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A knock sounded on the door as Margaret plunged the needle into her thumb. She swore under her breath and brought the injured digit to her mouth.
“Who is it?”
"Margaret, it's me."
"Enter."
A familiar head ducked under the doorway of her tent, followed by a robe and a pair of pyjamas neatly cuffed above his boots.
“Ah, needlepoint!" Charles exclaimed. "Such charming decorative art. What is it that you are making?”
“A pillow sham for Lorraine. Lieutenant Anderson, I mean.”
“Of course. Lovely woman. A shame the same could not be said for her companion.” Here, Charles mimed tossing a lasso with all the mild disgust of a man who predominantly considered horses in the context of pulling carriages a hundred years ago.
It was easier for Margaret to pretend to agree rather than lie. She had avoided Roy Dupree for the most part, though enough of his character shone through in letters from Lorraine.
An awkward silence fell over the tent. It had been like this for the past few months since Margaret and Charles had forgotten how to interact like civilized adults. There was nothing between them. Whatever it was in those tense early weeks that convinced Margaret that Charles was looking for an opportunity to jump her bones (her husband being hundreds of miles away, the knowledge that she inadvertently put Frank Burns in a padded cell, a mutual discomfort with associating with anyone below the rank of major) died out quickly. And now, Margaret was left with the problem that she did not know how to befriend a man. Actually, she knew little about friendship in general, regardless of gender. It had been easy that way.
The needle was still poised in Margaret’s hand. She noticed that Charles had a book tucked under his arm. A slim volume, probably poetry. Something utterly pretentious by someone a hundred years dead or more. But where on earth was he taking it? A little moonlit reading on the latrine? Likely Charles would tell her in a moment and then be on his merry way, and she would be left alone with her needlepoint and Daphne du Maurier novel.
“Well then, I will happily leave you to toil in solitude if that is what you desire, however, I’m headed to the nurses’ tent if you would care to join me.”
Margaret raised an eyebrow. “You were invited to girls’ night?”
“Yes. First of all, I would do anything to get away from those two cretins with whom I am forced to cohabit. Second, I have a sparkling wit and charming personality that the nurses appreciate, while my fellow surgeons have never aged out of playground toilet humour. And, third, I happen to enjoy the company of women, thank you very much.”
Margaret let out a rather cruel snort at the thought of Charles enjoying the company of anyone besides himself, let alone a gaggle of beautiful women. And then unease churned in her stomach.
Charles gave an offended sniff in response. “When one grows up with a sister for company, one finds comfort in the presence of other women. Your nurses may well be the only other people in this camp with a lick of common sense, even if they are prone to the occasional frivolity. Not that I need to explain myself to you, of course.”
Margaret pinched her finger where the needle had pierced it and watched a drop of blood well up. Her nurses would rather spend time with Charles than with her. They invited a man into their little bonding ritual before they invited her.
Something wormed uncomfortably in the pit of Margaret’s stomach. She knew that her nurses congregated without her—stayed up late giggling, gossiping, painting each other's nails, and doing each other's hair (she could always tell. A new issue of Vogue or a style guide would circulate throughout the camp, and half the girls would walk around with Liz Taylor’s curl pattern. Just like clockwork). Sprawled out over each other's bunks with their shirts tied up around their navels, their hair loose around their shoulders. The kind of sleepovers Margaret wished for an invitation to when she was a child.
Growing up, it wasn’t just that Margaret moved so often that made the making and keeping of friends difficult. It was that other girls had little desire to befriend her. They had nothing in common with her. Half of the girls on any given base couldn’t care less about the army. They heard enough shop talk from their fathers over Sunday night dinner that they didn’t want to hear any more of it from her. And the other half was competition for positions that the world wasn’t yet comfortable giving to women. Margaret once got stuck in a thicket, so her mom had to chop her hair off (only to her jaw). She’d unsuccessfully lobbied to be allowed to join the Boy Scouts because their badges were so much more exciting than the Girl Scouts—archery! Wood carving! Metalwork!—ignoring that they also included basket weaving and cooking. On the rare occasion that other girls included her, she had trouble sitting still long enough for clapping games, disliked other people touching her hair, and was bored beyond belief by magazine quizzes. She was a grown-up in the body of a little girl, and her intensity made other little girls nervous. The fact that Lorraine stuck around until adulthood wasn’t because Margaret had a sparkling personality—even at her wildest, she never let herself get too distracted—but rather because Lorraine had decided they would be friends and refused to let go. And that was different. That was one friend Margaret had grown up with and kept in sporadic touch with over the past two decades. One friend, not a tent full of nurses whom she was charged with keeping in line.
Making friends was so much easier as a child. So was keeping them.
The nurses wouldn’t want her there, would they? It would ruin all the fun. Like having your mother chaperone an outing. Nobody wanted the head nurse around; that would make things weird. Sure, on occasion, Margaret sat with the girls instead of with Charles or the other surgeons, and, sure, the nurses felt comfortable enough to engage her in conversation (but only the light stuff, nothing important, nothing too personal), but just because they had begun to accept her as a person rather than the military handbook in the shape of a woman didn't mean that they were about to open up their private circle to her, bare their hearts to her. They attended her wedding shower because it was probably the closest any of them would get to normality so close to the front.
Did they talk about her? They must. Even if they had stopped complaining, for the most part, they must still talk about her. (Or perhaps Margaret was so desperate to be included that she could fathom them not talking about her.) Poor Major Houlihan. She snagged herself a husband straight out of a propaganda poster, a man that Michelangelo couldn’t do a better job of sculpting, and she couldn’t even keep him. Sometimes, it seemed like she didn’t even want him.
God, did they know? That she was—whatever she was. Granted, Margaret hardly understood what she was, only that other women generally didn’t think or act like her, but she knew enough. No matter how hard she tried to keep something hidden, it always ended up that the whole camp knew her deepest secrets. Every time Margaret scrubbed up, her eyes stayed laser-focused on the nail with her name taped above it. She did not look anywhere else. She refused to falter.
Sure, there was that one time she told them that they were all desirable women, and they just so happened to be topless, and sure, she may have said it a little too forcefully, but what else was she supposed to do? Lie? Half of those nurses were transferred to other units or earned enough points to go home. She doubted that the other half of them remembered.
(Occasionally, she toyed with the idea of looking up Margie Cutler or Ginger Bayliss and all the other girls who left, half of whom requested transfers because she was working them to death, and apologizing. I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you. I’m sorry I treated you no better than a man would. And then she never did.)
From the doorway, one hand and his head the last things still in the tent, Charles gave a long-suffering look and said, “in approximately 30 seconds, I will be heading to the nurses’ tent. You can either come with me or stay here by yourself. Bring your embroidery, I’m sure one of them can help you clean up your chain stitch.”
“What’s wrong with my chain stitch? And what do you know about needlework outside of surgery?”
“It looks like it was done by a child with a gun against her head.”
Margaret decided to ignore that remark. Before Charles could close the door, she reached blindly for his sleeve. “Wait a minute. Just wait a minute, please.” Without letting go, Margaret threw everything within arms reach, including her book, into the sewing basket. Before she could take it back, she hooked the basket over the crook of her arm, stood, and allowed herself to be gently led away.