Jimmy's Stars

by Mary Ann Rodman

“Sorry about your brother,” Victoria said, voice low and rough. “He was a good guy.”

  “Yes,” said Ellie. “He’ll be coming home soon.”

  Victoria wrinkled her brow. “But they don’t send bodies back from France. They bury them there.”

  “Jimmy’s not in France.” Ellie stared at Victoria. “He’s a medic in England. His patients call him Doc.”

  Victoria cracked her knuckles, one by one. Then, in a soft voice, she said, “Sure, Ellie.”

  Ellie pulled the letter from her shorts pocket and waved it in Victoria’s face. “See, I got this letter today. For my birthday. He’s in England.”

  “Okay.” Victoria stood, eyes not quite meeting Ellie’s. “Take it easy.” She disappeared into the crowded dining room.

  Ellie stared at her tomato-splattered sneakers.

  Creak slam bang. Dr. Atkinson elbowed his way through the living room to the kitchen. Ellie trailed behind him to see why he was at her house.

  Mom sat at the kitchen table with Toots, teapot on the table, a cup of steaming tea before her. She stared past Dr. Atkinson, dry-eyed, blank-faced.

  “Mrs. McKelvey, I am so sorry,” said Dr. Atkinson in his soothing voice. The one he used when someone was very sick.

  He put his satchel on the high stool. When he turned around, he held a hypodermic needle. The sight of the needle seemed to jolt Mom from her trance.

  “What are you going to do with that?” she asked.

  “I thought you needed something to ease the pain,” said the doctor.

  “I don’t need anything, thank you,” said Mom in a flat voice. “There’s nothing you can do for me, doctor. There’s nothing anyone can do.”

  “Drink your tea, Sis,” Toots told Mom as Dr. Atkinson silently repacked his bag.

  Sal and the red-headed Betty returned, without Pop.

  “Nobody knows where he is,” Sal reported to Toots between phone calls. “We went to the post office, and they said he punched out regular time. Nobody had called him there, so I guess he doesn’t know.”

  “Unless he ran into one of the neighbours. Or worse, that numbskulled Western Union boy.” Toots sighed. “He’ll come home sooner or later. Just wish it were sooner.”

  Pop, thought Ellie. When Pop gets here, he’ll straighten all this out.

  Twilight filled the house, but no one turned on the lights. People left. Sal and her girlfriends were in Ellie and Sal’s room with the door closed. Ellie curled up on the phone bench. Even though it was hot outside, she felt cold. So cold. Ellie hugged herself tighter.

  Toots and a Betty were talking in the living room.

  “We should take down the Christmas tree,” said the Betty. “With all these people smoking in there, it’s liable to go up like a torch.”

  “No!” Ellie screamed. “Not until Jimmy comes home.”

  Toots appeared in the hallway and kneeled beside her. “Jimmy’s not coming home, kiddo,” she said, taking Ellie’s hand. “The telegram said so.”

  “Oh, that.” Ellie smiled. “They thought Mr. Miller was dead, too. But he’s fine and Mrs. Miller is fine and everyone is fine and we’ll be fine too as soon as we get the other telegram. The one that says it’s all a mistake.”

  The expression on Toots’s face told Ellie that she didn’t understand. That was okay. She’d explain to Toots later…when she could think better.

  “Anybody home?” a man shouted through the screen door. In the dim porch light stood Mr. Gandeck, holding up Pop. At least Ellie thought it was Pop. He wore Pop’s postal uniform, but his face was the colour of ashes, wet strings of hair plastered to his forehead. When she opened the door, Ellie smelled beer.

  “I’m sorry,” said Mr. Gandeck as he steered Pop inside. “Some nincompoop told him the news when he got off the streetcar, then dragged him into the Do-Drop to drown his sorrows.”

  Speechless, Ellie stared at Pop propped against Mr. Gandeck’s barrel chest. This all had to be a terrible, terrible mistake. The telegram. The swarms of neighbours. Pop drunk.

  Ellie found enough voice to say, “But Pop doesn’t drink. Not ever.”

  “I know,” Mr. Gandeck said, in a sad, gentle voice. “I tried to bring him home sooner, but he wouldn’t let me. I had to wait for all the fight to go out of him before I did.”

  Mom and Toots appeared out of the gloom. Without a word, they guided Pop upstairs, leaving Ellie and Mr. Gandeck.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mr. Gandeck said, shifting his bulk from one foot to the other. “Believe you me, I know what you folks are going through, losing a son.”

