by Sarah Sundin
Mellie pushed herself to her feet. Her knees wobbled and her head swam. She pushed the door open. The ladies sat on the floor of the dayroom in a triangle, playing cards in hand.
“There you are,” Rose said. “Good. We need a fourth.”
Georgie peered at Mellie. “Honey, are you all right?”
Her mouth opened and closed, grasping for words. “How . . . could . . . you?”
“What?” Georgie scrambled to her feet. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“I heard you.” Her breath sucked in. “Outside. Every word.”
“What do you mean?” Rose asked, her voice fake.
Mellie crossed fisted arms over her roiling stomach. “How could you? How could you talk about me like that? About Tom?”
“We were just . . .” Georgie’s eyes turned into Blue Willow saucers. “We want to help you. We’re your friends.”
A bark of a laugh. “Friends? Do friends gossip about each other?”
“We didn’t—”
“I told you all that in confidence. My letters, Ernest, Tom. You had no right to tell Kay. That’s mine to tell.”
Kay huffed and slapped down her cards. “Oh, that’s really nice, girls.”
Her words ran a righteous thread of steel into Mellie’s anger. “How many other people have you told? Vera? Alice? Lieutenant Lambert? Why not track down Tom and tell him?”
Rose’s face contorted. “We wouldn’t do that.”
“How do I know?” Mellie’s vision blurred. “How do I know that? You’re like every woman I’ve ever known—fickle, mean little gossips.”
“Wait a minute,” Rose said. “That’s not fair.”
“Sure, it is.” Mellie kicked at the pile of cards on the floor. “You played games with my heart, dealt out my secrets in exchange for popularity.”
“Mellie . . .” Georgie wiped tears from her face.
But Mellie let hers flow, her Purple Heart. Wounded in action. “You talk about me to Kay. You talk about Kay to me. You talk about Vera and Alice. You pass around secrets behind people’s backs. How would you like it if people talked about your secrets?”
“Why don’t you sit and calm yourself down?” Rose patted the ground. Her face stretched long, and her freckles stood out.
Something hardened in Mellie’s heart. “Why? Afraid I’ll tell your secrets?”
“Mellie . . .” Georgie’s voice wavered.
Pain and fire coursed through her soul, and a primitive, irresistible urge burned inside. To return pain with pain. “Friends? You told me friends don’t keep secrets. You made me bare my heart, but you keep secrets from each other.”
Rose’s face turned white. “No, we don’t.”
“Is that right?” Mellie turned to Georgie. “Want to tell her the truth? That you don’t want to be here? That you never wanted to leave Virginia? Not for Alaska and certainly not for Africa.”
“Mellie!” Tears streaked down Georgie’s bright pink cheeks.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rose said. “She wanted to come.”
Georgie’s face scrunched up, and she glared at Mellie. “How could you?”
“What?” Rose stared up at Georgie. “You wanted to come.”
Her shoulders sank. “I wanted to be with you.”
“You said—”
“You were so excited. I can overcome a little fear to be with my best friend. You need me.”
Rose pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “What? You think I can’t get along without you?”
“We need each other, honey. And you wanted me to come.”
A wedge in Mellie’s throat tried to block off poisonous words, but she dislodged it. “Now I know why. I know why she wanted you to come.”
“Because we’re friends.” Georgie spat out her words. “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“And you two don’t know anything about each other. For heaven’s sake, you’re smack-dab in the middle of a love triangle, and you don’t even know it.”
“A love triangle? What on earth are you talking about?”
Rose’s eyes turned to cold, dark stones. “How dare you?”
Mellie’s words spilled in a poisonous puddle, and she stepped back instinctively. Her fingers groped in front of her, but the words, the venom, couldn’t be retracted. What had she done?
“Dare what?” Georgie looked down at Rose, who didn’t break her murderous glare at Mellie.
She held her breath as the pool rose around her, green and noxious.
Georgie’s gaze darted about. “Ward?” she whispered.
Rose’s mouth pursed, and air puffed from her nostrils.
