by Julia Watts
Mama picked her up and cuddled her. “I said we was going home for a visit, honey. We ain’t coming home to stay till the war’s over.”
Sobs shook Baby Pearl’s small body. She cried until she couldn’t catch her breath, then she hiccuped and cried some more. Papaw offered her candy and pennies, but nothing would comfort her. She cried in the truck. She cried on the bus until she cried herself to sleep, and as Mama held her, I could see tears in her eyes, too. I knew she felt the same way Baby Pearl did, even if she was too grownup to show it.
I felt so sorry for both of them I almost cried myself. But here’s what I’ll never tell anybody: I loved seeing Granny and Papaw again, but the whole time I was in Kentucky, I felt like a visitor. Going back to Oak Ridge, I felt like I was going home.
January 1, 1945
People say whatever you do on New Year’s Day is what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year, so I figured I’d better write some to make sure I stay in the habit. I’m just glad what you eat on New Year’s Day isn’t what you have to eat for the rest of the year because I’m no fan of black-eyed peas and hog jowls, but Mama says we have to eat them for good luck.
Iris got special permission from my mama for me to sleep over at their house on New Year’s Eve. Iris and Warren wanted me to keep Baby Sharon while they went to a party where everybody was going to stay up late and watch the New Year come in. Mama was fine with me staying over, though she said to me, “I don’t see no sense in staying up to watch the New Year come in. It don’t look no different than the old one.”
I went over to Iris and Warren’s around seven o’clock, and Iris answered the door wearing her black dress and pearls. “Come on in,” she said, clipping an earring onto her earlobe. She had on more makeup than usual—some black liner on her eyelids and extra-bright red lipstick. “You look real pretty,” I said, but as soon as I said it, I had to look away from her.
“Oh, pshaw,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the house. “Get in out of the cold.”
Baby Sharon was sitting on a blanket on the floor, shaking a rattle like it was a very important job she had been given to do. When she saw me, her face lit up, and she said, “Gah!”
“Gah right back at you,” I said and sat down next to her on the floor.
“Oh, let me show you this,” Iris said, grabbling some papers off the coffee table. “But you’ll probably want to keep it out of the reach of Sharon’s spitty little fingers.” She held out the papers. The top page was blank except for the typed words in the middle that read:
A Spirit of Sacrifice
by Ruby Pickett
“Thanks for typing it,” I said. “I like seeing my name in print like that.”
“Well, I’m thinking this may be the first of many times your name appears in print,” Iris said. “Your essay is excellent.”
Warren came in, tying his tie, and Baby Sharon greeted him with, “Da!”
“Warren read it, too,” Iris said. “He was impressed.”
“What was I impressed by?” he asked, letting Iris take over fixing his tie.
“Ruby’s essay,” Iris said.
“Ah, yes, it was very good,” Warren said. “I had no idea Sharon had such a literary babysitter.”
“Thank you,” I said. I could write off Iris’s compliment because she was my friend. But Warren’s was harder to dismiss because I’d never heard him compliment anybody before, not even Iris. He seemed to lack whatever part of the personality that makes most people say nice but meaningless things just to get along with others.
“Sharon will probably pass out in about an hour,” Iris said, shrugging into her coat, “so feel free to read and eat us out of house and home. I left a blanket and pillow on the couch in case you get sleepy before we get back.”
Once Iris and Warren left, I noticed Baby Sharon was still dutifully shaking her rattle. I wondered if she’d cry if I took it out of her hand, but instead she looked relieved, like she was thinking, “Thank the Lord I can stop now. That thing was wearing me out.”
I put on a record—one of Warren’s classical albums with lots of slow, swoony strings—picked up Baby Sharon and danced her around the room. Soon she was asleep with her head on my shoulder, and I put her down in her crib.
I couldn’t believe I had the evening all to myself in this nice house full of books and music and even food and drink if I wanted it. I took off my shoes and padded into the kitchen. There were six cold Cokes in the icebox, so I figured there was no harm in taking one. The music was still playing, so I danced through the house, sipping my icy Coke and pretending to be lucky enough to live there.
