Stars Over Clear Lake

by Loretta Ellsworth

  “More energy? God, I can barely keep up with her now.” Daisy stands and is already opening the door.

  “I’ll be right there,” I tell her.

  I wait until she’s out of earshot. “Are there any other symptoms I should be aware of? Could something like this cause hallucinations?”

  “Why? Are you experiencing hallucinations?”

  “No. Not me,” I say, and let out a small laugh. “I have a friend who has had some recently, and she also has a low heart rate.”

  “Has your friend been sleeping well?”

  “Not really.”

  “Lack of sleep could cause hallucinations. Does she drink?”

  “Oh no, at least I don’t think so,” I say nervously.

  “Well, it’s more likely that her prescriptions drugs are causing her symptoms, and without knowing what she’s taking, I couldn’t really say, although I’d recommend that she gets it checked out. There are many medical conditions besides prescription drugs that could be causing her symptoms, not to mention a host of psychiatric conditions. And an irregular or slow heart rate can cause some confusion, which I suppose could trigger hallucinations.”

  “Thank you. I’ll let her know.”

  “Anytime,” he says, and gives my hand a squeeze. “And if it were you, you’d tell me, right?”

  “Of course.” I hurry from the room before he sees my lying eyes.

  *

  “I’ll have to rearrange my schedule so I can spend a couple of days with you afterward,” Daisy says on the drive home. She’s in business mode, talking fast and making plans.

  “That’s really not necessary, Daisy. From what I’m reading, it’s a very simple procedure, and other than restricting strenuous activities for a few weeks, there shouldn’t be any complications.”

  Her voice becomes soft. “I’ll feel better if I stay with you,” she says. She almost sounds like my little girl again, the one I made peanut butter cookies with and cuddled with under warm blankets on cold winter days. I look over at her, but she glances away. “To make sure you don’t do any strenuous activities, because who knows with you? Remember when I caught you on a chair changing the light bulb? You could have fallen and broken your neck.”

  Despite her complaints, I catch a moment of emotion in her voice. It’s soon gone, replaced by the chilly barrier she constructed long ago.

  “You’re right. I want you to stay with me for a few days,” I reply.

  “It’s settled then.”

  “There’s something else I’d like to do beforehand,” I say. “I want to visit the POW museum in Algona. You don’t have to take me if you’re busy. But I’d appreciate it if you would.”

  “Can’t that wait until after your surgery?”

  “It’s not surgery. It’s a procedure. But no, it can’t wait.” I don’t say that I’ve already waited too long.

  Daisy grips the steering wheel. “Honestly, Mother. Once you get an idea in your head, you’re impossible to live with. It makes me crazy sometimes.”

  Now there’s the daughter I know.

  Forty-one

  1947

  Even though I had just been home a few weeks before, and in another month I would be done with school, I took the bus home the third weekend in April. I had heard the desperation in Daddy’s voice when we’d spoken on the phone.

  “Your mother saw pictures in a magazine of Princess Elizabeth’s mother and she started bawling,” Daddy had said, and I knew he would be having a smoke in the barn as soon as he hung up the phone. “She said she can’t find a decent dress for the wedding, and she can’t choose flowers and a cake topping without you here.”

  Though Mom had eagerly accepted those responsibilities when I’d gotten engaged, I now found myself shopping with her instead of at school studying or practicing for my solo. I chose a simple cross for the cake, adorned by white flowers, and a flower arrangement of red roses and white carnations. Then I drove Mom to Lundberg’s where we found a blue chiffon mother-of-the-bride dress that cost twice the amount Mom wanted to spend, but that I finally talked her into buying after mentioning Princess Elizabeth’s recent wedding shower.

  When she collapsed in her room for a much-needed nap, I stood in the kitchen, staring out the window at the chicken coop, the barn, and the garden, and beyond that, the fields. I knew every path and tree and catch in the brook. I knew where the cats hid their newborn litters, where Daddy threw his cigarette tips, where patches of wild asparagus grew in the ditches.

