Game of Wit and Chance_Beginnings

by R. Scott Tyler

  When Marge's father came home he scooped Marge up in his arms and gave her a little bear hug, kissing her forehead as he did. "Daddy, please. Can't you see we have company?" The nine year old held out her hand indicating Sophia, quietly sitting on the couch watching their interactions. "Why no, I was unaware, my dear. Hello, Miss Sophia," Marge's father said, inclining his head slightly in Sophia's direction. His daughter's somewhat recalcitrant friend gave him a slight nod and tried to hide her distrust. He put his daughter down, stepped into the kitchen, and slid his arms around his wife's waist. "Hello my darling. I see we have the pleasure of Sophia's watchful eye again for dinner." A bit quieter, Sophia heard him add, "Why doesn't that kid like me?"

  "Don't be silly, Larry. How can she not like you, you're only ever kind to her." Sophia watched her turn around to face him and bring a spoon close to his mouth. "Give this a taste and tell me if it needs more cheese." They were having macaroni and cheese again tonight. It was an inside joke between the two of them. They had macaroni and cheese three times a week.

  "It's perfect, as usual, and you know it." With a peck on the cheek Marge's father let go of his wife and went to wash up. "C'mon you girls. Get up to the kitchen sink and wash the outdoors off those hands. Mother is almost done with the Lima beans."

  Marge jumped up and ran to the stove, peering up with a distraught look on her face. "Lima beans are dreadful, Momma! Sophia hates them!"

  "No I don't, Marge, you do. I eat anything that is served and you know it." Sophia said.

  Looking back over her shoulder Marge gave her best friend a look that she interpreted as 'hush' and checked her mother's face again. There was a smile on it and even Sophia could see that Marge's father was having a joke at her expense…again. Marge apparently now saw the green peas on the stove, which just so happened to be her favorite vegetable. "Okay then, I guess we'll all just eat what we're told then, won't we." With that she marched to the kitchen sink and pulled the step stool, which she was getting close to outgrowing, from underneath and started scrubbing her hands. "Come on Sophia, you don't want to miss grace."

  #

  Sophia was thrilled by almost everything that moved…bugs, birds, fish, bats, cats, and skunks. Her class studied the making of the relatively new Willapa National Refuge and she immediately wanted to see it.

  Sophia let out a sigh.

  "What's wrong?" Marge asked.

  "Oh, nothing. I was thinking of that new park I've been studying," answered Sophia. "Willapa, you know, the one President Roosevelt made."

  "So? I don't know it, what about it?" replied Marge.

  Since Sophia's parents never did anything, and she wouldn't want to go with them if they did, she came up with another idea of how to get there.

  "Well I'd sure love to go visit it." Sophia said. "I've heard it's very beautiful and full of birds."

  "Oh." Marge said.

  "It sure would be fun to go camping overnight there." Sophia said.

  Marge's head popped up at that. "You want to spend a whole weekend there?"

  "Oh yes." Sophia answered. She imagined she saw the gears turning in Marge's head. She hoped the idea of a weekend with her friend where they got to play together without a break, and Sophia didn’t have to go home, would intrigue Marge.

  Later, when Marge's mother called Sophia's house to ask Mrs. Sorenson about taking Sophia on the trip, it was Sophia who answered the phone.

  "Hello." Sophia knew Mrs. Anderson would be calling and she dreaded having the two mothers talk. Ever since the accident Sophia's mother was always either listening to the radio or crying. If it weren’t for canned food and frequent dinners at Marge's house, Sophia thought she certainly would starve to death.

  "Hello, this is Betty Anderson, is this Mrs. Sorenson?"

  This made Sophia giggle. "Of course it isn't, Mrs. Anderson, this is just Sophia."

  "Oh, you sound so mature. I'm sure you sound just like your mother, don't you." Sophia figured Marge's mother knew very well who it was, but she liked being mistaken for being older anyway. "Can you put your mother on the phone, my dear?"

