She was mopping the hangar floor when Nell walked in. The pilot had flown another night mission the previous night, CJ knew, searchlights only this time. As was the WASP custom, she’d taken the morning to sleep in. No one wanted a sleepy pilot at the controls of a bomber. Now she approached CJ, her smile as tentative as Brady’s had been earlier. For the first time, CJ recognized the power of having two women vie for her attention—it was immensely flattering, especially for someone boys had rarely seemed to notice.
“Haven’t seen you much the last couple of days,” Nell said, hands in the pockets of her khaki pants.
“I’ve been around.” CJ leaned on the mop handle.
“Did you hear they busted the captain whose trainees shot at us back to first looey?”
“They didn’t!”
“Even a broken-down Widowmaker costs a million dollars to replace, don’tcha know.”
Despite herself, CJ smiled. Nell was so easy to be around. Then she caught herself. That was the sentiment that had gotten her into trouble to begin with. What if their positions were reversed and Brady had come to her gushing about a new coworker from the PRO? The thought made her slightly ill.
“Anyway,” Nell said, taking a coin out of her pocket and rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger, “I was wondering if you’d like to take a hop some weekend. The major lets anyone who completes three missions in a week take a plane out.”
Weekend flying for fun rather than military purposes? It sounded amazing, which of course Nell knew. CJ released a breath.
“I would love to, but I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I think you know. Don’t you?”
Nell gazed at her for a long moment. Then she slipped the coin back in her pocket. “Your girl.”
CJ nodded, hoping she didn’t look as nervous as she felt. She had never actually told anyone about Brady before. At least, not in so many words.
“All right.” Nell smiled crookedly at her. “But the offer stands, no strings attached. You could even bring your lady friend if you wanted.”
CJ pictured Brady’s face if she relayed the invitation. Honestly, pigs were more likely to sprout wings than Brady was to accept.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I hope so. Have fun mopping, Private.” Nell tipped her head gallantly before strolling out of the hangar, whistling “I Got a Gal.”
CJ went back to cleaning, trying not to wonder if she would ever get to go up on a hop again. There would be more flying in her future, there had to be. After all, she was an Air Corps Wac.
* * *
The restaurant was crowded when CJ got there a little before six. She added her name to the list and took a seat at the bar.
“What can I get you?” the bartender, a boy a little older than her, asked with a slick smile.
“Tonic on ice.”
“Sure you don’t want a little gin with that?”
“Positive.”
Her stomach barely stopped short of turning over at the mention of alcohol. As she took her first sip of tonic, she wondered when she would be able to drink again. Sean had liked gin and tonics, and she had liked the taste on his lips. Often on weekends they would go out to a jazz club or to one of their friends’ apartments, where they would smoke and drink and listen to music while they debated constitutional principles of presidential power, the role of the market economy in early modern Europe or whether England actually could have won the Revolutionary War. Sometimes Sean, Jack or one of their other buddies would drink too much and spend part of the next day in bed, but they seemed to rebound faster than she was now.
It was Friday night in Ann Arbor too. Was Sean there, wrapping up final papers and grades for the courses he TAed? Or was he home already in Grosse Pointe Farms, back in his childhood bedroom in his family’s roomy colonial two blocks from Lake St. Clair? His parents had kept his room exactly as it had been when he graduated from high school, a shrine to his athletic and academic achievements with baseball trophies, model train sets and a still-overflowing bookcase. No wonder he had assumed she would go along with his plans for the future. Everyone else always did.
Engrossed in memory, she didn’t notice Brady until she slid onto the stool beside her.
“I hope that look isn’t for me,” Brady said lightly, smoothing her hair back.
“No.” She smiled ruefully. “I was thinking of my ex.”
“What brought that on?”
“Gin and tonic.” She lifted her glass. “Minus the gin.”
“Poor baby,” Brady said, smiling at her. Then her smile faltered, and she looked away. “A Lone Star, please,” she added, nodding at the bartender.
He popped the top off the bottle of beer and leaned in, sliding it across the bar to her. “There you go, sweetheart.”
She stared him down. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t any man’s sweetheart.”
Beside her, CJ smiled into her glass. God, she’d missed her. Infuriating, fascinating woman. How could Brady have seriously believed anyone else would come close to measuring up?
The bartender held up his hands and backed away. “Whoa, lady soldier. No offense intended.”
With a last withering look, Brady took a sip of her beer. Then she glanced at CJ and held up her bottle. “To Friday night in the city.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
Being away from the base was a relief. It wasn’t like they didn’t have to be careful here, but the atmosphere was different, a relaxed air of friends focused on good food, drink and conversation.
“Thanks for suggesting this,” Brady said, picking at the paper label on her bottle.
“Thanks for meeting me.” She hesitated. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you. But how is it that we seem to say those three words to each other more than any others in the English language?”
“I don’t know about that.” CJ lowered her voice. “I can think of three other words I’ve said to you more often than those.”
Brady watched her. “Does that mean you still do?”
“Of course.” She placed her hand on the bar as close to Brady’s as she dared. “My feelings haven’t changed.”
