CHAPTER 18
The summer of ’44 proved to be one of the most sweltering Alice-Ann could recall. Rain became a long-lost relative, the kind you appreciated seeing, but hoped didn’t stick around for too long. Then, once gone, rain was the kinfolk you hoped would soon return. But again, not for long.
Farmers moaned during the drought —Papa and Nelson among them —while the women met each evening at the churches for prayer meetings. The men slammed their hats into the dusty dirt; the women bent their knees and beseeched the Creator.
Alice-Ann, Aunt Bess, and Irene were no exception, which meant long hours for Alice-Ann. Not that she felt like complaining about it. Everyone in the whole of the United States put in long hours —in the factories, on the farms, in offices, at home . . . the where hardly mattered. And in spite of the crush of Mack’s most awful death —and possible involvement with another woman —pride swelled deep in Alice-Ann’s bosom at being part of a county within the state of Georgia whose citizens pulled together in their hard work and faith.
Throughout the summer months, in spite of the ranting and the prayers, God continued to hold back even so much as a drop of water in answer, but —remarkably —Carlton’s improvement seemed the one miracle everyone in town managed to speak of with more frequency. He’d worked diligently through the exercise regimen designed by Doc Evans, finally making his way downstairs by early August and —with the aid of a cane and Alice-Ann’s arm —out the door by midway through the month.
Bynum also buzzed with a rare form of gossip. Alice-Ann, the good citizens claimed, had been the tool God used to bring Carlton back to them, nearly in full. At times, the attention felt not only unearned, but embarrassing.
“After what you did for the Hillis boy,” Miss Nola Whitney said to her at the A&P one morning when she’d run down during her work break to purchase a few items for Aunt Bess, “this is on Mr. Whitney and me.”
Alice-Ann continued to extend the ration stamps in her hand. “Oh, but I don’t expect —”
Miss Nola shook her head adamantly. “No, ma’am,” she said, her voice firm. “I won’t take your stamps. It’s no good here today. You’ll just have to save them for later.”
Alice-Ann sighed, wondering if it would be any good tomorrow. Or the days after. In the past few weeks, she’d been given free admission to a matinee, received a year’s subscription to the local paper, and been nearly accosted on the sidewalk by Esther Lewen, who informed her that she could come into Lewen’s Department Store at any time and pick out a new outfit, no charge. “Accessories, too,” she’d said.
“But, Miss Nola . . .” Alice-Ann’s eyes grew wide and she hoped the grocery store owner could see her true feelings on the subject. “I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t have or couldn’t have done.”
Miss Nola snapped a paper bag open and began filling it with the unpurchased items. “Really, now? And just how many folks went to see our Carlton every day? Reading to him after long hours at work?” She slid the bag over the counter toward Alice-Ann. “And I know you had plenty to do once you got home. Bess told me how you always help out in the house and how you work with your daddy on Saturdays. I don’t know how you’ve done it, Alice-Ann, but you are a fine example to us all.”
Alice-Ann scooped the bag into her arms. “Well . . . all right. But just this once, Miss Nola.” She took a few steps backward to the front door, which —like most storefront doors in the middle of the heat wave —had been left open. “Because, really . . . I didn’t do anything that special.”
“You were the mouth of the good Lord, is what you were, Alice-Ann.” She nodded her chin once to affirm her statement.
Her words caused Alice-Ann to pause. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see? The good Lord Jesus called you, Alice-Ann. He needed someone to go over and give that young man a reason to keep going. And you? You gave him friendship.”
She’d never considered —not for a moment —that she’d done anything because of a “calling,” the same term her pastor had used.
“You were called by the Lord to help that young man,” he’d told her one Sunday between the Sunday school hour and the church service. Even then, she’d opened her mouth to protest, then clamped it shut. If Aunt Bess caught wind of her remotely arguing with Reverend Parker . . . well. God might have spared Jonah from the belly of the whale, but Aunt Bess wouldn’t be so generous.
Still . . . could it be? Could God’s calling be as simple as being a friend to someone in need? Even when it seemed pleasant and not at all difficult? Wasn’t a “calling” like what she’d read about in their church’s missionary report? Selling all her worldly goods and moving to faraway, ungodly places?
The truth was, she’d done what she’d done because she’d always liked Carlton. He’d been an “older brother” to her —unlike Mack, who’d held her heart in his hand. Even now, she felt an easy kinship with him. Their talk, light at times. Confidential at others.
Such as that Saturday the twelfth, during a short walk around the corner to Cooper Street, down to the first block of residential houses, when he’d given her the details of how he’d been injured. That he was the furthest thing from a hero.
“I got in the way, is what I did,” he said, his chin near his chest. “That’s the one thing they reiterated when we were learning cinematography.”
They walked slowly, her on the inside of the sidewalk, him keeping pace with his cane. He wore dark sunglasses —he said his eyes were still sensitive to the light —so she couldn’t read what lay beneath them. But his left hand held on to her right forearm and it squeezed as he spoke.
“Cinematography,” she repeated. “Such a big word.”
