“Jules.” He walked to her bed and sat on the edge, raking his hand through his thick curls. The sight of him always dazzled Juliet. Where she was awkward and sinewy, her brother was muscular, vigorous. His face was broad and square; his dark-brown eyes were set unusually far apart. He was not handsome in the classical sense, but his robust masculinity drew an endless stream of girlfriends. At seventeen, he was the captain of the football and basketball teams. Walking, pacing—even waving good-bye—could be, for Tuck, an athletic display. He always made her feel safe, but something in his expression at this moment made her heart constrict uncomfortably. While the sound of the radio drifted up from downstairs, he twisted the corner of her coverlet.
“It’s the news, isn’t it?” she said. “What happened?”
Tuck looked at her. “I don’t know what’s going on now. But earlier today the Japanese bombed some American ships in Hawaii. It’s serious, Jules.”
“How many ships?”
“Dozens.”
“How many planes attacked?”
“I don’t want to give you nightmares.”
“Come on, Tuck. You should have seen me this afternoon. I’m a maker of explosive devices. I don’t scare easily.”
“Hundreds. There were people on the ships, Jules. And nearby. A lot of people. Innocent people.”
Juliet remembered an airplane accident she had once seen: when she was nine, riding in the car with her father, a biplane above them suddenly growled and smoked and hurled swiftly, nose first, into the ground; it flipped several times, dropping two of its passengers, and finally crashed into a barn from which people ran screaming. Her father had instructed her to stay in the car while he rushed to the flaming debris, hoping to find someone he could save. For weeks afterward, Juliet had trouble sleeping, recalling all those shrieks for help.
“Are we part of it now?” she asked.
Tuck nodded slowly. “The country is at war.”
The words seemed to hang strangely in the air. They had discussed so many things over the years—their mother’s death, their father’s drinking, Pearl’s uncomfortable presence in the house—but nothing of this magnitude.
Tuck tugged off his shoes and lay back beside her, sinking heavily into the mattress. Juliet inched close. The radio downstairs had quieted. Her brother breathed noisily, thoughtfully staring at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry I missed the big experiment.”
“It’s okay.”
“Next Sunday.”
“Next Sunday.”
Outside the light was fading, and a wintry purple sky sprawled beautifully behind the darkening treetops. For a moment the world seemed utterly silent. Entirely peaceful. The thought of a bombing was wildly improbable. Juliet turned on her side, faced her brother, and drew her knees snugly to her chest.
“We’re at war,” Tuck said again, as though studying each word. He brought his hands together and slowly thrummed his fingers. His eyes narrowed and his jaw worked itself in a tense circle, and she sensed in his expression something more than anxiety. It was the look he had before a big game: excitement.
Juliet closed her eyes.
CHAPTER 2
TUCK RESIGNED AS football captain right before the state championships. Within weeks, he had quit all sports to devote his time to scrap-metal collection; after school he went from house to house wrestling old washing machines and car parts into the back of a truck. He arrived home in rust-smeared overalls, his palms blotchy with engine oil. At night he volunteered with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, monitoring the sky from the cold decks of shrimp boats. Juliet was proud of her brother but saw less of him than ever before.
Normally she would have thrown herself into her chemistry experiments, but the Science Fair had been canceled. The winter carnival, too, was called off. War efforts gripped the town, and it was understood that every event would serve a patriotic purpose. Blood drives, recruitment rallies. People moved through the gray January streets with a sense of urgency, their coats clutched nervously.
Sitting alone in the school cafeteria, Juliet listened as her classmates rattled off the names of boys from the previous year’s senior class who were enlisting. They told excited tales of patriotic eleventh graders from Beaufort and Savannah who, having lied about their ages, were shipping off to Africa at a mere sixteen years old. The German family who owned the bakery, they claimed, had fled town in the middle of the night.
By spring, there were whispers of pregnancies, proposals. Everyone knew which boys had been deemed 4-F, and there were endless speculations as to the reasons for these classifications: asthma, shortness, tendonitis, poor coordination.