  There was a long pause as Marge's mom wondered whether Sophia was thinking about the answer or had gone to get her mother. In reality, Sophia was a little stumped. Her mother was in the living room and had thrown herself onto the couch about an hour ago for the evening. The last time Sophia saw her she had a bottle of wine and was listening to evening radio programs. Mrs. Sorenson wasn't going to be coming to the phone and the phone wasn't coming to her.

  "She can't come to the phone right now, Mrs. Anderson."

  "Oh goodness, well would you check with her about the trip to Willapa, my dear?"

  "Sure, what do you want me to check on?" Sophia was confused, she thought it was all settled.

  "Well I want to get her permission to take you along, of course, my dear."

  "Oh…all right, let me ask her." Sophia set the phone down and went to the living room doorway. Her mom was sleeping, head back in an uncomfortable looking position, the last of her wine still in the water glass she had been drinking from beside her on the table. Walking over, she bumped her mother's foot to see if she'd wake up. When she didn't, Sophia picked up the water glass and drained the sour tasting wine, finishing it in one swallow.

  She listened to the radio program for long enough to tell that it was one of those murder mystery programs her mother liked so much, and then she wandered back into the kitchen where the phone was sitting off the hook, on the counter. "Mrs. Anderson?"

  "Yes, my dear. Did you ask her?"

  "I did. And she said it would be fine for me to go as long as you'd have me."

  "My goodness, that's just splendid then, isn't it? You tell her thank you for me and give her my regards. I hope she's feeling alright tonight?"

  "Mom's relaxing, Mrs. Anderson." Relaxing? Relaxed was more like it, but who really cared, she thought.

  Willapa 1941

  The drive to the coast took the better part of a day and the Andersons, plus Sophia, made several stops for gas, lunch and bathroom breaks. Marge's dad kept saying what a challenge it was to travel with three women, but the truth was he instigated each and every stop so Sophia didn't think he was serious.

  When they finally arrived at their campsite, he shooed everyone away while he assembled the big canvas tent he borrowed from his boss at the ship-building factory. An hour and a half later, Marge's mom and the two girls returned to the campsite to the smell of fried hamburgers and potatoes. Larry had pickles, ketchup, mustard and fried onions to go on the hamburgers as well. There were apples for dessert and two bottles of root beer to be shared by them all.

  "Since the boys cooked, would it be possible to get the girls to clean up?" Larry was leaning up against a tree smoking a cigarette, hoping the answer would be yes.

  "What do you think, girls? Did he do a good enough job to be rewarded with clean-up?" Marge's mother, Betty, asked.

  Marge gave a resounding "Yes!" She loved her dad and was used to doing the clean-up no matter what. Sophia joined in a beat later with a slightly less enthusiastic yes, but a yes just the same. There was hardly ever anything to wash up in her house. She had one spoon she used to eat everything and she always just licked it clean.

  When the dish washing was done everyone went to the shore so the two girls could wade in the water. Larry read a book he brought along and Betty mostly sat with her chin on her knees, watching the two girls playing in the water. Every once in a while she called to them, “You’re out too far.” Dusk finally fell and Betty called the girls in. Larry gave Marge a piggy back ride back to camp and Sophia walked close behind with Mrs. Anderson bringing up the rear like a mother hen herding her brood in for the night.

  The girls whispered to each other under their blankets until they were too tired to keep up the pretense that they were fooling Marge's parents about being asleep. The next morning Sophia blinked her eyes open to full sunlight streaming through the tent window and the chirping of bir
ds.

  "What is that smell?" She asked no one in particular.

  "I think Daddy made bacon," Marge answered and they both popped out of bed.

  "Grab a stick and get to toasting your bread, girls," Larry said. "The eggs are almost ready."

  They ate bacon and eggs made over the campfire. Toasting their own bread to go with the eggs gave Sophia a new respect for the simple electric toaster that sat in Dodge's Diner where Marge's mother sometimes worked. Sophia and Marge spent the rest of the morning hours collecting rocks and shells and watching the birds. There were eagles catching fish and feasting on the rocks along the shore. There were also brown pelicans that would dive into the water and come out with fish in sagging gullets that looked like fish nets.

