that had most attracted her to him. He was a strong opinionated man who liked to grab hold of a situation and bend it to fit his will. Nancy was much the same herself, and while it caused a few uproars from time to time in the Sturdevant house, she knew she would hate a man she could boss around.

However, this was something else. For months Gerry had been argumentative, distant, preoccupied. It had gotten so that the mere sight of his how-to-open-a-business books made Nancy want to fling them into the trash. He had a good job. Maybe it wasn’t the job of his dreams, but who on earth was lucky enough to have all his dreams come true? They had a home and a family; they were happy together. That used to be enough for him. Why wasn’t it any longer?

He switched off the iron, then took Nancy’s hand. “We’ve got to talk, Nance.”

Her heart hammered in her ears. The swift terrible vision of another woman swept over her and her knees wobbled like the baby’s.

“Is something wrong?” she asked in a voice so quavery she was embarrassed.

He dragged a hand through his damp hair, his eyes focused somewhere far away from there. Some place Nancy had never seen. “I’ve got an idea, Nance, an idea I think can make us a mint.”

She suppressed a groan. So it was another one of those darn schemes of his. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from plugging the iron back in and going back to the sundress. “What idea?” she managed.

He reached into the desk drawer where they kept their mortgage papers and insurance policies and withdrew a glossy white folder. “Drive-in movies.”

“What?” She’d never heard of such a foolish idea in her life.

“Drive-in movies,” he repeated, obviously excited by the idea. “You must’ve read about them in one of your magazines. They’re catching on like wildfire out in California.”

“Oh, come on, Gerry,” she said, starting to laugh. “Who in the world wants to watch a movie from the front seat of their car?”

“The kids.”

“The kids can’t drive.”

“Their parents can.”

“You mean everyone go to the movies together?”

“Now you’re cooking, Nance. Why bother with a sitter when you can stick the kids in their pj’s, pack up some sandwiches and go to the movies.”

She visualized a giant parking lot with a movie screen at one end and a snack bar at the other. “I suppose it could work,” she admitted reluctantly, “but it would take a lot of money.”
Money we don’t have
.

“Yeah, but it would make a lot more. I mean, look at the teenagers in this neighborhood alone. Hell, it’s not like it was when we were kids, Nance. There’s no war on. We’re not in a depression. Everybody has a car and money for gas, and they’re all looking for a place to go on Saturday night.”

He looked younger than he had in months. Something deep inside her soul responded to the twinkle in his eye, and she had to fight hard to remember she was an adult now, with adult responsibilities.

“Do you want to read the brochure?” He held out the folder. “They even have some sites picked out right around here.”

Dreams are cheap, Nancy—Don’t burst his bubble. Let him pretend it could really happen.

But the part of her she couldn’t seem to control, the restless part that had once wanted to see and hear and experience everything life had to offer, had a ready answer. She’d given up her dreams of glamour, of seeing the world with Gerry, in favor of safer saner dreams. Why shouldn’t it be the same for him?

“Plug in the iron,” she said after a moment. “I have to finish Linda’s sundress.”

“Plug it in yourself,” said Gerry. “I’m going to bed.” He threw the brochure onto the end table where it glared at Nancy for the rest of the night.

* * *

The Fourth of July dawned clear and hot.

“Nancy must be relieved,” said Jane as she fastened the waistband of her new white slacks. “She was terrified it would rain.”

“It never rains on Independence Day,” said Mac, yanking on a blue polo shirt. “It’s against the law.”

“America is a more powerful country than I realized, controlling the weather and all.”

“Stick with me, kid. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

She smoothed her pink-and-white blouse, then moved toward her husband with a deliberately provocative sway of her hips. “I have a marvelous teacher. You should meet him.”

Mac swept her into his embrace, and planted a Hollywood-style kiss on her lips. “We could skip the cookout. I think we can get things sizzling right here.”

She peered over his shoulder at the Baby Ben on the nightstand. “Your parents and the Wilsons will be here in ten minutes. We don’t want to scandalize them, now do we?”

“Sure we do.” He reached for the buttons on her shirt, but she slapped playfully at his hands.

“You’re being very persistent,” she said, laughing as he cupped her breasts. “I’m sure there must be a law against such behavior.”

The front doorbell rang and Mac groaned. “Whatever happened to being late for parties?”

