On Home Page 13

  “How wonderful,” Jane repeated. Cassidy focused on her face and not on Noeli’s hunched shoulders behind her. As her heart rate returned to normal, she could feel how hungry she was.

  “Okay, dinner for real now,” she said. “I’ll see you soon, Grandma Jane.”

  “Okay, dear. Buh-bye.”

  “I love you, Grandma.”

  “I love you.” Jane smiled.

  Cassidy walked backward toward the door. “I love you!” she said, and exited, Noeli behind her, hands squeezed into her pockets.

  “Eeeee!” Cassidy squealed quietly, back in the hallway.

  Noeli smiled a half smile. “You’re cute when you’re excited,” she said, and they walked out together into the cold. Cassidy grinned back and gave a little jump, then had to catch herself as she slipped on ice on the way down.

  “I’m okay!” She laughed.

  The river was starting to freeze now, Cassidy saw, as they rounded the bend before the bridge. The muddy water was still, and frost reached like fingers from the shore. Other thin patches of white dotted the expanse on both sides of the short overpass, telling the town it was time to stagnate for a while.

  There was more stagnation up ahead at the end of Marion Street, cars waiting for a state road worker to turn his sign from STOP to SLOW, so they went around, turning right onto Barbour Street and passing Simon’s old house—the one his family had lived in before his mother lost her job and his dad moved them out to the trailer. The front porch was falling apart now and tricycles littered the yard.

  What would Simon think about her staying? Cassidy stifled another squeal.

  Jane

  Cassidy was staying. Jane never thought she’d live to see the day. But tragedy did things to people, changed them, encouraged rash decisions, just like it had for Ding.

  Her cousin had lain facedown on their bed, sobbing, kicking, and pounding her fists against the pillow.

  “Ding?” Jane asked. The wailing continued, so Jane sat beside her, careful to stay out of firing range of her size-six feet.

  “Ding?” she tried again. “What is it?”

  The kicking and pounding relented, but Ding remained facedown, unmoving. Jane put a hand cautiously on her back.

  “It’s Dean!” she wailed, finally.

  “Dean?”

  “Dean Willet!” Ding screamed into the pillow. “My fiancé!” The last word melted into a pitiful sob.

  It rushed back to Jane then—Trade Winds, the airmen. He had given Ding the air force pin, her first conquest.

  “Oh, darling.” She rubbed Ding’s shoulders. “How did you learn?”

  Ding sat up and looked at Jane, her makeup running down her cheeks in dark meandering rivulets.

  “His name came across my desk. No one could have known since I hadn’t added him to my list. Oh, Jane, it’s just awful. He was just here. We were just dancing. And now . . .” She trailed off. “And the worst part of it,” she continued a moment later, “I had to type up the letter to his parents myself. I couldn’t stand the thought of letting those nasty WAVES see me cry.”

  “Surely they would have understood.”

  “I couldn’t give them the satisfaction. And besides, it doesn’t matter now.” Ding dried her eyes and put on a brave face. “I signed on with the Cadet Nurses.”

  Jane dropped her hands to her lap.

  “I’ll start my training next month.”

  “Ding! What if they send you abroad?”

  “I won’t have to worry about that till I finish training. But after that, I hope they do. I want to do something, Jane. Really do something.”

  She was brave. Everyone laughed at silly ole Ding, but she was really, truly brave.

  “Where will you train?” Jane asked. The story and all its implications were coming together slowly, one word at a time, like in her daddy’s crossword puzzles.

  “Here in Washington,” Ding said, and a cool wave of relief washed over Jane’s insides. “But of course I’ll have to move to one of the nurse residences.” The wave congealed, leaving Jane with a belly full of rancid jam.

  “I’m sorry,” Ding said. “I’m sorry for everything. I should have stayed home with you when Owen—”

  Jane cut her off. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t mad at you. It was him, of course. And I should have gone with you and had a good time. It’s just like me, isn’t it—refusing an invitation and then sulking around the house for a week?”

  “It rather is,” Ding said, and Jane swatted her thigh. They both burst into giggles and then collapsed into a hug.

