Morning Glory

Chapter 17

"Good morning. Carnegie Municipal Library."

"Hello, Miss Beasley?"

"Yes."

"It’s Will."

"Oh, my goodness, Will-Mr. Parker, are you all right?"

"I’m just fine but I’m in kind of a hurry. Listen, I’m sorry to call you at work but I couldn’t think of any other way to get word to Elly. And I have to ask you to do me the biggest favor of my life. Could you possibly go out there or pay somebody else to get word to her? We just found out we ship out Sunday and we got forty-eight hours’ leave but if I take a train clear down there I’ll have to turn around and come right back. Tell her I want her to take the train and meet me in Augusta. It’s the only thing I can figure out is if we meet halfway. Tell her I’ll be leaving here on the next train and I’ll wait at the train depot-oh, Jesus, I don’t even know how big it is. Well, just tell her I’ll wait near the women’s rest room, that way she’ll know where to look for me. Could you do that for me, Miss Beasley?"

"She’ll have the message within the hour, I promise. Would you like to call back for her answer?"

"I haven’t got time. My train leaves in forty-five minutes."

"There’s more than one way to skin a cat, isn’t there, Mr. Parker?"

"What?"

"If this doesn’t get her off that place, nothing will."

Will laughed appreciatively. "I hadn’t thought of that. Just tell her I love her and I’ll be waiting."

"She shall get the message succinctly."

"Thank you, Miss Beasley."

"Oh, don’t be foolish, Mr. Parker."

"Hey, Miss Beasley?"

"Yes?"

"I love you, too."

There followed a pause, then, "Mr. Bell didn’t invent this instrument so Marines could use it to flirt with women old enough to be their mothers! And in case you hadn’t heard, there’s a war on. Phone lines are to be kept free as much as possible."

Again Will laughed. "’Bye, sweetheart."

"Oh, bosh!" At her end, a blushing Gladys Beasley hung up the telephone.

Elly had ridden on a train only once before but she’d been too young to remember. Had someone told her four months ago that she’d be buying a ticket and heading clear across Georgia by herself she’d have laughed and called them a fool. Had someone told her she’d be doing it with a nursing baby and changing trains in Atlanta, heading for a city she’d never seen, a railroad depot she didn’t know, she’d have asked who the crazy one was supposed to be.

Before he’d left, Will had said women will have to do more for themselves, and here she was, sitting in a rocking, rumbling railroad car surrounded by uniforms and dresses with shoulder pads, and noise and too little space and what appeared to be a week’s worth of squashed cigarette butts on the floor. Trains grossly overbooked passengers these days, so people were standing, sitting in aisles and crowded three and four into a bank of seats meant for only two. But because she was traveling with a baby, people had been kind. And because Lizzy P. had been fractious they’d been helpful. A woman with bright-red lipstick, bright-red high-heeled shoes and a red and white tropical print dress offered to hold Lizzy for a while. The soldier accompanying the woman took off his dog tags and twirled them in the air to entertain the baby. In the foursome of seats across the aisle eight soldiers were playing poker. Everyone smoked. The air in the car was the color of washwater but not nearly as transparent. Lizzy grew tired of the dog tags and began crying again, grinding her fists into her eyes, then twisting and reaching for Elly. When the woman in the tropical dress figured out that the baby was hungry but Elly nursed, she whispered to her young lieutenant and in no time at all he’d rounded up a porter who cleared out a pullman unit and ushered Elly to it, giving her thirty minutes of privacy to feed Lizzy and change her diaper.

The Atlanta train depot was as crowded as steerage, a melee of people, all rushing, shouldering, bumping, kissing, crying. The loudspeaker and rumbling trains scared Lizzy and she bawled for the entire forty-minute layover until Elly herself was close to tears. Her arms ached from battling the bucking child. Her head ached from the noise. Her shoulder blades ached from tension. Frightening questions kept hammering the inside of her skull: what would she do if she got to Augusta and Will wasn’t there? And where would they sleep? And what would they do with Lizzy?

