Lily's Crossing

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  “Go the long way,” he said, “around the trestle.”

  She knew Gram was waiting, broiling flounder, using the last dot of butter for little round potatoes, but she was so happy to be there with him, she didn’t say anything.

  She dipped the oars into the water, pulling slowly, evenly, watching him. He tipped his hat back and closed his eyes. “This is my favorite place,” he said. “It’s home, even though it’s only for the summer.”

  Lily nodded. Tomorrow they’d line up at the deep-sea fishing dock, to climb aboard the Mary L. before the sun came up. They’d fish all day, the boat smelling of kerosene and heat.

  Tomorrow night, she and Poppy would walk to the Cross Bay Theatre. He loved the movies too. It would be her fourth time for Fair Stood the Wind for France, first time paying. Then on Sunday, after Mass, they’d read, finish Evangeline or . . .

  “I have to tell you . . .” Poppy’s eyes were open now, blue with paler flecks of gray, his face suddenly serious.

  “The Dillons left for Detroit,” she said quickly. “Mr. Dillon’s going to be a foreman in a factory in charge of making planes. Top secret, Margaret says.”

  Poppy grinned. “It won’t be top secret for long, not if Margaret knows about it.”

  Lily swallowed, watching him smile.

  He reached out, put his hand on the oars. “I have to go too. I came tonight to tell you.”

  She didn’t look at him. “To a factory like the Dillons? When would we leave?”

  She looked out across the water, seeing him shake his head from the corner of her eye.

  “The army needs engineers,” Poppy said.

  For a moment she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. “Who’s going to take care of me?”

  “Gram,” he said. “Gram, of course.”

  Gram. She closed her mouth over the word, didn’t want to hear it. She and Gram all alone in St. Albans this winter, the wind rattling around the house.

  “Please,” she said, but she didn’t even know if she had said it aloud.

  Poppy put his hand over hers. “Listen. People are being killed just for disagreeing with the Nazis, or being Jewish.”

  “I’m sick of the war,” she said.

  “It’s going to be over someday,” he said, “now that the Allies have landed in France.”

  She shook her head. “It’ll take forever.”

  Poppy sighed. “There’s been nothing but destruction in this war, families separated, villages ruined, cathedrals bombed . . .”

  She opened her mouth, trying to think of something to say, something that would change his mind.

  “But right behind the armies will be people like me,” he said. “The engineers, the builders. We’re the ones who’ll help put Europe back together again.”

  “Where will you go? When . . .”

  He shook his head. “It could be anywhere. England, maybe, or Germany.”

  “I won’t even know where you are.”

  “Yes, you will,” he said.

  Lily shook her head. “Mrs. Colgan doesn’t know where her brother is. She said the censors cross everything out in the letters. She can’t even guess what country.”

  Poppy squeezed her hand. “That’s true. But I promise, I’ll find a way to let you know, somehow.”

  Gram was calling now. She could hear her voice across the water. “Jerry, Lily, hurry.”

  “I love you, Lily,” Poppy said. “I love you more than Rockaway. More than anything.”

  Lily edged the boat toward the dock. Gram was outside, her hand cupped over her eyes, watching for them.

  “What will Gram say?” Lily asked. “She won’t like it. She’ll hate it. I know she will.”

  Poppy moved his hand, held it over Lily’s wrist on the oar. “Gram knows.”

  Lily stared at him. “You told Gram first. You knew about it. Both of you keeping a secret . . . not telling me . . .”

  She shook his hand off her wrist, feeling tears hot in her eyes, a terrible burning in her throat, feeling angry enough to burst. She hated him, hated Gram.

  She started to row.

  “Lily,” her father began, then stopped.

  She nosed the boat in under the porch, banging hard into the piling. She must have chipped a piece of paint off the boat, a couple of pieces. She didn’t care, didn’t care about one thing.

  Poppy reached out to help her up, but she pulled away from him.

