CHAPTER 10
Carlton returned on a Thursday in early May.
May 4, to be exact.
At noon that day, Alice-Ann met Claudette for a prearranged lunch at Tucker’s. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks —in fact, Alice-Ann mused during the walk over, she’d not seen Claudette in nearly as long as it had been since she’d heard from Mack.
The thought penetrated her, chilling her bones in the warm sunshine of near summer. Knowing what she knew —that he’d taken on this mission, this going to some exotic island she’d never heard of before —she couldn’t help but worry. Then again, she told herself, perhaps her letters to him and his to her were not being delivered because of the importance of the work. The secrecy.
Alice-Ann smiled at the thought. Mack, in some clandestine work to bring down the Japanese. Well, then. Maybe the lack of correspondence wasn’t due to mail service, but more to Mack having been so busy he didn’t have time to write. Perhaps all he did, day in and day out, was fight the Japs, then eat and sleep what little he could, then fight the Japs some more.
She crossed the street, lightly running on the balls of her feet, already feeling better about things.
Claudette had arrived before her and had saved a booth, hard to come by with the lunch crowd. She waved furiously as soon as Alice-Ann entered, the bells over the door alerting the room to her arrival. Alice-Ann waved back, then worked her way around the tables and to her friend, who, dressed in pink, looked more like cotton candy than a girl simply going out for lunch.
As a budding young woman, Alice-Ann had managed to accept her more-than-mousy appearance around Maeve and, especially, Claudette. But over the past two years, the friendship between Maeve and Alice-Ann had grown deeper. Claudette, on the other hand, spent more time with Johnny Dailey and, in the process, seemed to have grown even more glamorous and, in many ways, distant. They saw each other at the few dances Bynum threw for the soldiers and citizens from time to time, but otherwise, the time Alice-Ann spent with Claudette was more miss than hit.
Alice-Ann slid into the booth. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long.”
“Not at all.” Claudette smiled, nearly grinning. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been okay.” Alice-Ann looked toward the counter, wondering where their server might be.
“I’ve ordered for us,” Claudette said.
Alice-Ann felt heat rush to her cheeks. Unlike most young women in town, Claudette hadn’t gone to work. How she spent her days, exactly, Alice-Ann could only guess. She often imagined her, lounging in her princess-perfect bedroom, a book in one hand and a tall glass of Coke poured over crushed ice in another. Or strolling along some leaf-scattered path, humming a little tune. Claudette didn’t understand the value of a nickel hard-earned, or that sometimes a meal —even in a soda shop —could only be a bowl of tomato soup with perhaps a cheese sandwich on the side if it happened to be payday.
“Don’t worry,” Claudette continued as though she’d read Alice-Ann’s mind. “This is my treat.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Alice-Ann said.
“I want to.” She sat up straight. “Cheeseburgers, fries, and icy glasses of Co-Cola —just like old times before this awful war came to town.”
Alice-Ann could only smile in response.
“Besides,” Claudette went on, “we’re celebrating.”
Celebrating. How could they celebrate on such a day? “Carlton is being brought home today,” she muttered.
Claudette reached her right hand across the table and grabbed Alice-Ann’s left. “I know. I went by earlier and talked to Maeve. I invited her to lunch too, actually, but she —well . . . They’ve got his room all set up. Of course, they’re going to have to get him up those stairs first and I daresay he won’t be coming down them any time soon.”
“No.” The thought gave cause to wince, and momentarily she pictured Nancy’s Main Street home with the ramp built over the front porch steps. “Do you know what time he’s expected?”
“Maeve said around three and I overhead Daddy telling Mama he’d be there then to check on things. Are you going by after work?”
She hadn’t considered it, in all honesty. Of course she’d go to see if she’d received anything from Mack, but the idea of visiting with Carlton hadn’t so much as tickled her brain. “I —I don’t know.”
“You should. Maeve said Carlton wrote to you from time to time. It’d be a nice gesture.” She looked up then as Mr. Tucker approached their table, a lunch plate in each hand.
