His Very Own Girl (8 page)

“Drink?”

She smiled broadly. “Just so, guv.”

Still shaking his head, he followed Lulu up the stairs, appreciating his view of her slim, perfectly shaped calves as they climbed. The air became warmer, smokier, and the sound of that lonesome trumpet chiseled a place of sadness in Joe’s chest. It sang of a melancholy that hurt—hurt badly—but reminded him that he was still alive.

The club was lit with gas lamps and a few more bare bulbs. The orange glow tinted pale faces with an artificial tan and rendered dark faces nearly black. And there were many dark faces. As at the Henley, American men had turned out in abundance, but many were from Colored units. They mingled with white women, sitting at plain tables, sipping cocktails, and watching the trumpet player where he performed on a tiny round stage.

Lulu touched his sleeve. “Are you all right?”

“You could’ve warned me.”

“What about? Oh.”

Feeling conspicuous, Joe’s ears buzzed. Sweat gathered under his arms, which had nothing to do with the thick warmth inside the club. “You sure we belong here, Lulu?”

“The first time I came here, I was convinced I’d wind up garroted in an alleyway. But there’s no quieter place in Leicester for drinks and music. What more could we want?”

The heavy haze of cigarette smoke lay like a stringy cloud a few inches below the ceiling. “Just keep those kitchens coming.”

Lulu dropped a quick kiss on the back of his hand. “Will do. You snag a table.”

She wove around to the bar, which was no larger than a card table. By the time Joe found a place to sit and lit a Lucky Strike, she’d returned with a pair of gins. They edged closer together, their knees flirting. Onstage the trumpet player was joined by a man at the piano. A dame with nearly translucent skin, platinum hair, and a stunning chest stood at the microphone and crooned “My Funny Valentine.” Her husky, melodic voice perfectly complemented the mournful trumpet and brooding piano.

Joe took a drink and relaxed. He’d never imagined such a place. It sure was something else.

“We can leave if you like.” Unlike at the Henley, they could speak normally and still be heard.

Joe shook his head and offered a rueful smile. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Good. This place just took me by surprise. There’s no harm in folks having a rum time of things.”

“You seemed uncomfortable.”

“You don’t see much of this sort of fraternizing back in the States,” he said, waving a hand toward the dance floor. “If you did, you’d leave jackrabbit quick because a fight was sure to follow. It was like that in Georgia. Any Colored man, even a soldier—he’d nod the wrong way at a white woman and a dozen guys would line up to hand him his head. I didn’t expect things could be so peaceful.”

“Is Georgia home, then?”

“Nah, that was just for basic. I’m from North Shore, Indiana. Originally.”

“Where’s that?”

“The town or the state?”

She laughed softly, nothing more than a huff of breath. “Both.”

The toe of her shoe brushed his pant leg. It wasn’t an invitation—probably just an accident. But Joe seized on any return to contact.

“Somewhere in the middle,” he said, framing her face.

He shifted closer and eased into her space. Just as at the movie palace, he moved so slowly that she could deny him at any time. Instead Lulu exhaled softly just before their mouths touched. He took the sound into himself, as if her anticipation was something he could touch.

Their kiss was gentle. Her lips were warm, smooth, firm. Their tongues touched tentatively at first, then with more power. She moaned softly. Her fingers threaded into the cropped hair at his nape. The air in his lungs turned sultry. She was the promise of a fire, light and heat—heat enough to char him to cinders.

Joe broke the kiss and dragged in a shaky breath. He still held her face in his hands. He flexed his thumbs to stroke the rounded tops of her cheeks. “Can I take you out next Friday?”

Lulu scooted away. Reflexively she touched her hair and smoothed loose strands back into place. She needed well more than a moment, but the reprieve helped calm her raging body.

“I don’t date soldiers,” she said quickly, as if her desire to have this conversation over and done with could make it happen.

Joe’s eyes were a funny shade of mud beneath the club’s orange-tinted lighting, but no less intense. Despite his outward calm—that special talent of his—he seemed eager to etch himself onto her brain.
Don’t worry,
she thought.
That’s already been done.

“
Do
you date?”

“I have no policy against it, per se,” she said.

“Just not soldiers.”

“Or airmen or seamen.”

He snubbed out his cigarette. “Then what’s your policy toward us?”

