Free No Crystal Stair by Eva Rutland

a month. She had no idea, no conception. If she had, would she have listened to her mother?
    He knew Mrs. Carter wanted Ann Elizabeth to marry that smooth-talking pale-faced doctor. In fact, she could hardly restrain herself when they’d told her about their engagement.
    â€œOh, Ann Elizabeth, are you sure?” She had glanced at Rob, the keen aristocratic nose quivering, her blue eyes accusing.
    â€œYes, I’m sure,” Ann Elizabeth’s eyes had been warm and confident. God, how he loved her!
    Julia Belle Carter had spoken through dry thin lips. “Ann Elizabeth, honey, you’re so young. Don’t you want to wait? Perhaps a year... Give yourself more time.”
    â€œWe don’t have any time. Don’t you understand? Rob might be sent overseas any day.”
    Damn, if Julia Belle’s eyes hadn’t brightened at that prospect! “My goodness, he’ll be back. You’re both so young. You’ve known each other such a short while. You—”
    â€œNo, Mother. We don’t want to wait.”
    â€œA wedding in August? That’s not enough notice? We couldn’t possibly manage to—”
    â€œWe don’t need a wedding.”

    â€œOf course you need a wedding! Goodness, what would people think? My daughter—”
    â€œI don’t care what people think.” Ann Elizabeth had laid a hand on her mother’s arm. “We’re talking about a marriage, not a wedding, Mother. We love each other and we want to be together.” She had stood there in her white tennis shorts looking like a child. Talking like a woman.
    Julia Belle’s yes had filled with tears. But she had yielded to her daughter’s pleading. “Well, Rob will have to talk to your father.”
    Rob had approached the sedate Dr. Carter with more trepidation than he’d felt taking off on his first solo flight. Their talk had not gone exactly as he’d expected.
    â€œTell me about yourself.” Dr. Carter had nodded, leaning back in his chair, the tips of his fingers touching. His body was relaxed, his eyes interested and patient—as if he had all the time in the world.
    â€œWell, sir, you know I’m in the Army Air Corps. I make—”
    â€œNo, no. Before that. Where were you born?”
    â€œLos Angeles.”
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œAbout Los Angeles?”
    â€œYes, and about you. Your people.”
    â€œWell...” Rob faltered. Damn, what was there to tell? His father had died. His mother worked. His own life—school, football, odd jobs. He found himself talking about his father. Joseph Metcalf had fought in Europe in the First World War. He’d come to California from Alabama because life for an uppity black veteran was not safe in the deep South. Originally he’d wanted to go to Detroit and find work in one of the new automobile factories. But when the riots broke out there in 1919, he took his pregnant wife west, instead. He’d been in Los Angeles only a few weeks when he stopped to help a man fix a
broken-down car. Impressed with Joseph’s mechanical abilities, the stranded motorist helped him get a job in the maintenance department of a trucking firm.
    â€œMy father could fix anything that moved, Dr. Carter.” Rob spoke with an intensity that betrayed his pride. “He was always paid a little less than the whites on the job. But he didn’t seem to care because he knew, and they all knew, that he was the best mechanic in the shop. Actually, for us, it was a handsome living.”
    Dr. Carter nodded. “Yes, I imagine so. For a black man in the twenties just before the dawn of the depression.”
    â€œWell, Mama was always careful with money, and they bought a duplex in a neighborhood that was turning colored. Mama still lives there.” He told Dr. Carter that just as he was about to finish high school his father had dropped dead of a heart attack. “Mama took a job as