September 21, 1943
I love New York City. I love the noise and the lights and the strange smells all blended together. And I love the shopping. After all, I used to work in a clothing store, but it was nothing like the ones that line the streets here. Even in wartime, their windows are filled with the most beautiful hats and dresses and suits I've ever seen.
We have—money. I've never known what it was like to have money, but Edwin grew up with it. He stands to inherit a fortune from his family in England, on top of the frankly shocking salary Howard Stark pays his "sort-of butler." I find it strange to try to remember that I don't have to worry about buying the cheapest tea or the oldest bread.
I'm not starting this new journal very logically, am I? It's just that I'm happy here. Every morning, I wake up next to a man who wears striped pajamas and brings me coffee in bed. He says it's all right if I don't want to go out, if it's all too overwhelming right now, but I love going out. And I love making him tea and watching him work.
"Darling," he said, the fourth day after I'd arrived, "I know that Mr. Stark has provided a wardrobe of clothing for you, but perhaps you'd like to supplement with some things of your own choosing." That's when he told me how much money we have, that he wanted to share everything with me because I am his wife and his lover and his friend.
"Are you saying I look ugly?" I teased. I knew very well I didn't. I was wearing a bright green suit from the collection in my closet.
Edwin looked genuinely horrified, so I sat on his knee and kissed him to show that I wasn't upset. "I simply meant," he continued, when I let him, "that since you were so—glamorous—in Budapest, I expected you'd have your own ideas about these things.
I threw back my head and laughed. "Glamorous in my old dresses and my faded slacks.I only looked presentable because of my sewing skills."
He pulled me around to face him. "You always had a certain—something, you know, with your red lips and your full skirts."
"Something, hmm?"
He kissed me that time, and it was a while before he pulled away to take a breath. "If you'd like, I'll take you into the city, and you may shop to your heart's content." I wouldn't have minded going alone, but I didn't want to spend a moment apart from my husband since we'd been back together such a short number of days.
I won't give a tedious account of everywhere we went, but I'd never seen anything like it. Budapest, with all of its shops and cafes, couldn't compare. I must say, Edwin was an extremely tolerant companion. Of course, I did give him a perpetual fashion show, and he very unhelpfully, but extremely charmingly, told me I looked beautiful in everything and threatened to buy it all.
I did indulge myself, I'll admit. I've never had the means to own beautiful things, and I cried the first time I looked in a store's wide mirror and saw myself in a dress that made me look like a fashionable wife instead of a rabbi's daughter. I tried to hide my tears from Edwin, but he's too perceptive for that.
"What's wrong, Ana? Do you want to go home?"
I shook my head. "I'm so happy. I've never—felt pretty like this."
He cupped my cheek and shook his head. "You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, that day I caught a glimpse of you in the shop window. I didn't really need a necktie, you know."
I didn't know. "You're a terrible, wonderful man," I said, kissing him in the middle of a New York department store. He blushed; I didn't.
I remember that store particularly because when we were checking out at the register, the cashier looked at my husband and said, "Such a beautiful wife. You must be very proud."
"I am," he answered, grinning.
I touched my face as we walked out. It hadn't occurred to me that I could seem beautiful to anyone but my father and my husband. "I'm finally happy," I thought, "and it's showing on my face."
"Come on!" I dragged Edwin all around the city and even made him wait while I purchased all sorts of cosmetics—face powders, lipsticks, rouge—pretty little things I'd always wanted and never gotten to have.
We ate lunch in a tiny cafe on a street corner, where they made us terrible American tea and served us delicious sandwiches. "We've never had a date like this before," I said after a few bites. "I like it." Edwin was sitting across the table, handsome and relaxed, like an advertisement for men's cologne.
"I like you," he answered.
We went home in the mid-afternoon, but our last stop was a music shop, where I insisted we visit to purchase more records for the player in our suite. It was a little place filled with used records, and it reminded me of Budapest more than anywhere else we'd been. I felt a tiny pang of homesickness for the land I'd left behind, but I quickly put it out of my mind as I took my husband's hand and went back to our car.
When we got back to the mansion, it took me ages to put everything away because I kept looking at the beautiful fabrics and the smart hats and the little gold bullets that promised kissable lips for Edwin. My husband stood in the doorway of our bedroom, watching me with a faraway look in his eyes.
"I'm so happy, Mr. Jarvis," I said, twirling around with a red scarf.
"Ana," he said softly, after a moment, "I know—you say you like it here, but do you miss your home? You must tell me."
I pulled him into our living room and sat on the sofa with him, resting my head on his shoulder. "You're my home now," I said, closing my eyes. "But you're going to spoil me."
He reached his arm around me. "I want you to feel like a queen."
"Well," I said, "I'm fairly sure a queen wouldn't have the sort of idea that's been swimming around in my head all day."
"What do you mean?" He looked down at me quizzically.
"Well, you know those lovely little guns and knives and miniature cameras in Stark's development lab—the ones he showed me the other day?"
"Yes." Edwin's voice was dubious.
"I'd like to do my part to earn my living here. I don't want to sit idle all day."
"You haven't got to do anything," my husband rejoined, which was very gallant of him and earned him a kiss on his perfectly-shaped nose.
"I know," I answered, "but I'd like to. To try, anyway."
"What sort of thing did you have in mind?"
"Well," I answered, "Stark has agents, and I'm very good with a needle and with the kind of machinery that goes into developing new things. I might be able to take some of those clever little weapons and put them together with disguises to create a new sort of asset—fashion and weaponry, a lethal combination.
"I must say," observed my husband, "New York is revealing quite an interesting side of you."
"And what do you think about that, Mr. Jarvis?"
"I admit, I find you even more fatally charming than ever." He's very good at saying just the right thing, my Edwin.
Late in the evening, I changed into my new purple silk pajamas and luxuriously soft white robe. "Dance with me," I said to my husband, and I turned on one of our new records—one that was actually quite old.
He can come home as late as can be
Home without him ain't no home to me
Can't help lovin' that man of mine
Ella Fitzgerald's sultry voice filled our suite as Edwin's sure feet guided me across the floor. "Do you remember when we danced in our robes the day I asked you why you'd stayed with me?" I asked softly, remembering a day that seemed like ages ago but was only, really, a few weeks back.
"Of course," said Edwin.
"I was such a mess," I continued. "I can't believe you put up with me."
"You were beautiful then, just as you're beautiful now." He didn't wait for the song to finish. He picked me up and carried me to bed.
He's sleeping now, and I'm writing by the light of the Tiffany lamp on my bedside table. I think—I hope, at least—that this little black journal will become the chronicle of something important, the record of how I finally have the chance to do what I've always wanted, to create something new, something that's entirely mine. My head is already racing with ideas.
But I need to sleep. My husband's soft breathing is lulling me into drowsiness, and I want to drift off with my head on his shoulder. I know that as the days pass, we'll argue and fight and disagree, but today I feel just like a princess with the sweetest prince in the whole world.