by Leah Weiss
I say, “I don’t speak German, so how can I talk to em?”
“Do not sass me, young lady.”
“I’m being honest, not sassing.”
Lu punches me in the arm. “Say Yes, ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, but Mama ain’t finished.
“These prisoners are enemies of America, hired workers in hard times to help us get by. They have been killing our American men. Everett and Wade are risking their lives to defeat horrible men like these. They may look normal, but they’re murderers and heathens, and you are pretty girls who they can’t help but notice.”
Lu perks up. “What kind of foolish things you think we pretty girls will do?”
Mama turns stern. “You know what I’m saying.”
Later that morning—after the platters of potato salad and deviled eggs and sliced ham wait for the men to come in from the field—I find Lu in her mama’s bedroom, looking in the mirror.
“What’cha doing?”
“Looking for a pretty girl.”
“Well, she’s right there in plain sight. What can’t you see?”
“It’s you. I see you next to me, Bert, and I don’t look like you.”
“Course not. You look like perfect Lu Brown.”
Lu leans closer to the mirror, looks into hazel eyes with flecks of yellow and teal and thick lashes that curl. She smiles, and her dimples pop through and turn on a light in her face. “Is this what pretty looks like, too?”
I don’t even bother to say, cause her question’s pure stupid.
The workers come in from the field where they been planting tobacco seedlings like little soldiers in a row. Sammy, Cornell, and Purvis are as old as Daddy, and they wear overalls almost worn through. Our men take turns washing up at the water barrel with lye soap. They wet their bandannas and wash grime from their faces and necks, and the Nazis watch, their new blue shirts and pants covered in dust, their faces red from the sun. When everyone else has finished, they wash up, and Daddy points to the separate table in the barn. Mama fixes two plates on the skimpy side, and I bring glasses of water, not sweet tea. Sweet tea is for Southerners who belong here. I steal a look at the enemy. One of em looks up at me, smiles, and says donkey. What am I supposed to say to that?
We make it through that day and the next till the POWs become regular as rain. But Lu and me think they’re being sneaky. Taking their time. Working on a devil plan.
Chapter 29
Lucy: Last Dance
In the heart of April, when the Nazis have morphed into something benign, we get exciting news—a military traveling band is coming to town. The band is called the Top Hats and posters go up on telephone poles and in storefront windows. They play big band music, so we practice the swing and jitterbug with Irene. We turn up the radio, push back the table, and work up a sweat dancing to Harry James, Benny Goodman, and our favorite, Glenn Miller. Some local dances are held in the high school gymnasium, but this one will be in the tobacco warehouse because it’s bigger. The warehouse is our community center when it’s not auction time. Square dances and bluegrass music and local talent shows are held on some Saturdays. This is the first big band to play.
This Friday, we pile in the back of the truck, and Grady drives. The dance music reaches our ears before we even get there. Grady warns us to stay in the truck till it stops, then we’re off for the time of our lives. I don’t know half the people at the dance, and that makes it extra exciting. The musicians are men in white uniforms, and they play swing as good as the real thing. Irene pulls us out on the floor to dance in public. Byron Toots holds his own next to Irene. Cora and Lydia coax Tiny Junior from the corner, and he shifts from one foot to the other, moving to his own beat.
Why does that pest Ricky Miller stay so close to me? He brings me punch when I’m not thirsty. He asks me to dance when I’m already dancing. The only good thing about Ricky Miller is his last name. It’s the same as my favorite music man, Mr. Glenn Miller, but that’s where the similarities end. Ricky can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Plus he should know I’m still perturbed at him for setting fire to poor Assassin’s tail.
Bert is swept up in a cluster of admirers she couldn’t care less about. Nobody has her attention—till a new band member jumps up on stage.
“Hello, everybody. I’m Frankie Tender,” he croons into the microphone, a man in uniform who is movie-star handsome. Women get up on tiptoes to see him better. A spotlight shines on his perfect hair and polished belt buckle. He sings “You Made Me Love You,” and girls rush the stage to watch him. They sway to the beat, singing, “I didn’t wanna do it, I didn’t wanna do it,” and love on him with their eyes. His voice is as smooth as Bing Crosby’s. He even whistles like Bing.