The final leg of the trip was on an older train, so dirty Elly was afraid Lizzy would catch something, so crowded she felt like a hen being crated off to market, so noisy Lizzy couldn’t sleep, no matter how tired she was. In a single seat a woman slept on a man’s lap, their heads clunking together in rhythm with the wheels rolling over the uneven seams in the rails. A group of soldiers were singing "Paper Doll" while one of them strummed a guitar discordantly. They had sung it so many times Elly wanted to put a foot through the guitar. Men with loud voices told stories about boot camp, interspersing them with curse words and simulated sounds of machine-gun fire. In another part of the car the inevitable poker game created sporadic cheers and bursts of howling. In the seat next to Elly a fat woman with a mustache and an open mouth slept, snoring. A female with a shrill laugh used it too often. Periodically the conductor fought his way through and bellowed out the name of the next town. Somebody smelled like used garlic. The cigarette smoke was suffocating. Lizzy kept bawling. Elly kept wanting to. But, looking around, she realized she was no different from hundreds of others temporarily misplaced by the war, many of them hurrying to a brief, frantic, final meeting with someone they loved, as she was.

She wiped Lizzy’s dripping nose and thought, I’m coming, Will, I’m coming.

The train terminal of Augusta, servicing the traffic to and from countless military bases, was worse than any so far. Debarking, Elly felt lost in a sea of humanity. With Grandfather See’s suitcase in one hand and the baby in the other, she struggled up a set of steps, swept along like flotsam at high tide, not knowing if she was heading in the right direction but having little choice.

Somebody bumped her shoulder and the suitcase fell. As Elly bent to retrieve it, Lizzy slipped down and somebody bumped them from behind, nearly knocking them to the floor. "Oops, sorry!" The private in the army green helped Elly up, snapped the suitcase and handed it to her. She thanked him, gave Lizzy a bounce to get her balanced and moved on with the crush toward what she hoped was the main body of the terminal. Overhead, a nasal, monotone voice announced as if echoing down a culvert, "The five-ten to Columbia, Charlotte, Raleigh, Richmond and Washington, D.C., is now boarding at gate three." She had vague impressions of passing a newspaper stand, a restaurant, a cigarette stand, a shoeshine boy, queues of faceless people waiting to buy tickets, a pair of nuns who smiled at Lizzy, and so many military uniforms that she wondered who was out there fighting the war.

Then she saw a swinging door that said "men" and a moment later its twin, swinging shut, adding "Wo-"

Women.

She stopped and reread the entire word to make sure, spun around, and there he was, already hurrying toward her.

"Elly!" He smiled, waved. "Elly!"

"Will!" She dropped her suitcase and waved back, jumping twice, her heart drumming crazily, her eyes already filling. He zigzagged closer, moving people aside. Another moment and he reached her.

"Elly-honey-oh, God, you came!" He lifted her clean off the floor, kissing her open-mouthed, with Lizzy squashed between them. Is-it-really-you-I-missed-you-so-I-love- you-oh-God-it’s-been- so-long…

The floor shook as trains rumbled, the air was a cacophony of voices, the room a melange of motion, while Will and Elly shared a lusty kiss, timeless and prolonged, with tongues swirling and arms clinging and the salt of Elly’s tears flavoring their reunion.

Then Lizzy started squirming and they broke apart, laughing, suddenly aware that they’d been crushing her.

"Lizzy P., oh, sugar, you’re here too… let me look at you…" Will took her from Elly and held her aloft, smiling up at her apple cheeks and eyes whose lashes and irises were much darker than last time he’d seen them. With so many new distractions Lizzy didn’t know whether to fret or laugh. "Lizzy P., you sweet thing, look at how fat you’re getting." He kissed her soundly, set her on his arm and said, "Hello, sweet thing."

"I’m sorry, Will, I had to bring-"

Will’s mouth stopped Elly’s explanation. The second kiss began jubilant, became sensual, then commandeering with full complement of tongue and lips while Lizzy squirmed on his arm but went ignored. He grasped the back of Elly’s head and told her without words what she could expect when they were alone. When the kiss ended, he pulled back while they studied each other’s faces.

