In which Annie has dinner with her future in-laws.
Sunday, March 18, 1945
I didn’t know what to wear to the Smith’s dinner. I’d never visited them alone, and the fact that they’d invited me without Jimmy frightened me almost as much as his involvement in the war.
They hated me. Dr. Smith looked down his aristocratic nose at the farmer’s daughter, and Mrs. Smith wouldn’t say boo to a ghost.
They hated me. I wasn’t good enough for their only son, the presumptive heir to the Smith medical dynasty. I was raw and unrefined and rose above my station by training to be a nurse. I belonged on the farm, planting potatoes, not engaged to their fair-haired, football hero, Navy officer who would single handedly win the war in the Pacific.
They’re regular folk, Bunny. Besides, I picked you, not them. Take a deep breath and put on your prettiest smile for me.
My hand stilled as I raised it to knock on the Smiths’ front door. Jimmy always saw the good in people, even sticklers of protocol like his stern father. He’d seen the good in me when I’d been a sophomore and he a senior; when he’d gone off to University of Michigan, then he’d enlisted in the Navy in ’42 after the draft called him.
He’d never faltered in his devotion to me, his love, and his promise to make me his wife as soon as this awful war ended.
How could I let him down by ruining a dinner that probably had no ulterior motive? Mrs. Smith wouldn’t harm a fly. No doubt she wanted me to share the contents of Jimmy’s latest letter.
As for Dr. Smith? I shuddered then took a deep breath as Jimmy commanded, or would have if he was here, and smiled like I was Harvest Queen riding the main float in Elmwood’s October Harvest Parade.
I’ll not let Jimmy down.
Before I could knock, the door flew open. Evans, the Smiths’ butler, stared down at me.
“Welcome, Miss Faraday.” He stood aside and ushered me in to the cool foyer. Black and white tiles checkered the floor. Massive wood doors led off into rooms I’d never visited, and a wide staircase that reminded me of Gone With The Wind marched to the upper floor.
I tried not to stare. I’d only been in the formal living room and once to the kitchen. Jimmy preferred hanging out at my place. “Too stiff,” he’d said of his home. “No room to breathe.”
“May I take your coat, Miss?” Evans held out his hand.
I shrugged out of it as if servants waiting on me were an everyday occurrence. At home, I threw it on a coat rack or over the back of a chair.
Once free, I ran a quick hand over my black wool skirt. It neatly paired with a light blue blouse. If it was good enough for church this morning, the Smiths’ would have no reason to find fault.
“This way, please.” Evans looped my coat over one arm and walked toward the back of the house.
Was he taking me to the kitchen? Had I misunderstood the invitation? Maybe Dr. Smith had taken pity on me and wanted to give me a charity basket. With the odd variety of payments his patients made, he might have hams and loaves of bread to spare for the poor farm girl.
We stopped short of the kitchen, and I admonished myself for thinking like a fool.
Evans paused before a massive door of a dark wood with six beveled panels and an ornate brass knob. He opened it with a gravity that disturbed me and stepped aside.
“Miss Faraday,” he announced then quietly shut the door behind me.
I blinked at the brilliant sunlight that escaped the March clouds and streamed in floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall. A grand piano dominated a corner like a predatory spider. Flames crackled in a fireplace near the door, the heat combining with the sun’s to transform the room into a sauna. I regretted not wearing my green twinset so I could discard the cardigan to be more comfortable.
Then again, people of the Smiths’ caliber didn’t take off their cardigans to be comfortable. They bore a stiff upper lip and carried on, like Churchill’s speeches to the British people.
Or at least, these people did.
In the few seconds I’d glanced around the room, I noted others also invited to Sunday dinner. Dr. Smith had never said there would be other guests.
Jackson Hunter, the president of Elmwood Regional Bank, and his wife, Emily, sat on one of the sofas flanking the fireplace. I’d never met him but every small town knows the man who controls the money.
Lewis Buck, owner of Elmwood’s two largest employers, stood by the window. A woman half his age, the second Mrs. Buck, had turned away when I entered, her dyed blonde hair swept into the perfect Victory wave. I resisted the urge to touch my own mousy brown hair and make sure the pins I’d used still held.
My heart skipped a beat as I recognized her stepson, Joe Buck. He’d graduated in the year between my class and Jimmy’s and had been his greatest rival on the football team. They’d played in a district championship game before nearby Peabody trounced them 42-15.
Dr. Smith scowled at me as if I still wore my nurse’s uniform and had interrupted his gathering of society’s best to present him with a stool sample. Had he forgotten he’d personally invited me?
