Winter in June (10 page)

I fought a yawn. Spanky was a hell of a nice guy, but sleep was starting to sound a lot nicer. “Chewing gum, Scotch tape, marshmallows.”

“That's okay. I didn't care for any of that anyway.”

I lifted my hand to silence him. “Hold on: I'm not done yet. They've limited our canned goods, meat, shoes, and dairy.”

“No meat?”

“No good meat.” I thought of my last ill-fated attempt to eat what I thought was roast beef and shuddered. “And don't even think about getting an omelet.”

“Yikes.”

“Now can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Do you know a man named Jack Castlegate?”

He spun me again. Mac let out a bark of approval. “Is he navy?”

“Yeah. A lieutenant.”

“What crew?”

“Not a clue.”

“You do know we don't all know each other, right?”

I could feel myself blush. I really was naïve, wasn't I? “Still, I figured it was worth a shot. I heard he was out here in the islands. He's MIA and I thought maybe that would've gotten him a little attention.”

Spanky's brow furrowed. It wasn't hard to imagine what he'd look like as an old man. Assuming he survived that long. “So who is he to you?”

“He was my boyfriend. Now he's my ex.”

He shook his head. “Boy, that's a snafu.”

My words were slurring when I talked, and I didn't think it completely irrational to worry that my thoughts were doing the same. “Huh?”

“Snafu,” he repeated.

I raised an eyebrow. “Here's how it works when I don't know something: I still don't know it, even though you've said it twice.”

He gave me an “Aw shucks” grin. “Sorry. I forget that some of the stuff we know because we're in the military. It's getting harder and harder for me to remember what I came here with and what I'll leave here with.”

“So what's it mean?” I asked.

He blushed. “I can't tell you. You're a lady.”

“So now I'm a lady?” I leaned into him and lowered my voice. “Don't worry, you won't shock my virgin ears.”

He tilted his head to the left. “All right. It means ‘situation normal all fouled up.'” Only he didn't say fouled.

The profanity caught me off guard. “I can see why you prefer to use the acronym.” It was a good one too. Snafu was the best description of war—and relationships—I'd heard yet.

“I did you a favor—now will you do me one?” he said.

“Shoot.”

“Tell me about your friend.”

“Gilda? She's sweet. Not at all like you'd think she'd be.”

“Not Gilda.” His eyes danced sharply to the left. “The other one.”

I scanned the crowd trying to figure out who he was talking about. “Violet? You're asking about Violet?”

“Absolutely. She's one of the prettiest women I've ever seen. What's she like?”

It depends on the day of the week. “Funny. A real cutup.”

“Does she have a fellow?”

Heaven help us if she did. “Not that's she's mentioned. In fact, I get the distinct impression she's hoping to meet someone here.”

He looked at her with such longing you would've thought he was the dog instead of Mac.

“Here.” I dragged Spanky over to where she was sitting and held out his hand. “Violet, you remember our tour guide, Spanky? He'd liked to dance with you.”

I didn't stick around to see what happened. I was thinking about sneaking out when I saw Dotty arrive. His eyes landed on Kay, who was dancing with another man. When he saw her with someone else, his face fell, and he looked ready to turn tail and leave.

“Hey, Dotty!” I got his attention and he moved my way. “Got time for a dance?”

Again he looked toward Kay, who showed no sign of leaving her partner. “Sure,” he told me, “that'd be swell.”

Despite the bum knee, he did a fine job on the slow song. He held me at a distance, like we were at a school dance being monitored by habit-wearing proctors.

“So why do they call you Dotty?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “Before the war I was dead set on being a writer. Had some short stories and poems published here and there, and the fellows started calling me Dorothy Parker. That evolved into Dotty and the nickname stuck.”

“And now you're a journalist?”

“I wanted some way to help out after I was discharged. This seemed like a good way to use my skills.” His eyes left me and once again made their way over to Kay.

“You keep that up and I'm going to get my feelings hurt.”

His attention snapped back to me. “Sorry.”

“You can make it up to me by answering a question. Since you've been here, have you heard anything about a navy lieutenant named Jack Castlegate?”

“The name's familiar, but I don't know why.”

“He's MIA,” I said. “And prior to that, there was some sort of falling out with his CO. There was another guy in his unit—a Corporal M. Harrington. Everyone called him Charlie. He supposedly committed suicide a few months ago.”

“You sure about that?”

“Absolutely. My source is good.”

“No, I mean about Charlie being in his unit. Corporal's not a navy rank.”

