A Place We Knew Well (6 page)

“I was thinkin' ”—Steve flicked ash into the desktop tray—“they usually put the girls in a convertible for the parade. Charlotte can ride in The Admiral, if she'd like. And I figure Leo can borrow it for the dance.”

Avery hiked his eyebrows and rocked back on his heels in mock shock. The Admiral was Steve's pride and joy. A jet-black, cherried-out '59 T-Bird with custom red leather bucket seats; a special-order, 430-cubic-inch, four-hundred-horsepower Super Marauder engine; plus three two-barrel Holley carburetors. It was the envy of every hot-rodder in town.

Steve shrugged. “Just a thought.”

Avery smiled. For all his bluster, Steve could surprise you. “That'd be great. Thanks.”

Steve peered out at the renewed rain and ground out his smoke.

“You heading out now?” Avery asked.

“Good a time as any, I s'pose.”

“My regards to Miss Lillian,” Avery called in lieu of good-bye.

Although he'd never laid eyes on Steve's lady friend, Avery knew she was a nurse who lived on the coast in New Smyrna Beach. They'd met at one of Steve's “Don't Drink” meetings and shared a passion for surf fishing, baseball, and races at the new Daytona Speedway. That summer, in fact, she'd somehow arranged for Steve to be in the pit for local hero Fireball Roberts's back-to-back wins at the Daytona 500 and the Firecracker 250. Steve had come back flush with speed- and power-boosting secrets from Roberts's mechanic, Smokey Yunick, plus a bunch of track trivia: Like the fact that Fireball's nickname sprang from his blistering fastball as a star pitcher at Apopka High. And that Roberts didn't mind the fans applying it to his fearless racing style, but his friends called him Glenn, and the other drivers called him simply, respectfully, Balls.

Avery had relished the inside scoop, but worried that Steve was planning to make a move. At summer's end, he'd asked Steve directly, “You considering the coast full-time?”

“Nah,” Steve said. “If it ain't broke, why fix it?”

Watching his friend drive off, Avery wondered, had two divorces soured Steve on marriage forever? Whatever happened to “third time's the charm”?

J
UST AFTER SIX,
A
VERY
surrendered the station to Emilio—“She's all yours, son”—and drove home through the pouring rain. As usual, he made a beeline for the master bathroom to shower, shave, and change for supper. In the kitchen, he saw the dinette was set for two.

“Where's our girl?” he asked Sarah.

“Oh, a few of the twirls came over to help fold brochures, and after they got word that tonight's game was canceled, they all went off to see that new Pat Boone movie—
State Fair,
I think. Going to the Steak 'n Shake after.” She set a plate of steaming tuna noodle casserole with a side of green beans in front of him.

Avery, suddenly starving, spread his napkin in his lap and waited for her to do the same. She'd brushed her hair, he noticed, left it loose the way he liked it. She'd put on fresh lipstick, too, but her eyes were red-rimmed with fatigue, her face drawn and tired.

“Tough day?”

“Just awful. Edith was a raving maniac over the Mininsons not coming—even though it wasn't till five o'clock that the general decided tomorrow's show is still a go.” Sarah sighed. “At least we got the brochures done. I just have to pack up the Grandma's Pantry stuff and get it down there and on display by nine a.m.” She picked up her fork. “How about you?”

“Rain slowed things down a bit.” He took a bite and winked his appreciation. The combination of creamy tuna, sweet peas, and the extra-sharp cheddar she got from a shop in Winter Park was one of his favorites. After a moment, he asked, “She tell you the big news?”

“What news?”

Inwardly, Avery winced. Charlotte hadn't talked to her mother about the dance or done anything to make this any easier for him.

For some time, she'd reminded him of a young filly pawing the rails of the paddock. No longer content to trail alongside her mother, as she had for years, she was testing boundaries, bucking conventions she considered too conservative, and regularly tossing her head at Sarah's concerns. For the most part, he tried to sidestep their occasional dustups.

But now, with Charlotte gone and Sarah watching him expectantly, eager for “the big news,” he needed to tread carefully.

“Apparently, Mr. Beauchamp stopped by the Ag Barn hinting that Charlotte was elected to Homecoming Court.” He leaned heavily on the word
hint.

“He did?” she asked, eyes brightening. Then a flush of hurt blossomed at the base of her graceful neck and spread up to her cheeks. “Nobody said a word about it…to
me.
”

“Well, it's not for sure
yet,
” he added hastily. “Maybe she didn't want to get your hopes up,” he lied, rushing on. “In any event, she stopped by the station fretting about not having a date for the big dance. And Emilio, polite as you please, offered to take her.”

