Juliana

by Vanda

  “Huh?”

  He was moving up and down on me like he was riding a bucking bronco.

  “Oh, yeah, I’m feeling a lot. Good. Very good.”

  “I—I don’t know if I can hold—hold on anymore,” Henry gasped between breaths. The poor man was working so hard. I wondered exactly what I was sposed to feel.

  “It’s okay. You go. I’m fine. No, terrific. I’m terrific.”

  He moved faster knocking me up and down, the bed squeaking in tempo to his movements. I couldn’t wait till he was done. Fiber McGee and Molly was going to be on the Luxe Radio Theater at two.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  July, 1943

  “Honey, are you listening?” I heard Henry’s voice say.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah.” We sat in a booth at Walgreen’s Drugs, nursing the last of our cold coffee and planning the wedding. My mind kept wandering off. Of course, Juliana walked away from me that day. I told her I wanted to know about her, and then I didn’t ask her one single thing that mattered. Instead, I acted like an inquisitor passing judgment. “Off with her head.” A whole month had gone by, and I hadn’t seen her or heard from or about her.

  “I thought this weekend,” Henry said, drawing in the smoke of his Old Gold, “we could take the train to see my parents. Spend the week. My mother is dying to meet you.”

  “Huh? Oh. I can’t. I have an audition.”

  “Well, then, next week.”

  “Maybe.”

  “These are my parents we’re talking about. You have to meet them.”

  “I have met them. I talk to your mother about the wedding every other day.”

  “You’ve only met them on the telephone. It’s time you met them in person.”

  “I know, but I’ve been busy.”

  “Okay. How about your parents? When do I meet them?”

  “You don’t.”

  “But—”

  “You know I don’t get along with them.”

  “But I thought our wedding could bring you together. You’re going to want them at the ceremony.”

  “No. ”

  “But, Alice.”

  “No, Henry.”

  “All right.” He stamped out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Look maybe it’d be best if we had a small church wedding in Minnesota.”

  “Who do I know in Minnesota?”

  “Me.”

  “Oh, of course. I meant none of my friends could get there.”

  “Well, since you don’t want your parents, I could pay to have Aggie take the train with us. I imagine you’ll want her as your matron of honor. Who else do you want to invite?”

  “I don’t know. No one, I guess. Aggie’s fine. No Virginia. I want her there.”

  “I didn’t know you were all that close to her.”

  “Well, I am. Maybe. I want her there.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “No.” I wondered what Juliana’s new act was like.

  “Are you all right, Alice? You’re not sick?”

  “Could you call me Al?”

  “It’s so unfeminine. Like you’re one of the old guys at the office.”

  “I’m sorry, Henry, but that’s my name. I better get to the Canteen; it’s almost time.”

  “I’ll go with you. I’m finished with my coffee.” He took a couple of quick swallows and got up.

  “Come at your usual time. I have work to do in the office before we open.”

  As I slid out of the booth, Henry took my hand. “Alice, Al , everything’s okay with us, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” I smiled. “I’m just tired. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours at Gimbels, and the Canteen, and I did that Campana Makeup radio spot.”

  “Should I come over after The Canteen?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m tired.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know.” I left the table.

  I sat at my desk doodling on my list of “stars.” The July heat was heavy in my un-air-conditioned office. Why had I talked to Henry like that ?

  I had to get at least one of the celebrities on my list to volunteer one night this month. Agents didn’t like their clients volunteering ’cause it reduced their compensation, so they put up roadblocks. Then there was that dang film, Stage Door Canteen that came out a few months ago. When the G.I.s came in, they expected to be tripping over stars. Instead, there were lots of nights we had none, just a bunch of unknown singers, dancers, ventriloquists, and worn-out volunteer hostesses. They’d made that film on soundstages in New York and Hollywood, but everyone thought they made it at our Canteen. Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne came in regularly, even after a show. So, did Gertrude Lawrence. Katherine Hepburn tried to make it once a month for an hour or so when she was in town. All the other stars helped as often as they could, but with balancing careers, selling war bonds and entertaining troops on bases, it was hit or miss. Why did I act that way toward Henry? I must be a truly awful person. I wished the beach surrounding me was real. I’d dive in and drown. I grabbed my list and left the office.

  The heat was denser in the main room, but soon they’d put the fans on. There was no money to get the broken air-conditioning system fixed. The Theater Wing had been trying to raise the funds for months.

  I could hear the guys waiting outside. Twenty women dressed in matching lacy pink gowns looking like tooth fairies rehearsed a song-and-dance number that I think was sposed to be synchronized. They carried parasols, wore blonde ringlet wigs, sang off key and they weren’t trying to be funny. Finding stars was getting to be an emergency.

  I stepped into the ladies’ room. Empty. I stuck my list into my skirt pocket and leaned on the sink looking into the mirror. I didn’t like the person I saw looking back, so I turned the water on full force and watched it splash against the porcelain. I liked watching its force beat against the sink. A violence rose in me. I stuck my hands in and let the water rush over them, harsh pin pricks bit at my fingers. Suddenly there was a second pair of hands sharing my water. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “And it’s nice to see you too,” Juliana said.

