at the endless blue sky and wondered if it was sunny in Chicago. She thought of a small boy and sparkly sequins and all the other precious things she had left behind, perhaps forever.
“I wonder where we’ll end up.” Marcie scrunched her nose. “I hope not England. I hear the weather there is awful. Rainy, gloomy . . .”
“On the other hand, we’d at least speak the language.”
“Ugh. I hadn’t thought of that. I hope we don’t land in North Africa, then. I don’t know a word of African.”
“I think French might work there, too. At least that’s what I gathered from watching Casablanca.”
“I didn’t get to see that movie. Once Mama heard it was about a love triangle involving a married woman, that was that!”
“I think it was about more than just that,” Vi said dryly.
“In any case, I don’t speak French, either.”
“Well, don’t look at me.” Vi stretched her arms over her head to ease the cramp in her back. “I only know German, and heaven forbid we ever end up playing for Nazis!”
“Unless we were spies.” Excitement lit Marcie’s eyes. “Do you think you could teach me? Then we could go undercover and smuggle out secrets. It’d be so much more glamorous than being a mere chorus girl.”
“So much more dangerous, you mean.”
“But think of the fun.” Marcie sat up straighter, her eyes widening. “Ooh, can you imagine if we get sent to Italy?”
“Why?” Vi said dryly. “Neither one of us speaks Italian. Though, come to think of it, Luciana might.”
“Bah! That contadina wouldn’t fool anyone as a spy.”
Vi blinked, startled by the unfamiliar word. “Canta deena? Is that some kind of female singer?” Her Latin was pretty rusty, but she was pretty sure “canta” had something to do with singing.
“Singer?” Marcie laughed in genuine amusement. “Well, I suppose in a way I can see how you got that. But it’s not canta, but conta.” She stressed the longer vowel. “Contadina, which is Italian for . . . well, farmer or peasant.”
“Luciana is a farmer?” Vi asked casually, even as her pulse raced. In all the weeks they had known each other, this was the first time Marcie had given even a hint of her real identity—assuming Sal and she were right and Marcie really was Angelina Maggio. She decided to give her travel buddy a little push into disclosing more. “So how is it an Irish girl knows Italian?”
Marcie wrinkled her nose. “Irish? Whatever made you think that?”
“Well, your last name, for one. The Mays I’ve met were from Ireland.”
“Really?” Marcie’s gaze slid away. “I had no idea.”
“So ‘farmer,’ eh?” Vi tucked the word into her memory, not buying Marcie’s evasion about her ancestry.
“It’s considered a bit of an insult, so be careful using it,” Marcie warned.
“Why?” Vi asked, surprised. In Iowa, farming was a venerated profession.
Marcie shrugged. “It just is.”
“You still haven’t said how you learned the word,” Vi reminded the girl. For someone who said she couldn’t keep a secret, her travel buddy was proving remarkably cagey about her Italian roots.
Marcie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t hard. I mean, there’s no way someone can grow up in Brooklyn without picking up a few words of Italian here and there. Particularly insults and swear words.”
“Kind of like how I know all kinds of improper words in German thanks to growing up in a town chock-full of German immigrants,” Vi said with a wry laugh.
“Just so!” Marcie laughed and grabbed Vi’s hand, giving it a squeeze in her excitement. “I’m telling you, if the show flops, we should become some kind of spy duo.”
Vi shook her hand free. “No thanks. The life of intrigue might appeal to you, but I want to get home again as soon as possible.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you leave a fellow behind?” Marcie’s eyes rounded in sudden compassion, the mercurial mood shift so typical of the girl, Vi almost laughed, despite the ache in her chest.
“Yeah. I guess you could say that,” she said, thinking of Jimmy and then trying not to think about how far she had traveled from him.
“I wish I had someone waiting for me to come home.” Marcie looked out over the ocean, her expression wistful. “At least someone I liked.”
Vi pulled herself back to the present. “Not just some fellow your parents picked out?”
Marcie nodded, and then she glanced back. “Is it so awful I want to marry for love?”
“Love is overrated,” Vi said flatly, her memories of Robert less than romance inspiring. “And so is