“Well, they took us. We wanted to serve. And we all came back.” He smiled at her. “What about you?”
She didn’t feel like telling him she was a dancer. So she said, “My fiancé is in Miami. He was in the war, too. I’m going down for the holidays to stay with him and his family.” The look on his face said it all. Surprise and disappointment. After all, she wasn’t wearing a ring. She felt bad. He seemed like a nice boy but there was no point. “I’ll bet you’ll have a great time in Miami,” she said.
“Do you have any single friends there?” he asked. “Maybe your fiancé has a sister?”
“No, sorry. But I’m sure you won’t have any trouble meeting girls. You’re a very nice-looking young man.”
“Not so young. I’ll be twenty-five on my next birthday.”
“I never would have guessed.”
“How about you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Younger or older?”
“Younger, of course.”
She laughed. “Of course.”
“I’m Paul Stefanelli, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Ruby Granik,” she told him, letting him shake hers.
“How’s the book, Ruby?” He nodded at the book on her lap.
“Can’t put it down,” she said. “So if you’ll excuse me…”
“Sure. I get it.” He got up and wandered away.
Leah
Leah Cohen was hoping Henry Ammerman would pop the question soon, maybe over the holidays. She was going to his house later today to celebrate his sister Rusty’s birthday. Henry’s mother sold Volupté compacts wholesale. A girl could never have too many Voluptés. She’d probably get a few from the mothers of the children in her second-grade class. Last year she did. They sure beat fruitcakes, which she gave away, or bad perfume, which she poured down the toilet.
She knew in order to win Henry she’d have to win the rest of his family, and she felt she was doing a pretty good job of it, mainly by keeping her mouth shut. They thought she was shy, quiet, a nice girl from a nice Cleveland family. A teacher. And she was all that, wasn’t she?
She’d been seeing Henry for almost eighteen months. She’d met him at a party given by one of the other teachers at her school after she’d moved to New Jersey to live with her aunt Alma. Her mother swore the only way she’d let Leah leave Cleveland was if she lived with family. Alma, her mother’s sister, liked the idea of Leah sharing her house and helping with the expenses. As far as Leah was concerned, anything was better than staying in Cleveland and living with her parents. Aunt Alma was a retired school secretary who’d never married. A maiden aunt, Leah’s mother called her, but one who played canasta with her friends three afternoons a week, and volunteered at the hospital every Friday morning.
Alma approved of Henry and had told Leah’s mother so. Well, who in her right mind wouldn’t approve of Henry, a reporter for the Elizabeth Daily Post? Henry was smart, kind, funny and very attractive. When he’d first enlisted, right out of high school, he hoped to serve as a reporter for Stars and Stripes, since he’d been editor in chief of the Monticello Times, the school newspaper at Jefferson High. But after just three months of training he’d been sent into battle. He said he was lucky to get out alive. Most of his company didn’t. He was in the hospital for two months with a shot-up leg. After that he got his wish, a desk job with Stars and Stripes in London, until six months after the war ended. He said he learned more from those journalists than he ever did at college.
As much as Aunt Alma said she liked Henry, lately she’d been warning Leah about men in general, and Henry, in particular. Why should he buy the cow if he can get the milk for free? Aunt Alma’s advice, when it came to romance, was so old-world. Besides, Henry never pushed her to go too far. She might not have minded a little push. It wasn’t like they were teenagers, after all. Henry had turned twenty-eight over the summer and she would be twenty-four on her next birthday. And guess what, Aunt Alma? He wasn’t getting much at all, never mind for free. Though, honestly, if she turned twenty-five and she still wasn’t engaged, she saw no point in saving it. She might as well enjoy it while she still could. She was pretty sure Aunt Alma had never enjoyed hers.