“So?”
“So I said she should find out if Brent had a girlfriend. I mean, she knows I like him, and she said she’d find out, but Julie Guiao just texted me and said Suzanne went to WaveWorld with Brent today.”
“Maybe she was asking him if he had a girlfriend,” I say cautiously.
“She wasn’t supposed to ask,” Tali mutters. “And anyway, she wouldn’t need to hang out with him all day.”
Oh. “Well, did you ask her?” I ask.
“She’s not answering her phone.”
“Harsh.”
“Yeah.”
I sit up on the bed, tucking my legs underneath me. I find I am almost holding my breath, waiting for Tali to say something else.
That feels kind of lame, that I’m so desperate, but the truth is, my sister and I haven’t really talk talked to each other in a while. Even though at home she lives in the room across the hall, it’s not like we’re connected. She’s always on her way somewhere else, somewhere I’m not. And she gets mad if anyone asks her where she’s going.
Tali is rubbing her bottom lip against her top teeth, a nervous habit from back when she had braces. Now that she’s only wearing her retainer, it isn’t shredding her lip, but it still looks painful.
I try to find something intelligent to say. “Couldn’t you just call Brent?”
My sister’s eyes focus on me. “And say … what? ‘Did you hang out all day today with Suzanne Labrucherie, and what did you talk about?’”
“Okay, maybe not … but, I don’t know, if Brent called you, why couldn’t you call him? Ask him what he’s doing. I mean, you’re on a road trip. You could tell him about it.”
Tali shrugs. “I’m sure Suzanne already told him everything. ‘Oh, you know Tali Boylen, yeah, she had to babysit her little sister and her geriatric grandmother, so she’s busy, but I’ve got time to be with you.’”
“Babysit?” I look at my sister disbelievingly. “Mare buying you whatever you want and taking you on a trip is babysitting? You’re not babysitting me, Tali.”
“You know what I mean,” Tali says, waving a hand. “Any way, I can’t call him.”
“So don’t.” I turn away.
Why do I bother? She’s completely mean without even trying.
I flip some more channels, scowling. I hope Suzanne really is trying to move in on Tali’s crush. I hope they totally get together and go to prom next year and rent a limo and a Jet Ski and a helicopter and everything. It would so serve her right.
“Do any of your friends have boyfriends?” Tali asks after a pause. “Your little friend Rye is really cute, and Eremasi could be the next Alek Wek—you know, that African supermodel?”
“Rye’s playing soccer, and Eremasi’s working at the vet’s this summer, cleaning out cages. None of us have boyfriends.”
Tali nods knowingly. “Well, you guys are sophomores next year. Life will get better.”
“Life is fine now.” The channels race by in a blur.
Tali slides off her bed and sighs. “You know, Tave, have you ever thought of doing something with your hair? Maybe something kind of forties, like parting it on the side and wearing it waved like Mare did back in the day? You know, if you tried a little, you could be kind of pretty.”
I keep flipping channels, holding on to the remote control so hard my nails are white. “Kind of pretty.” Tali is the queen of half insults. And Mare already said she’d help with my hair.
“You haven’t done anything new with your hair since sixth grade, when you stopped wearing barrettes and pigtails. And you should let me do your makeup and cut you some bangs,” Tali adds, standing in front of the TV. “Even Mom says you need to get your hair out of your face.”
“Move,” I complain, leaning around her to see the picture. “I’m watching this.”
“C’mon, Octavia,” my sister wheedles, reaching out to tug on a handful of my hair. “You can keep this mess on your head if you want to, but at least let me cover up your zits—”
“Cut it OUT!” I yell, turning off the TV.
“What?” Tali says hotly. “I just offered to do your face!”
“Well, I don’t want you to do anything to me or my face. I’m fine.”
“Octavia, how could you not want to look any better? You don’t even try!”
“Tali, you stand there saying, ‘You look craptastic—let me fix you up,’ and I’m supposed to be all happy?”
“Well, I’m just saying if you don’t care what your hair looks like—”
“YOU don’t care what my hair looks like, either. Leave me alone, Tali. I’m serious.”
