Runny03 - Loose Lips (19 page)

As friends came in for their appointments, they mourned recent events. Who would set a deliberate fire in a place like Runnymede?

Theories abounded, several women insisting the culprit had to be a thrill-seeking teenager. The most disquieting opinion was Celeste Chalfonte’s. She suggested a situation like Pearl Harbor gave lazy people the opportunity to extract revenge. The act only appeared political.

“What do you mean, exactly?” Juts held the nail-polish brush steady over Celeste’s long, aristocratic fingers.

“Noe is a success. The arsonist is not. The arsonist is the worm that turned.”

“So you think it’s one of us.”

“Not one of us in this room—but yes.”

Julia shuddered. “What an awful thought.”

Louise was making up a bleaching solution for Ev Most, who would deny it if asked. Ev, Juts’s best friend, had just endured a six-month ordeal in Clarksburg, West Virginia, caring for her husband’s dying mother. The suffering soul finally went to her reward. “When old Brutus was alive we could blame every tragedy on him.”

“The current crop of Rifes would rather suck blood than spill it.” Celeste leaned back, her eyes half closed. “Brutus was at least a formidable enemy. No—this is some small, inconsequential person who now feels very powerful indeed.” Then she asked, “When does Noe’s train arrive?”

“Seven-thirty,” Louise replied. She had already told everyone that Orrie had taken the news like a trouper, rejoicing that Matilda was alive.

“Ladies, we should make an effort to greet that train.”

Many other people shared Celeste’s sentiments. When Noe disembarked at the station, his friends and well-wishers were there along with the inevitable Popeye Huffstetler.

Noe informed the irritating reporter that he had been accepted into the Army and would most likely be assigned to cryptographer duties, decoding messages from the enemy.

“How do you feel fighting against your country?” Popeye asked.

Noe, calm in the face of stupidity, replied, “This is my country.”

“But aren’t you angry? Someone burned down your business.”

Noe shrugged. “I’m angry, I’m sad.”

“Who do you think did such a thing?” Popeye persisted.

“Will you shut up?” Chessy pulled Noe away.

Walter Falkenroth was in the group, but he had an ironclad rule never to interfere with his reporters. He did, however, cast Popeye a disapproving stare.

Orrie held up until she embraced her husband, then she cried like a baby.

“All our hard work,” she sobbed.

He whispered in her ear, “It’s all right, baby. We’re still young. We’ll build back up after this war is over.”

Extra Billy, his arm around Mary, kissed her cheek.

“Billy, do you know anything about this?” Mary asked her source of wisdom.

“I don’t, but I’d sure like to find out.”

A mist covered her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave me.”

“I’ll be back.” He kissed her again.

Zeb Vance pushed his way up to the front. “Noe, I want you to know Julius and Pole Rife are working with me. We’ll get this sorted out. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Zeb.”

“I’m shipping out in six weeks. If we don’t have the i’s dotted and the t’
s
crossed, Priscilla Donaldson in my office will take over the case. She’ll do a good job.” He shook Noe’s hand and joked, “Guess you girls will have to get along without us.”

Mary’s loud crying pierced the silence. Then other women started crying, too.

Father O’Reilly raised his hand in a benediction. “Friends, let’s pray together.”

And so they did, each one knowing it would be the last time they would all be together.

W
earing her ankle boots with the fur lining had helped keep out the cold at first, but Juts had been on her feet shopping all day. By now her toes were blue.

Louise, Toots, and Juts each took one day off work to do their Christmas shopping. Juts thought she’d taken care of everyone—she’d bought Yoyo a big catnip mouse and Buster and Doodlebug chews—then she realized Hansford needed a present. She hadn’t warmed to the sick man, but she couldn’t ignore him—not at Christmas.

As for her customers, she gave each one a free manicure. That way no one could say she played favorites.

She knew that as she fell asleep tonight she’d remember somebody she’d forgotten.

As she passed Senior Epstein’s jewelry store she spied Chester. She scrunched down, peeking around the doorjamb. He was buying gold shell earrings. She loved earrings!

A few desultory snowflakes circled down from a leaden sky. The packages were getting heavy. Chilled to the bone, Juts sat down on a bench in the square, wishing she could be a pigeon sitting high up in a branch, watching the people below.

A huge wreath was laid at the statue of the three Confederate soldiers. The snow in their eye sockets made them look blind. An even bigger wreath, compliments of Caesura Frothingham,
adorned George Gordon Meade. The snow fell harder. The lights of the shops twinkled through the deepening gray and white.

She felt for one fleeting moment how precious this place was to her, and she knew that across the Atlantic Ocean an Englishwoman she would never meet loved her own little town just as much. But Juts was safe and sound. The Englishwoman was not. She felt as though her heart would burst with sorrow for all the women in the world. They had yet to wage one war but they sure suffered and died in them.

Small halos of red, yellow, green, and blue surrounded the colored Christmas lights in the shop windows. She stood up, shaking off the snow, and headed for the Bon-Ton, her last stop.

