by Lynn Austin
“We had a radio, too,” Cynthia said, “but to be honest, I’d rather listen to Jack Benny or The Lux Radio Theater than the news. I’ve never been to the movies because my father is dead-set against them—because of our church, you know? Well, there weren’t any theaters in town, anyway, so it didn’t really matter. And we hardly ever went anyplace else. Coming here was the first time I ever rode on a bus.”
“That’s the only disappointing thing about Riverside,” Eleanor said. “No movie theaters. But I hear there are a couple in Bensenville. Maybe we can take a bus there sometime—unless you’re dead-set against movies, too.”
“No! I’m dying to see one!”
“Girls?” Mrs. Montgomery called up the stairs. “William can drive you now.”
“Thank you, ma’am. We’ll be right down,” Eleanor replied. She stood and slipped into her shoes. “Doesn’t it gripe your middle kidney when people call us girls? After all, I’ll be nineteen next month, for crying out loud.”
Chapter
14
Cynthia gritted her teeth and braced for more pain. “Hold still,” Eleanor commanded as she hovered over her with a pair of tweezers.
“Ouch!” The needle-like sting brought tears to Cynthia’s eyes. “Why does plucking out tiny little eyebrow hairs have to hurt so much?”
Eleanor leaned back to study her work. “Pain is the price you pay for beauty. Hold still again.”
“Maybe I’ll just stay homely.”
“You’re beautiful, Cynthia. I mean it. Look in the mirror. It never lies.”
If Cynthia looked closely, she could tell that she was the same old Cynthia beneath the layer of makeup. But if she squinted her eyes and looked at herself from a distance, the way you’d view a stranger, Cynthia saw that Eleanor was right. She had fair hair and perfect skin and beautiful features, not to mention a shapely body with curves in all the right places. She only lacked the confidence and grace to pull off the transformation from plain Cinderella to dazzling princess.
“I wish I didn’t walk like I just came in from the barn,” she complained.
“Practice walking with a book on your head,” Eleanor said. “It’s all a matter of attitude, you know. If you act cool, calm, and sophisticated long enough, you’ll start to believe it.”
Is that what Eleanor was doing? Cynthia didn’t know how to read her new friend, sometimes. She admired Eleanor and wanted to be like her— but was everything about her really an act? No, Cynthia was certain that Eleanor had grown up with wealth and privilege. It showed in her clothes.
But she rarely talked about herself and would change the subject if Cynthia started prying.
It hadn’t taken long for either of them to unpack once they’d retrieved their luggage from the bus station. Eleanor didn’t have a lot of clothes, but the ones she had were very nice, made from quality fabric in the latest styles. All of Cynthia’s clothes were homemade or purchased from the Sears catalogue.
They soon established a routine in their new life together, washing out their laundry in the sink in their room and hanging it to dry on the clothesline they’d rigged under the eaves. Eleanor was a fanatic with a clothes iron, making sure everything she wore was relentlessly well pressed.
“It doesn’t matter if your clothes are a little worn,” she told Cynthia.
“If they’re well pressed and your hair is clean and your shoes are shined, you’ll always look good.”
Eleanor seemed to know so much about fashions and manners—and not only how to dress and wear makeup but how to carry herself with style and poise. “How did you learn all these things?” Cynthia asked her. “Will you teach me?”
“I’d love to.” Eleanor had taken Cynthia to Brinkley’s Drugstore after they cashed their first paycheck and helped her pick out foundation, rouge, lipstick, and mascara.
“My father would have a fit if he could see me wearing all of this,” Cynthia said. But Eleanor had such good taste that Cynthia never felt overdone—just pretty… for the first time in her life. Eleanor trimmed Cynthia’s hair and taught her how to rinse it with hydrogen peroxide to lighten her natural honey shade to a ravishing blonde. They bought bobby pins, and Cynthia learned how to set her hair in pin curls.
