Runny03 - Loose Lips (26 page)

“Smarter, too. You tell a twenty-year-old to go over the top, machine-gun fire flying every which way, and he’ll go. At your age you think twice about it.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t go up and over,” Chessy said.

“You know, politicians are claiming victory before we’re even over there. I fought the Germans. They’re tough and they’re smart. You might get your chance yet, Chessy.”

“Think it’s going to be that bad for us?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Don’t you think Germany’s got to wear down?”

“If they conquer enough territory they can replenish their supplies. They can win the whole shooting match. The secret is gas. No kidding. If they can protect their fuel supply, they’ve got a chance to take home all the marbles.”

“What about the Japs?”

“Not a prayer. The Pacific war isn’t our first priority and we’ll still skunk them.”

“You’re a lot smarter than I am. I don’t pay much attention to the world out there. I know I should, but—” He paused. “I’ve got enough right here to keep my mind busy.” He ground out the stub. “I have been reading my maps, though. If the Germans have any kind of aircraft carriers they can hit us wherever they want. Or they can take Newfoundland—”

His brother-in-law interrupted. “Not a good idea. They couldn’t hold it, not even long enough to build air bases.”

“Then Cuba.”

“Yeah, that would work if they want to commit a big enough force to do it. But yeah, that would work.”

“They say Argentina’s for Germany even though she’s playing neutral. That’s a rich country.”

“Rich and far away.” Pearlie held his feet toward the heater. “Funny what happens to your mind when you read maps and start thinking like a general. You begin to think those countries in their different colors are like Fannie’s poker chips. You’re going to pick them up and put them in your pocket. And all the thousands—millions, even—of people clinging to that poker chip, you start thinking they’re ants.”

The first snowflake lazed down, a warning of what was to
follow. The men pulled the tarp over the top of the tower. It was rolled up like a window blind, but horizontally instead of vertically. So many Civil Air Patrol volunteers had been coming down with colds because they were drenched in rain or covered in snow that Chessy had rigged up the tarp. This way, if airplanes did brave bad weather, the second you heard them you could roll back the tarp and turn on the searchlight. The second man could crank the siren. They sat down next to the kerosene heater again. Snow fell more thickly now. As the wind picked up, the tower swayed slightly.

“Shit, Chessy.”

“She’ll hold.”

“First you try to freeze me to death, now I’ll go down buried in a mess of timber, a big searchlight for my headstone.”

“Nah, we can roll the light off so it crashes into St. Rose’s.”

Pearlie laughed. He paused a long time before he said, “You’ve been lucky, buddy.”

“Huh?” Chester’s blond stubble was growing out.

“Tuesday nights with your mother.” He paused. “And the occasional swing by the firehouse to make it look good.”

The glow illuminated Chester’s surprised face. “I do see my mother on Tuesdays.”

“That’s not the only person you’re seeing.”

Chester clamped his jaw. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low you could almost hear the snowflakes piling up on the tarp. “No. I’ve been taking dancing lessons. I want to surprise Juts.”

“You will.”

“Come on, Pearlie.”

“I’m not an idiot. I’m not a judge, either. Things happen. I’m just telling you, you’ve been lucky. Your wife and your mother can’t stand the sight of each other, so they won’t compare notes, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a slip-up along the line.”

“I said I was taking dancing lessons.”

“Jesus, Chester.” Pearlie glared at him.

A low sigh, a moan, escaped Chester, who now felt the cold acutely. “I don’t know how I got into this.”

“I do. We’re both married to women who would rather give orders than take them.” Paul grimaced, then relaxed into a smile. “I could kill Louise. If I had a nickel for every time I wanted to wring her neck, I’d be richer than all the Rifes put together, but—” He shrugged. “I’ve got two great kids. I’d die for those girls. I never knew I could—” He stopped because he couldn’t describe his love for his children. “And I love Louise even when I hate her. Crazy.”

“I never thought it would be like this—life.”