“Hello,” I said, the word breathy and unsure. For Jimmy’s sake, I forced a smile and crossed to his mother, who sat in a brocade wing chair near the fireplace. Of Jimmy’s parents, I much preferred his mother. She’d always reminded me of a fluffy blanket, all warm and comforting.
“Mrs. Smith, thank you for inviting me.”
Winnie Smith, born Winifred Hazel Trafford, of the Providence, R.I. Traffords, had been stuck by polio in her early twenties, a year after giving birth to her second child and only daughter, Jeanette Olivia. Though not completely paralyzed, she walked with forearm crutches and never complained of her disability.
Would Stephen Smith have married her if the disease had afflicted her earlier? Then again, he would not have overlooked Winnie’s old money, social standing, and generous dowry.
How had he ended up in such a backwater as Elmwood?
“My dear, I fear we have neglected you.” Winnie’s blue eyes, the same shade as Jimmy’s, twinkled. “There’s still time before dinner. Come sit by me and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
Tolerating your husband’s moods. But of course, I didn’t say anything to disparage Stephen Smith. In Elmwood, and particularly in this house, he was God.
He continued to ignore me, instead talking with Mr. Hunter, discoursing about FDR, the war, and how long it would take for the economy to bounce back once the fighting ended.
“Don’t pay them any mind.” Winnie reached for my hand and took it in hers. “Men do like to dream.”
“Even Jimmy?” I asked, realizing that a mother’s eyes saw different from a fiancé’s.
“I wouldn’t have raised him right if he didn’t have his own opinions, hopes, and dreams.”
But Jimmy’s dreams did not match his father’s. His mother’s as well, I suspected. Stephen maintained a certain social stature, and adding a third generation doctor enhanced it. And Winnie, from what I’d heard, liked a quiet, predictable life. She’d wither under any disagreements between her husband and son.
“I hope he’s all right.” I’d not tiptoe around the reality of his danger. Some parents coped with the horrors and uncertainty of war by denying it, as if their sons toured Europe, visiting museums and art galleries.
“What did he say in his last letter, if I may ask?” she asked.
Should I tell my future mother-in-law the truth of his location? What had he written her?
“He follows the fighting. Wherever the seaplanes are stationed, he goes.” The Navy had picked him to train in a specialized type of navigational equipment. While anyone could shoulder a rifle and march to the front line, only a few had the skill to keep the equipment in top form.
“The Navy treats him well. He gets three square meals a day, and he writes that they watch the latest Hollywood films on deck. A month ago, he saw Gary Cooper in Casanova Brown.”
I saw the same films at the Elmwood Bijou, but newsreels preceded them documenting the tenacity of the Japanese Navy, and suicide pilots, called kamikazes, who drove their planes onto the ships’ decks.
Tenderness for his mother filled me, a fierce protectiveness usually reserved for my aunt and brother. I wanted to isolate the woman from the horrors of the world, to lie and paint a landscape of peace and harmony. Winnie didn’t deserve a mother’s worry.
Emotion flooded my heart. I couldn’t remember feeling as protective with my own mother.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked away, afraid I’d bawl like a baby in front of this elite group. How they’d laugh and scorn me. “Commoner,” they’d say. “Squeal like the pigs you raise.”
“Is there something wrong?” Winnie asked.
I wiped away a tear at the corner of my eye with the tip of one finger, disguising the gesture as straightening a stray curl.
“Of course not.” My face hurt when I smiled.
I won’t let Jimmy down.
A gong sounded from the depths of the house, startling me.
A dinner bell, just like in the movies.
“Dinner is served,” Evans intoned from his position at the door.
I hadn’t heard him enter the room.
I dashed at my eyes again and dared a glance at Winnie.
“Help me up, will you, dear,” the woman said as she straightened the braces around her forearms.
“I believe you’re seated next to Joe Buck. I’m sure you young people have areas in common.”
Not one came to mind.
Winnie led the way into the formal dining room, her head held high, her guests shuffling behind, not disturbed by her tortoise pace. Stephen walked at her side, a tenderness on his face that surprised me. I’d not thought him capable of any human emotions.
A shaft of jealousy speared me, that they had each other while Jimmy lived half a world away from me.
Once he helped his wife into a chair at the end of the magnificent, mahogany table, Dr. Smith took his seat at the other end. The guest arranged themselves via the elegantly scripted placeholders. I squished between Mrs. Hunter and Joe Buck. The first smiled shyly at me and the latter found every opportunity to brush against me in an oh-too-casual manner.
What a jerk.
“You’re the Faraday girl, aren’t you?” he asked after Stephen gave the blessing and Evans and two other servants brought out the soup.
“Annie.” I sipped the soup and tried to ignore him.
“Right. Smitty’s girlfriend.”
