NEW RELEASE: The Public Life of Private Paulsen

Excerpt:

George stopped short as he approached the Grand Marigold Hotel. Pearl Paulsen! There she was, before his very eyes! His whole body felt topsy-turvy as he surveyed her, from the rhinestone brooch clipped to her mink pillbox hat, down past a matching mink coat, and all the way to her seamless stockings and high-heeled shoes.

Apart from Hollywood starlets, Pearl Paulsen was the most recognizable woman in the country. When she first returned from Europe, her photograph was smeared across the cover of every national daily. Even now she appeared in the odd newsreel, still greeted by the jeers and hisses of cinemagoers. But George never hissed, and he held to the hope that very few among the hecklers held any feelings of enmity toward poor Pearl.

And now she stood before him, chatting with the dapper men and elegant women of her sycophantic clique. Pearl Paulsen! What a glamorous girl she’d become since the war! With her blonde SwirlaWave hairdo and her deep red lipstick, she looked nothing at all like the young private George had landed beside on the beaches at Normandy.

His mouth opened and a name tumbled out. The wrong name: “Howard!”

Pearl’s head whipped around. Her gaze was hard when it met his. And then recognition sparked, thank goodness, and her expression softened. She smiled faintly at first, but her lips soon wore a full-blown grin. Excusing herself from her elite circle, she ran to George and threw her arms around his shoulders.

“Why if it isn’t good old Georgie Kensington! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” Backing away to get a load of George in full military uniform, Pearl snapped up her fallen shoulder bag from the ground. Her wide smile gleamed. “How long has it been? How are you? What are you doing in the big city?”
George wasn’t terribly interested in talking about himself. His life was a bore. He’d much rather hear about hers.

“Is that fellow giving you trouble, Pearl?” one of the men from her clique called out.

“Heavens, no!” she chuckled. The late-evening sky threatened with drizzle, and Pearl grabbed George firmly by the arm and dragged him beneath the hotel’s overhang. “I would like you all to meet a darling man I served with in the army. This is Private George Kensington.”

He’d risen significantly in rank since the war, but George didn’t bother her with that information. The clique mumbled their hellos and then resumed conversations amongst themselves—all but the man who’d interrupted their reunion. “So you knew our girl Pearl on the battlefield, did ya?”

The man’s intense smile made George nervous. “We were like brothers,” he replied in earnest.

“Brothers!” Pearl released a shimmering giggle. “I certainly hope you don’t see me the same way now!”

George gazed down at his feet. “Why, no ma’am. No, I certainly don’t.”