I watch his eyes land on Bert and lock in a possessive way. Bert possesses him back. The words he sings are for her. She is magnetic. The light from the warehouse rafters shines down on her. I feel a pinch in my breasts and pit of my belly from the chemistry I heard Irene talk about to Helen. Chemistry I’m witnessing but have never experienced firsthand. Even secondhand, it’s heady stuff.
The first set of songs ends, and the musicians take a break. Most of them step outside for a smoke, but Frankie Tender walks off the stage and parts the sea of ladies who reach out to touch his arm, his back, his shoulder. He walks over to Bert Tucker. He’s the perfect height, standing next to her looking down, making her look up. Her profile is luminous, and her hair spills down her back like the tresses of Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman.
Frankie Tender reaches in his pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. He brushes it with his lips before he hands it to her. Bert boldly tucks it down the top of her dress. That’s when Ricky Miller sidles up chomping on peanuts, looking like a country bumpkin next to Bert’s admirer, who’s far too old for her but still the stuff of dreams. Bert has an honest-to-god singing military man under her spell, and it’s reciprocated. But what is she going to do? What can she do? After the dance, Frankie Tender will move on to the next town, and Bert will stay here. Will tonight be enough for my friend?
The air inside the warehouse heats up, and the band plays their second set, and we never sit down. We see moves we’ve only heard about. We see ladies’ underwear when they’re flipped over heads and rolled over backs. We dance till our legs wear out. Through it all, Bert is in Frankie Tender’s sight.
Then it ends. The musicians break down the bandstand, and the punch table is taken apart, and cardboard fans stir the humid air we churned up in this space. People drift away to their cars and trucks. Small children sleep on their daddies’ shoulders. Mama is counting heads when she discovers Bert is missing. One minute, Bert is behind me, heading toward the door. The next, she’s not.
Daddy says, “Who saw her last?”
I speak the truth. “She was talking to that singer, Frankie Tender.”
“Heavens to mercy,” Mama exclaims. “Was she fool enough to go off with him?”
I shrug because I don’t know.
Daddy says, “She can’t have gone far. Byron, grab a flashlight, and you and Irene check the cars, front and back seats. I’ll find the band members to see what they know. Minnie, you drive Lydia and Cora home in the car.” Mama and Daddy look worn out at the end of a long day that’s turned longer.
This is the most selfish, arrogant thing Bert has ever done. She’s worrying us for no reason but the power of chemistry. She’s bound to know we’re looking for her, that we won’t leave without her. She knows that if she told me she was slipping away, I wouldn’t lie for her. But I never saw that look on Bert’s face before tonight. The look for the singer with the smooth voice and smooth words.
“You come with me, Lucy,” Daddy says, and I follow his straight back and long stride into the humid night, looking for my wayward sister shredding her tawdry reputation to pieces…and likely loving every minute of it.
Chapt
er 30
Bert: Floozy
Meet me behind the bandstand after the last song. I’m glad I can read. I put my lips where his have been. I tuck it inside my dress top. It burns my skin. I been struck by lightning. Every word Frankie sings is for me. He tries to give his magic to other girls, but his eyes always drift back to me. He grins and winks and puts his hand over his heart while he sings. I dance the jitterbug, knowing Frankie watches. I dance a slow song with a country boy who wants to pull me close, but I push back. I know about a tinderbox, a volcano, a flashpoint, but I didn’t know he would show up in Riverton tonight.
When the dance is over, everybody claps and whistles and wipes sweaty faces and necks with bandannas, then start toward the warehouse doors fanning their hot faces. I follow Lu for a bit before I go to Frankie. He’s winding cords and folding chairs. When he sees me, he smiles like Christmas and drops the cord and puts out his hand, and I grab it—the smooth hand of a gentleman who ain’t a farmer. Without a word, we walk into the perfect night and weave among the cars and wagons filling with people going home until the sounds fade away. My heartbeat fills my ears, and my breath feels like the tickle of butterfly wings. I follow him like a puppy.
