A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin

  “I sure wish you would call me Earl when we’re not at work.”

  “Okay … Earl.” The personal name felt stiff on her tongue. “To tell you the truth, it’s hard to say how the women are going to work out after only one day. Everyone seems overwhelmed when they first start—I know I was—and these three are no exception.” She stood in the open doorway, leaning against the frame as she talked, leaving Earl outside on the porch. When she noticed how uncomfortable he looked, she motioned to the porch swing and rocking chair. “I’m sorry. Do you want to sit down?”

  “I’d rather walk to the corner drugstore, if you don’t mind, and get that ice-cream cone.” He smiled shyly.

  “Oh, all right,” she said with a sigh. She closed the front door and followed him down the porch steps. The evening had turned cool, and after only a few minutes Jean wished she had put on a jacket. At first she walked too fast, accustomed to strolling at a brisk pace and eager to finish this task. Then she remembered the limp that Mr. Seaborn took pains to disguise, and she slowed her steps. She returned to her analysis of the new women as they walked.

  “The older one, Miss Something-Or-Other …”

  “Kimball. Helen Kimball.”

  “Right. I’m just afraid she’ll find the work too boring. She told me that she was a schoolteacher for years and years, and she seems very capable. But I’m worried that this kind of work is going to be too dull for her. It can’t be nearly as stimulating as handling a classroom full of kids.”

  “I wondered about that, too,” Earl said. “Mr. Wire told me that she’s been a teacher here in town since Hector was a pup. She taught all of Mr. Wire’s sons, and they’re my age. She’s sort of a cliché, don’t you think? The old-maid schoolteacher?”

  His words made Jean angry. “Maybe she chose teaching as her profession. Some women prefer a career over marriage and a family, you know.”

  “Why would any woman choose a career?” He seemed truly baffled.

  “For the same reasons men choose careers.”

  His smile vanished. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be insulting.”

  “Anyway, back to my new crew … The dark-haired one, Rosa, with the Brooklyn accent, is certainly bright enough. She asks thousands of questions. But she seems really out of place here in town.”

  “I’m worried that she’ll slow down production, sashaying around with her curvy hips and tight sweaters. She’s really something, isn’t she? Did you hear the whistles she got?”

  Jean laughed out loud. So, clean-cut Mr. Seaborn had noticed Rosa, too. He had blood in his veins after all. “You’ll be happy to know that I issued her a very baggy pair of coveralls,” she told him. “But seriously, I can’t imagine that she’ll be content here in Stockton for very long. In the meantime, I think she can do the work. She caught on quickly today.”

  They reached the drugstore, and Earl held the door open for her. They walked to the rear of the store and sat down on stools, side-by-side, at the soda fountain. Jean ordered a chocolate ice-cream cone, Earl a vanilla milk shake. She had never bothered to look at Earl Seaborn in any way other than as her boss, but when she saw the teenaged waitress behind the counter giving Earl the once-over as she took his order, Jean decided to size him up herself.

  He looked like an all-American boy—brown hair, a faint sprinkle of freckles, a boyish grin. She would guess his age to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven. He wasn’t what you’d call handsome—he certainly lacked the fair-haired, movie-star looks that her boyfriend, Russell, had. Not to mention Russell’s hay-baling muscles. But Earl had a nice smile, a pleasant manner. Jean waited until the whirring blender stopped to continue talking.

  “The third woman, Ginny, seemed the most overwhelmed to me. She’s very nice and willing to try, but she doesn’t have much self-confidence. She’s like a fish out of water in the factory. I gave them all a pep talk about working together as a team, telling them how our soldiers are depending on us. I think it helped.”

  There was a long pause while Earl sipped his milk shake and played with his straw wrapper. Jean wondered what he was thinking. Maybe she had sounded too critical of the new women.

  “Was there anything else you wanted to know about them?” she finally asked.

  “No. That was great, Jean. Thanks for the update. So … um … did you grow up here in Stockton?”

