The Wedding Tree (7 page)

His face had gotten all mottled. He'd been a pale boy, pale and slight. His lips looked kind of mushy when he pressed them hard together. His eyes had teared up, but behind the wateriness I glimpsed a flintlike hardness I'd never seen. “Who is it?” he asked.

I was too surprised to take him seriously. I laughed.

“This isn't funny.” His voice was tight and low. “Is it Ted Riley? I've seen the way he looks at you.”

Ted was a tall, thin, painfully shy boy with glasses and an Adam's apple like a goiter. I couldn't remember him ever saying a word to me—or to any girl, for that matter. “Don't be ridiculous. You know there's no one else. But if I were to meet someone—and if you were to meet someone—well, I just think we should be free to date other people if the occasion arises.” I tried to smile, but Charlie was blinking fast, trying so hard not to cry that it cut me to the quick. I tried to lighten the mood. “I hear those French girls are really something.”

“Jesus!” Charlie never cursed or took the Lord's name in vain, so the word jolted me. So did the way his hand banged down on the steering wheel. “I don't want to see anyone else, Addie, and I don't want you to, either.” He looked away, wiped his face with his knuckle, then turned back to me. “Say you'll wait for me. Promise me you'll wait.”

I couldn't. But I had to promise him something. This was Charlie—my lifelong friend, my companion since we were both in diapers. I couldn't send him off to war crying with a broken heart. “I'll write. I promise I'll write.”

“Every day?”

“You know I'm not that good about writing. I'll send a letter every week or two, though.”

“Every week.”

“Okay. Every week. Or at least every ten days.”

“Every week. Promise?”

I blew out a sigh. “I promise.”

“That's better.” He put his arm around me. “And when I get back—well, by then, you'll be ready to settle down.”

It did no good to argue with him. I looked down at my hands.

“You will,” he insisted. His hand tightened on my upper arm. “You will. You'll see.”

Jiminy! I just wanted him to give it a rest. “Maybe,” I'd muttered.

“That's more like it.” He tried to pull me in for a kiss, but I drew away.

“Come on, Addie. It's my last night. Let's seal it with a kiss,” he said.

“I need to get home,” I said. “You can kiss me good night in the driveway.”

“So you wrote to him?”

Hope's voice made me open my eyes. I'd forgotten she was there. “Oh, yes. Just as I said I would.” I also wrote to four other servicemen. It was part of the war effort, keeping up the morale of the boys. I used to write the same letter five times, copying it onto scented stationery. “They weren't really personal letters—just chitchat about the weather, the latest movie, the war effort at home, what was happening at my job . . . just general stuff.”

“He was hurt in the war, wasn't he?” Hope said.

“Yes.” My mood darkened. We were jumping ahead, getting to a part of the story I dreaded talking about. “Right after the holidays, he took shrapnel in the foot and lower leg.”

“In England, right?”

“Well, it happened in France, but he was sent to a hospital in England, and they weren't sure he was going to make it.”

“How awful!”

“Yes, it was. He had a fever. And back in those days, fever often meant gangrene. Penicillin wasn't available until later in the war. While he was in England, they thought they'd have to amputate his leg.”

“Oh, Gran!”

“I felt so sorry for him, and for his family. His parents were terribly upset. But . . .” I sucked in a breath. It felt callous saying it, but I was on a mission to tell the truth. “It didn't jar me into a sudden realization that I couldn't live without him.”

I fell silent for a moment. I was surprised to hear rain pattering on the roof. “I kept him in my prayers, of course. And I wrote him more frequently, trying to cheer him up, telling him I was praying for him, just generally trying to make him feel like he had someone rooting for him. I even knitted him a scarf. This happened just before I met Joe.”

“Joe was the man you fell in love with?”

“Yes.” Joe's face floated into my memory, his smile calling up one of my own.

“What was he like?”

“Oh my. He was . . .” The years were falling back now, peeling back like bedcovers, inviting me to climb right in. “He was really something.”

