by Vanda
“I’m—I’m sorry,” I squeaked out, wishing I knew what more to say.
“Mother pretty much considers my life over. It’s impossible to marry now in my class, and she never allows me to forget what I did to her. Still, until today, she has never before so thoroughly humiliated me in front of a guest.”
“Oh, no. Don’t feel that way around me. You know that I’ve done things I don’t want people to know about. We’ll just keep each other’s secrets.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you still going to show me how to put the leg makeup on so I don’t go around looking like a clown? Talk about humiliation.”
We laughed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
July–August, 1942
As the months rolled by, we continued to live with ration books, sporadic blackout drills, and waiting for letters from soldiers. Aggie and I kept our ears glued to the radio listening to the latest news on the South Pacific praying that Dickie was safe. We’d breathe again when she got a letter. And, I wondered about Danny—alone.
On July 4th, that first year, Irving Berlin’s This Is the Army opened. Besides helping with the organization of the show, Max also had a small singing part in the chorus. The cast was composed of 359 servicemen from all three branches.
Opening night was electrifying. I got a new beige full-length gown and a pair of matching short gloves with my Gimbels discount, and I went with Henry who wore a tuxedo. Tommie looked adorable in his white dinner jacket as he escorted Virginia in a burnt-orange satin gown. All the fanciest people were there in their nicest clothes and they drove up in limousines and the newspaper and magazine photographers took pictures. Aggie couldn’t come with us ’cause she’d opened in All’s Fair in June, only now, its name was By Jupiter .
The play was so many things: sad, funny, patriotic. Army men dressed-up like women played all the women’s parts. One man even wore a long gown and impersonated Miss Cowl with great dignity.
All the men were theater people before the war, so that made the show extra good. And there were colored men in it, too. Max told us, that at first, the white guys didn’t want anything to do with the colored guys. They wouldn’t bunk with them or anything. But Max said that, after a few weeks, the white guys and the colored guys got to be friends and wouldn’t let anybody say anything bad about each other.
This Is the Army was a major success, and it played continuously to sold-out houses throughout the summer. Mr. Berlin donated all the money from it to the Army Emergency Relief Fund, not keeping one penny for himself. It finally closed in September when the cast went on national tour.
Mrs. Roosevelt invited them to Washington, D.C. ’cause she saw the play in New York three times and wanted her husband to see it. After the Washington, D.C. show was over, Max wrote to Virginia about it, and Virginia read the letter out loud in the kitchen to Miss Royle, Alfred Lunt, Lynne Fontanne, Katherine Hepburn, one of the junior hostesses Betty Bacall, and me.
Dear Virginia,
I don’t think I’ve ever been so moved by any experience before as I was in having the opportunity to perform this show for our own dear President Roosevelt. By the end, grown men cried. Not me, but many.
After the show, we were all invited to a reception with the president and Mrs. Roosevelt. They took time to meet all 359 plus of us. Being crippled did not stop the president from staying up past 1:30 in the morning. I feel so honored to have been part of it.
When Virginia finished, everyone was quiet.
Betty broke the silence. “Our generation has such an important fight to win.” Lynne Fontanne wiped the tears from her eyes with a washcloth.
Miss Royle broke the spell by clapping her hands sharply. “Ladies, back to work. We have men right out there who are counting on us.”
Later, we learned that Irving Berlin had signed a contract with Warner Brothers to make a movie version of the play and Max would be in it.
In August, Aggie, Henry, and I went out to Huntington for a barbecue at Aggie’s parents’ house. I hadn’t been out there since I left home in June the year before.
I was scared. I didn’t want to see my mother, but I sort of did. I wondered if she’d be having a good day and come to the barbecue. Maybe she and I would become friends. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Dickie’s parents and younger sister, Sally, were there. My mother said no, like I thought she would, so that meant my father wouldn’t be there either. Bookends.
It was sad being there without Dickie, but everyone told “remember when Dickie did this, remember when Dickie said that” stories, which made it seem like he was almost there. His father read the letter he’d gotten from Dickie that week.
Hi, Mom, Dad, and Sal,
I can’t tell you where I am, but I’m fine. Yesterday I was on look out in the crow’s nest, and I saw a Jap periscope bobbing in the water. It scared the bejeebass out of me, and I called all hands to battle stations. Everyone came running on deck and we shot the heck out of that thing—except, it wasn’t a Jap periscope, it was a mop handle. I sure took a ribbing over that one.
We all laughed and agreed, “That’s Dickie.”
Henry and I wanted to get away from the barbecue smoke and all the “remember when’s” so we took our hamburgers to the Wrights’ front porch and sat on the cushioned porch swing. The lawn was a deep green and Mrs. Wright’s blue and yellow peonies looked pretty in her garden around the porch. I looked over at the house next door where I used to live. That seemed years and miles away. I thought I saw my mother looking past the curtains of the upstairs window. I was gonna walk over there, but then I remembered what my father whispered when I was thinking of staying home to help him take care of Mom. “You get out of here now, kiddo, or you’ll never get out.”
