When Charlie woke up the following morning, all of the other girls had already gone to work.
The house was lonely as she made her way around it, getting herself ready for the day. Suddenly, the hours which stretched before her seemed never ending and she had no idea what she was going to do to fill them. She had said to Mabel she'd have a look around the village but now that it came to it she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to - not by herself, at least.
It was a Saturday, and Charlie knew from talking to Chuck the night before that that meant there would be a whole load of paratroopers also off work for the day. Knowing as much, she knew it was probably a bad day to have a look around, but the decision was made for her when she looked in the cupboards and refrigerator and found they had hardly any food left over.
Charlie sighed and retrieved their rationing coupons from one of the kitchen drawers before heading upstairs to put on some shoes and get ready to leave the house. It was with great reluctance that she stepped outside a few minutes later, closing the front door with a soft click behind her and locking it for good measure.
The morning was overcast, the sky a pale grey where it refused to let the sunlight through. Clouds pushed and shoved each other out of the way, bundling in on top of each other and effectively blocking out any hints of blue sky which might have lain behind them.
It wasn't too cold, though. Chilly, yes, though not as cold as most of the days Charlie had spent in England before this. She was used to it, in any case; it had been similarly cold a lot of the time back home. She was simply used to it starting to warm up by this time of year.
Charlie had a picnic basket she'd found in one of the cupboards hanging from the crook of her elbow, empty aside from the ration coupons inside it, and she hoped she wouldn't look odd venturing to and from the village centre with it - considering it definitely was not a day for a picnic, nor was she in the company of anyone she might have had a picnic with. She'd simply thought it a good idea to bring it along to help her carry all of the shopping bags.
The village centre was bustling with activity on their current cloudy Saturday morning, a mixture of locals and army personnel. Charlie thought the entire scene was rather quaint, like something out of a film her mother might have watched, and smiled shyly back at the locals who offered their 'good morning's to her. She kept her gaze firmly averted from any and all paratroopers, however, lest she be roped into talking to any of them unattended.
Charlie found the grocery store easily, for she passed it every morning on her walk to the bus stop. She ducked inside just as an elderly man was leaving, and he held the door open for her with a smile. She still wasn't quite used to how often people interacted with each other here; she'd barely known her neighbours at home unless they were involved with her father in a business pursuit.
But he didn't altogether dislike the friendly nature of the village. It was just taking her some time to adjust to it.
Inside the grocery store it was cool, chillier than it had been outside, probably in order to preserve the food. The shelves were quite unsettlingly empty, an effect of the rationing, Charlie supposed, which she'd known before arriving was stricter in England than it was in America but this was the first time she was encountering it herself. For a moment she missed home sorely, missed that bakery around the corner from her house which sold the best chocolate chip cookies she'd ever had, but she shook the homesickness away. The lack of choice of food made her job in picking up groceries much quicker than it might have been otherwise, so she tried to focus on the positives instead.
At the checkout counter Charlie presented her rationing coupons, which allowed her to pay for the groceries. Whilst she knew the paratroopers would have all their food bought and prepared for them by the army so they didn't have to worry about rationing themselves, when the nurses were stationed outside of a warzone they had to fend for themselves where food was concerned. The Army Nurse Corps had organised their coupons for them before they'd arrived, ensuring their household would be able to buy groceries when they needed them, and they had a bursary allowance for each week more than sufficient enough to allow them to buy them without having to eat into their earnings.
Charlie couldn't help but envy the paratroopers for not having to worry, but then again she didn't think she'd be much keen on army food, so she was content to buy and make her own for now.
When Charlie emerged from the grocery store she had to carry her picnic basket with both hands, for it was too heavy to carry in the crook of her elbow now. The sun was beginning to come out and she lingered outside the door for a moment, squinting into the light while her eyes adjusted to the new brightness. She closed her eyes into the sunshine, breathing in deeply and exhaling all of the air in her lungs in one go.
A whole day to spare, she thought, and absolutely nothing to do with it. And it was beginning to look like too nice a day to spend inside. As she began her walk home, Charlie kept an eye out for anywhere secluded she might be able to sit, though she didn't find one readily. After putting all of the groceries away and promptly preparing, and then eating, a late breakfast, she headed back out into the sunshine with a book in hand, continuing to look out for somewhere she might like to spend her day.
This 'somewhere' came to her in the form of a picnic bench outside of the pub she visited every now and again, the same one she'd been in last night. The bench was on the opposite side of the building to the entrance and she hadn't seen it before. When she sat down at it, spinning around in the seat so her legs would fit beneath the table, she realised she also hadn't known the pub was so close to the outskirts of the village. Where the house she stayed in was to the east and the paratroopers were set up to the west, the pub was to the south, and this bench, along with those around it set on a patch of grass like a tiny, strange little garden, looked out onto miles upon miles of rolling fields.
It was beautiful. Exactly what she'd imagined the British countryside might look like. Charlie simply sat and gazed into the postcard scene for a while, her book forgotten in her lap, letting the sunlight warm her skin as it battled with the chill of the gentle breeze. Her lungs drank in the fresh air while her eyes took in the land, a patchwork quilt of different shades of green, the stitches holding each haphazard square together a bobbing pattern of trees. It stretched on as far as she could see, only giving way to the blue of the sky along the horizon, and Charlie rested her cheek in her palm as she smiled and watched a herd of cattle graze on the greenery a little ways away.
Charlie's serenity was interrupted by a voice somewhere nearby, though the voice wasn't addressing her. "Hey, boys, look!"
Even though she clearly wasn't the 'boys' the person had been trying to get the attention of, Charlie looked over anyway, and when she did she found a paratrooper pointing right at her.
