Sentimental Journey (Home Front - Book #1)

by Barbara Bretton

  “You look so glamorous tonight, Nance.” She smiled at the cloud of Evening in Paris that fairly surrounded the girl. “Gerry Sturdevant should only see you now.”

  Nancy blushed as red as the roots of her hair. “Don’t tease me, Cath.”

  “I’m not. You look grand.” She glanced down. Nancy’s very best shoes, a pair of white pumps, glistened with Shinola polish. “How are your stockings holding up?”

  Nancy laughed out loud. “It better not rain. I’d die of embarrassment if my makeup runs.”

  Stockings were currently in short supply, for the government was using nylon to make powder bags for explosives. These days American women wore bobby sox and anklets and knee socks, or they went bare-legged. On special occasions like tonight, enterprising females applied Dorothy Grey’s Leg Show in sheer or suntan to their legs to simulate stockings. Catherine had painstakingly sponged the thick foundation onto her sister’s ankles and calves and knees, getting into the same spirit of excitement that held the teenager in thrall.

  Fortunately the weather was splendid. They climbed up the concrete subway steps, laughing at the Hold Your Hats! sign in the stairwell, to find the evening sky a beautiful mixture of pink and blue and flame orange. Women in snugly fitted suits and feathered hats walked arm in arm with gentlemen whose temples were as gray as their own summer suits. Sailors lingered at the corner of Forty-second Street, whistling and calling out “Hubba, hubba!” as a trio of pretty nurses walked by. “Mairzy Doats,” the nonsense song that had taken the country by storm, floated out from a radio blaring inside Tad’s Steak House, while moviegoers queued up at Radio City Music Hall to see Jean Arthur in The More The Merrier.

  “Actor dies in airborne attack!” cried the headlines on the papers being hawked on every corner. Leslie Howard, Ashley Wilkes from Gone with the Wind, had been en route from Lisbon to England when his airliner was attacked by an enemy plane and brought down.

  No one was safe: Absolutely no one.

  Catherine forced the notion from her mind. There would be plenty of time in her darkened bedroom to think about it later.

  Oklahoma reigned supreme on the Great White Way, and she had to tug at Nancy’s arm as the girl stopped to stare at the color posters flanking the entrance to the theater.

  “Hurry up!” Catherine urged as their parents crossed to the other side of the street. “We can’t get into the Canteen without Dad.”

  That was all Nancy had to hear, and they scurried to catch up.

  “I’m so nervous,” Nancy said. “If I meet a movie star I’m afraid I’ll die!”

  “You won’t die. If you meet a movie star, you’ll smile and say hello, same as you would if you met a plumber.”

  “My stomach hurts,” moaned Nancy. “I wish I had some Bisodol.”

  Catherine looked at her little sister and for an instant she couldn’t remember how it had felt to be seventeen and in love with life. Had she ever felt all giddy with excitement, trembling on the threshold of new experiences, new adventures? It seemed so long ago since she’d approached each new day with pure joy that she felt older than her grandmother.

  Her dad kissed her mother on the cheek as he opened the door to the Stage Door Canteen. “This way, ladies.”

  Well, if nothing else, at least she’d have something new to write Douglas about tonight.

  She sighed and followed Nancy downstairs.

  * * *

  Movie stars! Soldiers! Sailors! All the glamour and wonder that Nancy had dreamed about was right there in that noisy smoky room. Big band music, so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think, surrounded her—and so did men in uniform, a dazzling assortment of army privates, youthful marines, sailors in their jaunty outfits, and fly-boys with silver wings sparkling on their chests. The room smelled of Brylcreem and Vitalist of Old Spice and Ivory soap. Laughter rang out from every direction, and a big smile spread across her face as she realized she was right there in the middle of things in the most exciting place on earth.

  “Take a look over there, honey.” Her mom directed her attention toward the stage up front. “Isn’t that Bob Hope?”

  “Oh, golly!” Nancy’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “And that’s Mary Martin with him!”

