For a moment, she couldn’t speak as a familiar pain sliced through her, awful and inescapable. She closed her eyes, focused on the feel of the sun on her skin, the sound of the gulls overhead. Breathe, Vi. She didn’t know. She opened her eyes. “Children aren’t an option for me. I suffered an injury when I was fifteen that made it impossible.”
As Marcie’s eyes widened in shock, Vi forced herself to smile.
The news, when she learned it, had devastated her. It had come up as she was being discharged from the hospital after Jimmy’s birth. She could still see the serves-you-right glint in the doctor’s eyes as he explained how complications during the admittedly difficult delivery had irreparably damaged her. This after she had already given her baby up for adoption, so there was no chance of ever undoing the void that had opened in her soul.
“I’m sorry.” Marcie laid her hand over Vi’s and squeezed gently. “That really stinks.”
Vi blinked back sudden tears. The utter inadequacy of “stinks,” given the awful reality, struck her as both darkly funny and deeply sad. And yet there was nothing she could do to fix it, except go back in time and be someone else, to wit, someone more likely to think before jumping into the unknown with both feet.
“Well, I’ll be . . .” Marcie let go and pointed down the deck. “Am I seeing things, or is Ann actually waving us over to talk to her and Luciana? And look, there’s Sue, too.”
Vi wiped her cheeks and looked where her travel buddy was pointing. Sure enough, Ann was waving them over. “I wonder what’s up.”
“Should we go find out?” Marcie asked.
“If it means no more talk of marriage, absolutely.” Vi jumped to her feet.
By the time they had reached the small group, Gertie and Frances were there, too.
“News,” Ann exclaimed in her perfect East Coast diction as everyone drew near. “Sue finally has some news for us.”
Sue, not looking nearly as excited, frowned at Vi and Marcie. “Why aren’t you two ladies in uniform?”
“Because we were working on our dances,” Marcie said with an airy wave of her hand. “And it’s difficult to get the moves right in army-regulation skirts.”
“You’re not kidding,” Frances said, with a roll of her green eyes. “And the pants aren’t much better; I have to roll them up so far to keep from tripping on them.”
Sue scowled, clearly unimpressed.
“News?” Gertie prompted gently, ever the peacemaker, her worried gaze bouncing between all their faces.
Sue’s expression lightened. “There’s been no official word, but the scuttlebutt”—which was the army slang for gossip—“is that the voyage is almost over and we’ll be landing in two days’ time. So I want you all to get started packing up your things, in case we land earlier.”
“Do we know where yet?” Frances asked, taking Gertie’s arm as if to reassure her.
“Well, it’ll either be North Africa or Italy,” Sue said. “Because see that smudge over there, on the horizon?” Six gazes turned toward the starboard side of the ship. “That’s the coast of Africa. We went through the Strait of Gibraltar last night.”
“Truly?” Even Ann, who never seemed impressed by anything, looked awed by the information.
“Well, if it’s Italy, Luciana here can help translate,” Frances said. “Right, Luciana?”
Luciana didn’t say anything, her gaze fastened on the opposite horizon.
Surprised by the actress’s silence, Vi studied Luciana’s expression for a clue to her thoughts. It wasn’t like Luciana to ignore people. In Vi’s experience, the actress was as kind as she was beautiful, and easy to talk to once one got past her slightly imperious manner. It had been Luciana who had explained Ann’s dislike of the dancers, saying it wasn’t their fault. Ann’s fiancé had run off with a dancer the year before, breaking the blonde’s heart, and she had yet to recover.
Having fallen victim to a man’s lies herself, Vi had utterly forgiven Ann from that point on.
“Well, that’s it, kiddos,” Sue said. “Vi, Marcie—I don’t want to catch either of you on deck out of uniform again.”
And with that last bit of advice, she strode off toward the stairs leading to the upper decks.
“Time to be drab again,” Marcie grumbled. “Think she’ll soften up once we land?”
“Nope. We’re with the army now.” Vi watched the other women drift off on a wave of excited chatter. All except Luciana, who shivered and then glanced around the deck, looking a little lost.