“Fred will invite you. He asked you this time,” Ellie reminded her.
“Oh, him.” Sal dismissed the Western Union boy with a hand flick. “He’s such a drip.”
“Yeah, but he does have a uniform,” Ellie pointed out. “I thought Connie Cavendish liked men in uniforms.”
“Can the drama, Greta Garbo,” Mom said. “Make yourself useful. Why don’t you and Ellie take down the tree?”
“No!” Ellie shouted. Then, more calmly, “I promised Jimmy we’d leave the tree up until he comes home.”
“The tree will dry out,” Mom said. “It could catch fire.”
“But I promised,” Ellie repeated.
Pop looked up from his Life magazine. “I think we can keep the tree up a while longer. That is, if Ellie agrees to water it.”
Mom frowned. “But it’s dangerous.”
“So we’ll take the lights off,” said Pop. “And none of us smokes.”
“Thanks, Pop.” Ellie hugged him.
“After all, Peanut, we paid a whole dollar for this fine tree.” Pop gave her a wink.
Ellie carefully unwound the lights from around the ornaments. Don’t worry, Tree. You’re staying up until Jimmy comes home. Whenever that is.
Ellie started back to school the dreary first week of January. One week went by, then two, and there was no letter from Jimmy.
Again, Ellie trekked home at lunch to check the mail. The icy wind bored through her coat; slush seeped through her worn galoshes. Who cared? How could she sit in school all afternoon not knowing if there was a letter?
But there never was.
Ellie wasn’t the only one going home for lunch.
Victoria did, too.
Every noon, they slogged up the hill to the corner where Victoria turned left, Ellie right.
Ellie figured Victoria must be looking for a letter, too, but didn’t know for sure, because they never talked. If Victoria wasn’t speaking first, Ellie wasn’t either. The walk was long; the only sound was the scrunch scrunch of their boots in the snow. Still, Ellie knew that Victoria had not gone home for lunch before this. Furthermore, she remembered what Mr. Carlson had said at Christmastime, that the Gandecks hadn’t heard from their boys in a while.
The third week of January began with bright blue skies so cold, it hurt to breathe. Sun glared on the snow. Ellie kept her head down against the painful brightness as she started home at noon. Left boot, right boot, scrunch scrunch.
“You heard from Jimmy?”
Ellie thought she must be hearing things – it couldn’t be Victoria speaking to her.
“Well, have you?”
It was Victoria, all right.
“No.”
“Us either. Three of the boys haven’t written. Scary, ain’t it?”
Was this some kind of trick? But Victoria sounded as worried as Ellie.
“Yes, it’s scary. How long since you heard?”
“Thanksgiving.” Victoria’s voice stretched thin, as if she might cry. “You?”
“Jimmy sent Christmas presents.”
“Lucky duck.”
Behind them, a car laboured uphill, snow chains jangling. A decrepit Ford, an ancient man hunched over the wheel, wheezed and coughed past them.
“He’s got a ‘C’ gas sticker,” Ellie observed. “He doesn’t look like a doctor.”
Victoria took a sharp breath. “That’s old man Wheeler,” she said. “He’s the weekday Western Union man.”
Scrunchscrunchscrunch. The girls moved as fast as their clumsy boots allowed.
The car clanked on and on. Past the Jelineks’. The Schmidts’. The Hales’.
The Ford halted at the alley between Ellie’s house and Victoria’s, tailpipe billowing clouds of exhaust.
The girls froze. Ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseno, Ellie whispered to herself.
Then the Ford turned left and rolled to a stop in front of the Gandecks’. Ellie let out a whoosh of relief, leaving a cloud of frozen vapour in the air.
Victoria stood rooted to the sidewalk, her face bone-white.
“C’mon,” urged Ellie. “I’ll come with you.”
Victoria didn’t move.
“Come on.” Ellie grabbed Victoria’s mittened hand and dragged her the last block. Closer, she could see old man Wheeler on the porch, Mrs. Gandeck holding the yellow telegram. Dear God, I’m sorry for every mean thing I thought about Victoria.
Victoria shook free of Ellie and stumbled up the porch steps. “Who is it, Ma?” she asked in a strangled voice. “Which one?”