“Don’t get in the way of the tanks.” Carlton’s voice mimicked a low-speaking figure of authority. “Don’t get in the way of the soldiers with guns. Don’t get in the way . . . don’t get in the way.” He paused, bringing her to a stop as well. She shifted, bringing her hands to his forearm, holding on to him for a change, and felt the flexing of muscles growing stronger every day.
Carlton began walking again and she fell into step beside him. “So you got in the way?”
“Yeah.” He turned his face toward her, then back to the sidewalk, which —as they got closer to the tiny shotgun houses on the edge of town —became edged with weedy grass between the slabs.
Out of an old childhood habit, she attempted to stay off the cracks.
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said. His voice lay quiet. Sad. “Okay, doodlebug?”
“I won’t,” she said.
“I don’t know what they think really happened over there. My dad especially. Mama . . . she doesn’t ask.” He smiled a half smile. “You know mamas.”
“Not really, no.”
He stopped again and looked at her. “Oh, Alice-Ann. I didn’t mean . . .”
She shook her head and smiled at him. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have said —I’ve got Aunt Bess. She’s been like a mama to me all these years.”
“Your mama,” he said, looking at her. “I remember her as being something real special.”
“She was.” From what she could remember.
“Like mother, like daughter.”
Heat rushed to her face. “Now don’t you start,” she muttered.
He looked over his shoulder. “It’s getting warm,” he said.
“Warm?” she laughed. “It’s downright sweltering out here.”
“Are you?” she asked.
He nodded. “Cooper Street is downhill from the store. But —” He turned and she did too. “Uphill on the way home.”
Alice-Ann giggled lightly. “Makes sense.”
He looked down at her —him being a head taller than she, even on the days she wore heels —and grinned. “Remember the day Nelson and I taught you and Maeve how to ride bicycles on this hill?”
Did she ever. She had skinned knees for a week, something Aunt Bess and Papa had nearly skinned Nelson over. “Papa said if you boys wanted to show me and Maeve how to ride bikes, you should have done it out at the farm, where we had soft sand for concrete.”
“Soft sand for con —?” He laughed. “Yeah, I remember he gave me and Nelson a good talking to that next week.”
They neared the corner. “But we learned how to ride, didn’t we?”
“Yes, ma’am, you did.”
A welcome breeze came from a passing vehicle. Balmy, but welcome.
“A couple of bloody knees never hurt anyone.”
“No, ma’am. I reckon not.”
They rounded the bend and came to the true beginning of town. “Tired?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I think I could make it across the street to the soda shop for a root beer float.”
The thought made her taste buds dance. “Sounds good to me.”
He stopped, propped his cane against the glass pane of the five-and-dime, and patted his front pants pocket. “I’ve got a pocketful of change, so we’re good.”
“Trust me, your dime isn’t worth a nickel,” Alice-Ann noted.
Carlton stuck his head in the door of the store to call out to his mother. “Heading over to the soda shop.”
Mrs. Hillis hurried to the door. “You’re not too tired?”
Carlton blushed. “No, Mama. I’m good.”
She turned her attention to Alice-Ann. “Don’t let him get too tired.”
“I won’t.”
“Or overheated.”
“No, ma’am.”
Carlton took a step away from his mother. “Come on, Alice-Ann.”
Alice-Ann smiled at the worried face of his mother, hoping to ease her concerns. But if she’d been successful, Mrs. Hillis’s face showed no trace of it.
Every few yards they stopped, mainly so that Carlton could speak to the townspeople who were running their Saturday errands. Those who wished him well. Who wanted to slap him on the back or pat his cheek. Those who wanted to let him know they were proud of him or were praying for him.
Still.
Now, knowing what she knew, Alice-Ann was able to read the expression on Carlton’s face. She understood the depth of what he must have been through those months of rehabilitation, and her heart twisted around itself.
The police chief —Herbert Monaghan —happened to come out of the A&P at the same time as they reached the crosswalk. “Hold up there,” he called, then all but trotted out into the street, stopping traffic so they could cross.
“This is getting embarrassing,” Carlton mumbled to her, though he thanked Chief Monaghan kindly after they reached the other side of Main Street.
“Nothing’s too good for you, Carlton,” he said, rolling his beefy shoulder. “Or you, Miss Branch.”
Carlton patted her hand. “Or you, Miss Branch,” he teased, low enough that only she could hear.
“Everyone acts like I’m some sort of hero.”
He shuffled to a stop. Pulled the sunglasses to the tip of his nose and blinked at her over the dark rim as his right side leaned heavily on the cane. “You are.”
Alice-Ann shook her head. “I’m not, really.”
He took several breaths through his nostrils, his chest rising and falling evenly. “You have no idea, do you?”
Alice-Ann tilted her head. “What?”
“You’re very special, Alice-Ann.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. But honestly, Carlton. I’ve enjoyed talking with you and reading to you. I’ve —” She rested her fingertips against the hollow of her throat, but she couldn’t go on. Not out in front of the soda shop. Not with the heat rising off the sidewalk, curling around their feet, even under the shade of the still awnings.
