"Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?"
- Thomas Hardy, Between Us Now
-
A few days after Juliette had helped Eugene with the medical supplies and run into the two officers, she was taking a walk through Aldbourne with Thomas. As they had been in Aldbourne for over two weeks by now it had been deemed appropriate (by Alexis, naturally) for them to begin interacting in public, so Juliette and Thomas had seized the opportunity immediately. Thomas had been desperate to introduce her to some of his new paratrooper friends, and she wasn't at all surprised when he told her this for he, much like herself, always seemed to accidentally break the rules Alexis set for them. They had been told to avoid the Americans, and Juliette had really tried, but it was difficult with so many of them around.
Though, she acknowledged, Thomas seemed to have broken this rule a little bit more liberally than she had; where she had found a friend in Eugene Roe, he had found friends in many of the men. He just couldn't help himself.
"That is the ugliest fucking cat I have ever seen in my life," Thomas said as they walked along the road that led into the village, passing the abundance of fields on their way in. The cat he was referring to wore a collar and Juliette thought that it probably did for the sole reason that it looked homeless. Its grey fur was patchy and knotted in places and it had a wild look in its eye that reminded Juliette slightly of Martin when he had been permitted to go in on a mission.
The thought made her laugh, which Thomas mistook for disbelief of his hyperbolical declaration, so he insisted, "It is, I swear. Try and tell me you've seen an uglier cat, Jules, just try."
Juliette rolled her eyes exasperatedly before grabbing his arm and towing him along with her once more. "Stop staring at it, please, it looks like it's going to maul you."
"It'd probably give me about fifty diseases if it did," he replied. He maintained eye contact with the cat as they passed it.
"That's someone's pride and joy you're talking about!" she protested, though she laughed as he finally turned away from it and they continued on into the village. "Anyway, brief me on who your paratrooper friends are. I want to know what I'm walking into before I'm forced into conversation with half a dozen yanks."
Thomas chuckled. "Where to begin, little Jules, where to begin." She hated when he called her that and he knew it. His smile grew when he felt her eyes burning a hole into the side of his face. "First one I met was a guy named Smokey - I don't know his real name - but he's pretty harmless. Then there's Tab -"
"Is his real name Floyd?" Juliette enquired.
Thomas shrugged. "I don't know, maybe. Why, have you met him?"
Juliette rolled her eyes once more. "If his real name's Floyd then I have. If it isn't then I haven't - why don't you know any of their real names?"
Thomas shrugged nonchalantly. "Never came up. It's not like any of them know yours." He grinned childishly when she scoffed.
"For good reason, and they don't know yours either!"
Thomas giggled as she shoved him lightly. He set his footing right again before they turned a corner into the outskirts of the village. "Uh, who else is there? Um, Bill Guarnere - there's a real name for ya! I think you'll like him, too, he's a funny guy. Then there's also Joe Toye, and the other Joe, whose last name is Liebgott, incidentally..." Thomas proceeded to rattle off a list of about a dozen names, leaving Juliette's head spinning.
"Christ, Tom, how many of them did you meet?!"
"I don't know, a few." He grinned at her and leaned in close as if revealing a terrible secret. "Don't tell Alex."
"You're terrible. Why do we even keep you around?"
"Aw, Jules, you don't mean that. Who else would get your arse out of trouble every time you decide to mess around in the field? See, out of all the jobs I've ever had, that's the one I'm best at."
Juliette laughed. "Hm, maybe." She appeared contemplative. "But I think you've got yourself beaten where being a royal pain in my neck is concerned."
Thomas went to reply but his words died in his throat when his eyes caught on something behind Juliette. He suddenly turned back to her and leaned down until he was at eye level with the girl, his eyes wide and mouth pulled into as straight a line as he could manage. Juliette tried desperately to hold in her laugh until she could gauge what the situation was.
"Behind you - no, don't look! Jesus! - is the girl I met the other night. You know the one I told you about? Blonde with the greatest legs you've ever seen? Stop looking at me like that. Anyway, she's right over there and I swear to God she did not have a boyfriend when I slept with her." Juliette couldn't hold it in anymore and a laugh all but exploded out of her.
