Sentimental Journey (Home Front - Book #1) (18 page)

How splendid it was to stroll down the street with your best beau. She loved holding hands with him, walking proudly next to a man as tall and handsome as Johnny. People said they made a lovely couple. She tried to pretend that didn’t matter one whit, but the truth was she wanted everyone in the world to notice them, to smile at them, to acknowledge just how perfect she and Johnny were together.

The diner was doing a brisk business these days, what with the wartime prosperity, and Catherine considered themselves fortunate to find a booth near the rear. She and Johnny made light conversation while they waited for their orders to be served, but the moment their triple-decker sandwiches arrived they got down to the business of eating.

“You should’ve ordered the BLT,” Johnny said, reaching for his chocolate malted. He snitched a French fry from her plate.

She laughed and made a grab for his coleslaw when something at the counter caught her eye. She froze, her fork poised in midair. Maisie, the counter waitress, was crying into her apron, and from the expression on her customers’ faces, she wasn’t crying over her tips.

“Something terrible’s happened.” Catherine tore her gaze away from Maisie. “Look Johnny.” She gestured toward the counter. “Look at their faces.”

Johnny lowered his sandwich to his plate. “Maybe she got some bad news about her kid.” Maisie had a son who flew bombers somewhere in the Pacific.

A cold sweat broke out at the back of Catherine’s neck. “I don’t think so.” She grabbed Johnny’s wrist. “You don’t think we’ve lost the war, do you?” A hundred possibilities, all of them terrible, occurred to her. What if the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor again or—worse—what if they had somehow managed to bomb the California coast? There’d been talk of Japanese firebombs scattered throughout the Oregon forests.

A woman at a window table started to sob, while the man she was with lowered his head and began to cry openly. The cook came out of the kitchen with a radio, plugged it in, then placed it on top of the counter. He fiddled with the dial as static crackled through the diner. Johnny reached for Catherine’s hand.

“... unexpected news. For those of you just joining our broadcast...” The radio announcer’s voice trembled, then gathered strength. “For those of you just joining our broadcast, it is our sad, sad duty to announce that at 3:55 Eastern War Time our beloved President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. His funeral cortege will be brought by railroad tonight to the capital. Sources close to Mrs. Roosevelt say—”

The cook clicked off the radio. The diner was silent save for the sound of crying. Catherine’s tears flowed freely, and she looked across the table to see Johnny wiping away tears of his own.

Their meal was forgotten. By silent agreement they both rose and, after paying their tab at the cash register, started walking. They had no destination in mind, but it didn’t matter. Motion was what was important. Maybe if they kept moving they could stay one step ahead of the terrible truth.

“It’s so unfair,” Catherine said as they walked past the Forest Hills Inn. “We’re so close to winning the war. Why did he have to die now?”

“Who said life is fair?” Johnny stroked her hair. “Nothing about this whole stinking war has been fair.” Extermination camps, he thought. Innocent children beaten and left for dead. Everything that was fine and good about the Old World turned to ashes and rubble.

They passed other dazed New Yorkers who gathered on street corners and on front stoops as they tried to make sense of the unthinkable.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Catherine asked as they passed the Rego Park Synagogue. “President Roosevelt is—I mean, was—the heart of this country. Who’s going to lead us now?” She laughed shrilly. “I can’t even remember the name of the vice president.”

“Truman,” Johnny said, “but now he’s
President
Truman.”

She stopped walking and turned to him. “I’m scared, Johnny,” she whispered. “What if our troops lose hope? What is this going to do to us?” Harry S. Truman was a shopkeeper from Missouri. How on earth could he make the tough decisions necessary to bring about victory for the Allies? It was all too terrifying.

They turned back toward Forest Hills. Johnny tried to comfort her, explaining how the president’s death would spur the troops on to win the war as quickly as possible as a tribute to their fallen leader, but Catherine wasn’t buying it. “Fine for us,” she said, “but what about the English and the French and everyone else? What if they feel that we can’t fight without a leader? What if—”

“When you’re out there, you fight for your commanding officer, Cathy. I didn’t give two hangs about FDR when I was out there with your dad.”

