A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin

  She was setting the table for dinner when Tena said, “Would you get me a pint of green beans, please, from the pantry? Take one from the back of the shelf. I always like to use up the older jars in the back first.”

  Oh no. Rosa went into the pantry, dreading what she would find. She had shoved her jar of peaches to the very rear. She picked up one jar after the other, searching for the telltale dot of red lipstick on the lid, but the jar was gone.

  She swore to herself. What a waste of perfectly good booze, down the drain! Now Rosa had no way to fortify herself for the dreaded meeting. She snatched up a jar of green beans for her mother-in-law, feeling sick inside.

  As the time for the meeting drew near, Rosa grew more and more nervous, watching the clock. While they were washing the supper dishes, Tena fetched her punch bowl and cups from the basement and had Rosa wash them, too.

  “I already made the punch,” Tena said. “It’s in the refrigerator, but I thought it would look nicer in the punch bowl. We need something to cheer us up on a dreary winter night, eh?”

  Rosa nodded, wishing she had a shot of vodka to cheer her up. Down the drain! Boy, what a waste!

  Tena started getting all fluttery as the time approached. Wolter set up extra folding chairs in the living room for the ladies and unfolded a card table for the society president to use as a podium. Rosa carried the punch bowl to the dining room table and set out dessert plates and forks and napkins. She watched as Tena filled the bowl with punch.

  “Will you taste it for me, dear? I want to make sure it’s sweet enough.”

  Rosa did. “It’s very good. And plenty sweet enough.”

  “Oh, good. I changed the recipe a little bit, you see. Sugar is so expensive these days that I decided to use the syrup from the jar of peaches instead.”

  Rosa nearly dropped her cup. “Y-you mean … you put the liquid from the peaches … in the punch?”

  “Yes. Does it taste okay?”

  Rosa nodded, biting her lip. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She would get her nip of booze, all right—but so would all of the other women! Should she warn them? She didn’t want to get Tena into trouble. But if she spoke up she would get herself into trouble. And where would they get more punch ingredients at this time of night? Rosa was trying to decide what to do when the doorbell rang.

  “That must be our first guest. You stay here and serve the punch for me, will you, dear? Make sure everyone has enough.”

  It was too late to do anything now, even if Rosa had known what to do. She filled her own cup to the top and quickly drained it to fortify herself while she waited for all the women to arrive. She could hear them in the other room, cooing like pigeons in Central Park.

  It didn’t take long for Rosa’s head to start spinning. Oh yes, she knew without a doubt which jar of peaches Tena had used. Rosa felt a giggle bubbling up inside her. She hadn’t spiked the punch, Tena had!

  The ladies paraded into the dining room like stuffy old hens with their beaks in the air. Rosa handed them plates of peach cobbler and glasses of punch as they filed past, then she followed them into the living room, where they all sat down to eat. She watched as the first lady took a sip, then another one did. Would anyone notice? Before long, the peach cobbler was gone and most of the women had drained their glasses.

  “This punch is very good, Tena,” the president, Mrs. Edwards, said. She had a figure like a pickle barrel and usually wore a pickle-puss to match. But she was smiling tonight.

  “Thank you,” Tena said. “I changed the recipe a little bit. I hope it’s sweet enough.”

  “Oh yes. It’s wonderful,” everyone agreed. “Is there more?”

  Rosa jumped up and hurried into the dining room as they all lined up for refills. One old lady, Mrs. Turner, was already a little tipsy after only one glass and had to be helped out of her chair. Rosa watched as Mrs. Turner gulped her second cup and wondered if she would have to be carried home on a stretcher. The thought made Rosa giggle. A lot of the women seemed to be giggling. Everyone hung around the dining room table happily sipping punch until the president decided it was time to start the meeting.

  They all took their places in the living room again, which now seemed uphill from the dining room. Mrs. Edwards tried to stand at her makeshift podium and nearly fell over, taking the card table with her.

  “Whoa! Who rocked the boat?” she asked. Everyone thought that was very funny. Mrs. Edwards decided to remain seated. “I now call this meeting to odor … I mean order.” She banged her gavel on the table, chuckling. “Order in the court! Order in the court! … I always wanted to say that.” The ladies laughed some more.