“Two cheeseburgers,” he said. “Fries and —” He frowned as he looked down at the table. “Where are your drinks?”
“Not here yet,” Claudette said, her voice filled with humor. “I say fire the help.”
“Hard enough getting help these days, little missy,” he said with a wink. “Much less firing it.” He shook his head. “I’ll have the drinks sent right over.”
Alice-Ann’s stomach rumbled. “Smells wonderful,” she said. “I can’t remember when I had a juicy burger last.”
Claudette bowed her head and Alice-Ann did the same. “Thank you, Lord, for your bounty and goodness. We pray for the men and women fighting for our country and for all those still here. We pray for Maeve and her family today, Lord, and ask that you be with them. Amen.”
“Amen,” Alice-Ann added. She plucked a fry from the platter and blew on it, watching the steam rise in front of her nose. “So what are we celebrating?” she asked.
Claudette waited as Tucker’s head cook, Lurline Reynolds, placed their drinks on the table. “Here ya go, ladies. Y’all just holler if you need anything else.”
“Thank you, Lurline,” she said, then watched her retreat. “Gracious, Mr. Tucker has her running the back and serving drinks? Where is Ernie?”
Alice-Ann shrugged. “Maybe he’s over at Maeve’s. Helping.”
“Could be. Would make sense, though his going over there during a hectic lunch hour is —well . . .” She smiled. “None of my concern.” She slid her left hand across the table. “This. This is what we’re celebrating.”
Alice-Ann looked down to see Claudette’s ring finger sporting a cluster of sapphires circling a small diamond. She returned the fry to the plate as she breathed out, “Claudette.”
“I know,” her friend giggled. “Isn’t it lovely?”
“When?” she asked, looking up.
“Saturday night. Can you believe it? It seems like only yesterday we were schoolgirls in your bedroom and I was all starry-eyed, talking about how dreamy Johnny is.” Claudette eyed the ring, turning it under the overhead lights. “This ring belonged to his mother.”
“Miss Nell?”
Claudette nodded. “I’m hoping that her giving him the ring his father proposed with means she and I will get along okay.”
“Do you get along now?”
Claudette nibbled on the end of a fry and shrugged. “She thinks I’m spoiled.”
Alice-Ann wrapped her fingers around the burger. “You are spoiled,” she said truthfully, but she smiled to lessen the words.
Maeve met Alice-Ann at the front of the store, closing and locking the door behind them. “We’ve only allowed Doc Evans in and, of course, Betty Jo since Carlton got home.”
Alice-Ann tilted her head at her friend, whose eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. “How is he? How does he look?”
“Just awful,” Maeve whispered. “You’ll see, but . . .” A fresh set of tears spilled from her eyes and she dabbed at them with a lavender handkerchief.
Alice-Ann recoiled at the thought. “Maybe I should wait a day or so.”
Maeve’s lips parted in a tiny O as she shook her head. “Oh, you must come up and say something to him. He’d be devastated. It’s bad enough that . . .”
“What?”
Maeve took a step closer. “I don’t know, Alice-Ann. Betty Jo acts like he’s some sort of stranger.” She shook her head again. “Or worse, a monster.”
Alice-Ann’s heart pounded as she wondered exactly what Maeve meant. Did he look like a monster? And if so, what kind? “Well, I —”
Maeve slid her arm into Alice-Ann’s. “Come on up. We won’t stay in there long.” She started toward the back, nearly dragging Alice-Ann with her. “Mama’s fluttering around the room, trying her best to act like everything’s just fine and dandy.” They came to the end of the sewing notions aisle. “But I just know,” she said, stopping, “that when she and Daddy go to bed tonight, she’ll cry herself to sleep in his arms.”
Alice-Ann tried to picture the scene but couldn’t. Instead, her eyes focused on each individual step of the back staircase, listening to the muffled voices coming from upstairs.