  “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. It’s just that you keep popping into my life when I don’t expect it.”

  “I’m not in your life. I’m in a public restroom. I share public restrooms with people all the time without ever being in their lives.” She flicked some water at me. A drop hit my shoulder.

  “Stop it. I have to work.”

  “You look so serious. You need to have some fun.” She flicked more water at me, a few more drops landing on my blouse.

  “Hey! I said stop it.”

  She flicked more water at me.

  “Stop acting like a child.”

  She flicked more water at me.

  “Stop it!” I cried and smacked the rushing water with the flat of my hand. A puddle landed on the center of her blouse.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  She looked down at her blouse, “You’re sorry? I have to go on in a half hour.”

  The pink of her skin and the outline of her bra started to peek through her white blouse. “You’re not wearing a slip?” I asked, shocked.

  “A half-slip.”

  “Oh. Well, didn’t you bring a costume? ”

  “Selena Royle called me to fill in a last minute gap. I’m doing one number and leaving.”

  As I was about to turn off the water, she scooped up a handful and threw it on me drenching the front of my blouse.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for?”

  “I have no intention of being humiliated by myself.”

  “This is nuts,” I said, looking down at my own wet blouse.

  “It sure is.” Juliana laughed. “But it’s kind of refreshing in all this heat.”

  “It’s not funny. I should make you go on stage like that, but—I bought a few blouses at Gimbels today. They’re in my office.”

  “As if I’m going to fit into one of your blouses.”

  “We
ll, it’s either that …” I nodded at her wet blouse. “Or that.”

  “All right. Lead on, Macduff.”

  “You know Shakespeare.”

  “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “Macbeth ’s my favorite.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  I peered out the ladies’ room door. “I don’t see anyone. Let’s go.”

  We crept along the wall hurrying to my office as Miss Cowl opened the door to the men. Amidst the burst of them clamoring through the doors and whistling at girls—I heard one guy call out “Hey, sugar. Are you rationed?”—Juliana and I dashed into my office.

  “I have the blouses here.” I ran to my desk drawer and pulled out a bag.

  “Al. Your office. It’s exotic.”

  “Smittie. He painted it like this.” I reached into the bag and took out one of the blouses. “This one’s a little larger than the others so maybe ….”

  I looked up from the bag and saw Juliana unbuttoning her blouse. I turned my head.

  “Al, women have been changing in front of each other since the beginning of clothes. Nobody thinks anything of it.”

  “Yeah. I know, uh ….”

  “Then look at me.”

  “Sure.” I looked up, trying to seem ho-hum.

  She laughed and opened one side of her blouse. “Here’s one of them. Look at your face. I can’t tell if you’re embarrassed, excited, or embarrassed about being excited. Which is it, Al?”

  “Cut it out.”

  “I see a blush forming. I’m guessing it’s the last. Let’s find out. She closed the open side of her blouse— “Here’s the other one”—and held the other side open.

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking away even though I knew she’d tease me more. “Someone could knock on that door, you know?”

  She threw her blouse onto my desk. “Now, wouldn’t that be exciting. Your turn, Country Girl. Take it off. ”

  I fingered my top button, unable to open it in front of her.

  She put a hand on the side of my face. “Al, I hate seeing you look so sad.”

  “I’m not sad.”

  “Let me help you with this.” She unbuttoned my top button. “You’re too young to be this burdened.” She opened another button. “You walk around here as if you’re fighting the war all by yourself.” Another button. “You need to have some fun.”

  “Don’t do this, Juliana.”

  “What am I doing?” She slid my blouse off me and let it fall to the floor.

  I picked up my new blouse, lying on the desk.

  She reached into the top of my slip for my bra hook.

  I grabbed her wrist to stop her, but her skin felt so soft that …. “People are out there.”

  “All the more reason to continue.”

  She kissed me while she unhooked my bra. She slid her hand down the front of my slip and touched my breasts. I suddenly was desperately pawing at her bra. “Want—want,” I babbled.

  “What do you want?” Juliana asked, moving me back against the wall. “Tell me, honey.”

  “Off—off. See you, please. I need—need ….” I heard myself making sounds like I belonged in a zoo but couldn’t stop myself. I pulled her into me and kissed her. “I want …. Let me see.” I grabbed at her bra straps, sounding so desperate.

  She suddenly understood and took her bra off. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”

  I slowly ran my fingers over her breasts, amazed at their beauty. She took in a breath.

  “Put it in your mouth,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Open your mouth and take it in. It’ll help.”

  So I did. And it did help. A kind of ease came over me. Except for the sensation that was building between my legs. I ran my tongue over her nipple, and in the distance, I heard her making sounds.

  “Okay,” she said, pulling her breast away. She laid a hand on the wall behind my head, catching her breath. “I think—we need to stop this now.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. Hurt would not be the right word.”

  “You want me to do something for you ?”

  “You’re too inexperienced for the office quickie.” She put her hand under my skirt. “I suspect I have more options for taking care of things than you. You’re wearing a girdle. Why?”

  “That’s what women do.”

  “But you’re not wearing real nylons. What do you have to hold up? You certainly have nothing to hold in. ”

  “You’re not wearing a girdle?

