Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers

by Sara Ackerman

  “Do lions swim?” Ella asked as they approached the turnoff to the beach.

  “Cats sink, honey,” Jean said.

  Ella frowned. “How can they take Roscoe on the boat when they leave, then?”

  “The boats they go on are as big as floating towns. I wouldn’t worry. Plus, cats can swim if they have to,” Violet said, but she wondered. Would they take him or leave him?

  “Maybe we can keep him with us?” Ella said.

  “He belongs to the soldiers. Not to mention that people don’t keep lions as pets.”

  Ella inspected one of her scabs. “Are you sure Roscoe is going to be there today?”

  Jean laughed. “Sweetie, you sure have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

  “One-track minds seem to be the theme around here,” Violet said to Jean, who had been talking Bud for breakfast, lunch and dinner these days. “Say, remember that time Bud serenaded me?” “This beach reminds me of Bud.” “I stayed up all night worrying about Bud.” “Bud hasn’t written lately. Do you think he’s okay?”

  Anyway, she didn’t care if Ella was obsessed with the lion. Whatever it took to settle her emotions, especially after their night in the brig had left her so anxious that there were new open scabs on her arms, and chunks of hair on the pillow in the morning. Each time Ella seemed to be improving, something happened to yank her back.

  “Roscoe will be there and you can love him all you want.”

  The car bumped and rattled down the road. Dust blew into the windows, and Violet had to roll them up. Instantly the car turned into a furnace. By the time they pulled up, all of their faces were bright red. Even this late in the fall, the heat moved in waves, shimmering above the black lava rocks.

  A volleyball net had been set up and the soldiers were midgame. A cluster of young women frolicked on the one portion of the beach without coils of wire. Violet suddenly had the sense that coming here had been a bad idea. Large groups made her uneasy, at best. And the last thing she wanted was to appear to be after any of these men.

  Right away, she picked out Zach and Parker on the sandy court. Both men waved.

  “I feel weird,” she said.

  “As in sick?” Jean asked.

  “No, as in out of place.”

  Jean draped her arm around Violet’s shoulders. “Turn that mind of yours off. Zach invited us. We’re here for a Sunday picnic. End of story.”

  Here she was, fraternizing with a bunch of men, some young enough to be her students. She’d already had a career, a husband, a daughter. A life.

  They set up camp at the far edge of the beach, under the sprawling branches of a huge kiawe tree and apart from the others. Violet scanned the sand for three-inch thorns before throwing the blanket out. Bees hummed overhead, lured in by the nutty, sweet blossoms. Ella grabbed the black inner tube and ran straight to the water, apparently having forgotten about Roscoe for half a second.

  “Don’t go too far out,” Violet called.

  Irene sat down on the floral beach blanket and peeled a banana. She wore a serious look. “I didn’t want to mention it in front of Ella, but I heard something peculiar on the phone lines yesterday.”

  That got Violet’s attention. “Oh?”

  “The call was between Captain Riggs and a man by the name of Lieutenant Swift. Swift said he believed the letters in the school were bogus. That the Japanese colonel they were addressed to doesn’t exist.”

  “Letters in which school?” Violet said.

  “He didn’t say, and Riggs suggested they meet in person.”

  Her pulse quickened. “Did he say what the letters were about?”

  “Nope, and you know I could get in trouble for telling, so keep it between us.”

  Had someone tried to frame Takeo for being a spy? Violet looked out to the horizon, trying to call up a reason why someone would want him locked up. But she knew well enough that reasons did not always present themselves. Irene swallowed the last bite of her banana and jumped up. Violet turned and saw Parker and Zach trotting over. Parker was now shirtless, revealing muscles twisting up his torso that she hadn’t even known existed. It took all her wits not to stare.

  He seemed genuinely happy to see them. “Glad you made it. You know you ladies are the talk of the barracks?”

  “On account of our arrest?” Jean said.

