They don’t slow to look back. But something has happened. Something good has happened.
What next? Something bad?
Abruptly a thunderous rumble drowns out every other sound—footfalls, breathing, cursing. As the sky continues to brighten, towering trees bend under a blast of heated wind, needles and cones and debris rain down. Even in the shelter of the woods, Junior has to fight to keep his balance as he and his mates are pushed forward.
But they haven’t gone up in smoke. Melted. Vaporized.
They’re breathing. Moving. They’ve taken a haymaker of a punch and survived. They’ve done their job. Something good has happened.
Feet, keep making tracks.
FORTY-TWO
Sunday, August 19 (Late Night)
There’s no bedtime tonight. General Groves has promised to call as soon as he has any word.
The four of us are in the living room. I’ve stationed myself closest to the phone. We don’t talk about why we’re up. We don’t talk about success or failure, life or death, the possibility that if Colonel Oliver’s plane goes down, or the bomb is off target, or if it fails to explode, the Nazi bomb-making operation could be moved. And Cocoa’s guess as to its next location would be just that.
We eat Spam-and-cheese sandwiches. We eat popcorn. We drink coffee, lots of it. My already shredded nerves begin to fry. Outside, the air has cooled, but inside, the heat of the day lingers. We sweat.
Cocoa fields questions about her other life. Her answers are horror stories that make me wish we’d opened the topic of Colonel Oliver’s mission. Too casually, she speaks of chaos, anarchy, ignorance, crime, abuse, abandonment, homelessness, heat, pollution, starvation, decay, disease, dying, death. Aloneness.
The stories are hard to digest, but not hard to believe. How could we not?
It’s nearly one thirty when the phone rings. By the time I say hello, everyone else is gathered around me.
“General Groves, Bobby.” He sounds younger. Buoyant. Or am I just wishing?
“Yes, sir.”
“Mission accomplished, son.”
I don’t have the words. What comes out of me is a shriek.
The general laughs. “Nice of you to let the others know.”
“Yes, sir. Is everyone okay?”
“Barely. They cut it close. Wanted to make sure. They limped home in a battered plane, courtesy of Bigger Boy tearing the sky apart.”
“Whew,” I say, giving my audience a thumbs-up.
“Yes. May I talk to Cocoa?”
“Of course.”
She says hello, then mostly listens. She tells the general she didn’t have that much to do with it, then claims it was the lucky acorn. But everyone knows she had everything to do with it.
Captain Jack gets on the phone. Lots of listening for him, too. When he hangs up, he tells us that General Groves will call back in the morning if damage reports arrive from Germany. In any case, he’ll keep us up to date.
Pete and the captain open two bottles of beer. They pour some for Cocoa and me but keep most of it for themselves. We raise our glasses and bottles and Pete makes a toast: “To Future Girl, and her loyal sidekick, Brainy Boy. The world thanks you.”
We sip. Cocoa makes a face. I know how she feels. I don’t mind the loyal sidekick part, but Brainy Boy? Pete couldn’t have done better than Brainy Boy? I prefer Present Boy. Compared to Cocoa’s world, the present is a good place to be.
FORTY-THREE
Monday, August 20
General Groves calls halfway through the morning. Cocoa and I are in the barn when we hear the ringing. When we get to the kitchen, Captain Jack is on the phone. Smiling. Pete sits at the table, spellbound.
“That’s great, General,” the captain says. Pause. “That’s wonderful.” Pause. “Couldn’t be better, sir.” Pause. “I’ll do that. Thank you for calling.”
He hangs up. He and Pete try to out-hug each other, then take turns with Cocoa and me. Jubilant. Comforting. When Pete wraps me up, he’s trembling, and when he finally pulls away there are tears in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Captain Jack is talking fast. “Air reconnaissance and troops on the ground report a direct hit. The cave and everything in it was obliterated. For a mile around the blast, the land has been stripped bare. Boulders were tossed like marbles. Trees that weren’t vaporized were uprooted, toppled, burned. They’re still burning. The German army is staying far away.”
