In the Company of Women

by Kate Christie

  The Ford had barely vanished behind the trees at the end of the driveway when Rebecca said, “CJ, you know I think you’re the best big sister anyone could have, don’t you?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want, brat? Spill it.”

  The younger girl hemmed and hawed, but finally she blurted, “Will you call Fred and tell him Mom and Dad will be gone for a couple of hours?”

  “Rebecca!”

  “Pleeeease? I’ll keep the window closed, I promise. I think I’ll die if I don’t see him soon.”

  CJ knew the feeling, but in her case there was no possibility of assuaging it. “Fine. Far be it for me to stand in the way of young love.”

  “Really?” her little sister squealed.

  “Really. But you can never tell Mom and Dad.”

  “I won’t,” she said, leaping off the bed. “I promise. You’re the best sister ever, CJ, I mean it. I always tell everyone that.”

  “Easy, little miss bootlicker. I already said I would help.”

  Five minutes later, Fred’s truck appeared on the driveway. Good thing there wasn’t any snow or he might have crashed, the way he was driving. CJ bundled up and went outside to help him position the ladder, and then held it in place while he and Rebecca shouted their adoration through the closed second-story window. They were pretty sweet, she had to admit. Fred’s ears were a tad too large, but he was a cute boy and he genuinely loved her sister, as evidenced by his willingness to risk life, limb and frostbite.

  After Fred and his ladder had trucked home, CJ lay on her old bed throwing a tennis ball against the wall while Rebecca stared up at the constellation mobile CJ had built back in seventh grade and hung with their father’s help from the ceiling.

  “Isn’t he dreamy?” she asked for easily the fortieth time.

  “Hmm,” CJ said noncommittally.

  “Okay, once and for all, do you have a boyfriend or not?” her sister asked, also for the fortieth time.

  “Once and for all, again, no. Why do you keep asking? The answer isn’t going to change.”

  “Because I know you’re lying,” Rebecca stated. “You’ve got a new hair style, your clothes are tailored and you’re wearing makeup.”

  “It’s only a little lipstick and mascara,” CJ protested.

  “Like I said, you’re wearing makeup. The fact that you’re denying it makes me think you’re involved with someone you shouldn’t be. Oooh, are you having an affair with a married man?”

  “For the last time, Rebecca, I’m not having an affair with any man. Now, knock it off. I don’t want to hear about this again.”

  “Fine,” her little sister said, reaching for the radio dial.

  As the strains of holiday music filled the room, CJ rose. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Rub it in, why don’t you,” Rebecca said crossly, picking up a magazine she’d already read cover to cover.

  So much for being the best sister ever.

  Downstairs, she pulled on outdoor clothing and went outside to visit with the horses. It wasn’t as cold today as some Christmas Days she could remember, but it wasn’t warm, either. She fed carrots and apples to the horses and went into the barn to visit with Bessie and May, the aging milk cows. The geese kicked up a fuss in their pen, so she ended up feeding them too. She liked geese. They made good guard dogs and their eggs were larger and tastier than chicken eggs.

  After communing with the farm animals in the relatively fresh air, she felt better. At least she could come and go whenever she pleased. Rebecca had it far worse.

  She was removing her scarf and gloves when she heard it—the telephone. Kicking off her boots, she ran for the hall table, socks slipping on the polished wood floor. “Hello?”

  “Please hold for a long distance call from Beverly Hills, California,” the operator said.

  “I’m here!”

  The line clicked and whirred, and then it went absolutely silent for a moment during which CJ considered how she could track down and strangle the operator who had lost the call. At last she heard Brady’s voice: “Hello?”

  “Oh my God,” she said, laughing. “What are you doing? We just talked yesterday.”

  “I know, but it’s Christmas, and we were supposed to be at the Grand Canyon,” Brady said. “What did you end up doing with the room, anyway?”

  “Reggie and Holly jumped at the chance.”

