High Spirits [Spirits 03] (25 page)

      
Flossie, by-gum, blushed! “Yes, Mr. Gumm. I brought ‘em for Daisy and Billy.”

      
“Well, that’s just swell. Thank you.” Pa, who was one of the nicest men in the world, then turned to me. “Say, Daisy, why don’t you take a break from your nursing duties and go out to lunch with Miss Mosser here.” Reaching into his trouser pocket, he handed me two dollars. “Here. You need a rest. Why don’t the two of you go down to the Tea Cup Inn or over to the Crown and have a nice little sandwich or something.”

      
“Oh, Pa, thank you!” I threw my arms around him and gave him a big squeeze. I
did
need a break.

      
“Gee, thanks, Mr. Gumm,” said Flossie. “Are you sure you can spare the time, Daisy?”

      
“I’ll watch the patient,” said Pa, patting me on the back.

      
“We won’t be gone long,” I promised him. Turning to Flossie, I said, “It’ll just take me a minute to change.”

      
And I was as good as my word. Tiptoeing so as not to startle Billy, who, thank God, was sleeping, I whipped off my housedress, pulled a one-piece gray woolen dress over my head, put on black shoes, grabbed my black hat, snatched up my black bag and black coat, and was ready to go in not much more than sixty seconds.

      
“We won’t be gone long, Pa,” I said to my marvelous father, kissing him on the cheek.

      
“Take your time, sweetheart,” he told me. “I’ll just trot this beautiful bouquet in to Billy.”

      
If I didn’t have my family, life wouldn’t be worth living.

* * * * *

      
Flossie and I didn’t go to the Tea Cup Inn or to the Crown. Instead, we went to the Rexall Drug Store near Colorado and Marengo. It was only a drugstore with a luncheon counter, but it was on the main east-west street in Pasadena, and I had a not-so-faint hope that we’d see Johnny Buckingham and company somewhere in the vicinity. After all, in those days you couldn’t turn around without seeing or hearing a Salvation Army band on some street corner or other. We didn’t find him before we settled ourselves onto stools at the lunch counter, but I brought Johnny into the conversation anyway.

      
“Did you enjoy the church service at the Salvation Army, Flossie?” Not very delicate, but I was too worn out to practice subtlety. Anyhow, Flossie wasn’t apt to understand anything that wasn’t set plainly before her.

      
“Yeah,” she said, but I noticed her head was bowed and appeared kind of unhappy.

      
Reaching across the counter, I took her hand. The gesture surprised me more than it did Flossie, I think. “What’s the matter, Flossie?”

      
She sighed deeply. “Oh, nothing. It’s just that ...”

      
I waited, but she didn’t continue. “It’s just that what?” I withdrew my hand, wondering what had possessed me to grab it in the first place.

      
She hesitated some more, then burst out with her whispered confession, the nature of which didn’t surprise me since I’d already surmised she was a victim of what the magazines call low self-esteem. “It’s just that I’m not good enough for them people.”

      
“Nonsense. You’re every bit as good as any of them, Flossie Mosser. Why, Johnny Buckingham himself had all sorts of troubles after the war. He was there in the trenches in France, just like Billy. But while Billy got shot and gassed during the war, Johnny started having problems afterwards. He got so low, he even tried to kill himself.” I’d just then remembered that part of Johnny’s sordid saga, and I’m glad I did because it jarred Flossie.

      
“No!”

      
“Yes. In fact, Johnny was about as low as a person can get. I’m telling you this because Johnny’s story is pretty common. I mean, he’s not the only one who was shell-shocked and had terrible problems after that wretched war, and it’s a darned shame. Johnny took to drink, Flossie.”

      
Her mouth fell open. “No!”

      
“Yes. In fact, he himself says that he was a dipsomaniac, and the booze would have killed him if not for the Salvation Army. That’s the reason he loves it so much. The Army doesn’t turn people away just because they have problems. They accept everyone and try to help them with their troubles.” Inspiration, which had a hard time struggling to the surface of my sleep-deprived brain, finally poked its head out. “Not only that, but I think Johnny really likes you.”

