Cold War on Maplewood Street

by Gayle Rosengren

  She read until Mom called her to supper. They were eating early so Joanna would have time to get ready for the party.

  The doorbell rang just as they were clearing the table.

  Joanna headed for the door while Dixie raced ahead of her, barking as ferociously as a dog ten times her size.

  Joanna peered through the curtain on the front door. “It’s Pamela! Hush, Dixie.” She flipped the lock and swung open the door. “Hi!”

  Pamela stepped inside and immediately bent down to pet Dixie, who was bouncing happily around her feet.

  Mom joined them. “You’re just in time to taste-test the cookies we made this afternoon, Pamela. We have to make sure they’re good enough to send to Sam, and I know you’re an expert when it comes to chocolate chip cookies.”

  Pamela straightened up and smiled. “Sure, Mrs. Maxwell. Bring ’em on.”

  They did, and Pamela pronounced them the best ever. But she only ate two. Usually she ate at least four or five. Joanna guessed that her stomach might still be a little unsteady.

  Mom waved them both away after they carried their glasses to the sink. “Go. Have fun.”

  So they went to Joanna’s room, and Joanna was just about to tell Pamela the good news that she was going to the party after all, when Pamela grabbed her arm. “The reason I came down is to tell you something. Something I don’t want anyone else to know. Just you. You can tell your mom ’cause she’ll find out anyway. But nobody else, okay?” Pamela’s eyes were suddenly shiny and her lip was quivering.

  “Sure, Pamela,” Joanna said. “You know you can count on me to keep a secret.”

  Pamela nodded. “I know. But this is a big one.”

  “I won’t tell a soul,” Joanna promised. “Cross my heart.”

  “It’s something awful,” Pamela warned.

  “Awful,” Joanna repeated. She was starting to get scared. “Did something happen to your father?” She remembered how he’d been staring at the blank television. Maybe he really had lost his job or . . .

  Pamela shook her head. “It happened to all of us.” She licked her lips. “Mom is gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “To Paris,” Pamela said. “With Uncle Zach.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Poor Pamela!

  PAMELA TRUDGED OVER TO THE BED AND SANK DOWN ON it heavily. “She never even said good-bye.”

  “When’s she coming back?”

  “That’s just it,” Pamela said sharply. “She’s not coming back. She’s staying.”

  Joanna heard herself gasp but she couldn’t help it. “You mean forever?”

  Pamela nodded miserably.

  “But why?”

  “She left a letter for Daddy. He only read Marie and me part of it. It was something about needing to paint—only being half alive here—which is crazy since she wasn’t painting anyway.” Pamela looked confused now, as well as miserable. “And she left a note for Marie and me. She said she was sorry for leaving so suddenly, but how we’re so grown up now, we don’t really need her like we used to. And we can come and spend summers in France with her and have wonderful times. And how she’s going to write and call, so we’ll hardly miss her at all.”

  Pamela raised her head, a half-hurt, half-bewildered expression on her face. “How can she say that?”

  Joanna shook her head. She was speechless.

  “Daddy blames it on the trouble with Cuba,” Pamela sniffled. “He says she’s frightened out of her mind and not thinking clearly.”

  “He’s probably right,” Joanna said quickly, hurrying to sit down beside her best friend. “Probably as soon as things settle down, she’ll come home again.”

  Pamela wiped her nose on the back of her hand and shook her head. “That’s what I said to Daddy last night—that maybe in a week or two Mom will come back—and it was like he went crazy, Joanna. He picked up the vase on the dining room table—the one with the flowers in it—and he threw it clear across the room! It hit the radiator and smashed into a million pieces. He shouted, ‘She’s never coming back. Not now!’ Then he went to his bedroom and slammed the door.”

  Pamela swallowed so hard, Joanna heard it and winced.

  “I guess he figures now that she’s finally in Paris, Mom will never want to leave,” Pamela finished.