"Jules!" Thomas whisper-yelled, eyes flicking between her and the girl behind her almost comically fast. "This isn't fucking funny, Jules, he's like, seven feet tall. Eh, I could probably still take him. Maybe. If he was riotously inebriated, perhaps. You know, Jules, one day your face will get stuck like that and I'll laugh."
Juliette practically burst into hysterics the moment he'd finished speaking, doubling over with a hand pressed firmly against her mouth as if she could shove the giggles back in. Thomas' eyes flicked over to what Juliette assumed was the girl once more and this time she turned subtly so she could watch from her periphery, too.
"Look, Tom, he's leaving!" she told him once she'd regained composure, even though he could clearly see for himself. She giggled to herself as she watched the large man wander away. "He is rather impressively tall, isn't he?"
"You're not helping."
"Sorry."
The pair watched as the man left the village centre before Juliette turned back to Thomas. "You should go and talk to her."
"And leave you all by yourself? What kind of friend would I be -"
"Thomas."
"En route."
Juliette leaned her back against the brick wall of a tailor's as she observed Thomas' conversation from a distance with a poorly suppressed grin.
Meanwhile, a group of paratroopers chose exactly the right time - or the wrong, if Juliette were to be asked - to enter the vicinity, for the direction in which they were walking allowed that their eyes missed Thomas and his conversation entirely and instead landed on Juliette, who was still watching him with mirth in her eyes.
"Hey, d'ya see that broad over there?" one of them asked. He was a dark-haired man with a strong jawline and a thick Philadelphia accent who had been previously mentioned to Juliette as Bill Guarnere, not that she would remember. At his question the rest of the men in the small group turned to try and locate who he'd been talking about.
"Huh? Oh, hey, that's Penny! Me and Tab met her the other day when we were getting the laundry," said a ginger man Juliette would recognise as Don, though who was more commonly known by his surname, Malarkey, to his friends.
George Luz, one of the shorter men in the group who prided himself on already being acquainted with everyone in Aldbourne (apparently everyone but her) had his eyes firmly set on Juliette whilst she continued to watch Thomas with a growing smile. "The other day? Why the fuck am I only finding out about this now?"
"Well, why would you wanna know?" Malarkey countered, glancing at him with raised eyebrows.
"Malark, the single most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life is standing over there and you wanna tell me you met her a few fuckin' days ago?"
"Oh, great. Look what you've done, Bill. Poor little Luz is in love," Skip Muck heckled. He was a close friend of Malarkey who was rivalled only by Luz in his ability to send an entire room into fits of giggles with a single sentence.
Bill Guarnere merely scoffed, sharing a look with Joe Toye, another man Thomas had mentioned to Juliette.
The five men watched with thinly veiled amusement as Juliette quickly jumped out of the way of the door to the tailor's, which had suddenly opened up from the inside and clearly made her jump. Once the person who had emerged had gone and the door had closed once more she pressed a hand against her heart to calm its rapid beating and giggled to herself. George's smile grew tenfold.
"I'm gonna go talk to her."
"Yeah? Well tone down the heart eyes first, alright, Luz?" Joe Toye drawled.
"Yeah, careful, Luz, or you'll give yourself a headache," added Skip, which made Malarkey laugh.
George headed in the general direction of Juliette to the soundtrack of multiple loud groans behind him, though the sound of their footsteps on the cobblestones told him they were following him anyway.
When they drew nearer Juliette turned to them, having heard their jump boots slamming into the ground with every step. She furrowed her eyebrows slightly as the group of five came to stand before her, wondering why on earth they were approaching her when she stood what she had assumed was inconspicuously out of the way.
The man leading them grinned at her broadly.
"Hi there, miss. I'm George Luz, and I'm gonna marry you someday."
"Luz -!" Malarkey guffawed from behind him. Skip choked on the water from his canteen whilst Toye looked like he was about to die. Guarnere's eyes landed on his friend displaying a mixture of shock and horror.
Juliette's eyebrows shot up as she suppressed a laugh.
