A Woman's Place

by Lynn Austin

  “It does smell awfully good.”

  “Sit down, then. Hang up his coat for him, Jean. I hope you bought more oleo-margarine, because we’re o-u-t. Boys! Supper!” Patty yelled. The two older boys thundered out to the kitchen and climbed onto their chairs, glancing shyly at Earl. “Billy, Jr. and Kenny, say hello to Mr. Seaborn. He’s your Aunt Jeannie’s boss.” Neither boy spoke nor moved.

  “We should have company more often,” Jean said. “Maybe we’d get a little peace and quiet at the dinner table.” The peace was short-lived. Earl liked kids, and Jean’s nephews quickly warmed up to him, especially after he produced a nickel for each of them from behind their ears.

  “They miss their father,” Patty said. “Bill used to roll around on the floor and wrestle with them.”

  “How long has your husband been away?”

  “It will be a year in January since he enlisted. He signed up right after the baby was born, a week after Pearl Harbor. He was home on furlough in June before sailing overseas to England. Now he’s in Algeria. At the rate this war is going, he won’t recognize his own kids by the time it’s over.”

  “Will you make a snowman with us?” Kenny asked Earl.

  “I’d love to,” Earl said. “But we’ll have to wait until there’s a little more snow on the ground, okay?”

  Jean recalled that Russ hadn’t wanted Patty or her children around, then wished she could stop comparing him with Earl. There was no logical reason for it.

  “What’s wrong with your hand?” Billy, Jr. asked.

  “Hey! Don’t be rude,” Patty chided.

  Earl smiled. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.” He looked right at Billy when he answered him, treating him like a person. “I caught a disease called polio when I was younger, and it made the muscles in my hand and leg weak.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not at all.”

  Only on the inside, Jean thought.

  Earl turned out to be a gracious, attentive dinner guest, giving Patty a chance to talk and laugh and relax. Jean knew it was what her sister needed, and she felt guilty for avoiding Patty and the kids so much.

  “Let me help with the dishes,” Earl volunteered when they’d emptied the soup pot and Patty had excused the boys from the table.

  “I’ll take you up on your offer the next time you come to dinner,” Patty said. “My guests always get the night off the first time they eat here.”

  “Are you sure I can’t help?”

  “Positive.”

  “And you’d better get going before you get snowed in,” Jean said, peering out of the kitchen window. Earl came and stood beside her, gazing out into the darkness where the steadily falling snow was visible in the headlights of passing cars. Jean had the unsettling feeling that he had stood close to her on purpose. Even more unsettling, she liked having him near her. “Aren’t your groceries still in your car?” she asked. “They’re going to freeze.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” he said, turning away. “I’d better go. Thanks for giving me a little taste of home, Patty. I enjoyed the dinner, the kids, your company. I needed this. See you tomorrow, Jean.”

  She filled the sink with soapy water after Earl left and began washing the dishes while Patty scrubbed pea soup from the baby’s face and his high chair.

  “He likes you, you know,” Patty said. “It’s pretty obvious.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Right. That’s why he looks at you with eyes like melting chocolate.”

  “He knows all about Russ. In fact, Earl let Russ sleep on his sofa when he was here—after you kicked him out.”

  “Must be nice to have two guys falling for you. And you don’t have to worry about either one of them going off to fight in the war.”

  “Listen, Patty. I don’t want Earl falling for me. But how can I discourage him without hurting his feelings? You were no help, by the way, inviting him to dinner.”

  “Why don’t you like him? Is it because he’s a cripple?”

  “No, of course not!” She set a bowl on the drain board with a loud clatter. “Earl is a very nice guy who’ll make some lucky woman a wonderful husband. But it isn’t going to be me. For one thing, he’s too old for me. And for another, I already have a boyfriend.”

  “Russell the Muscle,” Patty said sarcastically. She raised her arm and flexed her biceps like a weight lifter. “Are you sure you’re not just a teeny bit put off by Earl’s deformities?” she asked, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

  “Of course not! They’re barely noticeable. But please, Patty, tell me how I can discourage him.”

