Home Front Lines

by Brenda Sparks Prescott

  He picked up her hand and put the pastel on her palm. “It’d be nice to have a picture. Maybe you could draw the house across the road.” When she didn’t reply, he stood and left. She reached for the cooled tea some time later and realized that she still cradled the bright red stick in her hand.

  Sonny was a good man, but his request felt like one more order: draw a house. The glare of the California sun bounced off the flat-top duplex across the street, the twin of her own and the duplicate of quarters that lined streets with unrelenting regularity on military bases all over the world. You can let their monotony overwhelm you into neglect, but when Lucy glanced across the street, she noticed that the wife had recently planted asters in a handmade window box. It was the wife’s handiwork because the husband didn’t do anything outside; he didn’t even mow the lawn. The flowers stood out against the pale green aluminum siding. Red asters, a standard cheap decoration. Of course they weren’t the pure red of the pastel. There was blue and orange and maybe a little brown to muddy it. By the end of the thought Lucy had started to sketch.

  She never told anyone about that day, so the other wife across the way never knew how her simple flowers had saved a marriage. Sarah was her name. Lucy gave her the drawing when she finished it. Her neighbor giggled and protested, but her delight was evident. She invited Lucy over for coffee with a bunch of other wives the following week. She had mounted the drawing in a used gold frame that made it look substantial, even to Lucy. They all admired what Sarah called her house portrait. One woman asked if Lucy could do a picture of her living room with a Japanese chest and a red wedding kimono on the wall. Of course she could. Other women wanted to place orders also. Sarah stepped in and said, “Lucy has two little ones to take care of. We all know about stretching an Air Force paycheck.”

  “I’ll pay,” the woman with the kimono said. “It can’t be much, but I’ll pay. And I’ll babysit while she’s doing it.”

  Right there, a new business was born. Sonny had his wife back, and they had extra cash to boot. Her mom had said that her artistic life would die if she married a military man. It almost had, but Sonny wouldn’t let it. When little Erica joined her brother full-time at school, Lucy was able to take more serious commissions and work in oil. She always obliged the military wives, though, in whatever medium they desired. Her art documented their efforts to beautify their uncertain stays in the mobile world of the military.

  Now with Sonny about to go in after midnight, Lucy tidied up, carrying a stack of Ebony magazines into the unlit living room and dumping them on her work table. As she went back to the brightness of the kitchen, she passed him frozen in the hallway between the children’s rooms. She left him to his moment, continuing on to sit at the kitchen table. Soon he joined her for one last shared cigarette.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Since I’m going to be extra busy on base the next few days, maybe you want to take the kids to see your mother.”

  Lucy knew more than her husband thought she did. Sure, she could’ve said, I can be on the road in twenty minutes, but she didn’t. She answered the way she thought he expected. “What are you talking crazy, Sonny-boy? The kids can’t miss school.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He held up the cigarette again. Coffee drunk, sandwiches made, clothes packed into a flight bag, too many butts in the ash tray for too short a time to say goodbye. A soft knock sounded from the back door.

  “Must be Ray,” Sonny said. They both stood. He pecked her goodbye, as always, then squeezed her until it hurt. “Stay by the phone.”

  “Why?”

  He pressed his forehead against hers and walked the pads of his fingers down her face, as if for the first time. She inhaled his coffee breath and the stink of cigarettes. The sharpness of his after-shave cut through it all.

  “Just stay by the phone.”

  He picked up his gear and reached for the door. A list of names tacked to the message board halted him.

  “New car pool?” he asked.

  The key to deception is honesty. “Some of the mothers don’t drive yet. Thought I’d help out.”

  “Good,” he said. “Glad I’m not taking the car.” He opened the door and left without another backward glance.

