CHAPTER 2

To Alice-Ann’s way of thinking, Tucker’s Soda & Ice Cream Shoppe —which doubled as a hamburger joint and magazine stand —seemed both eerily silent and bursting at the seams with conversation. On Monday after school —where they’d all been ushered into the auditorium to hear the president’s speech —she sat in a high-backed booth alongside the left wall, opposite the stretch of counter and chrome barstools, each occupied. The aroma of burgers sizzling in the kitchen reached across the room, stirring Alice-Ann’s stomach. Across the table, Claudette Evans leaned over an ice cream soda, pulling on the straw with crimson-painted lips. “So what did Aunt Bess say, exactly?” she asked between sips. “Can you or can’t you have your party this coming weekend?”

“She only said, ‘We’ll see.’ Papa is pretty sure the world as we know it is coming to an end. He says that if ever the farmers would be needed, it’s now.” Alice-Ann took a sip of her own soda. “All Aunt Bess will really say is, ‘Emmitt, don’t upset the kids so.’”

“Meaning you.”

Alice-Ann frowned. “Yeah. It’s not like Nelson and Irene are children, and I guess my sixteenth birthday meant nothing at all when it comes to thinking of me as a grown-up instead of a child.”

“Did you at least get to eat your cake?” Claudette tilted her head. The overhead light reflected on her blonde hair, causing it to shimmer. Once again, Alice-Ann felt the pang of having mousy do-nothing hair, and she grabbed a handful of it and tugged.

“No one felt like eating anything, much less cake.”

The jukebox tune changed from “When You Wish upon a Star” to “Blue Skies” as the front door opened, momentarily filling the room with afternoon sunlight. Alice-Ann looked up to see Maeve practically sliding toward them, her skirt swaying as she darted between the patron-filled tables. “Hey, Ernie,” she called to the soda jerk at the counter as she reached the booth.

Ernie Tucker smiled a toothy grin, the first ray of sunshine in an otherwise-somber restaurant. Alice-Ann supposed no one felt like smiling, even though their appetites hadn’t changed. “Hey, Maeve,” he called back.

Claudette leaned over the table. “Ernie’s so smitten he can’t see his root beer from his Coke floats.” She winked and Alice-Ann giggled.

“How about a dish of vanilla?” Maeve called over the music and conversation.

“Coming right up,” he said, then nearly fell over himself getting to the ice cream freezer at the far end of the fountain.

Claudette and Alice-Ann laughed all the harder as Maeve slid in beside Claudette. “Wait till you girls hear the buzz on the street,” she said, her voice conspiratorial.

The hair on the back of Alice-Ann’s neck prickled. Something in Maeve’s face told her this wasn’t about a new Bing Crosby film coming to town. “What?” she all but whispered.

“We all heard the speech the president made today at noon, right? Well, after school I went home and Daddy says it was on the radio in every house in America. That no self-respecting American would have missed it.”

Maeve’s father owned the five-and-dime. She, her older brother Carlton, and their parents lived in the spacious apartment overhead. Often were the times Alice-Ann and Claudette had spent the night with Maeve, sneaking downstairs, once the upstairs lights had gone down, to rummage through the goods and snag a chocolate bar or two. As long as business hours were in effect —Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from nine until five, and Wednesday from nine to noon —Anson and Mary Catherine Hillis, Maeve’s parents, kept a radio playing behind the cash register counter. Getting the news before anyone else in town was of paramount importance to Mr. Hillis, Papa had remarked a time or two at the dinner table. But, Alice-Ann supposed, this time the town had been right on time with him.

“It’s what this entire soda shop is talking about,” Claudette muttered. “If you listen carefully, the only thing you hear is ‘war’ and ‘Japs’ and ‘Axis powers’ and —” Claudette ducked her chin to lower her voice —“‘a date which will live in infamy.’”

“I don’t even know what infamy means,” Alice-Ann retorted. “But I have a feeling it’s going to affect me one way or the other.”

Ernie appeared then and placed the ice cream dish in front of Maeve. “Here you go, M.,” he said.

“Thank you, E.”

He slid into the booth in the vacant spot next to Alice-Ann, forcing her to slide closer to the wall. “Are y’all talking about the war? About us going into it?”

Alice-Ann sighed. Didn’t he have work to do?

