Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online Page A

to say,” Louise said.
    “Aw, he was a creep,” Tish said.
    Both of her sisters stopped walking and turned to stare at her.
    “Well, it’s true. Oh, I know how you two feel. At first when you go to these dances, you think every guy in there is wonderful. Because you feel sorry for them, where they have to go and what they have to do. But after a while you realize that just because a guy’s a soldier it doesn’t mean he’s a peach. Some of them are ugly on the outside, and some of them are ugly on the inside, and some of them are both.”
    “Tish!” Louise cried.
    “It’s true! Most of them are good guys, but some are drips! I noticed you only danced with handsome men, Louise. And Kitty stayed with the same guy the whole night! In fact, I’m going to tell Julian, and let’s just see what he thinks about that.”
    “Good luck finding out anything from him,” Kitty said. She’d gotten only one letter from Julian so far, and he hadn’t said much—he’d said so little, in fact, that Kitty had the letter memorized:
Hi de ho, doll. All things considered, I’d rather be golfing. Off the rattler and onto the ship, off the ship and straight into hell. But don’t worry about me; now that Michael and I have joined the party, licking these goons will be eggs in the coffee. It’s going to take some time, though—a long time, I’m afraid. Well, kid, I’ve got to drift. More later. Love, Julian.
    It would take a long time, he’d said. How did he know? What was happening that he couldn’t talk about? Of course, none of the men could talk about the specifics of what was going on over there, everyone knew that, and if you ever forgot, there’d be some gigantic face on a poster with her finger to her lips, warning you not to let any secrets fall into enemy hands. There was one poster of a drowning sailor, the caption at the bottom saying SOMEBODY TALKED ! Oh, that was a terrible one. The sailor was a handsome blond man, and the sea was so dark and threatening. Another poster showed a motherly woman in an apron over the caption WANTED FOR MURDER. She’d blabbed to the enemy, and now look.
    Sometimes, although she never told anyone, Kitty felt weary of it all. What enemies? Where were they? In line at the supermarket? Behind her in the movies? At a desk next to her at work? And what was the use of having plane spotters in Chicago? “Nobody knows how far they could fly in,” her father had said, but he didn’t fool Kitty—he didn’t think for a moment that Chicago was in danger of being bombed. Still, he did his part as an air-raid warden. For how could you ever know for certain? So much evil was suddenly in the world, so many impossible things happening. She wished she could grab Adolf Hitler by his ear and say,
“Stop
that!”
    Love,
Julian had said, signing off. He’d said the word. Well, written it. He’d never done that before. She’d been with Julian a long time; certain things were assumed, but they were never said. Kitty was certainly not going to write “I love you” first, and neither was Julian, apparently. She’d asked Louise once if Michael ever told her he loved her, and Louise had said, “Well, of course! Doesn’t Julian tell you?” And Kitty had said yes, he did. But not in those words. “He has to say
those
words,” Louise had said.
    Kitty had traced the word Julian had written with her fingers, thrilled and uneasy both. What did it mean, really? What was he thinking when he wrote it? How did he look? Was he alone? Was he smiling? Was his face serious? What did love really mean, anyway? Of course, she loved Julian, too, but what did it
mean
?
    Kitty pulled the ugly cardigan more tightly around her. Now she was glad to have it. What had started out as a mild May evening had turned chilly.
    Tish was still going on about squealing on her. “That’s the first letter I’m going to write tonight,” she said. “I’m going to tell Julian how you danced every dance with a handsome