  Lucy wandered into the living room. There she turned on lights and sought out a distraction. She turned on the jumbo goose-neck lamp on her work table and flipped open the box of pastels. The red was missing. She wondered if Erica had gotten into the box again, because she liked to use what she called Mommy’s crayons. None of the mothers of her friends had their own colors. Lucy scanned the room and spied the missing pastel. Moving closer, she discovered the phone bill’s envelope underneath it, covered in big, red block letters. “LOVE YOU, S.” she read. He hadn’t said those words out loud before he left. She folded the rough paper into the pocket of her robe and crept back to her worktable.

  Lucy woke again five hours and seventeen minutes after Sonny had left in the middle of the night. She had fallen asleep at her worktable and now found her latest drawing pushed to one side. The living room was lucent in the dawn as she looked out the front window. The early morning street was empty but for a few yellow leaves gliding through the crisp air. Her mind lit on the emergency evacuation plan that was disguised as a car pool schedule. The camouflage was brilliant—Sonny had seen nothing unusual about the roster of mothers, but then, he had other lists on his mind.

  She opened the door onto the bright promise of her tree-lined street to retrieve their two glass bottles of milk. She carried them into the kitchen. Sonny’s cup sat in the drain alone and the percolator still held the dregs of the coffee she had made the previous night. She emptied the overflowing ashtray. The aluminum canisters with copper tops needed to be wiped down and filled, but she didn’t have time for that yet. She took out two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrapped in wax paper from the fridge and put in the milk. She checked the ketchup bottle and noted that she would need more for that evening’s meatloaf. Housework sometimes made her want to hurt someone, but now she appreciated her mundane tasks.

  Then it was her turn to check 31L. She wouldn’t have to wait like a good military wife for a phone call or a telegram. That day she was the messenger. She would gather the children with Betty Ann and run, flat out, if it came to that. She checked the kids one more time. If all went well, they wouldn’t miss her for the few moments she would be away. She donned a red sweater as she walked into the living room. She reached for her pocketbook but drew back. Stay near the phone, Sonny had said. The phone’s mute presence and the quiet comfort of the armchair invited her to stay, to obey. The drive to the end of Cedar Street would take two minutes, but so much can happen in no time at all. What if Sonny called, the phone ringing and ringing, her sleepy-eyed son bewildered by its unanswered insistence? Betty Ann could take a risk like that. She could cover the assignment. Lucy knew her number by heart.

  No.

  Lucy reached past the phone and picked up her pocketbook. She went out to the carport and got in the Rambler station wagon. Even though the day would warm up, the cool night had left a chill inside the car. As she settled into the driver’s seat, her breathing slowed and her shoulders dropped. She was ready for this, whatever it was. Her mission took her along the fence at the end of 31L. Three choppers huddled as if for warmth. A truck sped away from them, but the blades remained still. The threat still existed but it hadn’t come to blows. Not yet, anyway.

  As she looped back onto her street and rounded the bend at the far end, Betty Ann’s porch light went on, then Gladys’ and Debbie’s. Lucy stuck her arm straight up out the window and waved broad sweeps. The lights went off, one by one. She imagined a snapshot of her mission, her brown hand sweeping above the white top of the Rambler. She decided to sketch out a painting of it after the kids left for school. The title of the piece would be “Woman Waving to the Future.”

  After returning home and parking, she went inside to the hall. “Tony! Erica! Time to get up.”<
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  She knocked on her daughter’s door and waited until she passed, trailing her blue blanket. It wasn’t a security blanket—she was too old for that—but she used it as a pillow because, she said, a regular pillow got too hot. The blanket slipped to the floor but she didn’t seem to notice. This girl was not a morning person.

  Lucy went to the blue heap and pointed down at it. “Hey. Come pick this up.”

  Erica turned at the bathroom door and gave her a look of pure annoyance. “Mommy, can’t you pick it up? You’re right there.”

  Lucy didn’t move. Her daughter stomped over and swiped the blanket away with her foot. She hobbled down the hall, sweeping the blanket.

  “I said pick it up.”

  “Okay.” At the entrance to the living room, Erica kicked her foot and sent the blanket sailing into the air. “It’s up.”