A few hours later, the news is broadcast on the radio: We’ve struck back with our own bomb; the heart of Germany; Hitler’s kitchen; a bomb-making facility and the materials for making the bombs and the people who made them. Made.
Not that we ever doubted the general, but now it’s official. We celebrate all over again.
FORTY-FOUR
Wednesday, August 22, and Thursday, August 23
We catch up on our sleep. Cocoa looks healthier, happier, more relaxed. She, like the rest of us, is worried about Nazi bombs that might have come off the assembly line before Colonel Oliver delivered his atomic enema, but most of the pressure on her seems to have lifted.
I wonder how much Mom and Dad know. I wish I could tell them about Cocoa’s role in Colonel Oliver’s mission. I wish I could tell them that, without her, the Nazi scientists would still be doing their shit.
From the Journal and the radio we get more good news. The Allies are again heading for Berlin. The German army is battling, but the last of the Luftwaffe has been destroyed, and the airspace over Germany belongs to us. The German navy has withdrawn to the few ports still in Nazi hands.
On Wednesday, Pete and Captain Jack leave shortly after Cocoa and I get home from delivering papers. They have to drive all the way to Santa Fe, where the captain is meeting with General Groves and people from Los Alamos.
So, we have hours on our own. And I have an idea. “How about we get some ice cream?”
We’re returning from the barn. She squints up at the blue sky, at the sun rising above the mountains and morning clouds. She never tires of looking at the sky and sun and clouds.
“That would be a long bike ride on a hot day, Robert.”
“Not a bike ride.” I nod in the direction of the DeSoto.
“The car?” she says. “You can drive it that far?”
“Why not?”
A conspiratorial smile. “I’ve been having a craving for ice cream.”
“Me, too,” I say. “And cool air blasting in through the windows.” What I don’t say is: and you sitting close to me.
“I’ll go change.”
She hurries off. I get the pump and begin inflating the tires, which have gone half flat. Lolly supervises. I open a back door and he jumps in.
Cocoa emerges wearing her favorite blouse—medium blue with narrow horizontal white stripes that make her look more substantial—and white shorts and white Keds. Also, a wide smile. I expected she’d be reluctant to ride with a rookie driver, but she slips into the front seat without hesitation.
The DeSoto starts easily, relieving one of my fears, and before we reach the end of the driveway, Cocoa has slid over to within six inches of me, relieving another.
The windows are down. As I turn onto the road and accelerate, a breeze kicks up inside the car, clearing out the odors of disuse and mohair and dog. All I smell is her. Cocoa.
I check the gas gauge. I shift through the gears, but I don’t show off, and I promise myself I won’t.
Precious cargo.
Soon we’re on the highway, heading north. There’s little traffic. Cocoa inches closer.
I carefully angle-park the car outside the entrance to Slim’s Diner. We roll down all the windows for Lolly. He’s up but not trying to escape.
The place is half full. I don’t recognize anyone, which is good. Questions might follow. We sit in a window booth and glance out at Lolly and the sleepy street, and when I’m not doing that I’m looking across the table at Cocoa.
“We should get some food,” I say. The more we eat, the longe
r we’ll stay; the longer we stay, the longer I’ll get to look at her like this.
She takes my hand. “And then ice cream?”
We linger over lunch and sundaes. People trickle in, setting off a cheery bell. When we’re almost done, the bell rings once more. I pay no attention until I notice the worried look in Cocoa’s eyes and, at the edge of my vision, someone stopping at our table.
“Hello, Bobby,” Sheriff Wally says. “Cocoa.”
We tell him “Hi.” I try to calm my nerves.
“How are the folks?” he asks me.
I’m tempted to say something sarcastic, but I want to keep this friendly. And short. Especially short. “Making the best of it.”
“All any of us can do, right?”
“Right.”
“And you, Cocoa?”
“Much better,” she says, masking her uneasiness with a smile.
“Glad to hear it.” He peers through the window. I know what he’s looking at. “You two take care.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “And you, Bobby, have a safe drive home.”
