The Hummingbird War

by Joan Shott

  “I suppose I should rest up for tomorrow, get to bed early,” I said, uneasy about asking if we would be spending the rest of the day together. I didn’t want to hope for too much, but I wanted more than I would admit.

  “Diane, it’s only just past three.” He put his hand on my shoulder and turned me away from the window and towards him. “I was thinking about going out to eat, maybe walking along Oak Street Beach. I’ll get changed and meet you here in an hour.” He closed the door behind him and I ran to grab my suitcase.

  I clicked open its worn metal clasps and dumped the contents on the bed. I’d brought a short, white skirt and my blue, sleeveless blouse, perfect for a warm night. It was the same blouse I’d worn to the office, hoping Matthew would touch the bare skin of my arms, but he hadn’t even noticed it.

  I took a shower and dried my hair, trying to make it look the way Nancy did, pulling it on the big round brush under the dryer until it was as straight as I could manage. I searched in my bag for the mascara Nancy had helped me buy and put it on my lashes carefully, trying to remember all she’d told me, and I successfully avoided sticking the little wand into my eye.

  I stepped into my sandals and smoothed the front of my skirt, checked the buttons on my blouse, and then remembered the earrings I’d slipped into my change purse before I’d left Seattle. They had been my mother’s — small pearl teardrops. She’d given them to me for safekeeping the night the two of us had stayed in the motel. I was carefully screwing the clasps into place when I heard a knock on the door.

  Matthew was standing in the hall dressed in blue jeans and a white polo shirt and wearing brown leather deck shoes, no socks. I’d rarely seen him in anything but business clothes, ties and starched, button-down shirts. He looked younger and taller, and I stared at his tanned, muscular arms as if I’d never seen arms before.

  “I thought I was supposed to dress up a little,” I said, looking down at my skirt and touching the pearl earrings.

  “You look beautiful,” he said. “I like that blouse. I remember when you wore it to the office.”

  I stepped into the hall and closed the door behind me, turning my back for a moment to hide my joy at his mention of the blouse. “Can I ask you something, Matthew?”

  “Sure.”

  “What was the name of Rodney’s brother’s who died?” I thought of how Lilly had wanted to know my husband’s name, his rank, out of respect. I wanted to offer this much to Rodney, maybe to make up for behaving so foolishly because I had been scared of him for no reason other than the color of his skin.

  Matthew hesitated, the tendons in his neck tightened. “Staff Sergeant Tyrone Jefferson, A- two-forty-four, B Company, 5th Special Forces Group.”

  He gave me more than I had expected and seemed drained from the task, as if it had been more to him than a simple recitation. “That’s a lot to remember about someone,” I said. “He must have made an impression on you.”

  “You could say that.”

  “I shouldn’t have been afraid of Rodney.” Rodney had scared me, but like most of my fears, it had no basis. I had a knack for fearing the things that wouldn’t hurt me and embracing the things that could be dangerous. Like living in a remote house alone, driving a rickety old car, getting married at 19. At least, I thought, I’d never made a big enough mistake to have gotten hurt, not in body, anyways. I’d been lucky.

  “I don’t think he took it personally,” he said. “He scares a lot of people.” He touched the small of my back and nodded towards the elevator. “Let’s go.”

  My stomach fluttered as we rode the elevator to the lobby. I wanted to trust Matthew, but how would I know if I should? If I listened, would a voice from some secret place I’d yet to discover tell me I could trust Superman with my life or Matthew with my heart? If I changed the way I saw things, the way I thought, would I still be me — Diane Hayes, Diane Miller — just Diane?

  My mother might have been able to tell me, maybe Lilly. But I was on my own in the city where the devil himself made the rules.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A train screeched overhead, turning a tight corner on the elevated tracks. Sparks floated down like fireworks against the smile of the face of the man in the full moon. We zigzagged across streets and down sidewalks from a small and cozy pizza parlor on our way to Rush Street where people headed in and out of noisy nightclubs and glitzy restaurants. In the street, the fragrance of garlic and charred steaks rode the sexy sound of the mambo. A band was playing an old Dean Martin tune inside a club, and I slowed down to listen.

