Frank grew quiet for a minute, and Helen wondered if she’d betrayed her brother again by confiding his fear. Then he said, “Anybody with an ounce of sense should be scared of war.”
“I think he’s as scared about shooting someone as he is about getting shot.” Helen felt a lump rise in her throat and coughed to clear it. “How’s Dotty? Has she heard from her husband?”
“No. And she resents the Army for officially listing her as a widow.”
“That must be terrible!”
Frank grinned. “Dotty said it’s a bunch of gobbledygook from dog-faced donkeys who don’t have the sense they were born with. She says she’ll find Boots on her own, in spite of those knuckleheads. I think those were her exact words.”
Helen laughed. “Well, that sister of yours is one tough cookie. She’s definitely no quitter.”
Frank smiled at her, meaningfully. “A trait that I’ve been told runs in the family.”
BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN
Frank had managed to get six Army towels, which equaled about one beach towel. He and Helen arranged four of the towels on the sand, close to the water.
Helen turned her back while she shed her uniform. Her swimsuit had been a gift from a nurse at Evanston who left to have a baby and figured she wouldn’t fit into it for a while. The black string-tie top wasn’t fashionable, but Helen knew she looked okay in it. When she faced Frank, she could tell he thought so too. He grinned, then looked out at the water, his cheeks adorably flushed.
Funny. Growing up, Helen had never known if she was pretty or not, not even in high school, when boys kept asking her out. Nobody got compliments in the Eberhart household. Mom had been too afraid she’d create vain children. Not until Helen got to college did she realize most guys and gals thought she was pretty great-looking. By then, it didn’t seem to matter. What had mattered was making it to nurse’s training. Yet she couldn’t pretend Frank’s opinion on her looks didn’t matter to her now.
She settled onto the towels while Frank stuck a sun umbrella into the sand. It was still morning, but the sun shone like high noon.
He sat on a corner of the towels that left him outside of the umbrella’s shade. “I love the hot sun.” Helen remembered that his love of hot weather had made him request the Pacific theater. Since she’d asked for Europe, this might be the last time they’d see each other. Her heart felt as if someone were squeezing it.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out peanut butter sandwiches. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Helen bit into hers. “Mmmm. Perfect.”
“I agree.” Frank grinned at her.
“So, how long do you think you’ll be at Camp Ellis? Captain Walker told us we’ll be shipped to Ellis ourselves before long. Wouldn’t it be swell if we were there together?” She risked a sideways glance at Frank.
Frank shook his head. “I get the feeling we won’t be there much longer. They’ve been working us hard on obstacle courses and firearms.”
“Really? Will doctors carry guns?”
“The field hospitals aren’t far from the front. I guess they figure the Japs, or the Germans, will be shooting at us, so we better know how to shoot back. Battalion aid stations are right on the battlefield, but I don’t think we’ll go there—those are for medics. Anyway, there’s already talk about being sent to the staging area on the coast. Boston or New York, but could be San Francisco. We won’t know until we get there.”
It scared her to think she might lose contact with him, this time for years instead of days. Maybe forever. She swiveled toward him. “Say, we should come up with a secret code so we can stay in touch and get past the censors.”
“I’m in! Did I tell you I love mysteries and puzzles?”
“Swell!” Helen said. “Have you seen mail after the censors get to it? One letter from Wilbur had half the lines cut out.”
“At Ellis, we had a session on what we can and can’t put into a letter. They said we’d hear more about it while we’re waiting for transport overseas. I guess locations grab attention, even if they have nothing to do with war.”
Helen thought about it. Locations were what she’d want to put into a letter. “Morse code?”
“I have a feeling the Army’s onto that system,” Frank said.
“True. And I’m not.”
Frank got the cutest little thinking wrinkles in his forehead. “How about this? Say that I want to let you know I’m in Manila.”
Helen felt warm inside. She hoped he really would want to let her know. “Go on.”
