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therealslimshakespeare · 5 months ago

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Even my Friends just Love Her

|| Dear John Series 💌

Warnings: 18+ sexual and thematic material, not a lot in this chapter but some brief voyeurism and mention of naughty photographs, letters and imagined sex acts

Coauthored: honestly bless my baby Bri who I begged to beta read this when I was stumped three quarters of the way to completion and she went above and beyond and gave the ending of this segment so much life, pretty phrasing and a beating heart. It was a total joy to work on this with you, darling, thanks for your lovely idea that spawned this whole series in the first place.💋 so many thanks to Christi and Ashley who endured my screams about Spangles and writers block

April-May 1945

Her tenth night in Paris found Marge Spencer hard at work earning her keep as a trusted member of The Lana Tierney’s retinue.

She didn’t mind the labor, it had paid for a boat ride and a plane over the pond and the prettiest shared suite in the Ritz, with a view of the iconic skyline and more macaroons than Marge knew what to do with. An American girl of average means, moderate schooling and a vast imagination, Marge felt like pinching herself that her view consisted of the Eiffel Tower; instead, she applied herself more earnestly to her occupation and diligently set about petting the soft white fur fringing Spangles’ little pink nose.

That was the extent of Marge’s job description, pet Spangles, feed Spangles, brush Spangles, wash Spangles, walk Spangles, carry Spangles; anytime Julie Jean couldn't tend to Spangles herself, Marge was at the ready.

Spangles, you see, was a white bunny rabbit of the masculine sex given to Julie on her latest War Bond tour by a Marine gunner and nothing short of death could part the two. He had a blue velvet collar, a fetching little name tag hanging from it and a very active set of whiskers.

“Spangles was my dearest friend before you.” Julie had told Marge when she first introduced them and Marge had done her best to not crumple at that unwittingly dismal revelation.

There had been a lot of those. Julie Jean, as Miss Lana insisted Marge call her, was a unicorn of sorts. Very magical, very shiny, very fragile, dubiously real even to herself. For someone so universally adored she was the loneliest creature Marge had ever encountered, before meeting her she had assumed that waifish little fairies like Julie didn’t exist outside of rather maudlin novels. That felt like a very cruel denial of a very real predicament in retrospect. Julie's happiness was unbounded, universally ignited and childlike in its exuberance, her sadness was without a bit of restraint beyond some brittle and fleeting acting capabilities of keeping it together until she got to the powder room.

During their brief friendship, Marge had already spent a great deal of time hugging the starlet and patting her milk white shoulders in powder rooms. Anyone else indulging in such frequent fits might have caused Marge to give them a little shove and advice to ‘chin up’, but Julie did “chin up” so thoroughly and profitably in between -more than anyone Marge had ever known- that Marge felt rather unentitled to that specific sermon. When Julie was up, she was really up and so was everyone within a mile radius of her. And when she was down -only the single person with her or Spangles knew it. And Marge figured that was a pretty decent way to live; as were three room suites at the Ritz and more flowers on flat spots than a funeral home.

What was missing was someone specific to channel it all into. But that, Marge knew, was why they were in Paris: so that Julie Jean could pour out what she had to offer to an entire crowd of furloughed GI’s or else the recently liberated POWs still waiting for transit and looking altogether too thin and too shocked by their first female sighting in over a year. Julie managed them all beautifully, standing under hot afternoon suns and chilly evening spring breezes like a champ, in spindly heels and fetching chiffon straps, collecting flowers and kisses and horror stories with unfading aplomb.

Tagging behind her each day, cradling Spangles and the overflow of flowers not even Herb could manage, Marge grew tired just by observing. You had to have some kind of heart to keep doing what Julie did day after day. Wake up looking forward to it. You had to have an awfully large receptacle to receive what she had to give, too.

A revolving crowd of hundreds of GIs -or Bucky Egan.

Tagging behind, ever watchful for threatening Hollywood acquaintances or freshly liberated boyfriends in the crowd, Marge had no luck so far. She went to each show, mingled in each press of the crowd before and after, scanning, always scanning for blue eyes and golden hair and the sweetest face she’d ever known.

Gale. There was no reason to think he’d be here, but it had been ages since their last letters, only word had been that they’d been moved and that was from some other pilot in the same gargantuan holding place. As the flurry of a world war wrapping up took hold of bedraggled Europe, no one knew where anyone was. Unless you were a world famous starlet residing at the Ritz in a very promoted continental tour -then folks knew how to find you and serenade you under your hotel window.

Communication lagged terribly and it was a roll of the dice whether your next bit of news would be the most tragic or joyful you’d ever received. Whether you’d hold the person you missed or the telegram regarding them first.

So Marge scanned the crowds and tried her best to receive the overflow of flowers -and the occasional kiss- from the men around her with half the grace Julie showed each. It was really all very flattering, very exciting, and while back home in America there was felt the buzz of approaching victory, nowhere exuded it in such frantic merriment of expectation like Paris.

“Everything’s better in Paris.” Julie had told Marge on the way over, dreamy and giddy herself that her plan had worked, that they were headed over to the same land mass as their men, and that Marge was with her, “Even the best things in the world get magnified in Paris. That’s why everyone doubts it’s real. But it is Marge! It is!”

So far, even sitting on the carpeted floor of the suite, staring out the balcony after ten nights spent here, and petting Spangles wet fur for a living, Marge had to agree it felt more than a little magical.

“Laaaa!” Julie’s exclamation interrupted her reverie, silver belled voice matching the atmosphere to perfection, “Wasn’t that a bop?”

She’d been soaking in that tub for two hours, tap turning and on and off to add more hot water and Marge thought her poor, no doubt sore, feet deserved every second of the extravagance. Plus the room now smelled of bath salts that Marge was pretty sure were the very distilled essence of seduction. And that complimented her view of the Parisian skyline, too.

“Always is with you at the mic.” Marge swore, meaning it, too. Nine shows in ten days and even though she had ulterior motives for attending Lana’s shows -scanning, always scanning- Marge was astounded by the variety and interest the entertainment retained after repeated tastings.

“Yeah? Really? Honest?” Julie sat herself cross legged on the fluffy duvet at the foot of their shared, king sized bed, and chewed her lip like it was her first performance ever. There had been another suite with another bed, and after the second night when Julie heard Marge crying her little heart out over Gale, the consolation had been made. Julie was eager for sleepovers. Never had them before, she swore.

Now these chats happened each night.

“Honest.” Marge got up from seat on the floor and came over to the bed, setting Spangles between them, “You gotta know that? Like those screams and yells were all hoo haa. Trust me, Julie, it was electric. You were electric. Again.”

They sat and pet Spangles in silence for a few moments before Julie spoke up again, soft and sweet as she watched Marge’s dimple deepen, “You’ve made this trip so much better than any other I’ve taken, you know that, Margie? Paris is how it should be with you.” she proclaimed triumphantly, “Lovely and pretty and makes me feel like I can float.”

“You can in my book.” Marge drawled, chucking under Julie’s chin, the girl looked half too young without the makeup and Marge felt it was easier to be friends like that.

Just two girls and a bunny in Paris.

“What do you think they’re doing right now?” Julie whispered.

They spent most of their sleepovers talking about them -the boys. Speculating happy little comforts for them and spinning happy little ever-after’s for themselves when this all wrapped up.

“Hopefully cuddling for warmth.” Marge’s grin grew sly, the mental picture too amusing even if it was bittersweet.

A small commotion in the hall outside sent both girls into high alert suddenly, Spangles’ whiskers twitching in solidarity for their anticipation. This had been happening most nights, too.

“Is it them do you think?” Julie gleefully whispered, untangling her legs and tiptoeing to the door with Marge begrudgingly protesting but following nonetheless.

Julie was generous with the peephole and Marge had given up pretending to be above the jovial pastime of people watching -especially when their swanky floor at the Ritz meant they had the most shocking sort of neighbors. Ingrid Bergman for one, and as of the last six days; accompanied by a man who was not her husband.

“He’s dark.” Marge reported, finally getting a better look at the man in question as the illicit lovers grappled in a kiss and fumbled longer than usual at their key.

“Lemme!” Julie shoved at Marge’s giggling frame and tiptoed to line her eye up, “Ooooh, lord! Marge, Marge I think that’s Capa!”