  The noon meal was bologna sandwiches, thick with mayo and slices of fresh tomato. They each had a banana and Betty mixed up powered milk so the girls got their calcium. After everyone waited the obligatory hour after they ate, the girls were allowed to head to the beach again with Marge’s parents. When swimming got boring they dug up crabs and clams and other crustaceans that hung out in the area that the tide uncovered every day.

  Betty had brought a tablet and asked that they create a travel diary of sorts. Larry started by recording gasoline and oil usage. Betty added treats and sights while the girls were sleeping in the car and Sophia and Marge made a game of spotting all the letters of the alphabet, as well as numbers, in the license plates they saw. At their campsite, each person wrote a little paragraph about their day before going to bed.

  After breakfast the second morning it was time to go home. Sophia and Marge were so worn out they could barely work up the energy to complain about leaving. The little travel diary was over half filled with stories of their sightings and drawings and tic-tac-toe games that the girls played by the light coming through the tent windows. They had collected beach sand, shells, feathers, rocks, and even some leaves that they had given Larry to put between the pages of his book.

  With everything packed back into the car, they left Willapa. Sophia's mind was full of her first real travel adventure and she had a new obsession: The majesty of the Pacific Ocean.

  Gilberto, Portland 1944

  His eyes, the deep color of chestnuts in the late summer, and his thick, black, stick-straight hair made Gilberto stand out a bit in the Northwestern city of Portland. However, this was balanced by his five foot two inch stature and in a crowd it was easy for him to disappear. It was also easy for him to get lost, which is what he was at this moment. "Pardon me miss, I'm trying to find Central Avenue. Do you know where it is?" He'd asked the first person that looked like they knew what they were doing. Well, not the first person, it was actually the first girl. And it wasn't that she looked like she knew what she was doing, but she looked really cute. In reality, Gilberto didn't care if she knew where Central Avenue was or not. He just wanted to talk to her.

  "Do I look like your mother?" Sophia meant the comment to blow this kid off. She wasn't interested in getting sucked into some sort of flim-flam and this guy looked like he was a joker.

  Gilberto laughed out loud. "Not in the slightest! Although you do sound like her a little bit," he said and added, "She probably would have followed up by boxing my ears, too." He stood with his hands in his pockets and continued to look at her. "Well, I was serious. Do you know where Central Avenue is, or not?" His grin was infectious and he was just a smidgen taller than her. She didn’t look intimidated. In fact, she looked just a little intrigued.

  "Of course I know where Central Avenue is, I live here, and do I look like an imbecile?" She stuffed her hands in her pockets and stared back at him.

  Chuckling, Gilberto gave her a few seconds to feel like she got the better of him then he stuck out his hand. "Hi, I'm Gilberto Ramos. I'm from the Philippines."

  #

  Sophia had been infected with wanderlust since she was a little girl. She knew that the Philippines was over by China and Japan, in the 'slant-eyed' region, as her father called it. She also knew that, while it was not a U.S. state, it was something just below that. Commonwealth was the name they gave it in school and the country was made up of thousands of islands. After making Gilberto wait long enough for even him to begin to look awkward, Sophia extended her hand, and shaking his she said, "Hi, Gilberto Ramos. I'm Sophia Sorenson. I'm from Portland and I know exactly where Central Avenue is."

  Leading him by the hand, Sophia took Gilberto three blocks over to the corner of Central Avenue and 1st Street. It just so happened to be the corner where a particular diner stood. In that particular diner, Marge's mother waited tables a few days a week. "This is Central Avenue and 1st Street. On the weekends I help out at Dodge's Diner." With that she pulled him through the doors into the long, narrow dining room. By helping out, Sophia really meant reading anything left behind by diners. And of course, since it was Marge's mother that worked there, Marge was often there as well; in fact, she was there at the moment.

  Marge looked up from where she was perched at the end of the counter reading an Action Comics comic book and declared "Well there you are Miss Sophia." Her hands let go of the comic and went to each hip to emphasize the scolding she was about to pronounce. "We were all mighty worried about you."

