His Very Own Girl

by Carrie Lofty

  Dwelling on something so unalterable wasn’t her habit. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  What really got her game was that she’d closed her eyes when Joe had kissed her. She’d closed them and reveled in seeing only black, no hint of airplanes or crashes or terror. Only the flash fire of his kiss had existed, transforming his embrace into happiness and his body into her treasure.

  What was wrong with her? He was one of literally dozens of men with whom she’d shared time in the years since Robbie’s suicide. She’d allowed a few kisses, some more wrought-up than others, but none had affected her with the same ardency.

  She wanted to do it again.

  She stared down at where her hand rested on the sleeve of Joe’s uniform tunic. He was a soldier. He would leave soon. He would die, or he would return so irrevocably damaged as to become an entirely different man. She was volunteering for another colossal heartache if she spent any more time with him.

  “Show’s over.” His warm breath smoothed over her cheek.

  Lulu blinked. The screen had gone dark. “Sorry.”

  He wiped away a tear with the same consideration he’d shown when tidying her lipstick. “Quite an ending, wasn’t it?”

  It had been happy. That’s all she needed. With the gloom of real life, who needed to add fictional sorrows?

  The lights came up for intermission. Soldiers left their dames to find refreshment. Lulu’s back ached and her neck muscles were bunched into knots. The evening was abrading her emotions in ways she hadn’t anticipated, wearing through her reserves like steel wool rubbed across her inner wrist. All she’d wanted was a night out. Something fun and light after a hard week in the air.

  Ah, Paulie, what did we get me into?

  She only had to hold tight for another few hours, through the newsreels and the second feature. Then Joe would be out of her life. She could go back to aimless fun, new soldiers, and her date with destiny at Marston Moor. She could even crook her finger at Nicky. Had Lulu been in search of a man, he was the sane choice in an insane world.

  So when her traitorous heart and lonely body wanted more of Joe, she’d just tell them no. After four years of practice, she was good at that.

  “You want something to drink?” Joe asked. “I didn’t bring bottles, but I could do some scrounging.”

  Alcohol was simple enough to find, but the rationing of glass and tin meant occasionally providing one’s own means for carrying it.

  “No, don’t bother.”

  “Or maybe . . . you just want to get out of here?” His eyes were dark, clouded over with things unsaid. The passion was back. The heat. The surprising puzzle of him.

  “Why did you fight that lieutenant?” she heard herself asking.

  Joe flinched. Lulu swallowed the need to apologize and tell him to forget her unexpected question. Instead she laced her fingers in her lap.

  Exhaling slowly, he seemed to assess his own options, motives, and need for privacy. So little trust in these opening moments, she thought. She’d forgotten what it was to truly open up to a man. Having gone without for so long, she’d convinced herself that she didn’t miss it. Yet she did. She missed silly jokes and bumbled talks and those embarrassing moments of intimacy one only shared with a trusted partner.

  But what she missed was also what hurt the most when it ended.

  “Do you need to know?” he asked.

  She couldn’t find an answer that would satisfy her curiosity without sounding like a common scold. When the words didn’t materialize, she could only stare at his apprehensive face. Her question was spoiling their good time. She shivered then, her physical self demanding more than did her conscious mind. More of Joe.

  Soon the newsreels would begin. They’d see footage from all across the globe—the fighting, the fear, the simple monotony of making do. She didn’t want a lick of it.

  Although her knees wobbled as she stood, she forced them to shape up and fly right. Nothing about her rule had changed. She was merely stretching one night into two. That didn’t mean learning all there was to know about Joe. Chatting, dancing, kissing . . . no more was on her menu.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I do. And I don’t think I need to see the second feature.”

  Joe gave the building a once-over and frowned. The Henley Club practically glowed and glittered despite Leicester’s pervasive blackout, its music loud and its patrons spruced up real fine. But this place hunched into itself. Ratty wooden boards covered every window. The brick walls were so afflicted with moisture and tiny diffuse cracks that they leaned over, yearning toward the cobbled alley floor. A scrap of corrugated tin hung above the lone doorway. Macadam tar had been used to smear on the words The Night Owl.

