That would leave some leftover money to buy herself a few of the posher cosmetics at the Macy’s counter rather than the ordinary ones from Woolworth’s. Like a Pink Perfection lipstick from Elizabeth Arden. She’d once seen it in an advertisement in a library copy of Vogue and had thought of it ever since.

It would also mean that her father could work a few less hours in their cobbler shop and give his arthritic hands a rest. Though other girls in their early twenties had fathers about double their age, hers had been a good bit older than her mother when they married and was frequently mistaken for Margaret’s grandfather when they were out together.

George Preston was exactly the kind of Brooklyn man her parents would love to see her settle down with. Dependable. Hardworking. Well-mannered. He was as good a guy as they came. But there had never been the kind of spark between them that romance novels promised. She’d not yet felt more than a passing flutter for a boy. Nothing she could call love—nothing that resembled the possibility of longevity she so admired in her parents. Or John and Dottie.

Margaret believed it was better to love vicariously through the printed word in books than to pursue a fleeting feeling built on quicksand, and she was determined to either hold out for the real thing or not have it at all. She’d seen too many marriages among her parents’ friends turn rancid in the wake of the difficulties the world put forth.

Better to be alone than saddled in misery to someone chosen in a bout of head-in-the-cloud youthfulness.

In this regard, she admired how Gladys stuck to her guns.

John and Dottie’s story had started years ago when the Beck and Troutwine families had rented small cottages next to each other on Brighton Beach. Margaret had been excited when she saw a girl her age sitting shoeless on the front porch, sand baked onto her feet. When their parents discovered that they lived only one subway stop apart, the girls became inseparable.

But as soon as her brother was old enough to consider girls as something more than a nuisance, it became forevermore Dottie and John, John and Dottie. As if one name couldn’t be spoken without the corresponding other. And Margaret didn’t mind. The two people she loved most in the world loved each other. It didn’t get any better than that.

Their wedding had been planned for October. But John was drafted and sent out to basic training in July.

War was a particular kind of thief that stole not only the lives of the boys who went overseas, but also the plans and aspirations of the families at home.