And then on the coffee table I saw the two items that would make my whole evening: a box of chocolate-covered cherries which Iris had labeled with a tag reading “for Ruby” and right next to the cherries, the big, fat, and supposedly shocking novel Forever Amber. I set my Coke on the coffee table, lay down on the couch with the open box of cherries on my belly, and opened the book.
And then time just melted away because I was in old England with Amber St. Clare, who was living in the same time as Samuel Pepys, but my Lord, nobody was ever going to teach this book in a high school literature class! Amber St. Clare is a saucy wench who lets a variety of men have their way with her and lives a life of glamour and intrigue. As I was reading, I knew it wasn’t great literature—it wasn’t exactly nourishing my mind, but I kept on reading, just like the chocolate-covered cherries weren’t exactly nourishing my body, but I couldn’t stop eating them. Lying on the comfy couch with a whole box of candy and Forever Amber all to myself, I felt deliciously wicked, and I wondered if Virgie’s father could see me if he’d say, “This is what sin looks like.”
Eventually, though, I must’ve fallen asleep because the next thing I remember is hearing the door open and feeling that I’d left the copy of Forever Amber lying open on my chest. “My word, she started reading it and passed out from the shock,” Iris said, laughing.
“Oh, no, I must’ve just dozed off,” I said, sitting up and straightening my skirt.
“What did you think?” Iris said, nodding toward the book.
“Well, it’s not boring, I’ll say that for it,” I said.
“That’s true.” Iris stepped out of her high-heeled shoes. “Still, it is a kind of spiced up, watered-down Moll Flanders.”
“Defoe for dullards,” Warren said. “Though you’re not a dullard, Ruby. As a matter of fact, I think that you, like the heroine of that potboiler, will rise above your original station in life. Of course, unlike Amber Saint Clare”—he said the name with a silly, mock-English accent—“you’ll get ahead by using your mind, not your…your…”
Iris clamped her hand over Warren’s mouth. “We’d better get you to bed,” she said, giggling.
Right then it dawned on me why they were so loud and silly and friendly. It was the same reason Daddy and Papaw had been so silly when they came back from the barn on Christmas Eve. I wondered what Iris and Warren had been drinking.
“Good night, Ruby,” Iris said, pulling Warren toward the bedroom. “And Happy New Year.”
I lay back down on the couch, this time with my head on the pillow and the blanket pulled up to my neck the way I like it. A few minutes later, I heard sounds coming from the bedroom—Iris was giggling again, and then there was a few minutes of quiet followed by squeaking bedsprings and other sounds that took my mind back to the pages of Forever Amber. But what was fun to read about a saucy wench doing in Old England was mortifying to hear my friend doing in the next room.
As soon as the morning light shone through the windows, I grabbed my typed essay and my coat and sneaked out the door. I knew what I’d heard the night before was a natural, normal thing that married people like Iris and Warren do—the very act that was responsible for the existence of Baby Sharon. But I still wasn’t going to stick around and sit at the breakfast table with them.
January 4, 1945
Yesterday was our first day back at
school, and all morning I was waiting for English literature class so I could see Miss Connor and give her my essay. I knew she’d be proud of me just for writing it, and I was dying to know if she—like Iris and Warren—would think it was good.
But when we filed into the English literature classroom, it wasn’t Miss Connor at the front of the room, but a gangly young man with glasses and an Adam’s apple which bulged over his bowtie. I took my seat, figuring Miss Connor must be out sick for the day and this Ichabod Crane-looking fellow was substituting.
But then he said, “My name is Mr. Masters, and I will be your English literature teacher this semester.”
There was a lot of whispering about where Miss Connor might be, but I didn’t say anything. I felt too sick.
Mr. Masters called the roll, and when he got to my name, he said, “Miss Pickett, I was instructed to give this packet to you.”
