Tom and Mellie stood by their table, laughing with Louise Cox and Rudy Scaglione, Tom’s friend from his Engineer Aviation Battalion.
Georgie Taylor approached Kay, brown curls bouncing.
“So, who’s next, do you think? You and Hal?” Her Southern accent lilted even more than usual.
“Oh, please.” Kay shuddered. “He won’t get one more date out of me. All hands.”
“Well, it won’t be me and Larry.” Georgie scrunched up her cute little nose. “The man’s as interesting as an Army manual.”
Kay frowned. Had she ever seen Georgie’s previous boyfriend smile? Granted, she’d only met Hutch once, and apparently it had been a horrendous day for the man. “Sorry. Thought you liked them quiet and dry.”
“Quiet isn’t always dull.” A wistful note lowered her voice.
Kay brushed her hair off her shoulder. Perhaps she’d misjudged Hutch, just as she’d misjudged Roger. She’d labeled Roger a fuddy-duddy, and he’d turned out to be energetic and compassionate. “I suppose not. Appearances can be deceiving.”
Georgie looped her arm through Kay’s. “Do you miss the flyboys?”
“India.” Kay gazed east where the moon rose. “Can’t believe he’s gone.”
“Grant?”
Kay’s heart seized. What had she said? Why was she losing control like this? She made a face for Georgie’s benefit. “Grant? I broke up with him weeks ago. Getting too serious.”
“Then who—”
“No one. No one at all.” She kept her voice as firm as the truth that Roger wasn’t interested.
Georgie smiled, her eyes soft. “I won’t pry. But I’ll pray for him and for you.”
“There is no him.” Kay marched away from Georgie and from the other truth—Roger interested her far too much.
Guilt tightened the muscles between her shoulder blades. Georgie hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, she’d offered to pray. With all her questions about God, wasn’t that what
Kay needed most? She turned back to her friend. “But thanks for the prayers.”
Georgie looked more stunned than if Kay had broken out singing a hymn.
Kay crossed the terrace to congratulate Tom and Mellie. Louise and Rudy had departed, back to the dance floor, most likely.
Tom faced Mellie, the moon silhouetting the couple from behind. He cupped her chin in his hand, spoke to her, and gave her a gentle kiss.
Kay’s steps halted. The moonlight must have addled her brain, because everything inside her felt as mushy as pudding. She didn’t even like pudding.
What would it be like to have a love like that? Tender and sweet, tempered by the fire of a history together, forged to last a lifetime.
Kay huffed. For heaven’s sake, she’d lost all control.
The more she read the Bible, the more she fell apart. Instead of gaining favor with Lieutenant Lambert, she was losing it. Although no one had been harmed the other day when Kay made her error and Lambert appreciated her honesty in confessing, the chief couldn’t hide her disappointment.
“Ciao,
bella.”
Hal wrapped his arm around her upper back and nuzzled in her hair. “Off to greet the happy couple?”
“Yes.” She stepped forward to do so and to dislodge Hal.
The leech stayed with her, arm glued across her back.
“Congratulations, you two.” Kay hugged Mellie. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Thank you.” Mellie pulled back, her dark eyes shining.
Kay shook Tom’s hand. “When’s the big day?”
“We were just talking about that.” He gave Mellie an adoring gaze, his arm respectfully around her waist. “We’d like to get married this fall, maybe Christmastime, the Lord and Uncle Sam willing.”
“Uncle Sam. Good luck convincing him.” Hal chuckled and slid his hand further forward under Kay’s arm.
She clamped her arm hard to her side. “An autumn wedding would be nice.” She fought off a wave of sadness. How long before a baby came along and kicked Mellie out of the Army Nurse Corps? The war had better be over by then.
Hal pried his hand free and draped it over Kay’s shoulder instead, dangling far too low. “You’ll be lucky to stay on the same continent that long.”
Mellie leaned her head on Tom’s broad shoulder. “If the Lord wants us to get married this fall, he’ll keep us together. If not, we’ll just continue following his lead.”
“God led us together, no doubt about it.” Tom kissed the top of Mellie’s head. “He kept dropping Mellie in my path, airfield to airfield. I couldn’t get away, and then I didn’t want to.”
