He set up another design. Again, ten minutes. I think he was humming Peter’s theme from “Peter and the Wolf.” Bah-bum barump-bump-bum. After that he tried harder ones, tighter ones. Along with the melody, he bounced a little on the bench. I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s quilt and watched, third step from the bottom.
When the kitchen clock made its cuckoo call, it broke my reverie and I stood. “Time for Brenda to get to bed.”
Charlie did not lift his head from the worktable. “Is that ten o’clock already?”
“Try eleven.”
He jumped up. “It’s already eleven?”
“Ten was an hour ago. Twelve is an hour from now. It’s amazing how it works that way.”
“You don’t understand.” Charlie switched off the iron, tossing the little pieces back into their drawers. “They lock the dorms at eleven. I’m going to be late.”
“I’d say you already are.”
He stopped, deflating, shoulders dropping. “I guess I am.”
“Go ahead and keep working, Charlie. I’ll leave my quilt. You can sleep on the couch.”
“Is that okay? Will your mother mind?”
I folded the quilt, putting it down to one side. Then I came down the steps, leaned over, and gave him a proper kiss—no hurry, no pretending it wasn’t happening. When I pulled away, his eyes were scanning my face, like he was searching for something.
“G’nite, Charlie,” I said.
He was still sitting there, taking it all in, as I made my way back upstairs.
I woke before my alarm. With a boy sleeping in the house? Who was not a member of my family? Of course I did. Putting on my robe, I tiptoed downstairs. There was no one on the couch. The basement door creaked, and I’d only descended halfway when I saw him.
Charlie was sound asleep at the workbench. Near his hands lay things he had soldered, wires and pieces and who knows what. But also, leaning against the shelves, on the floor, all around him, there were organ pipes. Some were knee high, others taller than me, surrounding Charlie as if he were part of an organ himself. And wrapped around his shoulders? My grandmother’s red and blue quilt.
Charlie Fish might be sheepish, not strong enough for a world at war. But he was a decent guy, and I felt something inside me melt a little. Then a hand stroked my lower back, and it was my mother with a finger to her lips. She motioned me back upstairs.
“Why don’t you get started on your day, and I’ll bring him some coffee?”
I wanted to be the one bringing coffee, but accepted that my mother had it right. In the kitchen she gave me a hug like I’d given her the night before. What in the world? I went upstairs and turned on the shower, and while I waited for the water to get hot I thought about Charlie, and how he had brought some kindness to our house.
By the time I came back downstairs, one red swipe of lipstick for courage, he was seated at the table chowing through a mountain of bacon and eggs, plus gulps of coffee whenever business got slow.
“Good morning,” he sang out, bright as a cheerleader. His hair was cowlicked in back, like a nine-year-old. But Charlie gave me such a long, direct gaze, I had to turn away. The quilt was heaped on my chair; I folded it on the way to the stairs. It smelled differently, not like the basement. I held it to my face, then realized what the scent was.
I returned, pouring myself some coffee as I sat, and hoping he hadn’t been watching. “You fixed the organ pipes, didn’t you?”
“They were all seam problems.” He drew a line in the air with his knife. “I used the sweating technique and they sealed right up. Easy.”
The thought occurred to me: My father would gobble this guy up. Someone who liked soldering, and could fix organs? I could imagine him winking. “Baby girl, where’d you find this one?”
“Easy or hard, it was helpful of you,” my mother said. “That church will be so pleased.” She started to open the morning paper, but as I sat down she paused. “You know what, Charlie?”
“What’s that?” he said between forkfuls.
“It was nice to have a little noise in the house last night.” My mother glanced at me then, oh it was quick, but as complete an assessment as if she had measured my pulse, temperature, and blood pressure. “I’ve missed you hanging around the store too,” she continued. “I hope now that you can come by more often.”
“Well, I hope so too,” he said, blushing ever so slightly. He brought the coffee cup up to his lips, then put it back down without taking any. All my life since, I’ve remembered that moment, when he put the coffee cup back down. Because you never quite notice as it’s happening when a door in your life is opening, but sometimes, later you can look back and think: then.
“Provided . . .” Charlie cleared his throat. “Provided all parties feel that I am welcome.”
I lowered my head, despite all my swagger unable to say a word. I mean, his scent was on my childhood quilt.
Before that day, what I’d wanted was for boys to pursue me, to pay for dinner, to confer a status on me. The bigger a deal they were, the bigger a deal I was. But this time, with this guy? What I wanted was him. His calm, his intelligence, his humility.
I sat like a lump, turning all of this over in my mind. My mother waited another few seconds before opening the paper, raising it in front of her face. “Charlie, I think I can safely say that is how all parties feel.”
It was my turn to blush.
16.
Charlie ambled into Beasley’s Dungeon at twenty to ten, as relaxed as a gambler holding aces. Beasley finished some flourish on a piece he was making, before speaking at the bin of components he was poking through.
“Must be nice, being a man of leisure during wartime. Wander into work any hour you like.”
After hanging up his coat, Charlie crossed to his desk at the same easy pace. A stack of wiring designs sat in the middle, all other materials shoved aside. He gave the top one a slow study, switching on the soldering iron as he read. Then he went to two other desks, carrying their lamps over to his station.
