Christmas Once Again

by Jina Bacarr

  ‘You’ve been walking with me for ten minutes up and down the train platform with every soldier and sailor giving you the eye and you ignore them. And you haven’t once mentioned your beau. Your secret beau,’ she emphasizes, her eyes darting everywhere.

  ‘You don’t believe me about Jeff marrying me, do you?’ I can’t suppress a cold shudder running through me as I utter those words. Knowing it didn’t happen and doing my best not to give myself away.

  ‘Nope. See you around, Kate.’

  Then she’s off, waving to a smiling Marine munching on a sandwich and a donut at the same time. I can’t see his face clearly with his cap pulled down low, but I have no doubt he’s handsome. I see him pointing at me and asking questions. My little sister looks peeved. I’m worried about her. If there’s one thing I don’t want to change, it’s her meeting Jimmie and marrying him. Whatever they fought about is real enough in Lucy’s eyes to ask me to come home, but I have no doubt they’re meant for each other no matter what.

  A thought occurs to me. What if I don’t get back to my own time? What will happen to Lucy? I must admit it’s overwhelming, trying to live both in the past and the future. How will I get back after I save Jeff? Or is that part of the deal? That I stay here?

  It’s too much for me. I can’t take it in all at once. All I know is I have to find Jeff and live every moment I can with him. Because it will have to last me the rest of my life if I can’t change the future.

  I wander up and down the train platform, planning my next move. I love every minute of what I see. Ladies and girls waving handkerchiefs and carrying baskets of food for the soldiers piling off the train or hanging out the windows for the ten-minute stop. I see the porters loading luggage, the mail clerks heaving great sacks into the freight car. Letters from men in the middle of the fighting, letters from wives and mothers and sweethearts sending them a snapshot photo. It’s the most thrilling thing I’ve witnessed. A country at war. Showing strength and support for our boys.

  I let the tears well up. I can’t help it. I don’t know if I’m crying for the boys shipping out or because I’m home. Both, I guess. Two very different emotions pulling at me so hard, I don’t know which end is up. There’s so much I want to do, see, and oh, God, I want to grab Ma by her apron strings and take refuge in her arms. Tell her I love her. Get Pop to open up more with me. Hug my brother, Frank Junior, already taller than me and tell him to keep his head down in the future. Do I dare believe I can save him, too?

  I look at every face, hoping somehow Jeff is here at the station, helping out the volunteers with lifting the big pots of coffee and checking the schedule with the railroad workers.

  He used to like chatting with the soldiers. Hearing their stories, giving them encouragement, telling them his mill was ready to supply them with the writing paper they needed to send their letters home to their sweethearts and their families when they were overseas. He was aching to get into uniform, but he couldn’t immediately. Not while the mill was running at full steam twenty-four hours a day, every day except Sunday, turning out war materials for the fight. Running the family business wasn’t his calling, he told me more than once. Serving his country was. But for now, in 1943, I remember he’d resigned himself to his role at the mill. He stepped up production by utilizing the manufacturing methods he learned while he was away at college. I typed up the letters and the memorandums authorizing the changes.

  A funny smile lights me up inside and I bite down on my lip. I’ll never forget the time he slipped a personal memo between my shorthand notes. A drawing he did of me on an October day when the sun hung lazily in the sky like an orange pumpkin, when a light breeze kicked up and blew my hair around my shoulders. He caught the moment in a pencil sketch as I leaned up against the cherry tree and looked out over the fields plump with the harvest. He added a colonial stone house standing in the distance as a nice backdrop. An elegant two story home we passed by a few times in his roadster when we took the dirt road by the river. When I asked him why, he said the house held happy memories for him. He didn’t explain further and I never asked.

  I was too intrigued by his drawing of me.

  ‘Is that me?’ I said, not believing the soft, elegant profile was mine. Wispy ash blonde hair curling at the ends. My lips full, my nose straight. I looked like I belonged in another time when ladies flirted with handsome highwaymen who sought to steal a kiss. I held the paper by the edges, careful not to touch the soft, gray-black etches depicting a young girl in love. Strong yet tender strokes. As if the artist was intimate with her and madly in love. My cheeks tinted pink when I saw the words scrawled across the top.