“Emilio?” Sarah said quietly. “You can't be serious.”

“Well, actually, darlin', our girl said yes. Mind of her own—like her mama, I s'pose,” he said, as smoothly as he could manage.

Her angry flash at the words
like her mama
warned him away from that particular tack.

“Just like
that
? He asked and she said
yes
?”

“Pretty much,” he said, deliberately not mentioning it was Steve's idea.

“But the boy doesn't even go to her school.”

“Could be an advantage, I'd say. The locals had their chance, and lost it.”

“But he's your employee, Wes. Not to mention Catholic and a Cuban”—she searched for the word—“
exile
! Why, he doesn't have a penny to his name except what you give him. What would he wear? How in the world could he even get there?”

“Turns out…Steve's offered to lend him The Admiral.”

“Oh, great,” she said coolly. “Popeye plays matchmaker.”

“But he's a
good
boy, Sarah, from a very good family. His father's a judge, remember? And his mother lectures at the local art museum.”

“Or
so
we've been told.” She'd drawn herself up, shoulders high and square. And she was holding her face in that way that reminded him of her mother, locking her real thoughts and feelings in, locking him out.

“But, Sarah, the priest—”

“—was interested in getting the boy a
job,
Wes. Of course he painted the rosiest picture possible. Just like you are now.” She looked down into her lap, jaw thrust out to keep it from trembling, then slowly refolded her napkin and placed it on the table beside her untouched plate. “And I suppose Charlotte put you up to this…”

“Oh, honey…”

“Don't ‘oh, honey' me, Wes.” She rose to set her plate in the sink. “That girl is too headstrong by half. And you…” She shook her head wearily. “I suppose it's a gift you have…favoring everyone, friend and foe alike, with a wink and a smile; getting us all fixed up just the way you like.” She had the habit, when upset, of placing one hand on her hip, the other on her belly, fingers splayed as if taking the measure of the long vertical scar on the skin beneath her clothes.

“I wish I had your gift, Wes. I really do. But mark my words,” she said slowly, as if she was only going to say this once and it behooved him to listen, “this thing has disaster written all over it. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do,” she finished and was gone.

For a long moment, Avery watched the swinging door resettle itself. He heard her move through the living room and into the middle room to pack up the supplies for tomorrow's show.

He turned to eyeball the window onto the lake, but there was nothing to see except his own watery reflection. The darkness outside was lashed with blue rain. Some fine messenger you are, he thought miserably. Tried to reconstruct what just happened—and why?—but he couldn't get it straight, couldn't pinpoint the place where he might have kept things on track. All he could remember was the way her smile fell off her face and hurt bloomed on her neck.

Somehow he'd bungled it and was left to sort through the after-mess alone. Did Sarah really have a problem with Emilio? Or was it Charlotte's not-telling that set her off? Or was this just fallout from her nerves over today's storm and tomorrow's Civil Defense show? But why walk out like that? Why not sit and talk this through, the way most people do, the way they used to?

He covered her plate and put it in the fridge, then made his way reluctantly to the open door of the shelter. He leaned against the oversized doorjamb, hoping to reopen their conversation, but her look over the half-filled cardboard box warned him off.

Not now, Wes,
it said.
Leave me be.

“Can I help you pack, at least?”

She shook her head. “I have a system. It'll be easier to unpack tomorrow if I do it myself.”

So he left her alone and retreated to the sunken living room and the Saturday-night lineup of their favorite TV shows.

I
NSIDE THE SHELTER,
S
ARAH
sat back on the fold-up metal chair and swallowed hard against a rising tide of upset. When was it, in the good cop–bad cop roles of parenting, I became the permanent bad cop, the spoilsport and chief disciplinarian—while Wes got to slide by on a wink and a smile? Is that why Charlotte went to him with her big news? Didn't she think I'd be as excited as the next person? Or did she go to the station in the hope of having Emilio ask her to dance? Where in the world did that come from? And then she was here all afternoon and never said a word!

Just like Kitty.

The chilling effect of those three little words, echoing inside her head in her mother's voice, made her shiver.

Oh, Lord, that's it, isn't it? When Wes looks at Charlotte, all he sees is Daddy's little girl all grown up. But more and more, I see Kitty—that scary tendency to leap without looking: go to a college fair and make up your mind after talking to a single recruiter, accept a date with a boy you hardly know because he's the first to ask—and all I can think of is what happened…

Oh, I'm sure Wes and Charlotte think I'm unfair, too strict, too much of a worrywart. But neither of them was
there.
They've never seen, as I did, how quickly a girl's life, her reputation, her entire family can fall apart over a single night's stupidity.

