CHAPTER FOUR PINS AND NEEDLES
CHAPTER
FOUR
Pins and Needles
Cora sat in her kitchen with Patsy’s nurse uniform spread out over the table. The dress hem wove up and down in a drunken stitch, zigzagging and puckering, making the material bunch and sag.
‘You should have brought it to me in the first place,’ Cora said to Patsy, unpicking the gnarled stitches.
‘I didn’t want to bother you with it.’
Cora rolled her eyes. ‘Next time bother me straight away. It’ll be less work for me.’
Patsy kissed her cheek in a playful thank-you. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’
When Cora had taken the hem down, Patsy ducked into the bathroom to change while Cora found a needle and some navy-blue thread that would be a match for the uniform. She threaded the needle and set it aside, then fished stray straight pins out of her sewing box and added them to her pincushion.
‘Anybody home?’ came the call from the front stoop, followed by a loud rapping on the door frame. She looked up and smiled to see Jasper on the other side of her screen door.
‘Jasper Monroe. Where have you been hiding yourself?’ She hadn’t seen him for months.
Seeing Jasper was like being reunited with part of her old life, back when everything still felt possible.
She pulled him into a tight hug and led him into the kitchen, peppering him with how-have-you-beens and what-are-you-up-tos, but the air between them felt strained.
His easy manner seemed stiff and Cora was glad when Patsy came back dressed in her nurse’s uniform.
‘Hey there, Patsy. I do believe you get prettier every time I see you.’
Patsy shrugged off his compliment with a wave of her hand since Jasper made it a point to flirt with every girl he saw. Cora’s theory was that he did it to make up for not showing the slightest bit of true interest in any of them.
Patsy slapped his arm and told Cora to ‘get this man a soft drink.’
She got them all Cokes but made Patsy stand on the chair to drink hers so that she could fold and pin her hem into an even line. They caught each other up on work and church and mothers. It was Jasper who asked first about the subject they were avoiding.
‘You hear from the guys?’ He delivered the question with a light touch, like they were talking about the weather.
Cora kept her eyes on Patsy’s hem. ‘Un-hun.’ She spoke around the pins in her mouth and took her time to say, ‘Benny shipped out.’ She folded the cloth and pinned it still. ‘And Roscoe’s at a training camp in Tennessee.’
‘Are you sure that’s straight, Cora?’ Patsy said. ‘I’ve got to wear this tomorrow.’
‘Just keep still.’
‘You hear from Lee?’ Jasper said.
Cora felt her face flush. He’d sent so many letters trying to justify why he’d left, and although she couldn’t agree with his reasons, he also assured her he loved her more than anything and asked for her understanding.
Her heart had swelled with surprise and happiness when the first letter arrived and she’d read his words, but then it sank like a stone with the weight of her disloyalty.
She had let herself be convinced he’d been trifling with her, when she should have known he’d been genuine.
So far, she hadn’t found the courage to write him back.
She dreaded admitting she’d married Roscoe because she hadn’t believed in him.
When he found out, it would be over between them.
Lee’s moral code would never allow him to carry on with the wife of one of his best friends, no matter how much he cared for her.
But as long as she didn’t tell him, she could pretend she was still his, and he was hers.
She tucked her head down and pushed in another pin. ‘Lee’s in training camp too,’ she said. ‘Texas.’
Jasper rubbed his hand over his face, pulled out a chair and sat. ‘You haven’t told him.’
It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer it.
‘Don’t you think you ought to tell him?’
‘Okay, Patsy. That should do it.’ She pushed in the last of the pins.
Jasper dug in his back pocket and pulled out a letter. ‘This isn’t fair to Lee. He needs to know you’re married.’
Cora slumped into a seat, a headache playing at her temples. Jasper was right. Of course he was right, but she just couldn’t tell Lee. Her heart thudded in her chest. She should never have agreed to that stupid plan.
‘If you don’t write him, I’ll tell him myself. But he should hear it from you.’
Cora glared at him, and he stared right back.
