Letters From Home (4 page)

Perhaps he had sensed she wouldn’t be coming back. Some buddies could have whisked him away, moved on to another dance hall, a late-night diner.

Perfect,
she told herself.
An easy way out.

She ordered relief to take hold, though the feeling refused—until she glimpsed his profile. He had waited for her, after all.

Or so she thought, before a curtain of strangers divided, and the full scene came into view. Across the dance floor indeed stood Morgan, but with a girl in his arms. And not just any girl. It was
Betty
—eyes closed, cheek nestled against his neck, the slope of her hair pillowing his chin. Both certainly looked at ease, a natural pair.

This was a good thing. The best, actually, for them all.

So why did Liz feel a cinching around her heart? Why was a streak of anger sweeping through her, a sensation bordering on betrayal? The reaction was absurd. Morgan owed her nothing, and even if Betty had seen them dancing, there was no reason for her to question Liz’s intentions, what with her already having a beau. Not that anyone here would have guessed.

“Elizabeth Stephens, is that you?”

She swung toward the voice. A tall man approached wearing Coke-bottle glasses, his suit a size too small for his gangly stature.

“Is Dalt here?” His lenses magnified the enthusiasm in his eyes. His name escaped her, but he was unmistakably a schoolmate of Dalton’s.

“Um …no. He couldn’t make it.” Shame rushed through her, flooding every limb.

“Well, tell him I said hi.”

“Of course.” She smiled feebly. Whirling around, she bumped her way through the faceless mass. She needed to flee before any further harm was done, before her logical foundation could crumble beneath her feet.

She dashed out the doors and down the steps, not slowing until she’d boarded the “L” destined for the seclusion of her suburban home. Stooped in her seat, she rested her head against the window. Summer clouds reclaimed territory above, draping a cluster of stars. No twinkling, no trace of existence.

If only mistakes were as easily erased.

At long last, the USO band played the final notes of the song. Until then, Morgan didn’t think anything could seem lengthier than the Sunday masses he attended as a kid. The audience thundered in applause and a slew of dancers dispersed, concealing his brisk parting from Betty. Concerned that Liz still hadn’t returned, he immediately strode off on a search.

For close to an hour, he scoured the place. He described the brunette’s features and what he recalled of her outfit to more than a dozen random people. He’d gone so far as to ask ladies exiting the washroom if she was still inside, in the event she wasn’t feeling well.

But his hunt was futile. It was clear she’d left.

Had he said or done something wrong? Or was it something he’d failed to say or do? He reviewed as many details as he could, and still no explanation.

Maybe it wasn’t him at all; maybe she was too upset over her dress to stay. Could have been an emergency that sent her rushing off. Whatever the reason, he hadn’t given up all hope. He wasn’t about to. There was too much to lose.

God, how could he find her again? He hadn’t even asked for her last name.

He scorned his thoughtlessness before taking another approach. Like a detective from a radio drama, he mulled over the clues. She mentioned studying, but where? And caring for the elderly. A hospital? A rest home? What about the redhead—which joint did she say she was hitting with her friends? He should have asked for specifics. Then again, if Liz had decided to follow them, she would have said so.

Wouldn’t she?

A swell of doubt washed over him. All these questions with no answers. What a chump he was, pining after a gal he didn’t know the first thing about. The assumption that her attraction equaled his now seemed laughable. Stupidity settled in his gut, heavy as a ton of coal. He blew out a breath.

Enough already. Time to focus on things that mattered: his brother, the war, his patriotic duty. A few days and he wouldn’t even remember what she looked like. That’s what he told himself. But then the feel of holding Liz swept over his arms, and already he knew she would haunt his memory long after she’d vanished.

2

July 5, 1944
Chicago, Illinois

T
wo knocks, yet no one answered. No sign of life through the door’s smoky glass pane.

In the vacant corridor outside the instructor’s office, Julia scraped at the side seam of her overcoat, desperate to get this over with. She must have arrived too early; Madame Simone was nothing if not punctual.

With no clocks permitted in the small fashion academy, usually a rule Julia favored, she moved to the hall window for a narrow view of the world outside. Her eyes strained through the sun’s morning glare to reach the bank at the corner. The clock pinned to its brick forehead indicated 10:06. More than twenty minutes until their meeting. Twenty
-four
long minutes, to be exact.

“Splendid,” she muttered.

Had nerves not rushed her, she could have relaxed at home longer, interrogated Liz more thoroughly. Sifting her friend’s recount of the previous evening might have actually produced a juicy morsel. Perhaps, true to her claim, Liz had stayed at the USO merely to watch one last performance. But Julia would have at least enjoyed the chance to dig a little deeper, playing the role of a savvy investigator, before the clues turned cold.

