Seasons of Her Life Page 6

“I was hoping you’d ask,” Ruby said.

  Back in Barstow, movies were forbidden. Sex, lust, and fifteen-cent admissions were Satan’s handiwork to George Connors’ way of thinking.

  “A Streetcar Named Desire is playing on Fourteenth Street. In the movie house by Dupont Circle The African Queen is playing. Which one do you want to see?” He squeezed her hand. “Should we ask Nola and Alex if they want to go?”

  Ruby’s first thought was to say no. She wanted to be with Calvin alone, but when she was called to task for this day, she might fare better if she could truthfully say she was with three other people. “Not really, but I think it’s the polite thing to do. Do you mind?”

  “If you don’t mind, I don’t mind,” Calvin said agreeably. “We should get something to eat first, though.”

  “Sure,” Alex chimed in. “And what say we have dinner? Horn and Hardart, on me. I just got paid.” Nola squealed her agreement.

  Calvin looked at Ruby and caught her winking at Nola. He wondered what that sly wink meant.

  “Let’s walk.” Nola winced but agreed good-naturedly.

  Walk they did.

  Dinner was wonderful. Anything, Ruby decided, was wonderful if you were sharing it with friends. Later she couldn’t remember what she ate.

  She sucked in her breath and squeezed Nola’s arm when Marlon Brando pranced onto the screen. A definite hunk. She loved it when he yelled, “Hey, Stella” and laughed aloud. But what she liked even more was Calvin’s arm around her shoulder, just as Alex’s arm was around Nola. Both girls sighed happily.

  Outside the movie house they split up, Nola and Alex taking the trolley, she and Calvin walking.

  She wants to be alone with me, Calvin thought.

  My feet hurt, Ruby thought, but she couldn’t in good conscience let him spend any more money on her. She noticed that he’d left the tip for the waitress, even though Alex paid for their food. Somewhere along the way they must have come to an understanding, because there was no quibbling in regard to the bill or the gratuity. Calvin wasn’t a cheapskate. She felt pleased with the thought. Oh, she had so much to write to her grandmother about.

  On the corner of F and Ninth streets, Ruby came to a halt under a streetlamp. “I think I should go the rest of the way alone. In case my sister is waiting in the lobby ... she’s ... sometimes she doesn’t care where she is when she says something. I had a swell time tonight, Calvin. Did you?”

  The night was soft and dark, the lamplight dim and intimate. A dog woofed softly in the darkness. “Don’t the stars look like a giant blanket?” Ruby whispered.

  “Yes,” Calvin whispered back. “Will you go out with me again?”

  “Sure. I’ve been wanting to go to the zoo ever since I got here. I could make us a picnic lunch. Saturday or Sunday?”

  “Both,” Calvin said, drawing in his breath, as if in anticipation of her answer. He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, but then panic came into his eyes, and he stepped back and jammed his hands into his pockets.

  “Okay,” Ruby said cheerfully. “I’ll see you Saturday at the entrance to the zoo. Is noon okay?”

  “Noon is fine. Good night, Ruby. I had a great time.”

  “ ’Night, Calvin,” Ruby said, striding off.

  When Ruby was out of sight, Calvin looked around to get his bearings. He decided to walk for a while. He wanted to think about Ruby.

  Yes, sir, he told himself, he’d had a great day. Ruby was his girl. She was. He whistled the melody of “Oh, You Beautiful Doll,” and his feet picked up speed. He wanted to get back to the base and into bed so he could think about Ruby and what it would be like to kiss her ... and ... other things.

  By the time Calvin reached the base he had himself convinced he was a “real” American. If he were otherwise, a girl like Ruby Connors wouldn’t give him the time of day. Today was the closest he’d come to being one of the people he’d so envied all his life. Ruby’s friends had acted as if he were one of them, and Ruby hadn’t blinked when he confessed to being Filipino. Decades back in his ancestry was Samoan blood; the result was his height. He didn’t look one bit like those pipsqueak, subservient little people who served as meticulous waiters and kitchen help to the military.

  He had a girl now, a real live, walking, talking, smiling girl who liked to hold his hand, a girl who smiled with her eyes, a girl who understood him.

  His girl.

