Dream When You're Feeling Blue (29 page)

VALENTINE’S DAY, 1946

K
ITTY FINISHED FASTENING THE LAST
of the many buttons on the back of Louise’s wedding dress. Then she spun her sister around so that she could see herself in the mirror. “Look at you!”

“Look at
you
!” Louise said.

Kitty had to admit that she’d never looked lovelier. She wore a lavender bridesmaid’s dress and a beautiful matching picture hat. Her shoes were covered in lavender lace. She was the only bridesmaid; Louise had wanted to keep the wedding small.

“I’m going to give you a minute alone,” Kitty said. “You come out when you’re ready.”

“Gosh, I’m nervous!” Louise shook her hands.

“I know, Coots. But that’s good luck. A bride is supposed to be nervous on her wedding day. Take your time.”

In the church’s vestibule, Kitty looked anxiously about. She needed to find the best man; the wedding was scheduled to begin in five minutes. Outside in the cold, on the church steps, Frank stood still as a statue, his back to her, his hands in his pockets. His head hung down; you could read some sadness there. But he’d be smiling like the jolly Irishman he was when he turned around, and Kitty had no doubt that at the reception he’d be the life of the party.

Hank came quickly into the vestibule and stood by Kitty. He looked Cary Grant handsome in his tuxedo; it made Kitty’s throat hurt.

“Hey, you,” she said. “Are you nervous?”

“Nah. You?”

“A little. My shoes have awfully high heels. I hope I don’t fall!”

“Well, you never fall hard, do you?” He spotted Julian and called out, “Ah! My best man.”

Julian was beaming, and his limp was barely noticeable. Kitty had been worried when he told Tish he’d be going down the aisle without his cane—he didn’t want their daughter to be embarrassed. “Julian, she’s two weeks old,” Tish had said. But Julian was doing fine without his cane, at least so far. He kissed Kitty’s cheek. “Hello, you gorgeous thing. You ready?”

She was not, really. Inside, something turned over. “Sure am!”

“Can I lean on you?” Julian asked.

“Of course.”

“Don’t tell.”

“I never will.”

Now the organ began playing, and Frank came into the vestibule. For one moment, he rested his eyes on Kitty, and there was in his gaze such deep affection that Kitty had to look away lest she cry. Then Frank turned his attention to the bride, to whom he offered his arm, held out straight and steady and sure.

SEPTEMBER 2006

K
ITTY STARED INTO THE MIRROR
and adjusted her bangs one more time. She freshened her lipstick and powdered her nose. She hoped she wasn’t wildly off the mark with her lipstick; her vision had deteriorated further still.

In the living room, she called Louise to give her one more chance to come along. The last reunion of their high school, classes of 1940–1945. Again, Louise said no. Then, laughing, she said, “Why do you want to go and hang around with all those old goats? Come over here, we’re going to have a cookout, everybody’s coming. The kids, the grandkids, the great-grandkids…”

“Maybe I’ll come later,” Kitty said.

“Want me to send Hank to pick you up?”

“I’ll take a cab.”

“Don’t be silly; I’ll send Hank. I’ll have him pick you up at the high school. What time?”

Kitty looked out the window. Across the street, a young couple pushed a baby in a stroller. They had a little yellow puppy, too; it bit at the leash. A golden? A Lab? So many new young families had moved in; the neighborhood had almost completely turned over. “I just want to say hello,” Kitty said. “I don’t imagine I’ll be there more than an hour or two. So few are coming this time; I believe they’re expecting only twenty or so. But I’ll say hello, and maybe I’ll dance. I still love to dance, you know.”

“Well, do a dip for me,” Louise said. “I’ll have Hank get you at eight-thirty. What are you wearing?”

“Oh, just a black bouclé suit. Cream blouse. Pearls. And black heels, a nice Italian leather.”

“You’re going to kill yourself wearing those heels!”

“And die a happy death,” Kitty said, and then, “Hey? I’ll bet Kyle Leverett will be there, he’s still around. You used to have a big crush on him.”

Louise laughed.
“No!
I’m not coming with you. I’d rather remember Kyle as he was. What a good-looking fellow! Those eyes! And what a football player he was, too. Didn’t he marry Kate Marshall?”

“Oh, they got divorced years ago.”

“How do you know? Did he come after you again? He always had a big crush on
you.”

“He had a crush on all three of us!”

