Kristina McMorris - Letters From Home

“All right, I’ll do it,” she gave in. “But just this once. No exceptions.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Betty dropped Christian’s letter while clapping with glee. Julia swooped up the pages from the floor and carefully added them to the drawer of her nightstand.

“I’m not fooling, Betty.” Liz mustered the sternest voice she could. “No V-mail, no notes, nothing.”

“Okaaay. I’ll even write my own obituary.”

Julia giggled as she slipped into her black pumps and fastened the ankle straps. From her lace collar to her tailored mid-length skirt, she was as stylish as Ava Gardner. “I’m heading out, girls. Either one of you want to join me and Dot for a triple feature? The Tivoli’s playing Cover Girl again.”

Ah, yes. Hollywood’s cure-all for the perpetually glum. A perfect example of why talkies weren’t always better than the silent pictures. At least in Casablanca the tragic ending was scripted out of realism, and the stars didn’t belt out lines in melodramatic show tunes.

“I wish I could,” Betty moaned. “I swear, if I have to take Vera’s shift again this week, I’m quitting once and for all.”

“What about you, Liz?”

Any activity sounded better than ghostwriting a letter to Morgan, even suffering through a silly musical. But completing the task, purging the soldier from her system, also had its appeal.

“I’ll take a rain check,” Liz replied with eyes that told her, Thanks for getting me into this.

Julia grabbed her pillbox purse, missing the glance. “See you tomorrow, then,” she said, and turned for the hallway.

By the time the front door slammed, Betty had sidled up to Liz, cross-legged, pillow on her lap, armed with a pile of stationery. “Here’s what I have so far.” She held out the page for Liz to read along, and cleared her throat as if preparing to give the State of the Union address.

Dear Morgan,

It was nice talking to you, you seem like a terrific guy. I definately wish we could’ve spent more time together. Where did the Army ship you to?

The glaring grammatical and spelling errors seized hold of Liz’s eyes. She fought every urge within her not to seek out the nearest colored fountain pen to circle what her father would call “blasphemous mistakes.”

Betty looked up. “What do you think?”

Liz aimed for diplomacy, a specialty of Dalton’s. “It’s, um . . . not bad.”

“I knew it,” Betty whimpered. “It’s dreadful.” She buried her face in the pillow.

“No. It’s not dreadful. It’s just that—” Liz chose to limit her critiques to the misguided content. “I don’t think the Army will let him say where they’re going.”

“So what can I write?” Betty rumpled the letter into a ball and pitched it at the woven wastebasket, falling a foot short.

Liz set her glass on the nightstand. She reminded herself this wasn’t a hundred-page dissertation. With just a few intelligible sentences, life could return to normal. “How about something like . . .” She threw out the simplest opening that came to her. “Dear Morgan. Although our time together was brief, it was a pleasure meeting you at the dance—”

“Oh, that’s perfect. I love it!” Enthusiasm shot through Betty like an electrical current, straightening her posture, widening her eyes. “Now, what was that again?” She held up her pen, a stenog-rapher ready for dictation—with no knowledge of shorthand.

Already Liz felt exhausted. She opened her mouth to repeat the phrase when the tinkering notes of her grandfather’s cuckoo clock rang out from the living room.

“Cripes. What time is it?” Betty rotated the alarm clock on the nightstand. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late.” With the speed of a fireman preparing for a five-alarm blaze, she jumped into her carnation-pink diner dress and pinned on her name tag. At the vanity, she smoothed Julia’s styling lotion over her pageboy hair.

Relief and aggravation rivaled within Liz at the postponement. Now that they had started, she wanted nothing more than to rid her thoughts of Morgan McClain; him and all the “what-ifs” that had tangled her mind like ivy.

“I really gotta go,” Betty addressed Liz’s reflection in the mirror, “but could you please finish the letter while I’m gone?”

“Finish?” A laugh of disbelief snagged in Liz’s throat. “We haven’t even started it.”

Betty applied her Victory Red lipstick in one circular motion. “I wouldn’t ask, but I won’t be home till late. And then I’ll be with Suzie all weekend visiting her family.”

Liz was about to refuse, needing to draw a line somewhere— wavering and faint though the line may be—when Betty produced a scrawled address on a napkin.

“Pretty please?” She knelt by the bed with clasped hands. “A couple more lines is all it needs.”

This was ludicrous. “Don’t you think he’ll know it’s not from you?”

“He’s a guy. He won’t have any idea,” Betty said, as if reporting the sky was blue. “Besides, what’s the difference? I’d just be writing down everything you say anyway.”

If gender and academics weren’t a factor, the gal would have made a great trial attorney. After all, it was her indisputable case that had convinced Liz’s father to allow his daughter not one but two roommates in his absence, an arrangement for which Liz was grateful. At least on most days.

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.