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December 1944
“I hate to admit it but Momma was right. The more things change, the more they do stay the same. Life has become so endlessly repetitious,” Mary Ellen Chambers stated, sending a quick glance at the reflection of her friend, Allie Winchester.
“I know,” Allie agreed, maneuvering to get a look at herself over Mary Ellen’s head. She pouted prettily, patted her wavy blond curls, then stood up straight, turned to the side, and pressed down the pleats over her flat tummy. “Up at five. A quick wash. The same coverall’s, scarf, and boots we wear six days out of seven. I feel like a boy most of the time. Except on Saturday nights, of course. By the way, I ripped my last pair of stockings and I have a date tonight. Do you have a pair I could borrow?”
Looking from Allie’s glowing blonde mane to her own average brown tresses which were a wild cascade of unmanageable curls, Mary Ellen sighed. “Sure. I think I still have a couple of new pairs. It’s not like I ever go anywhere other than church and work so I’m still using my older ones. I’m trying to conserve them.
“With nylon going to make parachutes, it may be some time before we see more at the Five and Dime. So please be careful with them, Al,” Mary Ellen continued, finishing her light makeup with a swipe of Rose Red at her lips. She blotted, studying the new Max Factor color. Smiling in delight at having something new, she returned her attention to Allie, who couldn’t pass as a boy under any circumstances.
Allie had been voted Legend, Tennessee’s most beautiful woman at last summer’s county fair. And rightly so. Petite, blond and curvy, with unusually heavy breasts, men just couldn’t keep their eyes off her. And Allie radiated confidence, something that seemed to fascinate the males of the species as well. They were literally drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
Mary Ellen knew she would never pass as a beauty. Her plain brown eyes were a little too large for her tiny heart shaped face. Her lips were a little too full, with a tiny mole nestled above them to the right that had always drawn men’s eyes, which made her self-conscious. And her figure was nothing special. At five-ten, and weighing all of one hundred and seventeen pounds, her breasts were too small, her waist ridiculously nonexistent, and her legs were just too darn long. When she bothered to wear a shoe with a heel at church she was heads above many of the remaining men in Legend, as she’d always been with boys she grew up with.
She looked at her new lip color again, wondering if maybe it didn’t make her lips look just a little bit prettier. “Lately life seems such a dull shade of gray, this splash of red feels wonderfully frivolous.”
“It’s very nice,” Allie agreed, studying Mary Ellen shrewdly. “Too bad you have no one to transfer it on to. Have you even let Gerald kiss you yet?”
Mary Ellen rolled her eyes, pretending she didn’t care, when in truth this was a subject she had avoided whenever possible. “You are hopeless!”
“No, my dear friend. You are. When are you going to come out with me and play a little? You have to stop being so serious all the time. I know you are afraid, after Donald. Still, you have to stop being a martyr. Life doesn’t have to be so dull. And Donald wouldn’t have wanted that for you either!
“There is fun to be had. Scads of it! Or there would be if you’d ditch Gerald and look at a real man,” she added under her breath.
Ignoring Allie’s comment, as it made her uncomfortable to even think about trying to keep up with her beautiful friend where guys were concerned, Mary Ellen changed the subject. “The coffee has stopped percolating. Help yourself while I try to do something with this hair. Like just about everything else my ration of sugar is gone and Pap’s hasn’t gotten here with the milk truck yet. So it will have to be black.
“Oh, remind me to sit the bottles on the porch before we leave or I won’t have milk tonight either.” She glanced up from studying her wayward hair in the large round mirror, only to find Allie had already left her bedroom to head to the kitchen.
Allie was her best friend and co-worker. It was handy that they both lived on the same street, with only one house standing between them, and that Allie had a scooter with a sidecar which got them to the bus stop at the center of town. There they would wait for the bus that would take them to the factory. The scooter wasn’t the warmest transportation, in the dead of winter, at the foot of a mountain, but it got them where they needed to go in a pinch. And a short cold ride was better than a long cold walk any day of the week.
Since her rental house was so small, and the kitchen was just off the small living room, next to the bedroom, Mary Ellen knew Allie could hear her easily enough. “Oh! Al? The coffee’s nearly gone too, so it’s going to be weak. But we’ll only have time for one cup anyway.”
“Thankfully we’ll all get more on Monday, after the new ration book and tokens get here. Praise the good Lord,” Allie responded from the other room.
Mary Ellen nodded. It would be great to get more supplies as she had used up more than normal in preparation for the Christmas season.
“I promise to be careful with the nylons. I just wish I had a new dress. Wouldn’t that be divine?” Allie added, her voice increasing in volume, indicating that she was returning to the bedroom.
Mary Ellen couldn’t wait to see Allie’s reaction when she got her surprise, but she didn’t want to spoil it by even hinting. She turned to a subject she knew would keep Allie occupied. “By the way, is it Derrick or Mason tonight?”
Allie appeared and sat a small blue flower-patterned china cup and saucer on the round doily covering the vanity’s polished surface to Mary Ellen’s right, then took a sip from her own cup. With a wistful sigh she lowered herself onto Mary Ellen’s floral draped bed. “Mason. Derrick is on his way to the base in Fairmont, Nebraska so he can train to fly a B-29 bomber. The poor thing was nearly in tears as he told me how much he loved me, and that he would never forget me. When he boarded the bus, I felt tears stinging my eyes as well.”