  “I’m proud of you,” Jane said.

  “Can you believe I got in?” Ding asked. “When I put my mind to it, when I wasn’t thinking about boys, I found I knew all that stuff, deep down.”

  So Ding had beauty and brains. Jane was the plain, old, boring one. Still, it felt good for things to be back to normal, her cousin blabbing a mile a minute. Jane tried not to think about the quiet that would return when Ding moved out, or how she would pay the rent alone.

  Downstairs, the buzzer buzzed. “Ooh!” Ding squealed. “It’s for you! Now, don’t be mad.”

  “Be mad? Ding, what did you—”

  Ding pulled Jane down the stairs, walking backward as she smoothed her cousin’s hair. “It was torture not to tell you. On that date, all he talked about was you—‘Does Jane like her job?’ ‘Is Jane always so serious?’ It was tedious at the time, of course. And I didn’t get my pin, but—”

  “Ding! You didn’t!”

  “Life is so unpredictable, Jane. You have to take these chances when the—”

  “Absolutely not.” Jane planted herself firmly on the bottom step.

  “I won’t hear any more about it. This is my first good deed of many.” She rushed to the door.

  “I left my bag upstairs,” Jane said.

  “Take mine. It’s fully stocked,” Ding called back.

  She would look ridiculous standing there when he came in. She stepped from the stairwell and stood behind her cousin, just like the first time he had come.

  The door opened and there, smiling widely, was Owen, as handsome as she remembered. He removed his fedora and bowed his head to the girls.

  “Hello, Jane,” Owen said.

  “Hello, Owen.”

  Ding beamed.

  “Can I take you out?”

  “I suppose I could go out.” Jane put one foot in front of the other—testing for land mines.

  “Have a lovely time,” Ding told them, shoving her pocketbook toward Jane and knocking Jane’s bottom as she pushed them out the door.

  Jane blinked as Owen led her down the steps to his convertible. Jane put a hand to her chignon. Her pins were already coming loose. Inside, Jane marveled at the car’s modern interior. Owen was like his car: fast, open, extravagant.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious about her simple work dress. “If I had known we were . . .”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I just had to see you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you,” Owen said. “It was like lightning, when I met you at the Armory. All those other girls clambering around, and you . . .”

  “I was hungover.”

  “You aren’t hungover now, I take it?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And you’re just as beautiful. And just as smart.”

  “This is a beautiful car,” Jane said.

  “What did I tell you? Smart girl.”

  They set off and Jane allowed herself to relax a bit as the wind rolled over her skin. It was a luxury in this city not to sweat your brains out.

  “I’m from Washington State,” Owen said. “Since you’re curious.”

  “West Virginia,” Jane said.

  “And how long have you been in the navy, Owen?” Owen said in
a high falsetto. “Well, Jane, since you asked, I’ve been in since before the war. I joined right after high school.”

  “So how old are you?” Jane asked.

  “Worried you’re out with a fuddy-duddy?” He laughed. “I’m thirty-two.”

  He wasn’t a boy—he was a man.

  Owen didn’t ask Jane’s age, and she didn’t offer it.

  “The Hamilton,” Owen said, parking the Highlander smoothly as he gestured toward the building before them, its impressive facade made up of an enormous half circle of white stone. The delicate Art Deco design upon it reminded Jane of a peacock’s tail. Owen got out of the car, met Jane on her side, and led her by the hand through the revolving door.

  So this was how it felt when the world was suddenly in Technicolor. Jane twirled under the vaulted ceilings and nearly clicked her heels on the gleaming marbled floor.

  “Oh, this is a dream,” she exclaimed. Owen beamed, then led her to the bar.

  The crowd—if you could call it a crowd at all; there was actually room to breathe—was older than Jane was used to. Several officers in their uniforms sat with women who looked much more sophisticated than Jane felt.

  “What do you drink, doll?” Owen asked.

  “Gin rickey,” she told him, and he leaned against the bar, waiting for the barman.

