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adamantiumdragonfly · 3 years

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No Ordinary Time: Part Two “wherever you are tonight”

"...A time when the United States is what we fight for..."

The occupants of the Grisham Hall boarding house were no strangers to the war effort. Brothers, cousins, old flames, and current sweethearts have been wrenched from their grasp, the only contact to their stolen loved ones is military-grade pencils and scraps of paper.

Estelle prides herself on her mind for numbers but a usurper from her past rears his russet head and threatens to steal her thoughts every chance he gets. Bessie has been searching for a home in every patron in that cafe but she's left seeing his face everywhere she looks. Constance hears her lover's voice on the wind, finding quiet in the graveyard shift of the machine shop. Margaret refuses to admit defeat but the distance between her letters and her love grows wider each day. Jeannette has read many stories about tragic heroes. Her childhood friend has told tales of his plans for wealth and ending the war on his own. She just hopes she has a chance to do her part first.

wherever you are tonight

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Norfolk, VA. 4th of April, 1944.

While some found the adjustment to loved ones being taken from their grasp rocky, Elizabeth Ferguson had the advantage that only a select few possessed. She had already lived through it, making the sting nothing but a fond memory. It didn’t stop stinging though, no matter how many times one felt it. A dull ache would be a more appropriate term, the bruised flesh tender, and the black discoloration fading but the strain of muscles didn’t let the memory fade entirely. It was enough to make a first-timer bedridden for a week but to a repeat offender like Elizabeth, it was a mild discomfort. She had said goodbye before and did her best not to, when given the chance.

She held onto forlorn books, ragged quilts, and threadbare shirts to keep the end at bay, trying to prevent the inevitable ache. Elizabeth tried her best to limp about when the goodbyes were unavoidable. That could be said of everything she attempted. Bessie was a trier, an all-around trier and failer. She didn’t have a wall of degrees like Estelle or a self-assured flick to her head like Vera. She was just Bessie Ferguson, who had clattered and crashed her way through twenty-one years of life. Not that she hadn’t attempted school (she wasn’t the best student) and not that she hadn’t attempted to walk with the confidence that her theatrical friend possessed (it ended in a twisted ankle and a scraped-up knee) but by god, she tried.

She liked to think that her determination was her best attribute, right up there with the dimple on her left cheek that had gotten her more than her fair share of tips when she had been employed at Charlie’s. The real Charlie had said she was one of his best workers and his gruff voice in her head still brought a smile to her lips, bringing out the money-winning dimple.

Even when goodbyes were said, Bess found ways to hold onto the people or things. She still frequented her old place of work long after she was employed in the noble service of her country. Every Friday, like clockwork, she was in the second to last booth, the red vinyl striking against the blue of her uniform.

I look like the American flag, Bess thought, examining herself in the reflection on the glass of the window. Red booths, white mugs, and a blue uniform. How was that for patriotic?

She looked different, hair sleek and uniform pressed. Was this really Bessie Ferguson who knew every waitress and cook’s name in Charlie’s Diner? Or was Bessie older now, with the WAVES blue wool on her shoulder, finer and warmer than anything she had owned in her twenty-one years. 1941 seemed like a century ago, not three years.

“Hiya, Bess,” Angie was still there, her bouffant of pin curls still perched precariously on her brow. “You got a letter from your boy, I see,”

Bess came in every Friday, with a new letter or to write her own. The grease-stained walls had brought her luck and good memories. She thought that she could imbue them into the stationary, sending them across the ocean to him.

“Yup,” Bessie said, smiling.

“About damn time,”

She had been sat without a letter for some two weeks now. The patrons and the staff of Charlie’s had been concerned, fretting more than Bessie had herself.

“He was a dear thing, that Powers boy,” Angie said, tucking her pad back into the apron Bess was all too familiar with. There was no need to take her order, Bess ordered the same thing every time. “Two sugars, right?”

No matter how tenderly she tried, the bruise was liable to be bumped or brushed. She tried not to wince at the words.

