The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

37: A Little Bit Less Lost

I prefer your freckles. The words played over and over again in Charlie's head long after her dance with Floyd had ended. True to his word, he'd gotten her a drink afterwards to hold up his side of the bargain, but Charlie hadn't felt quite so jovial by then.

She had no idea what to make of the words. Clearly, he didn't like the way she looked tonight, that much was clear. But if he preferred her freckles did that mean he liked them, or simply that she looked bad like this and anything was preferable? She could only imagine the second scenario was true. No one had ever actively liked her freckles before.

Charlie sought out Skip, Alex, Malarkey, and Alton to raise her spirits back up and they did their job dutifully. Malarkey was the first to ask her, "Why the long face?" but when she shrugged and offered no explanation he let it go and insisted on a dance instead. He was a good friend.

As they danced he asked her question after question about her birthday and what she'd gotten and how her parents were and whether she was missing home. He put a smile back on her face with his responses to her answers and had her laughing in no time when he told her that Henry was here and how he was planning to get her to dance with him, too.

Charlie had laughed the most when he'd told her this. "You're going to get First Lieutenant Maddox to dance with you?" she asked, entirely unconvinced.

Malarkey only grinned. "I'm going to get Henry to dance with me, yeah." When she laughed again he scoffed. "You're laughing now but just you watch. Later on you'll be eating your words, Lancaster."

Charlie giggled brightly. "Whatever you say, Malark."

Charlie took a break after that and sat down at the table Mabs had saved for them. She watched with a smile as George and Boo danced together, their eyes solely on each other the whole time. Silently, and subconsciously, Charlie let out a wistful sigh. What would it be like to be the centre of someone's universe? To be loved and adored so much that whenever you were with them it was like no one else existed?

Charlie was sure she'd never know and she resented that fact. Eventually, after the war, she'd go back home and her parents would probably already have a man picked out for her, ready and waiting to race her down the aisle and stick her in a kitchen for the rest of her life. It was just the way of things for girls like her, the same as it had been for her mother and her grandmother and back and back and back. Her parents liked each other well enough, this much was true, but they weren't in love or anything. Love was simply too much to ask when you needed a certain amount of money to maintain a lifestyle and a reputation. Her mother had always ensured she had no illusions about that, and Charlie didn't. But, secretly, she'd always hoped to fall in love just once. Maybe she wouldn't marry him - she knew only the luckiest people got to marry for true love - but at least she'd be able to say that it had happened. That once upon a time she'd met a boy and fallen head over heels in love with him, and he'd looked at her like she put the stars in the sky.

But this dream faded with every passing day. She didn't know that anyone would ever look at her like that, see her like that. And maybe she just wasn't one of those people who had it in them to fall in love.

"What did Talbert say to you that made you go all glum?" Mabs asked out of nowhere, effectively yanking Charlie out of her reverie. She slid into the seat beside Charlie and all but draped herself over the table, clearly exhausted from dancing and just a little bit tipsy.

Charlie grimaced. She'd thought she'd been subtle about her reaction to his words but clearly she hadn't been. I prefer your freckles. The words made her cringe every time she thought of them. Such a clear dismissal. He didn't think she looked pretty at all.