Marge made a disgusted little face. “Frank Capra? ‘Why We Fight’ Capra? Isn’t he old?”

“No, no.” Julie swatted at her without tearing her eye from her spying view, “Robert Capa -life magazine. War Photographer, Hungarian, very dangerous profession.”

“Being hungarian?” Marge snorted, “Or stealing wives?”

“Oh hush they’re so in love.” Julie whined, rapt attention until the door of the opposite suite banged shut with a decisive crash. “They’re so in love.” she moaned, letting her forehead thud against the door, allowing herself to dramatically slide down the length of the door to the plush carpet.

“He’s very hairy.” Marge was amusedly unimpressed.

“I don’t want him for meeeee!” Julie whined and Marge sensed another little fir coming on and cast a furtive glance at the macarons and tissues across the room on the side table. “It just reminds one of being in love.”

“Well, don’t fret, that’ll be you and John Egan in no time, clawing wallpaper and ruining respectable people’s evenings.”

Julie looked up at her unimpressed and Marge could have recited from memory the next fussy little cry: “He’ll probably hate me.”

Marge sighed and knowing this was going to be a little bit of a moment, sat down beside her, back to the door, matching pajamas a cool silk rub against each other as she hugged the poor girl. “No he won’t.” She insisted, “He’ll think you’re a silly little goose for crying so much over him and he’ll think you’re smart as anything for all the money you’ve raised -and the good you’ve done. He’s an ambitious man, he’s not one to knock a good idea. I bet he’s proud as anything. If he knows about acorn -he’s proud. You can count on it.”

They did this every evening, too.

Julie had never known a lovelier creature more convinced they were unlovable. It helped that the comforting sentiments she dished out like tranquilizers were firmly true; in fact, if anything, Marge was a little braced for the shock of Julie being quite happily eaten alive by the most voracious man she’d ever had the fortune to meet.

“I might as well jump into the Seine if not.” Julie commented casually.

“Yeah, well,” Marge tempered with a squeeze, “maybe don’t come on to him with that one.”

After some time of more innocuous conversation, a commotion startled them, the triple rap of knuckles on the door behind their backs -Herb’s special little knock. They shared a spooked look. Marge, quite settled in her protector mode, rose first. She gave the peephole a cursory little look to make certain before sliding the lock and cracking the door open as wide as was respectable in silk pajamas.

“Herb?”

“Miss Spencer, Miss Julie,” he gave a nod, something odd in his bearing, a simmering thing near to nervous excitement that jarred with his sober expression, “sorry to bother, but there’s been a development in the lobby -I, ya see, I’ve been turnin’ all the young bucks away after you go up, as you asked but -there’s one down there now-“

“Does he need a room?” Julie inquired anxiously, she’d put up about ten refugee families in various little suites and over a couple dozen servicemen, “That silly concierge not letting you put it on my tab?”

“No miss, this one’s not lookin’ for a room.” Herb’s keen eyes skittered to Marge, an almost cautionary expression on his face, “He says he recently escaped a camp and by the look of him I’d belive it. He’s asking for -for Miss. Spencer, Miss.”

“What?” Marge was not one to be cautioned against hope, “Herb! What did he say? Where is -what’s he look like? What did he say his name-“

“Gale.” Herb let it drop gently. “Said his name was Gale Cleven, and that Miss Turner didn’t know him but her Bunny Friend did. That he saw Miss Spencer’s face in the papers when he got in this evening, he’s meant to be flown out tomorrow.”

“Julie’s Bunny Friend!” Marge repeated with a hysterical little cry, watery smile gone megawatt, “Julie!! Julie it’s gotta be him!”

“Well, well should we-“ Julie patted her pajamaed self down in a bewildered state of companion joy, “-should we go down? Should he- Herb!” too flustered she begged for some direction.

“Up here, I’d think miss.” he advised, “If he’s not the one, there’s no scene made, I can keep him in the hallway while Miss Spencer’s makes use of the peephole -as she is so fond of doing ages after I knock.”

Marge gave him a wry face which he returned in kind.

“Herb, is he -alone?” Julie asked suddenly, voice quite small and Marge could have knocked herself over the head with the ice bucket for being so very callous.

“Yes? Is there a dark haired, tall, big, loud-“

“-American major with him named John?” Herb supplied, ever astute and dampening in the extreme, “No, he’s alone. Or that is, besides the army man who drove him in.”

“Right.” Julie wiped her sweating palms on her thighs, sitting heavily on the bed but doing her damndest to maintain a bright smile. “Don’t leave poor Major Cleven down there any longer, Herb! Bring him up! I’ll wring for room service.”

“He -he may not be-“ Herb cautioned once more but Julie was adamant, already dialing:

“No, no more buts, it’ll be him. And he’ll have news of John. Go! Go go go!”

Marge gave Herb a pitying shrug of solidarity but the minute he was out in the hall she gave all pretense of calm, turning in a giddy spin that spooked poor Spangled and took out an already precarious floral arrangement. “Should I dress? Should I-“ Marge patted herself down now, but Julie, having primly placed her order and tipped it with a sugar coated thanks came over to her, and merely began to take Marge’s blond strands out of their rag curlers.

“No, you should have your hair undone.” the actress proclaimed, “And your top button, too.”

“Julie!“ Marge gasped, somehow it all felt so very likely, with him possibly downstairs, maybe in the elevator now, all their naughty little girls chats suddenly leaving the realm of hypothetical at the likelihood of Gale actually seeing that extra sliver of skin in mere moments.

“Marge.” Julie gave it back to her, fingers insistent on the silk, “It’s up to you to welcome him home.” she preached with girlish simplicity, “And as you’re not home yourself, you must make do, bring home with you.”

“How?” Marge stressed.

“There is nothing more domestic than a lady in a carefully crafted state of repose.”

“There’s not?”

“No, there’s not. ‘Me? Just rolled outta bed to welcome ya honey!’ See?” Julie parroted her alter ego with a little shimmy that sent her own curves jiggling beneath the shiny fabric in such a blatant way that even Marge had to admit she had a point. “Besides,” she added with practicality that sounded very much parroted from Marge herself, “we don’t have time and there’s nothing sexy or welcoming about a woman struggling into her house dress.”

“Ohhh shooo!” Marge began to hit at her when another knock sounded.

“Oh god.” Julie vocalized for her, squeezing Marge’s hand encouragingly, “It’ll be him.” she rallied.

“Yes.” Marge set her chin firmly and having plucked up her bravery, strode to the door purposefully. Somehow it felt like a doubt unworthy of their love for her to use the peephole, so without even a moment's delay in turning the handle, Marge flung wide the suite door and stared back at the two men outside in the hall.

He was pale as spector, those dear and onetime soft features nearly gaunt from deprivation, a criss-cross of purpling scars cutting across parchment skin; but the eyes were the same, sunken and dulled as they were, the same soul stared back at her and the thread between them held firm.

“Marge?” that voice was just as deep and thrilling and homey as she remembered, it had melted her belly and filled her with devotion from his first greeting in Texas. She had not stood a chance, not then and not now.

She was throwing her silk clad self against his filthy overcoat before she could fully comprehend anything else beyond it being him -it was him.

“Gale, Gale, Gale it’s you!” Marge panted in his embrace, the heavy feeling of his hand cradling her head a long imagined thing that winded her in reality.

Julie stood back mildly stunned. She fiddled with her own turban, having forgotten to see to her own appearance. If watching Capra and Bergman hurt so good this- this was bone deep beauty that hurt like a hundred little cuts soothed by a warm bath. Major Cleven was muttering about dirt and redefining what missing her meant into something eternal and something else comparing Marge to angels.

Julie and Herb exchanged the communicative glance of well satisfied colleagues over the lovebirds’ shoulders. If she looked hard she thought she could see commiseration in his face, too. It was intolerable, and she turned her back on the scene and fumbled on the bureau for her cigarette case. The latch was being pesky, it made a clatter as she tried to wrestle it open on the tortoiseshell table top. She’d dropped the thing one too many times, and now the latch was busted just so that it was a bore to get it open.

