“I love going to the movies,” she gushed, her eyes squeezing into crescent moons.
Ginny chuckled. “My grandmother calls movie theatres ‘dens of iniquity.’?”
“Then let’s do something wicked just for her,” Mary suggested. “Come on. We’re almost there.”
The tall black marquee spellingMIDTOWNvertically from top to bottom was all lit up. The girls paid for their tickets, lined up for popcorn, then claimed the three best seats they could find together.
“Lots of people here tonight,” Ginny whispered, scanning the theatre.
All at once the lights went down, and Dash felt a flurry of anticipation in her stomach. “Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed through the speakers as the curtains pulled back from the screen. “Welcome to Midtown. We hope you enjoy the movie. All together, everyone, let’s follow the bouncing ball!”
The cartoon that lit up the theatre featured a girl walking around an apple tree, accompanied by a popular new song by the Andrews Sisters. Dash, Mary, and Ginny happily sang along.
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me
No! No! No!
Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me
Till I come marchin’ home!
The news reel came on after that, and Dash tossed popcorn into her mouth. Her favourite films were the ones when the cameramen wandered through camps where Canadians were. She always scoured the background, spying for Gus or one of the other boys from school. Tonight’s reel was entitled “Rommel’s Defeat in Africa” and showed British and American troops intercepting the German marshal’s supply ships, leaving him with nothing. The scene ended with cannons blasting dramatically into the night, then a long row of Allied planes—Hawker Hurricanes, she thought—speeding down the runway toward the camera. The directors loved happy endings.
At last the feature began, and Dash lost herself in the song and dance. She didn’t find Bing Crosby attractive at all, but the way he sang… she understood why some women said he made them melt away. When the movie ended, the lights came on, and the girls headed out with the rest of the crowd.
“I feel like dancing,” Dash said, sweeping into the lobby with her friends.
She fastened her coat around her and tucked a white scarf around her neck, feeling the cold as soon as they stepped out of the theatre. Either the temperature had really dropped over the last two hours, or the theatre was extra warm. Behind her, Mary squealed then spun around to catch her hat just as the wind tried to steal it.
“You look like you could have been in the movie!” Dash laughed, spinning herself.
“Oh, you’re a hoot, Dash.”
“I’m a cement mixer when it comes to dancing. I bet you can dance,” Ginny said.
Dash grinned. “Sure can, given the right partner.”
“My Arnold can dance,” Mary mused, pulling on her leather gloves. “I remember when he and I—” The smile slipped from her face.
“Now, now, don’t be blue,” Ginny scolded. “That’s not allowed. We cameout to forget about the war and everything in it, including the boys. Plus, he’s fine. He just wrote to you last week. He hasn’t even shipped out yet.”
“I suppose. It’s just that the movie was so romantic.”
As fun as all the singing and dancing was, Dash’s idea of romance was a little different. For her, it came down to that scene on the airfield inCasablanca. The way Humphrey Bogart told Ingrid Bergman that she had to leave without him, despite everything he felt. The longing in her eyes, and in his, though he was trying so hard to be tough. Oh, that,thatwas the romance Dash craved.
“I’ll be humming that song all night,” Mary was saying. “I was right, wasn’t I? About Bing Crosby, I mean. He has the dreamiest voice.”
“Yeah. ‘White Christmas.’ That’s a beautiful song,” Dash said, thinking of home.
It was already November. Her parents would be bundled up in the house, keeping the furnace turned down as low as they could stand it. Suddenly that’s where Dash wanted to be, snug by the fireplace in the living room with her mother and sister and Aunt Lou, her fingers around knitting needles. And she didn’t even like knitting.
“I heard there’s going to be a Christmas party in December at the Palais Royale,” Ginny said.
“I wonder who’s going to be there,” Mary said. “I mean, the girls at the switchboard, we’ll all go. Maybe the girls at the garage will come.”
“There’s only two of us. The rest are men,” Ginny said. “Jim Eisen and his greasy buddies.”
