by Judy Nickles
Overhearing the argument—Celeste thought maybe everyone in the neighborhood heard it—Mrs. Goddard stormed out of the kitchen and told Mrs. Peters to get out and not come back. Claudia’s mother left, spewing threats of taking Kent to court for child support and worse.
On the drive to San Angelo, Kent refused to talk about it, except to repeat, “He’s not mine, so I’m not responsible for him.”
Celeste let it go at that because she knew she didn’t want to hear anything different. Kent’s right about me needing to grow up and face reality, but I’m just not ready. At least, not as far as he’s concerned. Anyway, he’s leaving, and I don’t have to make a decision right away. She did wonder about the little boy, though. Had anybody ever really been responsible for him? What was his life like?
****
She begged off from the Canteen and made baked chicken and dressing for their last evening together, putting aside her qualms about being alone in the house with Kent and trying not to think of Claudia and her little boy. They ate by candlelight, and afterward he dried the dishes as she washed. “We’re playing house,” he said.
“Or something.”
His hand caressed her shoulders and moved low on her back. “Or something.”
She shivered. “We can go sit in the parlor and listen to the radio.”
“If we were married, we wouldn’t have to sit in the parlor.”
“We’re not married.”
“I love you, Velvet. I need you. Need you like a man needs a woman.”
She moved away from him a few steps. “Don’t, Kent.”
He picked up the dishtowel again. “I’m not going to attack you,” he said. The bitterness in his voice unsettled her.
“I know that.”
“But I meant what I said. A little hand-holding and kissing doesn’t go a long way toward…”
“Stop it.”
He tossed the dishtowel on the cabinet and stalked out of the kitchen. She found him leaning on the porch railing, staring into the dusk. “Maybe we should go to the Canteen and dance,” she said.
“Maybe you should just drive me back to the field.”
“It’s your last night, Kent. I don’t want to spoil it with a fight.”
“That’s what I’m fixing to do, you know, fight. Maybe it’ll be from an airplane where I can’t see them, but I’m still going to kill people, and they’re going to try to kill me.”
She slipped her arms around his waist from behind him. He jerked away. “Don’t be a tease, Velvet. Claudia sure was.”
Celeste froze. “I thought you said…”
“I said the boy isn’t mine.”
She sucked in her breath. I don’t really know you, do I? And if I don’t know you, how can I think I’m in love with you? “I want to hear that he couldn’t be yours, but you can’t say that, can you?”
His silence answered her question.
“Why weren’t you honest with me?”
“If I’d been honest, would we be having this conversation right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you do. All right, she kept on and on, and got me going so bad I didn’t want to stop, and then she laughed at me.”
“So you…you…”
“Yes, I did! That’s what she wanted. Wanted me to take her right there on the blanket out at the lake, and I did.”
Celeste’s mouth went dry. When she opened it to speak, nothing came out.
“I was twenty years old. Been away at that CCC camp for two years, and when I came home, she made sure we ran into each other. I asked her to go for a ride, and we ended up at the lake. She was my first, but I knew I wasn’t hers. She…”
“Don’t say anymore,” Celeste said, backing away from him. “Please, Kent, don’t tell me anymore.”
“You wanted to know.” He hit the porch pillar with his fist. “Now you do.”
“I had to know,” she murmured, thinking that if she didn’t get inside and sit down, she was going to fall down. “I had to know. Don’t you understand?”
“So now what?”
“I don’t know.” She stumbled toward the screen door and yanked it open. “I don’t know.”
After a few minutes, he followed her inside, where she had curled herself into a tight knot on the couch. “I’m sorry, Velvet,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“What did you mean to do?”
“I don’t know. I was just so…so mad at you.”
“Why? Because I wouldn’t go to bed with you?” She hid her face against the back of the settee, shocked at her own blunt words.
“I guess so.”
“Why would you expect me to…to do that?”
“I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what got into me.”
“But you did.” She lifted her face. In the lamplight, his eyes glowed, but not with happiness.
“I was wrong. Wrong about Claudia, wrong about you.” He sat down in the chair across from her. “I’m leaving first thing in the morning, Velvet. I don’t want to remember you like this.”
She sat up. “I’ll drive you back to the field.”
“No, I’ll go downtown and ride back with the fellows at the Canteen when it closes.” He rose and stepped toward her, then stopped. “I do love you, Velvet.”
She nodded. “I know you do. And for what it’s worth, I love you, too.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“You can.”
“But I’m not still your prince. More like a toad.”
She didn’t smile. “I don’t believe in fairytales anymore.”
“Because of me?”
“You said I needed to grow up.”
“I’ve said a lot of things I wish I could take back, but I guess that much was right. I had to grow up overnight when I was fourteen, but you had your sister. You still do.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“She still calls you ‘baby girl,’ and that’s how you think of yourself—as her baby girl. You haven’t had to grow up, because she’s always been there to take care of things for you.”
