He takes Lottie to dinner on a Tuesday, and her hair is curled as softly as the smoke that trails from her ruby red lips. She smokes Marlboros, of course—a proper dame’s cigarette, no matter what the ads are trying to say these days. Her lipstick leaves little rings on the cigarette as she leans closer to him. “So, what do you do?”

          He smiles, the charming Cary Grant grin he’d imitated before and would again. “Marketing, mainly,” he says, staring into her eyes for just a moment before flicking away.

          When he gets her back to the apartment, his hand drifts to the small of her back, and she curls into his side. Her hair smells like strawberries; it's nice enough. She lights up another cigarette as he pours her a drink—that's a lot of smokes for a dame, but she must be nervous. She’s a good girl, after all. She’s probably never done anything like this.

          His hand crawls up her thigh as she drinks and smokes. He asks if she'd like to stay the night. The lights dim. Her skin is soft. He unzips her dress, leaning on top of her. She kisses him. It tastes like— 

          A smoke, shared together under the European sun, hands brushing together each time they pass the last of the cigarette rations between each other—

          Marlboros. She tastes like marlboros. His hands falter, stop. She’s gone quiet beneath him. “You alright, Jack?” Her voice is as timid as a mouse. 

          He takes a breath, and buries his face in his hair. “I’m just fine, darling,” he says, running a hand over her skin. She shivers. This can be salvageable, he tells himself. He runs his hands down her waist and kisses her deeply, and all he can taste are Marlboros and martinis.

          But her hair is yellow and it’s beginning to lose its curl, and on closer examination her lips curve in exactly the same way, and all he can see is golden hair on a sunny day and a mouth smiling around  one of Jack’s Luckies in a way that made him wonder— and he stiffens again.

          “Maybe,” he says, “You should head home. I’m certain your roommate is worried sick.”

          She nods and pulls her things back together. When she disappears out the door, he has hardly even moved. He stares at his ceiling, disappointment and dissatisfaction churning in his gut. He closes his eyes. It’s probably better that he’s haunted by good memories, at least during the day.

          He sleeps. The nightmares come not long after.

 

          The next morning he wakes up, and checks the mail. He always checks the mail. Bills, bills, advertisement, bills. There’s no letters. There never is. He doesn’t know why he checks at this point; he knows they’ll never come. It’s been ten years. There will never be a single letter. He checks anyway, twice, as if the envelope could’ve been lost between the others, and he’d miraculously find a letter bearing the meticulous handwriting of—no one important at all. He shuffles the mail; an envelope really had been lost between the others: Tim from sales is getting hitched. Of course he is. 

          He throws the invitation on the counter with the bills, and ties his tie.

 

          The office is the office, same as it always is. Around the water cooler, everyone keeps congratulating Tim on his engagement. George leans up next to Jack, blowing off work.

          “Ay, Jack, when are you getting yourself a lady, eh?” George throws his arm around Jack’s shoulders. “The kids keep wondering when uncle Jack is getting babies of his own.”

          “Not anytime soon, George.” 

          “Can’t remain a bachelor forever, y’know,” he says, “I mean Jesus, even Timmy over there is tying the knot, and he’s younger than you.”

          “What can I say, George,” He says, “I like my independence,”  he says. He’d read that somewhere, that Bachelorhood is about independence.  Independence—like the Declaration of. It’s a good, strong word, Independence. An American word.

          “You gotta grow up eventually,” he says, punching Jack on the arm lightly, affectionately. 

          We’re the same age, Georgie, Jack doesn’t say.

          “Anyway, Kathy’s hoping you’ll come to dinner on tomorrow,” George says, settling back and watching the clock, waiting for lunchtime. “I think she’s hoping that one of these days you’ll have a more permanent lady friend to bring along.”

          “What, and throw away my chances with the prettiest dame there? Unlikely.”

          George laughs. “As if Kathy would ever make time with an ugly mutt like you.”

          “A fella can dream, can’t he?” He jokes back.

          “Sure, if a fella wants to get socked in the face.”

          “She’ll leave you for me one day, Mayfield. One day.”

          “You wish, Jack, you wish,” George laughs, lighting up a cigarette and staring at it. “Y’know, they’re starting to say that these things’ll kill you?”

          “What, cigarettes?” Impossible.

          “Yep,” he says, taking a drag. “Kathy’s pissed about it. Doesn’t want me smoking anymore.”

          “But you still do, ‘course.”

          “I dunno,” George says, twirling that cigarette around his fingers and staring at it hard. “I think I might quit.”

          “I never could,” Jack scoffs.

          “I know.” 