“Ever since we came on this trip, you’ve been totally sitting around pouting like you hate everything, and I’m trying to hang out with you, and you’re throwing it back in my face.”
“You’re only even talking to me because Brent and your best friend Suzanne are too, um, busy.” I use the nastiest voice I can.
I can tell she knows it’s true, even as her eyes get hard and sharp. “Whatever. I’m trying to help you pull yourself together, but if you want to keep your loser look and your loser life—”
“At least my friends answer their phones when I call them!”
“Shut up, Octavia. Just—” Tali shoves me, hard, then marches into the bathroom and slams the door.
I turn on the TV and crank up the volume, but part of me still wants to throw the remote at the bathroom door. There are some hours of some days when I hate my sister. She just looks at me, and immediately everything’s wrong about me. I swear the only time she notices me is when she can mention a zit I have, or if my hair is a mess, or if I have a spot on my shirt. The rest of the time, she doesn’t even see me.
And when I do let her make me up, I feel like a poodle in a dog show. Tali trowels on way too much, and I look like some runway wannabe with tarantula eyelashes and not like myself. When we go to the mall afterward, I get lots of looks, sure, but probably from people thinking, What did she run into face-first? When I won’t wear makeup, Tali doesn’t want to be seen with me. It’s like she can’t understand that no-body wants to be her project all the time.
Tali throws open the bathroom door and points her hair-brush at me. “Octavia, just let me fix your eyebrows, okay? I won’t even put any makeup on you. Just let me fix your eye-brows and trim your hair, and I’ll leave you alone. You’ll look a lot better. Octavia, people pay to get stuff like this done, all right? Think about that!”
“Just call Brent, okay? That’s what you really want to do anyway. Just call him and leave me alone.”
“I don’t want to!” Tali repeats. “I told you that. I don’t want to call him. He’s going to think I’m stupid, some lame girl who’s not even at home calling him to find out what he’s doing.”
“Who cares if you’re not at home?”
“He’ll think I’m thinking about him on vacation!” Tali shakes her head. “You don’t get it, Tave. I’m not calling him, so drop it.” She vanishes back into the bathroom.
“You ARE thinking about him on vacation.” I pick up my sister’s phone from her bed. “I’m sure you’ve even got his number in here. Just call him.”
“Forget it, Octavia. We’re doing your hair now.”
“I’m going to call him.”
“No, you’re not,” Tali says disgustedly.
I turn on her phone, scrolling through the record of incoming calls.
“Octavia?”
I double-check the number, then close my eyes, cross my fingers, and push the button.
“OCTAVIA!” My sister hurtles out of the bathroom. “Don’t touch my phone!”
I leap up, balance on the edge of the bed, and hold the phone out of reach. “Too late,” I say. “It’s ringing.”
“I hate you! Hang up! Hang up!”
“Shhh!” I put the phone to my ear and wave my hand, but Tali leaps toward me. I jump back, banging my arm against the wall. “Shut up! If I hang up, he’ll see your number. Shut up!”
“What’s up?” A friendly male voice comes over the line.
Tali lunges and I relinquish the phone. “Octavia, you idiot,” she says in dull fury, putting the phone to her ear, and then stops, her mouth dropping in shock.
“Brent? Oh, hi, sorry, I was talking to my sister. Yeah, it’s me, Tali. I’m good. I’m just, um, doing this road trip with my sister. Yeah? Well, I’m at a hotel in New Mexico.”
Tali drops onto her bed, rubbing her teeth against her top lip and glowering at me.
“Tell him we’re going to Roswell,” I whisper.
“Really? Well, we’re thinking of going to Roswell tomorrow just for fun,” Tali goes on, looking like she’s going to choke. “Oh, you did? Was Suzanne there?”
I edge slowly toward the door, on the far side of the room. I know as soon as my sister gets off the telephone, she’s going to come looking for me, so I make plans to hide in the safest place I can find. I tiptoe into the bathroom and knock gently on the adjoining door.
“Hey, Mare? Can I come in?”