She found him stunning in his crisp uniform and garrison cap, so incredibly handsome she felt as if she’d stepped into a fantasy.

He found her thinner, prettier, her face trimmed with a pale touch of makeup, the first he’d ever seen her wear.

"God," he whispered, "I can’t believe you’re here. I was so scared you wouldn’t come."

"I might not have if it wasn’t for Miss Beasley. She made me."

He laughed and kissed her again briefly, then held her hand and backed up a step, scanning her length. "Where’d you get the dress?" It, too, was stylish: yellow with black military-type trim and buttons, padded at the shoulder, trim at the hip and flaring to a short hem that revealed her legs from the knee down. And she was wearing sling-back high heels with a cutaway toe!

Elly’s gaze dropped self-consciously. "I made it for when you were supposed to come home the last time. Remember, I said I had a surprise for you?"

He gave a slow whistle and stole a phrase from radio’s Captain Marvel. "Shazaam!"

Elly colored becomingly, touched a button at her waist and glanced up shyly into Will’s handsome face. It was odd-she was almost afraid to stare at him too much, as if doing so might jeopardize her right to someone so dignified-looking, so attractive. "Lydia Marsh lent me her pattern and I ordered the cloth and shoes from the catalogue."

He was so impressed he didn’t know on what to comment first, the fact that she’d made a friend or the updated change in her looks. Her hair was twisted high and away from her face the way the women in the munitions factories often wore theirs beneath safety scarves. One soft wave dipped low over the side of her forehead; her eyebrows had been slightly plucked and her lips painted pale pink.

"And makeup, too," he said approvingly.

"Lydia thought I ought to try it. She showed me how."

"Honey, you look so pretty you take my breath away."

"So do you." She took a full draught of him in his dress greens: wool blouse and crisply creased trousers, gleaming shoes, khaki shirt and tie and the sand-brown belt running from his right shoulder to his left waist; the shining Marine Corp emblem-eagle, glove and anchor-centered above the leather bill of his garrison cap, which gave him the look of some important stranger. He had put on weight, was thicker at the shoulders and chest, but it definitely became him. The sight of her husband in the hard, tailored suit made Elly’s heart swell with pride.

In a soft, teasing voice she asked, "Where is my cowboy?"

"Gone, ma’am." Will replied with banked pride. "He’s a soldier now."

"You look like somebody who’d guard a door at the White House."

He chuckled and she requested, "Let me see that hair they cut off."

"Aww, you don’t wanna see that."

"Yes, I do, Private First Class Parker." She playfully flicked the single gold chevron on his sleeve.

"All right-you asked for it."

He removed the garrison cap and she couldn’t withhold a gulp of regret at the sight of his skull showing through the mere sprinkling of hair remaining on his head. Gone was the thick pelt she’d often washed and cut and combed. The Marines ought to hire a new barber, she thought. Why, she could do better with her plain kitchen scissors. But she searched for something heartening to say.

"I don’t think I ever saw your ears before, Will. You got fine ears, and even without no hair you’re still pretty to me."

"And you’re a pretty li’l liar, Mrs. Parker." Laughing, he replaced the hat, stole another kiss, picked up her suitcase and his duffel in a single hand. "Hang on," he ordered. "I don’t want to lose you in this mob. Lizzy P. is a surprise. How you doin’, Lizzy-girl? You tired, babe?" He kissed her forehead while she whimpered softly and rubbed her eyes. "How was she on the train?"

"Terrible."

"Sorry for the quick orders. But on a forty-eightI didn’t have time to think about arrangements for the kids. To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have cared if you had to bring ’em all, as long as I got to see you. Where are the boys?"

"At Lydia Marsh’s. They kicked up a fuss when they found out I was comin’to see you, but it was bad enough havin’ to bring this one. I had to though, ’cause she’s still nursing."

"I realized that after I’d hung up. I made it awful hard for you, didn’t I? How long ago did she eat?"

"Around three."

"And how ’bout you-are you hungry?"

"No. Yes." She glanced at the neon light over the door of the coffee shop as they passed it. "Well, sort of." She hugged his arm. "I mean, I don’t want to waste time in any restaurant and I don’t know how much longer Lizzy will hold out."

