In the Company of Women

by Kate Christie

Marge offered directions to a parking area at the end of the loop road where WPA workers had built picnic tables from lumber harvested from nearby Sacramento peaks. She also gave them a map of the area and directions to Cloudcroft, where they were planning to stay the night.

  “Anything else I can do for you girls?” she asked.

  “Actually,” Brady said, holding out her camera, “would you mind?”

  They posed in front of the museum case. CJ was aware of Brady’s body close against her, of Brady’s arm about her waist, and all at once her lungs seemed tight, as if she couldn’t get enough air. What was wrong with her? Get it together, Jamieson, she chided herself, forcing a smile for the photos.

  Marge took a few different shots before handing back the camera. “Now, get on out there and enjoy yourselves,” she said.

  They thanked her, filled up their canteens from the drinking fountain and returned to the car.

  “Ready?” Brady asked, pulling on the black cowboy hat she’d bought at the Las Cruces Woolworth’s.

  “Ready,” CJ said, and tugged on the brown cowboy hat she’d picked out for herself.

  Brady watched her across the car seat. “I like you in that hat.”

  “I like you in yours too.”

  They gazed at each other, and CJ thought Brady was looking at her as if she wanted to say something momentous, possibly even earth-shattering. But was she ready for the Earth to be shattered?

  “You promised me a picnic, remember?” she said quickly.

  Brady nodded and looked away. “I remember.”

  And then the car began to move again, waves of bright, white dunes rising and falling into the distance on one side, the flat, brown, sagebrush-strewn desert stretching off on the other. CJ wished there was some way to forget about the past and the future and focus instead on this lovely moment that found her in a place she had read about in college but never imagined she would visit. But with the world upended, it was difficult to focus on a single point in time, knowing as you did that events in far-flung locales were happening—may have already happened—that could change forever the way you viewed your present, your past, your future.

  For those left behind on the home front, the questions were always there: Would a brother, friend, husband, fiancé come home, or would his broken body be left behind on a forgotten beach or mountainside? Was he alive still, or had he left this world minutes, hours, days, even weeks before? How could anyone plan for the future, not knowing who would be left at war’s end—assuming the war ever ended?

  It had to, of course. The war would end, and she would go to North Carolina and study the largest trove of slave narratives in the nation. Talk about primary sources—she likely wouldn’t get through even a quarter of the narratives in the UNC collection before she finished her PhD. Normally that thought put a smile on her face. But today, she found herself thinking how far North Carolina was from everything and everyone she loved.

  That was another aspect of war: the appreciation of the things and people in your life. In a way, wasn’t that sentiment almost as much of a threat to civilization as violence was? Content people tended to remain exactly as they were. They didn’t seek change, didn’t evolve. Or perhaps the opposite was true—maybe those who had risked their lives once were more likely to stand up for what they knew to be right, whatever the stakes.

  As the road curved into the park’s interior, dunes appearing on both sides now and gypsum crystals stacked on the shoulders like snow drifts, Brady fiddled with the radio dial. A scratchy version of Artie Shaw’s “Begin the Beguine” floated into the car’s interior.

  “I love this song,” Brady said, her eyes warm as she smiled at CJ.

  “So do I.”

  As they sang aloud to the familiar tune, their borrowed car skimming along the gypsum-dusted pavement, CJ couldn’t help wishing that the war would remain as it was then—far, far away.

  Chapter Seven

  “What was your favorite part today?” CJ asked, sitting back in the Victorian loveseat as firelight flickered against the blue and white pin-striped wallpaper of their room.

  When they’d pulled into the forested mountain village of Cloudcroft a few hours earlier, Brady had insisted on splurging first for supper and then a suite at the Cloudcroft Lodge, with a fireplace, queen-sized four-poster bed and private bathroom. CJ hadn’t argued much before letting Brady treat her.

  “I don’t know,” Brady said, pulling up her feet and turning to face her. “It was all so wonderful. This is my favorite day of the year so far, I think.”

  “Mine too,” CJ agreed.

  The afternoon had been perfect. They had followed the loop road through the heart of the dunes, some more than fifty feet high, where all they could see other than the occasional yucca and saltbush was white sand rising and falling beneath the bright blue sky. At the designated picnic area, theirs was the lone car. They took turns changing into their PT kits and tennis shoes in the back seat. Then, after a mid-day meal of sandwiches and apples, they set out on a trail Marge had recommended, keeping an eye out for lizards and other local inhabitants. The only things they encountered, though, were dozens of pairs of tiny footprints crisscrossing the waves of white sand.

  As they walked, Brady had linked their arms and CJ had strolled beside her, surprisingly content despite the vast, silent isolation of the dune field. It was as if they were in a strange land all their own, they’d agreed, far from any madding crowds.

  “This reminds me of Lake Michigan,” CJ had told Brady as they climbed a steep dune along the marked trail. “At Ludington, there are dunes even higher than this. My brothers and I used to climb up and run straight down into the lake.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It was.” But would they ever again have a chance—she clamped down on the bittersweet thought.