“Okay. We spell out Manila, but use the first letter of each sentence. Like ‘Many are here.’ And the next sentence: ‘And I miss you.’ Then: ‘Now I’m done.’ You get the idea.”
“Clever! You should be a spy like your brother. Only let’s skip every other sentence to make it harder. And we shouldn’t start with the first sentence—too obvious.”
“You’re the one who should get a spy degree. So how will we know where the code starts? We could read a letter and miss the code.”
They batted ideas back and forth—an ink spot, indenting, quotation marks. But those would draw attention, when the whole point was not to draw attention.
Still thinking out loud, Helen said, “What if we did this, Frankie? The sentence before we start spelling the city’s name, we write something that’s totally out of place, something you and I would see as ridiculous, but the censors would skim over.”
“Like I could tell you that I picked up my pink blouse from the cleaner’s.”
Helen laughed. “And I could say that I got my tooth pulled at the veterinarian’s.”
“Deal.” Frank stuck out his hand. She shook it, holding on longer than necessary.
They ate their picnic and talked about all sorts of things, without mentioning the phone call or Frank’s proposal. The nearest he came to it was when he told her about sneaking out of the barracks to use the phone. “I had to run past the POW encampment. I even waved to a German prisoner out for a smoke.” That made her laugh so hard her eyes watered.
A welcome breeze kicked up. Helen gazed at the lake, rippling in sunlight that made diamonds dance on the water. “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Wait till you see it from the middle.”
“What?”
“I rented a boat.” Frank stuffed the remains of lunch into his pack and got to his feet. He reached down and helped her up. “Come on!”
“Wait a minute. You rented what?”
“A canoe! We’ve got it for the whole day.” Still holding her hand, he started across the hot sand at a jog. They raced along the shore until they reached a long dock with sailboats and fishing vessels tied up.
“I don’t really know how to . . . to work a boat.”
“Nothing to it.” He untied the smallest, skimpiest, worst-looking boat there. “I can do all the paddling from the back. Ever been in a canoe?”
Helen couldn’t speak, so she shook her head.
“Then you’re in for a treat. Much better than a rowboat. You’re closer to the water.”
Closer to the water? That’s all she needed. The canoe was a tiny bit of nothing between her and the water. It was her guilty secret that water terrified her. She couldn’t swim.
The only time she’d come close to swimming was when Ed and Clarence had thrown her into the cistern in the basement of the Cissna Park house on her seventh birthday. They hadn’t meant to hurt her, or even scare her. She’d been wearing her only fancy dress, and the boys thought it would be funny to get it wet. They’d learned to swim before they learned to walk, and they just hadn’t noticed that she never swam with them. If Walter hadn’t reached in and pulled her out, she’d have gone straight to the bottom of that murky pool. She’d never gone near a swimming pool since. A couple of times in college she’d gone to the beach, but she’d always talked her way out of swimming.
But this wasn’t swimming, right? Boats were safe. Frank knew what he was doing. She�
�d be fine.
“All aboard!” Frank said.
She clung to her towel as if it were a life preserver. “Say, don’t they have life preservers in these things?”
“Guess they figure we’re headed for a war zone, so why bother. Ladies first!” He hunched over the boat, holding the sides and waiting for her to step in.
Helen focused on the yellow paint peeling from the splintery wooden canoe. Her legs felt wooden too, as she forced herself to edge closer. Her heart flickered as she stepped in and sat down, the boat bucking like a bronco beneath her.
“Unless you want to be the one to paddle, you need to scoot to the front.” He flipped the rope into the boat.
“Oh, right.” She gripped the sides and slid forward. Splinters embedded themselves in her palms, but she couldn’t loosen her grip. Facing the triangular front, she felt Frank plop into the boat behind her. Water sloshed in. “Are you sure the boat isn’t leaking?”
“Nah.” He shoved off from the dock.
Helen gasped.
“Why don’t you turn around so we’re facing each other?” Frank suggested. She sensed him squirming, making the boat tilt.
