Captivated (4 page)

As soon as Christmas is over, my mother begins planning for our New Years Eve party immediately. Every year she invites a new eligible bachelor for me to meet, well eligible in her eyes. Most of them are bores and a great deal older than me, I have no idea where she finds them year after year. I hate to admit it, but I hate New Years, but maybe it will be a little better when you are home to escort me.

How does your family celebrate the holidays? I would love to hear about them and all of your traditions. I am so interested to hear how you grew up. Maybe our letters could be a continuation of our walk in the park. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and New Years! Stay safe!

Affectionately,

Lilli

January 3, 1943

Dear Joe,

I just received your letter, I suppose the mail routs were jammed because of the holidays. I hope you have been receiving my letters. It's hard to tell if you are getting them because your letters don't give any evidence of having read mine. You still haven't told me about your family, or where you're from. I suppose I thought writing letters would be like dating from far away, getting to know each other in letters instead of dates.

I don't want you to think I'm a crazy woman who has ideas about our relationship before it's even begun. That's not true at all, I would just like to get to know you, be here for you while you're fighting over there. If you need to talk about anything, I'm here. Maybe life at war keeps you busier than I imagined. As always, I'm awaiting your next letter with anticipation.

Affectionately,

Lilli

"What an idiot!" Sam couldn't help but scream in frustration. Lilli's personality dripped from her perfect words on the page. All she wanted was a friend, and Joe was too selfish to even attempt to give her that. He had made her self-conscious and defensive by writing her scraps of letters. Late at night, Joe, Wes and Sam would set about writing their letters home. Wes and Sam took their time writing to their families, neither one of them having a sweetheart. Joe however, would race through his writing, scrawling a few sloppy lines to each one of the six girls he was writing to. They were impersonal and almost like a slap in the face to anyone who might believe their relationship was real. Lilli definitely believed it to be real, if Joe was still here, he would have socked him.

March 25, 1943

Dear Joe,

I hope you are still staying safe, even if the battles are becoming more fierce, as you explained in your last letter. Each week at church more and more boys are added to the prayer list, their parents having been notified of them being injured ,missing or worse. You and your friends are always in my prayers, I pray that the Lord will guide each one of you safely through the fighting and then home. It is a bit of a comfort to know that you are there with your most trusted friends, I'm sure you are all keeping an eye on one another.

If women were every allowed to fight in a war such as this one, I would never go without my best friend. Her name is Viv and she is really a pistol, she's nothing like me. I know she would never let anything happen to me. She always kept her eye out for me at Wharton, the girls school I attended for high school. Of course, keeping me out of the way of vindictive girls is much different than keeping me safe in the face of gun fire. I can't imagine what you all go through and admire your bravery and willingness to fight. I just wish you would tell me more of what is going on.

Affectionately,

Lilli

May 12, 1943

Dear Joe,

The news seems to get worse every day. It doesn't sound like the war is going very well. And yet I can't imagine what our world will be like if Hitler succeeds in his conquest. What he is doing to the Jewish people is just disgusting. I can't imagine what they're all going through, the panic must be undescribable! I do hope the Allies are able to stop them, the sooner the better. I know you're all doing your best to end this Holocaust.

My mother and I have been spending our nights knitting for the war effort. We are making small squares that eventually are sewn together to make blankets for you boys, or so I'm told. I hope you get one, even if it is starting to get a little warmer. I wish I knew how to get them sent directly to your company, but I have no idea.

I believe I have the wrong idea about a correspondence between a soldier and a girl. I guess I thought your letters would be far more detailed then they have been. My friend Viv spend a lot of time at the local U.S.O. and she tells me that some soldiers write to multiple women. I had no idea, but I suppose if you're lonely, and have not offered any kind of hope to a girl about marriage or a future after the war, that would be somewhat acceptable. But you did talk to me about marriage, that night we walked in the park... I'm terribly confused Joe, would you do me the kindness of clarifying why I'm writing to you? Despite my confusion, I still hope you are safe, and that you are enjoying yourself when you can throughout this horrible war.

Affectionately,

Lilli

ps. I am sorry for the syrup stain on this letter. I was writing to you while eating breakfast at the diner, and a bit got away from me!

Sam smiled, he had noticed the stain immediately when he opened the letter, and pushed his nose into the sweet smelling stain for a lengthy five minutes before reading. Wes had been right, one of the girls Joe was writing was smart, just too sweet to break off their communication. He had always known his friend to be a womanizer, it was the reason none of the girls in their hometown would date him. Somehow their friendship had managed to survive despite that characteristic, probably because Joe knew better than to go after any of his sisters. Also because Sam had developed the ability to ignore Joe when he talked about all of his lady friends. Now Sam saw the cruelty of Joe's actions through Lilli's eyes. Why had he never reprimanded his friend for such behavior?

