Charlotte had believed Mayor Reed about the reimbursements back then, but now Christmas was a few weeks away and Rosie’s family still hadn’t gotten their money back. But maybe it was just taking longer than they thought. “You just don’t get it,” Rosie had said, and Charlotte had stormed home and collapsed in a crying heap on her bed. At her age, Charlotte’s most important needs were having friends and fitting in, and if you weren’t a four-flusher, you had to work a little harder to get there.
Charlotte had recently been granted the honor of joining the Girls Athletic Association, which was a big deal for a sophomore; only four had achieved it this year. To qualify for the GAA you had to earn an established number of points by participating in extracurricular activities, and Charlotte had gone over-and-above to do it. Field hockey, swimming, softball, basketball, bowling. She was exhausted and extremely proud of herself. The successful members were announced over the school’s PA system by Miss Vickers, the gym teacher, and the smile that had cracked wide open across Charlotte’s face had remained plastered there until she’d walked through the front door of her house.
“So, you’re a joiner now, are you?” her mother had asked in the same tone of voice usually reserved for mocking the four-flushers, her hand fluttering to her heart.
Her dad had squeezed her shoulder affectionately, then ruffled her hair with a “Good for you, Lottie. Good for you.”
The GAA membership involved an initiation. One week where the girls had to do embarrassing things: approach boys in the hallway and sing songs to them, perform an Irish jig in front of a class, that sort of thing. During initiation week they couldn’t wear makeup to school. They had to wear crazy outfits: mismatched socks, plaids with stripes and florals, with crazy hairdos to match.
Charlotte’s mother had dropped her spatula on the kitchen floor at the sight of her daughter, crinolines worn over a plaid pencil skirt sticking out from her winter coat, pigtails sprouting all over one side of her head while the other side lay limp and un-hair-sprayed, and a face with no makeup, about to leave the house.
“Charlotte, get back in here right now.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes, but obediently stepped back inside the house and went to the kitchen.
“Where do you think you’re going, dressed like that?” Her mother was aghast as her gaze roved over the hairdo and the clothing.
“It’s part of the initiation.”
“You’re not leaving the house dressed like that.”
Normally Charlotte would have agreed with her. She looked like she was dressed up for Halloween, and a small part of her wanted to skip the whole thing and stay home. But there was a stronger feeling, one of pride pushing her in the other direction.
“I have to,” she countered. “It’s not optional.”
“Ohhh.” Her mother’s tone turned mocking. “It’s not optional. Optional? What it is, Charlotte, is ridiculous, and you’re not going anywhere in public looking like that!”
Charlotte looked desperately over her shoulder, hoping her dad hadn’t left for work yet. But he had. He was always, always working. As she turned back to face her mother she felt the frustration bubble to the surface. She already felt absurd in the clothing, with her pigtails swinging crazily every time she moved her head, and one foot in a penny loafer, the other in an oxford. But this was not optional for Charlotte. This was part of belonging to something important, and she was not going to miss out on any part of it just because her mother didn’t understand it. She might have meant to keep those thoughts private, but she heard herself speaking aloud.
“You don’t understand any of this because you’ve never been a part of anything like this!” she barked, startled by the sound of her voice, and before she could stop it, “You never even went to high school!”
The words hung in the air like smoke as Charlotte whipped around to walk back to the front door.
SMACK! Right in the back of the head.
The smack caused her to stumble, and when she righted herself she paused for the briefest of seconds out of sheer shock. But then she kept going, striding purposefully through the living room in her mismatched shoes, and out the front door. Tears burning in her eyes. It would be years before she’d recognize the fear behind her mother’s slap. The helpless panic Vivian felt as her young daughter pulled away and ahead of her, exceeding her in life. Tears would burn Charlotte’s eyes then, too.
Chapter 10
1938
The smoke from the neighbors’ burning leaf pile stung Vivian’s eyes just a little, as it hung in the air over the Daltons’ backyard on that cold evening just before Halloween. The upside, she thought to herself as the outhouse door banged shut behind her, is that it does cover up the smell. She glanced at the few trees that bordered the yard as she wrapped Edward’s overcoat back around her and shuffled quickly back to the house. They were still hanging on to their leaves, but, Yep, she thought, winter’s on its way. Winter with that outhouse was something Edward had heard earfuls about last year, that was certain. Vivian knew she was just a crisis or two away from getting him to move them back to Wooster.
Little Charlotte was sleeping in her crib in the bedroom while Edward and Vivian listened to The Chase and Sanborn Hour on the radio. They always listened to the program to hear Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, crack jokes. At exactly 8:12 p.m. there was a musical break in the program, and like he always did, Edward switched the radio dial from NBC to CBS to see what else was on.
