The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  “That’s Mark Jenson’s place. He doesn’t know my family. None of the farms around here do anymore. I’ve lived here my whole life.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I see.” He tried giving his card to her again, pressing the paper corner into the mesh screen until it folded, but Evelyn never did unlatch the lock. “Well, if you do happen to remember the person I’m looking for…” He managed to slide his card through the thin space separating the door and the latch. “Here’s my card.” He winked, and she snatched it from the door. “Just in case.”

  “I won’t,” Evelyn blurted. “I don’t see how I could suddenly remember someone who doesn’t exist. As I said, I’ve lived here my whole life.”

  “Have a good day, ma’am.” He dipped his eyes before turning away.

  Evelyn shut the door, hoping he wouldn’t look back, throwing her body flat up against it and closing her eyes. One hand reached up to feel her neck where she thought her pearls were strangling her but they were still in her purse. Her eyes popped open when she heard his car start up, and she peeked through the window blinds to watch him, only he wasn’t inside his car and driving away as she hoped, but turning around and looking at the farm from all angles with his hand to his forehead, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “Drive away,” she whispered to herself.

  He focused on the roof of her house only to slowly draw his eyes downward and look right at her through the window blinds. She backed up in a fright, the blinds shuddering from having her hand on them, which she knew he could see from the other side.

  Evelyn wasn’t sure what to do other than pace around her living room, nibbling her fingernails. She wondered how he’d found her, but that wasn’t the troubling part.

  It was the fact that he knew to find her.

  She stopped pacing, hands to her face, feeling the pressure of her palms against her eyes, but then with relief heard his car drive off.

  Her husband walked through the back door unexpectedly, throwing the door wide open. “Hi, honey,” he said, and when the door slammed shut, the clack of wood on wood startled her so severely, she jumped as high as a cat before slumping forward and bracing herself against the wall. “Sorry,” he said, “I thought you’d left already. Don’t you have plans today?”

  Evelyn put her hand against her chest where her skin felt warm. “I do have plans…” She swallowed, and he looked up from the table where he’d placed a wrench and another greasy farm tool. “I mean I did.”

  He wiped his hands down the front of his dirty overalls. “Which is it?”

  “Which what?” Evelyn wasn’t listening. Her mind was still very much on the reporter who had been at her door. She peeked through the blinds again, uncaring that her husband had soiled her table linens with his dirty tools, watching the reporter’s car vanish behind a pillow of dust.

  “Either you have plans or you don’t,” he said, but Evelyn continued looking through the blinds until the car had completely disappeared. “Evelyn?”

  She turned around, waving herself cool, and he glanced at the card in her hand.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She put her hand down, hiding the card behind her back as nonchalantly as she thought was possible. “Nothing…” she said, and a field hand yelled for her husband from outside.

  He gathered up his tools, turning to leave, but took another look at his wife. “Is everything okay?” he said. “Are you okay?”

  She smiled. “Yes, yes… I’m fine,” she said, though he didn’t look convinced. “Go. Someone needs you. Really, I’m fine…”

  He left out the back door and she fell onto the couch and sat facing the front door with her purse in her lap. She wasn’t going to the Pancake House today. Not now. How could she? Sweat poured from her armpits, ruining her pink blouse, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d sweated.

  Evelyn dug into her purse and pulled out her address book, frantically flipping through the pages, one after the other until she found the number she’d been looking for. She reached for her phone and stretched the receiver’s cord all the way across the couch to reach her ear. While dialing she thought about what she’d say, but when the receiver was picked up on the other end her voice got caught in her throat.

  “Hello?” the voice said.

  “It’s me,” she blurted, followed by a long, quiet pause. “We need to talk.”

  5

  KIT

  The mess cook seemed only mildly interested when I asked him if he had a map of Germany to go along with my eggs the next morning. He’d paused for a moment, cigarette dangling off his lips, holding a slotted spoon full of eggs over my tray. “I might have one.” He slapped the eggs onto my tray—clack—pulling his nub of a cigarette from his mouth and exhaling the smoke. “How fast you need it?” Nurses had lined up behind me, eager for real eggs that morning instead of our usual K-rations, pushing me with their trays.