Mrs. Gandeck was laughing and crying at the same time.
“Buddy.” Sobs. Laughter.
“Is he…?” Victoria choked out.
“He’s in a hospital in Hawaii. Thank God in Heaven, he’s safe.”
Ellie crept away, leaving Victoria and her mother screaming and hugging on the icy porch. Trudging up her own porch steps, she stopped to look in the mailbox before making herself a peanut butter sandwich.
The mailbox was empty.
Again.
In the next week, Ellie heard more about Buddy Gandeck than she ever wanted. I’m glad he’s okay, she reminded herself. But it was tough going, with Victoria in her new role, Sister of a Hero.
“He was hurt at Tarawa,” she explained at recess. “You know that island in the Pacific the Marines took at Thanksgiving? Thousands were slaughtered.” Victoria savoured the word “slaughtered” as if it were chocolate.
“So what happened?” asked Ralph. “Was he shot?”
“No. Something called battle fatigue. He’s in a hospital in Hawaii for a rest.”
How nice, Ellie thought, a sour taste in her mouth. I wish my brother could get battle fatigue and have a vacation in Hawaii.
“He got a Bronze Star. They say he was a real hero, killed a lot of Japs after everybody else he was with died.”
So Victoria’s brother gets a Bronze Star, Ellie brooded. And all I want is a letter from mine.
The last week of January dragged by on slushy feet, each day drearier than the one before. Ellie felt numb. Not cold numb, but inside numb. She realized that Jimmy’s letters had always made her day, even the dull ones about bad food and barracks inspections. She stopped coming home for lunch and she stopped looking for the North Star.
Sal turned fifteen at the beginning of February, and started lobbying for a war job again at supper one night.
“Pleeease,” she wheedled. “It’s legal to work in a plant if you’re fifteen. Connie Cavendish says…”
“If I hear one more word about Connie Cavendish,” Mom said, “I’ll set you to scrubbing out the basement…by yourself. Not another word!” She thumped down her teacup in the saucer so firmly that Ellie peeked to see if it had chipped.
“If you want a job,” Pop said, “see if anybody in the neighbourhood needs help after school. With the men gone and the young fellas working war jobs, seems to me all the shops on Macken Street are short-handed.”
“Oh, all right.” Sal sighed dramatically. “I’ll look. Not that I’ll find anything.”
Ellie poked at her bread pudding, searching for raisins. If Jimmy had been there, he would’ve said something funny about Sal not wanting to work where she couldn’t meet boys or look glamorous. Instead, Ellie was left with the gloomy realization that if Sal got a job, Ellie got all the housework.
“He’s okay, El,” Stan reassured her as she shuffled through the afternoon mail one bleak day after school. Bills for Pop, letters for Toots and Sal. Life magazine.
“How do you know?” Ellie demanded. “You don’t really know, do you?”
“Jeepers, no.” Stan took a step back. “I’m just trying to be a good friend.”
But you don’t know. You don’t know at all.
“Hello, Ellie McKelvey,” Trudy sang out as Ellie stamped through the butcher shop door. “What can I do for you today?”
Ellie took off her damp mittens and felt her pockets for the ration books. What was Trudy so darned happy about?
The sun hadn’t been out in days. She hadn’t heard from Jimmy in weeks and weeks. Maybe…had Trudy heard from him?
“Pound of ground.” Ellie handed over the ration books.
Trudy sang “The Hut-Sut Song” under her breath as she slapped the meat on the scales. Ellie wondered what “ground meat” was. It wasn’t hamburger, that was sure.
“So, uh, Trudy, have you heard from Jimmy lately?” Ellie tried to sound casual.
“Not since Christmas. But look at this.” Trudy wiped her hands before reaching beneath the collar of her butcher’s coat. A heart-shaped locket on a chain dangled from her sturdy fingers.
“Pretty,” Ellie said, trying not to sound envious. “From Jimmy?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Trudy tucked the locket back inside her coat. “Got it just after Thanksgiving. Said he wanted to send it early, just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case he got shipped out, I guess.” Trudy’s capable hands quickly wrapped the ground meat.
Ellie took the paper parcel, and stomped out into the dreary afternoon. Her mood matched the weather.
Dark.
