“This was a great idea, Ray.”
“Thought you might like it.”
“But why is the grove so far from the house?”
“My grandfather started this orchard. I don’t rightly know for sure why he put it so far away, but probably this was the worst soil he could find. Once you figure out the right trees, you can plant a grove like this one on the poorest soil of the farm, in land that isn’t good for anything else.”
“Now it’s lovely”
“Thanks.”
“And thank you for bringing me here and letting me help.”
“You’re sure welcome.”
The next day, I wanted to catch up with Abby or Bea, but when I drove to the pay telephone in Wilson, I kept on driving past it. I went to Camp Amache instead, uninvited, yet Rose and Lorelei looked pleased to see me. They were working again in the silkscreen shop, however, and therefore I spent more time with Itsu learning to arrange flowers than I spent with either of them. They did manage to get away for lunch, which we ate together in the mess hall. It was typical mass-produced food, not even as good as the stuff that had been served in the hospital cafeteria the last time Mother was kept as an inpatient, and not nearly as good as the food served on campus.
I remembered the last time I’d seen them together, the tension between them, and Rose’s worried face. Even though they seemed better now, I wanted to ask Lorelei about it, to reassure myself that whatever the trouble was, it was over. I wanted to know what was happening between her and Rose and the men with whom they’d been corresponding. If only I could get her off to herself, Lorelei would talk to me, I knew it. Instead, Itsu and Masaji joined us at the table, so we couldn’t talk about anything personal for the rest of the meal.
I ate quickly and hoped Rose and Lorelei would, too. Then I followed them out. We walked full face into a wind blowing cold air straight through our clothes. Their short hair was whipping about their heads like ribbons caught in a fan. Rose wrapped herself in her sweater and hugged her arms around her body as she ducked into the door of their quarters. Rose’s ability to read ideas off my face continued to amaze me. Lorelei and I followed her through the door.
We stood inside, rubbing our hands together and shivering.
Lorelei fluffed her hair with her fingers. “It’s dreadful out there.”
Rose checked her watch. “We’ve only a few minutes left.”
I was still shaking despite the relative warmth inside their room. “I just want to know.” I looked directly at Lorelei. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.” She beamed.
“Between you and the soldiers?”
Rose and Lorelei smiled at each other and then at me. “We’re happy,” said Lorelei.
But how serious were these relationships? I almost asked. But then I could see it, clearly. Just as long ago I’d seen Ray’s love for me, even when he still didn’t want me to, I could see theirs. People in love, especially a new love, have a certain look—of pain and joy all wrapped up in one inexplicable yearning few find in return. In both of their eyes I saw that restlessness, that vulnerable energy that could be nothing other than an early love. They smiled and laughed so easily. The world seemed so obvious; the future alive on their faces. But they also looked to me like delicate flowers that could so easily be crushed. Rose and Lorelei reminded me of the way I’d felt while I was seeing Edward, full of all those emotions that are fresh and exhilarating in one minute, intense and frightening the next.
Lorelei fingered something underneath her clothing. The cameo, of course.
Rose looked at the wall as if it weren’t there, as if instead it were a face she loved, one that could be seen only by her mind’s eye.
“Do you meet them?”
Rose answered, “We’re writing to them, and occasionally they’re able to call.”
They looked at each other and smiled as though remembering.
“Do your parents know?”
Their faces fell at exactly the same moment, just after the words came out of my mouth.
“No,” Lorelei said swiftly.
Of course not. Had I told Father about Edward?
Lorelei said, “They would never approve. Back in Long Beach, we weren’t even allowed to date yet.”
Rose said, “Our parents might not understand.”
“Might not?” said Lorelei. “They never would.”
Rose sighed. “But even if they did, our grandparents wouldn’t. They would never approve of any men unlike us. Not only must our suitors be of Japanese descent, but from similar families, too.”
Of course, I said to myself again. Then I realized something else, too. I couldn’t save them from whatever was going to happen, good or bad. They were trying to find some joy despite their terrible circumstances in this camp. Just a bit of some happiness. They were taking a chance, and I could only hope they realized the risks. Yet how it worked out in the end, no one could know.
Twenty-four
In the mailbox down at the county road turnoff Ray and I picked up our contact with the outside world. The next day when I was making the retrieval, I found a card from the library in La Junta, notifying Ray that he had an overdue book and asking him to return it. I puzzled over that card. I had been the one checking out library books, not Ray. To my knowledge, he hadn’t even gone inside any library doors since my arrival. I turned the card over again and verified that it was indeed addressed to him and not to me.
Turning books in on time had always been a priority to me. What could Ray have possibly checked out? Only rarely did he read the newspaper. And then he spread the pages all over the house and left them for days at a time. He caught up with current events by radio, but he usually spent the rest of his time at home working on farm paperwork and not reading at all.
I drove back to the house with the card and the rest of the mail sliding around on the seat beside me. When I arrived, Ray was nowhere to be seen. It always amazed me the distances he could get away from the house on foot or by tractor. I might not see him until dark, so I decided to check his room.
