Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2)

by Barbara Bretton

“Got more problems, too,” said Marie, sipping at her champagne. “The Rosenbergs and Charlie Chaplin and those other damn communists.”

  A frisson of alarm rippled up Jane’s spine. Charlie Chaplin had recently left the United States, a victim of “vicious propaganda,” directed at him from the right-wing elements. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.” She glanced toward Mac for guidance but his face was impassive. “I had believed it was Senator McCartney who was the problem.”

  Marie Grayson’s face darkened. “McCarthy, honey, and Senator Joe is the best thing to happen to our country in a whale of a long time.”

  “I was under the impression most of your citizens were rather offended by his methods.”

  “Only the guilty,” said Harland with a sidelong glance at Mac. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.” His glance sharpened. “Right, Weaver?”

  Jane waited for a ringing argument from her husband but none was forthcoming.

  “You tell me,” said Mac after another drag on his cigarette. “I haven’t been back in a long time.”

  “Lucky thing. Seems like you journalist types get yourselves into a peck of trouble these days.”

  Mac’s face remained impassive, but his tension was obvious to Jane by the way he stabbed his cigarette into the bow of the Queen Mary ashtray on the tabletop. “I knew my expense account problems were legendary, but I didn’t think they’d become common knowledge.” Cool, self-deprecating words that held a vein of steel.

  The Graysons looked at each other, then Harland broke out into peals of hearty laughter. Jane’s relief was acute.

  “I do believe I remember you from your war days,” said Marie with a coy batting of her eyelashes. “Wonderful stories.”

  The orchestra struck up the opening notes of a polka. Harland rose and extended his hand to his wife. “C’mon, Marie. Let’s leave the honeymooners alone for a couple of minutes.”

  Mac rose from his chair as Marie took her husband’s hand, then marched onto the dance floor.

  “What on earth was all that about?” Jane asked as he reclaimed his seat next to her. “That sounded like an accusation, Mac, almost as if they thought you a communist sympathizer.”

  “‘Are you now or have you ever been...’” Mac offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. “That’s known as being a good American these days, Janie,” he said as he lit a match. The gesture was sharp, almost angry. “Still sure you want to move to the States?”

  “Still sure I want to be with you.”

  Mac shook out the match, then took Jane’s hands in his. “Hell of a conversation for a honeymoon, isn’t it?” His eyes were dark, almost jade in color, infinitely seductive and appealing. The Graysons bounced by in a cloud of taffeta and hair tonic. “We could always do the bunny hop,” said Mac, his expression deadpan.

  “I think not,” said Jane, matching him in tone. The queen would’ve been quite proud of her.

  “How about a walk on deck? I hear there’s nothing more romantic than moonlight and high seas.”

  Jane nodded. “I’ve heard the same thing.” The memory of how he’d held her in his arms as the sea crashed wildly all around them thrilled her soul.

  His beautiful eyes danced with mischief. “Why don’t we see if the rumors are true?”

  “Why don’t we indeed?”

  Mac took her hand and swept her onto the dance floor. He whirled her toward the exit and before the Graysons had a chance to block their escape, Mac and Jane were on their way toward freedom.

  “The ugly American,” Mac said with a shake of his head as they headed for the sweeping staircase. “Makes me wonder why I’m going back there.”

  Jane laughed and did a wicked imitation of Marie Grayson’s bulldog pout. “You did say all Yanks weren’t like the Graysons,” she reminded him.

  “What if I’m wrong?” He shuddered as they bypassed the Promenade and headed for the Sun Deck. “What if everyone back home has turned into twins of Harland and Marie?” He pretended to contemplate jumping overboard. “We may end up living in England yet, Janie.”

  “Oh, no,” said Jane, her tone firm. “I’ve left the past behind. I intend to be the perfect American wife.”

  Mac had no idea what the perfect American wife of 1953 was like. All he knew was that he’d found the woman of his dreams. His mirror image in matters of the heart. His perfect complement in matters of the flesh.

  The wind howled like a banshee. Rain beat relentlessly on the painted deck. None of it registered on him. Mac pulled his wife close. The rail pressed against his back; his wife pressed against his front.

