The conversation with Charlie, though cathartic, weighs heavy on Alice afterward. After spending a long day volunteering at the hospital, she needs some tennis to feel more like herself, even if it’s in the form of table tennis.
The Stage Door Canteen is just the place. It’s a popular hangout for servicemen to unwind. The line for the table tennis is always a mile long.
The beauty of being Miss Alice Marble, however, is that she always gets ushered to the front of the line, where the men will gladly have her stay all evening long. Man after man steps up to challenge her. Man after man walks away in defeat, head wagging, hands clapping him on the back.
Alice beams. “Who’s next?”
A naval man steps up to the table just as the opening chords to “Taking a Chance on Love” begin to be played on the piano.
“Oh!” Alice says, head perking up like one of the meerkats she’d recently seen in the Prospect Park Zoo. She pushes her paddle toward a man standing close by. “Take my place, will ya?”
At that, Alice hurries toward the music, leaning to speak into the pianist’s ear. “Mind if I sing along?”
She’s no Ethel Waters, but Alice can hold her own. The man smiles up at her, all the invitation Alice needs. She begins swaying before she adds a slow snap in rhythm with the music. Then she closes her eyes and sings.
Alice’s eyes pop open at the sound of a rich baritone beside her. The man is tall, tall enough that Alice has to take a small step back to take in all of him. She could add dark and handsome to her initial observation. A real Rudolph Valentino, after whom the idiom of “tall, dark, and handsome” was popularized during the Roaring Twenties. Valentino was considered the epitome of romance. The man beside Alice seems to have romance on the brain as well. His brown eyes are latched on Alice’s.
It’s not the first time a lonely serviceman has made eyes at her. She smiles politely and trains her eyes on the sheet music until her gaze betrays her, flicking back to the man. In between his verses, his mouth quirks into a provocative smile. Alice stumbles over a few words, her cheeks heating at her mistake—and at the intensity of this serviceman. With the dress blues and his insignia, Alice guesses he’s a captain in the army.
He runs a hand through his wavy brown hair, disheveling it in a way that makes Alice want to muss the strands further. What has gotten into her, besides the two cocktails she sipped on while playing table tennis?
The song is over too soon. Her heart’s hammering in a way it hasn’t done in a long time. Not since him, a man whose name she rarely lets herself think of or else the feelings will come rushing back. Alice tries to be casual now with this man beside her, but the question comes out way too quickly to accomplish aloofness as she asks, “Sing with me again?”
The man shakes his head.
“Your pick,” Alice offers.
Still, he shakes his head. The pianist eyes them both, unsure how to proceed. Alice scratches her neck uncomfortably, thinking she must’ve imagined a shared attraction between herself and this army Valentino.
But then the man takes her hand and nods toward the tennis table. “If I beat you, Miss Marble, you’ll have dinner with me.”
She shouldn’t be surprised he knows who she is. She comes to the Stage Door Canteen frequently and creates a scene at the table every time. Still, her pulse soars at him saying her name. At his confidence. Alice swallows roughly. “I haven’t lost all night.”
“I’m an excellent competitor.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she says coyly as he leads her to the Ping-Pong table. The men make way for her, welcoming her back, stepping aside for her nameless captain to take the other side of the table.
He’s good. But Alice has been playing with Dan since she could see overtop the board. She’s better. Still, she’s intrigued and wouldn’t mind a free dinner.
Alice lets him win. But she’s not too obvious about it.
“I owe you a dinner,” he says.
“You do,” Alice says, already reaching for her coat. Her nameless captain truly was an excellent competitor. A fellow athlete, she surmises. Possibly golf with how smoothly he swings his arms. “Only, not tonight. It’s late, Captain . . .”
“Crowley.”
“Nice to have met you, Captain Crowley.”
He all but pins her in place with his gaze. “Met me? This is it for now? Tell me it’s not too late to walk you home?”
She likes this better, him pursuing her. “I suppose I’m going there anyway.”
“Too late to come up for another drink?” Captain Crowley asks once they’re outside Alice’s apartment building.
“I suppose I’m having one anyway.”
In actuality, Alice had no plans for a nightcap. She had no plans of meeting this man either. Teach will have a cow. She always does when anything or anyone takes Alice’s focus from tennis. And in those times, it’s tennis Alice has chosen. But these are unusual times. And Alice is certain this man will be gone in a blink, off on an assignment. Why not have a few moments of fun? Besides, Teach will be sound asleep at this hour. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
“Why don’t you have a seat,” Alice whispers once they’ve entered her apartment.
