“Well, how on earth did you escape the farm in the middle of the day, Vera?” Eleanor Pendley slid forward on the bright-red vinyl seat of their booth at the local diner and took a sip of her soda.
Vera pinched the fingers of her gloves and slid them off her hands, setting them on the spotless, white-with-speckled-silver table between them. She shrugged out of her fading blue wool coat before reaching for the soda Alice, the waitress, had set before her.
“Mom said we all worked so hard getting that ratty old house shipshape that we deserved an afternoon off. I think she did it more for Fay than anyone else. All those feelings she’s got bottled up inside of her and none of us know how to help her. She was only eighteen when the boys left, and she never got to be the social butterfly she wanted to.”
“Poor Fay.” Eleanor stuck her elbow on the table and frowned.
“Mmm-hmm.” Vera paused to take a long drink and cast a glance around the sparsely inhabited diner. A couple of teenage girls sat at the counter, drinking malts and chatting with the young man working there. Vera should know them—Bellemont was too small not to know most everyone—but she’d lived in California a long time and spent the two years back in town working out on the farm. She turned back to Eleanor. “Well, of course I waited far too long to come home. Should’ve come as soon as Jack shipped out.”
“I’m sure having the boys home will help things, won’t it?”
“Of course, but we’ll still have to pitch in more than either Fay or I would like. The boys want to expand again, but we can’t afford to hire a new hand since all the profit from this year will be just enough to get us all through winter. And there’s Dad. It’s not that he can’t still work hard, even without his arm, but he’s old and tired. Must be hard for a man his age to recover from something like fighting in the war.”
Eleanor’s expression dropped to her soda and she swirled her straw around, knocking bits of ice askew in the dark liquid. “Must be hard for any man.”
Vera reached across the table and grabbed Eleanor’s hand. Guilt sparked in her stomach at unloading everything on her best friend when who knew how she was adjusting to having her husband home. “Oh, El. Here I’ve been going on and on about me. How are things for you? How is Alvin?”
“Real well, I think.” Eleanor waved off Vera’s concern. She sat up and ad-justed her seating, pushing herself back to the rear of the bench. Alice always kept everything in the diner so clean, including the benches, Vera usually had a hard time as well staying anchored in one spot. “It’s like a honeymoon all over again—of course, we never actually had a honeymoon in the first place,” Eleanor said. “He says he might take me to Yellowstone. Wouldn’t that be neat?”
Eleanor’s cherub-cheek beam brought joy bubbling up from inside Vera. Her friend had waited an awfully long time for the kind of happiness she deserved.
“Sounds like an excellent idea,” Vera said.
“It’s so nice to have him home, but my, the housework has picked up. How do you girls do it—keep the farm up and all and still have a clean house?” Eleanor turned back to her drink, the wattage of her beaming expression dimming somewhat. But Vera couldn’t blame a girl for not getting excited over housework. “You’re all saints. Of course, I’m putting in my notice at the bank now that Alvin is back.” She laughed to herself. “I swear, I spend half my day trying to come up with something he’ll want to eat for dinner.”
But maybe this was more than disappointment in the true nature of being a housewife. Vera placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward as she caught the forced lightness in Eleanor’s tone. She wouldn’t be the first war bride to get a shock at what married life was like when her husband got home.
“Must be difficult going from being on your own and having your own schedule to watching after Alvin now too.”
Eleanor took another sip of soda and then her face broke back into a grin, a real one too, as far as Vera could tell, and having known Eleanor for all her life, she considered herself a competent authority on the subject.
“But it’s great having him home. It feels like we only had a few minutes together after we got married before he shipped off. I’ll happily do his laundry every hour for the sake of staring at him in the face instead of his picture.” Then she checked her own smile and bit her lip as sympathy filled her expression. “I’m sorry, Vera. It must sound like I’m gloating.”
