Letters From Home

by Kristina McMorris

  “It really is lovely, Jules,” Liz agreed, feeling the coarse edges within her smoothing.

  A quick nod and Julia abruptly rose. She headed for the wardrobe closet, as if sadness were a garment she could shed at will. Since the three girls had become fast friends in high school, lab partners in freshman science, Liz had only once seen Julia cling to an unpleasant emotion for a notable stretch: It began the morning Christian announced he’d up and joined the Navy. Julia had been beside herself. He’d already planned to enroll in the Navy ROTC program at Northwestern so they could be together, but decided he couldn’t wait to enlist, not even for an officer commission. Then a week before his fleet’s departure, Christian earned her forgiveness; specifically, the moment he knelt and slid the engagement band on her finger.

  “Why don’t I get letters like this?” Betty sighed.

  Julia tipped a smile. “Liz is the poetry pro here,” she reminded her. “Why not ask her to write you a love note? She could even sign it from Clark Gable—oh, wait, that’s my fantasy.” She giggled.

  “That’s it!” Betty perked.

  In the midst of a swallow, Liz sputtered drops of limeade. She wiped her chin. “Betty Cordell. I am not writing you a love letter.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” The blonde shifted onto her knees with a slight bounce. “Seriously, I do need your help. Please say you’ll agree.”

  Liz blew out a stream of air. She was all too familiar with the plea; Betty had used it for myriad requests over the years—everything from French kissing instructions to leg-makeup applications due to the silk and nylon shortage, an act Betty considered as her contribution to the war effort. In other words, Liz had learned to ask for details up front.

  “What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Well, you see,” she said, “there’s this soldier I met.” Her opening hardly launched a shock wave through the room. “He’s not the usual kind I date. I mean, he’s handsome enough. But he’s sorta shy. The mysterious type.”

  “And you need my help with …?”

  “Oh, right,” Betty said. “The point is, we met at the USO, where we danced and had a grand time of it. Sadly, the next day he shipped out with his brother.”

  The USO?

  His brother?

  Oh God. With Liz’s luck, she was certain to be talking about Morgan. But why now? Ten whole days had passed since the dance, and not once had Betty spoken of him. Liz had hoped to forget all about that night, all about where foolishness might have led her had she not witnessed Betty and Morgan dancing. Which, incidentally, was the best thing that could have happened to Liz.

  So why did she find herself hoping, with everything in her, that Betty was referring to another guy?

  Liz interjected, “Who is he, this soldier of yours?” She managed a casual tone.

  “I just told you,” Betty said, as if she hadn’t been listening. “He’s handsome and mysterious and—”

  “I mean his name. What’s the fellow’s name?”

  “Oh. Sorry. It’s McKall—no. McLew—wait…”

  Liz restrained herself from volunteering what was undoubtedly the final syllable.

  “McClain,” Betty remembered. “It’s Morgan McClain.”

  “Morgan McClain?” Julia paused in the midst of changing into her mauve blouse. “Liz, isn’t that the same guy you—”

  “Yeah, he’s the one we met,” Liz cut in.

  “You know him?” Betty exclaimed. “Oh, that’s perfect. Then you have to help me write to him.”

  Write to him? This couldn’t be happening. Fate couldn’t be that spiteful.

  Liz arrived easily at her answer. “I’m sorry, Betty, but I don’t have time.”

  “It’ll only take a few minutes,” she insisted. “Pleeease, I promised. And it’d be rude to keep him waiting any longer.”

  As if he didn’t deserve it. The guy was plainly out for one thing: one night of fun, one roll in the hay before deployment. An obvious deduction in hindsight.

  Then again …

  If a one-night companion was all Morgan had wanted, he wouldn’t have bothered asking Betty to write. Maybe he wasn’t as insincere as he’d appeared. Perhaps his initial attraction to Liz was genuine, but a single glance at the stunning blonde had cured his interest.

  Another reason to decline.

  Liz was about to do just that, more firmly this time, when Betty continued her plea.

  “I already started his letter. I just need your help with the ending, and to make sure the rest is okay.” She pouted her lips. “You know what an awful writer I am.”

