A Midnight Clear (8 page)

“Where to?” he asked.

“Home. I have to go over party menus with Colleen.” Joe made a face as if she’d said she had to endure the rack. “Don’t look like that. So much of the Navy is politics, relationships. Plenty of important command decisions are made over the dinner table.”

“I know that’s true.” Joe led her around a missing brick in the sidewalk. “And yet I can’t help but feel you got pulled into his career.”

“It’s my family.” She shrugged. “It was what I watched my mother do every day. And when she… well, I started picking up things for her and when she was gone, I just kept doing them.”

Joe stopped and watched her for several beats. Then he popped his jaw and pointed to a park across the street. “Can you sit with me for a bit?”

Frances nodded and a few minutes later, they found a bench.

Joe turned her hand over in his. Finally and very softly, he said, “I like your gloves.”

“Suzanne knitted them for me last Christmas.”

“She’s a nice kid.”

For a long minute, they watched the traffic going by and the pale afternoon sunshine lighting up the buildings. Then Joe said, “You never talk about your mother. Suzanne told me more about her than you have.”

Could that be true? Yes, probably. Even after four years, Mother’s loss was stark, the dividing line of her life. There was before, and there was after. Her grief was tidal, and even now, there were days when it swept her out to sea.

How could she say that to Joe, who was never less than sunny and even?

But how could she have told him nothing of Mother?

“She… she was perfect. She never got frustrated or overwhelmed. No request bothered her. Nothing was ever too much.” Once she started talking about her mother, the words tended to flow out. “She woke up lovely. Even when she was sick, she was still lovely. Except at the very end, when… I’m sorry, Joe. You don’t want to hear all of this, I’m sure.”

“I want to hear whatever you want to tell me.” Such steadiness in his warm gaze—that exact shade of brown would always be comforting to her, after this. No matter what happened.

“At the end, she grew small. She lost a great of deal weight as her illness went on. She was tall, like me. Or I’m tall like her, I guess. But she got fragile. Like a bird. And she’d sit in bed and her nightgown would hang from her shoulders, gaping. I would read to her and I had to keep my eyes on the page because I couldn’t face how diminished she was. I was such a coward at the end.”

Joe pressed his handkerchief into her free hand. She hadn’t even known that her face was wet. “Sweetheart, you weren’t a coward. You were a kid.”

Frances daubed at her cheeks. “If she could stand it, I needed to. She was the one who was dying.”

“What was her name?”

“Elizabeth. Father called her Liz.” She tried to compose herself and, after a bit, she managed to stop her tears.

She offered Joe a sad smile. “She would have liked you. She always talked about everything she taught me as if it were something I would do someday as a Navy wife. ‘When the Admiral comes to dinner… when the Secretary of the Navy comes to tea.’ There are so many things I wish I could ask her, but I remember everything she said about what to serve at an afternoon luncheon. I feel like the Navy wife role…”

“Like what?”

“Like it’s the only thing she left me, but I would have chosen something else if I could have.”

“It isn’t what you want?” He was so serious now, his eyes searching her face, his shoulders angled toward her, his back not touching the bench.

She wasn’t sure she could explain it. It was both the only thing she’d ever known and something she’d resented—even while seeing the value in it.

“This is the first job my father has ever had in the Navy where he eats dinner at home every night. Well, most nights. It’s been a lifetime of worshipping him from afar and entertaining the commanding officer at home. Polish and surfaces and calculation. Followed by another deployment.”

Joe’s look of grim determination fell. He didn’t say anything, but he looked devastated.

She added quickly, “I don’t know if I can do it, not when I could marry a plumber—”

“No, that would be no good. Pipes can freeze in the middle of the night.” But his joke was strained.

She felt awful. She wanted to wipe the devastation from his face, to promise him she could be what he wanted. But she wasn’t sure she could. Lightly she said, “Doctors are straight out then. A teacher then.”

“You have someone in mind?”

She shook her head slowly. There wasn’t anyone else. He had to know that.

He clutched at her hand firmly. “Frances, don’t hold me accountable for what your father did. He’s a different man, from a different time. It’s 1948. I want a modern wife. I want a partner. I want to serve, yes, but I want a family too. One that I’m with as much as I can be.”

When he finished the speech, he watched her intently. She wasn’t sure if he wasn’t adding
with you
because he wasn’t sure about his intentions toward her, or if he didn’t think she wanted to hear it.

But hearing him talk about his future without including her muddled her up inside.

He leaned a bit closer. “Have you seen Robbins since the dance?”

“No.”

“Seen anyone else?”

“No one but you.”

“Do you mind keeping it that way? Just until you decide what you want?”

You. I only want you.
But she didn’t say it. After a few beats, she nodded weakly.

Joe relaxed onto the bench and started tugging on the fingers of her glove. He whipped it off and then trailed his hand over her exposed palm. He stared at her hand for several minutes, before looking up with a crafty smile and saying, “I see a nice long life line.”

“Is that so? Which one is the life line?”

He didn’t answer. “And I see one great love.”

“Oh, it must be for books. I do love a good novel.”

Joe made a noise as if she’d thumped him, but went on examining her hand. “I see strength and determination. And lots of stubbornness.” He looked up at her. “Don’t keep love out.”

“I’ll do my best.”

He began to put her glove back on, but at the last moment, he raised her hand to his mouth and kissed the place where her palm met her wrist. She went a bit weak in her knees. It was a good thing she was seated.

He looked up at her, all innocent charm. “That’s how all the great palm readers do it.”

“If you’re going to kiss me,” she said as she pulled her hand back, “don’t make it sound like courtesy.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

He dipped his face and brushed his mouth over hers. It was lighting fast and every bit as potent.

