Only a couple of days separated the last time she was with Dan from that awful night with Warren. She would never know. And she would never want Dan to find out what had happened. He would kill Warren with his bare hands and then he really would be court-martialed.

All of which made it more important that Dan marry Amelia, if he hadn’t already, and forget about Jess.

Love, she thought wearily as she stared out at the bombed husk of London. War makes us monsters or angels, but so too does love. And now she would leave behind in Europe the love that Dan had made for her out of the ashes of war, a love ruined finally by monsters.

* * *

“You’re back!” Bel folded Jess into her arms when she appeared in her office two weeks later, skinnier than when she’d left, older—so much older—knowing too much and not as good at pretending as she used to be.

Bel held her at arm’s length after the initial hug and cast her eyes over Jess critically. “Thank goodness,” she said, seemingly satisfied, sitting down to light a cigarette. “You need to eat, Jessica May, get your curves back, but I don’t see why we can’t have you back on the cover in a couple of months. Nobody remembers Kotex now.”

Kotex. Even Jess struggled to think what on earth Bel was talking about. The dimmest memory of a field in upstate New York, a cow bellowing in the background, Bel stepping out of a car to speak to her, a conversation with Emile—God, she’d all but forgotten Emile too.

Jess fiddled with a cigarette and then put it away.

“We’re doing a feature on Stella Designs and their patriotic dresses soon. You’d be perfect for it. I’ll set it up.” Bel smiled as if it were just like old times; she hadn’t even mentioned the war.

But how could anyone pick up the life they’d once lived, like a gown that had been tucked away in a forgotten cupboard, slip it back on and resume the smiling and the laughing?

“I thought I’d keep reporting for you,” Jess said.

“Reporting?” Bel tapped ash off her cigarette. “I don’t need any more war reports. Bar the Pacific, it’s all but over. Paper supplies will be back to normal soon. You’ve done your job. You can have some fun.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Jess said honestly.

“Of course you can.” Bel was adamant. “No good comes from moping. Everybody wants to start afresh, to kick up their heels, and they need to know what to wear while doing it.”

Kick up their heels. Dance on the graves of the fallen. Whoop over the bodies of the living dead from the camps. Grind out their cigarettes on the memories of the missing. Jess shook her head. “I might see what else I can pick up. Thank you though,” she added, resurrecting her manners from the place they’d been stowed, unneeded in war.