The Wilmington Morning Star

Embattled Love
CARLETON

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

When Paige said she was not on the road to Reno, Abby looked blank. Then she chuckled. What difference does it make? All roads look alike. Sleep here. Sleep there, Eat here Eat there. And always use that poetic shaving cream. Besides, what difference does it make what town you get your divorce in?

"If I get one." Paige circled a truck. I may not get it right away. I may just let him sweat a while."

"According to my idea, you've delayed the sweating process quite a while already."

"Why should I get a divorce just because he ordered me to?" She took advantage of a straight strip of highway to cast a sullen look toward Abby. "Why should I get out of town just because he told me to? Why should I let him kick me around?"

'You shouldn't!" However, to end the discussion, the little gnome of a woman said, "I'm hungry."

They breakfasted at a little shed of a place on ham and eggs and good coffee. There were truck drivers in the place, and farmers and a few travelers. However, disaster had slowed traffic to a noticeable extent. Talk was worried, strangely, more so than on the Lorelei. Of course on the ship they had not actually known anything.

As they swung on south the fog lightened and it became warmer. The sun was bright and men worked in their winter crops of lettuce, carrots and the various vegetables that grow in that section of the country The sky was filled with clouds that comforted, because of their fluffiness. They turned off the automobile heater.

At lunch time they were still farther inland. They stopped at a second small eating place and had fat hamburgers and mugs of beer. Again the talk was of war, grim and disheartening. Abby mentioned to a fellow on the nearby lunch stool that she had just come off the Lorelei a few hours earlier. Instantly she was battered with questions and looked at as if she were on display.

"I know exactly how Dorothy Lamour feels in her sarong," she complained when they were once more headed toward their southern sanctuary. With a jerk she straightened her little wool hat that looked frighteningly like a dunce cap.

That night they were in Bakersfield. Except for the patrol planes, the place seemed untouched by the war. They had showers, cocktails, went to dinner and then to another cocktail lounge.

"I want a stinger," ordered Abby. To Paige she said Then we'll get to bed, huh, and get a good night's sleep for a change." The girl agreed.

When they left, they stepped through swinging doors, round glass openings buried beneath thick black cloth, stepped through the doors and into the densest black imaginable.

"Where am I?" gulped Abby.

"Wrong question, dear. That's the one you use when you've fainted and wake up in a handsome man's arms." The girl took her friend's arm and they started across the street, putting one foot ahead of them, dragging the other to it.

At least five minutes passed before they reached the corner of their hotel, which was no farther than across the street.

"And to think," grumbled Abby. how I've bawled out my oculist for getting my glasses off one degree or whatever it is." The hotel lobby was like the inside of a witch's cave. Only one candle burned near the desk, If Choppo is one-half as scared as I, his goose pimples will never recede."

"Good gal, Abby," Paige said, as they found their way into the murky elevator.

"Why?"

"You know why. That's the first time you've mentioned Choppo today."

'I know. Sometimes it feels better to talk about him and sometimes it feels better not to I don't know."

In their room she did not remove her little dunce-cap traveling hat. She turned on a small light, then switched it off to go to the black-out windows, pull one of the blinds aside, and gaze down into the street. Soon she scooted her feet back across the room and again found the small light.

In its glow Paige studied her friend's face. "What's the matter with you, Abby?"

'I was just wondering how soon the blackout would be over. I was just wondering-" Her voice faltered. She sat down beside Paige on the bed.

"Just wondering when we could start back to San Francisco," supplied the girl.

"Oh, Paige, you're wonderful." Abby began to weep.

Curiously San Francisco was not bad after the first few scares. and after one grew accustomed to the lack of brightness. If caught in a restaurant, persons remained there. That is, Paige and Abby did. They played innumerable time-whiling games; they made innumerable plans. Days passed without the plans materializing.

"Always before," Abby commented, my money has helped me. But that doesn't mean anything toward getting passage. Too many men are more important than I-the truly crushing blow, as I've always considered myself more important than the men."

"We'll get there somehow."

"Yes.' Deftly she looped a peg with a rope horseshoe.' "Probably in some old tub built about the year I left the farm. But that's all right, too." She stood back for Paige's play. "Of course it's not so bad now that cables get through."

The girl said, 'It's all right so long as I don't get any. And I'm not sending any. I intend to do my stump speech, face to face."

Face-to-face! The expression returned to her several days later. She entered the cocktail lounge of the St. Francis and found herself face to face with Eugenia North.

Eugenia was wearing the exact bronze sequin and plume and crepe skirt ensemble. which only added to the absurdity of the occasion. "It's like sitting through a poor movie twice," Paige decided.

She made a straight path toward the blond girl Abby in her wake like a bouncing little trailer following a streamlined automobile.

'How did you get here?" demanded Paige.

Eugenia's pink lips blew smoke