  “More on account of those pies, which I was awful sorry to miss out on,” Parker said. There was nothing to do but stand and greet them, though Violet was overly aware of her swimsuit pinching her thighs. She had to tippy toe up to kiss the both of them, especially Zach. But it was Parker’s hand that lingered on her hip. Backing away, she stepped on the lunch basket and lost her balance, and she grabbed his arm to save herself.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Parker steadied her, even though his arm was slippery with sweat. “Easy there. I know I’m irresistible.”

  “What you are is smelly. You need a swim.” She stepped out of his reach.

  “Come with me?” Without waiting for an answer, Parker sprinted to the water and dived in. Zach, Irene and Jean were already halfway there and Ella floated just off shore in her tube. Violet didn’t move. She saw his dark form swimming underwater toward Ella. Next to her, he erupted out of the water. Ella squealed, but Violet suspected she’d seen him coming. He pointed to the pavilion, where Roscoe watched from the shade.

  Joining the group, Violet waded in up to her waist. The water was bathtub-warm, almost to the point of not being refreshing. The small group of women who had been down the way now migrated over with Tommy and a couple of other soldiers.

  A pretty young Hawaiian swam right up to Parker. “Sergeant Stone, I want you for my partner in chicken fights.” She had polished almond skin and hair that went on for weeks. Violet instantly disliked her.

  Two girls clung to Tommy’s arm, threatening to pull him apart. Violet wondered if he was going to try to fit both girls on his shoulders. “Buddy, you’re going down,” he said to Parker.

  Parker hesitated, glancing Violet’s way. Before he could object, if in fact he was going to do so, the girl climbed up his back. Tommy ducked underwater and let one of his girls on. The men were up to their chests in the water. Parker had the height advantage, but Tommy’s speed was immediately evident. Above, the women cajoled and flapped their arms around. Eventually, Parker toppled. They came up choking. And laughing. His partner still had her arms around his neck and hung on like a baby monkey. Violet’s stomach twisted. She had to look away.

  Someone splashed behind her. “Can I try?” Ella said.

  This time, Parker didn’t hesitate. Parker swam up under Ella and scooped her onto his shoulders.

  “Any takers?” he said.

  Ella gripped his head with one hand and held tight to his other hand. She broke into a gaping smile.

  “Us!” Irene grabbed hold of Zach and pushed him under.

  Violet worried that the weight of Irene on Zach’s shoulders might break him in half. Not so much overweight as she was big-boned. Irene stood at least six inches taller than Violet, and was thick any way you sliced her. And with that thickness came strength. From all her hula dancing, Irene’s legs were strong as tree trunks. Ella wouldn’t stand a chance. Zach came up swaying under her weight, but Violet gave him credit for even standing. The boys danced around each other like boxers, a featherweight and a heavyweight.

  “Come any closer and you’re down,” Parker said.

  She worried that Ella might be choking Parker, but his face hadn’t turned blue yet. With arms the size of Irene’s finger, Ella somehow managed to catch her off balance, giving a hard shove. A huge splash later and Irene disappeared beneath the cool water. Ella stood up, wobbling, and raised her arms before diving from Parker’s shoulders.

  She popped up two feet away. “Did you see, Mama? I won the chicken fight!”
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br />   Violet wished she could bottle the look on Ella’s face and serve it up to her on a daily basis.

  “You were like a crab up there. We better make sure Sergeant Stone still has his ears.”

  When Parker swam over, she thought he was coming for Ella, but he tapped her on the shoulder. “Your turn.”

  “No way.”

  Irene chimed in. “Get up there, Violet. Don’t be such a sissy.”

  Well, that did it. So much for keeping her hair dry. Parker lowered himself. His shoulders felt slippery beneath the backs of her thighs.

  “Lock your ankles behind my back,” he said.

  Zach and Irene came at them with a new kind of fury. Poor Zach, he would have been better off as the top part of the team, as tall and gangly as he was. One thing was always true about chicken fighting, though. It made you laugh. There was no way around it. By the time Irene tipped them backward to the point of no recovery, Violet was squawking like one of the hens awaiting breakfast.