  Ellie looked into Mr. Gandeck’s blue eyes, so small in his large, beefy face. He doesn’t look crazy, she thought. Maybe he’s just drunk. Because we haven’t lost a son, and neither has he. His son is at home right this minute. And Jimmy? He’s at that hospital in England, emptying bedpans.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Gandeck,” she said, holding the screen door for him.

  “Goodnight, girlie,” he said, disappearing into the dark.

  Ellie heard Pop’s feet thumping on the stairs as Mom and Toots dragged him to the bedroom. Clunk clunk. Shoes dropping. Sca-reech. Bedsprings.

  “As if Sis doesn’t have enough trouble,” Toots said in her hog-calling voice. “Straighten up, be a man.”

  Ellie knew Toots was talking to Pop. But nobody talked to Pop that way – not even a big mouth like Toots.

  She fled to the back stoop. No stars tonight, Jimmy. Too cloudy. Across the alley, she watched Mr. Gandeck trudge up his porch steps. She waited.

  Mrs. Gandeck didn’t yell. Mr. Gandeck didn’t play “Oh Marie”.

  Pop’s drunk, the Gandecks aren’t fighting, and Victoria is acting nice. Things are all screwy. Why?

  Her thoughts winked out as quickly as the Gandecks’ lights.

  Long after everyone had stumbled off to bed, if not to sleep, Ellie crept downstairs. She fumbled her way to the kitchen, not turning on the lights. The lingering smell of too much food surrounded her in the warm dark like an unwanted blanket. Only the linoleum felt cool to her bare feet. Opening the cupboard, she felt around for a water glass and quietly filled it. Just as quietly, she padded into the living room.

  Kneeling, she poured the water in the Christmas tree stand. Dead pine needles pierced the knees of her pyjamas. In the pocket of her pyjama top, she felt the crinkly weight of Jimmy’s letter over her heart.

  He’ll come home. He promised.

  Ellie just had to wait for the Army to fix their mistake.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Hot, bleached-sky days followed damp, moonless nights. One day seemed like another to Ellie. The phone ringing off the hook. The house crammed with food and people. The screen door. Bang. Slam. Bang. Slam.

  Relatives arrived by the cabload from the train station, slept in odd corners, talked in whispers. Gramma and Grampa shuffled from room to room like ghosts. Had they shrunk since Ellie had last seen them? They looked so tiny. If it weren’t for Grampa’s pipe and Gramma’s sack of pecans, Ellie wouldn’t have known them at all.

  Gramma and Grampa moved into the girls’ room, and Ellie and Sal moved to pallets on the porch. Night after night, Ellie listened to the adults in the yard, smoking, talking about old times, better times, before-the-war times, cicadas shrilling in the background.

  Night after night, Ellie counted as St. Matthew’s clock chimed ten, eleven, twelve. The Number 10 racketed by on its last run of the night. Next to Ellie, Sal snored softly, making little hiccuping sounds. The adults were in bed, the cicadas asleep, when the bell struck one.

  But Ellie was still awake.

  Saturday morning, Ellie woke to voices in the yard. Beneath the window, Victoria was picking the McKelveys’ tomatoes.

  Who was that with her? Stan? And Jellyneck and Bridget and even Ralph, dragging bushel baskets between the rows of staked plants.

  Ellie ran downstairs. Mom and Toots sat at the kitchen table, staring into teacups.

  “Mom, half the neighbourhoo
d is in our garden stealing tomatoes,” said Ellie. “You want me to run them off?”

  “No,” said Mom, turning the teacup around in her hands. “I told the neighbours to help themselves. We won’t be canning any more this summer. It’s a shame to let them go to waste.”

  Ellie watched her friends and wished it were last week, when her worst trouble was canning tomatoes.

  That telegram had to come soon, now, this morning. Before the memorial service.

  Ellie thought it was strange to be in church on a Saturday morning. But even on a Saturday, church smelled like church…candle wax and dusty hymn books. And flowers. Besides the carnations and lilies on the altar, Sal had used a heavy hand with her April Showers talc. Toots reeked of Evening in Paris, while Gramma waved a hanky scented with Lily of the Valley cologne. Wedged between Gramma and Sal, Ellie felt she might smother under all the flowery smells.

  Sal elbowed Ellie in the ribs. “Quit squirming,” she whispered. “Behave yourself.”

