After he’d photographed every part of the shelter—from the kitchen area with its sink, racks of dishes, pots, pans, and Sterno cans for cooking; to the medicine cabinet’s bandages and first-aid supplies; to the flushable toilet in the corner stall between baskets of toilet paper and Renuzit air freshener—the reporter had asked her to stand in front of the food shelves filled with the bulk of items on the government’s “Grandma’s Pantry” list.
“Not that you look like any grandma I’ve ever seen,” he’d said. Shyness flushed his freckled face.
Flattered—somehow, despite everything, she’d managed to hang on to her looks—she’d set down her file and stepped into the picture, hoping his popping flashbulbs wouldn’t reveal the extra layers of concealer she’d slathered on the dark circles under her eyes. She’d been up all night, cleaning, stacking, and restacking the shelves in preparation for today’s visit by Jean Yothers, the Sentinel’s popular “On the Town” columnist, and Edith Murray. When both women canceled, she’d considered telling Joe Riley to forget the whole thing.
“I’ve never actually spoken with The Press before,” she’d admitted.
“Well…” Riley had grinned, looking like Andy Griffith’s Opie all grown up. “You’re my first official interview so, between us, we should be fine.”
Groggy from no sleep, she’d done the best she could, but now…what was it she’d come in here for? The file in her hand reminded her.
Back in the kitchen, she dialed the Miami number. “Hello, Mrs. Mininson. It’s Sarah Avery from Orlando, hoping to confirm your arrival time tomorrow.”
“Oh, well, I’m not really sure….”
“You mean…”
“With the hurricane and all, I don’t know if Mel…”
“Hurricane?”
“Haven’t you heard? Hurricane Ella, they’re calling it…headed right toward you.”
“Why, no, I…” Sarah turned to look out the kitchen windows. The view of her hibiscus bushes shaking as if throttled by a giant unseen hand, the queen palms bent low toward the lake, the lake itself quaking with small whitecaps, raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A hurricane? Now, when the season was supposedly over?
October, she thought. Ever since she was six years old, October—with its grinning jack-o’-lanterns and Mama’s tears, and her own broken heart over losing little Robbie to the scarlet fever; Robbie, who loved Tom Mix, Pick Up Sticks, blueberry pancakes, and both his big sisters, Kiki and Sare-Bear. “The meek don’t inherit the earth,” Mama complained bitterly at the cemetery, the fall-leaf funeral wreaths too bright beside the small pale blue casket. “It swallows them whole.” And later, hollowly, as they arrived home: “Just imagine if Robbie had been my only child.”—October, Sarah thought, was really the cruelest month of the year.
In Sarah’s ear, Maria Mininson was saying something about “…till Mel gets home from work…morning might be better.” Then, as if from very far away, Sarah heard her front doorbell.
“I understand.” A confounded hurricane! “You’ll call me soon as you decide, then? Thanks so much, Maria….”
In her hands, she felt the thrust of the wind against the door. In the sudden whoosh off the front stoop, the potbellied man held his cap on his head and a clipboard against his chest. “Got yer brochures right here, ma’am.” Behind him, storm clouds loomed black across the sky, darkening the afternoon like a curtained room.
“Thank you,” Sarah said and stepped aside to let him in.
He placed the clipboard facedown on the uppermost of three boxes stacked atop a metal dolly and, still holding his cap, rocked the dolly to an angle and wheeled it across the threshold. “Where you want ’em?”
She caught the whiff of tobacco plus some chemical she assumed was ink. “Next to the dining room table, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure thing.”
Something bright—a yellow leaf from the Gilberts’ sycamore across the street—was attached to his shoe and came off in front of her. She stooped to pick it up and toss it back outside. She frowned as, closing the door, she saw the scatter of other leaves just like it littering her front lawn, shifting across the driveway. Sarah had only evergreens in her yard, because falling leaves reminded her of poor Robbie, and all the other bad luck and lost babies that followed. Was it any wonder she hated this time of year?
“If you’ll just sign here…” The printer had unloaded the boxes, had a pen from his pocket clicked to ready, and handed her the clipboard. She signed. “And here’s yer sample,” he said, removing the sheet from beneath the receipt.
“But it’s not folded.”
