“I have given you everything you have ever wanted, that you’ve ever needed. And still, you go behind my back and disobey me like this,” her father thundered from the living room.
“No disrespect, Daddy . . .” Eliza curled her hand into a fist for courage, then took a deep breath. “But you’ve given me everything that you wanted me to have.”
“So you’re talking back to me now? From what I recall, you begged me to let you work at the paper.” Daddy’s nostrils flared like an angry bull’s. Eliza took another step back. But she was not ready to yield. Not yet. She took another deep breath.
“Yes, you finally caved. But you won’t let me work a real beat, like politics or sports, like I wanted. You keep insisting that I work the society pages.”
Daddy held his hands up to his head like it was about to explode. “We’ve been over this before. A proper lady has no business in a baseball locker room.”
“Female reporters do interviews on the field and in the dugout all the time. You know I can handle myself.” Eliza put her hands on her hips. She was yelling now. Her heart felt like it was pounding through her chest. She had never yelled at her father before. Ever. She never would’ve dared. But what did she have to lose now? The worst thing he could do was kick her out of his house. That only meant she could skip his stupid dinner party this evening and get down to Grand Central Station a few hours ahead of her scheduled time.
She could feel the heat of his eyes boring into her. His chest puffed up and stayed as he held his breath. He had never hit her. But she imagined that it was taking everything in him not to smack her right then.
He yanked her by the arm and marched her down the short hallway to her room instead.
If he locks me in, I’m screwed.
He pointed a finger at the open suitcase on her bed. “You will unpack that bag,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “And then you will put on something appropriate for dinner.” He rocked back on his heels, his fists swinging at his sides. Oh yeah, Eliza noted. He was big-time mad.
“You will be dining with us at tonight’s dinner party and you will be pleasant to my guests. Am I understood?”
Eliza jutted out her chin as they stared each other down in a battle of wills. Remembering Daddy’s heart condition, she considered backing down. She had only committed to joining the WAAC at this point but was not officially in the military yet. Her formal induction would happen just prior to boarding the train. Perhaps she had scared her father enough to let her start working some sports stories for a start.
Then again, if he wasn’t going to take her seriously as a journalist going forward, she couldn’t spend another night under his roof. He would get over it, heart condition or not. In time anyway.
She stepped forward, reclaiming her space. And then she smiled.
“Yes, Daddy.”
His face spread into a grin. “That’s my girl.”
Eliza didn’t move an inch until he turned around and left her room. She closed the door behind him. Only then did she let herself relax.
She shut her suitcase and began snapping the latches. It’s a good thing I was finished packing. Now, time to come up with a plan B.
Her biggest obstacle was how to get her suitcase out of the house without her father barring her exit. She sat down on the bed, holding her chin as she thought. The weight of the suitcase she could handle. But the bulk of it might make it unwieldy should she have to lift it. But that was what the porters on the train were there for, right?
However, navigating the suitcase out of her room and down the stairway on her own would cause too much of a commotion. Also, she had no reasonable explanation for putting it in one of the hall closets when she normally stored it under her bed.
And then there was the matter of getting her induction orders back. Her father had confiscated them into his bedroom when he found them.
“Martin!” Her mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “Will you run out and grab some flowers for the table centerpiece?”
“What’s wrong with the ones you bought yesterday?” Daddy yelled back. From the sounds of it, he had retreated to his own bedroom after leaving Eliza’s.
“All the heat coming from the kitchen has made them start to wilt.” The pout in Mother’s voice made Eliza roll her eyes. Mother had a knack for worrying about the wrong things. No one coming tonight would care about some drooping day-old flowers. Eliza wished she might worry more about how Daddy was suffocating her daughter’s life.
“Fine,” Daddy huffed. He stomped down the stairs and out the front door.
A minute or two later, there was a knock on her door.
“What?” Eliza whined as she opened it.
Mother barged past Eliza, making a beeline for the suitcase. She grabbed the handle, then yanked it off the bed.
“Mother! What are you doing?”
“He won’t be gone long,” Mother said, ignoring Eliza’s question. “I assume you’ve finished packing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, quick. Go make space for this thing in the storage closet. He never goes in there.”
Eliza couldn’t think of a time when her mother had so blatantly contradicted Daddy. Well, unless it had to do with buying a new pair of heels or letting her and Eliza spend an extra week out at Camp Minisink during the summer.
“Yes, ma’am!”
Eliza ran ahead to comply with her mother’s request.
The two women made quick work of the task. Right after, her mother pulled Eliza’s orders out of her apron pocket and handed them to her daughter.
“Now, I suggest you find a more appropriate place to put these than in plain view of your father. Your purse, maybe?”
“Of course. Thank you, Mother.” Eliza threw her arms around her mother’s shoulders. “But I don’t understand. Why are you doing this? Why now?”
Mother sighed. “I love your father, but he is set in his ways. I let him dim my light years ago so he could shine. I won’t sit by and let him do that to you too.”
