I'd Never Fall In Love Again.

Chapter 1.

November 26th 1944:

It is a typical Friday morning as I am getting ready for work. My room is frigid enough for me to see my own breath as I put on my stockings. I suppose that is to be expected for late November in Cleveland Ohio. It's the day after Thanksgiving, the first Thanksgiving I have ever spent away from my family. You see around three weeks ago I turned eighteen. With both of us wanting a fresh start, me and my best friend Celia Grainger decided to move to Cleveland, nothing in particular drew us here, aside from the fact that it was far enough from the place i grew up calling home and we both wanted change. 

My name is Juliet Elaine Kinsey, I was born November 3rd 1926 in Hartford Connecticut, my parents are Robert and Elaine Kinsey. As previously mentioned I moved to Cleveland, with my best friend Celia, for a fresh start. We arrived around two weeks ago and found a boarder house owned by a lovely elderly couple, the Dooley's, to take us in for rent in Woodland Hills. Shortly after we moved we started a search for jobs so we could afford to stay here, with neither of us having any prior work experience we were worried it would take a while. To our relief we were both hired at the first place we interviewed at. Not that we were anything special in our interviews, or that we had exactly the right skill set they were looking for, I believe they were simply desperate considering they lost several employees to factory positions. 

Our job you may be wondering, well, we are servers at a restaurant in the Cleveland Arcade. We are enjoying this city quite well so far, we have settled into our rooms at the Dooley's and have started to go out and experience the city life. We have acclimated to our jobs nicely, work is work, we are happy for it but we are not in love with it. Overall I find myself in love with this new city, we have not been here long, and even though the autumn temperature is already bone-chillingly cold, I love to go up to the lake and just admire its beauty, me and Celia enjoying getting food sometimes at the Coney Island Restaurant on 9th street and strolling around before catching a cab home.

Juliet finishes getting dressed in her work attire of a simple black button up dress with short mutton style sleeves. She pulls most of her thick strands of wavy, long, raven black hair into a ponytail then curls the front pieces up to pin them back to keep it out of her way as she goes along her work day. Now she adds some bright red lipstick to her perfectly proportioned round lips to keep up her morale, she loves a good lipstick even before red lips became a symbol for patriotic morale boost. She walks down the stairs of the house she shares with her best friend and the Dooley's, slips on her red boots, muddied from the fall ground, and her thick black jacket to keep the wind chill off her arms as she walks to work, throws on her scarf and gloves and waits for Celia to join her on their walk to work. 

Finally after a long eight hours of taking people's orders and bringing everyone their food, cleaning off tables, and making sure everything was in order it is time for their shift to be over. Juliet and Celia clock out and grab their jackets and purses. On their way out, since it is a Friday night and they have nowhere to be tomorrow morning, Juliet asked Celia if she would like to go to their current favorite restaurant, Coney Island, and take a stroll through the city afterwards. She instantly agreed, loving the idea herself, so they headed off in the chilling wind to 9th street to get their food and stroll around for a while until they felt that it was time to catch a cab home.

Meanwhile in Shaker Heights: It's your typical Friday night after a long day of classes and a shift at work. My name is Declan Johnathan Monreau, born August 14th 1922 Shaker Heights Cleveland Ohio. My parents are Jaques and Marguerite Monreau, they previously migrated here from France back in 1919 and started the work to open my dad's french pastry shop. That's where I work. I enjoy the work and the family business of it all, but making pastries isn't what I want to do with my life, I want to be a chemical engineer. After we got back from Europe in September 1944 my best friend, not having anything to go back to in his own home town, decided to follow me home to Cleveland. I moved back in with my parents for now and my best friend Lucian Harding is renting the apartment above my parents garage. Both of us got a job at my parents' shop. I make pastries, he just works behind the counter selling them. We both enrolled in classes at Cleveland University, taking advantage of the military offering to pay for most of it. 

As I previously mentioned, it's a typical Friday night, and on weekends we like to attend whatever show is going on at The Roxy. After freshening up and changing from my work clothes and into my navy blue pinstripe suit I bought before I left, glad it still fits right, ladies seem to love it, I parted my black hair and slicked it back with my favorite comb. I picked out my best oxfords and slipped them on and did up the lacing's, grabbed my wallet, keys, and jacket. I walked over to the garage and headed up to the apartment, I knocked a few times, when Lucian yelled back "come in" I let myself in as he suggested, he was putting on his shoes, almost ready to leave, he was wearing a similar outfit to me only Lucian's was black. When he was done tying his shoes I asked if he was ready to go now, he nodded a yes and we hopped into my dad's old Buick series 40 he gave me when I got home and we were off to The Roxy. 

Around two hours later the show we caught was over and we got our jackets back on, finished the rest of our drinks, paid our tabs and made our way to the door, patting my suit jacket pocket to make sure my keys were still in it I pulled them out after finding them there and we started walking down the sidewalk to where we parked. We had not made it five feet when I looked up and saw her there, she was walking out of the Coney Island with another girl by her side, the most fetching woman I have seen in my entire life, after a few seconds of staring while still walking, she looked up at me and we locked eyes, she abruptly stopped causing her friend to run in to her side as she was slightly behind her, Lucian realized what was going on when I stopped two feet in front of her and we just stared at each other for a few seconds quietly. Yet it was not awkward for some reason, Lucian quickly snapped me out of my trance by shoving me closer to her, then for the first time I heard her voice, all she said was hi, barely above a whisper, but in that moment I knew I wanted to hear that voice every day.

I of course said hi back and told her my name, I then asked for her own name... Juliet, a perfect name for the woman standing before me. I told her this might be to forward but I asked her if I could ever see her again and looked in my pocket for a scrap of paper to write our home number on to give to her, I found one and quickly wrote my number down, nerves rushing through my body as I am not used to feeling this way about anyone, especially someone I do not know. She accepted the paper with my number and said she would like to get to know me more so yes she would gladly see me again. Then her friend Celia spoke up and said they should be on their way and just like that were gone.

After a while walking we made it to our favorite city food spot, Coney island on 9th, after getting and finishing our food we still still sat their talking about nothing and everything, we decided it would be best if we made our way home now, we were walking out of the door while I was laughing at something Celia was saying to me, as I was walking I felt someone's eyes on me, I look up and stopped suddenly, and there he was, the most good-looking man i have ever laid eyes on, Hes tall, I would say around 6'3 in height, the most unbelievable blue eyes I have ever seen, black hair combed to the side, perfectly shaped bone structure and plump strawberry red lips. Him and his friend were walking right towards me and Celia, he stopped a few feet in front of me, we both must have been enthralled by each other's eyes because it felt like forever but a few seconds later one of his friends pushed him closer to me. 

I smiled and quietly said hi to him, he greeted me back and told me his name was Declan in the most smoky voice and asked for my name back. After I told him it was Juliet, I saw something in those iris blue irises of his, he then asked me if we could see each other again and offered me his number. I accepted it because in all honesty, even though we just met, not even five minutes ago, something inside of me told me I needed to see him again. After a bit, Celia broke the comfortable silence and told the boys we needed to be on our way home. I told Declan I would try to call him tomorrow, Celia hooked her arm in mine and we walked off.

Both Juliet and Declan made it home safely that night, and neither of them would stop smiling and thinking to themselves about each other, Celia kept taunting Juliet about how instantly smitten she was for Declan that night. At the same time, Lucian was poking fun at Declan for being so taken with Juliet so soon. They both went to bed thinking of each other more than they would like to admit, her being nervous about calling him the next day, him extremely excited over the prospect of hearing her voice again tomorrow, even just over the phone.