          “Honestly, cigarettes.” Jack shakes his head. “What schmuck decided those weren’t good for you? In a few months there’ll be some study or something, and they’ll rethink it.”

 

          He takes Hattie, one of the secretaries, out to dinner that night. Her smiles are bubblegum pink and come easily, and her curls are so tight she looks a little like Shirley Temple. She comes back to his apartment easier than Lottie had, with a flirtatious little grin and those probably reckless smiles. She’s just a little too youthful to be smart about this—if Jack had a little sister, probably, he’d think of her, and spend the entire night fretting over Hattie instead of kissing her.

He takes her to his place instead, because he’s never had a sister in his life. He keeps his hand on her waist, flicks on the lights, and asks if she’d like a drink. She laughs. “I think I’d like to pick out a record instead,” she says, batting her eyelashes. 

          He smiles back. He likes Hattie, he tells himself, and lets his hand trail down her leg as she gets up from the couch to pick out a record from the shelf.

          She kneels on the floor to reach them, pretty as a pinup, dress artfully askew and her lips curled into a perfect, heart-shaped pout as she looks through his collection. She hums as she rifles through them, sticking out her tongue. Maybe she’s trying to look sexy, he wonders. He pours himself a drink. 

          “Jack,” She calls, “are these all the records you have?”

          He pauses in the middle or pouring his whiskey. “Yes, why?”

          “What? But all the songs you have here are so old. You haven’t bought a record in what, ten years?” 

          “I like my records.”

          “Well, yes,” she said. “But We’ll Meet Again? I haven’t listened to that song since I was a little girl. Don’t you have anything newer?”

          Jesus Christ. 

          He takes a drink of his whiskey, and feigns a look at his watch. “Look at the time.” He says, as if he had cared about it before. “I oughtta get you home.” Her mother was probably waiting up for her.

          He doesn’t put on the radio as he drives. When he gets back, he puts on We’ll Meet Again.  He sits on the ground next to the record player, and picks up the needle to replay it every time the song ends. We’ll Meet Again. Again and again and again. He lights up a cigarette, and thinks about 1943, 1953. It’s been ten years already. Why can’t he ever seem to—

          He sighs out smoke. The record ends in a crackle, the needle spinning round and round picking up nothing.  He closes his eyes, and runs a hand through his hair. The record spins around and around and around. He shudders when he breathes. 

 

          The next morning, it’s all just a repeat. There’s no new letters. He still checks again.

 

          He arrives early to the office that morning, and the way the early morning streams endlessly through the windows. The sun hits Georgie’s golden hair in just the best way, lighting it up until it’s practically glowing like a halo, reflecting off his tan, American skin, and for a second, Jack thinks, if only, if only, if only. Then, of course, he stops. It’s George; what the hell was he thinking.

          He grins at George instead, just a little too tight around the edges. “Hey George, how’s the Olsen case going?”

George smiles, the same too-bright one he had since they were kids. “Same old, same old.” He laughs. “Hey, you’re on for dinner tonight, right?”

          “Always.”

          “Kathy has a new friend she wants you to meet, anyway.”

          “Oh?” He says. “Kathy’s not usually the type to set me up with any of her friends.”

          “Nah, you’re usually too much of a rake for any classy dames like that,” George shoots back. 

          “Or maybe she’s just saving me for herself.” He waggles his eyebrows.

          George whacks him on the back of the head, to light to be anything but play-acting. “You shut up about my wife.”

          “Face it, Georgie, she’s gonna leave you for me, someday.” It’s an easy joke to make.

          George rolls his eyes, but drops the subject. “Oh, Jackie, before I forget,” he says, “Boss’s got a new commission for you to work on. Some propaganda posters against the commies. After McCarthy’s started claiming he’s got all those names, suddenly everyone is begging for posters.”

          Jack stills. “Like what kind of posters?”

          “The usual stuff—‘this is what will happen if the Russians invade’. Y’know.” George shrugs. “Make ‘em look like monsters.”

          Something itches at his shoulders, and claws at his throat. “I dunno Georgie.”

          “What do you mean?” He says, “it’s the Reds.”

          “I know, I know,” he says immediately, lest Georgie get the wrong idea somehow and—he tenses. “It’s just, ah. I used to fight with some of ‘em. Back in the war. It just…doesn’t feel right.”

          “Oh, god, Jack,” Georgie says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I’ll tell him to give it to Michaels.” George walks away, just a little too fast.