“Nice place you’ve got—”
Alice shushes him. “My coach is sleeping.” She removes a bottle of wine from a cabinet. “And I’d rather she not know you’re here.”
He raises a brow. “Oh, I’m to be a secret?”
Alice waits until she’s beside him on the couch before she answers. “It’ll save me an earful. I’m just happy not to have a curfew any longer.”
“Forgive me, but aren’t you in your late tw—” He chooses not to finish the word.
Alice chuckles. “Late twenties, yes. But it took Teach quite some time to loosen the reins.”
Captain Crowley takes the bottle and the wine opener. “Apparently not enough for us to speak at full volume.” He follows his comment with a playful smirk.
Alice holds out their glasses for him to fill. “Nor enough for her to not balk at me for meeting a man.” She remembers the day she arrived to live with Teach, and in her best British accent, she recounts, “‘No boys. They’re only a distraction. Tennis first. Always.’”
“And that’s how it’s been. Tennis first, always?”
The question flips her stomach and sparks a memory. Again, of him. She does her best to keep the emotion from her face and answers playfully, “Captain Crowley, I am not one to kiss and tell.”
He laughs. “Fair enough. But please, call me Joe.”
Alice cocks her head. “I would’ve guessed Thomas. Or maybe Edward. John. James.”
“Nope. Joseph.”
She shrugs. “I suppose that’s fine.”
A smile erupts on his face. “You suppose?”
“Joseph Crowley.” Alice sips. “Joseph James Crowley at least?”
“Nope,” he mouths.
“Arthur, Michael, Richard, Albert?”
Each one gets a head shake. He inches closer and quips, “You should take a sip with each wrong name.”
Alice smiles. “Apparently I’d be whistled if we play that way. And I have practice early tomorrow.”
“You’re still practicing even with it all shut down?”
“There will always be tennis. Didn’t we already establish that, Joseph William Crowley?”
“Nice try. I’ve followed your impressive career in the newspapers, you know.”
Alice sips again, relishing the wine and the compliment. His leg is brushing against hers now. “I did not know that.”
“You sure there’s no room for romance in that life of yours?”
“Quite the forward question, Joseph Hen—”
He shakes his head.
“Drat.” She swirls her wine. “The right time for romance hasn’t presented itself yet.”
Joseph grins mischievously. “Maybe we can change that, Alice Irene Marble.”
Her mouth falls open. “How did you . . .”
He waggles a brow.
* * *
Captain Joseph Norman Crowley.
Alice eventually gives up and Joe tells her his full name. He also tells her how he’s a small-town farm boy from Kansas. He put himself through school at Ohio State. He had plans to go into engineering, but the intelligence branch of the army felt differently after they discovered he had studied five languages. Now he flies for them.
Alice commits every word, every syllable he says to memory. And ever since their tête-à-tête in her living room, he has taken up residence in Alice’s brain. He’s forward. Presumptuous. Alice likes feeling wanted by him.
Teach knows something is going on, even while Alice dutifully continues her tour of military bases, but she can’t place what exactly. Nor would she be pleased to know about Joe. The secretiveness of their budding relationship makes it that much more appealing. Enticing, even.
The only problem, at that very moment, is that Joe is likely boarding a plane, on his way overseas.
“I’m set to leave on assignment,” he told her before a good-night kiss the night before.
“But you still owe me a dinner.”
“The very second I return,” Joe promised.
Turns out, that’s too many seconds to count, so many seconds where Alice alternates between swooning over the memory of their banter, his singing voice, and his handsomeness and feeling a gut-punching sensation of fear that Joe could be hurt overseas. She’s heard too many stories of a uniformed soldier turning up at a wife’s door with a yellow envelope. Inside is always a telegram with the worst kind of news: her husband won’t ever be coming home.
Finally, after three long months, the phone rings and she hears Joe’s tenor voice saying Alice’s name and then identifying himself, as if his voice isn’t ingrained in her thoughts.
“Joe?” she says in jest, her heart beating a mile a minute. “I can’t recall anyone of interest by that name.”
“Are you trying to break a man’s heart?”
Alice winds the cord around her finger. “I wouldn’t dream. Where are you taking me for our long-overdue dinner?”
