22
One morning, Maher called me at the Supply Shack and told me my check had finally arrived. All these years later I remember the great bright lightness of the moment, a kind of fierce exuberance, the sense that I’d just been released from jail. Donnie Ray told me to go cash it and take the rest of the day off, since I’d suffered enough for my country. Coming back from the yeoman’s office with the money in my pocket, I ran into Sal.
“For Chrissakes, get decent clothes,” he said. “And we’ll meet you tonight in the Dirt Bar.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
And went back to the barracks with a signed Liberty Pass in my hands and got dressed in a hurry.
All the way into town on the bus, I tried to recover the image of the woman. For three weeks, I’d deliberately shoved her out of my mind; what I couldn’t have, I didn’t want to imagine. Now I wanted her back, the true goal beyond the pursuit of civilian clothes or a cold beer. But as I gazed out at the passing streets, the drowsing bars and forbidding churches, I found the process of recovery harder than it should have been. The woman had become like an out-of-focus snapshot. This alone confused me; how could I have a grand passion for a woman I could barely remember? So I looked for the woman as if seeing her would be the only way I could remember her clearly, or prove that she had existed at all. And I thought that maybe all I wanted was the feeling she aroused in me, and not the woman herself. The words of a song drifted through me: “Falling in love with love, is falling for make believe …”
I saw women of all sizes, shapes and ages, but not the woman of the New Year’s Eve bus. I knew she was in Pensacola; I’d seen her on South Palafox Street, walking into a store. She had waved at me as the truck rolled to the piers. But I started to erode that vision with doubt. Maybe I only thought I’d seen the woman that day. The woman I’d seen wore different clothes, hair tied up in a different way, eyes masked with sunglasses. Maybe my longing had created a mirage, a promise of lush green in a harsh desert. Maybe I’d waved to a total stranger. I wouldn’t know until I saw her. And there was some chance I’d never see her again.
I got off at Garden and Palafox. The sun was high and not very hot and a salty breeze was blowing in from the waterfront. I stared into the window of a men’s store on the ground floor of the Blount Building, across the street from the San Carlos Hotel. The clothes there were too expensive. I looked across the street at the hotel, thinking I’d like to walk around the lobby. Then, like a scene in some old movie, Tony Mercado, the Mexican pilot, came out on the steps. He had a blonde woman with him. He kissed her on the cheek and she disappeared in a taxi. The tall colored doorman in his white uniform said something; Mercado smiled and then another colored man drove up in a shiny blue convertible. He got out and backed up a step. Mercado handed him what must have been a tip, slipped behind the wheel and drove away. It was all done with ease and command and I envied him. I wondered what it would be like to spend a night with a woman in a big hotel. On silk sheets. With drinks in a bucket beside the bed. And enough money to order food brought to the room. Just like in the movies.
“Hey, sailor.”
Two Shore Patrol were standing there, each holding a club, each with a pistol strapped to his hip. One was tall, with square shoulders, dark sideburns. The other was short and compact.
“Let’s see your Liberty Pass, sailor,” the tall one said.
I gave it to him, and he studied it in a suspicious way, making me nervous. I knew what it said. I’d practically memorized it. Armed Forces Liberty Pass. With the name of the service, the date, my name, my service number, the card number, my rate and the name of the organization. Signed by Donnie Ray. I was here legally. But still, the SPs made me nervous. The tall one nodded to the shorter one and then handed me back the pass.
“Just checkin,” he said.
I asked them where I could buy civvies at a decent price and they directed me to Sears, down on South Palafox. I saluted and walked away. When I glanced back, they were strolling into the lobby of the San Carlos. Maybe they had some women stashed there too.
Sears was a long, narrow, badly lit store with signs everywhere advertising bargains. The men’s department was just inside the door. I bought a ghastly green Hawaiian shirt that wasn’t as loud as Sal’s but still made me feel as if I were in Florida. It cost $2.50. A pair of chinos went for six bucks. I told the man at the counter that I wanted to wear them out of the store and he showed me a dressing room. I took off the uniform and folded it neatly. Then, dressed in civvies at last, I brought the uniform back and asked the salesman to wrap it for me. The man nodded silently; his face looked permanently unhappy.
