Runny03 - Loose Lips (17 page)

“Your bridesmaid is your best friend, Maizie. We’ve been over this.” Louise glared at her. “The way you two carry on you’re lucky to be in this wedding at all. And for another thing, you are the shortest person up there. You have to be on the end.”

“Who was your bridesmaid?”

“I was,” Juts answered.

“See,” Maizie said, a touch too loud.

“Maizie, my wedding was very different from Mary’s wedding. For one thing, it wasn’t slapped together at the last minute. You shut up and play your part or I’ll yank you out of that bridesmaid’s line faster than you can say ‘Jack Rabbit.’”

Maizie bit her lip, turned on her heel, and stalked out.

“Oh dear God, let me live long enough to be a burden to my children. I want to destroy their furniture, break their plates, interrupt their sleep, and contradict them morning, noon, and night. I want to cost them money.”

Juts laughed, then Louise had to laugh at herself. Juts checked her watch again, “Well, mother of the bride, let’s go down the aisle and sit. My feet hurt.”

Louise, motionless for a minute, blinked, then nodded. The sisters walked out into the vestibule and then, shoulder to shoulder, strolled down the center aisle as the congregation stood to honor the mother.

Back in the groom’s room, Jacob Epstein, in his rented morning suit, together with Extra Billy’s two brothers in their rented clothes, nervously blinked, paced, and breathed deeply. Billy’s broad shoulders filled his gray tailcoat.

The groom cleared his throat. “Mr. Smith, I really do appreciate you being here with me.”

Chester smiled. “Billy, that’s the fourth time you’ve thanked me. I’m happy to be here.”

“Guess I’m a little jumpy.”

“Billy”—Chester put his hand on his shoulder—“in about twenty minutes’ time the ceremony will be over and you’ll be a married man. Everything changes. I think when we get married we’re thinking a lot about the physical part, but it takes more than that to make a partnership.”

“Sir,” Billy agreed.

“I think if I had three lifetimes I’d never understand women. They are peculiar.” Chessy smiled at the big young man in front of him. “But you’ve got to pull it together, talk to each other, and overlook the little niggling things that get under your skin. And one more thing—tell her you love her. Sometimes we think they know it, but for whatever reason, women need to hear it more than we do.” He held out his hand. “I wish you all the luck in the world.”

“Thank you, Mr. Smith.” Billy shook his hand as the organist played the groom’s cue.

“I’ll walk you to the aisle.”

He led the fellows to the aisle to the right of the altar. “Billy,
count to five to give me time to get to my seat. Okay?” When Billy nodded, he winked at him. “You picked a wonderful girl.” Then he quietly slipped down the side aisle.

As the music ended, Billy and his groomsmen silently filed out in front of the altar. They stood ramrod straight.

The bride’s march boomed. Mary appeared in the vestibule, her father next to her, fighting back his tears. He kissed her quickly through her veil before they started down the aisle. Maizie brought up the rear, dreaming of her own wedding someday. Billy turned when he heard the bride’s march, and the sight of Mary, dazzling in her white bridal gown, brought a smile of pure joy to his face. No one in the congregation that day would ever forget the look on Extra Billy Bitters’s face. It truly was a love match.

Louise cried in her lace handkerchief. Juts put her arm around her, the tears welling up in her eyes, too. Why, she didn’t know. Maybe hope pulled the tears up, the hope that somehow these two would survive together, survive the curveballs life throws at you, and survive their own shortcomings.

Even Chester cried.

Juts glanced across the aisle, noticing that Millard Yost dabbed his eyes. The she remembered a poster he had put up in every storefront window in Runnymede when his Irish setter ran off.

Her shoulders heaved. Louise hugged her tighter, thinking the sacrament was touching Juts to her deepest core. Then she noted her younger sister’s face.

“Stop it,” Louise whispered in a hiss.

“I can’t.” Juts nearly choked.

“I am going to name my first ulcer after you.” Louise jabbed
Juts so hard with her elbow that an audible
oomph
could be heard behind the sisters. People assumed both were overcome with emotion. In that, they were correct. Fortunately, conventional sentiment obscured just what those emotions were. People see what they want to see.

Juts felt Chessy’s strong hand take hers and gently squeeze. She pulled herself together but she knew she’d never be able to think about this wedding without thinking about Seamus, the fat Irish setter.

The bride and groom drove around the square on their way to Baltimore for their honeymoon. Extra Billy turned on the radio when they were about five miles out of town. He pulled a U-turn, heading back to Runnymede on that frosty December 7 morning.

PART TWO

I
t’s funny what sticks in the mind after a seismic shock, sticks in the mind like leftover cotton fluttering on a picked boll.

The shop was always closed on Sunday and Monday, so Julia and Louise walked Buster and Doodlebug around the square. Even the dogs were subdued. The post office on the north side was behind the sumptuous City Hall Building on the square. Built of granite with Doric columns, whereas City Hall had Ionic columns, the post office loomed. Two enormous braziers, half a story high, flanked the steps. Even though pale winter light filtered through the glowing clouds, the flames in the braziers were lit. A line of young, middle-aged, and even old men stretched down the Emmitsburg pike; another line curled around City Hall almost to Hanover Street.

