Janet's Choice

Snow fluttered down from a gray sky slowly and languidly, as if the flakes had no particular place to go. Janet lifted her face and opened her lipsticked mouth in anticipation of a cold treat, eager to taste the first offerings of winter. 1966, she mused to herself. Soon it would be 1966 and the world would change, at least for her. She closed her icy blue eyes and remembered.

“Janet, you have a letter.” Her mother smiled and pushed the envelope to her. Janet jumped in anticipation, just in from her job at the phone company. She smoothed her dress and picked up the letter with shaking fingers. Sarah Lawrence. The letter was from Sarah Lawrence and she could hardly contain herself. She’d been waiting for this letter for three long months, ever since she had first applied. And now it was here.

Her breath caught in her throat, she could barely speak. “Mama,” she strangled out in a sort of gasp, “I did it. I got in!” They squealed and jumped together, clenching hands and bouncing so that the skirts of their dresses danced in their own unison. That evening, at a lovely dinner she’d helped her mother prepare, they told her father, fresh from his shift at the Ford factory, about Sarah Lawrence. First he harumphed, then he garumphed. Finally he smiled, the creases in his face deepening from much use, and he agreed that Sarah Lawrence was the place for Janet to be in January 1966.

So she knew that the next year, two months from now, had much to offer her. As she waited at the bus stop, curling into her thin coat and rubbing her gloved hands rapidly to encourage warmth, she thought about the future. When the bus screeched up she almost missed it, so immersed in her thoughts was she.

With a flounce she was in the bus and sat serenely, pulling the skirt of her soft blue dress around her. Somewhere someone had one of those new transistor radios because she could hear strains of The Beatles and “Hard Day’s Night.” Perhaps, she reflected with a pat to her carefully sprayed chestnut hair, she could get one of those transistors for her room at college. College! The place where she could think and study, perhaps meet a doctor or lawyer who would be her husband-

“Excuse me.” Janet was startled by a voice, the sultry voice that sometimes invaded her dreams even though she didn’t want it to. She scooted over and averted her face, not wanting to look at him. Not wanting to touch him.

The bus ponderously lurched into the street and hesitantly joined brisk morning traffic. One particularly rough pothole threw Janet against her seat partner and her skin burned. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled as she straightened. She couldn’t help sneaking a look at his face. Blue-black hair hung down into liquid brown eyes as his gaze seared into her.

“I don’t mind,” he responded with a smile that revealed a deep indentation in his left cheek. His voice was velvet. Janet shuddered involuntarily.

“H-how are things, Dominic,” she quivered the words and cursed herself inside her head. She kept promising herself she’d not talk to him again. She couldn’t seem to help herself, and she stared openly at him now, wondering dimly if he was a drug, the kind she heard about, the kind hippies indulged themselves with. Her body was weak around him, her pulse rapid. Something was so wrong with her when he was near.

“You coming to the diner for lunch, today?” He smiled at her again and every resolve she ever made about staying away melted in the heat of his gaze.

“Yes,” she breathed, “I am.”

* * *

Lunch arrived before Janet was truly ready. She didn’t know how to handle him, Dominic with the dimple in his lovely cheek. The other girls teased her, but they didn’t understand. Most of their lives were set. They were destined to marry men who worked in diners and toil away in phone companies for the rest of their lives, but not Janet. She had worked hard in school and applied to one college with hope and trepidation. The other girls didn’t understand how her mother wanted her to reach beyond this world and into the one above it. They didn’t know.

Dominic smiled when she walked in and she melted again. Her breath was shallow as she sat on a stool. She couldn’t help watching his arms as they flipped burgers and lifted the french fry basket. They were strong, Dominic’s arms. She remembered meeting him at the bus stop when he grabbed her from the curb as she stumbled, back in September. She whipped around to look at him and couldn’t speak, not even a little.

Today she stared at him like she did every weekday. She could have brought her lunch and saved precious money, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to see him. When the burger was brought to her she took a deep bite from it even though it tasted like sawdust. Even though her stomach was flipping like the tilt-a-whirl at a carnival.

She felt him before she lifted her wide eyes from the plate. He was leaning against the counter, strong hands on either side as his intense stare locked into her. “How’s the burger?”

“F-fine.” She tried to break his spell, tried to look away from him, but she couldn’t. “I really need to get back to work.” The last was whispered as she became lost in him- in his face, his eyes, his sinewy arms that seemed wrapped around her.

“I’m glad. I always make it special when I see you walk in.” He seemed to lean further into her as he spoke, and Janet felt her lips begin to part. She couldn’t even hear herself think, so entranced was she by this diner’s cook.

“I have to go,” she panted the words urgently and was gone, flitting out like a frightened bird, leaving Dominic behind with a bemused look as he watched her run.