‘Wait,’ Patsy said, looking from Cora to Jasper. ‘You and Lee? When did that happen?’ She sat across from Cora, arms folded, eyebrows raised.
Jasper waved the letter. ‘According to Lee, it was going on for a while and getting pretty serious.’
Patsy gaped at Cora. ‘How come I don’t know about this? And why did you marry Roscoe?’
An awkward, accusatory silence filled the room. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said, not meeting Patsy’s eye. ‘And, really, it’s nobody’s business but mine.’ She glared again at Jasper.
‘No. It’s Lee’s business too,’ Jasper said. ‘You owe him an answer. He says he’s written you dozens of letters. He thinks you’re mad at him for leaving. He wants me to ask you to write,’ he said, holding the letter up. ‘You need to tell him.’
Cora fought back the tears that pricked her eyes.
She’d started at least fifty letters but wound up ripping each one to pieces.
Instead, she wrote to Benny and Roscoe about Loretta threatening to quit Sunshine Insurance, or about Mr Waycote, the grocer, stepping out with Sister Candice, but never to Lee.
She longed to tell him she missed him, and she loved him, but somewhere in there, she’d have to confess about Roscoe, and she wasn’t ready for him to know what she’d done.
She didn’t think she’d ever be ready for him to know.
‘I’ll write to him,’ she said, rolling the pincushion between her fingers.
Jasper tucked the letter back into his pocket. ‘He never should have gone. All this mess, and for what?’
‘For our country,’ Patsy said. ‘They’re fighting for what’s right.’
Jasper snorted.
‘It’s better than sitting around here doing nothing.’
‘I don’t want to fight with you, Patsy,’ Jasper said.
‘And it’s what I plan to do, too.’
Cora scrunched her brow and looked at her cousin. ‘You can’t join the army.’
‘The Army Nurse Corps needs nurses,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you seen the ads they’re running? You can’t hardly miss them.’
Cora glanced at Jasper, who looked back with worry and surprise in his eyes.
‘You don’t want to do that,’ Jasper said.
‘Patsy, think about this.’ Cora leaned across the table and took her hands. ‘You’ve read how they treat Negros in the army. You don’t want that for yourself.’
‘Benny doesn’t seem to have a problem,’ she said.
‘But Roscoe and Lee—’
‘I’ve already put in my paperwork.’
Cora closed her mouth and let go of her hands.
‘And I’m surprised at both of you,’ Patsy said. ‘Haven’t you been reading about the Double V?’
‘Victory abroad and victory at home.’ Jasper crossed his arms. ‘Seems to me, we need victory at home before we go marching off to stand up to Hitler and Hirohito. Shoot, where do you think Hitler got his ideas on how to handle the Jews? It was from seeing how America handles colored folks, that’s how. Double V my ass.’
‘Well, no one’s asking you to go. But we have men out there, good men like Benny and Roscoe and Lee, who need nurses. So, I’m gonna do my part.’
‘But you’ll be working for the army,’ Jasper said, banging the table with the flat of his hand.
‘What makes you think they’ll treat you any better?
’ He stood, and his anger and frustration filled the small kitchen making it feel crowded with only the three of them.
‘You’ve got a big heart, Patsy, but America doesn’t love you back.
And it’s not gonna start, no matter how many fools get themselves blown apart as cannon fodder. ’
Cora’s breath caught and a flash of fear drained the blood right out of her. Benny and Lee and Roscoe were fine, she told herself for the millionth time, but her fingers and toes were ice.
Patsy jumped to her feet, hands balled into furious fists. ‘Shut up, Jasper.’
He backed away from them, hands spread open in apology, his face tinged with regret. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.’
Cora couldn’t speak. She wanted him to go. She squeezed the pincushion and felt the prick of a pin as it pierced her thumb. She squeezed harder, wanting to be in control of her distress, regulate her pain.
‘Cora, they’re gonna be fine,’ Jasper said, his hollow words echoing flatly through the kitchen.