“Oh, Esther!” I looked at my other sister, Ethel’s twin. “Do something about her! We can’t go as the Andrews Sisters with only two of us.”
The party, a fancy-dress ball held at one in the afternoon in the basement of the primary school, was the first we’d attended in the half year since my seventeenth birthday, since the bombings had begun. Esther had heard about it, a fundraiser for the war effort, and it had been my idea to go as the Andrews Sisters, American recording artists who looked just like my sisters and me, two brunettes and one prettier blonde. We had spent the past week making over our dresses to look like their costumes. Since we didn’t have three that matched, we’d decided that Ethel and Esther would wear their matching blue dresses from last Easter, while I’d wear a similar dress in pink. But Ethel was the best at styling hair, and so we needed her to perfect our victory rolls, a hairstyle created by sweeping the hair up into a V shape above the forehead, the way Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne Andrews wore it.
“Please, Ethel,” Esther said. “Let’s have a bit of fun for once.”
“It isn’t safe,” Ethel said. “What if something happens? I still say it’s wrong to go out and frolic when so much is happening. You never think of such things, Grace.”
I thought about such things all the time. I wished my brother Jack were there, and my older brother, George. But Jack was my closest companion. We’d played together while Esther and Ethel huddled in the corners, giggling. He’d been at war these six months.
If Jack were there, even sitting inside would have been fun.
“Don’t be a twit,” I said. “That’s why they’re having it at one o’clock, to be safer. And it’s in a basement.” At night, the street lights were out, so that the Germans wouldn’t be able to see us, and we had black drapes over the windows to keep any light from seeping through. The blackout had been going on for well over a year.
Ethel sighed. “And my stocking is ripped.”
“Oh, well, if that’s all . . .” I held up my eyebrow pencil. “I can fix that. You do Essie’s hair.”
“What are you going to do?” Ethel asked in that high, nervous tone I hated.
“You’ll see.”
So, while Ethel rolled and pinned Esther’s hair, I used a ruler and my brown eyebrow pencil to draw a line up the back of Ethel’s left leg, to look like the seam of a stocking. It would have been quite horrifying had anyone noticed, but no one would, and necessity is the mother of invention, especially in wartime. Then Esther crouched and drew a line up Ethel’s right leg (we decide it would be better to have both legs match, even though only one stocking was ripped) while Ethel styled my hair. Finally, we waited for Ethel to do her own hair.
It was almost one before we were finished. Now, the true test. Our mother.
“Whatcha think, Mum?” I asked as we posed to be the very picture of the Andrews Sisters, me in the center, with Ethel and Esther leaning in toward me.
“You look very nice,” she said, quietly.
If only she could have mustered up some enthusiasm, but she too felt my brothers’ absence. I supposed she wouldn’t be the same until they came back.
At least she hadn’t noticed Ethel’s stocking. If she didn’t, no one would. Mum had eyes like an eagle.
It was strange going out in costumes in broad daylight. I had no idea who would be there, even. I supposed there would be some chaps my own age, who were still in school, but no one for my sisters, who were three years older. All the able young men their age were gone to the war.
Poor Ethel. Poor Esther. Lucky me. I fairly skipped to the party until Ethel scolded me.
“Remember your dignity, Grace,” she said. “And if you can’t do that, remember that those hairpins might not hold if you skip.”
“Fine.” I slowed down and walked just as I imagined Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret might walk, slowly and boringly. “But we’ll be out of harm’s way more quickly if we step lively.”
So we did, and we got there soon after one.
They’d tried to make the room look swanky, with streamers hanging from the ceiling and some old balls made of blue and red tissue paper, which I think they must have had from when I attended the school.
“It still looks like the basement of a primary school,” Ethel said.
“Well of course it does,” I snapped. “That’s what it is. Doesn’t mean we should stay home every day.” I tried not to roll my eyes.
“Remember when we went to that dance at the church hall?” Esther asked, likely trying to distract me.
I nodded. It had been my first dance. I’d been thirteen and was wearing an old dress of Ethel’s, but Mum had gotten a new sash for it.
“None of the boys my age wanted to dance with any of the girls,” I said. “But when Jack asked me, I was embarrassed because he was my brother.”
“But then another boy cut in,” Esther reminded me.
“Ralph Martin,” I said, remembering his hair, combed so neatly. “And then everyone was dancing. Jack saved the day!”