  Gram was standing at the edge of the ramp that led to the kitchen, smiling a little, looking anxious at the same time. “You told her? I thought you were going to wait until after—”

  “Mind your business,” Lily said, and said it again. The words came out of her mouth so fast, they ran together. Then she ran up the path, away from the house. She wanted to go back to the water, but she’d have to pass them. Instead she went along the road, running on the tar, which was gluey from today’s sun. She saw Albert and veered away from him, but she knew he had seen her too. He was standing in front of the Orbans’ house, watching her cry.

  Chapter 6

  The next day, as soon as it was light, Lily was out the door, barefoot, heading for Margaret’s house. Peeling shutters covered the windows on the bottom floor, winter shutters. She could hear the radio next door, the newscaster talking about the American army caught on the beaches in Normandy: two hundred thousand soldiers waiting to set Paris free. Was that all anyone thought about—news and the war?

  Without looking, Lily slipped the key out from under her collar. She didn’t bother to pull the shoelace over her head. She leaned forward. The key fit easily into the lock, the door sliding open under her fingers, and she was inside in a moment.

  She wandered into the living room. It was darker than the kitchen in there, the winter shutters tighter on the windows. Still, shafts of light fell across the rug, and the couch, and Eddie’s picture on the end table.

  She picked up the picture, seeing Eddie’s smile, his buck teeth, his boots laced up tight, his cap pushed back over his frizzy hair. She thought of Poppy, and how he would look in a uniform.

  She set the picture back in exactly the same spot. How strange it seemed without Margaret, or even Mrs. Dillon sitting next to the radio listening to Portia Faces Life. Lily went up the attic stairs, listening to the sound of her feet, and pushed up the window.

  The waves were high today. No one was on the boardwalk except a gray gull sitting on the railing, its feathers puffed out over its skinny legs. The legs reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think of who it was.

  The Mary L. was still at the dock, sitting low in the water. If only she’d see Poppy in line with the other fishermen. He’d be balancing the picnic basket and tackle box; he’d have his fishing rod and hers too.

  She felt a terrible lump in her throat. He was probably packed by now, having breakfast, ready to take the morning train back to the city. And she wouldn’t be there to say goodbye.

  He had told her about the train last night when she had finally gone home. He had sat on the edge of her bed, his weight tilting the mattress down, telling her the war would be over sometime and they’d be right back there in Rockaway with everything just the same.

  She hadn’t said a word. She had acted as if she didn’t care, not one bit.

  Now she swallowed hard over the lump in her throat. She wasn’t going back. She would stay in the attic all morning, all day, writing a book or something. She wished she could stay there forever.

  She took deep breaths of the cool air that was coming in. And, leaning over, she saw Albert. He was alone on the beach, wearing a pale green shirt and shorts. Holding up the shorts was a belt . . . a ridiculous belt that was miles too big for him.

  “Ah,” she said aloud. That’s what the seagull reminded her of. Albert. He had those same skinny legs with fat knees. He was walking back and forth, shading his eyes with his hands, turning toward her.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said under her breath. She ducked away from the window, walking doubled ove
r to the back of the chimney.

  Poor Eddie’s candy was gone, bag and all. Only the Milky Way wrapper was left, over in the corner crumpled in a ball.

  Lily looked closer. A piece of paper was lying on the floor. She sank down and picked it up, a note from Margaret.

  Don’t worry, Lily. I’m coming back. Good luck to your Aunt C in Berlin, Germany. I won’t tell anyone.

  M.D.

  And taped to the bottom was a LifeSaver, a red one, Lily’s favorite color.

  Lily leaned back against the rough chimney bricks, sucking on the LifeSaver wondering if Poppy’s train had left.

  She stood up suddenly, so quickly she felt dizzy. Then she was out of the attic, clattering down the stairs, through the hall, through the kitchen, and out the door, listening for the sound of the train. She didn’t stop to see whether anyone saw her.

  It was too late to get to the station. Instead she ran across the field to the viaduct over the water, trying to find enough breath to get her there ahead of the train. She began to wave as soon as she heard the sound of it on the tracks, even before she saw it. She didn’t stop until it was a smudge in the distance, and then gone completely, even though she knew Poppy couldn’t have seen her.

