The train was late. Frank checked the board: On time.
Liars. Ten minutes late already. Fifteen. Twenty.
In the distance, a train snaked in from the yards. Tracks crisscrossed. He held his breath as the train pulled into track 8. “Helen!” he shouted, jogging backward, peering in at the crowded shapes. He waved wildly, even though he couldn’t see her.
The train hissed to a stop and began coughing out passengers. He tried to stand his ground in the middle of the platform, where he could see all exits. A man in a suit came off first, and Frank wondered how he’d gotten out of military service. Two soldiers stepped down and were grabbed by a couple of women waiting for them. An older woman, a child at either side clinging to her, stepped off the train and squinted left, then right.
Where was Helen? She should have gotten off the train by now.
A minute passed, and nobody else got off. Nobody.
Please don’t back out on me. Grabbing his packages, Frank pushed up the steps, past the conductor.
“Hey, soldier! Last stop. Everybody out.” The burly conductor nodded to the track.
“I’ll be right back.” He ran down the corridor and through the next car and the next. They were empty. Helen wasn’t there.
He should have known. It was too good to be true. She was too good to be true. Maybe if he hadn’t pressed so hard . . . if they’d had more time together . . .
His knees felt weak as he stepped back down to the platform.
“Frankie!”
He looked up and saw her, his Helen, running toward him.
Frank dropped the packages and swept her off her feet. He twirled her in his arms and kissed her. “You came!”
“You goose, of course I came!” She kissed him back. “I fell asleep. Can you believe it? Well, I was up all night. Then I got off the train, and you weren’t there. And I thought—”
He kissed her again. She was here in his arms.
And that was all that mattered.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
“Walter! Over here!” Helen waved as the black sedan pulled to the station loading zone.
Sarah, sophisticated and lovely as always, waved back. Years ago, Sarah had been a hosiery model for a nylon stockings company down South. Her legs had been pictured in magazines all across the country. Helen’s mother thought it was scandalous, but Helen considered it pure glamour. This morning Helen had used her eyebrow pencil to draw a stocking seam up the backs of her bare calves. She hadn’t seen silks in months.
The car stopped close to the curb, and the window rolled down. Sarah held one gloved hand over her hat, a furry pillbox with a tiny net. “Why, sugar!” she exclaimed in her Tennessee drawl. “Will you just look at y’all? You’re beautiful! I’d say being a fiancée agrees with you. Come give me a kiss.”
Helen leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. The scent of French cologne brought back memories from nurse’s training, when Sarah would breeze into the dorm and kidnap her sister-in-law to take her shopping, always Sarah’s treat.
“Wait till you meet Frank, Sarah!” Helen turned to make the introductions, but Frank was loading their luggage into the trunk. He and Walter were already laughing and shaking hands. She’d known they would like each other. Dashing back to them, she laughed too, then looped her arm through Frank’s and stood on tiptoes to kiss her brother. “Thank you, Walter! Thanks for everything.”
“Sarah loves this stuff,” Walter said. “She’d fix up a wedding for her worst enemy.”
Walter drove too fast, turning the Chicago haze into a blur through Helen’s window. Minutes later, they were walking around the giant stone cathedral to the chapel in back. Helen had gone to church with Walter and Sarah a number of times, but she’d never been in the chapel. Tiny red flowers lined the sidewalk, and thick-trunked trees bowed over a steepled annex.
“Three minutes!” Walt took the lead, and Sarah fell back with Helen.
“It’s a shame your mama and daddy couldn’t be here. They must feel just awful.”
“It was pretty short notice.” Helen didn’t add that her mother hadn’t sounded filled with regret when she’d given her regrets. She still hadn’t heard from Dad.
“That’s the war for you.” Sarah turned to Frank. “And your mama and daddy couldn’t make it either? Helen said your father’s still in the Army?”
Frank gave Sarah his warm smile, but Helen thought there might be a hint of sadness behind it. “Reserves. He trains medics, and Mother volunteers for the Red Cross. They couldn’t get away.”
