Gladys grimaced. “You and Dottie don’t have critical bones in your body, do you?”

“But I meant it. What do you want me to tell you? That it was a little misshapen?”

“Yes, blast it all! I want you to tell me that it still needs work. I want you to tell the welding foreman that if he gives you any more lip, from now on you’ll send him where the sun don’t shine. I want you to tell your precious pen pal that he’d better damn well tell you which one he is in the photograph or you’re not going to write to him anymore.”

Margaret flushed. She’d never heard Gladys rant quite like that. At least not to her.

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“You saved a life last night, Margaret. A flippin’ life. I think you’ve earned the right to speak your mind.”

Margaret looked at her sideways. She was right. What Margaret admired most about Gladys was the way she spoke her mind. But she didn’t think that commenting on the shape of a smoke ring quite rose to the level of necessary confrontation.

Gladys put her arm around her. “All right. You know the kind of frustration where you just want to boil up like a teakettle and let the steam fly out?”

“Yes.” Margaret knew that feeling well. She looked up at her genteel mother, whom she equally admired for her amiability. Her mom looked amused.

“Here’s what I do,” Gladys continued. “I yell.”

“You yell?” This hardly seemed like a revelation, but she let her go on.

“Yeah. A real solid, bloodcurdling scream. Into my pillow, so my neighbors don’t think I’m being murdered. What I wouldn’t give to find some remote piece of land to really let it out into the sky. But that’s impossible in New York City. So I use my pillow. And I’m not shy about it. It’s the kind that rolls up from your belly and makes your breath hot and sends your heart racing. Try it sometime.”

“And that’s Dr. Gladys’s advice?”

Gladys grinned. “Yeah. At no charge. As long as you promise me you’ll try it.”

“I promise.”

“Good.” Gladys looked at her wristwatch. “I have to get back to the grindstone. But I’ll tell George that you’re in. We hope to get this up and running soon, so be ready, doll. Shine those pretty shoes of yours. You’ll be an office girl soon.”

Margaret looked down at her fingers, scarred in some places from where she’d gotten too close to the fire of the torch.

The Brooklyn Navy Yard had not been kind to her hands. They’d bled in the sewing wing, gotten stained in engraving, and scalded in welding.

But she relished every imperfection.

They were her own battle scars.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

November 1944