The Green Glass Sea

DEWEY NOTICED THAT Suze put a big red X on the calendar in the kitchen every morning after breakfast. She thought at first that it was to count down the days to some occasion—a birthday, or a trip to town. Then she realized that the first X was on the day that Papa had left. Suze was tallying the days Dewey had been there, like a convict in a Saturday Evening Post cartoon marking off his sentence on the stone prison walls.

“You better not walk with me, ” Suze had said on their first school day together. “And don’t even think about eating lunch with me. ” Dewey had only nodded. She’d never hung around Suze before, and staying at the Gordons’ hadn’t changed that. She left for school ten minutes early and stayed ten or fifteen minutes after the 3:30 bell, finishing some of her homework.

The third day of her visit, Dewey packed a thermos of milk and a deviled-ham sandwich and went for a walk at lunchtime, a picnic in the woods, where it was quiet and she could be by herself. Really by herself, without Suze in the next room sighing and thumping and letting Dewey know in a hundred small ways that she was just an unwanted intruder.

Then it rained for a week, pouring, drenching rains, and it was too wet and muddy to go outside. The boys sat in one corner of the schoolroom, eating and trading baseball cards and reading comics, and some of the girls pushed their desks together and played euchre. Dewey brought her cigar box with the bits and pieces of her latest project and sat at her desk near the window, ignoring Suze’s stares and working on it in between bites of her sandwich.

Thursday afternoon, finally, the sky cleared, and the breeze was soft and held the promise of spring. When the school bell rang, the other children ran, yelling, out into the playground. Dewey lingered behind.

When she walked out of the school building about quarter of four, Betty and Joyce and some other girls were playing jacks on the concrete, in a space where there were no puddles. Suze stood a few feet away, watching. Dewey was pretty sure she wasn’t playing with the other girls, just standing nearby and pretending that she would be, any minute. Sometimes Dewey felt sorry for Suze, because the other girls didn’t ask her to play very often. But she knew better than to say anything. It would just make Suze mad.

Suze was between her and the gate. Dewey thought about going back inside, but then Suze looked up and saw her. Suze’s posture changed. She stiffened, just a little, the way Rutherford sometimes did when another cat walked by the base of the stairs.

Dewey took a deep breath, gripped her cigar box, and focused on a spot about ten yards beyond the gate. She walked toward it, not slow, not fast, not looking at Suze. She was almost past when Suze casually, elaborately, pretended to sneeze, flinging out her arm at the moment of katchoo. Her wrist hit the edge of the cigar box, sending it flying.

It landed on the concrete about six feet away with a loud crack and a clatter like hailstones as its lid popped open and its contents scattered. Bolts and screws rolled into puddles and half a dozen corks bounced off in every direction.

Dewey almost believed her for a second. But then she saw Suze look over at the other girls, to see if they were watching. When Suze saw that they were, she smiled. A smile of bravado, overdone and insincere. And Dewey knew it had been no accident.

She thought of a dozen things to say, and said none of them. The other girls were watching, waiting to see if anything would happen. And Dewey knew if there were sides to be taken, the girls with the jacks would, for once, be happy to pick Suze.

Papa had told her that no good ever came from fighting, that it was better to walk away with dignity than to stoop to that level. Dewey suspected it had been a long time since Papa had been picked on. She didn’t like being a patsy, but she cared more about the project in the cigar box than what the other girls thought. She bent down and began to gather up the pieces, her body angled so she could still see Suze out of the corner of her eye. Suze just watched the other girls.

Dewey tumbled screws and a gearbox and some round typewriter keys into the box with a rattle that grew more muted as the box filled again. She hadn’t found all the pieces, but she’d found the important ones, and if she’d lost a few nuts and bolts, that wasn’t too bad. There were more in the jars under her bed. It might be a good idea to take some of them back over to Morganville, although she didn’t think that Suze would do anything at home that she might get caught at. Suze didn’t know whether Dewey would fink to Mrs. Gordon, and that gave Dewey a little bit of protection.

