“I’m not going to do that.”
****
By the end of January, Celeste felt at home in a way she’d never experienced before. She opened the drapes in the parlor every morning and turned on all the lamps there at night. Veda said she’d keep her ears open for anyone who might want to rent the extra bedroom, but Celeste wasn’t sure she was in any hurry to share her nest.
For the first week, she woke a few times in the night and thought she heard August Riley stumbling around in the hall, but even that ended. She was alone, in her own home, and enjoying every moment of her independence. Marilyn and Veda dropped in with or without an invitation. More often than not, they came home with Celeste to spend the night after Canteen duty.
“I love it,” she told Coralee during one of her sister’s regular phone calls. “I love having a real home where I can invite my friends.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but…”
“Kent doesn’t come over. I meet him at the Canteen on Saturdays and at church on Sundays. He walks me home, but Veda and Marilyn are usually with me, too. Then his friend Perry picks him up.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Sure it is, Sister.”
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“Kent wouldn’t hurt me.”
Not intentionally, but he’d take what he wanted if I’d let him. Maybe all men are that way. Lord knows, I’ve had little enough experience with them to know for sure.
“Just enjoy your new life, baby girl. You’ve had it coming for a long time.”
****
Kent bought Celeste a corsage of red roses for the Valentine dance at the Roof Garden. With his arm finally free from the sling, he could hold her close in her blue velvet dress. They rode with Perry and his wife Sue, so Kent kissed her goodnight on the porch and didn’t move to come in. She invited them all for lunch on Sunday. “I had enough ration points for a nice roast, and I’ll make yeast rolls, too.” She liked feeling part of a couple while they spent the afternoon in the parlor working a jigsaw puzzle and listening to the radio. When Kent had to leave with Perry, Celeste balanced disappointment with relief.
We don’t need to be alone here in the house. Mrs. Aikman next door isn’t a gossip, but she knows everything that goes on here, and it’s not a bad idea to have someone looking out for me. Besides, when Kent and I get too cozy, we always end up in an argument about how much is too much.
In March, Perry got his orders for overseas duty and took Sue back to Fort Worth to live with her parents. Kent bought his car and gave it to Celeste. “I can’t take this,” she protested, shocked at the size of his gift.
“You need it more than I do. I can get the bus in to the Canteen and again on Sundays, and you can drive me back to the field on Sunday nights if you want to.”
The new freedom of being able to come and go as she pleased gave her a heady feeling, and she liked the extra time with Kent when she drove him back to Concho Field on weekends.
They didn’t talk about Claudia or his mother, and he didn’t do more than hold her hand and kiss her goodnight. They spent most of their time just talking, something Celeste said they needed to do. She didn’t think Kent really agreed, but he didn’t argue with her.
He got his orders in May and asked her to drive to Brownwood with him to meet his mother and brother. “I have to admit I’m not anxious to meet your mother,” she said. “Not after everything you’ve said.”
“I’m not anxious for you to meet her, either, but it’s got to be done.”
“For the sake of good manners.”
“That, and just so she can’t say I snuck around behind her back.”
“What if she doesn’t like me?”
“She probably won’t, but it doesn’t matter. I love you, Velvet. And you’ll like Neil and Kay. I worry that they’re not married yet because of Mother, and I plan to talk to him about it while I’m home.”
“Will it do any good?”
“I hope so.” He caught her hand and squeezed it. “Things are going to work out for us, Velvet. We’ve got to keep believing that.”
****
“Don’t go if you’re going to feel uncomfortable,” Coralee counseled. “I just wish you were going to have a mother-in-law like Pearl.”
“I don’t think there’s anyone else like Pearl.”
“She’s one in a million. That’s what Big Ben always says. She’s started a hope chest for you, by the way.”
“For me?”
“Right alongside Barbara’s. When is Kent leaving for good?”
“The end of June, he thinks.”
“And you’re still going to wait. I mean, wait for
everything
.”
“He doesn’t want to, but maybe men don’t see anything wrong with it.”
“They do if they’re the right kind.”
