The Jewel and the Key (41 page)

The military band's music roared to a crescendo. Someone started singing “Over There,” and other voices joined in. Close by, a bell tolled, and a man with a bullhorn came through the station, shouting, “Ten-thirty to San Francisco, arriving track one.... Ten-thirty, arriving track one!”

All around them, people began streaming onto the platform. Women threw their arms around men in uniform. Older men slapped their backs. Children tugged on their legs.

Reg and Peterson stared at each other, and Addie could see shock on their faces. Emma Mae saw it too, and, with great presence of mind, declared, “All right, Rob. This is it. Lets get you on that train.”

Detective Larson was watching keenly, and she saw his eyes dart quickly from Emma Mae to Gustaf. He still suspected them. Well, why not? The lines on Peterson's face and the shadows beneath his eyes betrayed deep anxiety. For a moment, he looked old, as he sat, frozen, hands dangling at his sides. She knew he was thinking,
This can't be happening.
You could read it on his face.

But then he seemed to gather his wits, and he rose from his seat.

“No, wait!” Reg cried. Addie looked at him in alarm. What was he doing? He'd dropped the deferential attitude. Everyone else had turned to him. “I—”

Before he could say another word, Addie lurched into the table as though she'd tripped over something and sent the glasses smashing to the floor. “Ow!” she cried, grabbing her knee. It wasn't subtle. But it worked.

The people next to them scrambled away, knocking their own table to one side. Emma Mae swept the skirt of her beautiful gown aside, but it was drenched. Peterson and Humphries leaped back out of the sea of broken glass.

“Don't be so clumsy, Sophie!” Emma Mae scolded, picking her way carefully through the shards. Larson offered her his hand. Reg glared at Addie.

“Get out!” The waitress ran up, waving a broom at them as if shooing cats. She shoved Gustaf to one side. “What have you done? Someone will get cut!”

“But, wait—” Reg insisted, trying to get Larson's attention over the hullabaloo. “I need to tell you something.”

But Emma Mae managed to give the impression he was speaking to her. “Oh, thank you, Mack!” She put her hand on Gustaf's arm. “Rob, Mack's trying to tell you you almost forgot your duffel.” And she grabbed the strap of the bag, lifting it out of the mess of soda and broken glass with a strength that Addie would never have suspected.

For a moment, Peterson stood frozen, a look of disbelief on his face. Then he nodded and took the big bag from her. “Thanks, Emma.” Addie saw his chest rise and fall, as if he had just accepted something. He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded sheaf of papers, glanced at them, and then carefully slid them back into the pocket. With great dignity, he offered Emma Mae his arm.

Then he met her eyes and a rueful smile slowly rose to his lips, and Addie knew it wasn't acting. The smile was full of warmth and gratitude, and Emma Mae's face lit up in response.

Detective Larson fell in beside them as they made their way out of the café.

Emma Mae looked over her shoulder and said to Reg, in a clipped, authoritative way, “Take Miss Sophie back to the Jewel. It's too crowded for her here. I know she wants to go to the cast party.” She gave Addie a kiss on the cheek. “I'll see you there later, darling.”

Reg's eyes were blazing, but he just nodded.

Addie flung herself at Peterson, hugging him like a daughter. She felt too stunned to do anything else. “Goodbye, Dad.”

Peterson hugged her back and whispered, “Tell Frida.”

Addie nodded. And then she watched Emma Mae and Peterson as they made their way out of the café and into the open expanse of the waiting room, Detective Larson following them all the way.

“We'd better go,” Addie said. But neither she nor Reg moved. They just gazed through the open doors to the dark, teeming platform as Gustaf Peterson finally made his escape.

The moon had reached its zenith and was caught, like a saint's halo, on the tip of the great red cedar in her front yard as they walked up the street toward her house.

Addie froze, staring at the place she had lived for so long, but Reg kept walking. It was so quiet she could hear his boots crunching loose pebbles along the rough stone path that passed for a sidewalk.

