Free Searching for Pemberley by Mary Lydon Simonsen

with it until they tell me I have to go home.”
    Rob asked about my two years in Washington. It had been an exciting place to work. I met people from every region of the country, whose customs were so different from mine. My sisters, who had moved to Washington even before the attack on Pearl Harbor, had told me that early in the war, when there was such a demand for clerk typists, they knew of young women who were hired at the train station and taken directly to their jobs. With every desk in every office occupied, temporary buildings had been built all over the city, even on the mall between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial. They were ugly but necessary.
    The apartment I shared with my sisters had only one bedroom with twin beds and a mattress under each bed. Onceword got out from our brother, who was in the Navy, that the Joyce sisters would let anyone from Minooka sleep on their living room floor, it was a rare morning when we didn't have to step over a comatose soldier, sailor, marine, or airman sacked out in our tiny living room. As much as I enjoyed seeing familiar faces, I did not want to date anyone from home. I wasn't willing to risk getting involved with someone who might want to return to Minooka once the war was over. Instead, I went dancing or out to dinner with guys from all over the United States. They were just passing through on their way to Europe or the Pacific, and we had some fun together before they boarded a train that would take them to their next post.
    Rob and I had a table at the back of the restaurant, and the owner continued to refill our glasses long after the dishes had been cleared. We sat there for two hours talking about anything and everything. It was the most enjoyable evening I had experienced since I had left the United States, and I did not want it to end. We finally left Lucca's after agreeing that we would see each other again.

Chapter 8
    ALTHOUGH ROB AND I lived in different parts of London, he always took me home to Mrs. Dawkins's house. After I started dating Rob, my landlady told me straight out that if I ever had a man above stairs, I would be out on the street on my bum. “I only rent to good girls.”
    The only place where Rob and I could talk was in the kitchen because the children listened to the radio in the living room, and the front parlor was off-limits. Mrs. Dawkins and her husband, who was rarely seen because he worked the night shift, had two very well-behaved boys, Teddy and Tommy, but they were often in the kitchen looking for a snack or asking Rob a lot of questions about flying in a B-17. As a result, our conversations were constantly interrupted.
    Neither Rob nor I had much spare change, so London was the perfect city for two people on a budget because a lot of the major attractions were free. A cheap date might be going to the movies to see Great Expectations or The Big Sleep followed by dinner at a Lyon's Corner Restaurant. Theater tickets werereasonable, and although the crowds were thinning since the end of the war, dance halls were still popular with young couples swinging to big band music.
    After a few weeks of dating, Rob splurged and gave me his own tour of the city as seen through the eyes of a Yank airman, and he hired a cabbie to take us all over London. Rob and three other airmen from his squadron had done the same thing when they first hit town in early 1944. For six shillings apiece, they got the cook's tour.
    Rob had the cabbie start near Piccadilly Circus under the enormous Wrigley's gum sign and across from the “Guinness is Good for You” sign. The Rainbow Corner Red Cross Club was often the first stop for GIs on leave and had once welcomed thousands of American servicemen each day.
    “In the lobby,” Rob began, “was a sign with an arrow pointing toward New York, 3,271 miles to the west, and another to Berlin, 600 miles to the east. It was open twenty-four hours a day with pool tables and pinball machines. It had hot showers, which