Grumbling, Mac went out to answer the door while Jane ran a quick brush through her hair. Truth was, she was glad for the distraction. Her breasts had felt painfully tender despite the gentleness of his touch. Simply putting on her bra had been enough to make her wince, and she didn’t believe she was imagining the way the band fit more snugly about her chest.

“The signs are all there,” she said to her reflection. Swollen breasts. Queasy stomach. The fact that her cycle was now two weeks late and showed no signs of making an appearance. She placed the brush down on her dressing table, then held her hands against her belly. “A baby.”

Of course it was still too early to know. Even a doctor wouldn’t be able to tell her anything at all until she’d missed her second cycle. No sense in saying a word to Mac about her suspicions. Why raise his hopes only to dash them if this should prove to be nothing save a false alarm?

No, she would say nothing to anyone until she knew for sure that she and Mac were going to have a baby.

“You’re pregnant,” said Cathy Wilson Danza an hour later in Nancy’s kitchen.

Jane was dumbstruck. Reflexively her hands rested flat against her stomach. “How on earth—?”

Cathy rubbed her hand over her own stomach and smiled. “You have the look. When you’re in our condition, you develop radar for it.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only to another pregnant woman.” She patted Jane’s hand. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“I’m glad, because I’m still not sure there is a secret.”

“Oh, there is, Jane. Take my word for it.”

Five minutes later Cathy’s mother, Dot, asked Jane if she’d chosen a doctor yet, and before Gerry served the hot dogs, three women from Robin Hood Lane offered their opinions on morning sickness, baby sitters and colic. Her mother-in-law Edna didn’t say one single word about babies, but the look in her eyes was unmistakable.

It seemed as if every woman at the cookout had a sixth sense when it came to babies, while not one man had the slightest idea that a miracle might be taking place right there in their midst. No, the men were much more interested in the cornucopia of salads and vegetables and breads laid out on the folding tables in the Sturdevants’ backyard.

Nancy and Gerry had gone to great lengths to make things festive, and Jane, for one, was quite impressed by the red, white and blue streamers and the balloons bobbing along the top of the back fence. Gerry manned the barbecue grill, clad in an apron marked Chef. Ginger Higgins’s husband, Danny, had tried to pop a towering white chef’s hat on Gerry’s head, but Gerry was having none of it.

In fact, speaking of Ginger Higgins, Jane was rather surprised to see both Ginger and Danny talking earnestly with Mac over near the dessert table. Actually, Ginger and Danny were talking earnestly to Mac; Mac wasn’t saying a word. They hadn’t been married long, but still Jane found it easy to recognize a bad mood when she saw it.

Quickly she grabbed two glasses of lemonade and strolled casually over to her husband.

Nodding and smiling at the Higgins duo, she handed Mac a frosty glass. “You look thirsty.”

His expression was one of pure relief. “You saved my life.”

She wondered if Ginger caught the double thrust of his innocuous words only to find that Ginger and Danny had moved on to greener pastures.

“Was it something I said?”

Mac laughed and gulped some lemonade. “Probably something I
didn’t
say.”

“Such as?”

“Such as I am not now, nor have I ever been, a communist.”

A sharp bark of laughter escaped Jane’s lips. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Mac, with a shake of his head, “dead serious.” He glared in Ginger’s general direction. “She’s damn lucky I didn’t tell her what I think.”

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. “Nancy has gone to so much trouble for this party. I’d hate for anything to mar the fun.”

Mac grunted something that sounded like agreement, but it was clear his mind was still on Ginger and Danny Higgins. “If they weren’t so stupid, I’d be worried.”

“I’ve always been of the opinion it’s the stupid people one must watch out for.” Mob scenes and pogroms were rarely the handiwork of the intelligentsia.

“Yeah, well, it seems we’ve got our quota of ’em right here in Levittown.” He draped an arm about Jane’s shoulders. “Ever wonder if you should’ve stayed in London?”

She shook her head vehemently. “Never. I’m exactly where I want to be.”

“I’m not.” He whispered something in her ear, something exciting and intimate, and she blushed the color of the red in the flag, all thoughts of the Higginses and Tail Gunner Joe forgotten.

* * *

“Come on, lovebirds,” said Cathy Danza, popping up behind Jane. “The burgers are ready and the hot dogs are halfway there. Better claim yours before the hungry masses eat ’em up.”