He pulls me into a dense copse of pines. I don’t like the dark, but I feel safe with Frankie Tender. In the velvet shadow, he pulls me to him rough, tugs at my hair so my face is locked up onto his. His lips taste of liquor and cigarettes and something salty and pickled. One manly hand squeezes my bosom through the cotton dress and the other my bottom, then both hands are on my bottom, and they pull me into his hardness, and my knees buckle from the want of him. Frankie licks and kisses my damp neck under my long hair. He smells traces of Mama’s perfume she dabbed behind my ears a lifetime ago.
“You taste damn amazing, baby.”
Frankie Tender fumbles with the buttons on my dress and cusses wanting to get at my breasts, but Mama’s buttons are sewn tight. One pops off, then another, and I’m sad the pretty dress is getting messed up. The skirt gets tangled, and Frankie growls, “Take off your panties. I’m about to explode.”
I want him to slow down. I wanna say this is my first time. That a girl wants to remember her first time. But he’s undoing his army belt with the brass buckle clinking, unzipping his pants, and I stand there. He mutters, “Come on, come on, come on. I’ve gotta get back,” looking over my shoulder to where we came from.
A strange wind rushes through the pines and gives me goose bumps and cold feet in one sweep. I say, “I don’t wanna do this.”
“What?” His voice is strained and pained. “You wanna stop? What are you—a damn tease? I figured you for easy. You knew why we were coming out here, so don’t pretend. Remember, you came to me. I didn’t force you.” Frankie Tender has turned cruel.
“I never done this before,” I admit in a small voice. “I’m only fourteen,” needing to say the truth but ashamed of it.
“Jesus H. Christ,” he says and runs his hand through his short hair, then grabs my arms and shakes me. “You keep your mouth shut, you hear? You can get me into a heap of trouble if you start blabbing.”
“Ow.” His grip pinches. “You’re hurting me. I wanna go.” I’m turning into a crybaby when he slaps me cross my face so fast it sucks the wind outta me. I stumble backward and land hard on soft pine needles, and he stands over me. Gone is magic. Gone is desire. Gone is the flirting fun and the building heat and feeling special. A stranger stands over me, and I’m nobody to him.
I scuttle back on the pine needles. His belt buckle catches the slight light. Outta the darkness comes somebody who grabs Frankie Tender from behind, holds his arms by his sides, and lifts him off the ground. “What the hell…” Frankie mutters before he’s dragged away, kicking the air.
I get to my feet and run out of the pines. I run by a wire fence. It catches my dress and rips the cotton. I run toward the dance and the sound of my name being called. “Here,” I try to shout. “I’m here,” but I’m crying and filled with a shame that’s gonna strangle me.
I see Daddy first. Then Lu. They come outta the dark and catch me as my knees crumple. Daddy lifts me like I’m a baby. He says, “Go tell the others we found her,” and Lu runs.
“You okay?” His voice is tense.
“Yes, sir.”
“He do anything to you?”
“No, sir.” I hold my dress together where the buttons are missing.
“Sheriff Cecil is still here. He was helping look for you. He can go after the man.”
I blush heat, thinking bout the sheriff knowing. “No. I wanna go home.”
“You don’t wanna press charges?”
“For being stupid? What I want is to up and die and disappear.”
“You’re fourteen,” he says and shames me more. Daddy stops as we get close to the warehouse and sets me down. “Let me see you walk on your own,” he says, and I do, but my head hangs low. Through the open doors, I see the warehouse is mostly empty. I don’t step into the telling light. Lu and me climb in the truck. Grady sits at the lead, looking straight ahead with his jaw locked, breathing fast. Daddy walks over to the sheriff and talks. A minute later, they laugh, and I think it’s about my foolishness. It’s a warm night, but I’m shaking, and Lu tucks a quilt around my shoulders. We go home.
