A Distant Melody (5 page)

He nodded to her bucket. “How’s it going, city girl?”

Her laugh was soft and low, not tinkly like Betty’s or giggly like Dorothy’s. “Just fine, country boy.”

He grinned and set his hands on his hips. “Small town boy. Wish I were a country boy. Grandpa’s farm is the best place in the world.”

“It’s lovely out here.” She shaded her eyes against the noontime sun.

He followed her line of sight southwest, where golden hills marched in caravan toward Mount Diablo. “I always thought the hills looked like a herd of camels. You know, the grass looks like camel hair, and the oak trees—like little nomad camel drivers in green robes.”

Another slow smile. “For an engineer, you have quite an imagination.”

“You have no idea how imaginative he can be. Oh, the tales he tells.” Dorothy stood to pass Walt. “Oh, Allie, you have something on your face.”

Walt glared at the back of Dorothy’s dark little head. Leave it to Dorothy Carlisle to ruin things for him in two different ways.

“Oh dear.” Allie looked at the red smear on her handkerchief. “I wonder how long that’s been there.”

“Didn’t even notice,” Walt said. The lines in her forehead relaxed. Did she care what she looked like in front of him? He tipped his garrison cap further down over his forehead to confine his curls.

He squatted across from Allie. “You’re doing well. One thing though—you’ve got to keep the tops on. Keeps them fresh. Take this one. It won’t last.” He pulled the reddest, shiniest berry from her bucket and popped it in his mouth.

“None of them will last with you around.” She scooted her bucket away, her laugh as sweet as the berry dissolving in Walt’s mouth.

“Grandma won’t mind. She loves me.”

Allie picked a strawberry, this time with top intact. “How nice to have your grandparents nearby. Mine are back East.”

“Wow. Only you and your parents out West?”

“Mm-hmm. Betty wanted me to come up here on vacations, but I couldn’t bear to leave them alone. And I’m sure you’ve heard Betty grumble about visiting my home.”

Walt sorted through millions of Betty’s unheard words.

Allie laughed. “I know. I can’t remember half of what she tells me either. Anyway, my family prefers quiet evenings at home. You should see Betty fidget. She needs activity like the rest of us need air.”

“Yeah.” He chucked an overripe berry into the clumps of plants. “Sometimes I go back to base to rest.”

“For me, home is almost too restful.”

“Yeah?” He studied her downcast face. “Do you help with the business?”

She shook her head and sent curls across her cheek again. This time she brushed them away with the back of her hand. “My parents think it’s shameful for a woman to work, but with the labor shortage, perhaps it’s shameful not to work.”

“Especially for a business major.” He smiled at her surprised look. “Sometimes I listen to Betty.”

Allie lowered those long eyelashes and smiled. Pretty. He had a hunch she didn’t know, which made her more attractive, as if he’d found an undiscovered treasure.

“So why’d you pick business?” he asked.

“Well, I—I will inherit the company some day.” Her cheeks turned red again, without the help of strawberry juice. “Baxter— he’s Father’s business manager—he’s qualified to run the company, but I still feel I should understand business practices.”

“Makes sense.” He poked around a plant, but it was picked clean. Strange that she called the fellow by his last name.

“You must think I’m spoiled and lazy.”

“Huh?” Walt snapped his thoughts back. “Because you don’t have a job? No, of course not. Besides, you can volunteer.”

“I wish I could.” She moved forward. “My mother can’t spare me around the house. Our housekeeper—well, she’s Japanese and she was sent to a relocation camp.”

He scooted up to join her, and his bucket left a circle in the rich brown soil. “Yeah. My best friend from the University of California too. Shame.”

“You really think so?” Her voice was low, and she looked to him with wide eyes. “I—I suppose it’s unpatriotic to say so, but I think it’s horrible. Mariko’s a citizen, as American as any of us.”

“Yeah. The only sabotage Eddie committed was keeping me out of the top spot in our engineering class.”

“I thought I was the only one who felt this way. My parents say it’s for Mariko’s safety. The city fired her husband, no one would sell to her, and the milkman wouldn’t even deliver to her.”