  This was all meant to be Pete’s legacy. He was supposed to marry and take over the farm, and he and his wife would move in here with Mom and Daddy. Scotty had no intention of farming, and I’d spent much of my life trying to get away from it, too. What would happen to the farm when Daddy died?

  My thoughts were interrupted by a ringing sound. I hurried to the living room, where our black rotary phone was perched on a side table.

  “I’m so glad you made it home this weekend!” Stella practically screamed into the phone. I’d missed her excitement, how she was so bubbly all the time.

  Stella was to be my maid of honor. I’d asked Scotty’s sister Kate to be a bridesmaid.

  “A good customer of mine gave me two tickets to the Surf tonight, all because I saved the last tube of Elizabeth Arden lipstick for her—and guess what? Jimmy Dorsey’s band is playing! You just have to come with me.”

  I knew Stella could get a date if she wanted. But she was still pining over Lance, who’d finally broken up with her a month ago.

  “It would be nice to have a night out,” I confessed.

  “Let’s get gussied up, then, and dance the night away like we used to in the old days!”

  I had second thoughts as soon as I hung up the phone. I’d never seen Jimmy Dorsey’s band, but being at the Surf would remind me of a certain blond-haired boy. I’d been trying my hardest to forget him, resisting the urge to write to him, to find out where his band was playing. I didn’t even turn on the radio, afraid I’d hear a song that might make me think of him.

  I went to my room and found the box I’d hidden deep in my closet, one ear tuned to the hallway to make sure Mom was still asleep. The two letters were buried beneath Scotty’s letters in case Mom decided to snoop. I untied the string and felt the weight of the paper in my hand. His words were ingrained in my heart.

  As I reread Jens’s letters, I thought of our first meeting two and a half years ago, of how our lives would never have crossed if Jens hadn’t been captured in Italy, if he hadn’t spent three weeks in the belly of a ship and several days riding on a train to the heartland of the United States. If Daddy hadn’t called the prison camp. If I hadn’t opened my eyes and my heart.

  I’d never intended for any of this to happen. I was supposed to be Scotty’s girl, had dreamed of him since seventh grade when he’d pulled one of my pigtails as a joke. Scotty was enough of a dream when I was a girl. He was all I could ever want. How could a German boy change all that?

  I put a hand on my chest as a sudden pain slid through me. Was this what a broken heart felt like? For the first time in my life, I knew what it must have been like for Mom.

  Would I still think of Jens ten, twenty years from now? Or would time fade the memory until I became convinced it was nothing more than a childish crush? Would I become sick with the thought of our lost love, the way Mom became sick when I mentioned Dixie Waverly?

  I put the letters back in the box and my eyes filled with wetness. I would have to burn them before I married Scotty.

  But not today.

  Forty-two

  April 19, 1947

  I wore a green sleeveless dress that cinched at the waist, high heels, and a shawl. It was an unseasonably warm day for April nineteenth, but the nights still carried threats of frost.

  “Stella will give me a ride home,” I told Daddy as I opened the car door.

  “Give her my regards,” Daddy said.

  I was meeting Stella early. I waited out front near the ticke
t booth. Violet Greenwood stood inside the booth chewing gum like it was cud. “You need a ticket?”

  “I have one. I’m just waiting for my friend.”

  She snapped her gum. “Lucky you. We’re almost sold out tonight. Jimmy Dorsey’s the best.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Lorraine!” Stella hurried toward me and gave me a quick hug. She had her hair up and wore a low-cut white dress with black polka dots. Her deep red lipstick and blood-red nails stood out against the white of her dress, making her appear almost ghostlike under her powdered face.

  “You’re so skinny,” Stella chastised me. “Don’t they feed you at that school?”

  “Not like at home. And I don’t really like to cook. Scotty doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.”

  “You know Scotty doesn’t care a lick about whether you cook.”

