Mom looks pretty awful. All puffy-eyed and shaky, sitting there with horn-rimmed glasses propped on her rosy nose and a cigarette hanging off her chapped lips, eyes squinty against the rising smoke. Looking at her now, I have a hard time believing ol’ Malice Alice was once a looker and, not only that, pretty smart. Mr. Kaye reminds me of that all the time. I know you can lose your looks, but your smarts? Well, if anyone can lose them, Alice Stokes can. But I always wonder where exactly smarts go when you lose them?
“Yes, I guess we are at war,” she mumbles after glancing at the headlines and taking her glasses off. “Guess I was hopin’ it was all just a big, horrible dream.”
“Better put ’em back on, Mom,” I say, handing her the latest stack of bills.
“What’re these? Oh. These.” She flips through the large stack.
“I stalled off Ashby’s Grocery for another week. I told them you got a job on a boat.” I pull that bill out and put it on the top of the stack.
She looks it over and then the butcher’s bill and then the gas bill. We charge everything in town. I guess everybody does. If there was a movie called Rob Peter to Pay Paul, our whole town could be in it. Peter would be played by Tommy Kaye and most everyone else would play the Pauls, but we’d be the stars.
I don’t like that little pout I see creeping up on Mom’s face.
“Mom? You did get paid, didn’t you?”
She runs her hand through her hair and mumbles, “Hope to kiss a pig, I did.” She brings a weary curl in front of her eyes and adds, “If I don’t get a perm soon . . . bring me my purse. Check my pants pockets, too.”
Empty. Emptier. Emptiest. Purse, pockets, glove compartment. Not even loose change.
Mom gives me her “oopsy” look, which might fool men, but it doesn’t fool me.
“Nothing?”
“I think I loaned some money to one of the crew and then . . . poker. Oh, hon, don’t worry, Jewels! I’m back and ready to work and they’ll be out fishin’ again as soon as this storm blows over. Hey, why aren’t you in school? I swear, Jewels, if you got suspended again for one of your pranks, I’ll—”
“Mom, school’s closed.”
“You mean because of this war thing?”
I want to say “Bingo!” but know she’ll hit the fan if I do. We don’t need to start our own war right here at home. “There’s lots to do. Like the blackout curtains and beach patrols. Committees and stuff. Men are enlisting left and right. Even Arley went to Portland to enlist.”
“There, you see? There’s our out right there! God may close a door but he keeps a window open! I’ll take Arley’s shift at the Kozy Korner and we’ll be sittin’ pretty in a month!”
Right, Alice, I think. God started a war just to close a door on you so you can find a stupid window and climb through. Then, as though she hears another door closing, she sits up straight and asks, “Where’s Rex? I swear I’ll kill him if he ran off to Portland to enlist!”
Rex? Enlist? Jeez, Mom, figure it out. But she sure doesn’t need to see what condition he’s in, so I say, “Mom, there’s no school so he’s pooped out. Let him sleep.”
“Well, I’ll just go in and tell him I’m home.”
“He knows you’re home. You checked on him last night. Remember?”
“Is he mad at me? You know, for being, well, gone? I mean, you kids are okay, gettin’ so grown up and all. You know, a girl has to get out now and then and . . .” This sort of talk usually leads to The Big I’m Sorry, so I break her off.
“We’re fine, Mom. We got bigger things to be mad about.”
“I hate when everyone’s all mad,” she says. “I just do. I don’t understand any of this.” Her hand goes to her head and she twists some old, worn out curls around her chipped-nail-polished fingers.
“Mom, go take a nice long, hot shower, fix yourself up some, and go see Mr. Kaye. See about Arley’s job. Mr. Kaye’s lonely over there.”
She looks at me and flashes me her worldly smile. “Honey, the richest man in town is never lonely. That’s a fact.”
Sometimes she makes me want to scream. I point out the newspaper editorial, grab a pencil, and make a big circle around “Never Trust A Jap.” She looks at it, then back up at me, then over toward the Stay and Play where Tommy Kaye, richest man in town, lives.
It hits her and she sighs a big long, “Oooohhhh yeah.”