  Liz couldn’t argue. Had she not rewritten all of Betty’s essays in high school, the girl would still be there.

  “And since you’ve met him,” Betty went on, “you’ll know exactly what to say.”

  “Wrong,” Liz countered. Clearly she had no clue what he wanted to hear.

  Betty held up her right hand, taking an oath. “If you help me with this, I’ll never ask you to write anything for me again. Scout’s honor.”

  Julia chimed in, “Don’t you have to be a Scout to make that pledge?” She smiled, straightening the seams of her stockings.

  “Come on, Liz.” Desperation spilled from Betty’s eyes. “You and Julia already have beaus. Don’t I deserve to be happy too?”

  Liz groaned helplessly. How could she dispute that kind of logic?

  “Besides,” Betty elongated the word, “need I remind you about an incredibly boring play I attended for a certain friend?”

  Liz narrowed her eyes. “You mean the one you slept through?”

  “One measly act,” Betty snipped. “Even so, I went, didn’t I? And without a solitary complaint.”

  Truth be told, Liz herself had come close to drifting off during the student-directed play; verses from the overdramatic actors had dripped like sap off their tongues. More relevant to Betty’s request, however, was Liz’s unwillingness to explain the real cause of her hesitation. Which left her little choice.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” she gave in. “But just this once. No exceptions.”

  “Thank you, thank you!” Betty dropped Christian’s letter while clapping with glee. Julia swooped up the pages from the floor and carefully added them to the drawer of her nightstand.

  “I’m not fooling, Betty.” Liz mustered the sternest voice she could. “No V-mail, no notes, nothing.”

  “Okaaay. I’ll even write my own obituary.”

  Julia giggled as she slipped into her black pumps and fastened the ankle straps. From her lace collar to her tailored mid-length skirt, she was as stylish as Ava Gardner. “I’m heading out, girls. Either one of you want to join me and Dot for a triple feature? The Tivoli’s playing Cover Girl again.”

  Ah, yes. Hollywood’s cure-all for the perpetually glum. A perfect example of why talkies weren’t always better than the silent pictures. At least in Casablanca the tragic ending was scripted out of realism, and the stars didn’t belt out lines in melodramatic show tunes.

  “I wish I could,” Betty moaned. “I swear, if I have to take Vera’s shift again this week, I’m quitting once and for all.”

  “What about you, Liz?”

  Any activity sounded better than ghostwriting a letter to Morgan, even suffering through a silly musical. But completing the task, purging the soldier from her system, also had its appeal.

  “I’ll take a rain check,” Liz replied with eyes that told her, Thanks for getting me into this.

  Julia grabbed her pillbox purse, missing the glance. “See you tomorrow, then,” she said, and turned for the hallway.

  By the time the front door slammed, Betty had sidled up to Liz, cross-legged, pillow on her lap, armed with a pile of stationery. “Here’s what I have so far.” She held out the page for Liz to read along, and cleared her throat as if preparing to give the State of the Union address.

  Dear Morgan,

  It was nice talking to you, you seem like a terrific guy. I definately wish we co
uld’ve spent more time together. Where did the Army ship you to?

  The glaring grammatical and spelling errors seized hold of Liz’s eyes. She fought every urge within her not to seek out the nearest colored fountain pen to circle what her father would call “blasphemous mistakes.”

  Betty looked up. “What do you think?”

  Liz aimed for diplomacy, a specialty of Dalton’s. “It’s, um …not bad.”

  “I knew it,” Betty whimpered. “It’s dreadful.” She buried her face in the pillow.

  “No. It’s not dreadful. It’s just that—” Liz chose to limit her critiques to the misguided content. “I don’t think the Army will let him say where they’re going.”

  “So what can I write?” Betty rumpled the letter into a ball and pitched it at the woven wastebasket, falling a foot short.

