Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
( Chapter Two: ❛ THE LONELY SOCK ❜ ) AUGUST, 1943
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
IT HAD BEEN WARM ON THE EVENING THAT VIRGINIA GLOYNE'S LIFE BEGAN TO CHANGE. After hanging up her switchboard headset for the week, she retreated to the humble abode of Jaqueline Badger, an unremarkable cookie-cutter type terraced house, where her bubbly friend announced that they would be taking to the streets for the evening so that Jackie could flaunt her new dress to passers-by. The epitome of fashion bound beneath one flesh, Jackie was a dish and only a fool would deny it — in fact, sometimes, even Virginia was awestruck by how she could change the shape of her lips with just one swipe of rouge.
A dead-ringer for Lauren Becall, the brunette had mastered the art of finger waves and seduction, with a mysterious sleaze in her blue eyes and a smile that made her seem like she could see through you like glass. She could have qualified in one of those prettiest eyes competitions where women's faces were covered with handkerchiefs as to be judged on the beauty of eyes alone.
In short, she was a very beautiful young brunette, and men saw that in her with little but a glance, stumbling in her gait for a chance at being her intended. However, every tragic hero had a fault and every tragic victim a flaw: Jackie had the tendency to be a bit of an airhead at times, and was overly consumed about about what people gossiped about her and her appearance. If Virginia hadn't known better, she would have called Jackie superficial. Perhaps that was just her jealousy talking.
She ended up accompanying her friend that evening though, because, 1). she didn't want to rain on Jackie's parade, and 2). it wasn't exactly her place to be acting like a wet blanket now, was it? Virgina's time spent on the town was next to null these days and Jackie was rampant, having just recently taken night classes to improve her dancing after some rude Marine had called her a complete dead-hoofer and an elephant on the spring floor.
The brunettes aforementioned new dress was an elegant baby blue button-down that was synched in nicely at the waist, with chiffon short sleeves and a flowing blue skirt that bloomed out and ended just below her knee. She was readying herself hours before they had to leave, with her hair in pillow rollers and powder already on her nose. Before they even left Jackie's house, Virginia knew that in her buttercup-yellow dress she would fall in the shadow that her friend would cast that night, but she didn't so much mind.
That evening they headed to the "Dug-Out", a regional honeypot for the flies and the gnats and all the insects of the US Army. It was the Allied Services Club that was operated by the Myer Department Store in the Capitol Building on Swanston Street. It was renowned for holding the best dances and concerts in Melbourne and troops used to meet there as a matter of routine. Besides, hotels like the one her mother worked at were only allowed to serve alcohol twice a day for one hour at a time, leading to large numbers of servicemen rushing from one hotel to the next and drinking as much as possible before it closed.