“Miss Turner.” her real name spoken by a man made her jump, all the more so as he was so close behind her, suddenly deep into the suite as Julie had let too many moments go in her fight with the case.

Julie braced herself on the bureau and turned round to give Major Cleven his deserved smile. He really was as beautiful and ethereal as Marge talked of, recognizing in him some matching features to her own made her want to giggle in embarrassed disbelief at Egan’s obvious preferences. But her quips and greetings died on her tongue at his intense stare, a pink flush making it into his sallow cheeks the longer he looked at her and she recalled how he had seen her picture. But still he held her gaze and behind him Marge looked encouragingly expectant, and as if he could feel his girl’s prodding, he rallied.

“Miss Turner I-“ Gale Cleven looked at a loss for a brief moment, “-for everything! Thank you, for everything.”

“Why, whatever for? I-“ Julie’s batting little laugh was smothered by a sudden and engulfing hug of her own, and while she’d endured and repaid many a hug from soldiers and men alike, this one was different. “Oh Major Cleven, it’s alright, it’s a joy really.” She patted at his back and tried to grin back at Marge’s watery eyed happiness. Herb had gratefully closed the door behind the bedraggled major.

“You saved his life, ya know?” Cleven had pulled away suddenly, very emphatic hands on her shoulders and Julie caught a glimpse of something fatherly like she’d only imagined. “You’re what kept him going.”

“Did he-“ Julie felt her voice grow thin, in aggravation she about stomped her foot in his embrace, “-did he hear? I tried to send messages after-“

“He heard, ‘em.” Gale’s little nod shook her, too.

“He did?” Some chipped and unsettled hope was suddenly falling right into place in her heart, cemented and sure, “He did. But, he’s not with you?” she couldn’t help the little beg.

Cleven’s face fell and so did his hands. Marge approached them, feeling a presentiment. “What happened?”

“We planned to make a run for it together.” Cleven sounded guilty as hell, “Had to be that night. Two went over the wall just fine and I was following and he was behind and they spotted us.” If Julie could have found it in herself to hate him, the wretched look he flashed her would have compelled forgiveness on the spot, “He told me to go -and I did. And I heard shots after and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Stunned, not at all expecting something of that nature, Julie clung to her furniture a little harder and tried to lean on that newly fastened hope in her heart. They had been connected all this time, she had felt it and now Gale had confirmed it and, she may be insane for it but- “It’s alright, we don’t know, which means we don’t know anything bad either.”

“Yes!” Marge’s voice was a little overly emphatic for the quiet moment, “That’s true! Nothing bad.”

“I know he’d take care of himself,” Gale offered, “-he has been. Just for you. Only thing keeping him on the straight and narrow.”

“Then I think,” Julie dared, feeling her cheeks growing hot and wet, this night being altogether too much to pretend at something close to sanity when with dear friends, “I think we’d know, don’t you? Me and you, we'd

know if he wasn't ... here anymore."

Gale looked at her like she was crazy but at the same time, understanding unfurled behind his eyes, as if he wasn’t used to relying on feelings like this, but it didn’t mean he didn’t know they were real.

Julie meant it, and believing it made some loathsome part of himself calm under the comfort of it. “Yeah,” he muttered, “I think we would.”

“Now!” Julie clapped her hands, Lana’s mask coming to smooth her face and brighten her smile, it wasn’t fair to Gale or to Marge to make this a somber evening, late as it was -this was Paris! The Ritz! If a celebration couldn’t be had and comforts procured, where could they be? “What we do have on our hands -is you! And you look as if you could use a burger and coke and a bath! And I’ve got all of them here, don’t argue, don’t you dare, Marge deserves to see you fed and moderately clean, don’t you think?”

Put that way, as a service to someone else, Gale Cleven only had weak thanks and pale rebuttals about needing to be at the newly rebuilt airport outside the city to get back to Thorpe Abbots tomorrow. He was still enthralled to military time, he hadn’t counted on this, not at all, but it didn’t change things-

“I’ve got a valet, Major, he could get you to Siberia tomorrow if you needed. Now hush, I’ve rung for food. Where are they? Herb! Herb!”

“It’s best to just go with it.” Marge teased him as he catatonically watched the starlet boss about the waiters and her valet, bewildered and bamboozled at the sudden luxury. The sudden proximity of his girl, too.

Suddenly there was nothing else on his mind but one thing, “You said yes.” he reminded in the middle of the chaos swirling around them.

“Yeah,” Marge’s dimples popped, “yeah I did.”

“You still of that mind?” he nudged closer, noses brushing and he was aware that he was filthy, but she was magnetic and willing.

“You’d have to drop off the earth to get out of this one, Major Cleven.”

Gale refused to sit on anything while Julie and Marge fed him from a sumptuous buffet off the cart. He swore he was too dirty to even stand in such a nice place like this but he was also shaky, pale and in dire need of food and with two little blondes plying him with the first bits of American cuisine he’d had in years, he wavered and stayed. His insistence on going to his original billet grew weaker with each passing moment as Marge smiled at him and fed him fries. By the time Herb had been sent down to inform Major Cleven’s jeep driver that his passenger was lost to welcoming arms, Gale had quite forgotten much of anything beyond the feel of a full stomach and the promise of a bath.

For a long time he sat in the cold porcelain shell and ran the water over himself, such a terrible amount of filth and grim didn’t deserve a bath, it would turn even his hardened stomach to sit in the juices of a year and a half’s captivity. So after being shooed by Julie Jean into her intolerably bright and ornate en-suite bathroom, complete with a star’s assortment of toiletries and the bunny’s monogrammed food and water bowls, Gale gingerly let his ratty clothes fall to the marble floor and stepped into the tub.

Over the roar of the faucet he was unaware of the tittering whispers at the door -still slightly ajar and unlatched as Julie Jean was nothing if not a little wicked. And concerned.

“People drown in bathtubs where I come from all the time!” She refuted Marge’s scandalized objections.

“Yes, because they’re pickled with booze!”

“After what he’s been through he’s in about as good of shape.”

Marge knew that statement wasn’t false exactly but her hand still fluttered over her belly in nervousness at the impropriety. “Alright.” she went with it, breathlessly anxious and a little flustered at the blurry something beyond that chink in the hinge.

“Aren’t you going to peak?” Julie unfolded the rest of her play with an alarming smirk. “Come on, he’s going to marry you, how many times will you see him in his natural state at the ritz?”

It wasn’t fair to put it like that, to remind Marge she was living on borrowed fairytale time. It was a deep seated fear she had shared with Julie once as they had the covers tucked up to their chin’s and their hearts out on their pillow cases -that she woke sometimes with a feeling of terrifying urgency and nothing but regrets for a laundry list of bypassed chances she had not taken. Upon waking further and regaining some sanity, she couldn’t for the life of her recall what these fateful omissions that startled her so badly had even been. But times like these, when she went to be good but then was asked if that really was worth her time, such urgency crept back, nagging. “Go on then.” Julie slipped aside, her battle won as Marge surrendered and delicately placed her cheek against the door frame, an eye to the crack.

She had spent many nights imagining the whole of Gale, a beautiful back she had only seen beneath drab olive, the nipped waist and the lanky legs that sent his trousers on a mile long spill of fabric. Her breath hitched at the pale expanse now before her, each proportion how she lovingly recalled but this time without obstruction or disguise, a strange dichotomy: the youthful taper and swell of his backside jarring with stark ribs and a mottle of ugly bruises and festered creases. She didn’t know if her gasp came from desire or commiseration, jerking her face back from the sliver of light as Gale turned his head sharply, as if feeling her observation even as the water had hid her inadvertent noise. Either uncaring or convinced he was mistaken, she watched as Gale stepped into his tub and promptly sank his head beneath the splash.

Julie watched Marge as she watched Gale and she wondered if this is what it was like in fairytales when the gates of the kingdom are thrown open, everything wanted and wished for is there. The protagonists never know what to do with a dream come true, do you eat it? Fondle, crush, preserve it in a glass case? Such a cruel kindness, dreams that come true; Marge’s twitching fingers and gasping lips suggested a torture going on inside her, heavy lidded love and belly hot want.

Julie swore to herself then, she’d feel it too. Soon, she’d be watching the man who owned the jacket as he showed her himself, just as he’d written his heart out for her eyes alone, one day soon he’d be naked and hers and she could watch him and do what people do with dreams.