  Something fluttered in Ellie’s heart. Not a good, expectant flutter. It felt sharp and evil, like excitement gone wrong.

  Jimmy’s service portrait stood on a table in front of the altar, surrounded by flowers. A steady stream of dressed-up people filled the pews. A lot of people. Almost as many as Christmas Eve. Stan and his mother, with Jellyneck in Stan’s hand-me-downs. All the Gandecks, even Buddy, uniform baggy on his thin frame, chest gleaming with medals. Mr. Green in a suit, shiny with wear. The whole Corsiglia family, who weren’t supposed to go anywhere but their Catholic church. Trudy, solemn and pale in a black dress, with her parents. The Bettys, in their overalls and bandannas, and Wally, fresh off the night shift.

  There’s a bunch of people, here, Jimmy. I don’t know half of them.

  Who was the kid in short pants, holding the hand of an old woman? How did Jimmy know him? Or the young man with leg braces and crutches, moving stiffly down the aisle? What about the skinny, teenaged coloured girl, dressed to the nines, hesitating at the back of the church? Jimmy knew coloured people?

  No! Not knew! How does he know?

  Because Jimmy isn’t dead.

  The evil fluttery thing stabbed Ellie’s chest again. Maybe…just maybe…Jimmy really is dead.

  Pain. Sharper. Like a knife in her ribs.

  Okay, God. Listen. I promise I’ll be good from now on if Jimmy is safe.

  Again, the flutter. Stronger.

  Not enough. I have to promise something big. Like not hating Victoria’s guts.

  But knowing that two rows back Victoria sat with her own brother, Ellie didn’t think she could manage to not hate her. She’d have to think of something else.

  A loud sob burped from someone. Toots? Toots looked completely unlike herself in Mom’s navy dress and an old-lady hat borrowed from Gramma.

  That’s it. If you keep Jimmy safe, God, I’ll never snoop in Toots’s room again. I’ll even try to like her.

  Ellie waited for her heart to tell her something. She decided to thank God in advance, even though her heart wasn’t sending any signals. Thanks, God. I knew you’d keep him safe. She smiled, and bowed her head, pretending to pray. Hey, Jimmy, look. I’m wearing your Christmas present. Mom said this was a special occasion. Joke’s on them, huh?

  She brushed the front of her dress. Only she knew Jimmy’s letter was tucked inside her slip. Limp from days of handling, the letter no longer crinkled.

  The organist noodled around with some music that sounded like finger exercises while the mourners filed in. When Reverend Schuyler appeared at the altar, the organist pulled out all the stops for the first hymn, “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”.

  After a prayer so long Ellie grew woozy, Reverend Schuyler motioned them to sit. The minister mounted the pulpit, gripped its sides, and looked out at the congregation with a mournful expression.

  “We are here to remember James Armstrong McKelvey, who died in service to his country.”

  Ellie fiddled with her dress sash, surfacing every so often to see if the Reverend was still talking.

  “…and in my Father’s house there are many mansions. If it were not so…”

  Still talking. Ellie tuned him out.

  “…for while we are sorrowful today, a bright day will dawn when we shall see dear James again in Heaven.”

  After about a million years, the minister led another prayer, another hymn, and it was over. Reverend Schuyler came down from the altar to comfort the family.

  Get lost, Ellie thought as the Reverend pressed a clammy hand on her head. She wanted out of church, now. Too many people, too many sickly-sweet flower smells, and, most important, Fred from Western Union could be pedalling up to their house right this very minute.

  One by one, the mourners followed Reverend Schuyler, filing by to say a few words to the McKelveys, still seated in the front pew. Ellie listened, in spite of herself. The boy with the grandmother turned out to be the newsboy at Jimmy’s trolley stop downtown.

  “Mr. Jim always said ‘Keep the change, kiddo.’ ” The boy’s lower lip trembled. “I figured he’d lick them lousy Nazis.” His grandmother hustled him along, mumbling condolences as she went.

  Ellie twisted around to see how many people were waiting in line. A lot. We’re never getting out of here, she thought. She snapped around to catch Sal pinching the inside of her arm.

  “Ow! What’d you do that for?”

  “Pay attention. People are trying to be nice.”

  Ellie sighed. She was hot and thirsty.

  “Oh, run along,” said Gramma. “Stretch your legs. Most of these folks will be coming by the house anyhow.”