  J.G. Ma chérie pour toujours.

  My darling forever. J.G. for Jelly Girl.

  I stared at him, not knowing what to say.

  ‘You’re even more beautiful when you look at me like that,’ he said as I wrapped my arms around his neck and he picked me up and twirled me around. I was so young and he was so strong. If what I believed happened to me is real, that was only weeks ago here.

  When I was nineteen.

  A sudden grab to my insides makes me come to a stop. Not move another step in this sea of humanity everywhere around me. Soldiers, girls, and ladies. Neighbors waving at me, asking me to grab a basket and hand out sandwiches. As if nothing about me is different. As if I am nineteen. That’s impossible, isn’t it?

  I look around me. Every soldier smiling at me, every local girl handing out coffee, is exactly as they should be. Not me. I’m older. Twelve years older. Okay, maybe I haven’t changed that much. My curves are more womanly, but I still cut a slim figure in pumps and a fitted suit. My hair is shorter and blonder, my brows finely arched, cheeks rouged. I wear pancake makeup and red, red lipstick. Some things never change, but I can’t possibly look the same as I did at nineteen in a tight pink sweater and pencil-thin skirt. I’m afraid to go into the powder room. Afraid to look into a mirror. Afraid of what I’ll see.

  But I do it anyway.

  9

  One tiny mirror hangs by a crooked wire over the sink.

  The two faucets with their ornate, decorative handles are tarnished as if nothing erases the fingerprints of time. The white tiled walls with the blue pinpoint flowers look exactly as I remember. The powder room is clean and smells of a sharp antiseptic. No doubt the stationmaster’s wife doesn’t want the servicewomen who pass through Posey Creek to linger too long primping at the mirror and miss their train pulling out.

  A precocious teenage girl is doing her best to draw a bow mouth in the mirror. She goes over her lips numerous times. It’s anything but a perfect bow.

  I stand behind her, fussing with my hat, waiting for my big moment to look into the glass, trying to get a peek. I can’t see myself clearly. The mirror hangs at an odd angle and is warped around the edges, like a funhouse mirror. I’m wearing the same suit and shoes from my own time along with the red coat.

  The key to my coming here.

  ‘Mind if I show you a lipstick trick?’ I’m anxious to get my turn at the mirror.

  ‘I… guess so.’ Her brow furrows as she wipes her lips clean with her handkerchief.

  ‘You’ll be pretty as a picture when I’m done.’ I take the tube of color and make the bow in the middle of her lips and then start at the corners of her mouth and apply the color inward. Then do her lower lip.

  She looks at herself in the mirror and squeals. ‘That’s perfect.’

  I smile. ‘I learned that trick from a salesgirl at the makeup counter at—’ I stop before I say the name of an exclusive department store in New York. I’d never traveled any farther than the Jersey shore when I was nineteen. I don’t need any slipups.

  ‘You’re Lucy’s sister, aren’t you?’ the girl says, warming to me.

  ‘Yes.’ I stand where the light from the high open window shines down on me. I can’t look too different if she recognizes me.

  The teenage girl looks down at my legs. ‘I see Lucy didn’t win the bet.’

>   ‘What?’ I ask, not liking where this is going.

  ‘You’re wearing the stockings.’

  ‘I am?’

  Oh, God, how does she know?

  ‘I ran my last pair a month ago. My mother says we can’t afford leg makeup, so I have to use gravy to color my legs.’ She snickers. ‘Except my ma’s gravy is too greasy.’

  ‘It’s important to save grease for the war effort,’ I say like a schoolteacher before I can stop myself. I smile, remembering how Ma salvaged drippings along with tin cans.

  ‘I’m doing my part feeding the soldiers.’ She winks. ‘Thanks to your help with my lipstick.’ Then she’s off before I can stop her.

  ‘Hey, wait!’ I call after her. I follow her outside. ‘Did Lucy say why we made the bet?’

