Nothing but a Smile

by Steve Amick

  ALSO BY STEVE AMICK

  The Lake, the River & the Other Lake

  For Sharyl, gorgeous and smart

  And in memory of

  Don Burau (1935–2007),

  commercial illustrator, Chicago ad man,

  amateur boxer, artist, father-in-law

  Prologue

  She knew what they were doing in the house. She wasn't that far gone. She even knew who they were, more or less. The strapping one with the Kirk Douglas chin and a T-shirt that said his name was Earl, though she was fairly certain it was not, was her grandson, Billy's kid. The one sorting through her silverware and boxing up the kitchen was the grandson's wife, what's-her-name. They were there to help her pack up the house, to move her to a facility of some kind.

  And she wouldn't have fought them on this, even if she could get the names right. The fact was, she'd been unable to negotiate the stairs since the gladiolas, and here the leaves were turning on the sugar maple out back. So it was fine—why hang on to a place where she could only use one floor?

  It had been even longer since she'd ventured beyond the upstairs, to the attic and its pull-down set of steps. But she knew that's where they'd found themselves now by the muffled distance of the voices of the grandson and his helpers and friends—the people Billy had enlisted long distance to help pack it all away. She could tell by the creaking hinge of the stairs, though she hadn't heard it in years, and she could tell, mostly, by the rise in their voices, the near yelp of surprise and discovery.

  Now she'd have to explain about the trunk.

  He didn't come right out and describe what he'd found—the equipment and back issues, the grease-penciled contact sheets and crumbly negatives in their tidy tin sarcophagi—but it was clear from the way he kicked at the foyer rug they had yet to roll up, and the way he tried to dismiss it as “some old junk in the attic, probably Grampa's,” that they were planning to pitch it. Or maybe sell it on the computer. But either way, dispose of it, and that wouldn't do.

  “It's not your grampa's,” she told him, making sure to hold her chin level, keep his restless gaze fixed. “Or anyway, it's mine as well, just as much.”

  1

  On a warm June day in 1944, Wink Dutton, known most recently to the U.S. Army as Staff Sergeant Winton S. Dutton, special correspondent and burgeoning cartoonist and illustrator, stepped out onto the streets of Chicago in his civvies. In his pocket, he had seventeen dollars, the address of his buddy's camera shop, a short list of publishers and advertising agencies, and the Purple Heart awarded to him for misunderstanding an ensign's instructions regarding a flywheel aboard a sub he was supposed to be working up a piece on for the pages of Yank magazine.

  The ensign had probably told him more than clearly to “Keep your finger out of this here,” but given the effects of a bottle of peach brandy the night before—a gift from a grateful quartermaster colonel for the boldly rugged rendering he'd done of him to accompany an article about fruitcake distribution and Christmas morale—the submarine tour seemed more like a cacophony of alarms, whistles, bells, and bellowing. He couldn't think of a worse post-brandy story than, possibly, covering a riveter's competition at a shipyard. Between the banging in his head and the banging in the tin can that was the USS _____________ (name censored for military secrecy), the only message he was able to receive was “Be sure to touch this flywheel I'm pointing to.”

  He didn't actually lose the hand, just proper use of the middle finger down to the pinky, plus the tip of the middle finger, right where he rested his pencils, pens, and paintbrushes.

  “It's the fuck finger and then some,” the navy doctor informed him. “You can still pinch, of course.”

  “Great,” he'd told him. “I'll put in for a transfer to the Pinching Brigade. I'll get right on that.”

  Before Wink shipped out of Townsville, Queensland, Sergeant Bill Chesterton, known to his fellow correspondents and poker players as Chesty, stopped by to say good-bye and good luck—and since Wink was planning on heading to Chicago, could he check in on his wife, Sal, and tell her he loved her still and was still being true?

  “Absolutely,” he told him, and resisted horsing around with any cheap jokes—offering to do more than that for him or doubt the man's statement of fidelity. It was the sort of thing guys did, the way they kidded, but personally, he thought it was a little too mean and a little too easy. And a little too close to the sort of demoralizing crap guys could hear plenty just by dialing in Tokyo Rose on the radio.