Poof!

•   •   •

All of a sudden, it's 1943, and I'm in New Orleans. And this time I'm not just watching a film in my mind; this time I'm reliving it. I'm pretty sure I'm telling Hope about it, but I can't hear the words, because the memories are so crisp and clear, it feels like it's happening all over again.

adelaide

APRIL 1943
NEW ORLEANS

I
t was cold that Friday night, a damp cold that went right through you—which was a little unusual, because it had been unnaturally warm that April, although early spring can be a fickle season in New Orleans. I'd worked all day in the darkroom at the
Times-Picayune—
I'd gotten a job at the newspaper three months after high school graduation; thanks to the shortage of men, they'd taken me on as a photographer's assistant—then dashed back to the little house in the Irish Channel, where I was staying with my friend Marge and her aunt Lucille. Fridays were dance nights at the USO.

I wore that green silk dress for the first time. First-time wearings were special. Heck, store-bought dresses were special! I'd bought this one on sale at D. H. Holmes. I talked the sales manager into marking it down even more than the sale price because it had a little rip under the arm right by the seam, so I got it for a song. I was handy with a needle, and all I had to do was take it in, which it needed anyway.

The dress rustled as I stepped into it. Marge zipped me up. “That dress fits you like a dream.”

She was wearing a new dress, too—a red one that complemented her permed black hair and clung to her curvy figure like wax. The dress was so low cut as to be a little immodest. She wore a buttoned-up white sweater to make it past the USO door chaperone. We were running late because she'd wanted to style her hair like Barbara Stanwyck and had trouble getting the bangs just right.

“Tonight's our lucky night, I just know it,” Marge said as we rode the streetcar down St. Charles. I knew what Marge meant by “lucky”: we were both hoping to meet the love of our lives.

Marge was looking to marry and settle down, and I . . . well, I was looking for love like the movies portrayed—dramatic, exciting, adventurous. I wasn't against marriage—no girl wanted to be a spinster; that was a fate worse than death—but marriage was somewhere off in the distant future. I had a hazy, Hollywood-fueled vision of passionate kisses and a deep soul connection—something far more glamorous and thrilling than anything I'd shared with Charlie.

Romance aside, I was pretty much living my dream, residing in a city and working as a photographer. True, I spent most of my time in the darkroom, but the assignment editor had sent me out on a few stories when they were shorthanded, and I had high hopes that given just a little more time, I'd be out on the street every day. With a little luck, I'd build a portfolio that would lead to a job as a travel photographer, and when this darned war ended, I'd be off to see the world.

If there were still any world left to see, that is. It was a fearful time, I have to tell you—but I was young, and like all youth, I had an irrepressible streak of optimism. I was more afraid of having to go back to Wedding Tree than I was of the world ending.

It hadn't been easy, getting my parents to agree to let me come to New Orleans. They were both strict, tight-laced conservatives, and they thought a young woman should live with her parents until she married.

I'd worked on them in stages.

Stage One: I'd swanned around the house, looking bored and
heartbroken, complaining bitterly about how there were no decent jobs in Wedding Tree.

Stage Two: I'd convinced them to let me take the train to New Orleans to visit my friend Marge from high school and her war widow aunt—both of whom worked at the Zatarain's cannery—for a long weekend.

Stage Three: While in New Orleans, I'd applied for a job at the
Times-Picayune
.

Stage Four: I'd come back talking about the fantastic job opportunities in the city, but complaining about how strict Marge's Aunt Lucille was (which was a total fabrication; Marge and I seemed invisible to Lucille).

Stage Five: When I was offered the job in New Orleans, I said I wanted to live at a boardinghouse—which prompted my parents to insist that I live with Marge at Lucille's.

Stage Six: Voilà—exactly what I wanted!