Could I have gotten it wrong? The military was an elusive world of colors, titles, and insignia to me. But it didn't seem likely that I would misremember the rank of the man who'd told me Jack was missing.

“Well, if he wasn't navy, what would he be?”

“Army or marine. Assuming he was American.”

“He was. He definitely was. He was from Charleston, South Carolina.”

His eyes gravitated away from me. I followed his gaze. Kay was gone. “I can ask around if you like.”

“That would be swell.”

We finished out the song and went our separate ways. Between the beer, the heat, and my aching feet, I wanted nothing more than a little time out. I found a table at the back of the platform and eased my way into a chair.

How could I have screwed up Charlie Harrington's rank? I had so few details about Jack's life in the navy. I hated to think I wasn't keeping the meager things I knew straight.

A sound like a drumroll begged for my attention. Mac was sitting at my side. He nuzzled my hand with his cold nose, and I patted his filthy head out of gratitude. Together, we watched as Spanky and Violet continued to dance, their laughter rising above the music.

They weren't the only ones on the dance floor. At some point while I was dancing, the Wacs had arrived, and now the room was alive with couples talking and hoofing. Despite the fact that we were all there to do the same thing, there was a curious divide between them and us. They were the girls who'd been here for dozens of nights before. We were the new blood who hadn't yet tired of the boy's jokes, battled their clumsy feet, or fought off their well-intentioned advances. And yet, even if we were more interesting by virtue of the fact that we were new, I could tell that the boys viewed the Wacs as a more comfortable alternative to the five actresses in civvies. They were familiar to them.

“Having fun?” Jayne arrived at my side with a beer for me in hand.

“It's a kick. How 'bout you?”

She told me about her various dance partners while I watched the blonde with the tight chignon take a seat a few feet from us. She must've sensed me watching her because she turned around and glared at me. I decided to return the favor.

“What are you doing?” asked Jayne.

“Giving her a taste of what she's serving.”

“What if she has a gun?”

“She's a Wac, Jayne. She's lucky she has a uniform.”

“Still…” she said. “It wouldn't kill us to be nice.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Jayne raised an eyebrow to let me know she was planning on doing exactly that. She grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet, and dragged me toward the woman's table. “Hiya,” she said. “I'm Jayne and this is my friend Rosie. You're in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, right?”

“It's just the Women's Army Corps now,” she said with the tone of someone who had grown tired of correcting the pronunciation of her long and unwieldy foreign name.

“I didn't think they'd changed it yet,” I said. Before we left the States, there was a rumble that the name change would be effective that summer.

“They haven't, but they will, and the sooner everyone gets used to it, the better.”

As much as I hated her attitude, I could empathize with the reason behind it. It wasn't just about losing a vowel; when the WAACs lost their A, they'd be gaining full rank, pay, and status.

“So where are you from?” asked Jayne.

“Gary, Indiana.”

A memory bounced about my noggin. “So was that girl they found in the water in San Francisco,” I said. “Her name was Irene Zinn. Did you know her?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? She was a former Wac captain stationed out here.”

“I'm positive.”

Despite the woman's short, clipped answers and lack of interest in anything we were saying, Jayne rambled on. “We're from New York. We're in the USO camp shows.”

That caught the gal's interest. She had assumed we were just garden-variety patriotutes.

“We're primarily actresses,” said Jayne. “Although Rosie and I are going to be tap dancing in the show.”

A strange sound left the woman. Part exhale, part laugh, it was subtle enough that to someone not hunting out signs of her obvious disdain, it might have looked like a suppressed sneeze.

“So what do you do here?” I asked. My knowledge of WAC activity was pretty unimpressive. I assumed they performed those womanly jobs that men didn't want to do—secretarial work and the like—to free up soldiers to fight. In fact the organization seemed like nothing more than a way to give skirts something to do to delude them into thinking they were helping out the war.

“We're code breakers,” she said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.”

I was intrigued. She may have been rude, but this woman was vastly more interesting than I'd given her credit for. “So you get to intercept enemy correspondence and figure out what it says?”

She nodded.

“Rosie wrote a code once,” said Jayne. “It made it past the war censors and everything.” I cringed at Jayne's proud announcement of my accomplishment. My code had been nothing more than a simplistic attempt to write to Charlie Harrington to find out what had happened to Jack. It was hardly going to change the course of the war.

“Well, aren't you clever?” said blond chignon.

“It was nothing. Really,” I said.

Her mouth became a perfect horizontal line. If we'd had a ruler, we could've used her face to map out right angles. “Then I guess you're lucky that I didn't have to break it.”