How could Joe have read such heartfelt letters and not be compelled to write back with equal sentiment? Especially to Lilli, a girl that seemed amazing even on paper. Did he read her letters at all? Joe was charming and she had resisted him, which meant she was something special. Joe only went after the most attractive women, which meant she was beautiful. And she wasn't fooled by Joe's two sentenced letters, which made her smart. Yet she still continued to write, which made her sweet, and endearing, the kind of girl any man would be lucky to go home to. When Sam had finished his internal conversation, he imagined Lilli to be quite a girl, a girl he had to meet, needed to talk to. Being at war, talking was, of course, out of the question, writing would have to be enough...

Chapter 2

June 2, 1943

Lilli sighed, wiping an arm across her brow, trying to avoid getting mud smudges on her cheeks. She stepped out of the freshly weeded garden into the cool green grass and inspected her work one last time. Everything was cleaned up and watered, the carefully constructed rows of vegetables sprouting from the brown earth. If there was anything she loved about the war it was the victory gardens. Somehow being outside, her fingers in dirt, relaxed her, and at least the victory gardens produced something useful, unlike all the rose bushes her mother insisted on planting. Sure they smelled lovely, but more often than not they caused bleeding, and only lasted in an arrangement for a week.

Her toes wiggled in the grass as she smiled in satisfaction. While she stood admiring her work, Mrs. Metcalf wobbled outside, carrying a tray of lemonade and ginger cookies.

"Here, let me get that." Lilli rushed to the sliding glass door and took the tray. Then waited for the unsteady Mrs. Metcalf to take her arm, and lead her to the glass table which sat under an umbrella on the porch.

"You didn't have to go through all this trouble for me."

"What trouble? The cookies are straight from the store, and the lemonade is a powder mix."

Lilli laughed, pouring two glasses of the bright yellow brew. "It's delicious," she mumbled, pulling a hand up to cover her mouth.

"You don't have to lie dear! It's terrible!" Mrs. Metcalf yelled after spitting her swallow back into the glass. "I think I forgot to add the sugar."

"I'll go get it." Lilli said, unable to control the giggle that surfaced when she opened her mouth. She had never seen a woman spit out the contents of her mouth, and was likely never to forget this instance.

"It's in the..."

"I know where it is Mrs. Metcalf, remember, I'm the one who puts your groceries away?"

"Of course dear, of course."

Lilli entered the small, dimly lit house and found the kitchen in utter disarray. The package of cookies remained open on the counter right next to the powdered lemonade mix. One cup of sugar, Lilli read on the side of the canister,
"No wonder it pulled my cheeks together like magnets
," Lilli thought, remembering the intense pucker she had tried to hide from Mrs. Metcalf.

She measured out a cup of sugar and picked up one of the seven sticky spoons that were now practically glued to the counters. Lilli sighed, not understanding why Mrs. Metcalf needed seven spoons to mix lemonade.
"Maybe she couldn't find them again after using them, so she took out another one. Perhaps I should increase my visits to twice a week."

"The cookies aren't very good, I wouldn't even try one." Mrs. Metcalf called over her shoulder as soon as Lilli entered the door.

"They can't be that bad." Lilli dumped in the sugar and began to stir, picking up a cookie while doing so. She bit into it and instantly thought all of her teeth had been shattered. "They are quite hard."

"Oh come now, don't try to swallow, just spit it out, that's what I did." Mrs. Metcalf urged, handing Lilli a napkin.

Lilli took it gratefully and held it up to her mouth to collect the slate like shards from her mouth. Days at Mrs. Metcalf's were always interesting and entertaining. When she expressed a need for help at home once a week, Lilli had jumped at the opportunity. Mrs. Metcalf, while wealthy, was not the most proper woman and Lilli knew it meant an afternoon of freedom. Any afternoon spent away from her mothers watchful, critical eye was a free one in her mind. It was an added bonus that Mrs. Metcalf had agreed to letting her cultivate a victory garden, something her mother saw as ridiculous, filthy, and an admission of being unable to pay for produce.

"I should be getting home now." Lilli sighed after talking with Mrs. Metcalf for over and hour.

"Yes, I suppose you should, you need to check if that soldier of yours has written again." she winked devilishly.

"No," Lilli blushed, "in fact I've decided to stop writing him. His letters make it perfectly clear he's not interested. So I've decided to write him one more time to ask him to stop writing."

"That's a shame dear, he sounded like such a lovely boy the first time you mentioned him."

"He was, I don't know what happened." Lilli admitted sadly.

"The Lord has someone very special for you my dear, just like my Harold. Trust him and all will be well."

"Thank you Mrs. Metcalf."

"No, thank you my dear, for all your hard work and for keeping me company."

"I enjoy our time together, and I think we may have some cherry tomato's next week!"

"Excellent! We'll have to make something special with them. Remember to throw your clothes in the laundry bin for Betty to wash tomorrow."