“I miss your father,” she said at last. Right out loud, plain as a piece of toast. “The longer he is gone, the more I feel like I have not been a very good wife.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Calm down, Brenda.” She picked up her cigarette for a long drag, holding it before the exhale. “We can have this conversation without getting hysterical.”
“All right,” I said, sliding back into the arms of the chair. “I’m listening.”
“My girl.” She turned to me and smiled. “When I married your father, I wasn’t two years older than you are now.”
“I have no intention of marrying anytime soon.”
“Neither did I. But it turned out marriage had intentions about me. So I went fast, married fast, babies one and two. Why wait, right?”
I didn’t know what to say. We’d never had a conversation like this.
“The problem is,” she continued, “when it comes to your father, I have always had an inflated sense of myself. I had more education, came from a better-off family. He was this good guy, this very nice guy, who sold organs and tinkered with radios. I’d studied biology, played tennis, was nearly as good in math as you are.”
“You played tennis?”
“So I made the rules,” she said. “From big things like how you and Frank would be raised, to little things like what time we ate dinner. Your father’s the breadwinner, but I’ve always been in charge.”
“And look how well it’s worked out for us all.”
“Not all.” She set her cigarette back in the ashtray, smoke rising. “Not everyone.”
I waited for her to elaborate, but she had nothing more to say. “I’m not going to marry Charlie Fish,” I said.
That seemed to rouse her. “Now that your father is gone, I have a different appreciation for his effect on my life. Now I know how kind he is, and how much I depend on that kindness, every day.”
“You can tell him when he’s back.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking about when you came home. I don’t know how, yet, but things will be different around here when the war is over. I’m going to try being less of a dictator. There will be a lot more appreciating instead.”
There was a string of fabric loose on the chair arm, and I worried it free with my fingernails. “I never really thought about how you and Daddy got along. It was just the way things were, like the air in the house.”
My mother nodded. “To you, he’s your old papa. But to me, he’s still my valentine. I’d give anything to be able to talk to him tonight. To sit with him while you’re on a date. To have him reading in that chair, and reach over to give my hand a squeeze.”
“I’m sorry.” I said it in a small voice.
“If Charlie’s not the guy for you, I won’t meddle. Or,” she smiled for one quick glint, “I’ll try not to. But I want you to think about what this war is going to do to the guys you’ll meet two and three years from now.”
“They’ll be so happy to be home. When this war ends, it is going to be a huge party everywhere.”
“I hope so,” she said, studying her smoky exhalation. “But there will also be lots of damaged goods. Guys who got hurt, or saw terrible things, or did terrible things because they had to. Who knows what kind of husbands they will be? You’re a sweet girl, Brenda, with a young heart. They will have the hearts of old men.”
She paused, smoking awhile, leisurely as a stroll on the beach. The kitchen clock cuckooed ten times. I thought: at least this disappointing day is almost over.
“I worry about Frank this way, too, but that’s another conversation. All I’m saying is that Charlie is likely to come out of this war in okay shape, not all messed up inside.”
I worked that fabric string into a little ball. “Because he’s not in combat?”
“Because he’s a decent human being. And more substantial than you give him credit for. You say you don’t like this boy, but you might consider yourself lucky to have found him. The problem is that you, my girl, are more than a little bit spoiled.”
“Mother.” I made a face. “I am hardly—”
“You are, and you know it. Mostly I don’t mind, because it means that you treat yourself as a valuable person. Which you are. You’ll like who you like, regardless of what your old mother says. My only advice is, don’t be too quick about what you throw away.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I was still peeved about the spoiled comment.
“It means, my sweet baby girl, just what I said. It’s good to be proud, but don’t let pride make you a fool.”
“I’m not overly proud, and I am definitely not a fool.”
My mother gave me a long, calm look. It was all I could do not to squirm.
“Let me say it this way, then.” She took a last pull on her cigarette. “Don’t do what I did, and consider yourself so superior, you miss twenty years of times you could have been kind. It’s the worst kind of regret. Brenda honey, don’t be me.”
Then, with one last dragon breath toward the ceiling, she ground the butt out in the ashtray like she was putting it to death.
There wasn’t another word between us on the topic that night, nor the next few days. The whole discussion was moot anyhow, because February melted into March, that month inched like a snail toward springtime, and Charlie Fish was scarce as new nylons. The more I mulled over our last date, the more I knew I had behaved like the perfect anti-valentine. No wonder weeks went by and he never turned up.
April arrived with letters from Daddy and Frank, both of whom wrote that they were well and safe. They used the same words, well and safe, which reassured my mother but made me suspicious. The crocuses did their brief purple display, daffodils rose and passed, the trees began to bud. But Charlie remained a no-show.
Well, fine. I worked twice as hard, sold more organs than in the Christmas rush, and started group piano lessons for beginners. In any quiet moment, I switched on the spinet model and learned the latest show tunes—not the classical material I’d need for the conservatory after the war, and never anything sonorous. Toe-tappers only.