I rose, and he handed me some papers clipped to an empty envelope. The top page was a letter. I sat back down at my desk and read
Dear Ruby,
The reason you are looking at some other teacher’s face instead of my own is that like so many other young men, my fiancé Robert lost his life in the Battle of the Bulge. Right now I’m too devastated to even contemplate teaching, so I’ve gone to stay with my parents in Buffalo. I might look for a new teaching position in the fall, but to be honest, it’s difficult to imagine my future now that it doesn’t include John.
Even if I can’t imagine my own future, I can imagine yours, Ruby, and a bright future it is. I have attached your entry form and a stamped, addressed envelope for your essay, which is no doubt as distinguished as your writing always is. Enter your essay in the contest, stay in school, and keep reading and writing. While I don’t know what I believe about many things anymore, I still believe in you.
Sincerely,
Maureen Connor
I was up on my feet before I even knew what I was doing, still holding the letter in both hands.
“Miss Pickett?” Mr. Masters said. “Are you all right?”
“I…I need to be excused,” I managed to say, then I ran out of the room, down the hall, and into the girls’ bathroom. I kneeled in front of one of the toilets and threw up so hard it felt like my body was ripping itself apart. Then the tears came, along with big, racking sobs because of Miss Connor’s loss, because of my loss, because no matter who wins a war, it’s really all about loss.
I don’t know how long I’d been sitting in the bathroom floor sobbing when Virgie finally found me.
“There you are!” she said. “Mr. Masters sent me to check on you.” She sat down on the bathroom floor beside me. “Are you sick? You kindly smell like vomick.”
I handed her Miss Connor’s letter and watched her lips move as she read.
When she finished, she said, “That’s sad. I reckon now she’ll be an old maid schoolteacher sure enough.”
Her tone wasn’t sad, just matter of fact, which infuriated me. I snatched the letter out of her hand. “I can’t believe you can’t muster up even one tear for Miss Connor. You cry buckets at the least little sad thing that happens in some silly picture show.”
Virgie shrugged. “I said it was sad, didn’t I? But Miss Connor’s just a teacher. It’s not like she was a friend or a member of my family or anything.”
“Well, she was my friend,” I said, and then another wave of sobs rushed over me.
Virgie put her arm around me. “Shh,” she said. “Shh, it’s all right. I know she was your friend. Listen, if we go see the school nurse and tell her you throwed up, she’ll let you go home for the rest of the day. Why don’t we do that?”
I let Virgie help me off the floor and lead me to the nurse, who wrote me an excuse and told Virgie to help me gather my things.
Virgie walked me to the front door. “Shoot,” she said, “I wish I could go home. Maybe I orta throw up, too.” She made a motion like she was going to stick her finger down her throat.
“Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m upset about Miss Connor, is all.”
Virgie grinned. “You’ve heard my Daddy get all fired up preaching. You think a little yelling bothers me?”
And so I walked out of the school, into the slate-gray January cold. I could’ve taken a bus, but for some reason, I wanted to walk. The weather matched my mood, I guess, and I kept having the picture of the tears that were flowing from my eyes freezing to my skin, so that by the time I got home, my face would be covered with icicles.
I had meant to go straight home, but when I passed the post office, I stopped and took Miss Connor’s stamped envelope, the entry form, and my essay out of my school satchel. I folded up the pages, stuck them in the envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox.
I didn’t care one way or another about the essay contest anymore. But I knew Miss Connor wanted me to enter it. And I knew I couldn’t help Miss Connor or comfort her—knew, really, that I’d never see her and her sweet, gap-toothed grin again. The one small thing I could do for her was drop that envelope in the mailbox.
January 10, 1945
When Iris came back from the grocery store, she found me holding Baby Sharon and singing “In the Pines,” tears streaming down my face.
Iris knocked a pile of magazines off the coffee table so she could set her bag on it. She scooted up next to me on the couch. “Why the tears, my lady?”
“Just sad.”
