“So, did you have a special someone?” Mary grins at me in the mirror.
I shake my head.
“Oh well, I bet you were real popular. I bet you’re a gadabout girl and everything.”
“Gadabout?”
“You know, someone who gads about town.” Mary swishes her hips from side to side and purses her lips. “So what do you think of Lucas?” She leans down and lowers her voice. “Isn’t he so drooly?”
“What?”
“Don’t move, I said! Drooly, dreamy. You know, handsome.”
Lucas is definitely cute, but when I think handsome, I think of someone untouchable—the kind of guy you never meet in real life.
“There. You’re all done.” Mary’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
I stare at myself in the mirror. She has twisted my hair up into two swirls on either side of my head. The rest falls gently down around my shoulders. I look older, a different version of myself.
“It’d be better if we could curl it.” Mary reaches up to touch the ends, which fall to the middle of my back. “And it’s so long. Tonight I’ll put it in pins. Or maybe rag rollers, since you just washed it.”
I catch her eye in the mirror. “Thank you, Mary.”
She bends down and presses her cheek next to mine. “Oh Lydia, you don’t need to thank me. I can tell we’re going to be great friends.”
Mary and I sit on opposite sides of the dining room table. Heavy white china and thick cotton napkins rest next to each plate. It’s so formal and different from my family’s meals together. I think of all of us sitting around our kitchen table on breakfast-Saturdays, the loud conversation, the teasing, and a small ache settles into my chest.
“There’s been a rumor that some of the wounded soldiers over in Europe might be sent to Hero,” Dr. Bentley tells us. “If that happens we’ll need more volunteers.” He looks at me pointedly.
“I don’t really know much about nursing.” I push a piece of Spam casserole around my plate.
Mrs. Bentley smiles. “There are lots of ways to help out that don’t involve nursing.”
“Ma volunteers with the Red Cross too.” Mary is wolfing down the food on her plate. “She makes food for the barracks, or organizes clothing drives. Stuff like that.”
“There’s a fundraiser at the church tomorrow. My women’s group is hosting a clothing drive in support of the Red Cross,” Mrs. Bentley says. “We’ll send boxes of clothes and towels and things to victims of war all across Europe. Why don’t you girls come by and help us sort?”
“Sure,” I say. Mrs. Bentley offers me more food and I hold out my plate.
“See, there are lots of ways to help.” She ladles out the casserole. “But if you want any medical training, my church group also meets with Red Cross nurses once a week. We learn simple procedures so we can help if there’s an emergency.”
“Like, when the wounded soldiers come home?”
“Or if there’s an attack on our shores.”
“But there aren’t …” I trail off, remembering myself.
“Billy McDonald told me his dad saw a submarine in the bay last winter. He’s a member of the Home Guard. They walk the beaches looking for enemy ships. We even have air raid drills at night sometimes.”
Mary’s voice is hushed, but excited. She leans forward and the soft light of the room makes her red lipstick look even darker and more dramatic. “And every night we have to put up the blackout curtains. Montauk is on constant blackout—no streetlights or house lights once it gets dark. It’s because we’re so far out on the coast, we don’t want the U-boats to see the lights of the town. But I bet we’d be pretty safe here if the Germans did attack. There are soldiers everywhere, with the base at Hero and the navy up by the bay.”
“The army and navy took over a lot of land to set up their bases,” Dr. Bentley cuts in, his tone serious. “The Killing family was forced to sell their home to the navy and move down near the new town center. And the Parker boys lost part of their fishing business when they had to leave their storefront behind. A lot of families were affected.”
“We all have to make sacrifices during wartime.” Mrs. Bentley stands up, moving to a sideboard to get dessert. It’s a brown, lumpy cake that smells of burnt molasses. “Have some war cake, Lydia.” She cuts it quickly and sets a plate down in front of me.
“What about Camp Hero?” I take a bite and almost gag as the dry, bitter cake breaks apart in my mouth. It tastes like it’s missing butter and sugar.
“What about it?” Dr. Bentley asks.