“One evening only, I’m afraid.”

The hitch in her voice didn’t sound very convincing. But she considered herself quite lucky to be speaking at all. More natural and more powerful than what they’d shared in the cinema, she still felt their kiss down to her fingers and toes. He had sparked off her restlessness. She wanted to go back to the first time she’d seen him. She’d spit in his face, claw at him, and make such a terrible impression that he’d never spare a backward glance . . . let alone kiss her as if she’d been the answer to every question.

Perhaps the crash had affected her more than she wanted to admit. For the first time in months, possibly years, she was greedy. The urge to know him better became akin to Turkish Delight or a fine vintage Bordeaux: luxuries she craved but couldn’t have. The droning sacrifices of the war made her desperate for a taste of the forbidden.

“Why so cruel?” he asked.

That reckless feeling made her honest. And honesty felt good. “Chaps in uniform are very pretty, but you have a nasty habit of never returning. For various reasons.”

“You’ve lost someone.” He still held her hand. She would’ve thought the touch friendly, almost innocent, if it hadn’t made her shiver. “Haven’t you?”

“I don’t know a person who
hasn’t
lost someone, with no exception for you.” She knew she’d hit a nerve, because he made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “After all, why else would you volunteer to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?”

“So you think all of us paratroopers are off our nuts?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps only those who fistfight with superior officers.”

The lines around his mouth tightened. “I only finished what he started.”

Unwilling to revisit the topic—one that skirted too near the intimate details she wished to avoid—Lulu did the only thing she could. She pushed her chair back and stood, sliding her hands over the wrinkles that crisscrossed the lap of her skirt. “Dance with me?”

Joe swigged his gin. His hand, when it touched hers, was hot along the palm but cool where his fingertips had held the tumbler. Again Lulu was amazed by his height, by the breadth of his shoulders, by how forcefully his presence contrasted with his unassuming nature. Only once had his face reflected the power and ferocious potential of his body, on that night at the Henley when he’d mashed Lt. Dixon. She wondered how much of his calm guise was designed to conceal that angry fighter.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, then clamped his lips. Soon he’d tugged her through a maze of chairs and wooden tabletops crowded with glasses and deep scuffs. As the blues trio started a languid version of “Now Is the Hour,” she laid her cheek against his chest and released a shuddering sigh. Joe’s arm circled her upper back. His heart beat against her temple like a drummer who wanted to add an impatient rhythm to their slow, close bodies.

“You can write to me,” she said.

“Doing your patriotic duty?”

“How can I not? I’ve met a great many soldiers in these last few years.”

“And airmen and seamen.”

“Don’t tease.”

“How many do you have?” The question sounded casual, but his arms had tightened.

“On near twenty, I suppose. On and off. Here and there. I’m much more consistent in replying than they are.”

Eyes she knew to be green glittered almost black, hooded by his tense brow. The extreme lighting made his face appear harder, more exaggerated, from the blockish cut of his jaw to high cheekbones that stood out like high mountain ridges. She wanted to slide her fingertips along his late-day stubble—stubble that had smarted and scratched as they’d kissed.

Heat welled beneath Lulu’s breastbone. When was the last time she’d been this near to a man, this tied into his space and his scent and his feel? When had she last been so eager to soak him up before he vanished? She couldn’t recall its like. Not even with Robbie had she felt this way. With Robbie, she’d thought they would love perpetually. Nowadays time distilled to hours, minutes, moments. She grasped at them like a kitten after a butterfly, a wild creature with no hope of capturing what it desired.

Their knees kept bumping together, so Lulu adjusted her legs to alternate with his. One muscular male thigh pressed against her groin and she melted. What she’d denied herself for ages now triggered decadent thoughts. She and Robbie had been fumbling young lovers, hoping not to get caught. What would it be like with Joe? How would this soldier touch her and fill her?

“And if the letters stop coming?” he murmured.

“Then I assume they’ve found a sweet girl and have no more need for me.”

“Better that way.”

He had extraordinary eyes, really, so very clear. He even managed to keep his sexual interest tamed—none of the slavering some men displayed. An efficient dancer, he moved her around the diminutive dance floor with a strong, yet respectful, hold.

But deep in her gut, she knew he wasn’t as easy as he seemed. Too much shimmered and bubbled just below his tranquil surface. It took all her restraint not to dive in and explore.

