Stranger in Paradise (Home Front - Book #2) (14 page)

Nancy disappeared into another room, then reappeared with a rosy plump baby girl balanced on her hip. “This is Debbie.”

Jane’s eyes got all misty as she took the baby’s tiny hand in hers. “Aren’t you a pretty one?” she crooned in the voice all women used when talking to babies.

A warm feeling built inside Mac’s chest as he watched his wife’s dark head bend low over the child. Jane tilted her head and looked up at him. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

He nodded, unsure what to do with this strangely unsettling mix of emotions tugging at his heart.

Jane, however, knew exactly what to do, and the sight of his wife cradling a child was as beautiful as it was unnerving.

What Mac wanted to do was grab Jane’s hand, turn around and head for the hills. If this was any indication of how complicated life in the uncomplicated suburbs was, he wanted no part of it. But the next thing he knew, he and Jane were following Nancy down the driveway and up the block to a ranch house just like the one they’d left. Same picture window. Same mudroom. Same kitchen with the knotty-pine cabinets and two-sided fireplace and brand-new electric stove.

“Some present,” said Nancy from the doorway, where she stood with the baby in her arms and the little girls at her feet. “We should all be so lucky.”

“Yeah,” said Mac, staring at his new house. “It’s one hell of a wedding gift, isn’t it, Janie?”

Jane, however, didn’t hear a word he said. She was so overwhelmed by the notion that this wonderful home actually belonged to her and her husband that nothing else managed to penetrate. She looked at the center of the kitchen and saw a big parson’s table with two children sitting there. A little girl with Mac’s smile. A little boy with his daddy’s eyes. In the front room she saw her husband tending the fireplace while she whipped up a marvelous gourmet dinner for two.

In an instant she had peopled the house and set their mark on it as surely as if they’d lived there a score of years or more. Who would believe that just seven days ago she had been a lonely woman without family or future?

Nancy disappeared into the front yard to keep an eye on her two oldest girls.

“Okay,” said Mac with that lopsided grin she loved. “Give it to me straight. What do you think of the place?”

“Oh, Mac!” She threw herself into his arms and kissed him soundly. “The queen herself would be pea green with envy.”

“It’s kind of small.”

“It’s a palace.”

“All the houses look alike.”

“It makes me feel like I belong.”

He drew back a fraction of an inch and met her eyes. “You like it?”

“No,” she said, her joy bubbling over. “I
love
it!”

He retrieved the key from the countertop near the sink and pressed it into her palm.

“Welcome to Levittown, Mrs. Weaver.”

The next ten days passed in a blur of activity for Mac and Jane. They bought furniture for the house; they went to Pier 84 to collect Mac’s bright red MG from the hold of the
U.S.S. Constitution
; they exchanged Jane’s English driver’s license for one from New York State. Mac closed his eyes and hoped for the best as she struggled to adjust to the notion of driving on the right side of the road.

But mostly they laughed. He gave her a whirlwind tour of Manhattan, from the Battery up to the Cloisters, with stops at Central Park, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building thrown in for good measure. He took her to Macy’s Herald Square where she picked out all manner of American clothes: sundresses and toreador pants and halter tops in ice-cream colors. She gazed longingly at the women with their short and fluffy hairdos with the eye-catching bangs, but Mac put his foot down. There was a limit, it seemed, to the Americanization of Jane—at least as far as her husband was concerned. He liked her hair long, and long it was going to stay.

Even the movie theaters in America were bigger and better than the ones she’d left behind. Radio City Music Hall was a splendid Art Deco palace while the Criterion seemed big enough to accommodate all of Liverpool.

“What are these?” she asked when Mac handed her a pair of dark glasses.

“Put them on,” he instructed as the house lights dimmed “You’re in for a real surprise.”

Jane gasped as a roller coaster appeared on the screen, creaking its way up the sharp incline, then zooming downward like a runaway train. Her stomach lurched at each hairpin curve and she held Mac’s hand in an iron grip. “What on earth—?”

“It’s 3-D,” he said with a laugh. “The latest thing. Mark my words, Janie, in a few years every movie theater will have it.”

New York offered more-normal entertainment, as well, and Mac took her to see her very first Broadway plays, where Jane was swept away by the magic of
Kismet
and the daring excitement of
Can-Can
. Gwen Verdon’s dancing was so effervescent that she made the impossible look easy.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, however, made the easy look almost impossible. Mac took her on the underground train called the BMT to a place called Ebbets Field, where she watched her husband suffer through a baseball game between his beloved Dodgers and the hated New York Giants.

Where she’d expected to find a huge cavernous stadium, Ebbets Field was almost cozy, with a right-field fence that didn’t quite keep Giants’ home runs from flying out onto Bedford Avenue to the delight of the children waiting to catch the errant balls. They shared a bag of peanuts, then Mac ordered up some hot dogs which, to Jane’s amusement, were passed the length of the row by friendly strangers who seemed accustomed to the quaint ritual.