  Ruby walked into the Y with shining eyes. She stopped in her tracks, and her jaw dropped when she saw her sister sitting on one of the orange chairs under the window with Andrew Blue next to her. Amber was smiling and so was Andrew. Ruby’s guts churned. When Amber put her mind to it, she could charm the feathers off a duck.

  “Are you waiting for me?” Ruby asked coolly.

  “Andrew’s been waiting for you since noon,” Amber said just as coolly before Andrew could open his mouth.

  “Noon! Why? We didn’t ... that’s ten hours,” Ruby said in disbelief.

  “Where were you, Ruby?” Amber asked sweetly.

  Ruby wanted to tell her it was none of her damn business. “I went to the park with Nola and then we went to the movies. Today’s Sunday, so I can do what I want. Where were you, Amber ?” she asked just as sweetly.

  Before Amber could answer, Andrew stepped forward. “I know we didn’t have a date, and I suppose it was foolish of me to hang around all day, but I kind of hoped that you might like to go out. Look, I have to leave or I’ll miss the last bus back to the base. How about next Saturday?”

  “She’d love to go.” Amber bubbled. “Ruby has no plans, do you, Ruby?”

  “I’m sorry, Andrew, but I do have other plans. It really was ... nice of you to come all the way up here and wait like you did.” How miserable he looked. How clean and neat and pressed. So very tidy. He was fumbling nervously with his cap and trying to smile. “How about Sunday?” she blurted out.

  “You got a date! How would you like to go to Glen Echo for the day?” Ruby nodded. “Great, I’ll see you next Sunday. Let’s go to church, breakfast, and then head out to the park. Eleven okay?” He turned to Amber, almost as an afterthought. “Do you want to come along?”

  “No.” Amber smiled. “I was there today. Thank you for asking, though.”

  The moment the door closed behind Andrew Blue, Amber reached for her sister’s arm and dragged her to the elevator. “It’s time you and I got a few things straight once and for all.” She punched the button for Ruby’s floor.

  “Shove it, Amber, we straightened things out the day I beat the hell out of you in my room. Get off my back.”

  Amber shoved Ruby through the door as soon as it slid open, then followed her down the hall.

  Ruby noticed that her sister stood by the door, ready to bolt if need be. She waited.

  “One of the reasons we’re moving out of here is because of you, Ruby. Pop said you can’t be trusted. He called you a sneak and he knows you have ... what he said was you had the makings of a ... a tramp. I have to keep my eye on you, and I can’t do it here with you on one floor and me on another. He’s right, you can sneak out anytime you want. Like today,” she spat out. “I have to call home tomorrow, and I’m not lying for you. And as to this friend of yours, Nola, she can’t be very respectable if she works in Lerner’s and lives by herself.”

  Instinct told Ruby that if she rose to Nola’s defense, Amber would decide that Nola wasn’t to be seen again. She remained tight-lipped, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Amber backed up a step.

  “I’ve decided that Andrew Blue is acceptable. You can date him one day of the weekend. I’ll tell Pop he’s okay. He told me all about his family and they’re good Christians. I saw your face when he said he’d take you to church. You’re no good, Ruby. Pop is right; you’re going to go to hell.”

  Ruby advanced a step and stiff-armed the door, preventing Amber from opening it. “You’re right, I probably will go to hell, and you know why? I’m going to kill you, and then they’ll put me in the electric ch
air, and I’ll laugh all the way down. Make sure you tell Pop.”

  “I’m going to tell him everything. Everything,” Amber screeched. “Your mouth is like a sewer!”

  To the best of Ruby’s knowledge, she’d never openly said anything worse than shit or damn. Now she let loose. “Sewer! You want to hear sewer, Amber? I’ll tell you what I’ve learned. Captain Dennison says fuck seventy times a day. His boss calls all women cunts. The enlisted men call everyone assholes, and Admiral Mallory thinks everyone walking the earth is a son of a bitch. That’s how these Navy men talk. Be sure to tell Pop you subjected me to this. In fact, tell him anything you want, but you are not going to pick my dates. I’ll go out next week with Andrew because he is nice and he did wait. Don’t do it again. Because if you do, I’ll snatch that little runt you’re dating and I’ll tell him all about you, starting with how dirty and sneaky you are.” She was breathless when she finished.