  “It reminds me of snow,” Brady told her. “I used to go skiing with my brothers in Utah, and we would drive along the mountain roads with the snow piled up on either side. The banks were almost as high as some of these dunes.”

  That summed them up: Brady, the Southern Californian who skied down mountains, and her, the Michigan girl who ran barefoot down sand dunes. But under the surface they were the same, weren’t they? She could almost swear they were.

  “Come on,” she’d said when they reached the top of the dune, holding out her hand.

  Brady took it, and together they ran down the dune, feet sinking into the sand with every giant step downward. At the bottom, Brady had pulled her to the ground, and they lay on their backs together in the sand, laughing, cowboy hats shielding their faces from the omnipresent sun. CJ had had the sense again that they were far from everyone and everything they knew, a place where they could be entirely themselves.

  Now Brady smoothed the sofa cushion between them, firelight glowing in her eyes. “Are you saying today was better than your college graduation?”

  “Yes, but that isn’t saying much. Our speaker gave a lecture instead of a commencement address, more grim than celebratory in tone. I still remember a few of the things he said: that we live in a world where good doesn’t always succeed unless it’s backed by force. That those who believe in freedom and justice have to be willing to support their ideals through the use of power.”

  “Geez,” Brady said, wrinkling her nose. “Welcome to the world, graduates. Now go kill and maim for your country. Or even better, die for it.”

  “That was the gist of it. Wasted, too—the crowd was mostly female students, 4-Fs and parents.”

  “We females could die for our country, you know, especially if we end up overseas.”

  “Did you put in for overseas duty?”

  Brady nodded. “Did you?”

  “Absolutely. I believed being a mechanic would help my chances. That was before I realized it would mostly be secretaries and clerks who would get to go.”

  “Who knew having a good MOS would work against us?”

  “At least you got to see Europe
before it self-destructed.”

  Brady’s mother had taken her to Europe on the Queen Mary the summer after her high school graduation. They had spent two months traveling “The Continent” by train, staying in luxury hotels and dining in high-end restaurants.

  “I don’t know if I’m lucky or not,” Brady said, frowning. “It’s strange to think that some of the people I met on that trip are dead now. Quite a few, possibly.”

  “So many dead.” CJ stared into the fire. And so many more to come.

  Silence descended on the room, punctuated by the crack and hiss of the wood fire.

  “Enough war talk,” Brady announced. She stood up. “I have an idea.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were perched on a velvet-tufted bench in front of the fireplace, giggling and sucking melted chocolate from their fingertips. Their marshmallow sticks were skewers hastily borrowed from the restaurant downstairs where they had dined on roast duck earlier in the evening.

  “Here,” Brady said, mashing chocolate and marshmallow between two graham crackers. “Try this.”

  Cupping her hands under Brady’s, CJ took a bite, humming as the combination of flavors hit her taste buds. This was heaven. What had Brady said about not wanting to go back to Fort Bliss? Except that if they didn’t go back, they could be hunted down and arrested by MPs and then court-martialed. More likely, they would be fined, restricted to quarters and sentenced to KP and latrine duty for the foreseeable future. She wasn’t sure which punishment would be worse.

  “What is it about an open fire that makes food taste so good?” Brady asked as she finished off the s’more.

  “Wood smoke, maybe?”

  “That was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks warmed.

  “You can take the girl out of Michigan…I’ll bet your campfire experiences aren’t limited to the Girl Scouts, are they?”

  “No. We have a fire pit out back. When I was younger, we used to have friends over to roast marshmallows and tell stories. Or someone would bring a guitar for a sing-along.”

  Brady shook her head. “I can’t imagine growing up like you did, with tractors and plows and hay fields. Your childhood sounds like something out of a Willa Cather novel.”

  “Ooh, I love her writing.”

  “So do I.”

  They shared a smile, perched close together on the love seat, firelight flickering romantically on the walls of the narrow, cozy room.

  “Besides, we’re even,” CJ added, “because to me, your life sounds like something out of a movie.”

  Brady had confessed to growing up in Beverly Hills on an estate that included an English garden and an Olympic-sized swimming pool, with friends and neighbors who worked in the movie industry.

  “You’re the one who gets to fly around in experimental aircraft,” Brady pointed out, reaching for another marshmallow.

  “True. Say, would you ever want to go up on a hop?”

  “Would I ever! Maybe I could swing a story for the Monitor.”

  “Good idea. Now, hand over the chocolate, Buchanan.”

  “You’ll have to come and get it,” Brady said, eyes shining as she held the Hershey’s bar aloft, the marshmallow on its makeshift stick still clutched in her other hand.

  “How mature of you,” CJ said, pretending to be disdainful. Then she tickled Brady until she dropped the chocolate bar.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t skewer you,” Brady said. “Didn’t your parents teach you never to tickle someone holding a sharp object?”

  “Uh, no, that would be more of a big brother lesson.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  They ate s’mores until their stomachs hurt, and then they watched the fire die down, the smell of wood smoke competing with the scent of burnt sugar.

  “Have you heard from your brother in Italy recently?” Brady asked after a while.

  “A few days ago. He said he’s waiting on orders, something about a new command.”