* * *
Le Pavillon is fancy. The quiet corner table is very romantic.
Joe pulls out a chair, and Alice gives him a grin over her shoulder.
“So tell me,” she says, spreading a napkin over her lap once seated, “how have you been?”
His gaze instantly casts down, and Alice quickly realizes her mistake. The United States isn’t faring well in the war. The Japanese have taken Singapore, Java, and Rangoon, and Alice has heard terrible snippets about the Bataan Death March. There are also horrifying tales circulating about the Nazis, about gas chambers, about death camps. About so many telegrams being sent home to soon-to-be heartbroken wives and families.
Alice has been doing her darndest to distract herself and lift the morale of the servicemen every chance she gets. And right now she wants nothing more than to make the soldier in front of her smile. She reaches for Joe’s hand, wanting and needing to touch him. “It’s good to have you back.”
He’s returned, unlike so many of the others. He’s here, all in one piece. All hers.
“You are surely a sight for sore eyes, Alice.”
Joe is thinner. Bags underline his eyes. “And you’re as handsome as ever.”
“I’m going to have to leave again.”
Alice nods. “I know.”
“This is sudden.” A hand goes through his wavy hair. “But life can change in a blink over there. What if next time I go, you and I make it official first? We get on real swell, Alice. And just knowing you’re waiting for me back here would make all the difference.”
Her throat is suddenly twice its size. For a long time, Alice has ached for there to be room for romance in her life. She’d gotten close, once, and now, since meeting Joe, she’s been giddy over the idea of him. Of late, she’s begun to wonder if there could be something on the other side of tennis. Could that something be six feet tall, with dark hair and dark eyes and charming as all get-out? But marriage? Not merely stolen kisses and butterflies, but a license declaring them man and wife and a shared life? That’s what he’s getting at, isn’t it?
And so quickly after meeting. Though, Alice reminds herself, she isn’t the first to receive this impassioned speech from a soldier. Most of the time it works.
“Joe . . .”
“It’s sudden, like I said. I know that. But marry me, Alice.” He palms overtop his heart. “What I’m feeling is real. You’re funny. You’re driven. Confident. Intelligent. Sexy as hell. We get on well, don’t we?”
Alice nods. “Real well. It’s just that . . .” She trails off. Alice doesn’t want to say that she’s not sure what’s going to come next with tennis and she’s not sure how Joe fits into that. Instead, she vocalizes a different concern, saying, “The thing is, I know of too many wives who live in fear. I don’t know if I can be one of them.”
“Are you saying you haven’t worried about me while I’ve been gone?”
“No, I have,” she’s quick to say.
And he’s made his point.
Still, Alice blows out a long breath and says, “Could we table this conversation for later?”
“Of course, love,” he says. “Of course.”
So they talk of family.
Joe’s an only child. His ma’s a schoolteacher. His dad works a farm.
Of funny moments.
One time Joe streaked through campus on a dare.
Of regrets.
He was once too late to say how he really felt. He’s more straightforward now.
Of dreams.
Joe wants three kids.
Alice thinks she could want the same. She thinks, yes, there can be dreams beyond tennis. Or maybe concurrently with tennis, but at a less intense level. She’s not in her early or even mid-twenties anymore. While she gets older, it feels like her competitors are getting younger and younger.
But . . . Wife. Mother. She tries the titles on for size and she likes how they fit. She likes how Joe’s been able to make her think about herself as more than simply a tennis player.
After dinner, he walks her home. At her door, he leans in for a kiss. It’s not their first of the night. Alice doesn’t want it to be their last. “Teach is out of town. Come up?”
For precious seconds in her apartment, they laugh and banter. They’re serious. They’re goofy. When Alice’s eyes betray her and begin to flutter closed, Joe carries her to bed.
“Stay,” she says, not letting go. He cuddles beside her, holding Alice tight.
In the morning, the aroma of coffee awakens her. She pats the empty bed, an ache for Joe washing over her. She pads to the kitchen, finding him mid-tune in Teach’s apron, looking very at home.
She guffaws. “If Teach saw you in that . . .”
“Morning, love.” He hands her a mug.
“I could get used to this.”
“I could get down on one knee.”
Alice gives him a warning look, made much less effective due to the smile she can’t seem to suppress. The sound of a key rattling in the door’s lock sees to that. Her lips move into an O shape. There’s no time to warn Joe. Or hide him.
The door unlocks and Teach walks in.