  Liz set her glass on the nightstand. She reminded herself this wasn’t a hundred-page dissertation. With just a few intelligible sentences, life could return to normal. “How about something like …” She threw out the simplest opening that came to her. “Dear Morgan. Although our time together was brief, it was a pleasure meeting you at the dance—”

  “Oh, that’s perfect. I love it!” Enthusiasm shot through Betty like an electrical current, straightening her posture, widening her eyes. “Now, what was that again?” She held up her pen, a stenographer ready for dictation—with no knowledge of shorthand.

  Already Liz felt exhausted. She opened her mouth to repeat the phrase when the tinkering notes of her grandfather’s cuckoo clock rang out from the living room.

  “Cripes. What time is it?” Betty rotated the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late.” With the speed of a fireman preparing for a five-alarm blaze, she jumped into her carnation-pink diner dress and pinned on her name tag. At the vanity, she smoothed Julia’s styling lotion over her pageboy hair.

  Relief and aggravation rivaled within Liz at the postponement. Now that they had started, she wanted nothing more than to rid her thoughts of Morgan McClain; him and all the “what-ifs” that had tangled her mind like ivy.

  “I really gotta go,” Betty addressed Liz’s reflection in the mirror, “but could you please finish the letter while I’m gone?”

  “Finish?” A laugh of disbelief snagged in Liz’s throat. “We haven’t even started it.”

  Betty applied her Victory Red lipstick in one circular motion. “I wouldn’t ask, but I won’t be home till late. And then I’ll be with Suzie all weekend visiting her family.”

  Liz was about to refuse, needing to draw a line somewhere—wavering and faint though the line may be—when Betty produced a scrawled address on a napkin.

  “Pretty please?” She knelt by the bed with clasped hands. “A couple more lines is all it needs.”

  This was ludicrous. “Don’t you think he’ll know it’s not from you?”

  “He’s a guy. He won’t have any idea,” Betty said, as if reporting the sky was blue. “Besides, what’s the difference? I’d just be writing down everything you say anyway.”

  If gender and academics weren’t a factor, the gal would have made a great trial attorney. After all, it was her indisputable case that had convinced Liz’s father to allow his daughter not one but two roommates in his absence, an arrangement for which Liz was grateful. At least on most days.

  Betty glanced back at the clock. “Piddle, I gotta fly.” Scurrying toward the doorway, she motioned to the bed. “Stamps and envelopes are in the drawer. Just toss it in the mail when you’re done.”

  Liz’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t want to read it first?”

  “I trust you,” Betty called as she rounded the corner. “The sooner it goes out, the sooner I’ll get a letter back, right?” Her footfalls sounded down the hall and out the front door, leaving Liz alone. With a pile of stationery. Shackled.

  She should have escaped with Julia when she had the chance.

  “I must be going mad.” Liz snatched the pen and paper and tramped across the room. Seated at the vanity, she scowled at the page and debated reneging on the deal. This wasn’t what she’d agreed to.

  The heck with it.

  She tossed the pen down. Grasping the edge of the table, she began to rise, but a memory stilled her—the memory of Morgan’s face. She’d tried so desperately to erase him from her mind. Yet there he was, as vivid as if they had shared a dance yesterday. She could almost feel the tenderness of his breath gracing her cheek, the heat of his hand pressed to hers.

  Why couldn’t she forget him? And why did the mere idea of him cause her pulse to quicken even now?

  Her grip loosened. Her body lowered. She settled her gaze on the empty page, its fibers beckoning the beautiful stains of the written word. And she sighed.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” she repeated her verbal assent.

  Really, it was just a short note. A small favor for a friend. What was the big fuss?

  At that, she placed the tip of the pen on the stationery, and surrendered her thoughts to flow through the ink.

  5

  July 15, 1944

  Chicago, Illinois

  “It’s about time!” As usual, the greeting flew out of the kitchen, over the diner chatter, and into Betty’s ears before she could even clock in.

  “Yeah, yeah, so fire me,” she meant to mutter to herself, yet a look from the grizzled chef indicated her retort had made it through the pass-through window.

  “You straighten up, or that’s precisely what I’m gonna do. You got me?” A cigarette bounced against his bottom lip as he spoke.