“I don’t know why you can’t just enjoy the music until they come back on,” Vivian groused, knitting needles clicking as she made some red booties for Charlotte. She didn’t say it every time, but often enough that it got on Edward’s nerves.
He ignored her and turned up the volume:
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been handed a message that came in from Grover’s Mill by telephone. Just one moment, please. At least forty people, including six state troopers, lie dead in a field east of the village of Grover’s Mill, their bodies burned and distorted beyond all possible recognition.
“Jesus Christ,” Vivian said, pausing her clicking. “Six state troopers? Where is Grover’s Mill?”
Edward shushed her, waving his hand in a downward motion.
The announcement continued and Vivian and Edward stayed glued to the broadcast as several radio announcers described the horrifying attack unfolding at Grover’s Mill, which Edward finally whispered was “in New Jersey.”
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars. The battle which took place tonight at Grover’s Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known survivors. The rest strewn over the battle area from Grover’s Mill to Plainsboro, crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to cinders by its heat ray. The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey and has effectively cut the state through its center. Communication lines are down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean.
Edward and Vivian looked at each other. Edward hadn’t wanted to install a telephone in the house because of the expense, and the fact that he didn’t see the need.
“Well,” Vivian began slowly, trying to keep the panic from rising in her throat as she laid the knitting needles, yarn, and booties aside, “we can’t check the telephone to see if that is true because we don’t have a telephone. We won’t know if the lines are down.”
The threat suddenly seemed very real. They were just a couple of hours from New Jersey. Edward pushed up from his chair and swiftly made his way around the small house, locking the windows, yanking down the window shade
s, and then double-checking the locks on the front and back doors. Vivian had gone to the bedroom and gathered Charlotte up in her blanket, peeking at the tiny face to make sure nothing was wrong with her.
“Get to the cellar,” Edward ordered, before switching off the light in the living room, and following her down the steps. He went to the wall shelf of the chilly cellar where he kept some of his tools and the small portable radio. He switched the volume on and tuned the dial until the alert came in.
They spent the next twenty minutes silent and shivering in the dank cellar of the little house, listening to the developments of the Martian attack. Vivian sat rigidly on Edward’s wooden workbench, rocking Charlotte against her and anxiously bouncing a crossed leg while shooting hostile glares at Edward about the telephone.
As the broadcast blared on, the frantic tone of the announcer lessened and then there was a swell of music. Orson Welles introduced himself over the radio waves, his deep voice filling the damp cellar. The high-strung description of the attack had ended and now Orson Welles was talking about Halloween. Edward and Vivian stared at the little portable radio, confused, until they heard:
You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. The performance will continue after a brief intermission. This is the Columbia Broadcasting System.
“Oh!” Vivian and Edward exclaimed at the same time as they looked from the radio to each other, startled. Edward was the first to laugh. He was the only one to laugh. Vivian said, “Oh!” a few more times, and then, “Well . . .” Then Charlotte began to cry, and Vivian snapped. She marched straight over to the radio and switched it off in a violent motion.
“Well, of all the . . .” Vivian clutched the crying Charlotte to her as she stomped up the steps into the kitchen, with Edward trailing behind.
She marched to the middle of the living room and stood there not knowing what to do next, and bouncing Charlotte in an attempt to stop her crying. She could not believe they’d just spent all that time in the cellar fearing a Martian attack, when it was just a stupid story. It had sounded so real.
“Here.” Edward reached out his arms for the baby.
“I hate to be made a fool of!” Vivian spat while stubbornly clinging to the wailing bundle.
“Honey, come on, give her here.”
She huffed, pushed the baby into his arms, and stomped to the back door, unlocking it and flinging the door open for some fresh air. The smell of burning leaves still hung there as she looked up into the moonless sky, tapping her toe in irritation, almost daring a Martian spaceship to appear. She heard the snapping of twigs and froze in place, her eyes following the sound to the shrubbery that bordered the far corner of the yard.
“Edward.” It came out in a whisper. Her voice felt pushed down inside her chest, like something was pressing on it to keep it from escaping. Her fingers squeezed the doorknob and she took a deep breath.
“EDWARD!”
The shriek brought Edward running from the living room, clutching the still-crying Charlotte to his chest.
“There’s something out there in the bushes!” she hiss-whispered to him as he pulled her back into the house with his free arm. He handed Charlotte back to her, and then stepped over the threshold onto the back porch, and then a few more steps out into the yard, squinting at the area she had pointed to. He stood stock-still for a full minute, staring at the shrubbery. The bushes remained still, and the only sound to be heard was the chirping of a few late-season crickets.
“Viv.” He turned to face her. “It might be the Martians, so we’ll just keep the door closed and locked.”
Edward had rebounded from the earlier scare a lot quicker than Vivian had and she didn’t appreciate it one bit. She scowled at him as he walked back into the house, closed the door behind him, and shifted the lock into place.