“Even though I’m a lousy girlfriend with next to no faith in you?”
“I prefer to think that you struggle occasionally with jealous tendencies, but that deep down you know you can trust me.”
“Oh, CJ,” Brady said, resting her chin on her hand, “how can you be so forgiving? I’m glad you are, of course, but I’m a bit in awe.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“I don’t know about that. I would think you could probably have your pick at this point.”
“Funny, I would say the same about you.”
They looked at each other, and CJ noticed the care Brady had taken with her hair, her makeup, her dress uniform. She was so beautiful, but she was also so much more than a beautiful woman. CJ loved the way she laughed, the adorable inverted “V” that formed between her eyes when she tackled a crossword, how she knew more simultaneously about Hollywood starlets and nineteenth-century British poets than anyone CJ had ever met. But most of all, she loved the way Brady looked at her with eyes the color of a summer sky and usually as open.
Now, however, her eyes flickered, and Brady looked down at the bar, rubbing its polished surface. “I have to tell you something.”
That couldn’t be good. Before CJ could respond, the restaurant host called her name and led them to their table in a corner near a wall adorned with framed photographs of famous restaurant patrons. Clark Gable stared down at them as they took their seats and accepted menus from the host.
As soon as the host had scurried away, CJ said, “So…?”
Brady set her menu on the table. “Do you remember how I told you I thought you were good and that I could trust you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, that’s kind of a big deal for me because—” She stopped, picking at her b
eer bottle again. “I don’t know why this is so hard. People are dying on the other side of the world, and I can’t even talk about something that happened years ago.”
“It’s okay. Take your time,” CJ said, despite the fact that she really, really wanted to know what Brady was about to share. Or maybe she really, really didn’t want to know. Kind of a fifty-fifty chance either way.
Brady swallowed another sip of beer and met CJ’s gaze. “Nate cheated on me in college. I had no idea he was seeing a shopgirl in New Haven for most of our junior year. We split up for a while, but he begged me to come back. Eventually I did, but it was never the same.”
CJ reached across the table and took her hand, holding it lightly. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful.”
“It was.” She shook her head. “I might not have found out if one of his friends hadn’t developed a crush on me. He told me about Cathy in an attempt to break us up. Nate denied it at first, but one night he got drunk and confessed everything: how he’d been sleeping with her for months, how he loved her but knew his parents would never accept their relationship.”
Jackass, CJ thought darkly. Worse, a cowardly jackass. “And that’s why you’ve been having a hard time trusting me?”
Brady nodded. “The thing is, I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved him. If you did cheat on me…”
“I wouldn’t. That’s not who I am. And by the way, Nate must have been certifiable to fall in love with anyone other than you.”
“You’re sweet to say that. But no matter what happened in the past, there’s no excuse for me to not trust you. You deserve better.”
CJ was trying to figure out how to broach the idea that perhaps she could have handled the Nell situation better herself when Brady focused behind her, frowning. Glancing over her shoulder, CJ discovered Janice headed straight for their table, her face composed in serious lines.
“What is it?” Brady asked, half-rising.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Janice said, nodding at CJ, “but there was an emergency phone call for you from California. Your parents need to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Oh, God.” Brady’s voice broke a little. “No, no, no, not Chris. It can’t be.”
“Maybe he was injured,” Janice said, sliding her arm around Brady’s shoulders. “Maybe he’s on his way home on a troop ship this minute.”
“Do you think?”
“It’s possible. You won’t know until you call home.”
CJ dropped a few dollars on the table to cover their drinks and hurried after Brady and Janice. Outside a cab waited at the curb, meter running. As soon as they’d slid in, the car took off.
In the back seat, CJ sat on one side of Brady, Janice on the other, each holding one of her hands. Brady had composed herself and now sat grimly silent, her knuckles white. CJ pictured Chris, blond and almost as attractive as his younger sister in his official Army portrait, which Brady kept in her locker. Then she pictured her own brothers, one fighting his way through the Gilbert Islands, the other freezing in a wooden shack in the mountains of Italy as his unit tried to ready an abandoned airfield for long-range bomber attacks. What if the phone call had been for her? Stomach churning, she redoubled her grip on Brady’s hand.
“It’ll be okay,” she said. “Everything will be okay.”
Brady squeezed her hand back but didn’t answer as the cab drove onto base.
At the gate to the WAC compound, CJ and Brady piled out and hurried back to Company A’s barracks, leaving Janice to pay the driver. Brady didn’t bother signing CJ in. She simply took her by the hand and brought her down the hallway to the orderly room.
“Buchanan,” the sergeant in charge of quarters said, nodding at Brady and then frowning slightly at CJ. “I have a message for you from the Red Cross, but you might want to take it in private.”
Brady shook her head. “She stays.”
“Okay,” the sergeant said dubiously, her eyes resting on their linked hands.
CJ started to extricate her fingers, but Brady held on tighter.
“The message, please, Sergeant Matthews?”
The sergeant adjusted her glasses, glanced down at the piece of paper on her desk and read aloud, “Please have Private Buchanan call home as soon as possible for information about a family emergency. It is not, repeat, not about her brother Christopher.”