  “Huh. So I guess you were right about Holly—she really is happy.”

  “I would imagine she’s ecstatic right about now.”

  “Can I get a rain check?”

  “Of course,” CJ said and settled down at the hall table to talk until the line gave out or her parents came home, whichever happened first.

  “Merry Christmas, CJ.”

  “Merry Christmas, Brady.”

  * * *

  The thing about flying standby was that it depended on flights that weren’t necessarily scheduled and might not have any room on board even if they were. This meant CJ couldn’t rely on another lucky ferry flight to get her back to base in a single day.

  “How many days do you have to allow?” her father asked.

  It was the day after Christmas, and they were out in the workshop again tinkering.

  “Three,” she admitted. “I should catch a train back to Romulus on Tuesday, to be safe.”

  “I wish I could drive you, but with gas and tire rations being what they are…”

  “It’s fine, Dad. I wasn’t expecting a ride.”

  “I know, but it would be so good to take a little trip. I like seeing you in your element. Your mother and I still talk about the time we visited you in Illinois.”

  “You do? Why?”

  “You’re not a parent, so you won’t understand,” he said, measuring a length of wood for one of the planters her mother had requested for her spring flower bed. “But there’s something to be said for watching your child grow up and achieve something you might not have expected they would, especially if it’s not anything you would have wanted for yourself.”

  You’re not a parent. He had said it so easily, whereas a similar thought had nearly paralyzed her mother in the wake of Sean’s visit.

  “Would you like to try the new handsaw?” he asked, clamping the two by four to the workbench and holding his Christmas present out to her. “Remember, it works on the upstroke.”

  CJ gripped the saw. She was pretty sure her mother had picked it out as an incentive to her father to build the planters she’d wanted for years now. Smart woman—and excellent saw, too. It cut through hardwood like butter.

  “I think my mom worries I won’t have children,” CJ said into the telephone receiver later that afternoon. Brady had called her again, claiming that her parents wouldn’t even notice the expense. “You know, now that she knows I’m happy.”

  “Pish,” Brady said. “You don’t need to be unhappy to have children.”

  “Actually, I think it helps.”

  “That’s because you don’t live in L.A. Money can buy anything, especially in the land of make believe.”

  “Even children?”

  “Think of how many illegitimate ‘orphans’ there will be by war’s end. Not to mention all the European destitute arriving on our shores.”

  “So wait. You don’t regard being happy as a deterrent to having a family?”

  “Certainly it complicates matters, but no, I suppose I don’t. Do you?”

  She thought about it. “I guess not.”

  “Hmm,” Brady said.

  “Hmm, indeed.”

  As they dined alone in their bedroom that night, Rebecca asked, “Why would being happy stop you from having children?”

  CJ threw part of a pickle at her sister. “Who taught you that snooping was okay?”

  “No one,” Rebecca said smartly, lobbing the pickle back. “I decided all on my own. Now answer the question.”

  “I can’t.” She rose and gathered their plates and silverware. “That topic is above your pa
y grade.”

  “I know you think you’re funny, but you’re not.”

  “I’d rather be not funny than funny-looking.”

  Reluctantly Rebecca smiled. Then she moved to the mirror and stared at the lines of peeling skin on her cheeks. “You promise this won’t scar?”

  “I can’t promise, but mine didn’t.” CJ paused in the doorway. “Either way, peeling is a good thing. It means you’re healing.”

  “So you say. CJ?” she added.

  “Yes, bug?”

  “I’m glad you came home. I know you didn’t have to.”

  “That’s not exactly true. I had to make sure you were okay, didn’t I? Sisters stick together. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  In the hallway, CJ set the tray on the floor so that she could wash her hands for what felt like the three hundredth time that week. Sisters were supposed to stick together, it was true, but that didn’t mean they always did. Look at their Detroit aunts, Betsy and Rochelle, who had gone to Wellesley, married well and produced miniature versions of themselves and their husbands. They barely spoke to her mother, their younger sister, and her only crime had been to marry below their presumed station. That, and actually work for a living. What would they say when they learned of their niece’s transgression? Her mother probably worried about their reaction too. Just what she needed—more fuel for her sisters’ flaming disapproval.

