In the distance, the bells of St. Bart’s church start ringing. It’s noon on a Sunday, so I don’t think too much about it. But Frank and Rex look toward the steeple, then back at each other.
Then, “Frank! Frank!” Leo McAloon hollers out from the back alley. The hooves of his galloping horse throw up soft clumps of sandy dirt as he gets closer. “Frank!”
Leo sits a horse pretty good for an old man, I’ll give him that. He pulls up to a stop. Jeez, Leo looks like he’s ready to explode and his horse doesn’t look much better.
“Leo!” Frank says, grabbing the horse’s bridle. “What’s the matter?”
“Come on! Over to Edna’s! She’s got that new radio! Come on! Mount up!”
“Why? What’s happening?”
“Not sure. Sheriff Hillary just drove down Pacific and said everyone’s to get to a radio on the double! Come on! Mount up! Edna’s Inn and Out!”
Edna’s Inn and Out is what they call a roadhouse. It’s a restaurant and a bar just north of the city limits. She has dancing there sometimes. That hoochy coochy stuff. It’s where the locals all go to get away from the tourists. It’s where ol’ Malice Alice has a bar stool with her butt imprinted in it.
Frank and Leo gallop off, their identical jackets flapping in the wind.
“Wonder what that’s all about,” I mumble. A few more cars screech north and south. Some people come out to look toward the church steeple, then to the sky, then to the north, then go back inside.
Both Rex and me look skyward. Just gray, and a gentle gray at that. Not even much of a wind. Emergencies on the coast usually have something to do with either the weather or the ocean but all seems calm and quiet. “I don’t know,” Rex says, yanking his bike out of the rack on the sidewalk. “Come on.”
I pull my bike out, too, and have to peddle fast to catch up with Rex as we dodge cars along Highway 101.
Edna’s is crowded and steamy and noisy. Her joint always smells of burning driftwood, stale cigarette smoke, overcooked coffee, and cheap cologne, and I like every whiff of it. Actually, Edna herself smells like her roadhouse, and I like her, too.
Kids aren’t supposed to be in a bar like this, but no one in Sea Park ever cares just as long as we don’t drink. Most kids drink out on the logging trails or, heck, pick any sand dune between the old air strip in Warrenton and the abandoned dairy barns in Tillamook or any empty clam digger shack or summer cottage. There’s lots of drinking going on in Sea Park on any day, and right here, right now, everyone has a drink in their hand. I don’t think it’s even legal to drink in Oregon on a Sunday. Figures. Kids get run in for painting lion statue eyeballs but drinking laws hide under the table right along with the drunks. Sometimes I think we have our own set of laws here in Sea Park.
No one notices me and Rex when we enter. There’s Edna, sitting on top of the bar, leaning into her new mahogany radio and fussing with the dials. She’s short and dumpy and I always think she looks like a little kid with her rolled up dungarees and saddle shoes. Mom says being short makes Edna mad as all-get-out and maybe that’s why nobody ever messes with Edna Glick.
“Shut up! I can’t hear!” she yells. People hush some and Edna adds through the static, “Here! I got Portland!”
The man on the radio fades in and out, and it’s like the whole room inhales and leans toward the radio. Folks closest to the radio tell everyone to shut up. They all cram in closer, but I back away toward the fireplace and wait for someone to tell me what the heck is going on. Something’s up, that’s for dang sure.
Rex breaks loose of the crowd and grabs me by the arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Once outside and away from the noise, I pull away from his grip. “What’s happening, Rex?”
“Planes from Japan bombed our navy fleet somewhere in Hawaii.”
I look at him, wondering if I heard right. “What’d they want to do a thing like that for?”
“For kicks, you dope! How the heck should I know? Come on. We better go home.”
“But what’s going to happen?”
“I guess we’re at war.”
“I thought the Germans were the ones making war,” I say, pulling my bike out of the bushes. Sure, we kids have been taught all about Hitler and the war in Europe. Even about the Germans bombing England, which I think would be exciting and sure as heck break up the boredom. But that’s a whole world away. Means nothing to me here in Sea Park where the most exciting thing to happen in months was Corliss Ainsley breaking a tooth trying to crunch open a crab leg, making her lisp even lispier.