“I’ll write to you,” he said at last.

Lulu nodded once, then closed her eyes and kept dancing.

chapter seven

Upon touching down at the No. 4 Ferry Pilots’ Pool at Prestwick, Lulu tucked her Ferry Pilots’ Notes in her boot, grabbed her gear, and climbed out of a C-47. Rain flattened her hair and plinked against the tarmac. After three days at RAF Kinloss on a
Priority 1, Wait,
she was happy to have flown at all, no matter the weather.

A crewman met her with a clipboard and a disbelieving smile. “Didn’t expect to see anyone else this afternoon,” he said, his Glaswegian accent revealing him as a local boy.

“Just keeping you on your toes. I was glad to get out of Kinloss. There’s nothing much to do that far north.”

“Wouldn’t know, ma’am. All I know is no one else has chanced landing today.”

Turning her face to the sky, Lulu took in the broad expanse of low, dark clouds. He wasn’t wrong. Setting down under such conditions had tested her nerve and her skill. But she wasn’t haunted by images of crashing on a cloudy day. Her memories included bright, sunny skies and wide cloaks of snow.

Walking to the hangar, Lulu’s parachute dragged as heavy as a dead body on her shoulder. She signed away her plane and handed over her ferry chit to the air base deputy. “You wouldn’t happen to have anything heading back toward Mersley, would you?”

The deputy, an RAF captain with a thick white mustache and entirely bald head, offered a disapproving grunt. “A Typhoon bound for Litchfield, maybe.”

“That’s perfect. I’m sure to find an Anson to take me home from there.”

“Don’t be daft, woman.” The captain stirred his tea, blew on it, and took a sip. “Won’t be anything lifting off before this weather clears.”

She let her parachute smack the ground; it landed with a boom that echoed through the hangar. “I just came off a P.
I
.W in Scotland, and I’d dearly like to get home. I’ll have sunlight for another three hours. Give me the plane.”

“No,” he said, not looking up from his tea.

Lulu swallowed her frustration—a frustration born of three dull, endless days of waiting for a plane that seemed as if it would never be airworthy. She’d played round after round of poker, wished in vain for a backgammon player as skilled as Nicky, and endured the awkward attentions of rural Scotsmen who rarely enjoyed the luxury of female company while on duty. The hangar’s utility closet had been her temporary quarters. With only one change of clothes, she’d needed to rinse her woolen underthings in a bucket. At least she’d thought to bring flannel pajamas. An air hangar in Scotland was a frigid place in late February.

But with a P.
I
.W, she hadn’t been able to leave. The aircraft was intended for a special task, which made it priority one. Once accepting it as her responsibility, Lulu had needed to complete its delivery before returning home—no matter how long the wait that entailed.

And bugger it all, the boredom had provided plenty of time to think about Joe. He’d burrowed into her thoughts like a tick that gorged on fantasies. She should’ve danced with him longer or kissed him once more. Instead she’d waved her good-byes from a black cab and hadn’t seen him since. Three long weeks.

Now, what if he and his unit had already moved on?

She should’ve agreed to see him again. Across four years of soldiers and war, she had yet to meet another man like him. If that was just her hungry body and lonely heart talking, making him into something he wasn’t—it hardly mattered. The desire remained.

She needed her own bed. Maybe then she wouldn’t dream about him.

“I won’t be grounded, sir.”

The captain looked surprised to find her still standing there.

“Give me the Typhoon,” she said with more resolve. “Please.”

His expression detailed exactly how much he disliked dealing with the likes of Lulu. She had faced down countless men with identical attitudes. She and the other female pilots of the ATA were tolerated as part of the total war philosophy Britain had so thoroughly embraced.

But when the war ended . . . What would her life look like then? Who would she be now without flying? Without that purpose and pride?

“You don’t have a choice,” the captain said. “I’m not giving you a plane. I won’t risk it.”

Lulu rifled through her overnight bag and pulled out her ATA certification card. “Do we need to do this, sir?” She offered the card for his inspection. “I have the authority to determine weather readiness for myself and for any plane in my keeping.”

With his lips twisted beneath his bushy mustache, he took the card and made a show of reading what he knew very well was written there. Many in the Royal Air Force disagreed with how much autonomy the ATA permitted its pilots—a measure of trust that the RAF did not cede their own airmen. When that pilot happened to be a woman, the disagreements emerged even more forcefully.