It didn’t work. The guy had a kind of glue to him. Memories had stuck in my brain. Many mornings I’d wake up, and lie in bed remembering how he opened doors for me, let me go first, stood when I returned from the ladies’ room. I was not smart enough to feel regret about Charlie, not yet. Just longing.
A cute guy came in accordion shopping. When I put the straps over my arms, he smiled like a toothpaste billboard. “That instrument’s looks just improved by a country mile,” he said.
Normally a flirt that bold would steel my determination to land a sale, at full price. I gave him about half my usual demonstration, happy as a clown, then had to put the thing down. “Sorry, mister,” I said, “it feels a little heavy today.”
My girlfriends asked me on double dates, but my heart wasn’t in it. Somehow quiet Charlie had spoiled me for the guys who were rowdy and loud. Polite Charlie stood in the way of the quick dancers and quicker kissers. One fella, out on the sidewalk after a night a gang of us went bowling, gave me an overfriendly squeeze good night, and his hand strayed oh-so-accidentally to the side of my boob. Oh, I gave that corporal a good smack in the chest, calling him fresh and not caring who heard, but he just laughed and winked at his pals. I walked myself home that night, thank you very much. After that I stayed in for three Saturday nights in a row. I felt about forty years old.
My mother watched all of this with her usual eagle eye, but keeping any opinions to herself. Thinking back, I can only admire her restraint. I’m sure she knew exactly what I ought to do, but stayed mum so I could sort it out for myself. Instead I clung to my superiority, showing the world a girl unconcerned with any such silliness as a boy, bored by the melodrama of it all—while inside a little hopeful part of me began to wither.
The shop door’s bell rang, I hurried out of the office, and it was never Charlie. Just a customer, curious about Hammonds.
> “Good afternoon,” I’d say, coming forward, poised as a beauty contestant, but aching inside. “How can I help you today?”
12.
The particular misery known as Beasley appeared to be inexhaustible. No matter what Charlie did, his lab boss found an opportunity for scorn. Gradually, though, this strategy won the tall man what he wanted: Charlie’s silence.
Through February and into March, all Charlie did was tin points on a steel plate. When he showed Beasley his progress, the stork’s response was to scrape the work away.
“Try again tomorrow,” he’d say.
“What was wrong with that one?”
“Shoddy technique, Harvard.” He’d toss the blank plate back to Charlie. “One bump and your device would need repair. Soldiers’ equipment gets bumped every thirty seconds all day long.”
So Charlie would try again, slow and steady. If he began humming to himself, Beasley would yelp like he’d received an electric shock. Any time he made progress, the stork insisted otherwise. As the weeks passed, though, an unexpected thing occurred. Charlie began to find pleasure in the work. There was a satisfaction to it, like mowing a lawn with particular care. Eventually he completed an entire plate in one morning. With a solemn air, he brought the work over to Beasley’s station.
“Why are you bothering me?”
“Look.” Charlie held the plate out.
Beasley gave it two seconds of scrutiny before tossing it aside. “Fast work is not automatically good work. Dozens of those points would not conduct if you tried them.”
Charlie deflated. How could the stork have known such a thing?
That afternoon he observed from his station as Beasley finished an assembly. His last step was to take a square red device with two wires, and touch one to each end of his project. A white light came on, and the needle on the front indicator jumped to the right. The next time Charlie finished a plate, he waited till Beasley left the room, then used the red device to test his work. The light stayed off, the needle remained to the left. Point by point he tested, finding eight where the soldering was sloppy enough to prevent electricity from flowing.
“Eight,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Might as well be eighty,” Beasley remarked, returning to the room. “If one contact is bad, the whole plate won’t conduct.” He stork-stepped over to Charlie’s desk. “Imagine a battlefield littered with dead soldiers, all because of you.”
He held out his hand, and Charlie gave him the red device without a word. A few days later Charlie mastered a plate, and Beasley tested the device spot by spot. The needle jumped every time. “Congratulations,” he said. “Nine weeks, and you are now a rank beginner.”
Charlie bit back a mouthful of acidic replies.
“Now.” Beasley sketched on a sheet of paper. “Build this.”
Charlie took the design to his station, turning the page this way and that.
One sheet of paper, but it took him six days. Along the way, he learned a trick: if he wanted to join two wires together, he could heat them first, and the soldering material would sponge them into one, like a tomato-sauce stain spreads on a white shirt.
“Congratulations, Harvard,” Beasley deadpanned, after Charlie demonstrated the technique with pride. “You discovered wicking.”
Wicking. He wondered what other methods Beasley was withholding. Meanwhile the stork assigned harder designs, which required measuring the wire precisely for each step in the circuit, then adding it without breaking connections Charlie had already tinned. One design was so tight, he had to start over forty-five times.
“Does it have to be so tight?” he asked across the lab.
“Electrons move at one speed,” Beasley snapped. “Build the components half as far apart, you’ve made your device twice as fast. Don’t whine about the laws of nature.”
Charlie turned back to his desk, and began attempt number forty-six.