She started crying again, big graceless sobs against his shoulder. He waited patiently, patting her shoulder and back, until she managed to stop long enough to catch her breath.

“Come on,” he said, leading her across Queens Boulevard toward a bar named Bill’s Bus Stop. “You need a drink.”

She didn’t argue with him. Bill’s was dark and crowded, exactly the kind of place where you could cry into your beer and nobody would notice or care. A group of guys in uniforms were shooting pool in the back, playing with a dark intensity sharply at odds with the brightly colored billiard balls shooting back and forth across the green felt table. Men in shirt-sleeves sat on bar stools, glumly listening to the endless reports drifting from the radio on the shelf behind the bartender.

“What can I get you, folks? Not exactly the greatest of days, is it?”

Johnny shook his head. “You got that right.” He glanced at Catherine. “Beer?” She nodded. “Two Rheingolds.”

The bartender looked at Catherine, who was struggling to keep from crying again. “Find the little lady a chair, why don’t you, then come back for your beers. She looks like she needs to sit down.”

It was wonderful to get off her feet, but the cold beer sat uneasily in her empty stomach.

“I don’t feel too well, Johnny.” She pushed her mug away and averted her eyes from a dish of greasy peanuts. “I think we should go home.” The bar had gotten more crowded, and the combination of smells—beer and sweat and cigarette smoke—were making her stomach churn.

Johnny polished off his beer and extended a hand to Catherine. “Come on. Let’s get some fresh air.”

Gratefully she followed him as he threaded their way through the crowd in the bar. Some kind of ruckus had broken out near the pool table, and they were almost out the door when something—she would never know exactly what—made Catherine turn around and look.

“My God,” she cried, stopping dead in her tracks. “That’s Eddie back there.”

Johnny cast a quick look over his shoulder. “Shooting pool?”

“No, Johnny. He’s fighting! They’ve got him pushed up against the wall.” She grabbed Johnny’s arm. “Do something.”

The look he gave her was cold and hard. “He’s gotten himself out of scrapes before, Cathy.” He pushed open the door, but she wouldn’t budge. “Look, I admit I don’t like the guy, but I don’t want to see anything happen to him. He’ll be fine.”

“You have to help him.”

“He’s a man, Catherine. He has to fight his own battles.”

“He’s my friend.” She pulled away from him and started toward the back of the bar. “If you won’t help him, I will.”

Johnny hesitated a fraction of an instant. She was easily the most pigheaded woman he’d ever known, but also the most loyal. Johnny would just as soon let Martin go toe-to-toe against the entire Luftwaffe, but there were Catherine’s feelings to consider.

“Go outside and wait,” he ordered her. “I’ll see what the problem is.”

Of course, the problem was easy to figure out. Eddie Martin was 4-F. The others weren’t.

Martin and a lanky soldier were circling each other like prizefighters. From the look of the bruise blossoming on Eddie’s cheekbone, he hadn’t landed the first shot.

“What’s going on?” he asked calmly.

“Mind your own damn business,” growled one of the soldiers. “Andy’s got a score to settle with this son of a bitch.”

A second soldier started circling Eddie like a starving vulture. Johnny might not like Eddie, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let him go down in an unfair fight.

As she paced the sidewalk in front of the bar, Catherine thought,
He’s going to take care of it
. Johnny would step in there and put an end to the nonsense. Eddie would realize what a wonderful guy Johnny was, while Johnny would finally understand how tough things had been for Eddie.

None of this could be happening. She didn’t know the kind of man who got into barroom brawls. What on earth was the world coming to? The president dead. A new leader already on his way to the White House. Her dear friend Eddie battling street toughs as if he didn’t care what became of him.

Johnny will take care of it
, she whispered silently.
Johnny will take care of everything
. She’d almost convinced herself of that when the door burst open and the two men in question were unceremoniously kicked out. Johnny’s shirt was ripped and he was massaging his bad hand, but other than that he looked fine. Eddie was another story. He looked as if he’d fought the Battle of the Bulge alone and lost.

She ran to Johnny’s side. “What happened?”

“I didn’t like the odds,” Johnny said.

“Son of a bitch.”