  She’s gone, lost in the crowd scurrying to make sure all the service personnel have food and newspapers before the train leaves. I can barely contain myself. Wait until I get my hands on my mouthy little sister. She’s exactly the type the government preaches to with their campaign about not gossiping. If she told anybody about Jeff and me, I’ll wring her neck. I forget about looking into the mirror – or is it because I don’t want to? – and go after Lucy. I find her grabbing a magazine and a newspaper.

  ‘Why did you tell your friends about our bet?’ I ask, upset.

  ‘I… I don’t know.’ She avoids my gaze. ‘I guess because everybody was talking about what they’re getting for Christmas and I wanted to show them up.’ She smirks. ‘Especially that prissy Gloria Allen. She was bragging about getting a silk nightgown and French perfume.’

  ‘Forget Gloria.’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone about you and Jeff, I swear.’ She stands up straighter, lifts her chin. Her eyes take on the color of a warm green sea, begging me to believe her. I have no choice. I carry around the guilt of knowing what will happen to her a few Christmases from now. She’s such an innocent. That doesn’t let her completely off the hook. I let Lucy be my mirror before I take another step in this world.

  ‘Do I look different, Lucy?’

  ‘No.’ She wriggles her nose. ‘Except that’s a fancy suit for work.’

  It’s supposed to be my wedding suit. I never got the chance back in this time to ask her to help me with the hem, but I couldn’t resist wearing it for my trip home, as if it has a special magic and it has. I’m here. Am I crazy or does it feel a bit looser?

  ‘You’re wearing your favorite red coat,’ she continues. ‘I’ve never seen that blue silk hat before.’

  I hid it in my closet, waiting for the day Jeff and I were to be married.

  Testing my generosity, Lucy can’t resist adding. ‘I’ll borrow it next time.’ She sees her Marine giving me the onceover and that perturbs her. ‘Then my fellow over there will look at me like that.’

  She stomps off when she hears two soldiers whistle at me as they walk by. I can’t help but smile. I don’t blame her. She doesn’t want her Marine to like her big sister better. I acknowledge the compliment from the soldiers with a ‘V for victory’ sign and then wave with the other girls huddled on the platform as the servicemen get on the train and it rolls out of the station. Tomorrow there will be another train, more soldiers. The ladies and girls take turns, making sure every train is met.

  Secretly, I’m clinging to the hope I’ll find Jeff at the mill, tell him about the letter, and then I’ll be back in my own time and he’ll be with me. I sigh. A pipe dream, but it’s nice to think about and one I’m not giving up. I’m here for a reason. Being given a second chance is a powerful incentive to do almost anything to make it happen.

  The winter sun decides it’s time for everyone to go home now the train has left. I pull up my fake fur collar. The mill is over a mile from the train station, so I start walking. I’m determined to find Jeff before something unexpected happens and I disappear as quickly as I got here.

  ‘Kate, wait up!’

  I turn to see my friend Helen racing up the road behind me on her bicycle. She looks smart in her navy slacks, woolen blazer, and crisp white blouse with a patterned scarf around her neck blowing in the breeze. Her ebony-dark hair is covered by a snood.

  ‘Helen,’ I say with a warmth in my voice I don’t hide when she rides up beside me. ‘It’s so good to see you.’ We have a strong friendship, not the zany, sometimes combative, but loving relationship I have with my sister.

  ‘I thought you were working today,’ she says curiously. She gets off her bike and we walk together away from town, heading toward the mill.

  ‘I was… I had something to do in town first.’ A persnickety breeze blows off my hat. I grab it before it hits the dirt.

  ‘Your hair, Kate.’ She lets out a low whistle. ‘So that’s where you were. At Maisie’s.’

  The local beauty shop. Maisie has an eye for the newest styles, curling and frizzing ladies’ hair as her glasses slide down to the tip of her nose.

  I smooth down my hair, surprised to find out it’s pulled up at the sides into long barrel rolls in the front with loose curls in the back. I smile. Victory rolls.

  ‘You like it?’ I ask.

  ‘You look like a film star with that hairdo.’

  Is that jealousy I hear in her voice? Helen always liked to show everyone she’s the number one glamour girl in town. She had to do something to escape her mother’s critical eye, seeing how she can never meet the woman’s approval.