Rex looks out over the Pacific Ocean and says, “Wonder where Mom is.”
“Why? Isn’t Hawaii a million miles away?”
“Folks in there said the Japanese are going to invade us here.”
“Here? In Sea Park?”
Suddenly people start to pour out of Edna’s, running to their cars, hustling off down the street, honking, swerving. The McAloon twins mount their horses and take off like they’re Paul Revere and John Wayne riding side by side. Rex and I look at each other. This is all just crazy.
But it’s also new and different and, okay, maybe a little exciting. Like the spirit in the air on Decoration Day, which is the start of our tourist season and everyone knows there’ll be cash in pockets again after a long winter of living on credit and good looks. Like the spark you can feel on the Fourth of July when the town is filled with excited, paying strangers and when the parade is lining up and when the fireworks display is being set up out on the spit. Like the first day of school when you’re sort of happy, sort of scared, about maybe meeting a new best friend. Crazy, but exciting.
We bike home. No Mom. Not only that, the radio’s out. And we can’t get a line to even make a phone call. Okay, now crazy’s becoming scary. Our four-party line is nothing but spit and static.
“Maybe Malice Alice didn’t pay Ma Bell again,” I say.
“No, everyone and their dog is making a phone call right now.”
I make some boloney sandwiches. Rex says he’s going to his own cabin to do homework. I swear, Adolph Hitler could be helping himself to a sandwich out of our fridge and Rex would still go do his homework.
Not me. I pull a quilt around my shoulders, sit, and stare at the clock, wondering what this Pearl Harbor thing means.
And yes, I’m worried about Mom. Out there. On the ocean.
CHAPTER 4
“School’s canceled,” Rex says early the next morning, hanging up the earpiece on our wall phone.
“Why?” I ask, looking outside into the darkness. “You mean because of that Japan attack?”
“I guess.” He peeks into our mother’s small room next to mine.
“She’s not there. I already checked,” I say.
He pads into the kitchen, well, not into the kitchen because the cabin me and Malice Alice share is just a room with half a couch, one table, three chairs, one mousetrap, a two-burner gas stove, and a small old refrigerator that wheezes like a McAloon beach nag. So if you’re in the cabin, you’re also in the kitchen.
Rex stands in front of the open refrigerator. “Anything to eat around here?”
“Are we worried?”
“Yeah, about starving to death,” he says, opening a cupboard and pulling out a box of Post Toasties. He puts the box to his mouth and taps out the last few flakes, then tosses the box in the sink.
“No, I mean worried about Mom, Hawaii, well . . . about anything.”
“Look, don’t worry, Jewels. Mom said they’d be out fishing for at least five days.”
We switch on the radio and wait for it to warm up. Nothing. Not even any static to give you hope of finding a song or a game show. Sometimes on clear nights we can pick up stations real far away. We even heard a Chinese man talking all the way from San Francisco once! I loved that. Made me realize there really was a whole world out there and, for a little while, I had eavesdropped on it, my ear glued to the speaker. Who cared what he was talking about?
“Gre
at. No food. No radio. No school. No Mom,” Rex says, heading back through the plywood hallway to his cabin. I follow him.
“You going back to bed?”
“Nah, think I’ll bike over to the docks and talk to the harbormaster. See if the Tinker has called in or anything.”
“What should I do, Rex?” I ask, sounding like a scaredy eight-year-old staying home alone for the first time.
“Go get us something to eat. I’m hungry.”
“Should I lock the doors?”
“Yeah, right. Lock the doors. That’ll keep the Japs out.” He puts on the old pea coat our dad left and it darn near fits him now. Gives me some hope I might grow a few inches yet and sort of stretch all this pooooo-berty into a tall, slim body. So far, I look more like Edna the Fireplug than Alice, who’s skinny as a cat tail.
Rex reads my face as he’s leaving. “Look, Jewels. There’s probably going to be a ton of rumors flying regarding all this war stuff. Let’s just wait and see what it’s all about. Go next door and see what Arley’s cooking up for breakfast. I’ll be back in an hour.”
I follow him outside. He pulls his bike out from under the eaves, hops on, and calls out, “Pancakes! Bring back pancakes!”
