Willow Run (12 page)

I pulled on my Snow White bathrobe and tiptoed through the kitchen, taking the flashlight off the counter-top. I opened the door and the two cats followed me outside to sit with me on the stoop, cool after the hot summer day.

I didn't have to worry about Arnold the Spy coming after me. I knew now that he couldn't sleep, that he wandered around the streets of Willow Run every night trying to think of what to do.

I didn't let myself look at the little patch of earth right away; instead, I listened to someone playing the Victrola in one of the apartments across the street. It was that song that had followed us across the country:
“We'll meet again.”

I shined the flashlight over the side of the step. There weren't any shoots yet, but I thought of what Grandpa would say.
Haf to have hope
.

“I do,” I told the little patch of dirt. “I have hope for Eddie.”

Dear Harlan,

I told you I would write. Here is your uncle Leo's dollar bill.

Arnold said to tell you that he couldn't take it.

He said he knows you feel sorry about the ice cream and that's enough for him.

I found out about Arnold. He's not a spy, but I can't tell you the rest.

Your friend,

Meggie

The days were cooler now, the sky that brilliant blue just before fall comes; August was over and we were into September. The Allied soldiers had swept their way across France and were heading into Germany, and it was the Wednesday after Labor Day, the first day of school.

Patches was outside ahead of me, wearing her shoes, twirling around. My shoes were the scratched ones from the spring, but I didn't care. Dad had shined most of the marks away, and Ronnelle had made matching plaid hair bows for Patches and me.

On the way to school, I met Terry from the factory, and he grinned up at me, saying that one of these days the factory was going to shut down. “The war in Europe will end by
next spring, and the last plane will come along the assembly line soon,” he said. “Every one of us will sign our names on the nose cone so the plane will carry us overseas. Even Henry Ford.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “The way you did with your letter.”

I waved to him over my shoulder.
Home by next spring
.

I spent the day in school, third seat, third row, next to Patches, and it wasn't one bit different from my school in Rockaway, except that now I looked at everyone's shoes, wondering how many kids were wearing them for the first time.

Just before dismissal Mrs. Roe scraped the chalk across the blackboard, writing in large white letters. I watched the two words appear,
carpe diem,
and was so surprised I didn't even raise my hand when she asked if any of us knew what it meant. Next to me, Patches called out, “Seize the day,” and smiled at me. I had told her about Grandpa and his sayings. I thought back to the letter I had written the day I had talked to Arnold.
Carpe diem
.

“Yes,” Mrs. Roe said. “That's what we'll do this year. Take the initiative, learn what we have to…”

A speech I'd heard every year since I began school.

I reached into my pocket and touched Grandpa's medal. I held it as we lined up to march out of school, and instead of going home, I said, “See you in a little while,” to Patches, and went to look for Arnold, remembering that day he had said he was a coward:

“I have my draft notice,” he said, his eyes filling. “I've had it for almost the whole summer.”

“I don't understand.”

“My birthday was in June. I was supposed to go into the service. …”

Eddie, eighteen. My mother: “What have you done?”

“I have a garden out back,” Arnold said. “My mother can't care for it alone. What will happen to the vegetables, the fruit …” He stopped. “That's not really it. I'm afraid to go.”

“Afraid,” I said like an echo.

“I see terrible things at the movies. People killing each other. Blowing each other up. Men being captured and held in terrible prison camps.”

I put the dollar bill, still folded, into Arnold's hand. “That's from Harlan. He knows it isn't enough, not nearly enough, but he'll send you more someday.”

Arnold looked down at the money. “I'm the last one to drive the ice cream truck. We've been passing it down. First my brother Stan. He's in the Pacific now. Then Charlie, on a ship somewhere.”

I handed him a little pile of money, dimes and nickels. “This is for the ice cream I took. I still owe you two dimes, but don't worry, as soon as I get my allowance …” I broke off. “I'm never going to steal anything again. It's not worth it.” I looked across the field at the daisies. “It gives the ice cream a strange taste.”

“That's what being a coward does,” he said. “It changes the taste of everything.”

