by Dean Hughes
“She’s home,” Beverly said, “but she just came through the door about five minutes ago. It’ll take her half an hour to get ready.”
“Oh, dear. If you’ll start the table, I’ll finish the potatoes. And then I’ll get the rolls out of the oven. Maybe LaRue will be down in a minute. She knows I got home from work late tonight.”
Beverly knew better than to hope for any help, but she
was better at setting a table than LaRue anyway. She
stepped toward the door to the dining room, but as she did the doorbell rang. Sister Thomas moaned. “Oh, wouldn’t you know it? He’s early. That’s what I didn’t need tonight.”
“It doesn’t matter. Dad can talk to him.”
Mom was pulling off her apron. She whispered, “That is exactly what worries me. You stay out there with the two of them, and if Dad starts to do a stake president interview on the poor man, you change the subject.”
“Mom, I—”
“Oh, honey, I’m just kidding.” She walked to the sink and quickly washed her hands. “But stay out there. He’ll want to talk to you a little, too. And if your dad does start asking too many questions, you step in, okay?”
Beverly liked the idea of being in the room where she could listen, but she wasn’t sure she could think of anything to say. She followed her mother out through the dining room. As they reached the entryway, Dad had already opened the front door and Richard was stepping in. But Beverly couldn’t believe what she saw. It was the man in the picture all right, but he was smiling—and he was beautiful. His picture had been black and white, but Richard was Technicolor—his eyes a misty pastel blue and his skin rich and tan. Beverly had never seen anyone so handsome—not even Victor Mature.
She stood and waited while Richard shook hands with Dad and then hugged Mom. His right hand was bandaged, lightly, and his left hand was wrapped entirely, even his fingers covered. “I’m so happy to meet all of you finally,” he said, and then he turned and added, “This has to be Beverly. You look so much like Bobbi, I can’t believe it.”
Beverly nodded, didn’t move, and she saw him make a decision not to step toward her. An instant too late, she finally began to raise her hand, but by then Mom was already taking his attention away. “Come in, Richard. Sit down with Al for a minute. Bev and I have to finish getting dinner ready.”
So Richard and Dad walked into the living room. Dad sat in his big gray chair, and Richard sat across from him on the couch. Beverly followed her mother to the kitchen. “Oh, Bev, he’s so handsome,” Mom whispered.
But Bev couldn’t give words to what she was feeling. That smile of his had started her knees quivering.
“Did you hear what he told you—that you’re as pretty as Bobbi?”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t say I was pretty.” But Beverly was searching her memory. Had he said “as pretty as Bobbi” or just “look like Bobbi”?
“Well, he’s prettier than either one of you. I might steal him for myself.”
“Mom!”
“Who knows? I might want to get me a new model—something without so many miles on it.”
Beverly laughed, but then she said, “No wonder LaRue says things she shouldn’t say. You teach her.”
“Speaking of your sister, go tell her to hurry. And then get that tablecloth on. I’ll help you with the dishes in just a minute.”
Beverly walked through the living room and took another quick glance at Richard. As she hurried up the stairs, she heard him say something to Dad about needing another operation on his left hand. She trotted along the hallway on her tiptoes to LaRue’s room, knocked, and then pushed the door open. “He’s here,” she said. She was about to say how handsome he was but realized she didn’t want to. LaRue would take all of Richard’s attention, once she got downstairs. She always did. “Mom wants you to help me set the table.”
LaRue was looking into her mirror, standing with a brush in her hand. “I look so awful,” she said. “Is he nice?”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong? You look like you got hit by a truck.”
“Nothing. But Mom says to come down.”
“Just a minute. I’ve got to do something with my hair.”
Beverly turned and walked away, and then she took quiet steps down the stairs, listening as she walked. “Well, that’s true,” her dad was saying, “with so many boys coming home, jobs might not be all that easy to come by for a while. But a lot of these girls who are working will be excited to get married and stay home, and the minute we get permission to start normal production, I think there’s going to be a real boom in this country.”
