So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) (16 page)

We’re both silent as we watch Peter. I look at Dean out of the corner of my eye. He’s changed out of his army uniform and is wearing a white undershirt tucked into dark pants.

“Lydia!” Peter yells. “Watch this!” He lifts the plane up, then down, takes a fast spin in the yard, and runs in the other direction.

“Awesome!” I clap my hands together.

Dean takes a drag of the cigarette, the end glowing red. “He likes you.”

“I like him too.”

Another drag, and the smoke swirls around us. “How do you like staying at my parents’ house?”

I cross my arms over my chest and look at him directly. “They’ve been very welcoming.”

“They’re very trusting. It’s my job to look out for them. Sometimes I get carried away.” He throws the half-smoked cigarette onto the wooden floor of the porch and steps on it with his boot. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I shake my head.

He turns away from Peter to face me. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh with you the other day. My father and mother trust you, and my boy likes you. That’s enough for me for now. But I’ll always do what it takes to protect my family.”

I stare at him, not sure how to respond.

He smiles slightly. Before I can say anything, he disappears inside.

Peter runs through the grass, waving at me. I wave back, but my thoughts drift to what I found in Dean’s drawer.

The
Electrical Experimenter
magazines are a clue, but it’s not enough to prove that Dean is definitively involved with the Montauk Project. For all I know, he really will have a freak training accident in a few days.

I rub my bare arms. I have two tasks ahead of me: solve the mystery of Dean’s involvement with the Montauk Project; then try to save Dean’s life. I can’t do the latter until I find out how he fits into Camp Hero.

For a moment, I consider telling Dean everything, blurting out the truth about who I am and what his fate is. But why should he believe me? I don’t
know
anything yet. I don’t know how he’ll disappear. I don’t know what’s happening with the Montauk Project. I don’t even know what to warn him about, other than a vague threat to his life.

I’ll eventually need to tell Dean the truth about what happens to him, but first I have to get more answers. I have three days left to discover his connection to the Montauk Project and why he disappears. I’ve searched his home and didn’t find much. But there’s another place to explore. Dean’s home away from home: the officers’ barracks at Camp Hero.

As we leave Dean’s house, I ask Mary if I can go with her to Hero later that afternoon. “Of course!” she cries, obviously pleased. But tea was early, and we have more time than we expected, so before Dr. Bentley drives us out to the field hospital, we go to the beach with Mary’s friends.

It’s still overcast but humid and sticky, and the heat is an oppressive weight. I lie on a towel near Susie, her fiancé, Mick, and their friend Jinx. Mary wades into the ocean with Billy, a classmate from school. She’s wearing a white bikini with thick straps and a bottom that looks like a skirt. “Isn’t it risqué?” she asked me earlier as she twirled in front of the mirror in her bedroom. “I can’t believe Daddy let me buy it.”

Compared to the bikinis I’m used to seeing in the Hamptons, this one could double as a nun’s habit. I nodded and smiled anyway.

“Sorry, Lydia, you’ll have to wear my old one.”

Now I’m dressed in a dark blue one-piece halter top with bottoms that come down over my hips.

“Billy, don’t!” Mary shrieks as the short, slim boy pulls her up against his chest. She pushes at him and he falls backward, splashing into the shallow water. It must be cold, frigid even, in early June.

“She’s such a floozy,” Jinx says affectionately. Jinx, short for Virginia, is tall and dark-haired, with large brown eyes. She lies facedown on a blanket to my right, staring out at the water.

The beach is practically deserted. There are a group of boys swimming not far from us and two young mothers letting their babies play in the sand up near the dunes, but other than that, it’s empty. I’ve never seen a Montauk beach so bare in the summer.

“You’re just jealous,” Susie says from her other side.

“Mary’s a doll, but she’s khaki-wacky.” Jinx grins. “Everyone knows it.”

“Khaki-wacky?” I ask. I lean back with my elbows in the sand and look up into the hazy gray sky. I’m still jittery from sneaking around Dean’s house, and I’m dreading what it will be like to break into the officers’ barracks. But there’s something comforting about hanging out on the beach with Mary’s friends and doing normal stuff for a change.

“She’s never met a soldier she doesn’t like. Here, give me one of those.” Jinx leans over to Susie and grabs a cigarette out of the pack next to her. Mick strikes a match and reaches over to light it. He’s of average height, with curly brown hair and a long, narrow face.

“Mary’s not fast.” Susie sticks a cigarette into her own mouth. She offers one to me, but I shake my head.

“Of course not.” Jinx’s voice is rough and filled with smoke. “She’ll settle down soon. I’m surprised she hasn’t already run off with one of those soldiers.”

I look at her, surprised. “But she’s only seventeen!”

“Everything happens faster in wartime.” Jinx points her cigarette in the direction of Susie and Mick. “Am I right, kids?”

“Oh, you’re right,” Mick says. He smirks down at his fiancée. Susie blushes.

“What about you, Lydia?” Jinx asks. “Have you got a beau somewhere?”

An image of Wes standing on the beach flashes through my head. I push it far, far away. “Nope. Do you?”

She shakes her head, cigarette dangling precariously out of her mouth.

“How long have you two been together?” I turn to Susie and Mick, curious. Most of the couples at my school break up every other month, but these two are clearly in it for the long haul.

“Forever.” Susie beams.

“It feels like forever,” Mick mumbles under his breath.