All the swirling snow, the colors, the sharp cold, the sound of tires with chains on snow, the occasional honk of a horn, the bark of a dog tired of waiting for its master outside a shop … such sounds made up her Christmas.

Juts wasn’t a philosophical woman. She took life as it came. She didn’t know where her life was heading, only that it was getting there faster than she had anticipated.

She thought of her life as bumper cars on overdrive, a pinwheel with naked ladies on it, candy bars and crapshoots, Longhorn steers and red-hot poker games, cartwheels at sunrise and a hint of sadness at sunset. She recalled the smell of Buster’s fur when he came in from the rain and Yoyo’s funny little habit of retrieving crinkled-up paper. She thought of Chester’s laugh, the smell of gasoline and new-mown hay, and now the moist scent of falling snow.

For the first time she wondered what her mother’s memories were. If this was what made a life—impressions—then what were Cora’s?

She pushed open the revolving door at the Bon-Ton and stepped inside, looking in childlike wonderment at all the big support columns wrapped in red-and-gold paper. Each wooden counter was decorated with red-and-gold streamers with a Santa
on the top center, except the different Santas were dressed in the uniforms of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The mannequins wore the uniforms of the Allies.

Someone bumped into her from behind.

“I’m sorry,” Juts said and stepped out of the way.

Aunt Dimps, also laden with packages, replied, “Julia Ellen, why don’t you bring Yoyo in here and see what she can do with the decorations?”

Juts laughed, then thought how lucky she was to live in Runnymede … even if she did have to share it with the likes of Josephine Smith.

M
ary folded in half a sheet of medium blue paper and carefully slid it into the airmail envelope. Her mother would wail at the extravagance of airmail. That would lead to recounting Mary’s other foolish expenditures. She took the precaution of tucking her letters into her book bag and dashing to the post office before school.

A light rap on the door made her quickly place her chemistry book over the envelope.

“Come in.”

“It’s snowing again. Want to go down to the pond? We could ice skate.”

Mary glanced out the window into the darkness. “Mmm, I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, Mar, the fire department set up big torches so we can see. Everyone’s going. Isn’t that swell?”

“You go on.”

“Bet you were writing Billy again. Say, if you come skating with me you can tell him all about it. He’s a good skater.”

Needing to be begged, Mary weakened a little. “Well…”

“You can tell him who was there, what they wore, who fell, and how much you miss him.”

“I can’t live without him. I think about him every minute of every day.”

Blankly Maizie nodded.

“You don’t understand,” Mary said crossly.

“Uh—gee, Mary, that’s not fair.” Maizie pulled open a drawer.

“Hey, those are my socks.”

“If you’re not going I need them.”

“Use your own damn socks.”

“I’m telling Momma that you’re using foul language. If you skated you’d be in a better mood and you wouldn’t need to curse.” She removed her ankle socks as she dropped on the corner of the bed.

“Put those back!” Mary bounced out of her chair to grab the socks.

Maizie put them behind her. “Uh-uh.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going. You jumped to conclusions.”

Maizie sat on the long socks. “Read me your letter and I’ll give you back your socks—only if you’re really going to skate.”

“Ha.” Mary snorted. “I’m not reading you anything.”

“How am I ever gonna know what it’s like to be in love?”

Mary, dying to share her newly discovered emotions, surreptitiously picked up her chemistry book. “Only parts of it. I’m not reading all of it.”

“Okay.”

“‘Dear Bill’”—she cleared her throat—“‘Everything is gray without you …’”

Maizie interrupted. “It’s always gray in wintertime.”

With a superior air, Mary shrugged. “You have no sense of—poetry.” Mary folded her letter. “I’m not reading any more to you.”

“Oh, come on. I’ll sharpen your blades.”

Mary flipped open the page, the paper making a light rattling sound. “‘I think about you when I see the sky. I think about you when I see mistletoe. I think about you when Doodlebug barks—all the time. I think …’”

Fifteen minutes later Mary finished reading her torrid epistle.

“How romantic.” Maizie dreamily fell back on the bed.

Mary swiftly leapt from the chair and snatched one of the socks exposed underneath Maizie’s buttock. “Gotcha.”

“Here.” Maizie threw the other one after, sitting up. “What does Billy write?”

Mary pulled out one letter from Parris Island, South Carolina. The handwriting was an oversized scrawl. “‘Dear Mary, the D.I. chews my ass. The chiggers is awful. I hate this place. Love, Bill.’”

Waiting a moment, Maizie swung her feet to the floor. “That’s it?”

“Men aren’t good at writing letters.” Mary defended her laconic husband.

Showing surprising maturity, Maizie said, “At least you know he’s thinking of you. Come on, let’s go to the pond.”

T
obacco flecks dotted Hansford Hunsenmeir’s bluish lips. Despite his breathing difficulties, he craved that soothing nicotine. If he was going to die he might as well die on his own terms.