Grace had never possessed much courage. Even now, she wondered if she would have managed her way to London had Viv not insisted they go together.
Trepidation knotted through her as they waited for the train’s gleaming metal doors to part and unveil a whole new world.
“Everything will be brilliant,” Viv whispered under her breath. “It will all be so much better, Grace. I promise.”
The air-powered doors of the electric train hissed open and they stepped onto the platform amid the push and pull of people coming and going all at once. Then the doors shushed closed behind them, and the gust of the train’s departure tugged at their skirts and hair.
An advert for Chesterfields on the far wall displayed a handsome lifeguard smoking a cigarette while another poster beside it called on the men of London to join the service.
It wasn’t only a reminder of a war their country might soon face, but how living in the city presented a greater element of danger. If Hitler meant to take Britain, he would likely set his sights on London.
“Oh, Grace, look!” Viv exclaimed.
Grace turned from the poster toward the metal stairs, which glided upward on an unseen belt, disappearing somewhere above the arched ceiling. Into the city of their dreams.
The advert was quickly forgotten as she and Viv rushed toward the escalator and tried to tamp down their delight as it effortlessly carried them up, up, up.
Viv’s shoulders squeezed upward with barely restrained happiness. “Didn’t I tell you this would be amazing?”
The enormity of it hit Grace all at once. After years of dreaming and planning, here they were in London.
Away from Grace’s bully of an uncle, out from under the thumb of Viv’s strict parents.
Despite all of Grace’s troubles, she and Viv swept out of the station like caged songbirds ready to finally spread their wings.
Buildings rose into the sky all around, making Grace block the sun with the palm of her hand to see their tops. Several nearby shops greeted them with brightly painted signs touting sandwiches, hairdressers and a chemist. On the streets, lorries rattled by and a double-decker bus rumbled in the opposite direction, its painted side as red and glossy as Viv’s nails.
It was all Grace could do to keep from grasping her friend’s arm and squealing for her to look. Viv was taking it in too, with wide, sparkling eyes. She appeared as much an awed country girl as Grace, albeit in a fashionable dress with her perfectly styled auburn curls.
Grace was not as chic. Though she’d worn her best dress for the occasion, its hem fell just past her knees, and the waist nipped in with a slim black belt that matched her low heels. While not as stylish as Viv’s black-and-white polka-dot dress, the pale blue cotton set off Grace’s gray eyes and complemented her fair hair.
Viv had sewn it for her, of course. But then, Viv had always seen to both of them with an eye set toward grander aspirations. Throughout their friendship, they had spent hours sewing dresses and rolling their hair, years of reading Woman and Woman’s Life on fashion and etiquette and then making countless corrections to ensure they “lost the Drayton” from their speech.
Now, Viv looked like she could grace one of those magazine covers with her high cheekbones and long-lashed brown eyes.
They joined the flurry of people rushing to and fro, heaving the bulk of their suitcases from one hand to the other as Grace led the way toward Britton Street. Thankfully, the directions Mrs. Weatherford had sent in their last correspondence had been detailed and easy to follow.
What had been missing from the account, however, were all the signs of war.
More advertisements, some calling for men to do their part, with others prompting people to disregard Hitler and his threats and still book their summer holidays. Just across the street, a wall of sandbags framed a doorway with a black-and-white sign proclaiming it to be a Public Air Raid Shelter.