“You okay?”

Jane looked up to see Mac next to her, holding two paper plates piled high with salads and corn on the cob slathered with butter.

“I’m fine.” She took her plate and shook her head. “You don’t expect me to eat all this, do you?”

“You forget who you’re talking to,” Mac said with a chuckle. “I’m the man who watched you eat your way across the Atlantic.”

“That’s our secret. I’m trying to present a more ladylike front to our neighbors.”

“Forget the neighbors,” said Mac as Jane motioned for him to lower his voice. “I’ll keep the lawn mowed but I’ll be damned if I let them rule my life.”

Jane of course understood that there was a great deal more involved in becoming part of a neighborhood than maintaining your lawn at the proper length. She’d seen that already by the varied reactions to her small column in the local newspaper. There had to be a way to blend in and still hold on to your individuality, though it seemed to Jane as if few people in Levittown had managed that particular feat.

By the time their baby was born, they would have to figure out exactly how to manage it.

The cookout ended at dusk. Neighbors drifted back to their own homes, and within minutes the assorted Weavers and Wilsons piled into Les and Edna’s Winnebago and drove out to Jones Beach to watch the fireworks over the water. Jane oohed and ahhed with everyone else as the spectacular comets and shooting stars exploded in the velvety night sky. She also accepted with grace and a touch of humor the good-natured teasing about finally being on the “right side of the Revolution.”

Edna and Les were staying the night with Jane and Mac. “I wish we had a true guest room to offer you,” said Jane as she and her mother-in-law fixed a snack in the kitchen later on. “I feel dreadfully embarrassed that my own family will be sleeping in the driveway.”

“Now don’t you go giving it another thought, honey.” Edna gave her a swift motherly hug. “That hubby of mine has had us sleeping in stranger places than your driveway since we bought that camper.”

“It
is
an amazing vehicle.” Jane cut a bakery pound cake into thin slices and scooped ice cream onto each. “You have your whole world right there on wheels.”

“It’s the American way, Janie. You just can’t keep us in one place for long.”

They chatted about some of the things Edna and Les had seen on their travels about the country, and Jane’s mind leapt with excitement at the thought of all the wonders she had yet to discover in her new homeland.

“Coffee or lemonade?” Jane asked.

“As long as we’re joining the gentlemen outside where it’s cool, I think coffee would be nice.”

Jane started the water to boil while Edna took cups and saucers down from the cabinet over the sink.

“How are you feeling?” Edna asked when Jane sat down at the table opposite her.

“Just fine.” She hesitated an instant, then, “Do I look unwell?”

Edna’s lined face creased in a smile. “What you look, honey, is pregnant.”

Jane buried her face in her hands and smothered an embarrassed giggle. “I’m beginning to think I have the word tattooed on my forehead.” She looked up at her mother-in-law. “Do you know, every woman at the cookout asked me the same thing.”

“I thought they might. We seem to have a sixth sense about this sort of thing.” Edna cast a quick glance toward the back door and lowered her voice. “Does Mac know?”

Jane shook her head. “I’m not saying a thing until I know for certain, and that will take at least another month. I should so hate to disappoint him.”

Edna breathed a sigh. “So he wants a family, does he?”

“Oh, yes. As much as I.”

Edna looked surprised. “He’s a difficult one to figure, my boy is. Never talked much about home and hearth. This side of him is new to all of us. He was always a rolling stone, never content to stay in one place any longer than he had to.”

“And yet he spent his whole childhood right there in your house on Hansen Street.”

Edna laughed. “That’s probably what did it. If Douglas had lived, he probably would have lived there the rest of his life. Mac couldn’t wait to say goodbye to Forest Hills.”

“That’s natural, isn’t it, wanting to spread one’s wings?” She made Mac sound like a vagabond, the kind of man one would never imagine marrying and settling down.

“If only he’d decided to spread them closer to home.” A flicker of sadness crossed Edna’s face. “There have been nights when we felt as if we’d lost both boys, not just Douglas.”

Jane reached over and patted the back of her hand. “His death must have been a terribly difficult time for all of you.”

Edna shook her head as if to brush away the memories. “That’s all over with now, isn’t it, honey? Mac’s home and he brought us a beautiful new daughter. Who says miracles don’t happen?”

