Betty glanced back at the clock. “Piddle, I gotta fly.” Scurrying toward the doorway, she motioned to the bed. “Stamps and envelopes are in the drawer. Just toss it in the mail when you’re done.”
Liz’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t want to read it first?”
“I trust you,” Betty called as she rounded the corner. “The sooner it goes out, the sooner I’ll get a letter back, right?” Her footfalls sounded down the hall and out the front door, leaving Liz alone. With a pile of stationery. Shackled.
She should have escaped with Julia when she had the chance.
“I must be going mad.” Liz snatched the pen and paper and tramped across the room. Seated at the vanity, she scowled at the page and debated reneging on the deal. This wasn’t what she’d agreed to.
The heck with it.
She tossed the pen down. Grasping the edge of the table, she began to rise, but a memory stilled her—the memory of Morgan’s face. She’d tried so desperately to erase him from her mind. Yet there he was, as vivid as if they had shared a dance yesterday. She could almost feel the tenderness of his breath gracing her cheek, the heat of his hand pressed to hers.
Why couldn’t she forget him? And why did the mere idea of him cause her pulse to quicken even now?
Her grip loosened. Her body lowered. She settled her gaze on the empty page, its fibers beckoning the beautiful stains of the written word. And she sighed.
“All right, I’ll do it,” she repeated her verbal assent.
Really, it was just a short note. A small favor for a friend. What was the big fuss?
At that, she placed the tip of the pen on the stationery, and surrendered her thoughts to flow through the ink.
Chapter 5
July 15, 1944 Chicago, Illinois
“It’s about time!” As usual, the greeting flew out of the kitchen, over the diner chatter, and into Betty’s ears before she could even clock in.
“Yeah, yeah, so fire me,” she meant to mutter to herself, yet a look from the grizzled chef indicated her retort had made it through the pass-through window.
“You straighten up, or that’s precisely what I’m gonna do. You got me?” A cigarette bounced against his bottom lip as he spoke.
“Hey,” she said coyly, “I can’t control the bus schedule. But give me a raise and I’ll happily race down here in a cab.” She blew him a kiss, a standby tactic to alleviate his mood.
Today, however, he wasn’t having any of it. He shook a fistful of his mottled dish towel in her direction, an especially deep scowl carved into his face. “Don’t push me, Betty. You’re this close—this close—to gettin’ the ax. Now, get to work!” With a grumble, he returned to his grill, which crackled like the invisible eggshells he’d erected beneath her feet.
So much for a warm welcome, she wanted to say. Instead, she buttoned her lip and snagged an order pad. She wasn’t up for yet another career hunt, specifically when she’d just spent money intended for her shared living expenses. But then, who could blame her? That keen aqua dress from Goldblatt’s was to die for.
Tucking a pencil behind her ear, Betty assessed the status of business. Her jitters kicked in as she played her customary game of catch-up. Holding a job all the way down by the Loop wasn’t the most convenient, but there was nothing like being in the thick of things. And the Loop was certainly that.
Betty threw on a wide smile, cocked her hip. Accentuate your assets, she had learned, and no one noticed your troubles. “How about a warm-up, gentlemen?” She raised a coffeepot, interrupting the three guys parked at the counter sparring over the same old topic—the war, what else?
“Thanks,” they said, voices overlapping. Hands calloused, fingernails smudged, they were as blue-collared as the pedigree she strove to hide.
She filled their mugs, committing small splatters she deftly hid from the chef’s view. She swiped the mess away with a rag. “Let me know if you need anything else,” she told them. As she sauntered away, she could feel their gazes latched to her backside, coupled by murmuring about a nice ass. Her first instinct was to admonish them, given that their ages approached her father’s—how old she presumed he’d be, anyway. But she needed their tips. For the time being.
And so she continued on, relieving the frazzled busboy from serving her tables. Mostly regulars dotted the room, plus a few additions. She topped off their mugs, took some orders—only two of them wrong—and delivered dishes back and forth, wearing a trail into the chessboard floor. Hours from closing and already her feet begged for a soak.
By the time she hit a break in the dinner rush, the sun had excused itself for the evening. Scribbled bill in hand, she ventured back toward Irma, rooted in the back booth, same as every Friday. A subtle indentation in the black cushion permanently reserved her spot. Aside from rather wide hips, her frame was of medium size. Her silver flapper hat and gaudy brooch, a firefly with tarnished wings, dated her peak years to be more than a decade past.
“Enjoy your dumplings, Irma?”
The woman, gazing distantly at the empty seat across from her, replied with a nod. Rarely saying a word—not even for her order; it was always the same—she carried the perpetual grief of a widow. The familiar reserve of a lonely child.
Betty forced a smile. “Can I interest you in a slice of pie? We got banana cream tonight.”
Irma declined with a slight shake of her head, already unsnapping her worn velvety clutch.
“Well. Next time, then.” Betty presented her tallied check.
The woman’s hand trembled, more noticeably than ever, as she emptied all her coins onto the table. She seemed to be struggling with counting them. Given that Irma’s bill never fluctuated, Betty swiftly noticed there wasn’t enough money. And something told her the lady’s purse didn’t have a reserve compartment.
Betty glanced back at the kitchen, where the chef’s mood remained stuck in a ditch of aggravation. He didn’t believe in running tabs, and was far from the charitable sort.
“Here,” she told Irma, “let me get those.” She scooted the change off the edge and into her hand, whispering a pretend calculation. “Forty-five, fifty-five, seventy . . .” Then, “Perfect!” She dropped them into her uniform pocket. Her tip from the last table would provide just enough to compensate for the shortage. “Be sure and try our dessert sometime. A girl’s gotta treat herself once in a while.”
A smile brushed past Irma’s dry, wrinkled lips, but only a shadow. A memory. An echo of her withered beauty.
Betty didn’t know why she was helping her out exactly. Maybe it was an offering to the universe, a bribe to prevent her from ending up the same. Or worse, like her own mother, an old maid whose scandalous life had been the infection of Betty’s childhood.
“Order up!” The chef’s voice jerked Betty back to greasy paradise and her mouth into a frown. She deposited Irma’s bare dinner plate in a bussing tub. As she headed for the kitchen, someone called out, “Excuse me? Miss? Over here.”
“Be there in a minute,” she shot back; she couldn’t be in two places at once. But then she registered the new customer’s appearance. An Army sergeant, all alone, dark and suave. Fit in his sharp uniform, he boasted looks as dreamy as they came.
Her shoes did an automatic U-turn, straight to his table. Cosmetics undoubtedly needing to be refreshed, she tilted her face to its most flattering angle and asked, “See anything you like?” She inserted a deliberate pause before gesturing to his menu.
His mouth slid into a grin. His eyes glinted.
And she knew she had him. “Hey, I know you,” he said. She would have taken the phrase