Vera laughed. It’d been a long time since she missed Jack. She’d had two years to get used to the idea of him never coming home. And though picking up her brothers from the train and seeing a dozen or so men—some of them she and Jack had gone to school with—had twisted her insides a bit, it didn’t hurt so much anymore. Maybe she should feel guiltier about that.
“No, you’re not gloating.” Vera took Eleanor’s hands back in hers. “It’s not so hard when I’ve got my family and people like you to take care of me.” They ducked their heads together over the table for a moment, and Vera relished in it. They’d sat in this diner plenty of times during school, whispering to each other—mostly about that handsome Jack Trumbell and any boy Eleanor might have eyes for at the moment. The memory was so real that when Vera looked up, she almost expected Jack to walk through the door of the diner, scanning the room for her. Maybe she hadn’t missed him in a while, or maybe missing him had been so constant for her she’d become used to it.
The women pulled apart, and they sipped on their drinks until Eleanor spoke up and changed the subject. “Who’s got the kids?” she asked.
Before Vera could answer, the bell above the door rang, and both women glanced over to see Fay marching in with Audrey on her hip and Tom in tow. Vera shared a grimace with Eleanor. “Well, Fay, obviously. Said her girlfriends would love to see them and that she got to go out by herself all the time.” Vera stood without waiting for a reply from Eleanor as Fay marched toward their table. “What’s wrong?” Vera asked Fay as she drew up to their booth with the children. Tom, though out of breath, didn’t seem upset. Neither did Audrey, and Vera couldn’t see any obvious injuries on either child.
“Susie Brandenburg,” Fay snapped, slapping an envelope down on the table. “Look at that.”
Vera leaned over and inspected the curly, perfect handwriting. “Mrs. Samuel Larson, Mrs. Jack Trumbell, and Miss Fay Larson.” She shared another look with Eleanor, who shrugged in confusion. “And?” Vera questioned.
“It’s for an afternoon party. She’s forgotten a certain lady in our household, have you noticed? Mrs. Andrew Larson?” Fay vehemently swung Audrey to her other hip, causing the little girl to grasp her aunt’s sweater in fear. Vera reached for her, to save her any more discomfort. Fay complied.
“I’m sure it was a mistake. After all, not everyone knows about Andrew bringing a wife home,” Vera said.
Fay’s expression turned stormier. “Oh, that little—well, she knew. She gave me the invitation when she saw me walking this way to meet you, and when I said, ‘Oh, I’m sure you won’t mind if we bring Josette along—Andrew’s wife,’ she said, ‘Oh, that’s not necessary. She won’t know a soul and she’d feel out of place.’ And then she pranced off in that silly way she does with her nose straight up in the air.”
Vera covered a laugh with her hand because she certainly did know the exact way Fay meant—though her little sister had exaggerated.
“I say we bring Jo along anyway,” Fay went on, and Vera had to reach over and slip Tom’s hand out of Fay’s since he kept tugging on it and she just kept squeezing harder. “And see what the little—well, sweet Miss Brandenburg,” she sneered the word sweet, “—thinks about that.”
“Mama, can I have some ice cream?” Tom asked, pointing to a family sitting a couple of booths over. Two little boys sat on one side with their mother, both of them with bowls containing bright-pink scoops of fluffy-looking ice cream.
“Of course,” Vera said to avoid answering her sister, and she took her children to the nearby counter. Fay dropped into Vera’s unoccupied side of the table so passionately she nearly slid right off and under the table. With a huff, she straightened and helped herself to a large drink of Vera’s cream soda.
When Vera reached the counter, the two young women sitting there hastily started a conversation of their own, probably because they’d been caught up in Fay’s dramatic entrance to the diner. The young man came and took Vera’s order: two single scoops on cones, one strawberry, one chocolate. He had the treats ready quickly. Vera handed Tom his chocolate cone and directed him back to the table, holding Audrey in one hand and her strawberry cone in the other.