Jane’s mother-in-law made her laugh with stories about Mac and his headstrong adventurous nature, and Jane couldn’t help but wonder how it was that her dashing witty husband had chosen a woman such as her to be his wife. Jane wanted nothing more than to set down roots; Mac seemed to thrive on change.

“Douglas was everything Mac isn’t,” said Edna, eyes misty with tears. “You’d think there’d have been jealousy, but there never was. Those two boys loved each other even though they were different as night and day.”

Douglas had had his life planned out by the time he was seventeen. He would finish law school, secure a position, then marry Cathy Wilson and live happily ever after. Happily-ever-after turned out to be the one goal not even Douglas Weaver could attain. “You understand, he wasn’t drafted,” Edna said, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Day after Pearl Harbor he went off and enlisted. We told him to wait, to get as much education as he could before going off, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Less than two years later, Douglas Weaver was dead.

Jane’s own eyes were wet with tears and her hands protectively cupped her still-flat belly. How must it feel to lose the child you’d carried? Dear God, she couldn’t imagine a greater tragedy.

* * *

It seemed to take forever to put the girls down after all the excitement. By the time Nancy had fetched the last glass of water and changed the baby’s diaper one last time, everyone else was asleep. She could hear her dad snoring in the guest room and the sound of her mother’s slow and even breathing. Gerry had fallen asleep in front of the television set and she’d finally managed to wake him so he could stumble to the bedroom.

Which of course left her all alone. Only one channel was still broadcasting. Normally she loved watching old movies while her family slept, but tonight she simply couldn’t sit still. She wandered about the family room, straightening cushions, rearranging knickknacks, making certain everything was as it should be. The glossy white brochure Gerry had tried to show her last night still rested on the end table.

Drive In to Your Future boasted the headline on the cover. Now Is the Time to Decide. She picked it up carefully, as if it were a live grenade. The text was spare but informative. Anything you needed to know about opening a drive-in movie was right there in black and white. She thought of the Baxter girls from across the street, three teenagers in search of a place to go. “You don’t know how awful it is once school closes for the summer,” she’d heard the youngest Baxter girl say to Jane this afternoon. “We just don’t have any place to go. If a boy asks you out, there’s nothing to do but drive up and down Hempstead Turnpike and look for UFOs.”

A drive-in, movie would sure take care of that problem, Nancy thought.

“No!” She put the brochure back down where she’d found it. This was absolutely ridiculous. They weren’t footloose and fancy-free like Mac and Jane. Three little girls looked to them for security. Why, Nancy herself looked to Gerry to care for her and see that she had a roof over her head and food on the table.

What on earth was he thinking, being so eager to risk everything they had on a fly-by-night venture such as this?

Ah, but you know this idea is going to work
, whispered a little voice deep inside her brain.
This one could do it for Gerry
.

“We can do anything,” she had said years ago when she was young and untried. “We can sail around the Cape of Good Hope and backpack across Europe.” The war was over; the boy she loved had come to claim her heart. The world was a wonderful place to be and she had intended to see as much of it as possible. Gerry had had a taste of adventure and foreign ports and he wanted more. They were a perfect match, as perfect as Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, or Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. Young and in love, the world was their oyster, and Nancy had been certain they would find the pearl.

But that was a long time ago, the time before children and bills and real life.

The part of her that was brave and daring and still eighteen wanted to throw caution to the four winds and take a chance.

Unfortunately, the part of her that wasn’t any of those things was the stronger, and she pushed all thoughts of risk-taking from her mind. Taking chances separated you from other people. There was security in walking lockstep with your friends and neighbors, knowing that your successes and triumphs were mirrored a thousand times over in other houses in town. All through grammar school and high school, she’d been just one beat out of step with everybody else. It had taken her years to finally become one of the crowd, and she wasn’t about to chance losing that now—not even if she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the crowd she was part of.

All she had to do was look at Jane Weaver and she understood how quickly and irrevocably you could separate yourself from the pack. With each article that came out, the ladies of Robin Hood Lane stepped farther and farther away from Jane. Pretty soon there would be no way to bridge the gap.

If Gerry left Wilson Manufacturing to try to establish his own business, the same thing would happen to Nancy. The suburbs were lonely enough when you had friends. Without them, she didn’t think she could bear it.

What they had should be enough for anybody, and if it wasn’t, that was too darn bad. Gerry would just have to learn to compromise, the same as everybody else.