But Bea also showed Bet as much affection, so she considered, it might just be her nature…and she probably missed her husband very much.
Ray wanted Bea to take a picture of her and Bet, showing off the engagement ring. Bet was happy, but tinges of sadness kept coming to her as she thought about Ray leaving.
They spent a great afternoon together. Bet asked Bea how she was handling Vern being in the Army. Bea told her it wasn’t always easy, but she did get letters from him, plus Jean kept her busy. She also told Bet how some of the Army wives and fiancées were planting victory gardens and making scrapbooks. She suggested Bet should chronicle her and Ray’s life together. Bet thought this was a wonderful idea, since they took a lot of pictures over the last couple years.
Bea gave Bet a picture of Vern he had sent from overseas, just so she would have one of him for her scrapbook. It was a silly picture of him doing a charge with his bayonet, in full uniform.
Right after leaving their visit, Bet and Ray felt a little hungry. They only had a small lunch of ham sandwiches with Beatrice and Jean, and that had been hours ago. They spotted a Chinese Restaurant on Irving Park Road called Orange Garden. Bet ordered Chop Suey and egg rolls. It was the first time she had ever had this type of food, but discovered she really liked it. Bet inspected the elements on her plate and wondered if she could also learn to make the dish.
On the way home, they chatted happily. “The Northside doesn’t look much different than our side, does it?” Bet noted.
“It’s a big city, we should go to a Cubs game sometime. Vern and Bea love the Chicago Cubs.”
“That would be fun,” she replied and continued looking out the car window. “I liked Bea’s suggestion of making a scrapbook. I’m going to do just that.
“That’s a good idea, hon,” said Ray. “We’ll take some more pictures before I leave, and I’ll send some home from over there.”
Bet echoed his last words to herself. “Over there.”
CHAPTER TEN
Chicago, Present Day
I started an Excel spreadsheet, listing everything I knew, or thought I knew, about Ray and Bet. She was still every bit a mystery to me as ever. Plus I don’t know what actually happened to my great-uncle Raymond. I wished mom had been here for her opinion. She had known him. As far as I would ever know, Bet disappeared after probably giving the scrapbook to my mom’s other uncle, Vernon. My family had completely lost contact with her, so I was no closer to finding out who she was, much less what could have happened to her.
The spreadsheet contained the location of the Fairfield Beauty Salon, the theaters they went to, the Army Show, the Railsplitters, and perhaps her apartment. I had dates and names, plus info on James and Harriet. I listed details from my dream separately, but it was all in there. I decided I would keep going until I ran into a corner or hit a dead end. I made notes about the commentary in the scrapbook, such as Bet calling herself the Legs Champion in Italian or that they had gone together for two and a half years before becoming engaged.
In one of the last photos in the book, there was a picture of Bet looking as if she was praying, with her head down. She captioned it in a confusing way. ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’ I then discovered through the internet, it was a popular hit song from 1942 through ‘43. I listened to it on Bing video. A song like that would never be popular today, the way it glorified war, but World War II was another time and the attitudes of the people were different. It went in my spreadsheet.
That evening we had planned to celebrate Megan’s birthday. She was difficult to buy presents for. She didn’t like to receive just things. I thought she might like a piece of jewelry, but she always wore the same necklace and ring. I believe she said she had gotten them from her grandmother. So I boxed, wrapped, and placed bows on two items I knew she would like. The gift of my time in the form of two box-seat Cubs tickets and a spare key to my condo. We had talked about this before. In her mind it would indicate and cement the fact that we were in a committed relationship. It would show trust on my part and allow her to trust me as well. I was proud of myself. The truth was, I did trust her. I also thought I was falling in love with her. The very thought scared me when I first had it. I’d never been in love before. I never needed a woman to love me, either. I really didn’t know what love was. But when I found myself thinking about her all day long, wishing she was there when she wasn’t, and wanting nothing more than to spend time with her, I felt, maybe that was love.
I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure though and I proceeded with caution. The one element about myself that bothered me was that I still wished Megan was more like Bet. Yet, what did I really know about Bet? I had a three year slice of a young woman’s life through pictures and captions. Yet something about her transcended that scrapbook and spoke to me. If my great-uncle Ray had indeed run off with a French girl and left Bet, I would forever feel anger towards him.
Megan didn’t care what sort of food I picked for her birthday dinner. Her only request was for it to not be a fancy restaurant. She wanted something local, yet small and intimate. Someplace she could wear jeans to, and be herself. I chose a place I had been to before, but Megan had not tried. It was a small Chinese restaurant over on the Irving, Damen, and Lincoln six-corners. It was called Orange Garden and it had been there since 1926. It has three claim-to-fame statistics as being the oldest in Chicago. It is the oldest Chinese restaurant in the city, the oldest carry-out restaurant, and sports the oldest neon sign in Chicago which was installed in the 1940s. The sign has the words Chop Suey larger than the name of the restaurant. I’m not sure what made me think of it, but whatever it was, the draw was strong.