“Right.” Her fingers uncurled, and she forced herself to let go with one hand. Then she turned, regripped, stepped around, and sat.
Meanwhile, Frank dipped the paddle, pulled it back and around, making a J in the water. The canoe slipped through the shallows toward the center of the lake. His arms moved steadily, and she could see the outline of his deltoids, pectorals, triceps, abdominals.
Plop! Splash!
Helen screamed as water doused her arm and leg. He’d splashed her.
“Sorry.” But his laugh said he wasn’t sorry at all. Frank went back to paddling, and the boat fell into a rhythm, gliding smoothly. He hummed to the beat, and she recognized “It Had to Be You.”
Her toe tapped, and she couldn’t help singing along while Frank whistled. The words fit Frank, and they fit her. She wondered if he was thinking about the lyrics too. Then came the last line, or at least the last one she knew: “‘For nobody else gave me a thrill. With all your faults, I love you still. It had to be you, wonderful you. It had to be you.’”
For what seemed like minutes, neither of them spoke. They simply stared into each other’s eyes—into their souls, Helen thought. Frank was such a good man. She wanted him to talk about his proposal. She knew she should explain her refusal and apologize for the way she’d turned him down.
But she couldn’t. He’d proposed, and she’d said no. Now he wasn’t pressing her or asking again, and that’s the way she wanted it, wasn’t it?
He pulled in the paddle and reached into his pack, producing her favorite candy bar, Hershey’s with nuts. “Probably a little melted.”
“I can’t believe you.” She took the chocolate. She hadn’t had one in so long.
He handed her a second bar. “I’m not really hungry. Save this one for later.”
“Not on your life.” She handed it back, then opened hers. “Now this is what it’s all about.” She took her first bite, savoring the rich chocolate.
He watched her with an expression she couldn’t name. Pleasure? Delight? . . . Love?
“Eat your candy bar, soldier!” she commanded.
He grinned. “What was the line in that song about trying to be boss?”
She reached over the side of the boat and splashed him. For the last few minutes, she’d nearly forgotten she was in the middle of a lake. She stretched out her legs and leaned back a little. An insect buzzed around her, and she swatted at it. “So, what was life like growing up in Hamilton, Missouri?”
Frank answered her questions with anecdotes about his older brother, Jack, who taught him to box and let him win, who quit his job waiting tables at a great restaurant when they were in college so Frank could be hired there.
He talked a little about his parents, but Helen could read between the lines. Peter and Sina Mae Daley hadn’t approved of their son’s zest for a life outside their little Missouri community. They didn’t understand why he refused to return home and take over his dad’s practice. She got the feeling Frank’s mother hadn’t been any freer with compliments than her own had been.
Helen had to work hard to keep Frank talking about himself. Before she realized it, he’d guide the conversation back to her life. She found herself talking more openly to him than she did to Peggy.
“I know you’re a churchgoer,” he said. “First day at Battle Creek and you showed up in chapel.”
“Ma saw to it that we never missed a Sunday. She marched us all there like ducklings.” She remembered the small white building, the brown pews, sticky with heat.
“Didn’t you want to go?”
“I never thought about it. Not going wasn’t an option.”
“Me too. I don’t think I doubted the Bible stories, but I never gave them much thought. I admit I didn’t hear much of the sermons, thanks to Jack making me laugh and getting me in trouble.” He was quiet for a minute. “I wish I had paid more attention.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Maybe that’s the one good thing the war’s doing,” he said. “It makes us think. Since Dotty’s been home, she talks about Boots and about God like she knows them inside and out, like they’re all war buddies.”
“I think that’s how my mother feels about her Gott im Himmel. We Eberharts aren’t big on showing our feelings, much less talking about them. Besides, Ma prayed in German, so I didn’t always know what she was saying. But I had no doubt that God was listening.” Helen gazed at the sinking sun. They had spent the entire day on the lake—and miracle of miracles, she’d enjoyed every minute.
