by Jane Healey
The crowd went wild as the musicians took the stage, and Harry and Viv were clapping and cheering. Even Harry’s parents looked starstruck.
“I cannot believe they’re here,” Viv said, laughing. “At our wedding.”
“Are you surprised?” I said as I hugged her.
“Are you kidding? In a million years, I never thought they’d be available.”
Dottie was the last to take the stage when the entire band was assembled, and the crowd went crazy cheering for her, especially all of us from Group F. Dottie adjusted her glasses, smiled, and waved.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’d like to dedicate this first song to one of my best friends and her new husband on their wedding day. Viv and Harry, this one’s for you.”
Viv and Harry took to the dance floor as Dottie began to sing “It Had to Be You.”
I caught Peter looking at me and planted a kiss on his cheek. Viv motioned for the bridal party to join them on the dance floor, so I took his hand and we walked out.
“What do you keep smiling at?” I said to Peter, his arms on my waist as we moved to the music.
“Being here with you,” he said, taking a deep breath and pulling me closer. “After everything. I can barely believe how lucky I am.”
“I know,” I said. “And now it’s on to Berlin.”
“Together,” he said, kissing my hair. “Finally.”
We danced and then dined, and Dottie sang her heart out as the late-afternoon sun gave way to night. The band took a break, and I spotted Dottie heading out to the courtyard for some air. I kissed Peter and told him I’d be right back as I walked outside to bring her a glass of champagne. The courtyard was vast and breathtaking with an ornate black-and-white tile floor and small iron tables lit with tea-light candles that lined the perimeter. It was decorated with hundreds of oversized vases of blush-pink peonies and yellow roses as well as ornate green topiaries. The candles and the soft glow from the hotel room windows above made it all look like a modern Parisian fairyland.
Viv had already beaten me to her, and she and Dottie were sitting at a table at the far end of the courtyard, sipping champagne.
“Are you both okay?” I said.
“I just needed a few seconds to catch my breath from it all,” Viv said, putting her feet up on an empty chair.
“Same here,” Dottie said.
“The life of a famous singer,” I said, teasing her.
“Oh please.” Dottie rolled her eyes.
“This is officially the best night of my life,” Viv said. Tonight there was no cool exterior; she had not stopped smiling. “And the band . . . I still can’t believe it. Thank you both.”
“It was Fiona’s idea actually,” Dottie said. “I was afraid to ask at first, sure they’d say no. I’m so glad we pulled it off.”
“I figured they wouldn’t disappoint their new soloist,” I said.
“It also helped that they were already going to be here in Paris,” Dottie said.
“I love you girls,” Viv said. “Thank you for doing this with me.”
“It’s your wedding—of course,” Dottie said.
“No, I meant thank you for joining the Red Cross with me,” Viv said. “It’s been hard and crazy and unconventional . . . but also amazing. I still can’t believe this is my life now.”
“I know,” I said in a soft voice, gazing up at the stars. “Look at us. Look at where we are. Did you ever imagine?”
Dottie shook her head, her eyes shiny with happy tears as we took in the beauty of the courtyard.
“I’m going to miss you both so much,” Viv said. “Please promise me you’ll visit London as often as you can?”
“And you Berlin?”
We all agreed to do our best, but it was with the bittersweetness of us all going our separate ways and making promises that we weren’t sure we could keep.
“Cheers to you and Harry,” I said, clinking glasses with both of them.
“And to us, Group F, and our dear Cheyenne,” Dottie said.
“And to doughnuts . . . no, forget it, not to doughnuts. I hated making those damn doughnuts,” Viv said.
“Like we couldn’t tell,” I said, as we clinked our glasses together one last time.
We sat for a little while longer, laughing and sipping champagne among the fragrant flowers in the courtyard of the Hotel George V, enjoying each other and the warm summer night air in the City of Lights.
Historical Notes
The Beantown Girls is a work of fiction, but much of it is based on the true stories of the real Red Cross Clubmobile girls that served in the European Theater of Operations in World War II. It was enormously helpful that many of the Red Cross Clubmobile girls happened to be fantastic writers, who documented their experiences in meticulous and thoughtful ways. I used their writings, as well as archived videotaped interviews and a few invaluable books written by the women, or someone close to them. I am once again grateful to the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University for their assistance in this project and for the many boxes of well-preserved Red Cross Clubmobile diaries, letters, pictures, and other archived materials of these amazing women. A huge thank-you to my friend and research assistant Sara Brandon for her valuable help in my research efforts.
For those curious about which items are fact versus fiction, here are a few notes regarding the story:
The secret Glenn Miller concert at De Montfort Hall in Leicester, England, in September 1944 was a real event and a thrill for the Clubmobile girls that attended. Glenn Miller performed these concerts for the troops all over the European Theater. Sadly, the plane he was flying in did disappear over the English Channel in December 1944.