Sarah stopped short of letting her mind wander down that particularly painful path.

Life was so much easier and safer when Charlotte was little! What I wouldn't give to go back to the days of tea parties, ballet lessons, and hopscotch chalk marks all down the drive. Now the older and more independent Charlotte gets, the more potential disasters I see wherever I look.

What's happened to me? Why can't I be the person I used to be? Why? Because the velocity of
everything
has changed, sped
up.
And I can't escape the feeling that I'm two steps behind with no hope of ever…

Stop this!
A part of her brain knew she was overreacting and wondered gently if the fog of her Nembutal wouldn't be preferable to dwelling on the ever-expanding list of her concerns. No, she told herself adamantly. There's simply too much to do. She needed to buck up, focus on the here and now, and leave worrying for later. She opened a new box, drew her mouth into a tight, determined line, and started stacking the canned applesauce atop the canned corn; though her hands trembled with the memory of packing up the big house in Tuscaloosa all alone after Mama died, with no big sister and no little brother to help. “You'll get through,” Mama said on one of her last days in the hospital. “You always did; you always do.”

I hope you're right, Mama. If I can just forget about the damn hurricane, get through this stupid show tomorrow, get Charlotte safely through homecoming next week…then the prom in the spring and graduation in June, and…and into Stetson instead of FSU…

“Mind of her own,” Wes had said, “just like her mother.”

Sarah shuddered. Oh, Mama, for the first time in my entire life, I haven't a clue how I'll get through.

A
N HOUR OR SO
later, Avery turned up the volume so she could hear the opening orchestral strains, the pop of the champagne cork of Lawrence Welk and His Champagne Music Makers.

When he heard the packing sounds in the shelter stop, he hoped for a moment that she'd join him, as usual, on the sofa. But instead, she strode past him and out the sliding glass door onto the screened porch. He saw the quick, familiar movements of her covering the birdcages for the night, then watched her let herself back in, walk past him, and return to her work in the center bedroom. He switched over to
Have Gun—Will Travel.
From there, he rolled into
Gunsmoke
and the comforting world of Marshal Matt Dillon and his faithful sidekick, Chester B. Goode.

At eleven, he punched off the TV and approached her once again.

“Coming to bed?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said, intent on checking items off her list.

Reluctantly, he left her and padded down the hall to the master bedroom at its end.

Later, he heard Charlotte return home; heard Sarah and her talking urgently back and forth. Heard Charlotte take her final stand—“I'm
going
with him, Mama. Let's just leave it at
that.
”—and firmly shut, without slamming, her bedroom door. He heard Sarah call quietly, tiredly, from the hall, “Tomorrow, Charlotte. We'll talk this all out tomorrow.”

Still later, he heard her moving around inside the shelter, late into the rain-soaked night.

T
hough thick clouds scudded overhead, the rain this morning had tapered off to a lackluster spit.

Avery woke at six to the sound of Sarah already in the shower. He lay there trying to recall what time she'd come to bed. Had she been up all night again? After a while, she emerged from the bathroom in an elegant knit suit, pale blue with silver buttons, slim skirt, and matching pumps.

“You look great,” he said, sitting up.

“Thanks. Think you can help me load up the car?”

“Sure. Right now?”

“Well, they open the gates at nine so I want to get there by seven to set everything up.”

Avery threw back the covers. “Need me to go with you and help unload?” He toed his feet into his slippers.

“No,” she said from her vanity, fastening her wristwatch. “General Betts promised Edith an entire unit of army reservists on hand to help.”

“Edith with an army of Weekend Warriors to order about? Hooah!”

Sarah was retrieving a pair of white gloves from the vanity drawer. She chuckled. “Poor lads have no idea what they're in for.”

She strode out of the bedroom to “get some coffee going” while Avery, still in his pajamas, loaded her trunk with six large boxes of supplies from the shelter—each one coded in Sarah's careful hand. He put the three boxes of folded brochures in the backseat, and returned to the kitchen.

Sarah handed him a steaming mug, then turned to the counter, where her gloves lay beside her purse and car keys.

