Ann-Marie MacDonald - Way the Crow Flies

On Sunday evening when they return, there is a moving van in the driveway of the little green bungalow.

“CLASS, SAY HELLO to Claire.”

“Hello, Claire.”

Funny how a new kid makes you feel as though the rest of you have been together for ages. Suddenly you are a group and there is an air pocket around the newcomer. She does not belong. Even Grace belongs, in her way.

Claire McCarroll arrived just after the nine o’clock bell, with her father. Holding his hand. Mr. McCarroll resembled all the other dads in Centralia, but if you looked closely at the badge on his air force hat you would see an eagle with outspread wings, thirteen stars encircling its head, one claw clutching an olive branch, the other several arrows. Above his left breast pocket were his wings, outstretched on either side of the shield of the United States of America, topped by a star. His uniform was a deeper blue than those of the Canadian dads, and when he moved, the weave imparted a grey sheen. The effect was pleasingly foreign and familiar all at once.

Claire was dressed in baby blue, from barrettes to ankle socks. She carried a Frankie and Annette lunchbox suspended from her wrist like a purse. No one ever stays at school for lunch so Madeleine wondered what she had in there. Auriel passed a note to Madeleine that read, “Is she your long-lost sister?” They did look something alike. Dark brown pixie cuts, heart-shaped faces and small noses. Except Madeleine was taller and the new girl had blue eyes, shyly downcast. No one had yet heard her speak. She reminded Madeleine of a porcelain figurine — something lovely for your mantelpiece.

Mr. March shook hands with her father, then escorted Claire to her seat — he can be nice sometimes. The American dad hesitated in the doorway and waved to Claire. She waved back and blushed. Madeleine understood that. Finally her embarrassing dad left and everyone stared at Claire as she sat and folded her hands on her desk. And everyone — at least all the girls — noticed her beautiful silver charm bracelet.

Mimi, Betty Boucher, Elaine Ridelle and Vimy Woodley are in mid-protest on Sharon McCarroll’s front step.

“We wouldn’t dream of it,” says Vimy.

Sharon has invited them in but the ladies have only dropped by to welcome her, deliver an information kit and a plate of squares, and extend the formal invitation for the young woman to join the Officers’ Wives Club. Sharon was immediately endearing because she instantly asked them in, allowing them to decline vigorously. She’s a pretty little thing. Mimi is reminded of an actress … which one?

From the front porch it’s plain to see that the McCarrolls’ house contains the usual forest of cardboard boxes and errant furniture, but Sharon is neatly turned out in pumps and a bright little short-sleeved dress, a Willkommen plate already graces the wall of the tiny front hall, alongside a commemorative plaque of her husband’s squadron at Wiesbaden, and the smell of baking is coming from her kitchen. Impressive, but not surprising in an American service wife. Their ability to march in and out on a dime and a blaze of home-baked, fully accessorized glory is legendary.

What is surprising — and the women will discuss this later — is that Sharon McCarroll is not what you would expect of a fighter pilot’s wife. Especially an American one. She is shy. Soft-spoken. She makes Mimi, and perhaps the other women too, feel … American.

“We’re just the Welcome Wagon.” Elaine Ridelle is in pedal pushers and tennis shoes, still managing to look girlish six months into her pregnancy.

“We aren’t here to see you put the kettle on, love,” says Betty. Betty unfailingly wears a dress — in this instance a crisp shirtwaist. Not due to any old-world view of proper female attire, but because she knows how to bring out the best in her figure, which is pleasingly plump. “Put a pair of trousers on me and I’d look like a beached whale,” she has said. Which is an exaggeration, but Mimi respects a woman who knows her own good and not-so-good points. Mimi herself is in a pair of lemon-yellow cigarette pants and a sleeveless white knit turtleneck.

“You’ve got your hands full enough already,” she says, handing her new neighbour a foil-covered Corningware dish, and before Sharon can object, “It’s only a fricot au —a lamb stew.”

Sharon is so young. Betty and Mimi are moved to take her under their wing, and Elaine says, “Do you and your husband golf, Sharon?”

At which Sharon smiles, looks down and half-shakes her head, no, and Vimy says, “Give the poor girl a chance to catch her breath, Elaine.”

“That’s okay,” says Sharon, a gentle Southern sigh in her words. Lee Remick, that’s who she reminds Mimi of.

Vimy says, “Here’s your survival kit, my dear, my number’s at the top and my house is over there.” She points up the street to the detached white house with the flagpole on its lawn. She hands the young woman a binder and adds, “My daughter Marsha babysits, and that’s probably enough out of us for the moment.”

Mimi observes Vimy closely. Her manners, her ability to put others at ease; that is the definition of breeding, and a must in a CO’s wife. Mimi learned a lot from her mother and her twelve siblings back in Bouctouche, New Brunswick, but she didn’t learn what women like Vimy can teach her. Jack will one day be in Hal’s position, and Mimi knows she will have to entertain “wheels,” as Jack calls them, in her own home. She will be promoted too. The men all have to take exams and pass courses in order to qualify for advancement; the wives have to train on the job. Mimi notes how Vimy smiles graciously, and doesn’t shake Sharon’s whole hand, but instead lightly presses her fingers.

Of course, they all end up trooping into the little green bungalow, because Sharon insists — not in hearty tones, or with brash protestations of Southern hospitality, but by blushing and retreating to her kitchen, where she puts the percolator on and takes a pan of hermits from the oven.

“This is Bugs Bunny. He’s a rabbit.”

Laughter. Madeleine pauses. Silence, all eyes upon her. Mr. March has ordered her to go first. She has looked him in the eye and proceeded to the front of the class. Clean slate. Concentrate.

“I like Bugs because he speaks his mind,” she says loud and clear.

Laughter. She didn’t mean it to be funny. She’s merely telling the truth. Show-and-tell. Just the facts, ma’am .

“His favourite food is carrots and his favourite expression is, ‘Nyah, what’s up, doc?’”

Laughter. She can feel her face reddening. She consults her recipe cards, where she wrote her presentation in point form with the help of her father.

“He is wily. He lives by his own rules and he always gets away from Elmer Fudd. Once he dressed up as a girl and sang, ‘The Rabbit in Red.’”

Giggles.

She departs from her notes and sings tentatively, in Bugsy’s voice, “‘Oh da wabbit in wed …’”—a little soft-shoe—“‘yah-dah dah-dah-dah dah-dah de wabbit in wed.’ And he put on false eyelashes and even, you know”—she spreads her fingers and makes a circular gesture over her chest; the class screams with laughter. She raises one eyebrow, twists her mouth like Bugs and improvises—“Falsies, I pwesume.” Rapidly now, can’t put a foot wrong, “Like the time he pretended to be a girl Tasmanian Devil with lovely big red lips?”—one hand behind her head, the other on her hip—“‘Well hello there, big boy,’ meanwhile he’s got a bear trap in his mouth for teeth, chomp! — ‘Yowww! Yipe-yipe-yipe!’”