Little Red Lies (4 page)

A minute later, I ask to be excused from the dinner table. Upstairs, Jamie’s bedroom door is half open.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

He’s tipped back in his chair, his head floating in a fog of smoke. Stacked on the desk in front of him are the newspaper clippings about the war Dad saved, as well as a pile of papers with handwriting on them looped together with string.

“What’s all that?”

“Nothing much.”

He quickly bundles everything into the bottom drawer of his desk. I sit cautiously on the edge of his bed. Neither of us has much to say, it seems.

He doesn’t look like he has anything wrong with him to me. Sure, he’s pretty thin, but so am I, and nobody says there’s anything wrong with me. Except for eczema. I sit there scratching the insides of my elbows.

He stumps out his cigarette in a saucer. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.” He’s not looking at me, but I catch the worry in his profile.

“I thought you were going to be a doctor. That’s what you always used to say.”

“Not now.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, I don’t know. Maybe I’ve seen enough smashed-up and broken people over there to completely turn me off that idea.”

“You could be a pharmacist, like Dad.”

“Yeah, I know. Go to university, take pharmacy, and end up selling pills and cough mixtures like a good little Dingbat, which would be all right, I guess, but then there’s all that other stuff—hot-water bottles and women’s stuff and all that junk—and, good God, no! I’m not doing that.”

“They have hot-water bottles in Dingbat Land.”

“Does Doctor Melvin still have those calendars on his walls?”

“Yup.”

“Too bad this isn’t Dingbat Land. I’d know what my role is.”

“Listen, you just got back. What’s the rush about a job? Why not take some time to be a regular guy? Wait until we get some nice warm weather before you decide what you want to do.”

“Much depends on the weather, eh? Dad’s philosophy of life. It
would
be good to put people back together instead of blowing them to smithereens, or at least try. But, right now, I don’t have the courage to even consider becoming a doctor. I don’t feel right. It’s as if the war made something go wrong with my own insides. Maybe it’s shell shock.”

“What’s shell shock?”

“I don’t know.”

“Rachel!” Mother calls from downstairs.

“Right. You see? The minute I get into an interesting discussion with my brother, it’s time to go and help with the dishes. No one else can do dishes around here without good old Rachel pitching in.”

Jamie grins, but shakes his head to sympathize.

I’m on my feet. “Look, why don’t you visit the Coopers? Tomorrow’s Saturday. I could go with you.”

“Maybe next week.”

“Why are you putting it off?”

“I’m not. I get sidetracked with other things.”

“Just do it.”

He stares into the dark beyond the window. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as alone as I do now that I’m home. I miss my buddies. I miss Coop.” He lights another cigarette.

“He’ll turn up.”

“Rachel!” Mother shrieks.

“Sorry, but I’m in a conference. Perhaps you would consider hiring a maid.” I say this aloud but not loud enough for her to hear me.

I thump down the stairs hoping the noise adequately expresses my displeasure.

In the morning, after the usual Saturday chores, I buttonhole Jamie. “Let’s go to the Coopers’.”

“I’ll go by myself later. I have to get used to being a loner.”

“You said I could go!”

I beam my fiercest gaze in his direction until he sighs and mutters, “Okay, okay.”

Granny’s in the kitchen rolling out pie crust. Quietly, we leave by the front door to avoid the where-are-you-going-and-why drill. “It’s chilly out there,” Granny calls before we can make our escape. “I hope you’re warmly dressed.”

“I’m wearing my pullover,” I yell.

“Jamie?”

“I’m fine! At what point,” Jamie whispers, “does your grandmother start to see you as an adult?”

“Maybe never.”

As he closes the front door behind us, we fall immediately into Mother’s clutches. Bundled up in a warm cardigan, she’s on her knees carefully removing dead leaves from around the new sprouts in the flower beds.

“Going out?” she says.

We look at each other and bite our tongues. “Yup,” we call, and walk quickly on.

“Cold wind,” Jamie says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“The sun’s warm.”

“We’re doing the weather thing again.”

Someone’s calling us. We look back and, sure enough, there’s Granny coming after us with Jamie’s jacket.