  Old Ski Nose and the beautiful blond star of Broadway’s musical fantasy One Touch of Venus took the stage to a round of enthusiastic applause. They launched into a skit that Bob Hope must have done a hundred times at bases and camps around the world, yet his enthusiasm was electric, as he and Mary Martin took an imaginary stroll, arm in arm, through Central Park.

  “Nice night,” said Bob.

  “Nice night,” said Mary.

  “Nice party.”

  “Nice party.”

  “Nice moon.”

  “Nice moon.”

  “Nice bench,” said Bob, waggling his eyebrows in a mock leer.

  “Nice bench,” said Mary, all-innocence.

  “Some do.”

  “I don’t!”

  The crowd loved it, but no one loved it more than Nancy. Everything was as she’d imagined it would be—and even better. Bob Hope put on an apron and magically transformed himself into the world’s most famous busboy, while Mary Martin perched on a high stool and sang along with Harry James and his Music Makers.

  “’Scuse me,” said a male voice behind Nancy. “Care to dance?”

  She turned and saw a cute jug-eared sailor with even more freckles than she had. “I’m Nancy,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Bobby Dunn. I’m not much good at jitterbugging, but if you’re game...”

  “Sure,” said Nancy, ignoring her father’s knowing grin from across the room. “Why not?”

  Bobby Dunn didn’t lie. When it came to jitterbugging he was about as graceful as a cocker spaniel, but somehow it didn’t matter. He made her laugh as he told her all about life in a small town in Illinois, and she had him guffawing with stories of her one and only attempt at milking a cow on her grandma’s farm in central Pennsylvania.

  Bobby Dunn gave way to Charlie, a marine from San Diego who obviously believed girls swooned over men in uniform. He was right about that, of course, but Nancy wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. She did the fox-trot with an officer from Cheyenne who said she looked like his youngest daughter, and waltzed with an elegant young lieutenant from Maine with aspirations of giving General Eisenhower some real competition.

  The Andrews Sisters, Patty and Maxine and Laverne, took center stage and launched into a rousing rendition of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” that had everyone dancing in the aisles.

  If only the night would never end....

  * * *

  Catherine glanced at her watch and tried not to think about how much her feet hurt.

  Within the first hour she’d danced with four English sailors, three American marines and a half-score of army privates, most of whom managed to fox-trot all over her toes. Her father had introduced her to most of the members of his squadron, and she’d jitterbugged with each of them in turn for the better part of the next hour. Her dad beamed his appreciation, and the look of pride and apology on her mom’s face went a long way toward easing her aching arches.

  They were a nice group of guys, just a bunch of regular Joes who were looking for nothing more than a few happy moments to take with them into the unknown. It wasn’t hard to talk to them, to make them laugh and to listen to stories about their sweethearts and their hopes for the future. Any one of them could have been Douglas, far away from home and scared, even though no self-respecting American boy would ever admit to such a thing.

  She leaned against the railing and looked down at the couples dancing to the Andrews Sisters’ rendition of “Rum and Coca Cola.” The thought of an icy-cold Coke sounded wonderful. She was on her way to the bar when her dad waylaid her.

  “Cathy, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  “I thought I met all of the fellows in your squadron.”

  “Not Johnny. He just got here.”
<
br />   “Couldn’t he wait a moment, Pop? I’m so thirsty. I—”

  “Have this.” A huge frosty glass was thrust in front of her face.

  She looked up into the clear blue eyes of a man about her age.

  “You’re a mind reader, Danza,” said her father.

  She accepted the glass from the stranger and took a long grateful sip. “I don’t know if you’re a mind reader,” she said, “but you certainly have great timing.”

  “This is Johnny Danza,” said her father, gesturing toward the tall man who stood before her. “Private, first class.”

  Johnny Danza stood a full head taller than her, his close-cropped hair blacker than jet. Thick long eyelashes framed those dazzlingly blue eyes, and she couldn’t help noticing the arrogant set of his jaw, the bold thrust of his Roman nose, and his angular cheekbones.

  “I’m Catherine,” she said, as her father disappeared back into the crowd.