  Chita

  A Message from García 6

  ROSITA AND I waited in the car to be approached, as one does when one stops at a dwelling in the countryside. No one seemed to be out and about in the hazy gloom. An old mutt curled in front of the closest bohio, his muzzle bristled with gray. It took him long seconds to struggle to his feet. He howled a sound that died away in his throat, then he circled twice around himself. He plunked down in the same spot, as if he had done his duty and wouldn’t trouble himself to do more. While we waited, we brushed the dust from our hair and touched up our lipstick. Rosita replaced the scarf around her neck with a fresh one.

  Presently, a line of women materialized at the far end of the clearing. At the same time, a short old man with gigantic ears and black-rimmed glasses emerged from the nearest hut carrying a kerosene lamp. He stepped over the dog, which didn’t bother to raise its head. Just then, a gang of children exploded into the clearing, scattering squawking chickens. An elderly woman peeked out from the old man’s hut at the commotion but quickly withdrew.

  “Stop!” a woman shouted at the children, her arms akimbo. They ignored her, much like children anywhere would. They bunched around the man.

  His admiring gaze swept from the DeSoto’s tail fins to the sleek lady on the hood before he greeted us. He stretched to set the lantern on the car as Rosita rolled down her window. The lantern hovered just inches from the hood.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Rosita said. She would. It wasn’t her lemon-yellow paint job that might blister under a poorly made lantern. The wick threw black smoke into the leaden air.

  The old man stepped back, and the children moved with him as if he was the body of a many-legged beetle. “I am Pedro Ramírez, at your service. I am known as Paco.”

  The mothers drifted back into their bohios. They would hear all from Paco’s old wife, who would pull every single detail from him with practiced ease. I was sure of it. Rosita leaned her forearms on the car door and tilted her head at a pretty angle. She led with her charm from a window sill, as she had thousands of times before at home, at friends’ houses, and in cars.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, Compadre Paco.”

  Paco moved closer with the clump of children following. He was even older than I first thought. “It’s no trouble to assist two beautiful ladies in a magnificent automobile. To what do we owe such an honor at this late hour?” Apparently he wasn’t too old to flirt and probe with the skill of an expert.

  “My name is Rosita, and this is my sister, Chita.” How causal she was way out here in the bush. Yet I sensed a strategy in her use of first names. The car already shouted our status by its very presence. No need to say more with last names. For once Rosita was thinking like I would. “We have business at Campo Doblase.”

  “I see.” The old man rubbed a hand across his ribs. “It’s a pity you’ve arrived so late in the day.” The kids inched closer and eyed the crates in the back seat. I worried the unlocked door would invite pilfering hands, but it was too late to reach back and plunge down the locking button without insulting our host.

  “Will they not receive us at this hour?” Rosita asked. I hoped she wouldn’t expose our ignorance of the operations of the camp.

  Paco slowly sunk into a crouch and peered into the car. “Are you seeking a guest worker there?”

  What did that mean? An inmate? A rebel in need of rehabilitation? A patriot lending a much needed hand to the provinces? I knuckled Rosita in the back, telling her to be careful.

  “Compadre Paco, are we not all workers for the people?” She could be clever when she wanted to be.

  Paco nodded. “I myself do some modest work at Doblase. Perhaps I can be of some help, if I knew something of the nature of your business.”

  Careful. We knew nothing more of this place or its intentions than when we had started over the mountains. I knuckled Rosita again. She rolled her shoulder back at me but didn’t turn around.

  “Actually, we have a letter saying to ask for an escort in a nearby village,” Rosita said. “David Montes. Does he live here?”

  Paco’s smile faded. He straightened as much as he could and stepped back. He almost knocked over a girl that lurked behind him. “When did you receive this letter?”

  I didn’t like his darkening tone and didn’t understand why he thought our letter was his business. “Just recently, but the post is slow. It was mailed a while ago. Is Señor Montes still available?”

  “Is something the matter?” Rosita asked.

