by C. E. Murphy
I caught up with her a couple steps outside the door. She was wrapped up in a fuzzy-looking thing that was mostly collar and sleeves. I was in shirtsleeves, having run out the door without stopping at the coat check, afraid the time spent waiting there would lose me the girl for good. “Mind if I walk you home?”
She didn’t even look up, much less look surprised. “Would you follow me anyway if I said I minded?”
I stopped, offended. “’course not.”
“Then you can walk me home.” Her heels kept clicking on the sidewalk as she looked back at me and shrugged. “A girl has to get some kind of idea of who wants to walk her home, Private Muldoon. Soldiers are usually polite, but I’ve already met a few who don’t want to take no for an answer.”
Under my breath, I muttered, “An’ that’s why somebody oughta be walking you home,” then louder said, “Gimme a minute to get my coat?”
Her steps slowed an’ I took that as a yes. Some doll at the coat check had seen me running out, and had my coat ready for me. I gave her my best grin and slung it on as I went back out the door to catch up with Annie Macready. She wasn’t alone, not quite. There were other couples heading home, some driving, but a lot more walking like me and Annie. There were a few groups of girls all hanging together, which made good sense. The Eagles Club was close to a neighborhood, just far enough out that late dances wouldn’t make the neighbors complain too much, but it backed up to a big wild park where anything could happen. Annie led us away from the park, into the heart of the neighborhood, and girls peeled off from their groups the deeper in we got. “’If it’s anybody I know givin’ you a hard time, I’ll take care of ‘em for you.”
Her voice got syrup-sweet. “And what does that mean, Private Muldoon?”
“Means I liked it better when you were callin’ me Gary,” I muttered again, then, louder, said, “I donno. Talk to ‘em an’ knock some sense into ‘em if that don’t work?”
“At least you started with talking. I hate the idea of men getting into fights over me, even for the most noble of reasons.”
“Thought girls liked that kinda thing.”
“I suppose some of them do. They probably don’t want to be nurses. Can you imagine the ignominy of having to patch up two or three of your suitors because they were fighting over you?”
“Darlin’, I barely know what ignominy is, never mind having to feel it.”
Annie Macready gave me a sideways look that turned into a laugh. “I don’t think I believe you, Private Muldoon.”
I grinned down the street. “Believe what you want, sweetheart. Not much I can do about it.”
“You’re a very confident man, aren’t you, Private Muldoon?”
“Yeah, but I think I found a girl to give me a run for my money, Miss Macready.”
Her nose wrinkled. “I like ‘Annie’ better.”
“Then you gotta stop callin’ me Private Muldoon. It makes me feel like I oughta be standin’ up and saluting.”
“Oh, all right. I was just teasing you anyway.”
“Me too. I got a rise outta you faster, is all.” I offered my arm and she wrinkled her nose again an’ tucked her big fuzzy sleeve into the crook of my elbow. “How far we going?”
“In a hurry to get back?”
“Figuring how to make it last.”
A giggle burst outta her. I raised an eyebrow an’ she stared straight ahead, trying like the devil not to blush or laugh again. I got a grin that spread slow but wouldn’t quit. “Why, Miss Macready, I think maybe you got a little bit of a dirty mind there. And you seem like such a straight-laced girl!”
Her cheeks turned bright pink and her grin was so tight I thought it might explode right off of her face if she let it go at all. “I have two older brothers and a father who are all soldiers, Mr. Muldoon,” she said, prim as she could through fighting that smile. “Sometimes they say things a lady shouldn’t hear.”
“And then she’ll keep askin’ around until she finds out what they meant? Aw, c’mon, darlin’, don’t tell me girls don’t whisper ‘bout the same kindsa stuff we do,” I said when she gave me a cautious look. “I got a sister too, you know.”
“I didn’t.” She latched onto that, and I guessed I couldn’t blame her. “Older or younger?”
“Older, ‘bout four years older. Name’s Irene. She used to give me advice about girls. Guess she still would, if I needed it.”
“But you’re a football hero,” Annie said, which made me laugh.