  “You’re a hoot, Elmira!” Mrs. Turner said in her creaky voice.

  “I know. That’s what my husband always says whenever we … never mind. I think we’re supposed to read the minutes or something, aren’t we?”

  The society’s secretary began shuffling through her papers, searching for them. “They’re here somewhere. Wait … Where did I put my glasses? Oh dear!”

  Rosa remembered filling the secretary’s glass at least three times and knew what the real problem was.

  “Oh, fiddle-faddle!” the secretary finally said. “You were all here at the last meeting. You know what we did.”

  “Yes, and a very fine meeting it was, as I recall,” Mrs. Edwards said, banging her gavel for no apparent reason. “I move that the minutes be accepted as read.”

  “I second it,” old Mrs. Turner shouted.

  “Sold to the lady in the red dress!” She banged the gavel two more times. “Now the treasurer’s report …”

  “Oh, who cares about money,” the treasurer said. “We have a whole bunch of it.” She slurred her words so that bunch sounded like bunsh. “On with the meeting, Elmira!”

  “Yes … well … For the life of me, I can’t remember what we were supposed to discuss—can any of you?”

  “Knitting for the soldiers,” Mrs. Turner shouted, holding up a bag of yarn and knitting needles.

  “Right! Okay, then … Do any of you feel like knitting?”

  “I feel like having more punch,” the treasurer said.

  “I’ll get it. You sit tight.” Rosa jumped up to wait on the ladies, refilling everyone’s cup. “I don’t even know how to knit,” she said as she handed the president a fresh glass. They all laughed—for no reason that Rosa could see. They were such a merry bunch of women, almost as much fun as the guys down at the Hoot Owl.

  “Tena tells us that you’re an Italian girl,” Mrs. Edwards said. “Such a romantic language. Will you say something for us, dear?”

  “Que buon giorno,” she said in an exaggerated accent. “Ciao, come stai?”

  “So musical!” Mrs. Edwards hiccuped. “Did you speak Italian at home, dear?”

  “Nah, I learned it on the street. The old-timers didn’t speak English very good, so if you stole an apple or something from their fruit stand they would chase you halfway down the block, screaming at you in Italian. I know a lot of those kinds of words.”

  The ladies thought this was hilariously funny. Their laughter egged Rosa on. She imitated an angry grocer, spewing out a string of Italian words that would have turned their hair white if they had understood her. Instead, they applauded.

  “If you went to the bakery or the butcher shop,” Rosa said, “and one of the old geezers waited on you, you’d better know how to say ‘bread’ or ‘pork chops’ in Italian or you’d go away empty-handed.”

  “How interesting,” the secretary said. Then a look of concern crossed her face. “Should I be taking minutes?”

  Rosa spewed out a few more phrases, and the president babbled gibberish in imitation, banging her gavel to peals of laughter. Rosa felt like Bob Hope warming up to his audience.

  “One time,” Rosa continued, “a friend of mine brought his dog over when he came to visit me. We sat around talking all day and pretty soon the dog got hungry, so we decided to go down to the butcher shop and buy him som
e dinner—the dog, not my friend. Anyhow, the butcher shop was packed and the old Italian geezer was waiting on everybody, and he wasn’t in no mood for English. So I told my friend how to say ‘meat for a dog’—cibo per cani—while I ran over to the deli to get us some dinner. I told my friend, ‘If the old guy doesn’t understand, tell him molto buon prezzo.’ That means ‘very cheap’ in Italian.

  “I was only gone a few minutes, but when I came back I could hear a commotion inside the butcher shop—ladies gasping, and the butcher shouting in Italian, ‘This? Is this what you want?’ He had caught the little stray dog that always hung around in the back alley, and he was holding him up in the air, saying, ‘This?’ My friend was grinning from ear to ear and saying, ‘Si! prezzo—very cheap meat!’ I thought one of the old ladies was going to faint dead away.

