The Wedding Tree by Robin Wells

misdeed giggled and poked Marge, causing Mrs. Brunswick to give them a suspicious frown.
    I tried to create a distraction. “Oh, what beautiful flowers!” I exclaimed, bending down to examine a vase of yellow tulips on the table between the punch and cake.
    â€œAren’t they lovely?” Mrs. Brunswick smiled appreciatively. “Schmidt Florists donated them.”
    â€œThey’re just trying to cover up the fact they’re Huns,” sniffed a girl named Eloise.
    The crease in Mrs. Brunswick’s forehead deepened. It occurred to me that the name Brunswick sounded somewhat Germanic, as well. “They can’t very well help their name, now, can they? They’re a good American family, and I won’t tolerate talk like that.” She glanced at her wristwatch and clapped her hands. “All right, now—places, everyone.”
    Flora, a pale, nervous girl from an upper-crust New Orleans family, whom Marge had nicknamed Florid because she blushed so easily, took her place at the registration book. The other girls scattered around the room.
    Mrs. Brunswick nodded to the two women at the front door. They opened it, and a stream of servicemen poured in.
    The refreshment table was quickly swamped. During a lull in the action, Marge elbowed me.
    â€œMy, oh my, look what just walked in!”
    There was no mistaking whom she meant. He was tall, probably six two or six three, with brown wavy hair, a movie-star handsome face, and an army officer’s uniform. His most attractive attribute, though, wasn’t physical; it was his bearing. There was something about the way he carried himself, something deliberate and steady and so self-assured that other men stepped out of his way. He wore the mantle of a leader, of someone accustomed to the respect of others, as surely as he wore a four-button army uniform. When he turned to the side, I could see the Army Air Force insignia on the upper sleeve.
    Marge saw it, too. “Oooh, he’s a flyboy!” she cooed. In Marge’s mind—and mine, too, I admit—airmen were a special brand of wonderful. “I call dibs.”
    He looked around the room, and for a second, our eyes met. My skin felt hot.
    â€œSeriously,” Marge murmured. “He’s mine.”
    I had always acquiesced to Marge’s preferences, turning down offers to dance with men she liked. After all, I reasoned, she was my roommate, and chances were, we’d never see any of these men again. But this time was different. “I’m making no promises,” I replied.
    â€œBut I saw him first!”
    â€œDoesn’t matter.”
    I watched him bend to sign the registration book. Marge and I weren’t the only girls attracted to him. Flora’s face turned hot pink as she handed him the pen. Two other girls quickly appeared at the registration table as if to help him. One of them—a big-chested brunette from the Seventh Ward, named Betty—leaned over the book directly in front of him, deliberately displaying her generous décolletage. He straightened and handed the pen to Betty, his gaze sweeping up to her face with admirable smoothness. He smiled at her, inclining his head to listen as she said something. I saw him respond, smile, then say something to Flora. Her blush spread to her neck. Her face was the color of a rooster’s crown.
    â€œHe’s coming this way!” Marge whispered, unbuttoning her sweater. She whipped it off in record time.
    But he looked at me. His glance was a physical thing; it warmed my skin like a lingering caress. My mouth went as dry as the inside of a Q-tip box. I tried to smile, but my lips pulled into the kind of unnatural curl that makes for bad photographs.
    â€œHello, Flyboy,” Marge said as he approached. She had a breezy way of talking with the soldiers, which I envied. “New to the air base?”
    â€œActually, I’m just passing through. I’m here for a couple of weeks