She went back into the school to get a rubber band to hold the box together. The wood on one edge had cracked, and the paper hinge holding the top was loose. When she came out, Suze had left, and the other girls were busy with their jacks again.

Dewey sighed with relief. The woods were probably a little muddy, but they would be peaceful, and there might be mushrooms. It had rained enough. She pushed her left hand under the rubber band and carried the box down at her side, walking west from the school. She had just crossed the road that separated the populated parts of the Hill from the wooded canyon beyond when she heard footsteps behind her. Had Suze followed her? She ducked behind a tall ponderosa pine and tried to make herself small. But it was just Charlie and Jack. Charlie had a brown Boy Scout knapsack over one shoulder. It sagged as if it was full of something heavy.

“Maybe, ” Charlie agreed. “But we’ve got something even more interesting to look at. ” He patted the bulging knapsack. “Somebody in the enlisted men’s barracks threw out a whole stack of magazines. ”

Charlie smiled. “They don’t care anymore. They used to patch the holes, and we just dug more. But now they leave us alone. I guess they figured it’s easier to keep track of holes you know about than to keep looking for new ones. ” He looked at his watch. “Besides, it’s just after 1600 hours. If we see anyone, it’ll be Tommy—Sergeant Nelson. He’s okay. He lets us feed his horse apples. ”

Dewey thought about it again. She wanted to, but—She was about to shake her head no when she looked down at the cracked cigar box. She was tired of being pushed around. “Okay, ” she said. “Where do we go?”

They set off on a narrow, well-worn path. The ground was spongy, but not too muddy, because of all the pine needles. It smelled good, cool and damp and earthy, and Dewey took a deep breath and felt her shoulders relax. About five minutes in, they came to the chain-link fence, topped with strands of barbed wire.

“This way, ” Charlie said. He jerked his head to the left, and they walked single file along the fence. The path wasn’t as clear, but there was a corridor of trampled grasses and wet underbrush. Dewey’s pants cuffs were getting damp, and a few springy branches had snapped her in the arm, but she felt pretty good.

The grass and pine needles and leaves had been cleared away and the dirt scooped out to form a hollow more than a foot deep and about three feet wide, directly under the fence. Someone had taken pliers and bent up the sharp points at the bottom of the chain link.

Charlie took off his knapsack and, with a small grunt, tossed it underhand onto the ground on the other side of the fence. It bounced a few feet in the leafy undergrowth, and Dewey heard the muffled clink of the Coke bottles inside. He lay on the ground, feet first, and wriggled under the fence, then stood up and brushed leaves and mud off the backs of his jeans.

Dewey saw it before they said anything. A huge red oak had fallen across the thick branches of two others, about fifteen feet above the forest floor, and the boys had built up, over, and around the natural crossbar. The tree house was a patchwork of lumber in shades of natural wood, white lead, and army green. An eight-paned window, set on its side, formed most of one wall, and a wooden housepainter’s ladder was nailed securely to the trunk of the largest oak.

Dewey climbed up the ladder, not as fast as Jack, but without any hesitation. Charlie appeared a few seconds later, the knapsack on his back. He took it off and dropped it with a thump, raising a spray of dust motes that sparkled for a few seconds in the afternoon sun. He sat down with his back to the wall and opened the knapsack, pulling out three Coke bottles by their necks.

In the warmth of the little wooden house, the sides of the green glass bottles speckled with tiny round dots of moisture, like a toad’s skin. Charlie pulled a pocketknife out of his jeans, unfolded it to a stubby opener blade, and deftly popped off the three bottle caps. He handed the drinks around. “So, whad’ya think?”

The tree house was a rough cube, about six feet on a side, the plywood floor almost covered with a square of confetti-flecked dark linoleum. The walls were plastered with posters and cut-out magazine pages: LIFE, all army and planes and soldiers, no movie stars; WHEN YOU RIDE ALONE, YOU RIDE WITH HITLER!; WIPE THE JAP OFF THE MAP; and color pictures of half a dozen Boston Red Sox baseball players.