The sisters, arm in arm, stared with mouths agape. Billy Bitters, a worn scarf wrapped around his neck, patiently waited. As soon as he’d heard the news on the radio he had turned the car around and headed home. The honeymoon would have to wait. He was surrounded by Ray Parker, Jacob Epstein, Doak Garten, and other friends. He smiled and waved at the Hunsenmeirs. Juts waved back. Louise nodded. It was bad enough that he had married her daughter. Now he was going to leave her.

They walked over to the South Runnymede post office, a more modest affair of white frame with a long porch and green
shutters. The American flag flew at half-mast, as did the flag of Maryland, an exceptionally beautiful red, black, and yellow state flag, quartered with the coat of arms of Lord Baltimore. The post office faced Baltimore Street. One line of men snaked west along the square, with stragglers queuing up in the alleyway between the library and the P.O. Yet another line stretched east clear down Baltimore Street. Paul Trumbull and Chester Smith, side by side, stood in the line down Baltimore Street.

Juts left Louise and ran. It took Louise a second until she saw her husband standing there in the cold. She, too, ran toward him.

“Chester, don’t do this. You’re thirty-six. You’re too old.”

“Honey, go home.”

“You can’t go to war. I’ll starve!” came the plaintive wail.

“You won’t starve.”

“They won’t take you. I’m telling you, you’re wasting your time.”

“Julia Ellen, this is no place for you.”

“Why not? There are even some women in the line.”

“Well, uh—two people from the same family can’t enlist,” he fibbed.

Meanwhile Louise harangued Pearlie. He was quite firm with her.

Finally the tearful sisters left. Since they were halfway through paying off their debt, they wandered into Cadwalder’s, only to find Flavius Cadwalder in tears, too.

“Girls, excuse me.” He wiped his eyes.

“Where’s Vaughn?”

“He was in front of the post office at six this morning in the freezing cold.” Pride as well as worry shone on his face. “Vaughn has enlisted in the Army. He was the very first person to sign up today.”

“Well—” Juts thought a moment, and then said, “You raised a wonderful son. He’ll be a fine soldier.”

He pressed to his face one of the thin white cotton towels used for wiping glassware.

Louise reached over the counter and patted his shoulder. “Flavius, everything will be okay.”

He wiped his eyes. “Wheezie, nothing will ever be the same. The world’s gone crazy.” He sniffled. “Here I’m forgetting myself. What can I get you?”

“We don’t really want anything. We don’t know what to do.” Louise’s lip quivered. “Our husbands are standing down there in line, too, and they’re enlisting behind our backs.” Louise started to cry.

That made Julia cry and Flavius, as well. The Yosts came into the store. Pretty soon everyone who came in was crying. People were shocked, confused, and deeply worried.

Lillian said, “Ted Baeckle won’t take Chessy or Pearlie. Don’t fret.”

Ted Baeckle was the Army recruiter. When Germany invaded Poland on the first of September, 1939, Juts, as a precautionary measure, visited Ted, begging him not to let Chester sign up should he try to enlist.

Ted replied that she shouldn’t worry. The United States wasn’t at war. If they went to war he’d sideline her husband. However, that was two years ago and she was plenty worried.

“You know during the War Between the States they took men who were in their sixties and boys who were twelve.” Juts dabbed her eyes. “How do we know it won’t happen again?”

“We’re not that desperate,” Lillian stated.

The door swung open. Doak Garten came in. He smiled at them. “Navy!”

“My God,” Louise exclaimed, then forced a smile. “You’ve done the right thing, Doak, we’re just all—I don’t know what we are.”

“Miserable,” Julia, chin on hand, answered.

Just then Ray breezed in. He and Doak slapped each other on the back. This was a big adventure to them.

Louise called out to Ray, “Extra Billy still in line?”

“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Trumbull, and he’s going to enlist in the Marines.”

“He would,” she grumbled.

Julia, under her breath, whispered, “Louise, you can be hateful. The boy could get killed, you know.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Julia. He’s too thickheaded to train. He’ll spend the war in the brig.” She wanted to add, “And what am I supposed to do with a crying Mary and a crying baby?”

Louise couldn’t have been more wrong.

Y
ou know how strongly I disapprove of war, no matter what the provocation,” Mother Smith declaimed. “Thank heavens Ted Baeckle exhibited judgment.”

Chester, hands clasped behind his back, surreptitiously glanced at the clock. “Yes, Mother.”

“Why did I raise you if you mean to persist in immoral activities? War is immoral.”

“Ted made me second in command of the Civil Air Patrol. I guess it’s better than nothing. Celeste Chalfonte is head of it, of course. She’ll whip everyone into shape.” Chessy sighed.

“Part and parcel of war.” Jo Smith stuck out her chin.

“I’m not going to sit on the sidelines after what happened at Pearl Harbor.”