The stadium erupted in cheers when one of the Giants hit a ball into the infield and was called out. Mac, who had a scorecard balanced on his knees, fumbled with the numbers. “Been away from home too long,” he said with a sheepish grin. “Shortstop to second to first... Used to know it like the back of my hand.”

Jane looked over at him, a Cheshire-cat smile upon her face. “Six to four to three.”

His mouth fell open. “What?!”

“Six to four to three.”

He started to laugh. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

“My brother,” she said, with a fond chuckle. “He learned all about American baseball from the GIs he met and was determined to teach me everything he knew.” She polished off the last of her hot dog. “I thought all you Yanks ate Cracker Jacks at the ballpark.”

The look he gave her was odd, almost embarrassed. “Funny you should say that, Janie...” He handed her a box. “You probably know Cracker Jacks come with a prize in every box.”

The caramelized corn and nuts stuck to her fingers as she rooted around for the elusive trinket. “What on earth—?” Popcorn went flying as Jane extracted a beautiful platinum wedding band set with five perfect diamonds.

Duke Snider of the Dodgers hit a home run over the right-field fence for the kids on Bedford Avenue and neither Mac nor Jane noticed. “Giant fans,” muttered a disgruntled fan behind them.

One afternoon they drove up the Bronx to visit Mac’s three maiden aunts, the ones with the predilection for syrupy rum drinks and radio soap operas. Jane listened to
Our Gal Sunday
and
The Romance of Helen Trent
and a number of stories about her husband when he was a little boy. The elderly aunts pronounced her too good for their nephew and offered her a strawberry daiquiri with a paper parasol suspended over the jelly jar glass.

On their last night at the Weavers’ house, Edna and Les invited a score of aunts and uncles and cousins to toast the newlyweds, and Jane feared she would never be able to match up the names with the faces. But she managed somehow, and to her delight, the aunts and uncles and cousins seemed to like her as much as the three aunts in the Bronx had.

When morning came and it was time to leave for their new home in Levittown, Jane found herself weeping on her mother-in-law’s shoulder.

“I’ll miss you,” she said between sobs. “You have been so wonderful to me.”

“Now don’t you go getting those pretty blue eyes of yours all red, honey.” Edna reached into the pocket of her apron and withdrew a lace-trimmed handkerchief. “Wipe your eyes and stop that crying.”

Jane did as Edna bade, sniffling audibly.

“It’s not like you’re going to the ends of the earth,” Edna pointed out as they walked down the path to where Mac and Les waited by the red MG. “Levittown’s not even an hour away by car.”

Mac and Jane had a standing invitation to Sunday dinner, and Jane made a point of repeating her own invitation to Les and Edna for a real English roast-beef dinner.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Mac said as they drove off down Hansen Street.

Jane was twisted around in her tiny seat, waving to Edna and Les and the Wilsons. “I can’t cook,” she said, turning back to look at Mac, “but I can’t imagine it’s a difficult skill to master.” She laughed at the look of amazement on his face. “Oh, don’t worry, Mac. I am perfectly capable of boiling an egg or making toast.”

He breathed a comical sigh of relief. “You had me going for a minute, Janie. I figured we’d be steady customers at the local diner.”

“Diner?” She brushed a lock of hair off her face. “What’s that?”

Mac explained how old railroad cars or house trailers were sometimes mounted on a concrete foundation then turned into a cross between a hot-dog stand and a luncheonette.

“And people dine there?” Jane asked, forming a very odd mental picture of the establishment.

“No,” said Mac with a grin. “They
eat
there.”

Jane frowned. “I don’t understand the difference.”

“Just wait, Janie. You will soon enough.”

Adam and Eve on a raft. BLT and hold the mayo. It was all still ahead of her, and Mac couldn’t wait to introduce his wife to the wonders to be found in cheeseburgers and chocolate egg creams. He’d already conned as many days out of his boss as he could without risking a beat at the unemployment office. Tomorrow he’d have to catch the train for Manhattan and put in an appearance at the office, or that pretty diamond ring on her finger wouldn’t be there much longer. Damn shame, too, because he didn’t think he’d ever grow tired of the sight of her face or the sound of her voice.

She touched his arm. “Is something wrong?” she sounded concerned, a touch anxious.

He gave her his best smile, a real one, a smile like he hadn’t smiled since he was a kid and life was no more complicated than hitting a homer during a game of stickball. “Wrong?” he asked with a shake of his head. “Everything’s been
right
from the first second I set eyes on you in the crowd.”

“I’m pleased,” she said demurely, a wicked twinkle in her Wedgwood-blue eyes, “but considering the fact we’ve known each other less than three weeks, that is hardly one for the record books.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek. The scent of violets swirled around him. He turned up the radio and they sang along with Ray Block and his Make-Believe Ballroom. Eddie Fisher sang about his papa while Patti Page asked the plaintive question “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?” To his amazement, Jane knew all the words to “That’s Amore” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” and he laughed out loud at the country-and-western twang she adopted for the latter.

“What more can a man ask for?” He put his arm around her as they drove down Hempstead Turnpike toward Robin Hood Lane. “A sunny day. A bright red sports car. A beautiful woman at my side. It doesn’t get much better than this.”

