A Place We Knew Well

by Susan Carol McCarthy

  He checked the clock again. Yesterday, she’d slept half the day away. Would she do the same today? And which Sarah would she be when she woke up?

  —

  SHOWERED, SHAVED, AND DRESSED for work, he stood on the protected stoop under the carport, contemplating the amount of rain between him and his plastic-bagged newspaper out on the drive. On the stoop, half a dozen foil-capped milk bottles glistened with water droplets in their aluminum wire crate. Simms must have come while he was in the shower. Avery was sorry to have missed him and whatever air base update he might have offered.

  Lousy day to be a milkman, he thought, retrieving the crate, deciding he’d pick up his paper on the drive out.

  By nine-forty, Charlotte still wasn’t up. Avery was reluctant to wake her. Still, he needed to know what her plans were today. More specifically, he needed her to keep an eye on Sarah while he was at work. He frowned over the notepad. It was their family custom to leave messages for each other on the kitchen counter. If he slipped it under her door, Charlotte might miss it. But what if, for some reason, Sarah got up first? Avery thought about that, then wrote:

  Good morning, Sleeping Beauties. Please call me soon as you’re up. Love, Dad/W.

  Backing out in the rain, he maneuvered the truck to the right of the plastic-wrapped newspaper, opened his door, scooped it up, and tossed it onto the seat beside him. When he arrived at the station, he removed the Sentinel from its wrapper and unfolded it on the desk beside The New York Times Steve had purchased on his way in. Avery read the matching headlines and felt the news like the point of a spear pressed against his chest.

  RUSSIANS SPEED BUILDING OF MISSILE SITES IN CUBA, the Sentinel blared.

  US FINDS CUBA SPEEDING BUILD-UP OF BASES, WARNS OF FURTHER ACTION, the Times read. Construction of the Soviet bases “was proceeding at a rapid rate with the apparent intention of achieving a full operational capacity as soon as possible. High officials said that such work could not be allowed to continue indefinitely,” the lead paragraph informed him.

  “Do these guys want a war?” he asked aloud, dumbfounded.

  “Looks like it, don’t it?” Steve’s hound-dog face looked grimmer than he’d ever seen it.

  What were the Soviets thinking? And how would the brass hats respond?

  Avery’s eyes scanned the rest of the story, past the White House demands and the UN concerns, looking for the Pentagon’s reaction. It was there, in the Times’ final paragraphs:

  Two Thors, the 1,500-mile intermediate-range ballistic missile, were used in scientific booster missions, one in the launching of a nuclear device over Johnston Island in the Pacific last midnight, and the other in the launching of an unidentified satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

  Also at Vandenberg, an Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with a credited range of 6,000 miles, was launched in a “routine training” test. Titan II ICBM was launched 5,000 miles in a development test at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the Pentagon said.

  Avery heard the quickening drumbeat inside each sentence, the rattling of the Joint Chiefs’ sabers over who controlled the fate of the world. His mind flashed on the combined memory of bombs stacked head-high as far as the eye could see and General Curtis LeMay’s glowering, cigar-chomping swagger. Somewhere, he imagined the bonfire of Bombs Away LeMay’s war lust leaping into full flame. Will the other Chiefs follow? Will our too young, untested President let them?

  Wasn’t this exactly what Ike warned us about in his farewell speech? The old soldier understood the momentum of war, how swiftly the reporting of enemy outrages, the public outcry for action, the Joint Chiefs’ assurances of a fast and easy victory could sweep us all into the ultimate debacle.

  Avery attempted a deep breath to steady himself, but the fear of clear and imminent disaster seemed to have sucked all the air out of the room.

  —

  CHARLOTTE CALLED IN AT ten twenty-seven.

  “Hey, kiddo, how was the party after the parade?”

  “It was fabulous, Dad. A bunch of us made plans to take Emilio water skiing on Lake Fairview today. But with all this rain, I guess that’s off.”

  On any other day, Avery might have noted the addition of a new event, outside homecoming, to his daughter’s and Emilio’s schedule—and the expansion of mutual interest it represented—but not today.

  “Mom up yet?”

  “No.”