Brady’s grip loosened, and then she turned and wrapped her arms around CJ’s neck, hiding her face as a sob overtook her.
Janice came in then and looked at CJ, eyebrows raised.
“It isn’t Chris.” CJ smoothed her hand across Brady’s back. It wasn’t her brother. So what, then, was the emergency?
After a minute or two, Brady gathered herself and made the phone call. CJ could hear a woman’s voice at the other end as soon as the operator put the call through, but she couldn’t make out distinct words.
“Hello, Mother,” Brady said, her back stiffening. “Yes, I received the message. Yes, that was the right procedure. I agree, the Red Cross is doing a wonderful job.” She paused, tapping her foot against the linoleum floor. “That’s all right. Perhaps you could tell me why you called?”
The woman’s voice sounded again, and as CJ watched, Brady’s face slackened. Her eyes grew blank, and she shook her head. “That’s not possible. He wasn’t on the front lines.”
As Brady stopped and listened again, CJ wondered who they were discussing. Was it a cousin? A friend? But as the voice at the other end kept going and Brady’s eyes filled with tears, CJ knew: It was Nate. Nate, who had written entertaining missives about officers’ dinners and boorish Brits and swimming parties in the warm, salty waters of the Mediterranean. Nate, who Brady had Dear Johned a few days before Thanksgiving in a letter she still didn’t know whether or not he’d received.
“When?” Brady finally asked, her voice dull now. “All right. Thank you, Mother. Yes, I’ll let you know. Yes, tell them I’ll be there. Goodbye.”
She handed the phone back to the sergeant, who made a notation on a form. “Everything all right at home, Buchanan?”
“No, it isn’t.” Brady reached for CJ’s hand again. “My fiancé was killed in action. I have to go home.”
Chapter Twenty
“What do you mean, your fiancé?” CJ asked. “You don’t have a fiancé anymore. Do you?”
They were alone on the back porch of the barracks, and Brady was crying quietly, tears sliding unchecked down her cheeks as she gazed back at CJ.
“Of course not,” she said, sounding weary. “You know I don’t. But as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Nate and I are still engaged.”
“You haven’t even told your parents?”
“No, only my brother knows. I was waiting until I heard from Nate. I assumed I would have heard something by now.”
Brady had reported receiving a handful of letters from Nate since she’d sent hers ending the engagement, but his correspondence had remained upbeat. Clearly he hadn’t received her last letter yet. Or maybe he had. Perhaps even now his final, posthumous letter to Brady was winging its way across the world.
“So the whole time you were giving me a hard time about Nell, you were pretending to be engaged to him?”
“That’s different,” Brady said. “Surely you see.”
“I thought I did.”
Suddenly she felt the need to put space between her and Brady. She backed down the stairs to the ground, her feet slipping a little in the Texas dust.
“CJ, you know I love you. Nate knows too…” She stopped. “I mean, he knew. At least, I think he did.”
CJ had never pressed Brady for details about that last letter; she’d figured it wasn’t any of her business. Now she asked, “You told him about me?”
“Not by name,” Brady admitted, gazing down at her from the top step. “But I did tell him I’d fallen in love with someone else and that I was breaking off the engagement so we could be together.”
“Oh.” CJ chewed her
lip. That was fairly significant.
“I didn’t tell anyone here,” Brady added, “because I thought it might offer us some protection. In case people started to talk.”
“Wacs gossip? You think?”
Brady tried to smile. Then she turned away, her head bowed. Quickly CJ climbed the stairs and tugged her into her arms.
“It’ll be okay,” she said, her cheek tousling Brady’s hair. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”
Later, as they sat on the top step sharing a cigarette, Brady related her mother’s end of the conversation. Nate had been killed two weeks earlier, but his parents had just received notification that morning. The officer who came to their house told them a German bomber attacked the forward communications unit he was inspecting. Apparently he had been assigned to an Allied team touring frontline switchboards.
“You didn’t know?” CJ asked.
Brady shook her head. “He probably wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.”
She hesitated, but she couldn’t keep the question from escaping: “Does this make you wish you hadn’t broken up with him?”
“No. It may sound awful, but I wish I’d done it sooner. I should never have agreed to marry him in the first place.”
CJ didn’t think it sounded awful. Before tonight, she’d conceived of Nate as a fellow like Jack or Mac or Sam, affable and generally good-intentioned. She’d felt sorry for him, possibly even a bit guilty for stealing his girl. Brady’s confession had changed all of that. He may have died fighting for his country, but the damage he’d inflicted on her back in college was still very much alive.
“What now?” CJ asked as their shared cigarette burned down to nothing.
Brady leaned against her. “Now I go home and pretend to be the loving fiancé one last time.”
She winced. “You do?”
“I’m not doing it for Nate, or for me. Well, maybe a little for me, but mostly it’s for his parents. He’s their only son, and they’re more fragile than my parents. Besides, they’ve always been good to me. I think I might have wanted them as in-laws more than I wanted him as a husband.”
In the Company of Women Page 26