He led her outside into the humid summer late-afternoon. "I got us a room at the Oglethorpe. What do you say we pick up some hamburgers and take ’em back there?" They stood at the curb, their eyes exchanging mixed messages of hunger and impatience.

"Fine," she forced herself to answer.

"It’s eight blocks or so. You think you can walk it in those shoes?"

"A real hotel?"

"That’s right, green eyes. For tonight, a real hotel."

Privacy.

They stood gazing at each other while a taxi honked and car doors slammed. His heart leaped. Hers answered. They wanted to kiss but refrained, postponing any further intimacies until time and place allowed them full savor.

"On second thought," she murmured, "I wouldn’t mind forgetting about the hamburgers."

"You should eat something, and drink some milk, too-for Lizzy."

"Do I have to?"

"It won’t take long." He smiled and led the way along the sidewalk.

Twenty-five minutes later they entered their room behind a "bellgirl" instead of a "bellboy." The young woman was friendly, hospitable and wore a red pillbox hat. While Will set their brown paper sack of hamburgers on the dresser, Elly stood by the door, taking in her surroundings. The bellgirl laid their suitcases on the bed, opened a window and pointed out the adjoining bath with its black and white hexagonal marble tile, claw-foot tub and pedestal lavatory. The bedroom itself was small, done in deep green with touches of maroon and peach. The floor was lined with a bound rug, the windows decorated with frond-patterned drapes, fronted by two overstuffed chairs and a table. The focal point of the room was a wooden bed covered with a peach chenille spread and a bedside stand bearing a lamp shaped like a maroon ocean wave.

Will politely allowed the bellgirl to do her job and show it all, suppressing the urge to shove her out the door and lock it behind her.

Finally he tipped her and the moment the door closed he turned to Elly for a kiss. Scarcely had their lips touched when Lizzy complained, forcing them to consider her first.

"Will she settle down?"

"I hope so. She’s dead tired."

Their gazes met. How long? A half hour? An hour? I want you now.

"What’re we gonna do with her, Will? I mean, where will she sleep?"

He scanned the room and suggested, "How about the chairs?" In four long strides he reached the pair of overstuffed armchairs and turned them seat-to-seat, creating a perfect crib, soft and safe with the arms and seats butted.

"This would work, wouldn’t it?"

She was so relieved her smile broke easily. "It’ll be perfect."

He flashed her a return smile and moved toward the suitcase. "You get her wet stuff off and I’ll find her clean clothes."

While Will dug through the suitcase, Elly laid the baby on the bed and began changing her clothes for nighttime. Lizzy rubbed her eyes and whimpered.

"She’s beat, poor thing," Will said, sitting down beside Lizzy, bracing on an elbow, watching, enjoying. In minutes she was changed into clean diapers and a lightweight kimono.

"Keep your eye on her a minute, okay?" Elly plunked Lizzy on Will’s arm and turned away. Talking sweet nothings to the baby, he watched Elly remove her yellow dress, hang it in the closet, then turn, barefoot, dressed in a white half-slip and bra.

For a moment their gazes locked and all was still but for Lizzy’s soft whimpering and the clamoring of their two hearts. Will’s eyes dropped, lingered on the bare band of skin between the two white garments while Elly’s traced the length of his dark, flattering uniform. When their eyes met again his breathing had accelerated and her cheeks had taken on an added glow.

"God, you look good," he breathed in a tight, reedy voice.

"So do you," she whispered.

She reached behind herself, released the hook on her bra and removed it, all the while holding him captive with her eyes. Her breasts were heavy, the nipples wide and florid, radiating faint blue lines. She stood unmoving, framed by the bathroom doorway, learning the exquisite pleasure of letting another study her body through the eyes of love. How different she felt about herself now than in the days after she’d first met him. Love, she had discovered, left her with no desire to hide.

She watched Will swallow. His nostrils dilated and his breathing grew noticeably rushed. Though Lizzy still fretted, Elly crossed the room slowly and rested a knee on the mattress, bending over Will for one lingering kiss. He reached up and brushed her pendulous breast with a knuckle, nudged her lips away and whispered, "Hurry."

