Two of Dot’s missing letters had been delivered to the other Peterson on board and finally found their way to Dart. Now he has no gaps in his letters from her.
He was able to see “To Have and Have Not” last night. He seems to have been impressed by it, especially Humphrey Bogart’s new girlfriend, Lauren Bacall.
Some of the paragraph describing the job he had yesterday was redacted by the censor. Whatever he was doing, it kept him in the hot sun all day and he got a whale of a sunburn. “I put Vaseline on my nose this evening, but my nose was so hot the grease started to smoke like an over-heated bearing. Finally cooled off enough so that I could see past it through the smoke.”
He broke a pattern last night by going to bed around the time of taps. That led to him do something he thought he’d never do, going against his principles and beliefs. He awoke and got out of bed at reveille this morning! He usually stays in the sack until moments before the breakfast line closes.
In closing, he tells her that the inversion of a couple of her letters made him do something she didn’t want him to do. He spilled the beans about the Easter flowers to his folks, admitting that it was all Dot’s idea and he had nothing to do with it. “Gee, Dot, I’m so proud of you for that! I’m the luckiest guy there is for being in love with a girl like you is the best thing that could happen to anybody.”
Tonight, Dot is spending the night with Toni Gale who gets up with the sun, so Dot will have to get to sleep early. The big news is that Toni’s Siamese cat is expecting kittens and she keeps snooping around all the dark corners of the house, looking for a place to deliver them. Dot put a comfy box in a nice spot, but Fifi seems to be unimpressed.
She’s still working at Franklin Simon and is still bored. No word on when, or if, she’s actually leaving there. She listened to President Truman’s first radio address today, deeming it “short and sweet.” She thinks he sounds quite young.
At a loss as to how she will fill the back of her first page, she recalls the sudden change of expression on Dart’s face the moment he realized she’d put an ice cube down his back. “Boy, once you discovered my dirty trick, you were up and out of that chair in two seconds flat and chasing me around with that deadly weapon. You even had me scared that you were going to succeed in getting it down my back. Brrr-rrr-rrrr! Bet it would have been cold! Was it, Darling? You poor boy! You’re a good sport, though, and I love you. Oh, how I love you!”
As I write this blog I think a lot about the fact that this growing love story has as its foundation a meager eight days of togetherness. Except for one night where these two kids stayed up late talking and being silent together, those eight days did not include nights together. In fact, there are perhaps only about 60 hours of their combined lives that have been spent in each other’s presence. The scarcity of time and shared memories makes each hour, each moment a precious jewel to be taken out in private, examined for new facets, cherished for its color and clarity, and put safely away again. Because they have no present time together, memories and future plans take on great power and importance. They are building such strong bonds now that when they’re able at some point to spend time with each other, everyday annoyances, petty differences, pesky distractions cannot possibly weaken those bonds. They’re living examples of the old adage “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Dot encloses two cartoons featuring sailors with this letter and promises to write again tomorrow.