  “I can’t advise you because, frankly, I don’t think you should discourage him. He seems like a very nice man—unlike Russ Benson, who couldn’t wait to banish the boys and me from his presence so he could get you alone.”

  “Russ and I hadn’t seen each other in months.”

  “And remember what a gentleman Earl was to escort Rosa home the night she got so drunk? He could have taken advantage of her, you know. A lesser man certainly would have.”

  Jean could have added the fact that Earl had gallantly confronted Mr. Mitchell for Ginny’s sake. “I already admitted he’s a nice guy,” she said, “but I’m just not interested in him. Please don’t invite him to dinner or anything else, okay? I certainly don’t need him over here on the weekends making snowmen.”

  “Okay …” Patty said with a shrug, “but it’s your loss.” Jean was beginning to wonder if she was right.

  PART TWO

  1943

  “Use it up,

  Wear it out,

  Make it do,

  Or do without.”

  (WARTIME POSTER)

  CHAPTER 15

  February 1943

  “President Roosevelt submitted a budget of $109 billion dollars to the U.S. Congress, calling for 125,000 new planes, 75,000 new tanks, and 35,000 anti-aircraft guns to be manufactured in the coming year.”

  * Helen *

  Helen started up her father’s huge old car in the parking lot at the shipyard, revving the engine to warm it. Rosa Voorhees slid into the front seat beside her while Virginia Mitchell and Jean Erickson climbed into the backseat, slamming the heavy doors. Working in the shipyard had been a drastic change for Helen, but she never imagined all of the other changes her new job would trigger. She was breaking all of the rules she had adhered to over the years and becoming more and more involved in her co-workers’ lives. How had this happened? Why hadn’t she kept her usual, safe distance?

  It was one thing for Rosa, Jean, and Ginny to become close friends over the last six months, but how had she allowed herself to become so entangled? Here they were in her car—in her life! Who knew that an innocent gesture on her part would lead to this? Helen had overheard Ginny making baby-sitting arrangements for her boys during Christmas vacation and had silently cheered. Harold Mitchell would have one less excuse to force his wife to quit working. But another problem had immediately surfaced.

  “I’ll have to figure out how to get them over to Patty’s house before work every morning,” Ginny had said. “We only have the one car—and I wouldn’t know how to drive it even if Harold did let me take it. I wish winter hadn’t come so early this year. It makes waiting at the bus stop such a problem, and the boys can’t ride their bicycles—”

  “I’ll drive the boys for you,” Helen had found herself saying. The other three women looked at her in surprise. “Well, I have to drag that monstrous car out every morning anyway, and you don’t live very far from me, Ginny. I could drop your children off and pick up Jean—if you would like a ride, too, Jean.”

  “Yes, thank you,” Jean said. “And Rosa lives right around the corner from me.”

  “Of course,” Helen said, stifling a sigh. “Why not Rosa, too?” Helen had been shuttling everyone to and from work ever since. With cold winter weather settling in, it had seemed only natural to continue driving after the Christmas vacation.

  H
elen put the car into gear, pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street, and listened to the other women talk about the men they loved. As always, she thought of Jimmy Bernard.

  “Why do relationships with men have to be so complicated?” Jean was saying. “It’s so hard to know what to do. Russell keeps pressuring me to get a job closer to home, and I don’t know what to tell him. I got another letter from him yesterday, and I can tell he’s losing patience with me.”

  “I’m the wrong person to ask,” Ginny said. “I can’t make up my own mind half the time. But do you love him?”

  “I’m not sure. How do you know for certain that you’re in love?”

  “Oh, you’ll know it when you feel it,” Rosa said. She swung around on the front seat to face them. “It’s like you’re only half alive when he isn’t with you, and when he is with you, you feel so happy you could just explode. When I’m with Dirk, I can hardly breathe sometimes.”

  Helen recalled feeling that way, but the memory brought sadness, not joy.