* * *

Her mother kept asking her what was wrong that night at dinner. “Nothing,” was her response, even though her cheeks suffused with color at the lie. She couldn’t love a diner’s cook, she just couldn’t. She looked down at the fried chicken and played with her mashed potatoes. What would her mother say? She wouldn’t be happy. Perhaps she’d even forbid a relationship with him.

And what about her plans? Janet set her mouth in determination at the thought of Sarah Lawrence, at the thought of meeting an aspiring young businessman to marry. But then Dominic invaded her brain with his dimpled smile. She shook her head in disdain at herself. How could she let her mother down like this?

Her father and mother were just settling down to watch the news with her father mumbling about “Johnson and his blasted policies” when the doorbell rang. Janet remained seated, attempting to read a frothy romance novel while her mother answered the door. A few minutes passed before her mother returned, face pale and expression unreadable.

“Janet, it’s for you.” She uttered the words quietly and stared at her daughter as if she’d never seen her before. Janet was alarmed and stood, smoothing the blue dress awkwardly.

“Who is it, mama?”

“Some boy. Says he knows you from the bus.”

She knew her face was giving her away when she stole a glance at her mother. The disappointment was palpable. Janet felt that she could reach out and touch it. “It’s nothing, Mama. Just a boy I know, that’s all.” But the words were hollow and she knew it. She knew her mother knew it.

She moved around her mother’s stock-still form and walked briskly to the door, and there he stood in all his splendor. Her breath caught as she took in his glossy hair, hands tucked in jeans pockets, jacket hanging loosely on his lean form. As usual when Dominic stood in front of her, she was finding it difficult to think.

Those liquid brown eyes burned into her. “I need to talk to you.”

“Well I’m-“ her words faded away as she realized that something wasn’t quite right. His dimple wasn’t showing. His expression was strangely somber. “Just let me get a wrap.” She grabbed her newest white cotton sweater from Woolworth’s as her mind refused to take in what he might say. Had he found out about Sarah Lawrence? Was he upset for some reason? They weren’t even dating, for heaven’s sake! But in her heart she knew that didn’t matter. Dominic knew and she knew. Their hearts were intertwining more completely with every passing day, with every morning bus ride. What would she say? What would she do?

“I’m going to stand on the porch Mama, Papa.” She purposely ignored her mother’s questioning gaze and rushed back to the door, slipping outside to stand next to the man who had stolen her heart. For the first time in the two months since she’d met him, she looked up into his dear face and admitted it to herself. Would she convince him that she could care for him and still attend college? Would he wait for her?

His statement hit her like a bullet. “I’ve been drafted.”

At first she didn’t think she’d heard him right. She thought the rushing in her ears somehow twisted his words and they reached her brain wrong. But then she looked at him-really looked at him-and she knew. This wasn’t right. She just admitted to herself that she loved this man, and he was going to leave her? As she stood next to Dominic on her parents’ porch she started to replay all the news reports she heard when she only half listened. More troops called out. More men wounded. More men dead. She shivered and felt a single tear wind its way down her cheek.

“Don’t do that,” was ground out by Dominic before he reached for her and wrapped his long, strong arms around her. He pulled her into his chest and she began to cry softly. Her own arms snaked around to hold him tightly, and she breathed in his scent even as she cried. Finally she pulled herself away and looked up into his glistening eyes.

“Isn’t there anything? Anything you can do?”

“Yeah,” he snorted. “I can go to war.” Janet gasped at his response and he frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be flip.” He exhaled a deep breath that looked smoky in the crisp November air. “I’ve only been called to report. I don’t know where I’ll be sent.” He shrugged and tried to smile down at her. “Maybe I won’t even be sent over there. You never know.”

But they both knew the chances, and Janet stepped closer to him. She grabbed his hand, held it firmly in her own, and locked his gaze to her. “I’ll wait for you, Dominic. No matter what, I’ll wait for you.”

Dominic’s eyes closed briefly before he snatched her to him and lowered his mouth to hers. Just before they touched he whispered, “I can’t let you do that.”

Janet smiled. She was calm now. She could feel in her soul that this was so right. “I have no choice, my darling.” Her smile faded as she felt a moment of the old indecision, but it was gone as his arms tightened around her. “I love you.”

Dominic sucked in his breath and stared into her round, sweet face. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yes,” she grinned widely. “I’m sure.”

Their mouths touched and electricity sizzled, almost sparked as the kiss deepened. When Dominic finally forced himself to pull away he uttered, “I love you too.”

“I know.” She laid her head upon his chest. “I mean it, Dominic. I’ll wait for you right here.”

* * *

Inside, Janet took off her sweater and wondered what she was going to tell her mother. She walked hesitantly into the den and tried to maintain eye contact without flinching. She stood silently and her mother, in a faded but attractively upholstered chair, looked back. Her father, still in his factory uniform, snored softly in his new recliner.

Finally she intoned softly, “I love him, mother.”

Her mother sighed, nodded, and smiled sadly. “I know, dear.” She darted her eyes over to Janet’s sleeping father and the smile widened. “I know.”