Secrets well kept, p.2
Secrets Well Kept, page 2
“Mother and I listen to the news every night for a mention of the 36th Infantry Division. Nothing so far. We did get a letter from him last week. He didn’t say where they were, just that the bugs were horrible, the ground was so muddy his boots sunk in all the way to his calves, and the food was awful.”
They reached Mary’s street—Larchwood Avenue—and came to a halt. “How about your father? How’s he doing?”
“Hard to say. Mom and I haven’t gotten a letter from him in three weeks.” Phyllis bit her lip and Mary feared she might cry.
“Don’t worry about it. There are dozens of reasons you might not have heard from him. He could be in some remote outpost, or maybe his company is on the move. I’m sure you’ll hear something soon.”
“I hope so.”
“I’m certain of it.” Mary nodded, as if the matter was settled. “I’ve got to get going. Mother is expecting me at home.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow?”
“You bet.” Mary waved as she headed down the sidewalk and through the gate into her front yard. She bounded up the steps and into the house. As she placed her books down on the foyer table, Sam’s unmistakable voice wafted from the sitting room. The sound made her irrationally angry.
“Thank you for the refreshments, Mrs. Trask. This was mighty nice of you.”
“You’re welcome, Samuel. Feel free to stop by anytime. I’m always happy for your company, and I expect to see a lot more of you going forward. I’m sorry Mary’s not here yet. I can’t imagine where she could be. She should’ve been home by now.”
“She is home.” Mary strode into the room. There was Sam, sitting comfortable-as-could-be on the sofa, drinking a soda. Her mother was in her customary rocking chair. Following First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s lead, she was knitting a sweater for the boys at the Front with yarn procured from the Red Cross.
“There you are. Samuel dropped by a little while ago and he and I were having a wonderful chat.”
“I can see that. He looks right at home.”
“Hi, Mary.” Sam stood. “You look very nice today.”
“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?”
“Mary, where are your manners? Samuel came all the way over here to see you.”
Mary continued to stare at Sam. Of course, her mother was right; she was being unreasonably curt. Still…
His gaze flitted back and forth between Mary and her mother. “I missed you. I thought maybe we could go for a walk or something.”
“I have homework to do.”
“That can wait until after dinner. You two run along.”
Mary opened her mouth to protest. Her mother, the one who constantly nagged her to get her homework done from the moment she walked through the door after school, wanted her to fritter away an hour or more with Sam.
There was nothing for it. If she continued to resist, she’d catch heck from her mother later. “Give me a minute to freshen up. I’ll be right down.”
She fixed her makeup, checked her breath, combed her hair, and was back downstairs within five minutes. “I’m ready.”
Sam beamed at her. “You look fetching.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back in time for dinner,” she called over her shoulder to her mother.
“Don’t rush. Samuel is welcome to join us.”
“Sam has better things to do.” She fairly shoved him out the door in front of her. When they turned the corner and Mary was sure her mother could no longer spy on them from the living room window, she stopped short and rounded on him.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“What are you talking about? Can’t a guy miss his girl?”
Mary sighed. “You know I’m working my tail feathers off to pass this English test. I can’t be gallivanting around with you when I should be studying.” She resumed walking, adjusting her pace to match his uneven gait, a remnant of his bout with polio as a child.
“Come on. You know deep down you’re happy to see me.”
“I know deep down that if I don’t pass this test, I don’t graduate.” She kicked a stone on the path. “So, why aren’t you at work?”
“I got off early. Old man Bailey said some sprockets we needed to fix Mrs. Hadley’s watch hadn’t come in yet, so I didn’t have anything to do.”
They walked along in silence for a time, and when Sam interlaced his fingers with hers, she allowed it.
“Your mom says you’re going to start a full-time job at Meyer’s after graduation. Do you know what your hours are going to be?”
Mary groaned. “I don’t want to talk about it. That whole thing depresses me.”
“Working a steady job right out of high school depresses you? Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Meyer’s Drug Store is a staple in town. You could have a job for life.”
Mary disentangled their fingers. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life working behind the counter at a drug store. Working there part-time on weekends is bad enough.”
“What do you want, Mary? Because I don’t understand you. You’re super smart, but you’re not good enough at school to go to college, and even if you were, how would you pay for it?”
“I want to go places and see things. I want to shake off the dust and live a little.” She twirled in a circle with her arms outstretched.
“Now be realistic. Work at Meyer’s for a year, and then we’ll get married. I’ll take care of you for the rest of your life.”
“On a watchmaker’s salary? No, thanks. I don’t want or need you to take care of me. I want to take care of myself.”
“You’re crazy, you know that? Stop daydreaming. There are plenty of girls who would jump at the chance I’m giving you.”
“Then go date them!”
“I don’t want to date them. I love you!”
They’d stopped walking and were face to face, both of them breathing heavily. Sam pulled Mary to him and kissed her sloppily on the mouth. She planted both hands on his chest, shoved him away, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Are you nuts? People will see.”
“What if they do? You’re my girl. Folks expect me to kiss you.”