  Joanna nodded automatically, but a thought tiptoed its way into her mind. What if Uncle Zach hadn’t been teasing—what if he really was still in love with Mrs. Waterman? And what if she’d started to fall in love with him again, too? What if she didn’t just leave to be an artist in Paris—which was plenty awful enough—what if she left to be with Uncle Zach?

  Joanna told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her, but she didn’t believe it. This time she thought she was right. She remembered that afternoon in the sunroom when Mrs. Waterman showed her the painting and how she’d looked at Uncle Zach and blushed. And how he’d looked at her. Then she remembered the quarrel the Watermans had that same night. Still . . . How could Mrs. Waterman have just left?

  Pamela let out a long, shuddery breath. “This afternoon Daddy packed up all Mom’s paints and canvases and clothes. He’s going to ship it all to Paris. And he’s giving the sunroom to Marie just like she wanted.”

  “I’m sorry, Pamela. Really, really sorry.” Joanna put her arm around Pamela’s shoulders and squeezed. She didn’t know what else to say. She only knew she would never tell Pamela her suspicions about Mrs. Waterman and Uncle Zach. That was one secret she would keep forever.

  “I hate her!” Pamela said in a strange, hard voice. “And I never want to see her again. Not even in France.”

  Joanna was silent. She remembered how hurt and angry she’d been at Sam when he left, and the horrible things she’d said to him.

  “It’s awful upstairs,” Pamela whispered. “Marie is nice to Daddy and hateful to me. And it’s like Daddy isn’t really there—like he’s gone, too.” Her shoulders slumped. A tear had dried on her cheek. “I hate to go back.”

  The solution seemed obvious to Joanna. “Don’t,” she suggested. “Spend the night with me. We’ll have a pajama party.” She bounced up from the bed.

  “Really?” Pamela brightened at once.

  Joanna poked her head through the doorway. “Mom? Pamela can spend the night, can’t she?”

  Mom’s “Of course” sounded a little surprised, and no wonder, since she thought Joanna was going to Sherry’s party, but Joanna turned back to Pamela with a “ta-da” flourish of her hands. “See? It’s party time. Go ask your dad and get your pajamas and toothbrush. We’ll watch the late movie and we’ll make popcorn and toast marshmallows, and eat chocolate chip cookies ’til we explode.”

  Pamela sprang up from the bed and threw her arms around Joanna. “What a great idea. You’re the best!” She hurried off.

  Joanna watched her go. She thought of Theo and his horse and sighed. Then she told Mom about Mrs. Waterman.

  “That poor child,” Mom murmured. “That poor family.” She got up from the sofa and kissed Joanna’s cheek. “It’s a nice thing you’re doing to stay home from your party to be with Pamela. I’m proud of you.” She wrapped her arms around Joanna in a hug.

  Joanna thought of Pamela and how long she might have to wait to hug her mother again.

  She hugged Mom back extra tight.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Scariest Day

  MOM SURPRISED JOANNA THE NEXT MORNING. SHE suggested they go to church even though it wasn’t Easter or Christmas. Joanna didn’t argue. The news that day was the scariest yet. A US plane had been shot down over Cuba.

  “Major Rudolf Anderson Jr., age thirty-five, of the United States Air Force, is missing in action after his unarmed reconnaissance aircraft was fired on yesterday by Cuban forces.”

  Joanna heard that news report over and over in her head as t
hey walked the two blocks to church. Pamela was with them. She didn’t seem in any hurry to go home, and Joanna didn’t blame her. She didn’t know if she’d ever want to go to Pamela’s apartment again. It used to be such a special and happy place. But Mrs. Waterman had ruined it just like Mr. Waterman ruined that vase, smashing it to pieces. All the good memories Joanna had of Mrs. Waterman were like smashed pieces, too, with sharp, hurting edges.

  Joanna felt almost guilty about going to church. It seemed to her that if you were only Christmas and Easter churchgoers, it was wrong to suddenly go on a regular Sunday just because you were scared. But Mom said she didn’t think God cared why you came to church, as long as you came.

