Sentimental Journey (Home Front - Book #1) Read Online Free Page A

a friend or loved one beneath the golden clock that hung over the information desk at Grand Central Station?
    How glad Catherine was to escape her bedroom and get out!
    It had been a long time since she had fussed with her hair and her lipstick or worn a dress as pretty as the tight-waisted cornflower blue that just skimmed her knees. War restrictions on clothing had taken much of the fun out of dressing up. No more full skirts. Pleats were outlawed, as were cuffs on men’s pants. Even double-breasted coats were gone for the duration. Nancy had appealed to her sense of family loyalty. “All of Daddy’s friends from the squadron are going to be there, Cathy. Don’t you want him to be proud of you?” her little sister had asked, sending Catherine back into her closet in search of something more special than her sober workaday dress.
    The rediscovery of her femininity came as a powerful surprise. She’d forgotten how wonderful it felt to primp before the mirror and actually smile at the reflection she saw there. The sweetheart neckline bared her collarbone and each time she turned her head, her hair brushed against her skin. She remembered the time that Douglas daringly pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat and—
    “Will you look at them?” Nancy asked over the rumble of the subway train. “Acting like newlyweds!”
    Catherine looked at her parents who were sitting together on a bench a few feet from where she and Nancy stood clutching the leather straps overhead. Her father looked handsome in his army uniform and the strange new haircut; her mother, lovely in a filmy dress of sea green, looked as proud of him as if he were a four-star general.
    Suddenly she didn’t want to think of goodbyes, of the war and the dangers lurking everywhere. She definitely didn’t want to think about the jittery feeling that had been haunting her the past few days. She wanted to think of music and dancing, of spending an evening with the family she loved. Impulsively she gave her little sister a quick hug, almost losing her balance as the train careened around a curve, then slowed as it neared the station.
    “You look so glamorous tonight, Nance.” She smiled at the cloud of Evening in Paris that fairly surrounded the girl. “Gerry Sturdevant should only see you now.”
    Nancy blushed as red as the roots of her hair. “Don’t tease me, Cath.”
    “I’m not. You look grand.” She glanced down. Nancy’s very best shoes, a pair of white pumps, glistened with Shinola polish. “How are your stockings holding up?”
    Nancy laughed out loud. “It better not rain. I’d die of embarrassment if my makeup runs.”
    Stockings were currently in short supply, for the government was using nylon to make powder bags for explosives. These days American women wore bobby sox and anklets and knee socks, or they went bare-legged. On special occasions like tonight, enterprising females applied Dorothy Grey’s Leg Show in sheer or suntan to their legs to simulate stockings. Catherine had painstakingly sponged the thick foundation onto her sister’s ankles and calves and knees, getting into the same spirit of excitement that held the teenager in thrall.
    Fortunately the weather was splendid. They climbed up the concrete subway steps, laughing at the Hold Your Hats! sign in the stairwell, to find the evening sky a beautiful mixture of pink and blue and flame orange. Women in snugly fitted suits and feathered hats walked arm in arm with gentlemen whose temples were as gray as their own summer suits. Sailors lingered at the corner of Forty-second Street, whistling and calling out “Hubba, hubba!” as a trio of pretty nurses walked by. “Mairzy Doats,” the nonsense song that had taken the country by storm, floated out from a radio blaring inside Tad’s Steak House, while moviegoers queued up at Radio City Music Hall to see Jean Arthur in The More The Merrier .
    “Actor dies in airborne attack!” cried the headlines on the papers being