  As she waited, Jane observed the other patrons. The women, dressed entirely in silk, were pale as china dolls—they certainly didn’t tan on the sidewalks like the simple Government Girls, except—Jane recognized her with a start. In the uniform circle around the bar, a woman stood out—a woman Jane knew!

  “Claudine?” Jane exclaimed. The woman straightened her exposed brown back and turned.

  “Jane!”

  “I thought you stuck around U Street.”

  “And I thought you stuck around Trade Winds.” Claudine smirked.

  “My date . . .” Jane motioned toward Owen, who was chatting familiarly with the bartender.

  “My husband.” Claudine motioned toward the man next to her. “Congressman William L. Wills.”

  Jane’s jaw dropped. How arrogant she had been, thinking she had been doing this woman some sort of decency, when in fact . . . Jane had felt sorry for her, when all along Claudine had probably been pitying the poor girl from the backwoods. Jane again smoothed her plain dress. Well, regardless, it was no excuse for the way the other girls treated Claudine.

  Claudine smiled graciously. “Have a fabulous night, Jane,” she said. Jane nodded, mute.

  Owen returned and handed Jane her glass. Drink in hand, she felt much more comfortable. As the alcohol made its way through her veins, she eased into the atmosphere of haughty, cool merriment.

  “What made you sign up for civil service?” Owen asked, and she recounted the story of the bubble gum ad.

  “What made you join the navy?”

  “My brother was in the First World War. My older brother. He didn’t come back.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Jane placed a hand on Owen’s arm. When he clutched it with his own, she pulled hers away.

  “And I nearly didn’t either,” he added.

  “What do you mean? You aren’t going overseas with the boys from the Armory?”

  “I’ve been overseas. I lost two toes in Midway.” Jane was amazed at the lightness in his eyes, even when sharing this piece of information. “I could have gone home with a Purple Heart, but I wasn’t ready. They have me running trainings here instead.”

  “You’re a hero.”

  Owen blushed. “Want to dance with a hero?”

  “Of course I do. But I could use another drink first.”

  “There’s a war on, Ms. Walls, or have you heard? Gin may not be rationed yet, but . . .”

  “Oh, you!” Jane laughed.

  They drank and then swayed, cheek to cheek. Owen continued to shower Jane with his affections. “I’ve never met a girl like you. You changed me the first time I laid eyes on you.”

  When Jane found herself wanting to touch him, to be touched by him, to run her fingers through his blond hair, to let him kiss her, she resisted. How could she be so hypocritical? This was exactly why she had chided Ding.

  But this was not some general need for attention. This was a need for Owen’s attention. Jane discovered with a start that she wanted Owen to unbutton her dress, to slip it from her shoulders. Words from the papers ran through her mind—the accusations that Government Girls were more interested in hanky-panky than they were in their civic duties. But wasn’t that just the thing? Didn’t the women keeping the country’s vital processes functioning deserve to be treated like adults? Didn’t she deserve, after coming home with inky fingers and aches all over, after stopping potential saboteurs in their tracks, to feel good? Didn’t Owen, after all he had sacrificed, deserve some happiness? Jane wasn’t interested in hanky-panky. This was not hanky-panky.

  When Owen told her, in a low, serious voice that he had a room upstairs, Jane found herself replying in the same register, “Take me to it.”

  In the room, just as swanky as the bar, Jane set Ding’s pocketbook on the vanity and excused herself to the powder room. Staring at herself in the mirror, she thought of her mother and her mother’s Bible verses. She was not her mother.

  When she returned, she found Owen sitting on the chesterfield sofa, preparing to remove his shoes. Jane held her breath, nervous to see his mangled foot. They looked into each other’s eyes as he peeled away the sock and tossed it to the floor. And then there it was—white scar tissue where his toes once were. Jane only wanted him more. She went to him and caressed his foot with the tips of her fingers. Owen pulled her to his lap and switched off the lamp.

  Jane’s memory faded with the light outside the home, and she dozed, worn-out from the happy news of Cassidy’s return, and from unrelenting memories.