He finds a corner table, where he can keep an eye on comings and goings. We finish up and pay. I leave a nice tip, grateful for the food and service and Cocoa’s company and Sheriff Wally’s willingness to see the room but ignore the cracks in the walls.
When we get home, we turn on the radio and learn that the US is talking with Japan over the terms of a surrender. Even halfway around the world, the bomb Colonel Oliver dropped on the cave, and on Nazi intentions, has had an intimidating effect.
Something just as exciting arrives in a story relayed from a BBC broadcast a moment later. The Allies are closing in on Berlin, “dashing headlong toward Hitler’s last stronghold,” the newsman reports, “impeded only by the horror at what they’ve discovered in Nazi death camps, discoveries that at the same time urge them on.”
Cocoa and I decide to take Lolly for a walk. We fill a canteen and head into the desert. Lolly runs ahead, comes back, runs ahead, comes back. Investigating. Reporting. All clear. All clear.
He trots back, whining, tries to herd us left, right. Cocoa laughs, throws a stick, but he isn’t swayed. He holds his ground, paces back and forth. She sidesteps him and backpedals on while I try to figure him out. He doesn’t always think like a human.
She takes another step backward. With no warning, from a thicket of low-growing cactus inches from her bare legs, there’s a blur of motion. Dark. Lightning-fast. A rattler, striking.
She makes a noise. Suddenly I’ve got Lolly by the collar and I’m trying to hold him back and grab Cocoa’s hand at the same time. Just as suddenly, the snake recoils, invisible again.
I pull her from danger but I’m sure she’s been bitten and I’ll need to get her to the doctor before the venom gets to where it wants to go.
Nearby we reach a clear area. I drop to my knees while she stands frozen, wide-eyed, hand to her mouth. “I’ll carry you,” I say. “The poison won’t move as fast.”
“Okay.”
Her legs are right in front of me. I know we have to hurry—even Lolly, who’s whining, knows we have to hurry—but I need to look.
The snake struck from her right side, just above ground level. But when I hold her right foot and study her skin and run my fingers over her ankle and calf, there’s nothing. No puncture wounds, no redness, no swelling.
I take different viewing angles. I make her rotate into direct sunlight like a slow-motion ballerina. I do the same for her left leg, although it was an unlikely target.
“No wound,” I say.
“Really?” She rests her hand on the top of my head. Balancing herself.
“Not a trace.” Something in my voice makes Lolly settle down. He noses at Cocoa’s pocket, where she once kept the acorn.
“It must have missed me.”
“It must have.” But I saw the lethal wedge hit, clamp, retract. All in a blurry instant.
“That’s good, right?” She looks for herself, runs her hands everywhere.
“You made a sound.”
“Maybe I was just startled. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, then—”
“I thought we were gonna have to go see Dr. Kersey.”
The panicky feeling is leaving, but side effects linger. Pounding heart, watery eyes. What kind of spell am I under? What is it that I feel for her? Can an almost-sixteen-year-old be in love?
“False alarm,” she says, not sounding convinced. We’re both still sneaking looks at her unbroken skin.
We cut our walk short.
When we get back to the house, Pete and Captain Jack are sitting on the back steps, drinking beer from dewy bottles. They’ve traded their uniforms for shorts and T-shirts.
“You two look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Pete says.
Cocoa gives me a glance. Loose lips. “We took Lolly for a walk,” she says.
“He chased after a rabbit,” I say.
“Notice anything?” Pete says.
We follow his gaze. The Army truck has returned. It’s backed up to the Airstream.
“You’re leaving?” I ask the captain.
He looks dejected. “General Groves wants me back at Los Alamos.”
“No more babysitting, Captain Jack,” Cocoa says, faking cheerfulness.
“My loss,” he says.
I get some lemonade for Cocoa and me. We join Pete and the captain on the steps, but I’m ready to drop the sad-parting conversation. “Did you hear the good news?” I say. “Japan, and Berlin?”