“I understand, sugar,” Sarah said, clearly not understanding.
“Time!” Walter pointed to his watch and held the chapel door open. Music flowed out, a lone piano playing the wedding march.
As it turned out, the wedding assembly line was running late. They watched a private in uniform stroll down the aisle with a girl in white who looked younger than Vin, Helen’s little sister. Helen thought how swell it would have been to have her sisters here, but she shoved the thought away.
The next wedding was Navy all the way, with the groom and four best men decked in Navy duds. The bride, however, wore a real wedding gown, high-necked, with old-fashioned lace.
Then Helen remembered. “I have to go to the car!”
“What?” Frank looked worried.
“Walter, give me the keys!”
“It can wait, can’t it?” Sarah begged. “Y’all are up next.”
“Keys!” she demanded, holding out her hand.
Walter ran to the parking lot with her. “Is this your way of getting out of marrying him? There’s still hope with Ray, you know.”
“Walter Eberhart! Open that trunk.” She didn’t know if he was kidding or not. Walt had really liked Ray and the fact that his little sister would have had a great house and all the money she’d ever need. He didn’t know Frank from Adam.
Do I?
The thought struck her as if slapped to her forehead. Her feet kept moving, but the world stopped spinning. How well did she know Frank? What would married life be like after the war? Did he really want to live somewhere hot like Miami? They hadn’t talked about that.
Are you out of your mind? Helen had always considered herself sensible. Was this sensible? Marriages were crumbling all around her, and war marriages were the worst.
“Helen?” Walter stared at her, the trunk of the car wide open.
She could get into this car right now. Tell Walt to drive her anywhere she wanted . . .
She wanted Frank. She loved him more than anything. And so what if they hadn’t known each other very long? She knew all she needed to know about the love of her life. Didn’t she?
“Right!” Helen dove into her duffel bag and came out with the treasures from her boys. The tiny mirror fit in her pocket with the hankie. Walt fastened her braided necklace around her neck. But those blue socks . . .
“Don’t tell me you’re wearing those.” Walt frowned at the socks dangling from her hand. “Sarah will have heart failure.”
“I don’t think they’d fit under my shoes. Come on! I’ll think of something.”
The crooked grin on Frank’s face when she came back into the chapel made her laugh out loud. She kissed him. “You didn’t think I’d run out on you, did you?” she teased.
“Couldn’t blame you if you had, I suppose. But I’m glad you thought better of making your getaway.” He took her hand.
The pastor waved them up as the pianist began banging out the wedding march for the umpteenth time, debunking the myth that practice makes perfect. Frank laced Helen’s arm through his and whispered, “Ready?”
The socks! “Almost!” She stuck the woolly blue socks into his pocket. “Don’t ask.”
They walked the short aisle together, with Sarah and Walt behind them. Helen wondered how many couples had walked this very aisle today, this week, this month. Were they all insane to be marrying with a war going on, knowing they’d be starting their lives together apart? Maybe so. But at this mo
ment, right now, she didn’t care how many insane couples had walked this aisle. She was glad to be one of them, proud to be part of this testament that life would go on after the war. They would go on.
Sarah threw rice as Helen and Frank made a dash for the car.
“Are you going to let your sister-in-law do that to your wife?” Helen challenged, picking grains of rice out of her hair as they settled into the backseat of Walt’s big Ford.
“You don’t like rice, Mrs. Daley? I do.” Frank grinned. “I do. Those are two pretty great words. I like the way you said them in there.”
“Do you?” They kissed, husband and wife.
In the front seat, Sarah snuggled closer to her husband. “Walter, honey, we’re late for the reception. Off to the Blackhawk!”
The Blackhawk’s private dining room was the height of elegance, with a gorgeous chandelier and a waterfall in one corner. Helen and Frank slid into a curved booth at the edge of the little dance floor, and the waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne.
“We ordered prime rib and potatoes,” Sarah said, “because, of course, the order had to be placed ahead of time.”