“Yeah,” he said, suddenly sheepish. “As I told the other lady, our folder’s broke. Got a new part comin’ in from Jacksonville on Monday.”
“But the show’s on Sunday!”
“I know. Sorry. But the other lady, Mrs. Murray, said to go ahead and deliver ’em and the committee would fold ’em.”
“Three thousand of them?”
“Sorry,” he said again, halfheartedly, and wheeled his dolly out the door.
Sarah returned to the living room dazed. Of the original committee, two women had privately fumed over Edith’s heavy-handedness and then, claiming other obligations, politely quit. The other two were as overwhelmed by Edith’s endless demands as she was. There’d be no help there. She glanced aimlessly around the room, stopping for no good reason at the mantel clock. Ten past four. She could hear its insistent tick-tick-tack in the empty room; and outside, high overhead, the drone of an airplane, then another; and out back, the worried twitter of the family parakeets in their cages on the screened porch.
She shivered against the idea of another hurricane and the sudden thought that in the room’s growing shadows lay remnants of her old anxiety, the depressive darkness that sometimes trailed her with the glint of hungry eyes, a blur of feral fur at the edge of her peripheral vision. Abruptly, she switched on the lamps at each end of the sofa and beside Wes’s chair and forced herself to take stock. Charlotte was at majorette practice, with plans to work on the senior float in the school Ag Barn, then attend a slumber party at her friend Brenda’s tonight. Wes would be at the station till closing at nine. She had five hours to fill, plus three thousand brochures to fold for a Civil Defense show that might not even happen because a hurricane was headed their way.
She moved to the stereo, stacked the turntable with some soothing Verdi, a Bizet, and the new Leontyne Price, then drifted into the kitchen. She needed a glass of sherry—or something stronger—to calm her nerves. Or maybe a couple of her little yellow Nembutals?
Perhaps, she decided, both.
“Whew!” Sarah Avery exclaimed, opening the side door. “Wet enough for you?”
“Ya think?” Jimmy Simms said with a laugh. Water dripped off the end of his bulbous nose and ran off the hem of the red slicker covering his white T. G. Lee Dairy uniform.
Behind him, gale-force winds blew the heavy downpour sideways. Rain pummeled the back of his milk truck and battered the front of the house.
Behind her, Wes Avery called from the breakfast nook, “Come on in, Jimmy; have a cup of coffee.”
Simms held his wire crate of foil-topped, one-quart milk bottles and shifted his gaze to Mrs. Avery. It was company policy, not to mention plain old horse sense, that no employee set foot in a domicile without the express permission of the lady of the house. This lady especially, Simms thought. He’d always appreciated that, while most of her neighbors were still shuffling around in their pink hair curlers and pajama robes, Mrs. Avery was up early and nicely dressed—crisp white blouse atop black slacks today, dark hair swirled in a stylish French twist. She was always pleasant, too, thanking him with that low, husky voice of hers. Deep for a woman’s, like—what’s-her-name, married Bogie? Lauren Bacall, that was it.
She took the crate and elbowed the door open for him. “Cream and sugar, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Simms stopped to shrug out of his slicker. He hung it on the
coat hook beside the door, wiped his feet on the mat, then ambled across the kitchen to where Avery sat at the white Formica dinette.
“The ol’ Crackers had a sayin’…” Simms gingerly lowered his bulk onto the chrome chair. “…July—stand by; August—look out you must; September—remember; October—all over.” He scowled at the water-streaked view of the lake writhing under Ella’s outer bands. “Exception to every rule, I s’pose.”
“Yup,” Avery agreed, shifting a discarded section of the newspaper out of Simms’s way.
“Radio says she might be turning north,” Simms added. “Any luck, we’ll catch a break later today or tomorrow.”
“Oughta make the cows happy,” Avery said.
“I hope you’re right,” Mrs. Avery said with an obvious shudder. Her hand, placing the steaming mug in front of him, pointing out the cream and sugar, had a visible shake. “If I never see another hurricane, it’ll be too soon for me,” she added, topping off Avery’s mug and carrying her own empty to the sink.
“Cows don’t mind the rain, y’know,” Simms said amiably, pouring cream, spooning in sugar. “It’s the planes make ’em nervous.”
