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They’re shopping when they see it. To be precise (and it’s Kit’s job to be precise), Ruthie sees it.
A box of puppies in an alley with a cardboard sign reading “free”.
Kit can’t help but be reminded of a moment that feels like a lifetime ago. The Depression is over, and they’re in a new city with new clothes and steady jobs – career girls, the both of them.
But finding abandoned animals is just as heartbreaking now as it was then.
It’s a week after Thanksgiving, and the city is so cold that Kit can see her breath in the air. She doesn’t have to think twice to know that there’s a good chance that these animals might not survive the night in the box.
“Oh, Kit,” Ruthie says, kneeling down and reaching into the box. “Look at them!”
She’s already drafting an ad in her head. “How many are there?” She cranes her neck to look in the box, and she answers her own question as Ruthie says, “Two!”
Charlie won’t appreciate the surprise, but they can’t leave them there. Besides, Charlie loves dogs. She knows her brother and she knows he’d be more upset if they left them there – as if that were even an option.
The problem will be convincing him to part with one.
“Let’s take them both,” Kit says. She scoops one of the puppies up. She has too many important papers in her satchel to put the puppy inside, so she holds it close. They’re not far from home, anyway.
Ruthie takes the other puppy, and they hurry home.
Home is a row house that they share with Charlie. Technically speaking, Charlie’s name is on the mortgage, paltry recompense for risking his life in the War, but he’s not married, and even if he were, he’s not the kind of person who would turn out his younger sister after she returned from the war – or his sister’s best friend, who’d just finished her studies at Vassar.
Kit isn’t a mooch, and neither is Ruthie. They both pay their fair share of living costs, and help out around the house when they can.
Kit has a feeling her household responsibilities are about to increase, in no small part due to the animal in her arms.
“What kind of dog do you think they are?” Ruthie asks when they’re about a block away.
Kit examines the puppies. “Mongrels,” she says confidently. She isn’t an expert in dogs, by far, but they don’t look like any standard breed she’s ever seen.
Besides, now most people are able and willing to pay for a properly bred dog.
Charlie is in the living room reading a book when they come in. The house is warm and cozy and the relief Kit feels when walking inside is instantaneous.
“Charlie! Look what Ruthie and I found!” Kit holds her puppy up for him to see.
“Poor dears were in a box in an alley… we thought they could use a good home.”
Charlie rolls his eyes good-naturedly and walks over to look at the puppies. “They’re too young to have been housebroken.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Kit says. She’s not an expert, but how hard can housebreaking puppies be? She’s handled so many more challenging things.
Kit knows Charlie better than just about anyone else – which is how she knows he’ll agree to keep the puppies.
“They’re your pets, so I’m not cleaning up after them,” Charlie says. “But they can stay.”
She catches Charlie giving the puppies chicken the next morning as he makes his lunch. “You’re already smitten,” she says.
Charlie smiles. “As long as they don’t end up like Inky.”
Kit shudders at the thought. “I don’t know what has to go wrong with a dog to make it like Inky.” One of the puppies bounds over to her, probably thinking she has a treat. She scratches him behind the ears. “I think Inky was probably mean from the start.”
Charlie laughs and agrees. Unce Hendrick probably intentionally picked the meanest puppy in the litter. Their puppies seem much more agreeable – at least so far.
“But I do think it’s probably a good idea to keep them where they can cause the least trouble while we’re at work,” Kit says.
“That’d probably be the powder room,” Charlie says. He gives the puppies a little bit more chicken. “At least until they’re a little better trained.”
Ruthie will think it’s horribly unfair, but Kit knows the two of them can talk sense into her.
Stirling Howard comes to town a week later. It’s about at that time when Kit starts to think that being a war correspondent had nothing on housebreaking puppies – so of course Ruthie invites him to stay with them.
Kit and Stirling’s friendship has been maintained chiefly through letters for the past few years, with a few phone calls since she moved in with Charlie. She saw him once when she first came back – when she was still staying with her parents in Cincinnati. Before she got this job.
She never expected Stirling to grow up to be tall and broad – and he’s neither, even though, at twenty-four, he could well fill out a bit more. He’s in that strange stage men have after adolescence before they truly look like men, but he’s no longer scrawny, and he’s at least a few inches taller than she is.
He’s grown up to be quite handsome. His hair is slicked back, as is the style, but his grey sweater brings out his eyes and doesn’t wash out his fair skin. He has a suitcase in one hand and an art portfolio under the other arm.