“I’ll give it to you.” He spoke with the complete lack of enthusiasm a man used when conceding a point. “Mostly because you’re the kind of bird who gets me steamed, and I don’t want you swannin’ about my hangar and ruining my tea.”

Lulu accepted the ferry chit and signed her name on the register. To spite the man, she kept her smile and voice bright. “Thanks awfully, Captain.”

She arrived back at Mersley four hours later. Exhaustion had become as much a part of her as skin and hair. Her feet felt bloated and clumsy. She completed her paperwork and trudged into the pilots’ residence, where a single whiff of some sort of meat dish knotted her stomach. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. The meals that came out of rationing—the leanest sort of experimental cooking—rarely amounted to much, but she was in no mood to be particular.

Paulie came out of her room, nearly running into Lulu in the corridor. “Oh, you’re back! Jolly good. I hate those dreadful P.
I
.W’s.”

Lulu nodded absently as she opened the door to her room. “My C-47 was stuck out in Kinloss with busted hydraulics,” she explained as Paulie followed her in. “How is it that I did nothing for three days and now I’m utterly exhausted?”

“Because you’ve been doing thirteen-day shifts since late 1940?”

“Ah, perhaps that’s it. I’m off tomorrow, thank goodness.”

“You coming down to supper?”

“I need a bath and clean clothes,” Lulu said around a yawn. “Then maybe just sleep.”

She dropped her pungent overnight bag and collapsed onto her bed. A stack of training manuals and flight logs toppled off her end table. “Oh, dear. I’m going to dislike that come morning,” she said, not looking at the damage she’d caused.

“You’re really going to sleep?”

“Yes. Out.”

Paulie held up a placating hand. “Fine, fine. I’ll save you some supper in case you’re hungry later.” She was about to close the door behind her when she stopped. “Oh, wait here.”

“Not going anywhere.”

A few moments later Paulie returned with a bundle of letters. “These came for you today. Thought you might want them. Sleep well, grumpy.”

Lulu looked at the little stack where her friend laid it on the old writing desk in the corner. Whose letters this time? And worse, whose letters still had yet to arrive? She hadn’t heard from one particular corporal in months. Quincy Fields, a twenty-year-old machine gunner from somewhere in the American South, was fighting in Italy. He’d said she tasted of peaches and still called her that in his letters.
When
he wrote.

After a brief nap she found the strength to wash, change, and unpack. She snuck downstairs and grabbed her serving of Woolton pie—a wartime necessity conjured out of gelatinous vegetables, oats, and potato pastry. Margaret almost managed to make it palatable despite an absence of salt or cheese. Lulu took it and a set of utensils back up to her room. The other pilots were chatting and playing cards, but she wanted only more sleep.

But first she had letters to read, letters to write in return. In doing so she’d be reminded of the soldiers who depended on her words. And she’d demonstrate to her needy body and rebellious heart that, since the start of the war, she’d passed up a good many clever, handsome, funny servicemen, none of whom were any more endearing than a certain medic.

Dressed for an evening out, Lulu felt refreshed and eager. The morning market had been soggy and useless. Not even the black market merchants had been out with any convincing vigor. Only once the first spring fruits and vegetables arrived would the market prove worthwhile again. But the day out with Paulie, along with a good night’s sleep, had been just what she needed.

Taking turns with the other pilots at Mersley, they braved long queues on their off days to make rationing purchases for the entire pool. That way tired flyers wouldn’t need to shop for themselves when they returned from hard hours in the air. It had been a treat to tackle the mundane chore with Paulie to keep her company.

It’s That Man Again,
a program that mined for comedy gold by lambasting Hitler, was playing on the wireless in the downstairs lounge. The pilots she counted among her dear friends had settled in for the evening. Aside from Paulie, Betsy, and Nicky, there was Margaret Plimsole, a woman in her midforties who’d owned her own flight school before the war. Lulu had spent countless hours grilling the patient dear about the ins and outs of owning a business, hoping one day to replicate her success. For ten years Margaret had been married to Jack Plimsole, Nicky’s deputy, who laughed along with her on the settee. They’d met in Kent when he became the first man to sign up for her lessons.