  Cassidy

  Cassidy stood outside the entrance to the Record Delta, her arms full of her dad’s office things. She hadn’t realized it was so close to where Simon held his farm stand. She remembered when her dad had become the editor, when she was around eleven, and he had asked if she wanted to go to the mall.

  “Yes!” she’d agreed, jumping from the couch and dropping Harriet the Spy. The mall was forty minutes away and going was a treat. Cassidy sat in front for the trip, something Paloma wouldn’t allow for another three years or so, and Ken put on a Bob Dylan tape—Blood on the Tracks.

  “It’s funny, isn’t it?” Ken asked as they listened to “Idiot Wind.” Cassidy nodded. “But listen to the end.”

  “They’re both idiots.” She laughed. “Or neither of them are. Is he just mad at her?”

  Ken smiled and shrugged. “We don’t know.”

  At the mall, Ken told Cassidy he needed to buy a tie. “I’m the editor now,” he said. “I can’t be a schmuck anymore.”

  They made a game of it—Ken pulling the loudest, most ridiculous ties he could find from the department store racks and Cassidy nodding enthusiastically in approval. “Oh yes, certainly.” They left JCPenney with a stuffed bag of paisleys and florals, stripes and polka dots.

  “Pretzel for my fashion consultant?” Ken proposed.

  Cassidy grinned. “Cinnamon!” She waited on a bench while Ken bought their treats, feeling very grown-up, as she always did in the presence of her father. Ken returned and presented her pretzel, warm and glistening with butter and sugar crystals. As she licked the sticky cinnamon-sugar mixture from her fingers, the napkin fell from her lap.

  “Oh well.” She shrugged, trying to imitate Ken’s shoulder movements. “Not my problem.”

  “No,” Ken said so sternly that she jumped. “We don’t make more work for other people than we have to.”

  Obviously, this was a lesson many of Cassidy’s fans hadn’t been taught. She smirked to herself, thinking about all the awful comments and demands
she’d received.

  Fuck your ugly asshole now

  This nasty cunt

  Bet ur pussy smells like rat garbage

  The last had actually made her laugh. The others would have stung had they not been anomalies amid the gracious praise and encouragement her regulars showered upon her. That was the difference between those comments and the ones she’d endured as a teenager. Online, people stood up for her. Online, the general consensus was that she was hot—that she was worthy.

  But the assholes she’d grown up with weren’t who she was staying for. She was staying for Grandma Jane. Simon had made a life here and she could too.

  The farm stand stood just south of the paper’s parking lot and consisted of three covered tables beneath a canvas canopy. Behind the table stood a silhouetted figure, waving at her. Cassidy walked a bit closer. “Simon!” she said when she could make out his face. She took Ken’s stuff to the car and walked over.

  Beyond the stand lay a field of long, flat yellow grasses, as thick and unkempt as the hair of some giant, marked only by the deep muddy tread of a tractor that had parted the strands.

  “Where’s Noeli?” Simon asked as Cassidy approached.

  “She’s back at the farm, packing.”

  “Well, I’m glad you could make it out to say bye. And to see the stand!”

  “So, uh. Not bye. I’m staying?” Cassidy said, inspecting boxes of root vegetables that Simon had grown. He had turned seeds and dirt and water into food. She cringed again as she thought about how much more useful this was than the boners and ejaculate she helped manufacture.

  “Dude! Here?” Simon asked.

  “Yeah.” She looked up and grinned.

  “High five, bud!” Simon didn’t raise a hand. Instead he tossed a purple-and-white sphere into Cassidy’s hands. She fumbled a bit but caught the vegetable. “Celebratory rutabaga?” he asked.

  Cassidy laughed. “Thanks.”

  “Dude, that’s so rad,” Simon said, smiling broadly.

  Cassidy felt the vegetable in her hands, running her fingers over the ridged circles that interrupted its smooth skin. It felt unpretentious and uncomplicated, solid and wholesome, just like Simon. She threw the rutabaga back at him, harder than she’d meant to. He ducked and it landed in the grass behind him.