Dodging and Burning Page 9

  “This is the spot,” he said. “If we can’t communicate any other way, leave a message here. It’s going to be an important place for everyone. Especially Cee. Her parents don’t want me anywhere near their house. It was very difficult to get news to her to meet today.”

  “They don’t like you, do they?”

  “Check the tree at least once a day. In the morning.”

  “Why don’t they like you?”

  “Will you check the tree?”

  “And why do you want Robbie’s journal?”

  He looked at me with a flicker of surprise.

  “You asked Ceola for it,” I said. “You thought I had left the other night, but I wanted to know what you two were up to. I wanted to know if this was all an elaborate practical joke at my expense.”

  “It’s not a joke.”

  “What’s in the journal? Why do you care?”

  “I told her to meet us here, so I could explain the tree to her too.”

  “Answer me,” I said firmly.

  “His stories. Robbie used to tell us stories, like the ones in Cee’s rags. Turns out he wrote his stories down. Some of them might be in his journal. I just wanted something of his. That’s all.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I didn’t know until Cee mentioned it the day I found Lily. Let’s talk about it later. She’ll be here soon.” He was looking over my shoulder, avoiding eye contact.

  “So that’s what I had to pry out of you? Robbie’s silly stories?”

  “Here she comes.” He waved to her.

  I was determined to get more from him. “And what about those shoes? They’re expensive. Italian. Why would a girl from Jitters Gap have such expensive shoes?”

  “Employee discount. Department stores give those, right?”

  “I thought you said she was applying for a job to be a store model. She was already working as one?”

  He grabbed my shoulders. His blue eyes blazed; a curtain had been swept back and something indescribable and unpredictable lurked behind them. It was the same danger I’d felt when he’d twisted my wrist during our picnic. “She was murdered,” he said. “She was murdered, and we need to understand it. I need to understand it.”

  I pulled away from him sharply, and he wilted again into the wounded, war-struck boy.

  “Okay,” I said. “But you have to explain all this to me.”

  “I will,” he said, looking down. “When we understand each other better.”

  I shrugged and leaned against the dead tree. “When will that be?”

  He leveled his gaze at me. “When you open your eyes.”

  Royal Oak, VA

  2/12/2000

  Bunny,

  I was damn sure that if I ever heard from you, I’d ignore you, or send a nasty reply. Jesus, the things I had lined up to say to you. But it seems old age has done something truly terrible to me—it’s made me soft. The spit and fire of that girl you remember has dulled to just a flicker.

  It’s not been easy for me, not that I’m complaining. I married a good man, Sam Richardson. Did you know his family? He managed the Piggly Wiggly downtown for eight years. He gave me three handsome and headstrong sons, Rob, Eddie, and Ray. But in ’75, right around the holidays, he fell from the roof cleaning leaves out of the gutters, hit his head, and died, leaving me on my own to raise those boys.

  Needing to support my children, I began working at Twin Oaks as a secretary to the superintendent. My boys turned out better than I could’ve hoped, and, just recently, after twenty-three years, I retired from the hospital. Thank Heaven! These days, I spend my time drinking coffee at Hardee’s or writing in my journal or reading mystery books. I’ve read all your novels. Not bad. I mean that. I guess you learned a thing or two that summer too.

  Well, I don’t know what to tell you about the photo that was mailed to you. Other than to say I didn’t send it. The last time I ever talked to Jay, I asked him about the photos of that woman, but he said he didn’t have them. He said they were safe. Of course, he didn’t burn them—or at least not the negatives—so he must’ve sent them to someone. But who? I haven’t the slightest.

  I’m not sure what else to tell you. It’s good to know you kept the summer of ’45 so close.

  -C

  7

  CEOLA

  Mama’s grief ruled the house with an iron fist after your death, Robbie. Her first almighty decree was: All who live in this house must live in silence.

  Papa ordered me not to play records or listen to the radio or make too much noise of any kind. I was even told to take off my shoes before entering the house. The quiet was hell. I curled up on my bed for hours at a time, yearning to hear the Andrews Sisters or Anita O’Day or The Shadow or anything for relief. Despite his dutiful enforcement of the rules, Papa was as much a prisoner of them as I was.