Oh, why did minutes pass swiftly only when you wanted them to last?

A coffee. And an apricot fritter. Good time killers, she decided, recalling the bakery around the corner. Should her teacher be inquiring about Julia’s delay in fall registration—why else would she have asked her here?—a place to hone a response would be helpful:
Thank you again for all you’ve done, for everything you’ve taught me. But I’m sorry, I simply can’t.

Julia pushed away an onset of guilt and hastened toward the exit downstairs. She felt pleading stares from the sketches of faceless models on the walls as she passed. In their bold hats and curly-strapped shoes, woven waterfalls of shimmery gowns, they silently called her back.

She averted her eyes, focused on her goal, just as a lineup of fragrances snuck into her senses: hemmed cotton, trimmed wool, raw imagination. They emanated from a slightly open doorway and blended in the valley of her lungs. As though on tracks, she found herself guided toward the scents, into her old classroom. Enticing and intoxicating as champagne.

A few more steps and apprehension dropped away. Light through a cluster of windows pronounced vibrancy in the bolts of fabric, poised at attention within the worn shelves. She trailed her hand over the spectrum of textures. As always, the French caretaker kept the materials organized by hues. They flowed like a rainbow, their divisions softened by the gradual transitions: from Persian blue to cornflower to cerulean to teal.

In this very space, like nowhere else, Julia had luxuriated in her impulses against the grain. For within these four boundless walls, the art of a woman’s freethinking was demanded, rather than discouraged.

And still, she had spent the past two months telling herself that her parents were right, that funds from clerking part-time at the nursing home should be spent on holiday gifts, not a hobby taking bites out of her regular studies. The commute itself, to the downtown academy, had contributed greatly to the slip in her respectable grades. Only a slight slip, but enough to raise concern from parents whose eldest daughter, Claire, had yet to stray from a trail spun of tradition, trimmed with approval.

Sometimes Julia wished her sister weren’t so dang likable. Had the girl been wretchedly competitive, or haughty in her seniority, like a typical sibling, Julia might have scuffed at Claire’s exemplary footsteps. Instead, so flawlessly formed, they gave her little cause not to smile, curtsy, and follow.

With a sigh, Julia pulled her fingertips from the propped fabric. She hadn’t expected a return to this familiar playground to cause such a tug on her heart. The thorny pulse of missing an old friend.

Loosening her grip on her handbag, she gazed at the pair of dress forms in the corner. Dashes of chalk acted as blueprints for the developing ensembles. She was trying to recall how many times she had used those very mannequins when a sight trapped her: Eggshell trim dangled awkwardly from the breast pocket of the maroon suit jacket. She scanned the tiled floor for the delinquent straight pin. Its metallic point sparkled, a beacon to her slender fingers.

Another’s design was considered a personal expression. Soulful. Sacred. But surely a student would appreciate the unobtrusive remedy.

Julia quickly retrieved the pin and tacked the trim back onto the pocket. As she confirmed its levelness, however, she had a vision of the extreme opposite: the entire pocket at a slant. To test the idea, just for a second, she angled and secured the accessory. The hem of the skirt needed to be raised as a complement. She shimmied the fabric upward around the wire cage below the limbless torso. Then she stepped back, evaluating.

What a statement the garb would make with a sharp, lightning-bolt collar rather than a conservative rounded appeasement. And if the belt were an inch wider with, say, a square copper buckle—

A sound from the doorway whirled Julia around. Her teacher entered, a small box in her arms. Mismatched pattern pieces hung over its edges like a deflated circus tent. Julia’s anxiety, instantly revived, sprang to attention.

“Ah! I see already you are here,
Zhoolia.”
The same tough elegance permeating Simone’s French accent encompassed her trademark appearance: dark hair slicked into an impossibly tight bun, no bangs to soften her angled features, slender arms pale against her all-black attire. Only wrinkles huddling around her eyes confessed her age exceeding fifty. And aside from her raspberry lipstick, the jeweled chain on the half-glass spectacles dangling from her neck provided her sole splash of color. “Have you been here long?” she asked.

Julia grappled for her thoughts. “I—arrived a little earlier than I planned.” Even more consuming than the rudeness of her untimely arrival was her tampering with the suit behind her. She could think of no discreet way of returning the outfit to its original state. Inching to her right, she settled for barricading the view. “Did you end up visiting New York last month, to see your niece?” She flung the question across the room, a verbal sleight of hand.

“Mmm,” Simone affirmed, moving toward a worktable beneath the windows, her posture and movement like a swan’s. “Have you ever been?” She set down the box.

“Oh yes,” Julia replied. “About once a year since I was little. My mom liked to take my sister and me there to holiday shop, see Broadway shows, and such.”