He was dark-haired and grinning, his smile clenched around the cigarette in his mouth, and his eyes were all lit up like he was excited about something. He was accompanied by three other boys, all of them wearing their fatigues even though she knew they weren't training today, and all of them also smoking.
"You're one of the nurses, right?" the one who pointed called, removing his cigarette from his mouth and jogging over to her. His three friends followed after him and before long the group of them were standing in front of Charlie and her table.
She nodded at his question, fiddling with her book in her lap, not so forgotten anymore.
"Barely recognised ya out of uniform," the same boy continued, still grinning at her as he dragged intermittently on his cigarette. "I don't think we've met."
She shook her head. "No, I don't think so."
"I'm George," he declared, sticking out his hand for her to shake. "George Luz. It's great to meet ya..." He trailed off, leaving a space for her to offer up her name.
"Charlie," she said, shaking his hand lightly. It was the first time she'd ever touched a boy's hand - since Greg, her date to prom, had refused to dance with her. "Lancaster," she added her surname a second later. "Lieutenant Charlie Lancaster." She wasn't sure whether she was supposed to be using her rank with the soldiers so she decided it was better to be safe than get a reprimand from Lieutenant Maddox.
"Great to meet ya, Lieutenant," George said again, shooting her a wink after he used her rank. He placed his cigarette back in his mouth and spoke around puffing on it, "You mind if we sit?"
She shook her head and watched silently, bewildered, as the four boys squeezed themselves into the picnic table, three of them sitting opposite her and only George sitting beside her.
"Don Malarkey," introduced the one settling in opposite her. "Happy to meet ya, Charlie." He was ginger and spoke softly, and Charlie smiled back at him.
"You as well."
"Next to Don is Frank Perconte, and the fat oaf on the end there still trying to contort himself to fit into the bench is Joe Toye."
"Shut up, Luz," snarked Joe Toye without missing a beat, as though George joked with him often.
"Hi," was all Charlie said, and quietly, too, though all of the boys nodded at her in response so they must have heard her.
"Hey, whatcha readin'?" the one in the middle, Frank, asked. He pointed over the table at Charlie's lap, even though it was obscured from his view by the table, so Charlie gathered he must have seen the book when he'd been trying to get into the bench.
He had a thick accent which sounded like it was from Brooklyn and thick eyebrows, and though his face was screwed up in concentration she didn't get the sense that he was scrutinising her, just that he was genuinely curious.
Charlie drew the book out from her lap and offered it to him, and he took it readily.
"The War of the Worlds, huh?" he asked, looking down at the cover. He flipped it over and scanned the back. "What's it about?"
Charlie blushed, suddenly feeling silly about her choice of book. "Um, an alien invasion of Victorian England."
"No shit?" Frank answered, turning it around to look at the cover again. "It any good?"
"I'm not very far in," she confessed. "But it's quite good so far."
"Can I borrow it after you finish?" he asked, and her shoulders relaxed. Looking at him and how he looked back at her, she could tell he actually meant it. He wasn't making fun of her, so she let a slow smile spread across her face.
"Even if it's bad?" she asked.
"Yeah," he agreed.
"Then yes," she said.
"Cool." He was nodding to himself as he handed it back to her, satisfied with their little deal.
"So, Charlie," began Don, the ginger sitting across from her, "how are you liking Aldbourne so far?"
Charlie smiled. She was glad they hadn't sat here to try to flirt with her and actually seemed to just want to talk. "It's beautiful," she said truthfully. "What do you think of it?"
"Different from home," he said, nodding thoughtfully. "But, yeah, it's nice. Little quiet but it's been better since you guys got here."
Charlie laughed when he winked at her. "Where is home for you?"
"Astoria," he replied easily. "Oregon. Yourself?"
"Lancaster, New Hampshire."
"Hey, you're not so far from me!" George exclaimed. Charlie got the impression he'd been desperately searching for a way to get back into the conversation. "I'm from Rhode Island."
After Frank and Joe Toye filled in where they were both from, too - Frank from, surprisingly, Joliet, Illinois, and Joe from Hughestown, Pennsylvania - George ribbed Don about being the odd one out in coming from the west.
A thought hit Charlie suddenly.
"Wait," she said, sitting up straighter. "Astoria, Oregon?" she asked, directing the question at Don.
"Yeah," he confirmed with a confused smile, "why?"
"Our CO is from Astoria, too," she said, shaking her head at the coincidence.
"Oh, yeah? Which one's your CO? The blonde, the redhead, or the short brunette?"
Charlie laughed at the fact he had the four of them memorised and yet he didn't even know their names. "None of them. Our CO never comes out with us. But she's brunette too - her hair's so dark it's almost black."
"She pretty?"
"Unfortunately." Charlie smiled at her own joke, though the boys didn't seem to follow.
"What's her name?"
"First Lieutenant Maddox," she said. Her smile failed just slightly at the thought of her strict commanding officer. "I think her first name is Henrietta, but she doesn't let us call her by her first name, so I could be wrong."
Don's jaw fell open. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"Hey, Malark," Joe called, leaning over Frank to poke him. "Pick your jaw up off the floor. You're white as a damn sheet."
"Henry Maddox," Don said, shaking his head as he came out of whatever stupor he'd fallen into. "You've gotta be shittin' me."
Charlie's eyebrows furrowed. "You know her?"
He shook his head with an almost bitter laugh. "Pale skin, brown eyes, hair so dark it's almost black? Yeah, I know her all right." He laughed again, though with a little more humour this time. "She's my ex-girlfriend."