  “Do whatever you want,” Amber seethed. “You’re nothing but garbage. Human garbage.”

  Ruby’s voice took on a singsong quality. “Garbage? I know a thing or two about garbage, Amber. Our father, the pillar of St. Barnabas, lusts after Grace Zachary. I saw him undress her with his eyes. Grace sticks her tongue out at him behind his back. Mom saw him do it, too. He’s a goddamn lecher, and I’ll bet you’re just like him when nobody’s looking.”

  “Filthy mouth. You wait. You just wait!” Amber seethed, and with that she was out the door.

  Ruby’s arm shot out for the door and slammed it. Human garbage. So that’s what they thought of her. Her eyes burned. Her shoulders slumped. She didn’t care if her father said it, but somehow the fact that her sister believed it ate at her soul. She couldn’t say why, but it did.

  Amber checked the handful of change before she laid it on the small metal shelf by the pay phone. She wondered vaguely if she would have to call home again tomorrow night. Her hand was poised to drop in the first dime, when she looked at her wrist. It wasn’t eleven yet, so it was all right to call. Her parents went to bed at eleven. Nothing was allowed to interfere with her father’s routine. According to Ruby, though, Grace Zachary interfered with . . . something. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Pop was right, Ruby had a dirty mind.

  Until tonight, when Amber had to devote extra minutes to compose herself, she hadn’t realized what a responsibility it was calling home every week. Mondays she always had a headache; sometimes they carried into Tuesday. She had a headache now. Damn Ruby.

  She dutifully waited while the operator placed the call. She dropped her money into the slot, coin by coin. Although she always hoarded change all week for her duty call, so far she’d never talked for more than three minutes; more often than not, her father hung up after the first ninety seconds.

  George always picked up the phone on the third ring. Up from the chair, across the living room, out to the hallway and the foot of the steps, sit down, pick up the phone. Right on schedule.

  “George Connors.” No hello, no greeting of any kind.

  Amber worked a smile into her voice, hoping to hear it returned, even though she knew better. “Hello, Pop, it’s Amber. How are you? How’s Mom? This isn’t too late, is it?”

  “Not too late, daughter. Five minutes till it’s time to go upstairs. Your mother is fine.” He never said how he was. He never asked how she was, either. Amber sucked in her breath and forced a smile. For whom she didn’t know. Maybe herself.

  “Pop, it’s Ruby. She’s doing terrible things. You ... she cusses something fierce. She won’t listen to me.” Her voice was pleading. Again, for what she didn’t know.

  “I placed Ruby in your charge, daughter. Are you telling me now I made a mistake?” Not bothering to wait for her defense, he went on. “It’s up to you to use a firm hand, a strong hand. Give her what-for every hour if she needs it. Maybe I made a mistake, sending you girls to the city.” The implied threat was there, and Amber felt her knees weaken. “I have next weekend off. Your mother might like a ride down there. Is there anything else, daughter?”

  “No, Pop.”

  “Then I’ll say good night. Don’t make this kind of call to me again unless you’re ready to answer for your failure.”

  “I’m sorry, Pop,” Amber whispered, but her father broke the connection. Amber looked at her watch. Two minutes and ten seconds. Why had she expected more? Daughter. He never even called her by name.

  Amber backed away from the phone, inching her way to the orange-covered chairs. She’d just ratted on her sister and herself, too, for that matter. For what? What had she hoped to gain? A kind word? To be called by her name?

  Amber’s thoughts boiled. She didn’t want to go back to Barstow. She didn’t want to live in her parents’ house, and she didn’t want to work in the shirt factory. If her father decided to come here and yank both of them home, she knew she didn’t have the guts to put up a fight. Ruby did, though. Ruby would fight to the death, and she’d made a deadly enemy of Ruby tonight. Even though she was twenty-one going on twenty-two, and of age, she knew she didn’t have the nerve to cross her father. Ruby had guts. She’d thumb her nose at George and make him carry her, kicking and screaming, all the way back to Barstow, while she herself meekly climbed into the car and said, “Yes, sir, I’m happy to be going home, and sir, I’m sorry I failed you.” A vision of Ruby thumbing her nose at their father brought a smile to her lips. She wished she could fall off the face of the earth into a deep hole that would truly route her to China. Her father would never find her in China.