Kay squirmed, partly to urge Hal’s drooping hand higher but mostly from discomfort. Mellie and Georgie talked about following the Lord as if he put up big signposts, and you turned and stopped and started when he ordered. He’d probably direct Kay off the nearest cliff.
Hal’s hand slipped lower. “Why don’t you hold off on the wedding until you go home and your families can attend?”
Kay winced. Mellie and Tom had each lost one parent, and Mellie’s father was imprisoned by the Japanese. “Excuse me, Hal. I need to use the powder room. Mellie, would you like to join me?”
“Sure.”
Kay led her friend across the terrace and into the dining room, dark and smoky. Why had she let Hal kiss her the night they met? She never did that. A man behaved better when he had to earn his way into her affections.
At the front of the room, a piano player plunked out “All or Nothing at All.” Her chest squeezed. The night she met Hal, she’d been so enamored by a redheaded drummer, so
humiliated when he spurned her, so desperate to put a man—any man—under her thumb.
She shoved open the door to the ladies’ room. “I am sick and tired of fending off men’s advances.”
After Mellie set her handbag on the counter, she peered at Kay in the mirror, her dark eyes missing nothing. “I thought you enjoyed it.”
Kay rummaged in her bag for her compact. Since ninth grade, she’d cultivated the image of the bad girl lining up boys in the dugout, convincing each he could hit a home run in time. No one knew she never let any man past first base. What man with any self-respect would tell his buddies he struck out every time he came to bat?
“Kay? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Where on earth was that stupid compact? She dumped her purse upside down, and cosmetics scattered over the counter. She grabbed her compact and flipped it open. “I’m just tired of men like All-Hands Hal.”
“Mm-hmm.” Mellie swept Kay’s possessions toward her. “Maybe you’re outgrowing your old ways.”
Kay paused, her powder puff suspended before her well-powdered nose. Her eyes looked strange in the mirror, wide and unfamiliar and frightened.
Who would she be? If she gave up her old ways, who would she be?
Would she be the kind of woman who could be a chief nurse and attract one good man? Or would she fall to pieces?
Kay slammed her compact shut and snatched her lipstick from the counter. She painted her lips red, painted on a smile. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” Mellie reapplied her powder, worn off by tears and kisses and handkerchiefs.
“Yes. I’d like to train to become a chief nurse.”
“You would?”
“I would.” Kay’s cheeks burned from the spectacle of her heart splattered on the counter among her possessions. She gathered the cosmetics and tossed them into her shoulder bag. “I love nursing, and I’m good with details, administration, and organization.”
“I can see that.” Mellie twisted up her lipstick but kept a puzzled gaze on Kay.
Kay sighed and threw down a bit more of her heart. “You look like Lambert when I told her.”
“Oh?” Mellie outlined her full lips. Amazing how much she’d changed in a year and a half from the reclusive young woman who didn’t wear lipstick and refused to smile. If anyone would believe people could change, it would be Mellie.
“She has two objections. She doesn’t think the other nurses respect me because of all the men in my life.”
“Mm-hmm.” Somehow Mellie communicated agreement without condemnation.
Kay held up her chin and tugged down the hem of her waist-length uniform jacket. She usually liked how the bloused effect made her look bustier than she was, but not tonight. “I don’t know how to change, and I certainly don’t want to.”
“All right. What’s her other objection?” Mellie capped her lipstick.
“She says I haven’t shown myself to be a leader. I’d like to unify our flight and prove her wrong.”
One side of Mellie’s mouth flicked up. “It’d be easier to break up with all your men.”
Kay groaned and sat back against the counter. “I know. I wanted to ask for your help.”
“Mine?” Mellie shook her head and pulled a brush from her purse. “I’m nice to Vera and Alice, but they don’t want anything to do with me. And Georgie isn’t good at getting over grudges. She isn’t used to being rejected like I am.”
Kay tapped her fingers on her purse. “I already talked to Vera and Alice. They think the problem’s with you and Georgie, that you look down on them.” Sometimes the truth needed to be stretched to be seen.
“Me? Look down on them? It’s always been the other way around.” Mellie looked at Kay with moist eyes. “I hope I’ve never given them that impression. Oh dear.”
“Sorry.” Kay patted her friend’s arm. “I’m trying to unify, not hurt your feelings.”
Mellie closed her eyes. “My feelings aren’t hurt. It’s just . . . oh dear. Vera will never trust me, not with what I know about . . .”
