by Elyse Lortz
“Have I not written you letters? Have I not expressed my affections each and every day I have been absent from your life?”
“You have written me words, Brendan. You always give me words, but even a cad can do that. Don’t you understand? I want you. You. Not some feeble representations of your feelings, but something more substantial that could tide me over until I see you again. Else . . .” Her voice drifted away into the evening dim, but the sun was only beginning to rise on Brendan’s anger.
“‘Else’ what?” Natasha unclasped her hands from behind his neck and settled them on his lapels.
“There are other men in the world. And I should consider my options before I reach the dreaded spinsterhood.”
“Natasha, be honest with me. Is there another—”
“—of course not, Brendan, but we’re not getting any younger and I have half a dozen friends who are already married and are working on their third child. We aren’t even engaged. So what is it? What do you want after the war? A life of passion with me here, or your life of study in England?”
CHAPTER NINE
I turned down one street and onto another, not bothering to learn the names or directions of either one. It was of no importance where I went, just so long as I kept increasing the distance between myself and Keane. The argument did not bother me in the slightest. With him, such squalls were a way of life. More often than not, they were rather entertaining when one reflected on the long moment spent bickering over both the superfluous and commanding. However, as I dodged out of the harrowing path of a fruit cart, I had no intention of looking behind me.
The audacity of the man. To think I would suggest marriage of all things. Never had I even considered such an outlandish thing. Or, on the few—very few—occasions when I had, they were nothing more than brief glimpses of ‘what if’. Often they were gone by morning as a dream that never came or a nightmare that was not quite so frightening as one may first imagine. In either case, I most certainly never would say such a thing out loud. Thank God I hadn’t, else that entire situation would have been made all the worse. Worse than that pitying look that made one feel entirely useless against the world. Worse than the warmth of his hands on my shoulders. It was worse than most anything in the world, save his disappointment.
When we met again, the conversation would be nonexistent, as if it had never occurred and shaken our fragile world. Perhaps it had not. Perhaps the obstinate man had asked something innocent and kind; something that could not force our world into trembling shards. Yes, he was obstinate. And the most infuriating, aggravating, sarcastic, damnable, and temperamental man I had the ill-fortune of meeting.
And yet I could not help but adore him.
However, in the shadow of doubt and as I wound up and down the obnoxious, pulsating streets of morning, I could do nothing but hate myself for this weakness.
ABOUT AN HOUR OR SO later I had cooled enough not to bash the face of any person who said ‘hello’.
Hello.
Not ‘good morning’ or even ‘good afternoon’. They said ‘hello’. How entirely American.
I turned down an alley, popped up at another road, and came face to face with a colorful diner with bright, spindly lights that, in a twist of glass and metal, spelled out a single word. Dilly’s. A loud string of music escaped through the walls and poured out into the street. Trumpets blared while drums pounded out some intelligible rhythm that wreaked of life and energy. I shoved Keane far out of my mind.
Damn the man, I was going to enjoy myself.
A small bell above the door announced my presence to the dozen of other young people who peppered the booths and stools. A few high-pitched girls gathered around a jukebox in the corner, stuffing coins into the overworked machine until it blared out the newest songs. The tin, lifeless noise was hardly a consolation to my battered brain. Voices became only scratches of steal, and horns a shriek for sanity. As I sat down at the long, metal counter, I found myself examining the linoleum at my feet. Large white and black squares checkered the floor before vanishing at the painted walls. They were so different. Complete opposites, in fact. But they were also the same; the same size, same shape, same design. To a buffoon, they were to be separated, but to a wise man, they were meant to band together to create a much broader picture.
Life.
“What would ya like?” I glanced up to face a scrawny, ruddy-faced boy grinning from behind the multiple levers of the soda fountain. Sharp, brown sticks pricked outward around his white cap, and the black bow tie of his uniform did nothing if not accentuate an all too prominent Adam's apple. What truly struck me as odd was his eyes. They were not an exceptionally unusual colour, but different colors themselves. The right one was a rather dull green, while the left a gentle brown that only made his standard Californian tan more noticeable. I smiled wearily.
“What would you suggest.” The boy didn’t even blink.
“Our burgers are good.”
“I’ll have one of those then, and coffee too.”
“Sure thing.” The boy disappeared and I was again submerged into my surroundings. It was so entirely American, and yet I found nothing displeasing about the affair. Every so often I even recognised a voice crackling through the room. It was not my own environment, but I could accept it as much, should the need arise.
Perhaps there was good reason to say America was made for the young.
The food came when I was into my second cup of coffee and I was soon entrapped in the almost film-like innocence. I was the young child who had run away. I had run away to the little diner where you could buy a feast for a pocket full of coins and listen to music that would either make you smile or deafen you into stupidity. The only sign of true existence—my existence—was a set of eyes resting on my shoulder as I slowly mopped a chip (or were they fries here?) through a receding pond of ketchup.
“You aren’t from here, are you?” I glanced up at the boy, uncomfortably aware of his optical abnormalities as he spoke. His voice was not of poor quality or annoying by any means, but it held some undertones—an odd lilt—I couldn’t quite place. I swept another fried potato through the red paint splattered across my plate.
