“How awful!” I had not heard about a British ship that had sunk. I would have to ask Father. “And you were in hospital all this time?”
“Yes.” Phillip smiled. “And while I was there, I was able to read all the books about the Scarlet Pimpernel. I’ve grown quite attached to the chap. He helped me forget that awful night.”
On the record, the singer sang.
So to sweet romance,
There is just one answer.
You and I.
I sang along with it.
“You have a lovely voice,” he said.
“Thank you. I sing at night, when we’re stuck in the house. That’s how my sisters and I decided to be the Andrews Sisters. We sing their songs together.”
He was smiling. He had such straight, white teeth, and he said, “How lovely. I wish I had someone to sing to me.”
But then I felt self-conscious, and I didn’t sing anymore, not even when the next song was “He Wears a Pair of Silver Wings,” which was my favorite. Still, the evening felt like a dream.
“I read aloud sometimes too,” I said finally. “I’ve read the Pimpernel books. Only I haven’t read Mam’zelle Guillotine yet. I haven’t got a copy. It’s so hard to find things now.”
“I have it. I could loan it to you . . . if I can see you again?”
I recognized the question he was asking, and I knew my answer. “I’d like that.” I smiled up at him, then tried to suppress it. I didn’t want to look like a fool. My sisters said I looked like a twit when I smiled too much, but I was so happy. I’d come to the party expecting nothing except to see some old friends, but instead, it was like a grown-up dance, and everyone was looking at me dancing with this man, a war hero, who wanted to see me again. “Do you read much then too?”
“Ever so much. There’s an American author, Ernest Hemingway. He writes about war.”
“I loved A Farewell to Arms. It was so sad, though.”
“It was sad. That’s what I liked about it.” He held me a bit closer. “You’re a beautiful dancer.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it. I love to dance. And dancing with you, it makes me feel like I’m somewhere else, not a basement of a school in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Where would you want to be,” I asked, “if you could be anywhere at all?”
“Not so much where, but when. I’d like to be in Paris, before the war, or maybe after. I’d show you the Arc de Triomphe, and then we’d take a boat ride on the Seine.”
“In the moonlight.” I nodded. “It sounds so beautiful.”
“And how about you?” he asked.
For a moment, I couldn’t think of anything. I liked his idea so well that I almost said I’d like to go there. But that would be boring. “I’ve never been anywhere, really. I’d love to see Paris. But I’d be happy just to go to Regent’s Park, to the Rose Garden.”
“The way it smells in June!” he said. “Like springtime in an atomizer.”
“Exactly! My mother used to take us all the time when we were little, and whenever I smell roses, I remember.”
“We should go sometime. I know it won’t be the same as before, but still.”
“I’d like that.” Did he mean he would take me?
Now they were playing “Stardust.” We danced and talked about music and our lives. He was so easy to talk to about everything, and his arms were so strong, his presence commanding. I felt safe for the first time in maybe months.
The song switched again, this time to “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which was the Andrews Sisters’ latest and a fast song. Phillip and I stood there a moment. “They’re playing your song, Patty,” he said. “Swing dance time.” He moved away from me a bit, to accomplish the faster steps.
But just then, Ethel ran up behind me.
“Hey, it’s us!” she said. “Let’s dance.”
I didn’t want to go, but Esther was right behind her. They pulled me toward the front of the room, where the record player was, to dance with them and pretend to be the Andrews Sisters. “I’ll be right back,” I told Phillip.
“I’ll wait for you,” he said.
Which he did, watching with amusement as we acted out “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Hold Tight, Hold Tight,” and just as we were finishing that, someone ran up to Ethel and whispered to her. I saw her face go white. She stopped dancing.
“We have to go,” she said, and her eyes were full of tears.
“What is it?” I said.
“We have to go!” Ethel repeated.
“But what—? What is it, Ethel?”
She pulled me toward the door, Esther following. “There’s been a telegram.”
I felt the air leave my body. A telegram. It could only mean one thing. One of our brothers had been killed.
All thought of seeing Phillip fell from my mind, like a paratrooper crashing.
2
When we reached home, it was worse than expected. There were two telegrams, two on the same day. George was confirmed dead. Jack was missing.
“Maybe he’s a prisoner,” I said. I had to hold on to hope of seeing Jack again, dear Jack, who had held by hand and taken me to the zoo. Jack, who had helped me with my spelling, Jack, who’d been my ally in the war against my sisters.