The drapes were drawn in the bay windows, oddly bare without
Victrola Books
etched on them in gold leaf. There was a porch in front now, and a light glowed behind the deep russet of the curtains. Addie looked up to the second floor, where their family room with the big oak table should have been, then at the third-floor window of Zack's bedroom. Her eyes traveled along the sloping roof where Whaley's attic room, with his music posters and unwashed socks, would someday be, and she felt an odd pang of homesickness.

But when she looked back down the hill at the new houses, some only half built, and at the grid of trolley tracks cut into the asphalt, as if they would always be there, she knew she was in a world that was deeper than the world she had known, as an archaeologists excavation deepens a familiar landscape. And yet, it was the same world.

Swallowing hard, she caught up to Reg, and the two of them stood silent in a pool of moonlight, looking up and down the street for any sign of Teddy Nickles's truck. Then he turned away, squinting at the house number affixed to the door.

“Reg?”

He'd hardly spoken to her since they'd left the station. Addie shivered. It felt as if something between them had snapped. She looked up into the sky, at the cold, thin disc of the moon hanging like a prop in a play.

“Why won't you talk to me?” She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on....” She could feel his muscles knotted under the flannel work shirt.

He turned around and said angrily, “You
know
I didn't want Peterson going in my place.”

“But...” Addie hesitated, surprised at his vehemence. “You were going to tell the detective who you were. I couldn't let you do that.”

“Smashing all that glass to shut me up.” His face was all sharp angles.

“I
had
to, Reg. He'd be in jail right now if you'd said anything. And you, too! At the very least, they'd kick you out of the army.”

“But—”

“But what? Oh, Reg,
think!
You wouldn't have made anything better.”

He shook his head hopelessly. “You don't understand! I said I would go and fight. It's a promise. It's
honor,
Addie. And to have someone else—to dodge out of it! I'm not a coward.”

‘A
coward?
You? Are you crazy?”

He kept on as if he hadn't heard. “I offered to go. No one made me.”

She took a step back and studied him. He looked shabby in Gustaf's hard-worn clothes, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. “What do you mean?” she said slowly. “I thought you were drafted.”

“No one's been drafted yet,” he said impatiently. “And I'm too young, anyway. I volunteered for a second lieutenant's commission. And now Peterson gets to have the great adventure in my place.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Well, I guess at least we can be happy for him.”

Happy?
She thought of the photographs she'd been looking at with Whaley: the soldiers in their gas masks, the blinded men stumbling their way to the casualty stations or coughing their lungs out after a gas attack. The men with limbs blown off, faces caved in. The war had been grinding along its murderous way for three years, and yet Reg talked about it as a great adventure.

She drew in a shaky sigh, hating herself for knowing so much and not being able to tell him. “I don't understand you. How can it be something to be happy about?”

But he looked like he thought she was the one who was crazy. “It's a chance to really do something. Really change the world for the better. How many people have a chance to do that?”
Make the world safe for democracy,
she heard in Whaley's voice. Isn't that what they said back in the day?

“You do! That article you wrote. How is that not making the world a better place?”

“No one read it.” There was a spark of irritation in his voice. “If you were a fellow, you'd understand. Nothing gets solved if you aren't willing to fight for it.”

“Oh, no. I understand, all right. I understand how important fighting is to you boys.”

Something in her tone made him really look at her. His voice lost its edge. “Come on, Addie. I told you I'd join up, didn't I? Why are you upset?”

“I ...” The coo of a mourning dove cut through the mist.

All of a sudden, it was as if she could see everything clearly, as if Reg had just come into focus for her, this intense, brilliant, spoiled, wisecracking, sincere guy wearing someone else's oversize clothing, so full of life and energy, so
alive.

She sucked in her breath as it hit her.

“I'm not upset,” she said slowly. “I'm not upset at all.” There was a jangling chorus in her head, a joyful burst of words:
He's not going to die. He's not.

“Oh, my God!” Her face broke into a radiant smile. “This is great.”