It was no secret to anyone that T. G. Lee Dairy’s pastures lay in the southeastern flight path of McCoy Air Force Base.
“Ones arrived yesterday?” Avery said. “Thunderchiefs. Louder than all get-out.”
“Them, yeah.” Simms sipped coffee. “But it’s the black ones really spook ’em. Comin’ and goin’ during early milkin’. Big black suckers, like a flock of giant turkey buzzards. Take off funny, too, almost straight up”—he traced the ascent with his hand—“like a rocket.”
Avery set down his mug. “Black, you say?”
“Black as tar.” Simms leaned in, relishing his role as insider, and dropped his tone. “Guy at the plant says they’re some kinda spy planes, like the one got shot down by the Russkies couple years back.”
Avery stiffened, like a hunting dog on point. “A U-2? They’ve got a U-2 out there?”
“That’s it, but not just one. They’s a whole flock of ’em flew in this week, parked off to theirselves outside the old parachute hangar. Know where I mean?”
“Of course. We went to the open house same as everybody else.”
Four years ago, thirty thousand people had jammed the tarmac for the bittersweet celebration of the air base’s name change from Pinecastle to McCoy AFB. The event memorialized popular base commander Colonel Mike McCoy, who, rather than eject out of his malfunctioning B-47 and risk crashing the local neighborhood, flew it fatally into a nearby field.
“What a zoo that was!” Simms chuckled. “Half of Orlando and most of ’em thinkin’ that drinkin’ our milk entitled ’em to park in our pastures.”
Avery’s eyes were wide with excitement. “A U-2! Might be worth a drive over after church to see one of those. Heh, Sarah?” he asked.
Mrs. Avery stood at the open Frigidaire transferring the milk bottles from Simms’s crate to the top shelf. Her tone, when she answered, was distracted. “You go ahead if you want to. Lord knows where I’ll be.”
Simms followed Avery’s gaze and, frankly, enjoyed the view. Mrs. Avery was beautiful in a way he thought particular to the South—all that dark chestnut hair and pale porcelain skin, tall and slim yet delicate somehow, like the thoroughbreds at the Ocala stables, where his brother-in-law worked. He wondered, not for the first time, how they’d met. He’d heard Avery’s story: Georgia farm boy turned crop duster turned airman who’d done some training in Orlando then came back after the war. But Mrs. Avery was less forthcoming and, therefore, more intriguing. Wartime romance, Simms imagined, wishing he knew more. She was a beaut all right—fine china married to a tin cup.
“Well,” Simms said, suddenly uncomfortable in the extended silence. “I best get goin’.” He hoisted himself up off his chair and carried his mug to the counter. “Mighty fine coffee, ma’am,” he murmured. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome,” she said as he picked up the crate of empty returns.
At the door, he pulled on his slicker then, ducking his head against the wind and rain, called brightly over his shoulder, “Be seein’ ya!”
—
AVERY WAVED SIMMS OFF, elated. He’d had a hunch the milkman might know something about the unusual activity out at the air base, but Simms’s news—A real live U-2!—was extraordinary. Two years ago, Ike had denied the super-secret spy plane even existed—until Khrushchev produced not only the plane but US pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Sverdlovsk. Now, if Simms could be believed, there was a whole squadron of U-2s here in Orlando?
While Avery sat planning when, and how, he could get out to the base to see for himself, Sarah set his ready-to-go lunch pail on the counter, then moved to open the cabinet left of the sink. He saw her take out the blue Bromo-Seltzer bottle and matching glass, plus the smaller amber vial of her Nembutals. She shook two capfuls of crystals into the glass, added tap water up to the fill line, then swirled and drank down the fizzing water in a series of grimacing swallows.
Feeling his gaze, she shrugged and said, “Just trying to clear my head and”—she popped a couple of her yellow pills—“calm my nerves.”
He knew she’d been up and down all night, a shaky silhouette moving from window to window, wincing at the rifle-like cracks of lightning, worrying over the whistling winds and heavy rain, agonizing over Charlotte’s safety at her slumber party, and whether Sunday’s Civil Defense show would be on or off.
But even after her six a.m. phone call confirmed Charlotte was fine, she’d remained a bundle of nerves.
