CHAPTER 4

The party began at seven and was in full swing by half past the hour. Aunt Bess kept the food and punch table in the hallway fully stocked. Papa made sure there were plenty of tunes coming from the Zenith in the living room while Nelson kept a moderate blaze going in the fireplace.

A small table in the corner near the bay window held the few token gifts for Alice-Ann that some of her guests had brought. An hour had passed since the last person arrived —for a time, Alice-Ann felt like the whole town of Bynum and the farming community had come —and she’d not opened any of them yet. Her eye, of course, had been mostly on the long, narrow box Mack had placed there, and her heart fluttered every time she thought about what might be inside.

“A bracelet, no doubt,” Claudette had whispered in her ear. “Jeepers, I hope it’s not a watch,” she added. “That would be so provincial.” She gave a wink before sashaying across the room to join Maeve and Ernie, who —out of his soda jerk and school attire —looked surprisingly handsome.

Most of the conversation that evening centered on the number of boys who’d gone off to register —some who were hardly old enough to shave —and Alice-Ann did her best to sway it back to a subject more festive, like the holiday of the following week. For the most part, it worked. Somehow, though, it always seemed to steer back to the ominous.

Worse still, for the majority of the night, Nelson and Irene monopolized Mack’s time, the two men leaning against the wall facing each other, speaking in hushed tones. Irene’s body practically melted into her husband’s, their arms laced around the other’s waist. Familiar and slightly brazen, in Alice-Ann’s way of thinking. Although she imagined herself, or at least she tried, leaning into Mack in the same way. Feeling so at ease next to another human being that she’d cease to know where he ended and she began.

And vice versa.

“Great party, doodlebug.”

Alice-Ann turned to see Carlton standing behind her. “Hey, Carlton,” she said. “Thank you.”

His brows —shades darker than the light brown of his thick hair —knit together in the way they always did when he had something to say. “Happy birthday. Hard to believe you and Maeve are sixteen already.”

Alice-Ann looked around. “Where’s your date?”

Carlton smiled slowly and Alice-Ann relaxed, realizing for the first time that her whole body had been tense from watching Mack with her brother and Irene. “Betty Jo? She’s around here somewhere,” he answered, keeping his tone vague as his eyes briefly scanned the crowd before coming back to Alice-Ann.

“She certainly is pretty, Carlton. I mean, I don’t know her well, but I always thought she was a real pretty girl.”

Carlton pulled a piece of gum from a pack in his shirt pocket, then put it back as though he’d changed his mind. “She’s a nice girl, all right.” He leaned forward, bending his six-foot-two frame so as to be closer to Alice-Ann’s ear. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, though.”

The warmth of his breath, blended with the faint hint of recently consumed punch and peppermint, gave her the slightest of shivers. She wasn’t accustomed to having a man —even one who felt more like a brother than a real man —speak so close to her ear. “Oh?”

He winked. “Can you keep it?”

“Sure.”

“Even from Maeve?”

Alice-Ann bit her bottom lip, feeling even more grown-up than ever before. “Even from Maeve,” she said, although she wasn’t sure how she’d manage. Maybe if she told Claudette, then Claudette could tell Maeve, and . . .

“I think Betty Jo’s expecting more than just a friendship or casual dating between the two of us.”

Alice-Ann’s breath caught in her throat. “Like marriage?”

“I think so. She’s hinted enough.”

“Are you going to ask her to marry you? Before Uncle Sam calls you up, I mean?”

When Carlton grinned, Alice-Ann could see more clearly why Betty Jo Shannon would be so taken with him. Sea-blue eyes, wide brow, straight nose, and full lips. He even smelled good. Beyond the peppermint and the punch, he carried an earthy scent, spicy and fresh.

“Thinking about it,” he said, straightening. “Do you think she’ll wait for me while I’m gone?”

“You won’t marry before you leave?”

Carlton crossed his arms. “No. That wouldn’t be fair, I don’t think.” He scanned the room again as though looking for her. “A girl like Betty Jo should have a wedding with all the fixings, don’t you think?”

“Big white dress and a church full of flowers,” Alice-Ann remarked.

“Exactly.”

Fleetingly Alice-Ann pictured her own wedding —the way she’d always imagined it —her little church full of familiar faces, the scent of roses rising to the rafters. In her mind’s eye she could see Mack standing at the altar, beaming with both pride and love as she floated toward him on her father’s arm. He wore a smart suit of dark blue and she . . . she would have finally arrived at the day when she could slip on the wedding dress she always hoped would be hers.