  “Hurry up, Kit!” one nurse said.

  “Yeah, stop holding up the line,” another one said. “Move it already…”

  “Today?” I said to the cook between pushes, holding my spot in line.

  He winked. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks!” I said, skirting off. “It’s worth a bottle to you.”

  I scarfed down my eggs from a table not far away. Moments later the cook poked me in the side. I looked up with eggs bulging in my cheeks. “Make it two bottles, Kit.” He handed me a folded map.

  I swallowed, eyes widening. “Yeah, yeah,” I said, taking the map. “You got it. Whatever you want.”

  I hurried off to my tent with the map stuffed in my pocket. The last thing I wanted was for some nosy nurses to see me with it. They’d think we were moving again and wonder who I’d slept with to be the first to know.

  Roxy and Red sat on their cots, playing cards. I flopped onto my mattress, turning my back to them and pulled the map out, taking a guarded look.

  “What are you doing?” Red asked, trying to take a peek.

  “Nothing, all right?” I said, turning my back even more. “Play your cards, Red.”

  I had a good idea how far we were from the German border, which was behind enemy lines, but lines change daily, sometimes minute to minute. I didn’t think we were more than a long day’s drive from Karlsruhe according to the measurements I was taking with the tip of my pencil. It felt good to know the name of the place—to know he didn’t vanish into the fog.

  B-17s droned past, one after the other. I closed my eyes, wishing them safety as the tent fluttered from the planes flying so low. We plugged our ears until they had passed. Then what followed was a period of quietness, the bated minutes in between our boys’ departure and their return. Roxy and Red slid cards into their hands, while I looked at the map.

  The tent flaps flew open, and I scrambled to hide the map under my pillow before whipping around.

  A nurse wearing a little white dress and even whiter shoes stood in the entry. She flipped her woolen blue nurse cape over one shoulder. “Gail Barry,” she announced at half past seven in the morning.

  After pausing dramatically with her chin tilted up and her cape hanging off her neck behind her, she sauntered over to Roxy’s cot. She tossed her tote on the mattress with a flump, taking a discerning look around, tugging slightly on her white nurse’s dress. Roxy and Red watched her from their cards, Roxy, with a cigarette hanging from her lips and Red with her eyes cast upward, studying her every move.

  Gail flung her hair to one side with a dramatic head flip. Tawny or was her hair hazel? Brassy, I’d decided. Shiny and brassy and clean. The tent flaps fluttered open from a burst of wind and the shock of light turned her hair gold. And those lips. Damn, how’d they get so plump when mine felt like dried cherries? A pin-up girl if you ask me, and I thought she was lost—she had to be lost. I hadn’t seen anyone in the field in a white dress before. Not a spec of dirt on her; I’d bet money she’d had a real bath not long ago, and not one out of a helmet. The stark contr
ast made us look even more ragged than we were.

  She unzipped her bag and dug through the contents, picking up some of Roxy’s things and tossing them to the end of the bed.

  Roxy had never taken her eyes off her, but when Gail seemed to be claiming her cot for her own, Roxy put her cards down. “That’s my bed, toots.”

  Roxy shared almost everything she had, from her pre-threaded suture needles to her hairbrush, but never—under any circumstances—would she share her bed. It was her one true space in this war without any blood on it.

  Gail adjusted the belt around her tiny little waist. “I’m your new bunkie.”

  I leaned off my cot to look at her sparkling shoes. She smelled like clean cotton, and I closed my eyes, imagining her hair smelled like her dress, and it’d been so long since I smelled freshly laundered things. I opened my eyes when I realized she was watching me, and caught myself from falling. “What’d you say your name was?” She took her cape off, and now I smelled honeycomb, which could have only come from her.

  “My name’s—”

  “I said, that’s my bed!” Roxy untied her headscarf to ruffle her dark hair, which was sorely in need of a wash, and stood up, stepping closer to Gail, who’d taken a step back and closed up her collar with a searching hand. “And why are you in a dress?”

  Gail’s eyes fixated on Roxy’s unbuttoned nurse fatigues, exposing the lacy red brassiere she wore so often. She cleared her throat, fighting hard to look away from Roxy’s undergarments, her eyes darting off only to zero back in on Roxy’s cleavage. “I’m here from General,” Gail said.

