I'll Be Seeing You (8 page)

September 13, 1943

IOWA CITY, IOWA

Dearest Glory,

I’ve been thinking of little Robbie every morning, and of you and Corrine and your husband. I don’t know what use my thoughts are, but each one carries with it a wish for healing, and for happiness.

I also asked Father Denneny to call your name with the weekly intentions. I’m not sure what kind of pull he has, but there are a hundred tea-stained elderly ladies on their knees come Sunday, every one of them desperate for more reasons to beat their breasts and cry out to Our Lord. You’d think they’d have enough reasons these days....

I wish there was something more I could do for you. I suppose the only thing I can offer is more advice: don’t blame yourself, hon. There are some people who believe everything happens by chance, and others who think every outcome was set into motion long ago. I think it’s a little bit of both. The fever befalling your family swept like a tornado through your corner of the world and caught the Whitehalls on a whim. The changes happening to you before it came through? Well, I believe those took up residence years ago, and were only just making themselves known. They’re not likely to leave anytime soon, either. They might go into hiding, but they’re there, and you’ll need to face them straight on.

But I didn’t write this letter to upset you. If I was really a good friend, I’d be offering a distraction, so here goes.

News on the Iowa front: Sal’s and Toby’s letters aren’t coming regularly, but they are coming. Sal hasn’t said where he is, but I have a feeling he was with the surge of troops into Italy. How strange that must have been for him. His parents were born there, and a good chunk of his family still lives in the Tuscan hills. It would be his first trip to the country where his parents met and married, where his grandparents and their parents farmed the land he is now overtaking. Would he look into a pair of enemy eyes and see a resemblance? On second thought, I hope he’s not close enough to see a flicker of anything!

Toby’s letters are poetic and gentle, though I can read between the lines enough to know his soul is taking a rubbing. It’s the unwritten words which tell of his true feelings. How many years of war will it take to undo the eighteen years of a (relatively) peaceful childhood? I wonder. I worry more for him than his father, who’s had a lifetime of observing the sometimes destructive nature of human beings. My Toby is going to need some careful handling when he gets home.

He also hasn’t mentioned Roylene lately, probably—knowing Toby—out of respect for me. He doesn’t like to point out anyone’s faults, and my avoidance of that girl is a shining one.

In my next V-mail, however, I can report a Roylene sighting. I didn’t initiate it, so I can’t brag, but I did speak to her, and she did respond.

I was sitting on the greens eating lunch with Irene and Charlie the Cowboy (Irene’s been seeing him since that crazy dinner at my house). Turns out old Charlie’s got a perforated eardrum on the left side, so he won’t ever be in uniform. I think he hears just fine, and I sit on the left side and talk really low sometimes and he answers well enough, so I don’t know. But that’s Irene’s business, I suppose.

Anyway, we were enjoying the Indian summer heat, stretching our legs out over the grass and tilting our heads toward the sun, when I heard a squeaky noise, like the kind a mouse makes when caught in a trap.

Roylene was pushing a loaded cart up the hill, its shelves piled high with sandwiches and sacks of potato chips. One of the wheels must have been off, because it made a racket. Our eyes met, and I left Irene and Charlie and walked over to Roylene. She had her colorless hair tied up in a knot and a layer of sweat covered her body like the skin on vanilla pudding.

“Can I help you?” I asked, bringing out my best smile.

“No,” she said, and kept pushing that darn cart.

No question mark at the end. Roylene had made a declaration.

The exchange distressed me, so I made my excuses to Irene and Charlie and walked home. I went to bed early that night consumed with remorse. I should have helped her anyway, right?

But I made a decision to step back and let things play out. Maybe some part of me knows that’s the way it’s got to be.

I know you’ll take good care of your boy, and I hope you’ll take good care of yourself. Sounds like Robert is doing a fine job of that, as well. As far as the other stuff, maybe it makes sense to take a step back temporarily. I don’t think you can walk away, but maybe it will give some necessary perspective.

Sending love over the miles,

Rita

September 24, 1943

ROCKPORT, MASSACHUSETTS

Dear Rita,

How relieved I was to get your letter! I felt a whole world of trouble run off my back and for the first time in nearly two months I can exhale properly.

Oh, the pictures you paint with your words. I can see those women on their knees (thank you for the prayers by the way...my little man is weak, but alive, thank God).

And Roylene? Is it me or the words you’ve woven that create an unease in my spirit? She seems like a loon. Perhaps you should stick to your guns and steer clear of her? Has Toby written to you about her? Or then again, maybe you just make her nervous. Fear and nerves drive people into strange ways.

That’s what I’ve been doing lately. Pushing that lazy summer “before” in the back of my mind and rationalizing my behavior with preposterous statements in my diary, like: “I was nervous. And my own fear led me straight into a crazy, spinning time when I did things so out of character I’m still trying to grasp it all.” Silly—but still, the early summer here feels like a hazy, watercolor dream. A dream that I want to forget, but bubbles of it pop up in my mind every now and then. They make me smile. Then the guilt washes over me again.