“What is?” Reg looked at her in utter confusion. “You really are mad. You know that, Addie?”

“I'm not mad!”

Then, as quickly as it had come, Addie's happiness drained away.

“But what about Mr. Peterson? Isn't he in danger now?”

“In
danger?
Don't be silly. He's safer than he's ever been. Who's going to look for him in the army?”

“But they'll find out he's not you when he gets to the Presidio.” It was the only part of the foreboding she felt that he would understand. The least of it.

“I doubt it. He's got my enlistment papers.”

Addie frowned, remembering the papers she'd stolen from Whaley's desk drawer. “True. But they'll still know he isn't you.”

“Why? All it says is name, address, eye color, how tall you are—we both have blue eyes, he's about my height—and your birthday.”

“Well?”

“If Peterson isn't smart enough to change the date, then he deserves whatever's coming!” Reg exclaimed. “Now you're just insulting his intelligence.”

“What about the photo?” Addie pressed.

“What photo? There isn't any photograph on the form.”

A sound of wheels crunching slowly over small rocks startled them. They turned sharply, and the headlights of a car heading west along the street blinded them.

“It's too bright here.” Reg drew her under the sheltering branches of the red cedar. “You should just be relieved he got away. That's the end of the story. He's gone. And I guess I'm still here.”

His voice was so miserable, her heart went out to him. She
did
understand how he felt about joining the army. Somehow he was able to communicate that to her, in a way Whaley never had. But Reg wasn't running from anything, like Whaley was. He had everything to look forward to. Or, at least, he had before all this.

“Reg, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry!”

“What on earth for? It's not your fault. It's mine. I set this crazy chain of events in motion, and now...” He gave a strange, bitter laugh. “I don't have a notion in hell what I'm supposed to do now.”

The wind turned the branches aside, and the moon illuminated his face like a spotlight. In its glow, Addie suddenly saw a look of surprise chase the bitterness from his face. “You know what, though?” There was a note of wonder in his voice. “I don't think I regret it.”

“Don't regret what?

“Taking the consequences. For hiding Peterson, for writing that article. Its like one side of me was cut off from the other, and now...” He brought his hands together, fingers entwined. “I'll have to put them both together.” He paused. “So maybe you forced me to do that.” Then suddenly his eyes were clear and focused. “I think I'm grateful.”

Upstairs in the house, a light flared and was extinguished.

“There's a change coming, Addie.” He sounded as if he were weighing each word in order to understand it himself. ‘A change in my life.” His voice wavered. “I didn't expect it, and I'm trying to feel—”

The door of the house opened, and lamplight spread onto the porch. Then a girl stepped out and peered into the front yard.

Frida.

She was the last person Addie had expected to see. And suddenly she was the last person she wanted to see. How was she going to feel about all this?

The girl caught sight of them and looked startled. Then she beckoned with her hand.

Silently, Addie and Reg crossed the yard, stepped up onto the porch, and went into the house, straight into a big, open living room.

“Where's Papa?” Frida demanded. “Why are you here and not him?”

Addie couldn't say a word.
Your dad's gone.
And now he might end up in the fighting. The thought tore at her. Behind Frida, Meg Turner was getting up from a rocking chair. For once, she was wearing no makeup, and instead of the fancy clothes she had probably worn for opening night, she was wearing a big, loose sweater and a plain skirt.

“Your fathers safe,” Reg said, hanging Gustaf's shabby jacket on the coat rack by the door. “The police didn't get him.”

“Then why are you wearing his overalls?” Frida's voice was pinched. “You don't wear a man's clothes if he's able to wear them himself. That's for funerals, and going across the ocean!”

“We switched.” Reg glanced at Addie for help, but she still felt the weight of her fears and couldn't speak. He went on. “It's a disguise. I didn't
take
them from him. He's on the train for San Francisco. He's got my clothes.”

“Your uniform? What ... why's he in your uniform?” Then she seemed to piece it together. “In the army? My
dad?”
The words evaporated as she spoke them.