  “I’m from Indiana. My parents have a farm outside a very small town that you probably never heard of.”

  “How’d you end up here?”

  “I’m living with my older sister Patty and her three kids. Her husband enlisted a month after the baby was born, a month after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Patty has only seen him once since then, when he came home on furlough. She wrote and told me they were hiring women at the shipyard, so I moved here after graduating from high school last June.”

  “Do you have any other brothers and sisters?”

  “Oh boy! Do I ever! There are eighteen of us altogether.”

  “Eighteen?”

  “Yep.” Jean loved watching people’s reactions when she talked about her family. Earl’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed response had been a good one. “Some of the older ones like Patty are married, but I have seven younger brothers still at home. My twin brother, Johnny, and I are numbers ten and eleven. Five of my older brothers are in the armed forces, including Johnny.”

  “Where are they stationed?”

  “All over the place. Let’s see, my brother Danny survived Pearl Harbor and is on a ship escorting convoys to Australia. Johnny, my twin, is in the air force, training to be a gunner-engineer at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. Peter was a policeman before the war, so he’s now in the military police at an army base in Iceland. Rudy’s at an air force base in Fresno, California, and might be sent to Dutch New Guinea soon. And Roy is at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, learning aviation repair. My mother, God bless her, writes faithfully to all of them. She hung banners in the window with five blue stars, one for each of them. When my brother Howie enlists next June, she’ll add a sixth.”

  “I wanted to enlist, but they wouldn’t take me,” Earl said quietly. “I figured there were plenty of noncombatant jobs they could’ve given me if they didn’t think I could march and shoot. I could drive a Jeep in the motor pool or do a desk job. But Uncle Sam doesn’t want me because I had polio as a kid.”

  “The government can be pretty stupid sometimes. … Did you grow up around here?”

  “No. I’m originally from Cleveland. I tried to enlist in Ohio and again in Indiana, but they turned me down in both places. So then I came to Michigan to see if they’d take me, but no deal.”

  He fell quiet again, and Jean hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings by talking about all her brothers in the military. She was trying to think of something to say when Earl swiveled his stool around to face her, his expression serious.

  “Jean, I have a confession to make. I didn’t really come over to talk about the new crew—although I appreciate your insights. I … I just wanted to spend some time with you. Away from work.”

  She drew back a little. “I, uh … I’d hate to break any factory rules.”

  “I’m management,” he said with a faint smile. “I make the rules.”

  “Oh … that’s right.” Jean tried to laugh it off but suddenly felt very awkward. She scrambled for something to say. “Gosh, I’m really flattered, Earl, but I’m really not interested in dating. In the first place, I’m saving my money to go to college, and I don’t plan on getting married until after I get my degree. And in the second place, I already have a boyfriend.”

  “Is he in the service?” She could tell that her refusal had hurt him, but he was trying not to let it show.

  “No, Russ has a deferment to help run the family farm back home in Indiana.”

  Earl opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. He shrugged and smiled his slow, shy smile. “Can’t you just think of me as a friend? Someone to go to a show with or have an ice
-cream cone with once in a while? There aren’t very many men my age to pal around with, you know. And since neither of us is from around here, you probably don’t have a lot of friends in town, either.”

  “That’s true. But I would hate for people at work to get the wrong idea about us. … You know, seeing us together.”

  “I stopped caring what people thought of me a long time ago.”

  She heard the sadness in his voice, and his vulnerability made her want to protect him, befriend him. “You’re right—it would be great to get out of my sister’s noisy household once in a while and see a show. I’d like to be friends. But please understand that I think the world of my boyfriend. I’m not looking for a new one. And besides, you’re such a good-looking guy that you’re sure to have lots of girls swarming around you before too long.” She leaned closer to whisper, “Our waitress thinks you’re cute.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked with a frown.

  “A woman can tell these things.”