  CJ dried her hands and returned to the hall, wondering if Rebecca would still look up to her when she found out about Brady or if she would follow their mother’s lead. For that matter, would their mom prove to be the same variety of apple as her mother and siblings, or would she reveal herself to be another type entirely?

  There was no way of knowing for certain, she realized as she carried the dishes downstairs. She would have to wait and hope that her mother would decide to accept her for who she was—despite the fact her own mother had never seemed to accept her.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  On Tuesday morning, CJ’s father let the sedan warm up in the driveway while she said goodbye to the rest of the family. Up in their room, Rebecca gave her a big hug and promised to write often, while Pete came outside to wave her away, a Jamieson tradition. Her mother, however, held her at arm’s length, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.

  “Think about what you’re doing, Caroline. We only get one chance at life. Please don’t waste yours.”

  Behind her, Pete gave CJ a quizzical look.

  She took a breath, trying to push down her anger. An image of flak bursting at two thousand feet flashed through her mind, and she thought of Carole Lombard, who had died in a plane crash almost two years earlier on her way home from a war bond-selling tour. She and husband Clark Gable had fought before the trip, and much was made in the press about the lack of resolution in their relationship when she died. Shortly afterward, Gable joined the Army Air Corps and became a top gunner on a B-17 crew. In fact, his bombardment group had formed at Biggs before deploying to England.

  “I know, Mom,” she said, and pulled her into a close embrace. Hugs fix everything, her parents used to say when she was little and skinned her knee or lost a favorite toy. “I love you.”

  After a moment, she felt her mother’s arms tighten about her. It only lasted a second, but brief was better than nonexistent.

  Blinking back her own tears, CJ jogged down the front steps. At the bottom, she stopped to wave up at Rebecca, who gazed down forlornly from the bedroom window. CJ gave her little sister a V for victory sign, and then she was sliding into the car. She waved at her mother and Pete, still out on the stoop, and they waved back until the car rounded the same bend where she’d lost sight of Sean. She tried not to think of the events that might bring her home next: a memorial service, a tour-ending injury, some other personal family disaster. Maybe she wouldn’t be home until the end of the war—although that wasn’t such a bright thought either.

  Unlike Brady, CJ’s father followed the federal speed limit recommendations closely, so it took fifteen minutes to get to the train station where she planned to catch the eight thirty to Detroit. As they drove along the snow-free streets, they chatted about her mother’s planters and the John Deere tractor, the animals and her younger siblings, but not Alec or Joe. CJ stuck to light subjects like work with Tow Target and her New Year’s Eve plans—unformed as of yet, but with several possibilities.

  He parked the car and went in with her, waiting while she arranged her ticket. Then they found a seat together in the waiting room. He took her hand in his, tracing the seemingly permanent grease stains on her knuckles.

  “You know,” he said, “you’ll probably have to give your mother some time.”

  CJ looked at him quickly. Did he know? And if so, how?

  “With the boys away fighting, she somehow got her heart set on your wedding. Now, as you know, Sean was not someone I would have chosen for you, but your mother got it into her head that your marriage would be a good thing for everyone involved.”

  “And then I broke up with him and ran off and joined the Army.”

  “You didn’t run off.” He squeezed her hand and smiled sideways at her.

  She wanted so badly to tell him about Brady, to share her genuine happiness with him, but she couldn’t risk losing him too. Not now. Instead she said, “What if there never is a wedding for me, Dad? What if I don’t settle down and have the life Mom wants for me?”

  “Because of your academic plans?”

  She shrugged and glanced away, her gaze resting on the telephone booth where she had talked to Brady the day Sean blew up her relationship with her mother. “Maybe.”