“Not in broad daylight out on the sidewalk, and not as though you want to swallow my tonsils. You’re embarrassing me.” She checked her watch. “I’m going home now. I’ll be late for supper.”
“Go to the diner with me Friday night?”
“We’ll see. I have to work early on Saturday.”
“Can I call you?”
Mary waved without answering and hustled down the sidewalk. She couldn’t explain it, but every time Sam kissed her, she wanted to wash her mouth out with Listerine. Her mother was right. Sam was a nice boy, he didn’t mind her working, and, because of his disability, she was never going to lose him to war. She should be counting her lucky stars. So, why wasn’t she?
CHAPTER TWO
Nora paced impatiently in front of the restaurant where she and her closest childhood friend, Anna, had agreed to meet. She checked her watch. As usual, Anna was ten minutes late. She would blame it on the traffic, her roommate, or… The list went on and on. Truthfully, Nora didn’t care about the excuses, but she was in the middle of an experiment she needed to finish before morning. At present, her lab partner was monitoring the reactions of the ions to a variety of stimuli, but she didn’t completely trust him to keep a close enough eye on things and to accurately reflect the data in their reports.
“Hi, hi,” Anna said breathlessly. She waved as she approached, her smile incandescent as always. “I’m so sorry I’m late. You wouldn’t believe…”
Nora tuned out the rest of the explanation and instead focused on the dimple in Anna’s chin. She could’ve told Nora she’d incinerated her favorite pair of shoes and Nora would’ve forgiven her. All throughout their childhood years, it had been like this. Stop this madness. She’s a woman, you’re a woman. End of story. She doesn’t feel the way you do. You know that. It’s time to let it go.
“Hello? Where are you?” Anna snapped her fingers in front of her face.
“What did you say?”
“I said, let’s go inside. The wind is messing up my perm.”
“Right.” Nora opened the door and followed her in. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the low lighting. The restaurant was crowded for a Wednesday, but they managed to get a booth in the back.
Once they’d ordered, Anna asked, “So, what’s this big news you wanted to share? Have you found a fella?”
“Huh?” Nora barely managed to right the glass of water before it spilled in her lap. Her face turned beet red. “N-no!”
Anna threw her head back and laughed, and Nora wanted to crawl under the table. Instead, she stared at the tablecloth. She nearly jumped out of her chair when a soft hand covered hers.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you or make you uncomfortable. I was hopeful, is all. I want you to be happy. You spend too much of your time alone in the lab or with your head in a book.”
Nora wanted to stay miserable, but warmth radiated from where their hands touched through the rest of her body, making her uncomfortable in an entirely different and foreign way. She withdrew her hand and put it in her lap. It was time to get back on safe ground.
“I’ve got a job offer.”
“Wow! Already? That’s fabulous! Tell me all about it.”
Nora scanned the room to make sure no one was paying them undue attention. “I wish I could…tell you all about it, I mean.”
“Why can’t you?”
“It’s classified.”
“Oh, the plot thickens. I love a good mystery. Spill.”
“No can do.”
“C’mon. I can keep a secret.”
Nora made a motion as if to zip her lips.
“Why would you invite me here just to tease me?” Anna pouted.
“I’m not trying to be difficult. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you much.”
“You’ve got to give me something.”
Nora had to give Anna credit, she had a flair for the dramatic. “Okay. The letter I received came from Ernest Lawrence, himself.”
“Who’s Ernest Lawrence?”
“Who is…” Nora took a deep breath and willed herself to be patient. It wasn’t as though Anna kept up on the latest scientific discoveries. Her interests shaded to the arts and she wanted to be an actress.
“Ernest Lawrence invented a machine that won him the Nobel Prize in 1939.”
“That’s good, right?”
“That’s very, very good. He’s tops in the field.”
“What did he want? In the letter, I mean.”
“He asked me to come to work on something crucial to the war effort.”
“I always knew you’d do great things.” She winked at Nora. “Where are you going?”
Nora shrugged.
“C’mon. Surely you can at least tell me where you’re off to on this super-secret assignment.”
Nora shook her head. “They haven’t told me.”
“Wait a minute. So, you don’t know where you’re going and what you’ll do when you get there?” Anna’s eyes grew large and round.
“You make it sound—”
“Like you’ve lost your mind? Yeah. Because I’m pretty sure you have.”
“Shh.” Nora glanced around. “Keep your voice down.”
“You’re my best friend. It’s my job to tell you when you’ve gone cuckoo. And boy, have you. They could send you to…to…Minnesota or some other Godforsaken place.”
“Maybe.”
“How are you going to pack, if you don’t know what the weather will be?”
Leave it to Anna to be ever-practical. “I guess I’ll have to pack a little of everything and hope for the best.”
Anna stared at her a long time, long enough to make her squirm. “You’re really serious about this?”
“I’m more than serious. I’m going to do it. I’ve already sent a return letter accepting the offer of employment.”
“Does this fancy-schmancy job at least pay well?”