  One night, he was taking in the news on the radio in the living room, like he did, and I was sitting at the top of the staircase, straining to hear, real happy for the distraction. Mama stormed into the room, and the radio clicked off. I heard her say, “I have a headache, Bob. I’ve already asked you to turn it down once.”

  I heard Papa’s heavy footsteps, and then the radio came back on but louder—“World News Today. Brought to you by the Admiral Corporation makers of Admiral Radio, America’s Smart Set—”

  She snapped, “Turn it off! I’ve had enough bad news for one lifetime.”

  The radio went dead. Seconds later, I heard Papa trudge out of the house. He didn’t come back that night. Soon after that, he began spending evenings and weekends digging holes, planting trees, surrounding the house with a forest of saplings. Although it was intended as a memorial, it surely felt more like he was trying to wall us in.

  Mama’s second decree was: When Robbie is spoken of, he must be spoken of in if-then statements.

  Mama would carry your photo with her around the house, setting it in the kitchen while she cooked or propping it against a book in the living room while she knitted. If I entered the room, she would begin her usual litany of conditionals. “If Robbie had survived the war,” she’d say, “he would’ve lived in Royal Oak, to be close to his family. If he had survived, he would’ve married a nice girl—that Donna Smith or Rachel Richfield or the King girl—or no, not the King girl, she’s too easy with the boys.” She was certain whoever you would’ve married, the two of you would’ve had beautiful children. She even chose names for the ghost grandchildren—Robert Jr. and Mary Jane. Little Mary Jane had blond curls just like she did as a young girl.

  “If he had returned from the Pacific,” the chant went, “he would’ve studied law, or maybe medicine. He certainly would have gone to UVA or Virginia Tech. He would’ve loved his community and, particularly, his church, where he would have become a lay reader. He would’ve joined the Kiwanis Club like his father. He would’ve set a good example. He would’ve taken care of us, as we got older. He would’ve held my hand when God calls to me in my last hour.”

  Her third and final decree was: No one, under any circumstances, can enter Robbie’s bedroom or touch his belongings.

  Mama made it into her own personal shrine to you. Her grief was greedy, claiming your stamp collection, your saved Dixie Dew bottles, your favorite red sweater with the hole in the sleeve, your Roy Rogers cowboy hat with gold trim, the bone-handled pocketknife Papa gave you when you were twelve, your baseball mitt, the pocket watch you inherited from Grandpa that was inscribed with Great-Grandpa’s name (Terrence Henbone Bliss, 1854), and the broken-in deck of cards you used to teach me pinochle. All of them became holy relics.

  For months, I thought that if I went into your bedroom, sirens would blast and police would rush in, seize me, and haul me off to jail, hands cuffed and hunched over in disgrace. Papa made me promise I would never, ever disturb your room. “If Mama finds out,” he said, “we’ll both be in terrible trouble.”

  But the limbo of mourning became too much for me, and, in the worst
sort of way, I wanted to claim something of my own from Mama’s police state.

  About midsummer, I said to hell with the rules and started poking around. That’s when I found the stack of magazines under your nightstand and started sneaking off to read them. But of course, I hadn’t come across your journal.

  Right after Jay had shown Bunny and me the hiding place in the tree and Bunny had marched off in a tizzy, he said, “Cee, I have to know Robbie’s journal is safe. Please. Before anyone else finds it. It’s killing me.”

  His blue eyes were on fire. He loomed over me, so agitated and afraid.

  I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to give him your journal, but I sure wanted to find it. I wanted to keep it safe. I suppose what I really wanted was to keep it for myself, because deep down, I wanted to know you better. So when I got home, I crept upstairs and down the hall to your room. Mama was running errands, and Papa wasn’t home from work yet.

