“Almost anything could be had for the right price,” I said.
That one hogging my blanket, the one that tells you she is the one to make the food, merely nodded. She closed her eyes and shivered. Rosita patted at her but turned her attention back down the beach. A man sprawled near the water’s edge. “Shouldn’t we wake that man with the fiery back?”
I sat up to get a better look. “What a Yanqui. Can’t he see that all sane people have protection?”
“He’s certainly not a Yanqui.” Rosita stood. She retied the bow on her wrap and walked across the glaring sand. Lola would say that our sister is a kind soul and is always watching out for others. Please. She was just jumping at the chance to meet a new man. As she knelt beside him, I lost interest in her goings on. I crawled around Lola to lay back on the empty blanket and closed my eyes.
Rosita nudged me a few minutes later. I sat up again and scooted back toward Lola. Here I was, in the middle as always, this time between her brooding hunch and Rosita’s satisfied smile. I knew she wanted us to ask about the gentleman, but I for one refused. No matter.
“He’s English,” she said. She waggled in her content until she took another look at our baby sis. “Chica, what’s wrong with you?”
“There are A-bombs right here on our island,” Lola said, barely above a whisper.
“So everyone says.” Rosita rummaged in her beach bag for a brush and stroked it through her hair.
“I saw them. Sleek tubes the length of a yacht. With my own eyes. The driver got lost . . . I saw them.”
Rosita stopped brushing and huddled closer.
Lola rushed on. “I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. Deep in the bush. I woke up thinking to see the ocean, but instead all I saw were palms and a fresh clearing.”
I felt her breath as she hesitated again and blew sighs louder than her words. “Everything could end with the push of a button.” Her histrionics over nothing as usual.
Such drama. I folded my arms and pretended to yawn. “Find a new phrase, chica. That one’s old already.”
Lola’s loose hair whipped my arm as she twisted around to face us squarely. “I saw rockets. Missiles.” Her voice had sudden strength.
Rosita grabbed her arm. “Are you sure? That they’re A-bombs, I mean?”
Lola nodded.
“The Russians are here. So it’s with powerful weapons. Good,” I said. “What does that have to do with us?”
“They shot him.”
“Shot who?” Rosita asked.
“The boy. My driver.” Lola stared past up as if seeing another scene. “He made a mistake and they shot him. Right then. Took him to the edge of the bush. I heard the shots and saw his body. I was next.”
“Oh my God.” Rosita crossed herself.
“The captain said . . . he let me go but said . . . he brought up the children . . . he said no one was safe.” She looked at us with wonder, as if she couldn’t believe it herself. She clutched both of us with her strong hands. “That boy was younger than Tomasito.”
Rosita moaned. Is that what happened to our boy? Shot by the Russians? No. Please God, no. As our world turned upside down with each of Lola’s words, the beach around us seemed to go on as normal. Countless times we had sat there with no more pressing conversation than whose child refused to eat which delicacy. Now what?
Along with our compañeros, the three of us had pledged loyalty to family and Cuba, but who in the family came first? And what was best for the country? The Revolution was still a baby, barely three years old, and the line between danger and safety was uncertain. The Sisters Montero would have to stick together, that was certain.
Movement near the water caught my attention. The tourist stretched and pressed the crimson skin on his shoulder before putting on a shirt covered with parrots. Rosita also watched for a moment, then dragged her beach bag over and started rummaging in it. “It’s time,” she said without looking up. “The children must go across the water.”
My boys. No. We had spoken many times of getting the children out, but I couldn’t imagine going with them someplace else, or worse, living without them. But now the Russians were executing their own without a thought, and Lola had gotten us mixed up in it. I argued, but Lola’s fright made the possibility real, and I knew I would have to go along with the wretched idea.
“Maybe the men know someone we don’t, who could help,” I said.
Lola jerked her head and gave me that demonic stare of hers. By then I was out of the reach of the lash of her hair. The wind had picked up and small salvos of sand skimmed across the beach and needled my bare arms. Away to our left, a beach attendant furled the umbrellas and carried the lounge chairs back to the hotel’s fenced yard. It was almost time to go.