“Prime rib?” Frank glanced at Helen, as if checking to see if Sarah was serious. Helen shrugged.
“Y’all only get married once, you know,” Sarah said.
“You better only get married once,” Walt added, narrowing his eyes at Frank.
Frank put his arm around Helen’s shoulders. “Once will do.”
A waiter appeared with a giant bowl of lettuce greens, nestled on top of crushed ice. With a flair, he waved salad tongs as a girl in a black vest set down individual bowls. “To your greens,” the waiter began, his French accent thick, “I add fresh romaine and a hint of sweet onion, finely minced.” He kept the bowl spinning as he narrated his every move, slicing in tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and cheese, twirling knives and tongs with a magician’s flair.
While they ate their salads and waited for dinner, Frank thanked Walt and Sarah a dozen times. They talked about everything—Percy Jones, Helen’s “boys” there, Frank’s disease ward. Sarah quizzed him about his family, and Frank asked them for Eberhart news.
“Our brothers don’t say much in their letters,” Walt complained. “Except for Wilbur, who says too much. His letters come with half the words cut out and the others marked out in black. Clarence sends Mom postcards from the Pacific like he’s on vacation. He was laid up with some disease for a couple of weeks, but he’s okay now. Bud sent me one of those little voice recordings. Have you seen those?”
Helen shook her head.
“It’s like a record, but small and a horrible sound, although you can tell it’s Bud.”
“Has anyone heard from Eugene?” Helen asked. “He sent me a sweet letter and congratulated me, but it was so short. Nothing at all about him.”
“No!” Sarah said. “And I know your poor mother worries about him.”
So she wasn’t the only one, then. Helen said a silent prayer for Eugene and tried not to worry, not tonight.
Sarah changed the subject so smoothly, while keeping the conversation flowing and making sure everyone had what they needed. Helen hoped she’d be half the hostess—and half the wife—Sarah was.
Walt took Sarah’s hand. “M’lady, may I have this dance?”
Frank followed suit, and he and Helen took to the dance floor.
“Sorry,” he said, when they bumped feet. “I know you love to dance. I will too, now that I have you to hold.”
“We’ll have lots of time for me to show you some fancy steps.” She nestled her head on his chest. “But for now, this is swell.”
The meal was a celebration, filled with insider Eberhart stories that Frank graciously laughed at. Helen was only half listening to her brother’s version of the day “little Helen” saved their mother from bleeding to death in the garden when the waiter came out carrying a three-layered wedding cake, topped with an Army groom and bride and a tiny American flag. The music switched abruptly to “It Had to Be You.”
“Oh, Sarah. How on earth did you manage this?” Helen asked.
Sarah clapped her hands. “Isn’t that topper just too much! I found it at Marshall Field’s. I’ll hang on to it until y’all get back from this dreadful war.”
This dreadful war.
Helen laughed along with Sarah and cut the cake with Frank’s hands covering hers and making a mess of the job. But she couldn’t get the words out of her head. The whole day had been an enchanted dream. What would happen when the dream ended, when she and her new husband went to opposite ends of the world? What would happen to them in this dreadful war?
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Frank knew he’d never be able to repay Walter and Sarah. They were fantastic. But he wanted Helen to himself. He whispered in her ear, “We should get going, sweetheart.”
“We can’t be rude, Frankie.”
Frank would do anything for Helen, but every last drop of patience had drained from him. “It’s okay to be rude on your wedding night. Only not to each other,” he added quickly. “Walter, Sarah, we’ll never be able to thank you enough. Everything was perfect. But . . . well—”
“How about a nightcap, Frank?” Walter asked. “We only live thirty minutes away, and we have a pool table. Do you play pool?”
“Well . . .”
“Then it’s settled,” Walter said. “What do you think, Frank? Best two out of three?”
“That’s . . . uh . . . nice of you, Walt. It’s just . . .” He stared at Helen, willing her to jump in.
“Walter Eberhart!” Sarah scolded, elbowing her husband. “You quit teasing this dear boy right this minute!” She turned her gracious smile on Frank. “Now, we’ll get y’all to the Palmer House. Express, no stops.”