Just the mention of the word pancake makes my stomach growl. I close the cabin door and go to my room to dress. My closet is just a cubby in the wall with a curtain as a door. I pull on the lightbulb cord and stand looking. No school, huh? Well, at least that’s a good thing. I don’t have to iron anything or flip a coin to see which of my four dresses to wear.
I pull on corduroy dungarees and an old sweatshirt. I try to keep my saddle Oxfords just for school. Those poor shoes have more coats of white paint on them than those lions’ eyeballs. Maybe I’ll get a new pair for Christmas since Mom’s working some. But for now, I step into the big rubber boots I wear for clamming and mucking around at low tide. Besides, Mom isn’t here to tell me in her gooey Southern accent “you’re grown up now, Jewels honey, and you need to start dressin’ like a young lady all the time and not just when you have to.”
Mom was born in Alabama, and she thinks that gives her a right to talk like Scarlett O’Hara, even though she’s as “Pacific Ocean” as I am. Of course, I can tell what sort of mood she’s in by how much accent she uses. She thinks it’s charming. I think it’s stupid. But that’s Malice Alice for you.
There’s a wooden plank path that runs from the cabin to the south side of the Look-Sea Lounge and Kozy Korner Kafe. I know my way blindfolded but still don’t like going through these pathways in the chilly darkness. There’s only a tinge of light on the eastern horizon.
Well, this is odd. The café is still dark, too. I look around town. Hardly any lights are on anywhere—just a few streetlights shimmering in the breeze. Where’s Arley? He’s usually already opened, got things fired up, started the bacon, the oatmeal, and the pancake batter so by the time Corliss stumbles in, everything is ready for the regulars.
I try the door. Locked. I know where the key is and I look around to make sure no one’s looking. I pull the brick away, feel for the key, and unlock the door.
“Arley? Corliss? Anybody?”
I switch on a light and peek into the kitchen. “Anybody here?” Nope. No one anywhere. Well, maybe they are up in the Look-Sea Lounge. So it’s down the back hall, through the door, up the stairs, and then down another hall and into the kitchen of the Lounge. And it’s dark and empty, too. I grope for the light switch, wondering where the heck all this sudden courage is coming from.
“Hey! Arley? Corliss?”
The kitchen is large and bright and shiny. I look into the dining room through the diamond-shaped windows of the padded swinging doors. Totally dark. I slip inside and then hear something weird.
Wonk wonk wonk.
Now I’m scared.
“Hello?” I whisper into the darkness. I know the bar is somewhere ahead.
Wonk wonk wonk.
“Who’s there?” I whisper again. Lord, what am I doing here?
Wonk wonk wonk.
I feel the leather edge of the bar, bump into a barstool, go inside where I feel my way along the counter until I find one of the refrigerator doors, and open it, giving me just enough light.
Wonk wonk wonk. There, on the floor, is the wonker. A dog’s tail—the tip tap-tap-tapping.
I recognize that long, pointy tail, which is attached to Mr. Kaye’s bloodhound. “Hero! What are you doing here, boy?” I love dogs, and Hero and me are old pals.
“How’d you get yourself stuck up here?” Now his tail is wonking the counter and there on the floor is a man. It’s Mr. Kaye.
“Mr. Kaye? Mr. Kaye! Are you all right? Please don’t be dead, Mr. Kaye,” I’m thinking out loud. What do I do? Who do I call?
Then I get a whiff—it’s some kind of liquor. Yep. There’s a bottle of booze laying on its side, empty, on the floor next to Mr. Kaye.
“Mr. Kaye, it’s me, Jewels. Come on. Here, sit up.” Hey, I’m the daughter of Malice Alice Stokes. I got plenty of experience in this department, believe you me. But not with Mr. Kaye. I’ve never once seen him drunk, let alone in-a-heap-passed-out drunk.
He sort of moans and Hero looks at me as if to say, “Thank Dog you’re here!”
“Come on here, sit up.” I get Mr. Kaye to sit and lean against the bar. His shaky fingers find his head and he touches a huge bruised bump there.
“Mr. Kaye,” I say, crouching down to look in his eyes, “should I get Doc Ellis?”
“I . . . don’t know . . .”
If he’s like my mother coming down off a binge, he’ll be nothing but anvil headaches and foggy memories and reeking breath and regrets and apologies and all.