  Underwater, she worked to untangle herself. But every time she pulled a body part away, Parker pulled it back. When she finally surfaced for a breath she felt drunk from salt water.

  “Are you trying to drown me?” she asked.

  He was close enough for her to see drops of water on his lashes.

  “They say that salt water cures anything. Just helping you out.”

  Her heart squeezed a little bit. “Is that how you see me?”

  “We all need to be cured of something.”

  There was no denying the truth of those words. He must have been able to see her softening, because he smiled. Violet looked away first, into the water, as if she might find answers in the powdery sand below. More important, what is the question?

  * * *

  Roscoe lounged in the cool shade of the pavilion with both paws planted sphinxlike in front of him. A family of sparrows pecked at crumbs nearby and his tail twitched as he watched them. Zach pulled out a butcher knife and hacked up a thigh-sized slab of raw meat. He tossed a piece to Roscoe, who missed it with his mouth. The meat fell to the sandy floor, where he swatted at it before swallowing the chunk whole.

  “It must cost a fortune to feed him,” she said.

  “The people at Parker Ranch give us the cuts they don’t use, which is a big help.”

  “Is Parker Ranch named after Parker?” Ella asked.

  He laughed. “No, the ranch is old enough to be his grandfather. From what I understand, it’s been here for almost a hundred years, and is bigger than any ranches on the mainland.”

  Ella considered this, then promptly sat next to the lion and stroked him with her wet hands. This time, Roscoe seemed to recognize her and rolled to his side. When he yawned, a child could have stuck her whole head in his mouth. And he still had a lot of growing to do.

  In the midst of this lazy day at the beach, Violet wanted to pretend that this was life. That Ella was recovering, and the soldiers and Roscoe would always be here. But beneath the dinners, the pie selling and the outings, the ache of war still found a way in. You could see it behind the men’s eyes, in how they immersed themselves in the seconds and the minutes. Looking for a quick brand of living. Everything here was a by-product of war. And war was messy.

  On the far end of the long beach, Violet noticed a Duck parked along the rocks. These amphibious military vehicles were supposed to be the latest, best thing for beach invasions. It didn’t look like much—a hulking olive metal-hulled boat on wheels. Apparently the men trained on these things until their feet bled.

  “They let you bring that here for fun?” she asked Parker.

  He was leaning against one of the rock posts that held up the pavilion roof, peeling an orange. “That depends on your definition of let. Want to go for a ride?”

  “Can we?” Ella said.

  “I’ll stay with Roscoe,” Violet said.

  Irene and Jean were already heading down there with Zach and a few others.

  Parker turned to Ella. “You can be the captain. Come on.”

  At the water’s edge, Zach slipped an orange life vest over her head. It turned out there was only room for Ella and the ladies, so Parker volunteered to stay ashore. Ella didn’t want to leave Violet behind. That much was obvious. Torn between mother and boat, she looked back and forth between them.

  “You’ve got Jean and Irene and Zach to watch you. Go. Have fun,” Violet said.

  Only a month ago, Ella wouldn’t have considered it. This time, the boat won out.

  As they watched the boat disappear around the rocky point, the space between Violet and Parker thickened. All of a sudden, she wished she had gone. The way she lacked anything to say around him bothered her.

  “You want to see something around the point? It’s pretty neat,” he said.

  She risked a look at him. “I think I’ll wait in the shade of the pavilion.”

  “Get your slippers on.”

  “You don’t listen, do you?”

  Who knew how long the boat would be gone, so she relented. There were plenty of extra pairs lying around, and he poached one for her. At the far end of the beach, a path of foot-worn rocks led across a black field of lava. The rubber-soled zoris were good protection from the jagged rocks, but every now and then her foot slipped off. Parker was like a goat.

  “You’re good at this,” she said.