      
Darned if Flossie didn’t blush again. “Naw. He couldn’t.”

      
“Why not?” I demanded. “Look at you! Why, you’re a lovely young woman, Flossie Mosser, and you’re sweet and kind and ...” And easily led astray and currently involved with a vicious hoodlum. But I didn’t want to bring those distasteful facts up that day. “And you have good, kindly instincts.” Okay, the ending was feeble, but the rest of the speech was pretty good.

      
Flossie blinked several times. She’d have spoken if the waitress hadn’t delivered our lunches: tuna salad sandwich for me and corned beef for Flossie, along with green river floats, which were exclusive to that counter, as far as I know. I don’t know what was in them, but they were green, and they were good.

      
After taking a bite of my sandwich, which was served with potato chips, I leaned toward Flossie. “I know Johnny is taken with you, Flossie. Don’t you think you could care for him, too?” I hoped I wasn’t wrong about Johnny’s interest in her, but I didn’t think I was. In actual fact, I was kind of afraid Johnny was seeing things in sweet Flossie that weren’t really there but that he was hoping were. Although, come to think of it, Flossie was so eager to please, and Johnny was such an overall good guy, she’d probably blossom into whatever he thought she was. If you know what I mean.

      
Flossie didn’t respond for the longest time. I was about to prod her, when she whispered, “I do care for him. I think I love him.”

      
Thank God!
I didn’t say that out loud. I said, “Well, then, that’s good.”

      
“Huh.”

      
I glanced sharply at her. “What do you mean, ‘huh’? What does that mean?”

      
She put down her sandwich and took a sip of her Green River. “I gotta get away from Jinx first.”

      
“I’ll bet Johnny can help with that.”

      
She turned so precipitately, I darned near fell off my counter stool. “No! Oh, no, Daisy, I don’t want Johnny nowhere near Jinx. Jinx is bad. He might hurt Johnny.”

      
I have to admit that possibility hadn’t occurred to me. “Hmm. Well, I think we should talk to Johnny about that. I’m pretty sure he could help you.”

      
After a huge pause, during which I finished my sandwich and munched my chips and Flossie did nothing but stare blankly into space—I darned near grabbed half of her corned beef, but restrained myself—she finally said, “Well ... maybe.”

      
I guess it was better than a flat
never
, but I still wanted to hit her. I think that was because I’d been under a lot of strain lately.

      
Flossie was spared a taste of my uneven temper, however, by the appearance of none other than Johnny Buckingham! He was in his uniform, so I guess he and his army band had been out and about on Colorado Boulevard, but he was alone in Rexall Drugs when I spotted him.

      
Leaping from my stool, I hollered, “Johnny! Over here!” He’d been heading toward the side of the store where they carried bandages and foot plasters and stuff like that. I guess marching along Colorado Boulevard all day every day makes your feet ache. He—along with nearly everyone else in the store—turned and spotted me. A huge smile spread over his face, and he waved and began making his way to the lunch counter. I was
so
glad to see him. And not only because I wanted him to rescue Flossie, either. I’d started feeling guilty about abandoning my sick husband.

      
“Well, fancy seeing you two here,” he said as he took a stool next to Flossie. “How’s Billy, Daisy?”

      
“He’s getting better, thank God.”

      
“Thank God,” said Johnny, and I knew that for him the expression wasn’t merely what everyone says when they’re glad about something.

      
“In fact,” said I, thinking as fast as my sluggish noggin could think, “I really need to get back to him. Say, Johnny, are you here for lunch? Flossie hasn’t finished hers yet, and if you could sit with her while you eat your own, I could get back to Billy.” Sneaky little devil, aren’t I?

      
“That sounds like a great idea to me,” said Johnny, grinning like an imp.

      
“Oh, but ...” Flossie looked scared.

      
“Nuts,” I said. “You need to finish your lunch, and I need to get back to Billy. I’ll see you both later.” I tossed the money Pa had given me on the counter. “Pay the lady out of this, will you please? I think there’s enough for you, too, Johnny.”