“Well, I’m waiting, Sister, and like you said, a hurry-up wedding in the middle of a war isn’t a good idea, not for me.”
“Well, you’re sensible, baby girl. You stick to your guns. When he comes home again, if you’re sure you want to marry him, you’ll have the biggest wedding First Christian Church has seen in years.”
Chapter Twenty
Coldly polite
were the words Celeste used to describe Kent’s mother to Coralee. “She looked me over like I was something he’d found on the street somewhere. Not just on the street, but in an alley maybe. A garbage can. At meals, she talked to Kent and Neil and ignored me.”
“Doesn’t sound promising, baby girl.”
“Oh, Kent and I spent most of our time out of the house. His mother didn’t like that either, of course. Neil’s girlfriend Kay is nice. Neil’s determined to marry her, but she put her foot down about living in the house with his mother.”
“I don’t blame her.”
“I wouldn’t do it either.”
“Did Kent tell her that the two of you are engaged?”
“We’re not exactly engaged. We have an understanding, that’s all.”
“You’re planning to get married, so you’re engaged.”
Celeste didn’t tell her sister about the humiliating scene on their last morning in Brownwood when Mrs. Peters stormed up the walk and demanded money from Kent to support Claudia’s little boy. “You owe it to her,” the stringy-haired woman insisted. “You’re the reason she’s not here to take care of him.”
“She didn’t take care of him anyway,” Kent retorted. “She left him with you from the time he was a baby. And I’m not going to be responsible for him, because he’s not mine.”
Celeste, trying to make herself invisible, felt sorry for Claudia’s mother, despite the fact she appeared as cheap as Claudia had, though in a tattered sort of way.
I hope they get enough to eat. Especially the little boy.
Overhearing the argument—Celeste thought maybe everyone in the neighborhood heard it—Mrs. Goddard stormed out of the kitchen and told Mrs. Peters to get out and not come back. Claudia’s mother left, spewing threats of taking Kent to court for child support and worse.
On the drive to San Angelo, Kent refused to talk about it, except to repeat, “He’s not mine, so I’m not responsible for him.”
Celeste let it go at that because she knew she didn’t want to hear anything different.
Kent’s right about me needing to grow up and face reality, but I’m just not ready. At least, not as far as he’s concerned. Anyway, he’s leaving, and I don’t have to make a decision right away.
She did wonder about the little boy, though. Had anybody ever really been responsible for him? What was his life like?
****
She begged off from the Canteen and made baked chicken and dressing for their last evening together, putting aside her qualms about being alone in the house with Kent and trying not to think of Claudia and her little boy. They ate by candlelight, and afterward he dried the dishes as she washed. “We’re playing house,” he said.
“Or something.”
His hand caressed her shoulders and moved low on her back. “Or something.”
She shivered. “We can go sit in the parlor and listen to the radio.”
“If we were married, we wouldn’t have to sit in the parlor.”
“We’re not married.”
“I love you, Velvet. I need you. Need you like a man needs a woman.”
She moved away from him a few steps. “Don’t, Kent.”
He picked up the dishtowel again. “I’m not going to attack you,” he said. The bitterness in his voice unsettled her.
“I know that.”
“But I meant what I said. A little hand-holding and kissing doesn’t go a long way toward…”
“Stop it.”
He tossed the dishtowel on the cabinet and stalked out of the kitchen. She found him leaning on the porch railing, staring into the dusk. “Maybe we should go to the Canteen and dance,” she said.
“Maybe you should just drive me back to the field.”
“It’s your last night, Kent. I don’t want to spoil it with a fight.”
“That’s what I’m fixing to do, you know, fight. Maybe it’ll be from an airplane where I can’t see them, but I’m still going to kill people, and they’re going to try to kill me.”
She slipped her arms around his waist from behind him. He jerked away. “Don’t be a tease, Velvet. Claudia sure was.”
Celeste froze. “I thought you said…”
“I said the boy isn’t mine.”
She sucked in her breath.
I don’t really know you, do I? And if I don’t know you, how can I think I’m in love with you?