A boy named Bobby Lee Fincher, after being declared 4-F, was found on the school steps one morning, his jaw bloodied, his nose broken.
Homo, everyone said. He was a homo. It was the first time Juliet had heard the word. And though unsure of what the word meant, she felt sorry for the boy; when she was ten, she’d once had her arm twisted by two girls, but nothing was broken, nothing had bled, and the girls had been sent to the principal. No one was punished for hurting Bobby Lee because he wouldn’t say who had done it.
June came, bright and muggy. Globular red roses tangled over trellises. The azaleas and camellias seemed to pulse with life, and in them, Juliet couldn’t help but feel, nature was signaling her about excitement ahead.
After school, she walked over to the scrap center, where she had decided to volunteer with Tuck. A vast warehouse once used by shrimpers was devoted to sorting soup cans and chewing-gum wrappers and scraps of aluminum foil. The smell of brine filled the crowded space. Seated on an old fish barrel, Juliet scooped kitchen lard into oil drums alongside girls from her school. A Victrola often played in the corner, which, combined with the clank of cans and the occasional ball of aluminum foil sailing through the air, lent the warehouse a sense of boisterous festivity.
But Juliet never quite knew how to join the fun. She had imagined that moving into the eleventh grade would give her a chance to reinvent herself, to be more outgoing, but first she struggled to figure out how, and then the war had taken hold of everyone’s attention, and now it was too late. Her classmates were so accustomed to her reserve that they never thought to include her in their conversations. Instead, Juliet worked diligently, scooping lard faster than anyone else at her table, trying to imagine her next beginning.
In a haze of daydreaming she could lose track of her work for an hour, picturing the gleaming lecture halls and vast research libraries of colleges in Savannah and Charleston. Mr. Licata had given her an old brochure, faded and dog-eared, for a girls’ college in Atlanta, which Juliet kept in her bag. On her breaks at the scrap center, while the other girls smoked cigarettes, Juliet studied the photographs of the dormitories and the dome-topped Science Hall, imagining life after high school, a life surrounded by people like her, a life where she could meet professors—the word quickened her heart.
One afternoon, while Juliet was studying her brochure, Beau Conroy walked into the warehouse. He was holding hands with a cheerleader named Patty, her hair swept back in a gingham kerchief. Over a pink blouse she wore belted gray overalls. She wasn’t particularly pretty, as far as the cheerleaders went, but her earlobes and neck glinted with gold, and she leaned flirtatiously into Beau as they both surveyed the center. When Patty pointed out a space where they could work, he kissed her knuckles.
“Hey, Jules, you seen a ghost?” Tuck had come by to say hello. Juliet still hadn’t told him about kissing Beau. She sensed that if she told him, he would only say that Beau was a jerk, that he had tricked her and played a mean game. Juliet didn’t want it to be true. She wanted her first kiss, she deserved her first kiss; it was the only thing of consequence that had happened to her in months. And having bent and bowed her memory of the encounter, it had become something in those long lonely days she could cling to.
Juliet stared at Beau and the cheerleader and set down her lard scoop. “It’s hot, Tuck. I’m tired. Can we
please go home already?”
“Rinse up, the both of you,” Pearl said when Juliet and Tuck trudged up the porch after work. “You look like you stepped out of a coal mine.”
Side by side at the kitchen sink, Juliet soaped the waxy traces of grease from her fingers and Tuck lathered his forearms, scrubbing off the engine oil, playfully elbowing Juliet out of his way. A rainbow soap bubble floated between them, and Tuck stabbed it with his finger.
They settled themselves at the dinner table, where conversation, at their father’s request, was to extend beyond the topic of the war. They spoke about radio plays and the new Jimmy Dorsey songs, or about which vegetables were faring well in the garden. They examined the first tomato of the season, passing it around the table, guessing at its weight, then cutting it into wedges so they could each take a dripping bite.