“A couple seasons of college ball don’t make me a hero, doll.”
Her smile lit right up. “Don’t spoil my fun. Football hero is how I’m telling the story, and surely a football hero doesn’t need help with girls.”
I grinned down the street. “You tell me.”
“You’re doing all right.”
“Hmph. ‘All right’. I’ll take it, but next time I’m gonna do better.”
“Next time?” Annie stopped at a driveway beneath a big ol’ leafless tree. “You expect there to be a next time? This is me.”
“I sure hope so.” I looked up the drive at a plain little cozy-looking house and shook my head. “Nah, sweetheart. It might be your ma, but it ain’t you. Your house will be painted something bright, to match your soul.”
Annie Macready said, “Oh my,” and left me standing on the sidewalk and feeling like a fool.
CHAPTER NINE
I spent the whole next two days of leave trying not to fret. Me and Andy went out to see Monterey Bay, which was about the prettiest place I’d ever seen, with the calm blue water an’ all sorts of little personality-filled towns around it. It was nothing like Seattle, but I guessed nowhere was ever like home. Andy seemed okay with that. I didn’t know what he’d left behind in Alabama, just that he’d come out West before joining up, and I wondered just what all he’d left behind. It wasn’t the kinda question a fella could ask. At any rate, we didn’t have lots of time for talk anyway, ‘cause I’d thought girls liked a football player, but that wasn’t anything compared to being in uniform. But I kept thinking about Annie and forgetting to flirt, until Andy threw his hands up an’ told me to go find the girl. I said I couldn’t do that, and I thought he was gonna blow a gasket.
“I already know you’re too damned dumb to have gotten her number, but you know where she lives, don’t you?”
“Sure, but what kinda big puppy shows up on the doorstep without an invitation?”
“One who might get shipped out any day.”
That shut me up and sent me heading across town without him, back to the street where Annie lived. A nice older lady who looked a lot like her was in the front yard, tending to a flower bed, when I walked up the street. She gave me a look up and down, then brushed her hands clean on her skirt an’ got to her feet with a smile. “I guess you’re Private Muldoon.”
“I guess I am, ma’am. Are you Mrs. Macready?” I leaned across a low white fence an’ offered my hand.
She took it with a soft grip. “I am. I’m afraid Anne’s not home, though. It’s Sunday afternoon. She had to head back to Oakland for school. She stays there during the week and comes home to visit on weekends.”
I put my hands in my pockets an’ rolled back on my heels to cast a look at Heaven, wishing Andy had kicked me into motion earlier. “That’s just about the worst news I’ve had all week.”
Mrs. Macready had dimples just like her daughter’s, ‘cept thirty years older. “Maybe hearing she spent all day Saturday talking about you will take the sting out. You made an impression, Private Muldoon. I might not have believed her when she said you were very handsome, but I’ll have to apologize for that.”
“Aw, nobody who’s played as much ball as me can be all that good-looking, ma’am. Got my nose broke a couple times.”
“It lends you character. Though from what Anne said you might have plenty of that already.”
“Well, thanks.” I caught up to what she was saying and my eyebrows went together. “’bout being hands
ome, I mean. I ain’t sure about having so much character. Would you have a number I could call her at, Mrs. Macready? I shoulda asked her myself, but she kinda…got the upper hand somewhere along the way an’ I never got it back.”
Mrs. Macready took a slip of paper out of her pocket, handed it to me, and said, “You might as well get used to that, Private Muldoon. That’s her number. She asked me to give it to you if you came by.”
I opened the paper an’ memorized the number there in a heartbeat, all the while trying not to look like a kid at Christmas. “Thank you, ma’am. And if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, I hope to see you again soon.”
“I hope so too, Private Muldoon. My oldest boy is living in Europe now, and the younger one got married to a girl from New Jersey.” She shook her head like she didn’t know how that had happened. “It would be nice to see another man around the house.”
“If it ain’t intruding…there’s no Mr. Macready?”