  “It’s really crowded!” Pamela murmured as they walked through the doorway. And she was right. Even last Easter there hadn’t been so many people.

  The three of them squeezed into a pew near the back. But more people kept coming. First, they lined up around the side walls, and then in the back, until pretty soon the rows of men and women standing were two and three people deep. The little white church was filled to overflowing.

  Pastor Mike’s sermons tended to go on and on, and Joanna usually didn’t pay any closer attention to them than she did to Kennedy’s speeches. But that day he started out with a statement that really caught her attention: “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord!” He talked about how they were all supposed to forgive one another and have faith that God would do any punishing that was necessary. “Love, not vengeance, is our command,” Pastor Mike said. “And if all of us obeyed it, what a very different world this would be!”

  Joanna wished President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev and Fidel Castro could hear Pastor Mike. Then the US would end the quarantine, Russia would take back its missiles, and Cuba wouldn’t shoot down any more pilots. Everyone could go back to doing what they’d been doing before the crisis began. President Kennedy could play with his children and sign laws and give boring speeches again.

  He’d been right to stand up to Russia. Now Joanna was glad and proud that he was their president. But she was afraid the loss of that pilot—Major Anderson—might make Kennedy so angry, he’d think they had to fight back. She hoped somehow he would find a way to make things better instead of worse.

  Back at home, they changed from their church clothes and Mom cooked fried chicken and mashed potatoes. After they ate, she pulled out her typewriter and started practicing. Pamela and Joanna sat on the living room floor and played rummy. Pamela had just picked up the pile of discards for the third time in a row and Joanna had rolled onto the floor groaning when the doorbell rang.

  It was Marie, wearing a wobbly smile. When she saw Pamela, she reached out her hand and said, “I’m sorry, Pim-Pam. Can you forgive me?”

  Pamela threw herself into Marie’s arms and the two of them sniffled and hugged and finally laughed. “I need to go home now,” Pamela told Joanna.

  Joanna nodded. “See you tomorrow.”

  She closed the door and went back to the living room to gather up the cards scattered on the carpet, but her thoughts were whirling. So many things had changed in such a short space of time. Mrs. Waterman ran off with Uncle Zach. Mr. Waterman was smashing things. Marie was suddenly being a loving big sister. And that didn’t even count the changes that had happened to Joanna herself—forgiving Sam, confiding in Mom, and mustering up the courage to get to know Mrs. Strenge. So many different changes, yet all of them were results of the same event—the missile crisis.

  It was sort of like that story in Greek mythology that Mr. Egan had told them, where all the troubles of the world had been tucked away in a box until a girl—Pandora—opened the box and they came flying out.

  Not that there hadn’t been troubles in the world before the missile crisis, but somehow they hadn’t touched Joanna. Abruptly, she smacked the deck of cards onto the coffee table. She didn’t take the time to put them in their box. That could wait. She had to do something that couldn’t.

  She went to her room, opened her notebook, and took out her letter to Sam. She’d thought it was finished. But it wasn’t. Not yet.

  She smoothed the folded sheet of notebook paper and read what she had written. Shame swelled inside her. Almost every bit of the letter was about her and what she wanted. Even running away from school during the air-raid drill was because she wanted to be with Dixie at home. Maybe Frannie had thought she was brave to do it, but Joanna knew in her heart it had been cowardly, and she squirmed to read about it now.

  She pushed down the button on the top of her pen and began to write, slowly at first and then faster.

  PS I have some other news that Pamela told me I couldn’t tell anyone, but I’m sure she didn’t mean you. Her mother moved to Paris without even saying good-bye! She just left notes behind. She’s not coming back and Pamela is awfully sad. I always thought Pamela was so lucky, but I guess she’s not really. And I always thought Marie was so mean, but she’s not—not completely, anyway. And I’m not as brave as some people think, but maybe not as big a scaredy-cat as I’ve been thinking, either.