  There were only a few other people inside. We found a booth near the side with a good view of the band, whose members were warming up, producing a kaleidoscope of sounds.

  “Hold my purse while I run to the bathroom,” Stella said.

  I watched the band, how each member had his own warm-up routine, a pattern of exercises, some of them playing a single note five or six times before moving on to the next.

  I tried not to look at the saxophonists, but I couldn’t help it. They were in the front row and I knew that Jimmy Dorsey played saxophone. Still, my throat tightened at the sight of the men holding their instruments, their lips curled around the mouthpieces, their fingers flying up and down the keys.

  With the confident look of a bandleader, Jimmy Dorsey sat in the center, wearing a white, single-breasted suit with wide trousers. A neatly folded black kerchief stuck out of the front pocket, and his black bow tie matched the flowers of the small corsage on his lapel. His dark, shiny hair was combed back.

  My eyes followed the row of men next to Jimmy to the end, where a blond-haired boy was wiping off his mouthpiece. My heart fluttered and I let out a gasp. Jens? What was he doing here tonight with Jimmy Dorsey’s band? I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

  Stella returned just then. Her eyes were puffy and red. “You’ll never guess who I just saw coming in the front door. Lance and some debutante wearing a fur coat like she’s full of money and just stepped off the cover of Harper’s. Honestly, Lorraine, what’s he doing here? I thought he was out east.”

  My heart was still racing. “Do you want to leave?” I asked, and looked up at her.

  She nodded. “I know it’s terrible of me, but I can’t stay and face him.” She wiped at her eyes, smearing a line of mascara across her cheek.

  I sneaked a glance at the stage. Jens had put down his instrument and left. Had he seen me?

  “I’ll go with you,” I said reluctantly.

  She sniffed. “You don’t have to go. I hate to make you miss Jimmy Dorsey.”

  I didn’t care a twit about Jimmy Dorsey right now, but my feet were frozen in place. I longed to see Jens one more time. “No, it’s all right,” I stammered.

  As I followed her to the lobby, a small voice inside hoped Jens was here because of me. So foolish. And dangerous. I had no business being here without my fiancé. And yet I walked slowly, hoping for a peek at him, just a glance to know I hadn’t lost my mind, that it really was him.

  We were almost out the door when someone caught my elbow.

  “Where are you going?” His voice was seductive, and I couldn’t resist its pull.

  I turned and took in a breath as I met his shining blue eyes and boyish grin.

  For a moment I was unable to speak. “Jens. What are you doing here?”

  “My band has break. I fill in with Mr. Dorsey’s band.”

  “That’s quite an opportunity for you,” was all I could manage.

  He shrugged. “It is way to make money.”

  I stood, staring at him, barely able to form a thought. Stella finally nudged me and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Well, I should leave. Stella’s not feeling well.”

  He took my hand. “Please stay. I play now, but I would like to talk to you.”

  His hand was soft and fit mine perfectly. Goose bumps spread up my arm and I pulled my shawl tight around my shoulders.

  “Do you mind, Stella?” She shook her head but gave me a disapproving look. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I assured her.

  “Yes. We still have so much to discuss for your wedding.”

  I squeezed her arm and whispered, “I’ll be fine.” She shrugged and left.

  There was so much I wanted to say. But my only clear thought was of how I’d longed for his touch, the feel of his lips on mine; of how, when I was near him, it was like sinking into quicksand. The more I fought these feelings, the quicker I sank.

  “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again, Jens.”

  “It is fate.”

  “Perhaps,” I acknowledged, although fate had a twisted sense of humor to bring us together less than two months before my wedding. I knew I should leave before things became more complicated, but I couldn’t. I followed him to a booth and sat through the first set.

  The dance floor was overflowing, so that couples were dancing inches away from my booth. Jimmy Dorsey’s band was as great as expected. The vocalist was an attractive man with wavy brown hair named Bob Carroll, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Jens. I hadn’t expected to see him again, and now here he was, right onstage. Despite the time apart, it seemed that each time I saw Jens I was drawn to him even more. He was the forbidden fruit of my youth, and the taste had grown sweeter over time.