Anger flared in Celeste. “I’ve worked since I was twelve years old and put up with Daddy on top of that.”
“You think that makes you a woman?”
She watched the rage building in him again. She’d seen it before, more than once, and retreated from it. Now she felt trapped, even threatened—though not physically.
“I thought it did. Not letting you get all over me makes me responsible, not immature.”
“I don’t want…you’re not a one-night stand, Velvet. Not by a long shot. We could’ve gotten married.”
“So we could sleep together for a few nights?”
“You know it’s more than that.”
She dropped her head to hide her face until she got control of her emotions. “I want to know that, Kent. I want to believe you really love me.”
“I’ve said so plenty of times.”
“I know.”
“But that’s not enough, is it? Why? Can you tell me that?”
“I wish I knew.”
“You said we needed to talk so we could get to know each other, and we’ve done that. If you don’t know me by now, you never will.”
“I know you’re a good person, Kent.”
“Look, I’ve been honest with you about what I did. Maybe I should’ve come clean right off the bat, but I didn’t. I’m not perfect. Neither are you.”
“I never said I was.”
“No, but you wanted to live in a perfect world. That’s what you were doing when you stayed in this house in your own room, even though your father didn’t care anything about you.”
She straightened her shoulders in a show of what she hoped was confidence. “He did once.” And I can’t tell you why he didn’t love me after Mamma died. You’ve been honest with me, but I can’t be honest with you, not now, not ever. You don’t care about a little boy who might really be yours, and you wouldn’t care
about somebody who doesn’t even know who her own father is.
“Maybe and maybe not. But you held on to the idea that it was all going to come out happily-ever-after in the end, so you stayed.”
“You don’t know what I did or why.” Why are we fighting? Is this what we’re going to remember about our last night together?
“Well, maybe I don’t. I don’t know why I gave in to Claudia, other than the obvious. I never did anything like that before. Mother made my life miserable, so maybe I was getting back at her. But that’s no good reason for what I did. No excuse.”
“If you knew it was wrong, why did you want the same thing from me?”
He stared at her.
“You said I wasn’t like Claudia, but you wanted me to be, at least in that way, didn’t you?”
He blew out his breath. “I guess I did. I’m sorry.”
“So if I’d given in to you, I’d have been just like her, and then you wouldn’t have wanted to marry me either.”
“That’s not true. I love you. I didn’t love her.”
“Oh, Kent, we’re just going around in circles.”
“I guess we are. I better go.” He stood up. “I’m sorry, Velvet.”
“Me, too.”
“Will you be all right?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“I could ask Veda to come over when she gets through at the Canteen tonight.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“That’s not what I…oh, never mind.”
“You better go, or you’ll miss your ride.”
“I love you, Velvet.”
She nodded but didn’t take the hand he held out to her. When he walked out the front door, she slipped into the hall and watched through the screen until the dusk swallowed him up.
****
Celeste didn’t fall asleep until dawn. When she woke it was after noon, and when she went downstairs she found a piece of paper stuck in the screen door. “You can write to me at this address if you want to. Please forgive me.” In the bottom corner, he’d sketched a small toad wearing a crown.
Chapter Twenty-One
Several times, Celeste tried to find a way to tell Coralee about Kent, but she always held back at the last minute. I know she’d understand, but she might tell me to forget him, and I don’t want to do that. I’m not sure I could anyway. Why can’t I just accept that he did what he did and go on? Maybe if the little boy wasn’t in the picture…but he is. He’s there just like I was when Daddy took Mamma back.
The girls at the store sympathized with her over Kent’s departure. Most of them had someone in service, too—husband, brother, boyfriend, neighbor, acquaintance. She accepted their kind words with appropriate replies, feeling doubly dishonest that she let them keep believing she was heartbroken because he was gone.
But my heart’s not broken. I’m just plain relieved that I don’t have to see him and try to act like everything is the same when it’s not.
When Kent didn’t write, she supposed he was waiting for her to make the first move. She tried, without success. The wastebasket beside the desk in the parlor filled up with the crumpled sheets of stationery, letters begun and never finished.
What is there to say? I told him I still loved him, and I do. At least, I think I do. I think I’ve grown up a lot, too, but that doesn’t mean I have to toss out all my principles like Mamma did.
****
She did hear from Kent’s brother Neil, who wrote to apologize for their mother’s inhospitable behavior and for the scene created by Mrs. Peters.
I guess Kent and I just accept Mother for who and what she is. She’s not a bad person. She just likes to be the boss. Things might have been different if Dad hadn’t died, but then she started bossing us the way she did him, and we just let her because he did. I don’t know what went on between Kent and Claudia or if Jonny could be his or not. (I hope I’m not embarrassing you—we’re both adults—or supposed to be.) If he is, Kent owes him something. The poor kid’s better off without his mother, as awful as that sounds. She was just plain no good, and maybe it wasn’t all her fault. But you’re a swell girl, Celeste, and Kent loves you. I hope things work out for both of you.