Perhaps feeling vindictive for being ignored, or perhaps merely thirsty, Spangles suddenly made a series of determined little hops across the suite floor, threaded the blockade of the girls’ feet with ease and, perhaps seeing his chance, nudged open the crack of the bathroom door only to bounce along the marble floor in a cacophonous clatter of little paws that even Gale could hear over the faucet’s roar. Like a slippery fish, he skidded to his side along the bottom of the wide tub, a pink, bath-warmed hand clutching at the edge and hauling his sopping head above the lip to observe his long eared visitor -and the guilty little audience of girls in their night clothes at the threshold.

The look he leveled Marge made Julie’s toes tingle and second guess how chaste these two’s reportedly tame trysts pre-war had really been. “We merely wanted to make sure you didn’t-“ Marge clasped and unclasped her hands, “-drown.” it was a deflated little excuse by the time she got it out.

Spangles had begun to sneeze, ever sensitive to steam and Yardley’s lavender soap, his poor little legs skidding apart further and further on the damp floor. Gale bit his lip from laughing at the cute little creature’s plight.

“Oh laa!” Julie gave up all pretense and entered to save him -the bunny, that is- causing Gale to flail a little harder as if there was a deeper level to the bottom of his tub where he could take refuge. “Add in the bubbles, Major,” Julie always had a remedy, “it’ll hide everything nicely. Don’t ruin poor Marge’s first evening with you by being a prude, she misses you. It’s been years, you know.”

They spent much of that evening in the following way, Gale in his topped off tub, Marge with a mostly useless cloth beside him on the ledge, and Julie primly sat with Spangles in her lap on the closed toilet seat.

“Bucky’s confirmed as best man.” He told Marge, sheepish grin breaking out until both girls laughed at the thought of the boys indulging in their own wedding planning.

He tells them about the radio he built, about the first time they heard her broadcasts, of the photo she’d sent which Bucky and him divided in half each keeping their girl in their pocket,

about Brady and the liturgy of devotion he made up for Egan to recite to Julie’s printed picture on the combine wall. The particulars were left out, Gale being a gentleman to the last, but Julie glowed and wept under the obtuse assurance anyway.

“I trust you kept him warm.” Julie demands, “Seeing as how it’s your fault he didn’t take his jacket.”

Gale tells her of Egan’s presumptuous bunk sharing, how strange things were happening every day and that grew to be commonplace. At her inquiring look he only blushes and stares down at the water, the bruise on his throat blooming under the flush, and for once Julie thinks she knows Gale Cleven better than his Marge.

“I’ve gotta be on that flight tomorrow early!” Gale had just enough energy left to fret even as he was led in a fluffy terry cloth robe to the sofa and made to lay down on fluffed pillows under a velvet duvet.

“Don’t worry about it major, I’ve got everything sorted. We’re coming with you.” Julie insisted, without having even discussed it with anyone as it didn’t require it -of course they’d be going to England with him! And no, she had nothing sorted but as soon as she had Gale deposited on the sofa with Marge’s hands entwined with his from her place on the floor, Julie Jean sent for Herb and summarily entrusted him with sorting it.

“Before seven thirty am tomorrow, please.”

Alone in bed, as Marge had made a poor showing of joining her only to go “check on his breathing” and predictably not returned, Julie lay awake and thought of John. Fat, hot tears rolled out the corner of her eyes and into her ears, tickling her, making a miserable spot on her pillow. Whispering prayers with her eyes on the skyline, she begged him to stay alive for her. “We’re so close, sweet man. We are so close and I love you too much.”

By next morning Herb did indeed have things sorted. Or close to it. There was a small hitch. “Mr. Huston is confused by your change of plans.” Herb informed her as he oversaw the bellman with the last of the trunks. He had ensured Major Cleven’s threadbare uniform had been cleaned and pressed in the night, and when Gale appeared out the en-suite bathroom this morning he looked a modicum closer to how Marge recalled him shipping out.

“What doesn’t he understand?” Julie asked, feeling cross and dreadful suddenly.

“He asked to hear it from you. Room 608.”

“Well I, I suppose I should run by it and then we can be on our way.” Julie decided with brave sprightliness, fixing the little net on her hat to cover more than just her eyes.

“We’ll go with you.” Marge decided with forceful kindness; her pull on his arm was all the command Gale needed not to protest.

“Who’s Huston?” he asked as the elevator whirled them one floor higher.

“My business partner in the broadcast.” Julie replied, “And the man paying for this excursion. I suppose he’d like to make certain I’ve not gone looney.”

Mr. Huston’s cuban valet opened the door and behind him, despite the fresh morning hour, was a scene out of one of Gatsby’s parties. Multiple women in little clothing and a significant amount of discarded booze littered the place, and Huston, smoking a cigarette and flicking through the paper, did not even bother to leave his perch against the headboard. Julie suddenly felt as if she were seeing the scene through newcomers eyes and her face burned to be associated with it.

“Jack.” She greeted, knowing that despite how he had moved on for the most part, he would have teased her maliciously for trying to distance herself in front of her friends.

“Baby.” He flopped down his newspaper, “What’re you doing in here wearin’ tweeds? You know how I hate tweed, does nothing for your assets. God take off that jacket and pour a drink -who’re your friends?”

Julie clutched the donned sheepskin even tighter and could almost sense Gale Cleven shifting from one foot to the other, a loose stance of being on guard. “This is Major Cleven of the mighty eighth, and you know my dear friend Marge -she’s is his fiancé.”

“Ah, a fellow airman!” Jack perked up, rising off the bed with his full chest on display under a gaping embroidered robe and approached Cleven with a smug sense of equality. He stuck out his hand and Gale made him wait five whole seconds before he returned the grip, tightly. “Pleasure, Major.”

“Do I know your squadron?” He drawled.

“Oh, I’m an observer mostly. But I’ve seen some combat.” Jack didn’t have a group, those wings on his uniform meant about as much as Lana’s broach collection in regard to brave service.

It was like Gale could smell the costume party off him, and Lana admired him immensely for that. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Pacific theater mainly”

Gale was smiling sympathetically and it was the most unsettling thing Marge had ever seen, and it satisfied something deep inside her that had loathed Huston since she first met him in the lobby ten days ago, his hand encroaching down her back and his language towards Lana so territorially possessive it gave the impression of her friend being a collectors item instead of flesh and blood.”Heard it was real windy on those atolls.” Gale remarked.

Huston’s smile wavered but only in confusion, no shard of doubt finding its way into his mind that it was derision curling Gale’s lip. “So- London?”

“East Anglia, actually.” Julie dared, “Major Cleven is in need of a ride” that wasn’t exactly true but “and I thought it would mean a great deal to give him a lift.” After a lengthy pause where Jack just stared at her with a smokescreen between them from his cigarette she added, “Great press, too.”

“You soft hearted little dolt.” Jack barked a laugh and it made Julie jump like all his rash emotions did, he pinched her cheek and tickled her ribs right beneath the swell of herbrassier as he went around her to his desk. “Ok, ok, you can have it. I’ll swing by to collect it and maybe get some footage for the documentary. What’s your group?” he asked Cleven.

“100th.”

“Oh, hell, I’ll definitely be swinging by.” Huston whistled, mind already ablaze with prospective press. “And you,” he pointed at Julie with his checkbook poised like a loaded gun, “better find something to do over there besides playing chauffeuring cupid, something that’ll make your mother think you aren’t going off script.” Julie gave him a frantic nod as victory was in sight and he went on, “But I’ll definitely be swinging by, I’ll pick you up, we’ll go back home out of London. Say, first week of May.”

Julie had no capacity to argue with her benefactor and meekly accepted his proffered momentary advance. She could only pray that John Egan would be in East Anglia by then, and she’d know something of her future: whether ‘home’ would depend on men such a Huston and their fickle lust or a steady ever after with an honest man like John.

“Thanks Jack I-I-I won’t forget t-this.” she managed, before they all dashed out the suite, Cleven having to be pulled from measuring up his seedy benefactor, and down to the taxi stand -England bound.