“Are you sure, Ernie?” Maeve asked, batting her lashes at him as he pulled the starched white soda jerk cap off his head and placed it on her own. “About us going into the war?”

Gracious, the way that girl flirted one would think she was Ginger Rogers or somebody.

“Yeah, I’m sure. You heard what President Roosevelt said today good as I did. And I’ll tell you one thing, boy. I’d sign up tomorrow, if I could.” He reached across the table and grabbed Maeve’s hand. “Would you like that, Maeve? Would you be proud of me if I went over there and kicked those Japs right between the teeth?”

Maeve frowned, her thick brows forming a V between her dark eyes. “No, I wouldn’t like that. I wouldn’t like that at all, Ernie Tucker. I don’t want anyone I know going off to war. What if you never come back, huh? What if you end up six feet under some foreign soil or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?”

Alice-Ann kept her focus on her ice cream soda. Like Ernie could go even if he wanted to. That boy’s asthma had kept him off of every sports team since they’d been in elementary school.

“Ah, no, M.,” he said, and Alice-Ann cut her eyes over to the two of them. “You watch. With boys like your brother and Mack and the others signing up —”

“Mack?” Alice-Ann jumped in her seat. “Surely you don’t mean Boyd MacKay.”

“What are you talking about, Ernie?” Maeve cut in, sliding her hand out from under Ernie’s bony one. “My brother? Carlton’s not going off to war. You’re full of beans.”

“Sure he is.” Ernie reached across the table to rescue his cap from Maeve’s head, then placed it on his. “I gotta get back behind the counter.” He slid partially out. “But just so you know, Dad said Carlton and Mack were in here earlier. Them and a few others. All of ’em talking about taking the bus to Camp Stewart to enlist over there.” He stood. “Can’t believe your daddy didn’t tell you, M.” He winked. “Enjoy your ice cream.”

Maeve pouted as she pushed the bowl away. “Enjoy your ice cream, my great-aunt Agnes.”

Alice-Ann sank against the wall, feeling the cold of it seeping into her back, turning her spine to stone. “Mack,” she whispered. “This can’t be true. Can’t be happening.” Not now. Not when she was so close to telling him how she felt.

Claudette grabbed her hand. “It’s gonna be all right, kiddo,” she said. “Don’t worry. I bet if you tell Mack how you feel, how you really feel, he’ll stay.” She looked around the room as if she’d lost someone. “I mean,” she said, her eyes returning to Alice-Ann’s, “all the men in town can’t leave for the war, can they?”

Maeve stood. “I gotta go.” She reached into the side pocket of her dress and brought out a dime, which she laid on the table. “I gotta go,” she said again, then turned and left.

Alice-Ann and Claudette watched her until the glass door had closed behind her, then looked again at each other. “Breathe, Alice-Ann,” Claudette said.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Listen, all you have to do is tell him. Beg Aunt Bess on your knees if you have to, but be sure you have that party.” Her eyes softened. “Tell him. He won’t go. I’m sure of it.”

But Alice-Ann didn’t feel the same confidence as her friend. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and said, “Now I think I know what infamy means.”

By the time Alice-Ann neared home —taking the five o’clock bus to the remote crossroad, one-fourth of which doubled as the long stretch of driveway leading to the farmhouse —she’d devised a plan. She knew exactly what needed to happen to ensure her happiness. Hers and Mack’s.

All she had to do, really, was talk him into marrying her. Now. Before he left Bynum and headed to wherever men who joined up to fight the Japanese went to train for such things. She could go with him, perhaps. Surely the military had a place for married couples to live. Probably drab, colorless square rooms without personality, but Aunt Bess could teach her how to make curtains and throw pillows and . . .

Or, if going with Mack was out of the question, she could at least stay in the States and dutifully wait for him.

Alice-Ann stepped off the bus alone, saying a hurried good-bye to the driver, old Ben Brown —who wasn’t old at all, to tell the truth. She clutched her schoolbooks to her chest, her imitation lizard leather purse dangling from her wrist.

The sky had grown darker than expected. By now, she would have usually made it home, typically been hard at work helping Aunt Bess with supper. But the distressing news about so many boys leaving for Savannah —Mack in particular —had kept her in town a little later.