Mary Ellen smiled at her friend’s reflection as she pin-curled her hair tight against her head, then covered it with a polka dotted kerchief. For all her silliness, Allie had such a big heart under that more than ample bosom. “You always leave them in love. And they always leave you in tears.”
Allie leaned forward, her eyes earnest. “Come with me tonight, please. I promise you won’t regret it. There are so many soldiers that need us to entertain them, the poor dears. And a whole new bus load will arrive at the lodge tonight. Mr. Ericson promised a really good band. Frankie Masters and his Orchestra, I think Mr. E said. Last weekend’s band was great. I’m sure this one will be, too.
“You’ll meet someone really nice. I’m sure of it. And some of them are so darned cute,” Allie enthused, her words getting faster as her excitement built. “Then we can all dance the night away, and tomorrow we’ll get them to take us to The Regal. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is playing, starring that dreamy Spencer Tracy. I swear I’d let that man…”
“Okay, enough. I know what you’d let him do.” Mary Ellen laughed at her always comical friend. Allie could talk the leg off a chair but her enthusiasm was endless and brought cheer where there was little these days. If only she could shed the veil of loneliness that had been hanging over her head for so long, Mary Ellen assured herself that she would be a much fun as her friend. She was trying. She really was.
Though the days did seem endlessly similar, today she felt so much lighter of spirit. It was the first time they’d been given the whole weekend off in forever. And in another week the plant would shut down for the holidays until the third of January. Time off was a rare treat and she was planning to get a lot of the things done she had neglected since starting work the year before. Like cleaning out her closets, scrubbing her floors, spending more time with her aging, widowed mother, and maybe even consider letting Gerald Gaither take her out on a real date.
Then there was still so much to do in preparation for the holidays. She had volunteered to help make small gifts for those who would spend Christmas in the hospital where she sometimes worked for a couple of hours on the nights she still had some energy. She needed to finish embroidering the pillow cases for her mother’s Christmas present, though another couple of hours of stitching one evening would take care of that. A little gift for both Pops and Mr. Unther, the postman, were still unchecked on her list, though her mother had volunteered to knit scarves for each man, and allow Mary Ellen to put her name on the gift as well. But she felt she should do a little more herself as they were old friends she had known all her life.
And then there was Gerald. Since they weren’t actually dating, yet, she wasn’t certain what, if anything, was an appropriate gift for him. There was certainly nothing she could give him that he couldn’t get for himself. And she hadn’t decided whether she was going to encourage him any more than she had by accepting his offer of rides home after work.
Fortunately she already had Allie’s present done, having used up nearly a month’s worth of rationing stamps to get the material and other necessary supplies to make Allie a pretty party dress. She’d measured, cut and sewn her heart out for at least an hour each evening for the past month before turning in for the night. But seeing Allie’s face when she received the present would be worth it. Besides, in a way Mary Ellen felt it her contribution to the war effort. Allie made the soldiers in transition from boot camp to their final training grounds so happy. And Allie, in the dress she’d made, would have the soldier’s eyes popping right out of their heads.
Allie moved back into Mary Ellen’s line of sight, her pretty face reflected in the mirror. “Please go with me tonight.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Unlike you, my dear friend, I have no desire to become a soldier’s plaything.” Having done the best she could with what God gave her, Mary Ellen rose from the vanity’s padded bench, pulled on her wool coat, and wrapped the scarf her mother had knitted for her last Christmas over her head, wrapping it around her throat.
Allie rolled her eyes as they headed to the front door. “It isn’t like that. They’re sweet. They miss their families and their sweethearts. Well at least a lot of them do. There are some that think we are available for more than a dance and a movie, but I cut that notion right out of their heads real quick. No soldier is going to get my girdle off until he puts a ring on my finger!”
“Unless he’s Spencer Tracy,” Mary Ellen teased, as she set the wire basket holding the six small milk bottles on her front porch.
Mary Ellen climbed into the sidecar as Allie straddled the scooter. Kick-starting the motorized bicycle, and revving the motor of the small engine with her left hand, Allie nodded. “Oh, Mr. Spencer Tracy could put his hands on me any time,” she yelled over the racket of the bike. “But even he would have to make vows before I’d give him my maidenhead.”
Mary Ellen would have flinched at such vulgar talk if she hadn’t suddenly had her head snapped back. The cold air immediately penetrated her exposed skin, so she huddled deeper into the sidecar as Allie sped across First Street, onto Main. There was no way to have a conversation over the loud engine, so Mary Ellen didn’t even try. Besides, it would have meant she’d have to lift her head, and there was nothing important enough she needed to say to risk exposure to the cutting air or the fumes from the scooter’s exhaust pipe. And Allie wouldn’t listen anyway.
They’d disagreed enough over Mary Ellen’s lack of interest in the soldiers who came and went through Legend on a regular basis. It wasn’t that she wasn’t patriotic. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t lonely. She was, both. Very. But the thought of meeting someone, falling in love, and watching them walk away, knowing there was a good chance they wouldn’t come back alive, was simply unthinkable. Once was more than enough, thank you very much. | 
