Читать книгу Letters From Home - Kristina McMorris - Страница 11

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 for a tired old pickup line, but his tone sounded of genuine discovery. “The USO,” he explained. “A few weeks back.”

Had she danced with him and forgotten? Surely she would have remembered a guy like this. Crud, she hated when a fella had the upper hand.

“You were one of the singers,” he added. The connection seemed to end there.

“You’ve got quite a memory . . .” She drew out the last word, a prompt for him to volunteer his name.

“J.T.,” he said. “And you’re Betty.”

“How did you—” she began, then glanced down at her name tag. “Oh. Right.”

“Pleased to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.” The feel of something sticky between her fingers prevented her from extending her hand. As a cover, she yanked the pencil from her ear and notepad out of her pocket, posed them in order-taking position.

“Well, Betty, I think you got a fan club started by some of the guys in our office.”

“The office?” she asked, milking the compliment.

“Army recruitment, down off Jackson.” He reclined in his seat, one arm draped across the top of the neighboring chair, as if accustomed to claiming ownership and space at will. His posture launched a wave of arrogance stronger than his spicy cologne. “You should come by sometime. We could use a smart, beautiful woman like you in the Women’s Army Corps.”

A giggle bubbled through her. “You see me in the WAC? Marching around all day in khaki?”

J.T. gave her figure a brief scan, no doubt picturing her out of a uniform rather than in one. “Just think about it, sweetheart. You could help out our soldiers by doing more than singing to ’em.” The implication might have been offensive had he not continued so smoothly. “Besides, you seem like the kinda girl who’d like to travel, see the world. Sydney, London, Rome. Maybe Hawaii? White sandy beaches, luscious palm trees. Water so blue and clear you could spot a dime at the bottom.”

His pitch sounded as rehearsed as that of a Fuller Brush salesman, but the vision towed Betty’s mind into a drift regardless. Life could certainly be worse than living in a tropical haven. Too bad military enlistment was a requirement. She’d sooner become a lumber jack than run around playing soldier. Why, for the love of Mike, some women tried so hard to swap roles with men, she had no idea.

“I said order up!” the chef bellowed.

She pushed out a sweetly appeasing voice. “Coming,” she answered, abruptly reminded of her unglamorous servitude. The chef’s call should have taken priority, given his grumpiness tonight, but she couldn’t bow to another command before enlightening someone, anyone, of her overflowing potential.

Posture lifted, she peered down at the sergeant. “Thanks for the offer, but I already got plans,” she stated, as though he should have expected as much. “I’ll be traveling with the USO, soon as a spot in a touring group opens up. So I’m sure I’ll be stopping in all those places you mentioned.” She added with a wink, “Even drop you a postcard if I have time.” In reality, all the Hedy Lamarrs and Marlene Dietrichs took overseas priority. But the possibility of joining the tour was the main reason Betty had auditioned for the USO, and she wasn’t about to give up the chance at a better job—a better life—no matter how slim.

“Well, if things don’t work out,” he said, “come on by and see me. Or, even if you wanted to chat about other things, besides the military . . .” He trailed off, inviting her to fill in the blanks.

“Wessel, there you are!” A GI appeared at the front door beside two rather refined-looking girls. To top it off, they were knockouts, which J.T. seemed to note in less than a blink. “We’re hittin’ O’Toole’s. Ya comin’, or what?”

The girls whispered to each other, then giggled, a sound that drew the sergeant from his seat like a snake to a flute. Not until reaching the exit did he rotate back, as though suddenly recalling Betty was there. “Like I said, you oughta come by.”

She layered on a smile. “Yeah, sure.” In your dreams, her mind added. Jerks like this reminded her why she’d be better off with a real gentleman—like Morgan, that soldier from the dance. Because mysterious and chivalrous deserved to beat out suave and dreamy every time.

Not that they always did, of course.

As J.T. and his gang strolled gaily past the diner windows, Betty tried to imagine a hundred ways to put the nitwit in his place if given the chance. But before she could come up with a solitary one, a gruff warning from the chef took another stomp at her pride.