Winter in June (16 page)

For a woman who was receiving the shock of her life, she was amazingly calm. Her body was strangely still, as though she was holding her breath in anticipation of what would happen next. A hint of a smile rippled across her face, ready—in an instant—to convert itself into either a full-fledged grin or a frown. She kept her eyes glued on Van, silently daring him to say the first word.

The man who had been dubbed the heartthrob of Hollywood had the sort of good looks that made you think he might be accessible. He was handsome and athletic, perfectly suited to a military uniform. Maybe his eyes were a little too blue, his hair a shade too dark for him to be just like other men, but on screen you could believe the lie that this was a boy you knew who'd grown up to be the man you loved. As the four of us gawked, Hafler introduced his men to the group. I felt like I was watching a film and prayed it wasn't a
Saturday afternoon serial headed toward a cliffhanger. What would the famous movie star do next? Would he acknowledge his spurned ex or pretend that she was a complete stranger?

In his place, I probably would've done the latter. And had it been a room full of men, he might have chosen to do just that. (After all, how many of those men were aware of the romantic travails of Hollywood stars?) But I'll bet seeing four women who recognized both him and the awkwardness of the situation convinced him that to do anything but greet Gilda warmly would cause him to be tarred and feathered.

“Gilda,” he said, in that wonderful voice of his that had begged many a big-screen woman to be his wife. His smile ignited the dimples that always made him look younger than he really was. “It's so wonderful to see you. I'd heard you were doing a tour.”

She returned his plastic smile, and I marveled at what a truly skilled actress she was. “Van, I'm so pleased to see that you're safe.” She rose and he planted a kiss on each of her cheeks.

“I hear you'll be performing for us tonight,” said Van.

Gilda stepped away from him and gestured to where the rest of us were sitting. “All of us will be. I'm hardly the only person in the show.”

“No, but you're the star, aren't you?”

Gilda didn't answer, though the tension the comment created in her was palpable. Rear Admiral Blake rose from his chair and directed our guests to the open seats. “Please forgive us for starting without you, gentlemen. The ladies are anxious to have time to get ready for their performance.”

“We should be the ones apologizing,” said Van with a wink. “I certainly know better than to keep a lady waiting.”

Dinner was an unpleasant affair. Those of us who were aware of the awkwardness between Gilda and Van were working overtime to distract them however we could. For a while Violet took up the banner as center of attention, bombarding Van with questions about his career that I knew she couldn't have cared less about. When she ran out of things to ask, Kay jumped in with questions for the army
air force officers about where they'd been and what they'd done. While that conversation could've lasted into the new year, it wasn't sufficiently interesting to hold the attention of the men we usually dined with. Late Nate, sullen after having met Gilda's ex-boyfriend, decided to steal the focus away from the new arrivals and redirect it at me.

“Still empathizing with the Japanese, Miss Winter?”

He couldn't have diverted attention faster if he'd put a fruit bowl on his head and started to merengue.

“I think you misunderstood my remarks that night,” I said. The rage that I had wanted to aim at him returned in hot, strong waves.

“So you
do
think the Japanese are vicious savages?”

I looked to the others for assistance, but there was such relief that whatever we were talking about wasn't Gilda and Van that no one seemed anxious to jump in and help me. Even Jayne seemed to have forgotten that I was on the ledge and about to tumble off. “I think they're human beings, Rear Admiral Blake. That's all.”

“Really? And would you still feel that way if it were your husband or boyfriend who was dead at their hands? Not just dead but savagely ripped apart and left to suffer in the most excruciating manner possible.”

I lunged at Late Nate. If he wanted to talk suffering, I would show him suffering.

“Rosie!” Jayne latched on to my arm and wrenched it backward.

I kept my eyes locked on Late Nate's, telling him without words what I wished I could say out loud. Jayne jerked my arm so hard I heard my shoulder pop. I stumbled from my place at the table to a space just beside her.

“She's not herself,” she said. “She just found out that a friend was killed.”

