Alice sat outside a café, hands gripping a cup of coffee. Steam rose from the cup, mixing with her breath in the cold. To her left, Ron also had black coffee. They watched men and women move up and down the street, cars driving by loudly. The sides of the street had white snow piles up, stained black by dirt.

They'd gotten to the city for breakfast. Sitting outside the café had been Alice's idea. She missed doing so in Paris as an adolescent. She could feel her cheeks redden from the cold, but with her coffee she didn't mind. 

After a while of not speaking, Alice turned to Ron. "This is much better than Fort Benning," she said. "But don't tell Nix I said that. He'll gloat."

Ron snorted, nodding. "True."

Another few minutes passed. They still hadn't seen head nor tail of Nixon or Dick. Finishing up her coffee and pastry, Alice returned it inside the café. When she got back outside, the other three stood waiting.

"So. What do you want to do?" Nixon rubbed his hands together to keep warm. He looked between Dick and Ron, but focused on Alice.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Well, Central Park isn't far by way of the new Subway system." He glanced between the others. "Then we could check out the Met."

Alice looked at him in confusion. "The Met?"

"Metropolitan Museum of Art." 

Dick couldn't suppress a smile. He shook his head. "Is this what rich jerks from Yale do in their spare time."

"You're just jealous, Dick." Then he turned. "Ron?"

The man just shrugged. Hit lit a cigarette. "I'm following you. Don't make me regret it."

They started down the street. Alice stood next to Nixon, trying not to waste any moment exploring "The Wonder City," as she saw signs describe it. New York felt more packed in than Paris, but it had its own charm. Despite the occasional bad smell, or dirty snow at the side of the roads, it had marvelous sights. The buildings in New York towered above them.

Central Park covered in snow was beautiful. Some of the iron fences were rusty and in need of repair, but she guessed that everything had suffered from the Depression. More than a handful of dogs were being walked around the park. She didn't even try to hide her enthusiasm when she saw them.

The whole while she, Dick, and Ron listened to Nixon explain what they saw. This street here, that statue there, he knew quite a bit about the city. She liked hearing him speak about it. He wasn't quite as enthusiastic as Guarnere and Philadelphia, but he clearly took pride in New York.

As they finally reached the entrance of the Met, Alice finished up one of her cigarettes. She tossed it away. By this point it was nearly lunch. They decided on pizza near the museum. She hadn't tasted real pizza in well over six months, not since England. She devoured it.

"Right, so we tour the Met and then maybe go see that new movie. What's it called?" Nixon looked around at them. "You know, the war one?"

"Casablanca?" Dick said.

"Yeah, that one." 

They all agreed. Alice grinned widely as soon as she stepped inside the museum. It didn't take long to find the European painters. A whole collection spanned a massive wing. While Dick and Nixon mocked each other over social status, Alice spent time with the art. She sought out the French painters. 

They came upon a new collection about an hour and a half into their visit. Ron and Alice walked together. She had a feeling he was playing babysitter while Nixon was too busy joking around with Dick. But she didn't mind. His steady presence was comforting.

"Albrecht Dürer!" She gasped, hurrying over to a wall with block prints. Ron didn't follow at first, so she just spoke to herself. "What a find!"

A man who worked at the museum heard her. He wandered over. Well groomed brown hair framed a boney face with thin lips. He smoked a cigarette lazily. "You know Dürer?"

"Of course. Anyone with an interest in art from Germany would know Dürer." She gestured to the print on the wall. "His block prints are phenomenal. Nürnberg produced a fabulous artist."

"You're from Germany? Nürnberg?"

Alice paused. She saw his eyes narrow, and briefly regretted her words. Suddenly she missed being in uniform and not a dress. "Originally. Though I am from Hamburg not Nürnberg."

His jaw clenched. She could all but see his mind working. The middle aged man moved towards her and the artwork. Alice took a half step back. Her heart pounded. Here she was just a young woman, not a paratrooper in training, and definitely not a Lieutenant in the United States Army. And now, he saw her as a German.

"It's a good thing you're not from Nürnberg. I'm sure the police would love to get their hands on a Nazi broad." Then he paused. "Though, Hamburg isn't that far from it."

She would've laughed if he hadn't been so angry. "Hamburg is in the north, Nürnberg is the south. They are quite different."

"Yeah, and who rules 'em both?"

Alice gritted her teeth. She stepped away, leaving Albrecht Dürer's work behind. But the curator hadn't finished. He shouted at her to wait.