On the way out, I saw an area that displayed art supplies. I went over and looked at the pads, hefted some of the heavy tubes of oil paint, examined various chalks and pencils. I thought that on the long dead days and in the slow evenings I could start to draw again. Maybe I’d buy a sketchbook. Some pencils. I looked for a salesman and my eyes wandered and then, five aisles away, I saw her.
The woman from the bus.
She was behind the counter in the lingerie department. Right there. Across the room. She was wearing a gray Sears jacket over her street clothes and her hair was pulled back tightly in a bun. It was her all right. I hadn’t imagined her that day. When I rolled past on the truck, she must have been going to work. She was talking to a fat woman in a blue dress. The fat woman had a pair of panties in her hands, and as I drifted closer (my heart beating faster, my face damp), I could see my woman stretch the silken garment at the crotch, explaining its wonders.
I drifted closer, looking blindly at other counters, glancing at her as she waited on the fat woman. When she’s finished and the fat woman’s gone, I thought, I’ll just go over and say hello. Casual. Without showing that I care too much. Suddenly, a black man in his forties came up to me and asked if I worked there. No, I said, I didn’t. Damn, he said, looking frustrated, glancing at a cheap wristwatch. What’s the problem? I said. I got to get me some thread over by that notions countuh, he said. There was a thin pale woman behind the counter. I said, why don’t you just ask that salesgirl? You crazy, man? he said. That woman’s white. I must have looked like some dumb immigrant, just off the boat. The black man explained, No white woman’s ’lowed to wait on no cullid in this town. He walked away, looking for a white man who could wait on him. I thought: Jesus Christ.
I couldn’t wait any longer, and ambled over to the lingerie counter. I went to the right of the fat lady, my head down, stealing glances at the woman in the Sears jacket. A nameplate was pinned above the swell of her breasts. Eden Santana. A name. Her name. The name that would work its way into me for the rest of my life. Eden. Like a promise of paradise. The overhead fluorescent lights made her hair look darker, the highlights tinged with green. She had thick black eyebrows. And that aquiline nose, with a small bump in the middle, was the way I’d remembered it. Her upper lip was thin, but the lower lip was thick and pouty. She smiled at the fat woman as she handed her a bag and change and I saw dimples in her cheeks. In the harsh overhead light, she looked at least twenty-eight. Maybe even thirty. I wasn’t even old enough to drink in New York. And then she touched her face and I saw a wedding band on her left hand. Plain. Gold. And I thought: aw, shit. For a moment, I wanted the fat woman to come back, get involved in some complicated transaction, give me time to slip away.
“Can I help you—?”
It was too late for flight.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m the guy from the bus.”
“The what?”
“Remember? New Year’s Eve? You got off in Palatka.”
She squinted at me, and then smiled. That beautiful smile. “Oh, the bus. And you are the guy, awnt you? Sure enough. I didn’t recognize you in the Harry Truman shirt.”
“Just got it,” I said. “Right here in Sears.”
“And you got a bit more hair, too.”
I kept trying to sort out words in my head, to say things that were quick and witty and what was the word? Charming. And I wanted to do more than make brilliant remarks. For just a second, I wanted to reach over the counter and kiss her hard on the mouth and then lay her among the slips and panties. Just like that. Just do it. And be quick and witty and charming later.
“What can I do for you, child?” she said.
I turned my head. A few counters away, a heavy-set, balding white man was waiting on the Negro. I couldn’t tell this woman, this Eden Santana, that I’d gone on certain evenings to the highway near Ellyson Field hoping to see her pedal by. I couldn’t explain how hard I’d worked to erase her face from my mind. Child. She called me child.
“Well, I uh, well—” Get to it, just get to it. “I was wondering if you wanted to, well, go for a cup of coffee after work? You know, should auld acquaintance be forgot, and all that. Maybe we could even catch a movie at the Rex …”
And thought: Please don’t laugh.
Eden Santana looked at me and smiled in a warm sad way.
“Sure,” she said. “That’d be nice.”