We stopped in Tombstone, Arizona, last week to have lunch at the O.K. Café. Mare just had to have a buffalo burger and get a load of the World’s Largest Rosebush—which, okay, is huge, but it’s a rosebush.
“Octavia, come stand next to Tali,” Mare instructed me, aiming her phone at the massive shrub. “I’ve got to get a picture.”
It’s cool and all, but come on! It’s an overgrown plant—who cares?
Ever since Tali’s started talking to Brent Moore, she’s been all about “recording our trip.” She takes a picture of her breakfast every morning on her cell and texts Brent about the best barbecue in Texas, the state flower, the state bird, blah, blah, blah. To be honest, now that she’s happier, she’s gotten a lot easier to take. She and Mare aren’t fighting every day, and she has something nice to say to me once in a while.
Even with all of the peace and love going on, I’ll be glad to be done with central Texas. It is flat, with oil derricks and miles and miles of plain old nothing. We just drive and drive, and Mare still doesn’t seem to have a particular destination in mind. I look at the map sometimes and have no idea where we are or if my grandmother made up this whole reunion thing.
Today, Tali wants to ride shotgun, so I am sitting in the backseat, kind of dozing as I watch the flat, dry landscape blur by. We slow down to enter yet another nameless small town, marked only by its two stop signs and a flashing signal light where railroad tracks cross the main drag through town. A girl our age holding a fat, dimpled baby waits on the sidewalk beside us as a freight train rumbles past.
“Oh, look at his wittle cheeks! He is so cute,” Tali says, wrinkling her nose and waving. Mare just snorts.
“Babies,” she says, and shakes her head. “Now, that there’s nothing but trouble, a baby having another baby.”
Tali frowns. “She’s not that young. She’s got to be what, nineteen? Twenty?”
“That’s what I said. A baby. Girl’s got no business with one of those.”
“What, so you don’t like babies now? You had Dad!”
“And having him was the biggest mistake in my life.”
“What?”
Just then the all-clear bell clangs as the last car of the train rumbles past. The black-and-white-striped crossing arm rises, and Mare lets the girl, juggling the infant on her hip, cross the road. She puts the car in drive and accelerates across the train tracks.
“You said Dad was a mistake,” Tali prompts when it looks like Mare isn’t going to say any more.
“Mm-hmm,” Mare replies.
“Well, why?” Tali insists. “Unless you don’t want to say,” she adds lamely, suddenly seeming to realize her tone is bordering on rude.
“Doesn’t bother me to say,” Mare answers easily. “Some of us just don’t have no business having babies, and that’s all there is to it. After the war, a bunch of us got back into civilian life and didn’t know how to act. We got used to just seeing a job to do and getting it done, and the people around us got nervous. Folks thought we were manly since we didn’t wait on a man to take out the garbage or drive a car. A lot of us got married ’cause we couldn’t think of anything else.”
Tali makes a face. “Why couldn’t you just live with somebody?” she asks. At Mare’s raised eyebrows, she adds, “I meant a girl somebody—so you could have your own place and stuff.”
“I did live with someone—my girl Peaches. We had a little place in Westside Courts, and we caught the streetcar downtown like everyone else, but back in those days, sometimes it wasn’t enough to just have a good job and a place.”
“So, you got married and had Dad?”
“I got mixed up with Christopher Marcus and thought I ought to marry him, if only to hush up folks sayin’ Peach and me were sweet on each other.” Mare glances at Tali sideways.
“So, Peaches was gay?” I ask. “So what? I mean, once you weren’t in the army where they could kick you out, what was the big deal?”
Mare gives her sharp laugh and looks back at me. “You are downright broad-minded, Octavia Boylen. Not everyone is like that, especially not back in the day.”
“Not everybody’s like that even now,” Tali says.
“You know, Peach told me she’d move out just to keep me from marrying that fool, but I thought a baby had to have his daddy, and I couldn’t wait to be Mrs. Christopher Marcus. I was all of twenty-three.” Mare clicks her tongue in disgust. “First time he came home smelling like cheap gin with lipstick on his neck, I saw sense. I packed up your daddy in a hurry and went right on back to my old place. Peach hadn’t even had time to change the furniture around.”
“Did Dad ever get to see his father?”
Mare shakes her head. “Back then child support was still kind of new. If a woman left, most folks didn’t think her husband owed her anything at all, and a lot of us were ashamed to drag our troubles into court. I cut loose from Mr. Marcus and never looked back.”
“Weird … somewhere we have other relatives,” Tali says in a faraway voice.
Mare snorts again. “The ones you got to put up with aren’t enough for you?”
“It’s a good thing Peaches had your back,” I say thoughtfully.
“Yes, indeed.” Mare nods, signaling to exit the freeway. “Peach Carter has always had my back, and I wouldn’t have made it without her. No, ma’am.” Mare slows as we exit and signals for a left turn, heading out into the countryside.
“Where are we going now?” The sight of another anonymous town pulls the words out of my mouth before I remember that I promised myself I wouldn’t ask that today.
“Paris,” Mare says, and her mouth tightens the way mine does when I’m trying not to laugh.
