Winter in June (14 page)

He turned to go and I grabbed his arm to stop him. His eyes dropped to where my skin touched his, and I knew he was misreading the moment. I dropped his wrist as quickly as I had grabbed it and pulled my hand to my side.

“I need to ask you something,” I said.

Hope flickered in his eyes, and I hated myself more than I ever had before. This was all going so wrong. No matter what I said, it would feel like I was toying with him, and that's the last thing I intended to do.

“Ask away,” he said.

Kay and Violet were climbing into the Jeep. This opportunity was going to be lost. I could keep my big mouth shut and feed into the same fantasy I'd wrongly cultivated at the Stage Door Canteen, or I could be brave for once in my life and put aside all the game
playing so that I could ask him the thing that I desperately needed to know.

“What is it, Rosie?”

I licked my lips and plunged into the icy cold water. “Have you heard anything else about Jack?”

The light left his eyes, as though his face had been illuminated by nothing more than a match that my breath had extinguished. “That's what you want to know?”

I nodded. There was no point in apologizing for my lousy timing. It spoke for itself.

Peaches took a step toward me. “Are you sure you want me to tell you?” His voice was cold, and I could swear a smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“He's dead.”

“And then what did he say?” asked Jayne.

We were back on Tulagi, huddled on my cot as I recounted my conversation with Peaches. We weren't alone. The other women were gathered around us, demanding an explanation for my bizarre silence the entire journey home.

Home. It was funny how quickly a new place took on that designation.

“They sent his body Stateside three weeks ago.” I buried my head in my hands. I was hoping to cry, but so far not a single tear had fallen.

“So, I'm confused,” said Violet. “Who was the guy you were talking to?”

Jayne bravely took on the task of explaining my convoluted life for the second time. “That's Peaches, the guy Rosie met at the Stage Door Canteen back in New York.”

“He's the one who fell for her when he thought her name was Delores,” said Kay.

“Gotcha,” said Violet.

“But why was Jack's crew chasing him to begin with?” asked Gilda.

“A few months ago, Jack's boat disappeared,” I said. I was shocked by the clinical tone in my voice. I could've been Edward R. Murrow recounting someone else's tragedy. “They thought the whole crew was lost, but Jack and his CO survived. Not long after they got back, Jack started making noise that what happened wasn't an accident—the men who died were murdered by their CO. There was enough to the claim that the CO decided the only way to keep Jack quiet was to kill him. Jack escaped and hid somewhere on the island for a while. A month or so ago, word got out about where he was hiding. They flushed him out, a chase ensued and he went into the water. He was attacked by sharks, but they're not sure if that happened before or after he died. The official cause of death was drowning.”

Even at night the world around us was made up of vivid greens, yellows, and browns that I had forgotten had originated in nature only to be duplicated by man, not the other way around. It was such a beautiful, perfect place, and yet I couldn't believe it existed in the same world as the story Peaches told. Could that really have been Jack's end? Not at the hands of his CO, not on a battleship, but in shark-infested waters by animals that had no stake in the outcome of this war?

I closed my eyes and tried to picture the scene. It had to have been terribly dark. Traveling on foot through the dense vegetation, his leg still wounded from when the CO had shot him the first time, Jack knew he couldn't outrun his pursuers. A gun fired, igniting a jolt of fresh pain in his body and cementing how futile his hopes of escape were. And so borrowing a page out of Hollywood, he made the decision to jump into the water and remain low, only coming up for air when he was certain he was masked from observers. Perhaps it even worked and they left thinking he was gone for good. Jubilant that the plan was a success, Jack began to swim to shore only to realize the one truth the navy should have taught him: the water offered just as much danger as the land.

It seemed so ironic and sad. If he had to die, didn't he at least deserve a hero's end?

“Could he have been lying?” asked Jayne.

Though the evening was warm, I was freezing. That was something at least. “Peaches? Of course not. Why would he?”

“He obviously still cares for you,” said Jayne. “Maybe he thought if he told you Jack was dead, he'd have a chance.”

As if I were that irresistible. “He wouldn't be that cruel. Besides, it would be too easy to disprove.”

“But we never heard anything.”

“Wouldn't his folks have let you know?” asked Kay.