“I actually had a letter from Senator Maybank,” Pearl began, serving their father a thick slice of glistening ham. “The senator said he is deeply concerned about safety regulations in the textile mills. . . .”
The overhead fan stirred the window’s gauzy curtains, thick gray moths battered the glass, and Juliet could see in the distance the flashing arcs and bands of the night’s first fireflies. The clock on the mantel ticked slowly. Soon it would be her turn to describe her day, but what could she report except that she had been scooping lard all afternoon, looking at a college brochure that seemed of interest to no one else, and that her “first kiss” had forgotten her in favor of a cheerleader.
“Pop, I’d like to borrow the car tomorrow,” said Tuck, wiping tomato juice from his chin. “To drive to Charleston.”
“You taking Myrna somewhere?” Myrna was Tuck’s latest girlfriend.
“Actually,” said Tuck, “I wanted to take Juliet to the movies. A matinee.” He turned to Juliet. “You free?”
They left early the next morning, riding with the windows open, the salt air tangling Juliet’s hair. Normally stagnant, the air in motion had a palpable thickness. It pressed against Juliet’s face. Past the intercoastal bridge, Tuck leaned into the backseat, rummaging through his bag. “Jules, take the wheel.”
“What?”
“I can’t steer with my knees!”
As Juliet reached for the wheel, the car lurched before she steadied her grip. Behind her she heard a snap and hiss; then Tuck swung himself back into the front seat and waved a bottle of Coca-Cola. “Beverages!” he announced.
The movie was Our Town. It surprised Juliet; she had never seen anything in which the characters spoke right to you, and she liked it. But Tuck, who had leaned far back in his seat as soon as they arrived in the theater, as though the movie had to impress him before he would sit up straight, rolled his eyes as they left the theater. “I wouldn’t have driven all this way if I knew it was gonna be depressing!”
“It was thought-provoking,” said Juliet.
“The last thing I need are more thoughts. I need ice cream. Want some ice cream?”
“Tuck.” She stopped walking. “Are you about to assassinate me? This whole day has a distinct last-supper feel to it.”
“Vanilla or chocolate?”
“Chocolate,” she conceded. “But if you offer me walnuts I’m going to have to make a run for it.”
He bought them each a cone and found a small table by the window of the parlor.
“So I’ve got something to tell you,” he said. “Right after my birthday”—he leaned across the table—“I’m going to Fort Branley.”
“Fort Branley,” she repeated flatly. “You’re enlisting?”
“I’ve got the papers right here. I wanted you to be the first to know.”
Juliet felt a sickening disorientation; Tuck would be leaving. For months, perhaps years. The idea horrified her. And yet in his elaborate display of affection, in letting her know that she was the first in whom he was confiding, she felt the hypnotic lure of his undivided attention.
“That’s wonderful,” she said, staring at the papers but not reading them.
“They’d draft me soon enough anyway, but I’ve got to get in there. Now.” He thumped his fist on the table, and Juliet forced herself to nod. “I knew you’d understand,” he said. But he looked away, aware of his lie.
Juliet’s ice cream dripped onto her hand and he reached over with his napkin.
“And I’ll need your help,” he said. “On the Papa and Pearl front.”
They rode home in silence. Juliet was frightened by the violence of her own emotions. She suddenly hated her brother for his decision; it seemed, if not exactly selfish, so very neglectful of her feelings that she wondered briefly at his love for her. His departure would dismantle her life. He was a piece of her, of the way she thought about and planned her days, even if she was, as she long suspected, of far less consequence to him. What would a night at home be like without Tuck down the hall? How would a morning feel without him at the breakfast table? What would it be like to go months without talking to him, while he gallivanted through the world, facing endless new experiences? They would become different people, mere strangers with a vague shared memory of childhood. Or what if he got hurt? Juliet’s hands shook in her lap. She was accustomed to hiding her feelings, but she had never before faced such cavernous, looming loss. She stared out the window, wishing they would never reach home.