  Besides, he counted himself lucky for having no such serious attachments—either back in the States or in the Pacific theater—and it was only this luck, he knew, that kept him from being such a vulnerable, miserable, hang-faced slob.

  He made four stabs at the job search that first day in Chicago. All three interviewers were respectful and very complimentary of his portfolio. The two that seemed at least on the ball enough to assess his new situation—that he wouldn't be able to illustrate or cartoon anymore and that the third thing he did, marginally well, writing copy, was also limited as he had yet to relearn how to write with the other hand, and it left his typing appallingly more hunt-and-peck—nevertheless agreed that he would still make a great art director. Unfortunately, neither one currently had any art director positions available. At one of the four stops, an ad agency that was doing a lot of promotional poster work for the bond drive, he was told they might be needing a new stock boy in the art department soon, but that wouldn't happen for another month and only if the husband of the girl currently holding the job got shipped stateside, in which case they imagined she would most likely want to quit work and return to taking care of her home. It hardly sounded like a long shot.

  And say it worked out—what was the jackpot? Counting gum erasers and reordering Berol pads in a windowless supply room? Filling out endless ration forms just to order the stuff? Bearing the abuse and demands of actual illustrators and art directors, whose job he should have? Fun.

  No, at this rate, he was likely going to have to head home to Michigan, maybe help out at his uncle's farm in St. Johns till he could retrain himself as a lefty.

  So it was with a sense of defeat and lean prospects that he sought out a room at a walk-up hotel he'd gotten off a list from the VA. Jobs aside, he didn't even feel that upbeat about the chance of scrounging a good meal. It was almost five. Chow time wasn't that far off, and checking in had already put him down another buck fifty.

  After hanging his one extra shirt on the hook on his door, he lay back on the clangy little bed—no worse than Government Issue, but he'd grown used to the nonreg hammocks and hooch pads of the South Pacific. He tried to lie cadaver straight, not wanting to wrinkle his suit for the job hunt ahead, and stared out the window at a billboard across the street. Of course, it was imploring him to buy U.S. bonds.

  “Sure thing, Unc,” he said to himself. “First nickel I earn.”

  He wished he at least had a book to read. Maybe, with a book, he could distract himself enough to stay in the room all night and skip going out and wasting what little coin he had in his pocket tying one on. Maybe if it were a really engaging read, he could manage to distract himself enough to skip dinner, too.

  Already he was thinking what places there were to eat around the hotel and how much it would put him out.

  He realized then that he was on Adams. Chesty's camera shop was on Adams, the number not far off from his hotel address. He figured he might as well go look up the guy's wife and check that errand off the list.

  2

  She'd been keeping it from Chesty, but the camera shop just wasn't making it. It hadn't done well before Pearl, during the Depression, but with the war on now, folks' loose money had other practical purposes than camera equipment o
r even getting film developed. Occasionally, someone brought in their old Brownie to be repaired, and there were ardent hobbyists who simply had to splurge, but for the most part, the shop was a leaky boat, losing money every month her husband had been away.

  Sal tried to make up the difference as best she could moonlighting at the Trib as a darkroom tech. She'd spoken to an editor about picking up an assignment as a photographer. He was an admirer of Chesty's and so wasn't overtly rude about it, but did say, “We're not quite there yet, Sal.”

  He offered to put in a word for her in the secretarial pool, but she told him she couldn't type. It wasn't true—she'd earned As in typing class two straight years in high school—but it hadn't come down to being a secretary yet. Doing that would mean full-time, daytime hours, hence closing the shop. We're not quite there yet, she thought.

  One of the other possibilities she hadn't fully explored was something she found in the back of the photography magazines they sold at the shop—small ads, phrased with discretion, asking for girlie photos. Typically, they said things like:

  WE BUY ART PHOTOS

  $$$ paid for QUALITY pics

  With Male Appeal

  Life Study • Naturist • Sun Worship

  For publishing/mass market

  Very Reasonable Offers

  She'd gone as far as writing a few of them—queries only, with only two or three photos enclosed—asking for a little more guidance in terms of subject matter.