I shook my head. Jack's parents never cared for me. They were Upper East Side and I was the Village-dwelling actress they were worried would trap their son into marriage. Besides, as far as they knew, we were kaput. I would be the last person they would think about contacting.

“We've been touring for the past two weeks, and before then we were en route to the Pacific. Peaches said the whole thing was kept on the QT when it happened.” And I hadn't been vigilant. For months I had checked the papers every day to see if Jack's name was included among the missing and dead. But after being told he was missing without seeing anything in the papers to verify it, I decided the newspapers were untrustworthy. And then we'd come up with this stupid plan to try to find him, and in the rush to leave the States, I hadn't considered the possibility that there might be nothing left to find.

“I'll bet it was quick,” said Violet. “I've heard drowning is one of the easiest ways to die.”

“It's peaceful,” said Kay.

They were liars, the both of them, but I appreciated what they were trying to do.

“We can probably get you home,” said Gilda. “I'm sure under the circumstances the USO would be willing to send you back. And if they make a stink about the money, I'll pay for it. All right?”

A shudder passed through me. It sounds terrible, but much of
what I was feeling was relief. This great mystery that I'd been toting around for months was finally solved. Jack was dead. End of story. Roll credits. “I don't want to go home,” I said.

“Are you sure?” asked Jayne.

“Positive.”

 

Rather than going to sleep as I knew everyone wanted to, that night the five of us went down to the beach and downed a few warm bottles of beer while I dug a hole in the wet sand and buried Jack's photo.

“I think I want to be alone for a little while,” I told the group. I assured them I could find my way back to the tent on my own, and they slowly dispersed. Jayne lingered the longest, wanting, I'm sure, to know that I was okay. She had been with me since the first night I'd met Jack, and through all the turmoil of our up-and-down relationship. But I needed to do this by myself. This was between Jack and me.

“I should've written,” I said to the mound of sand once I was certain I was alone. “I should've told you I loved you. I should've understood that your enlisting had nothing to do with me. I wish you would've tried to explain it to me. But then who knows if it would've made any difference—” I stopped myself. Could it have changed things? If he'd known that I loved him and respected what he was doing, would he have been more careful? Would he have kept his mouth shut? “Just please know that I'm so, so sorry.”

The words seemed terribly inadequate. I had hoped that by speaking them aloud I could force the tears I knew wanted to come, but for the time being they remained stubborn. I closed my eyes, sat cross-legged in the sand, and tried to conjure the Jack I'd known. The first time I'd met him had been at an after-party for a show he and Jayne had been in. She was already dating Tony at this point, but every night she came home with tales of the amazing actor she got to share the stage with. He was funny, he was handsome, he was talented, and, when I finally got to see him for myself, she pronounced that he was perfect for me. I didn't agree though. Based
on our first conversation, I concluded he was spoiled, arrogant, and not half as witty as he thought himself to be. Later, he told me that he found me cold, my humor cruel and biting, and, frankly, I was too damn tall, even though he managed to tower above me. I'm not sure what made him change his opinion, but I know what forever altered him in my eyes. I finally saw the show he and Jayne were in, and as he moved about the stage, saying words that weren't his own, I caught a glimmer of the man he really was. I can't describe it any better than that, but on the stage he laid himself bare, and I realized that the man I'd met was the character and the man I watched was the real person.

“Why couldn't you have kept your mouth shut?” I asked the mound. “Who appointed you the savior for those men who died? They didn't need you. They're dead. And now so are you, and there's no one left to be
your
voice. You died for nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

“Rosie?”

Candy Abbott stood a few feet away, her flashlight drawing a full moon in the sand.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I offered a weak smile. “Just needed a little time to myself.”

“Oh.” She took it that she was intruding and turned tail to walk away.

“It's okay,” I said. “I mean, it's fine that you're here. What are you doing out so late?”

She adjusted a knapsack dangling from her right shoulder. It looked heavy, but perhaps what I was observing was the weight of some other burden. “I guess I needed a little time too. I wasn't tired so I thought a walk might help.”

“How'd you escape the curfew?”

“Amelia waits until she thinks we're asleep, and then she hightails it out of there. Rumor has it she's shacking up with Late Nate.” She peered at me more closely. “Are you sure you're all right?”

“I got some bad news about someone who meant a lot to me.”

“I'm so sorry.”