————————————————

Harry Crosby was taking sharp turns down the long runway at a pace and tempo Rosie Rosenthal did not find suitable but they made it alright, just as the anomaly of a jet came to a full stop on the runway, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the utilitarian bombers stacked alongside on the hardstands. When the radio tower had gotten buzzed for landing instructions from a foreign craft everyone had gone a little bizerk with speculation, but the pilot himself put them out of their suspense when he told Kidd that his cargo included The Lana Tierney and a Major Gale Cleven.

Harry had raced Rosie down the stairs to the nearest jeep and had begun to accelerate before his friend even fully landed in shotgun. Now they were just in time to see the hatch opened and the lanky and familiar figure of Gale Cleven drop to the tarmac in a graceful crouch.

“Harry!” He greeted as he straightened, his voice robust even if his constitution appeared battered by captivity, “They still got you at this dump?”

“Fresh outta the stalag Major,” Harry gave him grief back, “and getting dropped off on base in a private plane with Lana Tierney?”

“Yeah,” Rosie added, “What kinda war you been runnin’ anyway?”

Gale laughed off their backslapping greetings before suddenly recollecting, “Oh, right I forget. Ladies?” and turned back to offer his arms for Marge to take and he swung her gently to the ground.

“Boys, this is Marge.”

“Of course it is.” Harry admired with a hand outstretched to shake hers before he peered up into the plane, not being disappointed when he caught sight of a pair of ever so delicate ankles. “Holy mackerel, it is Bucky’s girl.” he blurted loudly as Lana’s angelic face peered back at him, as pristine and fuckable as her photographs but the delectable whole of her was swathed in Egan’s goddamn sheepskin.

“Aren’t you pretty.” Julie Jean admired Crosby right back, liking him immensely already for the fact he recognized her as Bucky’s girl. “Are you also strong?”

“I- I mean, sorta, not as much as-“ Harry stammered before realizing her meaning and so stretched out his arms to be of use, “allow me, Miss Tierney.” he helped her to the ground with a swing that was perhaps the most graceful of his life, gods be good. She was holding a little white bunny and Harry was instantly charmed.

“Thank you.” she kissed his flaming cheek.

“Who’s this?” Harry pet back the floppy ears, if only to have something to do besides gawk, he knew he needed to not gawk at Johnny Egan’s girl in Johnny Egan’s coat even if the girl in the coat was about as mouthwateringly perfect as—

“This,” Julie proclaimed with all the pride of a mother, “is Spangles.”

“You guys weren’t joking when you said Major Egan was pen pals with Lana Tierney?” Rosenthal shot Cleven a bewildered look.

“No, we weren’t.” Gale agreed.

“We should get you situated again.” Crosby rallied after Lana had sent Major Rosenthal siren red from a cheek kiss of his own, Harry was still vibrating under Lana’s assessing looks and the fond weight of her hand in the crook of his elbow, “We did not expect the company of ladies but I’m sure something could be sorted and uh, well, uh, we’ve got your billet, Major and we’ve got your footlocker. Bucky wouldn't let us ship it back to your folks. He kept saying ‘I expect him back.’ Heh, yeah he said his buddy was just MIA is all. Yeah.” Crosby trailed off before asking in a watery voice, “He not make it with you in the breakout? He ok?”

Julie watched Gale’s face go wretched again, truth dangling off his tongue too close to a damnable thing and she gently cut in for him, “He’s alive.” was all she supplied. “When have you ever known Major Egan or Major Cleven to leave behind their boys without either one of them?”

Harry’s eyes glittered dangerously close to tears before he gave a curt nod that so poorly disguised his emotion Julie immediately felt a kinship to him, “Probably just laggin’ behind, primpin’ his mustache for ya. He’ll be here in no time when he catches wind of our esteemed visitor.” Harry had also gone a little drunk under the influence of Julie’s perfume and Rosenthal had to admit it made him a little charming even if the balance could tip into cringeworthy at any moment.

“Oooh a Jeep ride.” instead Julie bounced Spangles gleefully in anticipation of utilizing the boy's regular mode of conveyance, taking a seat between Rosenthal and Crosby, the gearshift between her legs much to Harry’s driving distraction so that- “Gale and Marge can canoodle in peace” in the backseat.

Harry took the scenic route to Cleven’s old barracks, perhaps to give Gale and Marge more time, to brush Julie’s knee more often in shifting down or out of genuine desire to show her each storied handstand and Nissen hut. Probably a mixture of all three knowing Crosby. But the end result was Julie pink cheeked and wide eyed as a child, soaking in every bit of lore about the man she loved and never recalled, a hanky dabbing at errant tears now and again and Spangles being happily allowed to roam between her lap and Rosenthal’s.

Near the end of their little tour they stopped at one hard stand where Major Cleven seemed close to beside himself in joy to reunite with one of the mechanics, there were two children lagging about as well, civilians and Gale was very eager for them to meet his Marge. Not wishing to be aloof, Julie alighted as well and extended her hand to each of the ground crew, learning of their contributions and their marital status. There was a giggly stir amongst the group when suddenly a bouncing ball of fur attacked Gale from the back, bouncing on hind legs and nipping joyfully, it would appear the loving assailant was an overgrown husky.

“Meatball.” Gale sounded about as fond as he had when he first saw Marge and it made the girls titter behind their gloved hands.

Meatball, having exhausted his greeting of his old friend, turned to inspect the other newcomers, licking at Marge’s outstretched hand before turning with great interest to Julie. She was also inclined to stretch out her hand to him and give the pretty baby a good ear scratch when a sudden perk in the husky's face warned of a different interest: Spangles. If Gale had not noticed at the same time, there might have been a rather gruesome outcome but between Julie’s careful pivot with her precious rabbit and Gale’s strong restraint on Meatball’s collar, both pets lived to be reconciled another day.

“Guess we’re gonna have to train him not to think of Spangles as dinner.” Rosie laughed.

Their final stop was at Buck’s old hut, average in every way from the outside as the next cylindrical skinned hut, muddy path outside that the boys kindly spared the ladies by carrying them to the threshold, even if they protested they weren’t scared of a mired heel. Julie walked up and down the rows of beds, feeling the chilly air inside the metal shelter, footlocker names catching her eye as she scanned them. Somewhere behind her Gale was opening his footlocker, sounds of Marge’s pleased murmurs over finding her picture there reaching Julie from the end of the row. They deserved a minute to themselves and Julie had a specific thing she was searching for.

“Lookin’ for something in particular?” Crosby’s kind voice was very near her.

Julie turned and gave the mild mannered major a soft smile, shrugging her shoulders and her bunny before admitting her sentimentality, “I was trying to find John’s bunk. Felt like I might- know it somehow. But I’ve come up at a loss.”

“Oh he wasn’t in here.” Harry informed her, he always seemed beyond eager to talk about Egan and it warmed her, “He was with the 418th, you know, so he bunked with his boys. When he bunked at all.” He added as an afterthought and Julie’s mind went to all the letters she’d gotten from John dated with a slash between entries, as he wasn’t sure which date to sign as he began most of them at night and finished them at dawn. “Though he hung out here plenty to be with Buck and the other way around.” Harry added.

“Do you, do you think-“ Julie began, feeling shy despite how moderate she knew her request was.

“Wanna see his bunk?” Harry lept at her unspoken desire, “We kept his footlocker, too. We were all too scared to open it after he’d threatened us about your property in it.” Crosby’s creasing cheeks were flaming pink and Julie wanted to pinch them, then he went on, “And for the same reason we hated to send it to his mother. I mean, who knows what was in there, I mean, you’d know what but, I’m not saying there’s anything bad I just, we just-“

“Major Crosby, Harry, I’d love to see it.” Julie took his arm and he swallowed his tongue to shush himself, “Have you got the key?”

“I know a man with the keys.” Harry demurred his own influence yet his smile was sly.

“Major Crosby,” she murmured again as they slipped away from Gale and Marge’s preoccupied chat on his bunk and back out into a misting afternoon, the jeep left for them by a considerate Rosenthal, “I want it known I like you very much.”