  “Glad to meet you.” Danza shook her hand firmly. “Your old man’s told me a lot about you.”

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” she said, noting the rough strength of his grip and the street-tough sound of his voice. “You in my dad’s squadron?”

  Danza’s laugh was short and husky. “You bet. We met up in signal-corps school. Us New Yorkers had to stick together down there in Georgia.”

  Her dad had been away an extra few months for specialized training after boot camp. “Were there many New Yorkers?”

  “Enough. Looks like we’ll be going the whole way together.”

  Her heart did a funny kind of skip at the thought of the unknown that stretched before her father. “Wh-where do you think you’ll be stationed?”

  “Hey! What’s with you?” He put an index finger against her mouth. “Loose lips sink ships, Cathy. Didn’t old Tom tell you that?”

  She glared up at him. She wasn’t used to men like this brash young Italian American from Brooklyn. “ ‘Old Tom,’ as you put it, has been busy taking care of his business and his family, Johnny. It was just an innocent question.”

  “Yeah, well, questions like that can get a whole lot of people in trouble.”

  “I don’t think it’s the questions that are the problem,” she observed. “It’s the answers.”

  He grinned at her. “You won’t be getting any from me.”

  “Somehow I didn’t think so.”

  Catherine couldn’t imagine two more different human beings than her taciturn father and this fiery young man, but apparently war made for strange friendships. Besides, who was she to question an allegiance that might help her father weather the storm ahead?

  Johnny had that lean and hungry look Catherine had come to associate with soldiers on their way to war. Even her own father now had that taut sinewy look about him, but with Johnny the look seemed an extension of personality, not just circumstances. He couldn’t possibly be that much older than she was, but something about his demeanor made her feel terribly young and painfully inexperienced.

  Casual conversation became a struggle.

  “So how do you like the army?” she managed at last. “It must take some getting used to.”

  He shrugged and took a drag on his Lucky Strike. “I’ve been in since I was nineteen. Hard to remember anything else.”

  “You make it sound like you’re forty years old,” she said with an amused laugh. “You can’t be more than twenty-two.”

  “Twenty-five,” He glanced down at her. “Last month.”

  She grew silent. He wasn’t anything like the boys she had grown up with. Even after boot camp, Douglas hadn’t had this sharp edge, an edge that went beyond anything the army taught its men. With Johnny you had the feeling he actually looked forward to battle, as if he had something to prove. Something that couldn’t be proved any other way.

  She wondered if he had a girlfriend, but knew she would seem terribly rude and forward if she dared to ask such a question. But she could ask her dad later about Johnny’s background—in a very casual way, of course. Not that she was interested for herself, naturally, but try as she might she couldn’t quite conjure up an image of the type of girl he would keep company with. A brash and overbleached blond? A flamboyant redhead? Or would he go against type and favor a “girl next door”?

  The image of Johnny sweeping this imaginary sweetheart into his arms popped into her mind, and she felt her cheeks redden as she tried to push the unbidden—but quite intriguing vision from her mind.

  * * *

  Catherine Wilson was one of the prettiest girls Johnny Danza had ever seen. Tom had told him so, but Johnny knew that fathers often thought the homeliest daughters were as beautiful as Hollywood stars. In this case, however, Tom hadn’t even come close to describing just how lovely his older daughter was. And she didn’t seem stuck on herself, either, the way so many pretty girls were. Why, she was even blushing just because he was admiring her!

  Johnny glanced down at the diamond chip sparkling on the ring finger of her left hand. Too bad some other lucky guy had already spoken for her. It would be nice to know a girl like Catherine Wilson was waiting for you to come home....

  He stubbed out his cigarette in one of the sand-filled canisters lining the wall.

  “That’s some great music they’re playing,” he tossed out, doing his best not to notice the sweet smell of her perfume. He didn’t believe in making a play for another guy’s girl. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a bastard.

  Catherine nodded, her dark blond hair swinging gently with the movement of her head. “I can’t believe I’m standing here listening to Harry James in person.”