“My problem is, I never thought.” Paul looked his best friend in the eye. “I’m thinking now. I’m thinking for my family. I’m thinking I can’t protect my daughters if they marry the wrong men. I can’t even protect my wife if we do get bombed. And I’m thinking for you, man. You think we’re in the middle of a storm now—shit.”

“What am I going to do?”

“Do you love her?”

Chester put his head in his hands. “Yes.”

“Damn.”

“It just happened. She thinks I’m the best thing since sliced bread. I can’t hurt her, Paul, I can’t.”

“Everyone gets hurt, not just her. If you give her up now, it won’t be as bad as if you wait—unless you want to divorce Juts.”

He forced a smile. “She’d kill me.”

“Do you still love her?”

“Yeah—but it’s different.”

“That wild first stuff, it’s like some kind of dope. I couldn’t keep my hands off Wheezie when we started out. It changes. But I love her. We’ve walked a lot of miles together. I can’t imagine
living without her.” He put his gloved hand on Chester’s shoulder. “You’ve got to take charge. Like I said, I’m no judge. If you had a squeeze in Baltimore or York, maybe you could get away with it, but Runnymede?” He shook his head.

T
he bright nail-polish colors offset the dull gray outside. Juts favored brilliant reds for herself. Many of her customers liked pastel shades, or even mauve. She always suggested mauve for the ladies who blued their hair. Toots, talented with color, had yet to turn anyone out with that lavender shade so favored by Junior McGrail and her generation. That didn’t prevent Louise and Juts from doing it, though. Some ladies even liked it.

Junior McGrail died and her son, Rob, went all to pieces. He soon let Runnymede Beauty Salon for Discriminating Ladies go to pot. In Rob’s defense, he evinced little desire to blue, bleach, and curl. Digby Vance found him a post as assistant band director, which steadied him.

Aunt Dimps rented the salon, transforming it into a flower shop. Prudently, she used the Dingledines as a supplier even though they were a touch more expensive than if she’d gone to the flower auctions at Baltimore. But they threw a lot of local business her way.

Gossip Central was filled with news of sons and husbands and boyfriends at boot camp. Vaughn Cadwalder graduated at the top
of his unit. After that there were ripping items like “Orrie doesn’t understand how anyone can drive in Washington, D.C. Noe accepted a commission as a captain and works morning, noon, and night.” Lastly, in peach chalk in the lower right-hand corner, were scribbled announcements: “Fluffy has six beautiful kittens. Free to good home. Patsy BonBon.”

“I am so sick of winter I could throw up,” Mary Miles Mundis complained. “Harold puts on fifteen pounds every winter. The buttons pop off his shirt and if I tactfully suggest he curtail his appetite he says look who’s talking. I don’t think I’m fat.”

Juts massaged M.M.’s hands with a soothing lotion, since people’s hands and lips cracked in the dry air of their homes. “You’ve never been fat.”

Mary Miles beamed. “Neither have you.”

“That’s because you never carried a baby.” Wheezie joined the conversation while she trimmed Aunt Dimps’s locks. “I got big as a house and it took me a whole year to shed it off. I don’t know when I’ve been so miserable.”

“Oh, I can think of a few times,” Julia dryly suggested.

“Because of you,” Wheezie fired back.

“Well, I remember one Fourth of July parade when you two almost set the town on fire.” Mary Miles laughed.

“That was so long ago I forgot all about it.” Louise airily dismissed the subject.

“Funny, we didn’t.” Aunt Dimps giggled. “That was 1912 and Donald and I were courting.” Donald was Dimps’s deceased husband. He died in a train wreck, a spectacular pileup north of Philadelphia.

“It couldn’t have been that far back.” Louise sidestepped the year.

“Yeah, according to you, you weren’t born in 1912.” Juts kept her eyes trained on Mary Miles’s thumb.

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Wheezie tilted her chin upward.

“Don’t start spouting these little sayings. It was 1912 and Idabelle McGrail, Junior’s mother, was in front of our float playing ‘America the Beautiful’ on her accordion. Her son and grandson get all their musical talent from her.”

“Poor souls,” Mrs. Mundis muttered.

“She scared the mule pulling our float,” Juts fibbed.