“No men,” Lola said.
“What?” Rosita and I exclaimed together.
Now I shifted around so I could clearly see the faces of both of my sisters. This plan for treason and betrayal was much too important to leave to lazy eye contact. “I can’t whisk Diego’s boys away from him without warning.”
“Would he let them go? His precious chess players? The future of the La Luz dynasty?” Lola said. Such a dig. Despite the La Luz fame as mechanics and the supposed equalization of the Revolution, they were still in a class different from our own.
“Of course not at first, but—”
“But. But. By the time that dog gets off the porch it will be too late.”
“And there’s all the talk about the government assuming guardianship of all Cuban children. We’ll have to do something before that happens,” Rosita said. “But wouldn’t it be better if—”
“If my José knows, the plan will be sunk.” José the rule follower. Lola was right on that point. “No. Men.”
We talked some more but Rosita finally agreed. Me too. In the end, I had to believe it would only be for a while, hoping the crazy wobble of Cuban politics would soon come to a rest.
Once we agreed on sending away the children without telling their fathers, we had to figure out how. The Pedro Pan airlift was too public for our ties with the army and the CDR, so it would have to be by boat. As soon as we decided that, though, complications mushroomed. Before, always, we had assumed the trip would be with Quique, but he was gone now, betrayed by some friend and shot out of the water. Who could tell would be next best? We went back and forth, finally settling on Carlos, the brother of outspoken Selena. Perhaps we could persuade her to go along to watch after the children and to save her own resistant heart.
Rosita gathered up her brush and her true romance novel and such. She picked up the notebook she was using to plan Virginia’s party. She suddenly crumpled into a heap.
“What is it?” Lola asked.
With tears in her eyes, Rosita offered us the notebook, turned to a list of guests. “Can we wait until after the party?”
Our dear sister. Our world was certainly ending, but still she had to celebrate her debutante. Of course, it maybe would be the last thing that she’d be able to do for her daughter.
Lola smiled and patted her hand. “Of course, little dove.”
Woman Waving to the Future 1
LUCY SAUNDERS SWIRLED her brushes in the jelly jar of turpentine, as she did at the end of every oil painting session. This ritual caressed her. The only problem was the abrupt ending, which cut off its soothing rhythms from her domestic duties as wife and mother. Her younger self dreamed of the bold gestures and unconventional postures of an artist’s life in Greenwich Village. She tried not to leave that artistic self behind as she reentered her other life but found her vision and ambitions dulled by the sight of stark white kitchen cupboards and the scatter of dolls, books, and model car parts every day.
Routine could kill a girl.
She painted in the living room, the only viable work space for her. She delighted in the diffuse light but didn’t like being on display in the front room when unexpected guests dropped in. They often thought they had the right to comment on a painting
in progress, so she kept a cloth ready to drop over her easel at a moment’s notice and at the end of her work sessions. She left the brushes to soak and draped the cloth over her latest canvas, hiding the overlapping splotches of blues and lavenders of a cityscape blurred by a sudden downpour. Dinah Washington had purred along with the quick blue strokes of the street scene and still crooned from the hi-fi.
Lucy stared through the picture window into the afternoon calm of a still October day. This was her third Air Force base. The first was Biggs in West Texas, the second Edwards in Southern California. The kids had known cold in those high desert abodes, but they had never seen snow before this place that cycled through all four seasons. In El Paso, the maples and oaks kept green leaves through the warm autumn, then dropped them—desiccated but still green—in the dry season of winter.
Right here and now, though, the sycamores and oaks that lined her street fluttered and flashed their fancy autumn colors in front of the rows of boxy duplexes. The street Lucy and Betty Ann lived on followed the usual plan—flat-topped ranch duplexes lined both sides of the street. The two friends lived on the same side of that street at opposite ends, Lucy in an “A” unit and Betty Ann in a “B” unit. Their homes were mirror images of each other.