When we actually got there, I also had a solid Ray and Bet vibe. But it didn’t make sense to me because I knew they lived on the city’s south side. But I really felt there was a connection to them here. It was the same feeling I got about the upper apartment above the night club. There was no logic to it, just a feeling.
Orange Garden had by far the best egg rolls found anywhere. They were perfectly fried to a golden crisp. The peanut oil could actually be tasted. They were so good, we ordered a second roll each. Usually I order more fanciful Chinese cuisine, but for reasons unknown to me, I wanted plain old beef chop suey. Maybe it had something to do with Megan’s unassuming nature, or perhaps I was just feeling nostalgic. In any event, the chop suey is what the internet now refers to as Chicago-style chop suey. I’m not sure how that differs from other cities with Chinese population, such as New York or San Francisco, but apparently it’s made a certain way here in Chicago.
“Kenny, thanks for bringing me here. This is perfect,” she said.
“Glad you like it. When would you like to open your presents?”
Her eyes got big and she looked cute. “Now, please.”
I handed her the box with the Cubs tickets first. She was thrilled about them. But I later found out, she would have preferred bleacher seats. Like I said, she was unassuming.
I handed her the second box. “Here, this one is just a little something extra. Nothing big.”
At first she looked puzzled as she stared down at the key laying in the box on a cotton lining. But then the reality must have struck her. “Is this…?” She leaped out of her chair and threw her arms around me. The other patrons must have thought I proposed to her.
The waiter asked that very question.
“No,” I answered. “She just likes her birthday present.”
There is a great custom in Chicago. When a restaurant brings a dessert for a person’s birthday and they sing to you, the entire restaurant sings as well and then claps. As soon as you leave the city limits for the suburbs, the custom fades. The Chinese wait staff singing the happy birthday song to Megan reminded us of the holiday songs sung in the movie, A Christmas Story. I imagined the restaurant doing this every year since 1926.
We went home and topped off the evening with some wine.
Megan walked up behind me and put her a
rms around me. “You made my birthday perfect. This is just the night I had in mind. Thank you, baby.”
“I’ll say this much, I replied. “You make it easy on a guy.”
Megan went and sat down at my computer desk. When she maneuvered the mouse, the screen opened up to my spreadsheet, which I still had opened. She read it from start to finish.
“This is a good idea,” she said. “You forgot to mention them holding Rhinegold beer.”
“Oh, good point,” I said, but she typed it in as I was speaking.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Let me see the scrapbook.”
She opened the engagement page and looked at it intensely. She then found the Legs Champion page.
“Honey… I believe Bet gave us her name. It’s here in the scrapbook.”
“What?” I questioned. “No way!”
“Remember the clue with their initials in the hearts?”
“Sure,” I answered. “RS and BC, it’s in my spreadsheet.”
“Kenny, baby,” she pointed at the caption. “This is her name. She isn’t saying she’s the Legs Champion in Italian. Her name is Campioni. BC, Bet Campioni. We might be able to find her now.”
My mouth dropped so far down, I thought my jaw would disengage.
****
December 20, 1942
Bet knew this would be the last Sunday she and Ray would spend together for a long while. The Army didn’t care that in five days it would be Christmas, much less Ray’s twenty first birthday. She felt extreme sadness, but tried her best to keep a happy face on for Ray.
Bet asked Ray to accompany her, her mom, and Kat to church that morning. There had been a good sized snowfall overnight and the wind turned cold. After church they decided to capture the moment with some photos. Bet laughed as Ray took off his coat and rolled up the sleeves on his white shirt. He stood in four inches of snow for a picture.
“Are you a polar bear, Ray?” Bet asked. “You’ll catch your death.”
“Come on, let’s have a snowball fight,” he replied as he reached down into the fluffy white mass.
“Have you lost your mind? I have my good clothes on,” she said as she ducked into the recess of the beauty salon and stood with her mom and Kat.
“I won’t throw it at you,” Ray said. He then threw it straight up in the air and pretended to hit it with an invisible baseball bat.
“I’m going inside,” Frieda said. “It’s too cold out here.”
“Hold on a minute, y’all look so nice, let me take your picture.” Ray held the camera to his abdomen and framed the three in his viewfinder. “There.”
Bet and Ray said goodbye to her mom and started walking towards the car. Bet watched as their breath rose like wisps of steam into the air. She snuggled in close. All of a sudden she spotted something and turned to look at it intensely.
“What is it, darling?”
“I don’t know. I thought someone….” She stopped. “Oh, never mind, it’s nothing.”