  They talked for a while longer as Earl sipped his shake and Jean crunched into her cone. He seemed reluctant to leave, but he finally took out his wallet and laid money for the bill on the counter, along with a generous tip. The waitress was busy cleaning the blender.

  “Thanks for the milk shake,” he called to her. She turned to him and he gave her a dazzling smile that made her blush clear to her toes.

  “See what I mean?” Jean whispered.

  “Aw, go on.” He dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand, but Jean could tell that he was pleased. They walked back to Patty’s house and sat on the front porch.

  “You ladies at the shipyard are trailblazers, you know,” Earl said. “A few years ago, nobody would have believed women could do so-called ‘men’s work.”’

  “No one would have given us a chance to try it.”

  “And now here you are: welders and electricians and riveters … doing just as fine a job as the men did. You’ll go down in history, you know.”

  “Gee, do you really think so?”

  It surprised Jean to discover how comfortable she felt with Earl, considering the age difference between them and the fact that he was her boss. Maybe it was because they were both new in town and lonely, but Jean found herself chatting with him as if they were old friends.

  “See you tomorrow,” he called when they finally said good-bye.

  “Who’s the cute fellow?” Patty asked when Jean came inside. “I peeked through the curtains.”

  “Mr. Seaborn, my boss from work.”

  “That’s a very smart career move, dating the boss.”

  “We’re just friends. I’m dating Russell Benson, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Patty said with phony surprise. “Russell—the fellow who never writes to you.”

  “I’m going to bed.” Jean tried to pretend indifference, but Patty’s reminder had stung. She carried the letter she had started writing to him up to her bedroom but found that she had nothing to say. She crumpled it into a ball.

  It took her a long time to fall asleep, but when she finally did, Jean dreamt of Earl Seaborn, driving a tractor with his crippled arm and leg.

  CHAPTER 5

  * Virginia *

  For the first time in her married life, Virginia Mitchell didn’t have dinner ready when her husband arrived home from work. She had just put the potatoes on to boil, the meatloaf had at least another half hour to bake, the table wasn’t set and neither was the Jell-O. She’d barely had time to hide her new coveralls and tie an apron around her waist before Harold walked through the back door.

  She greeted him with a kiss. “How was your day, Harold?”

  “Same as usual.” He kissed her absently in return, loosening his tie as he walked toward the telephone table in the hall, where she usually placed his mail. He swung back to her in surprise. “Where’s today’s mail?”

  Still in the mailbox! Ginny had forgotten to retrieve it after arriving home from work to face a near crisis. The bus ride had taken longer than she had anticipated, and her two boys had arrived home from school twenty minutes earlier. Eight-year-old Herbie had panicked when she wasn’t there to greet him. Ten-year-old Allan had the telephone in his hand, about to dial the police, when Ginny hurried through the back door. It had taken fifteen minutes and lots of motherly hugs to calm them both down. At least they had noticed she was gone.

  Earlier that morning she had hurried off to catch a bus to the factory mere seconds after Harold left—and forty minutes before the boys had to leave for school. They’d seemed baffled that she was leaving them without an explanation, telling them to “Be good” and “Don’t be late for school.” She’d been afraid to tell them where she was going, worried they would leak the news to Harold before she had a chance to tell him that she had taken a job.

  She’d been rushing around ever since, trying to get the boys’ breakfast dishes cleared away—they had left their sticky plates and juice glasses on the kitchen table—and to hurry and get dinner made. No, her first day as a working mother wasn’t going well at all, and now on top of everything else she had completely neglected the mail.

  “I seem to have forgotten it,” she mumbled. “I’ll be right back.” She wondered if the mailman had missed chatting with her. He usually delivered her mail around two o’clock, and she would spend a moment talking with him about the weather if she was feeling bored or lonely.