      
It was definitely enough for three lunches, and Johnny smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Daisy. That’s real nice of you.”

      
“It’s nothing.” It was nothing to me, at any rate, and I figured Pa wouldn’t mind.

      
And with that, I abandoned Flossie and hurried back to my formerly abandoned husband. Sometimes life just works out. Not, unfortunately, very often.

Chapter Fourteen
 

By the end of the second week of Billy’s illness, he was able to get out of bed and get around the house in his wheelchair. It looked to me as though the days of helping him learn to walk again were over, at least for a good long while. Even maneuvering himself around in his chair exhausted him.

      
“Wish I weren’t such a burden to you, Daisy,” he mumbled one day when we both sat on the front porch.

      
March had limped in, and the weather had turned almost balmy. The gentle breezes brought leftover scents from the rainstorm we’d had the night before. Pretty soon the orange trees would begin to blossom, and then the air would be fragrant enough to make a sensitive person faint dead away from ecstasy. I’m not that sensitive, but I still love the aroma of orange blossoms. They always reminded me of my wedding, memories of which almost always made me cry.

      
Crumb.

      
“Stop it, Billy. You’re not a burden. Anyhow, if our situations were reversed, you’d take care of me, wouldn’t you?”

      
“You bet I would,” he said, taking my hand. “I can’t imagine my life without you, Daisy.”

      
To keep from bursting into tears and ruining the moment, I chuckled weakly. “Yeah, we’ve known each other for a long time, haven’t we?”

      
He chuckled, too, although not for long. I held my breath for the duration, praying that he wouldn’t start coughing. “I’ll never forget how you used to chase after me when we were kids.”

      
“I loved you then, too.” It was true. I’d had a “pash” for Billy ever since he was in fourth grade and I was in second. He was just the perfect guy in those days. And he still was—or he would have been if his health hadn’t been ruined.

      
“Yeah?” He grinned at me.

      
“Yeah.” I grinned back.

      
And wouldn’t you know it? At that very sensitive moment, who should pull up in his big ugly Hudson motorcar but Sam Rotondo. I muttered something indelicate under my breath.

      
Billy raised a hand and waved. He’d have hollered out a “Hey, Sam,” but he didn’t have the breath.

      
As he walked jauntily up the front walkway, Sam removed his hat and smiled broadly at my husband. “Good to see you up and about, Billy!”

      
“Up, anyway,” said Billy with a grin.

      
Sam plopped himself on the porch rail. Then he frowned at me. He would. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to get that séance set up pretty quick, Daisy.”

      
I groaned inside. Since I didn’t want to upset Billy, I didn’t let my groan loose into the world. “Yeah?”

      
“I don’t like Daisy being involved with those guys, Sam.”

      
“Me, neither,” I muttered, knowing that to protest would be useless. It was play with the crooks or go to jail. Sam had made that perfectly clear to me already.

      
“I don’t like it either, Billy, but she’s about the only in we have with those guys.”

      
“I don’t see why,” I said in spite of knowing it would do no good. “You know where they are and what they’re doing. Why don’t you just raid the place?”

      
Sam sighed as if he’d already gone over this issue with me already and didn’t want to have to do it again. “We need to know that all the big shots will be there. Usually only Maggiori’s employees are at the speak. They’ll
all
be there for the séance.”

      
“Oh.” I hated to admit it, but that made sense even to me. “I guess so.”

      
Billy still didn’t like it. I could tell by his stony face.

      
“So let me know as soon as you set up the séance. All right?”

      
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

      
“Hey, I brought you guys something,” Sam said, his mood lightening. He reached into his coat and withdrew an advertising brochure. “We talk about these things all the time, and I just picked this up downtown.”

      
I almost could have thanked Sam for removing the expression of severe disapproval from my husband’s face. When Billy took a gander at the brochure, he lit up like a firecracker. “Oh, boy, Daisy, look at this! It’s all about radio signal receiving sets.”