And now, after that first day of school, with the blue sky overhead, I was on my way to find him, to tell him part of the letter I had just received from Grandpa.

I looked everywhere, and was about to give up when I saw the
SUNDAE, MONDAY, AND ALWAYS
truck parked across the street from the movie theater. I waited until he came outside, blinking in the daylight.

He saw me at the same time. “I've been looking for you for the last few days,” he said. “Want an ice cream?”

I shook my head, watching two kids come down the street. I waited until he had handed them sundaes and they were halfway down the block again. Then I pulled out the medal to show him. “It was my grandfather's,” I said.

He took it in his hand, holding it up. “He must be a great guy,” he said.

I nodded, and then I said something I never thought I'd say. “He was born in Germany. You can tell because he has an accent.” I rushed on. “At home in Rockaway, boys covered his window with a swastika just because of it.”

“Terrible.” Arnold shook his head. “I've been thinking about it. Everyone around me is doing the best he can: Harlan with the dollar bill, my brothers. You know, there's even a guy who's only about three feet tall. He spends his days in the tiniest spaces building planes.” He shuddered. “I don't
know how he can do that, squeezed in …” He wiped his eyes. “Everyone's doing something but me.”

He looked down the street, his lips pressed together; then he nodded. “You're right. I have to go.”

I raised my shoulders in the air. “I didn't say that.”

We both smiled; then I took a breath. “The medal is for you to take with you. I wrote to my grandfather…”

He shook his head.

“I can't.” “Really you can. We would be glad. My grandpa and I.”

I thought of Grandpa the day I had said goodbye to him, Grandpa touching the medal. “Grandpa said he was afraid. And once, he said it was all right for me to be afraid.”

Arnold was smiling just a bit. “And will the medal keep me safe?”

“I…I don't think so,” I said carefully. “But it would be good to have anyway, something to hold on to.” And in back of my mind:
Haf to have hope
.

He nodded. “I don't even know your name.”

“Margaret,” I said. “I'm named for my grandmother.”

He reached into the freezer and brought out an ice cream bag. “Put down your New York address. I'll send it back to you when the war is over. I'll never forget.”

As I took the paper I could see his hands were trembling; he was still afraid. I would be afraid, too. I scribbled my address on the bag. “It's just a loan,” I said. “I'll need it back.”

“I promise.”

“Then you'll have to be all right,” I said. “That's what I was thinking.” He put his hand on top of my head. “My luck has changed. Ever since the first day you came and made a face at me.”

I touched the medal once more. And then from up the street I heard Ronnelle calling my name, calling and waving her hand.

I turned to go, but Arnold called after me. “When this is over, I'm going to spend my days making sure wars like this never happen again.”

“How?”

“That's what we all have to figure out,” he said. “Every one of us.”

Now Lulu was calling. “Hurry, Honey. Hurry.”

And Ronnelle. “Oh, Meggie. Come fast.”

Ronnelle's hair was rolled up in a dozen rag curlers; a thick layer of cream almost covered her face. She reached out and hugged Lulu and me at the same time, twirling us around together, leaving a smear of the cream on my cheek. “Oh, Meggie,” she said, “I've gotten the best news!”

We went back to sit in her living room and she picked up her husband Michael's letter. “It's dated days ago. On his way home by ship.” She sounded breathless. “He'll take a train and meet me in Detroit.”

“When?” I asked. “I don't know.” She shook her head, the curlers bouncing. “He didn't know.” She leaned forward. “I'm just going.

This weekend I'll wait in the station, a day, two days at most. It'll be crowded with people coming and going. Safe. I'll just be glad to be there.”

I pictured what it would be like for us to hear that Eddie was coming on a train to Detroit. Ronnelle knew what I was thinking. She took my hand, and then we both noticed that, on the floor, Lulu was pulling at my shoelaces, knotting them together, humming a song without words that sounded like the Uncle Don song on the radio.

“There's something I'd like you to do for me, Meggie,” Ronnelle said. “We'll ask your mother to be sure it's all right. Will you take care of Lulu for me? I can't bring her to the station. It's just during the day until I come back. The babysitter will be here at night.”