  “You are perfect,” he said against the curve of her elegant throat. “Perfect for me.”

  It was a long time before either of them spoke again.

  * * *

  It seemed to Nancy that the world changed every time she blinked her eyes. MacArthur was out; Ridgway was in. Air force pilots reported seeing flying saucers while here on earth a nice young man had become a nice young woman named Christine Jorgensen. You could even watch nuclear explosions on television right from the comfort of your own rumpus room. Skirts were longer; hair was shorter. Jazz was cool; Monroe was hot. People said one day jet planes would whisk you from New York to Paris in less time than it took to drive to Washington, D.C.

  It was nice to know one thing never changed: the neighborhood where Nancy grew up.

  Hansen Street was still lined with maples and oaks, taller now and more stately than when she was a girl. The houses were older, a bit more weathered perhaps, but they’d withstood the ravages of time with dignity and grace, the same as the families who lived in them. The Bellamy house still echoed with laughter after every visit from the grandchildren—and one of the granddaughters was about to introduce a new generation into the fold. Aunt Edna and Uncle Les Weaver’s house still boasted the best rosebushes for miles around, although Edna occasionally tore herself away from her garden for jaunts down to Florida in their brand-new house trailer.

  Nancy’s parents had been thinking about buying a trailer themselves. “Maybe that’s the way to go,” her father, Tom, had said the last time her parents had come to Levittown for a visit. “Become vagabonds. Really see the United States the way she was meant to be seen.”

  Dot Wilson had just rolled her eyes. She was accustomed to her husband’s bursts of inspiration. In the eight years since the end of the war, they’d traveled the length and breadth of the United States by plane, train and bus. Tom had never returned to work at Wilson Manufacturing, but had thrown himself full tilt into the all-American pursuit of happiness. Nancy’s mother was sometimes amused, sometimes bemused, but she believed her place was at her husband’s side. If it wasn’t quite the life Dot had wished for, she wasn’t complaining. Her husband had come home from the war in one piece. Many other wives hadn’t been so lucky.

  No matter how much traveling Dot and Tom did, the house at 70-15 never changed. Nancy knew she could walk blindfolded through the living room and not bump into a single stick of furniture. Everything was exactly as it had always been, from the chintz-covered sofas to the mahogany end tables, to the wing chair near the window.

  Nancy, who spent the better part of her days dreaming up new arrangements for her own furniture, took great comfort from the fact that her children could sit and dream at the window seat in her second-floor bedroom, much as their mother had years ago.

  Of course she would never admit that to a living soul. Nancy prided herself on being the perfect modem woman, eager to keep up with the latest trends in home care and child rearing and the fine art of keeping a husband happy. These were exciting times she lived in. The future was bright and cheery, even if the specter of the Bomb clouded many a sunny day. No one wanted to waste time thinking about the past. Nostalgia was for old folks with nothing better to do than sit on the porch and dream about days gone by. Nancy was part of a new generation of Americans for whom the sky was the limit.

  Unfortunately, one thing different a
bout her old neighborhood was the volume of traffic. Cars, it seemed, were everywhere and parking spots were at a premium.

  “Damn traffic,” muttered Gerry as they turned off Continental Avenue. “Where in hell are we going to park?”

  She gave him a sharp elbow in the ribs. “Little pitchers have big ears,” she said reflexively, motioning toward their children asleep in the back seat. “Why don’t we park in the driveway? Mom and Daddy won’t mind.”

  Gerry gave her a look that could only be described as pure husband. “You know your sister. They were probably here an hour early so they could grab the spot.”

  Nancy giggled. “Cathy is a stickler for being on time, isn’t she?”

  “You don’t know the half of it. I swear she has a stopwatch on all of us at the plant.”

  “No talking about the plant today, okay? It’s our nephew’s birthday. Let’s make it nice for him.”

