Dot begins her promised long letter using pencil and yellow tablet while at work. She has had to inventory sweaters today and is now sitting in a pool of sweat. “Yes, I said ‘sweat.’ The saying is that only horses sweat, but who am I to deny I am one and the same?”
She is hanging on until lunch time when she can go home and find two or three letters from Dart waiting on the hall table.
Her mother and brother are going up to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire for three weeks. Although her dad is driving up to bring them home over Labor Day, Dot is babysitting, so she’s unable to see her beloved place yet another season. She says she so green with envy that she looks moldy.
She reports there is not a customer in the store. No wonder! It is so hot that the clothes stick when trying them on. She tells the story of a recent customer who came in looking for a dress but decided it was too hot to shop for one that day. Instead, she asked Dot to show her the coolest thing they had in stock. When Dot presented her with a very scanty bathing suit, the lady beamed and said she’d take it. The shopper admitted she didn’t need the suit, but it was cool and cute. “That’s what I call throwing $10.95 away,” quips Dot. “Wouldn’t it be awful to have so much money and no idea about spending it?” That leads me to wonder two things: What was the 1944 version of “very scanty?” and What did a reasonably priced bathing suit cost back then?
She returned from her lunch break in a far better mood, because of the arrival of some letters from San Francisco. She was delighted to read about his party at the home of the hospitable strangers, arranged through the USO club. “I’m glad you had a good time and I am also glad you missed me.”
She launches into a mock scolding about his fear of diving boards. She tells him that she just took a dive off a 20-foot platform and it makes her glad that she’s found one thing she can do better than him. “Surely, tho’, you can swim 150 feet! Otherwise, better you should have joined the Infantry. However, until I can get 98 on Electricity and 95 on Math tests, I shall hesitate to make further comments on your aquatic abilities. Leave us not louse up our beautiful friendship over such triffles.”
In response to Dart’s request that she send his parents a snapshot of herself, she replies that she thinks that would be a bit too forward until they request one. She suggests that maybe he could send the a photo of her, if he’s sure they’d like it.
She’s gratified that he liked her care package and apologizes that she could not include a bigger and better candy selection. “But, as I think I mentioned before, there’s a war going on and it’s mighty hard to obtain without a priority.”
She wraps the letter up after taking a two-hour break to iron clothes in the 95 degree kitchen. Now she hears on the radio that a heat wave is heading her way. So, what is this they’re experiencing now?
Commenting on the correction of her spelling that Dart inserted into his letter, she sasses him with “Ok, so I’m good for your morale, but you’re good for my morals.”
