Lone eagle

She had been wondering about something all weekend. She hadn't said anything to Joe but her parents were giving her a big party at the Copley Plaza for her coming out just before Christmas. She was going to be presented at the debutante cotillion, and her own party was going to be lovely, but not nearly as lavish as the one where she had met Joe. She hadn't dared broach the subject yet, but she was planning to ask her parents if she could invite him. She wasn't sure if he could come, but she at least wanted to ask him and hoped he would. She knew it would be much more fun for her if he were there, but her mother had been so nervous about Joe, that Kate didn't want to push it. There was still time. The party was more than three weeks away, and Joe was still in California. And she was sure that when he did return, his social calendar wouldn't be full yet.

As it turned out, a week later, to the day, she was talking to her mother on the phone on Sunday at lunchtime, about the ball, and some of the questions she still had, when one of the girls from her house came running down the hall crying. Kate was sure that something terrible had happened to her, some awful news from home, maybe one of her parents had died. She was saying something unintelligible as Kate continued to listen to her mother. Liz had a long list of questions about cakes and hors d'oeuvres, and the exact dimensions of the dance floor. Kate's dress had been ready since October. It had a plain white satin bodice and a tulle skirt, and she looked incredible in it. And over her shoulders there was a haze of white tulle, through which one saw the shimmering bodice. She was going to wear her dark auburn hair pulled back in a neat bun, like a Degas ballerina. As the dressmaker had said, as she looked at Kate admiringly, all she needed were toe shoes. Her mind was full of girlish details as she began to hear people shouting to each other. A group of girls had been just leaving the house for lunch, when the inexplicable shouting began.

“What did you say, Mom?” Kate asked her to repeat the question. There was so much noise coming from the house that Kate couldn't hear a thing.

“I said… oh my God… what? … are you serious? Clarke…” She could hear her mother start to cry and didn't know what had happened.

“Did something happen to Dad? Mom, what's wrong?” Her heart began to beat wildly. Then suddenly, as she looked around her, she noticed that a number of girls in the hall were crying too. Then it hit her, this wasn't just about her father, something terrible had happened. “Mom, what's happening? Do you know?”

“Your father was just listening to the radio.” He was standing in the kitchen in disbelief, saying something unbelievable to her. An entire nation was as shocked as they were. “Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese half an hour ago. A number of ships were sunk, and a lot of men were killed and wounded. My God, this is awful.” As Kate looked down the hall toward the rooms, she could see the entire house was in chaos. Kate heard radios on in every room and she heard the continual sounds of crying. So many girls realized that their fathers and brothers and fiancés and boyfriends were suddenly at risk. There was no way America could stay out of the war any longer. The Japanese had brought it right to their door, and despite all his previous promises, President Roosevelt was going to have to do something radical about it. Kate quickly got off the phone, and hurried back to her room to see what people were saying about the news.

They all sat quietly, tears pouring down their faces as they listened to the news on the radio. One of the girls in her house was from Hawaii, and she knew that there were two Japanese girls in an upstairs room. She couldn't even imagine what they must have been feeling, trapped in a foreign country, so far from home.

It was later that night when she finally called her mother back, and by then, they had all been listening to the radio all day. It was unthinkable, and easy to believe that within a very short time the nation's young men would be sent far, far from home to fight this war. And only God knew how many of them would survive.

All the Jamisons could think of when they heard the news was that they were grateful they didn't have a son. In cities and towns and backwaters everywhere, young men were facing the fact that they had to leave their families to defend their country. It was beyond imagining, and there was considerable concern that the Japanese would attack again. Everyone felt sure that the next attack would be on California, and there was pandemonium spreading there.