“That’s good to hear,” Richard said quietly. He glanced at Beverly again as she reached the bottom of the stairs. He smiled just a little, and she felt her face turn hot—which mortified her. She wished she didn’t blush so easily. She hurried to the buffet at the back of the dining room and opened the drawer where Mom kept her tablecloths.
“Do you have any idea what Alex plans to do when he gets home?” Richard asked.
“Not exactly,” Dad said. “But he was working with me when he left. By law I have to give him a chance to come back.” President Thomas laughed in that big, deep voice of his. “I hope that’s what he wants to do. I’m certainly going to need him. The way things are looking, I’m going to be hiring a lot of help to keep both my businesses operating—and not just on the line. I need managers, too. I want to take things a little easier, and I think Bea will want to get away from the rat race herself. I see a lot of expansion ahead for us in the parts business. We’ve just entered an agreement with Bendix that could double or triple the size of our operation.”
Beverly chose a white tablecloth with pretty lace around the border. She unfolded it and spread it over the big table. Then she peeked at Richard again. He was wearing a brown suit with a white shirt and tie, and his wingtip shoes were as shiny as Mom’s hardwood floors. Beverly thought he looked sort of stiff, the way he was sitting up so straight. But he was looking at her again. “So Beverly,” he said, “how’s everything with you?”
“Fine.”
“Let’s see, you’re in what grade now?”
“Eighth.”
“So you start high school next year?”
“Yes.”
“You’re growing up.”
“I guess.” She hesitated. “Well . . . I’ve got to get the dishes.”
“Say, I’ll help you.” He stood up.
“You don’t need to. You can just—”
“I don’t mind.” He walked toward her, so Beverly turned and pushed through the door and then stepped into the kitchen. Over her shoulder, Richard said to Mom, “I’m here to help set the table.”
“You’d better not,” Mom said. “This house might not stand the shock. No man has ever offered to do such a thing since this place was built.”
“Well . . . let’s chance it. I’ve got at least one hand that works pretty well.”
“And it’s better than being interrogated by my husband. Right?”
“Oh, no. It’s not that.” But he laughed a little more than he really needed to.
Mom got out dinner plates from the kitchen cabinet, and Richard carried them out to the table. As he passed Beverly, he whispered, “I’d better not drop these and break them.” He smiled and winked. She felt a tingle rise up her back, and she knew she was blushing again. She wanted to think of something funny to say, but she swallowed the stupid words that did come to mind, and as usual she said nothing at all.
By the time the table was set, and Mom had helped carry the food out, Beverly had had to pass by Richard half a dozen times, but she hadn’t looked again—she didn’t want to blush anymore. She had seen enough to last her for now anyway.
But then LaRue arrived. “Hi,” she said, “I’m LaRue.” She had stopped, was standing stiff, and it wasn’t like her to sound so out of breath.
“I’m Richard.” LaRue didn’t move toward him. She just looked. “Wow, LaRue,�
�� Richard said, “you’re as pretty as Bobbi said you were.”
Beverly felt the blow, knew the truth.
And by then LaRue had found her tongue. “Bobbi? I never heard of anyone named Bobbi. But I’m free tonight.”
Beverly couldn’t believe it. How could LaRue say such a thing? It was so embarrassing. But Richard was doing the prettiest thing Beverly had ever seen. He was blushing. “Actually, I do have a date,” he said. “And she’s a good cook.” He looked at Sister Thomas and smiled.
“You’d better try my pot roast before you make a decision,” Bea said. But Beverly could see that her mother was turning into butter right before her eyes. That was even more embarrassing.
“If it’s as good as it smells, I’m sure I’ll love it,” Richard said. He was now avoiding all the eyes that were on him.
Even LaRue seemed to know she had gone too far. “It’s fun to meet you after hearing about you for such a long time,” she said politely.
“Well, thanks. That’s how I feel too. Bobbi sure loves her family.”