  She stepped back and pulled up her skirt to reveal a pair of lacy white underpants. They were the new type with a button at the waist instead of an elastic band since no one could get elastic.

  “Wow!”

  “Wow?”

  “Uh, I meant they’re pretty.”

  “Thank you.” She let her skirt drop back into place. “You really need this.” She yanked off my girdle and my underpants.

  “No, Jule, we can’t. Where’d you put them?”

  She put her hand under my skirt and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, I opened my legs to her, and she touched that spot and I yelled. She laughed and put her hand over my mouth. “Yes, Jule, I want you,” I whispered as she took her hand away. She pressed me close to her, and I kissed her, and she was everywhere around me.

  “Let go,” she whispered. “Let go of it all.”

  And I did. I did. I did. I grabbed her shoulders, her hair, I shrieked in a mindless frenzy of feeling, wanting nothing but her. I felt her going in me, and through me, and I wanted more of her. Then my body went limp and my head fell against her breast.

  “What’s this?” she asked, running her thumb over my cheek. “Tears?”

  “Nothing.” I pushed myself out of her arms, snapped my bra, found my underclothes under the desk, and pulled them on. I grabbed up my new blouse and took the scissors from my desk drawer and went to work cutting off tags. “We can never let anything like that happen again.”

  “Oh?”

  “That was wrong.”

  “That’s what you needed.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “You’re face looks alive now, not all pasty white and lined with the woes of the world.” She took the scissors from me and cut off the tags on the blouse she would wear.

  “That will never happen again,” I told her, and started to ask, “Don’t you ever—”

  “That was my fault?” She finished buttoning the last button on the fresh blouse. “Excuse me, Miss Huffman. I’m sorry I bothered you.” She headed for the door.

  Before she opened it, there was a series of heavy knocks. “Alice! Alice!” came Henry’s deep voice. “Are you in there?”

  There was a crash and yelling. I threw open the door and the sound of men shouting rushed into my office. I ran out as Henry dashed up to me, his foot dragging more than usual.

  “Alice, I’ve been looking all over for you and knocking on your door. Where have you been? ”

  Some soldiers held back another soldier who yelled, “I’m gonna kill ya, faggot.”

  A table was overturned and a group of guys were huddled on the floor around Tommie whose face was bleeding. I ran over to them. “What happened?”

  Miss Cowl scurried into the room. “I’ve called the MPs. They shall arrive in a moment.”

  “That faggot put his hands on me,” the soldier being held back yelled.

  “I never did,” Tommie yelled back. “I didn’t,” he said to the guys who crouched over him. “I didn’t, Miss Cowl.” Henry handed Tommie his handkerchief to hold against his face.

  “You better watch who you call names,” one of the soldiers shouted back at the guy who’d punched Tommie.

  “He’s a faggot. You better watch your asses around him.”

  “Hey!” Henry said, “Mind your mouth. There are ladies present.”

  I looked over at Juliana standing behind Henry. I saw fear on her face, something I had never seen on her
before, and then she was gone.

  “Take that guy out,” another soldier said. “The MPs can collect the asshole outside.”

  A few of the soldiers escorted the guy out the door.

  “Young sir, how do you fare?” Miss Cowl asked Tommie.

  “I’m fine, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps, I ought to jingle for an ambulance.”

  “No, don’t. Please.”

  “Come with me,” Virginia said, reaching out for him. “Into the kitchen. I’m an old hand at this.”

  “You are?” I asked. “How?”

  Virginia looked at me like I was an idiot and put her arm around Tommie, guiding him into the kitchen.

  Henry came up beside me. “Are you all right, Alice? I’m sorry you had to hear that rough language.”

  “I’m going into the kitchen to see about Tommie.”

  Miss Cowl hurried over to me. “Alice, I am physically and mentally pooped and tonight has barely commenced. I am revealing this to you because I desire that you decide about young Thomas.” She hurried away.

  Decide what?

  In the kitchen, Alfred Lunt tore up a dishcloth to hold against Tommie’s face to replace Henry’s now-sticky red handkerchief. Tommie sat on the stool next to the sink.

  “Now, my boy,” Mr. Lunt said, “you keep a firm pressure on this, and the bleeding will stop. And next time keep your head down.” He took the pose of a boxer to demonstrate. “Like this.”

  Tommie smiled, “I’ll try. ”

  Lynne Fontanne tugged on her husband’s arm. “Come on, tiger. Help me take out the garbage.”

  Mr. Lunt growled like a tiger while she handed him a bag of garbage. They both walked off.

  Virginia brought a bowl of ice to the sink and wrapped a few cubes in a towel. “Let me see,” she took the dishcloth away from Tommie’s face. “It’s slowing down. Put this ice on it.”

  “Tommie, what happened?” I asked.

  “I swear I didn’t do anything to that guy.”

  “A person doesn’t hit another person for no reason.”

  “Oh, don’t they?” Virginia said.

  “I don’t think you can come here anymore,” I blurted out.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Al, that’s wrong,” Virginia whispered, looking around to be sure we were alone. “That’s just plain wrong.”