“Lots of boys did,” Louise said proudly. “The Dreamy girls, remember?”

“Kyle did call me, once. Gosh, it was years ago. But we never got together.”

“Some catch,” Louise said. “I heard he’s worth millions. See if he still can do that thing with the nickel.”

“I will,” Kitty said. Louise was mixing Kyle up with Tom Bender—he was the one who pulled a nickel from his nose—but she wouldn’t tell her sister that. No point in correcting every single thing. Soon enough Hank would have to decide how best to care for his wife; some of the things she was beginning to do were dangerous: forgetting to turn off the stove burner, getting lost in the neighborhood when she went out for walks. Mostly, though, she was doing well enough. Her doctor had said it was likely cancer or a heart attack would get her before dementia would. “Imagine being happy to hear news like that,” Louise had said, and they’d laughed and laughed.

Kitty ordered a cab to take her to the high school and all the way there answered questions that the young man who was driving put to her. What was school like then? What had she done for a living? Had she lived here all her life?

A young historian! It was refreshing; most young people didn’t give a damn about her or her generation. For them, World War II was that Hitler thing, if they even knew that much. She answered the young man’s questions dutifully: school was far more disciplined and the kids learned a lot more. She had been a fashion writer, had written for many newspapers and magazines. And yes, she had lived here all her life, though she had traveled a great deal.

“Got any kids?” the driver asked.

“No,” Kitty said. “I’ve got a lot of nieces and nephews, though. And great-nieces and -nephews!”

The driver regarded her in the rearview mirror. “Bet you were a looker,” he said.

Kitty laughed. “People always used to tell me I looked just like Rita Hayworth.”

“Who’s that?” the man asked, and Kitty said, “Oh, she was a real famous movie star. Back then.”

“Did you come from a big family?” the cabbie asked, and Kitty said yes, adding that there were a lot of big families in those days. And she was lucky; all her siblings were still alive but for her sister Tish, who had died at forty-one of breast cancer. Her brothers all lived in California, but she and her sister Louise had stayed here in Chicago. Kitty told the driver that the house where he’d picked her up was the place she and her family had lived.

“There were
six kids
in that place?”

“And only one bathroom,” Kitty said, smiling.

“That’s too small a house for that many people!”

“It was big enough,” Kitty said. “People then didn’t mind sharing.”

“I can’t wait to have a family,” the man said, and Kitty said yes, she believed there was something to it.

“Here
we go,” he said, pulling up at the high school. He got out of the cab to open the door for her, then offered his hand so that he could help pull her out. She needed a little help getting out of cars; sometimes it was awfully embarrassing—once, her skirt had ridden up right past her girdle. She thanked the driver and asked how much she owed. “Aw, that’s okay,” he said, smiling. “Wasn’t much of a ride.”

“I insist,” she said, her chin raised high. She paid him and tipped him well. He offered to help her into the school, but she told him no, she was just fine. She walked in alone.

KITTY STOOD OUTSIDE THE AUDITORIUM,
waiting for Hank’s car. Here it came, the long blue sedan, ten years old and looking brand-new. Maybe twenty thousand miles on it. Hank got out and opened the door for her, and she settled herself on the wide bench seat. “You should have heard the band,” she told him, when he got back behind the wheel. “Just a bunch of young kids, but they’re really good, and they were playing all those old songs. ‘I’ll Be Seeing You,’ ‘Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.’”

“‘Long Ago and Far Away’?” Hank asked, smiling. “That’s my favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Kitty said. “But no, they didn’t play it.”

“Did you dance a lot?”

“Not at all. Nobody asked me.”

“What?”

Kitty laughed. “Oh, you know, almost no one dances anymore. They just listen.”

Hank pulled into a parking place and turned off the engine. “Let’s go in there and dance. Shall we?”

Kitty looked doubtfully at him.

“Come on!”

“Oh, all right,” Kitty said. “But no Lindy Hop!”

“A fox-trot’s as fast as I can go, believe me.”

They walked back into the auditorium. Most of the people had gone; only about six or seven remained, sitting at tables with plastic glasses of wine and little sandwiches on paper plates, the lettuce wilting now. The musicians were beginning to pack up. But Hank got their attention, and the bandleader came over and crouched down at the edge of the stage to listen to what he said. The man smiled and looked over at Kitty, said something to the rest of the band, and they took up their instruments.

