Finding Camille

January 30th, 1943

My dearest Carl:

You must humor me, my dear. By now, I have learned that you are unable to write me back now. That I will never receive another letter from you. Not by your own will, but by that of God, since he has seen fit to take you home instead of reuniting us. Nevertheless, I have to do the only thing that is in my power to do, the one thing I have done for these many months, and that is to write.

And so, my lovely handsome Carl, I will take it upon myself to say goodbye. I do hope that your death was clean and swift, and gave you a sense of peace and purpose. It was a hope and a joy to have known you. Had I known that our love wasn’t meant to blossom, the first time I laid eyes on you at my lovely Donna’s wedding, I want you to know that I would not have done anything differently. I am forever glad that you parted the crowd to dance with little old me. You gave me the hope that a handsome soldier would be my future. And most of all, I am glad that I could be the one you carried in your heart while you were over there in the dirt. Thank you, my dear. The gratitude I feel is beyond belief.

Yours,

Camille

February 15, ‘43

To the fianceé of Carl Downey, Camille Winters:

My company just received a letter that was meant for Lance Corporal Carl Downey. The captain thought it fit to pass the letter along to me, as I was Carl’s closest friend and colleague.

It’s unlikely that you know me, but my name is 1st Lt. Stanley Whitman. I spent many a night in the trenches with your fiancé stationed here in the Pacific. We bonded side by side in battle, before we knew a thing about each other. In the quiet lulls, which weren’t scarce, we laughed and told hometown stories and made future plans out of desperate hope. He was by far the brightest light in our company. He was full of life and passion. As much as Carl’s death is a loss for you, it is an even greater loss for us, who relied on Carl’s effervescence to get us through this horrible war, and his humanity to remind us what we fight for.

I felt compelled to write to you and tell you that I am the one who opened your letter, and I’m not ashamed to tell you that it made me weep openly. Not only because of your expression of love and loss, but of strength and gratitude. You must understand that as much as Carl was the engine that propelled our company each and every day for thirteen months, you were the engine that propelled Carl. When one of your letters arrived, Carl gained a new lease on life. He greatly cherished your words and was most distressed when your picture went missing while we were stationed on the Augusta. When you managed to send him a replacement he was right as rain, and transformed into our fearless leader.

And so, I would like to thank you, Ms. Winters, for loving our Lance Corporal. After suffering such heavy losses that I will not bother you with, your letter arrived as though nothing had happened. And when opened it had the same heartrending effect on all of us. You are the secret to his legacy and bravery.

With respect,

Lt. Stanley Whitman.

March 4, 1943

Dear Lt. Whitman,

I can’t tell you how much it meant to receive your letter. Thank you so much for your kind words. When the Marines informed me that Carl was killed in battle, I felt an odd kind of floating, as if I had suddenly been severed from the ground and floated away like a balloon in the wind. It dawned on me that I did not prepare myself as well as some of the other mothers and sisters and wives who are also waiting for their beloveds to return. Perhaps because ours was such a new and fanciful love. It was all so sudden and fantastic. We met right before he left for Hawaii and he urged me to write to him.

I suppose I wasn’t entirely certain he was even real for nearly half of our relationship. He’d had to convince me of his adoration through letters, and of his desire to receive mine. Even still I remained paranoid that it was the drama of war that compelled him to remember me as more than I was.

So I found special comfort in the portion of your letter where you mentioned his reaction to receiving my pictures. He, of course, told me as much, but it has been my brief experience with Carl that he tended to warm everyone in his path with light as though he were the sun. I am happy to know that his adoration of me was apparent to those around him, even while the confirmation also rouses my unspeakable sadness and self-pity. I continue to hope and pray that his company returns home safe and unharmed, and full of stories of their beloved fallen friend.

Sincerely,

Camille

April 4, 1943

Dearest Camille,

I’ve included some personal effects of Carl and thought you might like to have them. They are trivial things here amid a war, so they will not last long: a hairbrush, razor, his grandfather’s timepiece, his favorite magazines. Our squad leader frowns upon carrying excess weight, but I did not see fit to throw them away.

With love,

Stanley W.

April 20, 1943

Dearest Stanley,

You are adorable! I hesitate to tell you that most of what you sent me is considered trivial for civilians as well. I’m sorry that they won’t allow you to carry remnants of your friends, but since I am not a man in war, I cannot judge the appropriateness. I was glad to receive the timepiece that seems to be a precious heirloom. I will endeavor to return it to his family. I’m sure they would be glad to have it.

