Six

LOTTIE STEPPED INTO THE small room off the narrow dormitory hallway, dropped her little blue valise on the bare mattress of the nearest bed, and sighed.

It was hard to believe the whirlwind she’d been through since she first carried that bag out of her bedroom at home. The tough test they’d given her to check her math and writing skills once she arrived in New York, where the WAVES housed their training base, at Hunter College in the Bronx. The interview they’d given her, once she passed the test. And then the waiting to hear whether she’d been accepted—weeks of it.

She would have liked to do it all on her own, but the fact of the matter was that she had never held a job before and didn’t know how long she could promise to stay at one. So one of her first calls home, a few days after the canceled wedding, was to her mother. Her mother’s voice had been strained, but she’d tried to stay cheerful—like the mothers of so many who were already off at war. And when Lottie told her she’d spent the night in a single room down the hall from a shared bath, her mother had insisted that she check into a private club in the city where her father was a member.

Lottie knew she’d created so many worries for her parents that she couldn’t bear to create another one now, so she’d complied. But as soon as she got there, she regretted it, feeling more and more friction between the lavish lifestyle of the people who frequented the club and the war she knew was raging abroad. She read the papers every morning, from front to back, but she was still restless.

So she’d started going to the recruiting office every day to see if there was any word about her case. And eventually, they’d gotten so tired of her questions that they put her to work, signing up other volunteers who came in—a handful of women who had heard about the WAVES program, but mostly young men.

Every day, she’d checked the mail at the front desk at the club—sometimes twice a day—waiting for word from the Navy. For weeks, all that had come was mail from her mother, little notes on her familiar stationery. They arrived every few days with cheerful updates, letting her know that the maples on the golf course had all turned red with an overnight cold snap, or that the Beauforts’ new puppy had chewed up the leg of their Louis XIV couch.

But her mother’s letters gave Lottie an uneasy feeling. That was partly because they deliberately made no mention of the war, as if Lottie were just out for a long visit to the city. And partly because an update about Eugene or the aftermath of the canceled wedding was noticeably absent.

Despite her mother’s attempt at cheery small talk, Lottie could feel the strain in her tone, just like she had over the phone. She couldn’t let her mind dwell on what it must have been like for her mother to let her go, even for a moment. If she did, it would be crippling. It was easier to simply throw herself into her work and try to forget everything—and everyone—she’d left behind. So she wrote back, not as frequently as her mother did, with her own newsy letters, full of any jokes or silly moments she could scrounge up from the pattern of her days.

Then, finally, the official letter had come, ordering her to report to the training program at Hunter College and giving her the address of one of the apartments near the campus that the Navy had also taken over as housing for recruits.

She’d always dreamed of having a little apartment in New York. But as she unfastened the latches of the valise, Lottie realized she’d never thought it would be one like this: so far away from the heart of things, back in Manhattan.

The room was dingy, nothing more than two twin beds, one dresser, and one desk. A small window looked out at an alleyway and a small mirror hung above the desk on the pale yellow wall. It was clearly a dorm room—furnished, but not with any thought or love. Even the personal marks that might have made it feel homey had vanished along with the previous inhabitants.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Lottie realized she’d never been so pleased to step into any room before in her life.

Lottie plopped onto the mattress, the springs squeaking cheerfully. It felt like she had just reached the end of a long race. And although this seemed like some kind of a finish line, she knew the real race was still to come. Basic training hadn’t even started.

She figured she’d better unpack and make her bed. She’d just begun by unfolding one of the sheets that were neatly piled at the foot of it when she heard footsteps in the hall.

She turned to see a young woman in a red midi dress, with frizzy red hair and a broad face full of freckles.

“Hello,” Lottie said, turning on her warmest smile. “I’m Lottie. Lottie Palmer.”

“Yeah, I got that,” the woman said in an unmistakable Southern drawl. She tapped on the wall in the hallway, then stalked into the room. “Says it by the door.”

“It does?” Lottie said. Somehow, she’d managed to completely miss it.

Her smile faded as she darted back into the hall, where she discovered the newcomer was correct. Two names were hand-lettered on a placard outside: C. Palmer, for her full name, Charlotte. And M. Duckworthy.

“So you’re… Duckworthy?” Lottie tried.