“Listen, Wes. It occurred to me,” she said, pulling on a glove, “that when they announce the names at school tomorrow, Charlotte may have other offers for the dance. I mean…” She was pressing the fingertips of one gloved hand between the joints of the other. “It's not that Emilio doesn't have a certain, well…charm, but…” She reversed the process to the opposite hand. “Everyone knows he works for you, Wes. It looks more like a setup, a pity date arranged by her parents, than the real thing.”

Something about her tone, and the way she raised her eyebrows seeking his agreement, reminded him of the way his mother-in-law, the very complicated Dolores Ayres, used to nudge people to do her bidding.

“A girl's got to keep her options open,” she was saying, “not just jump at the first thing that comes along.”

Avery leaned against the opposite counter and sipped his coffee. “That what you did with me?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, Wes,” she replied with a long, hollow look. “I was hardly the prize Charlotte is.”

“Not the prize?” Avery's mind raced with objections. He felt again his endless, aching eagerness—on the interminable troop transport flight to Sioux Falls and the sixty-hour train ride south to Tuscaloosa—to meet and marry his future wife. How many times had he read and re-read her answer to his airmailed proposal? Traced the letters
Y-E-S!
outlined and triple-underlined in red ink? They'd met by mail, on a nickel bet with fellow crewman Mac McNair over who might answer his thank-you letter to Inspector 833 at the Tuscaloosa B. F. Goodrich plant “for the rubber raft that saved my life.”

“If you hear back at all, it'll be from some gray-haired granny,” Mac predicted. “Nah,” Avery shot back, “with my luck, it'll be some flat-footed 4-F-er.”

Her first shy letter—“You're most welcome”—was, in retrospect, the turning point between all the tough breaks that plagued him before and all his good fortune since. In the V-mails that followed, love had opened like a flower between them, one petal-thin page at a time. Then
finally,
after all those anxious hours on the train, he spotted the red roof of the Tuscaloosa station, exactly as she'd described it, and there she
was,
waiting on the platform—a tall, slim beauty in a navy-blue suit with a white gardenia pinned to her lapel. He was stunned. Here was the girl whose shy revelations, wise observations, and witty, self-effacing “Tales from the Tuscaloosa Homefront” had captured his heart. But
in person
! He'd seen pictures, of course, but was unprepared for Sarah's refinement, elegant bearing, and, later, that amazing voice of hers, like velvet smoke. He'd panicked—what in the world would
she
see in
me
?—and braced himself for the inevitable crash and burn. But then she'd spotted him through the open train window. And he'd seen, like a miracle, her heart leaping into her eyes.

In the kitchen, he set down his mug and stepped forward to take her white-gloved hands.

“You were the blue-ribboned brass ring, the solid twenty-four-karat-gold jackpot…to me,” he told her.

Her fingers returned his squeeze. Her face softened. “You were always a sucker for a pretty phrase.” It was their old joke—along with
love at first write
—about their unconventional courtship and engagement.

He felt happy she'd recalled it.

“So…” She sighed, letting him go. “We'll talk to her when I get home tonight?”

The spell of the moment was broken. She was back on Charlotte. “What mean ‘we,' Kemo Sabe?”

“You saying I'm the Lone Ranger on this thing?”

“Well…”

“Or that
you
should talk to her?”

“Me?”

“Maybe you should, Wes,” Sarah said, warming to the idea. “She only half listens to me anyhow.” She picked up her purse and keys. “I have to go. You'll come by after church? There are food booths. If I can break away for a few minutes, we could have lunch together.”

“All right, darlin'.” Seeing the relief in her eyes, he realized he'd just agreed to both lunch and to speaking with Charlotte about Emilio. Hi-yo, Silver, he thought.

W
ITH
H
URRICANE
E
LLA OFFICIALLY
headed elsewhere, members of the congregation hailed Avery, on meet-and-greet duty inside the church vestibule, with thanks for the heaven-sent relief.

Handing out the day's bulletin, helping the old ladies to their seats, Avery kept an eye on Charlotte in the section off the right aisle favored by church young people. Her dark head bobbed as she whispered and grinned at the girls beside her. He'd let her sleep in, so they'd had to rush to get here on time.

At head deacon Ted Buck's signal, he closed the sanctuary's rear doors and took his seat in the back with the other deacons scheduled to pass the collection plates.

To Avery's ear, the choir's Call to Worship sounded thin without Sarah's rich contralto. Pastor Billy Wigginthal, in a new suit and recent haircut, steered the service along predictable lines, except for one thing: During the collection, a far-off rumble drew in close overhead and drowned out the bulk of the offertory hymn. A number among the congregation—veterans mostly—gazed upward at the sound. Thunderchiefs, Avery thought. The original squadrons from Friday? Or a new wave of arrivals now that the weather's cleared?