  Matthew grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the open door. “Let’s go in and have a drink. When was the last time you heard live music? And Diane, it’s the kind of music you like,” he said, laughing.

  I couldn’t recall if I had ever heard any live music outside the crummy little band at our high school prom, but the drinking part was out of the question. “I’m not really much of a drinker. The last time I had a few beers I got sick.” Telling him I had been sick was better than admitting I had been drunk. “Besides, shouldn’t we head down to the park to be with the protestors?”

  “Tonight’s for us,” he said, leading me through the doorway.

  I followed him into The Rat Pack Shack. Inside, the walls were lined with black and white photos of Sinatra, Martin, Joey Bishop, and the rest of the Rat Pack gang. We sat at a corner table for two under a snapshot of Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis, Jr. A four-piece band was playing, and couples danced on the small parquet floor as waitresses in short skirts and black stockings skimmed the perimeter of the room, holding small trays above their heads. They moved like a carousel, the rhythm of the music driving them forward. One stopped at our table. I asked for a coke, and Matthew ordered a scotch. He slipped the waitress some folded bills and whispered something in her ear.

  “Scotch?” I grimaced. “I once took a sniff from a bottle of scotch my father kept for company, and it made my eyes water.”

  “I picked up the habit from my old man,” he said. “He’s the master of numbing the brain. I need something to help me relax…besides you.”

  I shivered, maybe from the air-conditioning I wasn’t used to or, more likely, from the idea of him being worried. That was my specialty. “If you’re worried, then I’m worried,” I said.

  “I’m not worried, but this convention’s a big deal. I could never find publicity like this anywhere else.” The waitress came back to the table with our drinks and nodded at Matthew. He stood up and said, “Come on. Let’s forget about tomorrow.” He led me to the dance floor.

  “I’m afraid I’ll step on your feet,” I protested, although I wanted his arms around me, even if I had to dance to get them there.

  He took my hand in his and wrapped his arm around my waist, and I looked down at my feet as the band began their next song. Three or four notes into it and I knew they were playing My Funny Valentine. My mother’s words came to me, as if in a dream — Dancing is like life. Don’t dance with your feet, dance with your heart. I willed my poor feet to follow his lead until I couldn’t concentrate anymore and let the music do the work.

  His touch, the music, the scent of soap mixed with sweat from the hot night was as intoxicating as the most potent alcohol. The room turned in front of me as if I were now on the edge of that carousel. Round and round, again and again, until I grew dizzy. I closed my eyes against the smoke drifting in from the edges of the room and leaned closer. I let my hand explore the contours of his shoulder. Through his shirt, I touched the ridge of what felt like an old scar, and wished I’d been there to take care of him when he’d been hurt, or scared, or lonely. I missed every year, every day, all the time we hadn’t known each other. I tightened my fingers in his.

  The palm of his hand moved across the small of my back like the flutter of a wing, shooting fingers of heat to my chest. Warmth rose up my neck, and a hint of sweat tingled behind my ears like a kiss. The sharps and flats of the music pulled me in like promises while the boom of the bas
s guitar and the tempo of the piano pulsed up and down my spine. He led me in circles so gentle and fluid, I grew drowsy and wondered if I might only be dreaming. I forgot I didn’t know how to dance.

  My hand touched his hair, the damp, dark strands curling under his chin. He moved his face against the top of my head, and I knew then I wasn’t dreaming because my dreams always swam in seas of need and frustration, and what I was feeling was happiness. But I was afraid to look up into his eyes; afraid to break the spell.