In return, Cynthia did most of the cooking for the two of them, making bologna or egg salad or tuna sandwiches to pack in their lunch boxes and hot coffee for their thermoses. Eleanor had finally convinced Cynthia to ignore the rule about no cooking in their room. “Mrs. Montgomery is probably related to the guy who owns the diner across the street,” Eleanor said, “and she probably wants to drum up business for him. Everyone is related to everyone else in a small town like this one. But we’ll never save any money if we eat over there every night.” Their suppers were simple meals—beans and franks or Spam with pineapple or a can of Campbell’s soup.
Cynthia took great pride in their contributions to the war effort, donating their empty tin cans to the scrap metal drive and their used nylons to make parachutes. Since meat was among the rationed items, the girls did their part by eating at least one meatless meal a week—meatless Mondays—although many of their other meals were meatless, as well.
They would walk past the Valley Food Market on their way home from work every day and buy something for their supper that night and their lunch the next day. Eleanor always bought a newspaper, too, to keep up with the war. She had befriended the Montgomery’s hired hand, William, and he allowed her to sneak down to the basement when Mrs. Montgomery wasn’t around and use the funeral home’s refrigerator to keep their milk and other things cold. Cynthia marveled at how Eleanor charmed and befriended everyone she met and soon had them eating out of her hand. Cynthia wouldn’t have been surprised if Eleanor managed to crack Mrs. Montgomery’s tough veneer one of these days, too.
The work at Riverside Electronics turned out to be easier than Cynthia feared, much easier than a lot of so-called “women’s work,” like knitting socks and gloves or following a complicated dress pattern. Once she got the hang of wiring and soldering, Cynthia found the repetitious job boring. But the inspectors never rejected her work, or Eleanor’s, as second-rate.
“Tomacek would never admit it,” Eleanor whispered to her one day, “but I’ll bet we do a better job than the men did. Our nimble fingers can connect all these wires much better than their big, fat ones ever could.”
On weekends Cynthia and Eleanor took the bus to Bensenville to go to the movies. It didn’t take Cynthia long to push aside her guilt at enjoying this forbidden pleasure and become an avid fan of Clark Gable. As she glanced through the newspaper one evening, searching for the movie listings, she spotted the article about the USO.
“Hey, did you read this?” she asked Eleanor, who sat on the bed giving herself a pedicure. “They’re opening a hangout in Bensenville for all the servicemen who are stationed at the army base west of the city.”
“What kind of a hangout? A sleaze joint, no doubt?”
“No, it sounds very respectable. It’s run by a group called the United Service Organization, or USO for short. The YMCA and Salvation Army started it for homesick draftees. It says that these USO places have sprung up all across the country, near military bases and transit points. They try to boost morale by offering movies, dances, hot food, a place to write a letter home—that sort of thing.” She lowered the paper to see Eleanor’s reaction. She looked unimpressed.
“We should go,” Cynthia said. “I’m dying to meet a handsome serviceman.”
“What for?”
“Don’t you want a boyfriend?”
“Not particularly.” Eleanor blew on her freshly polished toenails to dry them. “I don’t need to be taken care of by a man like the women in my mother’s generation did. If I do become involved in a relationship, I want it to be as equals. I don’t ever want to be a housewife.”
“What else is there to do if you don’t have a husband and a house and kids?”
“Didn’t you ever hear of a career, Cynthia?”
“For women?” she asked in surprise. “I’ve heard of women being schoolteachers and nurses, but they’re usually women who haven’t found a husband yet—or who never do find one.”
“Some women find a career much more fulfilling than getting married,” Eleanor said with conviction.
“Well, I sure wouldn’t. I want every American woman’s dream—a home and a husband. As long as he isn’t a farmer, that is. All farmers are married to their land.” She paused for a moment, wondering if she dared to share what she was really thinking. “I’ll tell you the truth, Ellie, if you promise you won’t think less of me. … I want to marry a wealthy husband. I want to live in a beautiful, modern house and wear all the latest styles and have everything that money can buy.”
“You’ll be sorry. Rich men don’t have time to spend with their families. They’re always too busy making money.”
“Who cares? That’s better than having your husband around all the time and being poor.”