As they finally stepped from the car, Tuck hurried around and closed the car door after her. He drew her close in a hug. Juliet wanted to hit him. After all these years, he understood his power over her and was using it.
“Here we go.” He exhaled sharply and opened the front door.
Their father and Pearl looked up from the dining table. “How was the picture?”
Tuck sat and began to describe the movie. Juliet took her customary seat to her father’s right. It seemed Tuck had missed large portions of the story, and in his nervousness struggled to recall the details. In between sentences, he ate ravenously and set his eyes on their father. Juliet, too, watched the exacting and deliberate way in which their father halved his green beans with a steak knife. For the first time she longed for his sternness, for his uncompromising austerity; she wanted him to defeat Tuck.
When Tuck finished his account of the film, he fell silent. Their father turned to Pearl: “Now tell us about your meeting at the Ladies Auxiliary.”
“Well, we’re planning to make packages for the troops next week. On Wednesday they want us to bring any baked goods and knitted socks. I was going to bake some butter pecan cookies tomorrow. Juliet, would you help me?”
“I’m going,” Tuck blurted out, pushing back in his chair so that for a moment it seemed as though he were announcing his departure from the table, “to the front.”
Their father set down his fork and knife and surveyed the arrangement of the dinnerware and place mats, as though bodies might soon be tangled across the table.
“Rommel’s wreaking havoc across Africa,” Tuck continued, his face tightening. “The U-boats are demolishing our ships, the—”
“I read the newspaper,” their father said.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Tuck continued. “I’m not going to hide out and wait for them to draft me. Not when I could help bring this war to an end sooner. Juliet understands. And she supports me.”
“I do,” Juliet said to her plate.
“The right thing. You realize, of course, that grenades have no sense of justice. That bullets and bayonets care nothing for morality. Being right doesn’t protect you from having your brain blown to bits.”
“Tuck, have you considered,” Pearl said softly, “serving as a noncombatant, like your father did? We support the war effort, but there are more sensible ways to help.”
“No disrespect to Papa, but in the words of FDR, I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“You are quoting a man who can barely walk,” their father said.
“Pop, come on. I’m a quarterback, not a doctor. Look at me.” Tuck stood and opened his ar
ms, trying to show his breadth. “You know exactly where I should be.”
“It is the hallmark of youth,” their father said, “to suffer an inexplicable and desperate urge to die. It is the hallmark of adulthood to feel a desperate urge to live. It seems you are decided in your course; I only hope that you will be an adult in it.”
Juliet’s heart sank.
It was a solemn few weeks while Tuck prepared to leave, and Juliet numbly accompanied her brother on every errand, sometimes sitting on the floor of his room for hours as he sorted through belongings.
It was only when their car pulled into the bus depot that muggy July day, when the fact of his departure became so sharply unbearable, that Juliet mustered the courage to say, “This is stupid. He shouldn’t go.”
Her father and Tuck turned around in the front seats with gentle pity, and Pearl, beside her, set her arm on Juliet’s back and said, “Sweetheart, we knew this would be hard.”
Their condescension infuriated her, and Juliet felt, finally, on the verge of an outburst; the sadness and anger, gathering for weeks, rose to the surface, so visibly, in fact, that her father’s expression turned quickly to displeasure. “Your brother has made a decision, and he is standing by it. So we will stand by him. That is the sole way to proceed. Come on, we’ll cook in here.”
The others stepped from the car and thumped shut the doors, leaving Juliet alone in the back, until finally she opened her door and walked around to the trunk, where Tuck was heaving out his swollen duffel. Though it was well beyond his strength, their father insisted on carrying it, and they all moved to where the brown bus was parked. The pavement smelled of wet tar, peculiarly sweet and fresh, and the air glimmered hazily; the clouds overhead were long and rippled, as though the sky were a reflection of itself in water. It all felt entirely unreal, dreamlike.
The Secret of Raven Point: A Novel Page 2