Avery tapped impatient fingers on the end of the pew, eager to head over to the base and see for himself.

At the end of the service, Pastor Billy extended the invitation—while the choir sang softly “Just as I Am, Without One Plea”—but nobody responded. Privately, Avery suspected the minister had set his sights on a bigger congregation: the big, new brick First Baptist downtown, maybe? The guy seemed skittish and rangy, like a horse in changing weather. Or a man looking to make a move.

Afterward, Avery waited at the base of the church steps till Charlotte joined him, calling to her friends, “Later, 'gators!”

Mabel Jenkins, a thin, hawk-eyed widow, turned and put a blue-veined claw beneath Charlotte's chin. “What a beauty you've become!” she exclaimed. “Just look at that face, that
figure
!” Her gaze switched bird-like between Charlotte and Avery. “Where on earth did those curves come from?”

Charlotte blanched and crossed her arms defensively in front of her chest. Over the summer a number of the coarser boys had taken to calling her “stacked.” And now this old biddy was doing the same thing—on the church steps, no less!

Avery felt her embarrassment as well as the not-so-subtle swipe at Sarah. “My side of the family, I guess,” he lied. “Good day, Mabel,” he added curtly and, with a firm hand on the small of Charlotte's back, steered her away from the old bat to the truck.

T
HE PARKING LOT OF
J. M. Fields looked like the circus was in town.

There was a series of brightly striped tents, flags flying, young men in orange vests directing cars where to park. But instead of
WELCOME TO RINGLING BROS. AND BARNUM & BAILEY'S GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH
, the entrance banner boasted
CENTRAL FLORIDA'S FIRST EVER SHOWCASE OF FAMILY FALLOUT SHELTERS
sponsored by the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.

Instead of Gargantua, Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, and the little house that caught fire, there were full-sized displays of walk-through fallout shelters: from the prefab Peace O' Mind steel-and-concrete vault (
with patented fluted design to resist shock waves
) to a fire-resistant California redwood Safety Shed (
A shelter for the family and workshop for Dad in one!
) to the small, dark Bee Safe Quonset hut (
with fireproof exterior surface of Gunite!
). Most of them were no bigger than one of his station's bathrooms. Avery peered in but refused to enter. Truth be told, he hated dark, enclosed spaces and avoided them whenever he could.

He walked about, following Charlotte in and out of the tents in search of Sarah's “Grandma's Pantry” display. He listened to the barkers hawking the lifesaving advantages of their wares. He nodded, in acknowledgment but not necessarily agreement, at the government man's explanation that, although an underground basement was most easily adapted to family shelter use, Florida's high water table, its universal lack of basements, presented challenges that were “easily overcome so long as you followed government standards to achieve ninety-nine percent reduction in gamma ray exposure.”

Avery heard the hype. He examined the shoddy workmanship of what one local contractor called his “guaranteed watertight, airtight, radiation-tight Florida Igloo in aqua blue.” (The guy's primary business was building swimming pools.) He shook his head at the men walking around like clowns in transparent plastic bags advertised as “Civilian Fallout Suits, only $19.99.”

Unfortunately for the hucksters, Avery was no rube on the subject. On V-J Day, he'd been a part of the massive American “Show of Strength” flyover above Tokyo Bay and the defeated emperor's Surrender Ceremonies on the deck of the USS
Missouri.
Heading back to base on Tinian Island, the crew had lobbied their pilot, amiable Cap'n Tex Ritter, to swing west for a bird's-eye view of what was left of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Avery, facing east in the tail turret, was the last to see the green islands dotting the blue Hiroshima Bay then, opening like a miles-wide mouth of hell, the decimated delta city recognizable only by its distinctive river channels, four fingers and a thumb, flowing into the bay. Worse yet was the sulfurous stench of fiery death that filled their plane at five thousand feet and lingered for days as a black taste on Avery's tongue. Circling back, Cap'n Tex said quietly over the intercom, “Seen enough, boys?” and headed home without further comment. In the tail, Avery got the last, long look at the devastation. How was it possible? he wondered, sickened that a single bomb dropped by a solo plane could do so much damage.

Photos published later in
The New Yorker
for the rest of America to see fell far short of conveying the actual horror that still haunted his dreams. John Hersey's chilling account of the bombing came closer, but did little or nothing to stop further nuclear testing by the Americans at Enewetak and Bikini, the British in Australia, the French in the Sahara, and the Soviets in Kazakhstan.