Kay and I are getting married at Christmas. I got a job teaching history in the high school here, but it doesn’t start until September. With both our paychecks, we’ll have enough to rent a small apartment—if we can find one these days.
Take care of yourself, Celeste, and keep in touch.
She wrote back, just a quick note wishing Kay and him well. He probably didn’t need to know how Kent had left on a sour note, one she wasn’t sure could ever be replayed in tune.
****
Mrs. Lowe kept up with the servicemen who passed through the Canteen and always announced, just before they opened every Saturday night, the names of those who had been wounded or killed. “I know it’s a somber note,” she said, “but I want you young ladies to understand how important it is to be good to these boys while they’re here.”
Once she said to Celeste, “I hold my breath when I get a list, afraid I’ll see Kent’s name on it. I pray for him and all the others.”
Celeste hugged her. “Thank you, Mrs. Lowe. You’ll get a star in your crown for all this.”
“All I want is for this war to be over, and our boys to come home safely. As many of them as possible.”
****
Veda’s brother came home wounded from the Pacific. “He won’t go back,” she confided to Celeste over lunch one Friday. “He won’t ever be the same.” She told Mrs. Lowe she couldn’t come to the Canteen for a while and started taking the bus home to Winters every weekend.
Just before Thanksgiving, Celeste ran into Pete Frame on her way to the bank. He asked her to have a cup of coffee and proceeded to do what he called spilling his guts. “I’m not cut out for the military,” he said, watching for her reaction. “I don’t want to kill anybody, not even a Jap or a Nazi.”
“I don’t guess anybody does.”
“Some of the guys don’t have any trouble. When we trained with the bayonets, they hit those straw dummies like they were enjoying it.”
“I already know you didn’t.”
“I dream about it, Cece. What’s going to happen to me when I do it for real?”
“You’ll be all right, Pete. I know you will.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I guess so. One of the older sergeants who helped train us told us that he didn’t think he could do it either, but when he got to France in 1918, he did. He said when it comes down to you or him, you’ll do what you have to do.”
“It’s just too bad it has to be done at all.”
“Yeah. I’m not a coward.”
“I know that.”
“I can’t tell my folks all this,” he said. “But I’ve got to get it off my chest somehow. You always were a good listener.”
“When do you have to go back?”
“Never, I wish, but I’ve only got thirty days. What about you? You have a steady fellow overseas somewhere?”
“I met someone—a bombardier,” she said after a minute, “but we don’t really keep in touch.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story.”
“So it’s not serious.”
“I thought for a while it might be.” She shrugged. “What about you?”
He grinned and pulled out his wallet. “Her name’s Alice. I met her during basic training.” He handed her a black-and-white photograph of a young woman whose smile looked ready to erupt into laughter.
“She’s really pretty,” Celeste said, studying the girl’s face. “Are you engaged?”
“She said yes, but I couldn’t afford a ring.”
“A ring’s not important.”
“We’ve talked about getting married before I go overseas, but we decided to wait.”
“Why?”
“What if I don’t get back? She lives at home and works in an ammunition plant. She’ll be better
off if we don’t get married. I can’t stand the idea of her being left with a…baby.” His voice dropped to a whisper.
“How does she feel about that?”
“She says a few days are better than none at all.”
“Then maybe you should grab whatever time you have.” The words slipped out before Celeste realized what she was saying.
“You really think so?”
“You’re coming home safe and sound, Pete. But I think you should do whatever the two of you feel is right, whether it’s getting married now or waiting until after the war.”
“I’d like for you to meet Alice.”
“I’ll look forward to that. After the war and all, when you bring her home.”
“Sure, I’ll do that, and we’ll get together and talk about old times. Maybe by then you and your bombardier fellow will be back in touch.”
“It’s hard to get to know somebody during a war. Nothing’s certain anymore, not even tomorrow.”
“You’re right about that. I was just lucky with Alice, I guess. In a way, she reminds me a lot of you.”
“I hope she likes all the things you do, the things I didn’t like.”
He laughed. “She’s a real outdoors type.”
“Pete, can I ask you something? I don’t mean to embarrass you, but we were always good friends.”
“We still are, Cece. I’ve thought about you a lot. Ask me whatever you want to.”
“The soldier I met…well, actually, I met him before the war, just briefly, but he ended up back here at Concho Field, and I’m helping at the Canteen, so…”
“So you ran into him again, and bells rang.” He grinned.
“I thought so. We’re alike in all the ways that you and I weren’t, but you and I never argued.”
“We didn’t have anything to argue about. We had a good time. We both knew we weren’t going the same direction after high school, and I wasn’t trying to get you in the back seat of my car and…” He stopped. “Now I’m embarrassing you, I bet. Things get talked about in the barracks, and a guy sort of loses his inhibitions.”
She felt the color creeping into her face and looked away.