Another metal hut. Nothing remarkable from the rest, but to Julie, stepping inside with Crosby at discrete hovering distance, it felt as hallowed as a cathedral. He stood here, he slapped this doorframe, knocked his fool head on that beam, paced a hell of a furrow between these bunks. Crosby had been generous with the anecdotes on the way over, and Julie had allowed herself to pester him, he liked it she could tell, and so she knew that Major Egan spent little time in here anyway, except to occasionally sleep, to dress and to read her letters.

Three of the most intimate activities she could conjure up, one’s she’d laid in her own room and imagined him doing. Basic, human, unpretentious necessities, she imagined John at them all the time until she felt like she’d truly played voyeur: the straightening of a tie, the scratching of an itch, the bleary coming to with a face down in the pillow.

He did those things here. Crosby was scraping a hefty metal thing from under one of the nondescript beds, and with a catch in her breath Julie realized it was his footlocker. “We couldn’t bear to stow it away, all the rookies who slept here after him had to deal with it. This was Major Egan’s bunk, they were just passing through.”

All the rookies. All of them. That meant many had slept here and then, truly passed through, passed on, a fiery death and mud hard landing. Sometimes she felt like the only girl in the world who’d lost something, and then she got told of rookies passing through his bunk and she thought of their mama’s who’d never allow their rooms to become the “spare.” Those rooms would always be theirs, even if they never came back. Just like John’s bunk.

But he was coming back. He had to.

“I-I imagine you’d like a moment to go through it.” Crosby had turned the key but left it dangling there, lid ponderously shut, Egan’s threats of evisceration and testicular imbibement still hanging loudly in the air for Harry, as if not a week had gone by since the last threat. No one looks into Major Egan’s footlocker.

“Yes, I would.” Julie whispered.

“Think you can manage the lid?” Harry hoped she’d not ask him to open it for her, that was too close to losing his balls for comfort. Jean needed them.

“I think I can.” Her voice was weak and her hands a little shaky but she wanted it, and what she wanted she always managed to find strength for. “I’d like to spend a little time in his bunk. Just -just to think of him.” she found herself saying, forgetting to blush under Crosby’s understanding gaze.

“Of course.” he didn’t bat an eye. “I-I could, I could take Spangles for you.”

A laugh bubbled out, “Why, you think I’ll need both hands?” Julie teased.

“Major Egan always did.” Crosby teased right back and Julie never would have suspected so puppyish a man could wear so lewd a look, it made her heart flip flop pleasantly.

“Shh, you’re awful!” She swatted at him with a beaming smile that she knew did the opposite of discourage him. “Take care of him, and get him somewhere warm.” she charged him with her pet, handing over the dear bunny.

“The officer’s club is two huts down.” Harry told her, “Turn right and it’s the second hut, you can’t miss it. Silver Wings. You’ll need to warm up too and that’s where we’ll be.”

“Alright.” she muttered and watched him leave before the slam of the door confirmed her as alone in vast space. It was chillingly sterile and looming as she turned to his footlocker in desperate need of something less monotonous and impersonal.

The lid was heavy and it had his name printed nearly on it. She kissed the C that stood for Clarence -what kind of middle name was that for a young buck anyways? It made her choke on her laugh before she bruised her fingertips by forcing the metal open. It was well stocked, all various sorts of items one might find in any man’s footlocker, soap that she had already become intimate with the scent of from the fleece of his jacket, a baseball, ever so many playing cards, razors, photographs of what she assumed were his family, a brown parcel that screamed of his mother so she left it untouched and books. A lot of books.

Guys and Dolls by Runyon was on top. He’d said that he was reading it in one of his last letters. She put it on the bunk. And then took out another book, and another, admiring the breadth of his taste, the way knowledge was balanced with humor in the collection, just like him. At the bottom of them she found an odd little wrapped thing in silk that her heart whispered was the thing it was secretly pacing its beats for.

His scarf came undone under her cold fingers and from its little makeshift bundle her envelopes poured out. Not a single one unaccounted for. She scooped them up and sat on the bed, allowing them to fan out, testimony and evidence of how much she cared, confession and declarations inside that could damn her a thousand lifetimes over.

-I love you.

That was the only line missing in them. Oh how she hoped he knew it. One envelope was an oddity. Blank, not from her, conspicuously fresh and unbattered by the postal system. She opened it and with a zap of arousal spied her photographs inside. She took them with her as she carefully laid back on the pillow. Sheets had been changed, pillows no doubt swapped, it wasn’t his bunk in more than metal and history but she laid there and held up the black and white prints and imagined him doing the same. The way her figure silhouetted against the hut’s curving ceiling, the patter of rain on the metal roof, the dismal gray light filtering through.

The fact he’d found inspiration to write her such stirring things from so blank a place suggested what kind of mind he had and she had ached, ached for him to not be restrained to suggesting only, but to doing, acting on every wickedly wonderful impulse his pen had confided. The throb grew so badly she wept, clutching and creasing the photographs to her breasts -they were so worn from his constant tracing and kissing and sticky with his smearing that a few more bends would be of no consequence. She pressed them to her face, wondering if she could smell his appreciation off the lewder ones. She could not, if she were being honest, but she felt her nose smudge against something tacky and imagined swallowing.

At the Silver Wings, Harry was trying to recollect if he’d ever been so popular. Maybe when he returned from Breman, they’d all slapped his back and joked about his charting them into a tree and they’d all meant it so admiringly he’d finally felt like he belonged a bit. But that was mostly Ev’s day, as it should have been. And then he’d been promoted, and he’d sent all his friends off into hell, and now days no one but the bartender and Rosie cared for him here as much as he’d have liked.

He should have brought a white rabbit with him sooner.

“The hell did you get that from?” Ev asked him, more intrigued than shocked at this point in the war, little bunny rabbits were a mild apparation.

“This is Spangles Egan.” Crosby informed him, being obtuse just to prove he could be funny when he wanted.

“Egan?” Jack barked from beside the bar, “Who’s naming their pets after Bucky?”

Harry grinned, “Well see, it’s his girl’s rabbit. Which makes it sorta their rabbit. Which means it’s an Egan.”

Ev didn’t look impressed but Jack just looked ever more concerned.

“Lana Tierney is on base and this belongs to her.” Harry finally fessed up although his original explanation still stood as true in his mind.

A repetition of her name and “Acorn? the Acorn?” rose up in the club, a battle between acorns and their varied associations rising up between the old timers, who recalled movie night with John Egan, and the youngsters, who’d spent their recent nights with an ear pinned to her broadcasts.

“Yeah, the ACORN.” Harry confirmed as both stood.

By the time Julie Jean had wiped her cheeks of tears and carefully folded her letters into her coat pocket for safe keeping, snapped the lid of his dear locker and set her sights for the outdoors, she had her face back in place: by the time she entered the Silver Wings, she was everything those service boys had ever dreamed of.

Platinum and cherry lipped and ever so thrilled to see and hug each and every one, Lana Tierney was well and truly in the house and those who knew it whispered amongst themselves about “Bucky’s girl.”

Upon meeting Jack Kidd he received a smattering of kisses on his face as she thanked him endlessly for sending her his jacket.

His laconic, “Glad it made it, ma’am.” was perhaps a little thicker than usual.

The newer arrivals couldn’t share any stories they personally had with Major Egan but they were more than happy to share stories told to them regarding the leader. Like how he paid off that one farmer after Meatball slaughtered his chicken. Or how he let a man from the village throw a dart at the apple above his head. From then on it continued and Lana delighted in hearing stories of her man told over and over again, of the impact he carried with these brave men and the life he brought to the crew. She sat in the middle of all of them as they regaled her with tale after tale, and she only wished he was there to tell the story from his perspective. She was sure he would have the most vibrant commentary.

“… told me he’ll buy me a jacket just like his,” one of the boys was telling Lana when Gale and Marge entered the Silver Wings. They were both flushed and her lipstick was on the collar of his jacket. “Major Cleven!” The soldier stood to attention at the sight of his superior being back.

Gale patted him on the shoulder, “At ease, soldier. And don’t go buying another ugly jacket like his. One on base is enough.”

“Major Egan said it’s about how one wears it.”

“I’m sure he did,” Gale returned, looking over how it currently cocooned Lana’s form. He took in the sight of her surrounded by over a handful of young boys and men, all eyes gawking at her and vying for her attention. Even Ev Blakely was seated beside her with his chin propped on his fist. He looked close to a lovesick idiot. “Now I’m sure you boys don’t want me telling Bucky you were all over his woman while he’s away. I trust you are being polite and proper and nothing else.”