I'd been living there since August, paying a few bucks a week to share a room with Marge. We worked pretty long hours, and most evenings were spent on chores—washing and ironing clothes, cleaning house, grocery shopping, cooking, and tending our victory garden—not to mention shampooing, rolling, and drying our hair. Everything took longer then.

Like most folks at the time, Marge and I volunteered for the war effort. On Mondays we rolled bandages for the Red Cross, and on Fridays we worked at the local USO club, which was held at the recreation room of the Catholic church on Prytania Street. We were junior hostesses, which meant we helped serve refreshments and clean up afterward (or at least I did; more often than not, Marge was still flirting with one or more servicemen when the lights came up at midnight), but our main job was to entertain servicemen on leave or waiting to be shipped out. We were there to dance and talk and generally boost morale. Not exactly a hardship for two single young women.

We entered the church rec hall a few minutes before seven thirty.

“Marge, Addie. There you are.” Mrs. Brunswick frowned as she bustled forward. A tall, stout matron with tight gray curls and a high-pitched voice that seemed incongruent with her size, she was both a senior hostess and in charge of the church's women's auxiliary, so she ran the show on all fronts. “You're late.”

“The streetcar was running behind,” Marge lied effortlessly.

“I was getting worried about you. Three of the other girls are out with colds.”

“Well, we're here now. And there's nary a sniffle between the two of us,” Marge said.

Mrs. Brunswick eyed her uncertainly. She was never sure if Marge was making fun of her or just being personable, as junior hostesses were encouraged to be. I was relieved when she turned away and waved her arms as if she were gathering butterflies in front of the refreshment table. “Girls, attention, please! Circle up. Is everyone wearing their name tags?”

The twenty or so other young women milling around the room wandered up.

“Who wants to work the refreshment table tonight?” Marge and I raised our hands, along with several other girls. “Margie, you and Tina can serve cake, please. And Addie, sweetheart, would you pour the punch? And please make sure no one spikes it.”

“Of course,” I said, although I had no idea how I was supposed to keep that from happening.

“Last time, some spirits found their way into the punch, and three of our girls got sick,” Mrs. Brunswick said.

Marge's eyes widened in disingenuous shock. “How awful!”

I knew for a fact that Marge had let a soldier from Georgia pour a bottle of hooch into the punch about an hour before the dance ended. A redhead also privy to this misdeed giggled and poked Marge, causing Mrs. Brunswick to give them a suspicious frown.

I tried to create a distraction. “Oh, what beautiful flowers!” I exclaimed, bending down to examine a vase of yellow tulips on the table between the punch and cake.

“Aren't they lovely?” Mrs. Brunswick smiled appreciatively. “Schmidt Florists donated them.”

“They're just trying to cover up the fact they're Huns,” sniffed a girl named Eloise.

The crease in Mrs. Brunswick's forehead deepened. It occurred to me that the name Brunswick sounded somewhat Germanic, as well. “They can't very well help their name, now, can they? They're a good American family, and I won't tolerate talk like that.” She glanced at her wristwatch and clapped her hands. “All right, now—places, everyone.”

Flora, a pale, nervous girl from an upper-crust New Orleans family, whom Marge had nicknamed Florid because she blushed so easily, took her place at the registration book. The other girls scattered around the room.

Mrs. Brunswick nodded to the two women at the front door. They opened it, and a stream of servicemen poured in.

The refreshment table was quickly swamped. During a lull in the action, Marge elbowed me.

“My, oh my, look what just walked in!”

There was no mistaking whom she meant. He was tall, probably six two or six three, with brown wavy hair, a movie-star handsome face, and an army officer's uniform. His most attractive attribute, though, wasn't physical; it was his bearing. There was something about the way he carried himself, something deliberate and steady and so self-assured that other men stepped out of his way. He wore the mantle of a leader, of someone accustomed to the respect of others, as surely as he wore a four-button army uniform. When he turned to the side, I could see the Army Air Force insignia on the upper sleeve.