  At that moment, Marge's mom came out of the kitchen door with a plate of chicken and mashed potatoes headed to booth #7. "Oh hi, girls. I'm glad you're here. Would you mind going in the back and peeling the potatoes for tonight's special?" Obviously, she had not missed Sophia at all. Marge hung her head in disgust at her moment being so easily disrupted.

  Gilberto looked from Sophia, whom he had thought to be old enough to be eligible for his attentions, to Marge, who looked much more like a little girl. "Thanks for orienting me, Sophia. I appreciate your help. I'll let you get to your work," and with the slightest of bows, he turned and exited the diner.

  Sophia raced out the door, grabbed his hand, pulled him around, cupped her hand to his ear and whispered. "Come back next weekend."

  #

  The next weekend Gilberto showed up right after lunch at Dodge's Diner. He'd thought about Sophia all week, and his heart, or at least as close to his heart as a seventeen year old boy could tell, was pining to see her again. His life was filled with unpleasant things right now, which was difficult for someone who was typically a jokester and happy go lucky. He needed someone cheerful and fair to the eye to cheer him up.

  Pushing through the door to the diner, he realized it looked much more worn than when he first saw it with Sophia's face in the foreground. He had just enough money for coffee because he wanted to save the rest of his money for a movie with Sophia, assuming she'd go with him.

  "Afternoon," the woman behind the counter greeted Gilberto with a smile as she delivered a plate of roast beef and mashed potatoes to a rather dour looking man. The man had the morning newspaper open and was reading the front page article, which appeared to be on the war effort.

  "Hello, Mrs. Anderson," Gilberto returned with a smile. The man at the counter looked up at his greeting, and if a face could get more dour, his did. Being Filipino in America had never been fun exactly, but since the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor, it was orders of magnitude worse. Gilberto didn't think he looked remotely Japanese, but to most Americans, his black hair and dark brown almond eyes made him look just like these other island nation Asians they had quickly grown to fear and hate. The man scrutinized him hard until Marge's mother loudly set the ketchup in front of him and splashed coffee on his paper refilling his cup.

  Smiling a bit resignedly, Gilberto took a booth with the man's back to him so he wouldn't be stared at and said, "I'll just have some coffee, please, Ma'am."

  She brought the pot and a cup and saucer over to his booth. "I remember you from last weekend with Sophia, but I don't remember your name."

  "It's Gilberto, ma'am, but mostly I like to be called Gil." He stuck out his hand and she shook it politely while deftly pouring his coffee.

  "I suspect Sophia w
ill be here shortly with my Marge." She told him, looking out of the corner of her eye at him, showing just a hint of a smile. "Will you be waiting for her?"

  A big grin broke out on his face and he replied, "That I will be, ma'am, if it's alright with you, of course." Mrs. Anderson just gave as lady like a snort as was possible and returned to busying herself behind the counter.

  Twenty minutes later Gilberto had the menu memorized and was as jittery as he'd been in a while from the coffee he'd been guzzling to avoid the stares of other challenging customers. This time when the little bell attached to the door tinkled indicating customers, his grin was wide and involuntary. Sophia was finally here…being led by a talkative Marge. The little leader marched through the door unaware of anyone but herself, her entourage (only Sophia) and her mother behind the counter. Sophia saw him the instant she stepped inside, a grin spreading to her face as well. She, however, quickly recovered her poise and put her nose just a tiny bit in the air.

  "Hello, Marge. Hello, Sophia." Gilberto found himself standing in front of the girls, not really remembering getting out of the booth.

  Marge just stopped and stared at him, but Sophia answered, "Hello, Gil, fancy meeting you here today." She had, of course, told Marge about Gilberto after whispering to him to return, but Marge, being a bit too young to really understand what would make Sophia interested in boys, had almost immediately forgotten. "Yeah, why are you here?" Marge chimed in.

  "Girls, I think Gil has been waiting for you this morning. Why don't you all sit down and I'll bring you some orange juice." Marge looked at her mother, but slid into the booth opposite Gilberto's coffee cup. She looked like she was trying to figure out how to remedy her problem by filling Gilberto's coffee cup with poison.