21.
then
“Good morning.”
I look up from waiting for Annie and smile. That little English girl, with her long socks and big old sweater and all that hair scraped back into two brown plaits, is always standing out in front of our barracks, watching us. Today, she is toting a piece of biscuit with a little smear of jam. Some body had some sugar ration saved up for sure.
The girl has got those skinny, knobby knees like Feen used to. She is like all the kids around here—she stares at us from across the street, stares at our uniforms, our shoes, and I don’t know what all else. This the first time she says anything to me.
I give her a nod. “Good morning.”
“Do you luck gem?”
I frown. What kind of nonsense she talking? “Do I luck what, missy?”
“Do you like gem,” she say again, all impatient.
Jim? I just look at her, full of confusion, till I notice what she got on her bread. “Oh. You mean, do I like jam? Well, sure,” I tell her. “Your mama make you that biscuit?”
“It’s not a biscuit. It’s a scone.”
“It’s not, huh? Looks like a biscuit to me,” I tell her, and the little girl stares at me like I’m crazy. From up the street, I hear a window scrape, and then the little miss is running like somebody already calling for her.
I laugh at her and look for Annie again. Annie’s just got word from her folks that her friend is alive and well, a prisoner of war somewhere behind enemy lines. She’s got the iron in her now. Annie Brown is like a leopard that changed its spots. She is up first thing in our barracks and she works hard—writing letters to her newspaper at home, volunteering for extra guard duty as an MP, working as a clerk—and she’s got me working with her, too. When we’re not on duty at the post office, we’re in the Red Cross building—writing letters to the boys in the field, making up packages, and donating blood. Annie doesn’t have time to clown and spy on officers anymore, and she can’t be bothered about going dancing and such. It takes all I’ve got just to drag her out to the beauty shop.
Annie is mad clear through at the Nazis. She call them “Krauts,” and she got nothing good to say about them nor the “dagos” in Italy or the “Japs,” neither. I don’t hate none of them. I don’t know as I have even ever seen any of the dagos before, or even any Germans back in Bay Slough; they all just look white to me. Annie hasn’t seen none of them, neither, but she says she would beat the tar out of ’em if she met any.
Most of the time, it seems the Post Gazette says we are winning the war. The Allied troops are winning, they say, and they tell us the bombs we hear mean the German army’s on the run, but it doesn’t always feel like winning. Not when someone personal gets on the casualty list; then it doesn’t feel like winning at all.
When a bomb hits in Birmingham, you can’t tell too much by the next day. The English folks sweep up the glass and the rocks and smooth out the road. Broken windows are boarded up, scorched paint is painted over, and as soon as possible, it is all like nothing has happened. First time I heard one of those V-1 bombs, I was scared spitless. And every time, I still get scared; we all of us do. But we don’t show it. There are WAC girls all over England—and some in London—who have got to live with this every single day and night. The lieutenant say if the folks who live in Birmingham, the English, can take it, then the U.S. Women’s Army Corps can take it, too.
Annie finally comes out from the barracks, tying up her scarf, and we walk across the square to the beauty shop, trying to enjoy that little bit of weak sun coming down on us. The jam-eating girl is standing across the road in her yard now. I just nod to her and keep on going, like I used to do to Feen. Little kids will talk to you all day if you let them.
Some of the girls want to go home and eat dinner with the English folks they’ve met and gotten friendly with, and Lieutenant Scott says that’s okay with her as long as we make curfew. Now, I don’t know about eating with these folks—they can’t make no kind of coffee, and I don’t know about that tea, either. And Peaches says they eat kidneys for breakfast, and she doesn’t mean beans. I have got enough problems with Spam and soybean sausages for just about every meal. I can’t believe that Ina White says she likes ’em.
The bell rings as we go in the door of the shop. Peaches, Annie, and me have been getting our hair done regularly on our mornings off. Nobody but Sister Dials and Mama ever did my hair back home, so to sit in a beauty parlor, even one like this one with electric cords and chairs all jammed together in a little room, makes me feel like I’m grown.