Blake said something in response, but I couldn't hear it above the roar of the blood pulsing in my ears. Jayne pulled me out of the high commissioner's house and kept walking until we were safely out of earshot of the building.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered.

“Don't be. He was baiting you. In your shoes, I would've done the same thing.”

But she wasn't in my shoes. Jayne had Billy and Tony, if she still wanted him, two men who were very alive and very in love. I just had memories of a man I hadn't loved enough, who'd left this earth in the worst possible way.

“You shouldn't do the show tonight,” she said.

“No.” The rain had stopped and been replaced by a fine mist that was turning my hair from lank to frizzy. In fact, everything about me felt like it was curling up. If the sensation continued, I'd be half the size I started at.

“I mean it, Rosie. Your heart's not in it, and your brain isn't very far behind. You need rest. And while I don't blame you a bit for how you reacted in there, I'd hate to see Blake decide to punish you for it. If you're up on that stage tonight acting like everything's fine, it's going to be awfully hard for him to excuse what happened. Gilda's going to be a nervous wreck as it is, and I just think it would be better for everyone if you took the night off.”

Deep down, I knew she was right. I had threatened a commanding officer and no matter how justified I'd felt in my actions, there could be repercussions. With everything else that was happening, it was the last thing I needed.

“Can I watch the show?” I asked. I was afraid to go back to the tent by myself, afraid of spending two hours lost in my own thoughts.

Jayne took my hand. “Sure.”

We headed toward the performance area. While Jayne got ready, I watched from a chair in the dressing area, as limp as an exhausted child waiting for her nap. Eventually, the other girls arrived and Jayne informed them, in a low voice, that I wouldn't be performing that night. They each cooed their regrets, agreeing that it was wise for me to sit the night out and reassuring me that Blake wouldn't do anything to punish me. “I talked to him,” said Gilda. “He understands that grief makes people do strange things.”

Nobody mentioned the fact that Van Lauer was going to be in the audience. His arrival seemed to have been forgotten in light of
what had happened, which I'm sure Gilda was grateful for. She occupied herself by talking through the changes they would make in the show to cover my absence. She seemed invigorated by having a new calamity to focus on.

Just as the four of them were getting ready to go on stage, there was a knock outside the dressing area. “I need to talk to Gilda.” The voice was unmistakably Van's.

Gilda rolled her eyes. “We're getting ready to start the show,” She told the door.

“Two minutes,” he said. “I think you owe me that much.”

She shifted her attention back to us. “I'll be right back, ladies,” she said.

As soon as she was gone, Jayne, Violet, and Kay huddled together to analyze what was going on.

“What a jerk,” said Jayne. “I can't believe she let him treat her like that during dinner.”

“What choice did she have?” said Kay. “I doubt any man in there understood the significance of his arrival. If she'd been cold toward him, she would've looked like the one who wasn't behaving appropriately. She didn't need that.”

“And talk about nerve,” said Violet. “Demanding that she talk to him. She doesn't owe him anything. Look, girls, she's going to need our help tonight. Whatever he's saying is bound to rattle her good. Let's make sure we're on our toes just in case she's off hers.”

“Absolutely,” said Jayne. Rising voices came from outside the dressing area, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Both were letting each other have it, though, that much was clear. A third voice unexpectedly joined them, abruptly cutting off the heated exchange.

“Can I get you anything?” asked Jayne.

It took me a moment to realize that she was directing the question at me. “No.”

“Are you sure?” She put her hand on my shoulder.

I swatted her away. “Just stop with the babying, okay? Your hovering over me isn't helping anything.”

Jayne backed away, a scrim of hurt darkening her eyes. I didn't care. Let her hurt. Nothing I said to her could make her feel half as bad as I did.

Gilda joined us, her eyes red and her face flushed. “Colonel Hafler would like us to start now,” she said. She picked up a powder puff and tried to pat the sheen out of her face.

“Is everything all right?” asked Jayne.

