June 21, 1946

Etta said I should start a journal. She always said her mother kept a diary so she wouldn't lose things. It seemed like a funny way to put it, at the time. But Mrs. Candy raised quite a girl, and so I thought I'd give it the old college try.

Because I've lost things.

It all started when she left. One minute, she was there--and the next, it was like we'd dreamed her. We knew that she was going, but somehow, I didn't expect it to be so sudden. The whole town went crazy, that day. Ticker-tape parades, champagne until sunrise, all of it. Though Charlie Niles and Etta invited me to go out with them that night, I declined. I guess I wasn't in the mood for celebrating.

I went to her apartment, but it was empty. The landlady let me in with a passkey, and then she left and I just stood there for a while. At first, I had the oddest feeling. Like there was something on the tip of my tongue, but it would be gone when I tried to tell anybody about it. And I thought that it would go away. But it didn't. Not for weeks.

The hardest part was coming in to the office the next day, and Phil Blankenship telling me he was already getting a list of girls from the secretarial pool to interview. It just didn't seem real. It didn't seem real for the longest time. Every time I walked into the old D Street offices, I stopped in front of her desk, expecting to see her there. I knew she was gone, but I still expect it. The move helped.

Etta pulled double-duty at first, until we moved over to the Pentagon, and then Private Williams was permanently assigned to my desk. Her husband was still in France--infantry. She's a great girl, really first rate at her job. When I come in, there's always coffee made and she can even read my handwriting--which is surely a test of something.

Etta gave me a copy of the photo from the going away party. Charlie had finally finished the film, and there were three copies--one for each of us. Except we didn't know where to send her copy. She'd gone without even leaving a forwarded address. I found out later that payroll was holding her last check, even. It seemed so... unlike her. She was so efficient, so thorough... My God, there is just an ache when I think of her. But I'm going to tell this story in order, and by God, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I can't lose this too-- not again.

Charlie tried to find her service and personnel records--I'd held the damned things in my hands, I know I did. I remember that much. But they were gone. I don't know how she did it, but she just... slipped away. I kept thinking, we'll mail her the picture--there has to be some kind of address. We finally found one. The Armed Forces Hospital had a carbon on file from the hospital she had worked at in Ohio. It was care of her mother in Akron, and Etta sent it with a letter.

They sent the letter back. They were very sorry, but no one by that name lived there--the house had been auctioned by the bank after the owner's funeral, they were awfully sorry. They'd never even met her, and they'd lived there since before the war.

Carol said she felt the baby kick, today.

July 9, 1946

I can't remember exactly when we first noticed Wonder Woman was gone, too.

As crazy as that sounds, we'd all just gotten used to her appearing just in the nick of time, when we needed her the most. Except, since the Germans surrendered, I guess we hadn't needed her. So we didn't notice she was gone--not at first.

When Charlie Niles popped the question, that was the first time Etta or I even mentioned Wonder Woman. Etta came running into my office to show off the ring, and I congratulated her and Charlie, and we got to talking about how Etta'd had her heart set on Diana being the maid of honor, and I joked that maybe we could get Wonder Woman to stand up for her at her wedding. And then Etta asked me, had I seen Wonder Woman lately? And I realized I hadn't. Not since she got the medal at the White House. No bank robberies foiled, or Nazi spies caught. No newspaper articles, no Wonder Woman sightings. Somehow, with so much going on, we'd all forgotten. And I realized that I hadn't thought of her--not once--in weeks. I felt like such a louse.

Funny thing is, that was the night I met Carol. I didn't realize it then--but she remembers. Heck, she still teases me about it.

Etta was just so happy, and she deserved it too. Etta's a swell gal, and I'd always been fond of her. But I was in such a blue funk, and I didn't want to rain on Etta's parade, so I'd gone back to officers quarters. Matt--Col. Michaels, that is--was there. He talked me into going out with him and Kyle, and I guess I didn't see any harm in it. Kyle brought his girl Nancy along--Nancy was one of those Vassar girls. She joked she'd gone to get her MRS degree, but she and Kyle weren't serious and we all knew it. When she found out Matt and I were along for the ride, she'd called over to a friend's place to have them meet us at the bar.

I wasn't much in the mood for Washington socialites, but I admit, I was in the mood for whiskey. I'd already had a few when the girls showed up, and Nancy introduced us. All I remembered was blonde hair and an easy smile. Carol spent most of the night with Matt, and I don't even remember the name of the girl I danced with. She got bored of my moping pretty darned quick, and left with a Marine if I remember correctly.

Dammit, if I hadn't lost my date to a jar-head, and I didn't care one bit. That's how blue I was. And the funny thing was, or so I thought at the time, it wasn't because Wonder Woman had disappeared. Truth of it was, I missed my secretary more.

I had the mother of all hangovers when I went into work the next day, and I asked Private Williams to hold all my calls until my noon briefing. I shut myself up in my office, and pretended to work. But what I really was doing was writing down everything I could remember about her--every little detail. And I was so shocked at how short the list really was. So many things I thought I knew--like where she was from, who her family was, and most of all, how I actually felt about her. Not a blessed thing.

I'd sworn after Marcia to never ever fall for one of my secretaries ever again. Sworn on a stack of Bibles. But the thing was, I could pretty much guarantee this one hadn't been a Nazi spy.

I can't believe I let her go.

July 22, 1946

It was the photo coming back that got me started. I took a furlough and flew out to Akron. I don't know what I was thinking--but I got directions out to the house from the airport and knocked on the door. I think the couple that lived there opened the door because of the uniform. Not every day an Army Air Corps Major shows up on your front steps. The Wellingtons were nice folks, a little confused by my visit. They remembered posting the letter back to Washington, however.

