Five Brides (52 page)

“Joan!” From outside the car, Robert shouted as he tried to wave off the guards who now surrounded the Austin.

“Get out of the car!” they bellowed. “Get out of the car!”

Joan looked at Lucy. “I suppose we should get out of the car.”

“You first,” she said.

Joan opened her door, stepping out as Robert’s hand reached for her elbow.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His attention returned to the guards surrounding them. “I can explain,” he gasped.

The last thing Joan needed was a man cleaning up her messes. “
I
can explain.” Joan turned to the guards. “I lost control of the car.”

“But not on purpose,” Lucy interjected from the other side. “Although she is a
terrible
driver.”

Joan shot her a look.

“She’s here for me,” Robert added. “Private Second Class Zimmerman.”

Four guns lowered as one of the guards demanded, “Your ID, ma’am.”

“It’s in the car.” When he didn’t respond, Joan pointed in the driver’s window. “May I get it?”

He nodded.

“I’m with General Partridge’s office,” she told him, her head buried within the small confines of the automobile, all the while digging around, looking for her purse. She found it on the passenger floorboard, then backed out of the car. “Here you go,” she said, pulling her government identification badge from the purse.

The guard in charge took it, studied it, then returned it.

“Private Zimmerman, will you vouch for Miss Hunt?”

Robert nodded. “I will, sir.”

“All right,” he said. “You’re free to go, but . . .” He looked from Joan to the other guards, then back. “Private Zimmerman, you are responsible to drive the car out of the
Kaserne
and back.”

Joan opened her mouth to protest. If Jackson hadn’t been able to fit behind the wheel, then Robert would surely have the same problem. The North Carolinian had at least two inches on the Tennessean, for sure.

“I can do that, sir,” Joan heard him say just before his gaze slid through the open door toward the steering wheel. “I think.”

The guards walked away, muttering between themselves about repairing the gate until one joked about
“der große Mann in dem Kinderwagen.”

Joan looked at Robert. “This is my friend Lucy,” she said, deflated.

But Robert continued to stare inside the car.

“Nice to meet you, Robert,” Lucy offered over the top of the Austin. “And obviously, this whole thing was to introduce two people with only one thing in common—we’re both from the South.”

Robert’s brow furrowed as he looked at her.

“I’m old enough to be your mother,” Lucy suggested.

“Oh,” Robert finally said. “Oh.”

Joan pointed to the car seat. “Um, Robert? Do you think you can wedge yourself in there?”

“I. Don’t. Know.”

She stepped closer to him, peering up at his face. “Are you all right?”

His brow inched up. “I think so.” He took a breath. “Okay. Let’s see how I can fold myself in here.”

Robert pushed the car seat back as far as it would go, then put his left leg in, bending the knee almost to his ear as he slid the rest of his body into the car. With his back pressed hard against the seat, he adjusted his body weight. “I’m in,” he said.

“But can you
drive
the car?”

He looked in the rearview mirror to where the guards worked on the gate. “I don’t know that I have a choice, Joan,” he said without looking at her.

Joan glanced at Lucy. “Climb in the back,” she said, then closed the driver’s door, feeling it give as it met Robert’s knee.

“Ow,” he said, throwing back his head.

“Sorry,” she shouted, running around the front of the car to the passenger seat.

Once the three were tucked inside, Robert turned the key. “Is this what it’s going to be like with you, Miss Hunt?”

Joan stared ahead and bit off a smile. “Pretty much, Private Zimmerman. Pretty much.”

Correspondence came to Joan from the States the following day—a Christmas card all the way from Lake Forest, Illinois, its front boasting Betty’s lovely penmanship.

Joan gasped with anticipation. The thickness of the envelope promised a letter along with the card. She tore into the content
as soon as she’d shrugged out of her coat and gloves, and dropped them across one of her two dinette chairs. “‘Merry Christmas, Joan,’” she read aloud from the folded, lineless paper, then giggled at what followed:

. . . or should I say Fröhliche Weihnachten! I bet you are wondering how I know this, aren’t you? Well, I’ll tell you—our next-door neighbor is from Germany. A woman of sixty who left the country with her husband and children as soon as things started getting “iffy” over there. “Iffy” is my word, not hers.

Allow me to play “catch up” with you. I saw Magda recently; she came to Lake Forest to pick up the wedding dress. Didn’t I tell you? She and her old boss, Barry Cole, will marry soon. She’s number three, Joan, which reminds me, Inga had a girl. She named her Emma. I hope she and Axel will be able to make a go of it. Magda seems to think he’s a nice man.

Do you hear much from Evelyn? I received a letter recently in which she writes that there is no man in her life but she went on and on about a preacher named Ed. Or Edwin. Something like that.

Life continues to grow inside of me, Joan, and during this season of the Blessed Child I feel closer to His mother than ever. I can barely make it to the end of the driveway most days and then I think of her trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem and sigh.