“Maybe we should all stay home,” Vera said when she returned and settled Tom in the booth next to Fay. Eleanor scooted over, and Vera sat next to her, Audrey in her lap.
“That would teach her,” Eleanor chimed in, “since folks around here think as much of the Larsons as they do of those uppity Brandenburgs.”
“And I don’t think Josette would like the idea of crashing a party she isn’t wanted at. That’s more your style, dear,” Vera said.
“Oh, Jo’s got some spunk in her. She’s French, remember.”
They laughed and Vera snatched her cream soda from Fay’s grasp.
***
The pointed lack of invitation for Mrs. Andrew Larson was only the first of many darts Susie Brandenburg aimed in Josette’s direction, and Andrew’s blood boiled over it. The latest concerned dresses. Andrew had insisted that Josette buy a new dress for the reception his mother planned to have for the couple, since she’d been deprived of planning the actual wedding. The problem came when Josette’s French sense of fashion had led her to Mrs. Starry’s shop. The seamstress kept the ladies of Bellemont trimmed out in the most fashionable designs she could convince them to wear in rural Wyoming, better than any seamstress for miles. Her loyalties unfortunately lay with the Brandenburgs, who, between their own overrated social status and their insistence of keeping up good society, controlled well over half of the seamstress’s earnings. She had politely informed Josette that she couldn’t take any orders from her.
Josette leaned over Andrew’s chair—a piece of furniture borrowed from his parent’s house, and the only piece of furniture in their sad living room for now—and kissed him on the forehead. “I can tell from the red in your cheeks that you’re stewing over Mrs. Starry again.”
“Mrs. Starry and Miss Brandenburg,” he said, reaching for Josette’s hand. “How dare they treat my wife that way?”
“It’s nothing, dear. This little girlfriend of yours will stop throwing her tantrum soon, and all will go smoothly. In the meantime, Vera said she would help me make a lovely dress and we found some fabric that is wonderful. Ne inquiète pas.” Her favorite phrase to ease his mind about anything—Don’t worry yourself. She plopped down into his lap and planted a long kiss on his lips, meant to soothe him, no doubt. He didn’t argue with her methods, at least not for several minutes.
“This little former girlfriend of mine needs to learn her lesson,” he said when Josette had finished.
She laughed at him. “You sound like Fay. She insists that the Brandenburgs will not be invited to our reception. When Mother Larson scolded her for it, she told me she’d deliver the invitation herself—right into the fire.”
Andrew and Fay had been partners in crime growing up, so it didn’t surprise him that his sister felt the spurn as keenly as he did. He couldn’t help that Susie deserved all their ire. After all Josette had gone through during the war—to think she had to come to Bellemont and deal with schoolroom rivalries. The whole thing was laughable, except that it hurt Josette’s feelings in any case, schoolroom or not. He wished Susie knew more of Josette’s heroic background—the number of pilots she’d managed to get into the hands of the resistance and back to London, the information she’d gathered, the fake ration cards and identity papers she’d risked her life for. Maybe if Susie understood that, she’d make a way to include Josette in her society. Or maybe it would show Susie she’d met her match. Josette could work circles around Susie. She’d been training operatives, for heaven’s sake!
“I agree wholeheartedly that she shouldn’t be invited,” he said.
“Would it really make you feel better?” Josette asked with an arched brow.
“Very much,” he insisted.
She patted his cheek and stood, walking back to the kitchen to finish making dinner. It was the first dinner in the few days since they’d moved into the small house that they’d had alone. His mother had insisted they come down to the farmhouse every night so she could feed them. Everyone in the family loved Josette, Mom especially, but she didn’t seem to trust his wife’s ability to care for him. Josette had said, “Who can blame her, darling? She hasn’t seen you in years.”