“What?” Georgie’s voice broke into a dozen pieces. “That’s ridiculous. You’re not in love with Ward.”
Rose tossed back her hair and sniffed. “Of course not. He’s yours.” But the snap in her tone told the truth.
Mellie gasped from the pain. She’d hurt them as they’d hurt her. So where was the pleasure? Where was the satisfaction?
“Ward?” Georgie asked. “You’re in love with Ward? How could you?”
Rose got to her feet and brushed off her trousers. “Nonsense. It’s just a childhood crush. I’m getting over it.”
“You’re in love with my boyfriend? How could you do that to me?”
Rose crossed her arms and stamped her foot. “It’s not like I did it on purpose. I’m getting over it. And I’d never get between you.”
“Never?” Georgie stepped closer, her arms in stiff poles by her sides. “You dragged me out here, dragged me away from him. You think he’ll forget me, don’t you?”
“Nonsense. I did no such thing.”
“Some friend you are.” Georgie whirled around and ran out the front door, averting her gaze from Mellie.
“Georgie, wait!” Rose followed, passed Mellie, and shoved her to the side.
Mellie stumbled but didn’t fall.
“Thanks a million, Philomela.” Rose strode outside and banged the door behind her.
Mellie rubbed her sore shoulder and stared at the floor. Fifty-two cards lay strewn before her, the wreckage of friendships and hearts and confidences.
“Well, well, well.”
Mellie startled and glanced at Kay. She’d forgotten she was in the room.
Kay got to her feet and walked over, her head inclined. “So, you think women are mean and fickle?”
Mellie snapped a nod.
Kay patted Mellie’s cheek. Or was it a slap? “Congratulations. You’re one of us.”
The door slammed again as Kay left.
Mellie’s hips, her knees, her ankles gave way, and she sank to the floor, her stomach churning. She was just like the others.
24
Youks-les-Bains Airfield
April 8, 1943
“Sesame, want some dinner?” Tom held out a cube of Spam.
Sesame sat on his haunches and lifted one paw.
In the officers’ club tent, a dozen officers gathered around Tom murmured their approval. Men from the 908th, fighter pilots, and C-47 crewmen formed an audience for the debut of Sesame’s new routine.
Tom fed the Spam to the dog. “Want some beef stew from the mess?”
Sesame lay down and flopped one paw over his nose.
The men laughed.
Rudy Scaglione, the battalion transportation officer, slapped his knee. “This from a dog who eats rats.”
Tom waited for the laughter to recede, motioned for Sesame to sit up again, and paused to let the anticipation build.
One of the C-47 pilots, Roger Cooper, beat a drum roll on the table with drumsticks and grinned at Tom.
He held up a K ration tin. “Sesame, want some hash?”
The little dog flopped to the ground, rolled onto his back, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. Dead.
Lubricated by beer, the men roared with laughter. Cooper beat out a rimshot and whacked the lantern overhead, a substitute cymbal.
“Take a bow, Ses.” Tom sat on a
camp stool by the table and fed the dog more Spam.
Sesame turned in a circle twice and curled up behind Tom’s stool.
“Did you hear we got the Jerries trapped?” Scaglione said.
“Yeah.” Clint Peters, Cooper’s navigator, took a swig of beer. “Time for the final push.”
Tom nodded. The U.S. II Corps had broken out of El Guettar in southern Tunisia. Yesterday they linked with Gen. Bernard Montgomery’s British Eighth Army, which had driven the Germans across Egypt and Libya. “You fellows will be busy, won’t you?”
Cooper ran his hand through his dark red hair. “We’re always busy, not like these glamour boys in their Cadillacs.” He nodded to a trio of fighter pilots but with a good-natured smile.
“You’re just jealous ’cause you’re stuck in a dump truck of a plane.”
Peters leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “You’re just jealous ’cause we carry passengers of the feminine persuasion.”
Tom chuckled. The rivalries between bomber, fighter, and cargo pilots never ended.