          Jack takes a breath, and digs his fingernails into his palms. He thinks about little Sasha Ivanov, and how he used to chatter on about his sisters until he was gutted by a Nazi soldier. He thinks about Officer Romanov pushing him out of the way of a grenade. He thinks about—what people will think if he turns this down. “George? It’s fine. I’ll do it.”

          “Jack—”

          “It’s alright.” He says. “It was a long time ago, after all.”

          “If you’re sure.”

          “I’m sure.”

 

 

          George and Katherine’s house is in the suburbs,  and the drive to it is a strange vision of picturesque cookie-cutter perfection. He got lost, the first ten times he went there. All the houses look the same. Then again, when everybody wants the same thing—normalcy, domesticity, the wife and the kids and the backyard, all for a price affordable on a GI’s pension—maybe it’s natural for there to be so many mirror images. 

          He parks his Cadillac on the street, neighboring the pink flamingos that Georgie, the wide-eyed South Carolina boy he is, somehow thinks look classy. Jack knocks one over as he opens the door, and the thing is completely ripped out of the ground. He has to hastily shove it back into the ground, but it doesn’t quite look the same. Well. George probably won’t notice.

          He rings the bell and combs back his hair while he waits, staring back at the flamingo. It’s just a little bit crooked. Too crooked? Maybe Georgie will notice. Well, it’s not like he can run back to change it. There’s nothing to be done. Besides, it’s not that crooked.

          Kathy opens the door, hair frizzy as always and countenance as frazzled and unimpressed as ever. “Jack, thank god you’re here,” she sighs, opening the door further and letting the screaming monsters that are her children have at him. 

          “Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!” They shout, tackling him into bear hugs. Thank god they’re still little, if they keep this up when they get older he won’t be able to stay standing. 

          “Susie-Q!” He says, sweeping them both off of their feet, “Tommy!”

          The children shout and squeal in happiness like the little riots they are, clinging to him and talking over each other in fast circles about boy scouts and ballet and the color blue, all in a way that enlightens as to why Kathy has an edge of fatigue around her hawk-sharp eyes. 

          The dress she’s wearing today doesn’t suit her. He’s not sure exactly why. It’s not unflattering, the tiny waist and big full skirt it seems like all the dresses have these days. The color even somehow manages not to clash with her untamable mane of red hair. It just doesn’t feel right. He always likes to think of her in olive green with passion in her eyes.

          But what has he ever known about women’s fashion. 

          “Kathy,” he says, putting on his most charming grin, letting the kids down. “Finally decided to leave Mayfield for me?”

          “Not if you were the last man alive, Jack.” She stares him down flat in the face. She’s not lying.

          Still, she steps aside, lets him through the door, and the kids follow behind him like puppies.

          Their kitchen is still the same—no matter what Georgie kept saying about how he was definitely going to get to remodeling one of these days—kitschy and tiled in shades of red and white, familiar beyond belief. The woman sitting next to George at the table, however, is not.

          Shiny, straight hair, legs that go on for days, and deep dark eyes that hold some many secrets inside, she must be that friend of Katherine’s. From before Kathy met George, it seems.

          “Jackie,” Katherine says, haphazardly pulling dishes out of the cupboards to throw onto the table. “This is Lydia. We went to school together. Lyds, this is Jack.”

          It fits well enough; she looks like the type to go to the same fancy all-girls school Kathy did back in the day, sleek and beautiful and dismissive. “Hello,” she says, and she’s not smoking, but he can practically see the smoke follow behind the words, curling around him, calm and cool and uncaring. 

“          Hello,” he says, and lays on the charm. She’s not exactly his type. He prefers them a bit more—blonde, but he can see the appeal. There’s a confidence about her that’s familiar, but hard to find. 

          The dinner that follows is the same as every week; the kids badger him about what they do in school, to critique the drawings that are proudly displayed on the fridge, and Kathy makes quiet conversation with Lydia about their school days. George wraps his arm around Katherine’s shoulders, and she leans into it as Lydia turns her attention to Jack.

          She’s fresh out of grad school, apparently, and is looking to become a professor at some girl’s college out east. She doesn’t blush or demure, not even when he pulls out the roguish grin that he’s told looks just like Clark Gable. She meets his gaze calmly and doesn’t ever look away.

          Dinner finishes, and Kathy goes with the kids to do the dishes. Lydia murmurs something about a job interview in the morning. He asks if she would like to meet up again, some other time, and talk about how it goes. She just laughs softly, and looks away. “No,” she says. “We both know you don’t want that. Goodbye, Jack.” Her hand is warm on his shoulder for a fleeting second, and her cold eyes, for a moment, have something almost like understanding in them. Then they flicker away, the moment gone. She steps out the door, and doesn’t look back. He doesn’t watch her go. He wonders if Katherine will pitch a fit if he pulls out some cigarettes. His teeth ache for one.

