Runny03 - Loose Lips (29 page)

“Here I’ve been poking around in the past with my little pick, just pulling nuggets out of the vein.” Hansford slowed his voice, lulling Harper, who underestimated the man.

Harper replied, “The insurance payment is contested because we can’t find whoever started the damn fire. Julius and Pole are breathing down my neck. You’d think they had enough money.”

Hansford shrugged. “I look at everything through a miner’s eyes. You got to dig deep on this one, Harper, and I mean dig.”

“I’ll bear your advice in mind. Thank you, Hansford.” Harper stood up.

Hansford held on to the arms of the chair and pushed himself up. “Are the Rifes trying to get money out of Noe?”

“No.”

“That’s unusual. Like I said, you ought to dig deep and notice if anyone poor suddenly has money.”

“I’ll bear it in mind, as I said.” Harper shook his hand and left … not fully understanding what Hansford was implying.

D
ays come and days go. Sometimes one will stick in the brain like chewing gum on the sole of your shoe. April 29 was that kind of day for Julia Ellen. Hitler and Mussolini were meeting in Salzburg, and much as Juts pretended to be interested in current affairs, she was a lot more interested in her own.

Louise was taking pride in Maizie, who was becoming very popular at school. At fourteen her awkwardness could be painful, but since her peers suffered the same predicament they didn’t notice it about one another. Not only was she popular with the girls, she was popular with the boys. She also danced attendance on her sad sister.

Mary, a pretty girl, asked Maizie how she had become so popular. Maizie replied, “I listen to everybody and don’t interrupt.”

No doubt she had learned to listen because her mother, her aunt, and Mary fought for airtime, but she didn’t say that.

Juts painted the big window boxes out front of the shop, hung baskets, and arranged flowers between appointments. Buster dug up one lovely tub of pale pink tulips, receiving a spanking for his efforts. Both sisters worked hard that day, fueled by the fact that they had one more payment to Flavius Cadwalder before they would be out of debt.

By the time Juts dragged home she felt out of sorts. She lay down on the sofa, intending to read the
Trumpet
, when Chester came home early.

“Hi, hon,” she called out.

“Hi,” he answered from the kitchen. “Got off early. Want a drink?”

“No, I’m so tired it would put me right out.”

She listened as he cracked ice cubes, appearing with a scotch.

“I’m bushed.” He sat opposite her on the sofa.

“Don’t take your shoes off. That’s worse than mustard gas.”

He crossed his feet at the ankles, his shoes nearly touching her face. “We build fighter planes but can’t fix stinky feet.” He swallowed a bit. “Hey, what if we go to a movie tonight?”

Pooped as she was, she could always find the energy to go to a show. She fluffed up her hair while Chester finished his drink.

They made it just in time.

After the show, a soft mist curled around Runnymede Square.

“Who’s in the tower tonight?”

“Caesura and Pearlie.”

“How’d he get roped into that?”

“I was short a man so he pitched in. It’s pretty out tonight, isn’t it?” The Corinthian columns from the bank loomed out of the mists as they strolled by.

“A little damp.”

He put his wife’s arm through his. “My tests came back finally.” She walked quietly and he said, “I’m the bad guy here. It’s because of me we can’t have children. Not enough sperm. Doc Horning said it was maybe ’cause of the mumps I had when I was a kid.”

Julia said nothing as they kept walking. They stopped to admire the display in the Bon-Ton window, a golf outfit highlighted against a realistic green, the pennant hanging with number 16 on it.

Her first response when she did speak was, “Did you tell your mother?”

“No. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t guess I’m surprised, Chessy.” She squeezed his arm. “Something had to be wrong. After all, we’ve been married long enough to get lucky—don’t you think? I mean, it’s not like we didn’t know, it’s just now we really know.”

“Yeah.”

“We can adopt.”

“That’s—let’s take it as it comes, Julia. My family won’t accept an adopted baby.”

“So?” she belligerently replied.

“Don’t you think that will make it hard on a kid?”

“Life
is
hard.”

“You’re losing me.”

“Life is hard. The kid will find out early. That’s how I see it. If we love the baby, then he will have a head start in life. We have to do the best we can. I don’t give a rat’s ass what your mother thinks about anything. She’s never cut me slack since day one. We need a baby, Chester. If we don’t do it soon we’ll be too old to raise a child—too set in our ways.”

“Honey, let’s give this a little time.”

“How much time?” She was right in his face now.

“I’ll know.”

“What kind of answer is that?”

“It’s the only answer I have. Jesus H. Christ, Julia. I feel awful. This is all my fault. I need to get my feet under me.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s something inside your body.”

“If feels like my fault.” He jerked his head up. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying I need to …” He shrugged. Emotional descriptions eluded him. He felt plenty but he said little.

“All right.” She was matter-of-fact, as though this were a bargain between them. “Let’s hope you know before I run out of patience.”

He put his arm around her as they crossed the street and walked into the square, the mist giving George Gordon Meade a runny nose.

T
he boys who enlisted after Pearl Harbor had all completed basic training. It was only a matter of time before most of them would be posted overseas.

Rob McGrail and Doak Garten missed the Battle of Midway, which infuriated them, for it was a decisive American victory according to the newspapers, although by now people took the war news with a grain of salt. They may have been small-town, but they weren’t stupid.