“I saved you a seat,” He would say, even though she was working. He knew full well she shouldn’t sit during her shift but he would say it anyway and she could never say no, either. His smile had seared itself into her mind, a soft glow that warmed her better than any cup of coffee ever did. He would pour her a cup anyway, from the pot she had brought to refill his own mug. “Two sugars, right?”

That had been before rationing. That had been before the war had been set to boil when it was brewing like the dark roast that soaked every inch of this diner. It had been percolating, slowly dripping and staining their country. He had been a machinist at the shipyard’s graveyard shift and she had been a waitress at his favorite diner, that served coffee with “the prettiest smile I ever saw”. It had been a romance sweeter than any baked good in the case and more poetic than Jeannette’s Shakespeare.

She had been a different person then, just a little girl in her third house in three years. Bessie hadn’t known Mrs. Grisham’s motherly touch or the soft smile of her beau. Bessie had only known how to try and try she did.

the ‘30s hadn’t treated Bessie’s family well but she knew they weren’t special in that aspect. The world had been gripped by the choking thorns of financial strain and the vines had pulled the last strains of life out of her parents. When her father had died, Bessie had thought things would be okay. The farm she had grown up on and the family she had been surrounded with was invincible, or so she had thought. She would grow up under the bows of that oak tree that towered in the yard, swatting the swarms of yellow flies and raking up the leaves in the fall. It was her home.

But Bessie watched her family home disappear from view in the backseat of a second cousin’s car, eight years old and she had never seen her new home before. Her oldest brother, Arthur, was sent some twenty miles to the west, only twelve, to provide labor to yet another distant relative’s floundering farm. Eight years old and Bessie would never see home again.

Elizabeth Ferguson hadn’t been raised to admit defeat. As the Depression stretched on and her bags were packed and unpacked, Bessie kept trying. She made her peace with every attempt, trying hard to be useful, helpful, and liked. Her name provided a blank slate, quickly covered in her current caretaker’s preferred nickname. Elizabeth. Beth. Bess. Bessie. Lizzie. Liz. Eliza. She answered to them all and she didn’t mind, truly she didn’t. She would try her best to be what that family wanted, what that home demanded but she’d end up with the suitcase in her hand and a new route to a new home.

Elizabeth had parted ways with the last relative, the last attempt at home, at the age of eighteen. April had dawned cold that year, 1941. She had found employment with the sticky floors and chrome edgings of Charlie’s, turning up on the Grisham’s doorstep. It had been Carrie, Vera, and Estelle back then. Before the war.

Before the war. She worked hard, shoes wearing thin and bones aching when her head hit the pillows. Elizabeth had worked hard and tried to cling to what she had left, the friends she had gained, and the home she had made. Maybe if she clung to them, the one god thing wouldn’t slide away from her, finding a home in some other harbor.

She hadn’t been looking for him or anyone and yet, they had found each other. Drawn towards each other, blending and blurring in watercolor of perfection. Maybe the best pieces of art were the ones that weren’t intended.

“Has anyone seen to you two?” She had asked, whirling around on the slick tiled floor. They were a grease-stained pair, smelling of oil and sleepless nights like every machinist who crossed the line from Portsmouth for a cup of coffee after work.

“No, ma’am,” The tallest, a thin, rake of a boy who didn’t seem much older than Bessie said. His voice was soft, not loud and course like the usual Shipyard folk. “We are fine to sit for a spell-”

“Nonsense,” Elizabeth shifted the bus bucket of dirty dishes to her hip, bracing it with her arm so she could retrieve the pad and pen from her pocket. “What can I get you two?”

“Ma’am, do you need a hand?” The soft-spoken one made to reach for the bucket but Bessie raised a hand to stop him.

“It’s not heavy. I’m stronger than I look.” She smiled. “Now what can I get you two?”

Faces came and went in that little diner on the corner of College and Duke, there were the regulars and there were the strangers. Elizabeth had treated them all the same, a bright smile and a warm plate. It was the least she could do and she knew what it was to need a smile from a stranger or two. These two machinists weren’t the only blue collars who sat in the vinyl booths but she fought to keep her eyes on the paper and not straying towards the one who offered her help. The orders were taken and the niceties exchanged, Bess turned on her heel, biting her lip to keep from grinning.

