What I Saw and How I Lied (6 page)

I always wanted a father. Any kind. A strict one, a funny one, one who bought me pink dresses, one who wished I was a boy. One who traveled, one who never got up out of his Morris chair. Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief. I wanted shaving cream in the sink and whistling on the stairs. I wanted pants hung by their cuffs from a dresser drawer. I wanted change jingling in a pocket and the sound of ice cracking in a cocktail glass at five thirty. I wanted to hear my mother laugh behind a closed door.

If I could choose a father, I would have chosen someone exactly like Joe. I fell for him, same as her. I was a pushover. I dressed up when he was coming. I laughed at his jokes and made sure we had beer in the fridge, even if we had to do without milk to buy it.

Joe and Mom had a date every Wednesday and Saturday for a year. Plenty of Sunday afternoons he'd take us for an outing, Rockaway Beach or even the city, just to get a soda at a drugstore. We waited forever, both of us, for him to propose. Christmas was coming, and Mom wanted a ring, or at least a promise. Joe couldn't afford a ring. He'd lost his job at the hardware store during the hard times and did a little of this, a little of that, to stay flush. A couple of nights pumping gas, three afternoons a week delivering seltzer and soda.

Mom was beginning to lose hope, and on Sunday mornings, after her date with Joe, she was starting to slam the coffeepot around something awful instead of humming to herself.

Then came Pearl Harbor, and we listened to the president's speech like everybody else, staring at the radio like we'd miss a word if we looked anywhere else. I was only nine, so I knew that something terrible had happened but at least it wasn't my fault. Later that night we heard feet pounding up the stairs, and it was Joe. He said we were in for it now, and everybody was saying Germany would be next. He said he was going to enlist, and asked her to marry him on the spot. My memory of his proposal is all mixed up with the voices on the radio talking about death and fire and lost ships in a place I'd never heard of, and Mom sobbing into Joe's shoulder.

Everybody seemed to die or disappear on us, so you could see how Mom and I lived through the war years with our fingers crossed, waiting for Joe to return. I stood over her on Saturday nights when she wrote him, telling her things to put in that I'd thought up all week, things to make him miss home so he'd fight stronger. I knew he wouldn't die. Not with us to come home to.

Four years went by. He had furloughs, when he'd show up handsome in his uniform and we got to parade him around, each of us holding on to an arm. Then he went back, and we got to worry and study the newspapers and his V-mail, just like everybody else. He felt even farther away when we got that mail, as if his personality had been squashed into the letters that were photographed and shrunk by Uncle Sam.

Joe didn't come home until a year after the war ended.

"Just a bit of mopping up to do," he wrote to us. He was stationed in Salzburg, Austria. I knew right where Salzburg was, because we'd stuck a big map on the wall in the kitchen. Everybody's geography got better during the war. I knew where Normandy was, and the Philippines, and Anzio, Italy. I could stick a pin in them right now without hardly looking. Pin the tail on the battle, Mom used to say. And pray Joe's not in it.

Those last months were the worst. It seemed like every day someone else's father or husband or son came home, and there was a party in someone's living room or backyard. When Margie's father came home, she walked around in a glow for weeks. I almost hated her.
Your father was only a private,
I wanted to say.
Phooey.

We didn't talk about it, but I knew what my mom was feeling, because it was just what I was feeling. It was like Joe had been a dream.

And then, suddenly, one April morning, Joe returned, blowing in the front door with his arms full of flowers. I remember the splash of cold spring air on my cheeks, how he kept the door open and even Grandma Glad didn't close it. All the neighbors came over to say hello and stayed until one in the morning. General Eisenhower himself couldn't have gotten me to bed that night. I was wearing a present Joe had brought back, a bracelet that I kept twisting around on my wrist. Real gold, he said.

I never took the bracelet off, even in the bathtub. I never once thought about who'd owned it before. I was too busy pushing up the sleeves of my sweaters so everybody could see it.

Within two months of coming home, Joe had opened his first appliance store in Queens. "How do you like that?" he said. "Everybody wants to loan me money now." Then he opened another in Brooklyn, and he was planning to open two more. Everyone wanted to buy a brand-new Bendix washer from the Spoon.