She sat on one of the overstuffed chairs with Lizzy in the crook of her arm. Will rolled onto his belly, crossed his wrists beneath his chin and observed as his wife looked down, took a nipple between two fingers and guided it to the baby’s open mouth. His eyes became dark as onyx, his body aroused as he imbibed the image, both maternal and sexual. When he could bear it no longer he rose to prowl the room, striving to keep his eyes off her. He laid his hat upside down on the dresser, removed his wool blouse and hung it in the closet, opened the bag of food, peered inside and took out one hamburger wrapped in waxed paper. "You want one while you feed her?"

She accepted the hamburger and began eating it while he found the glass bottle of milk, removed the cardboard stopper, searched out a glass in the bathroom, filled it and set it on the table beside her. When he neared, her head swiveled, following his every movement. Her eyes lifted and lingered on his face, allowing him to witness how her impatience had grown to the same gnawing insistence as his own.

But the baby had to come first. Reluctantly he turned away.

She watched minutely, becoming aroused by the nuances of motion peculiar to him and no other man. He removed his tie, folded it neatly beside his hat, freed his cuff buttons and rolled his sleeves back to midarm. Watching him move about the room, performing mundane tasks, she became awed that such simple movements could stir her, make her feel carnal in a way she never had before. She welcomed the feeling, eager for the moment when she could loose it upon him.

He stacked both bed pillows and sat against them, with one foot outstretched, the other on the floor. The pose accentuated the masculinity already underscored by the uniform-the brilliant shine on his brown dress shoes, the sharp crease along his trousers, the fine press on his collar. She remembered him in scuffed cowboy boots, faded jeans hanging from lean hips, a crinkled shirt with sweat-stained arms. It struck her that the change in his clothing made him appear not only masculine and clean, but important and intelligent, and that this aspect of his appearance affected her as much as any other. It caught her in the hollow between her breasts like a sharp blow, made her heart leap and her blood sing. He reached into his breast pocket, removed a pack of Lucky Strikes and methodically tapped one against his thumbnail. Next he produced a book of matches, lit up and sat idly smoking, studying Elly through the rising skein of gray. She became mesmerized by the sight of his well-kept hands with the cigarette held deep between his fingers while he closed and opened the matchbook between drags, all the time watching her with his eyelids at half-mast.

"When did you start smoking?"

"A while ago."

"You never told me in your letters."

"I didn’t think you’d like it. Everybody does it. They even give us free cigarettes in our K-rations. Besides, it calms the nerves."

"It makes you seem like a stranger to me."

"If you don’t like it I’ll-"

"No. No, I didn’t mean that. It’s just… I haven’t seen you for so long and when I do you’re wearing clothes like you never had before, and a haircut that makes you look different, and you’ve got new habits."

He inhaled deeply, expelled the smoke through his nostrils. "Inside I haven’t changed though."

"Yes, you have. You’re prouder." When he made no reply, she added, "So am I. Me and Lydia we talked about it. At first I told her how I hated having you go, but she said that I oughta be proud you’re wearing a uniform. And now that I’ve seen you in it, I am."

"You know something, Elly?" She waited while he twirled the cigarette coal against a glass ashtray, rubbing ashes off. At last he looked up. "These’re the nicest clothes I ever owned."

His remark made her understand as she never had before the extent of his early deprivation, and that in the Marines he was like everybody else, no longer the odd man out.

"When I saw you at the station-well, it was a funny thing. All the while I was on the train I pictured you like you looked back home, and me too. But then I saw you and-well, something happened-here." She touched her heart. "This crazy knocking, you know? I mean, I wanted you to be the same, but I was glad you weren’t. Those clothes…" Her eyes flicked over his length. "I can’t believe how you look in those clothes."

He smiled crookedly and kept his eyes steady on hers, but somehow she knew they wanted to rove. "The same thing happened when I saw you. Just sitting there in that chair, you make it happen all over again."