Once again Lana beamed at being labeled as Bucky’s woman or Bucky’s girl. She had never felt so damn proud than in those moments; not even the achievements of Lana Tierney compared. If it was up to her she would gladly belong to Bucky Egan for the rest of her life.

But she also couldn’t shake the feeling of how wrong it felt to be there without him. He was supposed to be the one showing her the base. He would have loved to invite her to his bunk. He would take her to his favorite pub and introduce her as his girl to all the people in his life and having to do any of those greetings and events without him was only managing to further break her heart. Bucky would be so proud to show her around; she wouldn’t take that chance from him. As much as possible, she’d save that for him or not have it at all.

“Rosenthal says he knows a family who can put you and Marge up in the countryside,” Gale informed her. “They’re real big fans of you, he says. It only takes about twenty minutes to get there and back so you ladies can come down to base any time or, uh - I could go visit up there, as well.”

His cheeks tinted pink at his last admission, like anyone would bat an eye at Gale Cleven taking a day’s leave to visit his girl after everything he had recently endured. Julie Jean had half a mind to lock Gale and Marge in a room and let them have at each other, all propriety and waiting for marriage be damned. She didn’t begrudge their beliefs one bit, she saw the passion the two carried for one another and although she had never been in her Johnny’s presence, she knew all the longing and desire and love she had for him would have her undressing and bowing before him in seconds. She would gladly kneel before her man and knowing John Egan would just as happily do the same, settled any feelings of womanly resentment or weakness. Gale and Marge’s pent up passion made one wonder at the fire and electricity that would erupt their wedding night. Julie felt hot under the sheepskin collar simply thinking about it.

“I’m sure Marge would love having you come, sir,” she cajoled, patting the fist he rested on the table between them. Gale didn’t seem all too amused by her sentiments as he narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, hush! I mean coming to visit. Get your mind outta the gutter, Buck Cleven!”

Gale sent her a look that said he didn’t believe a word out her lying little rosebud of a mouth. She was all mischievous passion under the dusting of make-up.

“Uh huh. I’m going to have my hands full with you and Bucky,” he states with a head nod, like he’s already resigning himself to the fact. There’s a comment on the tip of Julie Jean’s tongue - something about how happy Bucky would be to fill Buck’s hands and how she’s sure he’d enjoy watching Buck touch Julie - but she bites it back. She means no disrespect towards Marge and her loyalty is only to Johnny. She’s also no idiot and the love the boys carry for one another knows no bounds or familiarity, yet, if they wanted to choose to be blind and ignore it, who was she to step in on what they had going on?

Her eyes settled on the bruise on his neck once more and Gale seemed to feel her looking, tucking his neck further into the collar of his coat. Julie Jean bit back a smile. She didin’t want Bucky’s best friend to think of her as mean.

“John Egan is my best friend,” Gale started suddenly, and for a moment Julie Jean wondered if this is where he professes his love for the man or if he was going to interrogate her on behalf of his best friend’s best interests. Turned out to be the latter. “He’s got a real big heart, Bucky. Wears it on his sleeve and gives and gives and never expects anything different than what you give him back in return.” Gale had pondered that a lot over the years. How Bucky was always so openly affectionate and loud in his love and trust in their friendship and how Buck never managed to give that back to him until the end during the train ride. Curt was like that too and Buck wonders if that’s why the two men clicked so easily and never shied away from any of the jokes or weird looks. “If you aren’t here to stay, Miss Turner -” and by stay they were both aware he meant for forever. “- then maybe you shouldn’t be here when John gets back.”

Julie Jean clocked Marge at the center of the club, preoccupied under the arm of Douglass as he no doubt regaled her with stories of their brave Majors, and for Buck to stay away from Marge -she wondered how long he had been planning to say this. Waiting for a moment of privacy to lay it out on the table and not upset Marge while doing so, because this was between them.

“I don’t feel comfortable sharing my feelings with you when Bucky himself hasn’t had the chance to hear them,” she admited, tears burning the back of her eyes again. She took in a deep breath. “He had to have known though, right? Be honest with me, you know him better than anyone and he loves you the most and you him. Do you think he knew, Buck?”

Once again Gale wondered what on earth John must have written in his letters for this woman to understand and suspect the deep nature of their relationship so completely. It was just like him - a stone in Gale’s shoe even when he wasn’t aware.

There was a hope in her glistening eyes that Gale was aware can be crushed by him. He’d never felt so much like father than he did now.

He had no interest in hurting this sweet woman who embraced John and Gale and Marge exactly for who they are. This selfless woman who he was so thankful brought Marge to Paris. A gorgeous woman who kept John mildly sane in the camp when there was no hope - an, admittedly, tempting woman as Buck recalled the photo he picked up from the floor all those years ago. His thumb pressed against her black and white nipples -it had a flush setting in and he had to avert his gaze.

“He knew, Julie. He knows.” Truth of the matter is, Gale knew John was aware. John, who was self deprecating and going crazy stuck in the camp, with not enough sky or land to keep him occupied but who woke up every day and tried to stay alive and out of trouble because of a pinky swear he had made to the woman sitting across from Gale currently. John was frightened and he fought against believing it at his darkest times but Gale remembers times when John would stand too close to the fence and guards would point their guns, images of John getting pushed and provoked but one thing always brought him back from that point of no return. Julie Jean Turner. If John didn’t believe he had love to return, he wouldn’t have bothered.

Julie released a breath neither realized she’d been holding waiting for his response.

“What about your fiancé?” Buck asked.

“What about him?” Julie returned. “In my line of work, Major Cleven, a fiancee is the only guarantee against a husband. One ya don’t want. I can tell you this, there’s one man in my future, there’s only been one man since the one letter I got on the 18th, years ago. One sweet man who calls me acorn and tells me he adores me and asks me for naughty pictures in exchange for him staying alive.”

“And you’re okay with that? With him asking?”

“He doesn’t need to ask. I’d do it anyway. But he loves me so he still asks.” Sitting across from his best friend, she’m was near glowing in the love Johnny had for her. Gale wouldn’t give her the time of day if it wasn’t real.

“I’m glad we had this chat,” Julie slowly eased back into being Lana Tierney before Gale’s very eyes, a charming smile on her face with white teeth glinting behind her red stained lips, looking every bit the movie star like when he’d seen her on film or in magazines. She looked different than in the photos she sent Bucky. In those she always looked younger, vulnerable, needy even. “Now that I've got your approval I can breathe easier, Major.” She teased him and he managed a bashful smirk.

“He’s got two protective sisters and a momma who turns his world,” Buck warned in jest and that was how Marge found them at the table. Julie warm and beaming at the thought of hearing about his family and getting to meet them one day. Bucky hadn’t been shy to tell her his mom was his best friend before Buck came along and she was the only one able to keep him out of trouble.

—“Not scared of no Colonel’s or SS officer’s - they haven’t met my momma he wrote in a letter one time. She’s a one woman army.”

Julie took the conversation she had with Buck and held on to hope even when time continued passing and no word of Bucky reached them. She kept the promise she made to herself - she refused to spend any more time on base or at the officer’s club or at any spots Bucky wrote about in his letters to her, because she wanted to wait for him. Instead she spent time with the boys when they visited her and Marge at the swanky estate with the kind English family. In order to appease her mother she booked performances at local bars where they are more than happy to accommodate her and the hordes of army boys that followed her around.

The first week of May arrived and Julie found herself white knuckling her mic in anticipation of Huston showing up any minute and whisking her off. She was not sure if she was sadder about being torn away from her vigil as she was terrified of being stuck back in an enclosed plane cabin with that man for over a day. Marge too, began to fret a little on the second day of the month when Gale told her he was going to be flying mercy missions to Holland. He was too happy about and too assuring about its safety for her to question him, but it was hardly assuring with a war still on.