Aunt Bess would be somewhere between worried and mad. And Irene? Well, Irene would be simply furious because she’d had to carry the load of helping without Alice-Ann’s assistance.

Alice-Ann frowned. The relationship she’d hoped for when Nelson announced his betrothal to Irene Marks had become anything but. She’d always wanted an older sister, someone to show her how to put on lipstick and rouge and to talk with about clothes and boys. Someone she would have had automatically, maybe, had her mother not died.

Aunt Bess certainly didn’t fill that role. Aunt Bess was a maiden aunt who’d put on too much weight in her thirties and allowed herself to grow old before her time, Papa always said. Aunt Bess wore her graying hair up in a “puffy bun,” wisps of it curling around her face. She never wore makeup, not even the tiniest bit of lipstick on Sunday.

And the last thing she did was gab about Hollywood and clothes. Certainly not boys.

But Aunt Bess had, once upon a time, been young and vibrant. Alice-Ann had seen the pictures. For years they’d hung in the living room along with other family photos. So Alice-Ann knew . . . Aunt Bess had hardly been a beauty —Alice-Ann looked remarkably like her, a point which distressed her greatly —but she’d always had remarkable spirit and godly character.

She’d been engaged to be married once but lost her fiancé in the Great War. Romantic as that had always seemed to be, Alice-Ann found it hard to believe her aunt, even back in those vivacious days, had so much as dated. The notion didn’t seem to fit, which scared Alice-Ann even more about her own life’s fate, if God chose that she follow the path of her doppelgänger.

On the upside of having Irene as a sister-in-law, she sure could be dandy at talking about Hollywood and movie stars and who dated whom or had been seen out with this one or that one at movie premieres and expensive restaurants. But she couldn’t have been further from the sister Alice-Ann had hoped for. Sometimes, in fact, Alice-Ann felt that Irene only tolerated Nelson’s family, waiting for the day when the two of them could either have the farmhouse to themselves or build their own place.

Alice-Ann increased her speed and prepared her “why I’m late” speech as she ran up the front porch steps and along the side of the wraparound porch to the back door. She opened the screen, balancing it on her elbow as she rattled the old brass knob and pushed the door open to the warmth of the kitchen.

Aunt Bess stood at the gas stove Papa had bought not too long after Nelson and Irene had married back in the summer, stirring a wooden spoon in a pot of, from the smell of it, either turnip or collard greens. “Where have you been?” she demanded. Then, before Alice-Ann could answer, she added, “Never mind. I’m sure you’ve got a story spun and ready to tell. Get your coat off, Alice, and help Irene set the table.”

Alice-Ann dropped her books on the white laminate countertop beside her, aware of the scowl on Irene’s face. She held a stack of plates and placed them, one at a time, around the old kitchen table Aunt Bess had painted pale yellow before the wedding. “To go with the curtains,” she’d said, then proceeded to whip out material accented in tiny yellow flowers she soon enough made into ruffled curtains for the windows along the back wall. Aunt Bess had wanted, if nothing else, the girl from town marrying her nephew to feel as much at home as possible in the old farmhouse. Not that Irene ever uttered a thank-you so far as Alice-Ann knew.

“Sorry, Aunt Bess,” Alice-Ann said, hurrying to the silverware drawer. “Everyone in town is buzzing like bees about the boys going to Camp Stewart to sign up. You know —” she jerked the drawer under the drainboard sink open and pulled out the necessary utensils —“for the war.”

“What are you talking about?” Aunt Bess asked, turning back to the stove.

Irene nearly dropped the last of the plates onto the table, her face pale and her mouth gaped. “What?”

“Don’t worry, Irene,” Alice-Ann said, placing the silverware on the table. “I’m sure this won’t have anything to do with Nelson. The men in town were saying the same thing Papa says —the farmers will be needed here now, more than ever. People have got to have food and food comes from crops and crops come from farmers. Like Papa and Nelson.”

But Irene’s angst didn’t seem soothed. “I know where crops come from, Alice-Ann.”

Aunt Bess came to the table, her wide girth pushing Alice-Ann out of the way. She slid one of the wooden chairs —painted the same shade of baby parakeet as the table —from underneath and ordered Irene to sit.

She did.

No one, not even Irene, didn’t do what Aunt Bess said to do, right when she said to do it.

