The weeks went by and finally dancing school was starting up again. It had been closed for the summer, and no one was sure that it would open with the war on. But it did, and Alice was going that very Tuesday afternoon. Alice loved dancing and was secretly very excited (though not wanting to admit it). It was going to be wonderful, except for one thing: her ugly new dress. She and Mother had argued about it for a good half hour in the dressing room of Shepherds Department Store.
“It’s got no waist! It just hangs down straight!” Alice scrunched her face up like a prune, checking the effect in the dressing room mirror. “I hate it! I might as well be wearing a pup tent.” She’d seen pup tents in the newsreels.
“Feel it, Alice. It’s beautiful material. You’re lucky to have such a lovely blue dress with puffed sleeves. Don’t you know that? Many of the girls will be wearing theirs from last year. That’s how scarce dresses are these days.”
“I hate it.”
“You’re a very spoiled little girl.”
Alice shrugged.
When Mother handed the dress over to the saleslady, Alice knew she was beaten. But the worst was still to come.
The next day, beside the dress on her bed, her mother had laid out her garter belt—the one from last year, because she hadn’t grown that much—and a pair of stockings. All the girls wore stockings with patent leather shoes to dancing school. Alice eyed the stockings before picking them up. They looked funny. She held one up with two fingers. It was shiny and a little rough.
“Ugh! What’s this?” she yelled to Mother, who was in the other room.
“They’re your stockings,” came the matter-of-fact reply.
“No they aren’t,” said Alice.
“Yes, they are,” said Mother firmly.
“But what are they made of?”
“Stocking material.”
“You mean old curtains?”
“Alice. They’re rayon, if you must know.”
“Very funny, Mother, now where are my real stockings?”
“You tore a hole in the ones from last year, and these are the new ones.”
Alice was about to rip them up when Mother began explaining, “There are no more silk stockings on the market. Silk is being made into parachutes now—parachutes for the pilots who have to bail out of their planes when they are shot down.”
Alice sat very still on the bed and thought about it. In her mind’s eye, she could see a B-25 bomber being shot down by ground fire, just like in the newsreels—and like her nightmare, but different. She could see the big cloud of black smoke rising, swelling and hear the scream of the diving plane. “Sweetheart from Milwaukee” was printed above a picture of a pretty girl showing off her legs, and beside it, the tally of missions accomplished, like chalk marks on a blackboard.
Now she could see the pilot bailing out in his bomber jacket and cap, like Terry in the comic strip, and his big white parachute unfolding like a bed sheet on the line. It caught the wind, swung back and forth a little, and dropped down into a tree. She saw the pilot untangling his parachute. It would soon be nightfall, and he would curl up in it. It was so soft, so warm. He would sleep until dawn when the other GIs would come and save him.
She thought about all that, and then she slowly reached for the ugly pair of stockings. “When this is over,” she told the pilot in her head, “you better have your sweetheart from Milwaukee send me some real silk stockings.”
* * *
The following night when Gramp came home from the Foundry, he called up the stairwell for Alice. She bounced down the stairs with a “Hello, Gramp.” He was too old to be working, but he was needed at the Foundry to supervise the men. They called him Uncle Johnny, which was a nice name for a boss, Alice thought.
In his hand Gramp held a crinkly brown package. He looked at Alice but didn’t say a word. He placed the package on the very top of his desk in the living room and went through his mail. Alice waited. He took out his huge checkbook that looked like a scrapbook and made out a check. Alice watched. Gramp was silent. He took out some stamps, licked one, and looked up at Alice, his eyes dancing, his mustache twitching like a bunny rabbit, but said nothing. He placed the stamped envelope to one side.
Alice stared at the package and guessed what it might contain. She said in a low voice, “They must be black market.” She tried to wink.
Gramp said nothing.
“Are they?” she asked in a loud whisper. “Are they black-market chocolates? Did somebody give them to you?”
Gramp smiled and shook his head.
“You didn’t buy them yourself, did you? Gramp? You didn’t, did you? I don’t need to have chocolates, you know!” Alice didn’t want to be accused of that.
“Who said anything about chocolates?” He looked surprised. Gramp took down the package and slowly opened it. Something golden slid out. It wasn’t chocolates. To Alice they looked like beautifully woven pig tails. Alice caressed them.
“Those are beautiful pig tails, Gramp.”
“Braided silk. Braided silk rope,” Gramp corrected.
“Is that what you make at the Foundry?” she asked, pulling a strand or two.
“Yup.”
“And is that braided silk for the parachutes?”
“Yup.” He took Alice by the waist and had her sit on the living room couch with him. “Now look at this one.” He showed her another braided silk rope. It looked the same and felt almost the same. “Can’t get much silk, nowadays, so we made something brand-new. It’s called nylon.”
“Nylon,” Alice repeated. “It’s very pretty too. The pilots will like it. My pilot will like that just as well as the silk parachute ropes, I’ll bet.”
From his expression, she guessed Gramp didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Mainly, it’s strong,” said Gramp. “It will hold hundreds of pounds.”
Alice’s mouth twisted. “Is rayon as strong?”
“Nope. T’isn’t. Nothin’ like silk and nylon.
“Well, that’s too bad. I guess I’m stuck with icky rayon stockings,” she said.
“You’ll get used to them, Alice. And when the war’s over, you’ll like the nylon stockings too. They’ll be hunky-dory.”
Alice was worried about tomorrow and how she’d look wearing snake skin on her legs. If she was lucky, the other girls would have on the same thing. Then she wouldn’t cringe. But if they had on last years’ silk ones, well, she’d teach them what was what.
Alice missed the days when Gramp would carry her upstairs to bed, but now she knew she was too heavy for him and too old too. Besides, she’d be embarrassed to ask. Instead, she gave him a big hug around the neck and a kiss goodnight, and he patted her really hard on the back and said, “Nighty night, little girlie,” which was what he always called her, so she didn’t mind.
But Alice, in her bed that night, worried what the other kids would say about her gleaming stockings and ugly dress. And even uglier, stringy brown hair, like a limp horse’s tail. She knew there’d be snickering behind her back. Why should she care? She sniffed. But that was the trouble. Hating to admit it, she did care.