“How are you?” Henry asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, with forced cheerfulness. “I love barbecues.”
“No. I mean—I see you looking over there. Is that where …?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should …. It isn’t my business.”
“I miss them, Henry. But if she doesn’t want me, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Why don’t we saunter over and look at the marigolds and—”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Very.”
I was taking a bite out of my hamburger when Mrs. Boyd, Danny’s mother, came walking up the sidewalk into Aggie’s front yard. Gray was starting to come through the brown hair that was flying around her head and held in place with a scattering of bobby pins. A breeze fluttered her striped housedress.
“Hi, Al,” she said, coming up the porch steps. “This must be your new beau.”
“Oh … Henry. This is Danny’s mother. I told you about Danny.”
“Yes, of course,” Henry stood. “Mrs. Boyd, won’t you sit down.”
“You sit. You’re crippled.”
Henry leaned against the porch railing instead of sitting.
“Al, something happened between you and my son and I wanna know what it was. It’s too hard living without knowing.”
“Didn’t Danny say anything to you?”
“Nothing. Just wanted me to fill out those papers so he could join the army. I haven’t heard a word from him since.”
“He hasn’t written to you , either?”
“You telling me my son hasn’t written to you, the girl he was gonna marry, the girl he loved more than anything in this world? I can’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“You and me, Al, we were something to each other. Or so I thought. I thought I meant more to you than just being your beau’s mother. You didn’t even call me.”
I looked away from her hurt eyes. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Boyd. I—I thought about it, but—”
“You thought about it? I’ve known you since you were a little girl. You were part of my family. I gave you a home when your mother kicked you out.” Her face got red and she shouted, “What happened bet
ween you and my boy?”
“Mrs. Boyd,” Henry began. “I know you’re upset, but I’ve got to ask you to not yell at Alice.”
“And who the hell are you?”
“Excuse me?” Henry straightened up.
“Please, Henry. Mrs. Boyd, I know I should’ve called you, but I just didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t explain to you what happened ’cause—”
“’Cause why?”
“’Cause … I don’t know. Danny just took off one day. I don’t know why.”
“Are you two …?” She nodded at Henry. “Is he my son’s replacement? This cripple?”
“Mrs. Boyd,” Henry said between clenched teeth. “You can’t expect Alice to give up her young life to a man no one can find. Who hasn’t even written to her.”
“Why does he keep calling you Alice? You were always Al to everybody here. He’s coming back, ya know. You believe that, don’t ya?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Why, Al? Why did he go away, not a word? Was it something shameful? Is that why you won’t tell me? Did I do something to him? Tell me, Al. Nothing’s worse than not knowing.”
“Henry, do you mind?”
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
“If you need me, just shout. I’ll be around the corner.”
Henry gripped his cane and struggled down the steps.
“He’s crippled,” Mrs. Boyd said.
“There’s ways of being crippled, Mrs. Boyd, that are a lot less obvious than Henry’s foot but just as troublesome.”
“I spose you’re right. He seems like a nice young man.”
“He is.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“Mrs. Boyd, I think you had something you wanted to ask me about Danny.”
She rubbed her hands together, red and swollen from housework. Mrs. Boyd cleaned all the time to make her house spotless. That was how she knew she was a good mother.
“You don’t know what it is to have a child,” she said. “Someday you will. Someday you’ll know how you feel their hurt. How helpless you are to do anything to stop it. Danny had pain. I knew that. Was … he …?” She looked away and took a deep breath. “Was Danny with a man?”
A chill went down my back. She knew.
“Was he … like my brother? Like Charlie? Charlie killed himself. You don’t think Danny …?
“No! Danny would never do that.” I hoped I was right.
“I did this to him, didn’t I? Just like my mother did it to Charlie. I did this to my son? How will I live?” She started shaking and grabbed the railing of the porch. Her face went pale. She was going to collapse.
I jumped up. “Henry!” Henry charged up the steps of the porch, cane and all, and grabbed her.
“Please, Mrs. Boyd, sit down here.” He helped her to sit on the porch swing. “Do you want me to call a doctor?”
Mrs. Boyd half-cried, half-coughed, looking up at us. “I loved him the best I could. Was that it? Did my love do this to him? Make him like this? Did I love him too much? Not enough? Which day, which hour did I say or do some wrong thing that—that …?” She looked at me then Henry as if we had the answer for her.
“What on earth did you tell her?” Henry asked.
I looked over at the house I’d grown up in, remembering Danny and me at five and six running through the sprinkler on a hot summer day. So many summers had gone by since then.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The New Year, 1943
Henry and I saw the New Year in together. First, we saw the hit play The Skin of Our Teeth, which was about … well, it’s hard to say what it was about. It was the strangest play I ever saw. It was fun seeing Fredric March and Florence Eldridge live on a stage; I’d only seen them in the movies. Oh, and I heard Fredric March once on the radio. And Tallulah Bankhead, who played the best part, I’d never seen before at all. I’d only read about what a good actress she was in London and on Broadway.