“Alice, get Irene some water, please.” Aunt Bess took the chair next to Irene’s. “You’re concerned about your brother, I ’spect.”

Of course. Irene’s twin brother, Frank, would be among those who went. He’d always been a feisty one. Always gung ho. Knowing Frank Marks, he’d be the first on the bus. First to enlist. First to go fight. First to —

Alice-Ann took a glass from the cabinet and ran water from the faucet into it, then took it back to the table. Aunt Bess gave her another of her looks as she shook her head. “Not from the faucet. I’ve got some with sliced lemons in the icebox.”

Alice-Ann returned to the sink to empty the glass of its contents.

“And then go get your daddy,” Aunt Bess said as Irene sobbed. “And your brother. They’re in the living room listening to the news.”

Alice-Ann looked back at the table in time to see Irene’s face fall into her slender hands, adorned only with the tiny ruby and gold ring Nelson had slid onto her finger at their wedding.

“It’s as delicate as she is,” he’d said when he first showed it to Alice-Ann.

Alice-Ann poured a fresh glass of water and took it to Irene, then left her aunt and sister-in-law to find her father and brother. As expected, Papa sat next to the Zenith, his eyes locked on the rug, his face grim with worry. He’d already cleaned up after a day’s work, but Nelson was nowhere to be seen.

Papa looked her way as a news reporter declared, “And today the United States has declared war on Japan. . . .”

“What took you so long, young lady?” Papa pulled his pipe from between his teeth. “It’s all well and good to stay a little while after school, but you’ve got chores, you know.”

“Yes, sir,” Alice-Ann said. “Papa? Did you hear that some of the boys from Bynum are signing up? Volunteering?”

He nodded. “I heard. But don’t worry. Nelson and me, we’ll be needed here on the farm.”

“Yes, sir.” Alice-Ann’s stomach turned sour. Her father and brother had been the last ones on her mind, and she chastised herself for not having thought of them sooner. “Papa, Aunt Bess wants you in the kitchen.”

Papa stood and adjusted the thin belt over his narrow hips. “Go get your brother then. He’s upstairs washing up.”

Alice-Ann nodded, then left the room and trotted up the stairs. She walked the narrow hallway to the closed door of the newly installed indoor bath Nelson had insisted upon for Irene’s sake. “No wife of mine is going to the outhouse, Pops,” he’d told their father. “She’s from town, after all.” If for no other reason, that made Irene’s addition into their family worth her moodiness. Alice-Ann had grown tired of traipsing to the outhouse or using a chamber pot in the middle of the night.

Alice-Ann rapped on the door. “Nelson?”

The sound of water spilling into the sink stopped. “Yeah.”

“Aunt Bess wants you now. And Papa said come on.” She took a deep breath, deciding not to tell him that his wife sat downstairs crying into her palms. “And I need to ask you something.”

The painted-white wooden door opened. Her brother, handsome with his hair spiked from a face washing, the natural twinkle that always resided in his eyes shimmering. “What’s that, Priss?”

Alice-Ann crossed her arms as she took a step closer. “Did you hear some of the boys are going to Camp Stewart to enlist?”

Nelson blew out a breath. “Yeah, ’fraid so.”

“Do you know if —if —do you know if Mack and Carlton are signing up?” Adding Carlton’s name, she hoped, would keep her brother from being suspicious about her feelings toward his friend.

Nelson nodded. “Talked to Mack today. He said he and a few others are heading over there tomorrow.”

“Irene didn’t seem to know yet. She’s worried about Frank, I reckon.”

“She has good reason to worry. We all do.”

Alice-Ann felt her knees go numb. She drew in a ragged breath. “Do you think he’ll —they’ll —go to war?”

Nelson smiled. “I suppose you’re grateful your daddy and brother will stay home, but Mack and Carlton are like two more big brothers to you, huh?” His hand cupped her chin and brought her eyes to his. “I never had to worry about you as long as I knew they were somewhere around.”

She swallowed hard, unable to answer.

“Don’t worry, Priss,” he said, releasing her and then dipping his hand into his back pocket for the comb he kept there. “Our boys will go in, take care of business, and be home before you turn seventeen.” He ran the comb through his thick locks. “You’ll see.”