But Marge knew better than to show that, so she went to Thorpe to wave him off and watched him at his craft while Julie went further north to help co-host a charity event for servicemen’s families. The joy had gone out of it, worse than Paris, she used to be decent at distracting herself with the task at hand but as her days flitted by as uncaring and ephemeral as dreams, the end of the first week of May came in sight, and nothing could keep her mind off John Egan and the heartbreaking notion of not meeting him. Not even the supreme pleasure of dueting with Vera Lynn. All that honored pleasure made her think of was how much her John would have enjoyed listening to it.

Huston came on the sixth. He also left on the sixth. And he didn’t loiter at Thorpe to interview anyone. There were bigger fish to fry out near the Solomon Islands, according to him, and he was off to film it and at his side was an intrepid little secretary he’d met in Paris and thoroughly vetted in between his sheets.

Julie wondered if he’d entirely forgotten her own existence, an unlikely thing, seeing as how she was the entire reason his plane was in East Anglia, but as she was removed at a distance from Thorpe and he had a new adventure and a new lover, perhaps it was a happy case of out of sight out of mind. She breathed easier the minute she heard that he was off in a roar over to another hemisphere.

And right after, or later that evening to be precise, interrupting a charming dinner of rationed butter and plentiful pheasant, was a phone call from mother. The gig was up, in as many words, Huston had lost interest, the fiancée had only gained more and that of the suspicious sort, and mother wanted to know what on earth there was in bombed out England for Julie to find time and payment for. Julie had to list a growing set of fabricated engagements for her mother to even countenance another day spent there, working her name-dropping way up from canteens to a dazzling venue in London which gained her a hem-hawing allowance of three more days.

All the while keeping her sane and functional was one singular thought : John Egan coming home. It was terribly cruel and unfair of the world to have him be within her fingertips, to finally allow her to land in Europe, and then to take him so far away again. Sending his best friend back and leaving him behind felt like the punchline to the joke that was so obviously her heart.

Take that, the universe was saying, you still don’t get to have him, spoiled girl. In her lowest of times, right before she went on stage or nights that she spent having everyone around her praise her she wondered if fame was the price for her man. She didn’t want it either way; she wanted him always.

“Take it all away,” she prayed one night, once her tears had dried and her pillow was soaked and the smell of him on his jacket had wafted, “I only want him. I only need him.”

Meanwhile mother chided, “Have them send me the details on the honorariums, you’ve lost your head over there girl, just like I knew you would, I warned you, remember how I warned you? You’ve lost your head and you’ve grown very lax about these things. Make them send it to me before you even put your foot out for them to applaud, if it’s not top notch we aren’t doing it. And afterwards, you’re coming home and we’re getting this wedding settled. I’ve already got the dressmaker holding a nice dove gray-“

It all blended together in the end, her own lies and her mother’s requirements and in abashed desperation she had managed to plead and finagle Herb to actually book her into “something swanky in London, anything Herb, I just need it to be legitimate to stave her off!”

It was cruel torture to say goodbye to everyone at Thorpe, Julie took her sweet time with it and permitted herself to get a little sniffly about it. This prompted a flurry of produced tissues and solicitous hugs and assurances of Major Egan’s love. It made her sorely tempted to curl into a ball of sheepskin and hide in a footlocker in this nice place till doomsday -let the world try and find her if they dared.

“Send me word!” she charged Gale and Croz, gripping jacket sleeves for extra emphasis, “If he gets back -I’ll still be in London until late tomorrow. Send a telegram, call, whatever you must. Even if you just hear of him, you must tell me, you must! I’ll -I’ll change everything for him. If he comes, I’ll leave it all and come back. Tell him that.”

On the way to the airport Julie Jean only had their promises to do so reverberating in her head and Spangles on her lap to keep her warm. Croz’s eyes had been sadder than she’d ever seen them, sadder still then when he had asked Gale why Major Egan hadn’t followed him back home. And Buck - oh, sweet, virtuous Buck Cleven who had pulled her into his arms tightly and whispered promises of Bucky’s love and intents for their future in her ear. He had spent the entire week thanking Julie for making it possible that Marge stay with him longer with no worry for money or anything back home but in the moments where they had said goodbye, the last words he had left her with were only of Bucky.

Leaving Marge was no easy feat either. The girls had wobbled in their heels and held onto one another tightly and cried and laughed whilst feeling so ridiculous because they were aware the friendship they had formed was for life. Julie wasn’t sad to leave Marge - the only sad part of leaving was losing another piece of John - most of her sadness stemmed from having to be thrusted back to the land of selfish vultures with no care for her after being around the loveliest humans she had ever met. Everyone had been sure to level Spangles with kisses and cuddles and assuring him they would tell his father stories of the joy he brought to base.

“I’ll be sure to give him a stern talking to for getting back so late!” Marge had insisted, clutching at the jacket she had never seen Julie without. “That Bucky Egan - it was bad enough when he changed my Gale’s name. I’m not the pen-pal type, that’s what he told me the night he shipped out. He had no idea you were right around the corner, Julie Jean.”

Her heart beat with the hope that she would never make it to the airport but now here she was. Julie Jean had convinced herself there’d be something happening that would stop her reaching their destination. The driver wouldn’t arrive. Her mother would call to inform of a high paying job. The sky would fall. Bucky would run in front of their vehicle and announce he was back. Anything. But no, none of that happened. The traffic was light and the drive was quick and every step she was taking was a step further away from the future she wanted. Away from her Johnny.

Julie Jean would have to marry Vincent. None of her future children, if they allowed her any, would be safe. Her mother would never relent. The studios would never stop demanding. With each passing thought her vision began to blur and the breaths she was taking came out quicker. On her own accord, she felt herself reach for Herb’s arm in order to maintain her stance. Paparazzi were snapping photos and journalists were yelling and a few regular folks had came out to speak with her - everyone unaware she was losing the love of her life and any chance of happiness.

Bucky had promised her babies. Bucky had promised her safety. “I’d marry you first chance I got,” he had written one letter when she teased possibly visiting Europe. They had been hopeless fools in love and the world wouldn’t relent to them it seemed. She was never going to get any of that.

“We’re almost there,” Herb reassured with a sympathetic pat to the hand gripping his suit, opening the door to allow her entry. “The cameras will know you were poorly from the change in weather and tired from the shows.”

Inside the airport she didn’t feel any better but at least there were no people there to yell in her face. Herb had led her inside a private room and had been sure to lock the door behind him and now he was allowing her silence and her grievance for what might have been. She clutched the jacket tighter around herself where she had curled up on a reclining chair, Spangles asleep on the open spot beside her. This would be all she ever had. And even maybe this they would take away. After all, they had taken away her letters.

The only way they will get this off me is if they pry it off my cold, dead body.

There was a knock on the door and whispers following it. “If it’s the press I’m not pretty enough to be looked at, Herb.” She said. Her make up was running and her hair was disheveled and hiding inside the thick coat of the jacket certainly wasn’t helping the heat in her face but Julie Jean didn’t care.

She was allowed to be heartbroken. John had always told her he would take all her moods, even when she wasn’t behaving like the Hollywood starlet her mom conditioned her to be.

Herb answered the door then, but only a crack so that he was able to see the person on the other side but allow no one to look inside. He excused her, saying the traveling and working hadn’t left her feeling her best but offering her apologies to England. Whoever was on the other side of the door was clearly disconcerted. Star-struck, possibly at getting so close. Their words were breathy and they were stuttering. Julie Jean could faintly make out them saying they adored her but actually - and everything else couldn’t be discerned. Whatever it was, it held Herb’s attention long enough that the door remained open a couple more seconds before he thanked the person and turned to Julie Jean.

“Well,” the tone in his voice, amusement for the first time all evening, had Julie Jean turning in her seat. Taking her face out of his jacket for the first time. There was a paper held in his hand, brown with an approval stamp from the army and the English postal service. “This certainly changes things.”

Julie Jean quickly stood to her feet, approaching Herb with her hands outstretched so she would reach the mail even before she was next to him. She startled poor Spangles who had been deep in sleep, causing him to hop to the floor. Herb wasn’t a cruel man, not to Julie Jean he wasn’t - he extended his own arm so it was within her grasp even faster.

Julie Jean [stop] hope this finds you well and in Europe [stop] Major John Egan is back [stop] Has returned to Thorpe Abbots [stop]

Sincerely,

Major Harry Crosby

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