Hunny

Chapter 3: She Packed Her Pride and a Little Bit of Fire

San Francisco, 1950

Joining the Naval Reserves had felt, to E.C., like stepping into a shelter—steady pay, a uniform that fit like purpose, a brotherhood that didn’t ask too many questions. But Truman’s orders shattered that illusion like glass under a boot heel. North Korea loomed like a dark cloud on the horizon, and suddenly duty called with salt on its breath and ocean in its veins. This time, it wasn’t the Army—it was the Navy. A whole different beast. A whole different war.

And Hunny? She wept, cursed the war under her breath, and vowed to follow her man anywhere. If fate insisted on dragging them across the map, she’d draw a bold red line right behind him—lipstick, blood, or sheer willpower, she didn’t care which.

She had never left Little Rock, much less Arkansas. Her world had been cotton fields, church bells, and the familiar ache of family drama. But when E.C. wired her with his new station, she packed up hope, lipstick, and a pair of stilettos that had no business navigating cobblestones. She left behind everything she knew—except her pride. That she carried like armor.

Hunny didn’t just arrive in San Francisco—she descended. Step by step off the Greyhound, her silhouette sliced through the city’s famous fog like a rebel hymn wrapped in satin. Her heels clacked with purpose, and her auburn hair caught the light like a flare thrown across enemy skies. She moved like someone sent to remind this gray city that color—and courage—existed.

She wore a new title now: Mrs. E.C. Webb. Though the name was strange in her mouth. Just initials. No vowels, no softness. A name that felt like a locked door she’d agreed to walk through anyway. He was a mystery she’d chased down in her best dress and a voice that bent steel. And when he finally said “I do,” it was less surrender and more quiet awe, as if he couldn’t believe someone like her had chosen someone like him.

Navy housing didn’t offer much in the way of comfort. The apartment walls were thin enough to hear dreams crack, and thicker with the weight of judgment. The other wives wore expectation like starched cotton—neat, dull, and universally beige. They moved in clusters, whispering in tones that pretended to be polite but weren’t.

Hunny strolled past them in curve-hugging silhouettes, her sass louder than their judgment. The clatter of her heels turned sidewalks into stages. She wasn’t auditioning—she’d already won the part.

The whispers began like hymns in reverse.

“She’s not a proper Navy wife.”

“She’s too loud.”

“She thinks she’s better than us.”

She let the judgment roll off her like the morning fog—thick but powerless.

Because she *was* better. She had always known it.

Inside, she transformed their government-issued dwelling into a space that dared joy to bloom. Doilies danced on armchairs like lace crowns. A sampler stitched with defiance hung above the stove: *Hell yes, I can cook—now get out of my kitchen.* And the calendar—marked in red ink—held deployment dates like shadowed tombstones that threatened peace.

Some nights, she’d stare at those dates until her eyes burned, the fear rising in her throat like smoke. But she’d swallow it down. Fear was a luxury she refused to indulge.

E.C. came home quiet, as he had always been. He’d linger in the doorway, arms crossed, the corners of his mouth tugged by the kind of smile reserved for miracles. Hunny moved around the kitchen like rhythm itself—hip-swaying, ladle-pointing, laughter swirling through the stew-scented air.

“You don’t talk much, baby,” she teased, winking.

“Doesn’t mean I ain’t listening,” he murmured, leaning into her orbit.

She kissed his cheek like punctuation and kept dancing.

She built a home out of linoleum and love—though some nights, silence curled around the corners of the room like a question left unanswered. She’d lie awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what parts of him the war had already taken. Wondering what parts of herself she’d lose next.

Her voice—half giggle, half brass—echoed through the expensive phone line to her sisters back in Arkansas.

“Y’all should see this place,” she boomed, nose crinkled with delight. “Fog rolls in most every morning. It’s like it’s trying to get me down. But me? I strut through it like I own every damn cloud.”

At church, she was polite. Just enough to protect E.C.’s modest sensibilities.

At the commissary, she demanded the best cut of meat as if she were claiming victory.

On weekends, she and E.C. danced until her heels screamed surrender and her spirit shouted encore.

The judgment never faded.

But neither did she.

Even as the Navy wives tried to fold her into their silent origami—neat lines, muted tones, predictable edges—Hunny remained gloriously uncreased.

She reminded E.C., as she had the night they crossed the Arkansas border with borrowed courage:

“No one,” she said slowly, like gospel written in lipstick, “and I mean no one, will ever make me feel inferior.”

E.C. looked at her the way a quiet man looks at lightning—reverent, startled, and in love. Her strength both impressed and frightened him. It made him stand taller and shrink at the same time.

San Francisco’s skyline towered over her.

The fog tried to erase her outline.

The neighbors tried to fold her into silence.

But Hunny made everything around her feel small.

And somewhere deep inside, beneath the satin and sass, she knew this was only the beginning of the storms she’d have to outshine. E.C. knew it too. But E.C. thought in terms 'we' where Hunny never did.