A two-note whistle broke them apart. An American airman swayed by, leering bemusedly. “Room for me?”
“Not even a little,” Ruth said. “Go home.”
“Come on, girls, be nice.”
Marian got to her feet, pulling Ruth with her. As they hurried down the street, holding hands, Ruth gasped as though she’d suddenly remembered something.
“What?” said Marian.
Ruth lifted the hand Marian was holding, scraped from her fall. “You’re hurting me.”
Marian had been squeezing without realizing it. “I’m sorry.” She kissed the knuckles again.
“It’s getting light,” Ruth said, gently reclaiming her hand. “People will see.”
Ratcliffe Hall, Leicestershire, England
April 1943
One month after Marian met Eddie, one month before the Battle of Attu
“Have you heard about the night witches?” Ruth asked, lying on her back in bed at Ratcliffe Hall.
Marian shook her head. She was wedged between Ruth and the wall, propped on an elbow, her other hand stroking Ruth’s belly under the blankets.
“Russian girls in old biplanes,” Ruth said. “They have a whole regiment of them. They fly over German lines at night and drop bombs by hand. They cut their engines and glide in—whoosh in the dark, like a broomstick passing over. Of course they get killed like crazy.”
“At least they’re doing something useful.”
“So are we.”
“Mostly I sit around waiting for the weather to clear.”
“This is useful,” Ruth said as she pushed Marian’s hand downward. “Maybe we’re night witches, too.”
Marian smiled, pulled her hand back up. “They called me a witch in Alaska, as a joke, because I could get where I wanted even in bad weather.” But she was thinking of Barclay, too, how he’d half believed her when she’d claimed to have cast a spell on her womb.
“It just means they were scared of you.”
“Maybe.” Her thumb brushed the underside of Ruth’s breast, and Ruth lifted her ribs encouragingly. “Do you think any of the other ATA girls do this?”
“Yes. Well, I don’t know. I could name a couple who’d certainly like to, whether they know it or not.” Ruth had been smiling but turned serious. “It’s so expected for girls to like men that most of them never stop to think if they really do. Wasn’t that how it was for you?” She waited, beseechingly, for Marian to agree. She seemed unable to stop herself from seeking reassurances that Marian hadn’t enjoyed sleeping with men, or at least that she preferred sleeping with Ruth.
“I guess,” Marian said. “Sort of.”
“There’s always been girls like us hidden in the nooks and crannies.”
“I don’t exactly know what kind of girl I am,” Marian said. She had trouble with that word, girl, but woman didn’t feel quite right, either, applied to herself. Being a woman seemed to suggest a person who owned baking pans and a string of pearls.
“People make assumptions. Did I tell you the name of my high school? Our Lady of the Assumption.”
“You did.”
“The nuns only ever told us it was a sin to let boys touch us. They never said anything about girls.” She sounded amused and spiteful.
“It seems to me you knew yourself better from the beginning than most people ever do.”
“Maybe,” Ruth said, “but some of that’s just being headstrong.”
Ruth had told Marian she’d known from childhood she preferred women. She’d been a wily little thing, canny enough to keep her mouth shut and start figuring out how to get what she wanted without being run out of her little Catholic parish in her little Michigan town with pitchforks.
“Did Eddie always know, too?” For Marian had finally come to understand the nature of Ruth’s marriage.
“I wouldn’t want to speak for him.” A silence. “Think how much had to happen for you and me to meet.”
“Well,” Marian said, “there had to be a war.”
“And of course this completely justifies that.”
Ruth, full of dark laughter, had let her voice get loud, and Marian shushed her. They looked at each other, listening, but no sound came from the other rooms above the garage.
“They wouldn’t think anything of me being in here, anyway,” Ruth said in a whisper. “Just two gals having a late-night chat.”
This was true. In the month since their first kiss, every night they’d both been at Ratcliffe they’d wound up in one or the other of their beds. The visitor had to return to her own room at some point—a maid brought tea in the mornings—but so far no one had seemed to notice anything.