He’s barely set them down when Kit rushes to give him a hug. For a moment, when she sees him, she forgets that she’s a young woman and Stirling is a young man. That’s all there is to it; she’s delighted at seeing one of her oldest friends. Stirling stumbles a bit, but steadies himself.
“It’s good to see you, too,” he says. He shakes Charlie’s hand, and gives Ruthie a hug that is much less enthusiastic than the one Kit gave him – but then Kit has always been an enthusiastic person.
He’s delighted by the puppies, whom Ruthie has named Lancelot and Merlin. They’re very lordly names for mongrels, which may be why they act as if the world revolves around them. Stirling, like Ruthie, finds it charming. Kit warns him that it won’t be charming when they’re fully grown. Stirling only laughs.
Stirling walks her to work on Monday morning. It’s nothing special; he’s applying for a job at a nearby advertising agency.
He had medical exemption from the war, so despite his desire to serve, he studied art. He had a brief stint working on war bond advertisements locally in Cincinnati, and he currently works in the art department for a Cinci company, but this job is much more in line with what he wants to do with his life, he says.
He showed Kit, Ruthie, and Charlie some of his work over the weekend, and Kit was thoroughly impressed.
“So,” he says, adjusting his portfolio under his arm.
“Hm?”
“How long have Ruthie and Charlie been seeing each other?”
Kit is so taken aback by the question that she nearly runs into someone. “What?”
“Come on, Kit. It’s obvious.”
Kit’s a reporter. It’s her job to pay attention to detail. Things that are obvious to other people should be doubly so to her.
“They’re not seeing each other,” Kit says. “First of all, she lives with us – I mean, we live together. It’d be a huge scandal if…”
“Like you didn’t see worse in Europe.”
“Of course I saw worse in Europe,” Kit says. “But most people have a different code for what they did and saw over there.”
She’s not so naïve to think that Charlie has never been with a woman in a way that Mother would insist should only be between husband and wife. Like Stirling said, she saw worse in Europe.
She knows Charlie is a good man. She knows that Charlie didn’t do the worst things.
But even good men had affairs with the women they met at war.
Kit doesn’t think it’s inherently immoral. It’s just something that happened.
But there’s something different about seeing a girl who lives in your house, but who is not your wife. Especially during peacetime.
“I really didn’t mean to start anything,” Stirling says.
“You didn’t,” Kit promises him. “I’m a reporter. I should’ve seen it. I probably would’ve seen it if it were anyone else.”
It snows that night. It doesn’t stop in the morning. Kit goes to work – and so do Ruthie and Charlie – while Stirling stays home with the dogs. Kit is sent home by lunchtime.
Kit fully expects the storm to be over by the following morning, so after she gets home, she sits in the living room near the radiator, she works on typing up a story.
She’s so invested, she doesn’t even notice Stirling approaching until the mug of hot chocolate is on the desk. “Here,” he says. “I took the liberty. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all,” she says. She takes a sip; it’s rich and warm and chocolatey. “Thanks.”
Ruthie hasn’t quite come home yet, so it’s just the two of them.
“I wanted to apologize if I overstepped yesterday.”
Kit shakes her head. “You didn’t. I’ve thought about it and… you might be right.”
“Sometimes you just need a fresh set of eyes,” Stirling says.
She smiles at him gratefully. “I just have no idea how I’m supposed to approach them about it – should I even approach them about it?”
He thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t think Ruthie or Charlie would react horribly, but at the same time… if they haven’t told you, there’s probably a reason for it.”
“Have they told you?”
Stirling shakes his head. “No. They haven’t told me anything like that. It’s just that I know them both well, and I don’t live with either of them, so it was easier to notice.”
“Well,” Kit says, taking a sip of her hot chocolate, “at least I’m not the only one.”
“I could ask,” Stirling offers.
Kit shakes her head. “I don’t want them to feel backed into a corner.”
“Okay. But if you change your mind, let me know.”
She smiles and promises him that she will.
It’s easy with Stirling. They’ve been friends for so long that there’s no awkwardness, no discomfort. He brings one of his boards into the living room and works on a drawing while Kit gets back to work on her article.
When the radio takes a break from the Andrews Sisters to advise them that the storm is still going strong outside. Ruthie barges in the front door and slams it shut behind her.
“I swear it’s snowed three inches since they sent us home from work,” she says as she pokes her head into the living room. “I’m going to go get a shower to warm up.”
Kit nods and waves her along. When Charlie doesn’t come back after Ruthie comes down (in flannel pyjamas and woolen socks with her hair in curlers), Kit starts to worry a bit.