  It’s as if the missile crisis sort of shook people up—like bottles of soda—and all these surprising things that were inside all along, but you didn’t see, came bursting out. I’m sure Mrs. Waterman would never have left if it hadn’t been for the trouble with Cuba. And I might never have talked to Mom about how scared I really was, or realized what a nice lady Mrs. Strenge is. And it would have been a while yet before I broke down and wrote to you.

  The telephone rang and Joanna jumped. Her pen left a tiny squiggle behind on the paper. It was probably Grandma calling, she thought as she carefully turned the squiggle into a heart. But a second later Mom appeared in the doorway. “Joanna, phone for you.”

  For her? Pamela had only been home for half an hour. Did she want to come back already?

  Mom had a strange look on her face that made Joanna think that maybe it wasn’t Pamela on the phone after all. But who else would be calling her? She took the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” came a familiar voice.

  “Theo?” Joanna couldn’t believe it.

  “Have you heard the news?”

  “What news? Did something happen?” Her breath caught in her throat. Sam!

  “It’s over. The Russians are taking down their missile launchers.”

  “Ohmygosh!” Joanna’s knees started to fold. She grabbed onto the kitchen table just in time. “Mom—it’s over! The Russians are backing down!”

  Dixie, startled out of a nap under the table, jumped up and barked.

  Mom leaped up from the table with the most joyful, relieved look Joanna had ever seen. “Thank goodness!” she said. Then she covered her eyes with her hands and Joanna knew she was crying. Suddenly Joanna remembered Theo on the other end of the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Theo—I had to tell my mother. She’s so happy! It was really nice of you to call and tell us.”

  “I wanted to make sure you knew right away,” he said.

  “I can still hardly believe it!” Joanna was so happy she twirled around, wrapping herself in the phone cord.

  “Is that why you didn’t come to the party last night?” Theo asked. “Because you were worried about your brother?”

  “No. I was all set to go,” Joanna told him, twirling the other way to unwind herself. “But something awful happened to a friend of mine, and I thought I should stay with her.”

  “Too bad. About your friend, I mean.”

  “Was the party fun?”

  Theo laughed. “The best part was the homemade pizza.”

  “Joanna?” Mom whispered loudly.

  Joanna turned to look at her.

  “Honey, we should call Grandma and let her know . . .”

  “Oh, right.” Joanna nodded. “Theo? My mom wants to call my grandmother to tell her the good news. So I have to get off the phone . . .”
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  “Oh, okay. But can I just ask you one thing first?”

  “Sure—what?”

  “Do you like horses?”

  Laughter bubbled up inside of Joanna. She could barely hold it back. “I’m crazy about horses,” she managed to say.

  They hung up a few moments later. Mom gave Joanna an enormous hug. Then she dialed Grandma’s number.

  Joanna got her radio and snapped it on. So much was happening at once, she felt almost dizzy. In just a few minutes everything had changed.

  “. . . appears to be over. President Kennedy has received word from the Soviets that they will dismantle the launchers they brought to Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union . . . I repeat, the missile crisis in Cuba appears to be over. The Russians have agreed to . . .”

  The newscaster babbled on with more details, but Joanna had heard enough news that week to last her a good long time.

  She nudged the dial back to its old setting. Chris Montez was singing “Let’s Dance.” Ahhhh . . . perfect! She picked up Sam’s graduation photo and kissed it before bouncing back onto her bed, where she picked up her pen one more time.

  “The news just came that the crisis is over!” she added to her now very long letter. “I’m so happy. You’re safe! We’re all safe!” She added a trail of x’s across the page.

  Then she couldn’t be still another second. She sprang up from her bed, turned up the volume on her radio, and began to dance.

  Author’s Note

  I was twelve when President Kennedy made his somber speech announcing the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the beginning of the longest—and scariest—week of my childhood.

  I vividly remember how eerily quiet the school yard was the next morning and how the kids who actually came to school knotted together in small groups, quoting reassuring words they’d heard from their parents but unable to sound as if they entirely believed them. Their expressions were suddenly older and fearful in a way that went far beyond worry about an upcoming test or report card.