They studied each other while Lizzy suckled. Will’s eyes fell to Elly’s naked breast and he drew deeply on the cigarette.

"Aren’t you going to eat your hamburger?" she asked.

"I’m not very hungry right now. How’s yours?"

"It’s delicious." But she had laid the sandwich aside, half-eaten, and they both realized why. She took a drink of milk. A droplet of condensation fell from the cool glass onto Lizzy’s cheek and she awakened with a start, releasing Elly’s nipple with a snap, her face and fists rebelling against the sudden interruption.

"Shh…" Elly soothed, and transferred her to the right breast.

Will’s eyes homed in on the abandoned one with its wet, distended tip. Abruptly he swung off the bed, crushed out his cigarette and disappeared inside the bathroom. Elly dropped her head back, closed her eyes, and felt herself growing ready for him.

Oh, Lizzy P., hurry and finish, darlin’.

Inside the bathroom the water ran, a glass clinked, then silence… tense silence before Will appeared once more in the doorway, staring at her, wiping his hands on a white towel. He tossed the towel aside, skinned off his outer shirt and stood in a T-shirt that rode his muscles as closely as a skiff rides the sea.

When he spoke his voice was low, on the edge of control. "I want you like I never wanted a woman before in my life. You know that, Elly?"

"Come here, Will," she whispered.

He flung his shirt aside and moved behind her chair, stretching a hand over her naked shoulder, his fingers trailing over her breast. He dropped his head and she tipped hers to give him access to the side of her throat. She lifted her free arm, looped it around his head, feeling the unfamiliar stiffness of his bristly hair. His skin smelled of unfamiliar soap as his hand slipped over the unoccupied breast.

Her eyes drifted closed. "How much time do we have?"

"I have to report back at 1800 hours tomorrow."

"What time is that?"

"Six P.M. I catch a train at two-thirty. Lizzy’s done eating. Can’t we put her down now?"

She smiled at Will upside down and asked, "Is it always like this for you?"

"Like what?" he asked, his voice soft and gruff.

"Like you’re gonna die if you have to wait another minute?"

The hand on her breast closed… lifted… molded. A thumb ran across its hardened tip.

"Yes, since the day I stood at the well with egg on my face and fell in love with you. Get up."

She rose and watched Will hurriedly push the chairs back together, counting seconds as he spread them with a quilt. When she bent to lay Lizzy down, his hand rode her naked shoulder. She straightened and they stood on opposite sides of the chairs, staring at each other, anticipating, suffering one last self-imposed hiatus that only made their blood beat stronger. He reached out a hand and she laid hers in it, feelings pouring already between their linked fingers.

His grip tightened, drawing her along the length of the makeshift crib while their eyes clung, dark with intent.

When they met it was lush and impatient, two bodies starved for one another, two tongues parched by months apart. It was love and lust complementing each other to the fullest. It was impact and immediacy following one upon the other, a fast hard seeking to touch all, taste all, even before their clothing was removed.

"Oh, Elly… I missed you." His hands skimmed low, drew her in.

"Our bed was so lonesome without you, Will." She ran her hands over his trousers, reaching for his buckle.

Their clothing fell like furled sails. Murmuring, they fell to the bed.

"Let me see you." He pulled back, let his hands and eyes travel over her, kissing where he would.

She fell back with arms upthrown, becoming the chalice from which he sipped. Likewise, she tasted him, and their timidity fled, chased by the distant acknowledgment of last chances.

Joined at last, they fit exquisitely.

They spun a web of wonder and trembled upon it, suspended in the sweet awaited union of hearts and bodies. They locked out the specters of death and war, those unpretentious intruders, and steeped themselves in each other, accepting gratification as their mortal due.

"I love you," they reiterated again and again in hoarse whispers. "I love you."

It was the sustenance they would take with them when they left this room.

The sun was setting somewhere on a horizon they could not see. A bell buoy chimed in the distance. The smell of humid salt-air drifted in the window. An arm, wilted and weighty, lay across Elly’s shoulder, a knee across her thigh.

She hooked his lower lip with a finger, let it flip back up. He grinned tiredly, but his eyes remained closed.