Charlie can handle himself, but a look out the window shows that the snow is still coming down.
Merlin is the one who distracts her. He paws at her leg, so she picks him up. Neither Merlin nor Lancelot seem like they’re going to get very big, and she knows they’re running the very real risk of creating lap dogs, but she doesn’t mind. At least not yet.
“Did Charlie call?” Ruthie asks, throwing a toy for Lancelot to chase.
“No,” Stirling says. After all, he was the one who was here all day.
Ruthie frowns. “I’m going to call his office.”
Kit wonders why she didn’t think of that herself.
Ruthie goes to the kitchen, but comes back barely a minute later. “The phone lines are down.”
“I’m sure Charlie’s fine,” Stirling says.
Ruthie doesn’t look convinced and Kit doesn’t feel much better, so Stirling puts his work aside. “Let’s play a game.”
“What kind of game?” Ruthie asks.
“We have Monopoly,” Kit says. “Or we could play charades.”
So, five minutes later, they’re setting up Monopoly on the dining room table as Charlie comes in.
Before Kit can get up, Ruthie has rushed out to the foyer to greet him.
“I tried to call,” Charlie said, “but the phone lines were down.”
Kit takes one look at him and frowns. “Go upstairs to shower and put on some dry clothes and we’ll all play Monopoly.”
Charlie salutes her. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ruthie giggles, but Charlie goes upstairs without protest.
Ruthie wins their game of Monopoly, and her reward is a paper crown decorated by Stirling. They move into the living room, but Kit doesn’t return to her work. It’s still snowing outside, and the radio host reports that no one seems to know when it will stop.
Kit has never been more grateful to be on the sports beat. She’s sure when the phone lines are back on and the roads have been plowed that she’ll have to get back to work, but for now, she can stay inside.
Charlie sits on the floor and plays with the puppies, and Kit could almost forget how far away from their parents they are.
“Remember when we all got scarlet fever and had to quarantine?” Ruthie asks.
Charlie raises an eyebrow. “All of you? I must have missed that letter.”
Kit rolls her eyes; she catches the suggestion in his tone. “We were ten, and Stirling’s never been anything but a perfect gentleman.”
“As much as my mother would have preferred to tend to me herself,” Stirling says, “at the time, I was just relieved to have my two best friends to share that experience with.”
“So was I,” Kit says.
“At least if we’re stuck inside again, we’ll have separate bedrooms. Though a slumber party could be fun.”
A slumber party. Like they’re children. In the living room.
Kit should find the idea silly and childish, but she doesn’t. “What about the puppies?”
Ruthie shrugs. “They’re mostly housebroken, but if you’re worried, we can shut them in the powder room overnight.”
“It might be a good idea to lay out some newspaper, anyway,” Charlie says, picking Lancelot up. “These two would get buried in the snow.”
“Not the Herald Tribune,” Kit says. She has to draw a line somewhere.
“Of course not,” Charlie says. He’s been collecting some competing papers from coworkers to use for the powder room – they all have.
Kit would say she doesn’t feel good about letting the puppies do their business on her competitors, but that’d be a bold-faced lie.
Instead, she helps Charlie lay out newspaper in the kitchen and powder room – both of them hoping that the puppies continue to avoid the hardwood and rugs in the living room.
Charlie and Stirling haul down the guest mattress as well as Charlie’s own while Kit changes into pyjamas, and together they take up most of the living room floor. In a rush, Ruthie claims the guest mattress for herself and for Kit.
They stay up late talking. At some point, Charlie opens a bottle of bourbon, and they all drink some. It’s pretty smooth, and Kit has no problem with it. The same cannot be said for Ruthie or Stirling, who cough and pull faces.
“I’m too used to wine,” Ruthie says.
“I’ve had much worse,” Kit says. There are some things about the war that she doesn’t talk about – some things that she can’t talk about. She’s sealed them up tight in a dark room in the back of her mind.
But she remembers drinking with the other correspondents, with some of the nurses, soldiers, even a few civilians. She tells them a story about a tiny village in France they liberated – how Kit could still barely cobble together a coherent sentence in French, how one of the families repaid them with spirits made from apples that burned going down, and how some of the boys talked about going back After.
“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” Stirling asks.
Kit shrugs. “I think I’d like to. But for work, I think. I’m not sure I could go for pleasure. Not for a long time, anyway.” She still keeps in touch with some of the other Americans she met there. A couple even live in the same city. She’s gone out to drink with them. They drink whiskey much worse than this. “I’d have to get off the sports beat first.”