CHAPTER 14
I’m not sure what to expect as I bike through town. Maybe Eldon’s gang has left their opinions on all Mr. Kaye’s businesses. Why stop at trying to kill Hero or vandalizing the Stay and Play? What if they did the same to the feed store? What about the rabbits, ducks, and chickens? What would Sea Park do without the feed store if they burned it to the ground? Everyone in town has an account there, even us, for hardware and other stuff. I bike faster. I think I smell smoke, but it’s a beach town and there’s almost always the smell of someone burning something.
I round the corner. The Feed and Seed is dark as death. This time last year there were strings of lights dancing over rows of Christmas trees; kids’ horses were tied to the hitching posts munching oats Mr. Kaye doled out for free. I remember the crate of free Christmas puppies next to the potbellied stove. The sales counter had hot apple cider and spritz cookies for customers, paying or no, and Mr. Kaye always made his special batch of eggnog for the adults in the back room.
Now look. Nothing. The loading dock doors are pulled shut and lights are off. I ditch my bike and climb the front steps to read the note on the door: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Someone has scribbled out “Until Further Notice” and written OWNED BY A JAP! I rip the paper down and tear it up. Then I check on the poultry out back and look, there’s a turkey! I’ll bet it’s the half-drowned one Mom got from the ship wreck. Bet Edna put it there. I give them all a pan of water and scatter some feed. They’re all glad to see me.
I unlock the door and the bell over the top ding-dings a Christmasy welcome. “Probably going to be the only thing Christmasy around Sea Park,” I grumble to myself. I inhale. I love the sweet smell of hay and oats and fresh cut lumber. I wisht I could live here.
I switch on the lights and head to the loft upstairs to get the glass panes. They’re easy to find because everything up there’s so organized. I love looking down over the feed store from here. When I was small, I used to just sit up here, my legs dangling over the edge, watching customers come and go. But not today. There’s work to do. I head back downstairs.
I love Mr. Kaye’s office, too. It shows a whole different side of Tommy Kaye. I mean, not the man you’d see in a tuxedo welcoming people to his fancy dances with the big bands or the man in a long white apron helping to wait tables if he was shorthanded or the man behind a bar listening to someone’s tale of woe or the man at the piano playing a boogie or a waltz—and from memory, too. In this office, I see the Tommy Kaye who ordered feed and flowers and lumber and lets it all walk out the door on credit; or that man who’ll give you a discount not because you are paying with cash, but because you are paying; I see the Tommy Kaye who let kids sit out front and give away kittens and puppies and I see the Tommy Kaye who organized our annual Fourth of July parade and fireworks show.
But my very favorite place is in the greenhouse. Mom says down south it’s called a sunporch. I love the view of the ocean from here, and no matter how cold it is outside, it’s always warm and there’s that smell of pine and soil. The windows are a bit steamy today, so I know it’s getting chilly outside. Mr. Kaye says steamy windows means there’s life and breath in this room, all coming from his bonsai.
It’s here I see the most interesting of all the Tommy Kayes. In this greenhouse, I see how much he loves this collection of bonsai trees. Each one has a name, an age, and a place of birth all engraved on brass plaques. Most of them come from places I’ve never even heard of. Mr. Kaye says each bonsai has its own life story and he knows every one of them. When I was a kid, he used to tell me some of those stories, but he was probably just making
it all up. He always told me bonsai were balanced, but in a lopsided way.
I pull out the instructions Mr. Kaye gave me: “Talk kindly. No gossip or gab or gibberish. Never talk down to them—they’re not children.” I read on. “And tell The Old Man not to worry. All will be well.”
I go over to The Old Man, Mr. Kaye’s pride and joy. He’s got a place of honor, sitting front row center with the younger bonsai around him like kids at his feet. This bonsai is, let’s see—he’s six hundred and some change years old.
“Mr. Kaye says don’t worry. All will be well,” I say, glad no one’s around to hear me talking to a bush. The Old Man’s all gnarled and sort of crippled looking. Well, who wouldn’t be when you’re that old? The pine needles are so teeny-tiny and the greens are vivid like the ocean in the summer. Even the moss shines up at me. Mr. Kaye told me that moss and The Old Man are inseparable friends and one would die without the other. That sounds over the top, but what do I know?