I swallow with effort. “I mean, what happens out there? Is it just a training camp? And a lookout?”
“Oh, no,” Mary mumbles around the cake in her mouth. “They have watch towers near the ocean and these big guns and a few barracks. But it’s not exciting at all, no dances or shows or anything. The navy lets us have our USO dances over at Montauk Manor.”
“Dean is stationed at Camp Hero. And so is Lucas. In the officers’ barracks. Lucas helps with training,” Mrs. Bentley says as she sits back down at the table. The heavy blackout curtains stir behind her as a breeze comes through the covered window. It’s an eerie effect—like someone is hiding behind the black material, pushing it along the wood floor.
“What about Dean? What does he do?”
“He recently came back from the European theater,” Dr. Bentley explains. “As he tells it, his commanding officers pulled him from his troops in Italy and brought him back home. He was somehow selected to be involved in intelligence training at Camp Hero.”
“He’s always been a smart boy.” Mrs. Bentley smiles proudly. “His officers saw that. He’ll have an important role to play one day.”
Mary scoffs loudly. “What role? We don’t know what Dean does!” She sits back in her seat. “It’s all top secret.”
“Mary!” Mrs. Bentley says sharply. “Loose lips sink ships, remember.”
Mary throws her fork down and it clatters against her plate. “We don’t know anything, just that Dean is always off doing secret training and he won’t tell us a thing, not even if I beg him! It’s all very dull.” She rolls her eyes at me.
I nod absently. Grandpa was right about one thing: Dean is working on something that he can’t tell his family about, and it forces him to spend time at Camp Hero. But is it connected to the Montauk Project?
Intelligence training can mean anything. Dean could be training to become a mission specialist. The government could be grooming him to become a spy. Or the whole thing could be a cover for the work he’s doing for the Montauk Project.
If I’m going to find out what really happened to Dean, I have to start searching for the answers.
Later that night, I rest on Dean’s bed, wrapped in a white cotton nightgown. My hair is twisted around pieces of rags—something Mary had insisted on doing after dinner. The tight curls pull at my scalp.
Dean’s room is all blue in the soft lamplight: blue-and-white-striped wallpaper, a blue quilt spread out over the narrow bed. Model airplanes hang from the ceiling on wires and dull gold trophies sit neatly on a tall bookshelf.
I spent my whole life hearing stories about my great-grandfather’s disappearance, but I never really thought about what he was like. What did he care about? What were his hobbies? How old was he when he fell in love for the first time?
If I stay in the past long enough, I’ll discover the answers to these questions. I’ll spend time with Dean, and I’ll learn about him and his family. My grandfather’s memories of his father are blurred by age and sorrow. But my memories will be new and clear. I can share those experiences with him, but it won’t ever be the same as being here. I might end up knowing more about Dean than my grandfather ever did. It’s a disconcerting thought, and I almost wish it was my grandfather who had gone back in time, so he’d get to relive this through fresh eyes. But would he ever be objective enough to see his father for who he really is, and not as a larger-than-life tragic hero?
Will I?
I walk over to the low, wide bureau and open the drawers one by one. Socks, crisp T-shirts, folded slacks. I run my hand under the clothes in the top drawer and touch the crackled edges of a piece of paper. I pull it out. It’s an old letter, brittle with age. “My darling,” it starts, “you are my everything.” I read to the end. It’s from a girl named Elizabeth—the name of my great-grandmother—and dated 1940. I put it back into the drawer, feeling like a trespasser.
I trace my fingers over the dusty lettering on a basketball trophy. STATE CHAMPIONS, 1935. A stamp collection and a few comic books vie for space with novels—John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.
I pull out Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. I carry it over to the bed and sit down, flipping through the pages. A quote jumps out at me: “I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.” I snap the book shut. Am I locked in or locked out by being here?
I turn to the window, where the black fabric hides the night sky. Wes is out there somewhere. He followed me to the past. He helped me escape. I need to find him again. He’s the only one who can tell me about the Montauk Project. And, for some reason, he might want to help me.
