“Wait.” Tom pulled his wallet from his pocket and flipped through the bills he’d been holding on to since he’d left Virginia. He’d learned that the French were eager to be paid in American dollars.
“Yes, is there something more?” The shopgirl’s face brightened and he wondered if she worked on commission.
“Something for my paramour.” He bit down on his tongue as he said it. What a foolish thing to be doing.
“Ah, oui, monsieur! One does not forget his love. Perhaps the vanille? It is the scent of the érotique.”
A blush spread across his cheeks, and he did not need a translator to understand her meaning.
She gestured for him to put out his other arm, and when she rolled up his sleeve, she spritzed him with a new bottle. The scent was warm and inviting, but also comfortable. Like home.
“I’ll take it.”
“Excellent choice.”
She wrapped the package identically to the first and marked a corner of it with a V so tiny that he would never have known to look for it if she hadn’t shown him.
“This way you know one from the other. And—for you? Perhaps a cologne for you to keep?”
Tom held up his hand to say no, offering a polite smile. Currently, he was a walking bouquet of violets and vanilla, something that would surely have made him the target of John and William’s laughter if they were here with him. And anyway, he had a bottle of Old Spice at home that he used on Sundays, but there was no use for it here. Tomorrow, he would rejoin his unit in Holland. Back to the front. Where the enemy didn’t spare you just because you smelled good.
He paid the bill, returning his much lighter wallet into his pocket, and took the handle of the bag that the woman had given him.
“Merci,” he said.
“Au revoir.”
He left the store and was once again swept up in a crowd similar to the one yesterday. Banners waved in the breeze, confetti fell from balconies, and the swarm of people inched its way westward. He joined them, or rather, he was absorbed by them, walking down the Rue di Rivoli until it connected to the Champs-Élysées. At that point, everything stopped because the Champs was already filled with people on the sidewalks.
He picked out enough British and American voices in the crowd to learn that there was to be a magnificent victory parade today.
A child cried behind him, and he looked to see a little girl, maybe three years old, wriggling in her mother’s arms and trying to see above his broad shoulders.
“Let me help,” he said, hoping that his intention overcame the language difference.
He held out his arms and the mother handed the child to him. He thought of little Joanna, John’s daughter, and how he hoped to meet her one day and carry her, too, like the uncle he wanted to be.
Band music started up and Tom was grateful that his tall stature allowed him to see over the women standing in front of him. He looked up at the little girl, whose curled pigtails were bouncing as she looked back and forth in excitement.
He heard the roar of the tanks before he saw them. But soon enough, everything came into view. First a marching squad holding a banner that read U.S. 28TH INFANTRY DIVISION. The tanks rolled slowly enough to see every turn of their tracks. Soldiers sat atop them, some as still as statues, others taking the opportunity to wave and smile at their adorers.
Behind the tanks came the motorcycle brigade, and surprisingly, these were the vehicles that seemed to rouse the girl’s attention.
“Mére! Mére!” she called. And her mother looked up in acknowledgment of where she was pointing.
Indeed, the motorcycles were exciting. Collectively, their engines formed a sound so loud that it reverberated inside Tom’s heart. His chest swelled with pride. The war was by no means over, but this victory was one well worth celebrating.
Clap, snap, clap, snap. Next came the precise sounds of the soldiers’ boots, marching down the Champs with impeccable precision, the type of discipline that helped them win back this city. Thousands and thousands of them marched down the boulevard and Tom counted them twenty-four across.
Among it all, flags waved as the people shouted, “Américain!” in a chorus.
The procession came to a halt and Tom looked far to his right to see that the Arc de Triomphe was their destination. The French military lined the street, their bright uniforms standing in contrast to the army green of the U.S. soldiers. The band played on, though their trumpeting had dimmed with distance. A speaker came to a podium, but Tom was too far to hear what he was saying.
But nobody needed the words. The wellspring of joy said all that was needed.
He would love to share this hope with Margaret, this signal that the war could, indeed, be over soon.
He handed the girl back to her mother and made his way back to the Rue di Rivoli, skimming the shop walls so as to keep clear of the people who were pressed against each other at the edge of the sidewalk. He’d seen something on his way over that had scarcely captured his attention, but now it was exactly what he wanted.
He passed a grocer and a bakery, his stomach growling at him to stop, but he kept going until he found the newspaper stand that had what he’d been looking for.
A postcard showing the Arc de Triomphe.
He purchased two of them with some of the last change in his pocket and kept walking until he could find a park bench on which to sit. He pulled out a pen and began to write.
The first was to his mother.
And then the second:
Dearest Margaret,
I have seen such beauty in the city of Paris and hope that someday it will be more than a spot on your atlas. Maybe you will let me bring you here. There is a feeling of victory that I hope can soon be celebrated on our home ground as well. Take heart—the end is coming.
Just that much had taken up nearly all of the postcard. He put the pen in his mouth and considered what to do next. There was no space to tell her all he’d want to say about William, and even if there was, the news might dampen the excitement he wanted her to feel.
And she might question a postcard coming from Tom.
Next time. He would tell her next time when he had more paper to tell the story.
He penned a tiny fleur-de-lis in the corner. Almost a flower.
And finished it with:
Love, William
Chapter Nineteen
September 1944
I asked Oliver to marry me.”
Margaret turned off her welding torch and flipped her visor up.
Gladys’s rosy blouse was the same shade of her cheeks.
“It’s about time!” Margaret had to shout to be heard over the other workers. Gladys wasn’t even supposed to be in this room, as she’d been promoted to foreman of the engraving department. She’d tried to insist on the title forewoman, but it never caught on and for the moment, she had to be satisfied with the nearly unprecedented advancement for one of her gender. She had also argued that she should receive the same pay as a man, but that, too, had been dismissed.
So it was no surprise to Margaret that Gladys had asserted herself into a different traditional role, that of the one to initiate a marriage proposal.
Just as she’d predicted.
“Is that all you have to say? I thought you’d be shocked.”
“Nothing you do shocks me, Gladys. Don’t you know that? Except maybe you being in the welding room. If Mr. Drake sees you, it’s going to be hell for both of us.”