I was nodding. No school Saturday or Sunday. Why not?
Carpe diem
. I'd never babysat before.

“I trust you, Meggie. You have a head on your shoulders. I know you can do this.”

What had Eddie said?
No more baby, Meggie.

On Saturdays Mom had to go to work, but she came over to kiss Ronnelle goodbye, and we both watched as Ronnelle drew a careful pencil line up the back of her leg. “To look like seams,” she said. “I ran my last pair of silk stockings.” She shrugged. “No more silk until after the war, but at least I can look as if I'm wearing them.”

Mom gave her a last hug and told her to be careful. I sat on the floor playing with Lulu, watching Ronnelle comb her hair into a pageboy. She looked beautiful with her eyes sparkling. I even liked her freckles.

A little later, Dad and I went to the bus stop with her. Lulu clung to my shoulder, calling
“Bye-bye.”
Ronnelle leaned out the bus window, wearing Pan-Cake makeup and bright red lipstick. “I love you,” she called. “We'll be back soon. Both of us.”

We walked home, Dad saying, “I miss the sound of the Sundae, Monday, and Always ice cream truck. Maybe Arnold has gone into the army at last.”

I nodded. I knew that Arnold's bag was packed. He was leaving any day now, probably to finish the war in the Pacific, but I'd never say anything about the medal. That part was a secret. No one knew about it but Grandpa and me.

I waited until Dad had gone to bed and Lulu had fallen asleep on her blanket in the living room. Then I went into the hall closet for clean sheets. I made my bed with them and dusted and mopped; then I tiptoed back into the living room to make up the foldout couch. That was where I'd be sleeping from now on.

Patches and I were going to plaster up the hole in the wall. She said she knew how to do it, and that we could talk just as easily on the way to school every morning. Patches, who had blisters on both heels, who said it wasn't so terrible not to have shoes after all. Patches, who had become a
friend I'd have forever, even after the war was over. We had promised each other that when we were grown, she'd find Rockaway and I'd find the mountains of Tennessee. And in the meantime, we could always write.

I looked around. Everything was ready. There was nothing I could do about Eddie except hope.

But there was something I'd been able to do about Grandpa.

On Sunday we went to Mass together, Dad and Mom, Lulu and me. Lulu stretched herself out on the pew and lay there quietly through the whole service, taking her thumb out of her mouth only once. She pointed up at a stained-glass window of a man in a garden. A bird was perched on one of his hands.

“Who?” she asked.

“St. Francis, I think,” I whispered back, looking at the stained-glass lilies around him. He could almost have been Grandpa in his garden in Rockaway. But I knew Grandpa wouldn't be in his garden today.

After church we stopped at the bakery for Danish pastries with cheese in the center like golden suns, and ate
them walking home. And as we turned the corner, we saw Ronnelle and her husband, Michael, tall and very skinny, standing at our front door.

I let go of Lulu's hand so she could run to them, but she didn't. She stood there, her mouth covered with crumbs, just staring at them.

Michael came down the walk slowly with Ronnelle in back of him, and there were tears in his eyes. He knelt down in front of Lulu and said, “I've been waiting to see you forever.”

“Are you Daddy?” she asked.

Ronnelle's outstretched hands were clasped, the veil on her blue hat a little crooked, and she was crying, too.

And then Michael was hugging Lulu, not minding her sticky face, and Mom nudged Dad and me. “Let them have some time,” and we went into the house.

The morning went on and on. I wanted to say a million things to Mom, silly things like
Why don't you put a pot of coffee on?
or
Guess it'll seem strange that I'll be sleeping on the couch
.

I closed my teeth tight so I didn't say any of it, but I spent the morning, heart thudding, going from the window to the door, and at last it was noon, and I couldn't bear it anymore. “How about…,” I said to Mom as she sliced tomatoes for sandwiches. She looked at me over her shoulder. “… putting on a little lipstick,” I finished.

Noon,
he had written.
By noon at the latest,
and he was never late. But the church bells had rung, it was after noon,
and I thought about his old car.
“You don't have to worry about me,”
he had said when we said goodbye. But I was going to tell him I
did
have to worry about him, I was glad to worry about him.