  “I felt like I couldn’t breathe once or twice the weekend Russ was here,” Jean said, “but I don’t think it was what you mean, Rosa. To tell you the truth, I felt a little … claustrophobic. He wanted to swallow me up, and I wanted to keep part of me for myself. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes, I know exactly what you mean,” Ginny said. “That was one of the reasons I needed to take this job—so the real me wouldn’t get swallowed up. But I also feel the way Rosa does. I love Harold so much it scares me sometimes. I couldn’t live without him. That’s why I worry so much that he’ll find another woman. But even if you do love your boyfriend, Jean, he shouldn’t consume you to the point where you lose yourself.”

  “Albert would have swallowed me whole,” Helen said. She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until Rosa turned to her in surprise and said, “I thought the guy you loved was named Jimmy?”

  Oh dear. Helen had done it again. She simply had to curb this embarrassing habit of speaking her thoughts out loud. She took a moment to brake at a stop sign, looking both ways for cars, then accelerated through the intersection. But she could only delay answering for just so long. They were all looking at her, waiting. Of course Helen would have to explain herself.

  “The man I loved was named Jimmy. Albert was the man my father wanted me to marry, but …”

  “But you didn’t love him?” Rosa finished.

  “No,” Helen said quietly. “No, I didn’t.” They waited, as if expecting more, but Helen had said everything she was going to say.

  “I really don’t want to move back home,” Jean said after a moment. “I want to stay here and work at the shipyard. But I like Russell an awful lot and I don’t want to lose him. It’s such a hard choice. How will I know if I’ve made the right one?”

  “Sometimes you don’t know until it’s too late,” Helen said.

  “And that’s the problem,” Jean continued. “I don’t want to find out too late. I know that when we do get married someday, Russ is supposed to be the boss—”

  “Who says?” Rosa interrupted. “Why does the man get to be boss?”

  “Well, for one thing it’s what the Bible says,” Jean told her.

  “Oh, the Bible.” Rosa’s tone was sarcastic. “I could’ve guessed. Hey, hasn’t anybody figured out that the Bible is way out of date? Dirk’s father is always reading it at the dinner table, going on and on about donkeys and lost sheep and cloaks, and a bunch of other stuff nobody cares about. The world has changed, you know. None of us have sheep or donkeys anymore. And who in their right mind wears a cloak? But Wolter Voorhees still makes sure that everybody follows the same old rules. He’s head of the household, and don’t you forget it.”

  “The husband is the family’s leader,” Jean insisted, “but he’s not supposed to dominate everybody. I mean, Roosevelt is the leader of our country, but he’s not a brutal dictator like Adolf Hitler, is he? The Bible says a husband should love his wife and give his life for her. I think it’s similar to the way my sister Patty’s husband, and your Dirk, and my twin brother, John, are risking their lives to save the people they love.”

  “But that’s what’s causing the problem in my case,” Ginny said. “Harold honestly believes he is saving me. He says the shipyard is no place for a woman because the work is too dangerous and the men use coarse language and so on.”

  “Ha!” Rosa huffed. “With all the racket going on in there, who can hear anything at all—let alone coarse language?”

  “Harold Mitchell needs to give up his old-fashioned ways of thinking,” Helen found herself saying. She could no longer remain quiet. “His reasons sound more like excuses to me. He’s probably afraid you’ll discover new things about yourself by working.”

  “I already have,” Ginny said. “I’ve learned that I’m stronger than I thought I was. Smarter than I thought, too,” she added with a smile.

  “As for your decision, Jean,” Helen continued, “you’re the one who has to live with it every day. If you choose the job that you honestly think is best for you, your young man should want the same thing for you, shouldn’t he?” Helen pulled the car to a halt in front of Jean’s house, and she turned around in the driver’s seat to face her.

  “Yeah, I know you’re right,” Jean said as she opened the rear door. “It’s just so hard to explain these things to Russ in a letter. I can tell when he writes back to me that he doesn’t get what I’m saying. Anyway … thanks for the ride. See you all tomorrow.”