WACs don’t wear those fancy pin curls and updos, not in this wet and fog. Every time I go to the beauty shop, I remember Lieutenant Hundley way back in basic hollering at us girls for having our hair past our collars and wearing too much jewelry. When my turn comes, I choose a side part and roll the rest on my neck nice and neat. One of these days, I am going to go out on the town and get myself one of those pompadours I saw Lena Horne wearing in Life magazine. I am going to put flowers in my hair. I am going to step out!
When I catch myself thinkin’ that, I know I have been in this cold and fog too long. Where would I be going all dolled up like that? And with who?
I shake my head at myself, then Peaches comes in, smiling. “Hey, girls, guess what? I’m going to be in a magazine,” she says, and sits down next to me.
“What? Why?” I ask.
“I just talked to a lady reporter from Life magazine,” she tell me.
I roll my eyes, and Annie just clicks her tongue and sighs. “Peaches,” she says, “you’ve got to find something better to do with your time.”
That starts them off arguing, as usual. Me, I’m not trying to talk to no reporters. For one thing, Peaches is still helping me talk like a city girl, and I don’t need to forget and say “ain’t” with any newspaperman listening. For another thing, those reporters sure don’t tell the truth. Phillipa’s been down at the mouth since one of her aunties sent her the colored paper from Cleveland. Seems like they’re telling the folks back home that we don’t know what we are doing out here. Even worse, Lieutenant Scott says now we have got to watch what we say and how we carry ourselves ’cause the reporters have been reporting that most of us are out here whoring and the rest have found a soldier somewhere to get us pregnant. You could’ve knocked me down when I saw it. They wrote that in the paper, in bold black and white like it’s the gospel truth!
Peaches thinks she can change folks’ minds about what goes on here, but I know better. Folks always do believe what they want to believe about everything. You can tell them the truth, then tell ’em again, but they just don’t always want to hear. Anyway, our CO says that we’d best not pay the papers no mind and get on with our business.
Later, we walk on to the base post office for work. It is fine out, so we take our time. Hardly anybody has cars around here, and there’s n
ot much gasoline—or “petrol,” like they call it—and only a few buses anymore, so we are walking smack in the middle of the road, arms linked, feeling fine with our sharp uniforms and our fancy hair. Peaches has got fancy hair anyway.
We hear planes growling far off in the blue sky. Then the bus comes and moves away wheezing and sighing, letting off a cloud of black smoke. Folks are all heading home to pick up rations to fix their dinner—or “tea,” which is how they call it. I still don’t know how “tea” could be two things, but they don’t make no kind of sense to me anyway.
I am not surprised to see that little girl tagging round after us again; this time, she’s got herself a doll, and she is marching, her little skinny legs going up one-two-one-two, her arms down at her sides, straight. Two or three other little girls are hanging around, watching her clowning while she walks along behind us. The grown folks act like they don’t see her, trying to hide their smiles.
“Hey, little miss,” I say to her over my shoulder. “What you doing back—” Then I notice the quiet. I stop my mouth and listen.
I hear a crack, and then it sounds like thunder over Bay Slough. We hear that every day, five and six times a day, but this time, it is so close the ground shakes. Everything is still while that growling carries on louder and louder. Even the wind don’t make a sound as it pushes past my face, real soft.
“Helmet.” Annie only says the one word, and Peaches groans. “Why is it always just after I get my hair done?”
“My heart bleeds for you, Peaches Carter. Don’t be a fool.” Annie looks at me.
Miss Annie Brown doesn’t have to say a thing to me. I already got my helmet off my arm and buckled down under my chin. I look around for the little girl. She is backed up to the side of the road, flattened up against a house. She is looking up. The other girls have run indoors.
The grown folks have stopped where they are. Some of them are looking up. Some of them are looking for a place to hide. One lady takes off her scarf, which is a faded red, and stuffs it into the pocket of her old wool coat, like she scared them Nazis gonna see a little bit of color from way up high. A man squats on his heels, shading his eyes with his hand, watching.
Mare's War Page 13