“Van has impeccable timing as usual. Leave it to him to upset someone the moment before they have to go onstage.” The powder was doing a poor job disguising the feverish flush of her skin. She sighed heavily, and I feared that her tears might be getting ready for a second performance. Just when I thought I saw water glistening at the corners of her eyes, she forced a large smile and removed any hint of despair from her face. “Come on, girls,” she said. “We have a show to do.”

I angled a chair in the wings so that I had a good view of what was going on. The show started seamlessly. Beneath a star-filled sky and before an audience full of men we'd met over the course of our weeks there, and the few we'd unfortunately encountered that evening, Kay, Violet, Jayne, and Gilda sang the songs, did the steps, and told the jokes that had become second nature to them.

I was the only one aware of my absence. I had become expendable.

The small amphitheater was packed, which necessitated putting men up in the cliffs that surrounded the performance space. As though they sensed the tension in Gilda's performance, the enlisted men laughed a little louder and hooted with more enthusiasm than we were used to. The army air force officers had been seated in a special section with real chairs and a table to rest their after-dinner drinks on. While the majority of the group seemed to be enjoying
the show, Van Lauer remained expressionless. Part of me wondered if he hadn't fallen asleep.

I had verification that he was still conscious halfway through the show. As Gilda sang her second solo, he got up and left the theater. Gilda must've noticed as well because her voice made a peculiar skip, faltering on a note she'd never had problems with before. Someone else in the audience got up. Dotty. He left the same way Van had and disappeared.

Gilda's song ended, and Jayne joined her for “Anchor's Aweigh.” As Gilda gave the song all her gusto, Jayne shim sham shimmied before the appreciative crowd. Up in the cliffs a flash of light grabbed my attention. Could it be the Japanese again, watching us the way they'd watched at Guadalcanal? But they weren't on Tulagi, where they?

A crackle sounded across the theater. Somebody screamed. Gilda stopped singing and the piano quickly came to a halt. The
rat-a-tat
of Jayne's tap shoes could no longer be head over the sounds of the audience.

“Medic!” someone screamed.

“Sniper on the hillside. Two o'clock!”

A wave of people stormed the stage and filled the wings, pushing me back into the dressing area. Violet was in the middle of a costume change and covered her upper half with her arms while screaming for a little privacy.

“Oh it's you,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

Another crackle sounded somewhere in the distance.

“Gunshots,” I said. “Someone's throwing lead.” I tried to force my way onstage, but the crush of people wouldn't let me pass. Where were Jayne and Gilda? I grabbed the arm of the sailor nearest to me and tried to get an answer from him, but he shrugged me off and told me to get out of the way so the medic could get through.

I shoved him back, twice as hard, until he had no choice but to look at me. “Listen, Buster, I need to know what's going on here. Has someone been shot?”

“It looks like the two women on stage are down. You know—Gilda DeVane and that other girl.”

 

Violet paced the brief length of the dressing area, her shoulders hunched like she was an animal waiting to pounce on its prey. “We shouldn't have to wait. We should be there with them.”

“I know,” I said. We'd been told to stay in the dressing area while the men searched the area for the sniper. I was starting to shake. I did this when I was scared, no matter what the temperature. Jayne had been shot. She could be dying or dead. Was I going to lose everyone who meant something to me?

“Hey you!” Violet marched over to the door and got the attention of the nearest sailor. “We want out of here.”

“Sorry, ma'am, but orders are the two of you are to stay put.”

“Then, at the very least, I think we deserve to know what's what. Our friends were hurt. We need to know how they are.”

I admired her moxie. And I was ashamed that I hadn't made the same demand myself. But I was in shock, so shattered over the idea that Jayne was somewhere suffering that I could barely get my own mind to work.

“I'll see if I can get word for you, all right? That's the best I can do.”

Violet left the doorway and sank onto an army-green folding chair. “You got to get yourself together, Rosie. They're going to be fine. Jayne…she's a tough cookie, like you.” Or like I used to be anyway. Violet reached under her skirt and pulled out her flask. She chugged the liquid, her throat pulsing like it was a vein receiving a fresh push of blood. She pulled the bottle from the baby's mouth and offered it to me. “Want a tickle?”