She snuggled back into Ray’s arm. “So tell me again where you have to report to next week.”
“Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, for basic training,” he said. “I just can’t seem to get away from the south.”
“Well, come this summer, you will have no problem working in the heat,” she replied.
He laughed. “Hon, after working in that coal mine, nothing can be as bad.”
At the end of the evening, Bet only wanted to sit with Ray in his car. She made him turn off the engine, as she knew he only had an A Card for gas rationing. They snuggled close to stay warm, occasionally kissing and holding each other’s hands. The sadness she felt was starting to overcome her and she cried in his arms. When she pulled away to look at him, she noticed he also had tears in his eyes.
“My darling, Bet, I don’t think I’ll ever miss a person as much as I’ll miss you,” he whispered with his voice cracking. “Please don’t forget me.”
Bet immediately went into her role as a care-giver and wiped the tears from his face with her hand.
“Just know this,” she started, “I’ll be here when you come back. I won’t be with any other fellas, I promise. I will stay busy working on our scrapbook. Believe me, darling, I’ll keep my promise.”
“That’s swell. That promise will keep me going,” he replied.
“And…what about you?” she asked. “Will you be flirting with European girls, with your bright eyes and adorable smile?”
“No, I mean, yes, I promise as well. I’ll be true,” he responded. “And I’ll write you as much as they will allow.”
“Good! Speaking of the scrapbook, I just got the pictures back from the camera shop. They were the ones we took with Beatrice and Jean. I had them develop a few extra of this one.” She dug in her purse. “I thought it came out well. It’s the one where we were showing off our engagement ring. You can’t really see the ring, but it’s a good photo of the two of us. I want you to take this one with you.”
“I love it,” he said. “I will carry this photo with me everywhere I go.”
When she was finally able to tear away from Ray’s arms, Bet went upstairs to her bedroom and cried herself to sleep. She knew James would be driving Ray down to Union Station early in the morning, so that would be the last time they saw each other. Ray made her promise to not show up at the station, because he said it would be too painful to have to say goodbye to her twice. But he did promise to write her and she held fast to that thought.
****
The next day she bundled up Kat and went to Woolworth’s Five and Dime store to shop for a scrapbook. The ones they had looked cheap, so they took an El train ride downtown to Marshall Fields on State Street. The saleslady urged her to pick a war themed scrapbook. She said that would be fitting for a soldier. She picked one that was leather bound with an embossed American eagle and war machinery such as a tank, battleship, cannon, planes and a zeppelin. On the perimeter was a bright gold-toned stars and ribbon pattern. It had black pages and was bound with a cord. The saleslady also encouraged Bet to purchase a bag of picture tabs and a white ink pen. The price was more than Bet had anticipated, but she wanted something nice to honor her soldier fiancé…the first and only love of her young life.
When she got home, she had to start dinner, but afterwards, she went to her desk and opened the scrapbook. The black of the first blank page matched her mood, but as she started drawing the first letter of Ray’s name with her white ink pen, her spirits began to lift.
She drew Ray’s name in large block letters and then her own. Ray and Bet. Then she lovingly drew a heart in the corner and used the corner tabs to place his picture inside. It was a small photo taken in a dime store photo booth. She added Cupid’s arrow through the heart. She looked at the page and was pleased with it.
She then took all the photos, which until then were placed in a shopping bag, and sorted them, oldest to newest. Bet could remember the dates of nearly every photo, just off the top of her head.
Over the weeks that followed, she became obsessed with the scrapbook. It made her feel closer to Ray somehow. She would caption the picture with a date and also what it looked like was happening in the photo. On the second page she pasted miscellaneous pictures from 1941, such as Ray with a hat and pipe looking thoughtfully off to the side. Beneath it, she wrote, ‘I WONDER.’ The next picture was one of her in sunglasses with one hand on her hip. She added the caption, ‘WELL I NEVER--!!’
She even laughed at her own wit, when she found a picture of Ray without a shirt, sitting on the bumper of a car. She did not take this photo, he gave it to her early on. She captioned it, ‘TELL ME WHAT IT IS AND I’LL TELL YOU WHAT TO FEED IT!’
****
Union Station, Chicago
December 21, 1942
James walked Ray to the terminal.
“You know, brother,” James said in a hushed tone, “I wish it was me going instead of you. I know you are a grown man, but you still seem like my kid brother.”
�
�You and I don’t always see eye to eye,” Ray replied, “but it’s been great knowing you for the last couple of years. Thanks for letting me stay with you and Harriet.”
“It’s been a real pleasure.” James suddenly had to stop walking to cough.
“Hey,” said Ray. “Check in on my Bet once in a while. She’s the love of my life, you know.”
“I knew that the moment you laid eyes on her, Raymond.”
The Old Scrapbook Page 8