“We had a briefing this morning,” Pete says.
“Word is that German forces are turning on Hitler and his hoodlums,” Captain Jack says. “That he’s in hiding, planning to run. But we’ll have the whole city surrounded by then.”
The words are comforting. They should be exciting. But the image of the rattler haunts me. Cocoa is sitting next to me, close, and I gaze at her ankles, puncture-free, then her face. She looks healthier than ever.
“I have something for you two,” the captain says. “Pete already has his.”
He goes to the trailer. He returns with photos from our day at the pool. There are five for each of us—one of Cocoa, Pete, and me together, one of Cocoa and me together, one of Cocoa by herself, one of me by myself, and the one I took of the three of them.
My favorite? Cocoa and me, of course. We’re sitting on the wall of the pool, close, and she’s leaning into me. She’s smiling. So am I.
During the night, I wake up to a rectangle of dim light where my bedroom door is supposed to be. The light is coming from down the hall somewhere—the bathroom, probably. A figure is silhouetted against the glow. Cocoa is my only thought, but this silhouette has curves—shoulders, waist, hips. When did that happen?
I wonder if the silhouette is naked. The silhouette looks naked.
I’m hot. I’m tangled in my sheets. But I wait patiently. For something. Finally, unsure, I whisper her name.
“I went into the bathroom,” she announces.
“Doing okay?” I manage.
“I looked in the mirror,” she says dreamily.
And? I want to say, but I hold my tongue. I can’t tell if she’s sleepwalking or just taking her time. Either way, I don’t want to butt in.
“I could not see myself, Robert.”
“What?”
“I could not see my fucking reflection.”
Sleepwalking, I decide, as the silhouette turns and glides into the hall and the door closes with a click, leaving me in the dark.
Sleep refuses to return. I get up with my flashlight and retrieve the ranch house photos from my dresser. In bed, I go through them one by one. Nothing has changed. Swimsuits. Happy faces. A good day. More good days have followed. Will follow. Cocoa’s here. Pete’s here. Mom and Dad should be coming home soon. But as I slowly drift off, something continues to needle me.
On our way to the shack in the morning, Cocoa tells me she had a strange dream last night. It was too creepy to talk about, she says. It’s s
till haunting her, she says.
When we return home, Pete and Captain Jack are making breakfast—pancakes, eggs, bacon. A goodbye gift from the captain, maybe. When we sit down to eat, he has news for us.
“General Groves called,” he says. “Word from the German front is that Hitler is either captured or dead. Apparently, he was attempting to flee to an airfield through a system of tunnels, but he and his confederates ran into a resistance group that cut them off and at last report had them pinned down with gunfire. The general will call back if he gets anything more definitive.”
Smiles all around, but they’re cautious. Can it be true?
“And there’s more,” the captain says. “Secretary Stimson and President Truman want to thank both of you in person. Not publicly, because how would anyone ever explain it? But as soon as the dust settles, you’ll get an invitation to travel to Washington to shake hands with the president and the war secretary.”
I’m glad I’m sitting down. The president? I’ve met important people lately, but President Truman is in a class of his own, even if he did come in through the back door—even if he is responsible for imprisoning my parents.
And Cocoa and me? Together? In Washington? I’ve never been outside New Mexico. I get this warmer-than-toast feeling in my lower chest, and it’s not from what I’m eating.
“I can’t believe it,” I say.
“Maybe we can go shopping again,” Cocoa says. Under the table, she takes my hand. Pete and the captain pretend not to notice. I pretend I’m unaffected, above and below the belt.
“That won’t be a problem,” Pete says.
I decide to press my luck. “What about Mom and Dad?” I ask him.
Pete shakes his head in a way that tells me the same question has been on his mind. Dad may not be his favorite fellow, but Pete’s big sister is locked up, too. “No news,” he says. “But this war is about to end. And then things will look better for them.”
FORTY-FIVE
It’s a bittersweet morning. There was the news of Hitler’s likely capture or death, and the invitation to meet the president. Both sweet.
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