“You say she cooks. Does she also plan menus? Clean the dishes?”
“Of course. The American housewife is very versatile, and self-reliant.”
“What if there are guests? Does she cook for them? She doesn’t serve, does she?”
“I told you that she takes care of the house and whatever’s in it. That includes guests.”
“Does she take care of clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Children?”
“Certainly.”
“Who helps her with correspondence?”
“The man usually turns his paycheck over to his wife and she pays the bills, buys the groceries and whatever the kids need.”
“I see. And she drives a car?”
“How else can she get to the grocery?”
“Amazing.”
“What’s amazing?”
“As far as I can tell, the American housewife is a secretary, bookkeeper, chambermaid, chauffeur, caterer, butler, maid, chef, treasurer, lady-in-waiting, and nursemaid. Tell me, does she garden also?”
“She takes care of the yard if that’s what you mean, although, if he has time, the man may help on that.”
“One woman is lord chamberlain, lord steward, and master of the horse all in one. And yet she has time to spend her afternoons drinking tea. Utterly amazing.”
“Could we drop this?” His earlier softness was gone. “It’s not like you make it sound.”
“Of course men did start the war, didn’t they? I don’t remember any woman wanting to bomb another woman’s children. But then she may have been too busy drinking tea or clipping the hedges or washing the dishes or—”
“I’m going to the can.”
Aria picked up her history book but she didn’t read it. Perhaps being an American was going to be more difficult than she thought.
When the plane landed in Key West, there was transportation waiting for them and the driver took them through narrow streets overhung with bright flowers to a two-story house next to a large cemetery. The houses next to it were very close.
J.T. opened the wooden gate with its peeling paint as the car drove off. “I don’t know how the navy got us a house. There’s a year-long waiting list.”
Aria had a hideous vision of standing in line for a full year.
The house was tiny to Aria. The lower floor consisted of one room that was living–dining room, then a half partition hid some of the kitchen. There was a bathroom containing a large white machine also on the first floor. Up steep, narrow stairs was a long room, a double bed at one end, a single bed concealed behind the bathroom wall. The house was filled with wicker furniture and painted in pale blues and pinks.
J.T. hauled all of Aria’s luggage upstairs. “I’m going to the base. Unpack our clothes and hang them up. The army said they’d furnish the place so I hope that means food. When you get done, hit those books again.” He paused a moment at the head of the stairs, seemed about to say something, then turned and left the house.
There was a balcony leading off the upstairs and Aria went outside to look at the narrow street below and across to the cemetery.
“Hey! Is anybody home?” she heard a man’s voice from downstairs.
“J.T.?” she heard a woman call.
How odd, Aria thought. Did people always walk into one another’s houses in America? She walked to the head of the stairs. Below her, coming in the door, were three couples.