As she marched towards the kitchen, his companion jabbed and teased, the blush creeping up the soft-spoken boy’s face, settling into his hairline. She

These two machinists quickly became regulars, coming back every Friday. Small talk was made and a rough sketch of their characters was established. Elizabeth had never been one to chase but it seemed the work was being done for her. Mr. Wynn and Mr. Powers returned week after week. As the months dragged by and April came and went, Mr. Powers would linger.

“Where are you from, Mr. Powers?”

“Clincho, ma’am,”

“I’ve got family out that way,” Elizabeth had said. “How long you been in the area?”

“I’ve been in Portsmouth for about a year now, I reckon,”

“I’ve an aunt in Portsmouth. Over on Bains Creek,”

“Where don’t you have family, ma’am?’

“The moon,”

He had smiled, bright and warm. Elizabeth felt like she had taken a warm cup of coffee and held it tight to her chest, fingers warming on the ceramic. The dimple on her left cheek appeared in response.

“It’s Elizabeth,” She said. “Elizabeth Ferguson.”

“Darrell Powers,”

Elizabeth had never thought that sharing a smile could be something so special. She had smiled at hundreds of patrons, offering a grin here and there until the muscles in her face hurt, all for a few extra quarters thrown on the table. Elizabeth had never expected a tip from Mr. Powers, or Shifty, as he said the boys called him. Mr. Powers, he remained to her, even on their tentative agreement to a show at the cinema on some Friday night. Mr. Powers, he would be, until he walked her home from her shift, offering her his jacket in the rainstorm that sent them racing towards the nearest porch. There, standing on a stranger’s porch, in the April rainshower, Elizabeth wrapped his jacket tighter around her disheveled uniform, breathing in the smell of cigarette smoke and oil. There, the rain beating down around them and his hair slick against his blushing face, he asked her if he could call her Elizabeth.

“Liz, Bess, I don’t care,” She said.

“Which do you like better, ma’am?”

“My brother used to call me Lizzie,” She admitted.

His eyes studied her like she was some fine painting he had spent hours perfecting and the name on his lips was the signature at the bottom, declaring the work as his. The colors could run and the ink would fade but Elizabeth Ferguson would cling to that coat in its smokey comfort. She had worn it as the rain had lightened up enough to begin their route to the Grisham front door. She wore it on the front porch and burrowed her hot face into the leather as Vera pounced on her, pounding her with questions and squeals.

Elizabeth Ferguson knew what it was to lose thing but Lizzie was willing to try and hold onto this boy as tight as she could. Lizzie was going to try her damn near hardest. This boy with his soft words and bright smile would be taken from her kicking and screaming. She allowed herself to be lulled into a sense of security, taking the two sugars in her coffee and his offered hand too. Lizzie was all bright paints and newly sharpened pencils and Shifty Powers was all steady hands and fresh paper, the perfect medium for this new home Lizzie dared dream of. She was ready to start something new, something untouched by the inevitable goodbyes.

Then the bubbling brew of Europe had overflowed into the spitting flames. Steam rose and Pear Harbor shattered like a ceramic mug on hard tiled floors. Vera left, caught up in the theatrics of secrets and intelligence and Carrie joined up, bringing her soft words and soothing hands to the wounded. Estelle left her school and allowed her talented mind to be lent to the Navy, putting together pieces of puzzles and breaking codes like they were the Sunday crossword. Lizzie wasn’t brave or smart or soft like her friends. Elizabeth Ferguson was a stumbling, bumbling trier and she grasped for the remaining pieces of that home she had searched for. She had spent years searching for family in the faces of strangers, reaching for that oak tree and rope swing in houses that would never be her home and she wasn’t about to lose it. Not to war, not to an Army, and most definitely not now.