  “Makes you feel like dancing, doesn’t it?”

  She gave him a sideways look, her clear blue eyes sharp and questioning.

  He felt a rush of blood redden his throat and cheeks. It was a safe bet he hadn’t blushed since he was eight years old, when the head of the orphanage caught him lobbing spitballs in church. “I’m pretty good at jitterbugging.”

  She grinned. “So am I.”

  He reached for her hand. “Let’s cut a rug then, Cathy.”

  What he really wanted was to hold her in his arms, but the music was jumping, and before long so were they. He loved the way her skirt twisted about her knees when he spun her out. He also loved the way her eyes sparkled as the tempo increased and they were almost flying with the music. He’d picked up a few tricky moves when he was down in Georgia, and Tom’s daughter managed to keep up with all of them—and show him a few in the bargain.

  “You are good,” she said, panting, as the music faded.

  He tugged his uniform jacket back into place. “So’re you.” The lights dimmed and a smoky romantic ballad swelled around them. “Want to go back on the floor?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, anyway, but I think I’ll sit this one out.”

  “‘Moonlight Serenade,’” he said. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “I know it doesn’t, Johnny, but I should see what my sister is up to.”

  He watched as she drifted back into the crowd. She was taller than many of the women there, and it wasn’t hard to keep her in sight as she threaded her way through the knots of servicemen and dancing couples jammed into the Canteen. She carried herself straight and proud, her bearing almost military.

  Shaking his head, he lit up another cigarette. Both of them were New York born and bred, but you’d never know it. The rough sound of his Brooklyn neighborhood flavored every word he uttered, while Catherine sounded as if she’d been brought up in some fancy Park Avenue apartment instead of a house in Queens.

  Class was a funny thing, he thought. You either had it or you didn’t. No doubt about it: Tom’s daughter Catherine had it in spades.

  Johnny grabbed himself a beer and raised it high in salute to her absent fiancé. Maybe he didn’t know the guy’s name, rank and serial number, but he knew something even more important: Catherine’s fiancé was one lucky man.

  * * *

  Back in Fores
t Hills, in a storefront on Continental Avenue, Catherine’s future was being decided.

  Stuart Froelich, Western Union supervisor, took off his wire glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then continued to paste the message together.

  We regret to inform you that your son, Private Douglas Weaver, died in battle 29 May 1943 in the Aleutian Islands.

  Being the bearer of bad news was rotten enough; bringing bad news to friends was more than he thought he could stand. His own daughter, Susan, had gone through school with Doug and his girlfriend Cathy Wilson. His photo albums were filled with snapshots of the three of them in school plays, at the junior prom, on graduation night.

  Dear God, he thought as he folded the telegram into an envelope. Give Edna and Les the strength they need to accept this.

  And help Cathy to get on with her life.

  * * *

  Tom’s friends were really a swell group. Dot thoroughly enjoyed listening to their stories about boot camp and how her husband had withstood their merciless teasing with remarkable good grace. It helped, this putting faces to the names of the men who would go into battle with the man she loved.

  “Gotta hand it to Tom,” said Johnny Danza as he waltzed her around the crowded dance floor. “We razzed him pretty bad about being the oldest recruit around, but he laughed along with the rest of us.”

  “That’s my Tom,” she said, tears welling up despite het easy laughter—He can take it as well as dish it out.”

  “A real nice guy,” said Johnny, shaking his head. “Don’t meet too many guys as nice as him these days.”

  I won’t cry! There will be plenty of time for tears once Tom leaves tomorrow. She swallowed hard and gently steered the conversation in a less emotionally dangerous direction. “I’m glad you and Tom will be together....” She hesitated. “Well, wherever it is you’ll be out there.”

  He nodded but said nothing, simply swept her into a more intricate pattern of dance on the floor. She could see the raw emotion on his strong-boned face, and she averted her gaze to afford him a private moment to recover himself. For all his toughness, Johnny Danza had a soft quality. It pleased her to see that, to know that her husband would be there with this young man, who perhaps would ease his way along the rough road ahead.