“Yeah, that would be swell.” I gagged at the first taste. This was Spanky's homebrew.

“It gets better the more you drink,” said Violet.

I mustered up some courage and took a long swallow before returning the flask to her. As the liquid tingled its way down my gullet,
it brought me back to myself. Jayne needed me. I couldn't shut down like this. The sailor may have been wrong, and even if he wasn't, she could pull through this. She was young and strong. There was still hope. “Where's Kay?” I asked.

Violet snapped to it like she'd been in her own grief-induced haze. “I don't know. She was back here with me changing and then she said she had to use the latrine before we went back on. I told her she was never going to make it, but she said she had to go
now
. I don't think she ever came back.”

The same grim thought seemed to occur to both of us: Gilda and Jayne might not be the only people injured.

I rushed to the entrance. “Our friend's missing,” I said to the sailor at the door.

“We know. We're trying to find out what we can.”

“I'm not talking about the two onstage. There's a third girl—Kay Thorpe. She went to the latrine right before the gunshots started, and no one's seen her since.”

He barked an order to the guy next to him, instructing him to check out the nearest latrine. He was off in an instant, calling out the names of other men to accompany him.

Violet and I returned to the flask, hoping we might be able to pull more commonsense from it. In the distance, men shouted out orders and directions. More shots were fired. “We got 'em!” someone shouted jubilantly, and a rush of footsteps stormed past where we were hidden, making strange sucking noises as they moved over the rain-drenched earth.

We were about to poke our heads out and ask what happened when a face appeared at the door. Kay!

“Are you all right?” asked Violet. My eyes scanned her tall body, searching for a sign of injury.

“Just shaken, that's all. Where are the others?”

“They've been shot,” said Violet. I winced as she said it. Would it have killed her to wrap the news in a kind little euphemism?

“Both of them?” Kay sank into a nearby chair.

“Where were you?” I asked.

Her face was pale, or at least as pale as it could be after taking two weeks' worth of Atabrine. “I ran to the latrine. I got scared when I heard the gunshots. I couldn't tell where they were coming from. And so I decided I'd better stay put—” A tear fought to leave the corner of her eye. There was more to the story than just a frightened woman hiding from what she was certain was a scene of danger. There was something in Kay's voice that said that she hated herself for deciding to hide rather than help. As though she recognized that we sensed what she hadn't said, Kay nodded twice and lowered her voice. “It was a cowardly thing to do. I shouldn't have stayed there. I have training after all. If I'd run toward the hills when the first shot was fired, maybe I could've stopped them.”

“That's silly,” I said. “More likely you would've turned yourself into a moving target. Besides, the second shot came right after the first. There's no way you could've prevented it.”

“But I shouldn't have run,” she said. “That's not what Wacs do.”

“You're not a Wac anymore,” said Violet. “You're a human.”

 

For two hours we waited for word in the cramped dressing area behind the stage. At last the door opened, and Dotty and Spanky appeared. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought Spanky was shell-shocked. His face told of horrors he never anticipated having to see. Dotty looked haggard, the skin beneath his eyes stained a sickly blue gray. I hadn't seen him since Kay had told him about Irene, so I couldn't tell if his appearance had changed with that bad news or with this fresh rush of awful. For the first time since I'd met him, I found it impossible not to notice his limp. It had become the most prominent thing about him.

“What's going on? How are they?” Kay rushed toward the door and took hold of Dotty's arm, as though she feared he would change his mind and turn around and leave.

Now it was his turn not to meet her eyes. “Jayne's in the infirmary. It looks like she was just grazed.”

I smiled. I couldn't help it. Jayne was all right. I hadn't lost her. “What about Gilda?”

“I don't know. They took her into surgery.”

Violet went to Spanky's side and took his hand. Instantly, both their mitts turned bright red from the strength they exerted in holding each other. When had they gotten so close? I was surprised to see it but strangely pleased by it too. Violet was capable of caring about someone other than herself. Who knew?