“Not here, no.”
“I didn’t think so. Your voice is different. More—what’s the word—refined. Are you from England?” Idaho? No. Missouri? No, that wasn’t it either. Further east perhaps?
“I have spent some time there, yes.” The boy nodded toward my jacket.
“Did you fight for ‘em?” I fingered the worn bits of leather toward the edge of the sleeves.
“No. It was a relation’s.”
“Oh.” The young man’s multi-colored eyes darted immediately to the floor. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—that is, er—I lost my brother in the Air Force.”
“The world lost a lot of good men.” I stated simply. Then, as if we had said all we could on the matter, I thrust out my hand with a nod.
“My name’s Jo Lawrence, by the way.” The boy completed the handshake.
“I’m Frank. Like the singer. ‘Cept my last name’s Collins. Have you ever heard him sing?” I mentally scrubbed through my exhausted brain until I fell upon the only reliable conclusion: the vocal shooting star.
“All the time. I take it you do too?” Frank grinned from ear to ear and stabbed his thumb backwards into his ribcage.
“Sure I do. I came from the same town as him: Hoboken, New Jersey.” New Jersey. So that was it. It certainly explained his tendency to pronounce his ‘er’s as ‘oi’s. “There’s a heck of a lot of things in New Jersey, but California has something that li’l state’ll never have.”
“And that is?”
“Sun. Lot’s and lots of sun. Not to mention . . .” Frank leaned over the counter with a grin and nodded toward the high-strung group surrounding the thumping jukebox. “ . . . Girls.” I laughed, a short biting sound that made the little man hunched over in a booth writhe in surprise. If most any other person had said such a thing, I wo
uld easily have reached over the counter and grabbed his lapels until his face turned blue, but this young man held that uncanny ability to communicate the unspeakable.
That too, I thought, was strictly American.
As if summoned, a woman, perhaps a few years younger than I, climbed onto the stool to my left and waved her hand to order. It was my cue. I downed the final dregs of my coffee, dropped a fistful of change onto the metal counter, and left the bright little diner.
I wandered about for some time after that, not wishing to return to the beach house while still overwhelmed by the sheer size of my surroundings. ‘Large’ did not so much as scrape the surface, and ‘enormous’ came only marginally closer. I was not more than an insect placed beneath the heat of a microscope and society’s scrutinous eye. A few people glanced casually in my direction. Others stared. Some did both. I was well acquainted with these discomforts that were often magnified when striding beside Keane. It was not quite so despicable here, for indeed to not know a person is to remain oblivious to their opinion. And yet, there were those—damn that Miss Smith—whose tongues God had made too large and their brains too small. (In select cases I suspected the good lord had forgotten the latter entirely.)
I passed a druggist’s, a tobacconist's, a hotel, several shops, a grocer’s, a barber’s, and several cinemas before turning right along a street crammed with bodies bashing into each other with heated words and snide remarks.
Wonderful.
I edged through these with as much dignity as any human being may accomplish after charging headlong into a scruffy sailor, brushing the arm of a prissy man in clothes bereft of all signs of work, and apologizing profusely to an old lady who, even in her flickering years, still had quite the mouth on her. It was a hideous, wrinkled, filthy, and toothless mouth, but a mouth all the same. Her dry lips were not but a stiff line carved into dark, rotting wood. Her bark-like skin seemed eager to fall away and leave nothing but a described skeleton well past burial. I have always had the same amount of luck with understanding old women as I have young men: none. Perhaps that is why I was satisfied with my nonexistent marriage status and avoided social events as one would a plague. The old women always want the young ones to marry quickly, while the young men want the same for their own advantage. Both ideas were entirely useless unless one was trying to dramatically increase the surplus population, or decrease it exponentially by those who sought a desperate end. In either case, the result was appalling.
I dug my heels in near the end of the street and turned away from the thrashing crowds with their high-pitched exclamations and violent frames. From that point I turned West toward the sea, walked leisurely for a mile or so, before deflecting sharply from the waves. I did; however, stride quickly toward a book shop.
In all the world, books are very much the same; pages bound together with the glue of knowledge and the mustiness of time and tragedy. An author myself, I knew all too well the exhausting effort that occurred between the first, brief spark of an idea to the finality of that hard-covered book, or, to Keane, the intellectual manuscript read by scholars throughout the world. We were well-met, he and I; two minds wallowing in the intellectual deprivation of modern society while still clinging to some form of sanity.
It was never much of a decision about which section to begin with when it came to books. I bounded from thrillers to poetry, and murders to tragedies. Between the four, there was little they did not share. What poetry does not speak of thrilling moments? What murder does not mean a tragidy harolded by man’s fist? Many of the names were familiar to me, be it by a fondness for their work or a recommendation through Keane. I also recalled a select few from some rather unfortunate moments plotted in the dull beginnings of a child’s education.