“Don’t worry about me,” he had said, gripping her hands in his own calloused ones. He had volunteered, given himself up willingly. Lizzie could have screamed. The Airborne had terrified her, the planes and the silk chutes were terrifying. Their kiss on the Grisham Hall’s front porch had tasted like possibility and tears. He left for Georgia that morning, leaving her in Norfolk with only a pen and an empty hand.

She had told him she wouldn’t if he promised not to worry about her. She had tried not to be worried but maybe he had every reason to be worried about her.

“Bess?” Angie said again, snapping her fingers. “You good, sugar?”

“Yes, sorry,” Elizabeth said, smiling sheepishly. This diner could pull her back when she didn’t have a thought for the present.

Angie shook her head. “Baby, I think they are working you too hard over there,”

“There” was the mailroom on base. “They” were the WAVES, summoning Bess to their cause. She had joined up in April of ‘43. He had been gone for a week and Bess couldn’t stare at the booth where he had once sat for hours. She didn’t mind the work, and she told Angie so. Being surrounded by all those letters and being the reason soldiers and families heard from their loved ones was the only thing that kept Elizabeth sane. She could try and offer some peace to the fellow fretting wives and friends who longed for a letter, a word, or even a telegram that told them that he was safe.

Angie wandered back to the counter, Elizabeth’s order safely scribbled in the confines of her mind, leaving her with her thoughts and her pen. Staring at the traffic that passed outside the window, her fingers gripped the pen, sketching out the twist of his head and the twinkle of his eyes as she remembered it. As his face burned into her mind.

She didn’t draw him as often as she wanted to. Elizabeth’s sketchpads were filled with the same sketches over and over, page after page, burned into her memory. She didn’t have to look at a reference anymore, the oak trees and the slopes of the house never changed. The smiling faces and the bright eyes as she remembered them didn’t shift. Every so often, a new face would grace the pages but that wasn’t a usual occurrence and was a great honor when a stranger or new face caught her attention. Flipping through the sketchpad, Elizabeth saw his face etched into the pages. She only put pen to paper and chronicled his features on the days she missed him the most. He haunted her more than she drew, hours spent with her finger on the desk tracing out his smile.

“They said you’d be here,” Jeannette Edwards stumbled through the door, arms full of books as she slid into the seat across from Bess. In the few weeks that Jeannette had lived in Grisham Hall, she had slowly acclimated herself to the Norfolk streets.

“Jeannie,” Bess smiled, closing her sketchpad. “Estelle still working?”

Jeannette nodded. “She said to meet you here and that we’d take the bus home.”

Bess folded her letter, sliding her belongings to the side so that Angie could place her order on the sticky tabletop. The mug of coffee, two sugars carefully rationed and dissolved, and the apple pie. Offering Jeannette the fork, she encouraged her to take a bite. Bess was passionate about oil pastels and pastries, making it her mission in life to share those passions with her friends. When a pie or a drawing was offered, Bess’s trust soon followed.

“Why do you rank pie, if you don’t mind me asking?” Jeannette asked, using the side of the fork to cut a piece off of the wedge of glistening golden pie.

“Every home is the same but the apple pie is different everywhere you go.” Bess explained.“Mrs. G’s is third best, this is the second-best apple pie.”

“Who is the first place?”

“Mine,” Bess smiled.

“You are multi-talented then,” Jeannette said around the mouthful of second-best pie, dipping her head towards the sketchbook she had abandoned.

“I just doodled,” Bess shook her head but she offered the book to Jeannette all the same. Watching her thumb through the pages, Bess’s heart was wedged firmly in her throat, not daring to hope for any kind words or critique.

“These are beautiful,” Jeannette said, her fingers tracing the lines that intricate leaves that had first taken hours and now took a matter of minutes. “Where is it?”

“That’s my family’s farm.”

“You must visit often to sketch it so much,” Jeannette said.

Bess smiled, taking the sketchpad back and tucking it into her bag. Reaching for the cup of coffee, she stared into its dark depths. Maybe Jeannette knew the words to describe how she felt. Jeannette was better at words than Elizabeth.

“It’s hard to forget,” She admitted.