  Chapter 7

  It was Monday afternoon. Lily put on her sunglasses, her Eddie Dillon sailor hat, stuck a Gertz lipstick in each pocket of her shorts, and her notebook under one arm. It was a beautiful day, a perfect day, and she had something perfect to do.

  Spy.

  That Albert person had been ducking around all over the place yesterday, here one minute, there the next, always one step ahead of her, one step ahead of the police maybe.

  She had thought the whole thing over. Albert could really be a Nazi spy . . . not a chance-in-a-million spy like Mr. Egan, but a real one. She counted it out on her fingers, talking to herself as she marched down the block. One, he had come in the middle of the night; two, he had some kind of foreign spy accent, and three, she couldn’t keep track of him.

  As soon as she turned the corner, she stopped to put on a slash of Victory Red lipstick. She was getting good at it, not so much on her teeth anymore, or extra around her mouth. At least she hoped not; there were no mirrors on the way to the beach. She smacked her lips, a little sore from all that rubbing off lipstick before she went home every day.

  Then she heard footsteps across the street. She looked back. A miracle. It was Albert. She ducked behind the mailbox to watch him. It looked as if he was heading for the beach.

  She let him get a half-block ahead of her, up the boardwalk steps and down the other side; then she followed along after him. Instead of taking the steps, she scooted underneath the boardwalk and sank back behind the rusty wire fence to see where he went.

  He was carrying something, a big wad of stuff. He passed about two inches in front of her, another miracle that he didn’t see her, and stopped. What was he up to?

  He unrolled the lump, a beach blanket, one of Mrs. Orban’s. She’d seen it on the wash line a hundred times, so there wasn’t anything much suspicious there. He sat down and lined up a bottle of Coke, a bag of something—sandwiches or a foreign spy radio maybe—and a pad of paper and a pencil. Then he settled himself on the blanket, just sitting there looking out at the water, his bony knees up almost to his chin.

  It was a good thing she didn’t have anything to do. She could sit there as long as he did. She certainly wasn’t going to hang around Gram’s house. She was hardly talking to Gram since the night before Poppy left. She took a breath. Don’t think about Poppy. Think about Gram instead.

  She could see Gram’s name, fourth on her problem list. It came after First: Lies; Second: Daydreaming; and Third: Friends, need. And now maybe she’d cross the whole thing out and move Gram up to number one. It would serve her right.

  Gram probably wouldn’t care even if she knew. She wasn’t talking much to Lily either, mumbling once, “ . . . terrible that you didn’t come back to say goodbye to your father.”

  Lily knew it was terrible, she didn’t need Gram to tell her that. The last two days she had awakened with a pain in her chest, almost like a woodpecker banging away at her ribs. If only she had gone home on Saturday morning, or even to the railroad station. Just a few minutes would have made all the difference. And now she might not see Poppy for years, she might be grown up and he wouldn’t even recognize her.

  She had written to him, though, a long “I’m sorry” letter. She had sent it to the address that he had left on her bed. It was a strange address, full of numbers and letters, and didn’t even tell where he was.

  Suddenly she felt cold there in the shade. She moved her head, finding a shaft of sunlight that came through the boardwalk up above. It was warm on her face. In front of her, a woman went past, humming “The Last Time I Saw Paris.”

  And Albert wasn’t just looking at the water anymore. He was writing something on that pad. What? She could see a ship way out. Maybe he was checking out troop movements. She tried to think what else the spies checked out when she saw them in the movies. She wondered if she could get up a little closer.

  Albert’s head was bent over his paper, and he was writing fast. Lily crawled around the side of the rusty fence an inch at a time. If he heard her, if he turned around . . .

  She pictured herself as an undercover agent. If Albert, Nazi Spy Albert, turned, he’d reach into the bag, pull out his revolver with the silencer. He’d shoot her, of course. Never mind. It was for the good of the country. She’d win a medal.