Eleanor stopped fussing with her nails and looked up at Cynthia, her expression serious. “I get the feeling you don’t know very much about men, do you? Did you date a lot of fellas in high school?”
“Are you kidding?” Cynthia laughed. “If my father was too strict to allow us to go to the movies, you can imagine what he thought about dating. I don’t think he and my mother ever kissed until the minister said, ‘You may kiss the bride’at their wedding. My high school was too small to hold dances and things. Besides, farm boys needed to work after school and on weekends, not run around with girls. I grew up in a family of five sisters, so what I know about men would fit on the head of a pin. I don’t even know how to dance.”
“I can teach you.”
“Really? You mean, teach me to dance or teach me about men?”
“Both.”
“That would be super! Then we can go to the USO dances together.”
“I don’t know about that. …”
“Why aren’t you keen to go, Eleanor?”
“Listen, those dances are going to be a bad deal for women. The GIs are going to be here today and gone tomorrow. But while they’re here, they’ll try to bamboozle everything they can from a woman. You can’t fall for any of their malarkey, because they won’t keep their promises. Some of those guys have a girl in every port and near every military base where they’ve been stationed—and they’ll swear undying love to all of them, just so they can have their own way.”
“Gee, you’re really down on men. They’re not all that bad, are they?”
“No. But there’s something wrong with the ones who aren’t. Listen, I’d hate to see someone as nai ve as you get hurt, that’s all. I have enough experience to know how to put my armor on. I’m pretty thick-skinned when it comes to men, but you would be easy prey for these guys.”
“Then come with me. Teach me what to do. Please?” It took a good bit of wheedling on Cynthia’s part, but she finally convinced her.
“All right, but let’s make a deal—we’ll only go on double dates with servicemen. It’ll be safer that way.”
True to her promise, Eleanor taught Cynthia to dance. She had used part of her first paycheck to buy a small radio for their room, spotting it in a department store window in Bensenville on their way to the movies one Saturday night. Every evening they would listen to dance-band music until bedtime, and Cynthia quickly learned all the latest steps. By the time the USO opened for business in Bensenville, Cynthia had been transformed from a plain, old-fashioned farm girl into a fashionable blonde who could tear up the dance floor. She felt great. Excited.
Eleanor was very pretty, too, slender and lively and animated, the kind of girl who lit up a room not because she was a ravishing beauty but because she was fun. When she and Cynthia went to their first dance at the USO, Eleanor didn’t openly flirt like most of the other women did. Instead, she seemed to always have her guard up, as if afraid of being hurt. Her manner said, “I’ll be your pal but that’s all.”
On the night that Cynthia met Rick Trent, Eleanor had chosen a table with a view of the door so she could get a good look at all the soldiers who came in and out. “Men do look handsome in a uniform,” Eleanor admitted. “I could watch them all night.”
“I sure wish I could meet a rich one,” Cynthia sighed.
“You’ll be sorry. The richer they are, the more they’ll lie to you.”
Cynthia studied her friend, never sure when she was serious and when she was pulling her leg. This time Eleanor looked serious. “Really? How do you know they’re all liars?”
“I just do. And I can spot a rich, prep-school boy a mile away.”
“Well, I can spot the country bumpkins a mile away,” Cynthia said. “After all, I grew up with enough of them. See those guys over there?” she asked, pointing to a leering, whispering group in the corner. “Farm boys— every one of them. They’re so nervous they need to chum together like Siamese quadruplets. They’ll laugh a lot to boost their courage, and the louder they laugh, the more inexperienced they are. They’re scared to death to ask a girl to dance because they don’t know how to go about it for one thing, and for another they know they’ll be shot down.”
Eleanor rested her chin on her hand, eyeing the farm boys appreciatively. “Some of them have pretty nice physiques, though.”
“Yeah—from tossing hay bales all day. All the muscles in the world can’t make up for a homely face, in my book. I’ll bet none of them has ever kissed a girl.”
Eleanor smiled wryly. “Have you ever been kissed, Cynthia?”