P.S. In the time it has taken me to mail this letter, I’ve visited Carl’s family. I told them that I would pass on their gratitude for thoughtfully returning the family heirloom, even though it garnered many tears and anguish at the sight of it returning to them without its former owner. They urged me to have it, but the notion was so off-putting since I hardly knew Carl in the manner that everyone around me had, including you. It all reminds me of how fleeting life is and even moreso our love was. The letters were merely a promise of love, ultimately miscarried. It is as though I am forced to birth a child dead in its womb, and care for it until the grief of everyone around me has subsided. As it is, I feel like a charlatan, having taken such a place in his life in his passing. Still, I am grateful that everyone has humored me and recited the fantastic plans he had made on our behalf and apparently circulated beyond me. I hope that whatever else you find of Carl’s, you feel entitled to keep and that it brings you the solace needed to see this war to its hopefully swift end.

Your friend,

Camille

May 20, 1943

My friend Camille,

It was serendipitous timing that I received your letter when I did, because I have to admit that there was one thing I did not include in Carl’s belongings, and that was the cache of letters that he kept of yours. Perhaps I hesitated because I wondered whether someone would want their own words returned to them. Some of them I practically know by heart because Carl liked to often re-read them, as he was taken with your poetic way with words. They had a peculiar calming effect on him, especially amidst the bloody horrors that often turn men cold and apathetic of everything. He lamented that he didn’t have the breadth of attention to take the time to sit down, gather his thoughts and thoughtfully write to you as often as you did to him, but he was grateful.

It was your sweet soul, your idealistic hope of your eventual reunion that inspired him, and so it pains me to hear you speak of yourself the way you do, as if it were foolish to expect the future to deliver the things it promised. It is not you who are foolish but the world, that sees fit to deprive young men of the delight of companionship and the contentment that comes with a life well-built. Even now, it is hard to imagine that Carl will become the memories and myths of others. I predicted plain as day that he would be an old man surrounded by his children.

Forgive me for the dismal subject matter. You may have the impression that I have an unhealthy fixation on these topics, but I assure you that nostalgia has no place in our daily lives. We rarely have the chance to contemplate the men whose dog tags we recover. As I have no one in my life who would miss me if I was dead, it is a kindness from God to have received these few correspondences.

I hope you would indulge me taking those hopes that you so eloquently referred to in your letter to heart, by not taking offense to my keeping your letters. I also ask that you would allow me to hope to one day return the letters to you in person. It is my wish that by the time that ever happens, you will have caught the eye of some other great man who adores you, and the memory of Carl becomes a fond recollection that you freely share with joy. And also, that by that time the both of us are whole, and that letters between two mutual acquaintances return to its rightfully trivial place in the world.

Sincerely,

Stanley

June 6th, 1943

Stanley,

It seems I am not the only one who has a way with words. I hope someone has told you that you certainly have a long career ahead of you as a writer. By all means, if my letters can continue to carry purpose and meaning for someone else, then please keep them. I would also like to meet the recipient of such a hope, but I must tell you that the thought of receiving yet another correspondence, potentially about your death, gives me an irrational sense of apprehension! What if I find my letters are simply bad luck?

Camille

June 22, 1943

Camille,

Your letters could never be bad luck. In fact, I watched them firsthand bring faith and verve to a hopeless situation. If Carl’s death were positively destined, he simply had no idea of it and I am convinced that is because of you. As it is, there is no one to receive word of my time here, and after reading your fears, I don’t think I would have the heart to have someone send word of my untimely death. But if by chance I make it home safely, do I have permission to pass on the happy news to someone who would receive it?

Stanley

July 8th, 1943

Stanley,

It would give me a great thrill to know that out of all of the dismal outcomes of this war that you have made it home safe, wherever that is, so please inform me when that happens. Also, I hope it is not too forward to suggest that in the meantime, it would be no inconvenience for you to receive letters of your own, you need only to ask. If one wants to receive a letter, one must simply write!

Camille

Chapter 1 (Present Day, 1954)

Camille Winters looked in the bathroom mirror of her Brooklyn brownstone, her evening routine abuzz with the excitement of the day to come. She always got excited the night before a new assignment, but that was because she was a bit of a square.

This wasn’t just any secretary’s job, however. This was Madison Avenue.

Working for Hargrove & Chase was the most exciting assignment she’d gotten in many years. And apparently, she’d been requested.

She wasn’t told by whom, which was uncommon. She supposed she could ask, but she didn’t get paid to ask. She got paid to do what she was told and do it well. She’d been working off of recommendations for the past five years, so that was nothing new. But this was the first time she’d been pulled off of one job to work another. Which meant the person who requested her was fairly high up on the totem pole.