  It wasn’t until I noticed people walking past, that I realized the song had ended. We walked hand in hand back to the little table and sat down. Matthew grinned at me as if he’d been waiting for this to happen just like I had. I let the happiness inside me flutter through the air like the glitter in those little winter scenes inside a glass globe. But as soon as the magical sparkle of the moment began to settle, I knew something loomed over us I couldn’t ignore.

  I clasped my hands together as if I were going to pray and said it all in one breath. “Matthew, can you tell me why that soldier asked about your name? What did Rodney mean about getting word about your brother?” The questions tumbled out more clumsily than I had intended, so out of tune with the melody still looping through my mind. I was embarrassed by my boldness, but I had to know. I’d let the questions mount up for too long.

  He leaned forward and reached for my hand. “I wanted to tell you about us, but the time never seemed right, you know?” He looked at me, searching for a sign of understanding.

  I didn’t know what he meant by us. Maybe he meant the brother Rodney had mentioned. God, I hoped us didn’t mean a girlfriend or a wife, but who was I to judge, even if there was another woman? I was supposed to be mourning my late husband, and instead I was walking the streets of a strange city with a man I was beginning to think I hardly knew. I studied his chest moving under his shirt, inhaling and exhaling, while I could hardly breathe.

  “The soldier at the airport recognized my name because my father’s a general. There’s no reason you would have known the name Bluestone, but a soldier would, especially a career army guy like him.”

  I’d never heard of any General Bluestone. I couldn’t think of any general in the war except Westmoreland, because he moved across the pages of newsprint we read each day. “Where’s your father now?” I asked.

  “He’s in D.C.”

  “Are you close?” I asked, thinking of my own father in his little garage, a million miles from there.

  “We hardly speak. Well, look at me. I’m working for an organization that’s opposed to the war. War is his business. It was a family business until it came to be my turn, and I walked away.”

  “A family business?” I asked, not understanding how war could be anything a family would take to its heart willingly.

  “My two brothers, Jim and Max, were officers.”

  “Two brothers? What happened?” I was afraid I already knew what he would say.

  “Jim died last year.” He said the words slowly as if he were walking a tightrope, afraid to fall from the high place where the pain was stretched tight across his memory. He stroked the palms of my hands with his thumbs.

  I wanted to hold him, but I couldn’t move. I fought against thoughts of Bobby.

  “His name was Major James Bluestone…a marine. Marines were the first ones there, should have taught us a lesson to stay the hell away from that place. He was in the cancer ward at a hospital in Seattle. The best treatment in the world couldn’t save him.”

  I picked up a paper cocktail napkin and twisted it into a rope to stop my hands from shaking, but the paper was no match for my nerves. It tore it in two. I looked up to see tears at the corner of his eyes. “Is that why you took the job with the SDS there?” I asked.

  “I want to end this war. I want to end it for all the sons and brothers and husbands. And I have to find my brother.” He looked up at me and gave me the closest thing to a smile he could manage. “But then I met you. I don’t want to think about my life before you came along.”

  His words rang in my ears with a familiarity that took me back to the day I’d met Bobby at Bowman Bay. I don’t want to think of what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been here, Birdie. Maybe the two men were more alike than I’d realized.

  “What do you mean…about finding your brother?” I asked.

  “Max was captured by the North Vietnamese two years ago, and we don’t know where he is or if he’s alive. He might be held unreported because of who his father is, and Maxwell’s a Lieutenant Colonel. They might want to make a deal. Who knows what can happen in that goddamned, crazy place.”

  No wonder Rodney had asked him about his brother as if he’d been walking on broken glass. I wanted to ask what hope he had for his brother after two years, but I didn’t want to plant more doubt where I was sure plenty already existed.

  “My brothers would never hold what happened to them against the government or the army. They were real soldiers. Duty, honor, country.”

  I gasped. His words shook me as if I were a child who had been caught peeking at something forbidden. I hoped he hadn’t noticed my reaction, although I felt my skin grow flushed and my focus fall away from his eyes in shame. I had touched that inscription on his gold pen, and what to me had been just words to him was a connection to the fate of his family. “I’m sorry, Matthew.”