Frank felt like a dupe. It wasn’t often that he was the one who got had. “I’ll take a rain check on that pool game.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Walter said.
Frank shifted his weight from one foot to the other as they waited for their turn to check in at the Palmer House. The hotel lobby was even more glamorous than the Blackhawk. Velvet and satin couches stretched over thick rugs, with crystal chandeliers everywhere. Half of the people in the lobby wore uniforms, most of them Army. The other half, in black tuxedos and sequined gowns, looked like they inhabited another world, this world.
Finally, he and Helen moved up to the counter. As he struggled with all the bags, Frank didn’t miss the fish-eye the well-dressed hotel clerk gave Helen. “May I help you?”
“Lieutenant and Mrs. Frank Daley. We have a reservation for three nights. The honeymoon suite.” He felt his cheeks flush and didn’t risk a glance at Helen.
The clerk raised his eyebrows.
Frank wasn’t sure if the guy didn’t believe him, didn’t approve of Army marriages, or couldn’t find the reservation. “Is there a problem?”
“Not exactly. You’re checked into the honeymoon suite for one night.”
“But we booked three nights!” Helen protested.
“This is true. But our new policy is to provide each couple with one night so that we may better serve the members of our armed forces.”
“What are we supposed to do tomorrow?” Frank demanded.
“You are booked into the Drake or the Edgewater tomorrow night, depending on availability. You’ll be quite well taken care of, I assure you. Mr. Eberhart has seen to everything.” He handed over a brass key with a metal plaque that said 501 and pointed to the winding staircase. “Next?”
Frank balanced his bags under his arms, with a duffel bag in each hand, and headed for the staircase.
“Let me take some of that,” Helen offered, reaching for her bag.
“Not on your life.” He tried not to let on how heavy the load was, but by the time they reached their suite, he couldn’t hide the fact that he was out of breath. He dropped the bags and fumbled with the key. “There.” He pushed the door open.
“Golly!” Helen peeked
in at the palatial room that looked like a mini lobby, with its own couch and table by a window covered in lace and silk striped curtains. Helen started to go in, but he stopped her.
“I believe this is how it’s done.” Frank swooped his bride into his arms and carried her across the threshold. She was lighter than the bags and much softer. They kissed before he put her down and brought in the bags.
“What a room!” Helen twirled, then dashed over to her duffel bag. “And I thought women were the ones who brought too much stuff. What could you have in all those bags?”
Frank grinned. “You’ll find out.”
The room had its own bathroom, and Helen took her duffel in with her, while Frank unpacked his bags. His plan had been to give Helen a gift each night, but he couldn’t wait. He set out the cookie jar from the guys. Then he opened the package from Walt—a bottle of schnapps. Frank had never tasted schnapps, and he had no desire to do so. But he set the bottle on the bedside table in case Helen had a secret love for the stuff. There must be a million things he didn’t know about his wife. For a second, he stopped unpacking and let that thought race through his brain. Did his wife drink? Did she smoke? Did she like animals? Children? Baseball?
He shook it off. They’d have a lifetime to get to know each other, wouldn’t they? He pulled out the gift he’d spotted in a shop window in Galesburg. The minute he saw it, he’d known he had to get it for Helen. It hadn’t even been for sale, just a stuffed dog decoration in a furniture display. He’d talked the store’s owner into selling him the shaggy black dog, which might have been a Scotty.
He set their “pet” on the bed and got out his last gift, yellow silk pajamas. Not real silk, but they looked like the ones Betty Grable and Lana Turner wore in the picture shows. He’d had to borrow money from Dotty to pay for them, although his sister said not to worry about paying him back, that it would be her wedding gift. Frank had no idea what size Helen was, so he’d sized up the shopgirl and asked for two sizes smaller.
Frank sat on the foot of the bed and stared at the door to the bathroom. “I’m still out here, in case you wondered!”
With Love, Wherever You Are Page 14