  The only sign of life was not what Joe could see but what he could hear. From inside the dingy structure came the low and woeful sound of a single trumpet.

  Lulu knocked on the door, which was opened by a tall man who bore a remarkable resemblance to the building. His shoulders curved like the top of the letter C. He had no waist to speak of; the lines of his body extended straight from armpit to ankle. Maybe forty years old, maybe sixty, he wore a flat cap and a grizzled white beard. Patches of skin poked through where the hair on his cheeks had thinned.

  That they’d find some manner of diversion here was absurd.

  “Lulu,” Joe said. “Let’s go.”

  She ignored him and addressed the man in the doorway. “Allo, Banger, me old china! How’s your pretty young Dutch?”

  “Me turtle? Always on the dog. Should give her a good kick up the April.” He squinted at Joe. “Who’s the daft ranger, briney?”

  “Just a garden gate.”

  “But . . . he’s wooden.”

  “Aren’t they all these days?”

  The man scratched his beard and offered a smile that shone with genuine affection. “You, briney, always one for a Tufnell. Fancy a Vera?”

  “That’d be swell.”

  Lulu gave the man a heartfelt hug and slipped inside. Joe was left in the alley, dazed, completely lost. The ogre at the door motioned him inside. Wherever they were, whatever this place was . . . how bad could it be? At least there wouldn’t be a passel full of spit-shined officers giving him the evil eye every time he ordered a beer or talked with a dame.

  He followed Lulu into a vestibule at the base of a flight of stairs. A naked lightbulb hung down from a frayed electrical cord, illuminating her face like a gangster questioned by cops.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “Cockney rhyming slang. Banger’s from London, too.”

  “Did he call me wooden?”

  “That just means you’re an American. Wooden . . . wooden plank . . . Yank. He was being polite, actually.” She dipped her head closer as if ready to share a secret. “He could’ve called you a septic.”

  “Septic . . . as in tank?”

  “That’s right.”

  So not a secret then; a dirty joke. Joe grinned. “And proper London girls grow up talking that way?”

  “Who says I’m proper?”

  He let his eyes travel over her neat hairdo and precisely pressed uniform. “Everything about you, sweetheart.” Then he touched the gold-tone wings pinned to her left breast pocket. “Except for these, of course.”

  “Keeps me from being dull. Now, shall we up the apples and have a few kitchens?” Laughing at Joe’s confusion, she said, “Apples and pears—that’s the stairs. And what can you find in a bar that rhymes with kitchen sink?”

  “Drink?”

  She smiled broadly. “Just so, guv.”

  Still shaking his head, he followed Lulu up the stairs, appreciating his view of her slim, perfectly shaped calves as they climbed. The air became warmer, smokier, and the sound of that lonesome trumpet chiseled a place of sadness in Joe’s chest. It sang of a melancholy that hurt—hurt badly—but reminded him that he was still alive.

  The club was lit with gas lamps and a few more bare bulbs. The orange glow
tinted pale faces with an artificial tan and rendered dark faces nearly black. And there were many dark faces. As at the Henley, American men had turned out in abundance, but many were from Colored units. They mingled with white women, sitting at plain tables, sipping cocktails, and watching the trumpet player where he performed on a tiny round stage.

  Lulu touched his sleeve. “Are you all right?”

  “You could’ve warned me.”

  “What about? Oh.”

  Feeling conspicuous, Joe’s ears buzzed. Sweat gathered under his arms, which had nothing to do with the thick warmth inside the club. “You sure we belong here, Lulu?”

  “The first time I came here, I was convinced I’d wind up garroted in an alleyway. But there’s no quieter place in Leicester for drinks and music. What more could we want?”

  The heavy haze of cigarette smoke lay like a stringy cloud a few inches below the ceiling. “Just keep those kitchens coming.”

  Lulu dropped a quick kiss on the back of his hand. “Will do. You snag a table.”