“I’m awfully hot,” Frank said. “How about you?”
Helen inspected her reddish arms. “I’d say I’m burning hot.”
He stood up in the canoe.
The boat rocked, and she grabbed the sides. “What are you doing?”
“Time for a swim!” Frank said, a devilish twinkle in his eyes.
“No thanks.” She tightened her grip on the splintery edges of the boat. “You go ahead.”
“Ah, you gals never want to get your hair wet, right? I’ll bet you look great with wet hair. How about we see?” He straddled the canoe, rocking it harder.
“D-don’t!” Helen cried.
“Didn’t you ever hear that expression, ‘Tip a canoe . . . and Helen too’?” He jumped to one side, and the canoe tipped.
Helen screamed as the boat flopped all the way over, flinging her into the lake. She opened her mouth to cry out, but water rushed in.
“Come on!” Frank shouted when she surfaced. “The canoe won’t sink. Race you to that buoy and back!”
Helen thrashed, trying to keep her head above water. It felt like something was pulling her down, dragging her to the bottom of the lake. “Help! Help me!” Water rushed into her mouth again.
“Helen?” Frank was calling her from somewhere. He sounded far away.
She stopped kicking and felt herself sinking, down, down, down. No! She struggled, arms flailing until—after what seemed like forever—she burst through the dark, heavy water and into the air. She gasped, filling her lungs with a mixture of air and water.
“Helen! I’m coming!”
She heard splashing. Then she felt something grab her around the waist. She kicked at it, slapped it. She struck with all her might.
“Helen! Stop! It’s me. I’ve got you.”
But she couldn’t see who or what had her. She couldn’t think. All she could do was scream and yell and scream some more. With her eyes shut, she felt the dank waters of the Cissna Park cistern close around her. She kicked and cried, “Somebody help me!”
A motor sounded so close that she had the sensation of being run over.
“Ma’am? We’re here. Let the lady go!”
Helen sensed more arms around her. She felt herself being lifted out of the water and onto a boat. A bigger boat. Three men in uniform surrounded her. A
second boat came at them from the other side. She watched as that boat sped so close to Frank it might have cut him in two. Two MPs towered above the water, standing in the boat, rifles pointed down at Frank.
“Stay where you are!” the burly MP shouted.
Frank’s eyes were huge. He tried to hold up his hands, but it made his head bob underwater. “Wait—I didn’t know she couldn’t—”
“Shut up!” shouted the other MP. The guy hollered over Frank’s head at the men in Helen’s boat. “We got him! We’ll bring him in, ma’am. You’ll need to press charges so we can—”
“What?” Helen’s head was splitting. Her teeth chattered so hard her eyes ached. “No—I—”
One of her rescuers put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t feel bad, ma’am. It’s not your fault. You think you know a fellow—”
“But I do know this one!” She could see Frank’s feet as they hauled him into the MPs’ boat, slamming him against the side. The engine roared, ready to take off.
Helen stood up in the boat. “Stop! You can’t take him away. That’s my fiancé! We’re going to be married.”
BATTLE CREEK, MICHIGAN
Frank kept his arm around Helen, his fiancée—he loved the sound of that—and waited until the last minute to board his train. They’d barely had time to dry off and change clothes before catching a ride to the station. The whistle blew and soldiers scurried, but Frank stayed rooted to the platform. He didn’t want to let go of Helen, and the astounding thing was that she didn’t want to let go of him.
Helen nuzzled against his neck. “When can you come back, Frankie?”
“I’ll work something out.”
Steam from under the train sent a billowing white puff around their feet, completing the image—they were floating on a cloud.
“All aboard!” the engineer shouted at Frank. The train jerked. Frank leaped onto the metal step.
From the platform, Helen kept pace with him, her tiny hand still in his. He leaned down and kissed her one more time, their lips barely brushing. “I love you, Helen Eberhart!” Their grip gave way, and her fingers slid from his.
With Love, Wherever You Are Page 12