The army’s Eighty-Second Airborne and Twenty-Eighth Infantry Divisions figure prominently in the story, and I tried to be as historically accurate as possible in terms of both the timeline and the experiences of the incredibly brave men that were part of these military divisions in Europe at that time.
As for Fiona, Viv, and Dottie, there was a Clubmobile crew that got trapped in Vielsalm, Belgium, during the early days of what would become the Battle of the Bulge. My narrative of this, as well as their escape and the saving of the Christmas mail, is all based on true stories. Several of the Clubmobile girls involved in these events received Bronze Stars.
The Christmas Eve story of American soldiers meeting lost German soldiers at a German family’s cottage in the woods during the Battle of the Bulge is also based on a true story that I discovered. It appeared on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries in 1995 when the “boy” from the cottage was looking for the American soldiers from that night. There were no Red Cross Clubmobile girls there that evening, but I thought it was such a captivating story and fit well with The Beantown Girls’ narrative, so I placed Fiona, Viv, and Dottie in the middle of it.
The stories of the Allied POWs that were forced to march hundreds of miles from the Stalag Luft IV POW camp is all based on heart-wrenching historical accounts. The Red Cross Clubmobile girls helped in the liberation of thousands of POWs in the ETO in 1945, and that part of the story is all based on the real Clubmobile girls’ accounts of their experiences.
The Red Cross and US military did take over hotels in the South of France for soldiers and Red Cross workers to take leave at the close of the war in Europe.
The Red Cross Clubmobile girls were featured in LIFE magazine in February 1944, but none of them were on the cover.
Acknowledgments
Writing a story is such a solitary process, but delivering this novel to the world required a multitude of people, and I am so grateful to all of them.
To Danielle Marshall, my acquiring editor at Lake Union Publishing, thank you so much for helping to make another dream come true for me. So happy you are at the Lake Union helm!
To Alicia Clancy, my primary editor at Lake Union, I’m very grateful for your thoughtful feedback and steady hand in managing the whole editorial process. It was so lovely working with you, and I hope to again.<
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To Faith Black Ross, my developmental editor, what a joy it was to work with you for the second time. Your meticulous and insightful feedback makes me a better writer in every way, thank you.
To the amazing copyediting team: production manager Nicole Pomeroy and copyeditor Lindsey Alexander and to the proofreaders—you are the unsung heroes of publishing, and I could not be more grateful for your hard work and expertise.
To Gabe Dumpit and the entire Lake Union marketing team—a million thanks for everything you do to support me and all Lake Union authors.
A huge thank-you to my agent, Mark Gottlieb, for all of your help and support.
My writing community is amazing, and I am grateful for the many friends that help make this endeavor less lonely. To my fellow Lake Union authors—what an incredible tribe that I am fortunate to be a part of, and I was so happy to finally meet some of you in person this year.
To my local writer friends Susanna Baird, Jennifer Gentile, and Julie Gregori Cremins—our talks about writing are like therapy to me. Thank you for helping to keep me sane.
One of the best parts of the past couple of years has been meeting so many of the fantastic people who promote books and help get them into the hands of readers. I am so grateful to all of them. A huge thank-you to Andrea Peskind Katz—you are an author champion like no other, and I am so appreciative of everything you do for me and all authors. Suzanne Weinstein Leopold—thank you so much for your support and your friendship. To Dick Haley of Haley Booksellers, thank you for helping me connect with readers all over Massachusetts. To book lovers and promoters like Linda Zagon, Barbara Khan, Trina Burgermeister, Kristy Barret, Tamara Welch, Athena Kaye, and Lauren Margolin—authors and readers are so lucky to have you in their lives, thank you for all that you do.
To the many New England librarians who have been such amazing supporters from the start, thank you. Your help and support means so much to this local girl.
Thank you to my parents, Tom and Beth Healey—for everything you do to support me and our family, and for being my number one fans in writing and in life. To my daughters, Madeleine and Ellie—you inspire me every single day and will always be my biggest accomplishments.
None of this would be possible without my husband, Charlie Ungashick. Thank you for helping me find the time and space to write, even if that means ordering a lot of takeout meals! Before I had even published a single magazine article, you always pushed me to think bigger and aim higher with my writing goals. Thank you for never doubting these dreams could come true. My favorite story is ours.
About the Author
Photo © 2018 Sharona Jacobs
Jane Healey left a career in high tech to become a freelance writer. Her passion for historical fiction became her new career when her debut novel, The Saturday Evening Girls Club, was published in 2017. Based on the true story of a group of Jewish and Italian immigrant women in Boston’s North End at the turn of the twentieth century, the Amazon bestseller was hailed by Redbook as “a breathtaking ode to female empowerment and the American dream.”
With the release of The Beantown Girls, she continues to fulfill her dream of writing about lesser-known stories of women in American history.
She shares a home north of Boston with her husband, two daughters, and two cats, and when she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, running, cooking, and going to the beach.
For more information about the author or to schedule a book club visit, please go to www.janehealey.com.