  She wove around to the bar, which was no larger than a card table. By the time Joe found a place to sit and lit a Lucky Strike, she’d returned with a pair of gins. They edged closer together, their knees flirting. Onstage the trumpet player was joined by a man at the piano. A dame with nearly translucent skin, platinum hair, and a stunning chest stood at the microphone and crooned “My Funny Valentine.” Her husky, melodic voice perfectly complemented the mournful trumpet and brooding piano.

  Joe took a drink and relaxed. He’d never imagined such a place. It sure was something else.

  “We can leave if you like.” Unlike at the Henley, they could speak normally and still be heard.

  Joe shook his head and offered a rueful smile. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Good. This place just took me by surprise. There’s no harm in folks having a rum time of things.”

  “You seemed uncomfortable.”

  “You don’t see much of this sort of fraternizing back in the States,” he said, waving a hand toward the dance floor. “If you did, you’d leave jackrabbit quick because a fight was sure to follow. It was like that in Georgia. Any Colored man, even a soldier—he’d nod the wrong way at a white woman and a dozen guys would line up to hand him his head. I didn’t expect things could be so peaceful.”

  “Is Georgia home, then?”

  “Nah, that was just for basic. I’m from North Shore, Indiana. Originally.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The town or the state?”

  She laughed softly, nothing more than a huff of breath. “Both.”

  The toe of her shoe brushed his pant leg. It wasn’t an invitation—probably just an accident. But Joe seized on any return to contact.

  “Somewhere in the middle,” he said, framing her face.

  He shifted closer and eased into her space. Just as at the movie palace, he moved so slowly that she could deny him at any time. Instead Lulu exhaled softly just before their mouths touched. He took the sound into himself, as if her anticipation was something he could touch.

  Their kiss was gentle. Her lips were warm, smooth, firm. Their tongues touched tentatively at first, then with more power. She moaned softly. Her fingers threaded into the cropped hair at his nape. The air in his lungs turned sultry. She was the promise of a fire, light and heat—heat enough to char him to cinders.

  Joe broke the kiss and dragged in a shaky breath. He still held her face in his hands. He flexed his thumbs to stroke the rounded tops of her cheeks. “Can I take you out next Friday?”

  Lulu scooted away. Reflexively she touched her hair and smoothed loose strands back into place. She needed well more than a moment, but the reprieve helped calm her raging body.

  “I don’t date soldiers,” she said quickly, as if her desire to have this conversation over and done with could make it happen.

  Joe’s eyes were a funny shade of mud beneath the club’s orange-tinted lighting, but no less intense. Despite his outward calm—that special talent of his—he seemed eager to etch himself onto her brain. Don’t worry, she thought. That’s already been done.

  “Do you date?”

  “I have no policy against it, per se,” she said.

  “Just not soldiers.”

  “Or airmen or seamen.”

  He snubbed out his cigarette. “Then what’s your policy toward us?”

  “One evening only, I’m afraid.”

  The hitch in her voice didn’t sound very convincing. But she considered herself quite lucky to be speaking at all. More natural and more powerful than what they’d shared in the cinema, she still felt their kiss down to her fingers and toes. He had sparked off her restlessness. She wanted to go back to the first time she’d seen him. She’d spit in his face, claw at him, and make such a terrible impression that he’d never spare a backward glance . . . let alone kiss her as if she’d been the answer to every question.

  Perhaps the crash had affected her more than she wanted to admit. For the first time in months, possibly years, she was greedy. The urge to know him better became akin to Turkish Delight or a fine vintage Bordeaux: luxuries she craved but couldn’t have. The droning sacrifices of the war made her desperate for a taste of the forbidden.

  “Why so cruel?” he asked.

  That reckless feeling made her honest. And honesty felt good. “Chaps in uniform are very pretty, but you have a nasty habit of never returning. For various reasons.”