 

I pulled Jayne back to our table. “That was rude,” said Jayne.

“You shouldn't have told her about the code,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because…you just shouldn't have.” I was embarrassed but not because of the way the woman had treated us. She had a role—an important one that might well help determine how the war was going to turn out. She had to think that the two of us were nothing but a silly bit of fluff.

A man approached the blond commander and extended his hand in an invitation to dance. “Did you ever think about enlisting?” I asked Jayne.

“No. Why?”

“I was just thinking about the posters that are everywhere back home. You know the ones that say things like food or free labor will win the war. Notice how there aren't any that say ‘tap dancing is the key to victory'?”

“Hollywood and Broadway have done a lot of good things.”

“But will any of it really matter in the end?”

Jayne sighed and crossed her arms. “Food and labor are just as likely to fail.”

The blonde headed toward the dance floor. Her voice rose in imitation of Jayne's high-pitched squeak. “It got past the war censors and everything.”

I made it two steps before Jayne grabbed my arm. I spun back and looked at her in disbelief. How could she possibly keep me from giving that broad a piece of my mind? “She deserves to be put right and you know it.”

“It doesn't matter,” said Jayne.

“She was aping you.”

“So? Maybe I deserved to be aped.”

“You were trying to be nice.”

She shrugged. “Maybe she didn't see it that way.”

 

The party ended around two a.m. By then we were all so ossified that the only hope we had of finding our tent was if someone took us by the arm and walked us to it. Fortunately, there were plenty of offers to do just that.

“Where's Gilda?” I asked as our entourage started down the hill, following the small globe of light provided by a military torch. Never had I been anywhere so dark. Even during the dim-out, Manhattan had a faint glow about it that made it possible for you to navigate the streets.

“I haven't seen her for hours,” said Violet. “Last time I saw her she was with that reporter.”

“Dotty?” asked Kay.

“That's the one,” said Violet.

Even in the darkness I could tell that Kay wasn't happy with that answer. “What was she doing with him?”

“Hell if I know,” said Violet. “But they sure looked friendly together.”

It was a good thing I was drunk that first night. Had I been sober, I doubt I would've been able to fall asleep. It was so hot in the tent it was hard to breathe. But the temperature wasn't the worst of it. Unlike the city where I could depend on the noise diminishing to a dull roar once the sun went down, the jungle came alive at night, screeching at increasingly louder volumes. It wouldn't have been so bad if I knew what was making the noise, but the unknown factor lifted the sounds from annoying to terrifying. For a while the four of us lay in the dark trying to match each cry with its maker,. Although we could easily identify the more commonplace animals, there were many we city folk hadn't heard before. I pictured cheetahs, snakes, and magical, mythical creatures surrounding our tent waiting for just the right opportunity to launch their attack.

If nature could make my heart pitter-patter with fear, I could only imagine what seeing the enemy would do.

Of course the noise wasn't restricted to the outdoors. Inside, we
heard shuffling that suggested our rodent friend had returned for a visit. Despite our canvas walls and the mosquito netting we'd been provided, insects buzzed around our heads, fighting for the right to feed. Some even made their way under the netting, forcing us to jolt ourselves out of near sleep with painful slaps as we smacked mosquitoes, blue flies, and God knows what else.

Eventually, exhaustion won out, and I came to accept that the jungle wasn't trying to scare us. It was singing its lullaby.

 

Gilda was there when the loudspeaker got us up the next morning, playing the bugle calls that were instructions for the entire camp to get up and grab chow. I struggled to find my wristwatch in the glow of not-quite-morning, but my efforts were for naught.

“What time is it?” I moaned.

“O'dark thirty,” said Kay. The other women were still passed out. Violet had her M1 helmet over her head to block out the coming day. Jayne wore an eye mask and the earmuffs she thought she'd need to weather the South Pacific winter. I envied her wisdom in bringing them.

Since no one else was making a move to get up, I buried my own noggin beneath my pillow and tried to sleep through the sounds of the rest of the camp rising. I was doing a pretty good job nodding off when a second horn blast sounded right outside our tent entrance.

“Show yourself, bugler!” said Violet.

“Time to get up, ladies,” said a young man who had no idea how close to death he was.

“Our first show isn't until ten,” moaned the lump that used to be Gilda.

“But the plane to get you there is leaving at oh-eight-hundred.”

“The what to what?” asked Gilda.

“The plane,” repeated the voice. I was fairly certain its owner possessed horns and a forked tale. “Unless you ladies would prefer to swim.”

“All right already. We're getting up,” I said.