Robert is due to ship out overseas soon. I stare at him as he sleeps. We keep Corrine in our bed and the two of them curl around and cling to each other like vine to flower. I want to memorize him more than ever. His jawline, his smell, his grace. For so long I thought his wiry frame weaker than rugged Levi. And now? Now I can’t imagine being held by anything less gentle.

Levi seems to have gotten over his pouting spell. He and Robert are going about doing all the things they love to do together. Fishing, taking drives into Brimfield to see antiques shows. Getting boiled lobsters straight off the dock and sitting on the benches with hammers, cracking open the goodness. Sometimes I wish I was a man. Men have so much fun together.

The two of them are gone right now, gone to collect my pale boy from the hospital and bring him home. Robert’s even asked me to encourage MORE of a relationship between Levi and Robbie while he’s gone.

You see...Robbie has a weak heart now. Like Levi. And Robert thinks having Levi as an influence would be appropriate. Even when I want to get away, life lines up the obstacles. I can’t help it...I feel like this is a test of some sort. A test of biblical proportion. It makes me want to growl. Growl, growl, growl.

But really, all I am is scared.

What happens when Robert leaves? Will my fickle ways spread around again? I don’t trust myself. Not one bit. I wish I did.

I worry about your boy, too. Both our sons. Both changed from who they were before. One from war, one from illness. Who will they be when it’s all over?

Looking forward to your next letter.

Humbled and with love,

Glory

October 1, 1943

V-mail from Marguerite Vincenzo to Pfc. Salvatore Vincenzo

Happy birthday, honey!

In my mind we’re getting ready to paint the town. Vito’s got our table waiting, and he’s covered it in oysters, chopped salad and a steaming double portion of osso buco. You’ve got tickets to the Englert in the back pocket of your gray suit, the one with the piping. I’m wearing my gold dress in case we want to go dancing after the show. Va-va-voom! We’ll stay out past midnight and not care. We’ll dance so close they’ll need to pry us apart with a crowbar.

I love you, Sal. More than ever. You keep your handsome self safe.

Rita

October 3, 1943

IOWA CITY, IOWA

Dear Glory,

Robert reminds me so much of my Sal. Your last letter poked and prodded at my memories of our first years together. (It seems the only things keeping me company lately are your letters and the past.)

I’m going to tell you a story about my husband. It’s about time you got introduced to him, isn’t it?

I was working as a waitress at the Mondlicht Café, a German restaurant, when I met Sal. He showed up at the lunch hour one day, and quickly became one of my regulars. After a few weeks, he asked me to go to the movies after my shift and I said yes.

I liked him. Sal isn’t a big man, but he is big on talking. That first date I don’t think either of us shut up until the movie started. He took my hand in the darkened theater, and it was cool and soft, not like the sweaty, calloused boys I was used to. At the end of the night he didn’t get the least bit fresh, only asked if he could take me on the town again.

We started seeing each other frequently. Sal took me to the Art Institute and the Oriental Theater, to Maxwell Street for ices and to the tailor shop on Western Avenue where his entire family worked. I was young, but my parents had both passed, and Sal’s mother and father welcomed me like a gift.

When Mama Vincenzo pulled me into the kitchen and said she wanted to teach me to make Sal’s favorite minestrone, I didn’t exactly need to be a genius to know what my beau had in mind. I begged off, saying I cooked enough in the restaurant. She smiled, a cryptic Mona Lisa smile, and I wondered just how much she understood about me.

A few nights later, a man sauntered into the restaurant and requested a table in my section. He didn’t have Sal’s thick, shiny hair or kind eyes, but his face had a quality I admired. I could tell he was sharp, not book-smart like Sal, but the kind of knowing that comes from looking at people, really looking at them, and seeing who they are and what they need and how far they’d go to get it. Another waitress mouthed the word
gangster
as she passed with her pot of coffee, but that didn’t bother me. Everyone was a criminal back then, to different degrees.

I approached with my order book and he waved it away. “Just a lemonade,” he said, staring at my name tag. “Marguerite, huh? I would have pegged you for a Madeline or Colette.”

I’m sure I blushed. I
know
I blushed.

I brought his drink and he nursed it, watching me as I moved around the room. At first it made me self-conscious, but then a whispery thrill traveled up my arms and legs, giving me goose bumps. I’d catch him looking, and by the end of the night I’d give it right back, staring at him as bold as a streetwalker.

We ended up behind the restaurant, kissing against the rough brick wall. He moved with the slow assurance of someone who always got what he wanted, but never took it for granted. I was hooked.

He returned the next night. And the next. I made excuses to Sal, lied to him without batting an eye.