“Say, Coop.” Peters tapped his pilot on the arm with the back of his hand. “Speaking of the gals, where are they?”
Tom tensed but kept his smile fixed. The gals had to be the flight nurses. The cargo planes had landed too late in the day for the return flight, so the entire bunch had an RON—Remain Overnight. Tom swirled his cup of coffee to get the grit back in solution. Please, Lord, don’t let Mellie be here. Can’t stop thinking about her.
Cooper sipped his coffee. “I hope they don’t come. Women are nothing but trouble.”
One of the fighter pilots let out a long low whistle. “What pretty little troubles they are.”
Three women stood in the entrance to the tent, wearing the blue trouser uniforms of the flight nurses. Not Mellie, thank goodness, but a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead. Any one of them alone would cause a stir, but together . . . ?
The men cheered, whistled, and made catcalls.
Tom stayed silent, as did Cooper, and they exchanged a look. Cooper must have had bad experiences with women. Tom had none.
“Boys! Boys!” the brunette called out until the men quieted. “I don’t hear any music, do you, Alice?”
“How can we dance without music?” The blonde pressed one finger to her cheek, but Tom had a hunch she wasn’t as dumb as she was trying to look.
The redhead swept a flirtatious look over the men. “And I want to dance.”
A whoop rang out, and several of the men dashed to the record player “liberated” from some Frenchman in the early days of the occupation. Soon, Louis Armstrong crooned “I’m in the Mood for Love” from a scratched record.
The brunette raised her hand. “Line up, boys. Everyone gets one dance, no more.”
“I’ll take less,” Cooper grumbled. “Nothing but trouble.”
One of the fighter pilots gulped some beer, wiped his mouth, and got to his feet. “I’m in the mood for trouble.”
“There’s Rose.” Peters darted through the queuing crowd to the side of another blonde, who looked thrilled and relieved to see him.
Tom downed his coffee. Time to go. His audience had dispersed, and he didn’t dance. At high school dances he entertained the wallflowers on the sidelines, but there wouldn’t be any wallflowers tonight.
A petite curly-haired brunette stepped into the tent. She fiddled with her hands, and her gaze hopped around the tent. She and Rose glowered at each other.
Tom blew out a breath. She might need rescue, but he really wanted to leave.
Before he could take another breath, half a dozen men surrounded her.
“Good.” Tom drained the last drops of coffee from his canteen cup, nestled it back in its pouch under his canteen, and got to his feet.
Then Mellie Blake came in, and Tom sagged back onto the stool. He needed to leave. He loved Annie. If he spent time with Mellie, he’d feel disloyal to her.
Another woman held Mellie’s arm. A nurse with silver first lieutenant’s bars on her shoulders, the chief nurse, most likely.
Mellie’s brow bunched up. She said something to the chief, but the chief pointed into the tent and issued an order.
Tom leaned forward, but he couldn’t make out the words over the music and crowd. All he knew was Mellie did not want to be there, and her CO made her stay.
The chief tapped her watch, gave Mellie a stern look, and left her alone. Very alone.
No crowd surrounded her. No friends pulled her into their group. And Tom felt her loneliness in his gut.
Her chin down, she glanced around, probably looking for a friendly face or a seat.
Tom’s muscles went taut, but she didn’t meet his eye.
“Found my target.” At a table to Tom’s left, Martin Quincy pointed his beer bottle toward Mellie.
“Her?” An officer Tom didn’t know pointed his bottle at the other gals. “Those three—they’re the lookers.”
“Exactly. With those dames, I’ll get one dance, not even a kiss. I don’t stand a chance. But with her, a few dances, a little sweet talk. She’ll be grateful. You know what dames are like when they’re grateful.”
The pilot laughed. “You’re in like Flynn.”
“Betcha five bucks I’m the only man in this outfit gets action tonight.” Quincy stood and set down his bottle.
Tom found himself on his feet. He strode across the tent, a few paces behind the other platoon leader.
Quincy pulled up beside Mellie. She inched to the side and glanced at her watch.