  Red set her cards down. “General?” Gail’s shoes stuck to our floor from tracked-in mud. She lifted her feet one by one, examining the soles and looking completely mortified, though they still looked sparkling to me. “Darlin’, this is the front line,” Red said. “You took a wrong turn somewhere.”

  Roxy laughed, one step away from bumping Gail with her sidearm. “You sure did.”

  Gail pulled a piece of paper from her dress pocket and read her orders aloud, which Roxy snatched from her hands to read herself. “See,” Gail said. “I’m in the right spot.”

  Roxy looked up after reading Gail’s orders, solemnly giving her back the note. “Well, this is my bed, ya hear?” She pushed Gail’s tote but it barely budged. She pushed it again, and again, but still no luck even after using both hands. With a final grunt, Roxy leveraged her knee on the mattress and lugged the bag over to a cot with only a thin blanket, still pinching her cigarette between her lips. “There!” Roxy said, swiping her hands together, but the bag slipped heavily off the edge and onto a muddy floorboard.

  Gail’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Well!” she said, eyes stretched. “I never!”

  Gail reached for her tote, heaving it onto the cot with such force I would have thought she was a man. She fixed her hair, running her hands over her bouncing curls, before looking at her palms. “Oh, ick! Dang the dirt…” She turned in circles, a mousy squeal coming from her mouth, looking for a place to clean it off as we watched, but everything from our blankets to the dusty tent ceiling had some kind of filmy dirt on it.

  Red finally handed her a towel from her waistband, which she used right away to clean those fingers of hers. “I’m Red,” she said, holding her hand out for a shake, but Gail had already turned back around and dug through her tote, moving her bottom from side to side. Red cleared her throat. “Gail?”

  She turned around. “Oh! Sorry…” Gail shook Red’s hand and then looked at Roxy with such disapproval you’d think she had ants crawling on her. Roxy offered her a hand to shake anyway.

  “Are you washed?” Gail said, and Roxy’s jaw dropped. “You guys know about germs?”

  Roxy’s mouth went from wide open to drawn up like a purse, and all three of us looked at the new girl with such astonishment I wasn’t sure who was going to break first. Then Red spoke up, which I was glad about because Roxy looked like she was about to blow. “I’m the chief nurse in this unit, and I guarantee you us guys know about germs.”

  Gail’s face changed. It was neither a frown nor a smile, but more of a straight line. “My apologies.” Her chin tilted up.

  “This is Kit,” Red said, pointing to me. “And Roxy.” Red waited for her to shake Roxy’s hand, which was still extended, fingers wiggling, but Gail only looked at it.

  I chugged my canteen, unable to watch with how uncomfortable the situation had turned. “Kit,” I heard Gail say as I glugged, “and Red, Roxy, is it? Are these your real names?”

  Water sprayed from my mouth and nose. “Ah hell,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with our names?” Roxy said. She’d put her hands on her hips, which I thought was a bad sign.

  “Gail,” I said, wiping water from my mouth, “I think the real question is… what should we call you?” Listening and watching her spar with Roxy was one thing, but insulting all of our names was a different matter entirely.

  “Yeah,” Roxy said, “don’t ya know? You don’t get to pick your nickname. We get to choose it for ya.” Roxy jumped onto her cot and lay back, hands behind her head, chuckling sheepishly.

  “Oh?” Gail’s face took a turn for the worse with her lower lip hanging slightly.

  “Do you have a nickname from General?” Red asked.

  Gail clasped her hands together, thinking. “Well, my middle name is Francine and back home I’ve been known to go by Fanny.”

  Roxy burst out laughing. “Yes!” she said, sitting up board straight on her cot. “That’s it.”

  “What’s so funny?” Gail glared at Roxy, who was no doubt enjoying this bit of news Gail had so freely given up. Red turned away, smiling, leaving me and Roxy to tell Gail why her name was so funny.

  “Where’d you come from?” I said. “Did you go through England?”

  “I was there for a day,” Gail said. “Then I came here.” She looked confused by our question. “Landed on the continent last night.”