  “There’s more, Diane.”

  “More?”

  “It’s about my mother,” he said.

  “What about your mother?” Was she the other half of the us he’d spoken of? If so, how bad could it be?

  Matthew swirled his drink and swallowed the powerful liquid as if it could jump start his will. “My mother had a tough time with the army life. I always figured she didn’t know what she was getting herself into when she married my father.”

  “It’s hard to know if you’re making the right choice sometimes,” I said, thinking about Bobby and me and wondering if I had to do it all over again, what would I do.

  “My old man was in the front lines during the Korean War, but he never got so much as a scratch. And then his two sons end up…you’d think he’d understand this war is a different kind of animal.”

  “And your mother?” I led him back to the subject.

  “My mother started to drink, and by the time I was in high school she was a full-blown alcoholic. She’s sober now. She came to Seattle to be with my brother, and after he died she didn’t want to go back to her old life. She lives down the street from me. I do what I can for her.”

  “You’re a good man, Matthew.”

  “Maybe you’d better hold your judgment about that good part.”

  “You’re dedicated to doing something positive for this country, and you take care of someone who needs help, including me now and then. Come on. Give yourself a break.”

  “Her name’s Lilly,” he said.

  “Lilly? What about Lilly?”

  “Your friend, Lilly, is my mother.”

  “Your mother?” I stared at him, and Lilly’s grey eyes looked back at me.

  “Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?” My hands were shaking, my voice quaking. I was the embodiment of the unsophisticated girl, a country bumpkin, the fool, stupid and careless. How could I ever trust my judgment of people if I couldn’t even see the truth when it was staring me in the face? Everything I’d told her about my hopes and dreams must have been passed along to him like dinner-table gossip. The questions I’d carried for months about him exploded in front of my eyes: the job, my middle name, the ten thousand dollars.

  “She wanted to tell you, but I think she was afraid she’d lose your trust. She didn’t mean to hurt you, Diane. She loves you.”

  “She loves me?” I had thought I felt that way about her, too. I’d wanted to give Lilly the love I had bundled up for the past fourteen years for the mother I missed. Had I been blind because I was so unsophisticated, such a bumpkin, or just plain stupid?

  “It run
s in the family,” he said.

  I pulled my hands away and looked at him as if he’d told me my face was purple. Had he just admitted he was falling in love with me, or was I crazy and turned inside out about everything? I didn’t know what to say, what to do, what was real, and doubted someone so confused and muddled as me deserved anyone’s love.

  I got up from the table and ran out the front door, across the busy intersection, and down the street.

  Matthew called after me, “Diane, come back.”

  I ran down the sidewalk, stopped at the corner of a busy avenue in front of a store window. I didn’t know where I was or what I should do. A mannequin, posed nonchalantly in a pair of bellbottom pants and a fringed vest, looked back at me. She wore a wig of long brown hair, a headband across her forehead, and an arrogant expression: war protestor gone vogue. Was his confession of love and all he’d led me to believe about the fight to end the war as counterfeit as the peace sign hanging around the plastic woman’s neck?

  “What? What? What?” I shrieked to my reflection, the mannequin’s haughty expression on its unchanging face reflected just above my own. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked. My eyes were smudged with the mascara I had forgotten about. My fingers rubbed at the black tracks from my tears. I looked down, unable to confront the doubt in my eyes, the foolishness of trying to pretend I could ignore everything that ate away inside me.

  When I looked up at my reflection, Matthew was standing behind me and the big, old Drake Hotel was just across the street. I wasn’t lost after all.

  “You’re supposed to live, not punish yourself. And so am I,” he said, turning me towards him. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You’re absolutely beautiful. You’re genuine, you’re caring, and you make me feel human again. I can’t lose you.”

  “I don’t feel like anyone’s best.”