  She couldn’t see anything on his paper. His shoulder was in the way. She moved over a bit, and another inch or two toward him, and there, she could see the writing on the lined white paper:

  Dere Ont Eva and Onkl Emery,

  Strange. A secret code maybe. She frowned, suddenly knowing what it was, feeling the disappointment. A letter, just a letter, not a spy thing at all . . . just that he was the worst speller in the world, worse than even she was. She let out her breath.

  He heard her and turned. Good grief. “I lost my, um . . . ,” she began, and then she heard the noise.

  It was like a mosquito at first, a thin, high sound. It wasn’t a mosquito, though, of course not. The noise grew louder, so loud she could feel the boardwalk tremble with it, could feel the vibration in her chest.

  A plane was coming in over the water, so low it was just above the waves, its wings tilting. She could see people standing on the beach watching, Mrs. Colgan far down on the beach, looking up, her mouth a perfect round O. And a fat lady with wobbly legs, shading her eyes to see as the plane roared over the beach. It spread a huge, dark shadow, sand flattening under it and spewing up along the sides.

  Lily backed against the boardwalk steps, her heart thumping in her chest, her head bursting with the sound of it. Sand was in her mouth and nose, stinging her eyes.

  The plane gathered speed, gathered height, was up, over them and past. And then she realized. It was a trainer plane, only a trainer plane from the navy yard.

  But Albert couldn’t know that. She could see his face, his blue eyes huge, the pad gone out of his hand, blowing across the beach.

  Without thinking, she went toward him, spitting out sand, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. The noise of the plane was fading, and she could see Albert’s hands were trembling a little.

  She reached out and grabbed his arm. “It’s all right,” she told him. Then everything was still, except for the waves rolling in on the shore in front of them.

  “It’s all right,” she said again. “It wasn’t a Nazi. I saw it.” She made a circle with one finger. “The round insignia thing with the star.”

  He didn’t look at her. It almost seemed as if he hadn’t seen her as he kept watching the plane, a speck now in the distance.

  She stepped back. She could still feel her heart pounding.

  “It was a trainer plane.” She pointed across the shoreline toward Coney Island. “From the naval base.”

  He wasn’t listening. H
e followed his paper across the beach, and suddenly she remembered he had caught her spying on him again. Feeling her face redden, knowing she wouldn’t go near him for the rest of the summer, she went up the boardwalk steps and started for home.

  Chapter 8

  Gram was sitting on the couch in the living room when Lily came in. She was listening to Portia Faces Life. Lily liked to listen to Portia too.

  In fact, she and Margaret had sent away for Portia’s picture. They’d written a letter straight to WEAF radio station just before Margaret had left. Margaret said stars like Portia always had pictures of themselves lying around.

  Right now on the radio, Portia’s husband, Walter, was a prisoner of war in Germany, and he had just thought of an escape plan. He was going to hide in a small boat. Then when an American ship passed he’d signal it with a flashlight and row out to freedom.

  Lily sank down on one end of the couch, as far away from Gram as she could get, to listen.

  She could see Gram’s hand, soft and plump on the pillows. Gram’s wedding ring was a sliver of silver that had made a deep ridge in her finger. “I was skinny until you started school,” she had told Lily once, laughing. “Then I started to eat and found out how good food was.”

  Lily couldn’t picture it, couldn’t picture Gram skinny, and swimming all the way across Jamaica Bay. Her father had told her Gram had done that. “I watched her when I was small,” he had said. “She had a braid to her waist, and she was a seal in the water.”

  Gram still had the braid, but now it was twisted around in back of her head in a bun. At night, she’d take out the bobby pins, run her fingers through her hair, and brush it.

  Gram’s hand was moving. Lily watched out of the corner of her eye as the plump fingers walked across the pillows, and Gram’s arm came up around her.

  Lily was about to shrug her arm away, about to get up, but it felt so good to be sitting there in that circle that she moved closer. A moment later, she was crying, and she didn’t even try to stop.