I should have known better than to believe a scripted love story, but it’s what I craved. True, James wasn’t how I’d feared California boys would be, wanting too much and giving too little, hands grabbing and taking and trading this for that. We’d barely done more than kiss, just the occasional necking in a dark matinee. But I was nervous all the same. I knew marriage would bring more — expectations. My skin was supposed to crackle with his touch. I didn’t feel it yet.
But I could do it. It was worth it, for the security he would bring. “Better find a man,” Mama said, just before I left. “I ain’t carin’ for you no more.”
I didn’t like dwelling on that — and when Frankie returned from her sixth cigarette break of the morning, I took it out on her.
“You seem awfully chipper for someone whose boy’s missing in action.” I tossed her thick welder’s mitts right at her gut; she flinched before catching them.
“He’s — he’s safe.” She peered around the B-17’s frame. “He’s in a hospital in France.”
“Is that so? Then why were you telling Maude you’re goin’ on some rescue mission with the Office of Strategic Services?” In my hands, the rivet gun spat out a perfect line. “Spy work, screen tests, cast parties with Bogie and Bacall . . . you’re one busy girl.”
Frankie paused in the middle of pulling on her mitts. I’d never seen her without her smile before, that big mess of lips smeared on thick as butter on toast. She looked so much smaller without it. Her whole face was soft and fragile. That’s when I knew it wasn’t just her natural good looks that made her who she was. She was always working, always performing, always forcing herself to shine like a spotlight. And I’d just burned it out.
She dropped the mitts on the floor and ran from the hangar, the dull thud of her worn-out oxfords ringing on concrete.
I swore to myself, went through the safety checks to shut down the rivet gun, replaced it safely, pulled off my goggles and mitts, and scrubbed at the grease I could feel smeared on my cheek. I took a deep breath and waited. I’d wanted to be cold like Kitty Cohen, like a scalpel peeling back Frankie’s skin of lies so I could find out who she really was beneath. Instead I’d gone about it like a sledgehammer.
What did I care how she coped with the war, with her boy’s unknown fate, with the failure every single one of us felt like a splinter we couldn’t pull free? What did it matter to me if I had to assemble a few more panels than she did and let her take the credit? Welcome to Hollywood, Evelyn. If James were here, he’d tell me to be grateful to have any work at all.
I stormed from the hangar and headed for the bathroom, where I knew I’d find Frankie.
She was trying hard not to let anyone hear her cry, I’d give her that. From the other side of the stall door, I could barely tell she was there, save for the occasional muffled sob. We all had an unspoken agreement about crying in the bathroom — no one acknowledged it, and no one intruded. I should have done my business, washed my hands, and left as quietly as I could. Instead, I hovered in front of the sink, picking at a loose thread on my coveralls and remembering how I had felt those first days when James had shipped out. Like I was the one whose anchor had been pulled up; like I was adrift, invisible once more, lost in the sea of Los Angeles. Much as I hated to admit it, I knew how she felt — that fishhook pulling inside me, that need to be snared on something, connected to someone, to prove that I had worth. Wasn’t it why I spent night after night hunched over my Underwood, making up stories in the hopes that someday they’d be immortalized on cellulose film? Why should I begrudge her for wanting the same?
“Frankie — listen.” My voice was about as subtle as a nail head in the barren bathroom. The faint sounds of crying stopped. “I’m sorry. I know it’s hard when your fella’s gone and you’ve gotta fend for yourself.”
“What do you know about it?” she snapped.
I looked down at my shoes, my baggy leggings hiding thick ankles. “I mean, all our lives we’ve been raised to take care of men and let them take care of us. Now they’re all gone, y’know? No one told us that we could fend for ourselves, or taught us how. We’re bound to struggle.”
“I’m not struggling,” Frankie cried. “I’m just . . .”
“Lonely,” I said. In the silence that followed, I imagined her nodding. I traced the dented door with my fingernail. “Tell you what. Let me make it up to you, okay? Why don’t you come for dinner at my landlady’s house with me? We’d both love the company.”
I don’t know where the idea came from, but it felt right — two lonely souls should comfort each other, shouldn’t they?