  Gerry muttered something under his breath that Nancy chose to ignore. Lately Gerry’s expressions of dissatisfaction with his job had grown almost unbearable. Not that her family seemed to notice it. She had to hand it to her husband; somehow he managed to keep himself under control when they were around, exploding once the Wilsons and the Danzas were safely out of hearing range. She supposed it wasn’t easy working for your in-laws; and God only knew Cathy could be difficult when it came to business. Nancy had worked for her sister the last year of the war and so had firsthand knowledge of what a taskmaster the beautiful Mrs. Danza could be.

  Gerry talked about opening his own business, about being his own boss, but Nancy was certain the reason for his dissatisfaction was much simpler. Last month’s issue of Woman’s Day had said men often grew cranky and irritable as their thirtieth birthday approached. Gerry seemed to have all the symptoms mentioned in the article. Restlessness. Lack of interest in household chores. A sudden fascination with road maps and travel brochures. Only it wasn’t road maps for Gerry; it was how-to books. And not just your garden variety how-to-repair-the-car type of book. Gerry was devouring books on how to open your own business.

  “It’s a phase,” Nancy’s next-door neighbor Marcia had said. “They all go through it. Get yourself pregnant again and he’ll forget all about striking out on his own.”

  She glanced down at her finally-flat-again stomach. Somehow that didn’t seem like the answer.

  “There’s a spot!” She pointed toward the Weavers’ house across the street. “Right by the big maple.”

  “Where? I don’t see a spot.”

  Nancy grabbed the wheel and angled it sharply toward the curb. “Right here, Gerry. If it had teeth, it would’ve bitten you.”

  That put an end to his grumbling, but Nancy knew she had trod on the fragile beast known as the male ego. You read a lot about the male ego these days. McCall’s did a whole article on it the month before last and Nancy had clipped it and stored it with her cents-off coupons in her junk drawer in the kitchen. Perhaps the thing to do would be to read her clippings from time to time, not just file them away like old love letters.

  She reached around to wake up her daughters, and to her embarrassment her eyes stung with sudden tears. The thought of love letters always did that to her, brought about a flood of nostalgic longing so vivid and intense that her breath caught in her throat. Not so long ago there had been a time when her heart beat faster at the sight of the postman hurrying up the walkway, his sack bulging with mail from overseas. If she closed her eyes she could still see the pale blue letters addressed in Gerry’s rounded hand.

  I can’t wait to see you, Nance.... Sometimes at night I lie awake in my bunk trying to imagine how it’s going to be to see your face... hold your hand... plan all the great things we’re going to do together once this war is over....

  They’d had so many hopes and dreams for the future. Where on earth had they disappeared to? She looked over at her husband who was helping their oldest daughter out of the car. His face was drawn with fatigue—too much fatigue for a man so young—and her heart ached for him. Was it possible he still had hopes and dreams she knew nothing about? Were her women’s magazines wrong and there was something more important than being almost thirty that was making Gerry so unhappy?

  She longed to say something to him, something that would let him know she cared, that she understood, but the words simply wouldn’t come.

  “Better get a move on, Nance. Your sister’s probably got the party on a time schedule.”

  Nancy started to disagree with Gerry automatically, then caught herself. “You’re right,” she said. “I’ll bet she does.”

  Gerry looked at her for a moment, then ruffled Linda’s hair with his fingers. “You look pretty today, Nance. Blue’s a good color on you.”

  “Thank you.” She couldn’t have been more pleased if he’d told her she’d won a million dollars in the Irish Sweepstakes. “I found this dress on sale at May’s last week.” She’d been squirreling away grocery money for months to afford something pretty and springlike to raise her spirits. It was a siren sheath with a slit in the back of the skirt and a cunningly slashed neckline. A copy of a copy of a Givenchy, it was quite possibly the most sophisticated thing she’d ever owned.

  “You should buy another one,” said Gerry, meeting her eyes. “I can afford to buy my wife a dress now and then.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” She smiled and he smiled back. “I had my eye on a pretty pink shirtwaist with a Peter Pan collar.”

  “I kind of like this one.” The twinkle in his eye made her feel shivery with happiness. How long had it been since she’d felt that way? “Makes you look sexy.”

  She blushed and motioned toward their little girls in the back seat. “Shh!” She pressed a finger to her lips. “Little pitchers.”