  The door to your room was cracked—you remember, it was warped and never came to—so I nudged it open. The afternoon sun was peeking through the limbs of that old locust tree outside your window and throwing flecks of light across the floor. I hesitated, worried Mama might come home and catch me but also worried I was doing something sacrilegious, like spitting in a baptismal font or walking across a grave. I moved forward on tiptoes. With each step, the floor groaned like demons calling out to me—What are you doin’, Ceola? You’ll get in big trouble. Mama and Papa will never forgive you. You’re desecrating the memory of your brother.

  The slanted ceilings and dormer windows and sideways light gave your room a sadness I still feel when I’m by myself in the church sanctuary, fixing flowers or replacing candles for Sunday services. But those red cowboys galloping across the walls, lassos whipping through the air, herding and roping cattle, reminded me that it was your space, your sanctuary, not Mama’s. Between the windows, I saw your small, beat-up dresser with both of our initials carved into the side of it, displaying bits and pieces of your life, from school awards to postcards from Virginia Beach. Along the bottom of the mirror, you had wedged several school photos of friends, maybe there was even a picture of Jay—no, surely Mama would’ve seen it and thrown it in the wood stove.

  I rummaged under your bed and riffled through your closet—nothing but sports equipment, schoolbooks, and dusty clothes. Underneath the neatly folded T-shirts and boxer shorts in your dresser, I found even more magazines—Dime Detective, Astonishing Tales, Weird Stories, and a stack of comics. I’d struck gold. Right there, on the floor, I fanned out this new treasure trove so I could see all of it, forgetting about how angry Mama and Papa would be if they caught me.

  I picked up the comics and let the pages fall through my fingers, reading bits of dialogue and glancing at the pictures. The handsome fedora-ed detectives, holding their pistols close to their hips, spat phrases like, “It’s time to meet your Maker. I hope you’re wearing your best dress.” Or, “Baby-doll, you’ll make a beautiful corpse.” And the femme fatales, wrapped like maypoles in red-and-black satin gowns, every curl on their head as tight as a spring and eyes aimed like twin Colt .38s.

  I can still hear you, clear as a bell, reading in a low voice so you wouldn’t draw Mama and Papa’s attention: It was a hot, damp, mean August day, and the city streets were crying black tears. Detective Rod Magnum leaned back in his chair, unbuttoned his collar, and drifted into an uneasy slumber. When he heard the click-clack of her heels and smelled her perfume through the open door, he sat up and straightened his tie. Sweet trouble was coming his way …

  When you read to me, you always held out at the cliffhanger—a dame with a knife dangling over her head or the hero slipping from a crumbling ledge, some melodramatic climax or other—and made me beg for the ending. You loved to make me beg. I remembered you reading “A Date with Death” to me but stopping just before the final page. Oh, I really wanted you to finish it! But it was just as well you didn’t. When you were finally done reading, we’d talk the stories over, going on about the parts we liked and picking at the parts we didn’t, our talks all out of joint if we thought the story was a cheat.

  As I flipped, I caught a glimpse of something wedged between the fluttering pages of an issue of Dime Detective. I thought it was a paper doll, but then it was something I hadn’t expected—a male underwear model. You must’ve cut him out of a Sears catalog, trimming his outline, not sacrificing a finger or a flip of hair or a fold of fabric to the scissors. In other magazines, I found more cutouts of men, from smiling boys with their hands on their hips to cool customers trailing ribbons of cigarette smoke to muscle men, Charles Atlas sorts, flexing their greased biceps and sporting sculpted pompadours. I didn’t understand what they meant. How could I at that age? I just imagined you bent over magazines and catalog pages, tongue caught between your teeth, concentrating as you traced the outlines of these men with Mama’s sewing scissors. I knew they were secret, and I knew I wanted to keep them safe—and far from Mama’s and Papa’s eyes.

  I grabbed everything you had hidden under your T-shirts, and that’s when I saw it at the back of the drawer—your journal, bound in dark brown leather and tied with a black shoelace, almost invisible against the cedar lining. I took it and unknotted the lace. On the first page, you had written, DO NOT OPEN!!! TOP SECRET!!! That means you, Cee!

  I closed it with a slap. I wasn’t going to read it—and neither was Jay. Not now. I added it to the pile of magazines and hid everything behind a blanket on the top shelf of my closet.