HOURS LATER, ELIZA drummed her fingers against her parents’ big maple dining table for what must have been the hundredth time that night. She felt trapped within the long horizontal lines of her family’s Harlem brownstone; the dining room’s high ceiling hovered over her, threatening to fall in on itself and crush her. She was seated beside her mother, as dictated by the handwritten calligraphy on the place cards. Their next-door neighbors, an up-and-coming civil rights lawyer and his wife, occupied the remaining place settings around the table.
Mrs. Murphy, the woman who cooked for them on special occasions, pushed through the swinging door that led to the kitchen, holding identical platters containing steaming, fresh-out-of-the-oven pies.
“The dessert course, Mr. and Mrs. Jones.”
Her father inhaled the aroma rising from the vent cut into the crust of one of the pies. “Mm. Blueberry, right? My favorite. Thank you so much.”
He ever so carefully cut the pie and wiggled out a generous slice for himself. Then, with the same amount of care, he began divvying up the remainder for the rest of the table. Eliza sighed. Loudly. At this rate, the dinner party wouldn’t be over until tomorrow.
“Eliza, sit up. Stop slouching.” Mrs. Jones eyed her daughter for a second longer than necessary. Then she quickly pasted on a smile and joined in with everyone’s laughter as Mr. Jones finished the punch line to another one of his stories.
Eliza stared at the grandfather clock that stood behind the head of the table. It was eight o’clock already. Her father had returned home with a new bouquet of flowers just as they had finished shoving her suitcase into the closet. She hadn’t had a chance to ask her mother how she planned on helping Eliza leave on time without causing another blowout with her father.
Her parents’ dinner parties normally went well past ten. Her orders had been to report to Grand Central Station by nine thirty that night. She straightened her spine with a sigh.
“Sorry, Mother.”
She sweetened her apology with a forced smile. She still had time. All she had to do was catch the D train at the 145th Street station across the street. She would arrive at Grand Central within an hour. It was time for drastic measures. Her father had left her no choice.
Eliza reached out for the plate of blueberry pie that had been offered to her. She dipped her chin in her father’s direction. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“My pleasure, princess.”
She cringed again at the little-girl nickname. He really did think he had gotten the best of her so easily, didn’t he?
When her dessert plate was empty aside from a few crumbs and smears of the dark purple filling, she wiped the corners of her mouth with her linen napkin, then placed it neatly beside her plate. It was time to put plan B into action.
Eliza pushed her seat back from the table. “I’m afraid I must excuse myself. Thank you all for dinner. It’s been lovely.”
Her father, who had been leaning back in his own chair with his hand on his belly, frowned at her. In a sickly-sweet voice that fooled no one, he said, “You have not been excused. Where do you think you’re going?”
“Down to Grand Central, of course,” Mother responded in the same tone she used to remind her father to take out the trash. Damn, Mother was good at this. Eliza stared at her with a cocked eyebrow.
“And why would Eliza be going down there now?” Her father smiled tightly, but he looked like he was ready to explode. “Our guests haven’t finished their desserts yet.”
“I do apologize for that, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. But if I don’t leave now, I’ll miss my train.” Eliza gave them, and her father, another smile. She knew she was laying it on thick, but she didn’t care. She had to get out of there.
“What train?” Her father ground out each word between clenched teeth.
“The train I’m taking to Iowa.”
Mr. Marshall, who was seated next to Daddy, chose this moment to jump into the conversation. “Dear child, what on earth would make you want to go to Iowa?”
“Training camp.”
“Training camp? I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“I’m joining the military. The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. I’ve been selected for its first class of Officer Candidate School.”
“Why that’s wonderful, Eliza!” Mrs. Marshall clasped her hands to her chest. The praise warmed Eliza’s chest. Finally, someone was openly acting like they were proud of her.
Mother gently shook her head in Mrs. Marshall’s direction. “Not now, Vivian.”
Eliza glanced at Daddy. He had clenched his fork so tight that the skin covering his knuckles had turned pale. She could see the vein at his right temple pulsing. She quickly looked away. She pressed her hands against the tabletop and stood. He could get mad all he wanted to. She was still leaving his dinner table.
“Eliza. Sit. Down.”
“Not this time, Daddy.”
“We’ve already discussed this. I told you, you’re not going anywhere. Especially if it has to do with that damned white man’s Army.”
“We didn’t discuss anything. You yelled. And then you stormed out of my room like you always do.”
“You want the sports beat that bad? Fine, we can discuss that later.”
If he was finally caving on letting her cover sports for the newspaper, then she really did have his attention now. Eliza took another deep breath. It was now or never.
“It’s too late for that. But you will hear me out now.”
“I will—I will what?” he spluttered.
“It’s been over a year since I finished college, Daddy. I spent four years on my own down in Washington. But you still treat me like a child.”
“You are still a child—” Daddy began. But Mother cut him off.
“Let her finish, Martin.” The tone of Mother’s voice made Eliza pause and everyone else gasp. Mother reserved that tone of voice for insubordinate fund-raiser volunteers and out-of-line retail workers. “You were saying, baby?”
“Thank you, Mother. I, uh, I was saying that the only reason I haven’t become more independent is because you browbeat me into taking the society column at the paper. You’ve been stringing me along with the hope that you might let me cover sports or maybe even politics. But you always have some change of heart or some other kind of excuse when it’s time to deliver. And then you went and slapped your name on my byline.”