The truck rattles into the yard, and Mama steps out on the porch in her nightgown. She waited up like I thought she would but hoped she wouldn’t. I walk past her, hiding the slapped face from her eyes, and say, “Don’t wanna talk,” and she lets me pass. In our bedroom, I undo the rest of the buttons with shaky fingers and step outta my dress. I turn toward the light and the water bowl to wash off the bitter of Frankie Tender.
“Bert,” Lu whispers and points to the swollen cheek and bruises on my upper arms. “He did that?”
I don’t even wash up now. I crawl into bed and turn my back and she turns out the light. It’s bad enough to feel the shame of it all. It’s another thing to have the shame show on my skin. Lu don’t press me. I hear Mama and Daddy talking low, then turn quiet. I feel Lu’s eyes boring a hole in the back of my head, so I turn to her.
“Don’t say I’m a fool.” My voice is scratchy and worn out.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
Lu doesn’t answer back.
“I thought he liked me.”
“How could he not? You’re beautiful.” Lu gets up on one elbow.
“Did you see him slip me that note?”
“What’d it say?”
“Meet me behind the bandstand after. It sounded romantic, but you want to know the terrible thing?” My sob chokes me. I swallow. “He already had that note in his pocket. He was looking for a easy girl to give it to. He don’t write it to me. He wrote it to give to somebody—anybody—who would go off with him. He picked me for a patsy.”
“No. He picked you cause you were the prettiest girl there…”
“…and a fool,” I add and Lu don’t deny it.
She says, “Then what happened?”
“He took me out back into the pines. He kissed me rough, and I liked it at first, but his breath tasted awful, and there wasn’t a crumb of tender in him like his name. When he saw I won’t ready to do it, that’s when he slapped me so hard it knocked me down. I think he was going to have his way with me whether I wanted it or not when a shadow came up behind and dragged him off. That’s when I run.”
“A shadow? Who was it?”
“I don’t see his face.” And that’s the truth. It was too dark to tell but I have a suspicion I don’t even want to put inside my head.
“You try to sleep now. In the morning, you’ll have to listen to Mama say this was a lesson that came with a cost but wasn’t as bad as it could be. I love you, Bert Tucker. I’m sorry Frankie Tender didn’t treat you right.”
Lu and me lay there quie
t in the dark till I say what hurts most. “Wanna hear the terrible part of the whole stinking thing? Frankie Tender don’t even ask my name.”
Chapter 31
Lucy: Crime Of Passion
I sit on the bed and Mama sits in the chair beside me and we watch Bert pretend to sleep. She faces the wall with her back to us, but her breathing is tight and telling. The sun has been up an hour. Mama says in her quiet, no-nonsense voice, “You can’t avoid this, Bert, so sit up and get it over with.”
Bert sits up. She draws her knees to her chest and pulls her hair over her cheek where Frankie Tender hit her.
“I know what you’re gonna say,” she starts. “I’m a fool.”
“You’re young, Bert. And lucky.”
“Lucky? How can you say that? I went off with a man and almost got…compromised.”
“But you didn’t. You’re here safe in your own bed. But we do need to talk about the lesson to make sure you learned it all. Part of the fault of this crime was the older, experienced man looking for a good-time girl, but part of the fault is yours. I’m not sure you know where to draw the line between flirting and danger. Why did you think going off into the dark with a stranger was okay?” Mama’s voice stays low, but there’s underlying tension and sadness. “Did his uniform make you feel safe? Was it because he’d been singing on that stage? Did that make him the good guy?”
“Course it did,” Bert flings back. “It was all them things. Any girl there would’ve changed places with me if given half a chance. If he had paid attention to somebody else. Everybody was in love with him. But he picked me…”
“Is he still the good guy?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“And you do, too. Let me see your cheek.” Mama leans over and pulls back Bert’s hair. “You need ice for the swelling, but it’s still going to bruise. But you hear what I say: a good guy never hits a woman or grabs her arm. He never crosses that line. A good guy doesn’t even have that line in his vision. Ever. You better learn that for yourself, or next time, you might not get off so easy.” Mama stands to leave. “I’ll get some ice for your face, but do you want to know what disappoints me most?” She waits till Bert looks at her.