“Oh, there is.” She said it kinda airy and light with a steel belt running below, an’ I thought maybe Annie’s apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I also thought I knew when to not ask any more questions, nodded like I understood, an’ kept my damned mouth shut, even when a cold touch ran up the back of my neck. Something seemed wrong about her answer, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Anyway, Mrs. Macready got a crinkly-eyed look like I’d done good, and brushed her hands on her skirt again. “Care to come in for a glass of lemonade, Private Muldoon?”
I was done being a fool. “I’d love to, ma’am.”
The inside of the Macready house wasn’t as plain as the outside. Tidy rooms and regular furniture, but the pictures on the walls were something else. I stopped to look at one, a painted waterfall with gold mist risin’ up in the shape of some kinda bird, and smiled. “Looks like magic. Somewhere you’ve been?”
“I’m not certain I’d want to visit somewhere that birds were made of mist and born out of waterfalls. My husband did that painting, and all the others. He’s very artistic. The children inherited my pragmatic streak.” She guided me into the kitchen without giving me much chance to see the other paintings, except the one that was on the wall in there. Like the waterfall, it was misty, but this one was all silvers an’ greys muting far-off greenery. There were horse riders heading away from the viewer, deeper into the painting. I got no sense of urgency from ‘em. They seemed content somehow, even though I couldn’t see any of their faces. The fella leading ‘em was on a big grey stallion, and a slender kid rode a yellow mare beside him. Most of the others were indistinct, but I could just about see the dents their horses’ hooves left in the shining soft misty path.
An icy shiver ran right down my spine, like somebody’d walked over my grave, and a whisper came up at the back of my mind: that ain’t right, it said. I knew Annie’s Pop. Nice fella, but nothing artsy about him. No way he did these paintings. Something ain’t right here. I shivered harder and shook my head, chasing the thought away.
Mrs. Macready glanced at the painting and shook her head. “It does that to everyone, but somehow it’s my favorite. That’s why it’s in the kitchen, where I can see it. I’ve always thought it seemed like a path to Heaven, somehow. He calls it “The Road Home”.”
“Sure is leadin’ to another place. Peaceful, though, not like…” I stopped talking before I started suggesting her husband was painting pictures of Hell, an’ said, “I like it too,” instead. Mrs. Macready poured me some lemonade and we stood together studying the painting her husband had done. More I looked the more I saw, hints of more folks in the misty shadows, until it started to seem like I was riding with the hunters myself. After a while I gave myself another shake and stepped back. “Draws you in, doesn’t it?”
“It does. Anne’s favorite is one of ravens, but it’s in her bedroom, so I won’t show it to you. The boys have taken their favorites with them, of course. Do you do anything artistic, Private Muldoon?”
“Play the saxophone a bit,” I admitted. “That’s about it.”
Mrs. Macready said, “Anne likes music,” like it was asking about my prospects.
I started lining ‘em up in my mind, then quit when they seemed kinda bleak. The idea of dying in Korea wasn’t much more than somebody else’s nightmare, but any soldier signing up for service had to know someplace inside of him that he might not get out of it alive. That wasn’t somethin’ I wanted to think about, standin’ next to Annie Macready’s mother in their pretty kitchen. “Yeah? Guess I gotta try playing her a song or two, then. Maybe you’ll tell me what kinda flowers she likes, too.”
“Daisies. I tell her they’re a weed, but she says no, Mom, they’re resilient. They grow where nothing else wants to. She’s always thought that way. I expect it’s part of what’s driving her toward being a nurse. I worked during the war,” Mrs. Macready said thoughtfully. “I was happy to come home again, but I think it gave Anne ideas.”
“My Ma worked, too, but she wasn’t so happy to come home again. Guess it takes all types. Guess it gave me some ideas too, maybe.”
She lifted an eyebrow, inviting me to keep talking. “Well, it’s like this, ma’am. I’m in the military for the next four years, and I’m planning to finish college after that, on the GI bill. Way I see it, that’s six years a girl’s either gotta wait for me or move on. I sure like the idea of a girl who’s got enough of her own things going on that she could wait an’ move on at the same time.”