Dad came into the room then, and after Mom dashed back to the kitchen one more time for a serving spoon, everyone sat down. Dad said the blessing, praying a little too long, as usual. He even blessed Richard’s “injured hands.” Beverly worried that might make Richard feel awkward. She noticed how quietly Richard spoke, afterward, when he said, “Sister Thomas, I’m wondering if you could do something for me. I can eat all right, one-handed, once I have food on my plate. But if you could maybe fix up a plate for me—and cut up my meat—that sure helps.”
“Oh, sure. I should have thought of that.”
“How did you get a roast, anyway? My mom said that meat is the hardest thing to get these days.”
“Connections,” Dad said, and he laughed. “I got that directly from the source—a friend of mine who raises cattle.”
“So you’re into the black market, are you, Dad?” LaRue asked.
“Well, not exactly.” But he actually did seem a little embarrassed, and all Beverly could think was that LaRue had done it again. The girl could be such a sap sometimes.
As everyone else passed the food around, Richard asked about Wally, and Brother and Sister Thomas told him what they knew—which was almost nothing. Beverly loved the soft way Richard spoke, the richness of his voice, even the attentive way he listened.
“There’s someone else I wanted to ask you about,” Richard said. “Bobbi told me about a Japanese fellow who was a friend of your family—and about his brother who was interned in California. What’s happened to them?”
“Well,” Dad said, “Mat has done all right. He’s grown his fruit and stayed pretty much to himself. He can tell you stories about being treated pretty badly sometimes, but he lets it go and just goes about his business. But Ike is still in the internment camp. Some are starting to be released, but Ike, with a wife and a baby, is still sitting in that camp, waiting to start his life. From what Mat says, Ike has a pretty good attitude about it. Both of them just want a chance, after the war, to prove what good citizens they are.”
Richard was chewing. He waited a moment and then said, “I’ve been reading the Deseret News since I got back to Utah, and I notice every day that ten or twenty boys—sometimes more—are listed as either killed, missing in action, or wounded. What surprises me is to see how many Japanese boys from around here have been killed or wounded. During that last week of the war in Europe, I saw a Japanese boy from the 442nd listed—killed in action—and his parents’ address was an internment camp in Alabama.”
“I know,” President Thomas said. “I saw that too.”
“Can you imagine how those parents must feel?” Sister Thomas asked.
“There are lots of different kinds of victims of this war,” Richard said. “When you’re out there in the battle, you don’t realize how many of them are back at home.”
“What I hope is that people will give Ike and boys like him a chance,” President Thomas said. “But when we land in Japan, we’re going to lose thousands—hundreds of thousands of lives—and I hate to think how much anger that’s going to create in this country.”
“But we don’t hate Germans who are Americans,” LaRue said.
“I know. That’s what Mat told me a long time ago. And he’s right.”
“You used to say that we had to have those camps. You know you did.”
Beverly couldn’t believe it. Why did LaRue always have to spout off like that? Richard was ducking his head, and poor Beverly could see how hard Dad was trying not to react. “In the beginning it did seem right to me, LaRue,” he said. “It was partly for the protection of the Japanese people themselves, and we didn’t know—some of them might have been spies.”
“No one has ever caught a single Jap spying in this country. My teacher told me that in civics class.”
“I know, LaRue. I think Ike—and all the rest of them—should be released now.”
“Sure, you—”
“LaRue, don’t,” Beverly said, the words popping out unexpectedly.
“Don’t what?” she said.
“We’ll talk about it some other time,” Dad said, and Beverly saw him glance at Richard with a “you know how teenagers can be” kind of glance. But then he said, “Richard, how much longer will you be in the navy?”
LaRue was glaring at Beverly, but Beverly didn’t care. LaRue didn’t have to cause trouble all the time, start fights right in front of someone like Richard, who just getting to know the family.
“I don’t know,” Richard answered. “I’m going back to San Francisco for one more operation, and then I’ll be at Bushnell again for more skin grafts. I’m thinking it still might be two or three more months.”
“What are you going to do after that?”
“I’m not exactly sure about that either, President Thomas.” Richard took a sip from his water glass. “I am planning to go back to college for a while.”
“But you have your college degree, don’t you?”
