She was glad that their sewing tables were positioned as they were. She could easily keep an eye on Dottie from where she was sitting.
The end of their shift was a bittersweet one. Word of their promotion had spread in that mysterious way that it does and the girls they’d sat near for months congratulated them. Promises to keep in touch and meet for lunch passed between them. And even though Margaret acknowledged the words with polite yeses, the reality was that they would have little chance for interaction. Different shifts and different sides of the Navy Yard might as well have had them living on different planets. The Navy Yard employed well over ten thousand people and was a small city in and of itself. It was uncommon to run into people you knew if you didn’t already work together.
Margaret took slow steps on the way to the bus stop to match Dottie’s labored strides. “Are you sure you don’t need to go to a doctor?”
Dottie shook her head and her curls swung back and forth. “I’m told this is normal. Don’t fuss over me.”
“Hey, ladies! What’s cookin’?” Gladys called from behind them, and it took her no time to catch up.
“Dottie isn’t feeling well.”
Gladys lifted Dottie’s chin with her hands. “Good God, Dorothy. She’s not kidding. Let’s get you home. I’ll ride all the way with you and I can walk back to my apartment later.”
Thankfully, Dottie didn’t protest, and Margaret was glad she’d have the extra help if anything were to happen.
They boarded the bus that would take them to East Williamsburg. They were only two stops away from their respective town houses when Dottie slumped onto Margaret’s lap.
Margaret shook Dottie’s shoulders, but there was no response.
“Stop the bus!” she cried. “My friend has fainted.”
The bus came to a stop and Margaret looked out the window. There was the Polish bodega on the corner. That meant they were only one block from Gladys’s apartment.
Gladys sprang up from several rows away and hurried over to them. “Let’s take her to my place. I’ll call a doctor from the hall line.”
A young man stood up in the back row and came toward them. “Can I be of service?” His deep British voice was a surprise, but Margaret had too little time to think about it.
“Yes. Please. Could you help us carry her to my friend’s apartment? It’s just one block away.”
“Of course. In fact, let me see if the driver will bring you right to the door.”
Gladys followed and relayed her address to the driver, who pulled up just shy of her building, blocked from going farther by a garbage truck lingering in the middle of the street.
The man picked Dottie up in his arms with little effort and followed Gladys and Margaret down the stairs of the bus. They garnered a good number of curious looks and people instinctively parted on the sidewalk like the Red Sea. With so many of the young men of Brooklyn off at war, the neighborhood was full of old women and elderly men, children and their weary mothers, none of whom would have been of much help, and Margaret was grateful again for the man’s assistance.
For the first time, Margaret was glad that Gladys lived in the basement unit of a brownstone. The man didn’t have to take too many steps to carry Dottie inside.
Gladys ran ahead, opened the door, and cleared her sofa of all the books and magazines that were always lying around in various stages of being read and annotated.
Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, Pearl Buck. Gladys read only female authors.
There was also a blue sock, half-knit, that Gladys had begun working on during their most recent Saturday night get-together. They’d knit twenty pairs over the past few weeks and would ask John in their next box to share them with more men in his company. At this rate, they might have the entire battalion covered by Christmas.
They hoped it did as much good for the boys as it did for them.
“Set her there. I’m going to call for a doctor. And, Margaret, go down two doors to the right. Apartment 3B. A friend of mine lives there. A midwife. She might know what to do in the meantime and I know she’ll come quickly if she’s home.”
Margaret hurried as Gladys had directed and her racing heart rejoiced when Gladys’s friend opened the door. She explained their emergency, and the woman readily agreed to help.
“I’m Catherine, by the way,” she said as she grabbed a black leather bag and put a sweater around her shoulders.
“And I’m Margaret.”
“Margaret. Yes—Gladys has told me about you. And your friend Dorothy. I’m sorry—I didn’t know that Dorothy was with child. Gladys hadn’t mentioned that.”
“We’ve only just told her. And it’s not exactly news that Dottie is shouting from the rooftop.”
Catherine nodded. “I understand. We’ve seen many such cases since the boys have gone off to war. The results of an overly romantic goodbye?”
Margaret hung her head as if she were the one in the troubling situation. “Yes. Exactly.”
Catherine shrugged. “Not that I wish I was over there fighting, but we women have our own battles as well, don’t we?”
Margaret nodded, holding back tears. Even during the nighttime hours in her bedroom, she tried to be strong, convinced that the best way to be a home-front soldier was to resist anything that resembled weakness. If John could do it, so could she. It was the only way she knew how to be there for her parents and for Dottie. But with so few words, this woman understood.
Catherine stepped forward and rubbed her hand along Margaret’s arm, her quiet reassurance softening the hard edges that Margaret’s worries had sharpened. She let out a breath, one that seemed to come from the farthest recesses of her lungs, and was surprised that such a small gesture could be so invigorating.
For all that seemed nice about having a boyfriend, Margaret didn’t think it was a substitute for the friendship of women.
Margaret thought about Catherine’s words as they walked down the steps and into the windy afternoon. In the brevity of the moment, Catherine had showed her that gentleness was its own kind of strength.
It was something she wanted to put into practice as well. To resurrect the Margaret she’d been before she had let herself become shrouded with worry. To rediscover who she was instead of who she’d let outside forces shape her into.
When they arrived at Gladys’s apartment, Catherine sent them all outside so that she could examine Dottie in privacy.
Gladys leaned against the railing of her building and pulled out a cigarette. She offered one to the man who’d helped them, knowing that Margaret would decline.
“Mags, this is Oliver. Our hero of the hour. He hails from Eeeengland,” she said, drawing out the name.
Margaret noted Gladys’s casual way of introducing him. Just his first name. A quick familiarity that refrained from all formalities.
“We owe you quite a debt, Oliver. One we can never repay.”
“It’s my honor. Please think nothing of it.”
Oh, that accent! It’s what she imagined the heroes of the books she loved to read sound like. Mr. Rochester. Mr. Darcy. Heathcliff. And what she’d heard in the movies. But she couldn’t recall ever having encountered it in person.
Despite the delight of that, Oliver was not the sort that she ever imagined herself falling for. His nails were too clean. His coat too tailored. His manners too perfect.