I wonder if he’s furious that I left him in the woods. I wonder if he’s looking for me, and if he wants to take me back into the underground labs. I look away from the window. While I’m not exactly glad that I’m temporarily trapped in 1944, I can’t deny that it’s exciting—and feels important—to meet my relatives, to see the past, and to get more answers about what will happen to my great-grandfather in the coming days.
I always thought going off to college and becoming a journalist would be my big adventure. But this feels bigger.
Maybe I am supposed to do more than just figure out the truth of what really happened to Dean. This might be my chance to make a difference, and to help my family. Dean will disappear in just a few days unless I can figure out a way to stop it. But should I try to fix the past instead of just learning its secrets?
It’s one thing to look for answers; it’s another thing entirely to change the question.
Overwhelmed, I lie back on the bed. The model airplanes stir in the empty air above my head, suspended forever, flying nowhere.
CHAPTER 8
I wake to the sound of raised voices. The dress Mary gave me yesterday is draped over the back of a chair. I pull it over my head and quickly yank out the rag rollers in my hair. Heavy curls fall in ropes down my back. I slip out of the room and creep down the stairs, stopping at the bottom step.
Dr. and Mrs. Bentley are in the parlor, perched on the overstuffed cream and yellow couches. A tall, dark-haired man about ten years older than me paces in front of the fireplace. I immediately recognize him from my grandfather’s photograph: it’s Dean Bentley, my great-grandfather.
“What were you thinking? How could you just let a stranger into the house?”
Someone clears his throat, and I notice that Lucas is sitting on a chair by the window. Both he and Dean are wearing fitted dark olive jackets over their uniforms.
“It wasn’t like that, Dean.” Lucas’s voice is firm.
Dean scowls at him. He’s squeezing a light brown cap tightly in one hand. It has a visor and a gold metal eagle attached to the top. “Don’t you dare talk to me right now, Clarke. Mary told me it was your idea for that girl to stay here. How could you put my family in this position?”
Lucas stands up. “Lydia needed help.” His face is harsh, with only his words suggesting the warmth I saw yesterday.
“You could have passed her on to the Red Cross, or one of the women’s organizations. You didn’t need to bring my family into it.”
The two men square off across the parlor. Dr. Bentley stands, stepping between them. “We’re happy to take Lydia in—”
Dean cuts him off harshly. “She’s a stranger.”
“Stop this.” Mrs. Bentley holds up her hands. Her voice is filled with a quiet authority. “Arguing isn’t helping. Lydia has nowhere to go. We need to help our neighbors during wartime.”
Both Dean and Lucas look at her and step away from each other. Dean faces the mantel and rests his arm on it heavily. He lowers his head, visibly collecting himself. Lucas turns to the window, his shoulders tense.
“Find out anything good?” I hear a voice say quietly behind me. I spin around on the steps to see Mary leaning over the stair railing.
“Not really,” I whisper back.
She laughs and skips down the stairs, her blue dress fluttering around her legs. It has a pattern of all white roses, and a matching ribbon is threaded through her curly hair.
“Come on. It’s time you met Dean.”
The conversation stops when we reach the parlor. I hover near the doorway, gripping the fabric of my skirt with both hands.
“Just look, Daddy! Isn’t Lydia such a dilly?”
Dr. Bentley smiles, so I assume being a dilly is a good thing.
“Hi, Lucas. When did you get here? Has Dean been talking your ears off? I bet he has.” Mary pulls me into the room.
Lucas’s eyes slowly scan my dress and my clean, curled hair. He opens his mouth, then shuts it.
“Mary, could you stop talking for two minutes?” Dean snaps. “We need to figure out what to do about … this situation.” He waves in my direction.
“What’s there to figure out? Lydia’s staying with us. And she isn’t a spy. Just look at her!”