I finish the watering, then take some quick measurements of the windows for blackout curtains. “Hope you guys like the dark,” I mutter down to them. I go back into the office.
I look at the safe combination Mr. Kaye wrote down for me. This way, stop. That way, stop. Back right, stop. Do it again. Missed it! Jeez, I can order a case of dynamite, get it delivered, light it off, and then let the dust settle in less time than it’s taking me to get this dang combination to work! Okay, third try. I put my ear to the safe. Maybe I haven’t been able to hear that click. Yep! There it is! CLICK! And the two large handles break loose.
The black steel doors are ice cold and I remember Mr. Kaye’s remark about “frozen assets.” I grip the handles and use my weight to pull back the doors. I’ve seen this safe open many times so I’m not disappointed that rubies and opals and pearls and coins and stocks and bonds and bundles of cash don’t fall out and bury me like in the “Open Sesame” cartoons.
I look for the black strongbox and open a hatch and a little door. Well, I’m definitely going to snoop around just a little. Another door sort of peeks open. There’s a ton of keys hanging on it. I can never figure out why anyone would keep a key inside something that’s locked, but I’ve never had anything worth having a key to open. But Mr. Kaye sure does. Each key has a little wooden disc stating what it unlocks. I’ll bet there’s a hundred of them. I flip through a few and they say cabin number this or car model that, bowling alley safe, booze room, storage locker; you name it—there’s a key for it.
I push the safe doors back in and man oh man, these doors are heavy! But they finally meet up. I’m halfway out of the office and then remember to flush the combination down the toilet in the office bathroom. I load the window panes and the strongbox into the wooden milk crate roped acrost the back fender of my bike and cover everything with an old scrap of tarp, then I hop on my bike and pedal off toward home.
• • •
“Thanks, kiddo,” Mr. Kaye says, taking the box. “Did you check on my bonsai? How’s The Old Man?”
“He asked how you were.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, I didn’t want him to worry,” I say, wondering if we’re joking or not. His face looks serious, so I add, “So I said you’ve never been better.” He nods and I take it further. “I didn’t think he needed to know about Pearl Harbor and all, because he’s . . . you know . . . Japanese.”
Mr. Kaye smiles at me and says, “That was very considerate of you, Jewels. Everything else okay there? Any . . . you know . . .”
“No, everything’s fine. Kind of dark, kind of cold. But all the stuff is working in the greenhouse. Nice and warm in there.” I don’t think he needs to know about the note pinned to the door. “Made measurements for black out curtains.” Then I catch a lingering whiff of what Mom calls her “signature perfume.”
“Has Mom been here?”
“Yes. She told me about her latest . . .”—he pauses like adults do when they’re thinking about what word to use— “. . . adventure. Asked for an advance on her salary.”
“Oh, she said maybe now with Arley gone, she can have his job and cook downstairs. You think—”
“Jewels,” he cuts me off. “No one is going to come in for a cup of coffee, let alone a fried egg sandwich. Not for a while, anyway.”
I do not want to hear anything else about this stupid war and jobs and money or no money. I’m starving and I just want out of here. I’m going home.
“Well, anyway, there’s your box and window panes,” I say, heading for the door.
“Maybe you or Rex can come back later and take Hero for his walk? Maybe help me with the windows?”
“Sure.” And I then duck out fast.
• • •
Our cabin is chilly and silent. And there’s that same whiff of signature perfume. I look around. Her purse isn’t hanging on the chair and some of the bills on the table are gone. No car keys. Mr. Kaye must have given her enough “salary” to pay Paul, maybe get a perm and gas the car. She better not end up at the Inn and Out, but I’ll bet she does.
So I spend the rest of the day taking care of Rex as best I can. I make ice packs and I find the leftover pain pills Mom used for her sprained ankle last year. So he sleeps most of the day and right on into the night.
Just as well Mom’s out and about.