Avery hoped the Bromo and her pills would help. In the meantime, he was due at the station. He rose from the table, thanked her for his lunch, then asked, “Anything I can do before I go?”
She stood at the sink staring out at the storm-chopped lake, arms crossed as if she was cold. “Stop the rain?” she said quietly. “The clock? The world—and let me off?”
Avery took a long breath. Sarah’s blue moods always gave him the feeling of a dark intruder between them, one that, try as he might, only she could repel. He squeezed her shoulder gently. “Darlin’,” he said, his exhale a soft sigh, “you know I would if I could.”
—
SATURDAYS, THE STATION OPERATED on staggered shifts: Steve opened at eight and worked till four. Avery arrived at ten and stayed until six. And Emilio came in at one and closed at nine.
While Steve attended to engine work in his service bay, Avery spent a miserable morning out at the pumps. The station’s canopy offered scant protection against the rain gusting sideways in Hurricane Ella’s advance winds.
In the office, they kept the radio on for storm updates. Just after noon, they heard the cautiously optimistic news that, despite coastal winds of 115 miles per hour, Hurricane Ella seemed to be weakening. Better still, she was veering slowly north toward coastal Georgia.
Just before one, Emilio dashed in and ducked into the back room to change into his uniform. Father Thomas O’Meara, the burly Catholic priest who usually dropped the teenager off, parked his Chevy at the curb and lumbered in without an umbrella.
“Afternoon, Mr. Avery. Might I have a word?”
Avery had never met a Catholic priest, much less talked to one, until this one walked into his station last month, broad red face atop a tight-fitting white collar, bushy brows, and a flop of white hair combed like an ocean wave.
At that first meeting, Avery had found the man’s Irish accent hard to understand, except for the part about “Twenty-five Cuban boys, Mr. Avery. Twenty-five!”
It had taken almost half an hour for the priest to explain and for Avery to understand that Bishop Moore, Orlando’s Catholic high school, had taken in twenty-five teenage Cuban exiles; that the diocese was housing them in the local Catholic retreat camp; and that the boys needed jobs “to earn money for extras.” It was all part of some hush-hush church charity program—Operation Pedro Pan, O’Meara called it, Spanish for “
Peter Pan”—to help Cuban Catholics get their children out of the clutches of “that infidel Fidel.”
“Fourteen thousand children airlifted out so far, Mr. Avery. Can you imagine?”
No, Avery couldn’t. “Where you putting them all?”
“Catholic parishes all over Florida and twenty-nine other states,” the priest answered proudly.
Was a parish the same thing as a congregation? Avery wondered. And what the heck was a di-oh-sees?
In the end, Avery had agreed to one job for one boy. It was good timing, he told the priest, since his previous help, Billy Jameson, had just gone off to college in Gainesville. No special skills required, he said, so long as the boy was reliable and spoke English.
Steve had expected some kind of teenage Ricky Ricardo, small and dark, so Emilio’s height, his sandy-blond hair, and his aqua-blue eyes surprised him. But Avery, who’d spent two months in over-water flight training at Batista Field outside Havana, shook his head. “You’d be surprised how many blue-eyed, blond Cubans there are.”
Turned out, Emilio’s English was impeccable and his customer sense outstanding. Almost immediately the boy intuited that although the tourist trade was important at the pumps, it was the locals who kept the service bays busy. Like Avery, he checked each car’s license plate first thing and paid special attention to those whose Florida plate began with No. 7, the state’s designation for Orange County. Lady customers were charmed by the teenager’s good looks and proper, Continental manners. Asked to do anything extra, he’d grin and say, “It would be my pleasure.” And by all appearances, it was. Back in the service bays, Emilio amused the mechanics with tales from his obviously privileged childhood in Cuba, which he pronounced COO-ba with quiet pride and affection. His stories—about Antonio their chauffeur’s passion for Havana showgirls; Marcellina the cook’s hapless attempts to catch a husband; and trips to his grandfather’s coffee plantation on a mountainside honeycombed with pirate caves—were full of intrigue and laughter, but often ended with a frown passing like a cloud across his sunny features. “Of course, that was all before…,” he’d say darkly, turning to spit in the nearest trash can, “…Fidel!”
A Place We Knew Well Page 3