  Although Steve was out of earshot and Sarah was apparently still asleep, he and Charlotte slipped into a kind of conspiratorial code talk. She agreed on the need to “keep an eye out,” and he insisted she call him “if anything seems sideways.” Neither of them was willing or able, Avery realized, to address Sarah’s erratic behavior yesterday directly. It was obvious that their shared but unspoken hope was that she’d wake up today and be herself again; though the chances of that happening, Avery feared, were slim.

  Out front, the stream of evacuee traffic had swollen with the rain into a rushing river of headlights streaming north.

  Working opposite sides of the pumps, Avery and Steve tended the ones who peeled off briefly for a quick infusion of five gallons of gas. The cars were crowded, but the people inside were eerily silent. Grim-lipped men sat behind the wheel, their round-eyed wives beside them and blank-faced kids clutching the family dog or cat or the occasional grandparent in the back. Eager to rejoin the pack, most of them waved off his offer to check their oil, handed over their cash, and were gone, leaving the smell of their fear ripe in his nostrils.

  At half past eleven, Avery checked the fuel chart, tallied the receipts, and could no longer ignore the obvious. He went to the storeroom, got out the paint, a brush, and a pair of blank posters, and prepared the signs:

  OUT OF GAS—

  SERVICE BAYS OPEN

  TILL 6 PM

  In a break in the action out at the pumps, Steve stood beside him and mentioned, a bit too casually, his eyes on the paintbrush: “Didn’t see you outside the bank yesterday.”

  Avery attempted nonchalance. “Sarah was running a little late. We wound up watching at the corner of Edgewater and Bryn Mawr.”

  “Charlotte looked great.”

  “Yes,” Avery agreed, relieved to have the conversation veer off Sarah. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “Lilly thought so, too. Had a kinda crazy idea”—Steve paused, rubbed his chin thoughtfully—“that something about Charlotte—she couldn’t put her finger on it—sort of favored Wild Rose of Sharon.”

  Kitty? Avery stilled his brush.

  “Kinda crazy?”

  “I know,” Steve said, scratching an eyebrow. “But all dressed up—like a movie star almost—I could kinda see…” The question—Who is Kitty, really?—hung unasked between them.

  Avery resumed painting while he considered his options. Without Lilly, he might have told Steve the truth. The stalwart bantam rooster of a man was, after all, his best friend. But Lilly was a wild card who leaped to conclusions and, to his mind, talked too much.

  Avery shrugged. “I never even laid eyes on Kitty Ayres around here…till the other day. You?”

  “Nope,” Steve replied. “I surely would’ve remembered that if I had!” He grinned, allowing Avery to squirm gratefully off the hook.

  —

  AT EXACTLY NOON, LILLY’S flaming red Firebird rolled into the shelter of the station’s canopy. She and Steve had made plans to walk across the street for a meal at the Rexall lunch counter; but because of the rain, still coming down in sheets, they decided to drive.

  Avery stood at the pumps and watched them go, watched the Firebird nose its insistent way cross-stream, saw the river of northbound traffic close up behind them.

  Watching the continuous flow of cars and humanity passing him by, Avery felt oddly isolated and left behind. When his father died, their farmhouse had filled up with people—county neighbors and far-flung relatives—who, after the funeral and the big potluck, left him and his mother standing on the porch, w
atching their waving processional slide away like a giant snake into the distance.

  His mother’s hands, with long, pale fingers grasping the porch railing, were beside his. He remembered reaching out to touch the white knob of her wrist protruding beneath her dyed-black cuff. His gesture startled her and she jerked away, red-rimmed eyes suddenly round with surprise that he was still standing there. Where else would I be? he’d wondered.

  “Now what?” his ten-year-old self asked her.

  “I have no idea,” she’d answered hollowly and looked away, leaving him to feel the hard yoke of her loneliness descend on him as well.

  Wearily, Avery turned toward the office. He’d resolved to check in with Sarah’s doctor, but this was the first spare moment he’d had all morning. He retrieved the phone book from the lower desk drawer and was scanning the M’s for Martell when the phone at his elbow went off with a sudden, insistent ring.

  “Dad, Mr. Beauchamp just called. He says the field’s a soggy mess so they’ve canceled the game.”

  “Too bad. What about the dance?”

  “It’s still on, in the gym.”