  She thought she had a pretty good idea what they were driving at.

  The photos she enclosed she shot herself, as samples. To make sure they didn't just steal them and reproduce them— though it would be hard to do, grainy and raw looking, shooting from the print, not the negative—she'd further stymied them in any potential attempt to steal the shots by running a big X across the face in each with a grease pencil.

  The face, of course, was her face. She'd decided to pose for these practice shots herself, using a timer gizmo of her husband's own devising. No sense going to the trouble of hunting up subjects and shelling out a modeling fee for something she wasn't sure could even turn a profit.

  In the first, she was standing behind a wingback chair, her breasts resting on the back of it, peeking over the top. She didn't enjoy the look of her large nipples in that one. They seemed to be staring back at the camera like the wide eyes of an owl.

  The second was her sitting in the chair, legs tucked up under her chin, her arms wrapped around the whole business, hiding her goodies as best she could. Expressionwise, she'd been trying for coy and coquettish, but she looked, she thought, more like she had some sort of intestinal issues, maybe an ulcer or just really bad heartburn.

  The third, she just lay on her tummy on a towel on the floor, at a right angle to the camera, her chin propped up on her hands, her head tipped slightly in the direction of the tripod. To her, her grin seemed pasted on, but it was x-ed out, anyway, and besides, these were just test shots.

  After practicing a manlier hand, she signed the queries S. Dean Chesterton. It was her name, after all—Dean was her maiden name—but she wasn't surprised when one of the replies began with Dear Dean.

  Two things did surprise her: they offered up no criticism of her composition and lighting. She knew she didn't have Chesty's eye, but they'd failed to mention these flaws. And the second surprise was she'd shown too much skin:

  Today's wartime pinups are running a tad more conservative, Dean. Ease up on the flesh.

  We want to show the boys in uniform what they're fighting for, but the USO does not like dispensing anything that might get them thinking the girls back home are too sexed up & easy & begging for it.

  More girl-next-door brunette is big right now–less blonde bombshell. Long leg shots. Think mild distraction, Dean. (Just enough to get the boys hot, not enough to get them worried and going AWOL!)

  And speaking of uniforms, may we suggest that's a great way to dress up your model. Half a sailor's tunic, maybe an aviator's cap, cocked at a flirty angle. Get the girls saluting, waving flags, straddling cannons–that sort of thing.

  Another, hand scribbled, just said:

  Think “home fires burning,” Mac—not “my pussy's on fire.” Maybe next time.

  This last had Sal a little taken aback—no one had ever used that word in addressing her before. Even if it was only written and not spoken out loud, it was a little jarring. Besides, she hadn't shown her pussy, for Pete's sake. Merely her bottom and her legs and her bosom, especially in that one that came off as an owl impression.

  All the responses said the grease pencil Xs were unnecessary, that they were legitimate brokers and not in the business of using any photographer's work without legal authority and complete monetary compensation.

  Legitimate, she thought. Right.

  She'd have to give it a little more consideration before proceeding.

  3

  At first he thought he'd arrived after closing and everyone had gone home for the day, but when he stopped to scribble a note and was about to slide it into the mail slot, he caught a glimpse of something stirring in the back. There was someone in there, after all, a short blonde moving along behind the counter. Her eye caught his through the glass, and she seemed to be frowning slightly, perhaps wondering what the hell he was doing stooped over in the doorway of her shop, and so he tried the door finally, and sure enough, it shuddered open with a jangle of the shop bell.