  “Hey,” she said coyly, “I can’t control the bus schedule. But give me a raise and I’ll happily race down here in a cab.” She blew him a kiss, a standby tactic to alleviate his mood.

  Today, however, he wasn’t having any of it. He shook a fistful of his mottled dish towel in her direction, an especially deep scowl carved into his face. “Don’t push me, Betty. You’re this close—this close—to gettin’ the ax. Now, get to work!” With a grumble, he returned to his grill, which crackled like the invisible eggshells he’d erected beneath her feet.

  So much for a warm welcome, she wanted to say. Instead, she buttoned her lip and snagged an order pad. She wasn’t up for yet another career hunt, specifically when she’d just spent money intended for her shared living expenses. But then, who could blame her? That keen aqua dress from Goldblatt’s was to die for.

  Tucking a pencil behind her ear, Betty assessed the status of business. Her jitters kicked in as she played her customary game of catch-up. Holding a job all the way down by the Loop wasn’t the most convenient, but there was nothing like being in the thick of things. And the Loop was certainly that.

  Betty threw on a wide smile, cocked her hip. Accentuate your assets, she had learned, and no one noticed your troubles. “How about a warm-up, gentlemen?” She raised a coffeepot, interrupting the three guys parked at the counter sparring over the same old topic—the war, what else?

  “Thanks,” they said, voices overlapping. Hands calloused, fingernails smudged, they were as blue-collared as the pedigree she strove to hide.

  She filled their mugs, committing small splatters she deftly hid from the chef’s view. She swiped the mess away with a rag. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she told them. As she sauntered away, she could feel their gazes latched to her backside, coupled by murmuring about a nice ass. Her first instinct was to admonish them, given that their ages approached her father’s—how old she presumed he’d be, anyway. But she needed their tips. For the time being.

  And so she continued on, relieving the frazzled busboy from serving her tables. Mostly regulars dotted the room, plus a few additions. She topped off their mugs, took some orders—only two of them wrong—and delivered dishes back and forth, wearing a trail into the chessboard floor. Hours from closing and already her feet begged for a soak.

  By the time she hit a break in the dinner rush, the sun had excused itself for the evening. Scribbled bill in
hand, she ventured back toward Irma, rooted in the back booth, same as every Friday. A subtle indentation in the black cushion permanently reserved her spot. Aside from rather wide hips, her frame was of medium size. Her silver flapper hat and gaudy brooch, a firefly with tarnished wings, dated her peak years to be more than a decade past.

  “Enjoy your dumplings, Irma?”

  The woman, gazing distantly at the empty seat across from her, replied with a nod. Rarely saying a word—not even for her order; it was always the same—she carried the perpetual grief of a widow. The familiar reserve of a lonely child.

  Betty forced a smile. “Can I interest you in a slice of pie? We got banana cream tonight.”

  Irma declined with a slight shake of her head, already unsnap-ping her worn velvety clutch.

  “Well. Next time, then.” Betty presented her tallied check.

  The woman’s hand trembled, more noticeably than ever, as she emptied all her coins onto the table. She seemed to be struggling with counting them. Given that Irma’s bill never fluctuated, Betty swiftly noticed there wasn’t enough money. And something told her the lady’s purse didn’t have a reserve compartment.

  Betty glanced back at the kitchen, where the chef’s mood remained stuck in a ditch of aggravation. He didn’t believe in running tabs, and was far from the charitable sort.

  “Here,” she told Irma, “let me get those.” She scooted the change off the edge and into her hand, whispering a pretend calculation. “Forty-five, fifty-five, seventy…” Then, “Perfect!” She dropped them into her uniform pocket. Her tip from the last table would provide just enough to compensate for the shortage. “Be sure and try our dessert sometime. A girl’s gotta treat herself once in a while.”

  A smile brushed past Irma’s dry, wrinkled lips, but only a shadow. A memory. An echo of her withered beauty.

  Betty didn’t know why she was helping her out exactly. Maybe it was an offering to the universe, a bribe to prevent her from ending up the same. Or worse, like her own mother, an old maid whose scandalous life had been the infection of Betty’s childhood.