  ‘I thought a new hairstyle would be fun for the holidays.’ I put my hat back on before she can look any closer. I did get my hair done at Maisie’s that day. Ma gave Maisie extra jam for her son to take with him when he left for camp and she wanted to do something nice for Ma. She offered to do my hair like she saw the movie stars wear in the magazines. I couldn’t be happier with the new style. I wanted to look older back then – only a nineteen year old would wish that – and pretty for Jeff.

  ‘I like it,’ Helen says. ‘Makes you look sophisticated, not like a kid, though you can pull off that “girl next door” look the magazines rave about better than anyone. You could be in the pictures.’

  ‘Me? I’m a typist, not an actress.’ I grin and can’t resist adding, ‘I’m thinking about becoming a writer.’

  ‘You mean write racy novels?’ She laughs. ‘You’ll have to use a man’s name to get away with it.’

  ‘I want to work for a magazine in the city.’

  ‘Now I get it.’

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘The new hairdo. You want to get out of this town like I do and make something of yourself.’

  I had ambitions to write back then, but they stayed under the radar because I was so deeply in love with Jeff. I couldn’t imagine a future without him. I wonder, can a woman have it all? A man and a career?

  Whatever crazy idea Helen has about my looks, it works for me. No one will question why I act more mature. I look the same as I did back then. Regarding any change in my attitude, they’ll think it’s the hairdo that makes me act more sophisticated. I breathe out. I’m still me. A more glamorous me, but me. I brush back the curls at the nape of my neck and wet my lips. I can’t let the subject of working women drop.

  ‘Someday they won’t call women in uniform “petticoat soldiers” or look at women in management like we’re ghosts. Women will make their way in the professional world,’ I say, taking a big step forward and not apologizing for it. ‘Which reminds me, Helen. Lucy looks up to you and she has this idea the soldiers who pass through here are hers for the taking. She’s a charming flirt, but some guy may take it the wrong way.’

  ‘She’s got to grow up sometime, Kate.’

  ‘Not in the back of the train station with the wrong guy with fast hands.’ I have to say what’s on my mind. ‘You and I can take care of ourselves.’ I fended off more wandering hands in the Holtford Company supply room than I care to admit. ‘Lucy still believes in Santa Claus.’

  Helen laughs, but I’ve made my point. ‘Oh, how I envy your sister.’

  ‘You d
o?’

  ‘I never had anyone care about me like you do for her.’

  I see a look of hurt on her face. It’s quickly replaced by her familiar smirk. Helen is good at hiding her feelings about her mother. ‘Don’t worry about Lucy. She’ll find a husband and have a bunch of kids and live happily ever after, while you and I keep chasing rainbows.’

  ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ I don’t hide the surprise in my voice.

  ‘Jeff Rushbrooke is a good man, but his mother will never allow her precious son to marry one of us.’

  I look at her and to my horror, she believes she’s helping me by saying that. ‘You’ve been talking to Lucy.’

  She smiles. ‘I don’t have to. I overheard the pernicious Mrs Rushbrooke talking to someone on the phone when I delivered her latest piece of hat frippery. Her back was to me, but she said in a clear voice that her boy Jeffrey was headed to Washington for big things before this war was over.’

  ‘She doesn’t know about us,’ I assure my friend.

  ‘Doesn’t she?’ Helen shoots back. ‘Then why did she give me the third degree about you when she hung up the phone and saw me standing there?’

  ‘What did she want to know?’

  ‘If you were smitten with anyone, to use her words.’

  I wince. ‘What did you tell her?’

  Helen throws her head back and laughs. ‘That you’re writing to so many boys overseas you have writer’s cramp.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t,’ I say, panicked. ‘What if Jeff hears about that?’

  My mood shifts into pure terror, imagining my mission back in time dissipating like smoke if he calls off our marriage and never wants to see me again.

  She stops her bike and grabs my hand. ‘My dear Kate, if you could capture the look in that man’s eyes every time he sees you, you wouldn’t ask me such a silly question. He knows his mother and her hurtful games. I figured out you two were an item when I saw you together at the pictures, though you were trying to hide it. He loves you more than anything and nothing she says will change that. Be careful around that woman. Promise?’