  “And the ceremony?”

  “Eight o’clock, in the gym.”

  “Oh-kay.” Avery’s mind leaped to Kitty. Would she insist on coming to the gym?

  “The thing is, Dad, Mr. Beauchamp wanted Mom to call her list of band parents, let them know the game is off.”

  “And, your mother is…”

  “In the living room. She asked not to be disturbed. She’s got her head in the stereo, listening to the same song over and over.”

  “What song?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. Something foreign. German maybe?”

  “Like opera?”

  “Yeah, something like that. And, Dad—” Charlotte took a deep breath. Avery heard it and braced himself. “—she’s crying her eyes out. Can you come?”

  “Steve’s out to lunch. I’ll leave as soon he gets back.”

  “Okay. Please hurry, Dad.”

  —

  “GOOD AFTERNOON. CHERRY PLAZA HOTEL.”

  “Yes.” Avery cleared his throat. “I’m calling one of your guests. Miss Ayres, Kitty Ayres?”

  “One moment, please…I’m sorry, sir. Miss Ayres doesn’t answer. May I take a message?”

  “No message. Thank you.”

  He strode to the office doorway, peered across the street for the return of the red Firebird. He considered calling Bo Hammond to summon Steve and Lilly back to the station; but he had enough on his plate without setting off another round of Lilly’s suspicions. Besides, they were due back at one and it was already twelve forty-seven.

  Thirteen minutes, he thought, plus the four-minute drive home. Surely Sarah and Charlotte would be okay till then.

  Intent on the traffic, he was surprised to find his view suddenly blocked by the side panel of a large white truck, and to hear, magnified beneath the rain-enclosed canopy, the keening squeal of the Divco brakes.

  Milkman Jimmy Simms sat slumped in his seat. His face, normally ruddy, was drained of color. His eyes stared blindly ahead; both hands gripped the wheel tightly. On the dash beside him, the microphone of his two-way radio squawked static.

  Was he having a heart attack? “Jimmy, you okay?”

  Simms’s eyes floated in Avery’s direction but failed to focus.

  Avery put a hand on Simms’s shoulder. “Jimmy? You all right?”

  “They lost one,” Simms said, his tone disbelieving.

  “One what, Jimmy?”

  “One of them turkey buzzard planes you were so hot to see. Took off early. Didn’t come back. Sonuvabitch Castro shot it down, just like Powers over Russia!”

  “A U-2?”

  Simms nodded. “Not one of them black ones, though. Buddy at the barn says they’re all there. Musta been a silver.”

  With the lone air force star. Avery flinched in alarm. Shooting down an air force plane was a clear-cut act of war. And no doubt the very thing LeMay and the other Chiefs had been hungering for.

  This was the trumpet’s call to the final horror—a war of missiles that, once started, would be over before most people even knew it had begun.

  —

  RACING HOME, HIS SPIRITS in a sickening spiral, Avery tried to recall what he’d told Steve about needing to go, about not coming back for the rest of the day. He failed.

  In fact, turning onto his own street, he realized he remembered nothing of the mile-and-a-half drive except his quick stop at the empty cottage to scribble a note to Kitty: Game canceled on account of rain. Sarah not well. Had to go. Sorry, Wes.

  The air inside the cab was too close and, with the defroster blasting, too warm. Avery felt chased by the downpour of rain, trapped behind the slap of the wipers on the windshield and the rain-muffled roar and whine of jet engines overhead. He swung into his own driveway a bit too quickly and felt the truck’s rear end give way in the curve. He braked into his usual space under the carport, took the truck out of gear, and nearly opened his door into Charlotte, who’d come rushing out of the house.

  “She’s gone bonkers, Dad!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All I did was offer to make her a sandwich and she looked at me like she’d seen a ghost—”

  “A ghost? What did she say?”

  “Nothing, Dad. She just ran out the door, onto the back porch, and started yelling at the poor parakeets!”

  “Still there?”

  “No. After that, she ran outside. She’s out there now…standing in the rain! I tried…I really tried to get her to come in, but…she wouldn’t come.” Charlotte was weeping.

  He reached out and gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Okay, Kitten. I’ll go out and talk to her. Meanwhile, you drive up to Doc Mike’s. Tell him we need him right away.”

