Lovely War(7)

You had to walk into the room then, Ares. A final ending, a permanent goodbye.

Yet you were the reason everyone was there. The war was in every sermon, every street sign, every news report, every prayer over every bland and rationed meal.

And so James went from stranger to patriot, hero, bravely shouldering his duty to God, King, and Country.

Hazel went from stranger and pianist to reason why the war mattered at all, symbol of all that was pure and beautiful and worth dying for in a broken world.

When I found them, their heads were nestled together like a pair of mourning doves.

James, the soul of politeness, wouldn’t dream of drawing Hazel too close on a first dance. Which was not to say he wouldn’t like to. But Hazel, baffled by finding herself so safe and warm in the arms of this beautiful young man, realized, when the song ended, that she’d been resting her forehead against his cheek. That cheek, she had wanted to caress, and now, in a way, she’d done it. She began to be embarrassed, but as the other dancers applauded, James cradled her in his arms, and she knew she didn’t need to apologize.

Lois Prentiss began to boom out her thanks for all who’d made the evening a success, but Mabel Kibbey, with a wink at me, cut her off by starting a new song, even more tender than the first. While other couples jockeyed to find partners, Hazel and James found each other wordlessly, having never broken apart, and danced the entire dance, their eyes closed.

If I couldn’t knit these two together by the end of a second dance, Zeus might as well make Poseidon the god of love, and I’d go look after the fishes.

I could have watched them forever. By this point many eyes besides my own were watching Hazel Windicott, a well-known commodity in the parish, as famous for shyness as for music, dancing with the tall young stranger. When the song ended, and she opened her eyes, she saw James’s face watching her closely, but over his shoulder there were other faces, whispering, wondering.

“I need to go,” she said, pulling away. “People will say . . .”

She flooded with shame. How could she betray this moment to fear of others?

He waited openly, calmly, without suspicion.

What did she owe to other people anyway?

“Thank you,” she said. “I had a lovely time.”

She looked up nervously into his dark brown eyes. You’re wonderful, they said.

So are you, her long-lashed eyes replied.

“Miss Windicott—” he began.

“Call me Hazel,” she said, then wondered if she ought.

The dimples returned. She might melt. Other people didn’t matter. Let them gossip.

“Miss Hazel Windicott,” he said, “I report for training in a week.”

She nodded. “I know.” He’d already told her. It was so unspeakably awful. Already lads she’d known had died in the trenches.

James took a step closer. “May I see you again before I go?”

She chewed on this shocking proposal. This was not the way of things. Introductions, chaperones, supervision. Parental permission at each step. Large ladies like naval battleships prowling the seas of church socials, scouting for improper hand-holding and clandestine kisses. The war had relaxed propriety’s stranglehold, but only somewhat.

James stewed. He’d said too much. Moved too fast. The thought made him sick. But what choice did he have? He had only one chance to get to know Hazel Windicott, the piano girl.

“May I?” he said again.

Hazel’s father appeared in the doorway.

“How soon?” she asked James.

He smiled. “As soon as possible.”

“How much?” asked Hazel.

The smile faded, leaving only that intent gaze in its place. “As much as I may.”

It was time for Hazel to demur politely, make her excuses, thank him for serving the Crown, and break away from this doomed solider boy. It was definitely time to say no.

“I’d like that.”

She smiled, the first time she’d smiled for this stranger. James’s poor heart might’ve stopped beating then and there if he weren’t young and healthy.

Hazel give James Alderidge her address. When she felt fairly certain the eyes in the room had moved on from gawking at her, and her father had fallen into chitchat with other arriving parents, she reached up onto her toes and gave James a kiss on the cheek.

James Alderidge didn’t know it was the second such kiss he’d received that night. He only knew he was in grave danger of heading off to the Front as a soldier in love.

The thought scared him more than all the German missiles combined. Should he pull back? Should he cut this fantasy short, and not seek out another encounter with the piano girl?

Music. Lashes. Lilac-scented hair. The light grip of her lips in a brief kiss upon his cheek.

And, once more, the music.

What he should do, James decided, and what he would do, had no bearing upon each other.





APHRODITE


     The Kiss (Part I)—November 23, 1917





IF THAT KISS caused James a night of agonizing wonder, of delicious bafflement, he was not alone. For Hazel’s part, the bafflement was wondering what on earth had come over her, and the agony was dreading what James must think of her. She, Hazel Windicott, who never looked at boys! The respectable, serious-minded young lady who spent hours each day practicing piano, who kept her head while other girls did . . . whatever it was that other girls did. Would this James think she was the sort of girl who went about kissing young men upon first acquaintance?