“I do. But I’m not sure I want to be an engineer now—or whether I can be. So I want to look at some other possibilities.”
“A guy like you, who’s served as an officer, has a lot of management skills. You’d be a natural in business.”
“Well . . . not really. I tried to do my job as an officer, but I was anything but a natural. As much as anything, it showed me what I wasn’t good at.”
“But the business world is a lot different from the military. A fellow like you could get in at the right time and do very well.”
“Richard knows himself, Al,” Mom said. “He knows what he’s interested in.” Then she turned to him. “I want so much to meet your mother. Tell me about your family.”
Beverly was relieved, in a way. Mom had gotten Dad away from asking too many questions, but she had hurt Dad’s feelings, too. Bev could see that in her father’s eyes.
For a time Richard talked about his parents, about growing up in Springville, but when dinner was over and everyone was still sitting at the table, Richard cleared his throat and, with some hesitation in his voice that was obvious to Beverly, said, “I do want to tell you something. I wrote Bobbi a while back, and I told her that I didn’t feel that I should hold her to our engagement. My life is kind of up in the air right now, and I’m not sure I’m much of a catch.” He looked at Dad. “Your family is doing very well, and I’m just not sure I’m going to be able to meet those kinds of standards—if you know what I mean. So I told Bobbi that it might be better if we wait until she gets home before we settle anything for sure.”
Beverly felt sick—and scared that someone was about to say the wrong thing. But Mom said, “Richard, you and Bobbi have to work all that out. But I can tell you right now, we already love you, and we welcome you to our family.”
And then Beverly’s voice acted on its own again. “Yes, we really do,” she said. But the words had come out sounding entirely too sincere, even a little dreamy. Beverly heard the tone in her own voice, and sh
e was engulfed in humiliation.
But Richard reached across the table, touched her hand, and said, “Thanks, Bev.” And then he smiled. “When you blush like that, I can just see Bobbi. I guess I’ll have to come and see you often—so I won’t feel so lonely.”
But now, just when she needed it, Beverly’s voice had quit again. She wanted to say, “You’re welcome here anytime,” or something else really nice, but she couldn’t even look at him. What was going through her head was a little fantasy. Bobbi would choose not to marry him, and Beverly would . . . but that was stupid even to think about.
Chapter 23
“We’ve got a mess on our hands here in Germany, Lieutenant Thomas. It’s ten times—a hundred times—worse than I ever imagined. We don’t even know where to start working on all the problems.”
“I got some idea of it on the way here,” Alex said.
“No. You didn’t. You thought you did, but there’s no way to grasp the whole picture. I read the reports, look at the numbers, but I can’t start to comprehend what it means.”
Alex nodded, but he actually thought he did understand more than Colonel Whitefield thought he did. Alex had known this country before, and as he had traveled by jeep across much of it to Frankfurt, he had understood more than others might. The cities were graveyards, with gutted buildings standing like rows of tombstones among the rubble. The devastation was more complete, more pervasive, than Alex had expected, but what had shocked him most deeply were the German people. This was now a nation of women and children, with almost no men to be seen anywhere, and the faces of those women, those children, were all the evidence Alex needed. He saw their ragged clothes, their emaciated bodies, but he comprehended even more in their resolute expressions. The people were hungry, of course, and disheartened; they survived only by the force of sheer determination. Never had it occurred to Alex that the victory could be so complete.
Alex was sitting in a beautiful room, what had once been a bedroom in a luxurious villa outside Frankfurt. Elements of his new military unit had taken it over and turned it into a headquarters. Colonel Whitefield was with the army Counter Intelligence Corps, and Alex’s understanding was that he would be working on a “denazification” project, part of the Allied “big three” agreement to govern Germany and bring it back into the world of civilized nations. Germans were to be “democratized” and “demilitarized” and forced to pay reparations for the war. Leading Nazis had to be found and punished, and local Nazi leaders had to be removed from public influence. All the people, but especially young people, were to be reeducated to understand the falsehoods they had been taught, and to accept the guilt for what their nation had done.
