The Pieces We Keep(48)
“You’re not going by yourself,” Luanne implored.
Vivian was already back at the closet. “Not to worry. I’m meeting someone.” After a few more hangers, she honed in on a cherry-red dress with tiny white polka dots. Flared and sleeveless, it would make a snazzy number for the jitterbug. The plunging neckline on its own would regain Isaak’s attention.
Ian, rather. Ian’s attention.
“And who is this someone?” Luanne demanded as Vivian wiggled into the fabric.
“Just a GI I met at the cafe. He’d asked me on a double date, but I turned him down. Anyway, he’s a dandy fellow.”
“Are you sure he still plans to be there?”
“Absolutely.” Because he had to be-so Vivian could make right by her mistake. She quickly brushed out her hair, pinned a white silk flower by her temple, and retouched her makeup. With the seams of her stockings reasonably straight, she buckled the straps of her shoes.
“I don’t know,” Luanne murmured. “Maybe I should go after all.” She untied her scarf, exposing a head of pinned curlers.
“Nonsense. You’re practically ready for bed.” Vivian dabbed her neck and wrists with her Californian Poppy perfume. “I can get along just fine. Don’t you fret.”
Luanne met her gaze in the mirror, clearly torn. “Please, be careful. And wake me when you get home, so I know you’re safe.”
“Yes, mother hen,” Vivian playfully agreed. Though if all went well, she would be frolicking away until dawn.
A dozen catcalls later, she felt the impact of her mistake.
Going to the club alone would have been just fine in her usual wear, but the brazen red dress invited more attention than Vivian had bargained for. The initial gawking of men was admittedly flattering, and she wove through the crowd with both chin and chest lifted. But as their gazes became like fingers, roaming up and down her body and hovering over her cleavage, she regretted not bringing her sweater.
I’ll hardly need one, she had told Luanne before heading out the door. I’ll be too warm from dancing all night.
Obviously, she hadn’t considered other benefits it offered.
“Hey, angel. How’s about cuttin’ a rug?” A sailor with a wide forehead and crooked teeth grabbed her hand.
“No, thank you,” she said, pulling away. “I’m here with somebody.”
After all this trouble, Ian Downing had better be here tonight.
She continued to scan the room. Fort Hamilton was a major embarkation center, and every serviceman awaiting deployment appeared to have congregated in this dance hall. Uniformed men outnumbered the dolled-up ladies tenfold. Cologne clung to the curtain of smoke. Through the haze, band members onstage tapped their keys and blew their horns while a woman at the microphone sang “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
“Sakes alive, ya sure are a looker.” She traced the comment to a red-haired marine with freckles spanning his nose.
“Sorry, I’m here with somebody,” she said, the response now a reflex.
“So am I,” he said. “Ain’t she a beaut?” He held up his date of a silver flask. “Care for a personal intro?”
She shook her head and turned away, and that’s when she spotted the private. In his starched khakis, Ian Downing stepped out from one of the room’s large white columns. He was speaking to a couple: his buddy with a steady, she guessed. Walt and ... Carol, was it? Even halfway across the room, Vivian recognized Ian’s sparkling white smile.
She adjusted her posture, conjuring the air of Jean Harlow. The starlet, even in a silk nightie, would feel sensual, not bare. As Vivian strode through the teeming area of tables and chairs, she prepared her explanation. How she had fibbed about a fiancé, leery of dating a stranger. How after careful thought, she had reconsidered his invite.
Vivian was ten feet away when a buxom blonde appeared. She brushed Ian’s nose with her finger and giggled. He leaned down, planting a kiss on her lips that implied it wasn’t the first. Then his friend pointed to the exit, and the two couples headed that way-directly toward Vivian.
She spun around, frantic, and veered to the right. Again she moved around the tables and chairs and returned inadvertently to the grinning marine.
“See that? Knew you’d change ya mind!”
A peek to the side confirmed Ian was gone. She felt ridiculous over her error, followed promptly by irritation. She was here to have fun. With or without a date, that’s precisely what she was going to do.
The marine swirled his flask around. “It ain’t gonna bite ya.”
Hard alcohol had never appealed to her, but if partaking meant shedding the title of a prude or old biddy, so be it. She accepted the container but held it low as she unscrewed the top. To her knowledge, the USO prohibited booze. She downed a hefty swig, igniting a blast of white heat. A Roman candle had exploded in her chest. Her lungs objected with a series of coughs.