Beasley had been watching the whole time. “What, Harvard needs special light?”
“Light from behind casts shadows. I want to see my work more clearly.”
Beasley sniffed. “You’ll see all those mistakes so much better now.”
Charlie took fifteen minutes to organize his station, arranging components by color, and then by size. It was a pleasant chore. Imagining Brenda now at work in the store, remembering how soft she looked while sitting on the basement stairs, he had to restrain himself from whistling. And when she came down with her hair wet from the shower that morning, she had lost all severity. Innocent. Lovely.
It was time to use what he had learned. Pulling out a bare plate, he secured the soldering wire to the first component, then used Brenda’s technique, bending the wire to the next one, and the next, to the end. By then the iron was at full heat. He brought it down gently, here and here and here, whiffs of smoke rising as he tinned each spot.
He stood abruptly, letting the stool roll back into an empty desk with a bang.
“How about a little quiet around here?” Beasley snapped.
“How about a challenge?” Charlie said, bringing over the finished plate.
“Fish, you are challenged by tying your shoes.”
Charlie set the plate by the stork’s elbow. “Done.”
“What, you quit already?”
“Done, I said.”
Beasley straightened, touching his glasses with the usual undiscernible effect. He gave Charlie’s work a hasty scan, then did a double take. “This isn’t how you do it.”
“It can be.”
“Nothing’s measured. It’s loose and loopy. It’ll never work.”
“Why don’t we test it?”
“Not worth the bother. This looks like a child did it.”
Charlie reached for the red testing device. “Let’s see if it conducts.”
“Back off.” Beasley swatted Charlie’s hand aside. �
�Why do you insist on being humiliated?”
“Maybe you’ve given me a taste for it.”
Beasley held up the red testing device’s two wires. “When this fails, I am going directly to Simmons to get you transferred.”
Charlie leaned back against an empty desk. “Test it.”
Beasley touched one wire to the start of the design, and lowered the other to the finish. The white light came on, the indicator needle jumped to the right.
Charlie clapped his hands once. “There. Now what are you going to tell Simmons?”
“Nothing.” Beasley put the red device away. “The man is an idiot. I mean, he’s a genius, he’s helping to transform physics. But you can be a genius and still be an idiot.”
“Why won’t you tell him what I’ve done?”
“Because I am a genius who is not an idiot. And you.” He scowled. “You are an idiot who is not a genius. If I contribute to your advancement, I will endanger all the people who don’t know how genuinely incompetent you are.”
Charlie took his plate back. “You don’t want him to know what I can do.”
“Such a dreamer.” Beasley picked up his soldering iron again. “Your work is so sloppy, if I showed it to Simmons he would punish me. Instead, when the history of this war is written, I and the dungeon will have an illustrious place in the record. But you?”
He cleaned his iron on the sponge, once again making that hiss. “You will be too mediocre to mention. As you were in math, if I heard right. Why, even your girlfriend—”
“How do you know I have a girlfriend?”
“It’s my business to know your business. That’s how a genius avoids surprises.”
Charlie glanced through the window of the hallway door, and chuckled. “Well, I don’t know how to break it to you. But here comes a surprise.”
Beasley spun on his stool as Simmons strode into the lab. “Good morning, gentlemen.” He smiled as always, effervescent. “Everyone having a good day?”
“Sure.” Beasley made a show of returning to his work. “War is nothing but fun.”
“If you say so.” He waved a slip of paper. “Charlie, I was pleased to see your note.”
“Yes, sir.” He stepped forward, the plate still in hand. “I wanted you to see this.”
“An assembly? So?”
“I built it in fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen?” Simmons studied along the length of the wire. “Smooth work.” He turned to Beasley. “It conducts?”
“It does,” Charlie declared. “Wonderfully.”
Beasley shrugged. “It worked one time. But it’s casual technique. Unreliable.”
“Maybe.” Simmons looked from one man to the other, then placed a sheet of paper on a desk. He scribbled on the page before handing it to Charlie. “Make this.”
“Sure.” He ambled to his station, strumming through the organized drawers to gather components. Simmons stood by, while Beasley sat at his desk, hands hanging.
Charlie went to work, humming Beethoven’s sixth symphony.
Beasley snorted. “If you please, Harvard.”
“Won’t be much longer,” Charlie said. Finishing the assembly in ten minutes, he checked it against the original drawing before handing it over.
Simmons took the plate to the red tester, and it conducted. “You knew he could do this,” he said to Beasley, “and you didn’t tell me?”
“Fish has been pathetic till now. He only started decent work this morning.”
Simmons rubbed his jaw, as if calculating something. “Charlie, come with me.”
He started for the door, while Charlie grabbed his coat. Then he remembered something, doubling back to switch off his iron and cover it with a welding mask. “Wouldn’t want anyone to hurt himself.”
“Harvard,” Beasley called out.
He turned at the door. “Yes?”
Beasley was standing now, his soldering iron put aside. “I never liked you. Not for one second.”
“Yeah?” Charlie said. “Well, your zipper’s down.”