“Mama, I’m fine . . .”
Alice-Ann squeezed Maeve’s arm with her own. “He sounds strong.”
“He’s a rock,” she said, her voice low. “I know in time he’ll be okay. It’s just that right now —”
“Maeve? Did I get a letter today?”
Maeve stopped at the top of the staircase. “No. I’m sorry, Alice-Ann. But I can tell you that Mr. MacKay was here yesterday buying some cornstarch and I heard Daddy ask him what they’d heard from Mack.”
Alice-Ann’s heart quickened again. “What’d he say?”
“He said not a word for weeks now, but that maybe no news was good news.”
“Maybe so,” Alice-Ann said, though something in her heart kept telling her otherwise.
Maeve pulled her into the bedroom across from the one Alice-Ann had slept in many a night when they’d been girls. The air inside was thick and still and smelled of a man’s cologne trying desperately to mask the odor of injury.
“Carlton,” Maeve said as she drew in a shuddering breath and turned toward the bed, where a pajama-clad man who looked only vaguely familiar lay propped up on a mound of linen-covered pillows. “Look who’s here to see you.”
“Oh, Maeve, really.” Betty Jo, who sat in a corner chair on the far side of the room, crossed her legs and pursed her lips. “He can’t see who’s here.”
Blessedly, Alice-Ann’s intake of breath couldn’t be heard over Carlton’s sigh. “It’s only an expression, Betty Jo.” Then, turning his face toward the door, he added, “Tell me who.”
Alice-Ann took a step forward. “Hello, Carlton.”
A crooked smile crossed his face, still shaded with yellow and green from the bruising. His eyes, once full of fire and mischief, were shielded by dark, oversize sunglasses. The arms were wide and equally as dark, as if they’d been designed to keep light out from all angles. The lips that had always been ready with a quick comeback were now puffy and red and chapped in places. “Why, if it isn’t little Alice-Ann Branch. How’re ya doin’ there, doodlebug?”
She took a step, aware of Betty Jo’s disapproval by the way she folded her arms across her middle as she took in a harsh breath. “I’m all right . . . but I’m not so little anymore, I reckon.”
She smiled at Maeve’s mother, who stood at the head of the bed, her arm resting along the headboard. “Hello, Mrs. Hillis.”
“Alice-Ann,” she said. She took a step closer to Maeve, who stood alongside the closet wall. “I’m going to go check on your father. Carlton?”
His face moved gingerly toward her voice. “Yes’m?”
“Need anything?”
Carlton reached for his mother’s hand and she readily gave it, their arms stretching toward each other. “Mama, I promise. If I need anything, I’ll call.”
Mrs. Hillis seemed unconvinced, but she kissed her son’s hand anyway and left the room.
Carlton craned his neck. “I hear you’ve been writing back and forth with Mack, too, Alice-Ann.” He said it almost as if it were a question, as though he’d been surprised by it. But why should he be? After all, she’d written to Carlton, hadn’t she? Wouldn’t he consider it perfectly normal that she would write to two of her brother’s best friends?
Her toes curled, cracking in the silence as she realized Betty Jo now knew of her correspondence with Mack. Would she tell anyone? Would it somehow get back to Nelson or Papa? Or what about Aunt Bess, who’d always been somewhat friendly with Betty Jo’s grandmother?
“Off and on,” she finally said, hoping her words sounded casual enough.
Carlton’s fingers laced together, resting atop the covers pulled over his legs and lower body. “So how’s he doing? Do you know where he’s stationed?”
“He said —” She stopped herself before revealing too much, then reconsidered. What would Betty Jo or Maeve know about all this anyway? Wouldn’t one island in the South Pacific sound pretty much like another? But Carlton . . . why, Carlton could know something important. They might have been on separate continents, but they fought the same war, didn’t they?
She decided to take a chance. “Do you know anything about Emirau?”
“Emirau?” he asked as what little bit of pale was left on his face became patched with red.