CHAPTER 15
Rex is right about one thing: I do care about him being called the Town Coward. It’s Friday and school’s back in. It’s one of the worst days of my life. It’s almost like I have the plague, the way kids start treating me. On our walk home, Rex tells me he’s had it even worse. He’s been unvoted captain of the debate team—something about his term being up with the New Year coming. But he just acts the same as always and tells me to just be cool—to act like I don’t hear the jokes and pokes. Easy for him. Even with a black eye, a bandaged forehead, and a stiff walk, he makes like nothing is wrong. Well, it’s not so easy for me.
It’s hard to ignore words like hero and coward when the first photos of the damage in Pearl Harbor are printed acrost the front page of the newspaper—big as life. It’s pretty gruesome, I’ll tell you that. Huge billows of smoke rising out of a jungle of tangled ship masts, spars, and spires. Only the very tops of giant battleships can be seen rising from the waters. And the death toll’s printed, too—not in dozens, not in hundreds, but over two thousand! More than two hundred of our Navy ships and aircraft are destroyed.
And along with the photos come the firsthand accounts, the names of the dead and missing, and then the blame. So now at last the whole world sees the for-real damage in Pearl Harbor. I’ll never forget the look on Rex’s face when he saw that first horrible photo.
But it’s me who first sees the for-real damage in Sea Park as I round the corner to the Feed and Seed. It’s my daily check on the bonsai and poultry. I’ve named the turkey Sailor, in honor of Pearl Harbor. But all the chicken, rabbits, ducks, and Sailor are gone when I arrive today. Their chicken wire cage is lying in shambles.
I go around to the front door and yep, the windows are all broken out.
My heart tap-tap-taps as I step into the ransacked office; it pound-pound-pounds as I see the open safe doors; it thud-thud-thuds as I look into the greenhouse. Oh no! Every bonsai is murdered! The windows are broken, the trays and bowls of bonsai are smashed, the trees are mutilated!
I ring up Sheriff Hillary. No answer, and then I remember she’s in San Francisco to see if Norm survived Pearl Harbor. Now who I am supposed to call for help? Just who’s in charge?
I know! The Town Hood. Rex’ll know what to do.
“It’s me. I’m at the Feed and Seed. Come quick!” I say into the office phone.
Which he does.
“Oh lord, no,” he whispers, looking around the room.
“Who would do this to Mr. Kaye, Rex?” I ask.
“I think the question is who wouldn’t do this.”
I look at the black safe’s gaping maw. There’s a red shop rag hanging ou
t of it and it looks like a calling card. Everyone knows Eldon works at the Shell station in town. But I figure it doesn’t really matter who did this. What matters is I must not have closed the safe doors all the way.
“Rex, it’s all my fault! How am I going to tell Mr. Kaye? Who knows what was in that safe and those cabinets. And his bonsai!”
“Cut it out, Jewels! You had nothing to do with this! Look, I’m going to call Edna. She’ll know what to do.”
While he does that, I go back to the greenhouse, carefully placing the uprooted and bashed bonsai back into cracked and tipped-over pots.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I whimper down to them. Now what happens to their names? Their life stories? Do they get buried?
I look around, then panic. I screech to Rex, “He’s gone! He’s gone!”
Rex rushes in. “Who’s gone?”
“The Old Man! He’s not here. Not anywhere! He’s worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Maybe thousands. Maybe priceless!”
• • •
“Oh, no, this can’t be,” Edna says, finding us in the back office.
She looks at the opened safe, the riffled drawers, the tipped over file cabinets, and then the greenhouse. “Oh, no . . .” she says, taking it all in.
“This is going to kill Mr. Kaye,” I say, running my coat sleeve under my running nose.
Edna puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “No, it won’t. He has insurance. He’ll get over this.”
Then I tell her that The Old Man is missing.
“Well, that might kill him,” she says, which puts me back into tears. “Oh, come on. I was joking, Jewels. Tommy’s survived worse than this.”
“Should we call the county police?” Rex asks. “State? FBI? Who do we call for something like this? I’d like to call President Roosevelt, I’ll tell you that! Tell him to tell his old soldier boys to stop writing those inflammatory editorials! People are trying to get even for Pearl Harbor! Anyone can see that!”
Incommunicado Page 6