Hank walked across the floor and took Kitty gently into his arms. Oh, he was still a wonderful dancer. His steps were smaller, but his carriage as erect as ever, and he knew just how to hold a girl. A girl! A girl of eighty-five!

“‘Long ago and far away,’” Hank sang softly along, then smiled down at her. “Ah, Kitty. How’d we get so old?”

“Beats me,” she said.

“You know, I want to ask you something: Didn’t you ever want to marry
any
one?”

“Once I did,” Kitty said.

Hank was quiet and then he asked, “Who?”

She thought for a minute; they were so old now, what could it matter? But then she said, “Oh, there was a man I met in Italy when I was thirty-five. I guess that would have been my last chance for a traditional life, you know, home and kids.”

“But you didn’t really want kids, either.”

And now she lied again, the old, practiced lie, said so often that it almost seemed like truth. “No,” she said, “I never really did. I only liked the fantasy. When it was time for the reality…Well. you know.”

“Yes,” he said, and there was such sorrow in it.

“But you’ve been happy, Hank,” she said, and she sounded more schoolmarmish than she meant to. What she really meant to do was not to tell him he’d been happy but to ask if he had been.

He stopped dancing. “You know there was only ever one girl for me, Kitty. And that was you.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“It’s true. May I tell you just one more time how very much I loved you?”

She swallowed with difficulty. For heaven’s sake, no tears! She put her cheek up next to his and began to move them about on the floor.

“Stop leading!” he said. And then, “Okay, I won’t talk about it anymore, but I meant what I said.”

“Oh, Hank. It was such a different time. It was a setup for romance, really: all those handsome young men in their uniforms, going off to war, all the love letters. And all the hopes about what would happen when the war was finally over.”

“And the music!” Hank said, and they laughed and finished dancing as the song ended, “Just one look and then I knew, / That all I longed for long ago was you.”

Kitty stepped away. “Thank you for that lovely dance.”

Hank bowed; oh, his hair was so thick and silvery and beautiful. “Thank
you,”
he said and took her arm. They walked out, their steps echoing in the all but empty room.

When he helped her into the car, Hank caught sight of a bracelet Kitty was wearing that had slipped from beneath her sleeve. “Is that…?”

“Uh-huh.” He had given it to her a short while after he’d come home from the war. They’d been walking by a jewelry store; she’d admired it in the window, and he’d gone right in and bought it.

“I’m so glad you still wear it sometimes,” he said.

The truth was, she never took it off. “Louise must be wondering where we are,” she said.

When Hank turned to back up the car, she saw that he was grinning.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

“I’m just glad you still have that bracelet,” he said. “It must be over sixty years old!”

Sixty-two years. She turned to stare out the window and made herself speak lightly. “Well, Hank. You know this: there are some things you never say good-bye to.”

They drove home through a light rain. At one point, the car skidded slightly, and Hank reached over to put his arm across her, though her seat belt was buckled securely. “You all right?” he asked, staring straight ahead.

For a moment, she didn’t answer.

“Kitty?”

“I’m fine, Hank.”

She didn’t look at him, either; nor did she speak again until they got to the house, where Louise stood at the open door, smiling, waiting for them both.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
AM TRULY INDEBTED
to the staff at the Chicago and Oak Park Public Libraries for assistance in the research I did for this novel. Especially helpful were the following: Mark Andersen, Mary Dempsey, Amy Eshleman, Noreida Hague, Margaret Kier, Kathy Mielecki, Carolyn Mulac, and Rashmi Thapliyal Swain.

I want also to acknowledge the generosity of my uncles, Frank Hoff and William Loney, who shared memories of the war and of the times. Both men served overseas in World War II, and both came home with medals.

My father, Arthur Hoff, also served in the war, and his wife—my mother, Jeanne Loney Hoff—wrote letters to him from the home front (where she, like the young women in the novel, shared a bed with her sisters). My parents were called numerous times with questions—sometimes about K rations or field conditions, sometimes about hemlines and forties mascara, sometimes about FDR or Marlene Dietrich or
Amos ’n Andy.
My aunts, Helen DeNet, Patricia Thornton, and Catherine Quigley, provided juicy details about flirting on streetcars, the content of V-mail, and which sister was the worst to sleep next to.

I stand in awe of my relatives for their kindness, patience and recall. And their character. This novel is nothing if not an expression of admiration for the people who so uncomplainingly took up the extraordinary burdens and sacrifices of a necessary war.