When they got married down at City Hall, a photographer was there from
Life,
the magazine that was on every coffee table in America. He was looking for servicemen who were tying the knot. So Joe goes right up and tells him the story, how he'd stolen Beverly Plunkett, the prettiest girl in Queens, how he was called "the Spoon" and she was called "the Dish."

But here's the thing: Mom never had a nickname. Joe made it up. He conjured up the headline he wanted right out of the air, like Mandrake the Magician. He sold it the way he sold appliances.

The picture was on the mantel, in a silver frame. In it they're jumping off the third step of City Hall down to the sidewalk, arm in arm. Her blond waves are bouncing, her mouth dark with lipstick. It is in the very middle of winter, snow on the sidewalks, husbands and brothers and fathers heading off to war. But look at Beverly Spooner. Nothing ahead but blue skies. You can see it in her gleaming teeth, in the gardenia on the lapel of her camel hair coat, in the way one of her gloved hands is bunched into a fist, ready to punch Herr Hitler's lights out if he gets in the way of her happiness. Over their heads, the headline hollers:

I was there that day, at City Hall. Mom asked if I could be in the picture, too. I saw the photographer's gaze move over me, a plain-faced nine-year-old in my plaid coat, my legs all goose-bumpy from the cold. He took the picture, but even then I knew it wouldn't be the one they'd pick. I wasn't a part of that glamour, that glow. In the article they didn't even mention me. It was like Mom got married for the first time.

We'd stopped at a bar before we went. I waited outside with the corsage in a box. I felt very important. Grandma Glad had refused to come. I would be their only guest. Good-bye, Evie Plunkett, I kept saying to myself. Evie Spooner. Evie Spooner. The new name tasted like strawberry jam. I would get that, and a dad, too.

In the end the Graysons came, too, and we all drove down to Delray Beach in their brand-new Cadillac. We sat on a terrace in the shade, where we could feel an ocean breeze. Everyone ordered hamburgers. I sipped on my lemonade, pretending it was a cocktail.

Mom and Peter and the Graysons kept the conversation going. All the things grown-ups talk about smashed together: the weather, would the Commies get the bomb, did you hear Fiorello LaGuardia was in a coma, Peter's home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. You could tell he didn't want to brag about it, because he changed the subject to the Graysons. Peter had heard of the hotel Mr. Grayson owned, the Metropole, and he said it was one of the best in New York. You could see this pleased Mr. Grayson. He was a thin man in horn-rimmed glasses who looked more like a professor than a hotel guy; he didn't look like an easy man to win over, but Peter did it so smoothly.

As the adults talked, I couldn't seem to punch a hole in the conversation. I couldn't capture his attention, not like I had the night before. I felt young and stupid again, with my glass of lemonade and my brown sandals.

Joe chomped on his hamburger moodily. I'd never seen him like this, grumpy and looking old in the bright sun. When he turned to signal the waiter for another beer I could see his scalp through his hair.

"Everybody wants to just jump in a car and go these days," Peter said. "Especially ex-GIs. I enlisted the day after graduation. I drove down to New York from New Haven."

"Ah, a Yale man," Mr. Grayson said.

"Then I had three years of being told what to do and where to go. Enough already. Right, Joe?"

Joe didn't answer. He had a big bite of hamburger in his mouth.

"How about you, Tom?" Peter asked.

"4-F," Mr. Grayson said. "Bum ticker."

No one said anything for a minute. Back home it was the biggest shame, 4-F. Unfit for service.

"What I felt over there was, the fellows that couldn't fight, they held the country together. They gave us something to come back to," Peter said. "My brother John was 4-F, same as you. He did more for the war than I did. Worked as an engineer in a defense plant. All I did was slog through a couple of acres of mud. John was the real hero." He said it seriously, giving Mr. Grayson a look of respect. Mr. Grayson's shoulders relaxed, and Mrs. Grayson looked grateful.

Mom took a sip from her glass. "Mmm, I can't get enough of this orange juice," she said. "Have you ever had anything like it, Arlene?"