“I feel like running the other way, just for the hell of it,” he says. But he turns back. “Gee, thanks, Granny. Didn’t think I’d need it.”

“If you weren’t my own grandson, I’d say you were an idiot.”

“Maybe I am.”

“No maybe about it.”

Mother plunges her hands back into the cold earth. “I could have gone in and grabbed his jacket,” she says to Granny, “but I don’t want to be one of those overbearing mothers.”

“I’m only here to be helpful,” Granny says.

We raise our eyebrows at each other and hurry down the street.

Mrs. Cooper’s at home when we get there, also Coop’s two sisters. Nancy, the younger one, opens the door and yells into the kitchen, “Jamie’s here!”

I give Nancy a tiny wave with the tips of my fingers.

“And Rachel!” she screeches, and has a coughing fit.

“I’m in the kitchen, lad. Come on out, the two of you.”

Mrs. Cooper seems to be trying to camouflage herself with flour. This doesn’t prevent her from squashing first Jamie and then me into her, as they say, ample bosom, leaving us lightly dusted.

“Both girls have bad colds,” she says.

If they lived under the same roof as Mother or Granny, they sure wouldn’t be walking around spreading germs. They’d be tucked into bed, with mustard plasters on their chests, Vicks VapoRub under their noses, and glasses of ginger ale beside them.

“How are things?” Jamie asks, clenching and unclenching his fists. I’m sure he doesn’t have a clue what to say. I lean against the fridge, ready to be helpful if needed.

Ellie washes dishes in a basin in the sink while young Nancy dries. Ellie keeps turning to look at Jamie. When he smiles at her, she nearly drops the slippery bowl she’s putting in the drainer.

“Oh, you know,” Mrs. Cooper sighs, “not so good sometimes, not so bad other times. Still no news.”

Ellie and Nancy finish their task and hover closer to Jamie, not wanting to miss a word.

Mrs. Cooper says, “Back away, girls. Don’t be spreading your germs. It’s a bad time of year for colds. Will’s gone out, but he’ll be back soon.” Will is Coop’s younger brother. “How are you?”

“Fine,” Jamie says. He coughs nervously. “Really, I’m fine.”

“And you, Rachel, dear?”

“Fine, too.” The yeasty smell of the bread dough is making me hungry.

“Jamie, you’re looking thin. Have you lost weight?”

“A little bit, maybe.”

Mrs. Cooper frowns as if she doesn’t approve of people losing weight. She’s a rotund little woman herself and has been as long as I’ve known her. She’s still kneading the dough, roughing it up pretty badly.

“Mr. Cooper all right?” Jamie asks.

Mrs. Cooper looks up and shakes her head. “He’s not over it. He’s trying to find someone who will say they saw him alive, or … he needs to know for certain. He tried the Red Cross, but the best they could say was that his plane went down behind enemy lines during the bombing of Dresden. After that, who knows?”

“But he hasn’t lost hope?”

“Who can say? He’s up and down about it.”

Jamie swallows hard and tries not to look at the girls. He’s never been much of a talker.

Sounding half-strangled, I say, “It’s good to keep hoping.”

“It wears you down,” Mrs. Cooper says. There’s a long pause while she covers the dough with a tea towel and places it on the radiator to rise.

Jamie gives me a slight nod, indicating we should go. But we can’t just
go
. He should be saying something comforting, not standing there in a self-induced coma.

“Go up and see his room,” Mrs. Cooper says. “It’s much as he left it. I made the bed up with fresh sheets so it’s all ready for him, if … that boy never did learn the simple art of pulling the covers up and straightening them.”

The Cooper girls follow us up the stairs, and Mrs. Cooper calls, “Let Jamie and his sister go on their own, girls. He doesn’t want you shadowing his every move.” We both see their eagerness change to disappointment.

“It’s all right,” Jamie says. “It’s nice to have company.”

Coop’s bedroom door is open. Not much has changed since Jamie and Coop were kids. On his dresser is a framed snapshot of the two of them with their fishing rods, each holding up a smallmouth bass.