But the buzz was even more than that, though she fought to ignore it. In her mind she was successful. But her body couldn’t lie.

She had a feeling that she had been requested by Kenneth Hargrove himself.

Bzzz bzzzz….

For one, it was the only explanation. He was the only person she’d met from Hargrove & Chase after all, briefly while on assignment at a car dealership where Mr. Hargrove had come in to buy a car for the family. He had been warm and doting to his children, a boy, and girl, each in their Sunday best. The wife seemed terribly frosty— odd but not uncommon.

She’d been used to seeing prominent people at the Cadillac dealership, so she noted him and his family the same way she would any VIP. He’d acknowledged her with a simple head nod and a faint grin when she seated them.

It wasn’t much, but it was by far her clearest and strongest connection to the company. Camille smiled in the mirror, re-acquainting herself with the story.

Bzz bzzzzzzzz…

The buzz was in no way sexual, but it may as well have been. In an industry full of sharks, commendation on her quality of work was the only kind she was permitted to enjoy.

Few men had given her something close to that type of buzz in her personal life. One even became her steady. Jeremy. And he was sufficient enough. But he’d objected to her working life, especially for that of white people, and that was that.

She had a knack for preventing disasters and streamlining existing systems, and only when it came to paperwork. She didn’t even know that was a job, and apparently, no one else did either since she had to carve one out for herself everywhere she went. No one minded until it came time to replace her.

Once she became consumed with her work, she was surrounded by industry titans in tailored suits day and night, which gave her less and less time to go out and find the buzz of that other kind.

In the beginning, a few of her bosses complimented her looks in passing. An attempt at open rapport, she assumed. Young women like to hear such things, was probably their reasoning. She always smiled politely, but it had the unfortunate effect of either getting her yelled at by her female bosses or re-assigned.

It took her a while to catch on. Being still unmarried in her late 20’s, she’d had to learn these female patterns the hard way. She had to assume they felt threatened in some fashion, which she tried not to dwell on. Catching the eye of some drunken white man with a sudden urge to experiment was her ultimate nightmare, not a dream come true.

The idea that there could be some mutual attraction between her and her co-workers was to her an absurd thing. Not to mention unprofessional. Were any of them there to actually work??

So she trained herself to stop smiling at such compliments. For years she walked a fine line of looking plain but not unattractive. Unassuming but representative of the company. Placid but approachable.

Now she was nearly 30. In her old age, she’d become less of a threat to the younger white women at her assignments. She was good at her job, and people noticed. To her dismay, she’d grown a bit impatient with incompetence on all levels. Yet to her shock, this seemed to cause her working relationships to flourish.

More than her lack of feeling over being liked, her white colleagues seemed to enjoy her aggressive professionalism. The men found her stoic taunting hilarious. The women found her non-threatening, as she’d removed herself from any possible male competition with her bullish demeanor. She wore bright red lipstick whenever she wanted. When she started wearing pants to work, no one complained.

For her first day at Hargrove & Chase, however, her pants suit would stay in the closet. She wanted to exude professionalism tomorrow, rather than power. Her simple black fit and flair Dior dress with matching purse and gloves would do the trick. It was pressed and already hanging on the open closet door of her bedroom. She placed the last of the rollers in her freshly pressed hair and laid gingerly on her pillow that night. It was only 7:30, but she knew she would toss and turn, and she needed her rest if she was going to be fresh tomorrow.

She waited patiently outside the offices the next morning, 30 minutes before her first day of work was to begin. She scanned the wall of artwork hanging in the lobby. Artwork that was their previous campaigns, numerous and instantly recognizable. Name brands of household items, clothing, and hotel chains. She knew very little about an industry that clearly had a hand in her everyday life. It made her wonder what she could possibly be doing there.

Just then a young woman approached the receptionist’s desk. She looked over at Camille sitting patiently in the lobby.

“Miss Winters?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Miss Caldwell,” Camille assumed in a mature voice, a deep velvety contrast to Christy’s cheerful squeak. She stood, ready to meet her open hand.

Christy Caldwell was to be her supervisor on this job. She was short and compact, blonde and blue-eyed. Her eyes perfectly matched her peacock blue dress, her blonde hair like a perfect pastry sitting atop her shoulders.

“Please, call me Christy,” she smiled. “You’re early!” she added, verbatim of every first meeting she’d ever had.

“If you’re on time, you’re late, Miss Caldwell,” Camille said without a smile.