Then finally, one sleety day, there were letters for the McKelveys from Private James McKelvey. But not from South Carolina. From some place called APO New York. Ellie ripped into her envelope right there on the porch, sleet pellets popping all around her.
January 21st, 1944
Somewhere in England
England? But the envelope said New York.
Dear Movie Star,
Sorry I haven’t written, but I couldn’t tell you I was shipping out. I’m not allowed to say exactly where I am. My address is the APO Box in New York. How was Christmas on Macken Street? I hope you still have the tree up. I spent the day on a troop ship. We had turkey and the trimmings, sang carols, and that was Christmas. We got our holiday packages before we left, so me and the fellas had two Christmases, one on land and one at sea. The whole barracks sampled Toots’s cookies. The boys decided those things might make good weapons, since they weighed about as much as a bomb. Just kidding…the cookies were swell!
Crossing the Atlantic on a troop ship ain’t no Swiss picnic. It used to be an ocean liner, but the military ripped out the fancy stuff and jammed in as many hammocks as they could. Just try sleeping with some guy’s behind in your face, in the hammock above you. Especially the nights we had beans, if you know what I mean! It was so smelly that Max and me spent a lot of time topside. We would’ve slept up there, if it hadn’t been so cold and windy. Halfway across, bad weather set in. I didn’t get sick, but guys were tossing their cookies like crazy. Which didn’t help the smell belowdecks. But we got here in one piece, and you can’t ask for more than that, with German subs chasing us all the way over.
Love, Doc Jimmy
PS How did you like the stockings? Has Sal tried to snitch them yet?
Ellie’s mind whirled. Jimmy was in England. He was okay. Relief!
But he said he’d be home for Christmas.
Ellie felt both happy and mad. Why couldn’t she just feel all happy or all mad? Maybe this was what adults meant when they said that life wasn’t simple.
Maybe being a grown-up wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“February is the most boring month,” Ellie gloomed as she slogged her way to school.
“At least it’s short,” Stan offered. “And almost over.”
They passed Mrs. Schmidt, scrubbing her porch as she did every morning.
“Good morning, Mrs. Schmidt,” they called. She looked up and waved her scrub brush.
How could your only son die, Ellie wondered, and still you scrub your porch every morning? How could she care about a porch?
“I heard Sal’s got a job,” Stan said. “I thought your parents didn’t want her to work.”
“They didn’t want her working nights in a war plant,” Ellie answered. “Mom says the men make it tough for her and Toots sometimes. Smart remarks and stuff.”
“Really?” Stan looked interested. “What kind of stuff?”
“Mom won’t say. She just said that Sal wasn’t working there, ‘end of discussion’.”
“So how did she wind up at Green’s?” asked Stan.
“When Miss Ruthie went in the WAVES, she left Mr. Green without anybody to work the after-school and weekend times when it’s real busy.”
“Heck, I’d work there in a minute,” said Stan. “All the candy and soda you want, and you can read the comic books for free.”
“That’s why Mr. Green wouldn’t hire anybody under fifteen.” Ellie gave Stan a playful poke in the ribs. “Too much mooching.”
“What does Sal do?” asked Stan. “I haven’t been in since she started.”
“Pretty much the same stuff Miss Ruthie did. Make sodas, scoop ice cream, run the register. Oh yeah, and talk to boys. Fred the Western Union guy hangs out there all the time, making cow eyes at her. She’s like a boy magnet.”
“I believe it,” Stan said with a grin. “That Sal can steam your glasses!”
“Boys,” Ellie snorted. “You’re all alike.”
“Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed?” Stan said. “Well, I know something that will cheer you up. Ma’s taking the whole gang downtown to the Paramount Saturday to see The Fighting Sullivans.”
“Really? How come?”
“You know the Juneau, the boat the Sullivan brothers were on when the Japs blew it up and all five brothers died?”
“Of course.” It had been big news last school year.
“That was the same boat Bill Schmidt was on.”
“Yeah I know. So what?” Ellie shrugged.
“Ma thinks we should see how our street is part of history.”
“So who’s going?”
“Anybody who wants to.”
Ellie hoped that “anybody” did not include Victoria.