“The Jeep will be outside the enlisted mess in an hour to take you to the airstrip.”

The voice and its horn left us to the ugly business of waking up. Jayne was still blissfully unaware of what was going on around her, so I poked her leg until she finally roused.

“How could you sleep through all that?” asked Violet.

Jayne removed an earmuff. “What?”

“I said how can you sleep through all that?”

“I'm from New York,” said Jayne. “I've slept through worse.”

We showered, got dressed, and packed up our costumes in record time. With our bags in tow, we headed out in search of java at the enlisted men's mess, all of us too exhausted to make conversation. Breakfast was finished and the camp was alive with inspections and roll calls. I saw some of the boys we'd danced with the night before standing stone-faced before their commanding officers, their bodies showing no sign of the wear and tear that was making us moan. I wanted someone to pay for my aching head and tortured feet, but so far it looked like I only had myself to blame.

Inside the tents, we passed were men making up their beds, polishing their shoes, and doing all the other busywork that gave shape to their day. The Wacs marched in formation before us, led by the girl with the blond chignon. As she shouted orders to her weary unit, her bun bounced along like the ball you were supposed to follow while singing along to the lyrics in cartoon shorts. I closed an eye to see how easy it would be to get my sights on her. Then, with a gun made of my hand, I fired a shot.

 

We barely had any time to grab a cup of joe before the Jeep arrived to take us to the airstrip. It turned out it was a good thing we had empty stomachs. As the plane that served as our transport danced over the water before swooping through the air, my stomach mimicked our motions a moment too late: rising when it should've been falling, banking when it should've been horizontal. I'd never been on a plane before, and the excitement was quickly replaced by fear. How on earth were we supposed to stay airborne? I spent most of
the journey digging my fingers into the seat in front of me, pretending that Jayne's reports of what she could see out of the window weren't making everything much, much worse. I did my darndest to keep my agony to myself. If Violet was right and Gilda had made comments about my digestive discomfort, I didn't want to add any more fuel to her fire.

At last we arrived on an island that Jayne described as having a real live volcano on it. From the small landing strip, we took a Jeep into camp, where the troops were already convening in preparation for our performance.

“So how was your night?” Kay asked Gilda as we drove into camp. It may have seemed like nothing more than friendly conversation, but I thought I knew Kay better than that. She wanted to confirm that what Violet had said about seeing Gilda with Dotty was true. Who could blame her when it was clear Violet was doing everything she could to set us against Gilda?

“It was fun,” said Gilda. “Though I'm worried the show's going to suffer for it. I hate to sound like a mother hen, but we can't be doing that every night if we want to give these men good shows.”

Violet seemed to catch wind of what Kay was really talking about, and rather than letting the subject die, she decided to needle. “Meet anyone special?”

“No. Though I met a ton of nice fellows,” said Gilda.

“The war's full of them,” I said. I was too tired for this game of cat and mouse. “Where did you disappear to last night, Gilda? We were worried when we couldn't find you.”

“Sorry about that, girls. I got dragged off for an interview.”

“With Dotty?” asked Kay.

“Yes. He figured last night was the only chance he'd have to get me alone before the touring started.”

Kay visibly relaxed. An interview was very different from Violet's description of Gilda and Dotty going off for a private rendezvous.

“And then after the interview, I was invited to Rear Admiral Blake's tent for the officers' poker game.”

“That must've been a gas,” I said.

Gilda lifted an eyebrow. “It wasn't as bad as you think. He's actually an interesting man when you strip away the pomp and circumstance. His brother's a producer, and it turns out we know some of the same people. In fact, he said when he heard I was interested in touring, he tried to get his brother to pull some strings to get me here.”

Blake's connections hardly endeared him to me. It was bad enough that he could affect my life on the island; I hated to think he had any pull off it as well.

“How did the interview with Dotty go?” asked Violet.

“All right, I guess. I mean, Dotty seems very sincere, but I'm always so scared about what the press will make of what I say. He didn't seem interested in Hollywood gossip though. He just wanted to know why I decided to commit to a six-month tour and what I hoped to get out of it.”

“And what do you hope to get out of it?” asked Violet. It was amazing how she could ask the most cutting questions and with a bat of her eyelashes make it seem so innocent.

“The same thing we all do,” said Gilda. “I'm hoping to lift the men's days and do what I can to make their lives a little more pleasant here.”

“What about you, Violet?” I asked. “You meet anyone special?”

Jayne caught my swerve and helped me make the turn. “Spanky seems sweet on you.”

“He's a swell guy,” she said. “Although I don't know if I could ever love a man without hair. And that dog has got to go.”