“This song,” Quincy said. “‘And the Angels Sing.’ They’re playing it for you, angel-face.”
Tom closed the gap. “Say, Mellie, there you are.”
She looked up, startled, and her lips parted. “Oh. Tom. Hi.”
Quincy loomed closer, and Mellie glanced at the big oaf.
“Good to see you,” Tom said. “How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you for a while.”
Mellie’s gaze bounced between the men. Her eyes widened, and then she turned a bright smile to Tom. “I’m fine. It’s good to see you too.”
“Why don’t we catch up? Want some coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
“Let’s get you some.” Tom held out his arm for Mellie, and he nodded to Quincy. “See you later.”
Quincy’s lip curled, he spread out empty hands, and he mouthed a curse.
Tom would pay later, but it was worth it. He led Mellie across the tent to the makeshift bar. Her little hand rested in the crook of his elbow, the warmth seeping through the olive drab wool of his shirt.
“What was that about?” she said in a low voice. “Is he bad news?”
“I’ll say. Pearl Harbor bad news. Crash of the stock market bad news. Pirates losing to the Cubs bad news.”
She laughed, a trill of a birdsong. Then she turned a serious face to Tom. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He dipped his cup into the five-gallon bucket of brewed coffee and wiped it with his handkerchief. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” She stared into the cup. “Listen, I appreciate what you did, but you don’t have to stick around. That wouldn’t be fair.”
Fair? Where was the take-charge nurse he’d met a few weeks before? “I’ll tell you what isn’t fair—your chief making you stay.”
Her gaze popped up to him. “You saw that?”
“How long is she making you stay?”
A flicker of a smile. “An hour.”
“How long do you have left?”
“Um . . .” A glance at her wrist. “Fifty-four minutes.”
Tom motioned to the table he’d sat at earlier. “I’m not the best-looking fellow in the room, but I can introduce you to someone.”
Mellie’s mouth sagged open. “I—I don’t want to meet anyone.”
“You’ll want to meet this fellow.” He took her arm—stiff as pierced steel planking—and led her to the table, where Sesame lay behind his stool. Tom squatted. “Isn’t he the handsomest fellow?�
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Mellie laughed and knelt beside Tom. “Oh, he is. Is this—what’s his name?”
“Sesame. He’s my dog.”
At the sound of his name, Sesame opened his brown eyes, lifted his head, and thumped his coiled tail.
Mellie smiled, reached out a tentative hand, and rubbed Sesame behind the ears. “How cute.”
“He’s the best.” Tom stood and pulled out a camp stool for Mellie. Fifty-two minutes to go. What was he doing? This woman intrigued him too much. He wasn’t being fair to Annie.
Mellie took her seat and turned worried eyes to Tom. “I have to apologize. For what I said when we met. About your father. I had no right to make assumptions.”
Tom raised half a smile. “Don’t apologize. Sure, I was shocked, but not the way you think. You see . . .” He scanned the table. Nothing to pick up and fiddle with. Instead he leaned his elbows on the table. “You see, everyone thinks my father was a monster. You’re the first person I’ve met who realizes he was human.”
“Of course.”
Tom kneaded the muscles around his elbow, sore from today’s job. “They expect me to hate him. But he was my dad. I loved him. I wanted to be like him.” He let out a little laugh. “Now that’s my worst fear.”
Mellie frowned at the cup. “I know we just met, but I can’t imagine that happening.”
“Thanks.” His voice came out too thick. He had to change the subject and fast. “Where are you from?”
She gave him a blank look as if she didn’t know the answer. “Um . . . California. And you—you’re from California too, aren’t you?”
“When I was little, but we moved to Pittsburgh. My mom’s family lives there. She thought they’d help, but they didn’t want anything to do with us.”
“Oh dear. That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, but some of her friends stood by her. They found her a job and a little house to rent, so we were okay.”
“What’s she like, your mother?” Mellie sipped some coffee, her gaze on Tom.
“She’s the best.” He grinned, pulled out his wallet, and slipped out a snapshot.