I tensed. Jimmy didn’t mind the nickname, but Dr. Smith would take offense at the familiarity. He’d earned his medical degree and would have a fit if someone called him Smitty.
“Jimmy. We’re engaged.” I lifted my left hand to display the diamond he’d bought me for Christmas, ’42, before he began basic training. I hated to take it off when I worked.
Joe Buck, who sat on my right, grabbed my hand and examined the ring. “Not too shabby for old Smitty.”
I jerked free. How dare he touch me and insult Jimmy in his own house?
“He’s in the Pacific, a navigation officer on the USS Garden State, a seaplane tender.” My voice froze but my gaze burned holes through him. I raised my eyebrow in a perfect imitation of Dr. Smith. “Are you on leave?”
The deliberate insult barely registered in his flat, brown eyes. He grinned, a charming gesture rumored to have swept through the cheerleading squad with devastating effect. “I’m 4F. Bad ear.” He tapped his left ear. “Daddy had a hand in that.”
I gaped at him. How did one buy oneself out of the service? Was it honorable? Did Dr. Smith know of this, inviting someone who had manipulated the system into his home? I glanced at the doctor, and at that moment, he looked up. Our eyes met. Then his eyebrow rose in the same gesture I’d used moments earlier.
“Yes, Miss Faraday?”
It’s a wonder he hadn’t called me Nurse.
Did he expect me to ask a stupid question and validate his opinion of me, showing all these people how unworthy I was of his son?
The fierceness of my ancestors leapt to the forefront. In one ear Mike growled, “He’ll not insult my daughter.” In the other, Jimmy warned, “Temper, Bunny.” But Jimmy was far away, and Joe Buck had angered me with his attitude and casual disregard for those who fought in his stead. Before I could think twice, I’d flung the words into the room.
“Did you serve, sir? During the Great War?”
I swear time stopped. The background noise of cutlery and glasses clinking, the quiet hum of conversation halted as if someone had flipped a switch. Dr. Smith put down his fork and tented his fingers as if prepared to give a lecture.
“Yes, I did. I did my duty in France from 1917 to war’s end. What I saw in the Argonne convinced me I’d made the right decision to become a doctor.”
Had his father pushed him as he pushed Jimmy? Had it taken a world war to turn his mind from another career? What had he considered instead? I could not imagine him as anything other than a doctor, taking responsibility for an entire community.
Our gaze held until Mr. Hunter barked, “By Godfrey, it’s a good thing you did. The town would be lost without you.”
Then Mrs. Hunter, seated next to me, spoke for the first time since I’d entered the house, her voice a mere whisper. “You must have been young when you married.”
“January 1st, 1920,” Winnie said with a fond glance at her husband. “Jimmy was born that October.”
I did some rapid calculations. They must have been twenty or so at the time. I’d not realized how young they’d been or the sacrifices they’d made while he’d trained.
Joe Buck must have thought the same thing, but he expressed it in a more crass way.
“Did you enter medical school that year? Nothing like family money to help grease the wheels, eh, sir?”
His father glared. Dr. Smith ignored him. Winnie said something to Evans, who signaled the servants to whisk away the soup bowls and present a beet salad.
Dr. Smith glanced up once again, and I thought I saw something other than contempt for me in his eyes. But maybe it was the lighting.
Dinner proceeded smoothly after that. Joe Buck poured all his charm towards Michelle, young enough to have been his babysitter instead of his stepmother. Mr. Hunter, seated across from me, asked about Jimmy. The conversation, as it always did, turned to the war.
Before I knew it, we’d finished the chocolate mousse. No flourless, butter-less cake for the Smith’s.
Winnie signaled for coffee, and we followed her into the living room. I hung back, wondering how to make my escape. I’d dodged major bullets and, mixing my metaphors, wanted to leave before the tide turned.
Evans delayed Dr. Smith, who walked ahead of me. I couldn’t pass him or ignore the conversation.
“A message for you sir.” Evans looked apologetic for interrupting.
Dr. Smith glanced at the retreating backs of his guests. I doubt he knew I stood behind him.
“What message?” His tone turned professional in an instant.
“Mrs. Fleming. One of the neighborhood boys ran into town for her. Her labor has started.”
Amelia Fleming, age twenty-five, nine months pregnant with her second child. Her husband, Arthur, served in northern Italy. We’d seen her on Tuesday.
Dr. Smith nodded. “She’ll progress quickly.”
Her first labor had lasted four hours. Who knew how fast she’d go with her second and if she had complications? And who would watch her two-year-old?
Thinking more about his need for a helping hand and not about rejection of my offer, I stepped into the doctor’s line of vision.
“May I help?”
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