“Mm,” Iris said and reached out her hand. I thought she was going to reach for Baby Sharon, but instead she started stroking my hair. It felt nice, but something about the gentleness of it made me cry harder.
We didn’t say anything for a while. Baby Sharon had fallen asleep, and I felt the sweet weight of her little head on my shoulder. After a while, I said, “Iris?”
“Hm?”
“Have you lost anybody in the war? Anybody close to you, I mean?”
“No one too close.” She was still stroking my hair. “Jimmy was the closest, I guess. He’d been my brother Bob’s best friend from the time they were little kids. When Jimmy was twelve and I was seventeen, he had the worst crush on me. His face would turn bright red when I talked to him, and he was always looking for some excuse to touch me—just to brush against my sleeve or something. The crush passed, of course, and Jimmy grew up and married a girl his age. But it’s strange…when Bob told me Jimmy had been killed, it wasn’t Jimmy as a man I saw in my head. It was that little twelve-year-old kid, blushing behind his freckles.”
“Miss Connor’s fiancé got killed,” I said. “She left town and moved back home.”
“I’m glad I married a scientist and not a soldier,” Iris said.
“Do you think it’s fair…asking somebody to die like that?”
“No,” Iris said, “it’s not fair. But maybe it’s inevitable. Is there any way to get the tyrants of the world out of power except by meeting their violence with equal force?”
“I don’t know.” I wondered if I was a bad person for even thinking of these things. “Do you think it’s unpatriotic of me to ask questions like this?”
“In America,” Iris said, “it’s never unpatriotic to ask questions.”
“Knock, knock!” a ringing female voice called from outside. The door, which Iris never locked, swung open. It was Eva Lynch, wearing a leopard-print fur hat that matched the collar of her overcoat. Little Helen was hiding behind her and peeked out, then disappeared again. “Iris, I thought I’d pop by with some hand-me-downs Helen’s outgrown. Sharon’s probably not big enough for them yet, but she’ll grow into them in no time.” She looked from Iris’s face to mine. “My, don’t you two look serious! I hope I’m not interrupting some important conversation,” she said with a tone implying that nothing a lowly babysitter said could ever be important.
“Of course not,” Iris said, making her voice sound bright. “We’re just fighting off a case of the winter doldrums. I know what will perk us up. A nice cup of coffee. Eva, why don’t you sit down, and I’ll s
tart a pot while I get these groceries put away.”
“I’ll help you,” Eva said. She peeled little Helen off her leg and said, “Why don’t you play with the nice girl while Mother helps Mrs. Stevens in the kitchen?”
Once Eva disappeared, Helen started screaming, which woke up Baby Sharon. Only a few minutes before, Iris and I had been having a soft-spoken but meaningful conversation, and now my ears were full of screams that, unfortunately, weren’t quite loud enough to drown out the sounds of Mrs. Lynch’s meaningless chatter in the kitchen.
January 14, 1945
“How come you ain’t ever asked me to spend the night at your house?” Virgie asked me in biology class one Friday.
We were paired up as lab partners, and we were supposed to be looking at stuff under the microscope, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. Every time I looked into the danged thing, all I could see was my own eyelashes. “I just figured you’d rather have me over at your place,” I said, turning the knob on the microscope, like I could adjust it for a better signal like the dial on a radio. “I mean, you’ve got a room of your own. I have to sleep with a passel of sisters.”
“Maybe I’d like to sleep with a passel of sisters for a change.”
I wasn’t sure why she’d want to crowd in with my sisters and me, but I said, “You can come over tomorrow night if it’s all right by my folks and yourn.”
“Can I?” Virgie said loud enough that the biology teacher shot her a mean look. She got busy with the microscope for a minute, then whispered, “Shoot, I can’t. Tomorrow’s Saturday. I’ve got to be home early Sunday morning for church. Say—what if I come home with you after school today? If your mama says I can’t stay, I’ll go.”
“Don’t you need to tell your mama?”
“We’ll stop at my place on the way to yourn. I’ll need to get my toothbrush and pajamas anyway.”