  “No, Señora.” Paco swatted at a skinny little boy who had dared to touch the car. The children giggled. The old man raised his nose to the sky like a dog sniffing a passing scent. “The rains will come soon and the road to Doblase will be difficult in the dark. Besides, the top officials are off duty now, and you might have troubles with some evening underling who might seize a chance to act purely on his own authority.”

  I shifted closer to my sister, the better to see and to judge. “We are familiar with the ways of underlings. We mustn’t delay our journey further.”

  Paco nodded. “I understand the pressure to continue when you’re so close. But really, it’s best if you stop here for the night. I would hate to see this beauty stuck in the mud. Our home is humble, but we would be honored to share its roof with you.” Lightning lit the sky in the direction of the colonial buildings we had seen. At least I thought it was in that direction. It was clear that there would be no getting there in the dark without a guide.

  Rosita opened the door and got out. Paco and the children scuttled back. Now what was she doing? Her hands were free, although I couldn’t tell if her lover’s mouthpiece lurked in the pocket of her skirt. I had no choice but to follow her out. As I stood, I felt my distance from the pistol behind me in the glove compartment.

  “If Señor Montes is not available, might someone else guide us?” Rosita asked.

  Just then headlights brightened the small clearing. All faces turned toward the incoming vehicle. I squinted as my head throbbed with the sudden light. A Ford step-side truck, a ’51 or ’52, raced up to a halt behind our car. Its body was a faded red, but the engine ticked like a champion. I myself couldn’t have gained as pure a sound without specialty parts. The lights and engine died, and a young man jumped out. He had Paco’s proud shoulders and gigantic ears. Two midsize mutts bounded out of the truck after him. They wagged and barked their arrival.

  Two of the boys broke away and ran over to the newcomer. The bigger one shouted, “Look Papa. A very pretty car. And beautiful ladies, as well.”

  Not too young to flirt, so much like my own. I wrapped myself in my arms and fatigue weighed on my chest. It would be good to see Tomasito.

  “My youngest grandson, Chucho.” Paco swept his hand as if introducing a famous son balladeer.

  Chucho stepped into the lantern’s circle of light. The old dog wandered over, sniffed the other two mutts, and wagged his whole ancient back half. Chucho’s grin and deep bow to me made up for the big ears and a snaggle tooth. One couldn’t help but notice the sinuous muscles of his arms and chest that were poorly covered by a T-sh
irt full of holes. He seemed a man who knew how to use his assets, not to mention tune an engine, maybe. He turned to Rosita and bowed even deeper while holding her gaze. His eyes didn’t stray as he straightened. Rosita would call this Chucho handsome, as she did any man who worshipped her so quickly. In fact, I bet she already had a fond memory of the tall, bearded gunman who had harassed us.

  “The sisters . . .” Paco said.

  “Rosita and Chita.” Rosita pointed to herself and me in turn. I nodded.

  “What brings you and this gorgeous machine to our corner of paradise?” Chucho asked.

  “They’re going to Doblase. They stopped for an escort,” Paco said.

  “Whoever escorts you is a lucky man.” Chucho grinned, his snaggle tooth gleaming.

  “David Montes,” Paco said.

  Chucho’s lip hooded his tooth and his whole body sobered. Again, an unhappy reaction to this escort’s name. Did Rosita notice? A chill born deep inside me raised goose bumps on my arms. Chucho dropped a casual hand on his small son’s shoulder. The other children now lounged against the car, two with their noses pressed against the back window. None had yet tried the door handle, but I slipped down the side of the car to guard against possible attempts.

  “Do you know David Montes?” Rosita asked.

  Chucho raised his chin and snuffled like a bird dog, the same way his grandfather had. The fresh smell of rain infused the air. “The roads will flood with this rain. You don’t want to get stuck tonight. The runoff will disappear by morning. Abuelo, shall we offer these two beautiful ladies, as Paquito so rightly called them, our humble hospitality for the night?”

  I couldn’t help but glance at the cluster of dwellings in dismay. True, from what I could see in the failing light, the simple huts were well cared for and the open areas free of trash and excrement, but still.