  Roxy had lit up another cigarette and took a few long pulls, puffing smoke up at Gail who waved it away. “Well, doll face,” Roxy said. “Fanny is exactly what we will call you. Guaranteed.”

  “Roxy,” I said, giving her the eye. “We can’t.”

  “You heard Gail,” Roxy said, who was now holding her cheeks from smiling so much it hurt. “Fanny. That’s her name.”

  Gail sat on her cot, hand on her tote, tapping her clean little fingers on the canvas. “Tell me now. What does it mean?” Her face was straight, and I swear her wavy hair had straightened too.

  I cleared my throat, trying to shake the smirk from my face. I’d never had to explain this before, and I felt a heat of embarrassment. “If you’d stayed in England long enough, then you would’ve known. The Brits call—” I pointed between my legs “—this a fanny.”

  Roxy howled, moving her hands from her cheeks to hold her stomach. Two nurses stopped near our tent flaps outside, trying to hear what had gotten into us and asking if they could come in.

  “Shush, Rox,” I said, and she quieted, barely.

  “I see.” Gail’s face turned placid. “You find this amusing, do you, Roxy?”

  Gail stood suddenly and Roxy jumped up too. “Yeah,” Roxy said, lifting her chin to make herself look taller, but Roxy was a bitty thing, barely able to reach Gail’s eyes at the level. “I do.”

  Red immediately stepped in between them. “That’s enough, you two.” She pushed them both to sit on their cots, where they immediately drew opposing, nasty little faces. “Gail, you’ll have to earn your name. Got it? And it’s not Fanny.” Roxy looked deflated, letting out a puff of air. “And you, Roxy. Leave it alone. She’ll earn her name and that’s that.”

  “Say you,” Roxy grumbled, but Red still had a stern eye set on her. “Yeah, sure, fine.” She put her hands up, surrendering to Red’s insistent look.

  “Gail,” I said, and she looked at me. “Weren’t you issued fatigues?” She smoothed her skirt against her legs, shaking her head “no”
very delicately. “Because you can’t wear that dress around here.”

  I pulled a spare uniform from my things. “Here,” I said, tossing it at her, which she caught against her chest, eyes closing. “You can wear that until you get issued one. One size fits all, so it should be fine.” I looked at the clock. “But hurry up. Our shift’s about to start, and we need to get a ride out there.”

  Gail held the pants up by the crotch. “Button-fly pants?”

  I held in a laugh, watching her whole face turn up. “The army wasn’t prepared for women,” I said. “We wear men’s uniforms just like everyone else.”

  Red and Roxy laced up their boots while Gail got dressed in the corner of the tent, pulling one arm from her dress and then slipping that arm into the fatigues, looking over her shoulder, making sure we weren’t watching her. “Don’t wait for me,” Gail said. “You guys go on. I need time to change.”

  Red took a long look at Gail. “Don’t miss the last transport lorry to the line. You won’t want to walk to the clearing station. It’s too far.”

  “I understand,” Gail said, but I didn’t think she did.

  I pulled the map out from under my pillow and folded it few more times to make it smaller. I looked for a place to stash it, but no matter where I thought of putting it, I realized Red could easily find it, and once she found it, she’d ask questions, and questions led to only one thing—the truth, and how the German found us out, that it was my fault.

  “What about you, Kit? You coming?” Red said, holding open the tent flaps with Roxy. I looked up from my cot, palming the map, which she immediately noticed, squinting. “What’s that?”

  My stomach sank a little. “Oh, ahh… nothing.” I slipped the map into my pocket and then busily gathered my things as she waited.

  “Let’s go!” she said. The clouds had rolled in, hiding the sun behind her and swelling with rain.

  “Coming!” I said, and I flashed her a smile before following her outside.

  *

  We arrived at our clearing station near the battlefield already soggy from another transport in the rain. Red prepared for surgery with the doctor, repositioning the operating lights and laying out their medical instruments nicely onto a tray lined with white canvas. Roxy and I rushed to administer plasma to a soldier with a bullet hole to the abdomen, who talked about monsters in the night and mosquitoes with teeth. After we’d got him stable, and a little relief from the pain, his ramblings changed and he talked about the real monsters and mosquitoes, the German patrols and their 88s.