“What you know?”
If Mellie weren’t careful, she’d chew off all her lipstick. “I can’t say. I gave her my word and I’ll keep it.”
Kay puffed her cheeks full of air. Swell. A secret on top of everything else.
8
Dinjan, India
April 15, 1944
Roger tipped up his face. If only the warm rain could wash away his fatigue. Finally an afternoon off after flying two or three flights every day, with only one short break when they transferred to Dinjan Airfield in Upper Assam.
His squadron was in the process of transporting the 7th Indian Division from the Arakan in southern Burma up to reinforce Imphal in India, where the Japanese had besieged the vital British base.
Roger headed past Headquarters toward his
basha
, the thatch-roofed structure he shared with a dozen officers from his squadron.
“Lieutenant Cooper!” Veerman leaned out the door of the Headquarters building. “May I have a word with you?”
“Yes, sir.” He tensed, changed course, and slipped on his shirt. Why was it when people wanted a word, it was always negative? And why did they say “
a
word” when they meant many?
Veerman led him inside to his office. Rain slanted through the open window and left a dark wet triangle on the raw wooden floor.
Roger stood at attention in front of the desk. How many times had he gotten chewed out standing in front of desks? At least Veerman didn’t use a paddle like his grade school principal.
Veerman sat and spread out papers. “I’ve been going over last week’s paperwork. Yours is sorely lacking.”
“I know, sir. We only have fifteen minutes on the ground between flights to refuel and load.”
“The other pilots manage.”
Of course they did. The other pilots also wrote symphonies, climbed the Himalayas, and fed all the starving children in India in fifteen minutes. Roger barely managed to hit the latrines and do his basic load adjustment calculations. “I’ve got the essentials on the forms.”
“It’s all essential.” Veerman held up a Form F. “You need to copy the weight and moment figures from Form C and the load weights from Form 1.”
“I just keep C and 1 in front of me. Saves time.”
“But we need those figures for record keeping. You know that.”
Roger sighed. Back in Sicily, Bill Shelby used to fill out Roger’s forms. He liked that kind of stuff. But Roger hated to dump it on Elroy with the crazy hours they pulled.
Veerman cleared his throat. “I see your final center of gravity figures but no intermediate numbers.”
“I do it in my head.”
The squadron commander’s light eyes grew large. “You do it in your head?”
“I use the load calculator, of course. But everything else I do in my head. I like math.” As a child, before he wised up, he wanted to teach math.
The corners of Veerman’s mouth turned up a bit. “What’s the first rule you learn in math? Show your work.”
“I’m not fond of that rule.”
“I bet you aren’t. But this is the Army, and you have to do things the Army way. We need every form filled out completely—and neatly, by the way.”
Taking a swipe at his handwriting now, was he? Roger didn’t blame him.
“And I’ve had it up to here with this childish feud between you and Lieutenant Klein. The man comes in here every day complaining about something you did or said.”
Roger gave him half a grin. “Aren’t you thankful I don’t come in here whining about everything he does and says?”
Was that a tic in Veerman’s eyelid? “This morning he said you sewed a big pink bow on his service cap.”
If Klein insisted on gossiping like a teenage girl, he might as well look like one. Roger kept a neutral face. “Where would I get a pink ribbon? I don’t have a girlfriend.” Good thing Shelby’s wife sent him embarrassingly romantic gifts.
“This isn’t high school. This is war.” His voice deepened to a rumble. “At least you’ve been on time lately. I appreciate that.”
“Thank you, sir.” All thanks to Kay’s alarm clock. His
basha
-mates hid the clock every night, so by the time Roger found the blaring thing, he was too awake and annoyed to go back to sleep.
“I need you to fill out your paperwork, knock off these pranks, and be more disciplined.” He gestured toward Roger’s shirt. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you walking around bare chested. I don’t care how hot it is. Uniforms aren’t optional.”
“Yes, sir.” He contained his sigh. As rigid as Dad was, at least he let Roger take off his shirt in the fields on hot days.
Veerman leaned his elbows on his desk. “I know you can do better, Cooper. You’re a bright young fellow. Don’t waste your talents.”
The man could join the long line of family and teachers who lamented his wasted talents. “I’ll try to do better, sir.”