Somehow, her new roommate had already managed to snap the sheet onto her bed and was tucking the perfect hospital corners under the mattress. She gave a crisp nod.

“What does the M stand for?” Lottie asked.

“Maggie,” the woman said, then dropped her own bag on the bed.

Lottie couldn’t help but notice that it was even smaller than her own, and even more worn. Its rickety sides seemed to be made out of actual cardboard, and it was held together not by its latches, but by a piece of thick string.

And further conversation seemed to be the last thing Maggie was interested in.

Lottie stepped back through the doorway into the room and finished making her own bed, then opened her valise on the thin blanket. She couldn’t help feeling a little grateful that she had thought to choose a bag that wouldn’t give away her family’s wealth. It felt good to earn her place in this room, and she wanted to earn everything else the same way.

She’d pulled her small collection of simple clothes out of the bag and started to hang them in the small shared closet when she heard a snort behind her.

“Rich girl, eh?” Maggie said.

Lottie stared into the closet, which contained nothing more than her Navy-issue suits and shirts, her Navy topcoat and rain cover, and the gloves, stockings, and shoes that the Navy had assigned her. Just the standard issue and a few simple dresses of her own. She felt heat rising in her cheeks, surprise and shame chased by indignation.

How did Maggie know?

She glanced back at her. She’d never heard that word—rich—sound so ugly before. Maggie’s wardrobe was already closed, with her empty bag settled neatly beside it, wilting a little bit without any contents to give the tired sides structure.

Maggie nodded at the open door. “You’ll get along real well with Miss Prissy across the hall, then,” she said. “You should see all the stuff she brought for the war. You’d think she got an invitation to a garden party.”

Lottie glanced through the door, across the hall. A tall, willowy blonde was struggling to lift a large Louis Vuitton bag off her bed. And Lottie immediately recognized her dress from the window of Barneys.

She looked at the woman’s luxurious accouterments and thought of her own simple collection of belongings, wondering what similarity Maggie could even see in them. They seemed so different to her that part of her wanted to start an argument about it. The only thing that stopped her was that, despite it all, Maggie was still right: she and the woman across the way were both undoubtedly wealthy.

Lottie spent so much time puzzling over this that the woman across the hall must have felt her gaze somehow. She turned around and waved. “Hi!” she said. “I’m Pearl Florence.”

“Lottie Palmer,” Lottie said, and crossed the hall to shake Pearl’s hand.

“Where are you from?” she asked. “I thought I was from New York City, until I got up here to the Bronx. Now I’m realizing I’m not sure I even know what that means.”

Lottie couldn’t tell if the girl meant to be a snob or if she really was just marveling at how much she didn’t know about the world. Maybe it was some of both. Maybe Pearl didn’t really know herself.

“Detroit,” Lottie said.

Pearl smiled amiably, but then her eyes widened. “Did you say Lottie Palmer?” she asked. “Of the Detroit Palmers?”

Lottie had only met Maggie a minute ago, but somehow she could still see the wicked grin spreading across her new roommate’s face, behind her back. Lottie tried to smile in a way that acknowledged Pearl was right but got her to stop talking as soon as humanly possible.

“You’re from Manhattan?” Lottie asked quickly, hoping that would get Pearl off the topic of Lottie’s own background.

Pearl nodded. “Which makes it even more tempting to think about how close my own warm bed is right now,” she said, looking down on the flimsy mattress that had been issued to her. “I knew I wanted to get away when I joined the Navy, but they didn’t send me very far.”

She looked up at Lottie ruefully, and Lottie felt a little tug in her heart. She didn’t like the way it sounded when Pearl said she’d joined the Navy to get away—like a poor little rich girl on yet another exotic adventure. But was she in a position to judge? Lottie asked herself. Was she anything different herself? Lottie wanted to believe that there was more to herself than met the eye. So it was only fair that she give Pearl the same benefit of the doubt.

“I’m just trying to figure out where to put everything,” Pearl went on, looking around at her stacks of boxes.

“The only thing you need,” Maggie pointed out from behind them, “is your uniform.” As if to illustrate her point, she’d already changed into hers.

“Oh my goodness,” Pearl said. “Don’t you look smart. But is it really time to…?”

Maggie looked down at her watch with what could only be described as military precision. “Depends on how long it takes you to get to lunch,” she said. “It’s twelve ten. First mess is at twelve thirty. In uniform.”