I ran my hand over the sand covering his photograph. Should I make a tombstone to mark the spot, or was it better to let it disappear? “I thought if I buried a picture of him it might help say goodbye.”

“Is it working?”

“Not yet.”

She squatted next to me. “I know this sounds trite, but I know what it's like. I just found out that a friend of mine back home was killed.”

“Irene?” I asked.

Her face showed her surprise. “How did you know?”

“Kay told me.”

Her expression changed, showing a look of disappointment that was so frequently experienced that it was becoming a permanent part of her face. “I can't believe she didn't say anything to me. I've been walking around all night wondering how I was going to break the news to her.”

I wasn't in the mood to deal with whatever baggage Kay and Candy were toting around. Candy seemed to sense that, and instead of continuing on this conversational path, she sat next to me in the sand. “Who did you lose?” she asked.

“A friend. Well, he was more than that. A lot more before he enlisted, and not as much since then.”

She nodded knowingly. “Only you realized he was everything to you, right?”

I nodded. “I'm not sure what to feel. There's this horrible emptiness inside me right now, and it seems so disrespectful. And I'm just so angry with him. I should be crying, shouldn't I?'

“You're in shock. It's perfectly normal. When you're ready, the tears will come.”

“I've had to fake grief so many times, but no matter how many tears I shed onstage, I don't think anything I manufactured ever approached what real grief feels like.”

“Have you lost anyone before?”

“My pop, though I was too young to feel anything. A guy I worked
for was murdered a few months ago. I didn't have any problem crying for him.” I worked my finger through the wet sand, inventing cursive letters that had nothing to do with the Western alphabet.

“That's different though,” said Candy. “That death was a total shock.”

She was right. Anyone who knew anyone who had been drafted or enlisted had to consider the possibility that they weren't returning. In some small way they must've prepared themselves for that inevitability, biting off the emotion like a squirrel storing its nuts for the winter.

She put her hand in mine. “The last thing you should be doing is beating yourself up for not grieving properly.”

But it was so much easier than feeling the grief that I knew was waiting just beneath the surface.

 

Candy offered to walk me back to my tent. I was grateful for the company, especially once I realized I had no idea where I was going. As we approached my home away from home, silhouettes formed against the lit canvas walls.

“Is there a man in your tent?” asked Candy.

“Wouldn't surprise me.”

Sure enough, the figure of a man and woman were putting on a shadow puppet show before the dim illumination of our lone light-bulb. As I told Candy good night, the man's figure raced out of the tent opening opposite from where we stood.

I entered our encampment and found Kay alone. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Spanky and his crew came through and kidnapped them. He promised to have them back after one beer.” She dipped a washrag into our sink and mopped her face.

“Jayne too?” I hoped it didn't show in my voice, but I was disappointed that she wasn't there waiting for me. Not that it was fair for me to expect her to sit around while I mourned, but it was so unlike her not to.

“No, she went looking for you. There were two men with her. I think one of them was your friend from today.”

“Peaches?”

“The one and only.”

Why had he come to Tulagi? Was he mad that he hadn't gotten a chance to witness my breakdown? “What did he want?”

“From what I could tell, he was looking for forgiveness.”

I squeezed my hand closed until my nails bit into my palm. “Then he came to the wrong place.”

What if Kay was wrong? Maybe he wasn't here for forgiveness. Maybe he'd come to tell me he'd gotten it wrong and Jack was still alive.

“It might help to talk to him,” said Kay. “If nothing else, directing your rage at someone might help the grief come out.”

Or maybe Jayne was right: Peaches could've made up the whole awful story just to hurt me.

“Any idea which way they headed?” I asked.

“To the beach, I imagine.”

I dashed back into the night. I followed the path to the beach by the dim light of the moon.

“Rosie!” said Jayne.

Peaches and Billy were with her. I waited for her to jubilantly announce that a terrible mistake had been made, but the words never came.

You couldn't undo death.

“Kay said you were looking for me,” I said. I couldn't meet Peaches' eyes, so I focused on everyone but him.

Jayne released her grip on Billy's hand and gently pushed Peaches toward me. “Peaches wants to talk to you.” They must've spent their time searching for me gabbing about the reason for his visit since Jayne didn't seem to have a problem with leaving him alone with me. Or maybe it was Billy who convinced her. After all, she had to be dying to be alone with him.