Pat sends his love. He’s sitting across the table from me now, my feet in his lap (so he can rub them), insisting I tell you how he will be forever indebted to you and your matchmaking skills. Ha. Ha. He also says to tell you to be sure to go to Munich to the Christkindlmarkt, a holiday tradition which began in the 1600s and continues to this day. How my husband knows these tiny bits of trivia is anyone’s guess. When I ask, he only reminds me that he is a man of much brilliance.

I’ll close in hopes of hearing from you soon. Tell me everything! I hunger for news!

Fondly,

Betty (Mrs. Pat Callahan)

PS: Pat just said for you to be careful of those soldier boys. Ha.

Evanston, Illinois

Magda stood at the bottom of the staircase with a pad and pencil in her hand, her mind breezing over the list of things she had to accomplish that day. With less than two weeks before her wedding, each day’s list grew extensively longer than the previous. She wondered, briefly, if at some point that would change. Would the lists for the days inching toward Saturday, February 13, begin to dwindle until, finally, on their wedding day, only one thing stood at the top of the page:
Get Married
?

She checked her watch. Harriet Nielson would arrive at any moment, not to see
her
, but to watch television—
The Brighter Day
; the new soap opera
The Secret Storm
; and
On Your Account
—with Jessie Higgins. And, although the children’s grandmother rarely had a thing to say to Magda—at least not when they were out of Barry’s earshot—the thought of running into her in the middle of the afternoon turned what was left of her lunch.

Magda stepped off the last step, her hand brushing over the Christian Dior mink Barry had given her for Christmas. She walked to the back of the house, her heels muffled on the wool runner, where she found her landlady preparing a percolator of coffee in the kitchen. “I’m going out for a while,” Magda said.

Jessie Higgins peered over her shoulder. “Should I expect you home in time to eat?”

Magda pressed her lips together. “No. I’m going to meet Barry in Chicago. We have a few things to take care of this evening.”

The woman turned back to her coffee preparations without another word.

Magda looked at her watch again. If she hurried, she could manage to get out of the house. She paused in front of the foyer mirror, readjusted her hat, slid her hands into the warm leather gloves she’d left next to her purse on the table, and reached for the fur.

The front door opened and Magda whirled around. “Hello, Mrs. Nielson,” she said, keeping her voice firm and her chin up as the woman entered without so much as a courteous knock. Magda shoved her arms into the coat.

Harriet Nielson frowned at her. “And where are you off to? As if I didn’t know.”

Of course she knew, so then why did she insist on asking? Still, as Mor would tell her, treating your friends kindly is easy. To show the love of Christ, you must love those who are not so friendly. Magda forced a smile. “I’m meeting Barry in the city.” She stepped past Harriet, reaching for her purse. “I hope you enjoy your soaps with Miss Higgins.”

Harriet harrumphed before stomping to the back of the house. Magda pressed her lips together, turned for a final look in the mirror, and opened the front door. She had stepped over the threshold and had nearly closed the door behind her when she realized the pad with her list had been left behind.

She stepped back inside, her eyes glancing toward the base of the banister.

The pad wasn’t there.

Magda frowned. She’d had it in her hand not five minutes earlier. Right there. Standing on the stair.

And then she had gone to the back of the house . . .

Closing the front door, she retraced her footsteps, quickly spying the pad on an occasional table between the foyer and the hallway leading to the kitchen. She sighed and shook her head. She’d obviously set it down on her way to say good-bye to Jessie Higgins.

I need a vacation. Or a honeymoon.

Magda picked up the pad.

“I don’t know what else you
can
do.” Her landlady’s voice wafted through. Magda paused, listening unseen as the two women walked out of the kitchen and into the small den where Miss Higgins’s television set sat warmed up and ready for an afternoon of entertainment. “You’ve told Barry how you feel. You’ve enlisted Deanne’s help . . .”

“If
only
I could get Douglas to be a part of the pact,” Harriet stated.

“Well, he’s infatuated, obviously. She apparently has some power over the weaker sex.”

The two women cackled and Magda held her breath.

“I had hoped when I went to see that Mr. VanMichaels and exposed their little tryst that she’d find herself in the unemployment lines and Barry would move on.
Why in the world
does he think he needs another woman in his life? Did you see
me
running after another husband when mine died? My daughter should be plenty enough for him and I
will not
have that girl erase Barbara’s memory from that house or from the minds of those children!”

Magda gasped, grateful that the television volume seemed to have been increased. She stepped lightly toward the front door, making sure to keep her feet on the carpets. She peered over her shoulder when she arrived at the door, her chin tickled by the fur of Barry’s
gift. Her hand gripped the doorknob and turned it slowly. She inched it open, slid through the crack, and once again stepped onto the front porch, pulling the door closed without so much as a click.

She felt like a World War II spy, snow crunching under her shoes as she quietly made her way to Barry’s car, which he left in her care daily. Once inside, she pulled the keys from her purse and started it, hoping the women inside the house were too enthralled with their daytime stories to notice the gap from the time she had apparently left the house.

Magda backed out of the driveway and drove to the first intersection before a loud puff of air escaped from deep within.

Mr. VanMichaels.

“Nana,” she said, through gritted teeth. “
You
were the one.”