“It'll be fine,” whispered Violet.

“They're not the only ones who got hurt,” said Spanky.

Violet's face became a question mark.

“Somebody shot Mac too.”

His dog? What was this—was someone on a streak, gunning down everyone who meant something to us? What did it say that Violet, Kay, and I were spared?

“Oh no,” said Violet. “How bad is it?”

“Woof thinks the bullet missed the organs and arteries.” His words slurred together. “He already got the slug out. You're not going to believe this, but he was shot with a revolver.”

“Who's Woof?” asked Kay.

“One of the Aussies used to be a vet,” said Dotty. He looked like he was about to say more when Rear Admiral Blake poked his head into the room.

“You ladies are free to go to your tent now.”

“That's it?” I said. “What happened? Who do you think did this?”

“Are we safe?” asked Violet.

“What if it happens again?” asked Kay.

“Relax, ladies,” said Blake. “The culprit has been caught.”

 

We decided to go down to the swimming hole to commiserate. I couldn't help but notice how Kay stuck to Dotty's side on the walk there. In fact, with Kay clinging to Dotty and Violet to Spanky, I was starting to feel like the odd man out.

That was all right though. Jayne was alive.
Grazed
was the word Dotty had used. Never had there been a more benign word in the English language.

“Can I see her?” I asked.

“They've got sickbay locked up tight with guards at every door,” said Dotty. “No one's getting in there tonight.”

At least I knew she was safe.

“Where did Mac get shot?” asked Violet. She produced her flask and passed it to Spanky.

“In the chest.” Spanky took a long pull from the bottle.

“No, I mean where was he?” asked Violet.

“I found him up in the cliffs when we went after the sniper. He must've followed me up there. I thought he was gone for sure, but the minute he saw me, he wagged his tail. I just can't believe someone would shoot a dog like that.”

To say nothing of two humans.

We arrived at the swimming hole and spread out on the grassy ledge that surrounded it. None of us had our bathing suits on, and the subject matter demanded modesty, so we all sat with our feet dangling in the warm water, swatting at mosquitoes that seemed intent on feeding on us.

“Who did they capture?” asked Kay.

“There was a Jap up in the cliffs,” said Spanky. He still had Violet's flask and I longed for him to pass it to me. It was becoming increasingly clear, though, that he was depending on it to make it through the night.

“Did you see him?” asked Violet.

“Not when they grabbed him, but I saw him when they brought him down.”

“I didn't think there were any Japanese on the island,” I said.

“Neither did I,” said Spanky. “But I heard they caught two nips by the supply hut a few weeks ago. And word is that more supplies went missing last night. Not much, but enough to be noticed. I'm thinking they must've come back tonight to get more.”

“But the supply huts are on the other side of the camp. What was the shooter doing up in the cliffs?” I asked.

Spanky shook his head. “Beats me. Maybe the sniper was put up in the hills to make sure no one left the theater until they were done
with their supply raid. He had a radio with him. Once they realized that most of the men were congregating in one place, they probably posted him as a lookout.”

“But why shoot Gilda and Jayne?”

“Something might've gone wrong,” said Dotty. “Maybe he needed to create a distraction.”

I shivered in the warm night. We were all expendable.

“God, that's terrifying,” said Violet. She was putting two and two together and realizing, as I was, how lucky we were that we hadn't been onstage. “They had to know they were civilians.”

Dotty shook his head. “I don't think the Japanese know how to distinguish between the two. They slaughtered thousands of natives who never had a role in this war. They do whatever they perceive they have to do to win, and that means they play by very different rules than we do. They're savages.”

“Dotty.” Kay's voice held a hint of warning. They were sitting thigh to thigh. What had changed between them? Was he the man Candy and I had seen in silhouette in the tent the night before? Had their grief over Irene united them?

“You know it's true,” said Dotty. “They showed no mercy in Bataan.”

Kay didn't respond. Space grew between them. It wasn't much, but it was clear she didn't want him touching her anymore.

“He had to know he would get caught,” I said.