  As Helen drove the few short blocks to drop off Rosa, she thought about Jimmy Bernard again, and she suddenly remembered how convinced he had been that he was acting in Helen’s best interests. It was so easy to give advice to others, she thought. So hard to see things clearly when love interfered with reason.

  After Rosa said good-bye and got out of the car, Helen made her way across town to Ginny’s house, driving by instinct, barely aware of what she was doing as her thoughts took her back to the past. She pulled into the Mitchells’ driveway a few minutes later, wondering how many stop signs she had inadvertently cruised through.

  “Helen, I just want to say how much I appreciate your wisdom,” Ginny said as she climbed from the car. “I’ve learned so much from you these past months.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. The only thing Helen knew was that she’d been a fool for allowing herself to get involved in the other women’s lives. And they were even bigger fools for heeding any advice she had to offer after the mess she’d made of her own life.

  She pulled out of Ginny’s driveway again and headed downtown to the bank. Minnie’s granddaughter was coming to clean the mansion on Saturday, and Helen needed some cash to pay her. But as she drove past the town library and saw the quaint stone building blanketed in snow, her vision suddenly grew blurry with tears. She pulled into a parking space at the curb, unable to drive any farther. What was happening to her?

  The other women were to blame, she thought as she fished in her pocket for a handkerchief. Hearing them talk of love and choices had brought the past to life for Helen. And then seeing the library where she had once worked, covered in snow like a cottage in a fairy tale … She blew her nose, wishing she could roll back time and make a different choice.

  Helen remembered the aching restlessness she’d felt after graduating from Vassar College and returning home to Stockton. She saw the same symptoms in Rosa Voorhees and knew that if she had been raised the way Rosa had, Helen likely would have lived the same bohemian lifestyle that Rosa did. But Helen was a Kimball, with duties to her parents and to the community. Working as a librarian was one of them. It was a respectable job for a young woman of means and easily acquired when Helen’s father donated money to the building fund.

  Her father had other plans for Helen, as well, including her courtship with Albert Jenkins. Albert had arrived at one of the many elegant dinner parties her parents hosted, back when the house had been staffed with servants, and he quickly became a regular fixture. T
he son of one of the bank’s partners, Albert was well-mannered, affable, intelligent. He had traveled abroad and, unlike Jimmy, had a university degree and an affluent, pedigreed family. He was a third or fourth cousin of Helen’s mother, who seemed to adore him far more than Helen did. If anyone had bothered to ask, Helen would have described Albert as tame, bland, and boring.

  She had limited experience with men, having attended a women’s college, and had no one with whom to compare Albert except Jimmy Bernard. But whenever Helen did, it was like comparing a calico house cat to a Bengal tiger, a candle to a bolt of lightning.

  It hadn’t taken Helen long to realize that what little independence she had in life would be quickly swallowed up by her marriage to Albert Jenkins. Her future would be all about his work, his life, his climb up the ladder of success. Her role would be to help him ascend, to be the woman behind the man. The world would view her as Mrs. Albert Jenkins, never Helen. But her parents expected her to marry Albert, so she proceeded down that path in proper, boring fashion, too closely bound to the Kimball family tree to protest.

  Then one snowy February evening, Jimmy Bernard walked back into Helen’s life. She had been working alone on the only evening that the library was open when she’d heard the front door creak open, felt a gust of cold air, and heard someone stomping snow off his boots. She looked up from her desk to face Jimmy. She was so surprised that she stood up without knowing why, then found that her knees were too weak to support her and promptly sat down again.

  “Helen Kimball,” he said with a look of awe. “I do believe you’re even more beautiful than the last time I saw you.”

  Jimmy was no longer a boy but a handsome, dynamic man, so alive and vigorous that his body seemed too insufficient to contain all of him. If he had leaped over her desk and pulled her into his arms, she never would have let go of him again. There were no two ways about it; she was still in love with him.

  “Jimmy …” she murmured. “W-what are you doing here?” A slow smile spread across his face.