Back before the war, when he’d begun going steady with Susie, Andrew had been quite proud of himself for capturing her heart. Though Bellemont was small, and Susie’s choice of beaus thin, it had been something of a victory. She’d gone on in letters—before her Dear John, of course—of how her children would come from such respected Bellemont stock. A thread of condescension had run through her words about how the Larsons were “only farmers” yet still so highly regarded in the community. “It will be nothing at all for Father to really make something of you,” she’d said in one letter. Andrew shuddered at the thought now, but when Susie had been making all the plans, her ambitions for him to wear nice suits and work for her father’s real estate firm hadn’t bothered him. She’d always waved away ideas about him working on the farm. “Sam will take care of that,” she’d say. “He’s perfect for it.”
“Not inviting Miss Brandenburg will only goad her more,” Josette said, breaking into his thoughts. He looked up to see her standing in the archway that separated the small kitchen from the living room, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She waved it at him sternly.
If Andrew knew one thing after going steady with Susie Brandenburg, it was that whether goaded or not, she meant to make life miserable for Josette, if only to punish him. He couldn’t say why Susie had changed her mind and made such an issue about him marrying Josette, but she wouldn’t take seeing her plans thwarted lightly. In fact, Andrew was hard-pressed to remember a time when she hadn’t gotten exactly what she set out to have.
He couldn’t allow Josette to know that though. He pushed himself out of the chair and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Ne t’inquiète pas, mon amour.” In a few steps, he crossed the room and drew his laughing wife into his arms.
“Come in for dinner,” she said when he’d finished kissing her, and she took his hand to lead him to their small wooden table tucked into a corner of the kitchen. “I made soufflé.”
Andrew made a show of pulling out a chair for her, eliciting more laughing. Considering all the heartache she’d suffered in the past, he insisted on making her smile as much as he could manage. He sat down across from her and took a deep breath of the rich smell of the dish.
“Tomato and cheese soufflé,” Josette explained, dishing some out on a plate that his mother had loaned them. They had only two of everything, all mismatched, to make do until Josette could “set up a proper household,” as his mother had put it.
“It looks delicious.” Andrew cut off a piece of his soufflé, his fork sliding through the airy, porous dish. His suspicions about its taste proved correct after a single bite. “You are a dream,” he said around a mouthful of his second bite and while already preparing his third.
Josette cast him a proud smile—lips closed as she too chewed. “Thank you. My skills have vastly improved thanks to the fact that we have no rationing and a wealth of eggs.”
“Those chickens might be the most productive things on this farm,” he said.
“Besides you, of course.”
Having already finished off his soufflé, he stood to help himself to another piece from the dish in the middle of the table. “I make no promises of that, Mrs. Larson. I may find any excuse I can to stick around this old house to admire you all day.” The table was small enough that after adding the second helping to his plate, he was able to lean over it and kiss her on the nose before sitting back down again.
“You’re quite romantic, but I suppose Sam would drag you off sooner or later—or Fay, for that matter. She’s very insistent on getting out of as much farmwork as she can as soon as possible.”
“I cannot blame her. I feel the same.” Andrew winked. They both laughed since he had too much farming in his soul to mean that. “At least until I get a proper honeymoon,” he amended.
“Those two nights we spent in that pretty room we shared with your nephews were quite lovely, and I’d thank you not to complain.” Josette finished off her portion of soufflé, dabbed her smiling and alluring lips, and then put her napkin over her plate.
Andrew could not help bursting into laughter. The room was stuffy with so many people squeezed into such a tight space, and the bed was so old he wasn’t sure if he’d slept a wink. But Josette had been in his arms, and so he found himself agreeing.
He grabbed her hand as she stood to clear her plate and pulled her toward him and into his lap. “You are probably right, mon amour. Everything is lovely with you.”
She placed her hands on either side of his cheeks and lowered her face toward his. “You know you sound quite silly when you speak French, don’t you? Just like an American.”
To which Andrew replied by speaking a string of nonsensical French words as poorly as he could and forced Josette to stop him by kissing him. And the rest of dinner was forgotten.