  A second vision of her father leering lasciviously at Grace Zachary made her want to vomit. All the neighbors looked at Grace in her shorts and skimpy halters. She wondered if her father ever saw her mother naked. Not likely, she decided. That was sinful, decadent, and wicked. It was a mystery how she’d ever been born. But then, she hadn’t exactly been born. She’d come down as an angel. As long as she believed that, all the rest was bearable. This was simply temporary until ... Until what, she asked herself wearily. Until what?

  “Till marriage,” she said aloud in the elevator. Nangi had spoken of marriage and going back home. He’d hinted, but he hadn’t asked. His home was on the other side of the world. Her father couldn’t touch her that far away. He’d also disown her. One of these days she was going to decide just how much that mattered to her.

  The day was misty, overcast, with gray, plodding clouds circling overhead. Not a day for the zoo, Ruby decided when she bounded out of bed. Damn, the weather report predicted clear, sunny skies. Sunrise was a mere five minutes away. Ruby crossed her fingers. “Don’t spoil my day,” she murmured to the empty room.

  Her eyes fell on the wicker picnic basket, compliments of Nola. She had hoped to go with Calvin to the park after the zoo. “I emptied out my sewing box and lined it with a dish towel. I won’t be doing any sewing today,” she’d said cheerfully. Nola had the answer to all her social problems. Now all she had to do was stop at the corner delicatessen and pick up ham and cheese sandwiches, Coca-Cola, hard-boiled eggs, and some peaches. Maybe a square of cheese for nibbling. It wouldn’t hurt to get some potato chips, too.

  She was flush, as Nola would say. With her paycheck yesterday Captain Dennison had given her a card with twenty-five dollars in it and a note saying she was the best secretary he’d ever had. He’d also wished her luck in her new job with Admiral Query, which she was to start on Monday. The moment she cashed her check at lunchtime, she’d gone to the personnel office and handed over her final payment to the director. She was now seven dollars ahead of the game and in debt to no one, a feeling she liked. The picnic would wipe out the seven dollars, but she didn’t mind.

  She should be thinking about her new job, planning her weekly wardrobe, and mapping out the way to the Pentagon, but that was pretty much a waste of time, as she would be moving in another week.

  Ruby opened the window. Hot, humid air, thick as soup, rushed into the room. She closed the window just as fat raindrops began to fall. The
leaves weren’t moving. Her grandmother always said if you could see the underside of the leaves, there would be a storm, and that if rain fell in fat drops, it wouldn’t last. Ruby crossed her fingers.

  By the time she dressed and brushed her hair the rain had lessened and faint streaks of sunshine could be seen. She sighed happily. Somebody must be watching over her. Sunshine was important for this particular day.

  Over a breakfast of coffee, juice, and toast at the Hot Shoppe, Ruby ran over the dialogue she would have with Amber on her return. Lie or not to lie? It all depended on Amber’s mood. She dawdled over a second cup of coffee until it was nine-fifteen. Amber always got up at nine on weekends.

  “You’d better not give me any grief, Amber,” she muttered as she made her way back to the Y.

  Ruby spotted her sister in a local coffee shop. She was alone with a copy of Redbook open in front of her. Amber looked up as Ruby came to her booth.

  “You aren’t going to spoil my day, are you, Ruby?” she snapped.

  “No. You don’t mind if I go to the zoo this afternoon, do you? And to the park for a picnic. Nola gave me this great basket.”

  Amber waited a long moment before she replied. When she spoke, she barely moved her lips. “Are you going with your friend?” The word friend sounded obscene coming from Amber.

  Ruby nodded.

  “You’ll be back around suppertime?”

  It was a question Ruby wasn’t prepared for. She shrugged.

  “Is that a yes or no?” Amber asked.

  “I thought about going to the movies, the early show; it lets out around nine. The African Queen is supposed to be good. I can’t get into any trouble at the movies, Amber.”

  Amber debated another full minute. The zoo was okay, a picnic was okay, and the movie ... “You should start to make other friends. I told you before, I don’t like that skinny girl.”

  Here it comes, Ruby thought. She waited.

  “When we move to Mount Pleasant, I don’t want to see you palling around with her.”