“I know I saw something.”
He pulled her close to him and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” he sang.
“Yeah, you weren’t so brave when you thought the Martians were coming,” she muttered under her breath as she walked back to their bedroom to put Charlotte in her crib, where she instantly stopped crying. Vivian was secretly glad they’d both been fooled by the broadcast, because that was just the kind of thing he liked to tease her about. But, there you had it. Her husband was just as gullible as she was. As she sat on that thought, she considered it might not be such a good thing.
One hour later Vivian lay in bed, drifting off to sleep but then clutching the covers and jerking awake at every creak, groan, and pop she heard. Edward was sound asleep next to her, snoring away as usual. Gullible or not, he sure didn’t have a problem with worry keeping him awake. She snuggled her back up against his and thought about the Martians. After a few minutes she was snickering into her pillow.
When his alarm clock rang at four a.m., Vivian was already sitting in the rocking chair, holding the bottle steady in Charlotte’s little mouth. Edward rolled over to Vivian’s side of the bed and switched on the lamp, then rolled back, swung his legs out, and rose to his feet. He pulled on his socks and jodhpurs, then buttoned up his shirt and fastened his tie before shuffling into the living room in his slippers to turn on the radio. He’d gone four steps toward the kitchen to make his coffee when the emergency alert crackled from the radio’s speaker.
This time it wasn’t Orson Welles, and there was no mention of Martians. The Institution for Male Defective Delinquents had had a prison break. Three prisoners had unknowingly chosen the night of the Martian invasion to make their escape.
Inmates are at large. Local law enforcement urges residents to lock their homes and remain indoors until further notice.
Vivian heard every word of the alert, and now hissed in the direction of the kitchen over Charlotte’s now-sleeping head.
“Eddie! I told you something was out there!”
Edward frowned and went to the back door of the house, pulling the ruched gingham curtain aside to look out onto the yard. The sky was still dark and all he could see was that everything was still and covered in a light frost. He walked around the corner and into their bedroom.
Vivian jerked her head in the direction of the window overlooking the backyard. Edward looked out at the yard again. Just frost-covered lawn and the little yellow outhouse.
“You’re gonna have to use the pot again today.”
Vivian scowled and rocked in the chair. Civilized people shouldn’t be doing their business in a salad bowl. They’d both had to use the chamber pot last night before bedtime. Vivian, because she had no intention of leaving the security of the house, and Edward, because he claimed he didn’t want to leave her and the baby unattended. Vivian suspected that, in spite of his jolly singing and casual attitude, he’d been just as uneasy as she was. At least until he fell asleep.
“We,” she said in a low voice. “We are gonna have to use the chamber pot. You are not going to work today.”
“Honey, I have to go in.”
“And leave me and the baby here, when those criminals are loose?” Her low voice rose into a squeak.
“The windows are locked, the back door’s locked, and I’ll lock the front door on my way out. You’re safe as long as you stay inside.”
“What if they break a window?”
Edward sighed and wiped his palm across his forehead.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”
Vivian turned her head into her shoulder and tried to stifle a few sobs.
“Honey, I said I’ll stay.”
Tears spilled over Vivian’s cheeks and she sniffed a few times.
“I’m so tired, Edward. I’m just so goddamned tired.”
“I know, honey.” He took Charlotte from her and laid her in her crib.
“Edward,” she continued in a whisper, measuring her words evenly. “Our next house is going to have a bathroom.
”
“I promise,” he said, and made a crisscross over his heart with his index finger.
“A bathroom inside the house.”
“Of course, inside.”
“And a telephone,” she finished.
“And a telephone. You bet. Nothing is too good for my girls.” He leaned over and kissed Charlotte’s forehead. “You know, you’d feel safer if we could get that dog I was talking about.” He stepped back toward the rocking chair, took Vivian’s face in his hands, and planted a smack on her pursed lips.
“Edward, we’re not talking about the dog again. You know I’m allergic.”
“Whatever you say, dear,” he said, his tone signaling doubt. “Why don’t you get some rest?” He helped her out of the rocking chair and over to her side of the bed, pulling aside the rumpled covers.
He waited until she’d fallen asleep and then pulled on his leather boots. Which three? Edward’s pulse began to race as he looked out the front window, up and down the street, before stepping outside. Which three prisoners? He made sure to lock the door and then clicked the flashlight on and walked to the Ford, his boots crunching over the frost-covered grass. He swung the flashlight up and down and around the automobile as he circled, looking inside, outside, and then underneath. The neighborhood was still dark. Most of the neighbors had listened to The Chase and Sanborn Hour all the way through, musical interlude and all. They hadn’t bothered switching to check the other radio station, and so they missed the terrifying Martian invasion. They also spared themselves the near-heart-attacks and the tongue-lashings from their wives. They should put that damned Orson Welles in jail.
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