Unanswered Prayers. Penny Richards

he contact her or not? He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled envelope that bore her return address.

      Howard tipped back his head and looked up at the sky, as if he hoped to see some sort of sign from God there. Nothing. No star to lead the way. No pillar of cloud, no pillar of smoke.

      He reached into his pocket and took out a quarter. Heads, he’d call. Tails, he wouldn’t. He flipped the coin, caught it and turned it over on the back of his hand. Tails. He frowned. Maybe he’d take the best two out of three, he thought, even as he slipped the coin back into his pocket. He paced in front of a shop, whose shining plateglass window reflected his conservative slacks and jacket.

      If he called, she might say she was too busy to see him. On the other hand, if he just dropped by and she did have plans, he’d at least get a brief glimpse of her that might tide him over until the next time their paths crossed. Of course, she might not be at home, and the trip would be wasted…

      Howard stopped pacing abruptly. All this rationalizing and analyzing was ridiculous. It was what made him such a boring guy. Women liked men who were fun…spontaneous, impulsive. Men who were full of compliments and could make them laugh, men who thought up entertaining things to do on the spur of the moment. Howard’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. He couldn’t recall doing a single impulsive thing in twenty-two years.

      Drawing a determined breath, he turned and marched down the block to where he’d parked his car. With a determined gleam in his eyes, he pulled out a city map and located Eva’s street on it. He needed to get to her apartment as fast as possible…before he talked himself out of seeing her at all.

      Eva sat at her red, Formica-topped kitchen table stroking blood-red polish onto her long nails in an effort to lift her flagging spirits, even though she was certain that she’d never feel young or happy again. Early April sunshine streamed through the west windows, undimmed by the worn lace curtains, turning the small, one-room apartment into a veritable oven. The sun’s brightness maximized the shabbiness of the sofa and sought out the worn places in the kitchen linoleum with its violent pink cabbage roses.

      Her wet hair was bound up in a terry towel, turbanstyle, and she wore the black satin robe Denny had sent her from Korea. She’d just gotten out of the worn clawfoot bathtub, having sat in the tepid water longer than she really wanted to in an effort to cool off. The unseasonable heat had been unbearable the past few days. She dreaded to think what it would be like in August…or in September…when her baby would be born.

      Thoughts of the baby sent a ripple of fear through her. The fear was quickly followed by guilt and shame. She was going to have a baby. Denny’s baby. A baby that would be born out of wedlock. She hated to think of what her parents would say when they learned the news.

      Eva pushed away the troubling thoughts. She wouldn’t consider that now. She’d just take one day at a time. A wave of homesickness washed over her. More and more lately, she found herself longing for the hometown she’d been so desperate to leave. It had taken her two years, but she’d found that even though the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence, it was still unpalatable sometimes.

      She wished she could make peace with her mother, who was still harping about how she’d disgraced them by going out to Hollywood—that sinful place where girls who hoped to become movie stars were led down the primrose path by men in power. They were lured by empty promises of stardom into the webs of sin, she’d warned, only to be dumped when someone newer, fresher, prettier or more interesting came along.

      A weary, reminiscent smile curved Eva’s mouth as she recapped the bottle of fingernail polish. It had taken only a couple of wrestling matches with the so-called men in power for her to realize that the casting couch route wasn’t for her.

      She might have longed for glamour, but her strong moral upbringing and vivid memory of Reverend Blake’s hellfire-and-brimstone sermons had stood her in good stead, which was why, even though she managed to get a few bit parts, she’d never landed a big role.

      One executive had told her straight out that even though she was no Elizabeth Taylor, he could still do great things for her…if she’d do a little something for him in return.

       You can sing like a nightingale, baby, but if you want to know the truth, your acting is average at best.

      Eva—who preferred to go by the name Eve Michaels—let him know quickly that she wasn’t interested. She had thanked him for his time and left his office, her head high, her heart broken. She thought about what he’d told her often in the following months, while she worked waiting tables and selling tickets at a nearby movie theater. As hard as it was to admit, she’d known he was right. Her acting ability, which had seemed so incredible to the townsfolk of Crystal Creek, was no better and no worse than that of hundreds of girls who came looking for fame and fortune.

      Disillusioned and feeling much a failure, she’d considered packing her things and going home. After a year and a half, homesickness was a constant knot in her breast, but going back to Crystal Creek without any real movie credits seemed like an admission of failure, so she’d stayed in California. She’d never been good at admitting she was wrong.

      Eva wasn’t sure she’d ever been so low as that night early in December, when she’d agreed to go with her friend Maria to a Knights of Columbus dance. It was there she’d met Private First Class Denny Talbot of the United States Army and fallen head over heels in love.

      Denny was home on furlough for the Christmas holidays. His family—his parents and two sisters—who lived just outside Forth Worth on a small cattle operation, had driven out to California to be with him, a sort of combined vacation and family reunion.

      From the instant she and Denny had met, they’d both known that this was IT. Every moment she wasn’t working at her two jobs, Eva spent with Denny and his family.

      Well, not every moment…There were those evenings when his parents claimed weariness and his sisters were sent to bed to rest up for the next day’s outing that the young lovers were granted time alone. They talked well into the night, telling each other of their hopes and dreams, confessing their disappointments and faults, professing their growing love for each other, and kissing until the feelings building inside them threatened to rage out of control.

      After just a week, Denny bought her an engagement ring, three small diamonds—not much more than chips in a fancy setting—that Eva wore proudly. They made plans. She would go back to Texas with his parents so that she could be close to both his family and hers. She would get a job, and he’d send her his checks so they could save up. As soon as his hitch was over—maybe before—they would be married.

      Denny’s family was less than pleased over his decision to marry Eva. After all, they argued, while she seemed like a nice girl, he hardly knew her. Stubbornly, Denny maintained he knew enough.

      Eva and Denny were delirious with happiness, and even though her conscience threatened to get the best of her, Eva finally gave in to Denny’s persistent urging and let him make love to her. They were engaged, she told herself, as Denny kept reminding. While the act wasn’t what she’d imagined it would be, he was so sweet and loving and apologetic for hurting her that she decided it was worth it.

      Denny shipped out on December 27, and Eva cried for hours. Once his plane left, she followed their plans to the letter, scrunching into the backseat of the Talbots’ Chevy with his sisters, her belongings packed in cardboard boxes and loaded onto a Greyhound bus to be delivered to her home state later. It didn’t take her long to find her small apartment and a full-time job in a Dallas department store.

      Eva wrote to Denny daily, and he answered as often as he could, trying to make light of the war and bemoaning the heavy losses the Allies had encountered.

      For the most part, war was far from Eva’s mind. She was in love, soon to be married, and life was as close to a fairy tale as it was ever likely to get. She prayed for Denny at all hours of the day; she had no doubts that God would answer her prayers.

      Then, one day in February when she woke up with a queasy stomach, she realized that she hadn’t had a period