“And you are fond of it? That big city?”

A memory floated toward Julia: the first time she rode an open carriage through Central Park, the glow of lanterns painting the drifting snowflakes gold before her eyes. She swore heaven couldn’t be any more beautiful. “I think it’s the most magical place on earth.”

The teacher nodded, then nodded again. “Good.” The right answer. Simone disdained wrong answers. And, as Julia had learned, a student never had to question into which category their response had fallen.

“May I help you with that?” Julia hurried toward her, pulling the woman’s eye line to a safe periphery.

“Scraps,” the teacher complained, her fist full of thin strips from the box. “Silk pieces, they promised. But no. Only scraps.” She dropped them into a rejected heap on the long rectangular table, a fixture Julia knew well. On occasion, she had literally lived on the nicked and scarred slab—eating, sleeping, dreaming among the spools and yardsticks when a gust of creativity caught hold.

“Well,” Julia offered, touching the coveted material, “hopefully the war will be over soon, and everything will go back to normal.”

“Mmm …normal.” The word entered the air, soft as a wish. A brief pause and Simone’s wistfulness disappeared, shut down on command.
“Alors.”
She straightened. “You are wondering why I called you here, non?”

Fresh tension snapped through Julia as she waited.

“Let me first say,” she began, “the opportunity, at your level of experience, is an exception. However, I would prefer not to see a talent like yours wasted. Not to mention the effort and time I have contributed to your education.”

This was even worse than Julia expected. The woman was obviously inviting her into the advanced design program. A wondrous offer for a one-year student, almost unheard of.

Regardless. Julia’s answer would be the same:
Thank you for everything—but—but…
The words resisted, dug in their heels, as Simone said, “You see, you’ve been offered an internship.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Julia’s decline toppled out before the last statement soaked in. “What was that?”

Simone’s expression held at stoic. “An internship,
chérie.
At
Vogue.
Naturally, they’ll want to interview you first, but I assured them you’d be perfect.”

“I had no—that you—” All of the thoughts in Julia’s head crashed into each other, landing in a pile of confusion. A single word crawled from the wreckage: “How?”

Simone shrugged one shoulder, as if both took too much effort. “During my trip to New York. I brought a file of your sketches, and two of the gowns you designed for the fashion show.”

Though the showcase last spring was only class-wide, the rave reviews Julia had received sent her spirit gliding cloud-high for an entire week.

Simone went on, “A dear friend I studied with decades ago is now working in designs for
Vogue.
And she believes you have something special. A gift. As do I.” That last sentence, above all others, lit Julia inside. Compliments from the woman were like collectible coins. Rare and priceless. “But,” she pointed out, “you will have a lot to learn before then.”

“When would it start?”

“They had hoped for this winter, but I told them of your studies. She would be willing to wait until late spring for you. And you would be expected to prove, at all times, why you were worth the wait.” She paused a beat for emphasis. “The pay would be minimal, and you would be responsible for all your expenses. Although there would be other interns you could share a flat with, if you prefer.”

Julia’s mind was spinning. “And this is …for how long?”

“That is up to them,” she replied. “Or you. At the end of the summer, you could decide to return to school, or remain. The choice would be yours.”

Julia breathed against the enclosure of her excitement. She felt herself drifting once more toward the clouds. Grounding herself as best she could, she shook her head and said, “I don’t know what to say, how to thank you.”

Simone’s reply came strong. “Don’t prove me wrong.” The teacher’s reputation had obviously served as an ante in the gambling match. The shared pressure didn’t go unnoticed. “Of course,” she added, “you will need to do some preparation work, around your studies at the university.”

“The university?” Julia barely grasped the familiar word.

A suggestion of a smile played on Simone’s lips.
“Eh bien.
I have given you much to consider. They will need your answer by end of summer.”

Carried by the irrational current of the moment, Julia embraced her. As could be expected, there was no reciprocal effort—the teacher treated hugs like a contagious illness—but Julia didn’t care. She had been handed a throne, and she wasn’t about to complain about the detailing of its cushion. Rather, she simply stepped back and said, “Thank you.”

Simone nodded before returning her attention to her box of scraps. A cue that their meeting had ended.

“Have a good day,” Julia bid, and headed for the hall.

“Mmm,” she said. “And
Zhoolia.”

“Yes?” She turned to find Simone’s head still down.

“No playing with other people’s designs while at
Vogue. D’accord?”

Julia’s gaze darted to the mannequin. She felt a poke at her side, the finger of guilt. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied, and without another word, she ducked out the door.

Once outside, Julia strode down the sidewalk, bridling an urge to skip. She could hardly feel her shoes making contact with the ridges of city cement.