  She retrieved the letters from the box on the front porch and handed them to Harold, hoping he wouldn’t ask her to explain her lapse. But before he could respond, Ginny heard a hissing sound in the kitchen and ran out to find the pot of potatoes boiling over on the stove. She had tried to speed things up by leaving the lid on it, and now she would have another mess to clean up. She grabbed a potholder and pulled the pot off the burner, fighting tears.

  “What’s that awful smell?” Harold called to her.

  “Nothing … it’s … nothing. I’m taking care of it.” She had hoped Harold would arrive home in a good mood so she could tell him all about her exciting new job, but the frown never left his face as he scanned the mail.

  “Is dinner ready?” he asked when he finished.

  “Not quite. I’ll call you.”

  Harold shrugged off his suit coat and disappeared into the living room to wait. She would tell him after they’d eaten. But afterward she had dishes to wash and dry and the kitchen to clean, and the boys needed help with their homework, and then it was time to put them to bed. Ginny was tempted to put herself to bed along with them, but she still had all of her ironing to do. She set up the ironing board in the kitchen and tried to work quickly, afraid that Harold would ask her why she wasn’t in her usual place beside him, listening to the radio.

  Ginny was in the middle of ironing one of his shirts when she overheard an advertisement for war workers. “Attention, all American citizens,” the announcer said in an urgent tone. “We need your help. If we’re going to win this war, we need every able-bodied woman to pitch in and work in the defense industries so our boys will have the equipment and ammunition they need to win on the battlefield. Please, won’t you sign up for a job today? No experience necessary. Wages paid while training.”

  She set down the iron. This was the opportunity she had been hoping for. “Did you hear that, Harold?” she asked as she walked into the living room.

  “Hear what?”

  “The advertisement that just played … about the need for workers—”

  “Which radio station do you have on?” he interrupted.

  “I don’t know. But the man was just saying how they need women to—”

  “Doesn’t The Aldrich Family usually air on Tuesday nights? I don’t think the radio is tuned to the right station.” He got out of his chair and bent beside the radio, fiddling with the dial.

  “Harold, I need to tell you something. Today—”

  “I wish the boys wouldn’t fool around with this dial. It’s going to fall off one of these days, and then
the radio won’t work at all.”

  Ginny gave up and returned to the kitchen. He never wanted to listen to her. She picked up her thesaurus, searching for a word to describe his lack of interest in her life. Under the listing for uninterested she saw the word aloof. She liked the sound of it—like one of the grunts he gave when he wasn’t really paying attention. She looked up aloof in the dictionary and read, “at a distance but within view, unsympathetic, disinterested.” That described Harold, all right—within view as he sat in his favorite living room chair but a million miles away. She wrote the word aloof in the notebook she kept, her tears making watermarks on the page, then blew her nose and resumed her ironing.

  When The Aldrich Family ended, Harold wandered into the kitchen looking for her. “Are you going to be ironing much longer?” he asked.

  “I just have a couple more things. Why?” Maybe he was feeling romantic. She hoped so. She could break the news to him when he was happy and relaxed.

  “I have to go out of town tomorrow,” he said, “and I need you to pack my suitcase.”

  “Out of town! I hate it when you have to travel overnight. The evenings seem so long and lonely without you.” She also hated the constant worry that he would find another woman on one of his trips. Ginny hadn’t thought about the two mysterious ticket stubs all day, but she remembered them now.

  “Where are you going this time?” she asked. “For how long?” She tried to make her voice sound interested, not upset.

  “The plant in Detroit is having some problems. They need me to get things rolling more smoothly.”

  “I wish you would have warned me.”

  “I didn’t know about it myself until this afternoon.” He sounded defensive.

  “Well, I was just wondering when you’d be back because there is something we really need to discuss, and I was hoping that we could—”

  “Why on earth are you doing the ironing at this time of night?” he asked suddenly. His frown deepened.

  Ginny tried not to panic as she scrambled for words. Harold was in a crabby mood, and she knew that if she confronted him now he would order her to quit. She would need this job at the shipyard more than ever if Harold really was philandering.