After a week the man stopped coming in the restaurant. He waited for me in the shadows, smoking in the alley until the last customer paid his bill. My shifts passed so quickly, knowing he was out there, and knowing what we were going to do.

One night I told the manager I was sick and walked out the front door, away from the dark alley. I kept moving, not stopping until I got to Western Avenue. I went to the tailor shop and made up some story to excuse my disappearance. They welcomed me back. They’d worried about me.

I quit my waitressing job.

I learned to make the minestrone.

It wasn’t until many years later—after Toby was born, after the doctor told me I couldn’t have any more children, after all the many things a married couple suffer together, the things that bind more than a ring or a slip of paper, that Sal told me. He’d watched me leave with the man one night, watched us steal to the recesses of the alley, watched me walk out twenty minutes later with my hair a mess and stockings askew. And he took it as a test. He said he trusted me enough to make the right decision for myself. And he said that it was such a rare thing to find someone he trusted so completely, that he felt, crouching behind a Dumpster watching his girlfriend giving herself to a gangster, that if I chose him he would marry me.

He had faith, and thought enough of me to expect I’d walk away from this man. He also knew he would never really get close to me if he forced my hand.

Since that one time, I’ve never been unfaithful to Sal. I worry, though, that he was wrong about me, and my fidelity has more to do with his proximity than some kind of inner moral compass. To this day I don’t know why I walked away from that man, only that I did. Maybe, as I said before, I’m not much of a cliff-jumper.

It’s funny. Bombs drop from the sky every day, chaos and mayhem spread over the globe, but we’re more afraid of the mines buried deep in our hearts, the ones we hope to never give cause to explode.

Love,

Rita

P.S. Give Robbie a kiss for me, or better yet, I’m sending some extra meat rations. A little iron will get some strong blood flowing through him in no time!

October 7, 1943

IOWA CITY, IOWA

Glory,

I completely forgot to send this recipe with my last letter. A couple of days ago, I picked up a bottle of Lysol at the co-op grocery and it came with a free rationing cookbook. Aren’t I the lucky duck?

So I was flipping through and, lo and behold, found this dish called Eggs Marguerite. Irene and Charlie thought it delicious when I had them over last night.

Those two continue to confound me. I’ve hosted them for dinner a few times, and on the surface they seem quite the young (-ish) couple. Charlie is very solicitous of Irene. He holds her chair when she sits, and outstretches a gentlemanly hand when she rises. He makes her laugh, and teases her in the manner of someone who knows enough of her personality to do so. Irene smiles at him in response, and I caught her staring at his angular face when he was preoccupied with dessert.

Something is off, though. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Whenever I broach the subject of romance with Irene, she finds a polite way to steer the conversation in another direction. Could it be Charlie has something to hide, therefore Irene does? He did show up at my house with a full box of cherry chocolates. How in the world does a vitamin salesman get his hands on that?

The more difficult explanation almost pains me to write. Do you think there are some people who are meant to be alone? Or possibly, has Irene, at thirty-eight, kept the door closed on love for far too long and now finds it’s sticking?

Then again, I suppose people can take a while to find each other, even when the person is standing right in front of them.

Anyway, enjoy the recipe. I brought some over to Mrs. K. to try after Charlie and Irene left. She chided me for using common cheddar, but gobbled it up before I walked out the door. If you have the rations, it accompanies a meat dish quite nicely. The two together would make a very nutritious meal for your Robbie. Here goes:

Eggs Marguerite

6 baked Idaho potatoes

3 cups creamed vegetables (Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, add 1 1/2 tablespoons flour to form almost a paste, then 1 1/2 cups hot milk. Stir over heat until boiling. Turn off the burner and add some nutmeg, salt and pepper. Keep mixing as it thickens. When it does, add a whole mess of lightly cooked vegetables from your garden. De-lish!)

6 poached eggs

1/2 cup grated American cheddar cheese

Scoop all pulp from potatoes; mash; season. Fill shells with creamed vegetables. Make a border of mashed potato; place poached egg on top of creamed vegetables. Sprinkle egg with cheese. Place in a moderate oven (350°F) until cheese melts and browns.

This makes six portions—enough to feed all of you.

Well, I’ve got to run—we’re rolling bandages today at the American Legion and if I miss it Mrs. Kleinschmidt will force me to join her for lard collection duties.

Take care, hon,

Rita

P.S. I passed the tavern on my way to the co-op. Roylene was standing out front, sweeping the sidewalk in her tattered men’s overcoat and galoshes. Her eyes grew round when she spotted me, and she stepped back to let me by without saying a word. This time I didn’t keep walking. I invited her to tea, Glory. Oh, yes, I did! And after a moment of looking completely panic-stricken, she agreed to come. I know it’s unseemly, but I’m feeling ridiculously proud of myself.