Walt shook his head and kept his voice down too. “Can’t even help with the war effort. Eddie wanted to join the Air Corps with me, but they wouldn’t take him.”

She glanced down the row. “It’s sad when those who want to serve aren’t allowed to.”

“Yeah.” He followed her gaze and her line of thought. “Nothing wrong with George’s mind. He’d be great at a desk job, free another man to fight.”

Allie leaned closer. “I hesitate to ask, but what about Art? Is he 4-F also?”

“Nope. 1-A and raring to go. His dad needs him at the store, made him promise not to join up. Art can’t wait for his draft notice.”

“His father must be proud of such a respectful son.”

Walt shrugged and looked up to the white farmhouse. Grandma stood on the porch and beckoned through the circle of oak trees that screened the house from the wind. Lunch must be ready. Walt waved in acknowledgement. “Yeah, Art’s respectful—too respectful.”

“Too respectful? How can that be?”

“Sure, we have to honor our parents, but we have to honor God first.” He stood and held out his hand for Allie’s bucket. “Hey, everyone. Lunchtime.”

Instead of the cold cut of a bucket handle across his palm, warm pressure enveloped his hand. Allie—she thought he was helping her up.

His throat clamped shut.
Oh Lord, not now. Don’t let me
freeze now.

Allie got to her feet and released his hand. “My parents aren’t Christians.”

“Huh?” He swallowed hard. Maybe the deal wasn’t stupid if he couldn’t talk when he touched her.

“They think they are, but they’re not.”

Not what? He reeled his mind back. “Not Christians?”

“They think church membership makes them Christians, but in eighteen years at St. Timothy’s, nobody talked about God the way Betty did—not just her words, but the way she lived.”

“And you wanted what she had.” He liked knowing more about her, but what did it have to do with Art and his dad?

“Yes, her assurance of God’s love, her joy in his presence. It’s what I wanted, what I needed.” Allie headed for the farmhouse.

Oh yeah, lunch. Walt held out his hand again. “Here, let me take your bucket.”

“Thank you.”

She fell silent, and the distance across the green and brown striped field seemed longer than when he was a boy and hungry for Grandma’s pie. He should say something, but what?

“St. Timothy’s.” Allie’s eyes fixed on some point way past the farmhouse. “It feels so claustrophobic and petty, not joyful and peaceful like my church in Claremont.”

Walt made a face. “Sounds like you need a new church.” She turned to him. “That’s my quandary. How can I disobey my parents?”

Now he saw the connection to Art’s story. “The real question is: how can you disobey God? You have to pray and find out what he wants you to do.”

“I want to be where I can serve the Lord and do some good, but a family should worship together. Besides, I can’t imagine walking into a strange church all alone. Why, I wouldn’t even know where to look for a new church.”

“If you’d like, I’ll pray for you.”

“Would you? You don’t know how much I’d appreciate that.”

Walt’s cap slipped back, and the curl flopped onto his forehead. With a bucket in each hand, he couldn’t do anything about it, but he didn’t care. Allie had smiled at him, confided in him, and wanted him to pray for her.

“Hey, Walt.” George pointed to the old wooden barn and winked.

Walt shot his friend a warning glare.

Betty pulled on her fiancé’s arm. “Georgie, once we’re married, you’ll have to tell me. That story’s been around since high school.”

“Sorry, darling, I promised.” George nodded to Walt.

He nodded back and leaned his forearms on the rough split rail fence. He could trust his friends not to tell stories told in confidence, even foolish boasts.

From around the corner of the corral, Allie gave him a curious tilt of her head. Walt rolled his eyes, and she smiled. Good. She understood.

An old red and white cow ambled toward him. Walt offered some grass. “Hiya, Flossie.”

Grandpa Novak swung the corral gate open. “She can’t hear anymore, you know. Stone deaf.”

Walt nuzzled Flossie’s fuzzy nose. “She can read my lips. You’re still the prettiest girl in town, Floss. See, she knows me. She’d better. I named her.”

“Yeah. Original,” Art said with a grin.

Another head tilt from Allie. This one he could answer. “Hiram Fortner owns a dairy nearby, has a statue of a cow by the gate. Everyone calls her Fortner’s Flossie.”