“A family,” she said, her voice so soft he thought he’d imagined the words.

He glanced over at her. “As in
baby
?”

She nodded. He saw the way her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “As in
baby
. We—I mean, I—that is, we’ve never...”

“Talked about it.” He wished he had a cigarette handy. “Tell you the truth, it hasn’t been on my mind.”

She looked down at her hands. “I’m afraid I cannot say the same.”

“Are you...?” What the hell should he say? “Pregnant” sounded so clinical. “Enceinte” and “with child” both sounded too cute. No wonder American television—except for
I Love Lucy
—bypassed the whole issue and put the husband and wife in separate beds.

“Pregnant?” Jane had no trouble saying the word. “I would say there’s just cause to consider the possibility.”

“A baby.” He tried the word on for size and found the fit surprisingly comfortable. “When would we know?”

“Not for another month or two.” Her soft laughter wrapped itself around his heart. “Don’t look so disappointed, Mac. This is only conjecture.”

“Do you want a baby?”

“No.” She met his eyes. “I want
your
baby.”

That simple statement was the most potent aphrodisiac he’d ever known. He had no trouble telling her exactly that.

Her cheeks reddened but she looked quite pleased. “I suppose we’ll have to keep trying.” She slapped playfully at his hand. “But not on Hempstead Turnpike.”

“As soon as the door closes behind us, Janie,” he said, heat rising, “we’ll keep trying until we get it right.”

* * *

Unfortunately neither Mac nor Jane had figured on the friendliness of their new Levittown neighbors. It seemed that from the moment they parked in their driveway, neighbors poured from their houses like locusts. Well, perhaps “locusts” was an unkind term to use to describe friendly people bearing casserole dishes, but when you had romance on your mind, tuna-and-noodle bake ran a poor second.

Nancy and Gerry showed up with the girls and an invitation to come over for meat loaf that night, but Mac begged off. “First day back on the home beat tomorrow,” he said, avoiding Jane’s eyes. “It’ll take me all night just to load up my briefcase.”

“Driving in?” asked Gerry, casting a longing glance at the shiny sports car glittering in the setting sun.

“Train,” said Mac.

“Welcome to the club,” said Nancy, looking up from the hamburger casserole she was inspecting. “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Levittown at daybreak.”

Finally the last of the well-wishers departed, leaving Mac and Jane alone in their new house for the first time. Hand in hand, they walked through the rooms, admiring their new love seat and divan, the built-in television, their chrome and Formica kitchen table and matching chairs. The other pieces would arrive within the next week. Edna had seen to it that Jane had pots and pans, and one of Mac’s multitude of aunts had presented them with a set of dishes, courtesy of something called Green Stamps. “Just wait until you put your mark on the place,” Nancy had said at the door when she left. “You’ll absolutely love it.”

Truth was, Jane had no idea what her “mark” could possibly be. She had no experience in decorating a home, and certainly had never had extra money to spend on knicknacks and gewgaws and the other frills that made a home truly special.

Was it the gingham curtains hanging at each and every kitchen window or the fitted carpets in each and every parlor? Whatever the secret was, Jane was determined to find out and make it her own. She’d been welcomed with enthusiasm and warmth and wanted nothing more than to become part of the fabric of Robin Hood Lane the way Nancy Sturdevant obviously had.

Everyone seemed to love her accent, but that accent was another way of separating her from the rest of the neighborhood. Mac refused even to consider letting her cut her long hair into a tousled Italian pixie, but surely he could have no objections to seeing her sensible tweeds and sober plaids relegated to the back of a closet. The brightly colored dresses Mac had bought for her this past week were the first step in becoming like the other women in the neighborhood.

She and Mac moved down the hallway, delighting in the silence. The previous owners had raised the dormers upstairs, creating two spacious rooms that would be welcome if—and when—their family grew large enough to warrant it. As it was, one of the two downstairs bedrooms was still bare, and destined to remain so for a while.

They stood in the doorway to what would one day be a nursery. Mac’s arm encircled her shoulder; Jane’s head rested against his chest.

“I feel as if I truly belong here,” she said with a sigh. “As if I’ve been here all my life.”

Mac kissed the top of her head. “Honeymoon’s over tomorrow, Janie. I go back to work.”

“Don’t talk about that,” she said. “Let’s talk about this beautiful nursery.”

“Perfect,” said Mac. “It’s blue. We won’t even have to paint.”

“Blue?” questioned Jane. “I’ve never been partial to blue. I was rather hoping for a lovely shade of pink.”

“Uh-uh,” said her husband. “First a boy, then a girl.”

Jane considered his statement. “Correction. First a boy, then three girls.”

Her husband arched a brow. “Four kids?”

She smiled at the look of surprise on his handsome face. “What’s the matter, Mr. Weaver? Is it a case of all talk and no action?”

Apparently not.

Before Jane could say another word, Mac swept her up into his arms and carried her into the master bedroom across the hall. He deposited her unceremoniously atop the center of the pristine white chenille spread. A moment later their clothing lay tangled together on the floor.