"Never," Mrs. Grayson said. "They keep the best oranges for themselves down here, I guess."

"Rats live in orange trees," Joe said. It was the first thing he'd said in a while.

"Don't be morbid, Joe," Mom said.

"Who's being morbid?" Joe asked. "They need their vitamins, just like we do."

Mrs. Grayson laughed.

Mom hadn't touched her hamburger. I pushed mine aside. The meat seemed heavy and ancient, something that would soon be stinking in this heat.

Tom Grayson's forehead was shiny with sweat. "I found out why our hotel is open in the off-season," he said. "It's for sale."

"You thinking of buying it, Tom?" Mrs. Grayson said, smiling.

"You think that's so crazy?"

"Yeah," she said. "I do." gas to get anywhere we want. Lots of folks will be traveling."

"Exactly," Mr. Grayson said. He sat up straighter. "And wait until all the buildings are air-cooled. That will bring the tourists."

"I'm thinking of adding those units to my business, selling to restaurants and hotels," Joe said. "There's a market out there."

"Here's where you should be selling them," Mr. Grayson said. He cleared his throat, as though he was just waking up. "I'm telling you, this place is due for a boom."

"Joe here is a smart businessman," Peter said. "He knows when to grab the big chance. Right, Joe?"

Joe didn't answer Peter. He nodded at Mr. Grayson, as though they were the real businessmen in the group because they were older than Peter.

Peter didn't care. He turned to Mom. "How about you, Beverly? Do you think Florida is going to boom?"

"People like to start fresh," she said, looking at him from under the brim of her big straw hat. "You won't go broke betting on that."

He laughed softly. "Paradise seems like a good place to do it."

"Maybe paradise is overrated."

"Lady, you are one tough customer."

Mom's lips curved. "Me? I'm just a softy."

"We should all go fishing one day," Joe said. "Rent a boat and get out on the water."

"I don't like fishing," Peter said.

"You feel sorry for the little fishes?" Mom asked.

"Yeah," Peter said. "I feel sorry for anything that gets hooked."

"I love boating," Mrs. Grayson chimed in. "Tom and I used to go in the south of France, before the war. Those were the days, really. We didn't think anything could change." She stubbed out her cigarette. "What we need is some coffee."

Mr. Grayson twisted around, looking for the waiter.

I felt panicked. Was the lunch over already? I hadn't said more than two words.

"Who's game for a walk?" Peter asked.

I stood up quickly, almost knocking my chair backward. "I'll go."

"Don't worry, Sarge," Peter said to Joe. "I'll take good care of her."

We walked out of the courtyard and down the street toward the beach, toward the pavilion there.

Peter leaned over and spoke in my ear. "We finally ditched the chaperones. Come on."

He took my hand as we ran across Atlantic Avenue. He linked his fingers through mine and swung our arms.

We walked to the pavilion and he dropped my hand. We looked out at the ocean instead of at each other. All I wanted to do was hold his hand again.

The breeze picked up, and we faced right into it.

"You're a watcher, aren't you?" Peter said. "I can tell. You watch and listen. But you know what I'm betting? The thing you can't see so clear is yourself."

I was startled. Here I was, trying to come up with something to say about the weather, and he said something real. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"You don't walk like a girl who knows how pretty she is, for one thing. That's a crying shame."

"Once I heard Grandma Glad tell someone that I was as plain as a bowl of Yankee bean soup," I said.

I expected him to laugh, but he didn't. "Your problem is that your mom's such a looker. You get all balled up. You can't even see what's in front of you in the mirror. So you've got to listen to an older brother type like me. You're pretty."

An older brother type. That stung.

"If you were an older brother, you'd call me Rubber Lips," I said. "That's what Frank Crotty back home calls me."

"That's because he likes you."

"Frank? He only thinks about the Dodgers."

"Pussycat, you've got a lot to learn about boys."

I pretended I was Barbara Stanwyck and tossed my hair. "Yeah? Who's going to teach me?"

He smiled. "Now that's a tempting assignment."

The weather had changed. I hadn't noticed how low and dark the clouds were. The ocean was now a flat dull gray, thick and molten-looking.