“I think we have a picture like that at home,” I say.

On a long shelf are eight model airplanes. “There they are,” Jamie says. “Wow, look at them. We put a lot of work into those. Well, it was mostly Coop. He had more staying power than I did. Nobody else was allowed to help, not even Will.”

“They’re pretty neat.” I’m about to pick one up, but Ellie reaches out to stop me.

“We’re not allowed to touch them.”

“Why not?”

It’s Nancy who answers. “Just because we’re not. Our father says we’re not to touch anything of our brother’s till he comes home and says we can.”

“Okay.” I put my hands behind my back. I always thought Mr. Cooper was an ogre, and now I know.

Hands in his pockets, Jamie bends closer to admire the airplanes and to read the spines of Coop’s books, most of them about pilots and planes and war.

Now,
I
want to leave. I feel out of place, as if I’ve stumbled into a museum by mistake and it turns out to be where somebody’s buried. Not Coop, though. Coop’s still alive; he has to be. It would be too sad for Jamie, otherwise, and I couldn’t bear that.

I look out the window at trees blowing in the gusty wind. The silence in Coop’s bedroom is oppressive. “That old Coop,” I say, just to make some noise. “He’s like a semi-brother at our place. He always messes up my hair and asks me if I’ve had it fumigated for rats.”

“Sounds like him,” Ellie says.

The next long silence is broken by Nancy’s giggling. “Jamie, I remember how you used to say you were going to marry Ellie.”

Ellie turns her back on us. “Don’t be an idiot. He did not.”

Red creeps up around her neck, and I feel a little sorry for her. Ellie’s nearly Jamie’s age.

“Sure, he did, and we had a big fight over him,” Nancy says.

Jamie smiles. “I remember the fight.” His face flushes, too, as he notices Ellie’s embarrassment. “Of course, that was a long time ago.”

Back downstairs, Will’s home. “Hi,” we say. He’s two years ahead of me at school and only nods in my direction. But he can hardly take his eyes off Jamie, as if his presence brings his own brother closer to being found alive. Will’s like his older brother in many ways—not as muscular, though, not as open-faced. Coop you can read like a book. Will takes some pondering.

Mr. Cooper is home for lunch, too, washing his hands at the kitchen sink. He doesn’t turn around. I wish we could sneak away without saying anything to him. I think Jamie’s just as afraid of him as I am.

At last, Mr. Cooper looks straight at Jamie. “You’re back home, then, are you?” His face seems chiseled from hard rock, especially his hooded eyes.

“Yes, Sir,” Jamie says.

Mr. Cooper turns away and grabs a hand towel from a hook near the sink.

“I’m sorry …” Jamie starts.

“What have you got to be sorry for?”

“He was, is, my oldest friend,” he stammers.

“He was my oldest son. At least you can make new friends.”

I can see Jamie struggling to say something, but no words come out.

“There’s still hope,” I say, my voice a high-pitched squeak.

Mr. Cooper’s granite eyes are on me, now. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Good Lord
. Now would be a good moment to just make a run for it.

Jamie comes back to life. “No, of course not. She means, she can’t, and I can’t, believe he’s … you know.”

“Dead! Say it. The word is
dead
.”

Mrs. Cooper takes Jamie by the arm and walks with him to the front door, with me practically treading on their heels. “Don’t take what he says the wrong way, lad. He’s worn-out with searching and grief. Every time he comes up against a brick wall, he has to grieve all over again. He doesn’t know how to live with it without making everyone’s life miserable, especially his own.”

Outside, Jamie’s eyes are about to overflow. The wind is sharp and makes my own eyes water. He breaks into a limping trot down the street in the opposite direction. I let him go. I have a pretty good idea where he’s headed.

There’s a swale on the edge of town. Near it is a sprawling hickory tree that just begs kids to climb it. Jamie and Coop used to play there. If Coop was busy, Jamie sometimes took me. He taught me how to climb. When Mother found out, she said,
Nice girls don’t climb trees
.
High in the tree, I used to grin down at the world, glad I wasn’t a nice girl.