CHAPTER 27

During her lunch hour on Tuesday, Alice-Ann dashed down Main Street to MacKay’s Pharmacy in search of Janie Wren. She sighed a light breath of relief at finding her stocking ladies’ handkerchiefs in the middle of the store. Only a few patrons milled about, one or two of them offering Alice-Ann their congratulations.

“Janie,” she said as she reached her.

Janie turned, smiled a deep-red-lipstick-against-white-teeth smile, and said, “Oh, Alice-Ann. I’ve heard your news.” She gave Alice-Ann a brief hug. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you,” Alice-Ann returned. “I’m actually here for your help.”

“Mine?” She raised perfectly shaped brows. “You want my help?”

“Mmm. Remember when I came in and got the hand lotion?”

“The Jergens. Sure.” She looked toward the aisle where they’d stood not so very long ago.

Alice-Ann summoned the courage she needed to fulfill her mission. “I’m hoping —praying, nearly —that you can help . . . with this.” She pulled at a strand of her hair.

The look on Janie’s face was like that of a kid on Christmas morning. “Can I? Oh, honey,” she exclaimed, waving her hands in a “go on” fashion. “With the right conditioners I can have you looking like Veronica Lake. You know, before she cut her hair for the cause.” Janie turned. “Follow me.”

Alice-Ann stayed close on her heels until they reached hair products. “See this?” Janie asked, holding up a bottle of milky liquid. “This is what you need.” She reached for another bottle. “First shampoo with this. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Oh, and use cold water, not hot, when you rinse.” She handed the bottle to Alice-Ann, who wrapped the fingers of her right hand around it.

“Got it.”

“Then follow up with this. Put it on, work it in all the way to the roots, and then wait for five minutes.”

“Five minutes.” Alice-Ann reached for the bottle with her left hand, exposing her ring, which Janie spied right off.

“Dear heavens. It’s stunning,” she said, turning Alice-Ann’s hand for a better look.

“It was Carlton’s great-grandmother’s. And I’m wearing a beautiful wedding dress from the 1920s that’s —that belonged to a family member. It’s —it’s amazing. Truly lovely.”

And it was. The dress had fit her perfectly, and even though Aunt Bess had seemed intent on remaking the dress for a more modern look, Alice-Ann’s insistence otherwise won the argument.

For once.

Janie shook her head and breathed in slowly. “My, my. You are so lucky, Alice-Ann. You know, I had always hoped —that maybe when Mack came back . . .”

Alice-Ann prickled at the thought, then chastised herself for such a notion. She was in love with Carlton Hillis. If Janie Wren wanted to imagine herself in Boyd MacKay’s arms, that was fine with her. Or at least it should be.

No. It was fine. Completely.

“Alice-Ann?”

Alice-Ann shook her head, aware of Janie’s expectant look. “Yes?”

“Can I —may I —would you like to look at some makeup? I can —I mean, I could make you look real pretty for Carlton.” She blushed a perfect shade of pink. “Not that you aren’t pretty already —”

While Alice-Ann knew she could have been —and maybe should have been —insulted, the genuine tone in Janie’s voice told her that her old school chum meant well. “I’d like that. And don’t worry, I’m not offended.” After all, she was smart enough to know beauty had not been stamped on her at birth.

Janie brightened. “We just got some new cosmetics in from DuBarry. Did you ever try their emblem reds?” She shook her head. “No, I’d say you’d look best in a nice peach or pink.”

Alice-Ann had no idea either way. “Other than Claudette’s wedding, I’ve never even worn lipstick.”

Janie planted her fists on her curvaceous hips. “Say, why didn’t you ask Claudette or Maeve to help you with this?”

Because they’re naturally beautiful, which I’m not nor ever can be. And you, Janie, are put together like an advertisement for —what did you call it? —DuBarry, which is the best I can hope for.

“You know so much more than they do, Janie. You know, about things like this.”

Janie beamed even brighter. “I suppose I do,” she said, then turned. “Come with me, Alice-Ann. Carlton Hillis won’t believe his eyes when he sees you again.”

Long minutes later, as Alice-Ann paid for her purchases, she summoned all her bravado to ask Janie how the MacKays seemed to be getting along.

Janie leaned slightly over the counter and pressed her slender fingers, nails lacquered in red polish, into the wood, and said, “Some days better than others. Miss Myrtle has a lot of what Mister Lance refers to as her spells. Mister Lance, God love him, is simply a paragon of strength, though at times he becomes melancholy too.”

Paragon. Alice-Ann chastised herself as quickly as the amazement came to her that Janie knew what paragon meant.

“I guess that’s the way men are.” Papa sure fit that bill.

Janie’s perfectly coiffed hair swayed as she shook her head. “Far less emotional than women. We carry our hearts on our sleeves.”

Alice-Ann swallowed. “Do you —do you mind if I ask —do you still believe Mack is alive somewhere?” She looked out the window as if she expected him to be standing on the sidewalk. “Out there?” She returned her eyes to Janie, who shrugged.

“I do,” she mumbled. “But I’m alone in that. My mother says I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.” She shrugged again as she gave Alice-Ann the change from her purchases, a few coins she’d held in her hand until they’d grown warm. “Maybe I have. I sit in my room every night, reading his letters over and over. I close my eyes and imagine the day I hear he’s alive and my mother finally leaves me alone about it.”

Janie still read Mack’s letters. Well, wasn’t that just a kick in the pants!

It had been a while since Alice-Ann had done the same, not that she would share that with Janie. Or that they were still in her closet, of course, tied off with a red ribbon.