The only furniture was a bookcase made from two orange crates, with a pile of comic books, two Smilin’ Jack Big Little Books, a flashlight, and a tall Premium Saltines tin. On the floor was a big Zenith radio, its pebbly beige case closed. A wooden shelf over the orange crates held two folded army blankets and a flat, metal-capped glass refrigerator bottle filled with water.

“Nah, ” said Jack in a disgusted tone. “Ma won’t let us. But sometimes it gets kind of cold, on rainy days and stuff. You know. ”

“Yeah, ” said Dewey. She looked around again. The afternoon light, dappled by the forest canopy, slanted in through the window, all gold and shadows, making the little room warm and cozy. “It’s great, ” she said after a moment. “Really great. You guys did a lot of work. How’d you get the big stuff here on your bikes?”

“Our brother Joey—Joe—helped. He did most of the heavy stuff for us, ” Jack said. “He’s a senior. Gonna graduate next month. ”

“Oh. ” Dewey hadn’t known there was another Reilly brother. “Is he going to go to college, or into the army? After, I mean. ”

“College, ” said Charlie. “He won’t be eighteen until October, and Pops won’t sign the papers to let him enlist early. Ma hopes the war will be over by then. But Joe’s having a hard time getting any schools to accept him. ”

Charlie shrugged. “He’s graduating from a high school that doesn’t officially exist. No name, no address. Just’P. O. Box 1663, ’ like everything else. I guess it makes colleges suspicious. ”

“The army should’ve thought about a lot of stuff, if you ask me, ” said Charlie. “Want a cookie?” He pulled the saltines tin off the shelf and pried off the blue metal lid. “Ma baked ’em last week, but with the rain, we haven’t been up here, so it’s still pretty full. ” He took two cookies and tilted the container toward Dewey.

“Sure. ” Charlie handed Dewey her cigar box, then upended the knapsack onto the middle of the floor. A dozen magazines with loud, garish covers slid out in a fan across the linoleum.

Dewey picked up one that had slid near her feet. A streamlined yellow-and-red boat that looked like a rocket ship was firing a silver torpedo into impossibly blue water. “Wow, ” she said. “Popular Mechanics from—” she looked at the spine “—1941. You found these in the trash?” She put her Coke bottle on the floor, within easy reach, and began to read.

For a long time the only sounds in the tree house were cookies crunching, pages turning, and the occasional creak of a tree branch outside. Dewey felt happy for the first time in weeks.

Every few minutes one of them would interrupt with a “Hey, would you look at this!” Charlie liked building projects, and Jack was drawn to exciting predictions for the future, like personal zeppelins, which Dewey had to admit would be pretty nifty, although not as practical as her “Microtubes, the Future of Radio. ”

Dewey was on her third magazine and fourth cookie when Charlie looked at his watch and whistled in surprise. “Oh, jeez. It’s almost six. I guess we didn’t hear the siren. ” He put down his magazine—“Averting Death from the Skies. ” “We gotta go. ” He stuffed the empty Coke bottles into the knapsack. “We eat in half an hour, and if we’re late, Jack and me get stuck with K. P. , ” he explained. He stacked the magazines into an uneven pile and scooted it over next to the bookcase.

Dewey looked down at the magazine in her lap. She was reading about a new kind of record player called a HiFi, and she did want to finish. “Okay, ” she said. “Thanks. ” The magazine was not much bigger than the top of her cigar box, so she slipped it under the rubber band and tucked the whole package into the waistband at the back of her pants, leaving both hands free for the ladder.

They retraced their steps through the woods to the hole in the fence and beyond. When they reached a fork in the path heading back toward the buildings, the boys stopped. “See ya, Dewey, ” Charlie said, gesturing to the right. “We gotta go this way. ”

“No. ” Dewey hesitated for a moment. She looked down at the yellow robot on the cover of her magazine, then back at Charlie. “The Gordons. ”

Charlie gave his brother a shove on the arm. “Be nice, ” he said. He turned to Dewey. “That’s what some of the guys call Suze Gordon. ’Cause she’s kind of big and likes to push people around. ”

Dewey tried not to smile, but it was hard. Truck. She kind of liked the idea that, in some circles, Suze was the one they called names.