In truth, the dress belonged to Aunt Bess. Like the photos of her aunt and other family members that once hung on the living room wall, the creamy satin-and-lace gown had been placed in her aunt’s hope chest, having never been worn. Such a romantic tragedy —her one true love dying before Aunt Bess could wear it on her own special day, leaving Alice-Ann to wonder what could possibly be worse: never wearing the gown or never knowing the love of a husband.

“Alice-Ann?” Carlton now asked, and she sighed.

“What?”

He smiled and she felt heat drain from the top of her head to her chest. Surely he could read her mind.

“Um,” she said, hoping to redeem the situation. “Why don’t you want Maeve to know?”

Carlton chuckled. “Because. If I tell Maeve, she’ll tell Mama, and Mama will insist on me marrying right away.” He grinned again. “Mama is worried to death I’m going over to Europe or some exotic place, and I’ll come back with a foreign bride.”

Alice-Ann’s heart stopped. “Come back with —is that possible?” And if it were, would Mack do something like that? Come back with some brunette from England or a delicious little number from France? One who spoke French, the language of love?

“Sure it is,” Carlton said. A new look came to his eyes, full of tenderness and . . . something more. Just what it was, Alice-Ann couldn’t quite put her finger on. “There she is now,” he said, one hand reaching beyond Alice-Ann’s shoulder.

As the opening measures of “’S Wonderful” came from the Zenith, Alice-Ann turned to see Betty Jo gliding across the room. She wore a gray wool skirt, complemented by a red-and-white reindeer sweater —the latest thing, not that Alice-Ann could ever afford one. Betty Jo had pulled her hair, the perfect shade of wheat, back into a low ponytail and tied it off with a red scarf. She looked for all the world like an ad in one of Irene’s magazines.

Alice-Ann pulled at her own hair, wishing she could get it to stay back like Betty Jo’s —slick and stylish and without all the wispy curls around her face, which were exactly like Aunt Bess’s.

“Happy birthday, Alice-Ann,” Betty Jo said, reaching her with a wide smile from red-painted lips. “I wanted to say so earlier, but you had a mob around you when we came in.”

“And a merry Christmas to you,” Alice-Ann added with a grin.

Betty Jo slipped her arm into Carlton’s, and for a moment, Alice-Ann’s breath caught. Oh, why couldn’t she have Mack to do such a simple thing with? Why hadn’t she been able to tell him two weeks earlier how she’d felt, allowing him time to see that she was truly the girl for him?

No. The woman for him. Then the two of them would, tonight, be like Nelson and Irene, and Carlton and Betty Jo. Or Maeve and Ernie, even, though they hadn’t quite reached the body-molding stage.

Oh, that stupid ole war and those horrible bombers! Alice-Ann wished she could stomp her foot right then and there, but —

She shook her head to free it of all such thoughts. “So how do you feel, Betty Jo, about Carlton enlisting?”

Betty Jo pouted. “Miserable.” She looked up at him as her arm squeezed his. “But I understand. It’s what our brave men have to do, really. Now that the war has come to our own shores.”

“It’s true,” Carlton said. “We thought that if we just kept doing what we do here in America, eventually the Allies would win over the Axis powers and we could all go on with our day to day.” His thick eyelashes lowered as he added, “But we can’t turn a blind eye anymore. We have to do something.” He kissed the top of Betty Jo’s head and said, “Don’t you worry though, Betty Jo. We’ll take care of them.”

“What about your studies, Carlton?” Alice-Ann asked as she felt the presence of another person near her. She glanced up and back to see Mack standing behind her, and her whole body tingled.

“I can finish those when I come back,” Carlton answered. “Georgia Teachers College isn’t going anywhere, I’m sure.”

“War,” Mack said with a tease, “will give us more education than that college of yours, my boy.” He slapped Carlton on the shoulder and they laughed. “No telling what we’re going to get into over there.”

Alice-Ann opened her mouth to protest, but Aunt Bess called out over the music and conversation. “All right, young and old. Let’s have Alice-Ann open a few gifts and then we’ll cut the cake.”

Whatever she had to say would have to wait. Finally the time had come to see what nestled in the narrow box from Mack.

She deliberately put off opening the gift, waiting until all the others had been unwrapped and the givers properly thanked. Finally, with only two left —the one Irene had brought home earlier and Mack’s —she opened the one from her brother and sister-in-law.