“Slap my name on your byline?” Daddy began to laugh. He looked around the room as if checking for confirmation that no one else believed her accusation. He fluttered his fingers as if to wave her off. “You are being ridiculous, child. Now, sit down.”
He picked his fork back up and began stabbing at his pie. You’d have thought he was a passenger on Agatha Christie’s Orient Express.
“And you’re ridiculous if you think I’ll remain under your thumb any longer after you pulled that stunt, Daddy.” Eliza started walking toward the French doors that separated the dining room from the front door. “Mr. and Mrs. Marshall, Mother, my apologies for disturbing your meals.”
“Eliza Marie Jones. I’m warning you. If you walk out that door, you will not be welcomed back in.” Daddy’s words chilled the room.
Mother gasped. “Martin!”
Eliza stilled. Everyone there knew Daddy never issued idle threats. Maybe she was acting like a spoiled child. Maybe she should back down. There was still a chance they could talk it out, instead of her running away.
No. If she did stay, nothing would ever change.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Daddy. I would like to think that me coming home in uniform with officer’s stripes would make you proud.”
Eliza yanked open the storage closet, then grabbed her suitcase and handbag out of it. Her hand paused on the doorknob to the front door.
Now or never, she repeated to herself. “Mother, I’ll miss you.”
“Don’t forget to write,” Mother replied.
But it was what Daddy said as the door shut behind her that would haunt her.
“Those Army folks will chew you up, spit you out alive, and think nothing of it. And I won’t be able to do a damn thing about it when they do.”
Chapter 8
Grand Central Station, New York
July 17, 1942
BE CAREFUL OUT there in Des Moines. I need you to come back.” Grace’s father took her by the shoulders and studied her face carefully. “That is, your mother and I— We need you to come back. Back in one piece.”
She saw his lip quiver right before he turned away. Grace blinked back tears. Daddy hadn’t been the same since she’d had to tell him about Tony. Normally jovial and laid back, a more subdued Daddy now tried to turn what remained of their time together into a poignant father-daughter moment.
Once he had his emotions back in check, he squeezed her shoulder. “I know you think Iowa will be nothing but cornfields, cattle, and farmers. But us railroad porters talk. They say you can find everything you need there in town up on the hill on Center Street.”
“Thank you, Daddy. I’ll be fine.”
Grace was thrilled that her father had come home in time to see her off. Though he was gone more than he was home, her heart ached knowing how much more distance would be between them when she left. Meanwhile, Mama had stopped speaking to her. The mounting tension between Grace and her mother had become intolerable.
Grace reached out to hug her father. He stayed her arm with his hand.
“I wasn’t done, Grace. They also say that those same streets turn into the Sin City of the Plains when the sun goes down. You’re a pretty girl and will be new in town. Watch yourself.”
“I will, Daddy. But I expect the Army will be keeping us too busy to get into any kind of trouble.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s what they all say.” He handed Grace her sweater as the loudspeaker announced that her train to Chicago, the first leg of her trip, was boarding.
“Just take care of yourself.”
“I always do, Daddy. I a
lways do.”
“I know. But it’s—it’s different now. I need to know that you’re safe.”
He looked away to wave at one of the Pullman stewards pushing a cartful of dull green duffel bags and steamer trunks toward the luggage car. The man stopped and broke out into a wide grin.
“Ernest? Ernest Steele? I thought it looked like you.” He took Daddy’s extended hand and shook it profusely.
“Earl Robinson. It has been a while. They got you on the Chicago line now?”
“Yes, sir. I told the boss man I couldn’t take riding down South on that Charleston route no more. Times was getting hard down there. I don’t know how you do it. I moved the rest of my family up a few years ago. Ain’t no reason for me to ever go back now.”
Daddy’s mouth flattened into a grim line. Grace didn’t have to ask why. Back when she was three years old, a big riot had devastated the city of Charleston for several days. He had had to move their small family up north for the very same reason. But Daddy’s brother and his wife had refused to leave, so Daddy remained on the New York to Charleston line to keep the connection with the rest of the family.
Earl nodded in my direction. “Who’s this pretty gal you’ve got here?”
“This is my daughter, Grace. She’s heading out to Chicago and then on to Iowa.”
“Iowa?”
“For training, sir,” she piped in. “I’m joining the Army.”
Earl rocked back on his heels and gave Daddy a concerned look. “You’re letting her be one of them gals they got to keep our boys company?”
“No, sir,” she replied with finality. “I’ve joined to do my part so that our boys can be freed up to fight. The only company I’ll be keeping is with myself.”
Daddy coughed into his fist to hide his amusement. He cleared his throat to regain his composure. “Well, I was going to ask you, Earl, to keep an eye on my little girl. But it looks like she’ll be able to handle herself just fine. Just fine.”
“Ladies, this way.” The Army officer with whom Grace had checked in upon her arrival beckoned her and a handful of other young women toward the platform entrance. He looked at his clipboard again, frowning. “Where is Jones? Is anyone here Eliza Jones?”
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