“Paris. Okay.” I don’t even try to sound convinced. “Mare, why can’t you be serious?”
“Paris, Texas. Lord,” Tali groans. “It’s real, Octavia. They made their own Eiffel Tower. With a hat.”
That sounds too goofy to be true. “They did not.”
“Just wait,” Tali mutters, and slides down in her seat.
“You know, I actually got over to France to see the Eiffel Tower,” Mare says musingly. “It was all right, but it wasn’t much compared to the Arc de Triomphe. Now, that arch is beautiful. You know, folks flew their planes right on through there on V-day.”
“Did you see them?”
Mare shakes her head. “Was in the wrong place for seeing that. But I did see dancing in the streets, planes flying with all their lights on, and bonfires on just about every corner on V-day. Hmph. That was something.”
“This is something, too,” Tali announces as we turn into the parking lot at Memorial Park. “Some thing completely lame.”
The spindly replica of the tower rises high against a backdrop of puffy white thunderheads. The outsized red cowboy hat topping it catches the light proudly.
“Well.” Mare sighs. “This isn’t bad. But next time we’ll go to the one in Las Vegas.”
“Really?” Tali sits up. “Are you serious, Mare? We’re going to Vegas?”
“There’s an Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas?”
“That’s for on the way home.” Mare grins and puts the car back in drive.
24.
then
The joint is jumpin’. Folks are squeezed up tight, laughing, hollering, drinking, and jitterbugging. Somebody is singing, but back at our table in the corner, we are too far away to see. Peaches has already been and gone, but Annie, Ruby, and me are still seeing the sights. We’ve got two hours yet till the last train.
It’s so warm in here I could take off my jacket, but I don’t want to lose it. Folks are jammed in every bit of space in here, in all kinds of stripes and all kinds of uniforms.
“Hey! Annie Brown!” somebody hollers, and Annie looks up at a couple of colored men in blue uniforms pushing through the crowd. The one looking at Annie is tall and long-legged, his jaw long and sharp and his nose straight with a bump in it like it was broken. The other colored boy is wider in the shoulders, s
horter and heavier, and he looking at nothing but his drink, holding it high so it won’t spill.
“Jake Pennington! Man, what are you doing here?” Annie jumps up and puts down her drink. She starts laughing and hugging this man, and Ruby and me just sit there, jaws dropped. Haven’t hardly seen Annie lit up like this in months.
“Red Cross left a unit here.”
“Red Cross?” Annie has to holler to be heard.
“Yeah … Got a field kitchen, and we do coffee duty all over. Who are your friends?”
“This is Ruby Bowie and Marey Lee Boylen,” Annie shouts. “Ladies, this is Jake Pennington and his friend …”
“Bob. Bob Carver.” The shorter boy reach out to shake my hand, and I almost don’t give it to him. My stomach is all jumpy. Strong drink and strange men. Mama would likely have a fit if she could see me now!
“Can I buy you girls something to drink?” Jake looks at us, smiling and friendly. His teeth are really white, and he has got that citified conked hair, all waved and smooth like Cab Calloway’s.
“I am fine, thank you,” I say, real polite, but Ruby kicks me under the table.
“You can get us a couple of those Pimm’s Cups, thanks,” she says, and Bob sets down his drink and says he’ll go.
Annie is just grinning, she’s so happy. “You hear from Abe and Marvin? I hear they’re in France,” she says. She and Jake put their heads together so they don’t have to yell and gossip about all the folks from back home. Ruby looks up and smiles when she sees Bob holding up our drinks. And here come some more folks behind him—three more colored boys in the blue Red Cross uniform and two white girls!
My eyes just get wide. I can’t hardly keep my mouth closed.
Two of the colored boys look around and grin, swaggering. One of them has got his arm around one of the girls’ waists. He’s built like the Brown Bomber, that Joe Louis fellow, the boxer with the big old arms. The other colored boy is really tall, taller than most everybody I have ever seen. He’s looking around at folks, grinning like a fool, trying to start some mess. The third boy doesn’t hardly look at us; he looking back over his shoulders, looking at the tables, trying to find somebody. He’s got his hat tilted over his eyes.
“Hey! Here’s our gang. This little guy is Tiny Luke Green. And Andrew Rudley and his cousin, James.” Bob slides our cups onto the table.
Tiny looks down and hollers something about, “Pleased to meet ya,” and James can’t hardly get his head turned to ward us long enough to do more than give us half a wave. Andrew is too busy hugging up on that girl to pay anybody any attention.
“Cheers, everyone. I’m Adele,” the other white girl says, sticking out her hand to Annie, who takes it right away. Adele’s light brown hair is parted on the side and curled up over her ears, and her brown eyes go sharp, looking at Ruby and me staring at her. Her skin is what they call that “peaches and cream,” and her cheeks are suddenly real pink.
Ruby swallows and takes the girl’s hand, shaking it fast. “Ruby,” she says, so quiet you can’t hardly hear. Her face doesn’t show a sign of what she’s thinking.
“Call me Delly,” she says, and I stand up to shake her hand. Mine is cold.
“Hello … Delly.” I swallow. “Marey Lee Boylen, private, first class.”