Mrs. Wellington insisted I stay for a slice of blueberry pie, and I asked her how long they'd lived in Akron. She said they moved here from Cleveland in '39, to work in the tire plant. They'd been very lucky to get the house. I kept looking around, trying to picture her growing up in this house. Had she sat in the window seat, staring out at the stars? Had she walked along this road to school every day? But the mental images just wouldn't come.

Instead, I saw her at her desk, brows furrowed slightly as she worked, or clever fingers dancing over the keys of the typewriter. When I thought of her, it was always in uniform. That was the funny thing. I'd seen her in civilian attire, of course. Only a handful of times over the past few years--that dress she wore for the Miss GI Dream Girl pageant in '42, then in Argentina she wore a blue dress. I remember how she put that Latin playboy Antonio Cruz primly in his place. I never told her how glad I was of that. Even though I went off for a walk with Lydia Moreno, I remember how glad I was that Diana was keeping her head.

When the pie was eaten, and I got ready to say good-bye, Mr. Wellington shook my hand and suggested I go next door to meet their neighbor, Mrs. Gideon. She was almost 80 years old, and had lived in that house her whole life. If anyone knew what had happened to the family that had lived in this house, it would be Kathryn. I thanked them, and walked next door.

For a great-grandmother, Kathryn Gideon was incredibly spry. She was sitting in a rocking chair on the back porch, shelling peas. Her hands were veined with blue and gnarled, but quick and clever. She asked if I was good news or bad, and I laughed. She said the only thing around these parts that came from the War Department were telegrams. And no good news, in her experience, was ever delivered in a telegram.

She handed me a bowl, and showed me how to shell peas. I asked her about her former neighbors, and she asked me why I was such a busy- body. Old women like her were supposed to be busy-bodies, not grown men. It was a fair question, so I told her the truth--or as much of the truth as I knew at the time.

I had fallen in love with a girl. It was the first time I had even been able to put it into words, and somehow, it was so easy to just come out and say it that summer on the back porch, shelling peas with a complete stranger. I'd fallen for a girl, and she'd disappeared. And now I just had to find her, or I'd go crazy.

She asked me how I'd met her, and I told her we'd worked together at the War Department, and that she'd gone home with her mother and sister after the Germans surrendered. She put the bowl down then, and looked me right in the eye and told me that Majorie Prince was buried out in Glendale Cemetery, next to her husband who'd passed on in 1922, and her son who'd died at Pearl Harbor.

Then she'd asked me to help her up, and she took me inside the house and had me sit down on the sofa in the parlor while she rummaged around upstairs. She came back down with a scrapbook, and opened it to a black and white photograph dated April 10, 1937.

In the photo were several young girls in party dresses, and she pointed to the third from the left. That was Majorie's daughter, she told me and, pointing to the girl next to her, she said that was her own daughter Cassie and the two girls had grown up close as sisters, like two peas in a pod. Was that the girl I'd known?

I stared and stared at the girl in the picture, and then told her no. It wasn't. Sure, they both had dark hair, and light eyes. And the girl in the photo was coltish and tall, but she had not grown up to be the woman I was looking for. So I thanked her kindly, and walked back to my car even more lost and confused than I had been when I got in my plane to fly out there.

August 3, 1946

Here's how I remember meeting Carol--actually remember meeting her, I mean.

We'd been at the Pentagon building for a few months when I was invited to one of those gala dinners. The kind war heroes get invited to so that civilians can gawk at all the fruit salad on their dress uniforms. I usually skip them--I didn't join this man's army to make small talk with Washington's elite. But General Blankenship asked that I go, and I never could turn Phil down. Not after how he's supported me over the years.

So there I was, utterly trapped by three matrons armed with single young daughters they were just dying to introduce me to, nowhere to run. It was as dire a situation as any I'd ever faced, particularly as Mrs. Hoyne seemed to be deaf in one ear, and kept asking me over and over again if I had ever been to Hiltonhead to summer.

Carol swooped down out of nowhere, calling "Steve, darling! I've been looking for you!" and tucking her arm in mine, excused us from the gaggle of hens and whisked me away to the balcony. As confused as I was, I certainly wasn't going to turn down a rescue by such a lovely lady. And she certainly was a knockout. Her blond hair was done up in a French twist, and she had on the prettiest green silk dress. What could I do but thank her?

She laughed and it was a low, throaty kind of laugh that only added to her appeal, telling me Mrs. Hoyne was a terror, and she hated to see one of our most decorated war heroes laid low by a Daughter of the American Revolution like that. She asked me if I'd lost my date for the evening, and I told her I didn't have one. I must have looked like I'd just lost my best friend, then, because she patted me on the arm and told me she was in the same boat. I found that awfully hard to believe, and told her so, and then it was her turn to lose her smile.

She told me her fiancé hadn't made it home from France. Her best friend with the daughter of one of the chairmen of one of the boards of the types of companies who threw shindigs like this, and she had talked her into coming to the party. Nancy was always dragging her out to try and get her to meet someone. Only she didn't much feel like socializing.

I flagged down a waiter, who brought us two flutes of champagne, and we must have stood out there and talked half the night, and by the time it was over I was a little tipsy from all the champagne and I offered to drive her home. But she said she should go back with her roommate, or else people would talk. She gave me a peck on the cheek, and told me to give her a call some time.

Author's Note: Please, if there's anything that doesn't work for you, or is factually or grammatically incorrect, don't hesitate to tell me! Constructive criticism is the greatest gift you can give an author. I'm not a delicate flower who will curl up and die at the first sign of criticism. I want to make this story the very best I can, so please let me know what works for you, and more importantly, what doesn't.