Plucking a volume from the dusty shelves, I leaned my shoulder against the wood and began flipping idly through the first few pages. There were those tepid few that lacked steam and drive ( . . . oh but flowers, how they weep, and how the winds do blow, and if I pull them one by one, there shall not be a row . . . ) or ( . . . and with the waving, whipping winds I trudged upon the dew, and though I saw it many times it was still fresh and new . . . ). These ripped at my soul as a dull blade would my flesh; the stupidity of it all was excruciating. I had nothing against flowers, though I was not particularly fond of the symbolism of such things, nor did I scorn the summer winds that rolled lazily across the sea. They were forces of nature enjoyable when one had the proper time and company. But, ah—
I stared down at the page open in my hands with an impish grin smeared across my features. God, it would infuriate him. It would send him into a whirlwind of words best left on a merchant’s vessel. By George, he could drop of a heart attack within seconds.
Marvelous.
I soon left the little shop with the book pinned under my arm, only to bow beneath a sheeting of soaking rain. I rushed along the megre shelter of shop awnings, my shoulders and head soon claimed by the downpour. What had begun as a clear day had suddenly demoralized itself into the dreary English climate. I sped along with my spine hunched low as my clothing clung to my flesh. Where the morning had been hot, the droplets of water smacked my neck with a biting cold I had met in Ireland. My blood turned to ash at the memory and I immediately waved down a taxi. Though my muscles jerked with the incident upon our arrival, I was overjoyed to note the man behind the wheel was not smoking those hideous cigars. He was; however, well equipped with a heavy raincoat and the collar pulled up around his neck. His hat was pulled low over his brow, but that was not unusual. Few things were in this country. My mouth was half open, ready to give the address of the beach house, but a quick glance at my billfold sent that hope far out of my head. Damn. Why hadn’t I brought a bit more, rather than stashing it in a dresser drawer like a child?
“Caldwell Theatre.” I instructed the figure behind the wheel. A compromise. It was not so far I would pay a small fortune, and it most certainly had a telephone I could use. If I didn’t feel up to calling Keane—God, what a joke he’d make of it all—I could wait until the squall passed then walk back. It wasn’t unreasonably far and, as Keane had so eloquently pointed out, I was still considerably young in my own life. I sat back against the jaunting seats, allowing myself to be lulled by the rain pattering against the windows. Peeling my jacket from my shoulders, I laid it over my legs and pressed my forehead to the glass. What a world it was out there; constantly changing and shifting with every human whim or fancy. Where there had been horses there were cars. Candles became electric lights. Dirt became pavement. And life? Life was nothing more than a facade made real by millions believing it so. What fools we were to think it would last; that this chaotic tranquility would continue as we wished. Perhaps it was the war which had stolen logic from our minds, or perhaps it was only an excuse for us to do what we had in the beginning. We were not but people. We were not gods, nor lords, nor any other sense of devine royalty. And yet we thought we were. So often we believed the world was ours; that we were the nucleus to all that had been in existence since time itself began.
What fools we were.
I was not aware the vehicle had sputtered to a halt until the figure in the driver’s seat caused the springs to creak. Shoving a few bills into his wrinkled hand, I bounded up the steps leading to the theatre doors. Locked.
Damn.
I ran back to the taxi just as it began to pull away and threw myself into its odorous clutches. My soaked clothes weighing me down, I fell back against the seats with a heavy sigh. Like clockwork, the motor growled to life and began skittering along the roads.
“Where to, Miss? I know a good place to get warm and catch a bite, if you want?” I smiled.
“That would be wonderful.” And indeed it would. Warmth is most always, a thing of bliss, but when it comes with the promise of food, that is truly heaven. I once more settled back into the seats, more at ease with myself then I had been for some time. My mind relaxed into oblivion until the car sputtered to a stop just betwe
en two claustrophobic walls darkened by shadow and fear.
“Where is this?”
“Right where ya wanted. There’s a place just down the road there.” I squinted out through the sheets of rain.
“Road? That isn’t a road, it’s a blasted alley. What the hell is this?” The heavy, sandpaper voice dropped half an octave lower.
“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s dangerous for a good girl to go around with strangers?” The concealed man shifted around until his overshadowed face leered at me and I noticed something sticking out from his clenched fingers. Something cold, silver, and undeniably lethal.
Before so much as a single strand of hair stuck up on my neck, I found myself in that odd situation held between hurling myself bodily toward my attacker, or laughing hysterically.
I chose the latter.
“Good God, Keane,” I gasped, grabbing my heaving sides. “What on earth are you doing here? You gave me a start.” A soft chuckle floated to my ears as my companion folded down the collar of his coat until I could see those familiar blue eyes flickering merrily in amusement. Something, even through my own hilarity, I did not fully appreciate until several hours later.
“I assure you that was not my intention.” He opened the silver cigarette case poised in his hand and casually pressed one of the paper-wrapped cylinders between his lips as his long fingers searched diligently for a match. When one could not be found, I pulled a lighter from my pocket and tossed it in his lap.
“You still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing here?”
“Driving. You have no idea what I endured as I waited for you. For the majority I had no problems, save the ordinary, international imbecile; however, there was one couple that would have been arrested if their little dance of repopulation on a street corner.” Keane flinched visibly. “Has America no morals?”