I found nothing beside his bed. I lifted the pillow and checked the crack between bed and wall. Then I ducked into the bunk and sat, thinking. Next, I looked under the bed and from there, I pulled it out. The cover was unmarked; no title on the spine, either. I opened the book and saw diagrams of pregnant women and stages of fetal development.
Now I slammed it shut. I could feel heat creeping up into my neck.
Why was he reading this? I didn’t expect anything of him. I stood and faced his chest of drawers. Not since the first morning after my arrival had I considered looking in it. Every few days I brought in Ray’s fresh laundry, but I always left the folded clothes on the chest top for him to put away.
Now I strode right up to the chest of drawers and opened the top one. Underwear and socks. In the next drawer, undershirts and handkerchiefs. Continuing to search downward, I found nothing but personal articles of clothing, and in the bottom drawer, letters from his brother Daniel, but I wouldn’t stoop so low as to read them. On top of the letters lay a man’s gold pocket watch, one I guessed had probably belonged to his father. So this was what I had heard ticking on my first morning in this house.
Now the watch lay silent. I picked it up and wound it until the ticking resumed. But why had I heard it ticking on that first morning? I’d never even seen Ray wear this watch, not even for church. After I put it back and closed the drawer, I picked up the pregnancy book, marched back into the kitchen, all the while chastising my own behavior. What had I expected to find in Ray’s drawers? Evidence of secrets? I had been foolish. Mother had once told me that every person had a secret compartment within himself or herself, a locked door. But Ray was exactly the way he appeared to be, nothing more and nothing less.
I let the book drop on the table with a thump. When Ray finally came in that night, he glanced at it, went to the bunkroom to change clothes, then came back to the kitchen without acknowledging that the thing
existed. I found his eyes. In them, I saw those same held-back tears he would never cry, and I found I’d lost hold of my anger. As he stood at the sink, shoving up his sleeves and washing his hands, I had the strangest of thoughts. I wondered how large was the circle of his arms, if ever I found myself in it.
“I have to tell you something, Ray,” I said. “I looked in your drawers today. I can’t even explain to you why I did it. I invaded your privacy, and I’m sorry”
He turned away from the sink and dried his hands. That familiar line sank down into the center of his forehead. “You could’ve looked in there anytime you wanted. I got nothing to hide from you.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s a beautiful watch. Did it belong to your father?”
He nodded.
“I heard it ticking once. On my first morning here.”
Ray sat down and rubbed the red thorns in his eyes. “Sometimes I wind it up. When I want to remember him.”
I peered into his face. “And on that morning?”
He cleared his throat. “I remembered how good he was to my mother. The kind of husband I want to be.” He sat back and smiled through suffering eyes. He looked off then, as if remembering. “He took care of himself. When he spilled his coffee, he never waited for her to clean it up. And he’d pick her whole bunches of wildflowers, and she’d keep them in water until they got to dropping their dead petals on the table.” He turned to me. “That first morning you were here, I wound up that watch.” He shrugged. “For no good reason. Just for luck.”
Ray got up again, put his coat back on, and headed toward the door.
“You haven’t eaten,” I called out to him before he could leave.
He stopped and turned in my direction. Then he moved one step closer and took my arm. He was so close I could see the threads in his shirt collar and every line in his lips. He took my face in one hand and moved closer still. Then he pressed soft, closed lips into mine in a way so awkward, but so sweet, it glued my shoes to the floor.
“Is there anything you like about me, Livvy?”
Now my lungs caved in. I could smell my attempt at Italian lasagna burning in the oven, and Ray had just kissed me. The book about pregnancy was sitting on the table, and Ray was standing over me demanding an answer.
I had enjoyed the day of fishing. I had taken some pleasure in watching him work. I remembered the gentle way he held that fish in the water, the way he lost himself in prayer. His faith in God’s will made him more of a true believer than even those deacons in my father’s church. I even appreciated that he had checked out a book, any book. But I couldn’t give him false hopes that I’d grow to love him as a husband. I thought we had entered this arrangement for the convenience of us both, not expecting love.
“I never meant to hurt you,” I began.
But he turned and walked out the door before I could finish what I had to say.
Twenty-five
The third time I saw Edward, it was only days after D-Day during the ongoing Allied invasion of Normandy. He had managed to get leave from his base, and at first chance, had called me to meet him. We met again outside the five-and-dime, then we went for lunch at an old saloon-turned-steak-house, where the owner walked around and talked to customers weighted down with a holster belt and a six-shooter. On the walls were hundreds of animal heads, spoils from the chase. After eating, we walked along the path that followed the Platte River. Some of the Canada geese were already returning to build their nests there, and the river ran full to its brim with early summer runoff.
Edward most enjoyed talking of his plans. “I learned more from watching my parents operate a business than from anything else,” he said. He smiled in that way I now imagined whenever I closed my eyes. “But the degree I earned will help to open opportunity.” He gazed up and down the river. “My resort will be the finest and most efficiently run.”
“Would your parents help you get started?” I asked him.
“They would.” He glanced my way. “But I won’t ask them.” He reached down to pull a blade of grass. “I want to take on the risk, no one else.”