“With a dad as strict as mine? What do you think?” She didn’t need to ask Eleanor if she’d been kissed. Eleanor knew everything.
She had a wistful look on her face as she said, “They’re homely, Cynthia, but they’re probably very sweet. Girls won’t even look twice at my brother, Leonard, but he has a lot of great qualities.”
Cynthia had seen a picture of Leonard on Eleanor’s nightstand. He would need an awful lot of great qualities to attract Cynthia’s attention. Suddenly Eleanor tapped her arm.
“See that guy who just came in…? Filthy rich.”
“Do you know him?”
“No. I never saw him before in my life. But look at him. He’s strutting around like he owns the room and smiling like he’s God’s gift to women. If you danced with him you’ll discover that he has smooth hands.”
“You can see his hands from way over here?”
“No, but rich boys never do any work, so their hands are always smooth. Now, watch him carefully. You know how your bumpkins all hang together for moral support? Look at rich-boy. He doesn’t need moral support. He’s the lone wolf, trolling the field for innocent lambs. Those guys trailing behind him are just his hangers-on. They’re drawing courage from him, not the other way around. And see how well his uniform fits? He probably had it custom tailored. Only rich guys can afford that. Look how cocky he is. He’s looking around for the prettiest woman, confident that there isn’t a female in the room who would turn him down.”
“I know I wouldn’t,” Cynthia said with a sigh. The GI was unbelievably good-looking—tall and broad-shouldered with slender hips and sandy hair and dimples. Cynthia could find fault with every guy in the room— his ears stuck out or his nose was too big or his teeth were crooked or he was too short, too tall, too fat, too gangly. But like in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, this guy was just right. Cynthia still didn’t know too many movie stars’names, but he looked as though he could be one.
“And he’s got a really nice—what do you call it?—physique,” she told Eleanor.
“That comes from playing sports at prep school, not from real work. Act indifferent, Cynthia. He’s checking us out.”
“Really? Why is he doing that?”
“Because you’re a gorgeous blonde, that’s why. Here he comes.” Suddenly Eleanor laughed out loud as if Cynthia had just told a hilarious joke. She leaned close to Cynthia and whispered, “Don’t look like you’ve b
een waiting for him to arrive. Act like we’ve been having fun without him and he’s interrupting us. Don’t seem too eager.”
That wouldn’t be easy to do. Cynthia was very eager. Her heart was thumping, her palms sweating. She nodded her head at Eleanor and smiled, trying to remember that it was all an act.
“Care to share the joke, girls?” The handsome GI grabbed a chair and swung it around to straddle it, as if they’d saved that place at their table just for him.
“It’s too involved to explain,” Eleanor said, waving his question away. “And besides, we’re women, not girls.” She was always so composed. Cynthia envied her.
“My name’s Rick. Which one of you gorgeous dolls would like to dance with me first?”
“Cynthia will. I don’t know how to dance,” Eleanor said. Cynthia’s mouth fell open at her lie. Then she caught herself and quickly tried to hide her surprise.
“Really?” the GI asked Eleanor with a bemused grin. “A classy-looking doll like you can’t dance? Not even one step?”
“Nope. I was born with two left feet.”
“I could teach you.” He stood and held out his arms. His million-dollar smile displayed perfect teeth. Cynthia could almost hear Eleanor saying “That’s another way you can tell a rich boy—perfect teeth.”
“No thanks,” Eleanor said with a yawn. “Go ahead and dance with Cynthia.” She gestured to her, then turned away as if she had better things to do than talk to the handsomest GI in the room. Cynthia was so stunned by Eleanor’s rebuff that she couldn’t move a muscle. Eleanor kicked her beneath the table.
“Ouch! What…? ”
Rick turned to her and grabbed her hand. “All right—your loss is Cynthia’s gain. Besides, I’ll take a blonde over a brunette any day. Come on, gorgeous.” He pulled her to her feet and led her to the dance floor as if she were a new car he’d just purchased and had every right to drive. He was too confident, too possessive. Cynthia knew she was still a farm girl at heart, too new at this acting business. Rick scared her to death.