  “I bet it’s the Fifteenth under Jimmy Doolittle. I heard they’re splitting the NAAF between northern and southern Europe so they can cover more territory.”

  “Wait—the Jimmy Doolittle? As in, Doolittle’s Raiders?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Doolittle was famous for his role as leader of an assault on Japan in April 1942, during which sixteen B-25 medium bombers took off from an aircraft carrier in the Pacific and bombed strategic targets on mainland Japan. While it hadn’t caused significant damage to Japanese military or industrial sites, the boost to American morale more than made up for the loss of the bombers, the majority of which were destroyed when their crews, running low on fuel, bailed out off the coast of China.

  “Can I write and tell my parents?” CJ asked.

  “Better not. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks.”

  “I’m actually keeping an eye on that area of operation myself.”

  CJ hesitated. “Because of Nate?”

  “Yes.” Brady reached for the poker. “I think I’ll build up the fire again. It’s getting cold outside.”

  At almost nine thousand feet above sea level, Cloudcroft was significantly colder than El Paso. The desk clerk had said it might even snow overnight. Perhaps they would get stuck in the mountains, CJ thought, and be forced to spend another night at the lodge. Gee, what a disappointment to be marooned a hundred miles from base with Brady.

  She watched as Brady added another piece of wood and a handful of kindling to the fire and then adjusted the logs until the flames began to lick at the new tinder.

  “For a city girl, you sure know your way around a fire.”

  “I told you, my grandparents took us camping every summer. Those were some of my favorite times growing up.”

  “Without your parents?”

  “That must sound strange to you, coming from such a happy family.”

  “We weren’t always so happy. I’m not sure my parents can ever be truly, not after losing a child.”

  Brady touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What happened?”

  It had been years since CJ had told someone the story of Henry, born after Pete and before Rebecca, the youngest. When Henry was almost two, all of the Jamieson kids came down with a cold. By the time their family doctor instructed them to take Henry to the hospital in Kalamazoo, the cold had progressed to pneumonia. A day later he was gone, and a week later they buried him. CJ hadn’t known they made caskets that small.

  “He was this sweet little kid,” CJ told Brady, her throat tightening despite the fact Henry had been gone for a decade and a half. “He loved animals. He was always so happy. It was almost like he knew he had to pack a lifetime into a couple of years.”

  “How old were you when he died?”

  “Seven. Things were never quite the same after that. I don’t think my father will ever forgive himself for not taking Henry to the hospital sooner.”

  “Even if he had, Henry still might not have made it.”

  “I don’t think my father sees it that way. The worst part is now he could lose two more sons. I don’t know what he’d do…” She trailed off. It was unlucky to mention the possibility of death. Anyway, she didn’t have to. Brady’s brother’s unit was stationed not far from the front lines. Chris had written Brady about coming under artillery fire more than once.

  “I can’t even imagine,” Brady said. “You would think we would have learned from the last war, but apparently not. I hope this will be the last time. Maybe we won’t have to watch our sons go off to war.”

  Our sons—she said it so easily, as if the notion of having children was a given. Maybe her dream of becoming a writer was the kind of dream you could put on hold while your children were young. An academic career, on the other hand, wasn’t as flexible. Sean had been right on that count, at least.

  “Do you want children?” CJ asked.

  “Of course. Don’t you?”

  “I
don’t know. I think so.”

  Brady poked at the logs again, sending a cloud of sparks wafting into the chimney. “Nate wants us to start a family as soon as he gets back.”

  Was that what she wanted? CJ didn’t ask. Instead, she chose a safer question: “What kind of work will he do after the war?”

  “His father offered him a position in his company. They’re wholesale grocers. They supply some of the largest chains on the West Coast.”

  Nate would be a good provider—people always needed groceries. CJ could already see Brady with a tow-headed baby in her arms, another on the way. She would be a good mother, one any child would be lucky to have. But would she be happy with a husband she had agreed to marry because she couldn’t see any other choice?

  Brady shifted away from her on the bench. “Janice thinks I’m crazy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…” She paused and bit her lip. Then, “I’ve been thinking of breaking it off with Nate.”

  “You have?”

  “I have.”

  CJ sat up straighter, watching the fire intently. She was afraid if she looked at Brady, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from blurting out the words inexplicably reverberating in her mind: Yes, please, yes!

  “Obviously,” Brady said, “I don’t want to ‘Dear John’ him. He’s one of my best friends. The last thing I want is to hurt him. But I don’t know what else to do.”

  CJ aimed for objectivity. “Wouldn’t it be better to do in person?”

  “It would, except that I don’t have any idea when I’ll see him next. Meanwhile, his mother and his sister keep writing me these letters about how lucky he is to have me supporting him while he’s off serving his country. I feel like I’m lying to everyone. The thing is, I don’t love him, not the way I’m supposed to. I shouldn’t have to keep pretending, should I?”

  Her eyes pleaded for support, understanding, empathy. But all CJ could think was, She doesn’t love him. Thank God, she doesn’t love him. Then she wondered at her own elated reaction. She should feel sorry for Brady, shouldn’t she? It wasn’t like Brady’s confession of non-love for her fiancé had anything to do with her.