“Yep, ” she said. “That family. Her mom’s great, though. She’s a stinker. A real one, not just a secretary. She—” Dewey stopped and bit her lip, hoping she hadn’t said the wrong thing. She didn’t know what Mrs. Reilly did on the Hill.

They walked through the darkening forest, Dewey happily humming to herself. She spotted a fallen log with a line of pale conical mushrooms that looked like Key-stone Kops hats, and a few yards later, a patch of flat ones that were bright cartoon orange, as vivid in the setting sunlight as if they were flames.

Ten minutes later they were at the edge of the dirt road that ran behind the Sundts. No one was out on the stoops, but then the road was still pretty muddy, and it was dinnertime. The boys stopped at a building with two bikes leaning against the wooden railing.

“Okay, ” Dewey said. “Well, thanks for letting me come up and—” She paused, feeling awkward. She’d had more fun than she’d had in weeks, but wasn’t sure how to be polite to other kids. The grown-up line I had a very nice time seemed really lame.

“It was good, ” Charlie said, nodding. “You can come back. But next time, ” he pointed a stern finger at her, “next time you bring the Cokes. ” He grinned and Dewey grinned back.

A few minutes later, Dewey climbed the green wooden steps to the Gordons’ apartment, her cigar box under one arm, and opened the screen door to the kitchen. She stopped, stock-still, her good mood vanishing in a instant.

Mrs. Gordon looked up at her over Suze’s shaking blonde head. “There you are, ” she said, sniffling. “Come over here and sit down. ” She moved her arm and patted the chair next to her.

Dewey stared at her for a moment, then sat down woodenly, as if her legs had never bent that way before. She gripped the edge of the table and waited.

“President Roosevelt died a few hours ago, ” said Mrs. Gordon. “I came as soon as I heard. ” She patted Dewey’s hand. “None of us wants to be alone right now. ”

For the rest of her life, Dewey would recall that moment as a series of disconnected memories—the taste of oatmeal-raisin cookies in the back of her throat, a square of yellow-checked oilcloth, the slow, deep voice of Edward R. Murrow, and the almost-painful sensation of Mrs. Gordon’s wedding ring pressing into the skin on the back of her hand. Dewey was aware of nothing else.

Her eyes stung, but she was too stunned to cry. She couldn’t make the news seem real. Roosevelt had always been president. He was president before she was born, had been president her whole life. Everything else in the world had changed, over and over, but not that. FDR and his Fireside Chats and his dog, Fala. And his legs. Dewey had always felt close to him because of his legs. How could he be dead?

“No, nothing like that. ” Mrs. Gordon shook her head. “He . . . he wasn’t well, you know. And the stress of the war . . . He had a stroke. ”

“Like your Nana. But much worse. ” Mrs. Gordon sat very still for a minute, then kissed the top of Suze’s head and eased her arm away. She rolled her neck to get the kinks out, wiped her eyes, and reached for her pack of Chesterfields.

Suze sniffled and laid her head down on her arms as if she might take a nap. A few minutes later she got up and walked slowly out of the kitchen.

Mrs. Gordon lit another cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. “The vice president. ” She thought for a moment. “Christ, I should know the man’s name. I work for him now. But Roosevelt’s had so many. ” She tapped a tiny circle of ash off the end of her cigarette in frustration. “Oh, what is his name? Henry Wallace? No, that was the last one. Henry something. ” She shook her head again. “I guess it’ll be in the papers. ”

They sat at the table for almost an hour, watching the stars appear outside the window, and listened to the radio, reporting the same news, over and over. When she’d stubbed out her last Chesterfield, Mrs. Gordon stood up. “Nothing’s going to change, ” she said, turning off the radio. “We might as well have supper. ”