  “I said to my friend, ‘What did you ask for?’ and he says, ‘Just what you told me to say.’ Only, he got it mixed up, see, and instead of saying meat for a dog, he was saying meat of a dog. The butcher had a cleaver in one hand and the dog in the other, and he was real eager to make a sale. The other customers were all screaming and swooning. … Well, that poor little dog didn’t know how close he came to being turned into chopped meat before I cleared everything up.”

  The churchwomen laughed so hard at Rosa’s story they had tears in their eyes. One woman was nearly on the floor. “Tell us another story!” Mrs. Edwards begged.

  “Okay. Anybody want more punch first?”

  By the time the evening ended, Rosa decided that it was the most fun she’d ever had at a church meeting. She liked these women. Everyone was so cheerful tonight—except for Mrs. Turner, who had fallen sound asleep—but even she looked happy. She was snoring like a motorboat, but she woke up with a start when the president decided to end the meeting with a rousing version of “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” The ladies stood, arms around one another’s shoulders like bosom buddies, and sang for all they were worth.

  “Great meeting, Tena,” they shouted as they staggered off into the night like sailors on shore leave. Rosa had to agree. Tena was still humming as they washed the punch cups and dessert plates.

  “I don’t understand that song about the buns,” Rosa told her.

  “Buns? What are you talking about, dear?”

  “You know, that last song everybody sang before they left … about eating buns over yonder.”

  Tena laughed out loud. “Oh, Rosa! Not buns, rolls! ‘When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.’ I think it’s supposed to be a roll call, like the army has every morning. Only it’s up in heaven!”

  They were still laughing when Wolter returned home. He stood in the kitchen doorway, gazing at them in surprise.

  “Tena? Have you been drinking?”

  She wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron. “Don’t be silly. We had a meeting of the Ladies’ Missionary Society. The punch is all gone, but I saved you some peach cobbler.”

  Wolter looked from Rosa to Tena, suspiciously. “No, thanks. I think I’ll put away the chairs and go to bed.”

  When he disappeared into the living room, Rosa and Tena turned to each other. A giggle bubbled up inside both of them.

  “‘Meat of dogs,”’ Tena said. “‘Very cheap!”’ And they both laughed until their sides ached.

  CHAPTER 17

  * Virginia *

  Ginny stood by the huge open factory doors with the other women from her crew, bundled in her coat and scarf against the wintry air. Excitement shivered through her as she gazed up at the magnificent landing craft that was about to be launched.

  “Isn’t that the most beautiful sight you ever seen?” Rosa asked above the noise. She slipped her gloved hand into Ginny’s and squeezed it. “I feel like dancing!”

  “Yes—and it’s our ship.”

  A government official climbed the steps to a wooden platform and cracked a bottle of champagne against the hull to launch the first landing craft that Ginny’s team had ever completed. Slowly the ship began to move, sliding majestically into the river.

  “There she goes!” Ginny cheered.

  “What a waste of good champagne,” Rosa said with a moan. “They could of at least given us a sip or two, wouldn’t you think?”

  “I feel giddy enough without it,” Ginny said with a laugh. “Wow! It’s so beautiful! And it’s all ours!” She pulled a handkerchief from her coat pocket. What a thrill! And she had played a part in it. “The only feeling that can compare with this is when my sons were born. I guess this is a birth of sorts, too.”

  Rosa put her fingers in her teeth and gave a deafening whistle. Ginny clapped and cheered along with all the other workers. Two-thirds of them were women.

  “Look at us!” she crowed. “Before the war, no one ever would have believed that our so-called ‘weaker sex’ could do this kind of work. I certainly wouldn’t have believed it. I was afraid to make a simple decision without consulting Harold first.”

  “And now you helped build that ship,” Rosa finished. “It floats and everything.”

  “It might even help the Allies win the war. I’m so proud of myself I could burst.”

  “Hey, isn’t that your husband over there on the platform?” Jean asked. “I think he’s looking for you.”

  “He is? Where?” Ginny wasn’t nearly as tall as Jean, even standing on her tiptoes. She craned her neck as the ship moved farther away, then spotted Harold with the other dignitaries. He was looking her way, scanning the crowd. She smiled and raised her arm in the air to wave. He turned away.