The following week he finished his most complex design yet. It appeared tight and precise. But when he borrowed the red testing device while Beasley was out buying jerky, the plate would not conduct. He checked each point and they all worked fine. But the full plate was as dead as a gravestone. When Beasley returned, Charlie had no choice but to bring the plate over.
“It won’t work. I can’t figure out why.”
“Simple.” Beasley gnawed off a piece of jerky. “I gave you faulty gear.”
“Why in the world would you do that?”
Instead of answering, he snapped his fingers. “Fetch.”
“Fetch what?”
“The last three plates you made. Exam time.”
“Are complete sentences really too much to ask?”
“Fetch.”
Muttering, Charlie brought two other circuits from his station. Beasley took them, touching his glasses upward though they hung as low as ever, then frowned at the plates.
“Terrible,” he said at the first one. “Terrible,” he pronounced the second. “And this one . . .” He held the plate close enough to smell it. “Garbage.”
He tossed all three in the trash bin with a clang. “I gave you failed components because you were ruining too many good ones, and we don’t have enough to spare.”
“And you couldn’t be bothered to tell me, while I tried over and over to make them conduct?”
Beasley shrugged, turning to switch on his iron. “You never asked.”
Charlie stood there, wringing his hands into fists, feeling the explosion build in his chest. Beasley must remain a bump, must remain a bump. He stomped back to his desk, grabbing a piece of paper. On it he wrote, “Get me out.”
Was that it? Was he finished? Good-bye, Chicago? Good-bye, Brenda? Charlie turned the paper over like it was top secret math. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” he growled, switching off his equipment.
“It’s only eleven thirty.”
“I need to bring some people some sandwiches.”
“Why don’t you quit altogether?” Beasley asked. “That’s what failures do.”
“Because it would give you pleasure,” Charlie seethed, jamming his arms into his coat. “Because it would make you right.”
He charged out, slamming the door so hard it wobbled back open again.
13.
The long stalemate broke on a glorious morning in May, and I cannot take any credit. Just before noon, who should show up at Dubie’s Music, decently dressed and carrying a bag of sandwiches from the neighborhood deli?
“Is this okay?” Charlie poked his head in the door. “Is now a convenient time?”
“Mother?” I called, without taking my eyes off him. “Did you set this up?”
“What’s that, Brenda?” she said, emerging from the office with her arms full of files. Immediately she broke into a smile. “Why, Charlie, how nice to see you again.”
She was innocent, I had to admit it. No actress in all of Hollywood could fake guilelessness as well as she wore it right then.
“I brought us all sandwiches.” Charlie raised the bag. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” my mother fawned. “Charlie, you are always so thoughtful.”
“What about your ladies’ group?” I asked.
“I can miss one Monday, for Pete’s sake,” she said. “Hold on a minute.”
She went back to the office and we were alone. Frozen with uncertainty, I didn’t say a word. He hummed to himself, key of F. I examined my fingernails. Had he always been that skinny?
“I can leave, if you’d rather,” he said.
“Don’t be dumb,” I said. “You brought a sandwich. You might as well eat it here.”
He stepped closer, holding something out. “I also brought this. Sorry it’s late.”
A chocolate bar, big as a license plate, with a special Valentine’s Day wrapper. I imagined it was the one he’d left at his dorm those months before. I took it, but lacked the self-possession to so much as say thank you. In fact, there were two oratories I could have deli
vered—one a snippy rehash of slights past and time passed without him showing up, the other a repertoire of tender conversations I’d had with him in my head. That was the one I wanted to say, but lacked the courage to say. So I made not a peep.
“Heeeeere we go,” my mother sang, shuffling her feet in tiny steps as she carried in a folding card table, opened it in the middle of the piano area, and pulled two benches up. “Fine dining at Dubie’s Music.”
Of course she hogged one side completely, so I had no choice but to sit beside Charlie. He was careful as a surgeon, holding strict posture so as not to touch me inadvertently. “How’s business?” he asked.
“Slow,” I said.
“That’s not quite accurate, dear,” my mother corrected. She leaned toward Charlie. “Brenda had a sale every day last week.”
“You don’t say,” Charlie marveled.
He reached for a napkin, and that was when I saw his hands. All over, I could see little brown sores. “Holy cow,” I blurted, not thinking. “What happened to you?”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie tucked his hands under the table. “Just minor burns.”
“Let me see,” my mother demanded, snapping her fingers. “Come on.”
Charlie raised his hands for her to inspect. She turned them over, slid his sleeves up to show his wrists, pursing her lips in disapproval. “How in the world did you do this?”
“They have me doing different work over at the university now.”
“No more math?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Soldering. I’m not very good at it, but I’m trying.”
His smile was so modest it galled me. Your hands are covered with scars, I wanted to shout, and grab them and lotion them smooth. What monsters did this to you? But all I did was hold my sandwich, showing as much compassion as a tree limb.
“What do they need soldering for?” my mother asked, letting his hands go.
“I’m not allowed to say.”
“Then it must be important.”
Charlie shrugged.
“My father does soldering,” I volunteered, surprising myself. “He has a whole setup in the basement.”
Universe of Two Page 8
