McAllister was red-faced, his thin mouth a tight line. But this time his stern expression started to crack. “I said . . .” And then he couldn’t hold it. He had been biting his lip, but he broke into a smile and started to laugh, turning around and walking away to compose himself. That was all it took for the group of us to start howling with laughter.
Dottie was laughing so hard, she wobbled and fell back from her squatting position and went legs up, her bottom half fully soaked in mud and her glasses covered in so much muck we couldn’t see her eyes. I looked over at Viv as she was trying desperately to extract herself from the mess and stay clean, but it was far too late; her skirt was splattered, and her shoes were barely visible. She was laughing so hard, tears streamed down her muddy face.
“Making doughnuts and driving has to be easier than this,” I said to Dottie as Viv and I tried to pull her up, all of us still giggling.
“It better be,” Viv said. “Look at what today has done to my nails. I’ve got to repaint them when we get back.”
Dottie and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. If Viv’s manicures survived the war, it would be a miracle.
That night, back at Park Street, after a cold shower and a hot meal, I met Frankie up on the roof. I wouldn’t have seen her sitting in the far corner on a wooden crate if not for the end of her cigarette glowing in the darkness. There was a nice summer breeze, and also that familiar acrid smell, a reminder that war was all around us.
“Hi,” I said, walking up to her, still clutching the unopened letter that had been waiting for me when we got back from training.
“Hey, I found two crates to sit on,” she said, motioning to a second one.
“Thank you. Any action so far?” I asked.
“Nah, quiet tonight. It looks so eerie out there—not a light in sight.”
“Someday I’m going to return to London when the lights are back on.”
“I was thinking the same,” Frankie said.
“Where are you from anyway?” I asked. If we were going to be sitting there all night together, I figured I should get to know her better.
“Chicago, Illinois, only the best city on earth,” she said. “Huge Cubs fan, of course.”
“You’re the second person I’ve met from Chicago. What did you do there?” I asked.
“I worked at Marshall Field’s, the department store?” she said. “I was a salesgirl in their shoe department. I loved it, and I was so good at it. I was one of the top salespeople every month.”
“Why does that not surprise me? So why leave to do this?”
“Well, I’m not a nurse, and they wouldn’t let me fly,” she said. “I needed to do something in the war. This job is the closest I can get to real combat.”
“Why in the world would you want to be in actual combat?” I asked.
She was quiet for a moment. Even when she was sitting, her knee bounced up and down, constantly in motion.
“Ever since my husband, Rick, died in the war two years ago, I’ve been wanting to fight back,” she said.
I peered over at her; she was observing the dark city. For a moment, I was at a loss for words.
“Frankie, I . . . I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” I said. She was a war widow. I squeezed the letter tightly.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I thought Blanche had told you—she tells everyone everything.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t okay for a long time. Rick was a bombardier in the US Army Air Corps, killed in North Africa in July of ’42.” She sighed. “I was so angry about it in the beginning. So angry. But you can’t keep feeling that way, or it will drown you.”
She paused for a minute, taking a drag of her cigarette.
“But the cliché is true, time heals—at least it’s started to heal for me. And being here? It’s exactly what I needed.”
“I understand that,” I said in a soft voice. We were both quiet for a minute, watching the sky. “Did Blanche tell you about my fiancé, Danny?”
Frankie nodded, looking me in the eye. “’Course,” she said. “The not knowing must be torture. You must wonder all the time—where is he? Did he get out? Is he in Germany? Is he—” She stopped herself.
“Is he gone?” I said, finishing her thought. “It is torture.”
I took a deep breath of the chilly night air before I started talking again. Now I understood Frankie’s commitment to our role here in a way I hadn’t before.
“I still have his last letter from October. I keep it in the bottom of my musette bag. I haven’t read it in a while, because I practically have it memorized and it just makes me too sad. He always ended his letters ‘I’ll be seeing you . . .’ Like the song.”
Frankie nodded. We were part of a club nobody ever wanted to be a member of. But it was an immediate bond, one I was grateful to have here.
“Thank you for telling me about Rick. It’s nice to talk to someone who understands. Viv and Dottie have been so supportive, but . . .”
“But they don’t really get it,” she said.
“No, and I hope they never do.” I looked down at the envelope in my hand.
“Is that a letter from home?”
“Yes,” I said. “From my family. And I’m dying to open it because I miss them so much, but I’m almost afraid to open it because they might have news about Danny. It’s from my three younger sisters.”
“You’re really that afraid to open it?” she asked, holding her hand out. “Do you want me to do it?”
I thought about it for a second. “Would you? Please skim it to see if there’s news of him, so I know.” I handed her the envelope.
Frankie carefully opened it and held the letter up close to her face to read it in the glow of her cigarette. I caught a glimpse of my sisters’ three different handwriting styles and the silly pictures they had drawn down the sides of the stationery.
“No. Nothing new about Danny. Right at the top of the letter your sister Niamh says, ‘As of this writing, he is still considered missing in action.’”
I let out a sigh and realized I had been holding my breath while she was reading it.
“She would do that; she’s good that way. It’s torture, but . . . I can’t help but have hope,” I said.
“I understand,” Frankie said. “Can I read it out loud to you? It’s really sweet. How old are they?”
“Niamh is twenty-three; Deidre and Darcy are eighteen,” I answered. “Sure, please read the rest.”
Frankie read the letter aloud:
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, how are YOU? How was the trip over? Do you miss us yet? We’re putting together a care package for you. What do you need? Deidre’s knitting you a red scarf and mittens. Don’t worry, we won’t forget the Kotex! I can’t believe . . .
The air raid sirens started, and Frankie and I jumped. We stood and scanned the skies, looking for any V-1s heading in the direction of Park Street. She handed me back the letter. We kept searching, and I could feel my heart beating in my throat.
“Okay, if we spot one incoming, we ring the bell?” I said.
Frankie nodded. “We ring the bell, run downstairs to knock on everyone’s doors, and then we all head to the basement, put helmets on, and pull pillows over our heads until it’s over.”
“Frankie . . . ,” I said, pointing up to the horizon. I heard it before I spotted it—the tail end a steady, very bright-white light.
“Yeah, that one’s coming close. Grab your helmet and let’s go!” she said, throwing her own on and running to the staircase.
“Do you think we’ll ever get used to this?” I asked, as we flew down the stairs to warn the others, the motorcycle-like rumbling in the sky getting louder by the minute.
“We don’t have a choice.”
Chapter Six
July 24, 1944
I stood next to Dottie and Viv, cracking my knuckles as we eyed the enormous, ten-ton GMC truck in front of us with suspicion. We had just changed into the army fatigues that Norman, our British driving instructor, had thrown at us when we arrived back at his garage at Camp Griffiss for the first day of our four-day driving and maintenance course. The final two days of training would be dedicated to doughnut and coffee making.
Our training would conclude with a ceremony featuring Harvey Gibson, head of the Red Cross in the European theater. Other Clubmobile trios, including Blanche, Martha, and Frankie, were scattered across the base getting their own private lessons with an instructor.
From the beginning, I had been excited about the idea of being a Clubmobile girl. But I was not excited about driving the behemoth in front of me.
“I’m not sure why we have to have these lessons now if we’re staying in England and going to have our own driver here,” Dottie said.
“Exactly,” Viv said, looking down at the fatigues she was wearing with obvious distaste. “I wish we could skip this and get on to the doughnut making.”