The S.S. commander in Czechoslovakia, former Olympian Reinhard Heydrich, had been assassinated. The occupying forces announced they would destroy an entire Czech village, Lidice, in
retaliation for killing a man even the Germans themselves didn’t like. The British were being handed their ass in the desert as the Germans roared toward Tobruk.

A restlessness infected Americans. They wanted to fight now. The tedious process of training men, gathering sufficient materials, and getting them across the Atlantic and Pacific dragged on.

People danced longer, laughed louder, and partied harder than before. They thumbed their noses at death by celebrating life. Julia danced the most. Chester still had not surprised his wife by dancing. Louise discovered parties, not that she had avoided them before, but now she entered into the spirit of them because she said it was good for morale. She was really doing it for the boys.

This particular June 15, Runnymede Day, celebrating the Magna Carta, fell on a Monday, so people enjoyed a long weekend. The pageant took place in Runnymede Square, where it always had, and most inhabitants dressed in thirteenth-century costumes, which meant lots of brightly dyed bedsheets wrapped in silken draper cords. Digby Vance played King John while Millard Yost was head of the barons.

Local breweries supplied kegs of beer, the Coca-Cola dealer donated sodas, and the Rifes paid for free hot dogs. Spoon races, three-legged races, and gunnysack races filled the afternoon once King John got his comeuppance.

Chester winked at Trudy Archer but steered clear. Celeste and Ramelle won the three-legged race against all comers, even the kids. The sight of Celeste Chalfonte hopping along unraveled her opponents.

With the soft fall of a long twilight the band played; adults and children danced under gently swaying lanterns. Julia Ellen and Louise were on tower duty at nine, but they hung around until the last sliver of light.

As they climbed the ladder up to the top the music sounded ethereal. Juts sang along as she swung her leg over the side of the
sturdy tower. Louise, being the elder, believed she was in charge; she checked and double-checked the enemy-aircraft silhouettes leaning against one side of the tower. Juts double-checked the big searchlight, antiaircraft gun, and siren.

“You’ve got those memorized cold.”

“Doesn’t hurt to refresh my memory,” Louise smugly said.

“How much did you have to drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” came the sarcastic reply as Juts sat down. “How much did you have to drink?”

“A beer.” Which meant at least three. “But don’t worry. I drank it at six. It’s worn off by now.”

“When you climb up and down that ladder to go to the bathroom I’ll know this is just another Juts fact.” Louise called any fib a Juts fact.

Julia leaned over the tower to watch the dancing below. She tapped her foot to the beat. The scarlets, royal blues, burnt oranges, yellows, and purples of the costumes sparked her imagination. This really could be a square in medieval England.

“Think dead people had as much fun as we do?”

“No, they’re dead.” Louise fiddled with her binoculars.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, when the people who signed the Magna Carta were alive, do you think they had as much fun as we do?”

Louise stood next to her sister to observe the music and frolic. “I don’t know. They had the One True Church, so they weren’t tempted by false prophets.”

Disgusted, Julia, a tepid Protestant but a Protestant nonetheless, said, “I bet they didn’t think of the church when there was dance music. I bet they didn’t worry about half the crap we worry about. And I was reading somewhere—maybe the ‘Your Health’ column in the paper—that they had fewer cavities than we do because they didn’t have refined sugar. Their sweets were made with honey. Sugarcane came with the New World. So there.”

“What did they do when they got sick? Died. That’s what.”

“So? So do we—it just takes longer. You know what else I think?”

“I can hardly wait.” Louise spied Maizie dancing with a classmate, yet another of the numerous BonBons.

“I believe we grow all our lives—”

Louise interrupted. “Junior McGrail certainly did. Took two chenille bedspreads to make her robe that time.”

“I remember. Anyway, if we don’t keep growing we shrivel up.”

“Juts, you had more than one beer.”

“Two, but let me finish.”

“Let you finish? You’ll talk all night.”

“I will not, Louise, but I want to tell you this. I think the dead keep growing, too. If our souls depart our bodies, then the soul can keep learning, so if I want to talk to Mamaw I can, and it affects her as well as me.” Juts mentioned their deceased grandmother.

Since this was close to blasphemy, Louise, on dogma alert, remained silent for some time. “I don’t know about that. I’d have to ask Father O’Reilly.”

“Think for yourself.”

“I do,” came the curt response. Irritated, Louise put the binoculars back up to her eyes. “I don’t believe my eyes.”

“What?”

“Chester is dancing.”

“Oh, he is not.” Juts paused a moment. “Not unless someone poured twelve beers down his throat. He can’t dance.” She reached up for the binoculars but Louise shrugged her off because they both heard a droning in the sky. Louise scanned the night skies.

Julia babbled on. “Had to be someone else, not Chester.” She craned her neck to peer into the velvet darkness. “Louise—”

“Julia, shut up!” Louise searched for the plane. “There he is!”

“It’s one of ours.”

“Shut up!” Louise trained the glasses on the plane, looking for telltale insignia. A big white number was painted on the side, as well as a white circle with a white star inside. “It’s a Boxcar. Wonder what he’s doing here?”

“Thought he’d drop in on the party.” Juts wanted those binoculars. “Maybe the weather’s bad where he came from.”

“Could be.” Louise dropped the binoculars. They hung around her neck.

“Let me.” Juts reached for them and Louise flipped the strap over her head.