When they started walking again, they didn’t touch, which was likely protective for them both. They didn’t talk, but every block, they’d exchange a look, just to make sure the other one was still there. As if to say,
I like walking with you.
And then,
I can’t imagine not walking with you.
And by the time they reached her street, Frances felt like she was floating two feet off the ground.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” Joe asked in a low voice.

“If I’m not allowed to go out with other boys, I guess you should come to dinner.”

Joe tilted his head and considered the offer. “Are you certain?”

He sounded as if he weren’t sure himself, when any other midshipman would be leaping at the chance.

“Yes. Ever since you insisted on talking to me after chapel, Father has been asking questions. So come and meet him. Tomorrow at seven?”

“I’ll be there. Have a nice afternoon.”

“You too.”

Neither of them moved.
 

“You should go. You have chemistry,” she chided.

“You should go. You have menus.”

Still they remained in place.

“Parting is such sweet sorrow,” Joe said, with a smile that made his ability to quote Shakespeare endearing and not pretentious. He kept doing that alchemy, and she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to resist him for long.

“The tragedies are next semester,” Frances said.

“I hope you never have to study tragedy again.”

A few more seconds passed. Frances looked around and, assured that Betsy wasn’t peeking, she popped up and kissed Joe on his jawline. Then she dashed up the steps.

As she fumbled with her keys, she could hear him whistling.

Joe paused on the front step of the Dumfries’s stoop, taking it all in. The Superintendent’s house looked like someone had started with the idea of a cottage and then gone above and beyond, adding another story and a garden and a fountain and an extra wing here and there. Two dormer windows poked skeptically out the roof. They reminded him of the Admiral’s eyebrows.

He adjusted the jacket of his dress blues, then a quick check of his shoes—still gleaming despite the walk over—and he knew he was as spit and polished as he could get. Too bad the shine on his shoes wouldn’t be enough to sail him through this dinner slick as a greased pig.

One last lung-filling inhale and then he knocked on the door, hard. Too hard in his nervousness—his knuckles stung and he had to resist the urge to shake them out.

The door swung open and Suzanne stood there in red silk with her hair pinned up, wearing a rather smug expression.

Joe handed over a bouquet of sweet peas. “For you.”

She took them with a small smile, and then delicately sniffed them. “Thank you. I see you didn’t bring any for Frances.”

“Got something better for her.” As he crossed the threshold, he leaned in close and dropped his voice. “How am I doing on our little agreement?”

“So well I don’t think you need my help at all. I heard about the motorcycle.” She mouthed the last word. “Very bold. And Frances loved it.”

“I live to serve.”

They shared a conspiratorial smile for half a moment, and then she said, “Here. Let me take your coat.”

He shrugged out of it and handed it to her, then set his cap on the hat stand by the door. One last check in the mirror—thank goodness the uniform meant he didn’t have to worry about his clothing choices—and Suzanne led him down the hall, her heels sinking into the Persian rug covering the marble floor.

The whole place was impressive—bright white walls, fancy carvings in the ceiling. What did they call that? Crown molding? Whatever it was, his impression of this place—with the wood trim, and the chandeliers, and the fragile furniture—wasn’t
home
. This was only an ornate way station. And Frances no doubt had to keep it in pristine condition for the next occupant.
 

“Here we are,” Suzanne said, gesturing him into a parlor with a fire blazing.

The admiral was waiting there, in civilian clothes and holding a glass of what was probably scotch. “Reynolds.” His handshake was brief.

“Sir.” Joe handed over the bottle of scotch he’d brought as a gift. “I’ve heard this is very fine single malt.” He’d had to wire his parents for the money, so he prayed the admiral liked it.

“Very nice,” Dumfries admitted grudgingly. He set it on a side table as Suzanne brought Joe his own glass. “But you’re not here to see me, are you?”

Joe paused with his drink half way to his mouth. “Well, I—”

Dumfries made an impatient motion with his hand. “Oh, go on, she’s in the dining room.”

Joe knew a dismissal when he heard one—and he’d rather chat with Frances than navigate the minefield of a conversation with the admiral. Not that he’d be able to avoid it over dinner.

“Down the hall, third door on the left,” Suzanne said.

He gave her a grateful smile then went in search of it.

Frances was exactly where the admiral said she’d be, tweaking the place settings on an immensely formal table much too big for just the four of them. She didn’t look up when he came in, although she must have heard the door open. This was a big step forward for them, so he kept quiet and gave her the space to come to him.

So he studied her, let the expansiveness of his feelings spread throughout him until he was aching from the force of it. And the wanting… he let that come too, just for a moment. The roll of her wrist, the curve of her calf, the way her dress slipped across her hips—you could put another woman buck naked in front of him and she wouldn’t tie up him with need the way this view of Frances was right now.

Finally, she set those blue eyes on him and all of him came to sharp attention.

“Joe.” She nibbled at her lip.

“Frances,” he said, equally gravely. Although his entire body ached to touch her, he stayed where he was: too far away from her. “Do you eat like this every night?”

She tucked her chin. “Not quite like this, but yes, in this room. It is the dining room.”

“It certainly is
the
dining room.” A small smile from her. “Better than the mess hall, I’ve got to say.”

A pulse of silence, beating hard between them. She lifted a hand, dropped it again. “Oh, this is so… I’m not quite sure what to do.”

“I know what I want to do.”

She sent him a warning look.

“Don’t worry, I know to behave myself.” Although he didn’t want to in the slightest. If her father were anyone other than who he was… “I’ll give you this instead.” He handed over the book, reminding himself to be good.