Lucy found the relentless sameness of American military base housing stunning in its monotony, but even she could appreciate its benefits. A wife could close up her home, drive her kids a thousand miles away, and have them sleeping on sheets and pillows the night they arrive at their new home base. She could set up her couch and easy chairs with the same orientation to the living room window and the television. Light would fall on the pages of a book at the same slant (give or take a few degrees for latitude), and the kids could settle into their usual spots to watch after-dinner TV. Point an experienced wife toward the center of base, and she would find the commissary, the PX, the hospital, and the parade grounds on her own, if necessary. Not that she would be on her own. A base veteran would take the newbie under her wing, tell her about the liverwurst there or the fresh crabs here, which beauty shop to patronize, and who always brings the potato salad (not you) to the potluck picnics and cookouts.
Despite the tranquil scene in front of Lucy, peace was an illusion, since the airfield at the end of their neighborhood crackled with the comings and goings of personnel from all the military branches, not just the Air Force. Somewhere someone banged a hammer, each blow echoing from an unidentified direction. The sound cracked four times and stopped. A lone, scruffy white mutt trotted down the sidewalk as if he had an appointment to keep.
Sonny often complained about the cloying, pungent odor of her oil paints, although she wondered how he could detect it through a nose deafened by tobacco smoke. Erica thought it was how mommies smelled, and Tony never mentioned it. Out of habit, she cranked open a long window flanking the picture window, even though her husband was working a double shift again and wouldn’t be home with his sensitive nose until after she’d had another go at the street scene. Now her last task was to turn the easel to the wall.
Lucy glanced at her watch and scurried into the kitchen. Dinah would turn herself off at the end of the record, and Betty Ann would be over soon for a rare afternoon cup of tea. Lucy opened the cupboard and inspected the jumble of coffee cups and mugs. If she lived alone, they would be in neat rows. If she lived alone, she wouldn’t have to leave behind her artist self for most of the day. Of course, if she lived alone, her silences might grow into a fence too thick for anyone to penetrate. She took down two cups and saucers and put the kettle on.
Her friend was a sass who usually got away with her saucy behavior. Lucy liked her—she would say what you were thinking but wouldn’t dare utter—but some of the wives didn’t. They had to worry about their husbands’ wandering eyes. For those women, her curves, dimpled smile, and full-on gaze added up to trouble. Those and her martini habit. She offered husbands a wide-mouthed treat instead of their usual Pabst Blue Ribbon. Yes, trouble.
When Betty Ann arrived she said, “Let’s have gin.”
“I don’t know, I usually wait for Sonny.” His double shift meant waiting for a cocktail until tomorrow at the earliest.
“This is serious: we’re preparing to be attacked.” Betty Ann hauled a bottle out of the liquor cabinet.
“What are you talking about? We’re always preparing. Look at those everlasting exercises.” Lucy pushed aside the cups and took down glass tumblers.
“No, I mean a real attack.” Betty Ann opened the gin. “Missiles. A-bombs.”
Lucy’s forearms prickled. “What makes you think that?”
“Two things the guys said last night.” Betty Ann and Ray had brought the kids over for hot dogs and beans. “One. As I stood right there with the coffee,” she pointed to the swing door leading into the dining room, “Sonny said that there were no dummies this time. Everything’s live. Everything.” As Lucy reached for the knob on the stove to turn off the flame under the kettle, she remembered Betty Ann’s silence, the swing door held open a crack by her elbow.
Betty Ann dropped ice into the glasses and filled them with gin and tonic. “Two,” she continued as she poured. “When I passed by on my way to the bathroom, Ray said everything is steaming south. Why south? Why not over to Germany, where they’re building that wall?”
“The only thing south of here we’re interested in is Cuba.” Lucy took a sip, then went to her fridge and took out a lime. She deftly sliced out two wedges, squeezed them, and dropped them into the drinks. “But we wouldn’t attack them now. That would be like a direct hit on Mother Russia.”