"The Nazis take art from all over the world. I'm just glad we stole some of theirs, you skirt!"

With a deep breath, Alice turned. She walked a few steps back towards him. Her body trembled. Anger pulsed through her. "Do you know who the Nazis' first victims were?" He didn't respond, so she just gritted her teeth. "They were German."

Before he could get another word in, Alice moved back to the previous room. She found Ron, Nixon, and Dick talking together. With arms crossed, she tried to calm down. They turned to her, oblivious of what had happened.

"I think I've seen enough," she said. "We should go."

"There's a lot more to see-"

Alice rounded on Nixon, furious. He actually took a quarter step back. All three of them fell silent. She didn't respond to their stares. Instead, she started back the way they came, lighting a cigarette to calm down. She didn't wait.

"What the hell happened?" Nixon rounded on her first as they reached the entrance of the museum. He stood in front of her, blocking her steps.

Alice paused in her steps. She took her cigarette from her mouth and blew the smoke out. "Americans."

"That's not an explanation." 

"Someone got offended that I am German. I have no desire to deal with that. I can handle when it's soldiers I outrank, but here I am yet another Nazi broad, as has been repeatedly told to me." She paused, trying to catch her breath as anger enveloped her again. "What's next?"

Dick and Ron both caught up to them, and heard her explanations. But no one responded. They didn't have any idea what to say. As they moved out the door, cold wind hit them all in the face. Alice blinked away tears.

"Come on, let's walk to the cinema." Dick nudged Nixon forward. 

Alice trailed behind the two friends, Ron next to her again. They didn't speak. Alice half listened in to Dick and Nixon. Beyond them, though, she listened to the sounds around them. Before long they came across a large square. A Christmas tree thirty feet high at least towered in the center. At the base, an ice rink had been erected.

Nostalgia crashed into her. The sound of skates across the ice filled her body with trembling. She could feel it. Alice stopped walking as they came closer. She didn't speak at first. But then she asked them to wait. "Do any of you skate?"

They all turned back to her. The four of them moved out of the way of people. She shuffled self consciously. Dick told her no.

"Not well," Nixon joked. 

Ron signed and snuffed out his nearly empty cigarette. "Yes, but I'm not about to do it."

With a frown, Alice nodded. She went to keep walking. Her feet didn't want to leave, though. Finally she sighed. "I haven't skated in years. Do you mind?"

They didn't. Nixon tossed her a few dollars and she hurried to get skates. They followed more slowly. After she paid for the rental, Alice took the brown leather skates and moved away to put them on. She slipped her right foot into the skate boot and paused. Her heart raced. The feel of the leather beneath her fingers, and the angle her foot sat at from the blade, reminded her of a person she hadn't let her mind wander to in ages.

"Shit, Alice, you look like you saw a ghost," Nixon said with a laugh. When she didn't respond, he cocked his head. "You didn't, did you? The Ghost of Christmas Past maybe?"

She forced herself to smile. "No, just… thinking."

Without letting him follow up with the inevitable questions, Alice hurried away on her skates carefully. She moved to the ice. Not many people used the rink, so she stepped right on. Wobbling slightly, Alice breathed out. 

Before long, she got a rhythm. She distinctly remembered being a better skater the last time she'd done so. As she came along the rink to where Nixon and Ron chatted over coffee they'd bought, she shook her head. She didn't even speak to them, she just grunted in frustration as she passed. "Jean-Luc would be so disappointed in me," she muttered to herself.

With thoughts of Jean-Luc's teasing, Alice forced herself to focus. Her brothers' best friend had been the first to teach her to skate in Paris. She'd tried as child in Hamburg, but never learned. Jean-Luc had seen to it that she could. The last time she'd seen him, they'd taken a walk the day before her twentieth birthday party They'd discussed plans for a new Underground paper he wanted to produce. 

She could all but feel his arms around her, the kiss on her forehead. Her cheeks flushed at the thought as she skated. She thanked the cold for hiding it. 

The next day, after he'd not managed to attend with her brothers at the Parisian club, separate them forever. Marc had died, she and Robert had fled. It'd been almost two years since she'd seen or heard from him. No letters, no messages. She'd only gotten silence.

As Alice finished another couple laps, falling into her old skill, she sighed. It wasn't the same, skating alone. She left the rink. With a small smile, she undid her skates and returned them. The others waited for her.