“And had you thought all of that out before you met Anne?”
“No, ma’am, but she’s sure got me thinking now. A guy’s gotta have somethin’ to pin his hopes on.”
She smiled an’ gave me a look that I thought prob’ly said Kids. Always in a hurry, but I couldn’t argue ‘bout it, either. It felt important to be chasing after Annie right now, like I might never get the chance again, an’ that my whole life might turn out different if I didn’t. So I thanked Mrs. Macready for the lemonade an’ bowed out, sayin, “Reckon I got a phone call to make, and some daisies to send.”
“I hope to see you again, Private Muldoon. It’s been a pleasure.” She walked me to the door, waved me down the drive, an’ I went back to the barracks to spend every last dime I’d made that week buying daisies.
Annie was wearing one in her hair when I saw her again on Saturday, an’ every time I saw her again for the next four months. At dances, at movies, for walks in the park, an’ if she wasn’t wearing one I found one for her. I reckon she talked more than I did during those walks, telling me about school and what she was learning, while all I had to talk about was guns and drills and being bored outta my head. Bored was all right, though, ‘cause bored meant I was still in Monterey and not shipping out to Korea. ‘sides, corny as it sounded, I couldn’t be that bored counting the hours ‘til I saw her again.
We knew it was coming before they announced it, ‘cause we saw the next leave window was five days long. Long enough for all the boys to head home an’ say their goodbyes and then get themselves back the post. Knowing it was coming didn’t make it a damned bit easier, and neither did Annie looking more beautiful than ever at the dance that night. There were names for alla the bits and pieces of her style, but I didn’t know ‘em. I just knew she was beautiful, an’ I was the luckiest guy in the world.
Lotta other guys thought so too, one after another of ‘em cutting in to ask her to dance. I mostly stood back and watched, a glass of punch in one hand and the other in my pocket, feeling the velvet box there while I watched my girl dance. She made ‘em all look good, an’ she smiled at me every time they turned her my way. Not much else to ask for, not as far as I was concerned.
The band finally took a break and Annie came back to me, pinks cheek from dancing so much. “I thought boys didn’t like seeing their girls dance with other men, but you’re over here smiling like you’ve got all day,” she said.
I looked at some of the other guys sulking around the edges of the dance floor and scowling when their girls came back, and laughed right out
loud. “Darlin’, if they’ve got that much to worry about, I guess I wouldn’t like it either, in their shoes.” I winked, then cast a big look toward the dance hall clock an’ came in closer to say, “Is your ma waiting up for you to come home at the stroke of midnight?”
Annie’s chin came up just like I knew it would, half-pretending and half meaning it when she sounded offended. “I’m nineteen years old, Private Muldoon, and in college. I can go home when I want.”
“Yeah.” I kept grinning at her. “I just like seeing you get all huffy. C’mon, sweetheart.” I took her hand and pulled her outta there, ducking between other couples and hurrying for the door. We were back at the Eagles Hall where we’d first met, just far enough out of the local neighborhood to let the party run late. Summer was fading out an’ the woods smelled dry and dusty. Annie shivered and I pulled my coat off to put it around her shoulders. She looked like a doll in it, dressed in clothes too big for her.
“I’m lost in here!” She sounded happy, and slipped her hands through the arms, rucking ‘em up until I found her fingers again.
“That’s whatcha get for leaving your coat inside. Mind you, I left mine inside the first night I metcha, and you didn’t lend me your coat.”
Annie laughed. “If I’d thought you’d wear it, I might have. You’d have looked…quite astonishing, I’m sure.”
“It woulda been a good color on me,” I said, solemn as I could. Annie flashed another smile and tucked my coat under her to sit when we found a bench looking back at the Eagles Club. I stayed on my feet, nervous all of a sudden, an’ she looked up at me with a frown starting between her eyebrows. I said, “They’re sending me to Korea,” fast as I could, before she could ask.
Her breath caught and she knotted her hands together, hiding ‘em in the sleeves of my jacket. She looked down at ‘em, biting her lip, then looked back at me. “When?”