“Except she disappeared the day before Pearl Harbor was bombed,” Grandpa said. “Some kids pulling a prank, no doubt.”

“Yeah,” Walt said. “If Jack hadn’t been at Pearl, I would have suspected him.”

Grandpa chuckled and unbolted the barn doors. “That boy could never stay out of trouble. By the way, got a letter from him the other day.”

“Yeah? I haven’t heard from him for a while.” Walt left the group behind and followed his grandfather into the barn. He savored the smell of hay, old wood, and livestock.

“That boy thinks he and his B-17 can take on the Japanese single-handedly.”

“Great bird. Now we need to get Ray in a Fort too.”

Grandpa mumbled and scratched his nose—the Novak nose. The only time Walt liked his nose was when he was with Grandpa.

“What?” Walt asked. “Ray needs to get out of that easy training job.”

Grandpa shook his head. “Nope. Ray’s a quiet soul. He’s not cut out for the rough-and-tumble of combat like you and Jack.”

Walt’s shoulders felt straighter and broader. Grandpa thought he could handle combat.

“Okay, boy, put those Army muscles to use. Let’s get the tarp off old
Jenny
.”

Walt sprang forward, eager to prep the biplane for flight. The men worked in silence, another reason Walt loved the farm. Grandpa never talked much. In Walt’s opinion, his parents had named the three boys well. Ray after Grandpa Garlovsky, soulful and musical. Jack after Dad, outgoing and driven. And Walt after Jacob Walter Novak, although he was glad his parents had reversed the names. Jacob was so old-fashioned.

“
Jenny
hasn’t flown since Ray’s last leave. Helped with the crop dusting.”

The rudder felt stiff, so Walt squirted oil on the hinge. “Don’t you think Ray wants to go to combat?”

Grandpa snorted. “Ray doesn’t want to go to combat any more than you or Jack want to be pastors.”

“Huh? Jack’s wanted to be a pastor all his life.”

“No, your father’s wanted him to be a pastor all his life. Sooner Jack realizes that, the better.”

Walt wiped his hand on a rag. True, he could never picture Jack in the pulpit—Jack, who was always coming up with schemes and getting Walt to cover for him. Still, Jack was a grown man and could pick his own career. And he had Dad’s approval while Walt didn’t. Grandpa understood, though. “You know, I never thanked you for how you encouraged me, stood up for me.”

Grandpa grunted—but an appreciative grunt. “Didn’t think the Army trained a bunch of sentimental fools. Come on, boy, let’s get
Jenny
in the air.”

Before long, the plane sat in the pasture. Walt slipped on his leather flight jacket. “Who wants a ride?”

Art was first, as always. The men climbed into the biplane, and Walt started her up. The engine’s roar sounded almost as sweet as the duets with Allie. He glanced down at her and saluted, hoping he looked dashing and competent.

“Come on, Novak, let’s go,” Art called over the engine. “At least I can pretend to fight the enemy.”

Walt coaxed the plane down the field and into the sky. Yeah, this was the way to fly. Sure, bombers were powerful, but in old
Jenny
he skipped on the air currents with the wind in his face.

Once he was over the town, he tapped Art on the shoulder, shook the stick, and pointed to Art. “Take the controls,” he shouted.

Art gave him a thumbs-up. Walt pulled out his camera and leaned over to get aerial shots of his hometown. He’d received the camera for a college graduation gift and used the first batch of film on planes. Now he’d been away a year and wanted more—his family, friends, and home.

He took back the controls and wheeled
Jenny
toward the farm so George could have a ride. A crosswind on the landing allowed Walt to show off his deft hand with the controls. Too bad Allie wouldn’t know how tricky a crosswind landing could be.

Walt and Art hopped out onto the grass.

“Boy, am I jealous,” Art said. “You get paid to do that.”

Walt flipped off his goggles. “Would you believe they pay me extra? Hazardous duty, they call it. Don’t tell them, but I’d fly for free. Ready, George?”

“You betcha.”

“No.” Betty tugged on George’s arm. “Oh, darling, not today, not three days before the wedding. I can’t bear to lose you now.”