"Hey, Will?"

"Hm?"

"Am I ever glad I came clear across Georgia on them dirty trains."

His eyes opened. "So’m I."

Their grins faded and they gazed at each other, replete. "I missed you so much, Will."

"I missed you, too, green eyes."

"Sometimes I’d turn around and look at the woodpile and expect to see you chopping wood there."

"I will be again-soon."

The reminder took them too close to tomorrow, so they withdrew into now, touching, whispering, kissing, loving being lovers. They lay brow to brow and trailed fingers up and down, fit knees and feet in places that accommodated as if made for the purpose. When they had rested they ignited one another again, and savored their second love-making at a more sedate pace, watching each other’s faces as pleasure once more leached their bodies.

In time, when they had spoken of home and necessary things-the temperamental wind generator, the fall butchering, the gold mine of used auto parts-he lit another cigarette and lay with his shoulder pillowing her cheek.

She stared at the sheet draped over his toes and took the plunge she’d been dreading. "Where they sendin’ you, Will?"

He took a deep, slow drag before answering. "I don’t know."

"You mean they haven’t told you yet?"

"There’s scuttlebutt about the South Pacific but nobody knows where, not even the base commander. The CO’s keep using the word "spearhead’-and you know what that means."

"No, what?"

He reached for an ashtray, laid it on his stomach and tapped it with the cigarette. "It means we’d lead an attack."

"Attack?"

"Invasion, Elly."

"Invasion?" She lifted her head to search his eyes. "Of what?"

He didn’t want to talk about it and, in truth, knew nothing. "Who knows? The Japs are all over the Pacific, controlling most of it. If they’re sending us there we could end up anyplace from Wake to Australia."

"But how can they send you someplace and not even tell you where you’re going?"

"Surprise is part of military strategy. If that’s how they plan it we follow orders, that’s all."

She digested that for long minutes, while his heart beat steadily beneath her ear. At length she asked quietly, "Are you scared, Will?"

He touched her hair. "Course I’m scared." He considered and added, "At times. Other times I remind myself that I’m part of the best-trained military unit in the history of the world. If I got to fight, I’d rather do it with the Marines than anybody else. And I want you to remember that when you get worried about me after I’m gone. In the Marines it’s everybody for the group. Nobody thinks of himself first. Instead, everybody thinks of the group, so you always got that reassurance behind you. And every Marine is trained to take over the next higher position if his CO is injured in battle, so the company’s always got a leader, the squad’s always got a leader. That’s what I have to concentrate on when I start gettin’ the willies about maybe being shipped to the Pacific, and that’s what you got to concentrate on, too."

She tried, but images of bayonets and guns got in the way.

He saw the images, too, the ones from the movie theater in the black and white newsreel. "Hey, come on, sweetheart." He crushed out his cigarette and gathered her close, rubbed her naked spine. "Let’s talk about something else."

They did. They talked about the boys. And Miss Beasley. And Lydia Marsh. And the way Will had filled out. And the way Elly had learned to apply makeup and fix her hair. When dark had fallen they took a bath together, touching and teasing, giggling behind the closed bathroom door. They made love against it and ate the cold hamburgers and he talked about the food at the base and taught her all the "leatherneck lingo" he’d learned in the galley. She laughed at canned milk called armored heifer; eggs, cackleberries; pancakes, collision mates; tapioca, fish eyes; and spinach, Popeye. Around midnight they made love on the maroon rug with its green leaf design. Sometimes they laughed-perhaps a little desperately as they felt the hours slipping away. He told her about his buddy, Otis Luttrell, the carrottop fellow from Kentucky, and how they were hoping they’d ship out together. He said Otis was engaged to a pretty young woman named Cleo who worked in a grenade factory in Lexington, and that he’d never had a friend he liked as much as Otis.

The night sped by and they sat on the windowsill, watching the distant darkness where they knew ships rested at anchor. But all was pitch black, blacked out lest some German submarine be slipping through the East Coast defenses.

The war was there… happening… no matter how they tried to block it out. It was there, coloring each thought, each touch, each fleeting heartbeat they shared.

