Stranger On Lesbos (32 page)

Frances listened politely, smiled, turned to shake hands with Mari's spinster great-aunt from Milwaukee.

She kissed Mari and shook hands with Bob, whose greenish pallor had given way to a triumphant flush, and took her place in the receiving line without even bothering to pull the little brown feather hat down over her discolored eye.

People, and more people. Her legs ached, her arms were tired, there was a line of fire across her lower back whenever she bent. She thought, with no particular regret, that she had taken a real beating. The smile on her face felt wooden and silly. Bill looked pleased and tender, though. She guessed she was doing all right.

Faces of strangers, all with the same amiable and rather silly expression, put on for the occasion together with the dress-up clothes and white gloves. Frances shook hands, producing the right comments in rotation. I'm good, she thought smugly. I might have been doing this for years.

And felt, suddenly, the floor shake under her feet. For there was Kay, who certainly had not been invited, looking pretty and conventional, in hat and heels, with a mink stole (Jane's) slung over her shoulders. She made her way down the line, shaking hands. Frances' heartbeat quickened. Here was everything she was leaving behind
rapture, heartbreak, the exciting potential of a new affair.

Kay reached her, raised her eyebrows at sight of the bruised eye, then winked and moved on.

She's a wonderful person, Frances thought forlornly, watching her retreating back. Warm. Understanding. We like the same books and the same people. I could tell her anything and she wouldn't be shocked or disapproving, the way some people are. I wish I knew her better.

Like a slap in the face came the realization that while she wanted Kay as a friend
nothing more, nothing else
Kay's thoughts of her, now visibly budding into plans, involved a great deal more than friendship.

She shot another look at Bill, standing beside her with his head bent, listening courteously to a shrill old harridan in purple chiffon. What she saw was reassuring. What if he was getting a double chin? What if his hairline was beginning to recede? He was
Bill.
Dear, familiar, safe, the stuff of day-by-day living.

After all, she admonished herself, life isn't made up of romance. (And Kay was right, there was nothing so very romantic in watching someone you love get drunk and make a fool of herself.) If you got one good, exciting, adventurous episode out of a lifetime, you were probably doing better than average.

She turned for a valedictory look at Kay, now half-hidden in a milling throng of friends and relatives.

Well, I'm not sorry. It was good, and I'll stick to that no matter what. (A pang hit her somewhere in the midriff. Bake, darling.)

"Tired?"

"Hm? Oh, not so very."

"Won't be long now. The breakfast is set for one-thirty." He glanced at his watch. "Should be able to break away around half-past three, at the latest. I don't have to go to the office," he added grinning. "I'll stay home and keep you company."

Her eyes widened. Full realization of what this reconciliation would mean in terms of her relationship with Bill struck her for the first time. His tone, the look he gave her
there was no question about it. This wasn't going to be any platonic marriage.

Well, why not?

Beneath all the fatigue and stiffness, the aches, the nausea and bewilderment, a familiar need was beginning to clamor in her. After all, she thought, shaking hands absently with a stern-looking man, it's been a long time.

The corners of her mouth twitched into a smile.

It would feel good to get home, cold-cream the gunk off her face and take off her shoes, maybe crawl under her own covers for a nap. I need some rest, she thought, feeling very bright to have figured that out. Then I can make up my mind what to do next.

But she knew, glancing upward at Bill's profile, that her mind was made up.

The days and nights reaching ahead were, after all, full of glowing possibilities.

There was the matter of Kay. She would call
she knew the number, she had called before, when Bake was sick. As though Kay's face were within her range of vision, Frances could see her winged eyebrows pulled together in planning.

With only a minimal qualm, she renounced Kay's friendship and whatever possibilities it might hold of emotional involvement. I'll leave the receiver off the hook, she decided firmly.

Bill smiled down at her. "Want to go somewhere and sit down?"

She slipped her hand into his. "All I want," she said softly, "is to go home
with you."

~ ~ ~

AFTERWORD

A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.

In 1939 a new publishing company—Pocket Books—stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book. These books were cheaply produced and, with a price of twenty-five cents on their light cardboard covers, affordable for the average American.

Prior to the introduction of the mass-market paperback, as it would come to be known, the literary landscape in America was quite different than what it is today. Reading was primarily a leisure-time pursuit of the wealthy and educated. Hardcover books were expensive and hard to find, so purchasing books was a luxury only the rich living in major metropolitan areas could afford. There simply weren’t many bookstores across the country, and only gift shops and stationary stores carried a few popular novels at a time.

The Pocket Books were priced to sell, however, and sell is what they did… in numbers never before seen. Availability also had a great effect on sales, in large part due to a bold and innovative distribution model that made Pocket Books available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops. The American public could not get enough of them, and before long the publishing industry began to take notice of Pocket Book’s astonishing success.

Traditional publishers, salivating at the opportunity to cash in on the phenomenal success of the new paperback revolution, soon launched their own paperback ventures. Pocket Books was joined by Avon in 1941, Popular Library in 1942, and Dell in 1943. The popular genres reflected the tastes of Americans during World War II—mysteries, thrillers, and “hardboiled detective” stories were all the rage.

Like many of the early paperback publishers, Dell relied on previously published material for its early books, releasing “complete and unabridged” reprints under different titles by established authors. Within a couple of years it was focused exclusively on mysteries, identifiable by the Dell logo on the cover—a small keyhole with an eye looking through it. Many of the Dell mysteries also featured a colored map on the back cover representing the various locations pertaining to the story’s crime. These “mapback” editions became extremely popular and by 1945, Dell was publishing four new books a month.

The new paperback industry was faced with some difficult challenges during World War II. In particular, the War Board’s Paper Limitation order placed serious restrictions and rations on the use of paper. Publishers began to worry whether they would have enough paper to satisfy both the civilian and military appetite for paperbacks. Manpower shortages and transportation difficulties were also proving to be difficult challenges. In response, some publishers—Pocket Books, for instance—reduced their publication schedules and reset their books in smaller type thereby reducing the number of pages per book. Others simply rejected longer books in favor of shorter ones.

In the end, World War II proved to be a boon to the emerging paperback industry. During the war, a landmark agreement was reached with the government in which paperbound books would be produced at a very low price for distribution to service men and women overseas. These books—Armed Services Editions, as they were called—were often passed from one soldier or sailor to another, being read and re-read over and over again until they literally fell apart. Their stories of home helped ease the soldier’s loneliness and homesickness, and they could be easily carried in uniform pockets and read anywhere—in fox holes, barracks, transport planes, etc. Of course, once the war was over millions of veterans returned home with an insatiable appetite for reading. They were hooked, and their passion for reading these books helped launch a period of unprecedented growth in the paperback industry.