Then she stalked off, down the hall, as Pearl and Lottie scrambled to their closets.

In the crush of figuring out where the mess hall was, and figuring out how to find anything in it, Lottie was relieved she didn’t see Maggie at lunch. And she didn’t see her in any of the orientation classes she’d been assigned to that afternoon, learning basic facts about the Navy and the subjects they’d be focusing on as possible areas for study: secretarial, accounting, coding, and transmission.

Lottie knew that she was one of two thousand women who had shown up for the first time on the Hunter College campus that day. And two thousand new women showed up every two weeks, for the six-week training program, which meant there was a total of six thousand women on campus at any given time. So she started to hope that maybe she wouldn’t ever have to see her unpleasant roommate during daylight hours.

But then, in the late afternoon, it came time to line up in formation for drills.

The officers rounded them up by dorm. And then they split them up by floor and room, which meant that Pearl and Lottie were both reunited with Maggie in the ranks of the drill exercises, Pearl and Lottie side by side, with Maggie walking right behind.

In the heat of the late afternoon, when Lottie was feeling about as hungry as she ever had, she tripped in the course of one of the exercises. She heard Maggie snort behind her. “You usually pay someone to walk for you, too?”

The comment stung so much that when Lottie got back to her room after dinner that night, she changed out of her uniform and climbed into bed without giving Maggie much more than a polite nod. For her part, Maggie ignored the fact that Lottie might want to simply go to sleep and kept the light overhead blazing so that she could read a book.

“Could you turn that out, please?” Lottie asked after what seemed like hours of tossing and turning under the bright light.

“Did you bring a servant with you?” Maggie cracked in return. “That’s funny, I don’t see one here.”

Lottie rolled over, giving up. It wasn’t like she could have slept, even if the light had been out.

Her mind kept looping back, like a broken record, to the question of how in the world Maggie had known she was from a wealthy family. She didn’t have expensive luggage. She hadn’t brought a ton of unnecessary clothes, like Pearl had. Was it that obvious, just by looking at her? Was it something about her face or just the way she was? And if Maggie could see it at a glance—could everybody else?

Finally, Maggie turned out the light and put her book down beside her bed.

Before Maggie had a chance to fall asleep, and before Lottie could lose her nerve, she turned over, propping her head up on her arm.

“Maggie,” she said.

“Mm,” Maggie said in a noncommittal way that acknowledged that was, in fact, her name.

“How did you know?” Lottie asked.

“Know what?” Maggie asked, irritation in her tone.

Now that she had to say it out loud, Lottie wasn’t exactly sure how to put it. “That my family has money.”

For some reason, Maggie found this amusing enough to warrant what sounded like a full-fledged belly laugh. “Oh, honey,” she said. “It’s as clear as day. You didn’t starch that uniform yourself. Only a service could get corners that crisp. I’m the only person in the world who’s ever done my ironing for me. And I did all the ironing for all my eight brothers, because I’m the only girl. Not that there’s much call for wearing anything that requires ironing out on a dirt road in Georgia.”

While Lottie’s mind worked, taking this in, Maggie went on. “And your shiny shoes. Of course you probably could have done those yourself. But you didn’t, did you?”

Lottie thought back to the woman who had arrived at her hotel room to take the uniform and shoes away for pressing and shining, and the man she had tipped when he returned them, the uniform wrapped in thin crinkling paper printed with the hotel’s emblem.

“No,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t think so,” Maggie said with satisfaction. “Sweet dreams, Your Highness.”

Suddenly, in the darkness, Lottie felt a deep longing for Eugene. No matter the differences between them, he’d always been absolutely on her side, even when they were kids, before anything between them had turned romantic. She felt so friendless and alone right now. She wanted to turn to the shelter she had known with him. But the thought of him caused an even deeper ache in her heart.

He was probably hurting, too, she realized. He’d never asked for any of this. All he’d tried to do was give her a good life—and his heart. He didn’t deserve to be stood up on the eve of his wedding. At the thought of it, tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them back quickly, worried that Maggie would somehow realize she was crying.

A moment later though, she realized Maggie had already dropped into sleep, given away by the slightest of snores.

But Lottie stayed wide awake, trying to figure out how in the world she was going to survive the next six weeks. It wasn’t the training that worried her anymore.

It was her roommate.