Toward dawn they slept, against their wills, touching even in slumber, then roused again to hoard each wakeful moment like misers counting pennies.

When Lizzy awakened shortly before seven they brought her into bed with them and Will lay on his side, head braced on a hand, watching once more the sight he’d never grow tired of. After the feeding he said he wanted to give Lizzy her bath. Elly watched, wistful and yearny while Will knelt beside the deep tub and took joy in caring for the baby. He did it all, dried and diapered her and dressed her in clean rompers, then lay on the bed playing with her and laughing at her gurgling baby-talk and teddy-bear poses. But often his eyes would lift to Elly’s, on the other side of the baby, and the unspoken sorrow would be rife between them.

They ate in their room and remained in it until a different bellgirl came to inquire if they were staying a second day. They packed their meager bags and stood in the doorway, looking back at the room that had provided a haven for the past eighteen hours. They turned to each other and tried to look brave, but their last kiss in private was one of trembling lips and despairing thoughts.

They took to the streets of Augusta, ambling along the hot pavement until they found a park with a deserted bandstand surrounded by iron benches. They sat on one and spread a blanket on the grass where they settled Lizzy to play with Will’s dog tags. They looked at the trees, the clear blue Georgia sky, the child at their feet-but most often at each other. Occasionally they kissed, but lightly, with their eyes open, as if to close out the sight of the other for even a moment was unthinkable. More often they touched-his hand lightly grazing her shoulder blade or her palm resting on his thigh while he toyed with the friendship ring which had, indeed, turned her finger green.

"When I come back I’m gonna buy you a real gold wedding ring."

"I don’t want a real gold wedding ring. I want the one I wore the day I married you."

Their eyes met-sad eyes no longer denying what lay ahead.

"I love you, green eyes. Don’t forget that."

"I love you, too, soldier boy."

"I’ll try to write often but… well, you know."

"I’ll write every day, I promise."

"They’re gonna censor everything, so you still might not know where I am, even if I tell you."

"It won’t matter. Long as I know you’re safe."

Another extended gaze ended when he rested his forehead upon hers. They sat thus, fingers loosely entwined, for minutes. Somewhere in the park a pair of herring gulls screeched. Out on the water a steam whistle sounded. From nearer came the clink-clink of Lizzy flailing the chain and dog tags. And over all rested the smell of purple petunias blossoming at the foot of a tiny fountain.

Will felt his throat fill, swallowed and told his wife, "It’s time to go."

She suddenly radiated false brightness. "Oh… course it is… why, we better get Daddy to that station, hadn’t we, Lizzy?"

He carried the baby and she carried their bags until they stood again in the noisy, crowded depot where they faced each other and suddenly found themselves tongue-tied. Lizzy became fascinated with a button on his blouse, trying to pull it off with a chubby hand.

"The two-thirty for Columbia, Raleigh, Washington and Philadelphia now boarding at gate three!"

"That’s me."

"You got your ticket?" Elly asked.

"Yes, ma’am."

Their eyes met and he circled the slope of her neck with his free hand, squeezing hard.

"Give the boys a kiss from me and give ’em those chocolate bars."

"I w-will. And send me your address as soon as th-they-" She couldn’t go on, afraid of releasing the choking sobs that filled her chest.

He nodded, his face doleful.

"Last call for Columbia, Raleigh-"

Her eyes were streaming, his filled to glittering.

"Oh, Will…"

"Elly…"

They hugged awkwardly, with the baby between them. "Come back to me."

"You damn right I will."

Their kiss was a terrible thing-goodbye, keep low, keep safe-with tongues thickened by the need to cry.

A whistle wailed. "Booooard!" The train lumbered to life.

He tore his mouth away, thrust the baby into her hands and ran, leaped and boarded the rolling car, turning at the last possible moment to catch a blurry glimpse of Elly and Lizzy waving from amid a crowd of strangers in a dirty train depot in a hot Georgia town.

Eleanor Parker no longer prayed, so perhaps it was more imprecation than prayer when she choked against her fist, "Damn it, k-keep him safe, you hear?"