“You’ll start small, then?”
He nodded. “We’ll start with a T-bar.” He looked to see if I understood. When I nodded, he continued, “They’re far superior to a rope tow. Then we’ll need to buy rental skis and some equipment to groom the snow, but after that, we could go ahead and open.”
He held that blade of grass in his fingers like it was a stem of crystal. “As the years go by and we start to pull in a profit, we’ll invest in further improvements, such as a base lodge, a hotel, a restaurant.”
I pictured a modern resort for skiing high in the mountains and being there with Edward. I saw myself gliding down the slopes alongside him during the day, cuddling together in warm sweaters before a fire at night. “It sounds wonderful, Edward.”
He stopped walking and turned to me. “If I make it back.”
But I couldn’t allow myself to think about that.
Along the riverbank, purple lupine and white candytuft grew up through the soil. “I heard something on the radio this morning,” I said. “Our troops in France have started moving inland, and they’ve found fields spread far and wide with red poppies waiting for them.”
He moved closer and touched my face. “That proves it, then. Even in these tough times, it’s possible to find something good.”
I closed my eyes.
“Look at us,” he whispered, “I’m shipping out soon, but I’ve found someone to love.”
I could look at him now. “Maybe the war will end before you have to go.”
“No,” he said softly. “I’ll go. I’ll do my part.”
“Europe is lost to the Nazis.”
“Shhh,” he said, putting a finger to my lips. “Don’t even talk about that. Let’s just make the most of this time we have left together.”
He took me for dining and dancing at the Brown Palace, and I do believe he spent all the money he carried in his wallet. When he first took me out to the dance floor, I was so nervous with anticipation of his arms around me that I tripped over his shoes and half stumbled into the center of the dance area. Surely I would die from embarrassment. And surely he’d never been with someone as clumsy as me before. But to my surprise, I found Edward grinning at me, not in a mocking way, but in a way that was nice.
And when he slipped his arms about my waist, I found myself no longer nervous. Instead, waters of calm and confidence came coursing through me. My feet were fluid on the dance floor. Not much later, that newfound sense of pride visited me again, and I danced high in Edward’s arms, a sailing ship rising high out of the waves. If only my sisters could see me now. And wouldn’t Mother, too, have been proud? Not to speak of Aunt Eloise and Aunt Pearl. There I was, floating over the dance floor in the arms of a handsome man. Me, Livvy.
After we grew tired of dancing, he took me to a bar. We sat leaning close to each other on our barstools in a place that played jazz, where hazy cigarette smoke drifted in the air, and where laughter became contagious. Nearby, the bartender splashed honey hued liquor over ice cubes in small glasses, pouring with both hands at once to keep up with orders.
I cupped a hand to my face and said over the sound of the music and the other voices, “I’ve never been to one of these places before.”
He cocked his head my way. “Why is that?”
I shrugged. “My father is a minister. He doesn’t believe in alcohol.”
A look of reservation came over Edward’s face.
“It’s okay. I’ve always made my own decisions, and I want to try it.”
He thought for a minute, then seemed to relax again. “Better start off easy, then. Try orange juice and gin. It’s a fairly mild one”.
Edward drank heartily and with confidence, downing two small tumblers of whiskey while I sipped on my drink. I found it not bad at all—orange juice with an aftertaste of white fire. He hummed along with the music and occasionally glanced over at me with a smil
e. The bartender served me just as he did everyone else, without a falter. I must have looked as if I belonged, and when I finished the first drink, Edward ordered me another.
I thought the alcohol was having no effect on me until I rose to leave. Then I found myself woozy on my feet as Edward steered me outside into the cool night air. I walked onward, but I could have sworn my legs had been sliced away at the thigh. I put one foot before the other, but it seemed to be happening by some other’s will, not my own.
I would have followed him anywhere he wished to take me.
Even now, however, I don’t use the alcohol as an excuse for what I later did. I went to his room willingly. My body was reacting quickly, instinctively, subliminally, before rational thought had a chance to compete in the race. I fell so deeply in love that night, and since I had so little to give, I gave it all.
He didn’t seem to mind my inexperience. In a hotel room lit by a yellow light, he undressed me tenderly. The act itself began painfully, and at first I found his weight on me a bit frightening, but I loved it anyway. I took in every thrust of the way he desired me so. How hungry and desperate he seemed to be for my body, and how new and unexpected it all was—the feeling of our chests pressed together, sounds that came involuntarily from the back of his throat, the happy exhaustion that came after. Never had I felt wanted in this way, never had I felt the power a woman possesses to give a man pleasure.
Afterward, we lay together on top of the covers. Murmuring words of love, he kissed my neck and face and nose and ears, and of course my lips, too many times to recall. His touch on my skin was eloquent; he wrote words on my body never uttered before. And when he entered me again, this time his love was given slowly. After long moments with my eyes sealed shut, I opened them to look at the molding on the ceiling, breathe in the damp air of his neck, and remind myself that this was actually happening to me.
The Magic of Ordinary Days Page 17
