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It was the answer Avis had anticipated, though precious few other establishments were actually following the guidelines. “If I could at least have another staff member. Someone to help with the shelving and cataloguing.”
The older woman frowned. “Don’t you already have an assistant?”
Could she really have forgotten? “Arlo joined the navy six weeks ago.” Which Avis had told Miss Cavendish twice now.
The flicker on Miss Cavendish’s face might be hopeful. Or she might have been suppressing a sneeze. Who could say with a woman as much made of stone as the bust of Caesar by the history section?
“I will consider it,” Miss Cavendish said at last. “Now, if you would help me arrange chairs for the meeting?”
“What meeting?” Avis kept a precise record of library events—which were rare, these days—and there certainly hadn’t been any this afternoon.
“Perhaps I neglected to tell you. The Women’s Committee knits for the Red Cross every other Thursday, and our usual location, city hall, is having its plumbing redone.”
“I see.” She glanced ruefully at old Mr. Hanson hunched over at the reference section tables, who required strict silence for his perusal of texts on the cataloguing of Maine flora and fauna. The Women’s Committee would drive all actual library patrons away, but it seemed that, as usual, Miss Cavendish didn’t care.
“There will be extra supplies,” Miss Cavendish said, removingskeins of serviceable, decidedly dull-colored yarn from her basket. “Perhaps you’d like to join us?”
It was technically a question. One she could say no to.
Except of course that it really wasn’t, so Avis gave the correct answer. “I’d be delighted.”
If this meeting made her late to come home and fix dinner... It’s not that Russell would be upset, exactly. It’s just that he was in such a mood these days. The least she could do was have a potpie steaming on the table when he got home from the bank.
Still, there was nothing for it but to play hostess to the half-dozen women who trickled into the library bearing yarn and gossip. Their knitting and chatting both took on a pace Avis could barely keep up with: what could possibly be made for dessert with the impending sugar rations, news that Louise had recently hired a wounded veteran to serve as her gardener, whether there would be a Fire Muster this summer. War updates, gossip, and domestic tips all mingled together as their hands worked to knit scarves and socks to send overseas.
One of them might be able to help, you know.
The thought made Avis pause the tortured scarf emerging from her needles. Maybe. After all, between them, the Women’s Committee volunteers had more than a century of marriage to her one and a half years.
She’d searched home and family magazines for weeks, hoping to find some tidbit of use, but there were no articles on “How to Cheer Up Your 4-F Husband” or “Tips for Nonmilitary Wives.” Still, it was up to her to make Russell smile again. If only someone could tell her how.
He’d come home in a fury from the recruiting office shortly after Anthony left for basic training. “As if a little trouble breathing makes a fellow ‘unfit,’” he’d growled.
She’d done everything a good wife ought to: soothed and placated and pointed out that his asthma was a serious condition.No comfort or logic had helped. Just this morning, holding up the newspaper like a shield, he had muttered, “My country needs me, Avis. And they don’t even realize it.”
“I need you too, Russ,” she’d replied. But there had been no answer from behind the newspaper.
Avis pretended to pick out a knot from her ball of yarn, using the chance to survey the others gathered. Most, she’d known since she was a child, though a few were only passing acquaintances.
Really, what would she say to them? Find a way to change the subject from the current topic, the prevention of aphids in flowerbeds, to say,“My husband’s awfully depressed about not making the cut into the military. What should I do?”
It simply wasn’t done. She would manage just fine on her own.
three
LOUISE
APRIL 7
Louise Cavendish had fought valiantly to maintain her good manners for nearly fifteen minutes, but even the greatest willpower must eventually succumb to the inevitable. She yawned.
The man seated across from her didn’t seem to notice. “...and with the increase in wartime demand, our casting production has nearly doubled.” Milton Hanover adjusted his tailored suit and looked around his office with the same self-satisfaction she’d seen lingering there when she’d been introduced to him at age twenty-two. “Castings, of course, being—”
“The raw metal materials to be sent to the machine shop for finishing. Yes, I’m aware.” She surveyed Mr. Hanover’s glassy, fishlike expression in response to her interruption, his eyes blinking over a bulbous nose. No need for him to know she’d skimmed a book on foundries and the cast-iron process before their meeting.
“While hearing about Bristol-Banks’s process is ... fascinating, might I suggest a visit to the core room itself?”
Mr. Hanover cleared his throat, as if that might dredge up an excuse for staying in his oak-paneled office. “I appreciate your interest in our foundry, Miss Cavendish, but I’m afraid we don’t have the proper safety equipment.”