  Relieved, Ellie concentrated on not running down the aisle. She knew there was a water fountain in the side vestibule.

  By the fountain stood the coloured girl, teetering on patent leather pumps.

  “Hi,” said Ellie as she dived for the spigot. After a couple of gulps, she raised her head. The girl was still there.

  “You must be Mr. Jim’s sister,” she said. “Y’all look alike. Same eyes.”

  “Yep. I’m Ellie. And you are…?”

  “Rose. I’m the elevator girl at Kaufmann’s.”

  Ellie had never talked to a coloured person and wasn’t sure what to say. She settled on “That’s nice.”

  “It’s a fine job,” the girl agreed. “Beats picking cotton back home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Alabama,” said Rose. “My brother was working in the steel mill up here, and he sent for me. Said that there was all kinds of jobs for a smart coloured girl.”

  “Your brother in the service now?” Ellie asked.

  Rose nodded. “Yep. The Army. Joined the morning after Pearl Harbor.”

  “Is he in England?” said Ellie. “Maybe he saw Jimmy.”

  The girl shook her head. “He’s at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.”

  “Arizona? We aren’t fighting anybody in Arizona.”

  The girl studied her shiny shoes. “That’s where the Army stuck most of the coloured fellas. The ones that ain’t cooks and porters and stuff. Leroy is smart and strong, but they got him marching around the desert. Army thinks coloureds are lazy and cowards.”

  “That’s silly,” said Ellie. “Anybody who works in a steel mill isn’t lazy or a coward. How come he didn’t go with the Marines? They’re the tough guys,” she added, thinking of the Gandeck brothers.

  “Marines won’t take no coloured boys.” Rose shrugged. “Leastways, he can’t get in no danger out there.” Her hands flew to her mouth. “Beg pardon. Didn’t mean any disrespect to you or Mr. Jim.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Mr. Jim was a fine gentleman. Treated everybody the same. Most folks act like I’m part of the elevator, the buttons or the gate. But Mr. Jim always said ‘Morning, Rose. Have a good day.’ And in the evening, he’d say ‘Time to head for the barn, Rose.’

  “And them silly songs he used to sing.” Rose smiled, although a tear trickled down the side of her nose. “T
hat one about the lil fishies and the mama fishy too. And ‘The Hut-Sut Song’. He was a happy man, your brother.”

  Ellie watched Rose dab her cheek with a flowered hanky, then give her nose a mighty honk. For a minute, she considered letting her in on her secret, that it had all been a terrible mistake.

  Instead, she touched Rose’s wrist just above her glove and said, “Thanks for telling me.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Rose. Ellie watched as she clicked down the hallway on her shiny heels. She turned at the door and gave a tiny wave.

  The last mourner, Mrs. Corsiglia, was hugging Mama’s neck and saying something in Italian as Ellie came back to the pew.

  “Let’s get a move on,” said Toots. “Folks’ll be waiting at the house.”

  Once out of the church, Ellie was surprised to see that the rest of the neighbourhood was going about their usual Saturday morning business. Mothers with two-wheeled shopping carts going into the five-and-dime. Kids lining up for the Saturday matinee. She watched as the Hales and Corsiglias unlocked their stores and flipped the CLOSED signs to OPEN. The shopping-cart ladies moved quickly into the open stores. The DRINK COCA-COLA chalkboard at Green’s announced that the New York Giants had beaten the Pirates yesterday, 0–4.

  The McKelveys walked slowly down Macken Street, midday sun beating on their heads. Mom and Pop wore dazed, bewildered expressions as they walked arm in arm. Toots marched briskly ahead. Sal lagged behind with her girlfriends, who, for once, weren’t giggling their heads off. Ellie brought up the rear with Gramma and Grampa.

  Nobody had told her how hot nylons were, and she couldn’t wait to get home and take them off. But Ellie forced herself to keep pace with her grandparents.

  As Toots had predicted, people waited for them on the porch. But not Fred. Or Mr. Wheeler, or anyone else from Western Union.

  The crowd in front of the living room window parted. The window with the service flag. The flag was still there. But the blue star was gone. Replaced with a gold one.

  The bad-luck gold star of the dead.

  No!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  After a day or two, the neighbours carried home their cake plates and casserole dishes. Ellie took the funeral wreath off the front door. Sympathy cards trickled to a few, then one or two, then finally none. They piled up on the dining room table, unopened, gathering dust. The family ate in the kitchen.