  “You’ve lost someone.” He still held her hand. She would’ve thought the touch friendly, almost innocent, if it hadn’t made her shiver. “Haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know a person who hasn’t lost someone, with no exception for you.” She knew she’d hit a nerve, because he made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “After all, why else would you volunteer to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?”

  “So you think all of us paratroopers are off our nuts?”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps only those who fistfight with superior officers.”

  The lines around his mouth tightened. “I only finished what he started.”

  Unwilling to revisit the topic—one that skirted too near the intimate details she wished to avoid—Lulu did the only thing she could. She pushed her chair back and stood, sliding her hands over the wrinkles that crisscrossed the lap of her skirt. “Dance with me?”

  Joe swigged his gin. His hand, when it touched hers, was hot along the palm but cool where his fingertips had held the tumbler. Again Lulu was amazed by his height, by the breadth of his shoulders, by how forcefully his presence contrasted with his unassuming nature. Only once had his face reflected the power and ferocious potential of his body, on that night at the Henley when he’d mashed Lt. Dixon. She wondered how much of his calm guise was designed to conceal that angry fighter.

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, then clamped his lips. Soon he’d tugged her through a maze of chairs and wooden tabletops crowded with glasses and deep scuffs. As the blues trio started a languid version of “Now Is the Hour,” she laid her cheek against his chest and released a shuddering sigh. Joe’s arm circled her upper back. His heart beat against her temple like a drummer who wanted to add an impatient rhythm to their slow, close bodies.

  “You can write to me,” she said.

  “Doing your patriotic duty?”

  “How can I not? I’ve met a great many soldiers in these last few years.”

  “And airmen and seamen.”

  “Don’t tease.”

  “How many do you have?” The question sounded casual, but his arms had tightened.

  “On near twenty, I suppose. On and off. Here and there. I’m much more consistent in replying than they are.”

  Eyes she knew to be green glittered almost black, hooded by his tense brow. The extreme lighting made his face appear harder, more exaggerated, from the blockish cut of his jaw to high cheekbones that stood out like high moun
tain ridges. She wanted to slide her fingertips along his late-day stubble—stubble that had smarted and scratched as they’d kissed.

  Heat welled beneath Lulu’s breastbone. When was the last time she’d been this near to a man, this tied into his space and his scent and his feel? When had she last been so eager to soak him up before he vanished? She couldn’t recall its like. Not even with Robbie had she felt this way. With Robbie, she’d thought they would love perpetually. Nowadays time distilled to hours, minutes, moments. She grasped at them like a kitten after a butterfly, a wild creature with no hope of capturing what it desired.

  Their knees kept bumping together, so Lulu adjusted her legs to alternate with his. One muscular male thigh pressed against her groin and she melted. What she’d denied herself for ages now triggered decadent thoughts. She and Robbie had been fumbling young lovers, hoping not to get caught. What would it be like with Joe? How would this soldier touch her and fill her?

  “And if the letters stop coming?” he murmured.

  “Then I assume they’ve found a sweet girl and have no more need for me.”

  “Better that way.”

  He had extraordinary eyes, really, so very clear. He even managed to keep his sexual interest tamed—none of the slavering some men displayed. An efficient dancer, he moved her around the diminutive dance floor with a strong, yet respectful, hold.

  But deep in her gut, she knew he wasn’t as easy as he seemed. Too much shimmered and bubbled just below his tranquil surface. It took all her restraint not to dive in and explore.

  “I’ll write to you,” he said at last.

  Lulu nodded once, then closed her eyes and kept dancing.

  chapter seven

  Upon touching down at the No. 4 Ferry Pilots’ Pool at Prestwick, Lulu tucked her Ferry Pilots’ Notes in her boot, grabbed her gear, and climbed out of a C-47. Rain flattened her hair and plinked against the tarmac. After three days at RAF Kinloss on a Priority 1, Wait, she was happy to have flown at all, no matter the weather.

  A crewman met her with a clipboard and a disbelieving smile. “Didn’t expect to see anyone else this afternoon,” he said, his Glaswegian accent revealing him as a local boy.