  Gerry opened his mouth to say something, but their nephew, Billy, took that moment to explode out the front door, waving his brand-new cap pistol overhead.

  “I’m the Lone Ranger!” he yelled, racing around the Sturdevants as they came up the walk.

  “I’m Tonto,” cried Linda, breaking away from her father.

  “Me, too,” cried Kathy.

  “In the backyard,” said Nancy, cuddling the baby, Debbie, closer to her chest. “Go anywhere near the street and I’ll paddle your behind, Dr. Spock or no Dr. Spock. Understood?”

  The three little kids nodded solemnly.

  “Go ahead,” said Gerry, tugging at the brim of Billy’s ten-gallon hat. “Silver’s saddled up and waiting in the yard, birthday boy.”

  The kids galloped off toward the backyard. Gerry pressed a quick kiss atop the baby’s head, then eyes meeting Nancy’s, he brushed her lips with his. “I love you, Nance,” he said in a low voice. “I know you must have trouble believing that sometimes, what with my moods and all.”

  “Oh, Gerry.” Her breath caught in her throat. “You just need a vacation, that’s all. Maybe in July we could rent a bungalow somewhere.”

  He shook his head and she watched as that curtain of solitude fell across his eyes once again. “A week’s not gonna do it, Nance.”

  He turned and headed toward the house with Nancy and the baby bringing up the rear. A vacation, she thought, swallowing against a knot of anxiety lodged at the base of her throat. A rest. It’ll make a world of difference, Gerry, I just know it.

  “About time!” said Cathy, hurrying through the hall to kiss them hello. “We’ve been waiting for you.” She gave the baby an extra-special kiss on the forehead.

  Nancy shot her husband a quelling look, but his expression was studiedly bland. “We’re not that late, Cath.” She placed her hand on her sister’s rounded stomach. “How’s my godchild doing?”

  “Kicking up a storm, thank God. I have a feeling this is another boy.”

  “You’re outnumbered as it is,” Nancy said. “You should put in a complaint.”

  “Tell me about being outnumbered,” said Gerry. “Four to one in our house.”

  “And you love it,” said Cathy. “Three
little girls who think Daddy’s better than Superman.” She took Debbie from her sister’s arms and started toward the kitchen in the rear of the house. “Big news, kiddo.”

  “You’re moving to the suburbs?”

  “Bigger than that.”

  “Are you going to make me guess?”

  Cathy shook her head. “You couldn’t possibly.”

  “You and Johnny have decided to close Wilson Manufacturing and move to Tahiti.”

  Cathy wrinkled her nose. “Not very likely.”

  “Am I getting warmer?”

  Cathy laughed. “Not even close.”

  “So tell me,” Nancy urged, sounding much the way she had when she was seventeen. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  Cathy paused in the doorway to the kitchen. “Tell her, Aunt Edna,” she said as the woman jumped up to see the baby. “Tell Nancy and Gerry the big news.”

  Aunt Edna and Uncle Les beamed with pleasure.

  “You bought a new Winnebago,” said Gerry.

  Nancy poked him in the ribs. “Uh-uh,” she said, narrowing her eyes in the direction of her mother. “I think it’s more romantic than that.”

  “She’s on the right track, Edna,” said Dot Wilson. “My girl has radar when it comes to things romantic.”

  “It’s Mac,” said Edna with a smile that could light Manhattan. “He’s married!”

  Nancy’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Mac got married?!”

  “To an English girl,” said Edna, waving the yellow cablegram overhead like a banner. “Her name is Janie.”

  “Married.” Nancy sank into a chair next to her mother. “I can’t believe it! I thought he was a born bachelor.”

  “Best thing that could’ve happened to him,” said Uncle Les. “A man needs a good woman to stand beside him. Especially once he hits thirty-five.”

  Nancy didn’t know what was so magic about age thirty-five, but she did know the notion of footloose Mac Weaver as a married man would take some getting used to. Some men you could imagine as husbands and fathers and some men you couldn’t. Mac belonged to the latter category. Uncle Les liked to say Mac had been born with a passport and that seemed to be true. Nancy had a shoe box of postcards from around the world to prove it.