“I want to hear that he
couldn’t
be yours, but you can’t say that, can you?”
His silence answered her question.
“Why weren’t you honest with me?”
“If I’d been honest, would we be having this conversation right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. All right, she kept on and on, and got me going so bad I didn’t want to stop, and then she laughed at me.”
“So you…you…”
“Yes, I did! That’s what she wanted. Wanted me to take her right there on the blanket out at the lake, and I did.”
Celeste’s mouth went dry. When she opened it to speak, nothing came out.
“I was twenty years old. Been away at that CCC camp for two years, and when I came home, she made sure we ran into each other. I asked her to go for a ride, and we ended up at the lake. She was my first, but I knew I wasn’t hers. She…”
“Don’t say anymore,” Celeste said, backing away from him. “Please, Kent, don’t tell me anymore.”
“You wanted to know.” He hit the porch pillar with his fist. “Now you do.”
“I had to know,” she murmured, thinking that if she didn’t get inside and sit down, she was going to fall down. “I had to know. Don’t you understand?”
“So now what?”
“I don’t know.” She stumbled toward the screen door and yanked it open. “I don’t know.”
After a few minutes, he followed her inside, where she had curled herself into a tight knot on the couch. “I’m sorry, Velvet,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“What did you mean to do?”
“I don’t know. I was just so…so mad at you.”
“Why? Because I wouldn’t go to bed with you?” She hid her face against the back of the settee, shocked at her own blunt words.
“I guess so.”
“Why would you expect me to…to do that?”
“I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what got into me.”
“But you did.” She lifted her face. In the lamplight, his eyes glowed, but not with happiness.
“I was wrong. Wrong about Claudia, wrong about you.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “I’m leaving first thing in the morning, Velvet. I don’t want to remember you like this.”
She sat up. “I’ll drive you back to the field.”
“No, I’ll go downtown and ride back with the fellows at the Canteen when it closes.” He rose and stepped toward her, then stopped. “I do love you, Velvet.”
She nodded. “I know you do. And for what it’s worth, I love you, too.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“You can.”
“But I’m not still your prince. More like a toad.”
She didn’t smile. “I don’t believe in fairytales anymore.”
“Because of me?”
“You said I needed to grow up.”
“I’ve said a lot of things I wish I could take back, but I guess that much was right. I had to grow up overnight when I was fourteen, but you had your sister. You still do.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“She still calls you ‘baby girl,’ and that’s how you think of yourself—as her baby girl. You haven’t had to grow up, because she’s always been there to take care of things for you.”
Anger flared in Celeste. “I’ve worked since I was twelve years old and put up with Daddy on top of that.”
“You think that makes you a woman?”
She watched the rage building in him again. She’d seen it before, more than once, and retreated from it. Now she felt trapped, even threatened—though not physically.
“I thought it did. Not letting you get all over me makes me responsible, not immature.”
“I don’t want…you’re not a one-night stand, Velvet. Not by a long shot. We could’ve gotten married.”
“So we could sleep together for a few nights?”
“You know it’s more than that.”
She dropped her head to hide her face until she got control of her emotions. “I want to know that, Kent. I want to believe you really love me.”
“I’ve said so plenty of times.”
“I know.”
“But that’s not enough, is it? Why? Can you tell me that?”
“I wish I knew.”
“You said we needed to talk so we could get to know each other, and we’ve done that. If you don’t know me by now, you never will.”
“I know you’re a good person, Kent.”
“Look, I’ve been honest with you about what I did. Maybe I should’ve come clean right off the bat, but I didn’t. I’m not perfect. Neither are you.”
“I never said I was.”
“No, but you wanted to live in a perfect world. That’s what you were doing when you stayed in this house in your own room, even though your father didn’t care anything about you.”
She straightened her shoulders in a show of what she hoped was confidence. “He did once.”
And I can’t tell you why he didn’t love me after Mamma died. You’ve been honest with me, but I can’t be honest with you, not now, not ever. You don’t care about a little boy who might really be yours, and you wouldn’t care about somebody who doesn’t even know who her own father is.