“Mac's sweet,” said Jayne.

“So's honey-baked ham, but that doesn't mean I want to cuddle with it,” said Violet. “What about you two? Did you meet anyone last night?”

“Not really. I just danced until my feet bled,” said Jayne.

“Oh, come on now,” I said. “We did meet that lovely Wac.”

“Uh,” moaned Jayne. “I forgot about her.”

“You talked to one of the dovetails?” asked Violet.

“Their queen,” I said. “A real charmer. In less than two minutes
she found a way to insult both of us. I've known vipers that are more pleasant to be around.”

“The Wacs don't like USO performers,” said Kay.

“Why?” asked Gilda

Kay tried to tuck her hair beneath a scarf to keep it from flying around. “We're not enlisted, we take attention away from them, and they think what we do has no value.”

“So I gathered,” I said.

“And I'm probably not helping things,” she added.

“Why'd you resign?” asked Jayne.

Kay played with a silver bracelet dangling from her wrist. Two charms tinkled together. On closer inspection I realized they weren't charms; they were dog tags. “I missed performing. And, quite frankly, I couldn't handle military life. All those rules and regulations. I can memorize a song like that.” She snapped her fingers. “But ask me to remember who to salute when, and it all drops out of my head. I just don't think I was made for the military.”

I could see that. From the little interaction I'd had with soldiers and sailors, it seemed clear you needed more confidence than Kay possessed, if not for yourself, then for the safety of those around you. “Good for you for realizing it. How'd the Wacs react?”

“About like you'd think. They were so angry when I left. Everyone was, including my family. My pop's military, and so were my brothers.”

That
were
spoke volumes. You didn't use the past tense unless the people you were talking about were past tense.

“We lost them both last year at Bataan,” said Kay.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“I thought my parents would be relieved that I didn't want to put myself at risk, but I think they think I'm a coward.”

I knocked her knee with my own. “Going to the South Pacific hardly makes you a coward.”

She smiled, a rare sight from Kay, and I realized that her horse features were much prettier than I'd given her credit for. “But as your new Wac friend will probably tell you, it's a lot different
going to war when you're wearing an evening gown instead of a uniform.”

 

According to the schedule, we'd be doing three shows that day. As we walked to the performance venue, we rapidly talked through song lyrics, sketches, and performance order. I had a horrible feeling that everything we'd rehearsed on the ship had leaked out of my brain while I was sleeping and been replaced by lukewarm Australian beer.

As we were to discover about many of the camps, there was an actual amphitheater set up on this island, with a stage that had already accommodated a number of traveling performers and musicians. The army had chosen the spot because of the way the rocky outcroppings that surrounded the performance area isolated it from noise. It was funny how a cluster of islands that had become the heart of the Pacific theater was so conducive to performances of real theater, as though even the land recognized the necessity of engaging in all types of human drama. In addition to the stage, there was a small dressing area where we stored our few costumes and props and prepared ourselves for the first of the shows.

We were lent a pianist for the day, who was happy to get out of his normal job repairing Jeeps in the army's motor pool. Despite his grease-stained fingers, he was a fast study, ripping through our sheet music with the confidence of a man who'd played hundreds of performances before. He taught us a number of sly hand signals to use if we wanted him to speed up, slow down, or vamp during the show. After a quick rehearsal, we were confident we were in good hands.

My nerves took the run out and made way for excitement. This was a kind of theater I hadn't done in a long time. There were no fancy lights, expensive sound system, or carefully crafted sets to distract our audience from our talents and limitations. The only thing the men would be paying attention to was us.

Backstage we all put on our first costume and fixed our faces. The camp had supplied us with a platter of sandwiches made fitting
for feminine enjoyment by having their crusts removed. Between soft, fresh bread nestled egg salad, tuna, and what they called GI turkey, which Violet discovered was another term for corned beef. While the rest of us eagerly dug into the chow, a silent Gilda continued to get ready, her hand shaking as she patted a powder puff across the bridge of her nose.

“You okay?” I asked her.

She looked down at her trembling arm and lowered it to her side. “I'm nervous.”

“How on earth can you be nervous?” asked Violet.

“I can't remember the last time I was in front of a live audience.”

Jayne put an arm around her waist and squeezed. “They'll love you.”

“But what if they don't?”

I could hear something in her voice that I wasn't sure the other girls recognized. This wasn't just a movie star scared to see her fans in person but someone who desperately needed their love if she wanted her career to survive its most recent blow.

“If they don't,” I said, “I'll eat every hat on every head in that room.”