“You’ve . . . ?”
She looked at the soda shop window, the specials painted in large white letters on it, along with Coca-Cola war-bonds posters. “Let’s go inside. Get something to drink. I’m parched.”
“And then you’ll tell me? Promise?”
She nodded, knowing she would. Because if there was one person Alice-Ann knew she could confide in during these days, it was Carlton Hillis.
Inside, after several minutes of backslapping and welcoming, they found a quiet booth near the back. Ernie brought two root beer floats to the table and then, unexpectedly, took a seat next to Carlton. He hunched his shoulders and turned his face to Maeve’s older brother. “Hey, Carlton, I need to ask you something real quick before my dad starts yelling at me to get back behind the counter.”
Carlton slid his glass closer to the edge of the table and pulled the tall spoon from the rich goodness of its contents. “What’s that?”
Ernie exchanged a glance between Alice-Ann and Carlton. “You two going to the wedding?”
The wedding. Other than Carlton’s healing, which was miraculous, and the lack of rain, Claudette’s upcoming nuptials had practically been the only thing folks talked about. By now, everyone knew the two lovebirds were completely lost in each other, anxiously anticipating the wedding day, disregarding Miss Nell’s insistence that they wait until the war’s end.
Of course the bride had asked Maeve and Alice-Ann to be her bridesmaids, and they’d been happy to oblige. Aunt Bess had promised to sew the dresses for the two of them, plus one for Claudette’s favorite cousin, Beulah, who hailed from Statesboro. September would bring teas and bridal showers throughout with a late-month wedding planned for what Claudette insisted would be a perfect autumn day.
“You mean together?” Carlton now asked, bringing a spoonful of ice cream to his mouth.
Ernie blushed as heat spread across Alice-Ann’s cheeks. “I’m a bridesmaid,” she said quickly, then wished she’d kept her mouth closed or full of root beer. She reached for a straw from the tabletop holder and stuck it into her glass. “What I mean to say is —” she raised her eyes to Carlton, who grinned in her direction —“I have to be there.” Alice-Ann sighed as she brought her lips to the tip of the straw.
“I’ll be there too,” Carlton said. “My sister is a bridesmaid as well.”
If his words hadn’t held such mirth, Alice-Ann would have kicked both him and Ernie under the table.
“The reason I ask . . .” Ernie’s shoulders hunched a little higher. “Carlton, I’m wanting to —I mean, after the right period of time —I’m wanting to ask Maeve.”
Carlton sat up so straight and so suddenly, Alice-Ann feared his spine would snap. “To the wedding? I assumed you’d be her date, Ern.” He jabbed at the ice cream, mushing it into the root beer.
A new shade of red dashed across his face. “Uh, no. What I mean is —I want to ask her to —” his voice lowered a notch —“to marry me.”
Carlton released the spoon and it stood at attention, albeit briefly, before easing to the side of the glass. “Excuse me?”
“But I need to know what your father will think about it.”
Alice-Ann willed her own lips back together as she studied Carlton’s face.
“Never mind what her father has to say,” he answered. “Right now, you’d better be more worried about her big brother.”
Genuine shock registered on Ernie’s face and he straightened. “What? You don’t like me? But I thought you liked me. I thought we were pals.”
“I do like you, Ern,” Carlton said. “I just don’t know if I’m ready for my baby sister to get married.”
“But —but —we’re in love.”
His words slid over Alice-Ann. Gently, at first. Then as a painful grip.
Maeve and Ernie were in love. Maeve had never told her. Sure, the two had been sweet on each other and dated since high school, but —in love? Why hadn’t Maeve confided in her?
First Claudette. Then Maeve. And Mack —her one true love —at the bottom of the ocean.
Alice-Ann pushed her root beer float an inch away from her.
“Bob’s your uncle,” she whispered aloud, not meaning to.
“Whatcha say, Alice-Ann?” Ernie said. “I don’t have an uncle named Bob.”
Carlton smiled at her and her thoughts returned to the conversation at hand. “It’s a British saying,” he told Ernie. “It means ‘and that’s that.’” He looked across the soda shop to the counter. “Your pop is glaring at you, Ern. You’d best get back to work.”
Ernie slid out of the booth, his focus remaining on Carlton. “But will you at least think about it?” he asked.
Carlton winked at Alice-Ann, letting her know he’d been stringing poor Ernie along all the while. “I’ll think about it,” he said. He looked up at Ernie. “I suspect you’d best come up with a plan, though, boy. You can’t work behind that counter the rest of your life and expect to support my sister in the way she deserves.”
Alice-Ann followed Carlton’s gaze to Ernie, who saluted the hometown hero. “Yes, sir,” he said, snapping his heels together, then turning on them.
Carlton shook his head slowly. “Bob’s your uncle, huh? I can’t believe you remembered that.”
Alice-Ann grabbed the spoon in her glass and made the same slicing motions Carlton had a few moments before. “I remember,” she said.
Carlton pulled a straw from the holder. “Now, about that promise you made on the sidewalk . . .”