“What a gyp,” Ralph griped as they left the Paramount. “There wasn’t hardly any war stuff in that movie. They was little kids, and then the next thing you know, they’re dead. I want my money back.”
“It wasn’t your money,” Ellie pointed out. “Mrs. Kozelle paid.”
“Yeah, and Bill Schmidt wasn’t in the movie, either,” Victoria complained. “You said he would be.” She socked Stan’s arm.
“I did not,” Stan said, backing away from Victoria’s fist.
“Did too.”
“Children!” said Mrs. Kozelle, bustling up behind them. “Manners, please! I believe the girls will sit with me on the way home.”
That was how Ellie wound up squashed between Victoria and Bridget on the Number 10 going home. They chattered across Ellie’s lap as if she were invisible.
Not that Ellie cared. She looked around for the boys. No sign of them in the packed car. They were probably standing down front by the motorman. She stared at Mrs. Kozelle’s head, in the seat ahead of her. She wore a clownish hat with a pompom on the peak. Ellie watched the pompom bob with the motion of the streetcar, and worked on making herself invisible.
“So,” Bridget shouted above the streetcar din, “is Buddy going back to the Pacific? When my cousin got shot in the leg, they took the bullet out and he went right back.”
“Maybe.” Victoria sounded vague. “The doctors say he needs a long rest.” She fiddled with her pocketbook, the subject of Buddy somehow finished. Bridget turned to Ellie.
“So, Ellie,” she said, “what does Jimmy have to say?”
“Not much,” Ellie said, not wanting to talk either.
“I guess not,” Victoria said. “He’s a medic.” She said it the same way she’d said slacker. “He’s too busy emptying bedpans to write.”
Ellie gripped her own pocketbook, fighting the urge to clout Victoria over the head.
The trolley toiled up Macken Street. Clang clang. The motorman opened the door. Ellie couldn’t wait to be away from Victoria.
Stan and his mother waited for Ellie at the foot of the steps
.
“Ma saw some kind of commotion at Jellyneck’s when we went by,” he said in a low voice. Then to everyone else, “What say we all walk Jellyneck home?” he said loudly.
“Why?” asked Ralph. “Can’t he find his way by himself?”
Everyone thought that was hilarious until they saw Mrs. Kozelle steering Jellyneck down Macken Street. Silently, the gang fell in line behind them.
Crickle crackle crickle crackle. The false spring thaw over, the melted snow had refrozen. At the foot of her terrace, Mrs. Schmidt chipped at the ice with a spade. She made a quick sign of the cross as they passed. Ellie tried to walk faster, but her slick-soled Mary Janes wouldn’t let her.
Crickle crackle crickle crackle. Ellie and the rest baby-stepped down the hill, arms out for balance. Past the Schmidts’, Ellie saw the crowd in front of the Jelineks’. At the kerb, a shiny black Packard.
“Reverend Schuyler’s car,” Stan muttered to Ellie. “Somebody’s dead.”
“Who?” The little Jelineks all had bad coughs. The older boys liked to hitch rides on freight trains and the backs of delivery trucks. Someone was always bringing Mr. Jelinek home from the Do-Drop, too drunk to walk.
Crickle crackle crickle crackle. Ellie picked out the oldest brothers in the crowd, huddled in the yard with their friends. High school boys smoking cigarettes, jacket collars around their ears. Who died? Which one?
The gang trooped up the front steps, Mrs. Kozelle and Jellyneck in the lead. Ellie remembered to avoid the broken step.
“Uh, thanks,” said Jellyneck. “For the movie and all.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Kozelle. “We’re going in with you. Excuse me, gentlemen,” she said to some junior high boys blocking the front door. They shuffled aside, heads down, shoulders hunched.
The stench of cigarettes and boiled cabbage and dirty diapers hit Ellie like a punch in the nose. She had known Jellyneck her whole life, and had never once been in his house. Jellyneck always met her and Stan at the door. Now she knew why.
The house was as cold as a crypt. The rooms were clean but bare. Faded, rose-patterned wallpaper, torn and hanging in spots. A single ceiling bulb with a pull chain gave the only light.
Men handed around a bottle in a brown paper bag, gulping greedily before passing it on. Someone thrust the bag in Jellyneck’s face.
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