  In little subtle ways, he was finding his mind wasn't quite his own anymore, this first week back stateside. They'd warned him at the VA this would be the case, and so far, it had been true— nothing huge or fantastic, but readjusting could play tricks on a guy suddenly thrown back in with the civilians. And so it was that for one foggy moment, despite knowing Chesty, despite having held the man's forehead once when he needed to puke his guts out into some jungle plant behind a Quonset PX, despite knowing full well that the man's nickname was a shortening of his last, in the moment Wink spotted this woman behind the counter, in the no-nonsense Kate Hepburn–style trouser suit that nonetheless failed to disguise her physical assets—she was, in fact, somewhat busty, “chesty”—so it was that for that second of confusion, he had it in his mind that this was the Chesty referred to, in the dusty chalkboard sign in the front window that touted CHESTY'S AMAZING SPECIALS.

  And then the confusion passed, and he flushed with embarrassment, thinking of the real Chesty, stuck back in the Pacific somewhere—the stand-up guy so concerned about his wife. Wink busied himself removing his hat—Steady on, soldier—and composed himself quickly.

  She had eyes, in fact, like his very own mother's—green and wise and sharply alive, shrewd eyes—and he focused on them instead and told himself, Her name is Sal … Or Mrs. Chesterton … Or ma'am … and told her who he was and why he was there.

  4

  She recognized his name, she thought, from some of her husband's letters, but definitely from Yank and Stars and Stripes. She liked his sarcastic cartoons, in particular. And the straight stuff was impressive and sometimes moving—the man could draw.

  But it took a moment to put it all together, since he was out of uniform. She thought that a little odd, if he'd just been discharged. Also, he shook hands with his left, which for a second she took as some genteel deferment to her being a gal, but quickly caught on that his right was game. It wasn't wrapped or in a sling, but it did appear a little twisted.

  He told her Chesty hadn't had time to compose a letter for him to bring along, but her husband wanted him to personally convey that he was just fine, still in one piece, and that he missed her—according to this man—”something awful.”

  Sal surmised the phrase was his own. It didn't feel quite like her husband. The sentiment, sure. That was Chesty, all right.

  Most days, she got along fine—chin high, no tears, eyes on the task at hand—but standing there talking about him now kind of tugged at her heart. And the fact that his friend here, Sergeant Dut-ton, stood roughly the same height—t
he same lanky, easy frame— made it tug even harder. She got the same way, a little, whenever she came across a picture of Jimmy Stewart in a photo magazine.

  Her visitor seemed concerned that she really understand that her husband had zero time to pen a letter, that Chesty had run out in a jeep just to see him off—some sort of gangplank farewell, she imagined—and there was no reason to doubt this. But the man went on to tell her about some coconut he'd lost.

  “We've got about thirty seconds till I have to board, so Chesty, he runs over to this palm tree, shinnies up the thing, and picks a little round coconut. Cute, little, grapefruit-sized coconut, takes out his penknife and cuts an S in the bark—you know?”

  “Sure,” she said. “For Sal.”

  “Right, so I get on board and I had the thing till Honolulu and I don't know what happened, but it's all my fault. It must've gotten away from me there, I figure, but all I know is I didn't have it by California, and I just feel sick about the whole thing, ma'am.”

  She told him not to be silly, not to concern himself over such a thing.

  “Yeah, but I wanted you to know, on account of it's practically like I lost a personal love letter. I mean, it's sort of the same as him sending you that kind of a letter.”

  Sal just smiled and nodded, liking the story, even though (a) Chesty never carried a penknife since once pricking his privates through his trouser pocket as a young boy and (b) Chesty disliked the taste of coconut, even in her famous ranger cookie recipe, and (c) he was no climber. He almost got dizzy going up one flight to their apartment, and he'd failed the climbing part of every obstacle course in boot camp and would have been classified 4-F if they hadn't wanted his photography skills.

  She didn't doubt the visitor had once had a small coconut with an S on it. If he were making the entire thing up, he'd just make up an imaginary lost letter and be done with it. So, logically, he probably was, for a time, in possession of an actual coconut. He'd probably even carved the S on it. But it had to have been an afterthought, after he'd said good-bye to Chesty. He'd no doubt picked it up along the way, maybe while laid over in Hawaii.