“This is Barbara,” Andrew Rudley says, putting his arm around the other girl.
“Ta, girls,” Barbara says, looking like a cat in the cream. She doesn’t put out her hand to nobody. She turns around and pouts up her lips. “Andy, I want to dance.”
“All right, then,” he says, and up they get and onto the floor. Pretty soon they’re all wrapped up around each other, Barbara with that little cat smile on her face.
I still can’t believe my eyes.
Folks order up their drinks, grab chairs, and settle around our table. Tiny leans over talking to Bob and James. Ruby won’t hardly look at me, but I can see her sitting there, all stiff. Annie looks at the dance floor, then she looks at Jake, curious.
“The white folks don’t give Andrew any trouble?”
Jake shakes his head and laughs out loud, his big white teeth showing. “Are you kidding? You see this nose? Some white GI busted it my first week here, thought he could push me around since I was just by myself. Andy doesn’t care about ‘trouble’ anymore; a guy can buy ‘trouble’ with some folks here just for walking around.”
Annie purses up her mouth and shakes her head. “Isn’t that the truth,” she says. Then she sighs and talks about something else. “So, how many in your unit?”
Jake picks up his drink. “We’ve got eight,” he says. “They moved the other units out closer to the front, but we’re the mop-up team. We work with one of the Clubmobiles; we’re the only colored unit with the Red Cross in London. …” He keeps on, saying something else, but I am not listening. I am looking at that white girl Barbara and thinking. She looks like somebody I have seen before—red, red lips, big green eyes, trying to look like some kind of movie star.
“Wonder where he got her?” Ruby leans over toward me. I wonder, too. I wonder where Andrew Rudley comes from to make him think he can strut around with a white girl like that. Folks in the South get strung up for just looking at a white girl. Maybe Andrew Rudley has forgotten who he is.
“What makes you think he’s got her at all?” I ask Ruby behind my hand. “From where I sit, that cat’s got an armload of nothing. You think she’d step out with him back home?”
“She’d better not,” Ruby says quickly. “She’d just better not.”
“It doesn’t make me no difference who that boy steps out with,” I say.
“It makes one to me,” says Ruby. She looks put out. “There are few enough colored men around here. She doesn’t need to be stepping out with ours.”
Bob looks at Delly, then at Ruby, nervous. He thinks Ruby and me shouldn’t say stuff like that in front of a white girl, but I know she is not hearing anything from us. Tiny is leaning over her, lighting up her cigarette and talking real sweet and low.
“Ruby.” Bob’s finally made up his mind. “You wanna dance?”
“Fine,” she says, and gets right up, mouth still tight.
Tiny grabs Delly and heads after them, and Jake asks if Annie wants another drink. James looks at me, but I look down at the table. I can’t dance no jitterbug, and anyway, I still have got my drink. Lessons with Annie and Peaches don’t mean I can dance with a real boy, not yet.
They change the record to play something soft. “Tommy Dorsey’s ‘Marie,’” James says. “You’re Marey Lee, right? Close enough. Come on and dance.”
My mouth just dries out. Me? I can’t. What if I open my mouth and he hears how country I am? What if I step on his feet?
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, huh?” James is still waiting.
“Sure. Okay.” I can barely talk, but Annie gives me a thumbs-up.
The dance floor is no bigger than a postage stamp. James is tall and handsome, a real knockout, and he’s a good dancer, too. He hums in my ear, and I can smell his hair pomade as he puts his arms around me.
We swing through not just one dance, but two. James asks me where I am from and says he is from Dayton, Ohio. He tells me he was a salesman back home, makes two hundred dollars a week already and he is only twenty-five. I don’t say too much. I just listen. I know a smooth talker when I hear one. When we get back to the table, Ruby is smiling, and I can’t keep a grin off my face.
Before I get time to catch my breath, Bob asks me to dance, and Jake asks Annie. James takes Ruby, and then we switch. I dance with James one more time.
“Hate to break up the party, girls, but we’ve got a train to catch,” Annie says. “This curfew-on-leave thing is for the birds.” Ruby and me groan, but Annie keeps at us till we get up.
“I wouldn’t mind you lot stopping with me,” Delly says, looking around at us. “We live just past Oxford, if you don’t mind an extra railway stop.”
“Thanks, Delly,” Annie s
ays. “We’ve got to be back to night, but maybe we’ll take you up on that tomorrow?”
“I’ll take a rain check on that drink,” Ruby says, and she stands up. Bob smiles at her with his whole face, a different kind of smile than before.
“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Maybe,” Ruby says, like she doesn’t care.
I look at James. “Thanks for the dance,” I say, trying to sound grown.
“Think nothing of it,” says James, waving his hand. “Maybe I’ll see ya around.”
After some more talk, Jake, Bob, and Tiny walk us to the station. Bob walks with Ruby, while Tiny and Jake take turns telling us their fool stories. There are a lot of uniforms out, and folks are singing and laughing too loud. I can smell cheap whiskey and perfume, and I see folks weaving out there on the sidewalk, rolling like a ship in a high wind. One painted dolly grabs hold of Jake and says, “Hey, soldier! Slow down!”
Mare's War Page 15