          “Jackie,” Katherine says, setting down the plate she was drying. “Can I talk with you? Outside.” 

          He nods and follows her out to the porch. 

          “We’ve known each other for a long time, Jack,” she says, leaning out on the railing, staring at the rows and rows of houses identical to her own. “haven’t we?”

          “I suppose,” he says, fingers twitching, and pulls out his pack of Luckies, to hell with what Kathy thinks.

          Yet she just looks at him, hums softly, and plucks out a cigarette herself. “Do you mind?”

          “I thought you didn’t smoke.”
          “I don’t,” she says, lighting up. “Much. At least not anymore,” she says. “Don’t tell George.”

          She takes a drag of her cigarette and looks at him, something warm but analytical in her eyes. They’re dark eyes, knowing eyes, but she shuts them and turns away. The silence rolls on for ages, punctuated with clouds of smoke. She sighs. “Jackie,” she says, finally, “What’s his name?”

          His blood runs cold and silent, and the world stops. “What do you mean?”

          “Come on, Jack,” she says, “Do you think I don’t know the signs?”

          “Kathy—” panic begins to buzz in his veins, grasping at his chest, but he plays it off. “I don’t know what you mean.”

          “Jack.” She looks at him. Her eyes look so tired. “Don’t lie to me.”

          “Katherine,” he almost protests again. 

          “What’s his name.” Her hand on his shoulder is warm and comforting.

          His hands feel clammy. He might be shaking. “I can’t tell you that.”

          “Jackie.”

          “I can’t.” The air between them feels deafening, a strangling chokehold upon his neck.  How long has it been since he said it aloud? He hasn’t thought it for years. Saying it—no. 

          She looks him in the eyes again, with her eyes that have been tired since the kids were born, since she got pregnant, hell, even since she got married. Her hands are warm on his shoulder. “Okay.” 

          He stares at the rows and rows of perfect, cookie-cutter houses of perfect, cookie-cutter families, and to the smog-obstructed stars. He thinks of the skies of a German countryside, the way the stars there are so bright and obvious it feels like there’s more stars than sky. 

          Katherine's hand slips off his shoulder, and she turns to go back inside.

          “Ilya,” he says, suddenly. She stills. “His name was Ilya.”

          Ilya Petrovich Volkov. 

          Katherine stills. “Oh, god,” she whispers. “Jack.”

          He laughs. It’s not really bitter, but it’s just a little too breathless, too manic.  “I know,” he says. “I know.” The adrenaline rush wears off; the energy leaves his body and all he feels is hollow as he holds up his cigarette with shaking fingers.

          “Where would you have even met?”

          “The war, where else?”

          The quiet is a heavy, tired thing between them for a moment, filled with smoke and the chirping of crickets. Kathy’s voice, when she finally speaks again, is barely a whisper amongst them. “Jackie, is he…”

          She doesn’t have to say it for him to know what she means. “No,” he says. “At least not that I know of.” It’s been ten years, after all. Who knows what’s happened to him.  "Of course, I'll still never see him again, so what's it matter?” He sucks in smoke. “I shouldn’t wanna see him again, anyway, isn’t that right? He’s a goddamn commie and the war is over and I should move on.” He’s been trying. God, he’s been trying.

          “Jack,” Katherine says, and for a split second, clouded in smoke and her tired wrinkles smoothed out by the soft moonlight, she looks just like she did when he first met her: too full of life to be held back by anything; redheaded and vibrant and ready to take on the world head-on. “It’s okay that you loved him,” she says. “It’s okay that you still do.” 

          A cloud slips over the moon, and the illusion is broken. Kathy is as she is now: just a little bit gray around the edges, just a little bit fragile around the wrists, the neck, the boney shoulders and fingertips. 

          He stares at the way her fingers wrap around the cigarette, and wonders if, despite everything, she selfishly, painfully wishes for the times before, too. If she puts on out-of-fashion red lipstick and plays Vera Lynn records on repeat. If her fingers ache for cigarettes before she remembers not to, for the kids’ sake.

          “Aw Kathy,” he says. It’s a joke and it’s not. “What a pair we make.”

          “What a pair,” she echoes.

          “Still won’t leave Mayfield for me?”

          “Never,” she laughs, but it’s soft, and humorless. “I don’t think you’d want me to.”

          “No,” he agrees. “I don’t think I would, either.”

          He takes a drag, and thinks of cigarettes, Europe, and Ilya.