  “Maybe he didn’t see you,” Jean said when she noticed Ginny’s tears.

  “No, I’m sure he did.”

  “Don’t let him spoil your moment,” Rosa said. “If you had quit working last fall when he wanted you to, you never would have seen this ship being launched.”

  “I know, I know. Yet I hate the distance that has grown between us. We’ve become estranged.”

  Ginny had searched her dictionary and thesaurus to find a word she could use to talk things over with Harold. She had been practicing what she wanted to tell him, waiting for the right moment. “Harold, I don’t want to remain estranged,” she would say. The word was a fitting one. It meant, “to turn away in feeling or affection; to keep oneself at a distance.” It was exactly what Harold had been doing for months—what he was doing right now.

  The women made their way into the lunchroom after the launching and sat down at the table to unwrap their sandwiches. Jean talked about the fierce fighting that was taking place in North Africa. “My sister Patty is worried sick about her husband,” she told them. “He’s right in the thick of things. I don’t know what she’ll do if something happens to him.”

  “She’ll go on living,” Ginny said, “even though she won’t feel like it. There are other ways to lose your husband besides the war.” Everyone turned to stare at her.

  “Is he walking out on you?” Rosa asked.

  “Not yet. But I’m so afraid that he might. We still live together, but Harold and I have been estranged ever since he found out about my job. I wish I knew what to do to get back together with him—besides quitting. After today, I’m more determined than ever not to do that.”

  “How did you win him over the first time you met?” Rosa asked. She opened a container that held a delicious-looking piece of peach cobbler.

  “We met at a dance at my college sorority house. Harold’s fraternity was invited. I wore a brand-new red dress, and Harold said that I lit up the room. We danced together all evening—and neither of us ever dated anyone else again.”

  “You’re still a very lovely woman,” Jean said, polishing an apple on her sleeve. “Maybe if he saw you all dolled up—”

  “Yeah! How about if you bought a new red dress?” Rosa asked.

  “Good luck,” Helen said. “I don’t know if any of you has been shopping lately, but there’s not much of a selection to choose from these days. Most of the dress factories have retooled to make uniforms. Besides,
the best fashions used to come from Paris, and the Germans have put an end to that, stomping all over the city like the pigs that they are.”

  Ginny and the others sat in silence for a moment, as if waiting for the air to clear after Helen’s bitter words. “Maybe I should get my hair done,” Ginny finally said. “I haven’t had time to get a permanent wave in months.”

  Jean ran her fingers through her blond hair. “That might work,” she said. “Before my boyfriend came to visit me, Rosa helped me do my hair and pick out some new makeup. But you always look pretty, Ginny. Your husband would have to be blind not to notice.”

  “I’ve got it!” Rosa said, snapping her fingers. “Nothing gets a man’s attention faster than when he sees other men giving you the eye.”

  “You mean I should try to make him jealous?” Ginny asked. “I don’t think I could do that.”

  “I think I know what Rosa means,” Jean said, “and you wouldn’t have to flirt or anything. When Russell met Mr. Seaborn, he suddenly got very possessive of me. And I hadn’t done a thing. It seems like whenever a man sees other men giving you the eye, then he notices you, too.”

  “And don’t forget perfume,” Rosa added. “No man can resist you when you’re wearing his favorite perfume.”

  Their excitement grew contagious. Maybe their ideas really would work. “I think I know the perfect time to try it,” Ginny said. “One of my friends from the Women’s Club invited Harold and me to a cocktail party this Saturday. I wasn’t going to go because I don’t have much in common with that crowd anymore—but maybe I should go and try out all of your ideas.”

  “I’m sure Patty will watch your boys if you want her to,” Jean said. “I’m going to Indiana this weekend to see Russ, but Billy, Jr. and Kenny have been begging to have ‘the big boys’ over to play again.”

  “You and your husband can have the whole house to yourself,” Rosa said with a mischievous grin.

  Ginny couldn’t help smiling, too. “Harold always feels romantic after he’s had a cocktail or two. I just hope I can convince him to go to the party. Most of Harold’s friends from that crowd are away in the service. The only husbands who are left are older than he is.”