  She wilted with relief. “I called Mr. Beauchamp back. Told him Mom was sick and somebody else needed to make her calls.”

  “Good thinking, kiddo.”

  “I tried calling Emilio, too. To let him know about the game,” she said in a rush, climbing into the truck, “but nobody’s answering out at the camp.”

  Were they evacuating the Pedro Pans? Where to? “How ’bout after Mike’s, you run by the Catholic church. Look up the priest—Thomas is his name.”

  “Father Tom? Of course. Well, maybe…” She touched the side of her head and nibbled her lip, torn between the desire to go and the need to return. “If you think…”

  He held up a palm, waved her away. Go, it said. “We’ll be fine,” he promised, and hoped he wasn’t lying.

  He was halfway across the covered back porch when he finally saw her through the rain-streaked screen. The unlikeliness of the scene stopped him short.

  Sarah, who routinely took baths instead of showers because she disliked “water splashing on my face,” stood, face raised to the downpour, hair and rain streaming down her back. Sarah, who never emerged from their bedroom without robe and slippers, stood barefoot on the grass, her sleeveless, rain-soaked nightgown cupping her buttocks and clinging to her legs. Her long, bare arms were outstretched toward the lake, flapping wildly like wings, and she was calling urgently, inexplicably, “Shoo! Go on! You’re free!”

  None of this made any sense to Avery. Until he saw, beside her on the grass, the three birdcages, doors ajar, pegs empty.

  For reasons known only to her, Sarah had set all three of her parakeets free in the middle of a downpour.

  Avery grabbed the cotton lap robe from the chaise. Sarah startled at the sound of the door and stepped farther down the lawn, her arms flapping more wildly. “Shoo!”

  A spooked horse can’t be forced, he’d learned in his childhood. You have to show it your respect, and gentle it back into the barn.

  “Come in now, Sarah,” he said softly, draping the robe gently over her shoulders. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

  Rivulets of water striped her face. Rain or tears? It was impossible to tell. He reached out,
tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “Come back into the house, darlin’.”

  She swung around to face him. Her eyes were coal black again and red-veined with misery. He wanted to fold her in his arms, carry her inside the way you would a terrified child. But the determined jut of her chin warned him away from trying.

  “Catch my death? I’m half-dead already!” She stood her ground—though she was trembling all over, her teeth chattering—and let the robe fall to the grass.

  Rain streamed down her body, over the two small mounds of her breasts, parting around each dark nipple, visible through the thin, wet nightgown.

  “Please, darlin’,” he urged softly, stretching out one hand, placing the other lightly at her back. He could feel her heartbeat racing between her ribs. “Come in with me.”

  “I let them go, Wes.”

  “I see that.”

  “I wanted songbirds. Canaries! But I let the guy at the shop talk me into parakeets. I settled, Wes. And I never heard a single note out of any one of them. Nothing but Ack! Ack! Ack! and ARK! ARK! ARK! I just couldn’t stand it anymore! I’m done, Wesss.” She’d stiffened with warning, and pronounced his name with an unnerving hiss. “I’m done settling….”

  “Nice rain we’re having, don’t you think?”

  Avery turned. Mike Martell stood beside them, doctor’s bag in one hand and a large orange-and-blue golf umbrella in the other.

  “Oh, yes, isn’t it!” Sarah warbled, a now smiling coquette.

  Martell handed Avery his bag and umbrella and said, “Perhaps you could open the door and…” He took Sarah’s hand and slipped it under his arm, escort-style. “A blanket sounds nice, doesn’t it?” He patted her hand. “Maybe some hot coffee?”

  Sarah made a flirt’s pouty face. “Not coffee. Chocolate. Hot chocolate. With marshmallows on top!”

  Avery held the umbrella high over their heads while Martell slowly, ceremoniously walked her toward the door and out of the rain.

  Stepping in behind them, he set down the doctor’s things, rushed off to grab a blanket, towels, and Sarah’s robe and slippers. He thrust the bulk of it to Martell, save the robe, which he draped around her shoulders, then headed to the kitchen to put on coffee plus a small pan of milk for hot chocolate. Once he had those started, he dashed into their bedroom to exchange his own drenched clothes for dry ones.