The Undaunted

Blue Angel

Jack went to the gathering of journalists at the Onyx Club on the upper west side feeling much less certain. He hadn't heard a thing from Jenny. Everybody at the club, awaiting the announcement of the award winners to come through while listening to Dizzy Gillespie singing a much too breezy song, asked him if his brilliant correspondent was there and he had to shake his head. Surely she would come? Surely she'd received his telegram? Why would she travel all that way for a rumor?

The only thing he knew for sure was that he'd barely eaten all day, had consumed nothing other than coffee and whiskey and he felt himself to be a little unsteady on his feet as he made his way over to the bar with his grandfather and Owens, and several of his top reporters.

They start chatting for a while but Jack couldn't concentrate. He kept fighting the urge to reach up and tug at the black silk bow tie at his neck, the tuxedo he wore feeling as foreign and punishing as a chain shirt. His gaze raked the room, landing only on familiar faces, his wife thankfully absent due to an illness that had left her with little appetite for the past couple of weeks.

"So, it's down to you and de Rêve." The Times editor slapped Jack on the back. "The odds are so slim in each of your categories that I'm not even betting."

"Excuse me," Jack said, turning away too abruptly to be polite but needing to leave before he snapped. Who really knew which reporters the Pulitzer board was considering in any of the categories? Which is why it was ridiculous of him to imagine that Jenny would come.

He stepped outside onto 52nd Street and breathed in deeply. It was misting lightly outside and the fine drops immediately clung to his hair and the black shoulders of his tuxedo jacket. Jack couldn't have cared less. He should have eaten something. He should definitely not have anything more to drink. His head swam. All thought of food, however, evaporated as a familiar scent of poppies reached his nose. He spun on his heel from side to side and then, there she was, more breathtaking than ever.

The drops of moisture that clung to him also clung to her, looking like a diamond coronet on her blonde coif and sparkling on the long, full skirted gown that reminded him of the dress she'd worn the night they danced at the chateau. But this time it was blue, the color of skies and oceans and impossible dreams, not the dingy white color of parachute silk, of war and death and their love.

All breath left his lungs. He couldn't speak. He didn't need to; everything he felt and thought was written plainly on his face. She smiled slowly at him.

"Well," she finally said, her eyes dancing up and down him. "Hello there."

Such a simple greeting. So few words, and yet they conveyed every emotion the two of them had felt over the nearly year they had been apart. She looked well, Jack thought. Radiant even. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were soft and shining tears and a love she did not dare say out loud. Standing there with that expression on her face of pure adoration, the droplets of rain cleaning to her blue dress and blonde hair like diamonds, she was like an angelic being, a creature sent down from heaven to him.

"Jenny," he said, his voice almost cracking.

Jack seemed to be frozen in place and so Jenny closed the distance between them, walking slowly over to him, that beautiful smile never leaving her face.

"I don't need to ask how you are," she said softly.

She'd obviously noticed that he was halfway to drunk and nervous as hell. He turned his body toward her so that he could see her face and discovered it was guarded in a way he'd never seen it before. What had happened to her over the past year? He had so many questions for her, and yet, he found himself for the first time in his life unable to form single God damn word.