I help him to his feet. He sways as he runs his hand over his face, blinking like he has to figure out where he is.
“I’m okay,” he says, sounding anything but.
I get him to a table. The sun’s coming up and there’s finally some light in the restaurant—the kind of sunlight that comes in tinges of bright pink and makes you remember the “red sky at morning, sailors take warning” saying.
Finally, his eyes meet mine, sitting acrost the table.
“Hi, Jewels,” he says, but not sheepish-like, like my mother talks when she knows I’ve found her drunk. “I’m . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m so . . . sorry . . .”
And like with Mom, I say, “Don’t worry. I’ll make some coffee.”
He lowers his head and just nods.
“I don’t know where Corliss and Arley are. It’s weird out there. It’s like the whole town is . . .”
He looks up, and we lock eyes, and I think I’ve figured out what it is he’s sorry for.
You see, Tommy Kaye is Japanese.
CHAPTER 5
I slip off toward the kitchen to make the coffee. I can tell Hero isn’t sure if he should follow me or stay with Mr. Kaye, but I tap my leg and he follows. He’s probably as hungry as I am.
I check the dumbwaiter. Hmm, no milk, no bakery delivery, which means no one’s at the registration desk downstairs, either. I find some biscuits in the pantry and make a tray for Mr. Kaye. Hero catches the two I toss to him, and I also polish off two biscuits. I’ve been drinking coffee for a few years now and help myself to the first cup. Mom let us kids drink coffee a few years back. Mrs. Johnson, Sea Park’s official Know-It-All-ski, said we shouldn’t because it’ll stunt our growth, but both Rex and I know we get to drink coffee because it’s cheaper than milk.
Mr. Kaye is standing in front of the huge picture windows that look out over the beach and the boiling gray of the Pacific. He has a drink in his hand. Hero clip clip clips acrost the shiny dance floor and sits next to him. Mr. Kaye’s other hand goes to his dog’s head and it’s sort of a nice picture, them like that, silhouetted with the ocean as a backdrop.
“Mr. Kaye?” I whisper. “Here’s some coffee and biscuits. Maybe you ought to . . .”
I come closer and see what he and Hero are looking at. Down on the bea
ch are two men on horseback. Finally! Business per usual! The McAloons have a few customers! Then I see it is the McAloons down there. But they aren’t wearing their usual old cowboy hats and moth-eaten chaps. They’re wearing those helmets that look sort of like upside-down pie plates. You know, like those that old soldiers wear marching in an Armistice Day parade. They pause now and then to raise binoculars to their eyes as they gaze toward the horizon.
“What are the looking for?” I ask.
Mr. Kaye takes a drink. “The enemy.”
I look out over the ocean. “All the way from Japan?”
Then the McAloons turn their binoculars up toward us. Mr. Kaye says, “Or maybe already here.” He raises his glass to them, downs the liquid, and says to me, “Where’s that coffee?”
I wave down to the McAloons like I always do when they ride past. They don’t wave back. Guess they don’t see me.
Mr. Kaye settles into a booth and tries to pour some coffee from the pot with a shaking hand. I’ve seen my mother’s hand shake that same way a million times.
“Want me to pour it?”
He leans back and runs his hands over his eyes and mutters, “Sure.” Hero edges in under the table and puts his head on Mr. Kaye’s lap. Mr. Kaye’s hand goes from his own head to his dog’s and Hero thunks his tail in thanks. Like he’s talking to Hero, he says, “I can’t believe they did it.”
“Who did what?”
“My idiot cousins. I can’t believe they . . . oh, God. I can’t believe they did it.”
“You mean that bombing thing?” I ask.
He finally looks over at me. “Nothing will ever be the same, Jewels.”
“How come?”
“War changes everything.” He smiles a little and adds, “I’m the enemy now.”
I don’t get it. I’ve known Mr. Kaye all my life. He has a whole wall of certificates and awards and licenses and newspaper articles and college degrees. Everything but the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and he probably even has one of those somewhere. He knows just about everything and he’s a real stickler for good English and is always correcting me. Not only that, he’s a philan-something—you know, people who use their money to help just about anyone who ever needs it. How can Mr. Kaye be anyone’s enemy?
Incommunicado Page 2