“Exactly. Despite all the demands for action, Kennedy’s already been burned once there. I bet he wouldn’t make these kinds of moves unless a real threat existed.”
“Any other possibilities?” Lucy asked.
They debated as they sipped. News about Berlin dominated the papers, but they were on the front lines with their Air Force husbands and knew other hotspots were brewing. Lucy didn’t mean to finish her drink but kept slurping as they speculated. Could they survive a nuclear war? If America launched, Russia would too.
“A-bombs,” Betty Ann said.
Lucy glanced at the clock. “Oh my God, the children.” Tony and Erica would be home any second.
“Yes, the children.” Betty Ann slumped in her chair. After a moment she said, “We have to plan. We have to.” She banged her fist on the counter. “We have to plan for the children.”
“What do you mean?”
Betty Ann swept up the glasses and dumped the dregs into the sink. “First, we have to stop drinking gin in the afternoon. Lord, it’s only three o’clock.” She grimaced, dimpling her face. “Second, we’re going to call a bunch of gals for a meeting tomorrow morning to decide what to do.”
“What to do about what?” Lucy didn’t quite follow Betty Ann, but she had caught her mood. In her agitation, she bumped her friend away from the sink and started to wash the glasses.
“You know we’re a first-strike target.” Betty Ann grabbed the dishtowel off the hook to dry.
“But we’re just wives.” Lucy was plenty scared.
“Exactly, no one will suspect anything we plan, as long as no one blabs.”
Action steadied them. They made a list of mothers, all Negro Air Force wives like themselves. Neither of them mentioned the scarcity of air raid shelters on base. They lived in Maryland; they assumed that the few spots in the shelters would not be offered to anyone who drank at the colored fountain. They were on their own, expected to leave thinking and non-domestic action to others. Lucy was tempted to withdraw into a terrified silence, but she knew that was not Betty Ann’s style, and most importantly, her own absence would do nothing to protect Tony and Erica.
Betty Ann mentioned Clara.
“Not Clara, we need allies,” Lucy said.
Clara Menendez and her husband were Mexican, but the crew thought of them as colored. She was mostly a housewife but had taken some accounting courses and kep
t books for a few small businesses. Her husband, Manny, though, posed a problem. Several times, when Betty Ann’s husband was on second shift, Manny escorted her home from a party and returned far later than he should have. His petite wife was no fan of Betty Ann.
“Oh, come on. She loves her kids more than she hates me. Besides, we need her. Manny’s in the supply depot.” They plotted until Erica tumbled in with her usual demands for attention.
You couldn’t invite that many women over and not offer them something to eat, so the next morning both Lucy and Betty Ann got up early to make coffee cakes. Lucy marveled at all the affirmatives they’d gotten on short notice of an urgent matter that couldn’t be discussed on the phone. As the women arrived at her house, they chatted and fussed over Betty Ann’s lemon ice cake, but didn’t ask questions. Perhaps they sought some last carefree moments before the “urgent matter” reared up. All of the invitees attended: Dorothy, Gladys, Debbie, Shirley, Linda, the other Gladys, Peggy, Pepper, Judy, May, and Lavonia. Most sat on the folding chairs Lucy used for canasta nights. Dorothy, feet planted wide, watched the youngest kids in the back yard through the dining room window. She was formidable. Even an MP would think twice about tangling with her. Clara was there too, tucked beside the television and with her knees pressed firmly together. Although short Gladys had light skin, she still looked black, unlike Clara, whose dark, thick hair and broad face proclaimed her Mexican origins.
Lucy leaned against the wall between her clean worktable and the hi-fi and chatted with the women closest to her. As a last napkin passed down a row, Betty Ann squeezed into the space in front of the hi-fi. Lucy hopped onto her worktable to make room for her.
Lavonia, seated right up against the television, rested a piece of iced-lemon coffee cake over a saucer under her chin. “Lord, here’s Miss Betty Ann and her White House co-miss-shun. I’m surprised Miss Betty Ann would have time for us little folk.”
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