One she’d once worn in her hair.

Alice-Ann washed her hair that evening, followed with the conditioner, which she left in as instructed, then wrapped her head in a towel while she experimented with her new makeup. It took several applications and face scrubbings to get it where she didn’t come off looking like some clown from the circus. Satisfied, she washed her face again, then removed the towel, rinsed a final time, and —with a wide-toothed comb —pulled her hair free of nearly all the curls.

Before she’d left the drugstore, Janie showed her how to rag-roll her hair for softer curls, which she did, then went to bed.

“Good land of the living,” Aunt Bess said the next morning when she came down for breakfast. “Why, Brother, I don’t know who this is at my kitchen table.” She stood at the counter with a dishcloth in her hand, ready to wrap it around a steaming bowl of grits.

Her father opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

Alice-Ann sat with relief at the table —at least Nelson and Irene hadn’t come down yet.

“What’s all that on your face?”

“It’s makeup.” She tossed her loose curls as she looked up. “What do you think?”

Aunt Bess placed the grits on the table between them, then patted Alice-Ann’s hand. “I think you’re real pretty, Alice. Then again, I always did.”

“I just hope Carlton likes it,” Alice-Ann mumbled.

“Likes what?” Nelson asked, entering the room. He stopped short when she turned slightly to face him. “Good heavens.”

“I’m an engaged woman now,” Alice-Ann said in her own defense. “Time I stopped looking like some dopey little girl.”

Nelson pulled out a chair opposite her and plopped into it. “Well, all right then,” he said, though his brow formed a deep V. “What do you think Carlton will say?”

Alice-Ann shrugged. “I guess I’ll find out later today.”

Carlton was as stunned as everyone else she came into contact with that day. She met him after work —as always on Wednesdays, they wrapped up at noon —in their usual place outside the bank, Nancy beside her. But his shock was only momentary. He glanced around as though he expected someone else to walk out the door behind them. Finally he said, “Nancy, where’s Alice-Ann?”

Alice-Ann swatted at him. “Didn’t I tell you,” she said to Nancy, “that he would say exactly that?”

Later, when they were alone in their new home, making a quick list of the supplies they’d need just to clean it up enough to figure on the repairs, Carlton paused to say, “I hope you don’t think I need you to do all that.” He waved his hand around her head and face.

She frowned. “You don’t like it?”

“Oh no. I like it just fine. I only hope you didn’t do it for me. Because, honestly, Alice-Ann, you’re perfect just like you are.” He smiled. “Or were.”

She stared at her feet. “I wanted you to like it.”

He chuckled and wrapped her in his arms and rocked her left to right and back again. “Silly girl. I do. I promise.” He tilted her face up to meet his. “But you,” he said, planting a kiss on her lips, “are —” he kissed her nose —“already perfect.” He pressed his lips against hers again, then deepened the kiss.

She broke away from him. “I thought we said we wouldn’t hug or kiss when we were alone in here together.”

He hunched his shoulders and pretended to sag toward the floor. “You’re right,” he said, straightening. “We will honor God and —”

“He will honor us.” She glanced at her watch. “Carlton, I have to catch the bus and you have to get back to work.”

Carlton walked her to the bus stop, kissed her forehead, and told her he’d see her at church that evening.

“Really?” she asked. “You’re coming to church with me instead of with your family in town?”

“We’re engaged now,” he said, pulling her left hand into his right and running his thumb over the ring. “I think we should worship together. And I know how much your church means to you. What with your work with the kids and all.” One brow cocked. “And I figure if you want to keep going to Oak Grove, even after we marry and move into our home, that’ll be fine with me.”

Of course this was what she wanted. To think of the two of them, along with the children they’d one day have, worshiping alongside Papa and Aunt Bess, Nelson and Irene and Little Mack . . . what more could she hope for?

“Thank you, Carlton.” She hugged him good and hard, then boarded the bus and took her usual seat.

During the ride, Alice-Ann looked out the window, watching her world go by, all the while dreaming of the day she would become Mrs. Carlton Hillis. They’d not yet set a date and —with Ernie still working up the nerve to ask Maeve —she wanted to wait to find out what her best friend’s plans were first.

“Alice-Ann,” Ben called out to her.

Startled, she looked forward to see his eyes in the long mirror glaring back at her. “Yes?”

“Is that Josephine James sitting in her car at the end of your driveway?”

Alice-Ann slid to another seat for a better look. “It sure looks like it. Wonder who she’s waiting on.”

Ben slowed the bus to a stop. “From the way she’s climbing out of the car, I’d say you.”

With a friendly good-bye to Ben, Alice-Ann stepped out. Miss Josephine stood near the passenger door of her car, which she held open. “Hurry up, Alice-Ann,” she exclaimed over the squeaking of the bus’s gears and rumbling of the engine as it moved along.

“What is it, Miss Josephine? Has something happened to Papa?”

“No, child. Get in.” She motioned toward the door, but Alice-Ann refused to budge.

“Aunt Bess? Or Nelson or . . . Miss Josephine, what is it?”

“It’s the American Red Cross, Alice-Ann. They’ve been calling for you over at my house.”

“The American Red Cross?” Alice-Ann took a step closer. “For me?”

Miss Josephine looked as though she might burst any moment. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but I can’t help myself.” She fluttered, then said, “It’s Boyd MacKay, Alice-Ann. He’s alive over at a hospital on Pearl Harbor. Now get in, hon. He’s a-wantin’ to talk to ya!”