  “I’ve had practice. We do this ten hours on some days. And after that, we drag our sorry butts the eleven miles back to camp. The heat is brutal and men collapse, but it’s a day at the beach compared to where we’re going.”

  After a lengthy pause, in which she tried to think of something useful to say, all she came up with was “All this training will pay off. And Jean says the best prayers in town. We’ll put her on your case.”

  He half turned. “We’re going to need ’em.”

  Walking might have gone more smoothly if her eyes hadn’t been glued to his back. The first time she tripped, she had been contemplating the trickle of sweat running down his spine. She felt like she was walking into trouble but couldn’t stop herself. Had she ever looked at Herman like this? Or anyone, for that matter? Herman had come along at a time in her life when she needed a savior. She knew that. A solid man and a good friend. The love had come on slowly and over time, his goodness catching. Never, ever, had she felt this kind of bursting-at-the-seams longing.

  The coconut trees announced freshwater springs up ahead. But they stopped just before the trees. At a small outcropping, they looked straight down into a perfectly round pond with high walls. A school of yellow tang drifted in the middle.

  It struck her then how the world would just keep on being beautiful, whether you wanted it to or not.

  A pair of wooden swim goggles materialized in Parker’s hand. “You ever used a pair of these?” he asked.

  She’d seen some of the Japanese and Hawaiian women out on the reefs wearing them, coming in with nets full of octopus. Setsuko even had a pair. But Violet enjoyed the water perfectly fine from above. “Never.”

  “You’re in for a treat, then.”

  She was wondering how they would get down to the hole, when Parker stepped from the ledge. Seconds passed before he hit the water. When he came up, he shook his head like a wet dog and hooted.

  Violet peered down, unsure of her free-falling ability.

  “Oh, I think I’ll stay up here.”

  “Come on. You’ll love it.”

  It was the look of expectation on his face, almost like a young boy. She stepped to the edge.

  “On the count of three. One, two...” He was nice enough to hold on to three, to give her a few more seconds. On the way down, she pinched her nose and hoped there would be a graceful way out. She instinctively pulled her legs in when she hit to avoid kicking the rocks below. The water was crisp and refreshing.

  “Tr
y them on.” Parker handed her the goggles.

  Even in this small aquarium of a pond, she saw red pencil wana, blooms of purple coral and several fat sea cucumbers. She floated in circles, taking it all in. The goggles were loose and kept filling with water, but she couldn’t pull herself away.

  “Come over here. Let me tighten them,” Parker said.

  He sat on a seaweed-smoothed rock. She checked for sea urchins, which the local folks called wana, and then climbed out next to him. There was just enough room for both of them without touching. As he fiddled with the straps, she watched him. In concentration, his brow wrinkled in single-minded focus.

  She pictured him looking through a rifle, or fiddling with a grenade. That same determination would be valuable in a war situation.

  “You don’t seem afraid of anything,” she said.

  He stopped. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. “Oh, I’m afraid all right. I’d have to be crazy not to be. You want to know what scares me the worst?”

  “What?” She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.

  “The fact that you can never be truly prepared. Sure, we’re fit and we know how to shoot and all that. But I have no idea how I’m going to react when I come face-to-face with the enemy. Or worse, when my men’s lives are on the line and people are getting shot up around you.”

  Her eyes scanned his face.

  “Will I have what it takes?” he said.

  “That’s not just true in war. It’s true about life. You do what you have to,” she said.

  He was quiet. With his free hand, he reached over and tucked a piece of unruly hair behind her ear. It crossed her mind that he might kiss her, but instead he slipped the goggles over her head, adjusting and tightening. For all the racket her heart was making, it might have been the first time she’d ever been touched by a man.

  As he shifted to face her, his leg pressed against hers. “I make you nervous, don’t I?”

  He made her lots of things, and nervous was among them. But nervous was not what caused this strange hum that dropped down from her chest, swarming below her navel. Rather than answer, Violet returned to the safety of the water. Once she was about as far away as she could get, she said, “Not at all.”