“Hey!” Susie lightly taps him on his bare stomach and he laughs. She’s like a different person when Mick is around—the shy girl I saw yesterday has disappeared. I watch the way they lean into each other and a sharp pang of jealousy shoots through my chest. Now is not the time to start thinking about boyfriends—I have enough going on to deal with—but I can’t help wishing I had someone in my life who made me better just by being there.

“Mick enlisted a few weeks ago,” Susie says. “But we’re going to write each other letters every day when he leaves.”

“When are you leaving?” I ask Mick.

“Shipping out in a little over a month. Don’t know where I’ll be stationed yet.”

“What about Billy?” I glance toward the water, where Billy holds Mary around the waist and spins her into the air. In the distance I see the fishing boats, men throwing nets out into deep water. “Is he enlisting?”

“He got drafted. Army. We ship out at the same time.” Mick grabs another cigarette, lighting the end. I stare at the slight boy in the water, wondering if he’ll make it through the last remaining year of this war. He seems so young, splashing with Mary in the waves.

“What are your plans, then?” Jinx turns to me. Her pale skin is already starting to burn even though the sun isn’t bright.

“What do you mean?” A light breeze stirs my hair and I smell the ocean, salty and fresh over the sharp, tingly scent of tobacco.

“Well, you don’t have a beau, so you’re not getting married anytime soon. Are you going to work in a factory? To enlist with the nurses like Mary?”

Now I need to have a life plan for the ’40s? How will I ever be able to keep all of the lies straight? I decide to answer honestly for once. “I guess I haven’t really thought about it.”

Jinx puts her cigarette out in the sand. “Mary said you were a riveter. We’re always looking for people up at the Watchcase factory in Sag Harbor. I could put in a word for you.”

“You work there? What about school?”

“The war effort needed me more. I’m on the line, munitions. Lots of us girls are up there.”

“My mother started working there after we lost my brother Davy.” Susie stares out into the waves. “He was shot down in France two years ago.” Mick puts his hand on her back.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

She shrugs and smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Jinx gives her a sympathetic look, then turns to me. “Imagine, all us women working the line like the men used to!” She shakes her head and laughs a little.

“How crazy,” I say drily, thinking of everything that hasn’t happened yet in history. Feminist movements and social change. How bizarre it is to know so much more about the world than the people around me. But then I think of Billy getting drafted before high school is over, of Susie’s brother dying in another country. It seems like everyone I’ve met here has lost someone because of the war. If they’re not fighting, then they’re at home, waiting to hear if their loved ones have died. I’ve never dealt with anything like that, and I wonder if maybe I’m the one who’s naïve.

Mary and Billy walk toward us, their feet kicking up white sand. “You should go in!” Mary plops down next to me. She’s soaking wet, and when she rings her hair out, cold drops of water splatter onto my bare shoulder.

“Are you coming to the movies tomorrow?” Billy asks. He’s standing over us, but he never takes his eyes off Mary. Jinx catches my eye and makes a gagging motion.

“What’s playing this week?” Mary asks.

“
Gaslight
?” Susie guesses.

Jinx groans. “Not
Gaslight
again.”

“No, I think it’s
Going My Way
,” Mick cuts in.

Mary looks confused. “Is that Astaire?”

“Bing Crosby.”

“Ah, Crosby,” Billy sighs.
“I’m dreaming of a whiiiite Christmas,”
he sings in a comically low voice, waltzing around the beach with an invisible partner.

Mary smiles. “Billy, you’re a dead hoofer.”

“Then get up here with me.”

“All right.” She hops to her feet and puts her arms on his shoulders. He pulls her close, but she pushes him away, giggling. “Now Billy, you know I’m not that kind of girl.” They start to step in a wide square pattern as Mick taps a beat on his leg.

“Oh, quit grandstanding.” Susie laughs.

“We’ll show you how it’s done.” Mick stands up and yanks her to her feet, pulling her into his arms. They start to waltz close together, their heads almost touching.

“Everyone has flipped their wigs,” Jinx says to me.

I laugh. I’ve always pictured the past as this frozen thing, as moments captured in old-fashioned photographs. I never imagined how real life was in 1944. The war makes choices more urgent, more important, as everything could so easily disappear. It makes my old problems—deciding which college to go to, worrying over an internship—feel less real.

I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I went back in time
. The thought whispers through my head, a fragment, a lost feeling. I let it float away as I watch the couples dance in the sand.

M
ary
hands me a piece of cloth and I take it cautiously. “Put that in the bin.” She points to a metal bucket near the door. I carry it across the room and drop it into the pail. As I turn back around, I wipe my hands on the white apron that’s protecting my dress. A rust-colored stain streaks across the side of my hip.

The field hospital at Hero is not how I remember it from a few days ago. Instead of a lovely peach-colored, sun-filled room, I’m standing in a large open space separated into cubbies by white sheets that hang from the ceiling. At least ten soldiers lie on beds that are pushed up against the walls. Most are sitting up and talking, though a few are sleeping, covered by thin sheets. The room smells like rubbing alcohol, body odor, and blood.

I realize now that my room on that first day was a private one—the nurse didn’t want me sleeping around all the injured men. The real hospital is downstairs, and Mary and one other Red Cross nurse flit and buzz around the room like hummingbirds. They serve food, change bandages, and help the soldiers bathe. Thankfully, most of the injuries are minor: small cuts or wounds sustained during training.