A knock on the window beside their booth made both women jump, the fork clattering on the shared pie plate. Estelle’s face pressed against the window as she beckoned them out, her lipstick faded after the long day hunched over the papers and codes. Estelle Tran was rarely seen with a hair out of place, much less with her signature red lipstick anything but striking against her pale skin. Bess insisted she looked like a real version of Snow White, something that Estelle had always shake her head at. Disney’s princess hadn’t been college-educated, she reminded them.

Bess dropped the money on the table and gathered up her purse and hat, waving goodbye with her fistful of gloves to the cooks and the regulars who still knew her name.

“See you next Friday, Bess,” Angie called as the door swung shut behind them.

“How was work, Stell?” Elizabeth asked, looping her arm through her friend’s as she tugged the gloves over her graphite-smudged hands.

“Heinous,”

The disheveled appearance of the usually put-together Estelle was indication enough. Bessie nodded.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

It was, in moments such as this, when rest is most needed that the world decides to test you.

The bus pulled up to its spot, just as it always did. It was a route that Bess was familiar with, a routine that she welcomed. Fridays were spent at the diner until Estelle got off of work. They would then walk home or, if particularly exhausted, take the bus. Bessie hopped inside without hesitation, ready to sit in a seat and watch the world pass by while she finished the letter she had drafted in her mind. The bus driver, a new face, said nothing as she entered. But, on the days when rest is most needed, inconvenience is the Devil’s worst weapon.

“We don’t let your people on,” The bus driver said, the passengers peering over the edge of the nest, not daring to disagree.

“I beg your pardon?” Bess looked back, seeing that he was not referring to her in her American blue uniform but Estelle. Dear Estelle with her features nothing like the usual faces of Norfolk, Virginia.

Jeannette’s mouth hung wide and Estelle froze, foot perched on the step. Her face fell and Bessie could almost hear it shatter on the pavement. The Grisham girls had been informed that Estelle’s family hailed from the Indochina islands in the Pacific and had been in America since Teddy Roosevelt’s days. She was most ardently NOT the enemy. Mrs. Grisham would sniff indignantly at such a mention and Vera, before she had left, had been known to glower at anyone who dared say such a “fucking disgusting thing”.

Bessie stepped forward, ready to give the man the facts but a hand encircled her arm, pulling her out of the bus and back on the pavement before the doors swung open. Swearing so loudly and vehemently that Mrs. Grisham would have been sent to an early grave, Bessie aimed a kick at the tire of the bus before it sped off, sans three passengers.

“It’s fine,” Estelle said.

“You aren’t Japanese!” Elizabeth growled, her shoes stomping on the pavement. Bess was a trier and she was a fighter. She was ready to try fighting for Estelle, even if that meant throwing a fist at this burly bus driver.

“It’s fine, Bess,” Estelle said.

“That was a despicable thing to do,” Jeannette fumed.

“Let’s just go home,” Estelle muttered, squashing her hat more firmly over her brow and leading the way down the street.

What good was it, Bessie grumbled to herself as she followed Estelle, to serve your country when you were still considered the enemy?

Estelle worked harder than any man and she had been working hard for many years. She had been a teacher and now fiddled with codes that boggled even the male mind. And yet, she was only seen as the enemy. Estelle Tran, by seniority or by necessity, had taken the unofficial role of den mother among the women of Grisham Hall. On the third floor, nothing went on without Estelle knowing. She guarded the girls like they were her own, a grim mother hen who warded off broken hearts and bruised feelings with wise words and her own experience. Bessie loved Estelle like she was a sister and she would have gladly punched that bus driver if she wasn’t wearing the uniform of the US WAVES. Women’s work in the war was precarious enough as it was.

Elizabeth didn’t say a word, as she slipped her hand into Estelle’s, gripping it tightly as they marched through the streets of Norfolk, their heads held as high as they could manage. She knew she couldn’t fight to change every mind or man in this country but Bessie Ferguson was a trier, through and through. Home may not have looked like that oak tree or the face she had sketched so often but she’d hold onto it as long as she could.

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