  I ducked my head when I saw Lance walk by. Stella was right about his date. She had a white fur stole around her shoulders and a long dress that trailed behind her. She looked out of place among the more modestly dressed women from town.

  During the break Jens came to my booth and sat opposite me, a cigarette in hand. “I have confession to make. I called your dorm. Your roommate say you come home for weekend.”

  “You did?” I tried not to smile, not wanting to betray my pleasure that he’d checked up on me.

  “You still like school?”

  I nodded. “Very much. Especially the choir. I have my first solo next month.”

  “That must be exciting for you.”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same as singing on the stage of the Surf.” I cringed at the memory of the last time I’d tried.

  Jens flashed a mysterious smile. “Then it is fate that you come tonight. The stars are shining on you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took my hand. “Come,” he said, and pulled me toward the stage.

  Jimmy Dorsey stood in the wings, wiping his forehead with a towel. “This the girl?” he asked.

  Jens nodded. “May I introduce Lorraine Kindred.”

  Jimmy Dorsey was a bit younger than Daddy and had a loose, easygoing manner about him. He shook my hand and said, “We’re happy to give the local kid a chance. You can sing a number at the start of the next set.”

  “What? I can’t,” I protested, a squeeze of panic taking hold.

  “You must,” Jens told me. “This is way to rid yourself of the regret of last time. You told me it was your dream.”

  I put a hand on my chest, steadying myself. “It was. It is. I mean, okay,” I finally agreed, feeling shivery and excited.

  I went to the restroom beforehand to freshen up, my hands in a nervous twitter as I tried to calm my wild red hair. At least I’d worn a nice dress. I was queasy and took a long drink of water. This was my dream. I realized that this would be the only time I’d ever have the opportunity to sing with Jimmy Dorsey; that it was probably my last chance to sing at the Surf Ballroom, too.

  I decided to sing “It’s Been a Long, Long Time.” As I approached the stage, I had second thoughts. What if I froze again? Jimmy Dorsey stood in the wings, waiting. He smiled at me, a slight twinkle in his eyes.

  “Ready for your debut?” he asked. “Are your parents
in the audience?”

  I shook my head. “My mother would never allow it.”

  “What Mama don’t know won’t hurt her,” he said, winking at me. “You just concentrate on giving a good show up there. I’m going to introduce you.”

  Girls flanked the stage, enamored by his charisma. He looked like a movie star.

  “Let’s give this local beauty a chance to show off her voice, and from what I’ve heard, it’s something your town should be proud of,” Jimmy said into the microphone, and I had to concentrate to keep my knees from wobbling together as the crowd clapped and Jens whistled.

  I took a deep breath and approached the microphone. “Thank you, Mr. Dorsey.” He kissed me on the cheek and I got a strong whiff of cigarette smoke and hair tonic.

  The music began, and I opened my mouth, not sure of the sound that would come out. My voice faltered at the first few notes. But then I heard the saxophone sound rise above the other instruments. I made eye contact with Jens to the side of me, and his encouraging nod quelled the nervousness in the pit of my stomach. I had trained with the choir. I was ready for this.

  My voice became loud and clear and I let the song take me away. As my nerves settled, I relaxed, feeling as though I belonged on this stage. I looked at Jens as I sang and imagined I was serenading him under the apple tree near our barn.

  Jens let loose with a brassy vibrato sound that made me weak in the knees. It was as though we were making love to one another right there on the stage. When I was finished, the entire audience rose to their feet and applauded. I covered my mouth with my hand, and tears welled up in my eyes.

  “You were grand,” Jimmy said. “You can sing with me any day.”

  I exited the stage and mouthed a “thank you” to Jens. The excitement had drained me.

  I found my way back to the booth. I couldn’t stop smiling.