"Is that right?" she asked him. She found Malarkey in amongst the crowd of men, who she recognised. All he could do was shrug at her sheepishly before avoiding her gaze, and she looked back to the man before her, George Luz, as he replied.
"Sure is, miss. I wouldn't lie to you."
Juliette almost laughed. "Very kind of you."
"So, what's your name?" Juliette thought the way his attention was focused so unfalteringly on her was endearing, though it sent a chill down her spine as the strength of his gaze remembered the night in the Paris Opera House.
"I'm sure," she began, turning her eyes to Malarkey who appeared bashful behind him, "you already know. Am I wrong?"
"Never a day in your life, miss," George replied. This did earn a smile out of her, which made his smile, in turn, impossibly brighter. "So you're Penny?"
"Certainly am."
"Well, I'm glad to meet you, miss, really."
His wholehearted enthusiasm was admirable. She shook her head with a smile. "Glad to meet you, too. Who are your friends?" she wondered. She looked past him if only to turn the attention away from herself; under the gaze of that many curious eyes she found herself beginning to fidget.
"I don't know if you'll remember, miss, but we met the other day," Malarkey began, and she smiled at him.
"I remember, Don. It was you and Floyd, no?"
"Yeah, Tab. He's around here somewhere too." So Tab was Floyd. Mystery solved.
Juliette nodded before looking to the man to his left expectantly. "Oh, I'm Skip Muck, ma'am. Miss. Ma'am. Madam?" She laughed aloud at this, not having expected it. "Great to meet you."
"You as well."
"Joe Toye," added the man to Skip's left. He offered her a slight nod and nothing else.
"Bill Guarnere!" cried a voice from behind the group. Thus, it was through Thomas' loud mouth that the final man had been introduced to her.
"Hey! It's Henry!" the man with the strong jawline, Bill Guarnere, replied, obviously knowing Thomas by his fake name just as they knew her by hers. "How the hell are ya?"
Thomas shared a look with Juliette, which set her to giggling again. "I've been better."
"Any luck?" Juliette asked him. She felt rather than saw the eyes of the gathered men flicking between them rapidly, wondering how they knew each other.
"I'll give you a guess," Thomas replied. He turned his face to show them his right cheek which had a bright red hand mark splayed across it.
Various noises of exclamation rang out from the men, though Juliette opted for a more subtle, "Bloody hell!"
"Needless to say, she wasn't pleased to see me."
"What the fuck did you do?" Guarnere asked with genuine intrigue.
Juliette giggled again, it bubbling out of her before she could stop it, and slapped a hand across her mouth when Thomas sent her a glare, though it was half-hearted at best.
Thomas turned his eyes back on the group of men and thrust a thumb over his shoulder in the direction from which he'd come. "That fine specimen over there? Has a boyfriend. Who is not me."
The hisses that rang out from the five men, as though they had all been burned, told Juliette he'd probably already informed them about his late night rendezvous with the blonde girl.
"The way you talk about women, honestly," Juliette sighed with an eye roll.
"She's jealous," Thomas stage-whispered to the men.
"Bugger off."
"Touchy, touchy. Anyway, I see you've met half of the cohort I was due to introduce you to. Have they been looking after you in my unfortunate absence?"
"With the upmost dedication. I've had a marriage proposal and everything."
Thomas laughed, having half-expected it if he was honest.
"Oh? Who's the unlucky fella?"
"If that's your way of accepting, miss, I'll have you know I'm the luckiest guy in the world," George replied with a cheeky grin. Juliette laughed again. He was relentless.
"Oh, so we're in the company of the future Mrs. Luz, huh?" Thomas came over and slung an arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his chest and messing up her hair. "Bless your little cotton socks!" he crooned.
Juliette scowled and pulled back from his grip, fixing her hair as the men all laughed at the pair. "Do that again, see what happens."
When Juliette looked back to the Americans she found that George's eyes had practically turned into actual hearts and laughed, only breaking his gaze when the tall, intense-looking Joe Toye spoke up.
"How do you two know each other?"
Juliette smiled. "We grew up together." In many ways, this was perfectly true.