  “Well, it is your life, and foregoing a family is certainly a safer option. But do you really want to stay safe, Caroline? Are you sure you want to miss out on everything a family of your own has to offer?”

  “No,” she said, looking back at his face etched with smile lines and sunlight, wind and laughter. He was such a good man. Would he think that her love for Brady was somehow a rejection of him? She forced a smile. “But I’m an Air Wac, remember? Safety is my middle name.”

  “I remember.” He squeezed her hand again and looked searchingly at her, as if there was something more he wanted to say.

  The loudspeaker crackled into life as the sound of an approaching train drew closer. Time to go. They rose and walked out to the platform together, his arm around her shoulders, her suitcase in his free hand.

  “I read that women soldiers rarely have anyone to send them off,” he commented. “Why is that, do you think?”

  “Because we’re headed to Texas or Iowa or Florida, not into a combat zone.”

  He stopped on the platform, set her case down and placed his hands on her shoulders. “I know you know this, but I’ll say it anyway: I am proud of you, and I believe in you, Caroline. You are a fine young woman, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  “Thanks, Dad. That means a lot to me.”

  “Well, you mean a lot to me.” He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “Now get back to duty, Private. I will expect a letter after the first of the year.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, smiling, and saluted him.

  She was turning away when he added, “One more thing. When the time is right, I would very much like to meet your friend. Brady, is it?”

  CJ gazed at him, trying to figure out what he did and didn’t know. “You would?”

  He nodded. “She must be pretty special if she’s as important to you as I think she is.”

  At first she didn’t move. Then she dropped her suitcase and walked into her father’s arms. “Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered, pressing her cheek against the wool of his overcoat and breathing in the familiar scent of him—Old Spice, wood smoke, engine oil.

  “I’m your father. You don’t have to thank me.” He kissed the top of her head. “Now you better go before they leave without you.”

  As she climbed aboard the train, she thought of what Toby had s
aid—how you can’t help who you love, how sometimes people can surprise you. It was uncanny how often she was right—except when it came to picking a winning horse.

  The train was crowded with soldiers and civilians alike, and it took her a while to find an empty window seat. Her father was still there on the platform, his gaze fixed on the car she’d entered. As the train whistled and pulled out of the station, she waved briskly, trying to catch his attention. But he never did find her in the long line of railcars leaving Kalamazoo for points east.

  * * *

  Her trip back to Fort Bliss may not have taken three days, but it felt like longer. Fifty-two hours after she left Kalamazoo, the train she’d boarded in Dallas chugged to a halt at El Paso’s Union Depot. An AA company fresh out of basic tried to convince her to join their convoy, but she politely declined. Instead she walked a few blocks to a nearby streetcar line and caught a ride downtown. There she found her way to a diner she and Brady had discovered during their second Hilton weekend and ordered a spinach omelet with Spanish rice and beans on the side. Home again, home again, she thought, sipping from her cup of Mexican spiced coffee. And yet if home was where the heart was, she should by all rights be in L.A.

  After her mid-day meal, she walked around El Paso, still hung with Christmas lights. The weather was cool but nowhere near as cold as Michigan. It was a relief to be on her own after so much time cooped up with her sister. Though at least in Michigan she hadn’t been reminded of Brady everywhere she turned—here there was the bookstore where the clerk had recommended the book about women like them; a block away was the shop where they’d bought their mismatched lockets; and on another nearby street was the tailor’s shop where they’d had their uniforms fitted. In Texas, Brady was a distracting apparition hovering in the background wherever she went.

  The feeling only intensified once she caught a streetcar to base. After she checked in with Lieutenant Kelly—“Glad to see you returned in good order, Private Jamieson”—she left the WAC officers’ quarters and walked to her barracks, where she had soon unpacked. Her clothes were freshly laundered, other than the uniform she had been wearing for the last two days straight. Was it a good sign her mother had done her laundry for her before she left?