“You will,” Stirling says with such conviction that she believes him.
“Thanks.”
They’re still snowed in the next day, even though the snow has stopped, and the phone lines are down. The radio declares a state of emergency.
Charlie has to go into work anyway, though he wears tin pants and waterproof boots this time. He gives Kit a hug and promises to come back as soon as possible.
Kit nods and goes into the kitchen to give him a moment alone with Ruthie.
Stirling is fixing eggs on the range.
There was a time Kit thought she’d never eat another egg again – and Stirling, too, she’s sure. She doesn’t know how they ended up here, against all odds.
“You really fit in here,” Kit says.
“You say that like it’s a surprise,” Stirling teases.
“Well, no. I mean, you’ve lived with me and Charlie before. But if you get that job… I’m sure Charlie’d be happy to let you stay with us.”
“That’d be dangerously approaching a scandal. Ruthie can be explained as your best friend – which she is – but then if you were to throw another young, unmarried man into the equation?”
“We lived together until – until I left,” Kit says.
Things are better for Mrs. Howard now, of course; she has a small apartment in Cincinnati and a job at a department store. But they weren’t better when Kit left. Not yet. The country was still pulling itself out of the Depression. Mrs. Howard had been the last boarder to leave.
“Besides, we wouldn’t be sharing a room. And I don’t care about scandals. Honestly, Stirling, it wasn’t like they sent me along with a group of women only.”
“No, but that was wartime, not peacetime.”
“And I don’t care. And you know my parents won’t, either.”
Stirling’s mother will, and they both know that, but he doesn’t bring it up. “I got the job, actually,” he says.
“Really?” she asks. Why has he waited so long to tell her?
“Hired on the spot. Wanted to take everyone out to dinner last night, but – well.” He waves a hand vaguely out the window.
“That’s great!” Kit says. “Then you have to stay with us. If nothing else then at least until you’ve gotten used to the city.”
Stirling doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Only if Charlie and Ruthie agree.”
“Only if Charlie and Ruthie agree to what?” Ruthie asks, coming into the kitchen and pouring herself another cup of coffee.
“I got the job at the ad agency. They want me to start Monday. Kit wants me to live here.”
“Where else would you live?” Ruthie says. “Don’t be silly. Of course you’re staying here.”
“You won’t have a guest room if your parents visit.”
Ruthie shrugs. “I can bunk down with Kit if we need to. But that’s way off, anyway.”
“Christmas is in two weeks,” Stirling says.
“I’m going home for Christmas, so my room will already be vacant. Even if I believed that your mother would be fine with you staying, too, Mr. and Mrs. Kittredge will have a room.”
“You won’t be a burden, Stirling,” Kit says. “Actually… if you help pay the bills then you’ll be more of a help than anything.”
“I think it’s up to Charlie, but okay. If Charlie says it’s okay.”
“He will,” Kit says. “Charlie’s always liked you.”
“Charlie likes most people. That doesn’t mean he wants them living with his sister – and I know, I know, we’ve lived together before, but this is different.”
Kit doesn’t see how it is, but she doesn’t argue further. The last thing she wants is to argue him into backtracking.
After Charlie comes home, Stirling goes to speak with him upstairs.
Ruthie rolls her eyes. “They’re more concerned about our honor than we are.”
Kit can’t help but agree. Ruthie picks up Lancelot from the floor. “Sir Lancelot is the only one I need to protect my honor. Look at him. Such a handsome knight.”
Kit grins and pets the puppy, who licks her hand. “The most handsome knight I’ve ever met,” she agrees.
When Charlie and Stirling come back down, they both seem to be in a good enough mood.
“I take it you girls have heard the good news,” Charlie says.
“We might have,” Ruthie agrees.
Stirling puts on a frown, though anyone can see how fake it is. “I hope you’re prepared to have my mother calling at all hours of the night.”
Kit grins and pulls him down into the sofa next to her. “I already lived with her for years. I’m sure we can handle it.”
“You can. Charlie can. Ruthie’s never felt the full force of my mother’s maternal concern.”
“Yes, I have,” Ruthie says. “Dozens of times! And we can handle her. Honestly, Stirling, I love you like a brother – she doesn’t need to worry about me.”
And, well, Kit is inclined to agree.
Charlie finds a bottle of champagne hidden in a back cupboard, and Ruthie bakes a cake, and Kit can’t believe how lucky she is to live with three people she loves so much.