Inside, a lovely pink-and-white powder tin held heavenly scented Cashmere Bouquet talc. She thanked them both, meaning it, knowing this meant her brother truly saw her as a young woman now and no longer as a little girl in want or need of paper dolls.

Then the big moment came. Alice-Ann pulled back the paper from the slender box slowly, opening it with ease. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at a sterling silver charm bracelet, graced by a single cross dangling from one of its links. A precious gift. So much so, she hardly knew how to respond. Even with all her planning —her countless hours of plotting exactly what she’d say on the evening of her party —she was left speechless by the thought that had gone behind it, never mind what it might have cost him.

Mack took it out of the box without her asking, unclasped it with his lovely masculine fingers, and secured it around her wrist. “Just a little something to remember me by,” he said.

As if she’d forget him.

“I know how much your faith means to you,” he added.

“Thank you, Mack,” she managed around the knot in her throat, forcing herself by sheer will not to throw her arms around his shoulders, screaming for the whole world to hear: “Please don’t go!”

Mack leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, his full lips soft and moist. “Happy birthday, Alice-Ann,” he said.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again —praying she’d not been dreaming all along —she spied Irene standing nearby, a faint smile on her lips. Not the sneering kind, either. The understanding-between-women kind.

Maybe she understood, after all. Maybe her sister-in-law wasn’t half-bad.

With her gifts opened and exclaimed over, Aunt Bess marched into the living room with the cake all aflame, singing at the top of her lungs. “‘Happy birthday, dear Alice . . .’” as everyone else —Alice-Ann’s family, school chums, and church friends —sang along.

Including Mack, who put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.

“Make a wish, Alice-Ann,” he said. “And if you can’t blow the candles out by yourself, let me know. I’m full of enough hot air for both of us.”

Words which brought a round of laughter from the crowd.

“Maybe,” Alice-Ann said low enough for only him to hear, “you should help me.” After all, she wasn’t sure if she had enough air in her lungs for the next necessary breath, much less to blow out sixteen candles.

Mack drew up straight and tall. “Stand back, folks. Miss Branch has asked her other brother to help blow out the candles.”

And with that, Alice-Ann’s hopes fell, and her wishes deflated.

By the end of the evening, when everyone had gone except Mack, Irene gathered a few plates together and eased up next to her. “Look, kiddo. I don’t think he’s the guy for you, but if you think he is, you’d best tell him soon. Come the first of the year, he’ll be gone and all you’ll be left with is a box full of wondering.”

Alice-Ann fiddled with the cross charm. “He only thinks of me as his kid sister.”

Irene shifted her weight and lowered her chin. “Listen up. Your brother only saw in me some knobby-kneed girl who —well, that’s another story. But let’s just say it takes the right moment and the right words and then suddenly you’re looking at a mess of fish for supper.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Never mind. Like I said, that’s another story for another time. Bottom line is this —once you know what you want, go for it.”

Alice-Ann held her sister-in-law’s eyes with her own. “Really, Irene?”

“Once I knew that your brother was the man for me, I pulled out all the stops. I made sure he knew how I felt. Then with the selective service and all, I decided I wasn’t taking any chances, which is why I’m your sister-in-law and not just your brother’s girlfriend.” She shook her head. “I’ll get rid of the family long enough for you to talk to Mack, got it?”

Flurries of excitement built up inside her. “But what do I say?”

Irene rolled her eyes. “Do I have to do it for you? Just tell him how you feel.”

Alice-Ann exhaled with a rumble. “Okay.” She nodded once, then once more for good measure. “Okay. I can do this.”

“Nelson?” Irene called out as she walked toward the entryway. “Will you help me with all these dishes, please?”

Nelson pointed to Mack. “I was about to walk Mack here out to his truck.”

Irene turned and looked back at Alice-Ann with a wink. “Alice-Ann? Why don’t you walk Mack out while your brother helps me with the dishes?” She turned again to face her husband. “Or sleeps in the doghouse tonight if he doesn’t?”

Mack laughed as Nelson blushed. “So this is what it’s like, being married? Go on, Nelson.” His gaze crossed into the living room and he crooked his arm. “Miss Branch? Do you mind walking me out?”

Alice-Ann squared her shoulders and smiled. “Not at all, Mr. MacKay.” She was halfway across the room, her own arm extended to slip into his —like Betty Jo’s had with Carlton’s —before she had a chance to take in another breath.