“Top dollar.” Nora breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Anna was coming around.
“What does your family think? Wait.” Anna held up a hand. “I don’t care what that no-account brother of yours thinks. What did your parents say? You’ve told them, right?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“They had much the same reaction as you. I think they would’ve had me committed if they could’ve worked it out and not had it bring shame on the family.”
“I hate to agree with them, but they’ve got a point. Not the having you committed part, but I’m worried for you. I’m sure your folks are too. You’re brilliant. There’s no question about that. But you don’t know anything about the world out there. You don’t even like people. How are you going to get along?”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“You’d better miss me. Who else would put up with your bookwormy ways?”
“That’s not even a word.”
“It is if I say it is.” Anna frowned. “Will you promise to write? Even if you can’t say much, it will be good to hear from you.”
“I promise to write if they’ll let me.”
“America is a free country. They’d better let you write your best friend!”
“I expect to see you on the newsreels every time I go to the theater.” Nora tried not to choke up.
“Forget the newsreels. I’m going to be in the main feature.”
“Of course you are.”
“Are there going to be lots of boys where you’re going, you think?”
“I don’t know. Probably far more guys than gals.”
“Well, good odds for you, then. Just don’t lock yourself away in some science lab, okay? Live a little. Find a fella. It wouldn’t hurt you to go on a date, you know.”
Nora blushed again. “I’m not you. Boys don’t flock to me the way they do you.”
“Nora Lindstrom. You’re a real looker. Boys don’t ask you out because you don’t give them the time of day. Let ’em see that beautiful smile. Flash those pretty hazel eyes. Style that luxurious blond hair in curls. You’ll be beating them off with a stick.”
For reasons Nora didn’t want to examine, the idea nauseated her.
The movie theater was hopping, as it always was on a Friday night. It mattered not that the feature film, The Pride of the Yankees, had been out for two months, nor, for that matter, that Mary already had seen it three times. Thanks to her dad, Henry, Mary had been raised with a baseball in her hand, and Lou Gehrig’s tragic story tugged at her heartstrings.
Henry Trask was a huge Philadelphia Phillies fan. He and his only daughter were regular fixtures at the ballpark, and Henry, a conductor on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited, often liked to boast about how the team preferred to take his train when they traveled for road trips.
Seeing this movie over and over again helped Mary feel closer to her dad.
Sam’s hand brushed her breast and Mary shrugged him off. “I’m trying to watch the movie! Cut it out!” she whispered harshly. She shifted in her seat and distanced herself from Sam.
“C’mon! It isn’t like you don’t know the scene by heart. Gary Cooper gives Gehrig’s emotional farewell speech and chokes up, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”
“It’s the best scene in the movie. I tear up every time I see it.”
“I’m the one crying here. I haven’t seen you in days! I missed my girl.” Sam put his arm around Mary and drew her closer but stopped short of trying to touch her breast this time.
Mary studiously ignored him until the end credits rolled. “Could you have been any ruder? I came to the theater to watch the movie, not to be groped by a hormonal teenaged boy. You’re nearly twenty. You’d think you would’ve outgrown such boorish behavior.”
“For God’s sake! There wasn’t another couple here actually paying attention to what was on the screen. It’s a darkened movie theater! No red-blooded guy brings his girl to the pictures on a Friday night and really expects to see the movie!”
She faced him. “Let me see if I understand this. You spent sixty-four cents on the movies so that you could try to put the moves on me?”
Sam frowned. “When you say it that way, I sound stupid.”
Mary nodded. “You said it, not me.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and stood. “At least one of us got your money’s worth.”
He jumped up and followed her. “Can I still take you out for a burger and a malt?”
She turned and smiled sweetly at him. “Of course. I’m hungry and I’m not stupid.” He mumbled something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch. She didn’t bother asking him to repeat it.
They were silent on the short drive to the diner, and she was impressed when he came around and opened the door for her and helped her out of the car. He really was a nice boy, and when she and her best girlfriends compared notes, he wasn’t any different than their boyfriends. They all had one thing on their minds. She shouldn’t be so hard on him.
To make it up to him, she ordered a less expensive Coke instead of a malt.
“Have you heard anything more from your dad? Is he at the front lines yet? Has he killed any Nazis?” Sam licked ketchup from his fingers.
“Sam Abel, what a question to ask.”
“What? That’s why he’s over there. We have to win the war, and the only way to do that is to take care of those damn Nazis and the Japs. I mean, darn. Sorry.”
Mary rested her chin on her hands. “I wish nobody had to die. This whole war business makes me sick to my stomach. People are dying, and for what?”
“I’d go in a heartbeat if they’d let me. Instead, I’m 4-F’ed and sitting on the sidelines, watching the other guys get all the glory.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I doubt there’s a lot of glory in getting sick from slogging through cold mud day after day. That’s mostly all Daddy talks about.”
“That’s probably because he doesn’t want to worry you and your mother. I bet he’s seen things that would curl your toes.” Sam talked around a mouthful of burger. “He isn’t telling you, is all.”