In the play, sometimes Tallulah Bankhead, who played Sabina, would stop and say things right to the audience as herself like “I don’t like this play,” or “I don’t want to do the next scene.” I thought that was so funny, but Henry got mad at her. He thought she should just do the scene and stop interrupting. He might have been missing the point. Anyway, I think the play was about how mankind keeps struggling and comes close to destroying itself, but then at the last minute we all find a way to go on. With this war, I hoped the writer was right, that we’d find a way to go on. Our war hadn’t been going so well lately for the Allies and people whispered that we could lose. America never loses, but it had me scared.
After the show, Henry took my hand and we walked to Times Square. I loved holding hands with him as we passed by all the Christmas decorations in store windows and hanging from unlit street lamps. Of course, none of the decorations were the kind that light up.
Henry had started talking about us getting married, but I didn’t know how I felt about that. Aggie said he was handsome, and he even had money ’cause he wasn’t only a writer. He was an editor at Scribner’s. He’d also had some stories published in Harper’s and The Atlantic Monthly and they paid him. Aggie said I should snap him up before someone else did, but still, there was Danny .
We walked the three blocks from the Plymouth Theater to Number One Times Square to be with the others who were celebrating. The air was Christmas crisp, and American flags hung from the hotels and office buildings. Thousands clogged the spot where the sparkling ball usually descended to light up the New Year. That year, like the one before, there would be no flaming ball. The war was still on, and the city was under strict orders to continue the dimout. Still, we wanted to gather around the spot as a sign of our united purpose and our hope for the coming year. At exactly midnight, a woman sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Men took off their hats, women put their hands over their hearts, and soldiers stood at attention saluting. When the song finished, a voice announced a moment of silence. We all stood in the dim light, quiet, each one with his own thoughts and yet there really was only one thought: that this war would soon be over and our soldiers would be coming home victorious—that Dickie and Danny would be coming home, safe.
As the silence lifted, we cheered. Our new year, 1943, had arrived. Fear rushed into my stomach as I struggled to hang onto hope. Maybe this was the year the war would end.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
March, 1943
I was about to knock on Max’s door when Tommie said, “See? I told you she’d come.” I could see him through the screen door sitting on the floor.
I walked in, letting the door slam behind me. “She’s one of us,” Tommie said.
“No. I’m not. I only came over here ’cause ….” I turned toward Max who slouched on the sofa in black pants and a white shirt; his blue striped tie hung loose around his neck, his dark hair hung unwashed in his eyes. “Why aren’t you in Hollywood filming?” Max leaned on a young blond guy who sat on the couch with no shirt on.
“Well, little lady,” Max said, leaning forward to flick the ash off his cigarette into the clay ashtray and missing. He’d been drinking and it was only ten in the morning. “Filming is done. And so am I. Your people—”
“My people?”
“You said you’re not one of us. Then you must be one of them . And one of them cut me from the international tour. I get this one weekend, and then I’m to report for active duty in the European theater. Theater? How dare they call that bloodbath a theater? Well, the way the critics tore up my last show maybe it is the right word.”
“What happened?” I sat down on the fluffy chair across from the coffee table.
“You better wake up before they get you .”
“Get me ? Who?”
“Max is being melodramatic,” Tommie said. “He thinks it’s ’cause they figured out he’s gay. He thinks they spied on him when he went off base.”
“They did. The jams are out to get us all.” Max raised his gl
ass. “To the dirty jams.” He lifted the glass to his lips and missed, spilling it all over his shirt. “Ah, shit.” He jumped up, grabbed a fistful of napkins, and smacked the spot. “Damn, damn!”
Tommie took the wad of napkins from his grasp. “Don’t do that, Max.”
The shirtless boy said, “Let me take that shirt off you.”
“Oh, God, isn’t he beautiful?” Max swooned throwing his arms around the boy’s head, kissing him on the mouth.
“They can’t afford to bring everyone,” Tommie explained. “They’re only bringing half the company. Max probably got cut ’cause he always argues with Mr. Berlin.”
“I do not.” The shirtless boy pulled Max’s shirt off. “I’m as sweet as apple pie, but that damn fool idiot Berlin doesn’t know how to put together a show so I—”
“See what I mean?” Tommie said. “Max, he’s probably put up twenty Broadway shows. He’s the greatest songwriter America’s ever had, and you’re gonna tell him how to do it? Geez. Hey, Al, ya want a Manhattan?”
“At ten in the morning? Yeah.”
“Booze is about the only thing that’s not rationed these days so live it up,” Max said. The shirtless boy kissed his chest.
“Did ya call Virginia to tell her you were back in town?” I asked.