“Ha. You set the float on fire, Julia Ellen.” Louise remembered the incident vividly, though she chose to fudge the year.

“Hey, I wasn’t Miss Liberty. You held the damned torch. You dropped it. I was a little tugboat in New York Harbor.”

“A little tugboat who knocked Liberty off her base.” Aunt Dimps laughed. “Scared the mule when the float caught on fire and he tore through the parade. Oh, God, I never will forget it. Donald grabbed me and pushed me out of harm’s way. He couldn’t stop the mule. And old Lawrence Villcher—remember him? head of the North Runnymede Fire Department—turned the white engine around and Increase Martin—they still used fire horses—he turned the South Runnymede engine around, and the blast of water stopped the mule and put out the fire.” She licked her lips. “Cleanest mule in two states.”

“And you swore in public.” Julia wanted to deflect her misdeed, no matter how distant.

“I don’t curse, Julia,” Louise frostily replied.

“You did that day.”

“Memory plays tricks on people.” Louise was doing her rise-above-it number, which only goaded Juts.

“At least I have one.”

“My mind is sharp as a tack.”

“Yeah, and just as pointed.” Juts suppressed a giggle.

Louise held a wet flip of hair between her finger and middle finger, scissors poised in midair, which gave her a mildly threatening quality. “You’re not going to make me mad. I have enough on my mind without fooling around with you.”

“Good.” Juts was disappointed. She felt like a mix-up.

Mary Miles gazed off in the distance, straining to remember. “Wasn’t that when your mother met Aimes Rankin?”

“Gee, I don’t know.”

“It was,” Louise affirmed.

“Well, how’s Hansford coming along?” Aunt Dimps jumped from one man to another in Cora’s life, which made sense to the group.

“Healthier. He ought to go out and work,” Louise replied.

“He does seem better. It’s about time to trim that beard of his.” Juts, having prepared Mary Miles’s nails, now selected the color. “What about Cherry Tart?”

“No. Too dark. I need a pick-me-up.”

“Try whiskey,” Aunt Dimps suggested.

“Dimps, I didn’t know you drank.” Louise pretended to be scandalized.

“I don’t. Others drive me to it.”

“Me, too.” Juts pulled out Victory Red, a good color for the times.

“Me, too,” Fannie called out from the back room, another card game in progress.

“That’s good.” Mrs. Mundis leaned back in the chair, appreciating Dimps’s comeback.

“Hansford was an educated man. Geology.” Dimps was about twenty years older than Juts, Wheezie, and Mary Miles Mundis. “I was in my teens when he left but I know my mother used to say there wasn’t enough to hold him here. And she said that no matter how good a woman Cora was, it would be hard for a college-educated man to have a wife who was—” she stopped for a moment, her face beet-red, and softly said, “not educated.”

“Not educated. Hell, Dimps, Mom can’t read or write.” Juts hit the nail on the head.

“No, but Cora’s smarter than any of us.” Dimps righted her conversational ship. “Still, I wonder if Mother wasn’t right.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Mary Miles cleared her throat. “My mother said it was because of Josephine Holtzapple.”

“What?” Both sisters spoke at once.

“Yes. You never heard that?” Mary Miles was surprised.

Aunt Dimps, frowning, pointed her finger at Mary Miles’s reflection in the mirror. “You all were too little to know anything. Besides, that’s water over the dam, or is it under the dam?”

“Over.” Toots had been silent this whole time; actually, she’d been dozing in the chair, as she had a half hour before her next customer arrived. She opened her eyes.

“What do you mean, it was Josephine?” Juts held Mary Miles’s right hand.

“My mother said that Josephine was in love with Hansford. They say she was a beautiful woman in her day.”

“Bet she was a bitch then, too,” Juts grumbled.

“Haughty.” Dimps wished Mary Miles had shut up.

“How come we don’t know this story?” Louise fluffed Aunt Dimps’s hair, searching for scraggly ends.

“The younger generation isn’t interested in the older generation. You can’t even imagine us young.”

“Dimps, you aren’t old.” Julia smiled.