  That night I had a dream.

  It was dusk, and you emerged from the dark woods at the edge of the yard wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. Everything was quiet, like one of those silent movies from the ’20s that Grandpa used to like. You saw me and smiled and waved. Your face, shoes, and the knees of your dark jeans were muddy—or was it blood? You were smiling and waving, and I wanted to go to you, but I didn’t. I just watched, and the more I watched, the more confused I became and the more the mud seemed like blood. In the next instant, you were beside me, whispering in my ear, but as hard as I listened, all I could hear was the blood rushing through my ears, like the roar of the ocean in a seashell. Then—pow!—there was an explosion, as if a thousand firecrackers had gone off all at once, and I woke up.

  That’s when I remembered it.

  It was early summer, not long before you enlisted, and I was in a good mood. The end of my fifth-grade year was a week away. I had just come home from school and dropped my books on the hall table when I heard raised voices in the kitchen. I crept to the edge of the kitchen door and listened.

  “That family just isn’t right,” Mama said. “They’re cursed. I mean, first Georgie and Elizabeth, then George Sr. God doesn’t smile on them—or the grandson.”

  “The guys down at the plant talk about him,” Papa said. “They say—”

  “He’s my friend,” you said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Papa replied. “Because in a couple of weeks, you’re going to enlist. It’ll be your birthday, and you’re going to serve your country. I won’t have you hanging around here, waiting for the draft. You need to be with real men, learning how to be a real man.”

  “You can’t force me to enlist. I won’t do it.”

  “I’ll throw you out of my house if you don’t.”

  “You won’t do that.”

  “You will go and fight for your country. It’s what proud young men do.”

  “You really hate me, don’t you?”

  “You’ll do what’s right, son.”

  “I see through you,” you said, your voice sharp-edged. “Right through you.”

  I heard the sound of shoes on linoleum and a crack. I stepped into view, and Mama stood up, setting a colander of snapped beans on the table.

  “Go to your room, Cee,” she said, nodding toward the staircase behind me. You were holding your cheek. Papa stood back from you, leaning against the kitchen counter, panting and rubbing his right hand.

  I could te
ll you were crying. But then, channeling some hidden fire in you, you straightened your posture, cocked your chin back, and, in high-riding hauteur, said, “He has dark hair and thick eyebrows. He talks in a loud blustery way. He gives the impression of being—a violent man.” You were quoting Mary Astor’s lines from The Maltese Falcon. We knew that movie inside and out. After all, we’d spent our allowance on it three weeks in a row.

  Papa scowled at you, then dropped and shook his head, a vicious show of disappointment.

  You sprang forward and flipped Mama’s colander off the table, sending beans scattering across the floor.

  “Robbie!” she gasped, but you were already out the door.

  I dashed after you as you crossed the yard and moved toward the forest. When I caught up, you were in the high grass at the edge of the woods. I grabbed you by the shirtsleeve and you twisted around, shoving me back. I fell on the ground. You stammered something, spit flying. I’d never seen you like that, so out of control, so full of anger. We stared at each other awhile, stunned but not crying, unable to speak. I studied the red mark on your cheek and wondered if it would bruise. I wanted you to tell me that what Papa said wasn’t true, that you didn’t have to enlist, but I couldn’t ask. I thought that if I did, it would make it true.

  “Cee,” you said, your eyes wide and intense like spotlights shining directly at me. “If they send me away, I’m never coming home. Ever! I never want to see them or this goddamn place again. I’m going to go live my life and do what I want to do, be who I want to be.”

  Then, like that, you spun around and disappeared into the trees, a leafy branch snapping back into place after you, the forest swallowing you up with one gulp.

  A sob burst from me and tears followed. After a few minutes, I found my feet, wiped my eyes dry, and inspected my dress. I brushed off the grass and went home, banging up the stairs and into my room. I didn’t hear you come in that night. When I asked Mama about it in the morning, she said, “Your brother is doing a very brave thing by enlisting. That’s all that’s important.”