Marge saw it, too. “Oooh, he's a flyboy!” she cooed. In Marge's mind—and mine, too, I admit—airmen were a special brand of wonderful. “I call dibs.”

He looked around the room, and for a second, our eyes met. My skin felt hot.

“Seriously,” Marge murmured. “He's mine.”

I had always acquiesced to Marge's preferences, turning down offers to dance with men she liked. After all, I reasoned, she was my roommate, and chances were, we'd never see any of these men again. But this time was different. “I'm making no promises,” I replied.

“But I saw him first!”

“Doesn't matter.”

I watched him bend to sign the registration book. Marge and I weren't the only girls attracted to him. Flora's face turned hot pink as she handed him the pen. Two other girls quickly appeared at the registration table as if to help him. One of them—a big-chested brunette from the Seventh Ward, named Betty—leaned over the book directly in front of him, deliberately displaying her generous décolletage. He straightened and handed the pen to Betty, his gaze sweeping up to her face with admirable smoothness. He smiled at her, inclining his head to listen as she said something. I saw him respond, smile, then say something to Flora. Her blush spread to her neck. Her face was the color of a rooster's crown.

“He's coming this way!” Marge whispered, unbuttoning her sweater. She whipped it off in record time.

But he looked at me. His glance was a physical thing; it warmed my skin like a lingering caress. My mouth went as dry as the inside of a Q-tip box. I tried to smile, but my lips pulled into the kind of unnatural curl that makes for bad photographs.

“Hello, Flyboy,” Marge said as he approached. She had a breezy way of talking with the soldiers, which I envied. “New to the air base?”

“Actually, I'm just passing through. I'm here for a couple of weeks to learn the ins and outs of a new plane.”

She fluttered her eyelashes. “Well, then, you'd better make the most of your time in New Orleans.”

“I intend to.” He looked at me again. I started to attempt another smile, then gave up and glanced down at the punch.

“Would you like some cake?” Marge pressed.

“Maybe later.” His voice was deep. There was a throb in it—or maybe that was my own pulse, pounding in my ears. I risked a glance up, and found him still gazing at me. I nearly melted under the blaze of his smile. “What I'd really like is some of that punch.”

I picked up the punch ladle. My brain was so fizzed by his smile that it couldn't send the proper signals to my hands. The ladle slipped through my fingers and crashed to the table, knocking over the vase of tulips.

His hand zoomed out and caught the vase before it tumbled to the floor—but the good deed came at a cost. Water splattered all over his uniform.

“Oh no!” I gasped. “Oh, dear. Oh, I'm so sorry!”

I was beyond sorry; I was mortified.

“No harm done.” He set the vase upright. One of the tulips had fallen out and the others listed forward.

“Your uniform is soaking wet,” I murmured.

“Here.” Marge handed him a stack of napkins.

Mrs. Brunswick bustled over. “Good heavens, Addie,” she scolded. “You must be more careful!”

“It was entirely my fault,” the man said. “I was reaching for a napkin and I knocked the ladle out of her hand.”

He'd done no such thing. It didn't seem right to let him take the blame, but then, I couldn't very well call him a liar—especially in front of Mrs. Brunswick. My face burned.

“I should have had a better grip on it,” I stammered. Not to mention on my nerves.

He bent and quickly wiped the floor with the napkins. “There. Good as new.” Picking up the fallen flower, he straightened and held out the tulip to me. “Please accept this, along with my apologies.”

The flower wasn't his to give, but Mrs. Brunswick gave me a nod, indicating I should accept it. I smiled. “Thank you.”

He tossed the napkins in the trash can against the wall. Satisfied that the situation was handled, Mrs. Brunswick moved away.

I twirled the tulip in my hand. “That was very chivalrous, taking the blame for me.”

“Yeah,” Marge chimed in.

It was as if Marge hadn't spoken—as if she weren't even around. I know it sounds corny, but it really felt like we were the only two people in the room.