Instantly Beasley bent to see, waist and neck jerking forward to check his crotch. Of course it was not down at all. But the abrupt motion made his glasses fall off the tip of his nose. He caught them in both cupped hands.
For Charlie, there was an unmistakable thrill of triumph. It lasted, however, only as long as Beasley kept his head down. Because when the stork lifted his face, Charlie discovered what those glasses had hidden: small eyes, a pinched face, the most frightened person he had ever seen.
Simmons was already a full flight ahead on the stairs, and Charlie hustled to catch up. By the time he reached the office, the secretary waving him in, the professor was already seated at his desk. He waved the finished assembly in the air. “Son, if I had not seen you make it that fast with my own eyes—”
“He’s on the line now,” the secretary called.
Simmons pounced on the phone and spoke without a greeting. “We’re ready.”
He listened, his trademark smile returning. “Of course I’m sure. It’s seamless, stable, and quick to make.”
Despite the smile, though, Charlie saw something in his uncle’s demeanor, the seriousness of it, that made him realize this conversation barely involved him. It was about something else, and he was a small part.
Simmons paused again, nodding, grinning wider than ever. “In fact, we have exactly the right guy for the job. Dutiful, humble, obedient. You could start detonator production immediately.”
Suddenly Charlie was seized by a sense of dread. Where did detonator production take place? Had he succeeded his way out of Beasley’s clutches, without thinking far enough ahead? Now that Brenda was allowing him to see her real feelings, the last thing on earth he wanted was a promotion to somewhere else.
Simmons set the soldered plate on his desk. “I could get him to you in a week.”
Charlie began to sweat inside his shirt. What had he done?
Simmons hung up without a good-bye. He grinned up at Charlie. “I knew I was taking a risk with you, but here’s a tangible result. You followed orders and you delivered.”
Charlie swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
Simmons sat back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. “Congratulations, Charlie Fish, and pack your bags. You are on your way to New Mexico.”
17.
They took him from me.
Just when I was beginning to understand what the presence of Charlie Fish could do to my life, they removed him from it. With a whopping three days to pack and make arrangements. He was sweet enough to spend several hours each morning visiting with me at the store, but whenever I played for him I could see he was distracted by all the chores he had to complete. As soon as I finished, he’d hurry off to tend to some detail or other. They did not allow him time to visit his family, instead promising an extended leave at Christmas. Which I doubted he would actually receive. They did not give him a mailing address either. Charlie said he’d be told when he arrived. It only increased my vulnerability that I had to wait to get a letter from him before we could be in contact.
“Brenda?” my mother called up the stairs. “Hurry up. He’ll be here any minute.”
I stood from the bed and crossed into my parents’ bedroom, at the front of the house, to examine myself in the full-length mirror. I wore a favorite dress, navy blue with white piping, trim but not too fancy, and a baby blue hat pinned snug into my hair. An overcoat would hide my dress from Charlie, but I would know about it, and perhaps he might sense the care I had taken for him.
Downstairs my mother was busy digging in the fridge and packing the picnic basket, quick as if she had four hands.
“You’re sending Charlie off with the family basket?”
My mother did not so much as glance at me. “And what of it?”
“Didn’t Daddy give you that for an anniversary present? Won’t he be upset when it’s gone?”
She stopped stock-still in the middle of the kitchen. “You worry abou
t all the wrong things. Here—” She handed me two glass jars. “Fill these with water, would you?”
“It’s a fair question.”
“Brenda, please. It’s not like we’re picnicking every Sunday these days. Charlie can return the basket once the war is over.”
“And if it lasts another five years—”
“Then a picnic basket is the last thing we’ll be fretting about.” She snapped her fingers twice. From the sink I saw her pour an entire percolator of coffee into a canteen tin, which she capped tightly and tucked into a corner of the basket. After filling the first water jar, I packed it too. The basket was stuffed, and I found myself counting.
“Eleven sandwiches? Mother, it’s not like he’s crossing the Sahara Desert.”
She spoke while lighting a cigarette. “Little girl, you have no idea what’s ahead of him. Besides, with no family to see him off, an extra sandwich or two does no harm.”
“Or ten.” I snorted. “Maybe you want to be the one he’s courting.”
She gave me a look then, a slow burn. “I don’t know where to begin to answer a wisecrack like that.” She exhaled smoke and left the room.
I was tucking the second filled jar away when the knock came at the front door.
“I’ll be right back down,” my mother said, hurrying up the stairs.
“You couldn’t answer the door first?” I hollered after her.
There was no reply, and I realized what she was up to. My mother wanted me to greet Charlie. Today I’d like to give her a dozen roses for trying to teach a self-absorbed girl. But right then I was only annoyed, and the second knock didn’t help.
“Come the heck in,” I yelled, trotting over to swing the door wide.
“Hi, Brenda,” he said, making a little bow. “Hey, nice hat.”
“Why thank you, Charlie.” I patted it as though to check if the pins had come loose, wondered where I had learned such an old lady gesture, stepped backward out of his way, and almost tripped on the rug. I caught myself though, and just as quickly suppressed any sign of embarrassment. “Come on in. My mother is just finishing making you a feed wagon.”
Universe of Two Page 10