“Putting her in a pretty dress doesn’t make her any less of a spy.” Dean glares at me. I glance around the room in an effort to avoid his stare. Framed black-and-white photos are propped on the fireplace mantel. Mary and Dean with their arms around each other, standing in front of the house. A small, dark-haired boy standing with Dean and a blond lady. A family portrait, taken in this parlor, everyone smiling into the camera.
“Oh, phooey.” Mary drops my arm and stalks across the floor toward Dean. “You don’t know anything.”
He leans down to look her in the eye. “Mary, we’re a country at war. You’d think that would teach you to be careful around strangers.”
She scowls at him, her hands on her hips. “I trust Lydia.”
“Why? Because you want a new friend?”
Lucas turns to me, ignoring the siblings. “How are you feeling, Lydia? You look …” He pauses, clearing his throat. “Well. Better. I mean, good.” He’s standing by the window, and the morning light streams across his face and turns his hair to gold.
“I’m fine.” I smile at Lucas, but I can’t stop staring at Dean. He’s so different from what I expected. Younger. Tougher. Harsher.
“Listen to her!” Mary yells at Dean. The two of them are facing each other, only a foot apart. “She doesn’t even have a little bit of a German accent!”
Dr. Bentley picks up a pipe from a nearby table and lights it. He seems unconcerned by the shouting match between Dean and Mary. I suspect it’s a regular occurrence.
Mary turns to me. Her nose is scrunched up and her hands are clenched at her sides. “Lydia, tell him. Tell him you’re not a spy!”
I look at Dean, his long face, sharp jaw, and heavy brows, his frown. I certainly never thought my great-grandfather would hate me on sight. The thought is disappointing and, somehow, I’m a little hurt.
“I’m not a spy.” My voice is softer and quieter than I’d intended.
Mrs. Bentley gives Dean a look. “No one thinks you are, dear.”
Dean runs a hand over his short dark hair. He avoids everyone’s stares and looks out the front window. “If I really thought she was a spy, do you think I would have let her leave the base? Do you think any of the officers at Hero would have?”
I let out a breath, but he isn’t finished yet.
“That doesn’t mean she’s a trustworthy person, or that my family should be taking in strangers off the street.”
The smoke from Dr. Bentley’s pipe floats into the air, and th
e spicy scent reminds me of my grandfather. Thinking of him makes me feel instantly stronger. He’s the reason I’m here. I can face anything for him.
I turn to Dr. and Mrs. Bentley. “I know I’m a stranger. It means a lot to me that you’d take me in and help me when I have no other options. I promise I won’t overstay my welcome.”
The lines of Dean’s face are severe in the sunlit room. “What if you already have?”
Mary throws herself down onto the couch next to her father. “Gee whiz, Dean, leave her alone! You never know when to stop.” She crosses her arms, clearly finished with the topic.
Lucas frowns as he watches the scene. He looks like he wants to say something, but whatever it is, he holds his tongue. He catches me looking at him and his face smoothes into a slight smile. I give him an identical look, grateful that I’m not the only non–family member here.
As far as they know.
“Dean.” Mrs. Bentley stands up. The room falls silent. She steps forward until she’s right next to me. I smell her perfume, rose water and mint. “Lydia needs our help, and our family helps those in need. Now we’ll ask around town to see if anyone has heard of her aunt. What did you say her name was, dear?”
“Julia Roberts,” I mumble.
“Of course. Julia Roberts. But until then, Lydia is a welcome guest in our home.”
I scan the room, stopping at Dean’s scowling face. “I promise I won’t be a burden.”
As I say the words, I wonder if it’s a promise I’ll be able to keep.
A little while later, I sit outside on the front steps and watch as Dean’s jeep disappears down the dusty driveway. He’s heading back to Camp Hero to work on his mysterious project—a project I’m no closer to figuring out. I turn away and stare out at the Bentleys’ yard. The grass is short and neat and there are flower beds tucked around the side of the house. In the far corner is a large vegetable garden with pale green sprouts rising from the ground. Mrs. Bentley calls it a Victory Garden, where she grows food for the family so they don’t have to live only on rations.
So Close to You (So Close to You - Trilogy) Page 8