“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“You saved a life last night, Margaret. A flippin’ life. I think you’ve earned the right to speak your mind.”
Margaret looked at her sideways. She was right. What Margaret admired most about Gladys was the way she spoke her mind. But she didn’t think that commenting on the shape of a smoke ring quite rose to the level of necessary confrontation.
Gladys put her arm around her. “All right. You know the kind of frustration where you just want to boil up like a teakettle and let the steam fly out?”
“Yes.” Margaret knew that feeling well. She looked up at her genteel mother, whom she equally admired for her amiability. Her mom looked amused.
“Here’s what I do,” Gladys continued. “I yell.”
“You yell?” This hardly seemed like a revelation, but she let her go on.
“Yeah. A real solid, bloodcurdling scream. Into my pillow, so my neighbors don’t think I’m being murdered. What I wouldn’t give to find some remote piece of land to really let it out into the sky. But that’s impossible in New York City. So I use my pillow. And I’m not shy about it. It’s the kind that rolls up from your belly and makes your breath hot and sends your heart racing. Try it sometime.”
“And that’s Dr. Gladys’s advice?”
Gladys grinned. “Yeah. At no charge. As long as you promise me you’ll try it.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” Gladys looked at her wristwatch. “I have to get back to the grindstone. But I’ll tell George that you’re in. We hope to get this up and running soon, so be ready, doll. Shine those pretty shoes of yours. You’ll be an office girl soon.”
Margaret looked down at her fingers, scarred in some places from where she’d gotten too close to the fire of the torch.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard had not been kind to her hands. They’d bled in the sewing wing, gotten stained in engraving, and scalded in welding.
But she relished every imperfection.
They were her own battle scars.
Chapter Twenty-Three
November 1944
Tom had begun to believe they’d never leave Holland, as the Airborne had stayed behind and helped the British soldiers pull back from Arnhem, retreating in rubber boats across the Rhine. But none too soon, the orders came for them to head to Mourmelon-le-Grand near the city of Reims in France.
The barracks—previously used by several German infantry and cavalry units and showing significant signs of wear—nevertheless had hot showers. Tom took everything off—his fatigues, the grenades around his belt, his socks, his underwear, and left them in a pile on the floor next to his bunk. He took the issued white towel and wrapped it around his waist, pinching its corners since it was too small. Whoever ordered these provisions either thought the army was made up of children or they were too cheap to realize what a man-size towel might mean to a soldier who had been on the front lines for months.
No matter. He could hear the shouts of his fellow soldiers coming from the communal bathroom, shrieks of excitement as hot water touched their skin. He padded along the cold tile floorboards until he arrived at the room so thick with steam he could only make out blurry shapes of his friends.
He made his way to an empty showerhead and dropped the towel, not caring that it would become wet and useless but only craving the exhilaration of the hot water pouring down over his head. His chest. His feet.
The portable showers in Holland had never been heated, and many of the men decided not to shower at all rather than risk the hypothermia that would come from a cold shower in the colder outdoors. But this…this was the very definition of heaven. Better than peach pie. Better than catching fireflies. Better, even, than going to bed with that college girl. The steam permeated the pores of his skin, making it seem as if it was being absorbed into the depths of his body. He breathed it in like a thirsty man in a dry desert.
“Powell, you dog, you’ve got soft hair. Who knew?” Malarky stepped over from the adjacent showerhead, as there were no walls between them. He ran his fingers through Tom’s hair.
“Yeah, I thought the dirt had permanently frozen on it.”
“Good thing you’re showering. Word is that we’re going to get passes to go to Reims. French girls, Powell. French girls. Ha!” He slapped Tom on the back and hopped around the showers like a little boy who’d just received his first bicycle at Christmas.
Tom ran some lye soap across his scalp one more time, as if he could bank the cleanliness by doing it twice. You could always rely on the army to give you the most basic of supplies, and the lye was no substitute for the store-bought kind. But he rubbed his palms around it to work up some lather. In the field, he’d shorn his hair with a knife and occasionally cut it when he could find scissors. Some guys preferred just to get a razor and shave it off, but Tom’s hair had always been his one point of pride. And a bare head would only have made him colder.
So it was a welcome change to have the strands feel malleable once again. He rubbed the soap across the rest of his body, and he had the luxury of time to feel every muscle. This was not the same body that had left Virginia for Georgia. He’d always been a lanky guy—tall and skinny—but this was the form of a man. And he hadn’t even noticed until now. Where he’d been thin, he’d now filled out with muscle. Especially his legs. The soldiers had gone through rigorous conditioning to make their legs strong so that they could withstand a landing. He washed down to his shins and his feet, full of wonder that a year and a half could make such a difference.
His father would be proud. His mother might not recognize him.
But…would Margaret find him attractive?
He’d have to survive the war if he was to find out.
“Powell! Hurry up—there’s champagne!” Muck called out to him this time, he and Malarky always the dog and pony show of Easy Company.
“Champagne. Please. Don’t pull my leg, Muck.”
“The way you’re feeling your legs, I don’t have to. You like what you see, pretty boy?”
Tom picked up his wet towel by its corners and slung it around and around until it was whip-shaped. He flicked it onto Muck’s bare back, and Muck yelped.
“I’m not kidding, man. We’re in champagne country. Actual, real, honest-to-God champagne. Not the cheap bubbly wine you can get at Woolworth’s. And the chow! You don’t hear the guys’ moans from here?”
“You’re for real? Here I come.”
Muck tossed a fresh, dry towel to him. “Hurry up or I’m taking your share.”
“Thanks, man.” Tom wrapped the towel around him, no longer minding its diminutive size because he could smell what Muck was talking about. Beef. Gravy. Was his nose deceiving him?
The chow in Holland had left much to be desired.
Tom stopped by his bunk and pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that he’d kept from boot camp. Light and cotton and definitely too little for the cold day, but they were all he had until they had a chance to do laundry.
The mess hall was almost deafening as hardened soldiers became boisterous schoolboys with these newfound delights. Half of them were in towels that barely covered anything, coming straight from the showers, as Tom had. The other half had chosen food first, and they were still wearing their fatigues, stiff with sweat that might have permanently frozen into it.