She jumped at the ugly sound of Eddie’s words. She’d heard language like that occasionally in the factory, but most men did their best to shield women from profanity. Swallowing her apprehension, she approached her friend. “Your chin, Eddie. Let me see—”

He pushed her away roughly. Johnny made to step in, but Catherine motioned him to stop.

“Eddie, please. I asked Johnny to—”

“Keep that son of a bitch away from me,” Eddie said, glaring in Johnny’s direction. She cringed at the harsh words. “I can fight my own damn battles. I don’t need some half-assed war hero doing it for me.” Eddie swayed on his feet.

“You’ve had too much to drink, Eddie.” Catherine linked her arm through Eddie’s as he struggled to regain his balance. Johnny’s jaw was set in granite, “Let us take you home.”

“Not him.” Eddie tilted his head toward Johnny. “Don’t want him near me.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have too much choice, pal.” Johnny swung the drunken man over his shoulder as if he were a pile of laundry. “Which way?”

“He lives on Dexter.”

“Go to hell,” Eddie mumbled. “Go to...”

“He’ll feel better tomorrow,” Catherine said, looking at her now unconscious friend. “Won’t he?”

“No.” Johnny met her eyes over Eddie’s battered body. “I don’t think he will.”

* * *

It was at least a mile to Eddie’s house. Johnny never complained during the walk, nor did he stop. Twice Catherine asked him if perhaps they should take Eddie to her house because it was closer, but Johnny shook his head and kept on walking. A shiner was blossoming under his left eye, and blood was caked on the torn cuff of his shirt.

They dropped Eddie off at his parents’, and Johnny did some neat sidestepping when they asked what had happened to their son.

“Had a retirement party at the factory,” he said easily while Catherine nodded in agreement. “Afraid it turned into a wake after the news came over the radio.”

The Martins, who had been glued to their Philco listening to the reports about FDR’s death, thanked them profusely, then set out to make Eddie comfortable.

“That was nice of you,” Catherine said as they left the Martins’. “You didn’t have to protect him like that.” It was a touch of grace coming in the middle of an evening of pain.

Johnny shrugged and started down the street. He seemed far away, as if he was still in that barroom with Eddie.

“Thank you.” She reached for his hand and kissed the bruised knuckles. “Eddie needs all the help he can get.”

“I did it for you,” he said. “That’s the only reason.” She linked her arm in his and they walked the rest of the way home in silence, just as the country settled down to mourn her fallen leader.

* * *

Eddie didn’t return to work the next day or the day after. On the third day Catherine called his home, but his mother fumbled with excuses, then finally burst into tears and hung up. “You can’t save the world,” Johnny said as they sat on the front stoop after dinner. “He’s a grown man. He’s going to do what he wants to do.”

“You know, I don’t understand you, Johnny. Why do you find it so hard to admit you have a good heart?”

He puffed on his cigarette as he watched the Bellamy grandchildren playing hopscotch in the middle of the street. “No evidence.”

Her own heart ached in response. How could he think such a thing? This wonderful brave man who had saved her father’s life and brought such happiness to hers. “Sorry, Johnny,” she said lightly. “I can’t buy that. I have some pretty good evidence to the contrary.”

He looked over at her, a half smile lifting his mouth. “After a few years go by, you might need some more. I can be pretty tough to get along with.”

Her body resonated with his words. The future! He was talking about the future! Not just tomorrow or next month. She forced herself to keep her tone easy, unconcerned, as if her heart wasn’t racing with excitement. “Oh, I think the evidence is good for another twenty or thirty years.”
Do you know what you’re saying, Johnny? Am I really hearing this? Do you want the same thing for the future as I do?

He met her eyes. “Written evidence is the best kind.”

“I know.” She swallowed hard. “I keep it tucked under my pillow.”

“The letter?” His voice was low, uncertain.

“The letter.”

His mouth curved into a swift smile that was gone before she could be sure it had been there in the first place.

He gestured toward the newspaper tucked under his arm. “We’re practically in Berlin. I think this thing is finally winding down.”

The change of topic threw her. Had it not been for the look in his eyes, a look of such appealing vulnerability, she might have believed she’d imagined the letter and all it implied. “I know,” she said carefully. “With a little luck, Daddy’ll be home before too long.”